Table of Contents

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

First Conversation

Faith is in God and His Word, not in the Church.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Second Conversation

The Forgiveness of Sins: Purgatory

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Second Conversation

The Forgiveness of Sins: Purgatory

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fourth Conversation

Infallibility

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fourth Conversation

Infallibility

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fifth Conversation

Holiness

________

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

301 ON THE SUCCESSION

PART 2

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Seventh Conversation

The Mass

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Eighth Conversation

Transubstantiation

CANON 1

2 CANON 2

CANON 3

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Eighth Conversation

Transubstantiation

The Sufferings of Christ

Preface to the First Edition

Introduction

To the Editor of the "Bible Treasury"

The Sufferings of Christ

The Sufferings of Christ

____________

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

Preface

209 INTRODUCTION

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CALVIN'S SYSTEM AND THAT OF MR. WOLFF

214 MR. WOLFF'S JUDGMENT OF THE ROCHAT SYSTEM

EXAMPLE OF THE SAME SPIRIT WITH REGARD TO EVANGELISTS

215 ANOTHER EXAMPLE WITH REGARD TO TEACHERS

ON THE PRETENDED CONNECTION OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS

CHAPTER 1

ON THE INTRODUCTION OF MR. WOLFF'S PAMPHLET; IN WHICH, WHILE DENYING THE CONTINUANCE OF GIFTS, HE ASSERTS HIS INTENTION OF DEFENDING MINISTRY FROM THE ATTACKS DIRECTED AGAINST IT, AND FROM ALL THE VARIOUS MODIFICATIONS MEN HAVE SOUGHT TO MAKE IT UNDERGO.

221 ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 1, ENTITLED, PRIESTHOOD AND MINISTRY.

223 CHAPTER 2

OBSERVATIONS ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 2, WHERE HE SPEAKS OF THE VOCATION TO MINISTRY

CHAPTER 3

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 3, CONCERNING THE NAME OF BISHOP, ELDER AND PASTOR.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

235 CHAPTER 4

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 4, CONCERNING THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS ON THE VOCATION OF THE BISHOP.

CHAPTER 5

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 5, WHERE THE WRITER SHEWS THAT THE BISHOP IS ESTABLISHED OF GOD.

CHAPTER 6

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 6, CONCERNING THE HUMAN VOCATION OF THE BISHOP.

242 CHAPTER 7

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 7, CONCERNING THE ELECTION OF THE BISHOP BY THE FLOCK.

CHAPTER 8

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 8, CONCERNING THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.

OF THE ORDINATION OF THE EVANGELIST.

OF THE ORDINATION OF THE BISHOP.

255 CHAPTER 9

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 9, ABOUT THE TWOFOLD VOCATION OF THE ELDER.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

259 CHAPTER 10

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 10, ABOUT EVANGELISTS.

262 CHAPTER 11

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 11, CONCERNING TEACHERS.

CHAPTER 12

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 12, CONCERNING THE CLASSIFICATION OF MINISTRIES.

CHAPTER 13

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 13, CONCERNING THE PERPETUITY OF MINISTRY.

CHAPTER 14

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 14, CONCERNING THE APOSTASY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER 15

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 15, WHERE HE SHEWS THAT MINISTRY IS NOT THE EXERCISE OF A GIFT.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

283 CHAPTER 16

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 16, WHERE THIS WRITER PRETENDS TO PROVE, BY TWENTY-FIVE REASONS, THAT THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST HAVE ALL CEASED.

CHAPTER 17

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 17, WHERE HE ASSERTS THAT "TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE MINISTRY THE RIGHT TO ADMINISTER THE SACRAMENTS, IS TO INFRINGE UPON THE CHARGE ITSELF AND TO COMPROMISE ITS EXISTENCE.

CHAPTER 18

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 18, WHERE HE MAINTAINS THAT "NO ONE IS PASTOR WHO IS NOT COMPETENT TO TEACH AND PREACH."

CHAPTER 19

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 19, WHERE HE WILL HAVE IT THAT MISSIONARIES ARE TO BE SENT BY MEN.

CHAPTER 20

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 20, WHERE HE SEEKS TO JUSTIFY CLERICAL USURPATION.

CHAPTER 21

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 21, WHERE HE SAYS IT IS "IMPORTANT AND NECESSARY TO STUDY FOR MINISTRY."

CHAPTER 22

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 22, ENTITLED, "HISTORY OF THE SECTS WHICH HAVE ALTERED MINISTRY."

CONCLUSION

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

Romanism - Part 1

Romanism - Part 2

Romanism - Part 3

Operations of the Spirit of God

Operations of the Spirit of God

The Doctrine of the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, of the Reformation itself, of Scripture, and of the Church of Rome, briefly compared with the Remarks of the Regius Professor of Divinity

_______

The Covenants

Remarks on Light and Conscience

The Resurrection, the Fundamental Truth of the Gospel.

The Doctrine of the Wesleyans on Perfection,

and their employment of Holy Scripture as to this subject.

Introduction

___________

Remarks on the Presence of the Holy Ghost in the Christian.

A few remarks connected with the Presence and Operation of the Spirit of God in the Body, the Church.

A letter to the Saints in London as to the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church.

PREFACE

What is the Church?

Brief Scriptural Evidence on the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, for plain people.

A Letter to G. V. Wigram,

J. N. Darby.

J. N. DARBY.

Scriptural Enquiries as to some of the doctrines contained in J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

Scriptural Enquiry as to the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment

contained in J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

Scriptural Enquiries as to the Doctrine of Atonement in reference to J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

J. N. D.

On Worship

Deliverance from under the Law, as stated in the Holy Scriptures.

"A man in Christ"

The Word of God and the Priesthood of Christ.

The Righteousness of God

1 Peter 2: 24

A Letter on the Righteousness of God

The Pauline Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith

Law

The "Notes on Leviticus" and the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy."

Brethren and their Reviewers

POSTSCRIPT

Brief notice of the

comments on "J. N. D.'s" letter.

Further remarks upon Righteousness and Law:

with answers to different objections.

Divine Righteousness

The Rule of Life: what is it?

On the Humanity of Christ

Letter on Free-will

The new Birth

Approach to and delight in God

Sins and Sin

Who is a Priest and What is a Priest?

A Fragment on Repentance

On Repentance

The Christian Position as to Life and the Spirit.

Galatians 2: 19 - 3: 14.

Is the Comforter come? And is He gone?

Is the coming of Christ for His saints the proper hope of the Church?

The Sabbath: or, Is the law dead, or am I?

The Intercession of Christ

How to get Peace

The Immortality of the Soul;

an enquiry into the meaning of words, the true force of which is denied by such as reject the immortality of the soul.

On Reconciliation

The Two Resurrections

What do the Scriptures teach concerning judgment to come?

Remarks on a tract circulated by the Irvingites entitled, "A Word of Instruction."

A Letter to a Clergyman on the claims and doctrines of Newman Street.

Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus: A Letter addressed to certain brethren and sisters in Christ by, by B. W. Newton."

Introduction

Observations

Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus: A Letter addressed to certain brethren and sisters in Christ by, by B. W. Newton."

A Plain Statement of the Doctrine on the Sufferings of our blessed Lord propounded in some recent tracts, in extracts taken from the Author's writings.

Introduction

A Plain Statement

Notice of the Statement and Acknowledgment of Error circulated by Mr. Newton.

Observations on "A Statement from Christians in Ebrington Street."

Remarks on "A Letter on Subjects connected with the Lord's Humanity."

__________

Addition to Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus."

The Bethesda Circular

The Christ of God, the true centre of union.

Letter to the Rev. Mr. Guers on the subject of his note on the errors of Mr. B. W. Newton.

J. N. D.

On Aitkenism

Christ, the banished One.

Brief analysis of the Epistle to the Hebrews in connection with the Priesthood of Christ: with reply to some tracts on the latter subject.

APPENDIX

Superstition is not Faith; or, The True Character of Romanism.

Remarks on Puseyism

Remarks on the Church and the World.

Remarks on the Church and the World.

EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP

[END OF DOCTRINAL VOL. 4]

Address to his Roman Catholic brethren by a minister of the Gospel.

* * *

Second Address to his Roman Catholic brethren

by a minister of the Gospel.

J. N. Darby.

J. N. DARBY.

Christianity not Christendom

The Testimony of God;

or the trial of man, the grace and the government of God.

Connection of the cross with the entire development of God's ways with man.

[END OF DOCTRINAL VOL. 6]

Letter on the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures,

Or, Remarks on the Letter of Resignation of M. le Professeur Edmond Scherer.

Introduction

_________

M_____,

APPENDIX

On the Work of Christ;

or, Remarks on the Second Letter of Mr. Edmond Scherer*

Remarks on "Christianity and Modern Progress" by the Rev. A. Raleigh, D.D.

Dr. Colenso and the Pentateuch

INTRODUCTION

THE FAMILY OF JUDAH

THE SIZE OF THE TABERNACLE-COURT

MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL

96 THE EXTENT OF THE CAMP

97 THE NUMBERING OF ISRAEL

98 THE ISRAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS, AND ARMED

99 THE INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER

100 THE MARCH OUT OF EGYPT

THE FLOCKS AND HERDS IN THE DESERT

103 THE NUMEROUS ISRAELITES COMPARED WITH THE EXTENT OF CANAAN

THE FIRSTBORN COMPARED WITH THE ADULTS

THE SOJOURNING IN EGYPT, EXODUS, AND THEN NUMBERS

106 THE DANITES AND LEVITES, ETC.

109 THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES

110 THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES AT THE PASSOVER

THE WAR ON MIDIAN

114 CONCLUSION

Scripture: the place it has in this day.

2 Timothy

What do I learn from Scripture?

Preface

___________

1 John 3: 3,5.

Either in Adam or in Christ?

Evangelical Protestantism and the Biblical studies of M. Godet.

___________

On the Putting Away of Sin

Review of R. Pearsall Smith on "Holiness through Faith."

Letter on Mr. J.P.S.'s "Holiness through Faith."

The Effect Spiritually of "Holiness through Faith."

Brief remarks on "An Address for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness."

Dr. Bonar on Christ's work *

Review of Dr. Bonar's work entitled "The Rent Veil."

Cleansing and Deliverance

Cleansing by Water: and what it is to walk in the light.

"Higher Holiness"

Scriptural Unity and Union

Short Introduction to Romans

Summary of the Epistle to the Romans

Thoughts on Romans, Colossians, Ephesians.

Judgment-seat of God and of Christ

Letter on Original Sin

___________

Death for a Christian:

Three letters to a mother and her daughter.

________

___________

Have we a revelation from God?*

Have we a revelation from God?*

The Distinct Character of the Several Writings of the New Testament

Inspiration and Revelation *

The Question and the Crisis

Union in Incarnation, the root error of modern theology.

Christological Pantheism

The Atonement

Propitiation and Substitution

The Way of Holiness

Forgiveness and Liberty

On the delusion of Death to Nature, and the misuse of Laodicea.

315 APPENDIX

Gethsemane

Luke 22: 44

The Gospel and the Church according to Scripture:

Being a review of "Church Doctrine, Bible Truth," by the Rev. M. S. Sadler

_______

Examination of the book entitled "The Restitution of all Things"*

108 "POPULAR OBJECTIONS"

On the Greek words for Eternity and Eternal

and

Dr. Farrar on "Everlasting," "Damnation" and "Hell."

Natural and Supernatural

Science and Scripture

Christ on the Cross

Psalm 22

Deliverance

"God for us"

Romans 8: 26-39

Sanctification

John 17

The State of the Soul after Death

Christ in Colossians 1

Our Relationships to Christ

Revelation 1: 4-7; Revelation 22: 16-21

Christ: His Work and Testimony

Colossians 1

The Christian's Life in Christ

Colossians 1

The Christian not of the world

Colossians 2

_________

Christian Life

Colossians 3

Christ in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit sent down.

Acts 2: 22-36

On Sealing with the Holy Ghost

_________

Church and Privileges

Letter on the Sufferings of Christ

________

Power in the Church;

or, not imitation, but obedience in the sense of present ruin.

A short reply to "Landmarks," No. 6, of the S.P.C.K.

Reply to Judge Marshall's Tract on the Tenets of Plymouth Brethren (so called).

Present and Eternal and Governmental Forgiveness of Sins.

Fellowship, and the right state for it.

________

Mark 16: 20

Correspondence on recent matters.

371 3

_______

The Spirit, the Water, and the Blood.

Propitiation, Substitution and Atonement.

________

2 Corinthians 5: 14

Sin in the flesh

Called and Chosen

________

Book of Life

Does the Spirit work alike in all men?

_______

Divine Life

Principles of Gathering

JND - Doctrinal

Doctrinal [1]

J. N. Darby

This document may be found online at www.stempublishing.com

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com) (2011)

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

First Conversation

Faith is in God and His Word, not in the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<18006E> 276

N*. Well, James, I hear you have been visited by some Roman Catholics, and are in some perplexity.

James. I have, and they spoke very fair; and I cannot deny that I do not see clear. Christ surely left a church on earth, and some authority to guide us poor people, and instruct us in the right way. It is a great comfort to feel assured that one is of the true church that Christ founded. And, after I had been reflecting awhile on what they said, I began to feel that I have got no proof that the Bible is the word of God.

N*. And did you ever doubt it before, James?

James. No, I cannot say I did; I have always believed it to be the word of God; and, though I am afraid I have sadly neglected it many a year, still I, and my wife more than myself, used to find comfort in it; and the children too used to read a chapter when they came from school; and I think it used to do us all good, and bring God home to us somehow, and keep our consciences alive; and the children took wonderfully to beautiful histories that are in it, and so indeed did we, and it made our home happy. There was only Jem that paid no heed to it; and he was an unruly boy: I have had a deal of trouble with him. But, since I have got more serious and anxious in my mind, I have found the Bible bring trouble into my conscience. I hardly know where I am with God — it condemns me: I see there is goodness and wonderful grace in Jesus; but then I have no peace in myself, and now I see there is a deal I do not understand, and I should like to know the bottom of it.

Bill M. (my neighbour, who has turned Catholic), says he has never been so happy in his life, his soul never got rest till now. He never thought much about religion, it is true, and those ladies that visit were wonderfully kind when his lass was sick; but he says he knows some who never get a minute's rest in their souls, that were always seeking it, till they found it in the true church. It was he that asked me how I knew it was the Bible; and if the true church had not kept the Bible and given it, who could say it was the word of God? and how did I, an ignorant man, know it was the word of God, as I called it? And that has dashed me uncommonly, because, though I never doubted it a moment before, and saw in infidels that there was no good nor godliness in their ways, yet I felt I had no proof to give, and what am I to do? I know it speaks of a church that Christ would build on the rock, and I think if that would give me certainty it would be a great rest to me. But my Mary says she could not think of such a thing; that she could no more doubt it to be the word of God than that the sun shines, and less, if that were possible: that there is more light and comfort to her soul in the Bible than there is light for her eyes and warmth in the sun. And she is a rare wife to me, and I see she has great sense in the things of God, and is a comfort in the house, and wonderful to the children — very civil to those black ladies that visit, but shy of them and of the way they try to get into the family.

277 I do not think that I doubt at bottom that it is the word of God; my conscience and my heart too, I think, make me feel it is. But since this talk with Bill M. my mind is all in perplexity, and I feel I have no proof it is the word of God: and just because I have begun to be anxious about it, and about my soul, I should like to have something certain to rest upon. You will forgive, I am sure, sir, my saying everything, and telling you all that is in my mind, because I have known you so long and your kindness, and I am in perplexity, and, to say the truth, glad to open my mind to some one I can trust, though I do not rightly know what to trust now. I thought I could entirely trust the word of God, and what am I to do now? You will excuse me.

N*. I am very much obliged to you, James, for telling me what was passing in your mind, and grateful for the confidence you have shewn me, and thankful to God that He disposed your heart to do so, and we could not do better than take up the subject: there cannot be a more important one. The faith, or, to speak more truly, Christ, is everything for us poor sinners, and we do want some sure ground on which to believe. Our faith must be a divine faith, in its nature and source, as well as in the things which it reveals; and for a divine faith we must have divine testimony. But there is, in what you say, one thing which strikes me much, namely, that your Roman Catholic friends have only led you to doubt of the authority of the scriptures, which yet they believe to be divine, or they are infidels themselves. They have not ventured to say the scriptures are not divine: that would be infidelity, and, as far as man went, straightforward infidelity; but they have sought to make you doubt of the certainty of their being divine. This may be all very well to bring you under their influence, and to make you believe that they only can give you this certainty; but I confess that I do not see the honesty of making you uncertain as to the authority of the scriptures, when they own that authority themselves.

278 James That is true. If they do believe they are the word of God, I do not see why they should seek to make me doubt as to how I can be sure of it.

N*. Just so; and in respect of such a matter as the word of God, it is something approaching to blasphemy. It is saying, that when God has spoken to men, His word has no certain authority of itself over their consciences. They deprive your soul of certainty in the word of God on one side, and they deprive the word of God of its authority over your soul on the other. This, I must say, seems to me a wicked course, seeing they do not dare to say it is not the word of God. Now an upright heart can very often judge of a thing by the conscience, when it is quite unable to meet argument. These men seek, as to what they believe is the word of God, and which they believe ought to exercise authority over your conscience, to make you doubt whether you have any proof whereby you may know it to be such when you read it. Is not this the course your infidel acquaintance took with you? Only they took it openly.

James. Well, it is just the same.

N*. The word of God, James, carries its own authority in the heart of him in whom it has wrought. And, mark this, if it has not wrought in a man's heart, though all the churches in the world should accredit him, that man is lost. If they believe it to be the word of God, why not take it and see what it says? They dare not: it is too plain, it condemns their whole system. For instance, you know that it is said, "Where remission of these (sins and iniquities) is, there is no more offering for sin" (Heb. 10: 13). Now their whole system depends upon there being still offerings for sin. The very way a Roman Catholic is described is — he goes to Mass. Now the Mass is an offering for the sins of the living and the dead. And when the word says there is no more offering for sin, and the most important distinctive point in their doctrine, and the keystone of the system they belong to, is, that there is still an offering for sin, it is easy to understand why they try to shake your confidence in the word, or to make you think that you cannot understand it. It is because it is very plain indeed, for the poorest, that they do not like it.

279 You are a poor man, but it does not require much learning to understand that the declaration that "there is no more offering for sin" upsets a system which is built upon offering one continually. They may quote Fathers of all names to prove that there ought to be one, or that there was one; but, if the word of God has authority, they cannot say there is one according to the authority of God. There is a kind of learning, James, learning such as your wife has, being taught of God — a learning from Him according to the promise of that word, the only learning that saves — which gives a weight and power to the truth I am referring to, which all the sophistry of Romanists or infidels cannot shake — I mean the knowledge of the unchangeable value of the one offering of Christ, offered once for all. A man taught of God knows that it is in force for ever, that it gives peace to the conscience, that Christ suffered agonies in accomplishing our salvation in that offering; and that, as is expressly said, if it had to be repeated, Christ must suffer repeatedly; that if it be an offering wherein Christ does not suffer — an offering wherein He does not shed His blood — it is an utterly worthless sacrifice--a base pretension to be an offering — a mockery, really, of the solemn truth of the sufferings and agonies of the Son of God for us.

It is said (Heb. 9: 25), "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once, in tile end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And, as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Mark the words "ONCE" and "bear the sins." Does Christ bear sins in the Roman Catholic Mass? If not, it is a new way of getting forgiveness, which sets aside the unspeakably gracious but heart-bowing way in which God has wrought salvation out for us, namely, the dreadful but infinitely precious sufferings of His own Son. If Christ does suffer in the Mass, He is not glorified at the right hand of God. True Christianity and the doctrine of the Mass cannot go together. And the more you examine chapters 9 and 10 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the more you will see how the truth of God is set aside by the Mass. For the apostle is shewing the value of Christ's offering because it was only once, in contrast with the Jewish offerings which were repeated. Those offerings, he says, were a remembrance of sins, brought them to mind; the sins were still there, or why would the offerings for sin not have ceased to be offered? But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God. And then mark, he shews how we know it: "Whereof also the Holy Ghost is a witness to us . . . their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." And note, how blessedly this chapter presents it to us. First, the will of God giving His Son, instead of all these useless sacrifices which could never take away sins. Thus I see His thoughts and love. Then, again, the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Thus I see (not only Christ willing, in the same love, to come, but) the needed work actually accomplished. And lastly, the Holy Ghost bearing witness about it. I have the divine will and thoughts, the divine work; and, that I may have divine faith about it, and peace in my soul through it, I have a divine testimony about it.

280 And note, James, that this testimony is the written word of God; that is, he quotes a passage of scripture as the witness which the Holy Ghost has given. Now that is what as a poor sinner I want, and which I get only by this truth — the efficacy of this one offering testified of by the Holy Ghost Himself. And that is the reason I said that one taught of God knows it with a certainty and blessing which Romanists and infidels cannot shake. And no man that possessed this would, for a moment, think of giving up the divinely-witnessed and known efficacy of the sacrifice by Christ of Himself, once for all, for the vain profitless repetition of it [sacrifice] where Christ does not nor can offer Himself, for He is at the right hand of God, where He does not suffer or bear sin, for this He cannot do now He is in glory.

And note, this repetition of it, if I admit it, denies the lasting, perfect, efficacy of the offering He Himself made. For if it be lasting and perfect, why repeat it? My objection to the Roman Catholic system on this head is that it is built on a pretended offering which Christ does not offer, in which no blood is shed, in which Christ does not suffer, in which Christ does not bear sins, which is therefore utterly worthless; but which, by the pretension to offer Christ again, denies the abiding efficacy of Christ's one real offering of Himself. What a fraud of Satan's, to be sure, it is!

281 James. But then do we not commit sins (not only after Christ has died, but even) after we come to have part in the sacrifice of Christ?

N*. Surely we may; but scripture does not speak of the repetition of Christ's sacrifice for that: this was once for all. His blood cannot be shed again, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. It was not our sins up to a certain day which Christ bore, if indeed we have part in that sacrifice. God knows all beforehand the same as at the time, and we had committed none of our sins when Christ died for them: so that it is not the time when they were committed that makes the difference, save that they are worse when we have Christian light and life. Do not think that I count them slight; but we must not confound the efficacious work done about our sins, which was done once for all, and that work of grace and of God's Spirit in the heart which produces in us right thoughts and feelings about our sins and brings us into communion with God. The remedy practically, as to our hearts, if we do sin, is not a new sacrifice, for a new sacrifice to put them away is IMPOSSIBLE; but, "if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins." Christ is our righteousness, and this and the worth of His propitiation remain always before God; and when we fail, in which we never can excuse ourselves, Christ intercedes for us, and the Spirit of God makes us feel the sin, and we are humbled and contrite, and thus Christ restores our souls, and we are again in communion with God. It is beautifully pictured, let me add, by that blessed expression of the Saviour's condescension and love in washing the disciples' feet. He that is washed — truly born of God — needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. God may use His written word, or a sermon, or the warning of a friend, as means — but it is the work of Christ's grace in the soul.

James. Well, I feel greatly comforted by what you say, but all is not clear to my mind yet; still this grace of Jesus Christ does give rest to one's spirit, and makes one think of Him and of God's goodness and of His love to poor sinners like me; so that one likes to think of Him. Besides, I think it takes hardness and pride out of one's heart, and puts away bad thoughts, and makes one love other people too, whoever they may be.

282 N*. It does, James. It gives rest, and does what you have spoken of — sheds the love of God abroad in the heart, and purifies the heart by faith. It is a blessed thing to think that God commends His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

James. Yes, that is a comfort, and I like to think of it better than of my doubts. Still, sir, you will forgive me, but they come back like a chill on my heart; and, as I said, I am not clear yet, for if I might take a wrong meaning out of the scriptures, and I feel I am very ignorant, I mean no offence to you, sir, but one wants something sure for one's soul.

N*. All right, James; I have not forgotten our subject. You only make me feel more keenly the wickedness of those who seek to cast a doubt into the mind of a poor man, poor or rich either, as to the purity and source of these blessed wells of salvation, so that he is half afraid there may be poison in them, or that at any rate they do not suit him, while they know, or (at any rate) profess all the time to believe, that they are divinely given, and divine well-springs of health. I will treat this point in a direct manner by and bye, but you will let me, I am sure, pursue the subject in my own manner. It is well, you know, when a person is disposed to take a step, say to go into a house or a farm, to know what the house or the farm is. He is warned at any rate. All well that he should inquire afterwards what authority there is for what he has heard, and take care there is a title.

James. Ay, that is true. Go on, sir, as you think best. I shall listen, and I have heard what you have said gladly.

N*. I shall say a few words more about the Mass. You are aware that the church, as they call it, does not permit the laity to partake of the cup.

James. Don't they! Why not?

N*. Well, it is for them to say why they change Christ's ordinance, but it exalts the priest who does take the cup. They allege the danger of a drop of what they declare to be really the blood of Christ falling to the ground; though it would be hard to tell why there is more danger of this with the layman than with the priest. However such is their rule; laymen do not partake of the cup. They allege, to prove that they lose nothing, that the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ are in each species, that is, in each part — in the bread by itself, and the wine by itself; they call this the doctrine of concomitancy. Never mind the hard words; the sense is that the bread is a complete Christ, no longer bread at all, and nothing else but Christ, save in appearance. But see how the enemy has mocked them, for if the blood be in the body now, there is no redemption at all. Christ shed His blood to redeem and save us. Hence they were to drink as well as to eat.

283 I will not dwell on this, but what a pretension this is, that the priest, on pronouncing the formula — "This is my body," turns the bit of paste into God, or (as it is constantly expressed by themselves) the priest makes God; for this is the expression familiarly used among them when they have the courage to speak freely. Now I knew a very poor man in Ireland tell his neighbour, a staunch champion for his church, when he was arguing for this doctrine, that he was contending for what he did not believe; for if that was true, the priest could do what God could not do, for God could not make God. And this is true enough. A poor man, James, if taught of God, often hits right and wrong — truth and error — right on the head better than your learned men that make all kinds of fine distinctions. Nor would their distinctions serve here. They cannot say Christ comes into the bread as God was incarnate, because there the manhood was, and remained manhood; but, according to their doctrine, the bread does not remain at all. And therefore it is called transubstantiation; that is, the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ, and the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ are all there. They make a Christ out of the bread — a whole Christ, divinity and all. It must indeed be a new Christ. You cannot change it into the Christ that is already.

James. But, dear me, can all this be true! Why, I knew nothing of all this. They did not speak of all this to me. The true church! well, it is well to know things. And yet, sure enough, the Mass is the great thing with them. But I did not know what the Mass was; I thought it was the sacrament with them.

N*. Well, so it is. I shall, as I said, come to the question of the church's authority; but knowing what people teach is one very good way of knowing what authority they can have. They anxiously seek to puzzle you about the church, that, having fixed you on the ground of authority, you may receive everything they say without conscience, without personal responsibility, and without faith in God: for faith in a priest or in the church is not faith in God. You are to believe them, they say; yet if God has spoken by an apostle, you cannot believe that, nor understand it without them. I suppose they know better how to speak of divine things than the apostles and inspired writers did. But this is the point we have to speak of by and bye. Only remark this well, James, you are to believe them. You cannot understand what God has said, nor even believe He said it, without them. You must depend on them. Can they answer for you in the day of judgment?

284 James. No, of course they cannot. I should be sorry to trust them.

N*. Of course they cannot. Then do not depend on them now. You must answer for yourself without them before God. This is just as true now, though that day be not come, for it is for what you do now that you will have to answer. You are individually responsible. You must assure yourself that the ground you are standing on now will be a sure and solid one in that day. Another cannot do it for you: you are personally responsible. They cannot pretend to relieve you from this. They would have you trust them blindly now, but they must abandon you when the real need comes, when you have to answer for yourself, and they for themselves.

James. That is true though.

N*. Surely it is true; but, mark, if you believe in Christ, and rest your soul on Him, He never will abandon you. If He who of God is made unto us righteousness is your righteousness now, He will be your righteousness when sitting on the throne, before which you have to appear.

James. Is this in scripture — that He is our righteousness?

N*. It is, James, in 1 Corinthians 1: 30: "Of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."

James. Well, that relieves my heart, however, more than all I have heard. Christ our righteousness! why that changes everything, and makes a man love Him too; and He bore our sins to be so! I think I do see it. I understand why Mary is happy now, though I am not like her; and I am afraid I may not keep it as she does. Is there more like that? I know the Bible but too little, and then one heeds it, after all, so little, till one finds one really wants it.

285 N*. Well, James, as we are on this subject, and a blessed one it is, before our going on with the question of the true church, or Romish doctrines, I will refer to some of the passages you inquire about. You will remark in the one I quoted to you that it says, "Of him are ye"; that is, that these blessings belong to one who is a Christian at heart, one who in his soul (as a sinner who has need of Christ) believes in Him, a man whose conscience has been before God, in whom (as scripture speaks) there is truth in the inward parts, who does not believe merely because he has been brought up in it, however sincerely, as far as that goes, he may have done so; but who has believed for himself, has come to Christ in his heart, because he wants Him. God will have realities, not notions, be they false or true. When the truth is really received, it is received in the heart and conscience. It convicts of sin, shews the heart to itself, and makes it know the need of the truths which, perhaps, it had learned before, perhaps had never heard of.

James. Yes, yes. I understand that. I have not, I am sure, felt my sins as I ought, but I know I am not right. I am uneasy, I know I am not right with God. That is what made me listen to what they said about the true church and the rest a man might get there; but I do not see, what I think ought to be, in those who go there either. I know I am a sinner. Whatever the Bible is, it has made me see that: sometimes angry with myself, sometimes (God forgive me!) almost angry with the Bible itself and Him that gave it; and yet I am ashamed of that, because it makes me see I am a sinner. I see I could not but be lost if I am judged as I am; yet I hope too it won't be so.

N*. A word about this rest, James. I do not deny that the Roman Catholic system gives rest to some persons. Suppose a child had been at mischief, and was uneasy, and some one was to appease its parent, or its master, and it was let off, or its schoolmaster was to pardon repeated faults which shewed a bad disposition, and not tell the parent: the child would be at ease, and have its conscience quiet, and think no more about it; but it would not have a purified conscience. A little penitence might be added to keep up appearances, but the evil would be unhealed. That is the church's absolution as contrasted with God's pardon. It quiets the conscience, but it does not purge it. This will not do for God, nor for a soul in which true desires after Himself are awakened. The doctrine of absolution and the sacrament of penance is an unholy doctrine. It is professedly a means of having forgiveness where the heart has not attained to true contrition. This is the express doctrine of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, a work of absolute authority for all Roman Catholics. According to that the sacrament of penance is a less precarious and less difficult means of reconciliation and salvation than contrition, afforded by the Almighty by giving to the church the keys of the kingdom of heaven.* Thus the conscience gets tranquillity without that true contrition which alone restores the soul to true communion with God. It is, in my judgment, a horribly wicked doctrine, to say nothing of its accompaniments connected with confession. The practical result is that thousands and thousands sin all the year, get cleared off by absolution for communion at Easter, and begin to sin again as soon as Easter is over.

{*The words of the catechism are given from J. Donovan's (a Professor at Maynooth) Translation, Dublin, 1839. It is thus translated in his edition published at Rome, and printed, Latin and English, at the Propaganda Press: "But as this is a degree of contrition which very few could reach, the consequence, also, was, that very few could have hoped to obtain through perfect contrition the pardon of their sins. It therefore became necessary that the Almighty, in His infinite mercy, should provide by some easier means for the common salvation of men: this He did, in His admirable wisdom, when He gave to His church the keys of the kingdom of heaven," etc. — Vol. }, p. 535, "Confession; its Importance." — Cath. Conc. Trid.}

286 James. But it is impossible an awakened soul, one that wanted really to be in communion with God, could be contented with such rest for his conscience as that; nay, he could not get any rest that way, because he knows he has to say to God, and God's presence awakens the sense of sin when he comes to it, and he cannot rest in his soul till his conscience is purged.

N*. Impossible, James, as you say: but many a natural conscience is uneasy that has never got into the presence of God, and such a fear may be quieted without God, as it was felt without Him. But what has made you feel that it is impossible for an awakened soul which desires to be at peace with God to content itself with such rest as that?

287 James. Well, it is the word of God, I suppose, by His goodness, because it has made me see my sinfulness and want to have peace with God Himself.

N*. Then the word of God is true, James, and has power. It has proved itself true to your conscience, told you what you have done, and revealed God to you. It is God's word. It has shewn you to yourself in His sight, and revealed Him. And none could do that but God. You do not want it proved, you do not want it judged. It has judged you in revealing God to you, by His grace surely, but as His word.

James. That is true, I see it now. It has, by grace, power in itself.

N*. Just so. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." But a word more. There is another kind of rest a man may get. When he is not clear as to truth, and is harassed about it, when the truth has not power in his soul as known to himself, he would like to find it out, and be satisfied about it. And he cannot get clear, he is uneasy, and (instead of waiting humbly in the exercise of his own soul to be taught of God, so that his own heart, and soul, and conscience get established in the present truth), he rests through weariness upon authority; he does not know the truth himself in his inward parts, but takes whatever he is told as true. It is rest from the fatigue of his mind, but his soul has not the truth for itself at all. He does not believe for himself. Another (whom, out of weariness, he trusts to) has told him it is true, and he believes him.*

{*It is just this that distinguishes between true ministry and a superstitious priesthood. True ministry, by the power of the Spirit of God, brings God and His word to the soul. A false priesthood gets, and gets as man, between God and the soul. Hence it shuts out the soul from God, while Christ has given Himself to bring us to God.}

James. That I see. That is just where I was in danger of coming, sure enough. But that is not having the truth from God at all; it is not having it. I feel I must have it for myself and in myself to have it really at all; but I was almost tired of the conflict, and, as I said to you, sir, they spoke fair, and I saw Bill M. had rest, and I had not, and I wanted to get sure ground for my soul, something certain. I can't say I have rest in my heart yet, but I am a deal lighter, and I see God is good, and I see that His word is the truth, and sure it must be so if it is His, and they don't deny that. So I have something I can surely trust in, and I can understand some of it plain enough. Not all, it is true; but maybe I will more in time. Mary herself does, a deal more than I do, but everything is clearer to me than it was.

288 N*. You cannot have real rest and peace of soul, James, till you really know Christ as your righteousness before God. The goodness of God makes light and hope shine in, by grace, on the soul; and confidence in Him and His goodness springs up in the heart, which is an immense matter. Still God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look at sin; and hence the conscience once in His presence feels it must be cleansed and forgiven, and find a righteousness which our sinful lives surely have not given us.

James. I know it is said the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin; and that, if a man's sins were as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. That comforts and encourages me, but I have not rightly peace by it. I am not quite sure it is for me: for I am a poor sinner after all. I find sin in myself still, and I think that troubles me more than my past sins.

N*. It always does when grace has wrought in the soul. You do quite right to judge it, and yourself for it. Sin becomes hateful to us if we are really born of God, and we are ashamed of ourselves for it. Nor can we ever excuse ourselves, and especially the true Christian, because the grace of Christ is sufficient for him to make him walk aright. But you will find, James, that power against sin will come when you know what it is to be cleansed from it. Not that it will not always require vigilance and prayer for grace; but, when your soul is in communion with the Lord through the peace He gives, you will find there the strength for victory, and for holding your evil nature in subjection. That communion gives happiness and strength. Hitherto you have been more learning your need of cleansing than the efficacy of Christ's blood for it: and that is all right, because, as we were seeing already, God will have realities, and have inward purification and judgment of sin along with peace with Himself, and so shews us the sin we have to be cleansed from. But now remember what we were referring to in Hebrews 9 and 10, how the blood of Christ purges the conscience.

James. Yes, yes, I see that more and more, and that it is done once for all on the cross, and cannot be repeated; I see, too, more how it applies; yet I cannot apply it entirely to myself.

289 N*. Well now, as God has brought you to see and judge your sin — though I am sure, as you know Christ better, this feeling will even deepen; but as He has brought you to repentance, I do fully trust — let me ask you, Is it from your righteousness or good deeds that you have to be cleansed?

James. Well, no; nor have I any either.

N*. Well, it is from your sins, then?

James. Yes.

N*. From those you have, or those you have not?

James. Why, from those I have, of course.

N*. What are those you are feeling, I trust hating too are they not those you have?

James. To be sure, and I can say I hate them, any way. But they overcome me still, and sometimes I think I am worse than ever.

N*. All right, as I said, James, to judge yourself. God has shewn you the evil of sin. It must be so if we are brought into His presence in the light. But do you not see that those are the sins you have, for which Christ gave Himself that you might be cleansed in God's sight from them, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree? God has made you feel the guilt and unholiness of them. Now He shews you the full atonement for them, that in His sight the blood of Christ cleanses perfectly from them; that when God sees the blood, He cannot charge them on you, whom He has taught to trust in that blood, or your faith would be in vain. Thus He said to Israel in that solemn night when God went through Egypt to smite the firstborn, and commanded the blood to be put upon the lintel and the two doorposts. You remember that account in Exodus 12.

James. Yes, yes, the night of the passover.

N*. Well, God said then, "when I see the blood, I will pass over." Now, if a man had not believed God, he would not, of course, have had the refuge, and so it is now with us but so God now sees the blood of our true paschal lamb, and passes over. He cannot see the true Christian's sins as on him, because He sees the blood which has put them away for ever.

James. I see it all now. He gave Himself for my sins, and suffered agonies and wrath for them on the cross, that I may be clear from them. Well, it is blessed grace. To think — why one can't think as one ought of it — one is bought with a price, as it is said! I see why Mary is so happy, and no wonder. Why, how blind I was!

290 N*. And yet God has been gracious to you, James.

James. Ay, gracious to me, that He has. It is I that have to say so; but you will excuse my saying much more about it now, sir. It is too wonderful, and I hardly know how to get my heart to contain it all rightly; but I see it, and thank you, sir, too. Oh, it is all plain, and it is now I see that the word of God is true, and what a book that blessed book is. Yet I have all to learn in it. I did not just doubt it till they spoke to me, but it is a different thing when it is light in one's own soul. It convicted me before; but then I could hardly delight in its being true enough. It judged-me, but now it is light to my soul.

N*. So the apostle John speaks, James: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not hath made God a liar, because he believeth not the record that God hath given concerning his Son." This last you did not do, James, though you were in danger of it; but, as a system, Romanism and infidelity does. I say as a system, because I do not impute it to all the poor souls in the system, as if they did it wilfully. Now you have, as I fully trust, got the other part, the witness in yourself. You see what forgiveness is, but you have yet to learn more fully what divine righteousness is — what it is to be made the righteousness of God in Christ. You will find that there is a fulness in the deliverance of which God has made you partaker, of which you are hardly yet quite aware. You see that there is a perfect forgiveness, and that the blood of Christ has blotted out all the wretched sinful fruits of your old nature; that He has borne your sins and died for you as a sinner, and that all that you are as such is done away by His death, in God's sight; for sin in the flesh has been condemned in the sacrifice He has made for sin, as well as sins atoned for. But, besides that, Christ is risen, and has taken a new place as an accepted Man, who as such is God the Father's delight, and this is your place before God. You are accepted in Him; as well as the sins of your old man, and all its guilt, put away. He has been raised again for our justification.

And this connects itself, you see, with a new life in us, the power of which has been displayed in His resurrection. It was divine power, no doubt, which was displayed in that, but in the way of the energy of life, and that life is made ours in Christ. We are quickened together with Him, and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. This perhaps you cannot fully understand yet; but, as we were speaking of what is given to us in being justified through Christ, I have just mentioned it. It is fully opened out in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, in the second chapter of that to the Ephesians, in the third of Colossians, and in the Epistle to the Galatians. You will find there that the fleshly religion, so largely now developed in Romanism, was what opposed Paul in his day; only his energy, through the power of the Holy Ghost, kept it down. If you humbly study the word of God, looking to Him to help you, He will lead you on in these things. I now only just point them out to you.

291 A remarkable image of these truths is found in the history of the children of Israel, which may help you to understand what this deliverance is which I speak of. When God passed through Egypt in judgment, the blood on the doorposts protected them against that judgment, and most blessed it was; but Israel was still in Egypt. But when they arrived at the Red Sea, God said by Moses: "Stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah." Then Israel, as you remember, passed through the Red Sea dry-shod, and got out of Egypt, and into an entirely new position: as a people accepted of God, having a great deal to learn, but with God, and all their former state behind them. So it is not all, that the precious blood of Christ protects us, as the Lamb slain for us, from the righteous judgment of God; but His death and resurrection bring us into a new place, accepted before God in Him, who is risen up from among the dead after having paid the wages of sin for us. But I must leave you, James, thankful that you see that Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross. You can rejoice with your dear wife: it will be a cheer to her, and lead your children on. A poor man is the happiest being on the earth when he has the Lord with him in his peaceful, if humble, home. It is not that you will not find questions and difficulties arise in your mind, and temptations to overcome, and sin to resist; the Lord has warned us it will be so — but we have One to go to, whom you, as I trust, now know for yourself, James.

We have, what is a less pleasant part of our intercourse (but may be useful as you are circumstanced), your questions with Bill M. to settle about Romanist views, and I will try and see you again.

292 James. Thank you, sir, I shall be glad to see you. I am right glad to have seen you to-day, and I do not mind so much about those questions now, but it is as well to look into them, as I meet some of them often. I do not understand all you said about righteousness, but I see that it is there in the word, and that Israel was not only spared in the judgment but got into a new place with God. But my heart has not got in itself into it yet.

N*. Well, good-bye. Search the word, James, now your heart is in it. It strengthens the heart, and it keeps the conscience alive. A dull conscience is apt to be more or less a hardened one, and leaves the soul open to temptations and the assaults of the enemy. And pray continually to God, your Father in Christ, for grace to help and keep you. The Bible has been a blessing to you, even though you long had no divine light on it, James. I often think it is like the fire that is laid, but not lit. The truths it contains cannot take effect till grace puts the fire to them; but the truth, divine truth, is there to be kindled, any way, though it may be increased condemnation if a man give no heed to what God has said. So Paul speaks to Timothy, speaking of the safeguard in the last days, "that from a child thou hast known the scriptures." God bless you, James; I hope to see you again.

James. Farewell, sir.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Second Conversation

The Forgiveness of Sins: Purgatory

J. N. Darby.

<18007E> 293 {file section a.}

N*. Good day, James.

James. Good day, sir.

N*. Well, James, I am come to continue our inquiries into the truth of Roman Catholic doctrines.

James. I am glad you are, sir, and much obliged to you. Bill M. has been here since, and angry at my being so sure of the Bible being the word of God, and that I am so happy because I see that God has forgiven me, and that I have found salvation in Christ. He says I am turned fanatic, and that my head is turned, and what not. It tried me a little, but I know I am happy, and my wife helped me. And it was only what he had said to me before. And when I turned to scripture, it came to me just with light and power; it was like another book to me; so I was not shaken really. If a man sees the sun, it is hard to persuade him he does not see it, though he cannot explain to another how he comes to see it, only that God gave him eyes; but I should like to hear something more about the church, for that is what he always comes down upon. I expect he will be here to-night, and perhaps, if it is not too much to ask, you would have some conversation with him about it. My woman would be glad to hear, too, if you have no objection.

N*. Not the least; we will wait to speak of the church and authority till M. comes. I am glad he will be here, we can have our questions fully out. We will take however Roman Catholic doctrines from their own authoritative sources, which is still better. However he can recall any point I might forget, which will be an advantage. As to their arguments, I have Milner's "End of Controversy," which I know is distributed largely in cheap editions, so that I suppose we shall have the best arguments which they have to produce. Meanwhile there is a point I can touch on (for which we had not time the other day), I mean purgatory, because it is directly connected with the all-sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, which gave you, through grace, such comfort the last time I saw you. The Romanists teach that there are two kinds of sins, mortal and venial. The first, they say, deprives the soul of sanctifying grace (that is, the grace that makes us friends of God), and deserves hell: venial sin does not deprive us of this. It does not, spiritually speaking, kill the soul, so their catechisms speak. The Council of Trent declares that the grace of justification is lost by mortal sin. Venial sin however, according to the same authority, does not exclude from grace, but by mortal sins men are sons of wrath and enemies of God. They say that if a man dies in mortal sin he goes to hell, but if he dies in venial sin he goes to purgatory; or if his mortal sin has been forgiven, and he is again justified by penance, he may go to purgatory to satisfy for the penalties that may remain after forgiveness.

294 James. What is purgatory?

N*. They are very shy indeed of saying what it is. Our friend, Dr. Milner, says, "All which is necessary to be believed on that subject is, there is a purgatory, and the souls detained there are helped by the prayers of the faithful, and particularly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar." This is the same as the Council of Trent. Only they anathematize any one who denies that, after men are freed from the eternal penalty of their sins, they have to satisfy in this world or in purgatory the temporal penalty to which they are liable for them. They do not tell us what it is, and forbid curious questions; only there is, they say, a place of temporary punishment. In the Catechism of the Council of Trent, however, it is called the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the just are cleansed by a temporary punishment.* Those who get in must stay there till they have paid the very last farthing, for so they apply that text; yet their friends can help them to get out by prayers, alms, and particularly by the so-called sacrifice of the Mass. Now all this you can easily see (however little clear it may be) goes clean against the whole testimony of God as to the forgiveness of sins. They ground it in their reasonings on the impossibility of a soul suffering for a small sin as it would for murder. They put a person under vindictive temporal punishment, which does not purify, but satisfies God. They are always labouring to get people out; indulgences are used to spare people part of this temporal punishment due to sin, as they say, but "no one can ever be sure that he has gained the entire benefit of an indulgence, though he has performed all the conditions appointed for this end."** How different is scripture. God does chasten for sin with a view to our holiness, even when we are perfectly forgiven — He, for our profit (it is said), that we may be partakers of His holiness. That, the heart assured of His goodness can easily believe, and bless Him for it. He speaks to us (as it is beautifully said) as unto children: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him." It is also true that God governs, and shews sometimes His displeasure against sin in this world. And He has so ordered the world that he that sows to the flesh, of the flesh reaps corruption; but a vindictive penalty — when a man is not in the flesh at all, as to which God can be satisfied by the man's sufferings in this or another world, or by his friends' offerings, with which no purifying is connected, but which serve merely to buy him off from God's hand, who will not let him go till the last farthing is paid — is a horrible blasphemy against the truth and grace of God. The scriptures do not teach us thus. What should you say, James, to the thought that, after God had forgiven you, and declared that He would remember your sins and iniquities no more, God was going to put you into the fire or some other horrible pain, till you paid Him the last farthing of these temporal penalties?

{*It is singular enough the obscurity and inconsistency of the Catechism of the Council of Trent on this subject. In the article on the descent into hell, besides what I have just quoted, after speaking of purgatory, it is said, "The third kind of abode is that in which were received the souls of the just who died before Christ, and where, without experiencing any kind of pain, supported by the. blessed hope of redemption, they enjoyed peaceful repose. These pious souls, then, who in the bosom of Abraham were expecting the Saviour, Christ the Lord liberated, descending into hell." (Vol. 1, p. 123, 3.) Shortly after, in the same article, it is said, speaking of the descent of the just: "They all descended, some to endure the most acute torments; others, though exempt from actual pain, yet deprived of the vision of God, and of the glory for which they sighed, and consigned to the torture of suspense in painful captivity." Is being consigned to the torture of suspense in painful captivity peaceful repose in the bosom of Abraham? Were the holy and the just held in painful captivity in the bosom of Abraham? Is that the picture which scripture gives of it? The fire of purgatory is the second thing. 'Limbus patrum' is the third kind of abode, where there was no pain, but peaceful repose. Yet some were there to endure the most acute torments. In a further passage it is said, "And the souls of the just, on their departure from this life, were borne to the bosom of Abraham; or, as is still the case with those who require to be freed from the stains of sin or die indebted to the divine justice, were purified in the fire of purgatory" (p. 127, 2.) Hence the souls of the just who were enjoying peaceful repose in the torture of suspense must have been perfect souls. The others were in the fire of purgatory as people are now. The Jews' belief is that Abraham descended from time to time to deliver souls. Bellarmine insists that it is a material fire — a strange thing for souls to suffer from. But what is more important, he declares that the element of sin (the fomes peccati) is gone by death, because sensuality is extinguished — habits not. But they must soon be gone too, nay, at once, though that is not the case in this life, because there will there be no contrary and resisting element as there is here — nor is purgatory for these habits, as adults who die directly after baptism, and martyrs do not go there. Yet neither baptism nor martyrdom destroys them. After reasoning thus, and saying purgatory was for none of these, he adds, "There remain, therefore, the penalties of guilt and venial sins, which may properly be called the remains of sins, on account of which purgatory is. But these remains, it is sometimes certain, are purged in death: sometimes it is certain they are not purged, sometimes it is doubtful which happens, and it is most probable they are partly purged and partly not purged." (Vol. 2, Bellarm. De Purg. lib. 2, cap. 9, 7 (p. 370): "Restat ergo reatus poenae, et peccata venialia, quae proprie dici possunt reliquiae peccatorum, ob quas est purgatorium. Has autem reliquias aliquando certum est in morte purgari; aliquando certum est non purgari: aliquando dubium est, quid fiat, et probabilissimum est, partim purgari, partim non purgari": and preceding and following sections. I cite this because it is thus clear from the highest authority of the Roman Catholic church that it is not inward spiritual purifying, for sensuality is extinguished by death — not even habits, but the penalty of guilt and venial sin. It is strictly penal and satisfactory; and, secondly, it is exactly for that ("the remains of sin," which extreme unction takes away) that men go into purgatory; which is noticed farther on. The pains of purgatory, says Bellarmine, are most horrible (atrocissimas). It cannot be said how long they last — they may diminish gradually. This he proves by visions. He enlarges upon the proofs of the horrible pains compared with anything here. In result, for the slightest faults (if Pope Gregory the Great is to be believed), and with no view to purify from lust or sensuality (for that is extinguished), justified holy souls in a state of grace are kept in torment as a mere penal satisfaction.

One catechism defines it "a place of punishment where souls suffer for a time, before they go to heaven"; but the Council of Trent and the creed of Pope Pius give us no help here.}

{**Milner's "End of Con." Letter 42, On Indulgences, "of what it really is" (sec. 4 of second par. of Letter 42.). Bellarm. De Indulg., lib. 1, cap. 12.}

296 James. I never could think that.

N*. No one who knows God's truth could, James. It revolts every thought that God has given to us of His grace and of Himself.

James. But, then, what do you say to the murderer not being punished more than one who had committed a small fault?

N*. I say that if they turn to God through Christ, they are both washed clean, as white as snow, even if the sin was as scarlet. The whole argument, James, denies Christian truth. No person renewed in heart will call any fault small which comes from the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. We know that, if we are not redeemed and justified and born again, we are all children of wrath; that if we are, though we may be chastened for our profit, God imputes to us no sin at all, as Paul says in Romans 4, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin," quoting Psalm 32, because Christ has, for those who by grace are in Him, borne and satisfied perfectly for them all; that (Heb. 10) by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified; that, if they are really Christ's, they have a new nature (Col. 3: 10); that Christ Himself is their life (Col. 3; Gal. 2: 20); and that, when we die, we are absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5); that God has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1). In a word, we believe in salvation through the work of Christ, and a new, divinely-given, nature. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin (1 John 1). God forgives and cleanses from all iniquity. It was when Christ had by Himself purged our sins that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1). What do we want of a purgatory, if we are perfectly purged and cleansed, made (as scripture speaks) as white as snow! They would persuade us that God has given His Son for our sins, that He has borne them; and yet, that for those who die in grace, who are really in Christ, all whose sins Christ has borne, cleansing them in His precious blood — interceding for them in virtue of it if they have failed (1 John 2) — God has still a prison in order to punish them grievously for the very sins which Christ has borne, and that He will exact the last farthing of them!

297 James. That's not Christianity, I'm sure, nor the God of the Bible.

N*. It is not, James: and what strikes me in all the doctrines of popery is that they deny the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ, His own grace. But a word as regards degrees of guilt. Even in eternal punishment scripture speaks of a difference, of few stripes and many stripes (Luke 12: 46, 47); but that is in eternal punishment when Christ comes to judge, as you may see, verse 46; and they are all alike shut out from the presence of the blessed God, and that is what is infinitely dreadful; while, if through grace they have been brought to repentance and faith in Christ, if they have really been made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1: 3, 4), the Lord imputes no sin to them. The Romanist reasoning supposes that the sinner who is in grace has to answer for his own sins, and hence it makes the difference of great and small. Christianity teaches us that, if a man be in Christ, Christ is He who has answered for them, and that hence none is imputed to him at all. But he does look for purifying by the word of God in whatever details he may need it, and by chastening in the flesh when it is called for; but he has a new nature, and, if he dies and leaves this world of discipline, he will not have his body or flesh remaining at all. He departs and is with Christ; he falls asleep in Christ, Jesus receiving his spirit. He could not look on the God who has loved him, given His Son for him, justified him, cleansed him in Christ's blood, made him His own child, and declared He would never remember his sins, as a God who would after all put him into torment till he paid the last farthing.

298 James. That is true; I see plain enough it denies the very nature of Christianity, all it tells you of God and all the feelings it gives towards God for His love. Why the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost! I begin to feel it now, and see in the Bible that it belongs to the Christian; and there would be an utter end of that, if it was true that God was going, after saving us by Christ, to put us into prison till we had paid the last farthing. No: I believe Christ has paid the last farthing for me (blessed be His name), and that He ever lives to make intercession for me. I do not know what kind of a religion that is, but it is not real Christianity. Of this I am sure; though I do not say good people may not be blinded by it.

N*. No: its character is not divine. Penances to satisfy an exacting God, purgatory if you do not do enough, multiplied rites and ceremonies to quiet the conscience without purifying it, no confidence in God as a God of love, no resting in thankful peace on the efficacy of Christ's work, no childlike confidence in a Father's goodness taking away fear; these are not the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ, nor their fruits. The system really sets aside grace, and puts us under the terror of an eternity which we are not fit to meet. It pretends that Christ's blood was shed to bring the Old Testament saints to paradise, but that the commandments are given for us to merit it by. Then there are ceremonies to eke out our failures; and, in spite of them all, and of a sacrament that is to wipe out the remains of sin* (for so they say extreme unction does, which Christ's blood, however believed in, has not done of itself), we are to go to purgatory and finish the payment to a God who will have the last farthing. It is neither God come down to us in love (and this is what Christ really was on earth, and as to His love He surely is not changed), nor we reconciled to God by the death of His Son, which scripture says that we who believe are. Forgive me, James, if I speak earnestly and warmly when I think of the wrong done to God's love and to the efficacy of Christ's precious blood by it.

299 They can give a thousand cunning explanations about purgatory, which after all are but straw before the word of God; but the end is that the poor soul under this teaching needs, and feels it needs, purging in order to be with God. It does its best, is not purged; gets the sacraments, is not purged; and then goes to purgatory, and God knows when it will get out. For see what a poor case it is after all. A man is absolved, has the viaticum, the benefit of Christ's sacrifice; afterwards he is anointed, which is declared to wipe away the remains of sin,* and then after all goes to purgatory. What is that for? Not to purge him — for the remains of sin are wiped away (I use the terms of the Council of Trent*) by extreme unction: what does he go to purgatory for after that? The natural conscience feels it must be to purge the soul, not merely to satisfy a vindictive God; but, if it be, then the sacraments have not done it. And though they have had masses before which have not kept them out of this prison, and they get masses said to get them out when they are in, yet we never know when they will get out after all. They are helped, but we are not told (that is carefully avoided) whether the satisfaction is judicially received for the satisfaction of another: the offended judge is not bound to receive. It is probable it is; but they are only suffrages,** not satisfaction necessarily applied.

{*Concil. Tridentini Sessio 14, De Sacr. Extremae Unction is, Cap. 2 — "Cujus unctio delicta, si quae sint adhuc expianda, ac peccati reliquias abstergit." This is exactly what Bellarmine says souls go to purgatory for. Again, "it rids the soul of the languor and infirmity brought on it by sin, and of all the other remains of sin." (Extrema Unct., vol. 1, 5. 6, p. 597, 11) — Catechism of the Council of Trent.}

{**Bellarmine de Indulg. lib. 1, 6, 3. They are "per modum suffragii." 14, 5, 6, "per suffragia."}

300 And remark here, that it is with no view of benefit to the souls that are in purgatory that they are tormented. God does chasten men in this world (and to this Roman Catholics appeal); but we read, "he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness." God may bring in judgment, like the flood, or the perishing of the Israelites in the wilderness; but, in this last case, it is said, "As I live, saith Jehovah, all the earth shall be filled with my glory." It was His public government in this world vindicated. But Bellarmine says, the souls in purgatory are sure of their salvation, that death has wholly taken away the principle of sin in them, nor is the purgatorial fire to correct evil habits that have been acquired. It is purely completing so much punishment imposed on them, satisfying a penalty. And for that they are in horrible torments, perhaps till the resurrection.*

{*Yet the words "expiantur" and "purgantur" are used for clearing the tormented souls from it, because heaven cannot be defiled. But it shews the mere external character of the remedy of their idea of sin. It looks like quibbling on the Latin word "purgo," which means to put away in the way of expiation, and not purging of a soul.}

James. Well, how can people be so blinded? For I cannot believe, if a soul is forgiven and purged, God could take pleasure in tormenting it; and if it is not purged, then their absolution, and sacrament, and unction are worth nothing after all. Purgatory and they cannot both be true, that is plain. Ah! when a man is in the blessed light, he sees clear, even if he be ignorant, because he knows the love of God and the value of the precious blood of Christ.

N*. Yes, James, he is taught of God; and what concerns his soul is as clear as daylight, ay, and what God is too, though he have much to learn. We have considered what purgatory is for the soul when compared with the truth of scripture; we will see the value of their proofs of it by and bye. In the meanwhile see how their doctrine of the intercession of the saints hides the grace of Christ.

The word of God teaches us that the blessed Son of God came down to earth, and got, as scripture beautifully speaks, the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that is weary (Isa. 50: 4). We are told that He was in all points tempted like as we are without sin; that we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but that, having suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted (Heb. 2: 17, 18; chap. 4: 15, 16): so that I can come boldly to a throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need; that if I sin, which I can never excuse, still I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2). Here then God teaches me I have a throne of grace to which I can come boldly, and a high priest who understands all my weakness and sorrows, and feels for me in them, and, if I have sinned, One who has made propitiation for the sin. Now that is all I want. It is holy ground to go on, for no sin is allowed at all, but it suits my heart and my wants. On the other hand, what does the intercession of the saints and Mary tell me? It says to me, No, you cannot come boldly to the throne of grace. Christ is too high, too glorious.* He does not, and either will not or cannot feel for my wants and sorrows as others do. Mary has a more tender heart. The saints can enter better into my wants — are nearer to me. In vain has the Son of God become a man on purpose to know and to bear my sorrows, to assure me that He feels for me in tender love and compassion: others (if I am to believe the Romanist doctrine) are more suited to me. I must get them to go and move Him to love me and enter into my sorrows, and get what I want from Him for me.** And if I have sinned, instead of trusting to His intercession who has made propitiation for me, I must get saints to do it, who never could nor ever have done it. Did they ever, when in the form of God, become a poor man for me? Did Mary ever do so, or shed her blood for me? — And see how it denies the grace of God. Is this getting saints to go because I dare not go, coming boldly to the throne of grace because it is a throne of grace? I had rather have the heart of Him who became a man of sorrows for me, and shed His blood for me, and is the one only high priest, than all the Marys and all the saints (blessed as they may be in their place) that ever were.

{*See Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon," vol. 1, p. 122, for the Encyclical.

The present pope, in his encyclical letter of 1849, says that the Virgin, "by the foot of Virtue, 'bruised the serpent's head,' and who, being constituted between Christ and His church, and, being wholly sweet and full of graces, hath ever delivered the Christian people from calamities of all sorts." . . . "For ye know very well, ven. brethren, that the whole of our confidence is placed in the most holy Virgin, since God has placed in Mary the fulness of all good, that accordingly we may know that, if there is any hope in us, if any grace, if any salvation, it redounds to us from her, because such is His will who hath willed that we should have everything through Mary."

M. Olier, the founder of the Seminary of S. Sulpice (quoted by Dr. Pusey in his "Eirenicon," vol 1, p. 104), said, "We are very unworthy to draw near unto Jesus; and He has a right to repulse [rebuter] us, because of His justice, since, having entered into all the feelings of His Father from the time of His blessed resurrection, He finds Himself in the same disposition with the Father towards sinners, that is, to reject them; so that the difficulty is to induce Him to exchange the office of judge for that of advocate; and of a judge to make Him a suppliant. Now this is what the saints effect, and especially the most blessed Virgin!"

I will add here, from a prayer-book, "St. John's Manual," recommended (1856) by John, Archbishop of New York, some of the devotions to the Virgin. "I worship thee, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the graces which thou hast hitherto granted me; and especially I thank thee for having delivered me from hell, which I have so often deserved . . . . I place all my hopes in thee, and confide my salvation to thy care." — Saint John's Manual, p. 886; and in p. 887, "By thee we have been reconciled to our God; Thou art the only advocate of sinners . . . . We have no hope but in thee, O most pure Virgin."}

{**It is the common doctrine that the Virgin has more power in heaven than God, that the mother can command her Son. I have had it stated to myself by poor Roman Catholics. Nor is this the ignorance of the poor: Bernardine Senensis teaches, Serm. 61, Artic. 1, cap. 6: "All things are subject to the command of the Virgin, even God himself." (Quoted by Ussher, "Answer to a Jesuit's Challenge," p. 417, where there is a great deal more to the same purpose.) It is expressly founded on a mother's having pre-eminence, and being superior to a son. The words in Latin are, "sequitur quod ips abenedicta Virgo sit superior Deo." It follows that the blessed Virgin herself is superior to God. — De Bust. Marial. Part 9, Serm. 2. And so it is said that God has reserved the supremacy of justice, but given up to the Virgin the supremacy of grace. And such is the tenor of their practical teaching. Thus, in "The Glories of Mary," by Liguori (vol 1, chap. 3, sec. 2), a sinner, after saying the "Hail Mary" to an image of the Virgin, "saw an infant covered with wounds streaming blood . . . he began to weep; but he saw the infant turning away from him . . . . He had recourse to the most holy Virgin, saying, Mother of mercy, thy Son rejects me." The Virgin reproached him with renewing the passion of Jesus. "But because Mary knows not how to send away disconsolate a soul that has recourse to her, she turned to her Son to ask pardon for that miserable sinner. Jesus still appeared unwilling to forgive him; but the holy Virgin, placing the infant in the niche, prostrated herself before him, saying, 'Son, I will not depart from thy feet till thou dost pardon this sinner.' Jesus then said, 'Mother, I can refuse thee nothing; thou dost wish me to pardon him, for thy sake I pardon him; make him come and kiss my wounds.' The sinner came weeping bitterly, and as he kissed the wounds of the infant they were healed. In the end Jesus embraced him in token of his pardon; the sinner changed his conduct, and afterwards led a holy life, enamoured of the most holy Virgin"!

What shall we say to such statements? The images, in the first place, are the living persons; they do not, as falsely alleged, merely recall these. Real idols! Mercy is in Mary, not in Jesus. It is a denial of His own words: "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." It is for Mary's sake that Christ pardons the sinner. And what place has His blood-shedding, which is stopped (!) by the sinner's repentance through Mary's grace? Is it possible to have a more complete subversion of all truth? Upon its folly I offer no comment. Their excuse is that "Jesus is the only mediator of justice between men and God, . . . but because men recognize and fear in Jesus Christ the divine majesty which resides in Him as God, the Lord wished to appoint another advocate, to whom we could have recourse with less fear and with more confidence. This advocate is Mary . . . ." There is need then of a medium with the mediator Himself. — S. Bernard, Serm. in Sign. Magnn., quoted in Liguori, vol., 1, chap. 6. sec. 2. Again she is compared to Abigail with David: "She knows so well how to appease the divine justice by her tender and wise prayers, that God Himself blesses her for it, and, as it were, thanks her for thus keeping Him from abandoning them to the chastisements which they deserve." Note that she is a mediatrix of justice really in these stupid blasphemies; or what does appeasing the divine justice mean?}

302 I speak with you, James, of the substance of these things, and compare the Roman Catholic system with the truth, with what Christianity is as given to us of God; because you have not lost it as given of God, but are rather come to it really in your heart, and thus can understand the difference. Romanism is not the Christianity of the scriptures at all, not God's Christianity: grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

303 James. Thank you, sir, thank you. It does me good, and clears up many a point for me. It does make a wonderful difference when one knows there is such a thing as grace — knows God's grace ever so little, as shewn us in Christ. When one has learned to have confidence in God's goodness, one sees the whole system is false; that it is not grace; that man has to work and suffer to satisfy God. He may have sacraments to get grace and works to merit glory, but it is no God of grace that he has to do with.

N*. But they will not allow you, James, to have confidence in the love of God, or to be assured. They cite the words — "no man can know love or hatred by all that is before him," to prove that no Christian can be assured.

James. Well, I do not see, if a Christian believes that God gave His only-begotten Son for him when he was a poor sinner, to say nothing of His love being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, how he can doubt that God loves him. No doubt the grace of God must work in his heart to make him really think of it, or care for it, or believe it; but if it does, he must know God loves him, and he is bound to believe that the blood of Christ cleanses him from all sin.

304 N*. Surely he is, James, but this is formally denied by the Council of Trent,* and every Roman Catholic.

{*See Con. Trid. Sessio VI, cap. 9.}

James. I see it is impossible for a true believer to receive for a moment their doctrine. It denies the grace of God, and the real efficacy of Christ's work, so that His love is never known, and the soul has never true peace, and penances are put in the place of inward purity.

N*. That is the truth. Scripture tells us of divine love, and its sweet and blessed comfort known in the soul; of purity, inward purity, required, but communicated to us by a new life, by one being born of God, and enjoying the renewing of the Holy Ghost; of the perfect efficacy of Christ's sacrifice once for all, so that being justified by faith I have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord: and then of walking thus, through His continual grace, in the favour and fear of God, with the assurance that when I am absent from the body I shall be present with the Lord, and finally be glorified with Him. They tell me of meriting heaven by my works; of satisfying God for my sins (even if forgiven), of multiplied sacraments, and ceremonies, and penances, and, when I have done all, of going to hell or to purgatory. And if the blessed Son of God has died, it is only to give efficacy to the sacraments which leave me in this evil case after all. It is a poor kind of religion. They tell me I cannot be saved out of it — and yet, if I am in it, I cannot after all tell whether I am saved or not.* Well, I do not believe that the God of grace meant to leave a man there. I believe He gave His Son that I might have peace in my soul, and be happy, according to His holy nature; not that I might remain ignorant after all of His love and of my own salvation. I read that the revelation of Christ was "to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins"; and that peace by Jesus Christ was preached because He has made peace. And I see that Romanism deprives us of all the present blessing of the gospel altogether. But here, I suppose, is your neighbour.

{*See Cat. Con. Trid., pars 4, cap. 14, sect. 16 (vol. 2, p. 389). Bellarm. De Indulg., lib. 1, cap. 3, sect. 3.}

305 James. Sit down, Bill. This is the gentleman I told you of. This, sir, is Bill M.

N*. Good day, M.

Bill M. Good day, sir.

N*. We have been talking of the true religion, M., and whether the Roman Catholic system is the true one. Hitherto we have mainly compared it with the substance of Christianity as it is set out in scripture for the comfort of us poor sinners. But it is all fair to hear what you have to say for the system which you have adopted and would persuade James to adopt, and I propose we should take Milner's "End of Controversy" as a kind of text-book, for it is largely circulated by zealous Romanists to win Protestants by to Romanism, and printed cheap by your friends, as giving the best possible account of their doctrine and overthrowing Protestantism.

Bill M. The church alone can judge of the truth, sir, and we must submit to her authority, or we shall never arrive at it.

N*. Well, but we are Christians, what you will call Protestants, professing to believe sincerely in Christ, and you must shew us the truth somehow. We do not, at any rate, yet own the Roman Catholic system to be the true church. Of course I do not conceal from you that I am very far from thinking it so. It will not do to say the church teaches so and so, when you have not yet shewn us what is the true church; but I shall gladly hear all you have to say. You have sought to bring James here to turn Roman Catholic, saying you alone have the true church, and I have sought to guard him against it. You, or Dr. Milner himself, can tell us what that which you call the true church says on the points in controversy; but you cannot use the authority of the church to me before I believe that that to which you belong is so. Indeed, there would be another thing to prove, namely, that the church has authority to teach. I believe it has not, but that the apostles had, and subordinately, the ministry, those whom God has called to it, though these last not so as to be any rule of faith. I am quite ready to discuss the question of the church's authority: it is of all importance; but we cannot use it till we have it, and as your famous Dr. Milner has discussed the different points, we can see what your best authorities have to say. We will discuss the true church like all the rest.

306 Bill M. I do not know whether I ought to argue with you, because, till you submit to the authority of the true church, you cannot see the truth.

James. Well, but then you must confess you have nothing to say for your doctrines. You used to praise Milner's book, M., to me, and say nobody could answer it.

Bill M. When once the church has pronounced, I believe.

N*. You must first shew what is the church. But besides that, this is not receiving the truth yourself in the love of it. And if you think we are in such deadly error, and do not seek to convince us, you are answerable for our souls. Besides, it is not enough to shew me where the true church is (I believe I am in the true church these many years): I must have the truth of God for its own sake. I believe in the authority of the word of God, and one way of knowing whether that which calls itself a church is the true church is to know what it teaches. And when your doctors write books on these points, they do try to persuade us. They must, or we should not be persuaded; though, strange to say, they never give the holding of the truth of God as a mark of the true church.

Bill M. But you cannot tell what the true sense of the Bible is. There the church alone can guide you.

N*. I do not see, if I humbly depend on God's grace, why I cannot understand what Paul says as well as what Dr. Milner says; and if I cannot understand all scripture, I can see where it directly contradicts your doctrine. Besides you circulate Dr. Milner's book, and I suppose therefore I can understand him, and surely I must examine what his book says. You must think me capable of that; or am I to swallow all he, too, says as gospel without inquiry? If you are going to convince me by Dr. Milner's book, you must let me examine what it says. You have put the things before me, and I must examine them. I am surely not to believe Dr. Milner as infallible. I am willing to take him as correctly representing what the church of Rome wishes to say; though as authority I must take the Council of Trent and what is called the Catechism of the Council of Trent. I do not wish now to discuss the true sense of the Bible, though I shall freely refer to it if needed, as you do not deny its authority, and I shall leave it to its own authority in the conscience. Nor can I swallow all manner of evil doctrines which you may have propounded to me by putting them in the gilded pill, "the church." If you are going to convert me to your system, I must know what it is. We were speaking of purgatory, and, if you please, we will finish that subject, and then speak of the church, or rule of faith, or any other point you please: only you must let me speak plainly without being offended. I would not willingly hurt any man's feeling: it would be a sin to do so; but when we are discussing the truth, we must have the truth.

307 Bill M. Oh! to be sure. It is better to speak all plainly out. I shall not be offended.

N*. You will have no objection, then, to my taking Dr Milner's "End of Controversy" as my guide in learning what Roman Catholic views are, as it has been given to so many for that purpose. This is the best and readiest way, even while referring to any other authority desirable. Allow me now to ask you what is purgatory?

Bill M. It is a place of punishment for venial sins, and for anything that remains of the temporal punishment of forgiven mortal sins, into which Christians dying in a state of grace go.

N*. Well, I suppose that is pretty correct. Dr. Milner says (Letter 43), "All which is necessary to be believed by Catholics on this subject is contained in the following brief declaration of the Council of Trent: 'There is a purgatory, and the souls detained there are helped by the prayers of the faithful, and particularly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.'" (Sess. 25, De Purg.). This is singularly vague, carefully vague. What is purgatory? Do people suffer there? What do they suffer for? What are they helped out of? — Of all this the statement tells us nothing. Yet on this is founded all the system of masses for the dead, masses multiplied according to the wealth of the dead man or his family (for the poor stand a poor chance here), and the anxious terror of the living; on this was founded all the dreadful traffic in indulgences. Yet the Catholic is not bound to believe that there is any suffering at all. But Dr. Milner is right: I seek in vain for any authoritative instruction from the Roman rule of faith upon the subject. What is left vague may be filled with terror, and so in practice it is. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, however, gives us a little further insight into it. Speaking of Christ's descent into hell, it says, "Hell, then, here signifies those hidden abodes, in which are detained the souls that have not been admitted to the regions of bliss" (vol. 1, p. 123). And then, after speaking of the hell of the damned, it says, "Amongst them (the places called hell) is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the pious, being tormented for a definite time, are cleansed,* that an entrance may lie open to them into the eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth." And then it is left to the minister in these words: "The truth of this doctrine, founded, as holy councils declare, on scripture, and confirmed by apostolical tradition, demands diligent and frequent exposition, proportioned to the times in which we live, when men endure not sound doctrine."** The truth is, the Romanists are very shy of saying much on this head, because the statements of the Fathers are as contradictory and as full of confusion as they can possibly be. Here we are told Abraham's bosom is in hell (hades).***

{*Animae cruciatae expiantur. Expiantur is a sacrificial word, expressing the removal of what in any way offends the gods, is offensive in their sight. — The Editor of the Present Testimony adds from Donovan's Latin and English Catechism of Council of Trent the passage in full: —

"Praeterea est purgatorius ignis, quo piorum animae ad definitum tempus cruciatae expiantur, ut eis in aeternam patriam ingressus patere possit." — Catech. Rom. cap. 6, sect. 3.

"There is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of just men are purified by a temporary punishment, to qualify them to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth." — Donovan's Translation, vol. 1, p. 123, 2, Art. 5.}

{**The sixth question on this subject in the Roman Catholic Catechism would lead us to conclude that as there were these pious people in purgatory, as well as saints in Abraham's bosom, before Christ descended, the one — though in repose — tortured by suspense, though sustained by hope (a strange kind of repose), the other pious souls not completely saints, tortured horribly in the fire — so when He descended these last got off to heaven as well as the saints, properly speaking. Who finished their satisfaction for them, without which they could not be clean, we are not told. They were better off than those now in purgatory, any way. These, we are told, must pay the last farthing, or they cannot come out thence. Better to have been a Jew, any way, than a Christian. However that may be, it is to be taught that Christ the Lord went down to hell to liberate from prison those holy fathers and the other pious persons, and brought them to heaven. Yet those in purgatory now enjoy the effects of Christ's expiation, are in a state of grace, sure, Bellarmine tells us, of their salvation, no principle of sin (Fomes peccati) in them; but there they must stay till they have made satisfaction for their faults. The happier Jews and Old Testament saints got clear without doing so,though what Christ did was to impart the benefit of His passion to them, of which the Christians who have to stay enjoy the benefit, but only to bring them into purgatory; for otherwise they would have gone into hell. They are strange inventions all, and hence confusion. It must be so when it is denied that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, and that by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. But let us remember that the doctrine of purgatory is that, when the guilt of sin is wholly removed, and the principle of sin (Fomes peccati) totally gone, men are to be tortured for a definite time in hell-fire to satisfy God; nor did Christ loose the pains of hell for the saints!}

{*** Ad inferos. Rom. Cat. de Symb. cap. 6, Quaes. 6, vol. 1, 124. Quibus de causis Christus ad inferos descendere voluit.

"Wherefore, before he died and rose again, the gates of heaven were never open to any one; but the souls of the pious, when they departed from this life, either were borne into Abraham's bosom, or, which also now happens to them who have something to be cleared away (diluendum) and be paid (persolvendum), were purged in the fire of purgatory." — So 2, 3: "The souls of those pious persons who, in the bosom of Abraham, expected the Saviour, Christ the Lord, descending into hell, set free."}

309 Tertullian* says (when a good churchman), I think that hell (hades) is one thing, Abraham's bosom another.

{*Adv. Marcion, 4, 34: He adds, Abraham's bosom is a place of refreshment for the souls of the just, till the resurrection.}

Augustine says that Abraham's bosom is to be thought a part of hell (hades);* elsewhere** he cannot tell — thinks it may, but says he cannot find it is so called; and doubts*** if any one could endure its not being taken in a good sense, and therefore he does not see how it can be hell. Again, he says the bosom of Abraham is the rest of the blessed poor whose is the kingdom of heaven.**** In the first letter***** alluded to he refutes Christ having taken all out.

{*Ps. 85, 18; De Gen. ad Lit 12, 33, 63; De Civ. Dei, 1, 12, 50.}

{**Ps. 85: 18.}

{*** Epist. 187, 6 (Ed. Ben.); Ed. Gaume, 2, 1019, 1020.}

{**** Quaest. Ev. 2, 38; Ben Ed. 3.}

{***** Epist. 164, 7 (Ed. Ben.) [Gaume fratres ediderunt] 2, 860.}

St. Jerome says, "Our Lord Jesus Christ descended into the furnace of hell, in which the souls of sinners and just were kept shut up, that without any burning or hurt to Himself He might free from the chains of death those who were shut up there" (in Dan. 1: 3). Still I suppose we must take this only as applying to those that were His. He says (in Lam. Jer. 2: 3), "Therefore the Redeemer called on the name of the Lord out of the lowest lake, when in the power of His divinity He descended into hell, and, the bars of Tartarus being destroyed, tearing away His own whom He found there, ascended conqueror to the upper regions." Thus then all the just, all that belonged to Christ, would be delivered. Again, yet further (in Esaiam 6, 14), "hell is the place of punishment and torment, in which the rich man clothed in purple is seen, to which also the Lord descended, that He might loose the bound out of prison." This was hardly Abraham's bosom, as Augustine often says.* Indeed he ventures on rather slippery ground for an orthodox Father, the pillar of Romanism (in Eph. 2, cap. 4). "The Son of God, therefore, descended into the lower parts of the earth, and ascended above all heavens, that He might not only fulfil the law and the prophets, but also certain hidden dispensations which He alone knew with the Father. For indeed neither can we know how the blood of Christ can profit the angels and those who are in hell, and yet we cannot be ignorant that it did profit them." Whatever this may mean, it is clear that the preceding statements overthrow the idea of His simply delivering those who in quiet repose were awaiting the Redeemer's victory. I suppose the bars of Tartarus were hardly round Abraham's bosom. Can there be a greater confusion and ignorance? I do not quote as many different speculations as there are fathers. But saints may thus learn what the Fathers' writings are worth.

{*Aug. makes two hells (inferos; inferna), Ps. 85: 18.}

310 I add only these to shew that it is no individual mistake of Jerome's. Ambrose (de Mys. Pasch. 4) says, "Christ being void of sin when He descended to the bottom of Tartarus, breaking the bars and gates of hell, recalled the souls bound by sin, the dominion of death being destroyed, out of the jaws of the devil into life." So many others. Now this was not delivering merely those in repose. Either all the just were in repose and better off than Christians, who go (I may say) all to purgatory — and then those fathers are all condemned; or else they were in purgatory, and this deliverance of peaceful souls in a distinct place from purgatory, as taught by the Catechism of the Council of Trent, is all wrong. And what is come of those that were in purgatory none can tell. St. Augustine will help us out a bit perhaps (Enchiridion, 110, 29): "When therefore sacrifices, whether of the altar or of any alms-giving whatsoever, are offered for all baptized persons deceased, for the very good they are givings of thanks; for the not very bad they are propitiations; for the very bad, even if they are no help to the dead, they are certain consolations of the living. But to whom they are profitable, they are profitable either to this, that there should be full remission, or at any rate that damnation itself may be more tolerable." Albert the Great teaches that that must mean purgatory; but the famous master of sentences, as he was called, Peter Lombard, declares that it is not to be denied that it is accepted for the punishment of those who are never to be set free. All who are in purgatory are middling good: the least bad, who are never to be freed, are middling bad, and their pains may be mitigated. They can do better, it seems, than what the Lord taught as to Abraham and Lazarus: but, oh! how we see the wild unbridled imagination of these Fathers. They had lost the plain truth of scripture, and wandered in every uncertain and unstable thought of their own imagination.

311 James. Well, it is strange doctrine. It is a terrible thing, after one is justified and in a state of grace, to go and suffer in a kind of temporary hell-fire. And there we must go, and that just if we are in a state of grace. What do you say to that, Bill?

Bill M. It is no good arguing on religion. How could you expect me to explain everything? The church says there is a purgatory, and we are warned not to look curiously into it, and be taking notions to ourselves.

N*. Yes, my good friend, but we are not looking curiously into it. We are paying attention to what is taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and according to that, though the doctrine be inconsistent and contrary to itself, if I am to take the general statement, it would have been far better, to have been a godly Jew than to be a godly Christian.

Bill M. But that Catechism is for the clergy, not for us.

N*. Yes, but the clergy are to teach according to it, and according to the consent of the Fathers. But we will pass on. I will quote Bellarmine's account of purgatory, as he is of very high, perhaps the highest, authority among Roman Catholics; for as to the consent of the Fathers, it is out of the question. On this point he says, what is so called is "a certain place in which, as in a prison, souls are purged after this life which have not been fully purged in this life; that thus purged, namely, they may be able to enter into heaven, where nothing defiled will enter." Yet the same Bellarmine distinctly declares that lust has ceased in death, that evil habits are not corrected in purgatory, that it is purely a penal satisfaction for sin — that is, no purifying or purging at all. See what he says as to satisfaction, lust being gone. Well, I deny purgatory as a wholly false unscriptural idea, and as a denial of the efficacy of the work of Christ. I read in scripture, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." God declares of the sanctified (and they only, it seems, go into purgatory), that "He will remember their sins and iniquities no more." I find that, when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord; I am taught to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. I find that the poor thief went, the same day he died, straight into paradise to be with Christ. Hence for the true Christian the fear of death is wholly taken away. He is already one spirit with Christ, and he knows that to depart and be with Him is far better. Christ has borne his sins in His own body on the tree; and he has not himself therefore to bear the consequences of them. He has a wholly new life by the quickening power of Christ. Christ is his life; and when out of this sinful flesh he is in every sense clear from sin for ever.*

{*Alphons. de Castro and the Roman Catholic bishop of Rochester admit that there was nothing about purgatory in the early, especially the Greek, Fathers, and the Greek church denies the doctrine, and passages from Tertullian, Cyprian, Gregory Neocaes., Basil, Dionysius, Quaes. et Resp. ad Orth (ascribed to Justin Martyr), Athanasius (if De Virginitate be his), Hilary, and Ambrose may be quoted, which plainly set aside purgatory, declaring that the righteous go to an eternal home. In the works of Greg. Neocaes. (Hom. 22) Macarius puts the three states: guilty, the devil takes it off; the holy servants of God, angels bring them to the Lord; if between the two, and where a man fights against the evil and loves the Lord with all his soul, He cleanses him in one hour, and takes him unto His bosom and to see light. Thus Athanasius says the just pass out of this world into everlasting rest. Ambrose says wise men desire death as a rest from their labours and an end of their evils; so in other passages. So Macarius; and Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 32 in Pasch.) says, "nor beyond this night [of this life] is there any purifying." So the famous Cyril of Alexandria on Joan., lib. 12, c. 36. "For he delivered his own soul into the hands of his own Father, that we taking our point of departure in it, and on account of it, may have splendid hopes, firmly feeling and believing that we, having undergone the death of the flesh, shall be in the hands of God, and shall be in a far better state than we were with flesh: wherefore, also, the wise Paul writes to us that it is better to depart and to be with Christ." So the Q. et Respon. ad Orth., in Justin (2, 60). The narration of the rich man and Lazarus is a form of word having this doctrine, that, after the departure of the soul out of the body, it is not possible that by any care or diligence men can get any profit. "There is no death (says Athanasius, De Virg.) for the just, but a change, for he is changed out of this world into the everlasting rest. And as if any one might come out of prison, so the saints go out of this toilsome life into the good things prepared for them." And Ambrose, De bono mortis (4), "It is a certain haven for those who, cast about on the great sea of this life, seek a roadstead of sure quiet, and it does not make their state worse, but such as it has found it in each, such it reserves it for future judgment, and cherishes by the quiet itself." So again (12), "trusting therefore to these, let us go with full courage to our Redeemer Jesus, with full courage to the council of patriarchs, with full courage to our father Abraham, let us go boldly to the assembly of the saints and gathering of the just." It is plain that he had no idea of going to purgatory here, for those named are not there; he names going to Jesus Himself, and that with entire courage, on our death.

We might quote Jerome too, but of him I will speak, and Augustine, we have seen, had no settled thoughts. He supposed indeed that the day of judgment itself was a kind of purgatory, Enchiridion, 67, De Civ. Dei, 16, 24, Ps. 103: 5; Ps. 6. As to Cypr. De Mortalitate — one would have to quote the whole tract. Nothing can be clearer as to the immediate blessedness of all the righteous. The righteous are called to refreshing, the unjust to punishment; it is his part to fear death who is unwilling to go to Christ — proving and insisting that thus there is for the servants of God peace, their free, their tranquil quiet. It is not going out but going elsewhere, and, time's journey finished, you pass to what is eternal. Who does not haste to better things?

"We injure Christ," says Tertullian, "when we do not with undisturbed mind accept others being called away; as if they were to be pitied. They have obtained their desire." (Tert. de Pat. 9, Quaest. et Resp. ad Orth., 75.) The souls of the just go into paradise to meet and see angels and archangels, according to the vision also of the Saviour Christ Himself, and according to what is written, "absent from the body and present with the Lord"; but the souls of the unjust go into the regions of hell (hades), as Nebuchadnezzar. Greg. Thaum. says, the good man will go rejoicing into his own eternal house; but the wicked will fill all things with their complaints.

If De Virginitate be not of Athanasius, as the style and some doxologies would shew, it is later. The writer says, "There is no death for the righteous, but translation, for he is translated out of this world into everlasting rest." There is the same truth in Macar. Hom. 22, but it may be alleged to concern the saints — the holy servants of God. The devils receive the wicked, he says, and drag them to their own place; choirs of angels the holy servants of God. Of any other place he does not speak. But in Hom. 26 he puts the case of conflict, two persons in the soul, as he says, and where is the soul to go, thus drawn two ways? He replies that the Lord, seeing you strive, and sometimes with all your heart, will separate you from death at once, and receive you into His bosom and light.

Hilary insists. on all being settled at death, referring to the rich man and Lazarus, and Abraham's bosom as eternal bliss; but though judgment is to come, still the case is settled in death. There is no putting off or delay, for the day of judgment is the eternal retribution of blessedness or punishment; but the time of death holds each one meanwhile by its own laws, either Abraham or punishment keeps each one for judgment. He then insists on confidence, which is more than hope, and refers to John 5; he that believeth on Me shall not be judged. (End of Tract on Ps. 2.) I do not quote more passages at length.

Basil and Gregory Naz. teach in general the same truths: the orthodoxy of the last may be questioned. We see from these the general faith of the church. The Hypognosticon once attributed to Augustine is equally clear. "As for any third place we utterly know none, neither shall we find in the holy scriptures that there is any such," Lib. 5.

Nor do the Roman Catholics deny that those who go to purgatory are forgiven and justified, and the principle of sin (peccati fones) is gone. It is penal suffering from God after guilt and sin are wholly gone. I do not give the Fathers as any authority, but as shewing the common current belief. Alphons. de Castro and John of Rochester I give from Ussher, the rest from the original authors. I will speak farther on of the real origin and history of purgatory, and of Jerome and Augustine more particularly. Bellarmine is not quite honest on the point, as he quotes the use of passages such as 1 Corinthians 3, by old writers, which he himself declares cannot be applied to purgatory, because it embraces all, and others as to praying for saints, which proves nothing, because, whatsoever the ground, for they find it hard to say, they prayed for all saints (even the Virgin Mary), that is, for those whom they held to be in heaven already. It may be for glory (Bell. de Purg., lib. 17), and this some said, "for glory given to them among men," for all is darkness and confusion. Indeed Bellarmine's quotations are not to be trusted. He quotes Hilary on Ps. 118 in proof of purgatory (De Purg., lib. 1, 10, sec. 38), leaving out the words which precede his quotation, and which wholly set aside the idea of purgatory. He says we have to undergo that unwearied fire; but Hilary says, "the day of judgment in which we are to undergo," etc., and goes on to say that thus the sword is to pierce the blessed Virgin Mary's heart too — and how could we desire it then? Either he borrowed his quotation, or he is wilfully dishonest.}

313 Bill M. Do you think, then, a murderer, and one who steals an apple, will be punished in the same way?

N*. Are you, then, an unbeliever, M.?

Bill M. No, I am a good Catholic.

314 N*. You are reasoning as an unbeliever would. What you say is as if Christ had not died for those who go to heaven. I do not say that the murderer and he who steals an apple will be punished alike; though we are very bad judges of guilt. It was by stealing an apple that men were driven out of God's presence and the earthly paradise; because they had given up God for an apple, and because lust and sin had come in. The tree is proved by its fruit, and one wild apple proves as well as a hundred would that the tree which bears it is wild and good-for-nothing. I do not say some men have not broken through more restraints of conscience — have not sinned against light, so as to be beaten with many stripes.

315 But this has nothing to do with the matter we are speaking of, namely, of those that are forgiven, who are going to heaven, who are justified and sanctified; for purgatory is for none others. The question is not therefore about the degrees of punishment for the lost, but of the saved (and according to Bellarmine all in purgatory are all even sure* they are saved, and so indeed they might well be, since none others go there): and I say as to such, that, whether they had been murderers or apple-stealers before, they are cleansed from all sin. They are, as scripture speaks, as white as snow, if their sins had been as scarlet. When I have washed anything, the question is not how much dirt it had before, disgusting as that may be, if the dirt be there, but whether I have washed it perfectly. Now the scripture tells us Christ has washed us perfectly, and I believe it. We are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. If we are saved, we have a new nature, and that is a holy one. We are made, says Peter, partakers of the divine nature. And, when we die, nothing remains but this holy life which is born of God. Guilt is gone, all impurity is gone, and in due time we shall have a glorious body too. Purgatory denies the efficacy of Christ's work, and the reality of receiving life from God. It upsets your own doctrines (as I said to James); for, as guilt is wholly removed, extreme unction, which wipes away the remains of sin, must be false, or else one that has been anointed has nothing to go to purgatory for; for men, we are told, go there for the remains of sin.

{*Bellarm. de Purg., lib. 2, c. 4.}

Bill M. Do you mean that the soul (when it goes out of the body) is fit for heaven or paradise?

N*. Certainly, or how did the thief get there? I see the whole system of Romanism to be the very contrary to the gospel of peace. In that — in the Christianity of the scriptures — I see a God perfect in holiness, but one "rich in mercy," who loved the world, and gave His Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish. God, I see, is love. Christ, the blessed Saviour, gives Himself to bear and put away our sins, that we might draw near to God without fear: as it is said, "to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins." It is with a view to our being happy before Him, serving Him without fear. He gives His Spirit to them that believe, as a spirit of adoption and joy, the Holy Spirit; but He is given, says Peter, to all them that believe. Thus heaven is opened to them, and Jesus has entered as their forerunner; the joy of heaven is in their souls beforehand, the love of God shed abroad in their hearts, and by that Spirit which is the earnest of their inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession. Having peace with God, they stand in God's favour, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. If they are tempted and tried, the blessed Jesus has been tempted in all things like them, sin apart: and having suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

316 In a word, God is a source of joy because He is a Saviour, and a gracious help in every trouble. He finds me in misery, lost, going to hell, and warns me of it, and that if I go on in the broad road I shall surely come there. But when He is turned to, when Christ is really believed in, He takes me out of that position and saves me. In so doing He puts me in a place of joy and peace before Him, and He makes me know all this by His word and Spirit. Romanism is the very opposite of that. It brings me before a terrible exacting God when I am a Christian. It brings me by a series of ceremonies (after Christ has done all) into a position where I, even if a true Christian, have still to answer for my sins — may very likely go to hell for them — must do penance (unless I compromise it by an indulgence) for present failings: where I am always dreading eternity, and uncertain what is to become of me at last — only sure that God will exact satisfaction of me; that in any case I must go to purgatory into the fire, and make satisfaction for my faults, and that God will not let me out thence till I have paid the last farthing. Forgiving priests I may find, a tender-hearted Mary, kind interceding saints; but a forgiving God who loves and cleanses me, a tender-hearted interceding Saviour — that I cannot have in Romanism. Even if I am forgiven as to damnation, and if Christ Himself has effectually died for me, and I die in a state of grace, God will have the last farthing of me after all. This, as to the whole spirit of it, is contrary to the God revealed in Christ. God manifest in flesh, God become a man to die for me — that God I know. But that when He has done all that for me, He is going to exact the last farthing of me, and throw me into a fire of anguish till it is paid, this I do not believe. Such a God is not the God who has come to save us by Christ; it is another, and, morally speaking, a false one. It makes God one who lays heavy burdens on the human heart when we have to say to Him.

317 Christianity does shew us what an awful burden we are bringing on ourselves if we have not to say to Him, but shews us joy and peace if we have. It calls us from every burden of sin and of sorrow to find rest in Christ; and it shews me He was willing to take my burden on Himself, that I might be free. Christ says: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Is it rest to be put to do penance for my sins, living? and, even if saved, to go to purgatory for them when I am dead? And all this just to sustain the power of those that impose the penance, and profess to be able to help people out of — when they could not help their getting into — this terrible fire!

James. How plain and true it is! Oh, if God had not been a God of grace to me, where should I have been? But I had no thought the Romanists believed all this. What! penances while they are alive, and then the last farthing exacted when they die, and they forgiven and justified all the while! And, as you were saying, sir, told all the while that by extreme unction the very remains of sin are wiped away!

Mrs. J. I am sure we ought to feel for them, and pray for them too: but it is sad to think any could be so ignorant of what God is.

Bill M. But by your system a man may say he is justified, and go on sinning, and get clear to heaven.

N*. So man always reasons when he does not know what grace is; but scripture says, purifying their hearts by faith. Revealing God's presence to a man is not the way to make a man sin. Besides, if a man has a part in God's righteousness, it is by being born again, and thus he loves obedience to God and what is holy. Most true it is that we need grace every moment; but Christ has said: "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." And besides, if, through carelessness, we get away from God's presence and fail, Christ intercedes for us, and God will warn us outwardly and inwardly: and, if we heed not the warning, He will chasten us. But tell me, humanly speaking, who will be most anxious to keep himself clean: one who is spick and span clean, and going to meet the Queen — or one who is dirty, and does not know whether he ever will go out, unless it be to be hanged?

318 Bill M. Well, I suppose the man that was clean.

N*. And he must know he is clean.

Bill M. Of course.

N*. So with the Christian. He knows he is cleansed to meet Jesus, and he seeks to be clean in his walk, going to meet Him. We know, says the Apostle John, (mark that word, "we know") "that when he [Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure." So the Apostle Paul: "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, whether present or absent, to be accepted of" (or, as in your Rhemish Testament, "to please) him." People forget that a new nature, the new man, as it is called, is as necessary and as much a part of Christianity as is the blessed sacrifice of Christ. Your objection is just the one that was made to the Apostle Paul's teaching, because he taught this very doctrine (Rom. 6), and he shews that Christ, who is his life, having died to sin, the true Christian reckons himself dead — cannot live in the thing which he is dead to. We have a part in the righteousness by having a part in the death, and so reckon ourselves dead, crucified with Christ. Having a part in death is not living on. How, says he, can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? But if I deny that I am dead, I deny I am justified and righteous; for it is only by having a part in His death that I am justified. And it is real life and grace, and these will shew themselves in a man's walk.

But we can come to the proofs. I deny that any such thing as purgatory is found in scripture. When we have examined this, we must see what you all allege from the Fathers. Not that I attribute the smallest authority to them, or believe anything as revealed truth but what is in the word of God; but as we are reasoning about it, it is fair to meet all you have to say. It would be quite enough to say they reveal nothing, and have no authority at all; nor would I allege them for the smallest thing; but as you do allege them, we may examine what you allege. I own to you I have a very poor opinion of them from what I have read of them, without meaning to say they have no historical value. We have the highest authority for saying we must have what was from the beginning. But that is Christ and the apostles — none of it elsewhere. And John says, "He that is of God heareth us." Hearing what the apostles say themselves is the test of truth; and he who continues in what was from the beginning (and I repeat, the writings of the apostles and evangelists alone are that) shall abide in the Father and in the Son.

319 James. Where is that, sir?

N*. In 1 John 2: 24 and chap. 4: 6. But we will hear all you have to allege from the Fathers.

Bill M. They do not reveal anything; but they must know the truth better than we, and no sense ought to be received from scripture but according to their common consent as to the meaning of it. So says the Council of Trent (Sess. 4).

N*. Are you sure they do agree?

Bill M. To be sure they do, and the church teaches the doctrine they agree in.

N*. It would be a poor thing to have to wait for the truth till we had read all the Fathers. But I think you will find, even in our short inquiries, they are far from agreeing on the subject which occupies us, or indeed on any other.

However, to our proofs. The first that Milner notices is drawn from the second book of Maccabees. He tells us that he has a right to consider these books as scripture, because the Catholic church so considers them. Now, first, I do not admit the Roman system to be the Catholic church: but I leave this till we come to that question. But no church ever took them to be canonical scripture for fifteen hundred years. Augustine declares the Apocryphal books inferior to the other scripture, and Jerome, who was the translator of the Bible at the request of Pope Damasus, and whose translation, called the Vulgate, is declared authentic by the Council of Trent, and so held by all Romanists, says in his preface that Judith and Tobias, and the books of the Maccabees, the church indeed reads, but does not receive them among canonical scriptures. (Preface to the books of Solomon). So Ruffinus (published with Cyprian's works). He gives the list of canonical scriptures, exactly as Protestants receive them, and not merely as his opinion, but declaring that they are the books which, according to the tradition of the ancients, are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself. And having given the list, he adds: these are what the Fathers have included in the canon. But however, he adds, it is to be known that there are also other books, now called Apocrypha; and adds, which all they have willed should be read in the churches, but not anything be produced out of them to confirm as authority anything concerning the faith. So Jerome: thus also these two volumes the church reads for edification of the people, but not as an authority to confirm ecclesiastical dogmas. So Athanasius, or the author of the Synopsis ascribed to him, says — they were not put in the canon, but read to the catechumens; and in his festal letter again he gives the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, pronouncing the strongest blame on those who might pretend any others were scripture (1 (62) 767).

320 This is the constant testimony of the early church. Cyril of Jerusalem gives the same list of the Old Testament, and does not admit the Maccabees. The Council of Laodicea forbids any others to be read in the churches, and gives the same list. The Apostolic Constitutions (which of course I do not cite as of the apostles, but which shew the early judgment on this point) give us the same list — 2, 57, and that for reading in the churches. The only exception, or apparent one, is that the African churches, as represented by the Council of Carthage and St. Augustine (though Augustine makes a formal distinction between some books and others, and he says that they are not canonical), call the Apocrypha canonical too: but Augustine admits at the same time that learned men did not doubt that two of them were spurious, that is, not written by the professed authors, but says that though they were so, they were received by the Western churches. We learn also how little weight he attached to the word canonical. He says that people ought to attach most authority to those which were received by all the churches; and that in those which were not received by all, they should prefer those received by most and the more important churches. It is clear none of them were even received in the Eastern churches, nor were they in the churches of Gaul, as both the Hilarys shew. Hilary of Arles tells St. Augustine, writing to him on predestination and free will, on occasion of the Pelagian controversy, that the churches of France around him rejected one testimony he had produced, because it was cited from an uncanonical book.

321 Not only so, but a pope, and a very distinguished one indeed, who earned the name of Great — Gregory — says, Moral 19, 13 (34) on Job 29, "Concerning which we do not act out of order if we produce a testimony out of books which, though not canonical, are published for the edification of the church"; and then cites Maccabees.

Thus we have the constant sense of the doctors of early ages; and, referring to the African church, Cardinal Cajetan, one greatly employed by the pope about Luther, says, "The words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the rule of St. Jerome, and, according to his judgment, those books are not canonical, that is, regular, to establish those things which are of the faith. They may be called, however, canonical, that is, regular, for the edification of the faithful, as received and authorized for this purpose in the canon of the Bible: with this distinction, thou mayest discern what is said by Augustine, and written in the provincial Council of Carthage." Thus he reconciles, as others have done, the statements of the African prelates with the universal judgment of Christendom.

Further, we have a list in the middle of the third century from Origen, the most diligent student of scripture, in his Commentary on Psalm 1 (De la Rue, vol. 2, 29), quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Ec. 6, 25), bearing exactly the same testimony as to what is canonical. We have a list of Melito's, about the close of the second century, given by Eusebius, 4, 26. He says he has given, in extracts written by him, "a catalogue of the books of the Old Testament received of all, which I have thought necessary to put down here"; and then he gives the same list as all do, but not the Apocrypha. Epiphanius (B. T. 7, vol. 1, 122), confirms this same list as being received by the Jews, though not speaking of his own judgment. But Christendom is not all we have to look to, nor indeed the principal thing; because the Old Testament was committed originally to God's people Israel, to the Jews.

Bill M. But you are not going to make infidel Jews an authority?

322 N*. I am not speaking of infidel Jews, who are now scattered because they rejected Christ (though in this even they are more faithful than Rome and her doctors), but of those of whom Paul says that the oracles of God were committed to them. The Old Testament was committed to Israel as God's people, nor have they at any time failed in keeping it. Now they recognized the books we receive as canonical, and not those which the Council of Trem has wickedly added. This is a matter of undoubted history. Indeed the Apocryphal books are not extant in Hebrew at all. But further, Josephus also states it in a very formal manner, and adds that there were books written since Artaxerxes, but that they were not esteemed worthy of the same faith as the others, for there was no regular succession of prophets. He declares, "We have not a multitude of books, discordant and opposed to one another, but only two-and-twenty, embracing the history of all time, which are fully esteemed to be divine"; and thereon enlarges on their divine authority and the empire they obtain, from youth up, over the Jew's mind. He gives then their number and triple division, as held by the Jews. But there is yet more and incontrovertible authority, which quotes them according to this same division, as the law, the prophets, and the psalms. That is, the Lord Himself quotes them, these same books, as of divine authority, as a known set, to the exclusion of all others; and declares too, in another place, the absolute authority of the scriptures — "The scripture cannot be broken."

But I will appeal to yourself, and James here, or any man in his senses that fears God, to say if this book, the second of Maccabees, can be inspired. Here is the writer's own account of it, at the beginning, 2 Maccabees 2: 23: "All these things, I say, being declared by Jason the Cyrenean in five books, we have tried to abbreviate into one: for, considering the multitude of books, and the difficulty of those who wish to occupy themselves with historical accounts by reason of the multitude of events, we have taken care, for those who wish to read, that there should be pleasure for the mind; for the studious, that they may commit it more easily to memory; for all who read, that profit may be conferred on them. And for ourselves, indeed, who have undertaken this work of abbreviating, we have taken on ourselves no light labour, but, indeed, a business full of vigils and toils." Then he describes the different style of authors and abbreviators (to the former belongs truth in details — to abbreviators studiousness of brevity, according to the given form), and adds, he will begin his story, "for it is foolish to be diffuse before the history, and then short in the history itself": and finally he closes thus (2 Macc. 15: 37-39): "With these things I will make an end of the discourse, and if indeed well, and as suited the history, this I myself also would wish; but if less worthily, it is to be pardoned me. For as drinking always wine or always water is unwholesome to us, but to use both alternately is delightful, so to those that read, if the discourse be always exact, it will not be pleasant. Here, therefore, it will be closed."

323 Now, I ask you, is it not a blasphemy to say that "if it was well done, it suited the history, but if less worthily, it was to be borne with," was said by the Holy Ghost?

Mrs. J. And surely they do not give that for scripture, sir?

N*. It is the very book which Dr. Milner quotes as scripture, on the authority of the Catholic church, to prove purgatory.

James. Why, Bill, how can you receive such things? never could have thought it possible. I am not learned, but sure no one that had a respect for God could ever say that was inspired, or that the Holy Ghost could excuse Himself, and say that what was badly done was inspired, or that He had done it.

N*. Well, James, I do not think M. has much to say for himself in this matter; but note this, that the citation of this passage has proved to us another point — that the Romanists have falsified scripture, and have flown in the face of the constant testimony of the church for fifteen centuries, whatever value that may have, and of that too of the Jews, as divinely-appointed keepers of the Old Testament, who have given a testimony as to what is holy scripture, sanctioned by the Lord Himself, but rejected by what calls itself the Catholic church.

But this is not all: the passage (2 Macc. 12: 39), even on their own shewing, can have nothing to do with purgatory, but denies all their doctrine. The men who were slain in Maccabees had votive offerings to idols about them, and therefore had fallen in battle, and hence had defiled themselves with idolatry;* but purgatory is for venial sins, not for apostasy to idols. And it is hard to tell what was to free them then. And we must remember there is not one word in the law or the prophets which Christ owned of any such a purgatory, and that He sharply condemned the tradition of the elders who make thereby the word of God void. Dr. Milner ventures to quote no others from the Old Testament. I will give a list from Bellarmine; you may easily see whether they apply. They prove only one thing, that I can see, namely, that they could find nothing in scripture for it.

{*And it was a sin-offering Judas made the collection for, to make expiation for their sin; and the thing praised is, in truth, his belief in the resurrection. Offering for the dead was foolish else, it is said.}

324 Tobias 4: 18: this is also Apocrypha, a history of an angel, accompanying a good young man as a dog, and helping him to drive a devil away from his nuptial chamber with a broiled fish's liver.

Mrs. J. And do they call that the word of God?

N*. They do.

Mrs. J. Well, well: but pardon, sir; you were giving the list.

N*. 1 Samuel 31: 13; 2 Samuel 1: 12; Psalm 37: 1; Psalm 65: 11; Isaiah 4: 4; chap. 9: 18; Micah 7: 8; Zechariah 9: 11. This last verse runs thus, "By the blood of thy covenant I have brought thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." I may add the proof here, for it is edifying. He says that many apply this to the limbus of the fathers, as he is said to bring them out; but Luke 16: 25 proves there is no water to console them, and there is in Abraham's bosom, for Lazarus was comforted there. Hence he adds that Augustine held that Christ visited those tormented in hell, that is, in purgatory, and delivered many of them.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Second Conversation

The Forgiveness of Sins: Purgatory

J. N. Darby.

<18007E> {file section b.}

324 To return to Dr. Milner's proofs. I need not notice 1 Corinthians 15: 29, because the apostle does not give a hint that he is speaking of Jews; he is speaking of being baptized. And supposing he were, I know not what Jewish superstitions have to do with Christians. We are all baptized unto death, and of that's being the sense (comparing verse 28) I have no doubt. The only thing such a quotation proves is that they are very hard run for a passage. The proof from the expression, "Abraham's bosom," is soon answered: the Catechism of the Council of Trent contrasts it with purgatory.* How Dr. Milner reconciles it with honesty to quote it for purgatory I cannot tell. The force of the expression, however, is evident. Abraham had for the Jew the highest and most blessed place in the other world, and to be in his bosom was to be in the next best place to him, as the beloved disciple in Jesus' bosom, when at the table. Besides, Dr. Milner says Lazarus reposed there. Is it repose to be in purgatory? All this is too bad.

{*Part 1, Article 5, of Creed, chap. 6, sec. 4.}

325 Again, Christ in spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison. This is the prison above mentioned — Abraham's bosom. He says, But Christ went into paradise. This day, He said to the thief, thou shalt be with Me in paradise. Do they preach in paradise? or is Abraham's bosom (and, still more, is paradise) a prison? It is perfectly evident that the Lord uses Abraham's bosom as a place of special favour and blessedness. The poor man died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And again, Now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. Did the angels carry him to the fire of purgatory to comfort him, after his sorrowful life on earth?

James. Why, Bill, that can't be. Is it not plain that the Lord meant to shew that the poor man that had so sad a portion below had, after all, if we think of the other world, a better part than the man that had his good things in this life? And surely that cannot mean making satisfaction to God in torment. But I don't quite see, sir, why the poor man went there and the rich man to hell.

N*. I believe the Lord loves the poor, James. Still, alas! of course, all the poor do not go to heaven because they are poor. But the force of the Lord's history, I believe, is this: He is, in these chapters of Luke, shewing the grace that seeks and receives poor sinners, as the lost sheep and the prodigal, and at the same time opening heaven to our view, and teaching us that we ought to use this world in view of the next, and not as the place of present rest and comfort. You know the Jew had been promised riches and blessings here, if obedient, because in that people God was shewing His government on earth. But after Christ was rejected this was no longer the case, and the veil was to be rent in His death, and saints were to take up their cross daily, and heavenly things were to be their portion and reward, as in very truth they always were; but now it was plainly and openly so, even as Christ speaks in this same chapter, calling them their own things: earthly things were only in their hands for a time, as another's. Hence the Lord draws the veil, as it were, and shews that a poor man, whom a Jew might have thought to be under judgment for his sins, went straight to Abraham's bosom — that is, to a Jew's mind, to the best place in the other world: and riches, instead of being a proof of God's favour, had shut the man up in his own selfishness, for he had slighted the poor man at his door — the dogs had more compassion than he — and when the other world came, he was in torment. He had had his good things.

326 James. I see, sir, it is all plain enough; and, indeed, if one sees God's ways in the Bible, all becomes plain by degrees.

N.* We must wait upon the Lord to be taught, James, and He will surely instruct us. He has graciously said, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." So the Lord opened the understanding of the two that went to Emmaus, and so He does now.

Bill M. But you cannot deny that St. Augustine held a middle place.

N.* You know the Romanists hold two middle places, one where the Old Testament saints were before Christ came, and another where the yet incompletely purified just go now: and here I cannot exempt Dr. Milner from the charge of dishonesty.* He says, Christ descended into hell . . . the prison above mentioned, or Abraham's bosom — in short, a middle state. And he says, What place, I ask, must that be which our Saviour calls Abraham's bosom, where the soul of Lazarus reposed among the other just souls, till by His sacred passion He paid their ransom? . . . Not heaven, but evidently a middle place, as St. Augustine teacheth. Now, if he had answered his own question, Dr. Milner knows very well he must have said "limbus patrum (that is, the place where they say the saints dying before Christ were), and not purgatory" (which, in the Roman Catholic doctrine, is entirely distinguished from the limbus patrum). This is wholly and wittingly deceiving, for he adds, after speaking of Abraham's bosom, "It is of this prison, according to the holy fathers, that our blessed Master speaks, when He says. 'I tell thee thou shalt not depart thence till thou hast paid the very last mite.'" This is not Abraham's bosom. Now this they do apply to a middle state, but not to the limbus patrum. Christ delivered the patriarchs and the others from that, and it is now quite empty. They were at perfect rest, they tell us, suffering no pain. All this is attempted to be passed upon us as a proof of purgatory, with the expression, "in short, a middle state."

{*There is this excuse for Dr. Milner, that the Roman Catholic doctrine is confused enough. The hell to which the Saviour descended is said to contain three places: first, hell proper, where the wicked are tormented; secondly, the fire of purgatory; lastly, a third sort of receptacle is that in which were received the souls of the just who died before Christ. These pious souls Christ liberated, for after all they were kept in painful suspense (suspensi torquebantur), and miserable wearisomeness (misera molestia) — a singular kind of Abraham's bosom. But here purgatory is a distinct thing. We have already seen that Christ brought to heaven, according to the Roman Catholic doctrine, the holy fathers, and the other pious souls freed from prison. But then they do hold that some were suffering the most acute torments, as those in purgatory do.}

327 Further, he says, "As St. Augustine teacheth." Now Augustine says, "Neither is it to be believed that Abraham's bosom, that is, the habitation of a certain hidden rest, is any part of hell" (Letter to Evodius). But Dr. Milner refers to De Civit. Dei, 15, C. 20 (it should be 20, C. 15). Augustine does not say a word of purgatory there, but says, "For if it does not seem absurd to be believed that those ancient saints also, who kept the faith of a Christ to come, were in places as far as possible from the torments of the impious, but in hades (or hell, not the hell of the damned) until the blood of Christ, He, having descended also to those places, should bring them up immediately; thenceforward the faithful good, already redeemed thus at the price of that blood poured out, know nothing more at all of hades until, having received their bodies also, they should receive the good things they deserve."

Hence his notion, whatever it is worth (and it is really worth nothing at all — it is a mere notion, and I will produce an opposite one from himself in a moment, but, such as it is, it is here), would prove that Abraham was clean out of hades now, and whatever middle place he is in is not purgatory, nor ever was; and moreover that since the death of Christ the faithful redeemed have nothing to do with hades.

But Augustine has said more than this, for he speculated, and very wildly too, on all sorts of subjects. He elaborately argues, reasoning on the text, "He hath loosened the pains of hades" (hell), which was then applied to Christ's descent to hell (though an undoubtedly incorrect passage in the Latin translation)* but insists,** for that reason, that, as evidently the patriarchs and prophets go even there where Abraham was, Christ could do nothing for them as to loosening the pains of hades (or hell), a word which he declares was never yet found to be used in scripture in a good sense, for they were not in it, and the great gulf fixedly separated them at an immense distance. And he wonders if any one could dare (if the scripture had said Christ when dead went into Abraham's bosom, not mentioning hades or hell) to assert He had descended into hell.*** He says that, if it is nowhere read in the divine authorities, it is not to be believed that that bosom of Abraham — that is, the habitation of a certain secret quietness — is any part of hell at all. Now, it is quite true that the Catechism of the Council of Trent says it is. How they manage about the consent of the Fathers I do not know. I believe, in all this utter confusion, one knew nearly as much about it as the other. How blessed is the simplicity that is in Christ! To depart and to be with Christ is far better, knowing that if we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord, and desiring rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. The more I see of the Fathers, the more I see what darkness and confusion they were in; only I was to answer what you should bring forward. A word more, therefore, from St. Augustine. He declares that (Letter to Evodius 3) he does not see what Christ could have conferred on these just who were in Abraham's bosom, "from whence I do not see that, according to the beatific presence of His divinity, He had ever left them." As also He promised the thief, that on the same day on which he died he should be in paradise with Him, when He was going to descend to loose the pains of hell. So that before even He went into hades He was in paradise and Abraham's bosom, and even before, by His beatific wisdom, and in hades or hell by His judicial power (Epistle to Evodius). He says indeed that loosing the pains of hades might apply to Christ Himself, as there follows, "in which it was impossible for him to be holden." This is undoubtedly the sense, only the true word is having loosed the pains of death. If Augustine had only looked to the Greek!

{*The Vulgate reads, adou for thanatou, "hades," for death, but has no support whatever from the Greek text.}

{**Epistle to Evodius, where he says, moreover, that they had the beatific presence of His divinity, which He had never withdrawn from them, and therefore does not understand what He could have conferred on them. (Sec. 8 or iii.)}

{*** He repeats the same thing in Gen. addit.: "I have not found in scripture — at any rate canonical scripture — that hell is used in a good sense; but that the bosom of Abraham is not to be taken in a good sense, and that rest where the pious poor man was carried by angels, I know not that any one would listen to, and therefore I do not see how we can believe that can be in hell." In the tract, De praesentia Dei, or Epistle 187, he says, that whether the bosom of Abraham be paradise or infernal places (inferos) he cannot say. If "to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise" is to be taken of Christ's human soul, paradise is in the infernal places (in inferno), but easier, and free from all the ambiguities.}

329 On the whole, he seems to deem it best to think that Christ's soul descended to hell (hades), His body remained in the grave, and His divinity in Abraham's bosom, and to believe that the thief was with Him as God in paradise. As to preaching to the spirits in prison, he is inclined to think (Epistle to Evodius) it was by His Spirit in Noe. Peter speaks only of the souls then disobedient, an interpretation which I have no kind of doubt is the true one. Peter speaks of the Spirit of Christ in the prophets; so here in Noe. The Jews, who expected a glorious Messiah in the body, had only His presence in Spirit, and were a small minority. So in Noe they were a small minority, and Christ was only there in Spirit: but those who despised that, are all in prison to await the judgment of the great day. We are saved, like Noe, by death and resurrection in Christ, as he in a figure was. In Genesis God says, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, but his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." It would be monstrous to say that these were the only ones to whom more time would be given, and they be preached to when dead, for those only are spoken of.

Augustine refers also in this letter to 1 Peter 4: 6, as well as to 1 Peter 3: 19, 20. There it is said the gospel was preached to them that were dead. He prefers the sense of dead in sins; I believe it was simply when they were alive, hence to be judged accordingly (as said in verse 5). The truth is, this letter is an answer to one written to Augustine on the former passage, and the writer had used the expression that Christ had emptied, or made void, hades or hell which he questions, speaking uncertainly as to this — as to whether souls could believe after they were there. And a second question raises more nice points too, into which it is not necessary to go. But he arrives, on the point that now occupies us, at exactly the opposite conclusion to Dr. Milner, namely, that Abraham's bosom had nothing to do with hades, or hell, that it was Christ's Spirit in Noe, and that preaching to the dead meant the dead in sin, but allows his friend, Bishop Evodius, to think otherwise if he liked.

330 As to purgatory, he does speak of it elsewhere, but with the greatest possible uncertainty, so that to say he taught it is alleging what is false. He speaks of the subject in three different places, and in all of them in reference to 1 Corinthians 3 — he shall be saved, yet so as by fire — and using the same arguments, and indeed in a great measure the same words. The places are, Defide et operibus, 15 and following (or 24 and following); Enchiridion de fide, spe et charitate, 69 (or end of 18); and De Civitate Dei, 21, 26.

In the first he is resisting persons who viewed the text as meaning that, if men believed and were baptized, they were on the foundation, and, let them live in whatever sin they might, they would be saved; passing through certain pains of fire, they would be purged so as to obtain salivation by the merit of the foundation.* This he resisted by a multitude of texts. Some other sense, he said, must be sought for, and that this text is one of those of which Peter speaks as hard to be understood, and adds, "When I consider it, I had rather hear more intelligent and learned men." He then puts the case of Christians living in a lawful state, but while never denying Christ for pleasure, yet not living in a self-denying way, and consequently having grief and distress when they lost the things. Those who sought only to please God were building gold, silver, and precious stones; those who please themselves, though Christians, wood, hay, and stubble.** All would be tried by fire and tribulation, and the latter feel the loss, yet be saved, as on the foundation. Then he adds, "Whether in this life only men suffer these things, or whether after this life certain judgments of this kind follow, my understanding of the passage is not abhorrent from the principle of truth." At any rate, he says, however we interpret it, the living wicked will not be saved.

{*This, however, as we shall see, was pretty much the conclusion that Jerome came to; for agreement between the Fathers is the most ridiculous thing in the world to talk of.}

{**As to this, however, Bellarmine says he is all wrong, because this would put the highest saints in purgatory too, as all are tried by fire.}

In the Enchiridion, after going over the same ground, and saying it happens in this life that man is so proved, he says, That some such thing takes place after this life is not incredible, and whether it be so may be inquired, and it may be discovered, or remain hidden, etc.

331 In The City of God he insists that it cannot be what is said in Matthew 25, as in 1 Corinthians 3, all go through this probation; and after speaking of self-willed, and unsubdued souls, though Christian, he says, "After the death of the body, until they come to that which is to be the last day of remuneration and damnation after the resurrection of bodies, if, in this interval of time, the spirits of the dead are said to suffer a fire of this kind, which they do not feel who have not had such morals and such loves in the life of this body, in order that their wood, hay, and stubble should be consumed, but which others feel who have carried that kind of building with them, whether there only, or here and there, or, be it so, here and not there, they find a fire of transitory tribulation, burning worldly things, although not imputable to damnation (or pardonable as regards damnation), I do not oppose, because perhaps it is true."

As to Psalm 37, there is not the smallest proof that what he says refers to purgatory. He does frighten the people (for it is to the people he speaks here) with a terrible fire, more terrible than anything in this life; but he may refer to his purifying work of the day of judgment, which is quite as likely, or seems so.

Now, no Christian soul who knows what it is to be cleansed from all sin could be shaken by confused notions of possible punishment such as this poor father debits here. It is as poor a foundation to build anything on as could well be thought of. Had he looked soberly at the passage, he would have seen it applies to those labouring in the ministry in the world — builders in the church; and that the things destroyed are not bad works, but bad building, so that the man's labour was lost, though the builder was saved, yet even he as a man that just saves his life out of a fire.

As to the controversy — for as to divine truth such statements are not worth a thought, and only shew what an unstable foundation the doctrine of the Fathers is — as to the controversy, it is not purgatory he speaks of, for all saints go through it. He insists on that as its distinctive character; whereas into purgatory only those go who need partial purging. He adds, as a possible interpretation of it, persecutions when martyrs are crowned, and all stand good; others are consumed in it if the foundation is not there; others saved, but suffer loss. He instances Antichrist also as a possible explanation.

To shew how little he can be reckoned on, I may add that he holds that the judgment of the last day itself, the final judgment, will be purgatorial fire for some. He saw nothing of the judgment of the quick in this world, and so misapplied Malachi 3: 1-6 to the judgment of the great white throne (De Civitate Dei, 20, 25). And when Malachi says the sons of Levi shall offer sacrifices of righteousness, he applies it to their being themselves offered up to God pure when thus cleansed, "for what could such offer more grateful to God than themselves?" and then says that that question of purgatorial pains, to be diligently treated, "must be put off to another time." He thinks that thus they will offer perfectly, the floor being purged, and they that need it purified by fire.

332 That I may complete however the doctrine of the Fathers on this subject, and shew how sure a foundation they give for us to build upon, Origen tells us (and Dr. Milner quotes him among the holy Fathers as an authority, and he was very early in church history indeed) that we shall want the sacrament to purify us after our resurrection. Having spoken of purifying of women after child-birth, "If, because the law is spiritual, and has a shadow of good things to come, we can understand that a truer purifying will happen to us, I think that after the resurrection from the dead we want the sacrament, washing us and purging us; for no one can rise again without filth, nor can any soul be found which is immediately free from all faults." That is comfortable doctrine (Origen in Luc., Hom. 14, ed. De la Rue, 3, 948).*

{*Origen, however, is not very consistent. He says, "As I think it is necessary for us all to come into that fire of 1 Corinthians 3, even if we are Paul or Peter." But then he says we shall not all go through it in the same way. "Some will go through it like the Egyptians, those who have followed the devil (Pharaoh); some like Israel, if they are quite pure in this life; but if they pass through the fire, it shall not burn them," Is. 48: 2. But then he expressly says it is the penalty of eternal fire; he thought all would go through eternal fire for purification, but none remain there.}

James. Well, Bill, how can you or Dr. Milner bring such confusion and uncertainty for us to build our faith on? The Bible is a thousand times clearer and more certain than all this. I understand plain enough, thank God, now that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin, and that God purifies the heart by faith, and that I am born again, and have a new nature in Christ; but all these doubts and dark doctrines could only blind and puzzle the mind.

333 Bill M. But I did not quote them.

James. No, but Dr. Milner, in the book you gave me, quotes different places in them; and, now I have heard what they say, I doubt if they understood the gospel at all — at least what redemption really is.

N*. It is just what they did not, James. The evil that pressed so sore upon Paul, even in his time, had now overrun the church, as he forewarned it would; and true saints, as surely Augustine was, having lost the full sense of the value of Christ's work, indulged in all kinds of speculation, and were in confusion and darkness as to doctrine. They had lost the truth of the full value of Christ's sacrifice, that by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Hence, each had to get clear somewhere of his own sins, each differing in degree from another, and having to answer for them in proportion, and as there was nothing in scripture, none knew exactly how.

James. But is that all you have for purgatory?

Bill M. No; there are a number of holy Fathers who are quoted, as you may see in Milner, and passages of scripture too.

N*. I will refer to one of them, as one on whom the Roman Catholics build a good deal (the rest will soon be disposed of) — I mean Jerome (adversus Jovinian., lib. 2, 23). Jovinian denied human merits, and said all were equally saved who persevered in the faith of Christ, and opposed celibacy. Jerome, who was a very violent and abusive man,* though called a saint, was furious, and St. Augustine was severe upon him too. In this work he refers to the same text of 1 Corinthians 3, but does not say a word of purgatory, and contradicts Augustine expressly. Augustine, from the text, refutes those who used the passage (Matt. 25) by shewing that every man's work would be tried. Here Jerome says that he whose work remains will be saved without being tried by fire, and there is a certain difference between salvation and salvation. This is an attempt to answer Jovinian, but not a syllable about purgatory.

{*Nothing is more curious than the way the honest and excellent Tillemont explains how he was a saint for the church, in spite of all this, though better men were not.}

The truth is, Jerome expresses himself so strangely about the matter, that some accused him of denying eternal punishment, and say that Augustine refers to him in rejecting certain views on it. At all events one thing is certain, that it is not of purgatory, as held by Roman Catholics, that he teaches. In speaking of punishment, as contrasted with perishing, he quotes: "They that have done good unto resurrection of life, they that have done evil unto resurrection of judgment," adding, to explain it (a gross misapplication), "those that have sinned without law shall perish without law" (that is, an impious person, who perishes altogether); "he that has sinned under the law shall be judged by the law, and shall not perish." That is pretty interpretation! the sinner with light will not perish, the sinner without it will, contrary to all righteousness and the Lord's express teaching. But, at any rate, in Jerome's statement the judgment, in which man does not perish, comes consequent upon resurrection; that is, it is not purgatory at all.

334 The passage on which he is mainly charged with denying eternal punishment* is in his Commentary on Isaiah 66. I do not know that there is more than gross confusion, and, I must say, excessive ignorance of truth. But I will trace his views more closely just now. It will help us to understand the truth of purgatory. But one has really only to read the so much-vaunted Fathers to see the utter worthlessness of their doctrine, and their excessive perversion of scripture. I have paid attention to these two writers, because they are the two great teachers of western or Latin Christendom, and are the real source of the establishment of these doctrines there, though we have seen that one of them affirms (indeed both) quite another doctrine, namely, that of the final judgment itself being a probationary fire; and the other saying that, as to the fire after death, he could not tell: he did not oppose it, for it might be true, but repeatedly expressing his doubts about it, and declaring that several of the scriptures relied upon, in his judgment, meant another thing. But both shewed that of the clear and scriptural doctrine of redemption, and the forgiveness of sins, and the perfect cleansing of Christ's blood, they were wholly ignorant. It was practically lost in the church. Superstition and horrible corruption had come in like a flood.

{*He speaks, too, of devils, and those who deny God, suffering eternal torments; but wicked Christians will be more mercifully judged. But this refers to Origen holding that all would be saved.}

As to the other Fathers, a single remark will suffice for them; they speak of prayers for the dead, not of purgatory. This was the common practice, to pray for all the dead, that they might have a part, or a speedy part, in the resurrection to glory, or in the first resurrection. They were remembered in the sacrifice of the altar. But this had no possible connection with purgatory, for they named patriarchs, apostles, prophets, martyrs, and the Virgin Mary herself. I suppose, M., you do not think all these are in purgatory?

335 Bill M. Of course they are not; they are all in heaven.

James. In heaven! and what do they pray for them for?

Bill M. Well, I did not know they did.*

{*It is a curious fact, too, that these very prayers for the saints were turned into prayers to the saints. These prayers are found in all the ancient liturgies. Thus, in that ascribed to St. James: "Remember, Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, the orthodox whom we have commemorated, and whom we have not commemorated, from righteous Abel unto this day. Give them rest there, in the land of the living in thy kingdom, in the delight of paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our holy fathers, whence pain, sorrow, and groaning are exiled, where the light of thy countenance looks down," etc. And St. Chrysostom, "And further, we offer to thee this reasonable service in behalf of those who have departed in the faith, our ancestors, fathers, patriarchs, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and every just spirit made perfect in the faith . . . especially the most holy, undefiled, excellently-laudable, glorious lady, the mother of God and ever Virgin Mary." I recall here what I have noticed elsewhere, that Epiphanius specially remarks, that Christ alone, as testifying to the glory of His Person, was not prayed for, (Bellarmine attempts to say it was only commemoration at the Mass; but that is false. Epiphanius speaks distinctly of prayers for them.) It would only be repeating the same words nearly, to quote all the different liturgies. St. Gregory's, who formed the Roman one, may suffice: "Remember, O Lord, thy servants (male and female) who have preceded us with the sign of faith, and sleep in the sleep of peace. To them, and to all who are at rest (quiescentibus) in Christ, we entreat thou shouldest grant a place of refreshment and light and peace." Nor is this all. In the Decret. Greg. lib. 3, tit. 41, C. 6, Cum Marthae 5 et infra, after a long discussion whether the water as well as the wine in the Mass is changed into blood, Innocent III replies to another question of the Archbishop of Lyons, why, when in the ancient liturgies, in a part of the service called the Secreta (where the name of the person in whose honour the Mass was said was mentioned), it ran thus: "Grant, Lord, that this offering may profit the soul of thy servant, Leo," it was now said, "Grant us that by the intercession of thy servant, Leo, this oblation may profit us." Innocent tells him that scripture says that it is injurious to the saints to think they need to be prayed for when they are in life. As to how the change came about, he says nothing; but in looking for glory for the saints, it must be their being honoured among men, and refers to St. Augustine's statement, calling it scripture; thanksgiving for very good, prayer for middling good, and a solace to middling bad, and tells the archbishop that whether it be so he leaves to him to investigate. The poor pope made a sad blunder in quoting Augustine as scripture, for that word about martyrs is St. Augustine's. Thus the liturgy was changed: still the prayer for rest for those asleep in Christ remains. The force of this has been felt, and, in a modern Roman Catholic Prayer Book, approved by the Archbishop of New York, it is said to be for souls in purgatory, though it is expressly for all who rest in Christ (omnibus quicscentibus in Christo).}

N*. I dare say not, but Dr. Milner did very well; and I must say, if he had been honest he would not have quoted them. If he was only proving that superstition and false doctrine and immorality came in very soon into the professing church, I should have nothing to say; the true thing to say would be that they characterized it; but that it was yet fallen into modern popish doctrine is not true. Faith is not shaken by the corruption of the early church (and you shall have proofs of that corruption), because the scripture foretells it as plainly as possible, saying that on the departure of the apostles the evil would break out, that the mystery of iniquity was already at work, and that in the last days perilous times would come — men would have a form of piety, denying the power of it; and scripture warns men to hold fast by the scriptures.

336 James. So it does; I remember that, to be sure. How blind one is when one has not them in one's heart! And yet how good God is; He has saved me from all this confusion I did not know of.

N*. We shall get on this point when we touch on the authority of the church and scripture. We will try and finish with purgatory. One of the books quoted is a treatise of Tertullian's, which he wrote when he had left the church, and refers in it to a fanatical teacher, whom he calls the Paraclete, or, as we should say, the Comforter; for Tertullian, the first and one of the most distinguished of the Latin Fathers, left what you call the Catholic church as insupportable.

I do not know that I need go farther into the Fathers. I admit that they prayed for the dead, and remembered them at the Eucharist. Their ideas were wholly unscriptural, and full of confusion; yet what they held was not the Romish purgatory, but what was entirely inconsistent with it. It was a doctrine which arose from their having entirely lost the sense of the completeness of redemption, and got back to the Judaism which Paul so contended against; so that when a person stated that all true believers persevering in the faith of Christ were alike saved, he was cried out against as a dreadful man. I have already quoted them as to their view of men going one of two ways after their death.

337 As regards the scriptures quoted, I have spoken of 1 Peter 3: 19, and 1 Corinthians 3: 13-15. The fire would try the work of every man who was a workman in God's house. This was the day of the Lord, to be revealed by fire. But it is not purgatory. The work is the work of the labourers, not the conduct of Christians at all, and the day of the Lord, not purgatory; and it is alike evident and admitted that it cannot be applied to the Romish doctrine of purgatory, because every one's work is to be tried. As regards not going out till men have paid to the last farthing, I have not the least doubt that it was addressed to the Jewish people, with whom God was in the way while Christ was there, and they have been delivered to the officer, and are still under judgment, and will remain so, till they have received the full chastisement under which they are lying, and then will be brought to repentance and blessing. This may not be as clear in Matthew 5: 25, but it is as clear as possibly can be in the parallel passage in Luke 12: 54-59. St. Augustine (Sermo 9, Sermo 109, and Tract. in Joh., 45) refers both the passages to the day of judgment in contrast with this life, and does not hint at purgatory.

As to the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, the incontestable meaning of the passage is that which is expressed in the Gospel of Mark; it "hath never forgiveness." The Jews believed in an age to come, in which, under Messiah, there would be a fuller revelation of God's grace and favour than under the law; and, in a general way, they were right. The Lord declares that this sin would be forgiven in neither — that is, never forgiven at all. Besides, this text, if applied as Roman Catholics apply it, would not prove purgatory, but deny eternal punishment, for purgatory is for those who are forgiven and justified. Hence this passage cannot apply to purgatory, for this sin is not to be forgiven, and it would mean that the unforgiven, the lost, would be forgiven in the next world. In Gregory the Great we find another view of purgatory. In general he rejects it, but admits it in a very small degree, referring to the last passage I have quoted. He quotes a number of passages to prove that we shall be in the day of judgment as we are when we die, and that now is the time to settle all with God — John 12: 35; Isaiah 49: 8, quoted by Paul; 2 Corinthians 6: 2; Psalm 117 — concluding from which sentences it is evident that such as any one goes out of this world, such he is presented in judgment. But, however, concerning certain light faults, it is to be believed that there is a purgatorial fire before the judgment, and he refers to 1 Corinthians 3 as the proof; but, however, as I said before, for little and the very smallest sins, such as "idle speech,* immoderate laughter, or the sin of carefulness in family matters," etc. And then he gives us an altogether novel explanation of the passage in 1 Corinthians. Augustine makes gold, etc., to mean works so good that they stood the fire: for Jerome it was salvation without going through the fire at all; Gregory does not notice them, but speaks of iron, brass, lead — such dreadful sins that men are wholly lost. He says, However the passage may be understood of the fire of tribulation applied to us in this life, however, if any one take it as speaking of the fire of future purgation, it is to be diligently considered that he says he can be saved through fire, not who shall have built on this foundation iron, brass, or lead — that is, greater sins, and therefore harder, and then already insoluble — but wood, hay, stubble, that is, the very smallest and lightest sins, which fire easily consumes."** (Dial. lib. 4, c. 39.) How fire consumes sins, every one must judge for himself.

{*This is an unhappy instance, because the Lord says for every idle word we shall give account in the day of judgment — a plain witness that for any and the smallest sins, if they were not wholly and entirely put away, and we cleansed from them, they remain to be answered for in judgment, and if so, we are condemned. "Enter not into judgment, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified."}

{**Again, I recall that Bellarmine says this passage cannot apply to purgatory, because all pass through the fire; and, as we shall see, Augustine thought of a fire purifying carnal affections, the wood, hay, and stubble, which Bellarmine does not allow. It is penal, paying the last farthing. Gregory thought the end of the world was close, and if people had lived very well, if they were not purified by tribulation here (to which Augustine also applies it), for some very small failings, they might be purified by a short process, before the judgment actually came. See his Dialogues, lib. 4, 39, and following.}

338 The result is, purgatory has infinitely more influence than the truth: note what it is. A man, according to Pope Gregory, can build on the foundation — that is, on Christ — iron, brass, lead, such dreadful and indissoluble sins, that he goes to hell, and that no man is free to die in peace; for, for the smallest, he must go to purgatory. Christ has fully and effectually cleansed from none. To hell, however, no Catholic who goes to the priest can go. If a man neglects the church, he goes to hell; at any rate, if he does not confess once a year, he is in mortal sin: but for the most grievous sins he gets absolution on his confessing them — prayers and fasting, perhaps, for penance; but for not finishing these, or for venial sins, he goes to the horrible fire of purgatory, so that is really the only thing to fear. The most dreadful sin can be built on Christ, according to Pope Gregory, and a man not go to hell; but Christ saves none but some rare martyr from purgatory, the true and real place of suffering; all must go there. And that is Catholic Christianity!

339 Scripture, not history, is the warrant for doctrine; but the historical fact is that half the church, and the oldest half of it, never held purgatory, nor do to this day (the other half, when expressing their personal faith, spoke in a way entirely contrary to it), but had, when the true knowledge of redemption was lost, and the purifying power of ceremonies and works came in, some mere vague notion of an intermediate state, or its possibility, or a purgatorial fire in the judgment of the last day, which ripened gradually in the West to the fact of a purgatory stated, as we have seen it, by Gregory at the end of the sixth century, but then only, if these were just, for very little sins, such as idle words. Before that prayers for the dead were offered, but then for all departed in peace, including the Virgin Mary. I give a specimen from Chrysostom: "We offer to thee this reasonable service for those that are absent in the faith — our forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets and apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, religious persons, and every spirit perfected in the faith, but especially for all-holy, spotless, over-and-above-blessed, God-bearing, and ever-Virgin Mary."

The importance of this is that it shews that all that Dr. Milner says of the connection of prayers for the dead and purgatory is without foundation, and is, I must say, disingenuous. I have quoted quite sufficient of the Fathers' denying purgatory; I only fear that it might be supposed that I attach any importance to their opinions. From Epiphanius we may find both doctrines of going to the Lord and prayers for the dead combined. Aerius had objected to prayers for the dead, just before the time of Augustine and Jerome, saying, What good could it do them? Epiphanius answers, What can be more useful, more opportune, more worthy of admiration, than the hearing the names of the dead: first, in order that those present may be persuaded that the dead live, nor are reduced to nothing, but still exist and live with the Lord; then, that that most religious doctrine may be preached by which it is evident that those who pray for their brethren think well of them — that they are gone on a journey. But the prayer which is made profits them, though it may not cut off all the sins: but it is profitable in this, that, for the most part, while in this life we fail, voluntarily or involuntarily, something more perfect may be signified, for we make mention at the same time of the just and of sinners, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, bishops, authorities, and all of the whole universal assembly, that Jesus Christ the Lord, receiving a special honour, may be separated from the rest of men, etc. The Lord Jesus was, of course, not prayed for; His mother, Mary, we have seen, was.

340 The statement of Dr. Milner, that the Greek church holds it, is an unworthy statement. The deputies did agree to it at Florence. The Emperor was pressed very hard by the Turks, and looked to help from the West, and so came to get the Greek and Roman sees and systems united. The Greeks strongly resisted purgatory, saying they were afraid it would lead to Origen's doctrine, that there was nothing else for any one — no eternal punishment. However, they did yield; but their concession was rejected with outcries on their return. They themselves said they had been deceived, and the doctrine is denied to this day, and they remain separate from Rome as before.

Alphonsus de C. (Adversus omnes Haereses) admits that in the ancient writers "there is almost no mention of purgatory, especially in the Greek writers, and that therefore by the Grecians it is not believed unto this day." So Fisher, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rochester, "that no orthodox person now doubts whether there is a purgatory, concerning which, however, amongst the ancients, there is either none, or, at any rate, very seldom indeed, mention (rarissima). But among the Greeks, even to this day, it is not believed." I give the quotations from others, but there is no doubt of their correctness.

Neither this reference then, to the Greek church, nor that to the Fathers, proves anything, save that the statements of Dr. Milner are unfounded. The Fathers cannot be trusted for doctrine a moment. Justin Martyr declares that it was impossible that the Supreme God could assume a body, and that it was not He who appeared to Abraham. He, I may say all the early Fathers, if we except the good and gracious old Irenaeus, held that there was no personality of the Son till the time of the creation. Hardly any of them — none, perhaps, but Irenaeus — before the Council of Nice, were clear as to the divinity of Christ. All this came from the same source as purgatory, a mixture of Judaism and Platonic philosophy; so, indeed, did saintly and angelic mediation. This mixture of philosophy and Judaism at Alexandria in Egypt was the fertile cause of corruption in the church.

341 A few words as to the true origin of purgatory.

The Romanists do, as heretics always do, take a hard passage, which people do not understand, and use it for their false doctrine. If one knows the right interpretation, one can answer at once, and say, "No; it means so-and-so"; but if you cannot, you are exposed to be led away by false interpretation, because you do not know at all what the passage means. One may be guarded by other plain truths, but, as to such a question, a person has nothing to answer. But the true source of the doctrine of purgatory is a mixture of Judaism and Platonism. Roman Catholic authors refer to both as being the same doctrine in substance as the Romanist doctrine of purgatory; and so they are. It will help us, if I give you here a sketch of the history of purgatory. No one denies that the modern idea of purgatory is found nowhere so closely stated as in Plato. Dr. Milner* admits and insists on it; and Bellarmine, De Purg. lib. 1, C. 2, appeals to Plato, Cicero, Virgil, and the Mahometans, to prove that it is according to natural light. Now, what does that mean? That redemption and the complete putting away of sin by the work of Christ for the believer — his heart being purified by faith — having been set aside, natural conscience (having the sense of faults in it, having nothing else to make amends for these faults according to their gravity, and unable to quiet or purge itself here) looked with hope and fear to some satisfying for them, or being purged from them hereafter; that is, that Romanism, through the loss of the knowledge of redemption, is a return to heathenism, or, at best, to the instincts of natural light.

{*Letter 43, sect. 4, "End of Controversy." "Bishop Porteus intimates that the doctrine of a middle state of souls was borrowed from pagan fable and philosophy. In answer to this, I say that if Plato [Plato in Gorgia], Virgil [Aeneid], 1, 6, and other heathens, ancient and modern, as likewise Mahomet [the Koran] and his disciples . . . have embraced this doctrine, it only shews how conformable it is to the dictates of natural religion." — [ED. P. T.]}

342 I will now give the statement of Plato. After a pretty elaborate description of hades, or the infernal regions, he continues: "These things being so, when those who are departed come to the place where the demon* carries each, first they are distinguished in judgment, both those who have lived well, and piously, and righteously, and those who have not; and those who seem to have lived in a middle way, having come to the Acheron, having ascended the vehicle for each, they come to the lake, and there they dwell and, being purified and paying the penalty of their unrighteous deeds, they are absolved, if any one has acted unrighteously, and have the rewards of their good deeds, each according to his desert. But those who seem to be incapable of being healed, because of the greatness of their sins — having committed either many and great sacrileges, or many unrighteous and illegal murders, or whatever else such-like they may be involved in — these a fitted fate hurries away to Tartarus, whence they never get out; but those who have committed such as may be healed, yet great sins . . . are kept a year, and, if need be, more, till they obtain release from those they have injured for the wrongs done; for that is the penalty adjudged them . . . . But those who are esteemed to have excelled as regards living piously, these, liberated and removed from their places on the earth, as from prisons, going away to the pure dwelling-place, dwell over the earth. And of these same, those who have been adequately purified by philosophy, live without pain all time after, and come into a better habitation than these, which it is neither easy to describe, nor is there now time." And again, "If a soul depart in this state (a good one) it departs to what is like itself, and invisible — what is divine, immortal, and wise, and, coming there, begins to be happy, is freed from the contagion of human ills, and is in the society of the gods. But if it shall depart contaminated out of the body, it will be, when separated, impure.** Those who have passed through life justly and piously, when they die, go to the isles of the blessed, to dwell in all happiness, without any evils. But he who has lived unrighteously, and without God, will go to the prison of vengeance and punishment, which they call Tartarus. But they who have committed the worst unrighteousness, and on account of such unrighteousness cannot be healed any more, of these examples are made. These cannot indeed any longer be helped who are incurable, but they help those who see them, when they see them, for their very great sins, suffering most painful and frightful sufferings for ever."

{*Demon, with Plato, is an instrument of divine agency, not bad as such.}

{**Plat. Phaed. sect. 118, 119; Eus. Praep. Ev. (553), lib. 11, 27 to 38; from (568) Gorgias, near the end, sections 164, 168.}

343 All this was borrowed from Egypt, as different points shew, though made up into Grecian philosophy, as in other parts we find him stating the Egyptian doctrine of the transmigration of souls, accompanied with another doctrine, greatly taught there afterwards, that the soul existed before, and came down to dwell in the body, two natures making up one person, as will be found in the places I have quoted from. But, though in a heathen form, we have the Roman doctrine of saints who go to heaven, the wicked to hell, and a middle class to purgatory. So Virgil,* when Aeneas goes down to hades, he is told by them in purgatory, "When life leaves with the last light (of day), not yet is every evil over to the unhappy, nor all corporeal infection** wholly gone; and it is altogether necessary that many things should have grown up as part of ourselves in wonderful ways*** therefore they are exercised with penal torments, and pay the penalty of old evils." And then he speaks of different punishments before they go to elysium.**** And, further, in the Odyssey, souls complain that sacrifices have not been offered for them, to get them out of this place. So Ovid's Fasti, lib. 2, 33.

{*In Dante's Inferno Virgil is made to be the poet's "guardian spirit," through the visit. The English reader may see the account of the whole occurrence in Wilkie's translation of the Inferno, Edinburgh. — [ED. P. T.]}

{**Or evils; but Platonic doctrine makes the text, I doubt not, right.}

{*** This is also Platonic, and the same is found just before the passage I have quoted from Eusebius.}

{**** But here, again, there is the Egyptian doctrine of transmigration. This Christianity made them suppress; the rest they retained.}

Plato teaches the pre-existence of the soul (Phaedo, 923) and transmigration. Only true saints, who had kept alone from every snare of corporate existence, went, it is suggested, to God: so did Pythagoras. Philo, the Jew, held the pre-existence of the soul, as Plato, and that the air is full of demons up to the moon; and the lower, or inferior class, were disposed to be earthly, and came into bodies. This came from Indian or Egyptian heathenism. Why do I speak of these things? Because the great early doctors of the church, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, were educated in Platonism. Origen, too, embraced the whole system — transmigration, and the renewal of the whole series of the soul's history in another earth. Jerome and Ruffinus (Latins), and even, in part, Ambrose followed Origen in a great deal, as did Gregory of Nyssa, and many others in the East.

344 Origen was followed and defended till the fifth general council. Jerome and Augustine, who hesitated, as we have seen, about it all, led in the notions of the Western church. But Origen held that angels, devils, and men, were all on the same footing of responsibility, though in different states; and withal, that all would be ultimately saved; punishment was only purgatory for any.*

{*This is so universally admitted, that I do not quote the passages. Those who wish may refer to Huet's Orig., lib. 2, Q. 6.}

Ambrose we may speedily dismiss, the only difficulty being that he directly contradicts himself. But that is nothing with the Fathers. His doctrine, in result, is, that all professing Christians will be saved, and heathen unbelievers, that is, Christ's enemies, will not; that Christ chastens those that are His, and consigns those who are strangers to Him to eternal punishment (Enar. of Ps. 118, Octon. 20, sect. 24). As to the manner of it, he gives two directly conflicting statements: first, that there are three classes, the godly Christians, who will not come into judgment at all; those who have failed, though Christians, who will come into judgment; and the wicked, who will not come into judgment, abiding under wrath, so that it is not needed (Enar. in Ps. 1: 53 and 56). He held two resurrections, and the failing Christian class to be tormented between the two; but it is after their resurrection. To the third class he refers the passage, "They are condemned already." Those who have added good works to faith will rise to blessedness, not judgment. He rests on John 5: 28, 29, and the Revelation. But there is nothing clear as to when the resurrection to life or judgment takes place. In another place he declares that all must pass through the fire, even John and Peter; that the flaming sword is in the way of paradise (confounding the garden of Eden and the paradise of God); and hence, though John, the beloved of Christ, might escape death, he could not escape the fire, only such as John would be soon done with it (Enar. Ps. 118, Octon. 20, sect. 12, etc.).

345 Jerome may be fairly said to have also held that all Christians would be saved; but his history demands a little more attention. He admired and quotes Origen, or his views, at least, largely. Ruffinus, a great friend of Jerome, translated Origen. This made him known, and he was widely condemned. Jerome attacked Rumnus, and Ruffinus answered, it was no worse to translate him (Origen) than to cite him continually on these very points without the smallest disapprobation. Jerome, though a saint, got badly out of the scrape, as Tillemont and Dupin, honest Roman Catholics, confess. He alleges all sorts of bad excuses, and at last says, if he had held the views, he did not hold them now. I will now give some of his statements, and the result.

On Ezekiel 1: 4, 5, our God, he says, is a consuming fire, and, as the ember comes after the fire, so happier things will be afforded after the torment of fire, which is for all believers (nobis omnibusque credentibus). Here all professors of Christ are to be delivered: we are to be in the fire, to give better things to the pure and purged; though, indeed, it goes farther than believers here, saying that after judgment and torments comes the precious brightness to the sufferers, as the providence of God governs all things, and what may be thought penalty is medicine.

On Ecclesiastes 9 he records the opinion of some, that reasonable creatures can offend and merit in another age, though death ends it in this, and he does not blame this.

In the end of his thirty-fifth Homily on Luke, "agree with thine adversary quickly," he gives getting out of prison, not as he excuses himself, and is pleaded for him, but as his own the effect of paying the last farthing is that a man gets out; a minute sin soon paid; greater ones longer; and, if they are very bad, how long will people remain? But it is all after judgment, but no one can say how long; it may be infinite ages.

Finally, at the end of his Commentary on Isaiah, after quoting a series of passages, as alleged by others, to shew punishment will have an end [citations which shew utter ignorance of scripture, and the misleading of human imaginations, spiritualizing, as it is called, what is plain], after quoting, as the assertion of others, that this future mercy is hid for the sake of useful terror [which is Origen's doctrine], he adds for himself, "which we ought to leave to the knowledge of God alone, who knows how to weigh both mercy and torments, and knows also how and how long he ought to purge," etc.; and then he closes by saying, "and as we believe the torments of the devil, and of all deniers and impious men who say in their heart, 'there is no God,' to be eternal, of sinners and impious men, yet Christians, whose works are to be proved and purged in fire, we think the sentence of the Judge to be moderate, and mixed with clemency."

346 Worse doctrine one could hardly have, for Christians, who have light, are to be dealt with in clemency, even if impious, but the impious heathen are to be eternally lost. With purgatory it has nothing to do; it takes place after judgment, and of forgiveness, which is the groundwork of purgatory, there is no hint.

James. But, with all this confusion and darkness, why do they quote the Fathers, and make so much of them? This man does not seem to know the truth, nor grace, either.

Bill M. How can an ignorant man like you judge these holy men?

James. I do not know what they are, nor why they are called Fathers; but I am sure what we have just heard is not according to scripture nor God's truth, as the Lord Himself, and as Paul, and the rest — that is, the word of God — has taught it, and we are told to call no man father on the earth. But why is it, sir, so much is made of them, when such things are in them?

N*. It would not be so, James, with one who knew the truth and the scriptures of God. But what is ancient is venerable in men's eyes, and the word of God is too powerful for any one whose heart does not bow to it to hear, and they put it practically aside. The writings of these men are a matter of learning, the tradition of the elders, not of conscience; and, besides that, we must remember the influence and power of the enemy.

James. But then, surely, sir, Paul, and Peter, and John, and all the apostles, and others, are more venerable than they are — the inspired apostles of the blessed Lord, chosen by Himself; and so the other inspired writers. But these writers are not inspired.

347 N*. Undoubtedly, James, they are more venerable; and we are specially charged to hold fast to that which was from the beginning, as the apostles clearly were, and those called Fathers clearly were not.

Bill M. But you will be taking a wrong meaning out of the scriptures, and those men that lived hundreds of years ago must know better what the apostles taught than we can.

James. Well, Bill (begging your pardon, sir, for answering; we are poor men, and understand each other), but surely the best way of knowing what the apostles taught is to read what the apostles say? I know we need God's grace for it, and I am ignorant of many things in scripture; but, at any rate, the right meaning is certainly there to get, and it is not in what we have heard of these Fathers at all; and I find it a great deal easier to understand, upon those things we have been speaking of, than what we have heard out of these books. Anybody can understand that if the writers of the scriptures were inspired, they must have said it right, and perfectly, rightly, and better than those Fathers, who were not inspired at all; and why can they tell me the matter better than those we know God sent to tell it?

Bill M. But it is the priest will tell you what the truth is; you need not be reading those books.

James. How can I tell that he is inspired?

Bill M. No, of course, he is not.

James. Then he is no better to me, as to this matter, than any other; and why can I not read the scriptures that are for myself?

Bill M. You are too proud entirely. The priest is not inspired, but he teaches what the bishop teaches, and the bishop teaches what the pope and the church teach; and the scriptures were written in Greek, and languages you do not know.

James. Sure, it is not pride to listen to what God says. The Lord Jesus commended a poor woman for doing it, and said it should not be taken from her; and I know that the New Testament scriptures were written to all the Christian people, except a small part. How can I tell the priest teaches, or the bishop either, what the church teaches? I cannot rest the salvation of my soul on that; it is resting it on man. I know what the apostles and the Lord taught is right, and my soul can trust it for salvation; but you give me nothing for my faith to rest in, except fallible men, for that you do not deny they are: and, as to Greek and Latin, what are these Fathers written in? I have no need to judge anything about them, for I rest my soul on the word of God, that I know is His; but what I have heard of the Fathers is very poor stuff any way.

348 N*. Poor stuff indeed; but it is what these doctors refer to, and the truth is, if you were learned, James, you would know that to refer to what the Fathers teach is to put your foot on a quicksand, in order to have firm ground. They contradict each other, and contradict themselves, as indeed we have seen already. But go on with Bill M.

James. I have not much more to say, sir. You see, Bill, I have a soul to be saved, and I must have some sure foundation from God for it, and I have got that, and through mercy know I have got it, in the word of God, in what you do not deny to be such. There I find that God hides these things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes. It was not through learning I found salvation and got peace in my soul, and to know I was saved, but by the grace of God.

Bill M. It is awful to hear you talk so. Know you are saved! Who can know that?

James. I wonder you can rest a minute till you do know it. I do not mean to offend you, Bill, but what is your church worth, if a man cannot know he is saved in it, after all? You would be a happier man, if you knew you were.

Bill M. Of course I should; who would not? But it is all presumption.

James. Not if a person comes honestly to Christ. He says, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest": and through mercy I came to Him, and found rest. If you go to Him, you will find it. Sure, He cannot deceive us, nor tell us what is not true; and him that comes to Him He will in no wise cast out.

349 Bill M. I suppose you are going to turn preacher; and what about all your sins?

James. And what did the blessed Lord give Himself for? was it not our sins? and His blood cleanses from all sin; and I have read, "by him all that believe are justified from all things," and "their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." That is the comfort, Bill, having God's own word for it. And, as to preaching, I am no preacher, but only giving, as I ought to be able to do, a reason for the hope that is in me, I trust, with meekness and fear, as I read we should.

Bill M. And I suppose you may sin now as much as you please?

James. No, indeed; I have to watch and pray, lest I enter into temptation, and find I need it too. But a Christian is a new creature, is born again, and hates sin; and there are blessed promises of help and grace for time of need, and that God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able; and, if we do fail (and we have no excuse, I know, if we do), we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins. But there is no work to put away sin but the blessed Lord's one offering of Himself, and that is finished and perfected for ever, and He is set down at the right hand of God.

Bill M. But there is the holy, unbloody, sacrifice of the Mass.

James. Now, I know all your religion is a false one — forgive me for being plain, Bill — for the word of God declares that, where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for sin, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Now, either you have no true remission of sins in your church, or there is no more offering for sin; and an unbloody sacrifice is of no use at all. Ah! Bill, when one has learnt the truth from God, and has the word of God to rest on, one does not want learning to know these things. I am very ignorant of scripture itself yet; but what one wants for the saving of one's own soul, one gets through mercy fast hold of. My missis, there, knows a great deal more of scripture than I do; but, through mercy, I know what saves me. I wanted it, and, through mercy, I have got it; and I know what scripture is, not by learning, but because I found the holy God and a Saviour in it, or it found me, perhaps I should say. Any way, I know what I have got, and where I got it.

Bill M. But how do you know you are not deceiving yourself all the while?

James. That I might well do; but God cannot lie, and it is on His word I rest — on what you do not deny is His word, what I know to be such. It found me out, revealed my sins and myself to me, told me all I was, and told me what Christ was. The Spirit of God (as it must for that) worked in my heart; I was convinced of sin; it was no. I judged about it, it laid hold of me — was God's eye, that brought me naked before Him. No one, Bill, who has been under its power doubts what it is; and it is always so, and is holy, and will have holiness. Besides the Holy Spirit is given to those that believe, as it is promised; and he that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself.

350 Bill M. I told you you would turn preacher; your head is just turned. I do not understand a word you say.

James. Well, Bill, I hope you may, and be as happy as I am, though I am a poor, ignorant, and feeble creature, and know only what I want for my soul's salvation; but I hope to learn more of this blessed book the Lord Himself has given us. But you were telling us about these Fathers, sir. I was led on, talking to Bill M.; but it is well to know what they are. They say so much about them, and, of course, I cannot read them myself, and they make a wonderful deal of them.

N*. What you have been saying is far happier, and much more important, James, than all the so-called Fathers. You would have poor work to do, to read the hundreds of volumes of them, if you even knew Greek and Latin. It is only because they make much of them, and you cannot tell what they are, and all that is unknown is apt to be wonderful, that it is well to know what they are. We were giving the statements by which they are alleged to support purgatory, and, I am glad to say, we have almost done. Of one more I will quote some passages, because he, as well as Jerome, is made a great deal of, and he will nearly complete our history. He is called Augustine — was a very ungodly, and undoubtedly became a truly godly man. As to poor Jerome, saint though he be called, he had an awful and wholly unsubdued temper, and was abusive and revengeful to the last degree: however, he was a saint for Rome. I hope it was all right with him; but really, one can say no more. And now for Augustine.

What we have cited from Ambrose and Jerome has nothing to do with purgatory, but made judgment a temporary and purifying thing for all Christians, and was chiefly borrowed from Origen, admitted to be a heretic on all these points. But I will give you Augustine's statements, a good man, and partially led by what we have already looked at, but confessedly uncertain in his own mind; only he rejects positively the doctrines of the earlier Fathers, Origen, Ambrose, and Jerome. In the twenty-first book of The City of God, chapter 25, he had insisted that a man might outwardly partake of the Lord's supper, and not really receive Christ, that he who fed on Christ abode in Him, and that they were not members of Christ if in sin. Then he takes up the case of being burned (1 Cor. 3), and first refers to tribulation. "So," he says, "as far as it appears to me, that fire is found"; and goes on to declare it cannot be the eternal fire, as some have said, into which those who are on the left hand are cast, and that only those who are set on the Lord's right hand go into that fire, inasmuch as they are saved, though their work is burnt; whereas those who go into the eternal fire will never be saved, but punished for ever (21, 26, 3). Then, in 4, "if in the interval between death and resurrection the spirits of the deceased are said to suffer this kind of fire, that their wood, hay, and stubble may be consumed, which those who have not such morals and affections in the life of this body will not feel, but those feel who have carried building of this sort with them, whether there only, or here and there, or therefore here, that it may not be there, they find fire of transitory tribulation, consuming worldly things, but pardonable as concerns eternal damnation, I do not controvert, for perhaps it is true." Death may belong to it. "Persecution, in which martyrs are crowned, or which any Christians suffer, tries both kinds of building as fire, and if they do not find Christ in them, consumes some works and builders, some without the builders, if Christ be found," etc. He was a good man, and knew what it was to have Christ, and could not confound the substance of the matter with chaff, however dark he might be on a passage, and owns he was. "There will be, too, in the end of the age, tribulation in the time of Antichrist, such as never was." Thus his own mind rests on tribulation. He utterly rejects Origen's notions, taken up by Ambrose and Jerome; but, as I said, is partially led by their views, so as to admit the possibility of another purifying fire when a true Christian had allowed evil in himself. The application of 1 Corinthians 3 to purgatory, Bellarmine assures us, is quite wrong, because there every one's work is tried, and that will not do for purgatory (Bell. de Purg., lib. 1, C. 5, sect. 37, 38), and he rejects Augustine's own opinion, which is that of Gregory, that it is tribulation here (sect. 22, 26, 36). So little have we to trust in these doctors for unanimity of judgment. But in the tract on Faith and Works, 25 (15), this same Augustine utterly rejects the opinion of Ambrose and Jerome, though not naming them, and shews their views to be contrary to scripture where it is plainest, because of this, to him, obscure passage* in 1 Corinthians 3, and quotes 1 Corinthians 13; James 2: 14; 1 Corinthians 6: 9, 10; Galatians 5: 19-21. "All this will be false," he says, "if they are saved by fire who persevere in such evil things, if only they believe and are baptized. And thus the baptized in Christ even who do such things will possess the kingdom of God." He adds a great deal more to the same purpose, which I need not quote. He then adds, 29 (16), "Perhaps it will be asked me here what I think of the sentence of the apostle Paul itself, and how I think it is to be understood. I confess I had rather hear more intelligent and learned persons, who shall so expound it, as that all those things which I have above recited should remain true and unshaken, and what I have not cited by which scripture most openly testifies that faith profits nothing save that which the apostle has defined, which works by love." He says, however, he will explain, as well as he can, that if there is a faith which works by love, that faith will not suffer him to perish; he will be saved: but if he has with that allowed his heart to be attached to earthly things, "in losing them they suffer loss, and by a certain fire of grief arrive at salvation." It is all poor and uncertain teaching, but of a godly man. On the same point, in the Enchiridion 18 (69), referring to the same passage, he says, "It is not incredible there may be some such thing after this life, and whether it be so may be inquired, and it may be discovered, or lay hid, that some of the faithful may be saved by a certain purifying fire; by how much they may have more or less loved perishing good things, by so much they may be more quickly or slowly saved."

{*There is really no obscurity in it. The apostle is not speaking of man's works, but of ministry. The fruit of bad ministry comes to nothing, but the minister may be in Christ the foundation, and saved. If a real heretic, and corrupter of the temple of God, the workman will be destroyed too. We have three cases (a wise builder; a true Christian, who built badly; and a corrupter) with the consequence to each.}

352 His doctrine as to good works shews how he lay open to these thoughts, and such uncertainty, for here we have a different doctrine from what he says in the tract on Faith and Good Works. In The City of God he gives both, but that the fire means tribulation, as his own view. In his book on Dulcitius' Eight Questions (1, 14), he earnestly rejects Origen's doctrine of the salvation of the wicked after a time of punishment; and, while mourning over those he cannot mend, nor refuse at the sacrament, still bows to scripture that they are lost. But in the thirteenth chapter of the twenty-first book of the Civ. Dei, citing the Platonicians and Virgil, which I have already referred to, he accepts purgatorial pains between death and judgment, though rejecting (what Origen and Jerome and Ambrose taught) that all the baptized would be saved. But in the twenty-fifth chapter of the twentieth book of the Civ. Dei, he teaches, from Malachi 3, that the day of judgment itself will be purgatorial for some, and as Malachi (who really refers to Israel) speaks of offering, he says they will then offer, but it will be themselves when purified, for what offering could be more acceptable to God? They cannot offer for their sins when purged; but he puts off the full discussion of that subject to another time. He then goes on, as the sacrifices would be offered as of old, to state that they were offered in paradise before the fall, and he loses himself in other ideas.

353 James. But you say, sir, Augustine was a godly man; yet he is confused and uncertain on the plainest things in scripture.

N*. That is the very use of referring, as I have done, to the Fathers. They are quoted, and Bill M. had referred to them as great authorities to you, and so do Dr. Milner and all Roman Catholic teachers. Nay, their Council of Trent will have no interpretation of scripture but what is by their unanimous consent. Hence it was well to know what they are really worth. Augustine was a godly man, and hence his spirit rejected the vagaries of Origen, copied by Jerome and by Ambrose, who must have had great weight with him as his spiritual father, but he rejects it all. But not knowing the fulness of redemption, as not one of the Fathers did, nor that the poor thief could go straight into paradise to be with Christ, because Christ's blood (who was in grace on the cross by him) had cleansed him from all sin, nor able, as scripture speaks, to "give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," they were at a loss what to do with the faults and failings of real Christians. Before Augustine the purifying was held to be after the day of judgment: this he sometimes teaches — sometimes that it was tribulation here — sometimes between death and judgment; and then he put off its full discussion (but never took it up again), and wished some more learned man to treat of it — would not controvert its being after death, or here and not there, or here and there both.

354 But the seed of the doctrine was now sown. Gregory the First, of Rome, a great but very superstitious man, whom sober Roman Catholics acknowledge to have stuffed the very book I quote from with absurd and incredible stories, thus speaks in it, founding his doctrine on the Lord's words, "neither in this world nor in the next": which refer solely to the age of the law and that of the Messiah, a perfectly well-known Jewish distinction, of which he knew nothing. He says it is to be believed that there is a purifying fire for very light faults, but only for small and the very least faults, as frequent idle talk, or immoderate laughter, or error of ignorance in immaterial things; and then refers to 1 Corinthians 3, which, as we have seen, their great doctor, Bellarmine, says can not apply to purgatory, and which Gregory says may be understood of tribulation in this life, but with the strangest application, saying, contrary to the rest, "not iron, brass, lead — hard things, and these, indeed, indissoluble; but wood, hay, stubble — that is, the smallest and lightest sins, which the fire easily consumes": and then he adds, "only if a man has deserved it in this life" (Dialogues, lib. 4).

James. But that has no sense, and the apostle speaks of gold and silver, and precious stones, and what the teacher has built in his service. They don't seem to have understood the scriptures at all, according to what you have quoted, sir.

N*. Nothing can be more foolish as an interpretation; but they had all lost the doctrine of a complete redemption and purging of the conscience by the precious blood of Christ, and therefore all was dark to them. They had to make out some other way of clearing themselves, and hence penances and purgatory and indulgences and such like means. But this is all poor Romanists have to rest on. How different from the clear and sure testimony of the word of God, with its holy claim on the conscience, and full and perfect grace for the soul, the constant presence of Christ before God for us, and His intercession unsought, for every need and every failure, in virtue of a blood and righteousness which never can fail, and sanctifying correction by His word and Spirit in our hearts, with chastening, if needed, for our good, not as an exacting God, for "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," and for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness!

355 But I have done my history of purgatory. The doctrine had now come in, and soon after the dark ages, when wickedness, and corruption, and superstition were at their height. What do we see, then, as the result? Scripture does not say one word of purgatory, but teaches exactly the contrary. We have examined the pretended passages; but when I turn to heathen philosophers and Jews, I find a system of doctrine to which the Romanist doctrine is conformed. Nor is that all. These Jewish doctrines were mixed up with this particular class of heathen ones at Alexandria, as is well known, and all the works of Philo testify. Now all the early learned Fathers who imprinted the character of their doctrines on the church lived at Alexandria. There was the great Christian catechetical school, and the principal of these Fathers were its masters, as Clement and Origen; and through these this mixture of Platonism and Judaism flowed into the church. The fact of the accordance of these doctrines is not my statement alone; you see Dr. Milner admits it, and says it shews how suited it was to human nature, which is quite true: only that the reasonings of philosophy were added. And Bellarmine, the Jesuit, and one of the highest authorities in Romanist doctrine, refers to Plato and Cicero and Virgil, as holding these views, and seeks to prove it thereby as of the common light of nature (Bell. de Purg., lib. 1; Prague, 1721, P. 348). So Dr. Milner, "it is conformable to the dictates of natural religion"; that is, punishment suited to the degrees of guilt is. Now, I do not deny this; moreover, scripture speaks of it (Luke 12: 47, 48). Before I answer this, let us recall the doctrines to which I refer.

Plato holds that the flesh is an evil part of the nature, which infects the soul, and that if it has wholly given itself up to vice, it would be given up to punishment for the advantage of others, as an example: if not, but that still any had not kept themselves free, they would be punished in hades for a certain time, proportioned to their unpurged stains; that there were two instruments for the health of the body, exercise (gymnastics) and medicine, and if the first were not sufficient, the other was to be applied; that the spots of the soul were like the colours after a wound when completely well. The soul, at the end of its purification and punishment, would be rendered splendid and spotless. That is simply purgatory — purgatory from the natural need of the soul without Christ. Virgil enlarges a little on it: besides the torments of hell, he states the same process of punishment and purification, but he does not quite finish them off then; he sends them to elysium, a place of blessedness, and then, after a length of time, the hardened spots are wholly gone, and the ethereal soul is left quite pure. Other fictions were added; the souls quite pure, according to Plato, went off to the stars, according to their qualities, for they held (so Philo, the Jew) the stars to be living beings. All this was much borrowed from the Egyptians and Pythagoras. Hades was placed by them under the earth, and so by Romanists (as Bellarmine). This doctrine of purgatory was connected with the famous mysteries of Eleusis. It was signified in the rites, says Plato, that he who was not initiated and the unperfected in them would go to hades, and lie in mire, but that the purified and perfected person, when he departed, would dwell with the gods. So they held that there were those who answered to the Romish saints — the heroes, who went to heaven at once, and were eternally happy. Here is Virgil's account of purgatory: "Moreover, when at the last ray life leaves, yet not every sorrow ceases to the unhappy, nor do bodily pains altogether pass, and it is altogether necessary that many things contracted by long usage should grow in a wonderful way into their very constitution. Therefore they are exercised with penal sufferings, and satisfy by punishment for the inveterate evils." This is not Tartarus, the hell of the condemned, but souls that can be purified, who are not yet fit for elysium. You must not be surprised if we refer Roman Catholic doctrines to heathens, where we find exactly the same doctrine. All the language used of the sacraments by the Fathers is borrowed from heathen mysteries, and that even in the language of the liturgies.

356 But there was another source historically of this doctrine (I say historically, for it was all the same reasoning of human nature that did not know the gospel of salvation) — the Jewish doctrine. The Jews' notion (and the identity of thought is here also extraordinary) was this: they say (as Cyprian, Ambrose, and hosts of others) that there is no place of repentance after death. This the Fathers repeat continually; so the Jews. It is true; but where redemption is not known the only resource is to keep people from sin by terrifying the mind always by the dread of an avenging God, falsifying His character. But then they make almost all Jews get out of the place of punishment, because God has punished the best for all faults, and, after punishing the wicked, must crown what they have done right. Even if one commandment be kept, a Jew will be blest, so that, between that and Abraham's help and Moses', every child of Israel will see the world to come. God leans to the side of mercy, and it would not be just, they say, that a man suffered eternally for crimes which have often been light ones. Hence they have a purgatory for prevaricators in Israel, those who are not entirely good nor entirely bad. They pray to get souls out of it, and God releases them, and particularly at great days of expiation. It is even said that they sell indulgences to the people to get out quicker. Their purgatory is a part of hell beneath the earth. They judge that souls who have done both evil and good works will be punished for the evil, and then be rewarded for the good. So exactly says Origen (Hom. 16) on Jeremiah 5: 6, "If after you are on the foundation of Jesus Christ, you have gold, etc., and wood, etc., what would you have done to you when your soul quits your body? Would you enter into the holy place for the gold, etc., to pollute God's kingdom, or stay out for the wood, and receive no reward for the gold," etc.? Yet neither is this just. He then quotes, "our God is a consuming fire," and says, there comes always blessing after threats and sorrow. And quoting falsely, I know not how, Isaiah 40, he insists on the word first ("I will first retribute double their iniquities"); first we shall suffer the torment for our iniquities, then be crowned for our righteousness. This is exactly Jewish.

357 Jerome, reasoning against Pelagius (who said that in the day of judgment the wicked and sinners are not to be spared, but to be burned), answers, You interdict mercy to God. When He says, sinners shall cease out of the earth, He does not say they shall be burned in eternal fire — sin and iniquity (not impiety, which is not knowing God) according to the quality of the vices, after the wound of sin and iniquity receives health. It is one thing to lose the glory of the resurrection — another to perish everlastingly. This, too, was the Jewish notion. The resurrection is for Moses, the saints, and the righteous. In all this we see, no doubt, what suits nature, and how thoroughly the Fathers have followed the crude imaginations of Jews and heathens; and then Rome has made a new system out of it, whose first definite traces are to be found in Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century. Only some went farther, as Origen, who held, as Bellarmine himself tells us, that there was no punishment but purifying punishment: he thought that souls had existed before, and were then born into this world, and that they would go on purifying gradually till they purely enjoyed God. It is hard to say what place he gave to Christ in this. Gregory of Nyssa held the same views, and speaks of Judas being purified, of whom Peter says, "he went to his own place," and the Lord, "it had been good for him not to have been born." And throughout his works this doctrine is taught. Some looked shy at him with good reason; but the great Romanist champion, Bellarmine, eulogises him as admirable, and he was one of ten whom the Council of Ephesus said they were to decide all by, and one of those sent on a kind of visitation round the churches to see there was no Arian heresy.*

{*The reader who cannot search his works may see a Protestant account in Schroek, 14, 236; or a Roman Catholic in Tillemont, 9. Gregory of Nyaassa[Nyssa?], 20, 276.}

358 And now see the true character of all this.

Christianity has come finding man lost — justly lost by sin, and departed from God — has brought him salvation when he is in that state — has brought him life, eternal life. Christ is that life — a life holy in its nature, and which loves God and that which is good; he, it tells us, who receives Christ, receives this life. Such is the positive plain declaration of scripture; but that is not all. How can such poor, sinful, guilty, creatures have confidence to come to God; to walk at peace with Him, so as to come to His holy habitation hereafter, even if, quickened by Christ, they desire it? First, the Son of God has become a man, and lived amongst men to prove His love, and that He does not reject the vilest; He is the friend of publicans and sinners. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Hence we see the very vilest (who could not venture near a decent person) come to Jesus — humbled surely, but received, and told to go in peace. Thus God was revealed amongst men, that sinners, such as we are, might trust Him. But to enter into His presence in heaven we must be cleansed — justified. The same blessed One gives Himself for us; has given Himself for the sins of all who come to God by Him; has borne their sins in His own body on the tree. Thereupon the Holy Ghost declares to us that they which believe are justified from all things; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses them from all sin, and that God will remember their sins and iniquities no more. Hence we are assured of being with Christ directly when we die — absent from the body and present with the Lord — and we are called upon to give thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So the poor thief, who talked of being remembered when the kingdom came, was assured that he should be that very day with Christ in paradise. And the Holy Ghost is given to those who believe as the seal of God upon them, and the earnest of their inheritance. And He is in them — a Spirit of adoption — crying Abba, Father. Death they know is a gain to them — resurrection the time of glory. They know that when He comes He will receive all that have believed in Him, and they will appear with Him in glory.

359 Being justified by faith they have peace with God; holiness is their delight; glory and being like Christ their sure hope. If they fail, Christ is an Advocate with the Father for them, and ever liveth to make intercession for them, and hence is able to save utterly and completely. Warnings they need; exhortations too, vigilance, prayer, and every other means, public or private, that God in grace has afforded them. If they carelessly fail, they have every ground to humble themselves in the dust, and confess their fault before God. If they do not own the warnings of the word in grace, God chastens them as a father, that they may be partakers of His holiness; but they do not doubt that they have eternal life in Christ, because God says so, nor that the blood of Christ cleanses them from all sin, nor think that God will remember their sins and iniquities any more.

Instead of that, what do I find? Christ brought in as a foundation to begin with, and a man who is built on Christ as a foundation having still to answer for everything as much as if there was no Christ; he has to pay the penalty of his sins now, or must do so hereafter, for God will have the last farthing. Sacraments there are to cleanse and justify — justified in baptism, not from his actual sins (for as yet he has committed none), but when he has, a sacrament to purify him from guilt without purifying his heart; nay, on the contrary, a sacrament which makes contrition unnecessary, and gives absolution on sorrow from a lower motive, called attrition — a horribly unholy doctrine — forgiveness quieting the conscience without purifying the heart, but the forgiven man having still to satisfy an exacting God for his sins, unless this temporal penalty too be excused by an indulgence. Then, when dying, other sacraments, no less than three, to quiet his conscience again; and then he must go to purgatory to pay and satisfy God still. And all this if a man is in grace forgiven, sanctified, and justified! It is not Christianity, whatever else it may be.

360 James. Well, how little one knows what Romanism is! I could never have thought it; but all these Fathers! I thought they were such holy people, all teaching as nobody else could. Why, they only make everything dark, I think: the word of God is clearer and surer too. I see that plainly now, and then one has the words of the apostles and of the blessed Lord Himself, and we are sure they are right. Oh, what a comfort for one's poor soul that is!

Mrs. J. But I do not know, sir, why one should trouble oneself with all these books and mazes of uncertain teaching when one has the word of God. They are beyond poor folks like us, and if knowing the truth depended on reading them, we should be in a bad way, while with my Bible and the words of my blessed Saviour all is simple and full of grace, just suited to simple people: and then they are His own.

N*. Just so, Mrs. J.; they are His own. Oh, what a thought that is! They come with power, they come with authority, and that is what no man's words can do; and then they come in grace to the heart — God's grace.

Mrs. J. They do, sir.

N*. When God has become a man — when He can say, If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given — when the High and Holy One has come so low to be with sinners, the moment I believe it, I can have confidence in Him. I have much to learn; but to learn from one who loves us. If we reject His grace, we have a debt we never can pay at all: but if we have Him, we have one who — blessed be His name — has paid the last farthing for us. There is not the smallest need of your knowing the Fathers. They may be interesting, as a matter of history, to shew what went on in those days for those who make research, and they are so; and in a very few indeed we see marks of piety and true grace, as in Irenaeus of the more voluminous, and others I need not name here; but it is not in the books of those times you get the highest parts of Christianity. They were almost all corrupted by heathenism and philosophical reasonings. I do not think you would find as much rubbish and false interpretation in any quantity of serious books of the same size nowadays. But men suffered then for Christ, and so did some of these very men. As to their consent in doctrines, it is all a fable. There never was more disputing and confusion about doctrine than in those days. They were holding councils on councils to try and settle it, and often the emperors managed the matter their own way — by their power, by the banishment of those whose opinions they did not like, etc. In one great council they had, the prelates of one party beat the old Archbishop of Constantinople so that he died of it. And some of the other councils were not a great deal better, though not so violent.

361 Bill M. But I do not want you to read the Fathers, but to hear the church. I cannot answer as to all these Fathers, because I have not read their books: the priest would answer all, I am sure.

James. But you used to talk about the holy Fathers to me, Bill, and how they all agreed from the beginning in one doctrine and one church, and all that.

Bill M. And so they did, I am sure.

N*. You cannot, M., speak of the Fathers, nor do I blame you for that, unless it is speaking of them without examining; but Dr. Milner has read them, and though I own scripture alone for an authority, we agreed to take his book as you had given it, and we were bound, as he had quoted them, to examine what he said. Nor can I acquit Dr. Milner of dishonesty on this subject. As to the scripture (1 Pet. 3: 19) there is no preaching in purgatory we well know: Abraham's bosom, Augustine even assures us, cannot mean purgatory. As to 1 Corinthians 3, not only Augustine says it is most difficult, but Bellarmine declares it cannot apply to purgatory, for there all are to go into the fire. But as to the Fathers it is worse, because he knows that prayers for the dead cannot be reconciled with the Romish purgatory, for all were prayed for, even the Virgin Mary. This he must have known; so that to quote the Fathers, who speak of it as proving purgatory, is utterly dishonest, and to say "an intermediate state which we call purgatory" — he knew very well it was not what they call purgatory. His statement as to the Greek church is equally false: it holds neither purgatory nor indulgences. They do hold prayers for the dead, as in the earlier centuries, but reject wholly purgatory. Neither was "from the beginning," and we must have that, or what is false. We have examined these Fathers on the subject of purgatory pretty much at length, and we may leave it. You, I know, would like to take up the question of the church, which you think settles everything.

362 Bill M. Yes, it is no good arguing; we must get some authority to decide. And the church, the Lord declares, is that authority, and tells us to hear it. What can you say against the Lord's own words?

N*. Well, M., we will take your own subject up next. It is fair you should have your turn; but for the present I think we have had enough. The Lord willing, we will take that up when we meet again; only remember, as far as we have gone, we have had all your friend, Dr. Milner, has to say for your doctrine. It is not taking a person who cannot be expected to know much of the Fathers, and seeking to confound him. I can add, that I have looked into a more famous man still of your party, and that is Bellarmine; but it is the same in substance, and I do not see that he adds anything material. He says St. Chrysostom is quite wrong in his view of 1 Corinthians 3, for on this interpretation all would be saved. I do not know how he manages about the consent of the Fathers. I suppose he was not thinking of it just then, yet this is their pet text on the subject. Bellarmine prefers Gregory, which I have given you. For my own part, what I see is this — the real source of purgatory is heathenism and Judaism, which were associated at Alexandria, where the first great doctors of the church lived. At first it took the shape of purifying all completely in eternal fire. Still this was not generally accepted. It then took the form of prayers for all, because they had not fully the sense of Christ's having so atoned for believers' sins, that they were white as snow for God. They apportioned, therefore, to all some punishment — at the least the punishment of loss, not seeing God; or at any rate were uncertain, and prayed for all, even for the Virgin Mary, with a view to their speedily seeing the face of God; but the idea of the purging process survived through, and in Augustine's time was a question as to which he doubted — Jerome speaking with such uncertainty that he is accused of denying eternal punishment. This was in the fifth century: in the end of the sixth Gregory specifies the purifying very light sins, but doubts still. With schoolmen it was like other things formed into an elaborate system; but all this last part was only in Western Christendom. Greek or Eastern Christendom has never received the doctrine.

363 I conclude: scripture is positively and clearly against it, as destructive of Christ's work. The Fathers are one mass of confusion as to it, its true source being heathenism and Judaism; and the oldest half of Christendom rejects it to this day. Yet it is practically the great doctrine of Romanism in connection with the Mass. It is to get people out of it that Masses are constantly said. The poverty of the system is shewn, and the character it gives to God, in that it proceeds on the ground of God's exacting the last farthing (an interpretation denied by Augustine and Jerome), and that after the use of all the means the Roman system has at its disposal — absolution, the viaticum, and extreme unction, which wipes off the remains of sin — so utterly unprofitable are they (by their own confession) that the faithful have to go to purgatory to get these remains burned out by the relentless and exacting hand of God.

Oh, what a difference from that holy grace of God that saves, cleanses, and gives life!

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOLUME 5]

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

J. N. Darby.

<22001E> 1 {file section a.}

N*. Well, James, you expect M., as it was arranged.

James. Yes, sir; he will be here, no doubt, directly. Pray sit down, sir.

N*. Thank you. How are you getting on?

James. I find my spirit happy and at peace. I enjoy the word now with Mary and the children. I feel I am very weak, but I am conscious that my peace rests on Christ's perfect work, and as to the certainty of it, on God's own word; while I enjoy it within in my own soul. It makes me wonderfully happy, for I see it all flowing from God's blessed love. I know He loves me, unworthy as I am, but then, I have no difficulty in believing it because of Christ. I hope I may be able to glorify Him through His grace.

N*. The Lord be praised, James; and this is but the earnest of a more perfect enjoyment still of what now we know in part and see through a glass darkly. Our present Christian joys have the stamp of eternity on them.

James. Yes, sir; poor as our feelings are, we know that what makes us happy now will make us still more happy for ever. We shall know then better what gives us our joy now. But He who has brought me to peace is the one who loves me, and whom I hope to see in glory.

N*. And did your mind get clear the last time as to purgatory?

James. It could not but be clear when once one knows Christ's precious blood cleanses from all sin. I had no thought that they had such strange notions that so deny Christ's work. It is dreadful. I did not understand all about the Fathers, but what sets the soul clear is the knowledge of Christ and His grace. I was thinking since, sir (though there is nothing about purgatory in it), how the beautiful parable of the prodigal son sets all thoughts of it aside — how that parable would prevent one who really knew the grace of it from ever thinking of such a thing. However could the Father, when the poor prodigal had all his rags off and the best robe on, that is, Christ Himself, put him in purgatory after? It is like putting Christ Himself there. And then I see plainly that once I leave this world I have not the flesh at all, so that I do not know what is to be purged away. Here, where I have it, I can be exercised and sifted and tried, and for my good, because the flesh is still here in me.

2 N*. You are quite right, James. It is a complete confusion between penal suffering and purifying. If it be really purifying, it is a cruel thing to get it shortened by indulgences. If it be penal, it is contrary to all the testimony of the gospel

James. What are indulgences?

N*. They are decrees of the pope, by which, in virtue of the merits of Christ and the saints, he delivers souls in purgatory from a part or all of the punishment they have to go through.

Mrs. J. Dear, who would have thought of such things? Why, it is not Christianity at all, sir.

N*. Surely it is not. I dare say we shall get upon this subject before we have done. It was the immediate occasion of the Reformation. They sold them in the most shameful or shameless way to get money to build St. Peter's, the magnificent cathedral at Rome.

As to the Fathers, James, you have no need to think of them. They are no authority for anything, and indeed contradict each other continually like other men: only there was more superstition and ignorance in them than in most cultivated persons now, with real piety in some; as to others, it is very doubtful if they had any. I have referred to them because it was necessary to meet what was alleged. And now that their doubts and contradictions are shewn, we may dismiss them without passion and without fear. They have indeed been altered, and passages cast out by the Roman Catholics, but not so as much to affect such a mass of writings. But Rome has what is called an index expurgatory, by which some books are prohibited, and others are directed to be printed without such a passage, or changing it, or the like, when any passage militates against the doctrines of the Roman system. And this has been done.

James. Dear, what a crafty system!

N*. It is a system little known. They have published a kind of imitation of the Psalms, one hundred and fifty of them in number, just like the Psalms, and with a general resemblance, but have put the Virgin Mary instead of the Lord.

3 Mrs. J. What wickedness! It is all planned so. I am glad, James, you knew what it was before you got drawn in.

James. So am I, I am sure; it is a mercy to be kept from it in any way, but more still when it is by knowing the grace of God, which makes me see not only that there are wrong things, but that the foundation of their whole system is wrong. They do not build on grace and redemption, but on man and works. That I see plainly. But here is M. Good day, Bill, sit down.

N*. Good day, M. We have waited to go on with the subject proposed till you came. We are to speak of the word of God and of the church. We can still take Milner, who, in a brief way, will say all that is to be said.

M. Yes, we must seek the right rule of faith, and that is the written and unwritten word, the church being the interpreter and judge. We must have a living judge of controversy, or there is no end to disputes.

N*. The thing to be ultimately judged is not doctrines, my good friend, but souls. And the difference is most serious. I am not going to avoid the other question, that is, the means of discovering the truth; but while you profess to have the true church where alone salvation is, you have people in crowds who are lost, and none who know whether they are saved after all. But when you speak of judging what is the truth, your principle is wholly false. God does not judge of truth; He reveals it. Man is not to judge of truth, but, if God has revealed, he is bound on his peril to receive it. Men will be judged according to the truth they have before them. They that have sinned without law shall perish without law, and they that have sinned under law shall be judged by the law. If they have rejected Christ, they are still more guilty. The Holy Ghost was to convict the world of sin, because they had not believed in Him, and if they did not, they would die in their sins. If they do believe from the heart, they are saved, at least if God's declaration is to be believed.

M. "Saved?" you mean hope to be saved.

N*. I do not, they are not yet out of trial and temptation, but they are reconciled to God, have peace with Him. As scripture speaks: — He has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to His own purpose and grace; 2 Tim. 1: 9. So Titus 3: 5; but according to His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. They have eternal life.

4 M. That is, they hope to have it.

N*. Not at all. Of course, in all its fulness and glory they have not got it yet. But the scripture says, "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son hath not life." Again, John the baptist says, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." What proves the Roman Catholic system to be so utterly false is that it teaches men as if the grace of God had not brought salvation at all. Men are just where they were if there was no Christ; they have to make their peace with God, whereas Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross. According to Romanism they have to gain eternal life, as the law required, "Do this, and thou shalt live." Christianity says he that hath the Son hath life.

M. And must not a man work to get life?

N*. Surely not. How can he work if he has not got it? He believes on Christ as a poor sinner, and has life in Him; and then works to serve God and glorify Him, and grow on in the life he has got. "He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life," says Christ. Nothing is more false than supposing that no good works can be done unless we are to gain life by them; I should say none can be done till we have life. Do angels do good works?

M. Yes, of course they do.

N*. Do they do it to gain heaven?

M. Well, no, they are in heaven.

N*. What do they do it for, then?

M. Why, they are blessed things, they do nothing else.

N*. Well, M., we can hardly say we do nothing else, but as to the motive it shews that there is another way of doing right besides gaining life and heaven by it.

Besides, all real duties and right affections flow from the relationships we are already in. I mean this. If you were my servant it would be your duty to act and feel as such. James' children's duties and their right feelings flow from their being his children, and living in the consciousness that they are so. They have not, cannot have, such towards you and me, because they are not our children. So with a wife and every relation of life. Now, we must be really children of God before the duties of children can apply to us, and before we can have the affections suited to that place. We are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and our duties and right affections flow from this — can have no existence till we are in that relation. We have never to work to get into any true living relationship, for the duties cannot exist till we are in it; indeed, it is not possible in the nature of things. The Christian has duties, and has to cultivate holy affections, but it is because he is a child of God, and knows it. For he can have neither the feeling nor the conscience of his duty as a child till he knows he is such. We have difficulties and temptations to overcome, and God does encourage us by the reward of glory, the crown of life; but He never tells us to gain life by our works: the law, if indeed this can be said, does. But we are all condemned on that ground, because we have not kept it. The gift of God is eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What are good works, M.?

5 M. Well, I suppose, works done purely out of love to God and our neighbour.

N*. Then you never can do any according to your system, because you do them to gain eternal life, to merit heaven for yourself.

M. But you would look for something above human nature.

N*. Surely I should; I look for grace — grace and life from Jesus Christ working within. He has saved by His death. The Roman Catholic system is (not theoretically perhaps, but practically) the deadly heresy of Pelagianism.

James. What is that, sir?

N*. Believing that there is strength in man to do good and merit life by his works. And though they talk of grace, it is practically man's own efforts; there may be sacramental grace referred to, but no personal practical dependence on grace. The Roman Catholic system hides it under hard words, and distinguishes between grace of condignity, that is, what a man sufficiently deserves — merit in which the works deserve a reward for their own worth; and grace of congruity, what fits a man to receive, though he be not worthy in the way of merit; but, in point of fact, a man merits eternal life by his own doings and efforts, which in principle and substance and verity is Pelagianism. Christ delivered the Old Testament saints, they say, out of limbo, and set us to keep the new law.

6 James. Well, I am sure I never had merit, or fitness, or anything, unless as a poor sinner is fit for grace, because he is one and wants it.

N*. But tell me, M. You believe that life is given, and pardon too, in baptism, do you not?

M. Surely I do.

N*. Very well, according to Rome we are born of God in it, — and have remission of sin, original and all actual sins, if we have committed any. It cleanses from sin, makes us Christians and children of God. We are born of water and of the Spirit, and what a child has contracted by generation is cleansed by regeneration.*

{*Any authorised Romish catechism on the baptismal service may be consulted, or Cat. Conc. Trid. 42; and Conc. Trid. 5, 4, for the last words of the sentence. The Roman doctrine on baptism speaks very little of giving life in it; much more of taking away sin, original and actual, and insists on taking it away, not removing imputation only, adding that concupiscence which does remain is not properly sin, as Cat. Conc. Trid. on Baptism 43. It teaches it, however, distinctly, not only in the term made children of God, in every catechism and the baptism service, but very definitely also Cat. Conc. Trid. (Lord's Prayer) sect. 10. It is altogether remarkable how very little is said of life in authorised Romish teaching. Eternal life is wholly in the future, Cat. Conc. Trid. (on the Creed), art. 12. They are replenished with divine grace, a divine quality. See on Baptism 50, and Cat. Conc. Trid. 6, 7, where hope and charity must be added to have eternal life. However, they are said to be born again, made children of God, and incorporated in Christ by baptism.}

And it never can be repeated.

M. Never.*

{*Conc. Trid. Sess. 7, 9; Cat. Conc. Trid. 54.}

N*. Then they have received life?

M. Of course, they are regenerated by water and the Holy Ghost.

N*. Do you think any other sacrament confers life?

M. None.

N*. So again Rome teaches, We may lose grace but not faith, and it is true faith, though it be not living faith (Council of Trent, 6, 28, 54, cap. 15, 46). The character imprinted by baptism can never be lost.

Note, then, if divine life be lost, it never can be had again. And if life be not lost when man dies in mortal sin, a man may go to hell and yet have faith, as born of God — only no grace.

7 M. But life is lost by mortal sin, but there is the sacrament of penance to restore grace.

N*. T know you hold that. But a man is not born again by the sacrament of penance; so that if he has lost life, he is ruined for ever, for he cannot be baptized again; or he must have the life still, though he have lost grace — a very strange notion if it be the life of Christ; but quite consistent with going to hell in mortal sin though having faith. But this is what is taught in the Council of Trent.*

{*There is a strange and startling anomaly on the point of mortal sin, surely a very grave one, of which Irish catechisms furnish an example. Each gives a catalogue of deadly or mortal sins, but they are different. One is by the Right Rev. Dr. Plunket, thirteenth edition, Dublin, 1827. How many are the chief kinds of mortal sin? Seven, called capital sins. Which are the seven capital sins? Pride, covetousness, luxury, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. The other is by the Most Rev. Dr. Reilly, Dublin, 1827. Both are printed by the same printer, Wogan. How many capital or deadly sins? Seven: pride, covetousness, lust, gluttony, envy, anger, sloth. So in two dioceses in Ireland, the sins which would take a man to hell and kill his soul were different.}

But the matter really stands thus: The doctrine of catechisms and every Roman authority tell us that mortal sin, as the word indeed implies, is the death of the soul, deprives the soul of life or sanctifying grace which is the life of the soul. I take the words of one of many catechisms, "Why is it called mortal? Because it kills the soul, by depriving it of its true life which is sanctifying grace, and because it brings everlasting death and damnation on the soul." Another, "By destroying the life of the soul, which is the grace of God." Another, "that which killeth the soul in a spiritual manner, because it deprives us of the grace of God, which is the spiritual life of the soul." The two first are American, sanctioned each by a different prelate of New York, the last Irish, drawn up by the Most Rev. Dr. Reilly. Now we are taught by the Council of Trent itself, That they are cleansed by regeneration from what they contracted by generation, referring to John 3. They are born again of water and the Spirit. They are frequently called 'born again' (renati). And in the Catechism of the Council of Trent it is insisted that baptism cannot be repeated: "that this accords with the nature of the thing, and with reason is understood from the very idea of baptism which is a certain spiritual regeneration. As then, by virtue of the laws of the nature, we are generated and born but once, and as St. Augustine observes, there is no returning to the womb; so, in like manner, there is but one spiritual generation, nor is baptism ever at any time to be repeated."*

{*I give a translation submitted to the authorities at Rome, and printed at the Propaganda. Those in mortal sin have a true but not a living faith. VI, canon 28 on Justification.}

8 Here though I might quote many authorities to the same effect, we have the highest assuring us that a man cannot be born twice, and hence he cannot be baptized twice. But then, if his soul is killed by mortal sin, deprived of life, what is to be done? He cannot be born again. It is all very well to talk of forgiveness by the sacrament of penance, only with increased trouble, and purgatory to boot; but where is life to be had? It is lost by mortal sin. No one pretends that it is given by the sacrament of penance. Its being given in baptism is declared in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, as we have seen, to be the reason why that sacrament cannot be repeated. No man can be born again, twice. It is a fatal objection to the whole sacramental system of popery, fatal upon a fundamental point. Falsehood is always inconsistent and breaks down somewhere. Forgiveness may be talked of, justification regained, but the soul is killed, deprived of life, and cannot be born again. It is a curious part of the same system that baptism puts away all sins and all penalties, freely and absolutely, from a child who has none; penance leaves a large and awful part, though forgiving them, on those who have. People who have no sins are cleared people; those who have, are not, though reconciled to God. All this to a soul taught of God shews the folly of human inventions. Ah, M., to a soul that feels its need and looks to Christ, such darkness on vital points will never do.

But I return to the point we were upon. God reveals truth, and man is bound to receive it at his peril. He does not judge, nor is there any one to judge, what is truth. God has judged what is truth, since He has revealed it Himself; nobody can judge about it after that. Men will be judged by it. "The word I have spoken to you, the same shall judge you in the last day," John 12: 48.

M. But have I not to ascertain the truth?

N*. You are responsible for receiving God's truth that He has revealed. When anything professes to be a revelation, I must of course first know that it is of God. For that I have a promise: Christ says, He that will do His will shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.

9 M. Well, we must ascertain, or know, whether it is a revelation of God, and for this we must have an infallible judge in order to know as a matter of faith whether it be so.

N*. It is a mere blasphemy to say so. God has given a revelation, and called upon me to believe. Is it necessary after this for some one to authorize me to believe? Then God's calling on me for faith by a revelation has no force: because, according to you, when God has spoken and claimed my faith, another must judge about it.

M. But supposing I do not receive it? How can you help a man's being a Socinian or an infidel?

N*. You cannot help it. Rome cannot help it — cannot give faith in the heart by authority; but the man will be lost because he has made God a liar. But your notion excuses the Socinian and the infidel, because, according to you, though God has revealed the truth, they are not bound to believe without the church. The whole question lies there. Has a revelation which God has made to us authority over me — a claim upon my belief — without any judgment of man? Your system says it has not. We must have, you say, a tribunal to judge about it, that is, to judge whether God's revelation has a claim on my soul. This is an outrage upon God. If you, M., came to me, and I say, "Your word I cannot receive till James authenticates it," it is quite clear I do not believe what you say because you have said it. Now, if I cannot believe God's revelation because He has said what is in it, and for no other reason, I do not believe God at all.

James. That is clear, Bill; God's word must have authority over us by itself or it has none at all.

M. But we must know that it is God's word.

N*. It is a sad thing you should call it in question, when you know it is so; but we will pursue the point. I never knew a Romanist who did not on this point take the ground of the infidel: indeed he has no other. For, if the word has direct authority over my conscience, all his argument about the church falls to the ground.

M. We'll take what Dr. Milner says: That the rule of faith or means of discovering Christ's religion must be secure and universal; and it is evident that He has left some rule by which those persons who seek it may with certainty find it.* These, as Dr. Milner says, are fundamental maxims. Letter 5.

{*Dr. Milner's book is craftily written. He introduces the whole inquiry by essays, etc., of members of the supposed society, by which the truths of natural and revealed religion are proved true as a starting point. But if I am to discover a true religion, this cannot be, for the true one is discovered, and fundamentally the true faith in the revealed religion already demonstrated. Else I have not the true religion. But that is found, it seems, without the church at all, and what is the professed inquiry in the book is settled. But this avoids admitting openly the authority of scripture in itself. But then, having the true religion of true faith, I have not to discover it, but whether Romanism is consistent with it. Every true Christian believes in the authority of the word of God: with this I do not discover a religion at all, but, having it, judge the pretensions of the Romanist to the possession and the exclusive possession of it. The whole statement of the case is a subtle fallacy, for which the way has been paved by what precedes. We are not discovering a religion, but judging Romanism, and Protestantism too, if you please, when I am a Christian. In a word, if I have natural and revealed religion demonstrated, I have discovered the true religion, for the demonstrated revealed religion is the true one. Our inquiry is not then the discovery of Christ's religion; it is discovered and demonstrated. We are inquiring if Romanism, the state of the church, is according to what has been demonstrated.}

10 N*. All Dr. Milner's book depends on them, I know, and indeed he admits it; but I stop you at once here by saying that, as his book does all depend on this, all is totally false. What do you mean by establishing a religion on earth, and then having a rule of faith or means of discovering it? If Christ has established a religion, there is nothing to discover. And, further, a rule of faith and a means of discovery are totally different things, and the confusion of these two is the source of all the sophistry of the book. How did Christ establish a religion on earth?

M. Why, by His own teaching, and the teaching of the apostles.

N*. Quite right. And who judged of their doctrine so that men might discover the true religion? Who was the living judge?

M. Why there could be none: they must believe Christ and the apostles.

N*. Then all Dr. Milner's and your theory about a living judge is false. There were what we may call ecclesiastical authorities then. The scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses' seat, and they were all against God's testimony by Christ. But men were bound to receive what Christ said (and the same of the apostles), because they said it. Now that is always true.

11 M. Yes, but they were alive to say it.

N*. They were; but has what they said lost its authority now they are dead? So far from this, that the Bereans searched the scriptures to know if Paul's preaching was according to them, and they are commended for it, and therefore many of them believed. The scriptures were an authority to judge of an apostle's teaching whether it were of God, that is, when he first came, to know if what he said were really of God. And when the rich man is described as praying that Lazarus might be sent to his brothers to warn them, the Lord answers, They have Moses and the prophets (that is, their writings), let them hear them; for "if they believe not their writings, how shall they believe my words?" We have no need to say what the authority of Christ's words is for all of us; but, as an instrument of authority, the Lord puts writings before words. But the truth is, the condition of Christians — and it is with those professedly so we have to do — was exactly the same as now. The apostles sent the writings we have to different Christians to whom they had been particularly blessed, or published them for general use. Were Christians not to receive these writings as having authority?

M. Of course they were.

N*. And so are we. Now supposing at the first, the Jews had waited for the church to sanction the Lord, or the Jews or Gentiles to sanction the apostles, to discover the true religion, what would have happened?

M. Why, there was no church.

N*. Quite so; where Christ taught and the apostles preached, there was none, and there never would have been. That is, faith in the word goes before the church, not faith in the church before the word. Without faith in the word there never would have been any church at all; and, in point of fact, the religious authorities (when Christ was there) did everything they could to hinder people believing in Christ. And people believed in spite of them. So it has really been as to Rome. But further: when the apostles wrote epistles to the churches or general epistles, were the churches to wait for them to be sanctioned by others, by some church authority, in order to receive, believe, and obey them?

12 M. Of course not. If the apostles wrote, they were bound to believe and obey.

N*. And so are we. Was there any reference to any church authority in order to their receiving them?

M. No; they were bound to receive them. How could there be church authority about the apostles when the Lord sent them, and they were the highest authority in it?

N*. All right; and so are we bound to receive what they have written for the same reason. But there is another point. Were they addressed to a clergy who were to receive and interpret them, or to all the faithful? That is a material point for us to settle.

M. It is; and I cannot say exactly. I have not the Bible just at my fingers' ends.

N*. You could not be where you are if you had, M. I would affectionately urge you to read it and see for yourself what these blessed servants of our Lord and Master, the Son of God, have said, and His own blessed words too. There cannot but be a blessing with it if done humbly trusting in God's grace. I remember a case in Ireland where a Testament had been torn up and the leaves thrown to the winds. A poor man, who found one of the leaves and picked it up, could read, and saw, "And Jesus said," "And Jesus answered and said," "And Jesus said," and so on. He said to himself, What! has the blessed Lord said so many things, and I did not know them? Struck by these simple but solemn words, "Jesus said," he went off to the neighbouring town and bought a Testament, was converted, believed what Jesus said, and was happy in a known Saviour.

But you may say, How did he know it was true that Jesus said these things? Well, God guides the humble simple soul. Jesus had said it, and His word had power over his soul by grace. But, as I have related to you one history, I will tell you another.

I was in a cabin in Ireland where I was known, and began speaking to the brother-in-law of the man of the house about the scripture; his niece, a young woman, who was present, said, "But they tell me, sir, this is a bad book — that the devil wrote it." She was very ignorant, and could not read. I said, "That is a shocking blasphemy. (I know they excuse themselves when any intelligent person is there by saying, It is only because of the false translation; however, so it passed.) But I will not reason with you, but read you a bit, and you shall tell me yourself if the devil wrote it."

13 I read to her what are called the Beatitudes: "And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."

I then said, "Well, what do you think? Did the devil write that?" "No, sir," she said, "the devil never wrote that; that came from nothing but the mouth of God." The word of God had laid hold of her; she lived and died most happy, dying three years after of a fever in a hospital. That is, the word of God proves its own truth and power to the soul.

But to return to our point. I will help you. None are addressed to what can be called in the modern term "clergy" at all save three: two to Timothy and one to Titus. These three were addressed to those specially engaged in the service of Christ. The rest are addressed to all the Christians either of a locality or in general, the elders among them in Peter being noticed in their place among the rest, and the bishops and deacons along with all the rest in Paul's to the Philippians.

Thus that to the Romans, "To all that be in Rome beloved of God, saints called." Here you could not tell from the Epistle if there were such a thing as elders or bishops. 1 Corinthians: "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints called, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." I suppose that all saints, and there were many ignorant ones, ought to have received and obeyed the apostle's teaching. Here too we have not a hint about any elders. The receiving the apostle's orders was a test of the spirituality of their state, "If any be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." And so John says, "He that is of God heareth us." In 2 Corinthians it was to all the saints which were in all Achaia, the province in Greece where Corinth was. The Epistle to the Galatians is addressed to the churches of Galatia. Here the whole body of saints is addressed too.

14 I need not notice every Epistle, because it is only to repeat the same thing; they are addressed to all the faithful. I may notice an expression in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, which shews it in a distinct manner. Paul says at the end of it, "I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read by all the holy brethren." Colossians and Laodicea were to exchange Epistles, and they were to be read in the churches. Peter's Epistles were addressed to all the dispersed residing in various provinces. In John's we get if possible a stronger evidence. He distinguishes the Christians, while addressing all in general, into classes of fathers, young men, and little children, and writes more special words to these last, pressing on them their competency in virtue of having the Holy Ghost to understand everything, and says, though warning and teaching them with all affection, they had not need of any one to do so. And in his second Epistle he writes to a lady and desires her to judge those who came teaching and preaching by the doctrine they brought.

Thus we have ample evidence that the scriptures were addressed not to the teaching body (with the exception of three Epistles of Paul, which, however, are full of instruction to all, because he tells Timothy and Titus how all ought to act), but by the teaching body to the mass of the faithful. If Rome has reduced the faithful to a state of ignorance which makes them incapable of it, the guilt is on her shoulders. It is a proof that she cannot enlighten them. The only thing to do is for them to go back to the scriptures which she has practically deprived them of

M. But they are written in Greek or Hebrew. What can the unlearned do? How can they now use this rule, or means of discovering Christ's religion?

N*. This is another fallacy. The means of discovering Christ's religion (and we are speaking now of places where the profession of Christianity is established), and a rule of faith, are not at all the same thing. A minister preaches, a mother teaches her child, a schoolmaster in a school, a friend-in a word, the means of communicating truth, or leading a person to discover it, are various. The scriptures may be the direct and blessed means in many cases, but any Christian, and in particular parents and ministers, may be and are the regular instruments in God's hands of communicating the truth contained in the word to souls, but none of these are the rule of faith.

15 Dr. Milner admits that this is so, as regards the heathen, that is, that his principle does not hold good; but then, as he says, there is a special grace accorded. I admit the special grace — there is never any good or blessing without it: but I understand very well what Dr. Milner is about too. It is quite evident that in the case of heathens the church has no authority, for they as heathens do not own it; they must in any case become Christians first. Thus we find that in this case the word of God has power and authority without the church. Men discover the true religion without the authority of the church.

This is a grand difficulty for Dr. Milner; because after all, when Christianity has really to be discovered (as in the case of a heathen), it is discovered by the power of the word through grace, without the church at all. That is, in a word, that, in the only real case where the true religion is discovered, it is discovered without the authority of the church. Now for communicating the knowledge of Christ's religion where it is professed, there are similar means, as I have said, ministers, parents, and the like. And do you mean to say that special grace is for heathens to receive the word, but that there is none needed, and none given for professing Christians? It is needed for every man. But, remark further, this way of discovering Christ's religion is not a rule of faith. A minister, a priest, as you call him, is not a rule of faith; a friend or a mother is surely not a rule of faith. Yet they are the means in an ordinary way of the discovering, or more properly of the reception of, Christ's religion. Now the confusion of these things is the source of all the fallacy; because the means of discovering need not be infallible — need not be, in the sense here stated, secure nor universal; in point of fact, unless when scripture is the means, it never is; on the contrary, it is adapted to the state and capacity of the person evangelized or taught.

A rule of faith must be secure, but as it is not the means of communicating Christ's religion (though it may be such a means), it is not as a rule required to be adapted to such universal communication. It subsists in the form in which it was originally given to be referred to. Now these two things we have without the authority of the church at all: apostles, ministers, parents, and others, communicating Christ's religion according to the language or capacity of hearers and learners; and we have the scriptures the fixed and unchanged rule to which all teaching is to be referred. And note this well: if the truth contained in scripture be not received, if a man remain an infidel, or become a confirmed heretic, the authority of the church is of no use. For such do not acknowledge it. She must in result leave them where they are, unless she burn them (as Rome indeed has done by hundreds and thousands) or banish and imprison them. But that is only copying the heathen who did the same thing.

16 I admit then the ministry to communicate the truth, and even a parent or any other. I admit the need of grace; but I say that you will be lost and condemned, if when God has spoken you do not bow to it, if there were no church at all. In point of fact, there was and could be none when first the word of God was announced, and men were bound to receive it at their peril. "If our gospel be hid," says the apostle, "it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them": so the Lord — "he that believeth not is condemned already." Indeed, as I have said, those who stood in the place of authority then opposed the word. All who have to receive the religion of Christ as a new truth necessarily receive it without the authority of the church. They are Jews, infidels, or heathens, and acknowledge no such authority. If I turn to Christians by profession, they have not to discover the truth of Christianity, for they believe it; what is needed is that they should understand the truth, and that it should have power over their hearts and lives, and grace gives this, not the church. And, moreover, the Epistles and Gospels were addressed to the body of Christians in general by those who were gifted of God, as Paul, Peter, and the rest employed by God to write them. And those who received them were bound to receive and believe them, and to understand them and be taught by them. That there is progress in spiritual understanding is readily admitted.

Thus the whole theory of Romanism is a false one. Their analogy of a living judge, which they all make so much of, is none at all. A judge decides a cause by the law, not whether the law is authentic or not. He could not say, I receive the law on the authority of any one, judges or others. He receives the law because it is the law, because the legislator has so prescribed. So the Christian; he receives the revelation of God, because it is His revelation, and for no other reason. A spiritual Christian may be more enlightened in applying the word of God to any given case (a small part of the use of scripture) as a judge may; but neither of them gives authority, but only application, to that whose authority is employed. The church was providentially charged with taking care of the scriptures when they were written; just as anyone may take charge of my father's will, but he gives no authority to it. Its being my father's will gives it its authority. The scriptures were committed to the whole church of God.

17 The only difference as to the Romanist body is, that they have been unfaithful to the trust as regards the Old Testament, having pretended to authenticate as scripture what confessedly is not scripture at all. Her own famous doctor who translated the Old Testament for her, and whose translation she receives as the authentic scriptures though but a translation, declares that the church did not receive the books called apocryphal. Rome is unfaithful in this as in all else. God has not permitted her to be so as to the New Testament; but where she could be unfaithful, she has been so. And you will please remember, moreover, that your rule is as much Greek and Hebrew (in your case I must add Latin) as ours. The written word is the same for both: only that you have only a translation, and your unwritten one is Latin. What you have in any one's mother tongue is mere teaching, as ours may be, not a rule of faith, not secure, for we have seen there are different lists of mortal sins, and even as to the written word you have a confessedly false list of books. You have added what the fathers even say is not to be taken for a rule of faith.

M. But what are we to receive as a rule, if it is not the written and unwritten word, and the church as interpreter?

N*. The written word of God is the only rule. It has divine authority. The other two parts I reject altogether, that is, tradition and the church.

M. But the church was never to fail, nor the gates of hell prevail against her. What do you make of that?

18 N*. I make nothing of it; I believe it, and bless God for it with all my heart. In spite of all the waywardness and wickedness of man, Christ maintains what He builds, and will maintain it till He receives it into glory. And it is maintained. Rome papal, as Rome heathen, has done her best to extinguish and put out this light; but she has failed and must fail. She seemed to succeed, and may apparently in large measure succeed again, for it is announced in scripture that there shall be perilous days in the last time, a form of godliness denying the power; but as God had reserved seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, when even the prophetic eye of Elijah could not see one but himself, so God has in the darkest times (times confessed by your own popish writers to be times of shame and darkness)* preserved a witness to Himself that no strength or subtlety of Satan, with all the power of Rome at his back, could ever suppress or extirpate. I recognize not the church of Rome, or any other particular professing body, but the whole church to be the dwelling-place of God by the Holy Ghost, until Christ comes and takes the saints to Himself, and that what is called Christendom stands in a particular relationship to God by its profession, and that it will be judged as His house. But the scripture has warned us that evil would come in, and perilous times come, with the form of piety (2 Tim. 3); and the apostle Paul charges the man of God to cling to the scriptures when the professing church should have all gone wrong.

{*Baronius says he must give the names of popes as dates, but how can he own as popes the sons of the mistresses of the Marquis of Tuscany, whom they put in to be popes by their guilty influence? (Bar. An. 912, 7, 8.) There were the two parties, the Roman nobles and the Marquis of Tuscany, who in turn put in the popes, or drove them out, so that there were often two at a time, and each habitually when he got the upper hand quashed all the ordinations of his adversary as invalid. (Bar. An. 907, 3.) Auxilius wrote a book on the ordinations, exordinations, and super-ordinations of the Roman pontiffs. (See Baronius' Account of Sergius, 908, 2.) At last the Emperor came in to introduce some decent order. But this lasted a great while. We may examine this a little more exactly when we come to succession as a proof of the true church. Here I only give the undoubted facts, which may be seen in Baronius as in other historians.}

He tells us (Acts 20: 29) that grievous wolves would come in, that of the church itself perverse men would arise; but he never hints at apostles, their successors, or the clergy, as a resource, but, on the contrary, commends them to God and the word of His grace as able to build them up, and give them an inheritance among them that are sanctified. That is, he warns us that the outward professing church would go all wrong, so that the true servant of God would have to fly to the scriptures. The mystery of iniquity was already working; and, note, the apostle's words exclude all idea of his having a successor. He knows that after HIS departure all will go wrong. How so, if another like himself would succeed him? So Peter sees the hour of his departure near, and takes care that they should have the truths he taught always in remembrance, and so writes his epistle; 2 Pet. 1: 12-15. Thus the apostles foresaw the danger and difficulty; Paul prophesies that all would go on badly, and evil men and seducers wax worse and worse; and, instead of referring to the church as securing the truth, he states that it will go all wrong, so that at last there will be an apostasy, or falling away (2 Thess. 2); and both he and Peter refer to the scriptures as the means of being guarded in the truth.

19 The evil is come and has ripened, and we do refer, as the apostle told us, to the scriptures. You tell me divisions have arisen. I admit it, and admit the evil of it. But divisions have arisen with scriptures and clergy and all; the clergy have not hindered it more than the scriptures — they have been its authors. Rome is one of the divisions — a large one no doubt, but the worst of all — so that she hardly merits to be reckoned as a part of the Catholic church at all since the Council of Trent. But admitting that she be, she is just one part, and the worst part by far. Numbers make nothing when the question of the church is concerned. Christ speaks of a little flock (Luke 12: 32) to whom He gives the kingdom, so that there being millions would rather prove it was not that flock. And when Rome had it all her own way in many countries (for she never had it everywhere, far from it, nor in the greatest part of Christendom), she could not help sects.

She slaughtered and killed thousands and thousands to put them down; she burned and hanged, and used every atrocity imaginable, to put down whatever did not bow to her, but by her conduct proved herself not to be the church of God, but the seat of Satan, and thus made natural conscience revolt on one hand, while on the other the plants of God's planting throve in spite of her, and Europe was overrun by the hunted witnesses of Christ, while Rome disgraced herself below even natural conscience by breaking openly and solemnly plighted faith, and teaching men that they ought to do so, and not keep faith with heretics, and acted on it, hypocritically pretending to deliver them to the secular arm, and pursuing with relentless cruelty all who held the truth. She invented tortures and established the Inquisition to destroy all that had divine life. I have said she seemed to have reduced all to silence, when, after a secret working of the truth (particularly in the Netherlands, Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia), her security in wickedness led her to such a course of conduct as made all blaze out again more violently than ever; and now, taking all professing Christendom in, she is a minority in population, and maintains her former place only in her persistence and growth in errors.

20 M. But she is the true Catholic church.

N*. Who says so?

M. Everyone admits it.

N*. Far from it; the majority of professing Christendom condemn her as a dreadful departure from the true standing of the church of Christ. Many count her wholly apostate.

James. But, Bill, you used to say that your church was the universal church, and the oldest; and that all the millions of Christians, except just England that Henry VIII turned away to get rid of his wife he did not like, belonged to it.

M. And so they do.

N*. We will speak of Henry VIII in a minute. But as to the pretended Catholic church, all their assertions are unfounded. I admit that numbers prove nothing, but they impose on the imagination, and hence only I notice this. The majority of professing Christians do not belong to Rome. There are something under one hundred millions of Protestants, and I suppose sixty millions of Greeks, besides Armenians and Jacobites, in the East, whose numbers are not exactly known, but of which there must be a few millions, so that in rough round numbers there are, giving the largest margin, some hundred and thirty millions connected with Rome, and some hundred and seventy millions separate from it. Hence there is no pretension of catholicity. As to antiquity, it is beyond all controversy that Eastern Christendom is more ancient than Rome. Strange to say, the church was not founded at Rome by an apostle, though Paul was in prison there, not in his free apostolic labour — this he never was. But we know from the Epistle to the Romans that there were a number of Christians there before he arrived. We are a little anticipating what comes under the head of proofs of the true church. But facts dispel many illusions, so that we may reason more freely when the imagination is undeceived.

21 James. Well, I am glad to hear all this. I know numbers don't prove truth, of course. We must have, we all admit, a divine foundation for our faith; but it acts on one's feelings to think one is going against all Christians in the world, and I see it is nothing of the sort, and I know from scripture that Christianity did not begin at Rome.

N*. If we were to go by numbers, I suppose we should be Buddhists. They constitute, I believe, by far the most numerous religion in the world. The Mahometans count by many millions — I do not know how many, but I dare say some sixty millions. They own God, and Christ to be a prophet and judge of quick and dead, but not as Son of God. They are spreading rapidly in Africa through having the schools in their hands, and the prohibition for any Mahometan to make a slave of another. The Brahminical religion counts some hundred millions of votaries, other heathens perhaps over two hundred millions. I attach no importance to exactitude in numbers, my object being only to dispel the idea of the Catholic or universal character of Rome — to disabuse the imagination. But that it may not seem a loose boast, in rough round numbers I count them thus: —

Romanists. Protestants.

France .. .. 33,000,000 Great Britain ... 26,000,000

Austria .. .. 30,000,000 Germany, including

Italy ....    .. 21,000,000  Prussia ...... 22,000,000

Spain.....    .. 17,000,000 Austria ....... .. 4,000,000

Germany out of France ........ .. 2,000,000

Austria .. ..  8,000,000* Holland ....... .. 2,500,000

Holland .. ..  1,000,000 Switzerland.... .. 2,000,000

Belgium .. ..  3,500,000 Sweden ........ .. 4,000,000

Poland .. ..  4,000,000 Denmark ....... .. 2,000,000

Switzerland .. .1,000,000 Russia ........ .. 3,000,000

United States ..  2,500,000 United States 26,000,000

Great Britain ..  4,000,000

South America  .. 8,000,000

________   _________

133,000,000   93,500,000

{*Perhaps more; chiefly in Bavaria, Baden, Rhenish Prussia, and Silesia.}

22 Besides this, there is Canada, the West Indies, and a scattered population, which cannot very much affect the balance either way. The main numbers are pretty nearly exact; were there five millions wrong in either, it would not affect the question we are considering. Then between Turkey, the Austrian possessions, Russia, and the East, the Greeks must number some sixty millions, besides smaller, but ancient, bodies. So that Christendom not connected with Rome numbers some hundred and sixty, or hundred and seventy, millions; Rome, some hundred and thirty. That is a strange way of being Catholic. Catholic means, you know, James, universal.

That the Greek churches in Asia are more ancient than Rome, as James has said, scripture itself proves. Rome was the last founded of which we have any original history, and Greeks, Nestorians, and Jacobites were all separate from Rome, the earliest in the fifth, the latest in the ninth, century, and have their succession too.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

J. N. Darby.

<22001E> {file section b.}

22 But having got rid of this delusion, let us turn to the rule of faith. We need not consider the first false rule, private inspiration, for, save a few Quakers, no one alleges such a rule. Only we must, on the other hand, be very careful to guard against Romanist infidelity as to the action of the Holy Ghost. They practically deny the aid and succour of the Holy Ghost given to every humble believer. They ridicule it (as I know by experience) to throw men helplessly on their clergy. Now this is the worst kind of Pelagianism, the denial of the assistance of grace. The faithful Christian is assisted of God to understand the scriptures as he is to walk as a Christian.

The help and teaching of the Holy Ghost, and the written word, are not two rules of faith.* The scriptures are the one sure rule, and the Holy Ghost He who works in the believer to enable him to use that rule, and not merely as a rule but as the food and edification of his soul. And in this the contents of scripture are adapted to the progress the soul makes in divine things and its state in every respect. It is applied by the Holy Ghost to the conscience and heart of the humble Christian who owns his need of the grace of God, and looks for it according to his need. The person who denies this is an heretical denier of the grace and goodness of God. Mark this, because Dr. Milner, who I suppose from his book is an unbeliever as to this, carefully leaves it all out. If men go on presumptuously, without depending on the grace of God, they will err as to scripture, and as to everything else, whether they call themselves Catholic or Protestant. Do you deny, M., the need a Christian has of the grace of God, and the goodness and faithfulness of God in giving it, and the gracious operations of the Spirit of God in the Christian's heart, as it is said, "The meek shall he guide in judgment, and the meek shall he teach his way"; or, as the Lord said, speaking of His people, "They shall be all taught of God"?

{*Dr. Milner's Letters, 6 and 8.}

23 M. No, of course I do not; no good Catholic does; but that can only be in the true church.

N*. In one sense I quite agree with that. It is only in the true church, though we may not yet be agreed what the true church is. But this same gracious operation must take place to bring a person into the true church when he is outside it, and to help him when he is in it.

M. Well, I do not deny that.

N*. I am glad of it. Only this is all overlooked by Dr. Milner. He does not dream of any help from God. But not only does he leave out the gracious actings of the Holy Ghost in believers, but he leaves out all ministry. He will talk of tradition, and of the authority of the church, meaning however the clergy; but the ministry of those called of God in the church to teach and edify he overlooks altogether, or even of parents, who in their place have a ministry, and are called upon to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

People are not called upon to discover a religion. They are not called upon to take up a Bible, printed by the king's printer, as Dr. Milner says (Letter 9). That may happen, and has often, very often been blessed, but it is not the regularly appointed way of learning the truth. If even (as may be the case in the neglected masses of mankind, be they high or low, rich or poor) that is the case, they have not to judge of the book; they may judge right or judge wrong, but, if that is all, nothing is done. If the word of God is to profit them, it must judge them, and have its place in their hearts and consciences. We are superior to the thing we judge. As long as we are in spirit superior to God's word, it is not God's word at all really to us. We must be subject to it, receive it as it is in truth the word of God, to have life and edification by it.

As the truth of God is in the word, or rather as it is the truth, of course the Holy Ghost can use the scriptures to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and, blessed be God, thousands of souls have thus found life and peace; but that is not our subject, but what is the sure rule of faith when we do profess Christ to be our Lord. There is a ministry of the word and parental responsibility in the church of God. God alone can give efficacy to either by His grace, but men are not left to discover a religion. Christianity is the activity of God to communicate the knowledge of the truth, and grace which saves and gives eternal life, the knowledge of Christ. This is carried out by the ministry of the word and parental care, but that is not a rule of faith, but an appointed means of grace. This the Roman Catholic professes to believe as well as Protestants. None pretends a parent, or even a priest, is infallible. The question is — supposing men who profess Christianity teach differently, what is the rule by which a sincere person may know with certainty what the truth in that matter is? We say the rule of faith is the written word of God. You say the Bible and tradition taken together, or the word of God, written and unwritten, and that, besides the rule itself, Christ has provided in His holy church a living, speaking, judge to watch over it, and explain it in all matters of controversy. That is, that, in fact, the word, written or unwritten, is no rule for him at all; he must submit to what is told him by the living judge. If the judge pronounces and decides the matter, that is the rule for him who has to submit to it; he cannot refer from the judge to the law.

24 I need not take notice of Dr. Milner's objection (Letter 8, 1), that if Christ had meant to make the scriptures the rule, He would have written that book. It is irreverent, pretending to say what Christ ought to have done; but, besides, it contradicts his own theory, because he admits the written word, with unwritten tradition to complete it, to be the rule; and, if this be so, Christ has given for a rule what He did not write. The traditions as to the motives for writing the Gospels are too vague and too late in the history of the church to require any notice; and, as Dr. Milner adds, no doubt the evangelists were moved by the Holy Ghost, which is what we believe: I have no controversy with him on this head. His only attempt is to shew that they are insufficient; what has he to add? This point will come in after, when the same subject is spoken of in treating of the true rule.

I have only to notice the objection of differences of opinion among the reformers who acknowledge scripture. This is merely to catch people's minds. No rule can hinder differences so long as the human mind works. The doctrine of the Greeks differs from the doctrines of Rome, of Nestorians from both, of Jacobites from all, of Protestants from the system they have abandoned. This only proves that the church has failed in hindering divisions and maintaining unity. We have four great bodies, of which the latest formed has been for nearly a thousand years separate from Rome, and older than she, besides Anglicanism and the other Protestants. The divisions existed before Protestants were there. Rome is only one of these divided parts, not the oldest, not so numerous as all the rest taken together. With these divisions, the question is, what is the rule to judge which is the right one? Not the authority of one giving itself as the rule. That is what Rome does. Who can trust that? The scriptures were before all these divisions and questions, are given by inspired writers, are God's revelation of what was from the beginning, as God instituted it.

25 Divisions prove the infirmity of human nature: only that it is much more excusable in Protestants just coming out of the dark obscurity and superstition men were immersed in during the middle ages, than in Greece and Rome whose common starting-point was pure Christianity. And men must not suppose differences do not exist among Romanists. The Dominicans resisted with all their force the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary (now made by the present pope a matter of faith); so that there was the most important body of Romanists (till the Jesuits arose), the inventors and directors of the Inquisition, judges thus of heretical pravity, unsound on what is now declared to be an article of faith. The Augustinians believe in predestination; the Roman Catholic priests deny it. Nay, so far did these disputes go, that the Dominicans in the seventeenth century charged the Jesuits with maintaining the idolatry of the Chinese in their missions in China. For years the inquiry was pursued before the pope, and the practices sanctioned by the Jesuits at last condemned by Pope Clement XI in 1704.* The decree was mitigated in 1715. Now the allowance of heathen idolatry in Christians was a much graver difference than the details on which Protestants differ, while agreeing in fundamental truth.

{*The decree of 1715 allowed the Chinese to continue the worship of their ancestors, with gifts and burnings before them, and prostrating themselves, the principal worship of the heathen Chinese. Since China has been opened recently to Europeans, they have found a great dragon on the altar of a Jesuit church of that day, so that the Chinese could worship that and the host at the same time.}

26 Again, on the point of authority, which you consider so important, the gravest differences exist. The famous four articles by which the Gallican church defended its liberties were condemned as earnestly as possible by the Papal advocates. In these the synod of French bishops declares that the decrees of the Council of Constance, which maintained the authority of general councils as superior to that of the pope, are approved and ratified by the Gallican church; and that the decisions of the pope are not infallible in points of faith unless they be accompanied by the consent of the church.

Now here is an all-important difference on the subject of authority and infallibility. Our question will bring us back to this. I only notice here that differences are not confined to Protestants. It is a noticeable circumstance that it was the same man Bossuet, that wrote a crafty book on the variations of Protestants, who led the way in this important variation among Romanists, and defended it against the attacks of Ultramontanes as they are called, that is, the extreme defenders of the pope's claims. Ultramontane principles prevail now, but to this day Gallican principles, which deny the pope's infallibility, hold their ground in France and Germany.* Disputes and discussions belong to the infirmity of human nature. Where there is freedom for it, it appears more openly, and so it has amongst Protestants. In Rome, though violent, it is more connected with intrigues, and less exposed to view.

{*Since this was written, as every one knows, the Council at Rome has declared the pope infallible. But what has taken place only proves the truth of what is here said.}

Another point insisted on by Dr. Milner, which has nothing to do with the rule of faith, but which I may do well to take up as it is noticed, is this, that sovereign princes have acted more in the Reformation than theologians. The truth is that sovereign princes, long oppressed in the rights and authority which God confers on the magistrate, profited by the public movement, brought about by the faith of individuals though long prepared by the working of God's Spirit, to throw off the unjust authority of the pope. This was according to God's will, who gives to the sovereign his authority, and brought about by His providence. With this the rule of faith has surely nothing to do. It was the righteous resumption by he Civil magistrate of an authority to which the pope had no title. Whether they abused this is nothing to the purpose. Civil statutes had been passed constantly against the absorption of lands into the hands of monks and others — mortmain as it was called. They evaded them by the introduction of uses (that is, when it was forbidden to a monastery to hold lands, they were given to a layman to hold it to their use, to the peril of their souls if they did not); and then when this was condemned by the Statute of Uses, they evaded that by what are called trusts.

27 All this was roughly swept away in England at the Reformation — the land partly given to courtiers, partly employed for education. But what all this has to do with the rule of faith it would be hard to tell. Superstition had given the lands to monks, and, when fresh light broke up the superstition, they were taken away again; and the monasteries, which had become a plague to every country by luxury and wickedness, were suppressed. As to Henry VIII, he threw off the pope's authority, and he was right. Why should a prelate at Rome govern England? As to his being a Protestant, he was anything but that. He had six articles drawn up, amongst which was the doctrine of transubstantiation, the key-stone of Romanism, and persecuted bitterly those who did not submit, all who held the Protestant faith, as the pope had done before him.

James. I do not see what all this has to do with the authority of the scriptures.

N*. It has none. It is merely advanced by Romanists to excite prejudice against Protestantism.

M. And do you not charge the popes and others with wickedness?

N*. Well, as yet we have not spoken of it. But this has a just place when we speak of popes and the mass of prelates, because Romanists pretend to find the church, and infallibility, and authority over other men's faith and consciences, in these wicked men; whereas no Protestant dreams of taking Henry VIII or the Protector Somerset as an authority. They will be judged in the great day like others, and their acts judged like other men's now.

James. That does make all the difference in the world, M. Save as I may mourn over others' evil, what is it to me what Henry VIII or any such person was? He has nothing to do with my faith. We are talking of scripture, and that is what you must speak of.

28 N*. As to fanaticism, I answer again, that it is one of the infirmities of our poor nature, but it has been in all ages, papal or Protestant. The wicked fanaticism of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, in the palmiest days of popery, was worse than any fanaticism that ever arose out of Protestantism, and lasted longer. But what has this to do with the rule of faith? The Protestant princes put down Munzer by force of arms because he armed himself against them. The popes nearly suppressed the Brethren of the Free Spirit by punishment and burning them. All this proves nothing but the sadness of man's history.

There is another assertion which, by a seeming analogy, is more plausible. That there are judges for the law, and a common or unwritten law in England; and so for the divine law, both of these too (Letter 10). The first point for which this unwritten law is shewn to be needed is that I cannot receive laws till I own the authority of the legislature. This shews the danger of analogies. There is but one lawgiver, and I may add one judge. God Himself is the Legislator and Judge too; but now let us speak of legislature. Is not God Himself the lawgiver, the authority?

M. Of course He is.

N*. Well, that question then is settled. There is indeed another important point which you seem to forget — natural conscience, the knowledge of good and evil. Now I do not deny that this may be sadly darkened and corrupted. Still there is a conscience, and, Christianity having brought in light, natural conscience is enlightened and has a means of judging, though it may not even be aware of how it has acquired it. Thus, if money be given practically to allow sin, or for forgiveness of sin, or to commute for humbling penances and a tax on particular crimes as to how much should be paid; if the clergy was forbidden to marry, and then money was taken by their superiors for allowing them to live with a woman not their wife, the common law of natural conscience overrules the pretended authority of the church, and tears all sophistry to pieces by its just horror.

James. But surely the Romanists have never done or allowed this.

29 N*. Indeed they have; it is just as much a matter of history as that Rome exists.

James. Why, M., what do you say to that?

M. It is only relaxing the temporal punishment due to sin.

N*. It is (Letter 43) an actual remission by God Himself of part of the temporal punishment due; and, further, does it not take out of purgatory or shorten the stay there?

M. Yes, that is, the temporal punishment due to sin.

N*. Is it not by virtue of the surplus of merits of Christ and the saints?

M. Yes.

N*. Does Dr. Milner deny that indulgences were sold?

M. No, he does not.

N*. He does not; he says (Letter 42), "avarice has done everything bad"; but yet a further question: who sold them, and by what authority were they sold? Was it not the church's, or, if you please, the pope's?

M. Well, I suppose it must have been.

N*. To be sure it must and was, and they were farmed out to the Fuggers, who were famous bankers, to whom the sale was given for so much by the Archbishop of Mentz who was charged with it, and committed to the Dominican order. So that the Roman Catholics' accusation against Luther is that it was his jealousy, as an Augustine monk, against the Dominican order about this, which made him break with the pope.

James. Well, M., this is dreadful. This never could be the true church, the church that the Lord Jesus established, nor have His authority. I understand What Mr. —  means by conscience now, for all the reasoning in the world could not persuade me that that comes from God, or that those are from God who do it. And I see you cannot deny that what you call the church did it.

N*. He could not, because it is a notorious piece of history. It was the immediate cause of the Reformation. Luther protested against it because it destroyed all morality, and in point of fact, they did forgive all sins (that is, the punishment of them, which was what people cared about) past and future, so that in one case a person bought the indulgence and then waylaid the priest and took all the money he had collected.

M. But people must be in a state of grace to profit by it.

N*. A queer state of grace a man must be expected to be in when those that expect it are selling him remission of chastisement for sin on the part of God; besides, the sacraments may have settled all the state of grace for him.

30 No, no, that is what I say; natural conscience breaks through all this sophistry. At the time of the Reformation the corruptest thing in the world was the Roman system. Do you deny what is perfectly notorious, that the corruption of clergy, monks, and all, had arisen to such an inconceivable pitch in the fifteenth-century that the natural conscience rose up in clamour against it, and helped to bring on the Reformation?

M. Well, I do not know the details of history, but I know the church is holy and always was. It is one of the marks of the true church.

N*. Well, I will give you some details as far as one can venture. We shall touch on this mark. But I agree with you, it is a mark of the true church, and you shall judge whether the Roman body can be the true church, though the point we are on now is to shew that the common law of even natural conscience, claims its rights against such horrors. The practice of concubinage among priests with those to whom they were not married was so universal that it was forbidden by the Council of Paris in 1429, which says their example had corrupted all the laity. But in vain; in the middle of the same century it was decreed at Breslau that they should pay ten florins if they did, and indeed the people of the parish very often would have it so to prevent more universal corruption. The truth is, it was universal, and so among monks, and even unnatural crimes. The witnesses to these are all of the Roman body, and a layman complains what was a sin for laymen was none for the clergy, and what was a sin for the clergy was none for the laity; for if a clergyman had a wife of his own it was a sin, if a layman had it was not; but if a clergyman had a hundred and sixty or a hundred and seventy, none of which was a wife, it was no sin, but if a layman had it was. And the ablest and most respectable Romanist doctor of his day who sought reformation, Gerson, declares if a monk lives in uncleanness he does not violate his vow provided he does not marry, only he is guilty of sin. One remedy, he says, is to do it as little as possible and do a great many good works, and take care it should be in secret, not on festivals or in holy places, and with unmarried persons. In truth, the shameless lives of the clergy, or, as Adolphus bishop of Merseburg, expresses it, "the licentious unmarried life of the clergy was before the eyes of all."

31 I have only cited these general testimonies; to go farther would be to enter into a sea of enormities horrible to go through. No doubt many a godly man cried out against it, and a reform in head and members was the universal outcry of natural conscience from laymen. And the councils of Constance and Basel tried to do something towards reforming the excessive licentiousness and wickedness of the monasteries. But as soon as Constance had started a pope, having deposed three, who were all reigning together, the chief one as guilty of everything that was horrible, there was an end of reformation; and the council at Basel was broken up by the then pope under pretext of transferring it elsewhere; so that there were two councils at a time, one at Basel without a pope, and another at Florence with a pope; and the Council of Basel passed decrees against priests living with women without being married, and added that the bishops were not to hinder the severity of the decrees being enforced: a pretty plain proof of what took place. The result was that the excessive wickedness of the clergy brought about the Reformation, the immediate occasion being the sale of indulgences for sin. God came in with an ancient truth in His grace, but the occasion of it, and what made men ready to receive it, was the revolt of the common law of conscience against the outrageous wickedness of the so-called church.

James. Well, M., what can you say to this? It is very shocking. Can you deny it?

N*. He cannot deny it. It is a matter of public notoriety, known to all acquainted with history, and proved by the outcry of Christendom, and the public acts of synods to repress it, because it was grown so scandalous. The Reformation has partially moralised the Roman clergy where it has come; but only partially, and where it is not present the fatal obligation of celibacy is a source still of endless corruption. Now conscience revolts against this, the true common law of man if you please to talk of common law, which the church is not, because it is confessedly a positive institution. Our Legislator there is God Himself, and there is a certain common law for man, namely, the knowledge of good and evil.

M. Yes; but you have no judge who is to decide on the matter when there is a difference.

32 N*. Have I not? In the first place conscience, as far as it goes, decides at a man's peril what is right and what is wrong. And note here, though man may get light from God's revelation, yet as to a judge God is and will be the final judge, and the conscience must and is bound so to regard Him. Conscience is answerable to God directly, and no man can come between the conscience and God so as to destroy the right of God. "Who art thou," says the apostle, "that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth." To come in between God and the conscience is not to touch man's rights, but God's.

James. That is true, M. If my master bids me to do something in his own matters, and you tell me to do something else, you meddle with his right to command me as much and more than with me. Conscience makes us subject to God, and not dare to disobey Him. We do want help and light for it, but it always looks to God as the authority that is over it, and it cannot, dare not, look away from Him to another, because this sets aside God. It would no longer be subject to Him.

M. All very true, no doubt; but if God has set any one to judge, as the king does the judges, you must abide by their decision.

N*. That is all well to decide about property or crimes, and to keep peace among men. But that is absolutely impossible as to conscience, because God has a judgment to come in which He will pronounce originally and finally as to guilt; in which He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the secrets of the heart. Therefore the apostle warns to judge nothing before the time till God does that, God having reserved this to Himself. There can be no judgment which can come between the conscience and God's final judgment. It remains, in spite of men, in all its force and authority, and a man must answer to it, and no other authority can come in between, so as to relieve him from obedience to that judgment. So that in the proper sense of judge I admit no judge but God, who executes it in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Judgment applies to the final state of souls, and not to causes between man and man, or offences against the State. Offences against the State the State judges. Our offences are against God, and God judges.

M. Yes; but the State appoints judges, and God has appointed the church.

33 N*. Hence the Queen cannot judge at all; she may shew mercy, but that is not the question now. But she is not allowed to judge at all. Is that true as regards God?

M. Of course not.

N*. He judges then Himself, and He only; save, as we know, He exercises this judgment by Christ, does He not?

M. Of course, every one owns that.

N*. The whole case then has to be settled by Him who knows it all, He being the judge, and having the whole cause originally and finally before Him?

M. It has.

N*. Priests and pope and all.

M. Yes, priests and pope and all.

N*. Then all your comparison about a judge is simply all false. God Himself judges, and that is the only true judgment; and I am bound to look to that, and not to allow any other to come between me and my conscience. For God judges according to a permanent, abiding, direct authority He has over me every moment, so that I dare not look away from Him. If I do I am sinning. For note that, James, it is not only particular cases to be settled, about which God judges, but every instant of our lives, so that we cannot look at anything but Him without neglecting Him and His claims.

James. I see it plain enough; I feel it too. I know I may fail, and shall, save as kept by His grace, but I know I am bound to take His will every moment. It ought to be my joy to obey Him. It was the blessed Saviour's own joy; but at any rate I am bound to do it, and must give, and ought to give, an account of myself to God. And tell me, M., can the priest, or the pope, if you please, answer for me in that day?

M. No, of course they cannot.

N*. Then I would not give much for their answering for me now.

M. But is it not said, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven?" And, "Do you not judge them that are within?" and "to whomsoever ye forgive anything, I forgive it."

N*. It is.

M. Then there must be a judge.

N*. But unless you speak of what the apostle's authority established as binding, which no Christian denies, you are now speaking of discipline, not of a rule of faith. Now I own fully scripture speaks of discipline; 1 Cor. 5: 13; 2 Cor. 2: 10. When a person was put out, his sins were bound upon him, and when he was forgiven and re-admitted, his sins were loosed. And this is the distinct unequivocal force of a passage you are fond of quoting: "If he will not hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." The subject is a wrong done to a person: he remonstrates; if he recovers his brother, well; if not, he takes two or three more, so that if the person remains obdurate, these are witnesses of all; and then he tells the whole assembly, and if the wrong-doer will not hear the assembly, the injured person may hold him as a person having no claim to be owned as belonging to it; but what has this to do with a rule of faith? And note, just as it was in the Corinthians, the whole assembly was to be listened to, and that to cleanse themselves; 1 Cor. 5.

34 James. Well, M., you used to quote this passage as if it was a direction for everybody to listen to the church's teaching, and it has nothing whatever to say to that. It is when some matter of wrong is told to the assembly as the last means of winning a person back from wronging his neighbour, and he will not hearken to the whole assembly, he may then be treated as a heathen that does not belong to it. And I see it is said that, wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, He is in the midst of them, so that it applies to Christians assembled together.

M. But is it not said, "Go and teach all nations, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world"?

N*. Let me remark to you that you are quoting scripture, and you tell me I cannot receive it without the church, nor understand it either.

M. Yes; but the church has sanctioned it.

N*. What church?

M. Why, the Holy Roman Catholic church.

N*. But I do not own it to be the church, nor do I admit that the church can sanction God's word; it savours to me of blasphemy. You tell me I must have the church first, and we have not got that yet, and therefore you cannot quote it to me. You tell me I must leave it to the church to give authority to the scripture. And now you are quoting scripture to prove the church. That will not do.

James. No, surely, M.; you cannot bring in to prove the church till you have the church to prove it, according to your system. So you ought to prove the church some other way, for according to you the scripture cannot have authority till you have it from the church, and we have not got the church yet for your faith; though I do not contest the Bible.

35 N*. Quite right, James. You have got no ground yet, and we will therefore surely answer as to it seriously. But when we are inquiring into the rule of faith, this is important, because the Roman Catholic has no real ground for his faith. If the scripture is to prove the authority of the church, the church cannot prove the authority of scripture. If the church is to prove the authority of scripture, we cannot use scripture till we have the church first, as the scripture has none without it.

James. That is clear, M. How does your Dr. Milner get out of that?

M. Why, he says he believes the Catholic church, and everything that she teaches, upon the motives of credibility (namely, her unity, sanctity, etc.), which accompany her. And she brings me the book and tells me it is inspired.

N*. On whose judgment then have you believed the church? — who has judged of these motives of credibility?

M. Well, on my own, of course. I must judge if it is the church.

N*. Clearly, but then you avow that your whole faith depends on private judgment, and not on a divine foundation at all. And, remark, Dr. Milner felt the force of this, and refers to the objection made to him, and seeks to clear it up. Now, in doing this, he is forced to rest the church's authority on motives of credibility — motives for whom? Man. That is, it is mere human probability. The house cannot be stronger than its foundation. If I have only probability for the church, what the church teaches can only probably have authority. That is, it is no divine authority or divine faith at all. It would be a blasphemy to say, "Probably God says the truth." The Protestant's faith is founded on God's word as such; and motives of credibility can go no farther than private judgment, nay, may vary with each individual in their force. Thus sanctity is alleged to be a proof of the true church.

I read history, and I find that what a Romanist calls the church and infallible is stamped throughout, after history as contrasted with scripture begins, with the most horrible depravity and unholiness of anything on record. Where is the motive of credibility for me? When it rests on motives of credibility, it must rest on private judgment. There is no divine faith at all. Dr. John H. Newman admits there is only a degree of probability, though an immensely strong one. But that is not divine faith. The Romanist has confessedly none.

36 Dr. Milner says, you receive as a king's messenger one clothed like one, and you assure yourself he is one, and then accept the letter from the king that he brings, which tells you to mind all he (the messenger) says. But if he was a clever rogue, he might deceive you, and then use the letter to prove you ought to mind him, and get authority over you in everything, and you have only your own judgment to trust to in receiving him. Thus you have nothing but your own judgment to trust to, upon your own shewing, for what you believe.

But let us see a little farther what Dr. Milner's argument is worth. He believes the church and all that she teaches because of unity, sanctity, etc. Why all that she teaches? There may be unity and sanctity, and yet not present infallibility. This argument will not hold water. Dr. Milner jumps into infallibility before he has even got the scriptures to tell him the church is infallible, a point we will speak of. Then, suppose I deny the unity (and, remember, all the oldest churches reject the Roman Catholic church as erroneous, and the pope's authority, and of course do not admit their infallibility, and so, we have seen, do the majority rather of Christians), and the sanctity — both of which, in fact, I do entirely deny — all your supposition falls to the ground. If you have to prove them, in the end divine authority rests upon the judgment I form of unity and sanctity, before I have got any revelation at all. How do I know there ought to be but one church? And as there are many, how am I to know which is the right one? — and must I know all history in order to say which has been holy, or which has the right succession, if any, before I can have any right faith? You have no divine foundation for your faith at all, nor the church to give it me. And, supposing I am asked to receive all the church teaches now, why may not I judge of the sanctity and unity at the beginning of her history and believe her to be infallible then, and hear what she says? Ah, you tell me I must not judge by that, but only by what is now. Now this looks suspicious. Why may not I see what the apostles and inspired men taught — what the church, if you please, taught then? Was it not one and holy then?

37 M. Of course it was.

N*. Was it not more united and holy than now?

M. Well, I suppose it was, for here at least there is not much to boast in that way.

N*. Why may I not then hear it at that time? Then I should listen to Paul and John and Peter and the rest. But you do not seem to like that; you will only allow me to hear people who are not inspired. And where am I to find any inspired teaching, or even the church's teaching now?

M. You must listen to her pastors.

N*. Are they inspired?

M. No.

N*. Then I have no divine faith in what they say.

M. But they will not mislead you; the priest is seen after by the bishop, and he by them above him.

N*. How can I tell? Is that divine faith? At any rate I do not hear the church, for aught I can tell, in hearing him. We will return to this, for it is a large subject. But on our main point at present, Dr. Milner on his own shewing, though he has been very astute, has no ground to stand upon. And, after all, I am to listen to this church now in those who confessedly are not inspired, and am not allowed to listen to it when apostles and others were inspired. And what does Dr. Milner therefore do? He puts the word of God first, unwritten as well as written, as the rule; and the church as the judge. When pressed (for it is only in a note) he says the church must come first, and be proved by its unity, sanctity, etc., etc., and then come to the word, but this, in fact, he did not dare to do. He had not the unity; he had not the sanctity. He tries to confirm the church's authority by these marks when he has got the true rule as he says, but, according to his own shewing, he could not get it till he had got the church. But he could not put the church forward, first because he has to prove it had such authority, which could not be proved at all; and next, that the Roman system was that church. It could not be proved that the church had the authority, because, if the church has to be proved first, how am I to know she is infallible? — how can I tell what marks she is to be known by? She cannot adduce scripture to prove it in any way, for what propounds and explains it — that is, the church — we have not got yet. And supposing I admit the church to exist, as I do, for there it is before my eyes; why is it infallible? It tells me so; but is it right in telling me so? I see worldliness, ambition, horrible corruption, disputes, difference of doctrine. Take, for instance, the Dominicans and Franciscans on the immaculate conception. The former, the greatest and most important body for many centuries in their church (and which managed the Inquisition), denied what is now held necessary to be believed as of the faith itself.*

{*Vincencius Lirinensis' rule is a real farce on the face of it. I must know all the church ever held to say, "held always, and by all" before the rule can apply. And when I do know it, as in this instance, I have a doctrine declared to be a dogma of faith which the most important body among the Roman Catholics denied publicly for centuries.}

38 M. But then the pope and the bishops have decided now, and they had not then.

N*. But how do I know the pope and the bishops have the right to decide? Who has made them infallible? I know some pretend the pope is so, and some pretend a general council is, and some say there must be both. But this is a new infallible body. And is it not a strange thing that the church, which you say was to keep people safe in the truth, should have left a vast body, and the most famous doctors, and those who were to decide upon heresy, in error for centuries, and only then settle the truth? How am I to receive all it teaches, or anything, with a divine faith? Hence in fact Dr. Milner puts the word of God first to prove the church before he has proved it to be the word of God, and declaring we cannot tell whether it is. This rule even then rests on no divine faith in his system, because, according to that, I get to the church, and cannot tell if the scriptures, by which its authority is alleged to be taught, are divine. He is cleverly resting on my protestant good faith to hide the weakness of his own cause.

Mark another thing. He puts the proof of the credibility of Christianity in a protestant mouth — in Dr. Carey's. How comes that? He makes him quote the scriptures as a warrant for the doctrines and miracles of the Lord Jesus. Now he is quite right in doing that, because faith in Christianity cannot be founded on the church; because he who has to learn to believe in Christianity of course does not yet own the church. But here, however cunning, he has given all his position up. I can believe without the church. I have discovered the true religion. And if I have believed in Christianity and the word, I have what I want substantially, and, above all, I recognize the divine authority of the scriptures. You plead, or make the Protestant plead — for as a Roman Catholic you can have no such faith — the words and works of the blessed Jesus. You do well; but where did you get them in order to prove what Christianity is? Have you any account but the scriptures of the words and works of Jesus? Not the smallest iota. Anything that ever pretended to be so is too bad for anyone to allege it as of any authority. You must come to the scriptures to know what Christ said or did. A priest may repeat it from them, or I may, but nothing (with all the boastings of the clergy) has the smallest authority but what is found there.

39 But then the word has divine authority over my soul; the moment I have Jesus' words, and the apostles' words, I have the certainty of divine truth. You have nothing at all but this to prove what Christianity is, and its credibility; and, if I take this and so believe in Christianity, I have already the words of Christ and His apostles, and neither would nor dare but hear them. Do not tell me I cannot understand or believe them. That is the Christianity I have to understand and believe. Now, I do not wish to offend you, M., God forbid, but if I were to take what you call the Catholic church, as it is, or as it was at the time the Reformation took place, or long before, I see, without at all pretending that Protestants are what they ought to be, the greatest scene of wickedness that ever was known on the face of God's earth. And I should say, if that is what I am to believe as Christianity, God keep me from it. It is a wickedness that revolts an honest moral man, and that in priests, bishops, and popes more than in others. That there is no disputing about before the Reformation.

M. Well, all admit there have been wicked popes and clergy, but that is not the church.

N*. But is it not what you want me to hear? Are they not the people who you say are to secure my having the truth? And as you plead sanctity as a proof of infallible authority, I must at once say, Well it is certainly not to be had here.

M. Well, but that does not change the faith of the church.

N*. Aye, but we are talking about the infallibility of the church, on which my faith is to be divinely founded. And if sanctity, or even unity, is to be a proof of it, it was lost altogether, for the popes were the wickedest of men, and there were two, and even three, at a time denouncing one another as the falsest and wickedest of men; and at last it was so scandalous, that the three who then pretended to be pope were all deposed. Where was sanctity and unity then? Where infallibility? And note, to have it, it must never cease.

40 M. Well, but it was in the known doctrines of the church.

N*. But I thought we must have a speaking tribunal. And if you found yourself on documents, where are they?

M. Well, there is the Council of Trent and the Catechism of Pope Pius IV.

N*. That was a century later, and if I go to these documents, why may not I go to what Paul and Peter and John wrote? I get it first hand, and I suppose the apostles were as sure as the Council of Trent.

M. Yes, of course; but you may interpret them wrong; and then, if you go to that, they are in Greek; you must come to the pastors of the church.

N*. Well, but I may interpret the decrees of Trent and the Catechism wrong. They are much more obscure than the most of the New Testament. And as to this being in Greek, the decrees and the Catechism are in Latin, and you are not going to tell me that the poor Romanists read them to know their faith; and if I go to the pastor, I am with a fallible man, and can have no divine faith. No, with the word of God I have a divine foundation for my faith, whereas you have none at all. Hence, M., though you have no right to quote the scriptures to me, because you say we cannot tell they are the word of God, and you have not yet proved what and where the true church is; yet, as I do believe they are the word of God, I shall make no objection to your quoting them, so that we will return to the point we left, only it was very important to shew that you Romanists have no divine ground for your faith at all. Your principle is that we cannot tell if the scriptures be the word of God. Hence I cannot have a divine faith in the revelation given. I cannot tell if it is a revelation. If it is, it has divine authority, and I must listen to it. As to the church, you have not proved anything about it yet. But I shall listen to all you say from the word, because, though you have no right to use it, I do not want to cavil, and I own it to be God's word. We were speaking of "Go and teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the end of the world."

M. Well, is not that a plain proof that the church is secure from error, and that, as the apostles could not live for ever, we must obey their successors?

41 N*. Who are their successors?

M. Why, all the bishops, and especially the pope, as the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles.

N*. I see nothing about successors. But must I know the succession of bishops of a see before I know what saves my soul? This is a serious question, because there have been three popes at a time. But let us see now if you think God was always with them. For instance, when Pope Julius was the most ardent warrior of his day, or when his predecessor, Pope Alexander VI, carried on a life of dissoluteness without example, seeking to establish his illegitimate children in dukedoms and principalities, to say nothing worse of him (for worse is said, and counted true), and at last was poisoned by what he had prepared to poison a rich cardinal to get his money — was the Lord (may He forgive one for naming such a thing!) with these as with the apostles?

M. Yes, but there are wicked men everywhere.

N*. No doubt. That is not our question; but is the Lord with them as He was with the apostles? That is the question.

James. Why, M., you cannot say that. It would be awful.

42 N*. Well, when there were two popes for thirty years, and then three for some years more, the two holding their ground against the third, named to put them down, and then this third, probably poisoned by the person who was his successor, and after various fighting in open war, the Emperor succeeded in having a general council, and putting down all three (the last as too infamous to be tolerated) — was the Lord with all these? or with which of them?

M. No, of course not; but He was with the church.

N*. That I believe. But then, in that case, these were not the church. And, remember, your doctrine is that the promise to the apostles was with their successors. And this schism is of the more importance, because it is alleged that the Lord may be with an office when not with the person. But here there were two successors condemning each other, and part of Europe siding with one, and part with the other, and a third condemning both, so that the Lord could not be with them, and neither could secure the truth for us. The truth is, the papacy and all connected with it was such a horrible scene of wickedness, that men got tired of it and put down these popes — and we may well say God, in His mercy, too — and brought about the Reformation. For the Reformation, long cried for by all Christendom, took place about a century after this in another way than was expected; the popes, to whom reformation was left by the council, taking good care not to reform themselves, though not so scandalous as those I have referred to.

M. Well, but there were good popes too.

N*. In the beginning of the history of Christianity there were blessed men in the See of Rome, martyrs among them: only they were not popes of Christendom. Far from it. Yet already in the fifth century the city of Rome was filled with blood and massacres through the conflicts between two contending popes, Symmachus and Laurentius, and at last they had to go to an heretical Arian king to decide the matter. This is the Roman Catholic account (Baronius, vol. 8, p. 619). The dispute too lasted a long time. But, further, when the so-called bishops went to war, as princes at the head of their troops, as happened constantly in the middle ages, particularly in Germany, was the Lord with them as the successors of the apostles? And when they allowed sin for ten florins, as we have seen, was the Lord with them?

James. Well, M., what can you say to this? But is this all certain, sir?

N*. I have stated nothing but what is matter of well-known and authentic history, for which authentic proofs remain, and mainly in councils of the Roman Catholic church. Nor indeed is it possible to go into all the wickedness and horrors that went on.

M. Well, I suppose it cannot be denied that they were dark and evil times; even Catholics admit that. But they were the habits of the age, and the clergy were not wholly exempt.

N*. They do admit it. St. Bernard, as you call him, said Antichrist was at Rome in the eleventh century. But were the successors of the apostles, with whom you allege the Lord was, to follow the habits of the age? Besides, forbidding to marry and then living in sin was the case of the clergy only, and not otherwise the habits of the age, save as the corruption of the clergy corrupted everything around them.

James. But I thought, M., you called the church holy; and what is all this? It is dreadful: how could you think I could take such persons for successors of the apostles?

43 N*. But again, are all the Greek patriarchs, prelates and clergy who reject the authority of the pope — are they successors of the apostles too?

M. But they are in schism.

N*. Well, but then successors of the apostles are in schism. Is not that a queer thing, and how is the Lord with them so that they can secure my faith? And then there are some sixty millions of professing Christians in schism with them, well nigh half the number of those subject to the pope. And then, note, they are the successors of the apostles, most of them in older churches than that of Rome. How can I be secure in thinking they can guide me according to the promise we are speaking of, "Lo, I am with you always," when they condemn utterly the pretensions of the one you think, I suppose, infallible?

M. But they hold the same doctrines.

N*. So your Dr. Milner states; but it is not true, and, begging his pardon, he must have known it was not true. They do not hold the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, nor purgatory — the last exercising more influence in the papal body than any other doctrine. I might add the priests marry; only that is practice, not doctrine. Again, when pope Liberius turned Arian to please the Emperor Constantius, and denied the divinity of the Lord Jesus, was the Lord with him as a successor of the apostles? Athanasius, who stood up for the truth of the blessed Lord's divinity was banished, and died in banishment excommunicated. And even before, in Constantine's time, when all the prelates, fathers, as they are called, of the Council of Tyre joined in accepting this denial of the truth, and the Arians were recalled, could they pretend the Lord was with them? — or the 800 bishops who at Ariminium denied the divinity of the Lord? There were but 318 in the Council of Nice which affirmed it, only the Emperor's authority maintained it. Had I trusted the clergy for the truth in Constantius' days, I must have turned Arian. If I lived in Russia or Turkey now, I must, if I listen to the clergy, hold the pretensions of Rome to be all wrong. If I live at Rome, I must hold the successors of the apostles in the East to be all wrong. Is that all the security you can give me? When I take the scriptures, I have the certainty of having the truth, because I get what you own to be the apostles' own teaching. But to our point. Is God with all those of whom we have been speaking in their errors, when the pope for example was an Arian, or when there were two?

44 M. No, of course He was not with them in that. But you see God has preserved the church through it all in spite of all this, and you must hear the church.

N*. We have not got the true church yet. However, you hold, then, that God has preserved the true church not by, but in spite of, these successors of the apostles. That I fully believe, and bless His abundant grace for. He has not permitted the gates of hell to prevail against it. But if anything could have frustrated God's promise and have destroyed the church, the conduct of the hierarchy would have done so.

M. But He was very often with them too. There were holy godly men, who sacrificed their lives for the truth.

N*. Undoubtedly there were, at any rate in the earlier part of the history, though we might not always agree in judging of the particular cases. But there were some more enlightened, others less. And I am well assured that God was with them in the measure in which they followed the apostles and their doctrine, and so He will now with those who do, and that to the end of the age. He was fully with the apostles, and will be with all those who serve Him like them according to the measure given unto them. But this does not make the popes and prelates who are not all like them any security for the truth.

I believe then fully in the promise given, and that the Lord was with the apostles and will be with all those who so serve Him. And you are forced to admit that with the mass of your successors of the apostles the Lord is not. And your Dr. Milner looks at it, when it suits him, in the same way, for he couples with the passage we are speaking of, another from Mark, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." I add, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Now, in this work I do not doubt that the Lord is with those who serve Him; but then your successors of the apostles are not that in their office. They rule over the flock where people are all professing Christians. Christ is speaking in Matthew of making disciples of the heathen. In Mark too He is speaking of the conversion to Christianity of those who were strangers to it. He is not speaking of the care of the church, nor of successors in that at all.

And mark here the importance of a distinction I was making with James before you came. Dr. Milner says the unwritten word was the means of propagating the doctrines. Now I admit that fully, and it may be, and is still; but that does not make the preacher a rule of faith. A means of propagating is not a rule of faith. This fallacy runs all through the book.

45 M. But Christ promised the Comforter should abide for ever, and that He would teach the apostles all things and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever He had said to them.

N*. Both these statements I believe with all my heart, as Christ's own words. But, allow me to say, if He taught the apostles all things and brought all things to their remembrance, two things are clear: first, that all was taught them then, and all brought to remembrance then, and that of Christ's teaching nothing more is to be learnt than what they thus received. On this point Tertullian largely insists; and, better still, the apostle John. He tells us that, if we abide in what was from the beginning, we shall abide in the Father and in the Son; next, that it was to them only He then spoke, for He says, "to bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you." This can apply only to the apostles, and we have to inquire, How do we get what was thus taught them, whether directly by the Holy Ghost or by His bringing to remembrance Christ's words?

M. That is true; but the Comforter was to abide for ever.

N*. So I am fully persuaded He does, but not to teach new truths, for all were taught to the apostles. He may, morally speaking, lead us to think of what Christ says, but cannot properly do what He did to the apostles. And the passage is an unfortunate one, for Judas (not Iscariot) asks the Lord how He would manifest Himself to them and not to the world, and the Lord tells him, "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will make our abode with him." So that the way the Comforter abides with the apostles and their successors, if you please, is with those who love Him and keep His word. Thus it is the Lord Himself carries on the succession, not by offices. Now, I admit, in the fullest way, that there are gifts, "pastors and teachers," by which the Lord edifies His people individually and collectively. But these, all admit, are not rules of faith. They are a means of blessing, not a rule of faith.

So that, if we examine the passage, we find that all was taught to the apostles, and that the true presence of the Spirit is with those who love Christ and keep His word. There is no promise whatever to official successors. There is one to the apostles, the end of the age being unrevealed; but there is not one word of official successors as objects of the promise. To allege it is only a supposition that it must be: a pretension often loudest in the wickedest now, to be the successors of the apostles. And when Judas asks how the Lord could be present, it is explained in another way by the Lord. Christ, who had been their Comforter or Paraclete, was going away from the disciples. This was a deep sorrow, an affecting loss. He promises another, who should not thus leave them, but ever abide with them. And surely as long as the church remains the Holy Ghost will remain. Who has Him dwelling in him is another question. The Lord says He is with those who love Him and keep His word.

46 Now as all truth was taught to the apostles, one question is, How can we have this securely and surely as they had it? But that there were any successors to the apostles in the true sense of the word I entirely deny. First, in a mass of places churches were found in which they never were, so that there was no proper successor to an apostle, for there was no apostle to succeed to. There may have been godly administrative care and teaching by those called and sent of God, and a great blessing too; but no proper successors of the apostles where there were no apostles to succeed.

But I go farther into the root and heart of the thing than this. There was no successor to an apostle at all as to what he was as an apostle. No one was chosen, sent directly by the Lord Himself, and this is what an apostle means. It is a name given by Christ. No pretended successor could say as Paul (and the rest too) "not of man, nor by man." The pretension to be a successor denies the person being in an apostle's place; for it denies that immediate relationship to Christ, which alone constitutes apostleship. The Timothys and Silvanuses and the rest, precious as they were to the church, were by man; or simply gifts without any local office, as the prophets. An apostle, in the nature of things, cannot have a successor in any official place in the church. For such successor is as such not the founder of the church as an eye-witness, and sent directly by Christ as such. Nobody pretends that those called successors of the apostles are inspired to make revelations. Individually they have no pretension to be considered in any respect as successors of an apostle. Nor was it (unless possibly at Jerusalem, and this is quite uncertain) the office of an apostle to govern any particular see, nor did any, unless the case I have just alluded to, and then that was not the apostolic office.

47 But I go farther. There is distinct proof that the apostles themselves recognized no successors. Paul insists on the diligent care of the elders, because he had no successor. This is very distinct. He knew (Acts 20) that after his decease grievous wolves would enter in, and perverse men would arise. Who, after his decease, if he was to have a successor? Evil would spring up because there was not an apostle to check or control it by his spiritual energy and consequent authority. He urges the elders, those whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers, to watch — a thing wholly out of place if another was to succeed him and take his place. Some say Timothy was afterwards bishop of Ephesus. There is no evidence of it, but the contrary; but if he were, it upsets the theory altogether, for the same authorities tell us John was at Ephesus, so that we have an apostle there governing and guiding, and yet a successor at the same time to do it as if the apostle were gone.

So Peter says, seeing his departure was near, that he would take care they should have these things always in remembrance, and writes his Epistle; but if he had a successor who was to secure the truth, and it be not the scriptures which are to do it through grace, he made a great mistake in the whole matter. Paul therefore, and Peter and John practically too, all deny the whole theory on which the Romish system is founded. They know no successor, deny by their words that there will be such, and give other means of security as regards the truth; for Paul is still clearer than Peter as to the scriptures. Not only does he commend the elders of Ephesus to God and the word of His grace, but he tells us positively that in the last days perilous times should come; that the professing church would be in a horrible state, having a form of godliness but denying the power of it; and that we should turn away from such; and that the security of the faithful Christian would be the scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation. Not a word of tradition, but the contrary; for Timothy is made to rely on knowing of whom he had learned the things he knew. This was Paul himself

James. Where is that, sir?

48 N*. In 2 Timothy 3. He says evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, but Timothy was to continue in what Paul himself had taught, and hold fast to the scriptures as able to make him wise unto salvation, and make the man of God perfect. Thus the apostle had-no thought of anything else than apostolic teaching, and the scriptures as the security of the faithful in the perilous times of the last days. And you see too, plainly, that instead of such security and right conduct and good state of the church continuing through the care of the successors of the apostles perilous times were to come; and indeed at the end, as he tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2, an apostasy; and that when the state of the professing church made it perilous for the saint, the scriptures and the certain teaching of the apostle himself would be the means of securing us by faith in Christ Jesus. The Christian would have to be secured in perils arising from the state of the church. Paul does not refer to the hierarchy as the safeguard, but to the scriptures and Timothy's knowing who had taught him.

James. That is very clear, M.; because, if the state of the church was so evil as to make it perilous, it could not be a security for him who desired to walk right; and if I read what Paul says I do know of whom I have learned it, and that and the other scriptures will keep us through faith in Christ.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Third Conversation

The Word of God and the Church

J. N. Darby.

<22001E> {file section c.}

48 M. But you may take a false meaning out of them. Every kind of notion and religion is come out of scripture.

James. That I do not believe, because both you and I believe they are the truth of God, and therefore error cannot come out of them. That people, if they are not humble, and if they read scripture with their heads and not depending upon grace, may follow their own thoughts and wrest scripture to prove them — this may be; but they cannot get anything but perfect truth out of scripture, that you dare not deny. If they are proud, wise in their own conceits, they will reap the consequence of it, but grace will keep the humble soul. Besides, I may take a wrong meaning out of what your books or priest teach me. And, further, I do not despise at all the help of those whom God has sent and fitted to teach and help us: only they are not the rule of faith. They cannot, I see they cannot, have the authority God's word has; they are not inspired. I must prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. That is what the apostle tells us to do; 1 Cor. 10: 15.

M. Why you are growing quite a little teacher yourself, James. What can a poor man like you know about it?

49 James. I know well I am not a learned man, M., but I have faith in what I find in scripture, and therefore am certain of the truth that is in it. Ought not I to believe what Paul says?

M. Of course; but how can you tell what he meant?

James. By what he says; and do you not believe that the grace of God will help a poor man as well as a learned one in what concerns his soul?

M. Well, I do not gainsay that.

James. And the blessed Lord who cared for the poor said, that the Father hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes: "even so, Father, for so it seems good in thy sight." And Paul says, "If any man will be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise." And the Psalm says, "The entering in of thy word giveth light and understanding to the simple."

M. Where do you get all this scripture, James?

James. Why, by reading it to be sure. You pretend we cannot understand it, M., and you have never tried. Read it, and try and see if it is not light and food for the soul. Of course we need grace for this, as for every blessing. And tell me, M., to whom did the Lord speak when He was teaching, the learned or the poor?

M. Why, they say the poor. The scribes and Pharisees would not listen to Him.

James. And do you think He spoke so that they could understand Him if their hearts were not hardened? Alas, there are many such, poor and rich.

M. Well, I suppose, of course He did.

James. And why should not I, if I humbly seek His help? I do not know Greek of course, but (thank God) it has been put into English, and I can trust Him to get the truth from it. I am not looking for a learned knowledge of it, but for the edification of my soul. Read it in your own translation. There is one they approve of, read it in that, if you won't have ours. I do not believe the blessed Lord meant to make a way for learned men to get to heaven and not for the poor. He says "to the poor the gospel is preached"; and the apostle, "not many wise men, not many rich, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise." Yet he wrote almost all his Epistles to these very people.

50 M. Well, what you say there, James, is reasonable. I should like to see what scripture does say; but I do not know whether Father O. will allow me.

James. Father O.! But what right can Father O. have to hinder your hearing what God has said to you? Who gave him the right to keep away from the poor God's word that was once written to the poor? For, as Mr. N*. said, the Epistles, save a few, were written to all the Christians in a place, not to the clergy.

M. Well, but you do not know whether he will hinder me.

James. Perhaps not. They would not be apt to do it when all around can read them; but how comes he to have the right to hinder? or how comes it you are dependent on another man as to whether you may hear what God has said?

M. Well, I doubt that is right too. But surely we ought to obey those who have the rule over us.

James. I have nothing against that, for the scriptures say so. But how comes it they only give you these scraps of them? If one of the family would not let me see my father's will, pretending he was wiser than me, and I was no lawyer, and I should only take a wrong sense out of it, I should not, as a man, like it. I am not a lawyer, and he might be better able to explain lawyer's words in it; but I should like to know what my father did say. Some of it might be plain and for me, and I should know if he was keeping something back from me that was mine in what was plain. I should like to see it. And when one does see the scripture, one sees that God meant us to see it.

N*. Yes, and that is a very important point; because it is not merely going against our rights, as between man and man, but against God's rights as to His own people. And Dr. Milner lets out that Rome does not wish Christians in general to see the scriptures. He says she has confirmed her decrees by them. She enjoins her pastors to read and study them. Finally she proves her perpetual right to announce and explain the truths, etc., by several of the strongest and clearest passages (Lett. 10), but not a word of the faithful seeing or reading them. And James is quite right in what he supposes: where there are many Protestants, the Bible is allowed, and occasionally to those they feel sure of elsewhere, with notes; but otherwise it is not thought of, and Dr. Milner could not speak of liberty to read the scriptures existing, because it is formally denied by the highest authority of the Romish system.

51 The Index of prohibited books has been referred to a committee by the Council of Trent. In the last session this was referred to the pope, and the pope sanctioned the rules they had laid down. In the fourth rule, if a person shall have presumed to read or to have a copy without the express permission of the parish priest or confessor, he cannot receive absolution till the Bible be given up; and a bookseller who sells or otherwise lets a person have one is to forfeit the value for pious uses, and undergo other penalties. Dr. Milner therefore says the Catholic church does not cast any slight on the scriptures. He could not say Christians were free to read them, and M. must get leave from his priest to do so, and that in writing (Rule 4 at the end of Council of Trent), or he would not get absolution.

The Romish system interferes with God's rights — His title to send His own message to His own people; and no one denies that in the primitive churches all were free to read, and encouraged to read, the scriptures. St. Chrysostom insists on it. Nor does Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) conceal that many things were done by the early Fathers which were changed by the church in after times, on a critical examination of the matter. God has addressed His word to the people, not, save a very small part (three epistles), to the clergy, and the clergy have taken them away — taken away, as the Lord says, the key of knowledge.

M. And do you not think ignorant people may wrest the scriptures to their own destruction, as it is said?

N*. I think anyone may, if he does not look for God's grace to help and guide him. But I do not think ignorant people do it a thousandth part as much as learned ones, because they come to it more simply as God's word, and respect it. Whereas the learned, thinking they are able to exercise their minds on it and judge about it, do not receive it as little children. Heresies have not come from the ignorant, but from doctors.

God has given the scriptures to the people, and the clergy of Rome have taken them from them. And it is to God they will answer. Augustine insists largely in his book on the unity of the church (chap. 10) against the Donatists, who insisted, just as the Romanists do now, on the obscurity of scripture.

We now turn to another part of your rule of faith — tradition. Your Dr. Milner says, Paul puts the written and unwritten word upon a level, leaving us to suppose that this last is tradition.

52 James. And I thought that was tradition — a doctrine handed down from one to another.

N*. It is not, in the New Testament, except where it is condemned, when the Lord says, "Thus have ye made the word of God of none effect by your tradition." Where remark, that traditions are put expressly in contrast with the word of God. The word of God was complete in itself, and their traditions set it aside, and so do Romanist traditions.

But the passage which Dr. Milner quotes proves that tradition is not used as he uses it. Where the word is used of written and unwritten, the written is called tradition as well as the unwritten. It means any doctrine delivered. Now if Paul delivered a doctrine to me by word of mouth, I ought of course to observe it as if it was in one of his epistles. There is no difference: only that I might forget or change it if it were not written. Here is Paul's phrase — "Stand fast, and hold the tradition ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle." Of course, what he had taught as truth, they ought to keep. Tradition means what he had taught.

But where are the doctrines which Paul taught which are not found in scripture? They have none to produce: we shall see this just now. Dr. Milner tells us an old wife's tale about the apostles agreeing upon a short symbol, a story which everyone knows to have no foundation. The Apostles' Creed is the Roman creed, with some additions, and the creed of the church of Aquileia, in the fifth century, preserved by Ruffinus, the descent into hell being added afterwards. But, further, a very just and important remark has been made by another as to the way tradition is spoken of by the Fathers, on whom Dr. Milner chiefly rests his case. The word is not used as meaning a source of additional doctrines, an unwritten word besides the written, but as a sure proof of the true faith to be received, and way of knowing the right use of scripture. Tradition for them was a testimony to scriptural truth of a surer kind, as they alleged, not a communication of additional truths besides the scripture. They charged heretics with pretending to a tradition of this kind. They as often appeal to the scriptures against everything else as to tradition; but with them tradition is not a source of additional truths, but a surer proof, as they say, of common truths. Now, I admit freely that, supposing the apostles had not left us the scriptures, men ought to have followed tradition (that is, what the apostles taught) when they had it. The question is, first, would it have secured the preservation of the apostles' doctrine? The apostles thought not, and left us the New Testament — that is, really, the Holy Ghost did. But, secondly, now they have left us the scriptures, are we not to use them? and are we not to reject everything contrary to them, even if it pretends to be a tradition?

53 We will now see what the Fathers say about it, as Dr. M. quotes them. The early Fathers, those near to the time of the apostles, appeal to tradition, not as an additional source of truth, but a security for truth against heresy, against new doctrines, proving by what everybody held all over the world that such heresy was new. Now, though not an authority, it might be useful as a proof of this when it was universal. But as to its securing the certainty of teaching, it cannot, and so God thought, and gave His people a book. History has shewn that it does not, for doctrines have changed. Afterwards tradition came to be appealed to as an independent source of like authority, because the scriptures did not contain a multitude of superstitions which came in; and at last the scriptures were taken away, because they condemned well nigh all that was done and taught, as a certain Peter Sutor (A.D. 1525), a Carthusian monk, innocently confesses, that "the people will be apt to murmur when they see things required, as from the apostles, which they find not a word of in scripture." Whence he concludes it was a rash, useless, and dangerous thing to translate them.

Irenaeus, for example, uses tradition as a security for truth, not as revealing other things besides what is in scripture. The quotation from Tertullian surprises me, because this same Tertullian, after saying the traditions of the different episcopal sees secured the faith, left what called itself the Catholic church, because its state was so bad. It did not secure his faith. Not only so, but the particular tract Dr. Milner quotes was assuredly written when he had left the universal church to become a Montanist, or, at any rate, accepted the Montanist rhapsodies as prophecy, for he says in the first chapter, No wonder they would not face martyrdom, when they reject the prophecies of the Spirit, that is, of the Paraclete, so called, of Montanus. Even here he only insists on rites and ceremonies, and on no doctrine of faith, saying, that if certain ceremonies have been always used they are to be observed, and it is to be assumed there was some tradition as their origin — just shewing that it was to justify superstitious practices they began to use tradition because there was no scripture for them

54 The other proofs of Dr. Milner are drawn from authors from the end of the fourth to the end of the fifth century after Christ, when every perplexity of doctrine, and the grossest relaxation of practice, had come into the church, so that they were glad to get anything to rest their foot upon. Popes had denied the divinity of Christ. The bishops had killed the poor old archbishop of Constantinople by blows in one of their councils, and the vices of the clergy were such that they surely did require something not in scripture to support them. What I have said I will justify when we speak of the marks of the true church. But it will be well to examine the point of tradition a little closer. We will take Tertullian, because he is the first that speaks largely of it in the tract Dr. M. refers to. Here are the points for which he refers to tradition as an authority: —

"Therefore let us inquire whether tradition also should be received if it be not a written one. We will deny that it is to be received if no examples of other observances which we defend, without any written document, on the ground of tradition alone, and then, by the patronage of custom, prejudge the case. Finally, that I may begin with baptism. When we are approaching the water, there but a little before in the assembly, under the hand of the president, we witness that we renounce the devil, and his pomps, and his angels; then we are immersed three times, answering something more than the Lord determined in the gospel. Received back [from the water], we taste a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day abstain from our daily washing for a week. The sacrament of the Eucharist, which was received from the Lord at a time they were eating, and committed to all to celebrate, we take in meetings held before daylight, and not from the hand of others than the president. We make offerings for the dead. We celebrate the anniversaries of martyrs. We count it a wickedness to fast on the Lord's day, or to worship on our knees. We enjoy the same immunity from Easter to Pentecost. We are grieved if any even of our own cup or bread drop on the ground. At every progress and advance, at coming up or going out, in clothing, putting on our shoes, washing at tables, when we bring the lights, when we go to bed, when we sit down, whatever we are engaged in, we sign our forehead with the cross. If you ask scripture for the law of these and other like practices, you will find none. Tradition will be alleged to you to be the source. Custom has confirmed it, and faith observes it."

55 Now that none of these observances are found in scripture I fully admit. But we see what tradition was worth — not kneeling on Sunday, giving a taste of milk and honey to the newly-baptized, and such like futilities, which, not being in scripture, they alleged tradition for. Now it is well to see what the earliest tradition was worth. You have it from Dr. Milner's witness for us; we were to take him as a guide in our inquiry; I have examined what he has alleged. But then I have a few remarks to make here. Had these traditions the authority of the word of God, the alleged unwritten word? The triune immersion in baptism, which some took for a sign of the Trinity, some for three days of Christ's being in the grave — Jerome of the unity too — was insisted upon by Tertullian, Basil, and Jerome, as coming from tradition, Chrysostom refers it to the words of Christ Himself in sending His disciples; Matt. 28. And the so-called apostolical canons order a bishop or presbyter to be deposed who should administer baptism not by three immersions, but by only one in the name of Christ. Pope Pelagius condemns it too, and founds the practice on Christ's words in Matthew. So, it appears, does Theodoret, who accuses Eunomius of changing baptism in not immersing thrice; so Sozomen.

Here, if ever, we have a tradition of the highest character and greatest authority. Alas! it is given up. The Arians used it, and in Spain this alarmed the orthodox, and many gave it up, and others would not, and the whole country was in a practical state of schism. Leander, of the See of Seville, wrote to Gregory the Great. He answers: "Concerning the triune immersion in baptism, nothing can be answered more truly than what thou hast felt, that in one faith a different custom does no harm to the holy church; but in being thrice immersed we mark a sacrament of the three days' burial, as when the infant is taken up the third time out of the water, the resurrection on the third day is expressed. But if anyone thinks that there is an assertion of the exalted Trinity therein, neither as to this is there any hindrance to being plunged only once; since, as there is one substance in three Persons, it can in no way be reprehensible that an infant should be immersed once or thrice in baptism, since in three immersions the trinity of persons, in one the unity of the divinity is designated; but now, as infants are baptized by the heretics with three immersions, I judge that it should not be done among you," Greg. lib. 1, ep. 1, ad Leand.

56 Still the pope's advice did not succeed in stopping the schism. The Spanish Council of Toledo decided that, though, as Gregory judged, both were perfectly innocent, yet they should only immerse once, and comfort all parties by saying that the plunging is a sign of death; the coming up of resurrection; the one immersion, of the unity of the Godhead; the three names, of the Trinity of persons. (Conc. Toledo 4, can. 5.) So this tradition, enforced by deposition from office in the canons which tradition asserted to be those of the apostles, as the same tradition did the creed to be theirs, came to an end. And faith observed it no more. How certain an authority it is! You cannot complain of the choice I have made; it is Dr. Milner's own. I suppose Roman Catholics kneel on Sunday, and from Easter to Pentecost too; so that what Tertullian alleges to be tradition observed by faith has no authority at all.

I shall refer to what Irenaeus says of scripture just now. I do not quote him as to tradition, because his use of it is to appeal to the universal voice of the church to confirm his reasonings from the word against heretics, which is quite another thing from Dr. Milner's use of the word.

But a word more as to Tertullian, who was a lawyer and also a great stickler for church prescription, which is only a principle of Roman civil law, and what Dr. Milner quotes only an advocacy in the terms of Roman law. One question is, Can the authority of tradition secure us in the faith? The answer is, Tertullian himself who insists on it received, at the time he wrote this, the Montanist rhapsodies, as inspiration and the Comforter, and went amongst them, leaving that which he said alone had authority. The most important of his traditions which was universal was given up, Pope Gregory very wisely saying that, if there was unity of faith, such things were of no consequence. How futile most of his traditions are, anyone can see. They are notions and practices crept in from a lively imagination, and that is all; but a dangerous thing in the church of God, because a long observed custom becomes a matter of faith for many.

M. But have we not the Apostles' Creed by tradition, and that they composed it before they went away to preach?

57 N*. The Apostles' Creed, as the church has it now, was composed at different times, and no two churches hardly had just the same. "The Communion of Saints," for example, was added quite late; "the holy church" earlier; the word "Catholic" again later still. The descent into hell was not there at all in the Roman creed called the Apostles'. And it was added very late indeed; it appears in the creed of Aquileia, in the fourth century. As to the apostles making a creed, as Dr. Milner alleges, I am surprised he should quote such a fable; for such it is now, I suppose, universally owned to be. All the creeds are called apostolic, meaning they contain apostolic doctrine. What is now called the Apostles' Creed was the creed of the Roman church with one or two articles added.

This story of the apostles composing it does not appear before the fourth century, and then the story went rapidly farther; for an author, passing under the name of Augustine, gives us the particular article contributed by each apostle. But all this is trumpery and contrary to known history, for it is known that many articles were added, as I have said, quite late in the church's history. Dr. Milner urges, too, that they (the apostles) profess belief in the church (Lett. 10), not in scripture. This is an unfortunate observation. The authors of the creed were stating objects of faith, what they did believe, not sources of revelation, nor the authority for their believing it. They do not speak of believing in tradition either: both would have been absurd, because the question was briefly what they believed, not why, or where they found it.

But, further, the author quoted by Dr. Milner — he who tells us the apostles made the creed — Ruffinus charges his readers to remark that they are not called on to believe in the church (that is, have confidence in it as an authority and source of faith), but only to believe the church — that is, that there was such a thing. If anyone says that it is just the same with every article that they are 811 objects of faith whether there be "in" or not, I shall not contest with him. However Dr. Milner's (Lett. 10) authority presses strenuously the remark that we are only to believe the objective fact that there is a church, but not to believe in it — that is, draws exactly the opposite conclusion to that for which Dr. M. quotes him. He says, "By this syllable of a preposition (believing the church, instead of in the church) the Creator is separated from the creatures, and divine things are separated from human." (Ruffinus in Symb. Apostolorum); and St. Augustine and after him the schoolmen insist on the difference in principle.

58 But I must return a moment to a remark I made to you. The word "tradition" is shamefully abused. No one doubts that the disciples ought to receive whatever the apostles taught by word of mouth. The question is whether we can have it now handed down unwritten outside scripture. Now the scripture and the earliest writers used the word simply in the sense of teaching; as in the passage quoted by Dr. Milner, "the tradition which ye have received by word or our epistle." That had not been handed down. Paul had taught them by word of mouth; he had taught them by letter: they were to receive both. Of course they were; but they had received both directly from the apostle; there was no handing down. It means his teaching, and he uses it so elsewhere. Now it is dishonest trifling to use this to prove what is alleged when the word is used in another sense. Tradition means now what is handed down unwritten from one to another, the unwritten word as distinguished from scripture. Paul says, tradition by letter or words. It is not the same thing he speaks of. The duty of receiving what Paul taught by word of mouth has nothing to do with proving that handing down by words of mouth means our having what was not written by them. Ignatius, as quoted by Eusebius, uses tradition as Paul does — that is, as apostolic teaching.

James. Well, M., that seems quite clear. When Paul speaks of tradition by letter or word, he does not use it as you do now, and Dr. Milner ought not to have quoted it. It has nothing to do with the matter.

N*. We say Paul and the rest did teach by word of mouth; but what God meant for the church in all ages he caused them to commit to writing. Now first let us see how the Lord speaks and acts in this respect. He does speak of tradition, when it was something handed down added to the written word; and thus the scribes and Pharisees asked Him why His disciples transgressed the tradition of the elders. "But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? . . . Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition": adding from Esaias, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Now we charge the Romanists with this. They worship God in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. They have taken away one of the ten commandments, and made two of the last to make out the ten, and added six commandments of the church (others make eight, dividing one, and adding one — to pay tithes). They are to be binding as God's commandments, besides a hundred other human ordinances.

59 James. Is that true, M.?

M. The church has given commandments besides the ten.

James. And left out the second?

M. Deuteronomy proves that it is only a part of the first, and that the last two are distinct, for they are in a different order from Exodus.

N*. But you have left out the second and divided the tenth, and that second is, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in heaven or on earth." And you have made graven images and set them up in all your churches, and in your streets and roads, where you can.

James. Well, I had no thought of what their doctrine was. My wife might well say that it was not Christianity as God gave it. Why, a child may see that.

N*. The Lord never appeals to tradition but openly condemns it, and appeals to scripture, saying it cannot be broken. The apostles never do, but always quote the scriptures, not only so, but foreseeing by the prophetic Spirit what would come on the church, they tell us our security would be the divinely-inspired scriptures, and Timothy's knowing the person who had taught the doctrine which thus only could have authority, and so of us. And Peter expressly says he would take care they should have the testimony of God, and writes his epistle, clearly shewing that thus, and thus only, and not by oral tradition, the truth would remain and be secured to them.

Further, the Romanist cannot tell us one truth with any knowledge of whom it came from — cannot authenticate as apostolic a single tradition. Paul does refer to what he had taught by word of mouth without repeating it in writing. "Now ye know what letteth." Now here the Romanists cannot supply anything by tradition at all. Where tradition (if of any value) would come in they can say nothing at all. Yet they have the Fathers very clear upon this. They have a church tradition upon this. The apostle says that, when this hindrance was removed, the man of sin would come. Now the Fathers taught it was the Roman empire; and prayed for its continuance, persecuting as it was, that the dreadful time of Antichrist might not come. But there they were all wrong. The Roman empire is gone and the man of sin not come, however much the pope may have his spirit. See the wisdom of scripture.

60 Now, as an external hindrance the Roman empire may have been what hindered (though the presence of the church on earth with the Holy Ghost dwelling in it I believe to have been the cause); but if the apostle had said, in what God was giving for all ages, it was the Roman empire, it would have turned out subsequently to have been inexact. And therefore the Spirit of God, in what was written, left it in terms the import of which are to be learned by the spiritual mind from the word. The Fathers may have been right that the external hindrance then was the Roman empire. I can suppose Paul may have even spoken of this as the then hindrance; but by leaning on tradition they went all wrong. The Holy Ghost for all ages only taught the general truth. The tradition has proved false, and the body that trusts to it now cannot supply one word to say what it meant.

Now I do not own the smallest authority in the Fathers. I own it in nothing but the word of God; but, as they have been quoted, I shall quote them as to the scripture, to shew they argued exactly in an opposite way to which Dr. Milner quotes them for. I recognize no authority of any kind in the Fathers, for the simple reason that they neither give us, nor pretend to give us, any revelation from God. Whether they have given the doctrine of the apostles correctly is easily ascertained by comparing them with the apostles' writings; and as a general fact I affirm that they do not, and this on all the most vital subjects. It is all nonsense to talk of their judgment being surer than ours, because the scriptures are not easy to understand. I answer, the scriptures are just as easy to understand as the Fathers. If they are to be the rule of faith they are in Latin and Greek, and instead of one volume full of truth and riches, I have masses of folios, with some good things in them here and there, but a vast quantity of confusion, heresy, and trash. If I am to take them as witnesses of what the apostles taught, it is much simpler to take the apostles own writings. However I shall refer to them, since they are quoted and made a parade of, to shew how little ground there is for trusting what is said of them, or, I must add, what they say.

61 Irenaeus, whom Dr. Milner quotes, begins the reasonings of the passage thus (Contra Haereses, lib. 3, chap. 3): — "We have not known the dispositions of our salvation but by those by whom the gospel came to us, which, indeed, they then preached, but afterwards by the will of God have delivered to us in writings, which were to be the foundation and column of our faith. Nor is it right to say they preached before they had a perfect knowledge." He then refers to the Gospels as flowing from their teaching.

In the second chapter we come to the key of the whole matter. The Valentinian heretics against whom he wrote (who held it was a bad God that made the world and gave the Old Testament), finding they could not prove their doctrines by scripture, pretended there were other doctrines which the apostles taught and had not written, appealing, that is, as Romanists do — for it is the old heretical story — to the unwritten word known by tradition. "For when," he says, "they are convicted out of the scriptures, they turn to accusations against the scriptures themselves, as if they were not right, nor of authority, and because things are variously said there, and because the truth cannot be found out from them by those who are ignorant of tradition, for that was not delivered in writing, but viva voce." Thus, what Dr. Milner insists on is exactly what these horrible heretics insisted on, and Irenaeus' language is. The Fathers had no such tradition, but believed in one supreme God. The heretics appealed to unwritten tradition, because the scriptures were not clear, nor could be understood without tradition, and that there were things taught by tradition besides the scriptures.

62 Irenaeus then takes them on their own ground, and says, "Let them take their own ground. How can we have surer tradition than in the churches founded by apostles, and especially Rome, where Peter and Paul both were? None of them teach, nor have taught, that there was a bad God." He does not appeal to them for any doctrine not contained in the word, but to confirm his reasonings, taken from the scriptures, against the spurious traditions of these heretics; and adds then that missionaries, who taught heathens who are utterly barbarous without written documents, taught no such doctrine, and their testimony was to be received. In this way Irenaeus uses the common faith of the church to refute a pretended tradition, saying that what the apostles taught was written down, and condemning the appeal to an unwritten word for something not in scripture. Only he shews that tradition, if heretics would have it, rejected them. Remember then, that Irenaeus is arguing against heretics, because they appealed to tradition as revealing doctrines not in scripture, and interpreting scripture itself, and resists this doctrine, adding that if you appeal to the universal consent of the churches they confirm what he alleges from scripture. It is the Romanists who take the ground which the godly Irenaeus denounces as the conduct of the heretics, who insisted there was tradition besides scripture, and that scripture could not be rightly used without it.

It is the same in substance, but yet stronger, in the case of Tertullian, who is blindly quoted as the great authority for tradition. He too complains of the heretics for affirming that the apostles taught doctrines besides what is in scripture, alleging sometimes that they did not know all things, sometimes that they did not teach all things publicly. And he declares that these heretics quote certain passages of scripture to shew that there were secret doctrines which they did not teach to all, founding the doctrine of an unwritten tradition on them. The very same course is pursued by the Roman doctors to prove there is an unwritten tradition besides scripture. Tertullian declares there was no such thing; but that the apostles taught publicly all they had received to teach, first by word of mouth, and then afterwards in their epistles; and, denying these heretics to be Christians at all, he says they ought to be, according to the scriptures rejected after one rebuke (a mistake of his, by the bye, Paul says a first and second), and not after disputation, and that Christians had better not dispute with them.

Now, though declamatory and loose, there is a great deal of truth in this. But I will shew you from the passage the exactness of what I have said. He speaks as one weak and vexed, but with a great deal of truth, though on some points we shall see his reasoning is defective at any time, and wholly useless for the purpose Romanists quote it for. He speaks of the twelve (strange to say, he does not notice Paul here) being sent forth and promulgating the same faith, and founding churches in each city, from which other churches afterwards borrowed in turn the continuation of the faith and seeds of doctrine, and yet, says he, "borrow, and thus are counted apostolic, as the offspring of apostolic churches. It is necessary that every kind of thing should be estimated according to its origin. Therefore so many and so great [as the] churches [may be], that first one [founded by] the apostles, from which all are [derived], is one; so all are the first and apostolic, while all together approve unity . . . . Here therefore we found our prescription. If the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, others are not to be received as preachers than those Christ instituted; since none knew the Father but the Son, and he to whom He has revealed Him, nor does the Son appear to have revealed Him to others than to the apostles, whom He sent to preach surely that which He had revealed to them. But what they have preached, that is, what Christ revealed to them, and here I use prescription (the Roman form of pleading), that it ought not to be otherwise proved, but by these churches which the apostles themselves founded by preaching to them, as well viva voce (by word of mouth), as men say, as afterwards by epistles . . . . Let us communicate with the apostolic churches, because none have a different doctrine; this is the testimony of truth." He then insists largely that all was revealed to the apostles, and that there could not be any other doctrine added which they had not. Now note here that he insists on the epistles as containing these same truths that were taught. But suppose I follow now Tertullian's advice, and that I go to the churches which the apostles founded. They have pretty nearly disappeared. I go to Jerusalem, and I find such fighting for the Holy Sepulchre between Armenians, Greeks, and Romanists, of different ways of thinking, that the Turks are obliged to have troops and men with whips to keep order.

63 The churches founded by apostles have almost disappeared by the judgment of God, they were become so corrupt. Rome was not founded by apostles. That is certain, for Paul writes a letter to them, and to a church there, before any apostle had been there, and when he went there he was a prisoner. In fine, if I go to the places which the apostles did found, as far as they subsist, they reject the Romish church altogether, and Rome is striving to gain proselytes from them. They are Greeks, Armenians, Jacobites. In result these early Fathers did not use tradition as giving additional truths, but as the common consent of the churches, to shew that their statements from scripture were sound and true, and that none had ever held what the heretics advanced. That the heretics' opinions began since the apostles, and therefore could not be true, because the apostles had been guided into all truth. Tertullian says, if the heretics were in the apostles' time, they are condemned, being only now somewhat more refined in form; or they were not in the apostles' time, and their later origin condemns them.*

{*Tert. de Praescriptione Haereticorum 20, and following: ed. Rig. 208. I do not think Tertullian's confidence in scripture and grace, to use it by the Spirit, was sound. Hence, when tested, he had no strength against the fanatic pretensions of Montanus. In a preceding part of this treatise he, leaning on human argumentation, says, "If you quote a text, the heretics will quote another, so you are losing your breath"; but his arguments refer to them as a means of convicting heretics, not as the source of truth, and he refers Irenaeus to what was held by all, and not as a proof of an unwritten truth, but as a proof that what the heretics taught of two Gods, a bad and a good one, and the like, did not come from the apostles; it was new, or already condemned by the apostles. The apostles knew all that was revealed, and taught it all. The heretics pretended to some secret or concealed doctrine, but no church had these doctrines. It is a proof of what was taught. The Romanist is clearly on the ground the heretics were on.}

64 Now that is exactly what is the truth as to the doctrines of Romanism. Peter Lombard, in the twelfth century, was the first who taught there were just seven sacraments, and Bellarmine confesses that Christ taught nothing directly as to some, and Cardinal Bessarion admits there were originally only two, baptism and the Lord's supper. And we can give the date or gradual growth of the doctrines in which we differ from them.

On the other side, the practical force of Tertullian's argument is wholly gone. There he reasons to prove that no churches had these new doctrines of the heretics, so that they were proved to be new. "Go through the apostolic churches," he says, "where as yet the sees of the apostles preside in their places, where their own authentic letters are read, sounding out the voice, and representing the face of each one. Is Achaia nearest to you?" You have Corinth. I go to Corinth now; it condemns Rome. "If you are not far from Macedonia, thou hast Philippi, thou hast Thessalonica." I cannot go to Philippi, all the place has disappeared. I go to Thessalonica; they condemn Rome again. "If not, thou canst go into Asia; thou hast Ephesus. But if thou art adjacent to Italy, Rome, whose authority is to be had for us." (He lived in Africa, over against Italy.) He declares they would find none of the new doctrines. Now remark here, first, that his appeal to this sure tradition was finding the scriptures, the authentic letters, still extant, which proved what the doctrine of the apostles was; and, secondly, if I go to these churches now, those which remain (except Rome itself) condemn Rome, and the rest can furnish no evidence at all, they are gone. What does remain of apostolic churches outside herself universally condemns her.

65 James. I do not see, M., what I, or any one, can gain by what is here said of tradition, nor what your doctors can gain from it but confusion. He appeals for the doctrine which is in scripture to Corinth and Ephesus and others, as witnesses that they never held such a doctrine as these heretics. But though that may have served as a testimony, as far as it went then, yet the facts prove how unsteady a foundation it was for the truth; for of these places, some of them do not exist at all, and if I were to go to the others, they do not agree with Rome. Of the means referred to I have nothing hardly left to prove scripture right; and what is left, if it be worth anything, proves Rome wrong. This is not much help to your cause. The churches mentioned in scripture I find are against you, where they still exist. Not that I believe any of them as authority, but they upset your argument from tradition entirely. You must find something better than this to build on. If I followed the direction Dr. Milner, I see, quotes — which I should be sorry to do, because God has left us the scriptures, but if I did — I must reject him, and Rome with him; because, in following the ordinances of tradition in the apostolic churches, I find that they are separated from Rome and condemn it.

N*. You are perfectly right, James; and there is a plain proof in Dr. Milner himself that he knew this well and saw it plainly enough, because in quoting Tertullian he has left all this part of the passage out. Tertullian says, "Go through the apostolic churches. Is Achaia next to thee? thou hast Corinth. If thou art not far from Macedonia, thou hast Philippi, thou hast the Thessalonians; if not, thou canst go into Asia, thou hast Ephesus; but if thou art near Italy, Rome," etc. Now all the former part Dr. Milner carefully leaves out, and begins with "if you live near Italy." He saw plainly enough that all his fine security by tradition would fall to the ground, overthrown by the passage, if he had honestly quoted it; because, as I have said, either the witnesses which afforded the security, the apostolic churches, had gone, having ceased to exist, or they were opposed to Rome. I regret to say half one's work with the advocates of Romanism is to detect deceit of this kind.

66 James. Well, but, M., what do you say to this? This is not honest. Had he quoted all the passage, it would have upset all he was pleading for.

M. Well, I never read Tertullian of course. I should take it as Dr. Milner gave it. I supposed it was fair, and never meant to deceive you.

James. I am sure you did not. But you must see we cannot take all as Dr. Milner gives it. It is something to see that we cannot trust his reasonings. That is not the spirit of Christ any way, and that helps one to see clear.

N*. We have gained three points. The heretics first contended for some doctrines delivered by tradition, and not contained in scripture. The Fathers resisted this. Next, when tradition was first spoken of by the early Fathers, they used it as a testimony of the churches confirming the doctrines taught from scripture, not as containing additional doctrines. Thirdly, as to the basis laid by Tertullian, on whom they so much rely, it fails altogether as a secure proof, and what it does testify of condemns Rome. I add, that they used it so far with a good intention that their object was to shew what Christ and His apostles had originally taught, and that they had taught everything openly to all, in order to reject novel doctrines introduced subsequently. Their insisting on having what was at the beginning, what Tertullian for example asserts, "That that which was from the beginning is true," is perfectly just. This is what we insist on. And we condemn the Romanists because all their peculiar doctrines are novelties, the dates or gradual introduction of them being historically demonstrable.

Thus purgatory was hinted at in the fifth century, said to be useful for very small sins in the sixth, and then only gradually grew up. Transubstantiation was never decreed definitively till the thirteenth, and the contrary was taught by the most famous doctors previously. The saints were prayed for, as we have seen, not to, for centuries, so that they had to alter the Roman liturgy to suit the change. So the so-called sacrifice of the Mass can be traced from the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (whence the word Eucharist), the presenting offerings before the consecration (whence the word Offertory) — both of which were called the unbloody offering, or sacrifice — to the applying it to the elements after consecration; and, lastly, but not till very late, to its being the real sacrifice of Christ, efficacious for the sins of quick and dead, and the liturgy was changed accordingly. I am not now examining the truth or falsehood of these doctrines, but their novelty. Romanists are now in the position of the heretics of old, alleging tradition for new doctrines which are not found in scripture. We, on the contrary, rest solely on the word of God, the scriptures, as authority, for this is certainly what was at the beginning, and, on the other hand, we can appeal to history, and prove the introduction of the particular doctrines they insist on as novelties among Christians.

67 But Dr. Milner cites other Fathers, and it will be useful in many respects to refer to them. The fact is, they argued as it suited them at the moment. When heretics pressed scripture, they flew to tradition, not at first as containing distinct truth, but as a witness of the truth of what they alleged was scriptural — a use we have seen to be impossible now, because the churches they appealed to, the apostolic churches, have disappeared, or are hostile to Rome. But, besides, these citations will give us the worth of the Fathers' reasonings, and how they contradict, not each other merely, but themselves. Dr. Milner passes by, he tells us, Clement of Alexandria; he was right in doing so for his cause. Clement resists the Gnostics, or men of knowledge, who infested the church, saying that ordinary Christians had elements, but that the secret full doctrine of Christianity was in their blasphemies. Tertullian met this by shewing that the apostles had taught all publicly (Tert., de Praescriptione 22, and following).

Clement took another course. He says that Christ spoke in parables in order not to be understood by ordinary Christians, but that there were christian Gnostics, who by temperance,* a human thing, and desiring and laborious, and prudence, a divine thing, arrived at Gnosis, and thus had got higher truths and intelligence to understand what was concealed from vulgar eyes. This was to be received according to the ecclesiastical rule, and the ecclesiastical rule is the consent and harmony, both of the law and the prophets, with the covenant delivered** during the Lord's presence. (Clem. Alex., Potter 2, 802, 3; Strom. 6.) His principle is bad, but his appeal is to the scriptures. Nor is Clement, after all, very famous for orthodoxy. He was saturated with Alexandrian Platonism, and was thoroughly sound neither on the divinity nor on the humanity of the Lord. I do not make a heretic of him, but, to say the least, he uses very awkward language, so that the famous Romanist doctor, Petau, charges him plainly with not speaking in an orthodox way.

{*oion e sophrosune de ateles phronesis ephiemene men phroneseos, ergatike de epiponos.}

{**paradidomene, the word used for tradition.}

68 Dr. Milner passes over Cyprian too, quite naturally. He strenuously resisted all the pretensions of Rome to the day he was martyred. But not only so, Stephen of Rome, not being able to prove his point against him on a subject of practice and discipline, appealed to tradition on the usage of the church. "Let nothing," says Stephen, "be innovated on what has been handed down" (tradition). "Whence," replies Cyprian, "is that tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the Lord and the Gospels, and come from the commandments and Epistles of the apostles? For God bears witness that those things are to be done which are written, and speaks to Joshua the son of Nun, saying, 'The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all things that are written therein.' . . . What obstinacy is that [in the pope]! what presumption, to prefer human tradition to a divine disposition, and not to take notice that God is indignant and angry as often as human tradition sets aside and passes by divine precepts, as He cries out and say by Esaias the prophet, 'This people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.'" (Ep. 74, 80, Oxford.) He tells us that if a canal does not give us the water as purely and freely as it used, we go up to the source; we see if the water has failed, or the canal is leaky, or stopped — so we must return to the original of the law and the gospel, and the apostolic teaching, and let the principle of our acting spring from that whence its order and origin spring.

James. No wonder he passes by Cyprian. He pleads here just for what we do in insisting on the scriptures against the pope.

N*. We may turn to Origen. Dr. Milner does not say where the passage he quotes is, but Origen speaks distinctly in the beginning of his Principia of tradition as all these early Fathers do. That is, when the heretics brought in tradition besides scripture, they condemn it; and when they pervert scripture, they say it is to be understood according to the common faith of the church, and novelties, whose beginning could be shewn, were not to be received. However, Origen himself was driven away by his bishop for every wild novelty imaginable. He allows no knowledge out of scripture. Speaking of the peace-offerings, he says, "These two days are the two testaments, in which we may search out and discuss everything relating to God, and from thence receive all knowledge of things. But if anything remains which is not decided by divine scripture, no other third writing ought to be received as an authority for any knowledge (because this is called the third day), but what remains let us give to the fire, that is, leave to God, for in the present life it has not pleased God that we should know all things." (Hom. 5, on Levit. (213) 2.) Thus, while he referred to the common consent of the churches against the novelties of heretics (those who taught there were two Gods), he allows no authoritative source of knowledge but the two testaments.

69 This is just what we have seen with Tertullian, from whom I add a sentence here: "But that all things were made from subsisting materials I have not yet read. Let Hermogene's workshop shew that it is written. If it is not written, let him fear the woe destined to those who add or take away." (Tert. adv. Haer. 22.) Bellarmine does not venture to quote Origen.

Dr. Milner quotes Basil. The passage he quotes has no reference to any doctrine, if, indeed, it be genuine, which others than Protestants have doubted. Some objected to saying in a doxology, "the Father and the Son with the Holy Ghost," and said scripture always said "in the Spirit, not with." He says, "Surely this one expression, used with no premeditation or purpose, may be allowed, so long in use as it has been," and then refers to practices in the church which rested solely on tradition, the sense of which most did not understand, just the same as Tertullian refers to praying towards the east (how few, he says, know it refers to paradise), signing with the cross, praying standing on Sunday, and from Easter to Pentecost, anointing with oil, immersing three times in baptism, and so on.

Now, that superstitions were creeping in, and more than that, when Basil wrote, nearly four hundred years after Christ, when, indeed, corruption and false doctrine had made havoc of the church, is quite true. Men used to live in sin, and wait till they were dying to be baptized, in order to get off quite clear. I do not mean that all did, but adduce the fact to shew the corruption that had come in. It was nearly at the same epoch that the whole of Christendom, save confessing martyrs, had denied the divinity of the Lord. We have seen that Basil was not speaking of doctrine when he referred to traditions, but to mere rites or liturgical forms, "one expression." But when he speaks of doctrine, here are his words, "Believe the things that are written; the things that are not written do not seek." (Hom. 29.) (Adversus Calum., Bened. ed. 2, 611 E.) "It is a manifest falling away from faith, and convicts of arrogance, to annul anything of the things that are written, or to introduce anything of the things that are not written." (2, 224 D.) Poor Basil himself too became suspected of heresy. He never would say the Holy Ghost was God. The excuse was that, if he had, he would have been driven from his see, and the heretics would have had all his flock in their power; so he avoided the word, and said what was equivalent. So he defends himself, and says, "If a Jew owned Jesus to be the Anointed, but would not say Christ, ought he not to be received, as it is the same thing?" Such is the security Fathers afford; but we will return to this state of things.

70 "Every word or matter ought to be accredited by the testimony of inspired scripture. (Basil, Moralia Reg. 26, P. 254.) Nor ought anyone to dare to annul or add anything. For if everything which is not of faith is sin, as the apostle says, and faith by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, everything outside inspired scripture, not being of faith, is sin," (79, 22, 317).

Let me add at once that what Dr. Milner quotes from Augustine and Vincent of Lerins confirms all I have said. Neither speak of doctrines learnt from tradition, but both take the universal faith of the church to guide in the interpretation of scripture. Epiphanius applies also the authority of tradition only to practice, namely, that unmarried persons who dedicated themselves to God sinned if they married afterwards, quoting what Paul says of the younger widows as analogous; but says, if there is no scripture, it ought to be accepted as founded on tradition. He is reasoning against those who forbade to marry, and says the church approved marriage, but admired people not marrying, and then he refers to tradition as helpful in understanding scripture.

71 Chrysostom alone speaks to the point of all Dr. Milner has quoted. He has given the whole sentence. It is all he has on 2 Thessalonians 2: 15. But it is a very unfortunate case, because the Fathers, as we have seen, had a traditional interpretation of this chapter, namely, that what let (or hindered) was the Roman empire; and they, though persecuted, prayed it might subsist, because when removed Antichrist would come. It was removed, and Antichrist did not come, unless the pope be Antichrist; and if you ask Romanists what tradition was given which is not in the passages, or what is the tradition by word of which the apostle speaks, they cannot tell you a word about it. That is, the passage shews that tradition is wholly incompetent to preserve an unwritten apostolic teaching. Here is one alluded to: who can tell me what it is? I see the wisdom of God in it, I think clearly, in the scripture not saying what it was; because what was then the hindrance is not the present one; but at any rate your tradition is dumb and can tell us nothing. When religion became a religion of ordinances, not of truth, the traditions which were in vogue for them became the groundwork of all the Christian system and the Bible disappeared. But little as I trust the Fathers for any doctrine, they speak plainly enough as to scripture, and Chrysostom urges with all persevering eloquence and zeal everybody's reading them, saying they were written by poor uneducated men on purpose that they might be plain for such; and that laymen occupied in the world had more need to read them than monks or clergy.

I add a few passages as to the exclusive authority of scripture. Athanasius against the heathen says, "For the holy and inspired scriptures are sufficient for the promulgation of all truth." (Oratio contra Gentes, Ben. 1.) So Ambrose, "How can we adopt these things which we do not find in the holy scriptures?" So Gregory of Nyssa, quoted by Euthymius, "As that is not supported by scripture, we reject it as false." So Jerome, "As those things which are written we do not deny, so those which are not written we refuse." (Contra Helvid. 19, 2, 226, Veron. ed.) So Augustine, "In those things which are specially laid down in scripture, all those things are found which contain faith and the morals of life." (De Doctr. Chris. 2, 9.) And again, "I owe my consent without any refusal to the canonical scriptures alone." (De Nat. et Grat.) And similar quotations might be multiplied. So even as to councils, "Neither ought I to object the Council of Nice to you, nor you that of Ariminum (an Arian council of some eight hundred bishops) to me; by the authority of scripture let us weigh matter with matter, cause with cause, reason with reason." (Contra Maxim. 3, 14.) So in contrast with the doctors of the church (that is, the Fathers), "For we should not consent to Catholic bishops if they by chance are deceived, and have opinions contrary to the canonical scriptures of God." (De Unit. Eccl. 11, Ben. 9, 355.) And so in his Epistles and other writings he says, over and over again, he has liberty to differ from them, and is bound only by the scriptures. Now either I am to receive these passages as right, and then, if the Fathers are consistent, consider this to be their doctrine; or if you can quote passages from them contradictory of these, then you make their authority to be simply and totally void.

72 If you ask me what I think, I think they used, like other men, the best grounds they thought they could find, and, when the heretics or the pope pleaded tradition, said that all must be proved by scripture. When they were, as Tertullian, perplexed by their subtle quotations of scripture, instead of doing as the Lord did when Satan quoted it, quoting another passage, which forbade what Satan used it for, they turned to tradition, but not to learn doctrines not in scripture, but to prove that of the heretics to be new. As a mere argument as to fact, it might prove it so far; but if a doctrine be in scripture, clearly it is not new but from the beginning, and it is able to make the man of God perfect. What Dr. Milner has said of tradition is at any rate entirely unfounded. What is of more importance than all, the blessed Lord has condemned it as the false foundation of His enemies, and that God was worshipped in vain by men who followed it.

M. And what do you make of the sabbath, and the change from the seventh day to the first? Is not this a proof that you must follow tradition?

N*. Certainly not. If the blessed privilege of the Lord's day depended on tradition, I for one would hold it as of no force whatever. I might bear with one who observed it, because Paul tells us to do that — "one man regardeth one day above another, another man every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." But it does not rest on tradition. The change from the seventh day to the first is connected with the essence of Christianity and the Person of the Lord Jesus. The sabbath was the sign and seal of the Old covenant, the witness that God's people had a part in the rest of God, which in itself is the very essence of our everlasting blessing. But it was then given, as all was, in connection with an earthly system, and was a sign of the rest of the old creation, as it indeed was originally so instituted in paradise. But the rejection of the Lord when He came into that is the proof that man cannot have rest in the old creation, that he is a sinner and needs redemption out of that state. The blessed Lord, become a man, was for that not less the Lord, and came to accomplish this redemption, and as Son of man was above all these things — was Lord of the sabbath as of everything else. It had been given for man in grace and goodness, though it took the form of law, as all did among the Jews.

73 But we as redeemed have to do with the new creation. All that system has found its end in the death of Christ; not the rest of God, but the hope of rest in the old creation. So Christ lay in the grave that sabbath, but now He is risen, risen the first day of the week, and the firstfruits of them that slept. We begin our Christian life as the firstfruits of God's creatures. We begin as dead and risen in Christ. We do not therefore celebrate the rest of the old creation — we were utterly lost as belonging to that; but the resurrection of our blessed Lord, as the foundation and beginning of the new, when redemption is accomplished. Hence, after His resurrection He meets His disciples that first day of the week when they were assembled, and the first, or Lord's day following the same thing, and thenceforth it is carefully distinguished in scripture. We learn the disciples came together the first day of the week to break bread. They were to set apart, in grace, for the poor on the first day of the week. And in the Revelation it is called "the Lord's day," just as the supper is called "the Lord's Supper." Hence we own with joy the Lord's day, as scripture teaches us, the first day of the week, not the seventh, in which the Lord's body lay in the grave, the witness that the old creation was judged, condemned, and passed away — that there was no rest in it but to die: no rest for the old man, but the restlessness of sin and the misery of its fruits; no rest in it for the new man, nor for Christ, because all was polluted and alienated from God. And He teaches us that He came to work in grace and die in it, and begin all anew, of which His resurrection, and the Lord's day as a sign of it, is witness.

74 M. I do not understand a word you are saying. I see scripture says Christ was Lord of the sabbath, and that the first day was set apart, and that it speaks of the Lord's day. But what you are saying about it is too high for me.

N*. Well, M., take the fact at any rate that you admit that Christ was Lord of the sabbath, that His authority was above it, and that after His resurrection the first day is the day distinguished in scripture, not the seventh. This proves our point now, that we do not receive it from tradition but from scripture.

James. Well, M., I am no wiser than you, yet I do understand it. But I see plainly it is not from any wisdom in me, but that I know that in the flesh and under the law I am lost, and that Christ has died and is risen again, and if any man be in Him, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new. And Christ's resurrection is the beginning of this hope, and that is where our rest is founded, and not in the old creation; so we have that and the first day of the week as the witness of blessing and that God's rest belongs to us, not a sign of the rest of the first creation, when God rested on the seventh day, when He had made all things good, for sin had spoiled that, and the apostle says (Heb. 4) that man never entered into that. And I am sure we know he did not. Toil, and sin, and death are not rest. At any rate, as you say, we have it taught in scripture that the first day of the week, not the seventh, is the one marked out "the Lord's day," and that suffices. The Jews had the seventh day.

N*. Well, I turn to washing the feet, which is the other point Dr. Milner speaks of. It is a foolish point, because the Lord expressly declares that His meaning in it they did not then understand; that is, it had a spiritual signification which they would afterwards understand; in a word, that He did not mean the literal act, but that it was merely the sign of what required spiritual understanding. It is absurd to suppose that such a mere outward act gives a part with Christ. And what the sign of water means is told us, "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." And again to "sanctify and cleanse it [the church] by the washing of water by the word."

The next proof of tradition Dr; Milner gives is a singularly unhappy one for Romanist doctrines. "The whole sacred history," he says, "was preserved by the patriarchs in succession, from Adam down to Moses, during the space of two thousand four hundred years by means of tradition." Now the flood came in this period, because men had grown so wicked and cast off God that Noah alone remained to be preserved. And after the flood all the world fell away into idolatry, so that God called Abraham out of it to begin afresh and have a nation for Himself in which He should keep the knowledge of the true God alive by a written law, because men so entirely lost the knowledge of Him when they had not one. Here is Paul's account of this time, "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness . . . . And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind," etc. This is a poor but true history of the time when man was left to tradition. The difference of Romanism now is this — there is a written word, and they have taken it away and put reproach upon it; and as the heathen corrupted the doctrine of one God by idolatry and many false gods, so the Romanists, when God had sent His Son to bring men back, have corrupted the doctrine of one Divine Mediator by making many human and false ones.

75 James. I do not see, M., how Dr. Milner could refer to that time. It upsets all he seeks to prove. Why, it shews that, when man had only tradition, he was lost in sin and idolatry altogether, so that only one was saved from the flood with his family, and Abraham had to be called out miraculously because all had gone into idolatry. And it is true you have gone away from the one Mediator to have many false ones that we do not want and that are of no use.

N*. Well, we will go on with Dr. Milner. He quotes Pope Stephen as referring to tradition. But this is just the tradition on which St. Cyprian opposed him; and all the African churches and Firmilian and those of Asia Minor opposed him, saying his tradition was false. It is just an additional proof of the uncertainty of tradition, and it is the very case which makes Augustine say that, if the doctors of the church go wrong, he is not bound by them. Dr. Milner's statement as to the agreement of the Greek, Nestorian, Eutychian, and other bodies in the East along with Romanists (save on the pope's supremacy — a pretty important point when infallibility is in question) is simply untrue. They are corrupt enough, God knows; but they reject a quantity of Romanist doctrine and discipline too: as, to name no others, purgatory is wholly rejected in the Greek church, and the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. And as to Eutychians, they held that Christ had not really two distinct natures, but that the Godhead was as the soul of Christ; the Nestorians, on the other hand, divided the Person, though at first it was merely a very just refusal to call Mary the mother of God.* Nestorius wished to say the mother of Him who is God. However, intrigues had the upper hand.

{*The heathen, who had rejected the preaching of Christ, gave up their temples in crowds when they had a woman to worship.}

76 As to Dr. Milner's saying that it was easier to change the scriptures, so that they would be uncertain as a rule, nobody read them, a few monks copied them in the monasteries, but save that, nobody could read, and the clergy taught what they liked. There was no object in changing scripture; besides, I doubt not God watched over it.

As to saying that religious novelties would have produced violent opposition, and of course tumults, it is too bad and dishonest. Why, half the time of the emperors was spent in keeping the peace or trying to do so, for they never succeeded. The majority of bishops in Africa seceded, and some of their partisans got the name of circumcelliones, or vagabonds, for going about using violence. And at last they were put down by the emperor by force. One council, gathered to settle these doctrinal disputes, killed an old archbishop because he did not agree with them. First, the orthodox got the Arians banished, and then the Arians got the orthodox. On the subject of images, council voted against council, and then it came in the East to wars, in which a strong party held their ground a hundred years against the emperors. Why, the whole history of the church is the history of violence and banishment, and bloodshed, and tumult, on account of doctrinal and church disputes. The streets of Alexandria and Rome have streamed with blood through them, and the civil authority had to put it down. As to transubstantiation and invocation of saints, we shall come to them in their place. H story will shew whether Dr. Milner has been rash in trusting to the presumed ignorance of his readers in referring to them.

77 I have now gone through the question of tradition and what Dr. Milner has to say on it. I do not think we have found either certainty or the church by it yet. I still ask, Since you appeal to the church and authority, where is it? The scripture does act on my conscience and heart, and I bow to it as the word of God, as that word which pierces to the dividing asunder the joints and marrow and soul and spirit; it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and I bow as finding myself, when I read it, before Him in whose sight all things are naked and open. Not so when you speak to me of the church and what you hold up to me as such. As an outward authority in unity, where is it to be found? Dr. Milner suppresses that part of the passage in Tertullian, it is true, but what he referred to as his great authority sent me to the East. These were confessedly the most ancient churches, but they are opposed to Rome. If I am in England and northern Europe or North America, the immense majority of professing Christians owning the Lord, and even active in propagating Christianity, denounce Rome as the corruptest body in existence. Where is this one church which has authority? You tell me Rome is one. One with what? In itself. So are the Greeks. Yet Rome is not more one, as we have seen, than Protestants; not on election; not on the authority of the pope; and not, till a year or two ago, on the immaculate conception; but especially not able to tell me where infallibility really resides.*

{*The Council of Rome, as all are aware, has settled this for those who own it; but proved it was not so settled for eighteen hundred years, as it was opposed by many prelates, and is publicly by many intelligent Roman Catholics still.}

James. My trust is in scripture as the word of God. I know it is in my soul, and you own it is the word of God, and it tells me to trust it, and that I ought to have the witness in myself, and I have: but I must say, Bill, though I know nothing of it of course myself, what Dr. Milner has insisted on all comes to nothing, and worse than nothing when it is examined. Nor have you any doctrine which you can refer to tradition when scripture says nothing. What I know of your doctrines, as purgatory, and the popes being successors of Peter, and worshipping the saints, is only a corruption of what is in scripture, or quite condemned by it. And then what you appeal to goes against you. Why did Dr. Milner leave out these other churches from the passage he quoted? They just knock up his argument.

78 M. Well, it is no good my arguing, or any of us. I had better bring Father O., and he will make it plain for you.

N*. By all means. We are just coming to a point of which Milner says nothing, and naturally would not — the difficulties of his own case. And you could not tell whether I was stating it correctly or not, and I suppose Mr. O. can: at any rate I will give the proofs. Hitherto we have only examined what Dr. Milner says, so that we wanted no one. We will meet then, again, to see if we can find the church, where it is, and where the infallibility is, which is to guide us. I will now say Good-day. Good evening to you both. May the Lord guide us into all truth.

James. Good evening, sir.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fourth Conversation

Infallibility

J. N. Darby.

<22002E> 79 {file section a.}

N*. Good evening, Mr. O.; I am glad to see that you are come. You are already aware of what is occupying us; we shall get on more satisfactorily by your being here. Up to the present we could meet the case fairly, because I was only answering Dr. Milner's statements, but now I have to refer in turn to historical facts, and our friends here are not learned of course; and though, I trust, I should deal fairly with them, yet you can tell them if what I quote is not just. M. insists on our listening to the true church, and tells us it is infallible. We ask, Where is it? Where are we to find this infallibility?

Father O. I do not see what an ignorant person, such as Bill M., has to do disputing about religion: he has only to mind the direction of his pastor. How can such an ignorant person as he is judge about controversies that the most learned men discuss, and that the authority of the church alone can decide? He had much better have minded his religion, and shewn charity and good works in his life. However, as I found he had difficulties, I did not refuse to come and shew what the judgment of the true church is: otherwise, as Tertullian says, heretics are to be rejected, not discussed with. And I do not think it is a gentlemanlike thing of you, sir, to be coming and troubling my flock about their religion.

N*. We have been looking into that passage of Tertullian. As to troubling your flock, dear sir, you will kindly remember that our good friend, Bill M., had recently changed, as is commonly said, his religion, and, I suppose, gentlemanlike or not, some one had been troubling him, though I do not think he has much to say about a great deal of religion he had before, nor indeed since. However he is very zealous for his new opinions, and tells us he is so happy now that he could not but try and get James to turn to what he calls the true church, and he had succeeded in perplexing James. Now I suppose you hardly blame his zeal in this: there is a good deal of it going.

Father O. I do not blame his zeal; it is the natural fruit of charity and the peace that the true church always gives.

N*. Very well, then, you can hardly blame our meeting his arguments. We had procured Dr. Milner's "End of Controversy," and we have examined that hitherto. Now I deny entirely that Rome is the true church, or the Catholic church, in any sense; and Bill M., however zealous, was at a loss, and went to you: you can hardly blame him for that, and we are much obliged to you for coming. We will not ask you to go into all the marks of the true church; we can take them from Dr. Milner and the Catechism of the Council of Trent; but we want to know where the infallibility is. Here Bill M. and James, ignorant and sincere men, one a Roman Catholic and the other a Protestant, want to know (though James, like myself, is satisfied that the scriptures alone are certain truth, and of absolute authority, and sufficient) where this infallibility is to be found. I affirm that you have no certain source of truth at all, and no infallible guide to refer to.

80 Father O. Pardon me, you are to hear the church. God has promised to preserve it from error, and all it binds on earth is bound in heaven.

N*. The last is not said of the church, unless a particular assembly, two or three gathered together in Christ's name, be considered such; but let that pass now. Where is the church?

Father O. That is a question easily answered. It is the holy Roman Catholic apostolic church.

N*. Well, that is just what we deny; but where is the seat of infallibility, or, if we do not adopt the scriptures, the certain rule of faith? I met a Jesuit priest abroad; he told me there were three.

Father O. You must have mistaken him.

N*. I do not think you will reject what he said. He said, the authoritative decision as to the truth or infallibility was in the pope and the whole church; the consent of the church universal with the pope, or the pope and the whole church represented in a general council; or, lastly, the pope speaking ex cathedra.

Father O. All that is still the church itself, or the church by its divinely appointed organs.

N*. Very well, we may accept this then, and, by your permission, we will inquire whether certain truth is to be found by their means, and where. The first itself comes short of Vincentius Lirinensis' vaunted rule, "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," what was held always, everywhere, by all, and the rule itself invalidates the decision come to at any given epoch, and obliges me to inquire what was always held. But man's holding anything is no proof of its truth: nor even all Christians, simply as such, holding anything. To have certain divine truth we must have God's revelation. Till Paul arose, or at any rate till the case of Cornelius, all Christians held the perpetual obligation of the law of Moses. Yet they were all wrong. God was obliged to give an express revelation to Peter, and the same to Paul, to lead the church from what all held. And even after that, the Jewish Christians held so ardently to their traditions, and sought so diligently to force the Gentile Christians to receive them, that the question had to be settled by the apostles and elders coming together at Jerusalem.

81 Nor even did this suffice; for so little unity, after all, was there on the subject, and so perverse is the human mind in its adherence to ceremonies and legal righteousness, that Paul had to resist him of whom you make so unholy a boast, the apostle Peter, to the face, because he, and through him Barnabas and all the Jews, were carried away by dissimulation on this point. And those at Jerusalem maintained their views, and harassed the apostle Paul unceasingly in his ministry, and finally induced him at Jerusalem to follow that course which, under God's over-ruling hand, ended in his imprisonment and death. Yet this was a point in which, according to Paul himself, the truth of the gospel was concerned. So little, even in apostolic times, is the unity of the church in its views to be depended upon, or even Peter himself. But the teaching of scripture, whether in the decrees in Acts 15, or in the Epistles — Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Timothy, and elsewhere — is as plain and as decided as possible. Revelation decides it simply; what is held by the church gives no certain sound at all. And this, remark, upon a vital point, which half fills the Epistles of Paul, and at a time when we are told that nearness to the apostles must make us sure of their doctrine. The word of God is quite clear; but even an apostle, and a great apostle, stumbles in his walk as to it. There cannot possibly be a stronger case.

Father O. But it was settled by the council at Jerusalem.

N*. Undoubtedly what was settled as truth by the decision of the apostles, none of us are disposed to question. The authority of councils as a foundation for the truth we will consider in its turn. We are now upon the consent of the whole church, including the pope. Now this fails at the first step; and if we are to take Peter at Jerusalem even as the first pope, he was to be publicly reproved by the apostle Paul, so that your great champion, Bellarmine (De Summo Pont. lib. 1, 38, 29-31), is embarrassed to the last degree by the case; tries to make the sin venial, etc., but is obliged to admit that the Latin Fathers hold it for sin. It is quite certain Paul did. But let us seek this unity and consent of all later down in the history of the church. Were all agreed as to re-baptizing heretics?

82 Father O. They all came to an agreement, and submitted to the pope.

N*. I admit the pope prevailed at last, as he has on many points more evil than this, but has broken up and divided the church by his pretensions to do so. But we are looking for the consent of the church to secure truth. Did not the godly martyr, Cyprian, and all Africa, Egypt, and Syria, and Asia Minor — that is, all the most ancient apostolic churches — reject the pope's dogmas on this point?

Father O. Yes, they did, but it did not succeed.

N*. Did they ever yield till the death of Pope Stephen removed the difficulties?

Father O. No, they did not.

N*. You uprightly admit what is a matter of notorious history; and then they came to a middle term — of not baptizing again if they owned the Trinity, and baptizing them again if they did not. (Canon 8, Council of Arles.) Now, I do not blame the concord thus established, but as a source of truth the common consent of the church failed thus early in the church's history. In a very large portion of the church, if subject to their bishops, they must have differed from Rome. Now I might multiply instances. In the case of the Donatists, the African bishops applied to the Emperor Constantine, and the civil authority interfered to settle it. For, alas! when the Emperor turned Christian, so servile was the church, that he for a time was the true pope. Yet when Constantine called councils, and regulated everything, he was not even baptized — was so only on his death-bed, to be sure to be clear of his sins.

Father O. Do you think it right to cast a slur upon the whole church of God thus?

N*. I think it right to examine facts, when you make such a body as this an authority for the truth. But we will go to more serious points than even the re-baptizing of heretics. I suppose you, as I do, abhor the principles of Arius.

83 Father O. Surely; and he was condemned by the church, and especially in the Council of Nice.

N*. He was justly so, we all admit; but did that settle the church in unity on the point? You know that Athanasius was the great and able champion of the truth. Did he not die excommunicated and banished?

Father O. Yes, but that was through the intrigues of a wicked Arian emperor.

N*. I agree with you; but then how can the consent of the church secure the faith? Here was, if any be, a fundamental article — the true divinity of the blessed Lord — given up (save by some honoured and blessed confessors) by nearly the whole professing church, instead of its securing doctrine. But further. The pope himself, though for some time faithful, at last signed a semi-Arian formulary. Constantius had banished him from Rome because he would not be an Arian. In this he was to be honoured, and Felix was appointed pope in his place. The Emperor, on entering Rome to celebrate a triumph, found he was loved, saw him afterwards, and he signed a formulary which omitted the testing word, and got an acknowledgment from the prelates who were with Constantius that they should be condemned who said Christ, as to substance and in every way, was not like the Father, and then he was restored, and there were two popes till Felix's death. Further, was not Arius restored by Constantius' order to full communion at Jerusalem, and recalled from exile to Constantinople?

Father O. Yes; but he died miserably at Constantinople before he could be restored there.

N*. Be it so. I know it is said so. If that were God's judgment upon him, what are we to make of the churches who, on Constantius' order, restored him? Is it not as plain as can possibly be that in the very foundation truth of our religion the professing church, bishops, pope, and all, failed wholly to preserve the truth? Indeed Constantine, who had first condemned the Arians, falling under the influence of Eusebius, the prelate of Nicomedia, an able and learned man but a semi-Arian and worse, recalled the Arians everywhere, and, as we have seen, Athanasius was excommunicated and banished; then Constans, who held to the Nicene Creed, ruling in the west, and Constantius in the east, the east was Arian, and the west held to the Council of Nice; but Constantius, having defeated the usurping assassin of his brother Constans, held a council at Milan, where Athanasius was condemned. He banished those who would not subscribe its decrees — Pope Liberius, Hosius, Lucifer, and others; but, as we have seen, Liberius compromised the matter, and returned, and the aged and respected Hosius, alas! gave way. Lucifer remained firm, and became the head of the sect of Luciferians, whom Jerome wrote against. Now, mark that all this confusion was on the very essence of the faith.

84 Father O. No doubt it was a sad time; but do you not see how God has been with His church, and preserved it in the faith, notwithstanding all this?

N*. That I admit, and bless Him for with all my whole heart. The gates of hell shall never prevail against it. That is the comfort of one's heart in reading its history. But our point now is, can the professing church secure our faith by its maintaining with one consent any doctrine? The history of Arianism clearly proves that this is not so, and that it cannot be trusted for it. We shall have to touch on this again when we speak of councils. Take, again, the case of image worship. Was there universal consent as to that?

Father O. There is now; Romans and Greeks unite in it.

N*. But if now, what comes of the rule what was always, everywhere, and by all? Is it not true that for centuries there were none? Your great dogmatist, Petavius, admits that none were used for four hundred years, and gives as a reason that there was danger of their being confounded with the heathens, but that in the fifth, when she got her liberty, she began to have them openly. (Pet. de Incarn. 15, 13, 3.) Epiphanius, finding an image on a curtain in a church, tore it with his own hands, as contrary to scripture. He charges their introduction on heretics, as does Augustine, and declares that the church condemns such habits. (Epiph. in Jerome lit. LL. ed. Vallar, 1, 253.)

The Council of Eliberis, in Spain, A.D. 305, decreed that pictures ought not to be in churches. For a length of time they were rejected in the East, and insisted on by the popes; solemnly condemned in a council of three hundred and thirtyeight prelates at Constantinople, in A.D. 754; approved by a council of three hundred and fifty in A.D. 787; condemned in England in A.D. 792, and by a great council of prelates at Frankfort, under Charlemagne, A.D. 794.

Now this will come before us under the question of councils. But how am I, then, to learn anything sure from the consent of the professing church, or hold what is held always, everywhere, and by all? These are only examples on the most important points of doctrine and practice. The truth is, for some hundreds of years, from the third to the sixth and seventh centuries, there was an endless war of opinions, and the Emperors trying to keep the peace by their own decrees, or by convening councils. Then, if we come down lower, after bitter and prolonged conflict, and mutual excommunication, the Greek and Roman, or Eastern and Western, Christendom, finally separated in the tenth century, and all the most ancient apostolic churches condemn Rome; so do the Nestorians and Eutychians. And now the majority of professing Christendom stands apart from her. Where am I to get this general consent? And remark, Mr. O., I am not now speaking of the doctrines or practices referred to; for instance, as to the wrongness of the heathen practice of images. Our inquiry is, if the universal consent of the church furnishes a sure ground of faith. My answer is, it cannot in principle, because it is not a revelation of God; and, secondly, that in vital points it has totally failed, and, in fact, is not to be found, and does not exist. Let me ask you, Do you believe in the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary?

85 Father O. Undoubtedly. The pope decided upon it a few years ago in an assembly of several hundred prelates.

N*. And was it an article of faith before?

Father O. No, but it was celebrated by pious Catholics.

N*. I am aware of that. But can an important dogma be introduced above eighteen centuries after the Lord?

Father O. It is promulgated then as an article of faith; but when an article of faith is promulgated, it is not new; all that is maintained is, that it was always the faith of the church.

N*. But is it not true that the Dominicans and all their doctors held that this doctrine of the immaculate conception was contrary to the truth?

Father O. They did, but it was not determined by the church then.

N*. They were the inquisitors of heretical pravity, were they not?

Father O. The inquisitors were taken from that order.

N*. That is what I mean. But is it not strange that so celebrated an order, to which the maintenance of sound doctrine was specially confided in the church, should have been for centuries diligently teaching what now turns out to be heresy? I do not blame them, but how can the universal consent of the church secure our having the truth if this be so? and it was not merely a notion. They insisted on it, and used such scandalous means to make their cause good against the Franciscans, that four of their order were burned at the stake for it about the time of the Reformation.

86 Father O. You mean the history of Jetzer, at Bern?

N*. I do. They had some one to personify the Virgin Mary in an apparition, and carried it so far that the fraud was discovered.

Father O. Of course I do not excuse them. It was in dark and ignorant ages, and they were punished by the church for it.

N*. They were, they were burnt for it, because it was found out. But our question is, what is the security for the truth, when your greatest lights, your maintainers of sound doctrine and judges of heresy, have brought us into ages so dark as this, and are now judged to be maintainers of false doctrine all the time?

But we will now turn to the other means of infallible knowledge of the truth; the pope speaking ex cathedra, as they say, and councils. The first is soon disposed of. In the first place, we have seen Peter himself rebuked by Paul on the gravest question that could occupy the church of God. It is not possible to think of the first popes, whoever they were (for this is uncertain), as the authorized sources of truth, for the apostle John lived during the time of those who first occupied the See of Rome, and they were clearly bound to listen to and be subject to the apostle — that very apostle who says, "He that is of God heareth us." And if the first chiefs had not this authority, its descending down to others is all a fiction. But the case of the pope goes farther, and, without multiplying cases which would carry us too far, there are the plain cases of Marcellinus, who was a traditor, that is, gave up the scriptures in persecution, and offered incense to the gods; Honorius, who was publicly condemned for being a Monothelite by the sixth General Council confirmed by the pope; Liberius, who signed a semi-Arian creed. These we will notice a little more fully.

First, then, there is the sad case of Marcellinus, who, when pope, offered to idols and apostatised from Christ. Bellarmine says he taught nothing against the faith nor heretical. (De Sum. Pont. lib. 4, c. 8, 25.) Augustine is on safer ground. He says, "whatever he may have been it is no prejudice to the Catholic church, and in the threshing-floor there may be good and bad." But where is security for infallibility?* Bellarmine tells us it is not of much consequence if he lost the papacy by it, as he abdicated soon after, and died a martyr. I trust the poor man's weakness may have been graciously forgiven, but we are looking for infallibility and security for faith. It is easy to understand Bellarmine's motive for making it no matter, because either there would have been an apostate pope or one deposed by a local council for unfaithfulness. Marcellinus did the best thing he could do, if he abdicated, and we may trust all was right with him after all. Augustine's ground for its being no matter is a better one.

{*I do not quote authorities for this account of Marcellinus, as it is a known matter of history, to be found in any considerable church history.}

87 Father O. St. Augustine was right to say the church's faith was unaffected by it; and, indeed, as Bellarmine says, he taught nothing dogmatically wrong.

N*. Well, I should have thought it wrong every way to worship idols. A worshipper of idols is a strange security for faith. But we will turn to some other instances equally notorious: Pope Vigilius in the dispute about what are called the three chapters, two of which were sanctioned by the great General Council of Chalcedon. In truth Vigilius was elevated to the See of Rome on purpose to favour Monophysite heresy,* and restore Anthinus, the heretic, to the See of Constantinople, the Empress putting him in by force, by means of Belisarius, and banishing Silverius. When once in, he turned right round,** but quailed before the Emperor as soon as he got to Constantinople, and intrigued in vain. Then he condemned the three chapters as the Emperor had done. Then, when the fifth General Council was called, though at Constantinople, he defended the three chapters. The Council of Constantinople broke communion with him, and approved the Emperor's condemnation of the three chapters, and Vigilius, the following year, assented to the decrees of the council, and his successor, Pelagius I, acknowledged the orthodoxy of the council. Where is the security for faith here anywhere? The Council of Constantinople condemned the Council of Chalcedon, both being accounted ecumenical, nominally saving its credit, and the pope, ex cathedra, condemned, approved, and then condemned the same doctrine, what all held to be a vital question as to the Person of the Lord! You cannot deny this.

{*Baronius 9, A.D. 538, 540, etc. He had represented Rome at Constantinople. Bellarmine, De Sum. Pont. 4, 10, 16, does not contest the letter given by Liberatus (in Breviario 22); Baronius does. The facts are plain any way. Pagi adds, in a note, that there can be no doubt of it. Still, he adds, that it does not prejudice the pope's authority, because Silverius was not dead, though deposed, so that Vigilius was not really pope: a nice security for faith, a pope who could not act because he was deposed, and an acting one whose acts, though consecrated, were not valid, because the other was living.}

{**Baronius attributes this to the grace given to the papacy. But this accords but ill with his excusing his undoubted heresies afterwards, on the ground that he was not pope because the banished Silverius was alive. What a foundation for faith!}

88 Father O. I do not defend Vigilius; the persecutions of the Emperor on the one hand, and the voice of the Western church on the other, made him vacillate. And see how, after all, the church was preserved, as Baronius says, "God's hand was seen in his refusing to support the heresy when once he was really pope."*

{*He acted as pope, while Silverius, who had been banished, still lived, and so (they say) was legitimate pope. What was the validity of all the papal acts, their ordinations, etc. 7}

N*. But his condemning, and approving the three chapters, and then acknowledging the synod which had condemned him and them, were when he was pope. It is a plain example that the pope's judgment, ex cathedra, is just worth nothing at all. I admit that God has preserved the faith and the church, but it is in spite of and not by the hierarchy. But take another example: you cannot deny Liberius acquiesced in Arianism.

Father O. He never taught it.

N*. He subscribed an Arian creed, and in the largest council ever held, of some 800 prelates; and he communicated with Arians and condemned Athanasius. Bellarmine says he was deceived by ambiguous terms; but if he was, he was no security for our faith. The truth is, he did it to free himself from the persecutions of an Arian Emperor, who sought to unite all by vague expressions, which really gave up the word on which all then depended; and, as Jerome expresses it, the world was surprised to find itself Arian. But if Bellarmine is right, and he was deceived, it is just the proof that the pope is no security for faith, nor indeed a pope and council together. To say he did not teach it, when on the solemn discussion of the question with the assembled hierarchy he signed the creed, is a miserable subterfuge. Others of course, if he was any authority, were to believe what he signed. Ought a simple Christian to have followed his faith then, when he subscribed the Arian creed?

89 Father O. No; he should have abode by the faith of the church.

N*. How was he to know the faith of the church when the pope and by far the largest council ever held had subscribed deadly heresy? No, the broad fact is there. The pope and the largest body of prelates ever assembled in council signed and promulgated an Arian creed. Nor did the church, as a body, recover itself at once.

I now turn to Honorius. Bellarmine labours hard to free him also; but then he cannot deny that he was condemned and anathematized as a heretic by not one but two general councils, the pope's legates taking part in one case. Bellarmine says they wanted to secure several Eastern patriarchs being anathematized, and so, that they might succeed, threw Honorius in with them.* Moreover the pope, his successor, undertook he should be anathematized. And then, says Bellarmine, if it cannot be denied in the least that the pope was anathematized, the council made a mistake; but then the pope's legates were there, and it is accounted an Ecumenical Council amongst you. So that either the pope was a heretic, and he was struck out of what were called the Diptychs (those whose names were remembered in the public service) as unfit to be there, or pope and council confirmed by him can err, and nothing is certain. It is really a flat denial of your own history to pretend popes and councils (and both together) cannot err. There is no security for faith to be found in them.

{*Bell. de Sum. Pont. Lib. 4, c. 11.}

I might mention a multitude of cases and statements of Fathers, but I take only notorious cases, which may be found in Bellarmine, Baronius, and all church histories.* John XXII I have mentioned; his case may be seen in Bellarmine, and John XXIII** deposed by the Council of Constance.

{*Bellarmine gives a list of cases of alleged failure in infallibility. Baronius is not to be trusted without Pagi's corrections. The latter is much fairer.}

{**The numbers attached to their popes vary in different Roman Catholic historians; for, with all their boasted succession, nothing is more uncertain, irregular, and defective than the succession of the popes; often two at the time, and no one knowing who was the right one, and this not merely at the time of the great schism; and when one got the upper hand of his rival, he annulled all his ordinations, so that nobody knew who was ordained and who was not. But of this farther on.}

90 I might insist on the absurdity and ungodliness of making infallible in faith men of whom Baronius* says he must use their being in the see as a date; 'but how can we own as popes persons who were illegitimate sons of the Marquis of Tuscany's mistresses, put in by them into the see?' But I leave all this, and a great deal more, and confine myself to notorious cases, known by everyone who has read church history at all, though the general point of what the popes were is of great weight in the matter. I ask you, solemnly, if a Chinese or a Hindoo were seeking, with sincere heart led of God, for the rule of faith and means of discovering the true religion, would he find it in the most licentious, depraved, wicked series of men that ever were found? and while I admit they were not so at first, what is to be a rule of faith must be always one, to say nothing of there being two or three popes at a time.

{*Vol. 15, A.D. 912, 8.}

If we take history, we find there was no such doctrine in the early church, and further, that popes have grievously erred. Thus Cyprian, and all the African and Asiatic, and Egyptian bishops, resisted Stephen's doctrine. Before that, when Victor refused communion with the Eastern churches on a question of keeping Easter, the godly Irenaeus rebuked him, many bishops concurring. "This did not please all the bishops," says Eusebius, some of them speaking pretty sharply to him (the pope). (Eus. 5, 24.) And till the Council of Nice, the East and West continued their own observances as to what Victor excommunicates them for. So Augustine, in the case of Marcellinus (which, strange to say, Baronius quotes with approbation, thinking only of Catholic doctrine), says, "Whatever Marcellinus may have been, it is no prejudice to the Catholic church diffused in the whole world. We are in no way crowned by their innocence, nor condemned by their iniquity . . . . In the threshing-floor (of the church) there can be good and bad." (De Unico Baptismo, Cont. Pet. 16, or Ben. 39.) He had not the remotest idea of infallibility in a pope. If he was a bad one and sacrificed to idols, the faith was not affected by it. So indeed Tertullian asks triumphantly in respect of such falls, "Do we prove faith by persons, or persons by faith?" Listen to the plain language of Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, the great friend of the pope, the great stickler for orthodoxy and church authority in his day: "Nor is the church of the Roman city to be esteemed one, and that of all the earth to be another. Both the Gauls, and Britons, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of faith. If authority be sought, the world is greater than a city. Wherever there is a bishop, Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or Alexandria, or Tunis, he is of the same worth, he is of the same priesthood. The power of riches and the humility of poverty make neither a more exalted nor an inferior bishop; but all are successors of the apostles."*

{*Hieron. ad Evang. Epist. 146 (ed. Vall.)}

91 This is a poor way of treating infallibility. Cyprian expressly declares that, when Paul rebuked Peter, the latter never thought of insolently and arrogantly pretending to have the primacy, and that he ought to be obeyed. (Litt. 71.) Accordingly, as we have seen, the African bishops maintained their views against the pope. The thought of infallibility did not exist. When we come lower down in history, the claims of the popes increase, and their authority extends; but the effect was that all the most ancient part of the church, that is the East, broke off from them altogether, and remains opposed to Rome to this day.

The University of Paris solemnly condemned John XXII* for heresy, and the Council of Constance charged John XXIII with saying that the soul died with the body. Now this shews how little infallibility was supposed to be inherent in the pope. The Council of Basel says, "Many of the supreme pontiffs are said, and so we read, to have fallen into heresy and error. It is certain that the pope can err. A council has often condemned and deposed a pope as well on account of faith as morals." Now, I quite understand that you will say this council has no authority, but we are looking for a sure ground on which to found the authority of the church; and surely when the assembled prelates of Christendom declare that the popes may err, and have erred, in faith and morals, the infallibility of the pope is no longer a very sure ground. Their claiming it, which we all know they do, does not give it to them. We will enter on the ground of councils when we come to that point. I turn to the history of the popes, that we may understand what happened at Constance. There were two popes, and even three from the Council of Pisa, till after the Council of Constance: were they both infallible, both heads of the church? Half Europe obeyed one, half the other. Did not they mislead, one or both, the church of God? Where was certainty to guide the faithful here? They anathematized each other. Is this what the faith of God's church, or the saving of souls, is to rest upon? But, further, the Council of Constance, after exacting the resignation of the principal but most wicked of the three (which, after some tergiversations, he gave on being threatened to have his awful wickedness exposed), on his running away fearing the consequences of his crimes, deposed him, and chose another; the two others lingered on a little while, and then died out.

{*His history is a little pleasant. The cardinals who had to choose the pope, several of them being ambitious, would not agree, and at last agreed to leave the choice to the one who became John XXII, sure he would choose one of them; but he thought the best thing was to choose himself, and became John XXII.}

92 Father O. But the Council of Constance was not ratified by the pope.

N*. It created the pope, and all your alleged spiritual authority flows from hence, that is, from its acts; you have no pope at all if its acts are wrong. But we will speak of this when we come to councils, we are now on the popes being infallible. But here, I will add, Martin V did confirm the Council of Constance, and not only so, but Eugenius, though he afterwards found means to break it up, recalled his three bulls (one, he said, was not genuine), which condemned the Council of Basel, and gave in his adhesion, and recognised it and its acts as met in the power of the Holy Ghost; which acts fully confirmed the decrees of Constance.

M. But is all this true, Father O.?

Father O. The facts are true; but I must beg you not to interfere and enter into what you cannot possibly judge of. When Mr. N*. has done I will shew how fallacious all this is. I only now say, It is just a proof how, if men have been individually wicked, God has preserved the church. The faith of the church has remained the same, and that is all you have to say to.

93 N*. That the excessive wickedness of the popes and clergy, which we shall be obliged to look into when we speak of the marks of the true church, is a proof that the blessed God has preserved His church, and the faith of God's elect in spite of them, I admit fully and bless Him for it. But we are examining, not if God has preserved the faith for us in spite of them, but if they are a warrant and security for the faith. But if these facts are true, the popes are no kind of security for the faith, and that is our question now. Let me add, dear sir, that your rebuke to M. is the best possible proof of the untenableness of the ground he and you are upon. You say he cannot possibly judge of the validity of this ground of faith. But that is what you want us to do — only you want us to do it without honest examination. Dr. Milner says we believe the Catholic church, and therefore everything which she teaches, upon motives of credibility, and Mr. John Newman (who turned Roman Catholic) avows he has only probability, though of a high character. Now, in no case can this be a divine foundation for faith. It is upon the face of it merely human. It would be blasphemy to say that what God said was probably true.

But so utterly futile is your rule of faith, that when we begin to examine it, you tell our friend M. here that he cannot possibly judge of it. Now, where is he to get his motives of credibility? And though it may be difficult for a poor man to examine for himself folios of fathers and councils, as of course it is, yet, according to your rule of faith, he must, or be led blindfold by a man. But the facts which are brought forward by those who can examine them, shew that your rule is a dreadfully false one, and when they are thus honestly furnished to him, he can judge that the foundation you build on is utterly worthless. If the pope be a sure foundation of faith (a thing not thought of for hundreds of years) God has given a premium to the most horrible wickedness that ever disgraced human nature, for such wickedness characterizes the popes above all men on the earth. Do you deny the wickedness of John XXIII of whom we have just been speaking, or of Alexander VI, and many others? You cannot, you dare not, with any one who knows history. Even your Pope Gregory VII, who built the grandeur of the papacy, raising it above the empire, and established the celibacy (that is, the corruption of the clergy) died away from his see, having been first deposed by a council of German bishops at Worms, and afterwards condemned as a heretic, and sentenced to be deposed by the Council of Brixen, and a new pope chosen, Clement III, who was consecrated at Rome. Now, I attach no authority to this council, or their pope (though, in supporting the emperor, to whom God gave authority, against the pope, to whom God gave none, the prelates were right) but what sort of foundation for faith and salvation is all this?

94 James. Well, to think of all this being called the church of God and authority for our faith. I am glad I have the Bible and know nothing about all this. There one has holiness and truth, and not wars and ambition for Christianity. It is terrible to think what the professing church came to, if all this is true.

N*. It is terrible, and the thousandth part of it has not been told, but we must pursue our enquiry soberly. Our point is the pope's infallibility being the source of certainty as to the faith. Now, the second point I stated was that they had confessedly erred. And we have cited examples. For it is perfectly well known that plenty believed nothing at all. But I have selected cases that have been brought out in history as to the faith. Marcellinus offered incense to idols, Liberius signed a semi-Arian creed. Honorius was condemned for being a Monothelite by a general council sanctioned by Pope Agatho. Zosimus, I may add here, corrupted artfully the canons of the Council of Nice to found the authority of the See of Rome, and was detected in the East and in Africa. John XXII was charged with heresy as to the state of souls after death. John XXIII, deposed by the Council of Constance, was charged there with denying the immortality of the soul.

Father O. I do not admit all these cases. It was never proved against Marcellinus; John XXII was only condemned by a council of divines at Paris. And Zosimus' act at any rate was a fraud, not a heresy. He quoted Sardica and said Nice. And it is a question if these canons of Nice were not burnt.

N*. There is this much obscure in the case of Marcellinus, that the deacons and presbyters who bore witness to it only saw him go into the sanctuary of Vesta to do it, and did not see it done. I admit the acts of the Council of Sinuessa, in which it is fully stated, and where he is said to have confessed it on his knees, may be, and are possibly justly called in question, and I do not depend on them, though even Baronius, your great historian, did not wholly give them up, and all St. Augustine ventures to say is, that we ought not to hold him guilty till it is proved. But the account is as circumstantial as possible. It is said that he resisted the emperor's violence, but gave way to blandishments and money, and that he said he did not sacrifice, but only put a few grains of incense on the fire to the idol, the names of the priests and deacons who went with him to the door being mentioned, so that it is impossible to believe it is a mere fable. Moreover, he gave up the popedom in consequence.* But is this what faith is to rest on? As to John XXII there is no doubt whatever. Your own historians relate it, and say he coldly retracted the error before he died, and that his successor, Benedict, condemned it. So that, as a foundation of faith, we see a pope cannot be trusted.

{*Here are Bellarmine's words (De Sum. Pont. 4, 8): "The tenth is Marcellinus, who sacrificed to idols as is certain (ut constat) by the pontifical of Damascus, the Council of Sinuessa, and the epistle of Nicholas I to Michaelis. But Marcellinus taught nothing against the faith, nor was he a heretic or unfaithful, unless by an external act through fear of death. But whether on account of that external act he lost his position of pope (exciderit a pontificatu) or not, is of little moment, since he himself soon abdicated the papal see, and soon after was crowned with martyrdom. I should consider rather that he did not ipso facto lose his position of pope, since it is certain enough for all that he sacrificed to idols through fear alone." Bellarmine, therefore, had no kind of doubt about the matter. We may surely hope his sin was blotted out.}

95 As to Zosimus, I admit that it was a fraud and not a heresy; but it was a fraudulently citing as the canons of the Council of Nice what were no part of them, and what was put forward as the foundation of the whole jurisdiction and authority of the pope. The council of bishops in Africa, in which the famous St. Augustine took part, denied their genuineness, sent and got the true Greek copies in the East and rejected Zosimus' claims. And the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, did the same thing, sending full copies of the canons of Nice. Is not this true?

Father O. Yes. But they were the canons of the Council of Sardica which he cited as those of Nice.

N*. That is, he attributed the resolutions of a little petty conclave of his own partisans, assembled to give him this power (from whence all the bishops of the East had separated when they found what they were about, meeting elsewhere, and condemning the Sardicans), to the first great General Council in order fraudulently to set up that authority of the See of Rome which it now claims: and Rome has ever since built largely on this fraud.

96 It is well to refer a little to this history as elucidating the supremacy and alleged appellative jurisdiction of Rome. I will go a little further back, as, among other things, our allegation is that we can trace the origin of these pretensions. In Cyprian's time, besides the case we have already spoken of about rebaptizing heretics, another question arose. In A.D. 252 two Spanish bishops guilty of being Libellatici (that is, having received certificates of having owned heathen idols, obtained by money from heathen magistrates without having really done so) were deposed by a provincial synod of the country. One was re-admitted to communion though not to his see, but went to Rome and complained to Pope Stephen. The pope, always glad as popes were to augment their authority, ordered the Spanish synod to restore both to their sees. Meanwhile, Cyprian being everywhere known by his activity, the bishops of the synod laid the affair before him. He summoned a local council, and they declared that Stephen had been evidently deceived, and that Basilides and Martialis (the other bishop) had greatly increased their crime by appealing from the local judgment. He declares the judgment he communicated to be conformable to the understood practice of the church. There the matter ended. The great Roman historian is careful not to notice this transaction. It may be found in other histories. (See Cyprian's letter 67, Oxford, Pam. 68.)

Cyprian in every respect maintained the independence of the episcopate against Rome. He says, "Among us there is no one who will arrogate to himself any authority over those of his own order or claim to be a bishop of bishops . . . inasmuch as every bishop has equal liberty of judging and determining upon all questions that come before him, and can no more be judged by, than he can judge, another. Therefore it should be our resolution to await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all our powers to govern His church are derived, and who alone has authority to call us to account" (Prologue to judgment of 87 bishops in Council of Carthage). So when Pope Cornelius had received Felicissimus, who had been excommunicated in Africa, Cyprian writes to blame him severely, and says the crime ought to be judged where it is committed, and where the witnesses are, "unless to some few desperate and lost persons the authority of the bishops established in Africa seem to be inferior. Their cause is already taken cognizance of, the sentence already passed on them," and declares a special portion of the flock is appropriated to each shepherd, which each is to rule and govern, having to give an account of his acts to God (Epist. 58, Oxford).

97 The history of Sardica, which was subsequent to this, was the following: —

When Athanasius had been condemned by the Councils of Tyre and Antioch, and banished, he first fled to Julius, who held a small assembly at Rome, and acquitted him; then to Treves, and the Emperor Constans got Constantius, emperor of the East, to call a council. This was held at Sardica. Athanasius, whose cause was to be tried, sat there. The Eastern bishops claimed that he should be excluded. This the others refused. The parties were equally divided, and the Eastern prelates seceded; the Western ones remained. The Eastern half at Philippopolis condemned Athanasius; the Sardicans acquitted him, and then gave for the first time an appeal to Rome. These latter canons Zosimus sought to foist on the African bishops as canons of the Council of Nice. But they were never heard of (as being those of a Council of Sardica) as of any authority, nor ever received in any way in the Eastern church.

And note, the giving then, which is what they do in honour of Peter, a title to Rome to require a re-examination on the spot in case of an appeal, or to take other measures, proves that he did not possess the right before. It was very convenient to Athanasius, as he had been thus acquitted by Pope Julius, and condemned in the East, to set up this power in Rome. This Council of Sardica and its canons were, however, no way recognised in the church; for three general councils, Constantinople, 381 (34 years after), Chalcedon, 451, Constantinople, 681, all decree what is entirely in opposition to the Sardican, namely — that causes should be heard by the provincial synods, with appeal to the patriarch to whose jurisdiction they belonged. It was Julius' successor, Liberius, who signed the Arian or semi-Arian creed, when Constantius, the Eastern emperor, had all his own way, and so did Hosius, one of the alleged presidents of the Sardican Council.

I will now return to Pope Zosimus. A certain presbyter, Apiarius, had been excommunicated by his bishop and others for ill conduct. He goes off to Rome. Zosimus pronounces him innocent, and sends Faustinus and two others to Africa to a synod then gathered about it. His messengers went to see Apiarius reinstated, and to urge that any presbyter might appeal to Rome. The African prelates answered there was no such rule in the church as that. Zosimus' messengers plead the canons of the Council of Nice. The prelates said these canons were not in their copies of the canons of the Council of Nice; but they would send to Constantinople and Alexandria and Antioch, the three great patriarchates, and see. Cyril of Alexandria, and Atticus of Constantinople replied, and it was found that there were no such canons of the Council of Nice at all. Zosimus was now dead, and his successor, Boniface, who pursued the claim, was dead also; and the African prelates write to Pope Caelestine to say that the Council of Nice had committed these things to the metropolitan, or a local council, or even to a general one.

98 It is worth while, though it be long, to recite what the prelates say in what they call the universal African Council of Carthage: — "No determination of the Fathers has ever taken this authority (of judging its own clergy) from the African church, and the decrees of Nice have openly committed both inferior clergymen and bishops themselves to their metropolitans. For they have provided most prudently and justly that every matter should be terminated in its own place where it arose. Nor is it to be thought that to each and every consideration the grace of the Holy Spirit will be wanting by which equity may be prudently perceived by the priests of Christ, and firmly maintained, especially because it is allowed to every one, if he be offended by the judgment on the charges, to appeal to the councils of his province, or even to a universal one. Unless perhaps there be some one who may think that our God may inspire justice in examining to a single person, whoever it may be, and deny it to innumerable priests assembled in council . . . . For we have not found it established in any synod of the Fathers that any should be sent as legates of your holiness (tuoe sanctitatis a latere, the common name since for popish legates). For that which you formerly transmitted by the same Faustinus, our co-bishop, as on the part of the Nicene Council, in the truer copies of the Council of Nice, which we have received, sent from our co-bishop, Cyril, of the church of Alexandria, and the venerable Atticus, prelate of Constantinople, from the authentic copies, which also had already been sent by us to bishop Boniface of venerable memory, your predecessor, by the hands of Innocent, presbyter, and Marcellus, sub-deacon, by whom they were forwarded to us from them (Cyril and Atticus), we have not been able to find anything of the kind. Also do not think of sending, nor granting, upon any of ours requesting it, any of your clergy as executors (agents to enforce decrees) lest we may seem to introduce the smoky pride of this world into the church of Christ, which offers the light of simplicity and the day-light of lowliness to those who desire to see God."* And then the council declares that Africa could no longer endure the presence of Faustinus, if brotherly charity were to be preserved. Apiarius was already put out.

{*See Hardouin's Councils, 1, 950. The Latin has "in quibus" here, which does not hang together to make a sentence.}

99 Now here papal infallibility is treated with scorn by all the African bishops in council, the pope's sending legates declared to be utterly unlawful, and the canons he pleaded as his justification declared to be a fraud, and that he must know it, for they had sent the true ones from Constantinople and Alexandria to his predecessor, Boniface.

But Zosimus had had some other transactions with these African prelates, among whom was the famous Augustine. Zosimus fully sanctioned the confession of faith of Pelagius, and his teaching. Now here was the very essence of Christian grace in question. He reproves severely the African prelates for condemning him, owns him and Celestius as in communion. His predecessor had totally condemned him just before. The African prelates having done so, and communicated it, as was the custom, to Innocent, he had returned an answer condemning and excommunicating the two heretics, and claiming, I freely admit, all manner of authority in the case, for the popes were at this moment striving hard to establish their power, and profited by every opportunity. However Innocent condemned and excommunicated them by his full authority ex cathedra. Zosimus, to the said African prelates, declares them sound and in communion. And note, this was on an essential doctrine of the faith. The Africans did not of course remonstrate with Innocent for agreeing with them.

But Zosimus' pretensions set aside their judgment. They met at Carthage in May, 418, Augustine presiding, and condemned and anathematized Pelagius and his disciples, and, not content with this, took the opportunity, in the Council of Milevis, of republishing the Nicene canon, and in their 22nd decree that the appeals should be to local synods or metropolitans, and that if any appealed across the sea (that is, to Rome) he should be received into communion in no African church. Zosimus gave way, summoned Celestius, whom the Africans had condemned, and condemned him too. So much for the pope's infallibility and authority.

100 I have dwelt more on this because just at this time the pope was seeking to establish his authority over the West, having succeeded, through a quarrel of two prelates, to do it in the south-east corner of France, and in a measure in Eastern Illyria, naming the archbishop of Thessalonica there as "executor" — what the Africans call the introduction of smoky pride into the church. This had been done already some 40 years before, when that country was politically transferred to the Eastern empire, and the ambitious popes were afraid it should be ecclesiastically under the influence of Constantinople, the Eastern capital. But all this was ambition, not infallibility; and when there was moral courage, the pretensions of the pope were entirely rejected as wholly contrary to the canons, as indeed they were before the canons of Nice were made. Thus did Cyprian, thus Asia Minor, Egypt, and Syria in his day; thus Spain, thus Irenaeus in Gaul; while the popes have been proved both fallible and heretics.

In the Councils of Basel and Constance these bodies were openly declared to be superior to them, and, in the last, three popes (all infallible, we are to suppose) were set aside, one as a heinous monster. Nor has this doctrine been given up in later days. The Gallican church, that is, the Roman prelates in France summoned by Louis XIV, declared publicly that the decrees of the Council of Constance, which maintained the authority of general councils as superior to the pope's in spiritual matters, are approved and adopted by the Gallican church, and that the decisions of the pope in points of faith are not infallible, unless they be accompanied by the consent of the church. Here, then, by the authority of the clergy of that great kingdom, a person who holds the infallibility of the pope is judged to be in error. Now, in what a sea of uncertainty you plunge people if they are to discover the true rule of faith in this way, to say nothing of its being impossible for a poor man to get at it at all!

101 Father O. Yes, but the poor man has the voice of his pastor, who will not lead him astray.

N*. But this is admitted to be no security. Thus, the faithful in France would be led to hold that the pope was fallible in matters of faith.

Father O. But that is no longer the case.

N*. Where then is your rule of "what is held by all, everywhere, and always"? Moreover, many do hold this still,* and it was favoured by the Bourbons, and was, even often, by the emperor, who can do so because he names the different prelates. But see what you have brought us to. Your rule of faith in 1682, for France at least, was different from your rule of faith in 1862. Is this its certainty and clearness? Now when I turn to scripture I find that which I surely need the grace of God to understand; but what is of admitted certain authority for all (except for infidels, with whom we have nothing to do here), and the same at all times? The word of God, the direct revelation given by God by prophets and apostles and inspired men, and that with a holiness, plainness, graciousness of love, and divine love and authority which act on the mind of the poorest, and which the poorest can appreciate. You hinder his having any rule, or else he must have councils and fathers, and read through folios in Latin and Greek; and, when a man is able to do that, he finds, as we have seen, contradiction and heresy, and no sure rule anywhere. If he cannot do this, he must resign himself blindfold into a man's, perhaps a wicked man's, hand. With scripture he listens to Paul and Peter and the rest; he finds and knows in his own conscience that he has to do with the word of God, which discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. You have no certain rule of faith, nor any living word of God in what you call such which can judge your thoughts and heart.

{*This was written before the last Roman Council, which decreed the pope to be infallible: only this is an additional contradiction in church dogma.}

Father O. But the very word you quote declares Peter to be the rock on which the church is built, and that whatever he bound on earth should be bound in heaven.

N*. I do not admit that this scripture says so at all, but I have already enlarged on history, proving that the popes are not infallible, so that it is quite right you should have ample opportunity of stating your views.

102 Father O. It is written, "Et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam." "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

N*. Forgive me if I interrupt you. Where does this come from?

Father O. From Matthew 16, from the scriptures.

N*. But we have not got them yet. You tell us we must first find the church to enable us to receive the scriptures, and we have not found the church yet. You must, on your own shewing, find that for us first. You cannot quote the scriptures before you prove them to be such — before you believe in them.

Father O. Well, but you do believe in them.

N*. Nor am I going to hinder your appealing to them. But as you have not made good the church's claims, the scriptures must have authority of themselves, and be intelligible too.

Father O. I receive them from the church, and the interpretation of them also.

N*. No doubt you do, but that is your private opinion. You are occupied with proving what the true church is, and you have not done that yet, and therefore cannot, if the church alone can authorize them, say anything is scripture. And this 7 is really important practically, not only to shew the unsoundness of your views, but because in fact the Romanists receive as scripture what other parts of the church do not receive as such, the ancient church and fathers included. I am not bound to listen to anything you quote from scripture, because scripture cannot have authority, you yourself tell me, till the church has declared it to be so, and we have not the church yet. But proceed: I shall not make any difficulty. Yet I take it as an admission of the absolute authority of scripture in itself, for otherwise you cannot thus quote it.

Father O. This passage then shews clearly that the church is built on Peter, and that the church built on him can never be overthrown. To him also the keys are given, and what he bound on earth was to be bound in heaven. And it could not be to him only, and then the church fail, for it was never to fail. Hence his successors must have this same authority, that is, as all admit, the pope. In confirmation of this, we find him always named the first among the apostles, as he was the first called also. Thus it is as clear as anything can make it that he had the pre-eminence, and so his successors. He always spoke the first, and took the lead. He was the president of the college of apostles, as we see all through the Acts. In the same way, after His resurrection, the Lord committed His sheep to Peter, saying, "Feed my sheep," giving him universal dominion over the church. And this was always recognized by the church, as the testimony of the fathers proves.

103 Thus Origen so very early says (Hom. 5 in Exod.), "See what is said by the Lord to that great foundation and most solid rock upon which Christ has founded His church, 'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt'"? So Athanasius, in his epistle to Felix, and, indeed, the Alexandrian Synod with Him, "Thou art Peter, and upon thy foundation the pillars of the church, that is, the bishops, are established." Gregory Nazianzen says, in his oration on moderation in discussions, "Peter is called a rock, and has the foundation of the church trusted to his faith." Again, Epiphanius (in Ancorato), "The Lord constituted Peter, the first of the apostles, a firm rock on which the church of God is built." So Chrysostom (Hom. 55 on Matt.), "The Lord says, Thou art Peter, and upon thee will I build my church." So Cyril, "Commodiously shewing by that word (Peter), that on him, as on a rock and most firm stone, He was going to build His church." So among the Latin fathers. Tertullian, in his remarkable book on prescription, says, "Was anything hid from Peter, called the rock of the church which was to be built?" And Hilary, "Oh! in the gift of a new name, happy foundation of the church. Oh rock! worthy of the building of it which should dissolve the laws of the infernal regions." And the martyr Cyprian, "The Lord chose Peter first, and built His church on him." And Jerome, "According to the metaphor of a rock, it is rightly said to him, 'I will build my church upon thee.'" So Ambrose. I might add a crowd of other fathers, as Augustine, but I refer to these as both ancient and of just renown in the whole church.

Only I would remark to you that Jerome refers it not only to the person but to the See of Peter. And to close all with a still greater authority, the whole Council of Chalcedon (Action 3) of 630 fathers declares Peter the foundation and basis of the church. The words which follow this declaration that he is the rock shew the extent of dominion conferred upon him. "Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum, et quodcunque ligaveris supra terram erit ligatum et in coelis, et quodcunque solveris supra terram erit solutum et in coelis." "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven."

104 M. Well, that is clear; what do you say to that, James? Is it not plain Peter had the first place, and was the foundation? And all he bound was to be bound in heaven; and sure the pope is in his place.

James. Of course Peter had the first place in a certain sense. He was blest by grace above others, as Paul says: God was mighty in him to the circumcision. No Christian denies that. But as to his being the foundation, save as a mighty instrument in God's hands, I do not believe it a moment, because Paul says, "other foundation can no man lay, save that that is laid, that is, Christ Jesus." So that, though I do not pretend to reason with learned men, and I had rather hear what these gentlemen have to say, yet, I am sure, if I were all alone, for my own soul, that Peter cannot in any true sense of the word be the foundation, because the word of God tells us there can be none but Christ. In a general way all Christians own the apostles to be foundations, and the prophets too; but if we make one real foundation, it can be only Christ. As ordained servants of His, and inspired witnesses of the truth, they are all foundations. But I could not trust my soul to any foundation but Christ. None has died for me but He. None is the truth but He. Besides, if Peter was the foundation, how can the pope be so now? The foundation of the church cannot be laid now.

But I would rather hear what Mr. N*. has to say; only these gentlemen will excuse my speaking as I was asked the question. I have no pretension to answer about fathers and all that. But I know what my own soul's hope is built upon, and on what alone it can be built, and the church, if it be the true one, too. It cannot have, as the real rock, two foundations.

Father O. You had much better hold your tongue, M., and not make your observations when you cannot know how to answer on such difficult questions, nor pretend to interpret scripture which the most learned men find hard to interpret.

N*. He did but put his Amen, Mr. O., however, to what you said. He does not alas! know the scriptures, or he would not be where he is, and I fear he will not learn much of them now. What James has said is really the true solid answer for a soul taught of God. It knows that a church built on Peter would be no church at all, that would be a ruin or rather be no church, and that no mortal sinful man can be personally the foundation of the church, and that none such could be the rock on which the church is built, if it is to stand. In the same chapter the Holy Ghost is careful to record that the Lord calls him Satan; and, even after he had received the Holy Ghost, Paul had to withstand him to the face. And I suppose the popes cannot pretend to be better than he. Still you have said the utmost that can be said. The arguments naturally are not new; and, while referring to what James has said as shewing that a divinely taught soul has its answer from the word for itself, I will take up what is, after all, the inferior part, the reasoning on scripture and quotations from the fathers; but just to learn that they are no security for anything, which indeed it would be a sin to think them. And, first, as to scripture, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." You say this is on Peter, and that it gives him, with what follows as to binding and loosing, to be the foundation and to have the primacy.

105 Now setting aside Paul for the moment, who was called later, I admit in certain respects a personal pre-eminence in Peter; no official one, nor one which could go to a successor, if he had one, which in office he had not, for he was an apostle, and they had no apostles to succeed them, and could not have. For none were eye-witnesses of Christ, and sent by Him to found the church; Paul was, and so he was in the fullest and strictest sense an apostle. I admit a personal pre-eminence in certain respects, because scripture teaches us there was: James and Cephas and John seemed to be pillars. All three were preeminent in gift and energy, and all three had names given by Christ Himself. But, even among these, Peter was preeminent. Paul tells us that God was mighty in Peter to the circumcision, as in Paul himself to the Gentiles. As the fathers note, he was the first to make that particular confession, and specially noticed then by the Lord. His ardent character made him forward sometimes in a sad way, for he spoke not knowing what he said, and he had to be called Satan, and the too great confidence it led to brought him to curse and swear he did not know Christ. Yet even this energy, when he was humbled and ceased to trust himself so much, as taught by his fall, and was filled with the Holy Ghost, served to fit him, as a vessel of God's choice, for the special ministry he was appointed to.

106 We see this pre-eminence in service, and how he was fitted for it by being humbled when the Lord says to him, "When thou art converted [restored from his fall], strengthen thy brethren." This kind of pre-eminence scripture gives him; and we find him using the keys, not of heaven, but of the kingdom of heaven, that is, administering in the kingdom. He was the first in admitting the Jews, and the first in admitting the Gentiles, to found the unity of Christians in one company on earth. All this scripture teaches us, and we bless God for His holy wisdom and sovereign pleasure in it. But he never was the apostle of the Gentiles at all, though employed to receive them first. On the contrary, when the relationship of Jews and Gentiles was settled, it was agreed by the apostles that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles and themselves to the Jews; Gal. 2: 9. He was the apostle of the circumcision, God mighty in him to the circumcision, and in Paul to the Gentiles.

Nor do we ever read in scripture of Peter, or indeed any of the twelve, going to the Gentiles. There are vague traditions, and they are very vague, but no scripture and no history for it. It is certain from the Acts of the Apostles that the Lord employed other instruments than they to send the gospel forth into the world: first, those who were scattered by persecution, when the apostles all remained at Jerusalem (Acts 8: 1-4; ch. 11: 19-21); and then Paul specially called for that purpose, and sent to that work by the Lord (Acts 26: 17; Rom. 11: 13; Eph. 3: 7, 8; Rom. 1: 5 where he refers to Rome), and his companions, who could say, "it is come unto you, as it is in all the world, bearing fruit and increasing" (Col. 1: 6); and the same Paul positively declares, when the chief apostles "saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the gospel of the circumcision was committed to Peter . . . they gave to me [Paul] and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision," Gal. 2.

How the commission in Matthew 28 was not fulfilled I do not stop to discuss, though I have thought of it too; but we have the apostles' authority in Paul's account for saying that what was settled by the apostles was, that Paul should take the Gentiles, and Peter and the others the Jews, as their sphere of work; and so Paul tells us elsewhere a dispensation was committed (Eph. 3: 2) to him. He was debtor to Greeks and barbarians, and to those at Rome too; Rom. 1: 14. He was a minister of the gospel to every creature under heaven, and besides that, specially, a minister of the church (Col. 2); and it is found on examination that he only, in all the Epistles, speaks of the church (John once of a particular church, not of the whole body).

107 The divine account, therefore, that I have of the dispensation of the gospel and the establishment of the church among the Gentiles is that Paul, not Peter, was the instrument in the Lord's hand for this work. And Paul very assiduously contends that he derived no fresh knowledge from Peter, and that he did not get his apostleship from man nor by man; and he resisted him to the face when it was needed; Gal. 2. So that I find from scripture that he to whom the dispensation of the gospel to the Gentiles, and especially Rome, was committed by God (and the ministry of the church too), was in no way subject to Peter, got nothing from him, and owed nothing to him; that God was mighty indeed in Peter to the Jew, but in Paul to the Gentiles; and we know by the Acts that in fact the world, as Paul says, was filled with the gospel by his labours, who rejected diligently all subjection to Peter, without having a hint in God's history of the matter that Peter ever went to a single Gentile after Cornelius, while we have him agreeing that Paul should, and he to the Jews.

Further, neither in discourse nor in his Epistles does Peter ever speak of the church as a body on earth, while Paul enlarges and teaches on it everywhere. No doubt this left him free to preach it to anyone, as it did Paul to preach to Jews, but the mission, the official relationship, of Peter was with Jews, not Gentiles, while the Gentiles were committed to Paul, and he carefully, in the Epistle to the Galatians, sets aside any superior authority of Peter. Is not this strange if Peter was to be the head of Gentile Christendom, and the rock and foundation of the church? It seems as if God, foreknowing what man would corruptly make of him, had taken pains for those who own the truth and authority of His word to shew it was impossible; just as He has never given a case in which the blessed Virgin applied to Christ that she was not refused. The authority of Peter, and deriving ecclesiastical position from him and the rest of the twelve, was a work of the enemy with which Paul had specially to contend, and which he wholly rejects.*

{*It is a remarkable fact that popery and all ecclesiastical unity refers itself formally to Peter, never to Paul (he merely, at the utmost, coming in by the bye); the see is Peter's See; the unity is founded on him who was never an apostle to the Gentiles at all, but gave it up to Paul.}

108 But further, in particular, we are certain that at the first Peter had nothing to do with establishing Christianity in Rome. Numerous Christians were there before any apostle was there, so that Paul addressed a letter to them, and speaks in it of a church gathered there (Rom. 16: 5); and not only so, but he claims it as a part of the measure which God had allotted to him, part of the sphere of work committed to him. He was the apostle of the Gentiles, and the seat of Gentile power came within his prescribed apostolic district. He never hints at Peter's having any right or title there, or even at his having been there at all. He teaches, lays the foundation for them, as an apostle to whom they were confided as his sphere of work, shewing them the relative position of Jew and Gentile, all real difference being, as sinners on the one hand and by grace on the other, done away. "By whom," he says, "we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations [all the Gentiles] for his name, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ," Rom. 1: 5, 6. And so he goes on to shew the ground of his connection with them without a thought of Peter, and really to the exclusion of their being his sphere of work, or Peter's ever claiming any apostolic relationship with them or with any other than the circumcision.

Not that only, but Paul came to Rome and laboured, though a prisoner, for two years, and we never hear of Peter. If he ever came to Rome, he must have come when the church was already long founded by another. I am aware that afterwards there was a tradition that he did it jointly with Paul; but that is certainly false, because we have the history of the Acts to prove he did not. If he came, he came into another man's measure, to use Paul's expression. Rome liked, no doubt, foolishly to give itself this credit. It is just possible he visited the Jews there, which was his sphere, as he did apparently everywhere, addressing two Epistles to the believers of the dispersion in Asia Minor.

109 The tradition given by Eusebius from Dionysius of Corinth is clearly false, or has nothing to do with the matter, for it states not merely that Peter and Paul went together to Rome, but that they had also been at Corinth together, and taught the same doctrine, and then gone on to Rome to be martyred together (Eus. Hist. Ec. 2, 25). Now either this is false, as the Acts prove, if it be taken literally, for it is said, "I have planted," which the Acts and two Epistles to Corinth prove to have been the work of Paul alone, who declares that in Christ Jesus he had begotten them all by the gospel, a fact fully maintained in the Epistle; or if it be not false it is only a flourish of words referring to some visit to Rome (and Corinth on the way when on their way to prison), and in that case the churches were founded long before. That Peter planted the church of Corinth is undoubtedly false; for not only have we in the Acts the history of its planting by Paul with Silas and Timotheus exclusively, but he says, in his Epistle to them, that if they had ten thousand instructors they had but one father, for in Christ Jesus he had begotten them all by the gospel; 1 Cor. 4: 15. Thus, as to the founding of the church, Peter certainly did not found the church at Corinth, and as certainly did not found the church at Rome. This we are perfectly sure of, as we have (besides the absence of all trace of it in scripture) Paul's Epistle to the Romans and two to the Corinthians, and the history of the Acts, which exclude any possibility of Peter's having done so. If it be true that they both suffered martyrdom there under Nero, this would say nothing of founding the church there, nor of any official place they had there. If we turn to those who followed in the See of Rome, the case is, if possible, clearer, for the apostle John survived Peter and Paul some thirty years; so that the first three popes governed one of the pillars among the apostles, which is as absurd as it is wrong. The notion of the beloved apostle being subject to the supremacy of the possessor of the See of Rome is monstrous.

Father O. Of course the apostle was not subject to him, but this did not hinder others being so.

N*. Pardon me. The church of Ephesus, where John dwelt, could not be subject to the bishop of Rome when John was there to guide them, and indeed the bishop of Rome must himself, if the case arose, have been subject to the apostle, for the authority of the apostles was confessedly supreme. Thus the pretended supremacy of Peter, and of his successors too, is clearly shewn to be false, unscriptural, and impossible. We have already seen in part, when you were not with us, that other prelates, the most eminent of their day, as Cyprian, Firmilian, Augustine, while shewing the greatest respect for Rome, and treating it (as tradition then did) as Peter's chair, utterly refused to be subject to it or own its supremacy, and asserted the independent jurisdiction of the different sees. The Jewish Christians sought to set up Peter in this way; but Paul resisted everywhere the Judaising of Christianity and the supremacy of Peter with it. Alas! how has it overflowed the church since.

110 But, further, how came it that the apostles never suspected that Peter had received this supreme place by these words, to say nothing of Rome? They were afterwards continually disputing who should be the greatest. This was strange if, in presence of them all, Christ had conferred it on Peter.

Father O. But they had not yet received the Holy Ghost.

N*. True; but they acknowledged the authority of the Lord, and, when the Holy Spirit was given, we find pre-eminent activity, as we have seen, in Peter (and the blessed apostle cared more for serving His Master then than for supremacy), but we never find him claiming supremacy. Nor could he have done so, because the Lord had forbidden it: "It shall not be so amongst you, for whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant." How would this do for the pope? And how could Peter, with the Holy Ghost bringing, as was promised, these words to his memory, have set up to be great among them? Your papal system denies the precepts of the Lord, as well as the history which scripture gives us. In the Acts Peter and John are sent by the apostles to Samaria.

So in the meeting to settle the solemn question of how far the law was binding on Gentiles, much discussion took place. Then Peter, ever forward, relates the case of Cornelius, and gives his thoughts as to the burden of Judaism. Then Barnabas and Paul are listened to, giving an account of the blessing among uncircumcised Gentiles. Each takes his place freely and suitably, and James closes the whole discussion as president of the church at Jerusalem. Peter has no place at all but what his gift and apostolic place gave him. He fills up that place rightly, and we hear no more of him in the council. In the decree we read, "It pleased the apostles and elders and the whole church." There is not a trace of any supremacy of Peter. If of any, it was of James. He says, "my sentence is". and this place of James was so marked, that when Peter was at Antioch and had eaten with the Gentiles, "when certain came from James," it is said, "he withdrew and separated himself," so that Paul had to rebuke him to the face; and accordingly, when Paul speaks of those whom he found pillars at Jerusalem, he does not put Cephas first, but says, "and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars," and then it was that they gave up the work among the Gentiles to Paul.

111 It is therefore as clear as noonday that Peter had no supremacy anywhere. Personal pre-eminency in energy and service, till Paul was called, he had. After that it was not the case; even as to that, Paul laboured more than all the apostles; 1 Cor. 15: 10. He tells us he was not a whit behind the chiefest of them (2 Cor. 11: 5), and in particular had to rebuke Peter to his face. Nor was Peter even the first called: Andrew, who had followed Jesus, brought Peter to Him. As regards what he bound on earth being bound in heaven, it is incontrovertible that all he apostolically pronounced upon or established was sanctioned in heaven. That is in Matthew 16; but in Matthew 18: 18 it is said to all His disciples, and indeed to the church, going so far as to any two or three gathered together in His name. So as to forgiveness, as far as it is administration in man's hands (though I agree with Bellarmine, who furnishes all the arguments used on this point, that binding and loosing goes much farther, and includes all he established as divinely ordained), Paul forgives, and recognizes the assembly's title to forgive too; 2 Cor. 2: 5-10. And the Lord confers the title to do it expressly on all the apostles; John 20.

As to feeding Christ's sheep, it was most gracious of the Lord to commit this to him thrice after he had denied Him thrice. And that he had this charge eminently as regards the circumcision we have already seen. But he desires the elders in his Epistle to do the same thing. So Paul, when he sent for the elders of Ephesus, charges them to feed or shepherd the church of God. And this leads me to another remark, that is, whatever place Peter had, an apostle can have no successor. Those who had the authority of the twelve and Paul were invested with it immediately by the Lord, and sent of Him as eye-witnesses chosen by Him. And Paul and Peter both distinctly confirm this. Paul declares that after his decease grievous wolves would enter in, and commends the disciples to God and the word of His grace. Now, if he was to have a successor, why should he speak of the state of the church as deprived by his death of any such care as he bestowed on the saints? So Peter, in writing his Epistle, says he would take care they should have what he taught always in remembrance. He has no idea that he was going to have a successor of great authority and infallible.

112 And your own Bellarmine, the first of your controversialists, says plainly, "The bishops have no part of apostolic authority" (Bellarm. 4, 25). And again, "There can be no succession properly but to one who precedes; but there were apostles and bishops in the church together." I am aware that to avoid the consequence he distinguishes between Peter and the other apostles, and says the pope succeeds not to their extraordinary power, but to Peter's ordinary jurisdiction over the whole church. But where is this ordinary jurisdiction to be found? Not in binding and loosing, for that all had; not in finding that others did not exercise independent jurisdiction as it is called, for Paul exercises it in the most entire independence of him, names elders, sends Timothy, Titus, where he pleases, James and Cephas and John having agreed with him that he and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles, they to the Jews. And we find Paul, not Peter, exercising over the churches this wide care with authority not derived from Peter, for he very carefully disclaims this. He was not of nor by man, and withstood Peter to the face. It is all a fable. It is never said Peter had this authority, or that he exercised it, or named one elder in his life. Whereas we find Paul exercising what is called ordinary supreme pastorship (though it is really apostolic authority, and nothing else, directly received from the Lord) constantly and everywhere, and among the Gentiles, whose conversion and care the Lord had committed to him as a dispensation. As a wise master-builder, he says, he laid the foundation; 1 Cor. 3: 10. He planted, others only watered after him. It is the dispensation of the grace of God given to him; Eph. 3.

As to "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," Peter had by grace confessed what none ever had, that Christ was the Son of the living God. As entitled to be called Son of God according to promises to Messiah, He had been owned, but Son of the living God He had never been called. This the Father revealed to Peter. The Lord owns the grace conferred on him, and declares that his name should be called Peter (a stone), partaking by grace through his confession of that which he confessed, for it was upon that truth so confessed (that is, on Christ's being the Son of the living God) that He would build His church. Hence it is said that the gates of hades, of the power of death (Satan as having the power of death), should not prevail against the church. For Christ by resurrection was declared to be Son of God with power, above all the power of Satan; and, the church being built on this rock, of His being the Son of the living God, Satan's power, that of death, could not overthrow it. So Chrysostom repeatedly uses it. As James has said, to suppose any real foundation but Christ is denying the Lord. And it is in this character of a divine person having the power of life over death that He can build the church.

113 But your statements that the fathers are agreed on this explanation, though you are borne out by Bellarmine, is quite unfounded. Some of them say it is Peter, some say it is Christ, some say it is the confession of Christ. St. Augustine says, "I know that afterwards I have very often expounded that 'upon this rock' should be understood of him whom Peter confessed." And so he had. As, again, "'Upon this rock,'" he says, "which thou hast confessed 'I will build my church.'" So Chrysostom in Matthew 16: 18, "'on this rock,' that is, on the faith of the confession." I do not quote as his, "'Upon this rock'; He did not say 'upon Peter,' for He built His church not upon the man but upon his faith," for it is generally considered spurious; but it is, at least, some very ancient writer under his name.

The famous passage in Iren. 3, 3 does not apply to the supremacy of Peter, but deserves a short notice here, as it is used as a foundation for the authority of the church of Rome. Irenaeus is not speaking of the authority of any church, but of security as to doctrine, found in the teaching of all apostolic churches, and then says, as it would be tedious to go through all, he will refer to Rome, with which all must agree as having "potiorem principalitatem." Then he states it to be founded by Peter and Paul, Linus following, etc. No one reading the passage, of which we have only a poor Latin translation, and comparing the context, and in the least acquainted with Irenaeus, but must see that in Greek there must have been archen, and the real meaning of the writer to be, "a more excellent origin," namely, two apostles themselves. He is using the testimony "of the faith manifested in all the world," as a proof that these hidden mysteries of the Gnostics would nave been known somewhere, if the apostles had taught them, and the rather at Rome as the two great apostles were there. Of course this has nothing to do with the supremacy of Peter.

114 So Hilary, "Upon this rock of confession is the building of the church." Origen says, "Every disciple of Christ is the rock." Pope Gregory the Great says, "Persist in the true faith, and establish firmly your life in the rock of the church, that is, in the confession of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles." Now, it is quite true Chrysostom also says that Peter confessing his being a sinner was made the foundation of the church. But this shews only the vague sense they use it in, for when interpreting the passage he declares it to mean his confession. Be it that he contradicts himself, or with Augustine leaves, as he expressly does, to the reader, in his Retractations, to choose which sense he likes. It only shews what the authority of fathers is worth, and what the Council of Trent requires teachers to be bound by in finding the sense of scripture. The consent of the fathers is not to be had.

But it will be well to give a specimen of the interpretation of the fathers here, which will prove that it is anything but true that they uniformly speak of Peter as the rock, and, further, what the value of their authority in such matters is. You will find almost all you have quoted. My first quotations shall disprove your assertion; the second prove that each contradicts himself: only, you will mark, it is rhetoric when they make Peter the rock, sober interpretation when they say he is not.

Origen says, in his commentary on the passage, tom. 12, c. 11, "If you think that the whole church is built by God upon Peter only, what shall we say of John, the son of thunder? Shall we dare to say that the gates of hell were not properly to prevail against Peter, but that they will prevail against the rest of the apostles and the perfect? Is it not also of all, and of each of them that is spoken what is said before? — 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and that on this rock I will build my church.' Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to Peter alone, and shall no other of the blessed receive them? And if that also is for others also in common: 'I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' Now is not both all that is said before, and what follows as addressed to Peter?" and says much more to the same purpose, referring to its gift to all in John's Gospel, and then adds, "as the letter of the Gospel says it to that Peter, as His Spirit teaches, it is to every one who is as that Peter,"* and in the whole chapter applies it diligently to every true Christian.

{*In chapter 14 he says, "As all who claim the place of oversight (bishop's charge) use this saying as Peter, and having received the keys, etc. It is to be said they say it rightly if they have the works, on account of which it was said to that Peter, Thou art Peter (a stone), and if they are such as Christ can build His church upon . . . but if he is bound in the chain of his sins, in vain he binds and looses."}

If you want a totally different interpretation, where every faithful Christian is made a Peter, and the keys given to him, you may see Com. 12, 14.

Hilary de Trin. 6, 36, says, "Upon this rock of confession, therefore, is the building of the church (37). This faith is the foundation of the church; through this the gates of hell are weak against it. This faith has the keys of the heavenly kingdom," etc. So on Psa. 140, "We have known no rock but Christ, because it is said of him, 'that rock was Christ.'"

There is quoted from Origen, to support the Romanist view, the following passage, Hom. 5 (De la Rue, 2, 145).

"See what is said by the Lord to that great foundation of the church, and most solid rock on which Christ founded the church, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"

This is, however, only a translation of Ruffinus, in which he professes to have added what was necessary, because Origen touched on questions often, and did not answer them, which might annoy the Latin reader.

Hilary, in the treatise on Psalm 131, says, Peter, to whom above he had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, on whom he was about to build the church against which the gates of hell should not prevail, and as to whom what he should bind and loose on earth should be bound and loosed in heaven; and what you have quoted already. But then he is really insisting on his confession.

116 As regards Athanasius, the passage quoted (of which Bellarmine speaks as so beautiful) is a notoriously spurious letter, and placed among the spurious ones by his Benedictine editors; the proofs you can see in Dupin on this Father, and it is a proof only of the practices resorted to by papal advocates to clothe their pretensions with the authority of great names, and which have acquired the name of pious frauds. We will therefore leave Athanasius, who affords you no help, though he resorted to Rome to help him against the Arians. It is strange moreover Roman Catholics should quote a letter to Felix, for Felix was a pope thrust in by the Arians, while Liberius was banished by the Arian Emperor; and Athanasius says it was a deed that bore the stamp of antichrist. Cardinal Baronius, the great Roman Catholic historian, will not admit him to be pope at all, as there cannot be two. Bellarmine says he was a fresh instance of how solid a foundation popes are for the church to be built upon. Roman Catholics cannot agree whether he was or was not a pope. When the Emperor let Pope Liberius back on his agreeing to communion with the Arians and signing an Arian or semi-Arian creed, Felix and he had to rub on together, two popes and two heads at a time, till Liberius died.

As to Gregory Nazianzen, it proves, orator as he was, what I maintain; though in rhetorical language, without exactness, he says Peter is called a rock, which is not exact as to fact, for in the text Simon is called Peter, or a stone. But his explanation of it every Christian would allow, and it is what the Fathers often say, that the foundation of the church was trusted to his faith. No doubt it was, under God's grace. But, in this figurative sense, Paul also declares that he had laid the foundation, and that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the corner stone. So in the heavenly Jerusalem, the twelve foundations have the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. In this general way no reader of scripture could for a moment make any difficulty. But it proves that the popes can have nothing whatever to say to it. For since that foundation was once laid, all others, who have that blessed privilege, are built upon it. To lay the foundation of the church now is simply to deny it and its foundation as originally laid. It is perfectly clear that no pope nor any Christian in after times could have this place. Next as to Epiphanius.

117 He does exalt Peter abundantly in the place quoted, and in the book on heresies also. In the former with much else, nearly as you say, "It became the first of the apostles, the solid rock on which the church should be built, and the gates of hell not prevail against it, by which gates the founders of heresies are meant."

Here, however, I will add a passage farther on, from the same section 9 of the Anchoret:

"He (John) learning from the Son, and receiving from the Son, the power of knowledge; but he (Peter) obtained it from the Father, founding the security of faith."

But the same Epiphanius says (Heresy of the Cathari (59) 7): — "Upon this rock of a solid faith I will build my church."

Here the faith is the rock. And note that, even in the passage in the Anchoret, the difference is founded on the immediate revelation by the Father, so that it applies only to Peter personally. Indeed, even where Peter is stated by the Fathers to be the rock, it is always on the ground of his personal faith.

Epiphanius therefore does not much help you out. It is Peter's faith one time, Peter himself another; but then because of the immediate revelation made to him by the Father. You next press Chrysostom on us; we will examine him too. You quote him on Matt. 55.

"The Lord says, 'Thou art Peter, and upon thee will I build my church.'"

This is a very unfortunate quotation of Bellarmine's. Because in the Commentary on Matt. 55, Chrysostom says just the contrary: he is insisting on the special blessedness of Peter as having owned Christ to be the Son of the living God, and directly taught there the consubstantiality of the Son. And thereon says, "Therefore He adds this: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," that is, upon the faith of the confession. The Sermon on Pentecost, which is as strong as possible in the same sense, I do not quote, as the best editors consider it spurious. There it is said, "He did not say on Peter, referring to Petra, a rock, for He did not found His church on a man, but on faith." At any rate, it is an ancient testimony.

118 However, Chrysostom's testimony is exactly the opposite to what it is alleged for

I next take Cyril.

"That in him as in a rock and most firm stone, he was going to build his church." What I do find in Cyril nearest to this is "[Christ] most suitably from the rock changed his name to Peter (petra, petron), for he was about to found his church on him." That is in Commentary on John 1 — (Paris, 1638.)

But Cyril in his dialogue on the Trinity 4, vol. 2, p. 1, 507, says on the verse, "Calling a rock, I think, by a change of word, nothing else, I think, but the immovable and firm faith of the disciples upon which, without possibility of falling, God has established and fixed the church of Christ."

We have not thus made much progress with the Fathers yet. The Greek Fathers do some of them speak of Peter, but I have taken up those presented by you, and all but one say the contrary of your interpretation, though they, several of them, contradict themselves, which it is important enough for us to remark. We have not only Fathers against Fathers, but Fathers against themselves. This is a poor foundation for faith. The Council of Trent will not allow the consent of the Fathers to be rejected in interpretation; but we find no such consent, in most cases not even of one Father with himself.

But we will turn to the Latin ones. You quote them also. You quote Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, and refer to Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose. I will follow here also. For one has only to know the Fathers to know what their authority is worth. Of Tertullian it is somewhat difficult to speak, because after having been a very great stickler for ecclesiastical authority (not for Rome) he became a very violent opponent of it. So that what was declared by him to be a sure foundation proved to be none in his own case. One could hardly have a more solid answer for one who would rest on his or on any Father's authority.

119 Father O. But any one may fall.

N*. No doubt, but it is a proof that what he has pleaded as a security from falling is not a very solid one. Tertullian pleaded the prescription of the church, that is, tradition, as the grand security. He abandoned it all as carnal (physical). But I add it never was the authority of Rome on which he rested his case. Not only when a Montanist (de Pud.) he charges his adversaries with overturning the manifest purpose of Christ who conferred authority personally on Peter — "I will give to thee . . .;" "whatsoever thou . . ."; in which he is perfectly right; but in the book "de Praescriptione," and the passage so much relied upon, he makes doctrine the test. "In the same way they, the heretics, will be tested by these churches, which, though they can allege no apostle nor apostolic man as their founder, as having a much later origin, yet agreeing in the same faith, are accounted apostolic by reason of consanguinity of doctrine." This we are quite ready to accept. Of Tertullian's system we have spoken. Strange to say, even this book is held by many learned men, Romanist and Protestant, to have been written when Tertullian had become a Montanist, as Dupin does on the one hand, and Allix on the other. Nor has he a thought in the treatise of setting up the authority of Rome. He insists that in Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, or Rome, you can trace up the doctrine to an apostolic source, and thus confute the heretics who have introduced new doctrines. Now we hold entirely that what was at first — not early merely, but at first — was right, and that only (see 1 John 2: 24). Therefore we condemn Rome which has innovated. But it is evident that an inspired epistle of an apostle is a better evidence of what the apostle taught than a tradition after the lapse of centuries of uninspired men. What was first was and is right. But the Epistles and other scriptures are what was first, and therefore we receive them only. To shew Tertullian's mind and how little he referred exclusively to Peter, I will quote another passage of his. The apostles were all sent forth, he says, after the Lord's resurrection, "and promulgated the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations, and then founded churches in each city, from which other churches have borrowed, and daily borrow, the descent of faith and seeds of doctrine, that they may become churches; and by this they also are accounted apostolic as offspring of apostolic churches. The whole race is necessarily referred to its own origin. Therefore so many and so great churches are that first one from the apostles from which all are. Thus all are the first and apostolic, while all prove unity together." How far this is from having anything to do with Roman supremacy or Rome's being a security for truth, save as part of the whole, or Peter's being the one who ruled over all and secured truth, I need not say. It shuts out any such thought wholly. This was the common ground of those who pleaded prescription.

120 I turn to Cyprian. You quote from him, "The Lord chose Peter first and built the church on him."

I will complete the phrase. "But custom is not to be used as an authority, but one must be overcome by reasons. For neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose first and on whom He built His church, when Paul afterwards contended with him about circumcision, claim anything insolently to himself, or assume anything arrogantly, so as to say that he held any primacy."

This is a strange passage to quote to prove Peter's primacy by; but, the truth is, Cyprian was the stern and successful resister of the commencing pretensions of Rome, and maintained an active correspondence with Asia Minor, Spain, and other parts to consolidate the whole episcopacy, for that was his system against any pretensions to a primacy. He expresses himself thus: "One episcopacy diffused in the accordant multitude of many bishops." So with the whole synod of Carthage, speaking of the apostles, he says, "to whom we succeed, governing the church of God with the same power." By no one, while acknowledging Peter as a centre of unity, is the equal power of bishops and their independency more stoutly maintained.

In his fifty-fifth letter he says, "The bond of concord remaining, and individual fidelity to the Catholic church maintained, each bishop disposes and directs his own acts, rendering an account to the Lord of his course." And writing to the pope, to whom he never yielded, he says, "In which manner we neither do violence to any one, nor give the law, as each one who is set over [a church} is to have in the administration of the church the free judgment of his own will, having to render account of his conduct to God." The history of what passed between him and popes in this respect we have referred to already.

121 You quote Jerome.

"I will build my church upon thee."

Jerome does say so, and in a letter full of flattery and servility flies to Pope Damasus to know whether he is to say three hypostases or three persons; and he says, "I know that the church was built on that rock," that is, the See of Peter. And he says pretty much the same in his commentary on Isaiah, lib. 1, chap. 2, though he makes all the apostles mountains. But then on Amos, lib. 3, chap. 6, he says: "Christ is the rock who granted to His apostles that they should be also called rocks — 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.' Whoso is on these rocks, the adverse powers cannot pursue him." And this application of it to all the apostles is common in the Fathers, as Ambrose and Augustine. So Jerome himself, in his violent letter against Jovinian, in favour of celibacy, says, "Thou sayest the church is founded on Peter, although the same in another place is so upon all the apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and the stability of the church is established equally upon them." Then it suited him to say so. He says that John was more loved of Christ and dared to ask when Peter did not; knew Him when Peter did not, etc.

122 You cite Ambrose. He does call Peter a foundation. Let us see how far his statements make for your cause. "He acted in the first place (took the primacy), the primacy of confession truly, not of honour; the primacy of faith, not of rank."

And, after saying he was thus a foundation, he goes on, "Faith, therefore, is the foundation of the church; for it is said not of the flesh of Peter but of his faith that the gates of death should not prevail against it. But confession conquers hell. And this confession does not exclude one heresy. For, as a good ship, etc., the foundation of the church ought to avail against all heresies." He is speaking just as Hilary in the same case of Peter's owning Christ to be the true Son of God, his subject being the incarnation and the eternal divinity of Christ.

Augustine comes next. In his Psalm against the Donatists, a poor production — poor in thought and morality — which he says he wrote for the poorest that they might commit it to memory, and be able to meet them — he presents Peter as the rock and a sure centre of unity to these poor people. He did the same (he tells us in his Retractations) in a book also against the Donatists, not now extant. Augustine is not happy in his spirit or reasonings with these Donatists. They had resisted one who had given up his Bible in the last persecutions, being a bishop. A vast number of bishops and their flocks sided with them, and the schism lasted a very long time, more than a century. The Catholics, as they call them, appealed not to the pope but to the Emperor, and the Donatists were cruelly persecuted and put to death. Their passions were roused, and many of them took arms and fought and used violence against the other party — a wretched scene in the so-called Holy Catholic church. But so it was. Augustine cannot justify the party he espoused, but says there must be evil in the church, and the Donatists were worse. But he was every way embarrassed with these people. For, contrary to Cyprian and the East in earlier times, their baptism was held good. Now Augustine believed the Holy Ghost was conferred by baptism. They said to him, "Well, then, we confer the Holy Ghost, so we must have it." Yet he said they were not in the unity of the Catholic church, and so had not got the Holy Ghost; and here he toils and labours, to get out of the net he had got himself into, so as to make any one pity him. But I must pass on, only it is well to keep in mind what this socalled Holy Catholic church was.

123 Now hear the same Augustine when he is soberly seeking to edify souls in his sermons. In one of them we have an elaborate statement on the point, of which I can quote the kernel. It is on Matthew 14: 24 (or de verbis Domini 13 in some editions). He quotes the passage 16: 18, and says, "But this name that he should be called Peter was given him by the Lord; and this in such a figure as that he should signify the church, for Christ is the rock, Peter the Christian people, for rock (petra) is the principal name. Therefore it is Peter from petra (rock), not petra from Peter, as Christ is not from Christian, but Christian from Christ. 'Thou therefore,' says he, 'art Peter, and upon this rock which thou hast confessed, upon this rock which thou hast known, saying, Thou art, etc., I will build my church,' that is, upon myself, the Son of the living God, I will build my church. I will build thee upon Me, not Me upon thee." And again, "Thus they were baptized, not in the name of Paul, not in the name of Peter, but in the name of Christ, that Peter might be built upon the rock, not the rock upon Peter." This is plain enough. Faith was at work, not controversy or servile theology.

In his sermon on Pentecost (or ex Sirmondianis 22) he is equally plain. "For I am a rock, thou Peter . . . and upon this rock I will build my church, not upon Peter, which thou art, but upon the rock which thou hast confessed." So in the sermon on Peter and Paul's day (ser. 295, or de Diversis, 108): "Upon this which thou hast said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my church. For thou art Peter, from petra (a rock), Peter, not the rock (petra) from Peter. Do you wish to know from what rock Peter is called? Hear Paul." He then quotes 1 Corinthians 10: 1-4, ending "and that rock was Christ," as whence Peter comes. He goes on then to say, "These keys not one man but the unity of the church received," and quotes John 20: 22, 23, to shew that it was to the whole church to whom Peter was given, there to represent in its universality and unity, all the other apostles having then received it; and then Matthew 18: 15, 18, to shew that it applies to all the faithful saints, concluding "the dove binds, the dove looses, the building on the rock binds and looses." His words are, "That you may know that Peter stood there as representing the whole church, hear what is said to herself, what to all the faithful saints."

124 Such was the teaching of Augustine. In his Retractations he mentions that in the lost book against the Donatists he had called Peter the rock (he refers to the psalm, but not to Peter's being named in it), and then says, "I know I have very often afterwards [he had written the book against the Donatists when only a presbyter] expounded it as meaning him whom Peter confessed; . . . for it was not said to him, Thou art a rock, but Thou art Peter, but the rock was Christ." "Of these two opinions the reader may choose which is the more probable."

That makes a solid ground, by the consent of the Fathers, for your theme of Peter's being the rock. What I have cited proves two things, that is, that the Fathers generally contradict you, and that their authority is worth nothing, for they contradict themselves. No one taught of God would hesitate which to choose, the blessed Lord or Peter, for the rock on which the church or his own soul is to be built. It is evident that the Lord rests on the word, as Hilary and others say, of the blessed truth, that Jesus was the Son of the living God. Over what was founded on that he that had the power of death could not prevail. Nor will he. Happy those that are built on Him. But I will quote one more so-called father, because he was a pope, and an eminent one — Gregory the Great. Of all the earlier popes, save Leo, he, while condemning the present papal claim of universal jurisdiction as the act of a forerunner of antichrist, most pushed on the papal power. Yet he says (lib. 31, 39, Job 97), "Where rock in the sacred language is used in the singular number, what else is understood but Christ, of which Paul is witness — 'But the rock was Christ?'" In lib. 35: 42, 13 of the same book, he calls it the solidity of faith, of which solidity the Lord says, "On this rock I will build my church," and refers the whole thought to the incarnation.

125 There is a passage still stronger in his letters, which I cannot lay my hand on, where he says, "Persist in the true faith, and establish your life on the rock of the church, that is the confession of Peter, the prince of the apostles." It is said forty-four Fathers and ten popes have given it the sense opposite to the one you say all give it. So Felix III, Nicholas I, and John. I have never verified the accuracy of this assertion. What we have examined suffices to shew that not only do the Fathers contradict your assertion, but each other and themselves. And we have two points where they refer to Peter. Very many make Christ, or the confession of Christ, the rock. When they make Peter the rock, it is individual — his own faith, and the grace personally given to himself; many to his personal work in founding the church — two, you allege, carry it into the See of Rome; of these, one states the contrary also, and it is only in a most servile correspondence with his patron, Damasus, that he says what you quote him for, when he was attacked as a heretic, and wanted the pope to back him up. The other case, Augustine, was an effort in controversy to gain the poor among the Donatists, while in his own expositions he carefully and elaborately taught the contrary.

What kind of a foundation of the truth is this? what security for it? for that is what we are seeking. And we have learnt another thing, that is, that the boasted Fathers are a security for nothing at all. But you have said that the famous Council of Chalcedon, composed of six hundred and thirty prelates, declare the same truth. So Bellarmine says. But alas! we have always to examine the assertions of your party. It is quite unfounded. What is said there of the prerogative of Rome is solely and exclusively the pretensions of the papal legate in giving his voice. Paschasinus, his two colleagues joining, after going through Dioscorus' misdeeds,* says, "archbishop of the great and elder Rome, Leo, by us and by the present synod, with the thrice blessed apostle Peter, worthy of all praise, who is the rock and base of the Catholic church, and foundation of the right faith, has deprived him of his dignity," etc. Then Anatolius, archbishop of Constantinople, gives his voice, and so on the rest. But the Council was very far indeed from admitting the pretensions of Rome. Indeed I am surprised that you should quote the Council of Chalcedon, only that your writers reckon on people's ignorance.

{*He had presided at what was meant to be a general council at Ephesus, which was called by the Emperor and attended by the legates of Rome, where they had beat poor old Flavian, archbishop of Constantinople, so that he died of it, and had even excommunicated the bishop of Rome, which was doubtless worse in Rome's eyes.}

126 Pope Leo, most holy and blessed, urged that the council should be held in Italy, but the Emperor would not agree. The council decreed (Action 15, 28) that Constantinople, or new Rome, should have equal privilege with old Rome in ecclesiastical matters, as it had in civil matters, having the Emperor and Senate there. In the next Action, 16, the legates complained, and said the bishops had been compelled to sign this, which they all denied, and the said Paschasinus, quoted a forged copy of a decree of the Council of Nice to give the primacy to Rome, but Constantius, the secretary, read a true copy, provided by the archdeacon of Constantinople, which confounded the legate. It gave Alexandria authority in Egypt, Antioch in its Eparchy, and Rome in its own district. The judges then — for they sat with the council — recited the decree giving equal rights to Constantinople. The bishops all declared this is a just sentence: "This we all say, this pleases us all. What is established must remain valid. All was regularly decreed. Let us go, we pray you; we all remain in this sentence, we all say the same thing." Lucentius, another of the pope's legates, then said, "The apostolic see ought not to be humbled in our presence," and begged that what had been decreed the day before in his absence might be reconsidered, or else he should have to protest against what was done, and that he might clearly know what he had to report to the apostolic man [chief bishop of the whole church],* who would judge of the injury done to his see, or any subversion of the canons. (Hardouin, vol. 2, Conc. Chal.) The bishop of Sebastia said, "We all remain in the opinions of your magnificence."** The judges said, "What we have spoken of the whole synod has approved "; and so it ended there.

{*What is in [ ] is not in the Latin copy.}

{**The Greek is wanting here, and in the Latin the sense is not very clear.}

That Rome never approved this is natural enough. But this was a general council, and held to be such in the whole of Christendom, and remained in force. Alas! it was wretched ambition on both sides. Leo's legate had orders, when he could not get the council in Italy, not to consent to anything prejudicial to Rome. But what kind of foundation is all this for the faith? Really it is miserable worldly ambition; but how is a simple soul, when told to hear the church, to find out who and what he is to hear? Can a divine faith be founded on confusion like this? It is impossible divine faith can be founded on a parish clergyman; and when I go to learn what the church holds, which requires enormous research, I am only launched in a sea of confusion. I turn to scripture, and all has divine authority.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fourth Conversation

Infallibility

J. N. Darby.

<22002E> {file section b.}

127 Note another point here. The patriarchal and metropolitan authority really followed the civil divisions when Constantinople became an imperial city. The Council of Constantinople, professedly for that reason, made it next in honour to old Rome, declaring that Rome had the first place, because it had been the ancient seat of empire. So the prelates who sat at Antioch and Alexandria respectively, as the great cities of Africa and Asia, were patriarchs there. And this was the case with all metropolitan cities. The Eparchies had patriarchs, the provinces metropolitans, and the chief cities bishops. All followed the civil order. This is an historical fact. Two general councils state it in establishing Constantinople, which before was not even a metropolitan see, but subject to Heraclea. And the different metropolitans were forbidden to outstep their provinces; only in the Council of Chalcedon, the dioceses (which at that time meant large civil divisions, including provinces) of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace, were made subject to Constantinople. This aggrandisement of Constantinople led to unceasing war between its ecclesiastical chief and Rome, ending in the separation of East and West, and still more jealously between it and Alexandria, which, till Constantinople was given the second place, had enjoyed that pre-eminence. To end this sad history, John of Constantinople took the title of universal bishop. Gregory writes to the Emperor that such pride proves the time of antichrist was come, and to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, to stir them up against him, because their authority was gone if they allowed this; and, he says, the faith too. He quotes Matthew 16: 18, "On this rock," and says, "Yet Peter never claimed to be universal apostle" (Letter to Maurice, p. 300, Ven. 1770, to the Patriarchs, p. 325.)

128 This Maurice, whom he relates as the most pious lord constituted by God, had just murdered his master and predecessor to get the empire. He says in both that Chalcedon had offered Rome the title, and Leo had refused it, which was a great untruth. Who would think that we are occupied with those who profess to be the followers of the blessed Lord (who forbade withal any to be great among His disciples), or that such authorities could be alleged as a foundation and security for divine faith? Rome, as a great centre, did early acquire great power, and sought greater. The Emperors leaving Rome left them free. The setting up Constantinople as a new patriarchate above Alexandria and Antioch excited the jealousy of those sees, and they often appealed to Rome to help them. Rome profited by this too. In the west was no other patriarch, so Rome had free scope, though for centuries Africa openly and positively condemned and rejected all appeals there, decreeing, so late as Augustine, that if any one did so appeal, he should be excommunicated, as we have already seen. When the Emperors lost the West, the German nations having overrun the western empire, the popes formed the only centre, and, these nations being heathen or Arian, they extended their influence gradually over them. Ireland and Britain, strange to say, remained entirely independent till much later, the eighth century.

The evangelization of Germany and Switzerland was by British missionaries, though the pope got hold of Boniface, and so of Germany, making him archbishop of Mayence. But this was not all; actual and deliberate fraud, as is now owned by all, was the great means of the popes establishing their authority in the church. There was a collection of canons, that is, of church rules, by Dionysius, containing various decrees of popes. These were continually added to, and among the rest a collection of them by Isidore, of Seville in Spain, a widely-respected man. This last dated from 633 to 636, as its contents proved; but in the ninth century a new edition of the Isidorian collection appeared, with spurious decretals of early popes, containing, as a matter of acknowledged right, all they now pretended to — others interpolated to the same purpose. It was a regular system of fraud and forgery. This the popes constantly used as proof of the legitimacy of their claims as having subsisted from the earliest days. No one questions the forgery now. They quote a translation of scripture then current as cited by popes who lived long before it was made; they make false dates of two hundred years, and the like. The French bishops, in the question between Pope Nicolaus I and Hincmar about the excommunication of Bishop Rothad by the latter, looked up Dionysius, and called them in question even then; but Nicolaus persisted, and reminded them they often quoted them for their own purposes, so it passed into authority till later and more critical ages. Only think of resting the foundations of faith and infallibility on such materials as these! It was on these spurious decretals and subsequent forgeries that the fabric of the pope's authority was all built.

129 Father O. Nobody pretends now that these decretals are not forgeries, but it was in the dark ages they were current, when there was very little critical discernment anywhere.

N*. All true, but they were used by the pope as giving him his true position, and sustaining his loftiest claims. He gave away kingdoms and hemispheres, and had, he said, the world entirely at his disposal; he rested his title on these decretals. And if there was an infallible teacher and rule, how came there to be such dark ages? how did they get so dark? And how can I recognize as a security for truth one who either could not discern imposition from truth, or was rogue enough to profit by it because people were in the dark? One or other of these was the case of the pope. There is no doubt or question that their pretensions to authority and power were founded on, and justified by, these spurious documents, forged in order to give it to them. A dark age could not detect the falsehood, but this does not affect the question of the forging them, and the use of them by the popes. And they did so as long as they could. It was only at the Reformation the fraud was detected, and at last Romanist writers were obliged to give them up, and bow their head to the shame of it. Is all that like Christ, or the truth, or security for the truth, as it is in Jesus? The popes founded their authority and rights on these forgeries of their friends. Either they knew they were spurious, or they did not. If they did know it, they were unprincipled impostors; if they did not, their pretended infallibility is not worth a straw. They pronounced things ex cathedra continually on the ground of these decretals being genuine, and appealed to them, and they were all false forgeries, forged to give them this power.

130 However, what gave them the West lost them the East, and the Greek church remained independent to this day, so that a Catholic or universal church has never subsisted in unity since the ninth century.

Father O. But how can these poor people judge of all this history, or found their faith upon it? I do not see any good in pursuing such questions.

N*. They can see that the pretensions of Rome, founded on Matthew 16: 18, alleged to be so interpreted by all the Fathers, are false pretensions, and that Fathers contradict it. As to founding their faith upon it, they surely cannot. But that is exactly what I am contending for. It is perfectly ridiculous to have a poor man founding his faith on ponderous folios of Fathers, and on a consent which does not exist. The pretensions of the pope, your pretensions, are no foundations for the church to be built on. As to feeding sheep, the Fathers insist that it applies to all pastors.

We have councils to consider, to see if they are infallible; though how some dozen, and even thirty, folios in Greek and Latin are to help an inquiring soul to the truth of doctrine is hard to tell. They are an entangled web of questions and ambitions of every kind. They were never begun till the Emperor, being Christian, called them to settle disputes, and quite as numerous ones, and more so, decided for error as for the truth. And who is to decide which is general? The pope never called a general council while the church was united; he has only called such as he calls general since the East and West have been separated and hostile, so that a general council, whatever it was worth, was impossible. The early ones referred their decrees to the Emperors, and the Emperors held the chief place and authority in them. Next, they were not reckoned infallible by the gravest authorities among Fathers and popes, so that they can be no foundation for faith. They were gathered to settle points in question, not to lay any foundation. There were none for three hundred years after the apostles' days, and never any till the Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, who thought of, called one, and directed it. Thirdly, their history will tell us what a poor foundation they are for faith, for Romanists cannot even clearly tell us which are general councils, nor shew any unanimity as to their authority.

131 The truth is, there never was such. All the first councils in the East were called by the Emperors, and under their authority, and at the council in which the greatest number of Western prelates were found, there were not more than six of them. The later ones were called by the popes in the West, and no Eastern prelates were there. The empire was then in rapid decay, and had wholly disappeared in the West. In the ninth century the Eastern church was entirely separated from Rome. The only council where both Easterns and Westerns were found was that of Florence, in the fifteenth century; the Eastern Emperor had need of the West, being pressed by the Turks, and sent some Eastern bishops; but the steps they took were protested against then by the most eminent among them, Mark of Ephesus, and were repudiated by all the Greeks on their return.

It is extremely difficult to say what constitutes a general council, as we shall see when we come to their history. Those who plead their divine origin appeal to Acts 15; but here there was no general council at all. The apostles and, if we look beyond apostolic authority, the elders of one church assembled to consider the matter. At this time there were churches throughout Palestine, in Syria, where the question arose, and in the south of Asia Minor, and settled in full order by the Apostle Paul where he had been. They do not hear a word of the said council, only some went from Antioch, where the question had been raised, to propose it at Jerusalem. The truth is, it was a question whether Judaism was to be forced on the Gentiles. God, in mercy, did not allow it to be rejected at Antioch and prevail at Jerusalem, so as to split the church in two at once; but in His gracious wisdom, under the apostolic guidance, led the Jewish part of the church to decide that the old ordinances they clung to were not binding on Gentiles. This was most gracious. But most certainly there was no general council, but the apostles and a single church. And the epistle sent out so declares.

Under the heathen Emperors there were constantly provincial councils, and all was regulated within each province. When Constantine had succeeded in finally subduing the heathen Emperors, he took up the church, finding it distracted about Arianism and the time of celebrating Easter. He sent Hosius, his very particular friend, to Alexandria, the great scene of conflict, and wrote a letter to make truce between Alexander and Arius, saying they were disputing about trifles, but in vain. He then called the bishops from all parts to meet and settle the question.* The ecclesiastics were not the movers in it.** Constantine appointed the place of meeting, which was in his palace at Nice, and when they were assembled, came in in a splendid dress, on which Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, expatiates, and on his fine figure, and with great airs of modesty took his place amongst them. He over and over again says to bishops in his letters, it was his pride to be their fellow-servant, and declares that he had undertaken with all the bishops to settle the question. It has been discussed who presided. It is a vain discussion. Constantine did. He had a little modest golden seat at the top of the room, and the bishops sat on seats down the sides. The first on the right said a few words of compliment to him, how happy they were to see him there; and then he opened the session with a long speech.

{*The truth is, what are called general councils were all of them, till the Emperors lost their power, measures taken by them to get peace among church leaders. They managed and governed them, and sanctioned what was done. They were for ever meddling in church matters, and the various bishops recognized continually their right to depose them, and the like, and they exercised it.}

{**The uncertainty which hangs over the Council of Nice is curious for no unimportant event. Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine, says expressly there were two hundred and fifty prelates there. Afterwards it was held there were three hundred and eighteen, but reference was then made to the number of Abraham's servants, which was then held to be a great mystery.}

132 Nor was this all. As soon as he had done, neither his fine figure, nor purple robe and jewels, restrained the bishops: they began disputing fiercely. He soothed some, reasoned with others, encouraged and approved others, and so got all to sign the creed but five, who were banished, though some of them came round. And on a very strange explanation of "consubstantial" by the Emperor himself, Eusebius also signed the word. Strange to say, it had been positively condemned in a considerable Eastern council before.* Afterwards a subsequent Emperor turned Arian, and all the bishops Arian with him. One Emperor was Arian in the East, and another Nicene in the West. The Easterns were all Arian, the Western Nicene; a few rare exceptions were true to their conscience. The pope was not at the council, it is said, through old age, but sent two presbyters; not only did they not preside, but never signed; first, Hosius, the Emperor's private friend, did that. Constantine, in his letter to Egypt after the council, recommending unity, repeats his having called the council, and undertaken the business. Though this council, under God's good providence, may have been in some respects helpful in stopping so horrible a doctrine as Arianism, yet a vast number of prelates, sound in the faith, were far from being satisfied, especially when Marcellus of Ancyra, a great stickler for the council, who even assisted at it, was condemned as a heretic, and deposed; having run, through his views on the subject, into denying the eternal Sonship of Christ, and being suspected of Sabellianism.

{*In the Council of Antioch, where Paul of Samosata was condemned Then the very word, omoousios, which was afterwards the orthodox test of Arian or not Arian, was condemned as false doctrine. Athanasius, de Synodis, 43, says both judgments are to be respected; that we are not to think these seventy prelates at Antioch were wrong, and seeks to reconcile the two. In Nice, if I understand the matter aright, as distinctly stated in the authentic accounts of the council, which are confirmed by Ambrose, Eusebius, who was Arian, or semi-Arian, in his views, wrote (I suspect referring to this council), saying, If we say that He is Son of God, and uncreated, you begin to own Him omoousios, (Ambr. 3, de Fide 15.) And the council took up the word thereupon, and made it a test.}

133 However our point now is the Emperors calling the councils, and here the Emperor managed it altogether. The next council called general is that of Constantinople. Yet here we are at a loss to know why it is a general one. There was only a hundred and fifty Eastern bishops. The popes Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory rejected the canons, only accepting the doctrine. Yet the canons were always received in the early and are in the code of the canons of the universal church. The popes took no notice, and had nothing at all to say to it, when it was going on. Up to this Arianism ruled under Valens. Now Theodosius turned all the Arian bishops out. Here again Theodosius convoked the council, chose the bishop of Constantinople, and the council formally refers all its acts to his ratification. (See the first document in Hardouin, Conc., vol. 1, 807.)

As to the Third so-called General Council, it is quite certain the Emperor Theodosius the younger called it.

It is well, perhaps, we should look into the character of this council, and the principal figure in it, a little closer. If it were not for the heartless and relentless persecutions he underwent, there is nothing in Nestorius' character to attract regard. An eloquent, it would seem a vain, man, on whose character there was no reproach, he had a reputation for sanctity as a monk, and thought himself perhaps a great theologian. He came from Antioch, whence Chrysostom had been called to Constantinople, and was called to that see, to the bitter disappointment of two others who aspired to it.

134 In judging the expression, "the mother of God" (a monstrous and really offensive expression), although he fully admitted the two natures and one Person, he used expressions justly objected to, and which his enemies did not fail to take hold of; but he did not really swerve from the truth as far as Cyril, who over and over again asserts that Christ had only one nature.* At Ephesus, at the instance of John, patriarch of Antioch, he consented to use it even as capable of a good sense, as he had indeed already stated in his reply to Proclus' sermon.

{*Thus, in his 17th Paschal Homily (v, p. 2, 230 B) he denies that it was as man He grew in wisdom and stature. That is to divide and make two Christs, he says. So in his first and second letters to Luciessus (v, p. 2, 137, 143), after the union we do not divide the natures from one another. We do not cut the one and undivided into two sons, but we say one son, and, as the Fathers have said, one nature (phusin) of God the Word made flesh. Again, after union in an ineffable way, he shewed to us one nature of the Son, but, as I said, made flesh. And so very frequently. What was offensive in Nestorius was his saying that he could not say a child of two years old was God; but he excused this as said in the heat of argument, and urged that his words should not be insisted on. It was verbally at Ephesus. Cyril's statements are in elaborate treatises on doctrine. The Council of Chalcedon, though sanctioning the Council of Ephesus and Cyril by name, condemns (Actio Quinta) in express terms what in express terms Cyril taught, and what Nestorius and the Easterns objected to.}

I now leave him till he appears in the history of the council, and turn to Cyril the great actor in it, a man who is the very stay of modern high-church notions. The church of Alexandria was a very powerful church indeed, and its patriarchs had been always counted next to Rome in dignity. But Constantinople, having been made the seat of empire, began somewhat to eclipse its grandeur, while the pope was left by the same fact freer than ever. The jealousy of Constantinople was great at Alexandria, which continually looked to Rome as a support equally jealous of Constantinople, which originally had been a subordinate city. The predecessor of Cyril had got Chrysostom banished, now counted a saint, but who died, banished from his see, and put out of church records, as unworthy of being recognized among Christians, in what were called the Diptychs, a kind of ecclesiastical record of bishops' names. Rome had restored him, Alexandria not, so that there was a breach of communion between them. Cyril began by persecuting the Novatians, a body separated from the general church, and seizing their property. The Jews, very numerous there since the time of Alexander, having raised sedition against the Christians and slain many, Cyril put himself at the head of his adherents and the Parabolani (a kind of military monks whose nominal office was to visit the sick, etc., in seasons of plague or the like), attacked the synagogues, and drove the Jews out of the city, and gave up their houses to be sacked. Recourse was had to the emperor. The monks, so famous and so numerous in Egypt, attacked the governor and wounded him. The individual who wounded him was executed. Cyril canonized him, and ordered him to be honoured as a martyr. Other violences took place, and brought on the intervention of the emperor.

135 At Constantinople, one of Nestorius' clergy preached against the expression "mother of God," and then Proclus, previously candidate for the see, made a famous sermon for it. Nestorius then answered him, and the controversy was commenced. Cyril wrote to the monks on the subject, and this letter Cyril sent to Constantinople by his agents, then pretending in his letter to Pope Celestine that it had been brought by some to Constantinople. The pope now became engaged in the matter, and sided with Cyril, finding the court against him. Cyril wrote then, and particularly to the Emperor's sister, for which the Emperor rebuked him severely, as sowing divisions in the imperial family. She was ill-disposed to Nestorius, who had charged her with too great familiarity with some great man about court. At last, Nestorius, it seems, proposing it, a council was called at Ephesus by the Emperor, and the patriarchs ordered to bring only a few bishops to settle the question. Cyril came at once with as many as he could bring. Meanwhile, the pope commissioned Cyril to act for him in carrying out the Roman judgment against Nestorius, who was summoned to retract within ten days from receipt of the monition; and Cyril published twelve anathemas as to the doctrine of the incarnation, containing his views. The Emperor, in calling the council, put Cyril on his trial as well as Nestorius, and the former, not only as to the doctrine, but as to crimes committed at Alexandria. Cyril had at the same time excommunicated Nestorius, and sent to him the denunciation, and exhorted the monks of Constantinople to be firm. These and those in Egypt were main agents in the violence that took place. The patriarch of Antioch and the Eastern church were opposed to Cyril's views, and he wrote a work at this time against one which had been approved by a council at Antioch.

136 It is attempted to be said that Theodosius summoned the council by advice of the pope; but all honest Roman Catholic historians admit it was not, and could not be so. The pope held a local council at Rome, excommunicated Nestorius, and commissioned Cyril to carry it out, and Theodosius' notice to the pope of the Ephesian Council came first from the Emperor to Celestinus after that. The dates prove it. Cyril presided at the council, such as it was, and all was over as to Nestorius before the legates arrived, and they then agreed to what had been done. Nestorius, and those with him, and John of Antioch, never took part in it at all. Nestorius came first with the ten bishops from Constantinople, Cyril with some fifty from Egypt. The Emperor's lieutenant ordered them to wait for the Oriental bishops who could not yet arrive. This did not suit Cyril. He met with his party, which was the more numerous, on June 22, summoned Nestorius, who did not go, nor some sixty-eight bishops who were now with him. Cyril went on, suspended and degraded Nestorius from the clergy without further ceremony, and his twelve anathemas were read, approved by silence, for there is no other positive decision of the assembly found as to them, though it be asserted by their adversaries and not questioned till afterwards, when they were used by the Monophysites,* and all was finished on this main point. Cyril drew up the acts of the council and (it is admitted) dressed them as it suited him, and there are gaps hard to understand. Candidius, the Emperor's lieutenant, protested against it as well. Memnon raised a tumult in the city, so that Nestorius was protected by troops, nor did his partisans, as it appears, refrain from violence.

{*The reader may consult Tillemont.}

A few days after John of Antioch came; he would not receive Cyril's deputies at all; met with the bishops who came with him — he had only, it is said, brought three from each province — and he deposed and excommunicated Cyril and Memnon. The result was, both parties appealed to the Emperor, who sent a commissioner. The Emperor confirmed the depositions of the three. Then eight deputies went from each party. The Emperor ordered Nestorius, Cyril, and Memnon into custody, and they were kept prisoners.

137 Meanwhile matters went against Nestorius at court. A mob of monks had beset the palace. Cyril found means to escape and get to Alexandria. Nestorius' mainstay at court died. The Emperor sent Nestorius back to his monastery at Antioch, and let the bishops go home. Cyril had already gone back, having escaped from his confinement; the Emperor peremptorily refused to condemn John and the Easterns, and they went home. Cyril spent all the treasures of the church of Alexandria, which was very wealthy, and brought it into considerable debt in bribing the courtiers, and even the Emperor's sister. This we know, not only from the accusations of his enemies, but from the statements of John of Antioch, of Acacius of Berea; and the letter of his archdeacon and Syncellus states that Cyril had sent the presents, and the list is given to whom the presents should be made. This sister of the Emperor, made a saint of afterwards, married a nobleman, on condition of not living with him as a husband, to raise him to the throne. But Cyril and Memnon remained excommunicated by the East, which denounced his anathemas as heretical. The Emperor sent an officer to make peace. The Easterns refused to the end the anathemas of Cyril, and would not condemn Nestorius, nor indeed say anything about him. The Emperor's officer finally succeeded as to John and the majority. But they would not accept Cyril's doctrines. They drew up a document which condemned Cyril's anathemas; he explained, then he would not retract them, but signed the Eastern confession of faith which set them aside. Then John and most of the Easterns came into communion with him, and they condemned Nestorius. But a great many, firmer than John, would not, and two or three whole provinces separated from Antioch. Then John got the Emperor to persecute. Those who would not yield were driven from their sees. These provinces after some time were reunited with Antioch, and the greater part of the unyielding bishops went into Persia, where the Emperor's authority did not reach, and Nestorianism remained a large body with a hierarchy, and, though now overrun by Mahometanism, still subsists. In the sixth century it had christianized large tracts of Asia, and China itself was in the main nominally Christian. Nor was this all.

138 The successors of Cyril held that Christ, after the union of the divine with the human, had only one nature, and this has subsisted with its hierarchy in Alexandria ever since, and constitutes the Jacobite or Coptic church of Egypt, Abyssinia, etc., though also oppressed by Mahometanism, but having its hierarchy like Nestorianism, with the patriarch of Alexandria for its head. Nor was this the only result. The term "mother of God" pleased the heathens as Nestorius alleged. And in the West they flocked in swarms into the paganised church, the heathen temples and worshippers being turned into Christian churches and congregations without more trouble.

I add the account given by a Roman Catholic of this result in the West, in an essay crowned by the French Royal Academy: "They [the peoples] received this new devotion [to the Virgin] with a sometimes too great enthusiasm, since for many Christians it became the whole of Christianity. The pagans did not even endeavour to defend their altars against the progress of this worship of the mother of God. They opened to Mary the temples they had kept shut against Jesus Christ. It is true they mingled often with the adoration of Mary their pagan ideas, their vain practices, those ridiculous superstitions from which they seemed unable to separate themselves; but the church rejoiced to see them enter into her bosom, because she knew well that it would be easy, with the help of time, to purify from its alloy a worship whose essence was purity itself. Thus some prudent concessions [he had before spoken of these] temporarily made to heathen manners (or morals), and the influence exercised by the worship of the Virgin — such are the two elements of force which the church used to overcome the resistance of the last pagans." He adds in a note, "Amongst a multitude of proofs, I choose only one to shew with what ease the worship of Mary swept before it the remains of paganism, which still covered Europe. Notwithstanding the preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the ancient worship. After the Council of Ephesus, we see its eight most beautiful pagan temples, in a very short space of time, become churches under the invocation of the Virgin." He then gives the list, "The ecclesiastical annals of each country furnish similar testimonies." (Beugnot, Histoire de la destruction du Paganisme en Occident, 54, 12, chap. 1, vol. 2, 270-1.)

139 Nor was this council held then for an ecumenical council. No Western was there unless a deacon from Africa, and the pope's legates, after Nestorius was condemned. Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople, wrote against the twelve anathemas. The Eutychians always appealed to Cyril's famous sentence, 'The union was made out of two natures; but after the union there was one nature of the word incarnate in Christ.' I give it as Petavius states it. I have already given the words from Cyril. No one can doubt that Eutychianism (the doctrine of one nature in Christ) and the Jacobite church of Alexandria were the fruit of Cyril's doctrine. He says positively that Athanasius stated expressly (and quotes it), that there was only one nature after incarnation. A century afterwards this was denied and is still uncertain. But that Cyril does not really deserve confidence, it would be hard to refuse his testimony.

The truth is, that both Nestorius and Cyril were meddling with matters beyond their depth, and that both used unjustifiable language. But the orthodox East never received Cyril's anathemas. He signed their creed. The subsequent Council of Chalcedon alone gave credit to this Council of Ephesus, but declared Theodoret and Ibas orthodox, who had written books favouring Nestorianism; but a general council after that (Constantinople) declared these same books heretical, saving always the authority of Chalcedon. The Cyril party — very probably the Emperor's sister, St. Pulcheria, who was charged with incest, and had great power over the Emperor — persecuted Nestorius, who was banished to the desert and died in want.

For the authorities for the details I have given the reader may consult Baronius (who, of course, condemns Nestorius, and approves Cyril), Tillemont, a great favourer of Cyril, also Dupin, who is much more moderate. If he can read German, Walch's Heresies, vol. 5, where the subjects and documentary evidence are fully investigated, and which judges Cyril more severely, as indeed every honest man and humble Christian must, though not accepting the doctrines which Nestorius held or was accused of. With these come the Collection of Councils and Mercator. The English reader may find a full summary in Gieseler's Compendium 1, 393 following. But I have not used Protestant writers for the history, save as an index to the various authorities. Cyril and Mercator, both bitter enemies of Nestorius, and the council itself, with something on ecclesiastical authorities and collections of letters at the time in the Synodium, are the original sources. With these I have used the Roman Catholics, Baronius, Bellarmine, Petavius, which last is full as to the doctrine of Cyril.

140It is difficult to speak of this council, it was conducted with such fraud and violence. Cyril, the open enemy of the person charged, and himself charged too, and to be judged by it, began it before the Eastern bishops, or even the pope's legates were come, not in this heeding the protestation of the Emperor's lieutenant, who protested publicly and left.* Some seventy bishops who were come protested also against beginning. Then, with those of his party, he cited Nestorius twice in one day, judged the case, and pronounced his deposition. Both parties appealed to the Emperor, who banished Nestorius, and desired all the bishops to return to their dioceses. The Eastern bishops had on their arrival excommunicated Cyril and Memnon, and Cyril and Memnon excommunicated them. However Cyril's party gained the court, and the Emperor had some one consecrated in the place of Nestorius, who was banished. And the Easterns and Cyril, a layman having been sent to bring them to terms, had years of negotiation before any peace was made, and then only by Cyril signing a creed drawn up by the Easterns, which condemned his doctrines promulgated and tacitly accepted at Ephesus, but without his publicly condemning them, and a large number of bishops were after all deposed by the Emperor, and the doctrines of Cyril became the seed of endless disputes and controversies, and in truth led to Eutychianism, and were its greatest stay. The papal legates never presided in this council. The Emperor's lieutenant, when he came to make order, turned Cyril and Nestorius out, and Juvenal of Jerusalem presided. This, let me add in passing, is a pretty thing to call a general council to found faith upon. The doctrines of Cyril have never been accepted. It is quite certain that Athanasius largely condemns in his second book against Apollinarius the expression on which Cyril so much insisted. Would anyone think we had to say to Christians? The Emperor's lieutenant had to have guards mounted to prevent acts of violence.

{*Or, as he says, was driven out, for Cyril had with him what were called Parabolani, a bodyguard of military monks that he had brought with him from Alexandria.}

141 Father O. I do not see what we can gain by going through all these points; but allow me to remark that though Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus, it was on the demand and by the advice of the pope. The Emperor did it administratively.

N*. Not only is the historical fact admitted by all, even by Bellarmine and Baronius, that the Emperor did call the council, but it is impossible that the pope could have anything to say to it, because he had held a council at Rome and condemned Nestorius, and written to Cyril that he was to publish his deposition if he did not retract in ten days after notification. Cyril assembled a local council at Alexandria, on November 3rd, to carry this into effect, and on the 19th the Emperor issues his order for the council to meet, writing to the pope as to others; and the pope in answer recognizes that the Emperor had convoked the council, and that it was his business to care for the peace of the church (Hard., 1473). You will find the facts I have alleged as to councils in this book, Socrates, Sozomen, Baronius (consulting Bellarmine), Dupin, and Tillemont. Baronius, it is true, tries to call in question the canons of the Council of Constantinople, but his well-known annotator, Pagi, shews it is impossible to do so. It only shews he felt how it pinched. I pursue my history.

As to the Council of Chalcedon, the Fourth General Council, the pope wanted to get one in Italy to condemn Eutychus. The Emperor Theodosius refused, saying all was settled at Ephesus, that is, at a second in that town, of which hereafter: so little did popes call general councils then. His successor was well disposed, but refused peremptorily to have it in Italy, called it at Nice, and then, in order to manage it better, brought it to Chalcedon, close to Constantinople. His commissioners sat in the council save one day, suppressed the violence of the prelates at the beginning, saying they ought to shew a better example, and made propositions, gave their consent, in fact presided actively all the time in the council, save one day. On that day, on which they left the prelates to settle about the creed, the council deposed Dioscorus, also patriarch of Alexandria for his crimes at the previous Council of Ephesus. On their return the next day the commissioners said they must answer for it, they had not been there. In truth their consciences need not have been much burdened. But even as to the creed to be signed, one was proposed. The papal legates opposed, and said they would go if Leo's letter was not assented to as it was, along with the creeds of Nice and Constantinople. The letter was in point of fact in many respects an admirable one. But what was done? It was referred to the Emperor, who decided what was to be done, and the council stated their views in detail for themselves, though approving Leo's letter, but would give their own definition of faith. Afterwards Constantinople was put on an equality with Rome. The legates craftily keeping away, they protested on their return; but the bishops maintained it, and the commissioners declared it had passed, and the council said, We remain in this judgment. In this council Ibas and Theodoret, favourers of Nestorius' views, were declared orthodox. They publicly recognized the Empress Pulcheria as the person who had put down Nestorius.

142 The Fifth General Council is too plain in its history to need more than the plain statement of facts. There had been a great contest about the merits of Origen, and the monks had been breaking into each other's monasteries, and in the course of the disputes which followed, blood had been shed in the churches, indeed it was far from being the first time. However, they got the Emperor to condemn Origen's doctrine. As to the merits of the case, there was reason enough. He was a powerful prince, and recovered Italy and Africa from the barbarians, and liked his own way. A certain Theodore of Caesarea, a great favourite with the Emperor, was fond of Origen and of Eutychianism, and determined to have his revenge, and he engaged Justinian to condemn three persons' writings, Theodore of Mopsuestia,* Ibas, and Theodoret, all three opposed to Cyril, who had his way in the Council of Ephesus. These three persons had been pronounced to be in full communion in the Council of Chalcedon, which had rather tended to set up Nestorius' reputation again, whom Cyril and Ephesus had condemned. Justinian published a long decree condemning the three chapters, as the writings of the three prelates above-named were called. He had a kind of council, and the Oriental patriarchs and prelates were obliged to condemn them too. Pope Vigilius condemned them and excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople and all who had condemned the three chapters. However Justinian thought he would be more tractable at Constantinople, and made him come. There, in fact, he joined in communion again with the excommunicated ones, and condemned the three chapters. But then all the prelates of Illyria and Africa, in fact of all the West in general separated from his communion as unfaithful — a bad business according to modern Romanist notions. To get out of the scrape he acceded to the proposal by some of these prelates of a general council, and withdrew his condemnation of the chapters, and forbade any resolution till there was a council. The Emperor persecuted him (indeed he had exiled him and afterwards brought him to Constantinople); he fled to Chalcedon, and the Emperor compromised, and he came back He then pressed for a council in Italy. That did not suit the Emperor, and he refused, but called one at Constantinople. Vigilius would not go there, and he signed his private judgment with eighteen other Western prelates, while one- hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy sat in the council under the Emperor's authority. This letter of his, called Constitutive, was given to the Emperor, but is taken no notice of in the council. To say the truth, it was on the whole the most sensible paper in the whole miserable business, and he forbade by the authority of the apostolic see in any way to contravene what he then pronounced. However, the Emperor went on with his council, when, save a very few renegades, there were no Western prelates. The council condemned altogether the three chapters, which was quite different from Vigilius' constitutive; and Vigilius refused to sign as he had refused to be present. Justinian banished him again, and he gave way, and signed; and it became thereby, say Baronius and the Romanists, a general council. If that does not make a sure foundation for faith, what will? Yet universal confusion was the result.

{*His writings were greatly read in the East. Cyril tried to get him condemned; but the Easterns absolutely refused. He is said to have been the originator of Nestorianism, and even teacher of Nestorius.}

143 The Nestorians established a patriarchate at Seleucia, were favoured by the Persians in opposition to the Roman Empire, and spread over all the East, Christianity becoming very nearly the established religion of China at that time. And the Eutychians, raising their head through the activity of a monk, Jacobus, spread too; and the patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch, such as they are since Mahometanism overran the East, are in their hands, spread as far as India, and have a primate in Abyssinia. Both subsist. Not long ago violent persecutions were set on foot against the Nestorians, it is said, at the instigation of the so-called bishop of Babylon in connection with Rome, the Consul of France.

144 James. But where are we got, sir? Is all this really the history of what they call the church? Why, there is no Christianity in it. At any rate, the Bible is simpler than all this. I had, sure enough, rather have the plain holy words of Paul and Peter, which are really the words of God.

N*. No wonder. I go through it because it is well we should know the difference. Mr. O. cannot deny these facts. They are drawn from the authentic histories of the day, from his own historians, such as Baronius, a great stickler for the pope; Dupin, a most honest Romanist historian, whom perhaps he might not like so much; Tillemont; Hardouin's Councils — books you cannot of course judge of, but Mr. O. can very well. I have referred to Protestant books merely to assist me in collecting the information.

Any one can judge whether such proceedings can be a foundation for a Christian's faith, or whether it is by wading through all this, instead of reading the Lord's and the apostles' words, a poor man will get at the truth. Here the pope contradicts himself, and one general council, let them say what they will, contradicts another; for Chalcedon had acquitted and Constantinople condemns the three writers we have spoken of.

Here is Baronius' remark: "If you compare this synod with all that of which a synod ought to consist in order to be called a general council legitimately congregated in the Holy Spirit, things standing as the acts plainly shew they do, you will agree that it does not merit the name, not merely of a general council, but not even of a private one, being one which was gathered, the Roman pontiff resisting, and judgment pronounced by it in like manner against his decrees." "We will say farther on how it came to obtain the name of a general council." He then abuses it (his annotator, Pagi, approving it) and cites Pope Gregory and others as disapproving it too; however, though he says certainly Vigilius did not consent to it by letters, as either he or his successor, Pope Pelagius, consented to it, it became ecumenical, as the first of Constantinople had done, which was gathered in spite of Damasus (Bar. Acc., 553, 220-224).

145 The sixth General Council will furnish us with some curious elements as to papal infallibility and the progress of church history. Eastern Christendom was always discussing points, Rome pushing its power. In the East they got a new point, on which it is surely not my purpose to dwell here: — Christ had only one will, or at any rate His divine and human will coalesced, though He had two natures. The Emperor adopted, and Pope Honorius wrote a letter approving it. However, there was a change, the Roman legates opposed it at Constantinople, and one of them, Martin, became pope; he then denounced all holders of it. The then Emperor published a rescript forbidding discussions, and all men to be left in peace. The pope denounced this as sanctioning evil. The Emperor tried to get hold of him, failed the first time, but succeeded the second, and brought him prisoner and kept him so till he died. The Roman clergy less staunch than the people, gave way, and elected another pope whom the Emperor confirmed; he never had confirmed his stern predecessor, Martin. So now there were two popes. The one at Rome soon after died, his successor was on good terms with the Emperor. The Emperor, who had always maintained his rescript, died too, and his successor was a gentler prince. He proposed a conference to settle it.

Four popes had succeeded one another rapidly during his reign, and at last Agathon assembled a Western council, at which, however, no prelates from Spain, Britain, or Germany were present, save one on his own affairs, and three from France. However, they put themselves forward as representing the whole Latin church. In truth, save Scotland and Ireland, and the north of England, it was at this time pretty well papalised. However, as the council of the apostolic see, as they say, they condemn the Monothelites, as they were called. Legates went from the pope to Constantinople, but they were not to discuss, the pope said, nor a title to be altered in the confession. The Emperor had removed a stiff patriarch and put in a milder one, and formed an assembly at Constantinople, and ordered Macarius, the patriarch of Antioch, the Monothelite leader, to assemble as many as he could of his party. Thus, besides other prelates, the Eastern patriarchs, or their legates, were present. The West was only represented by the pope's legates. Macarius was deserted by most of his partisans who found the tide against him, for the Emperor sought peace, though they had pretty well reviled each other. Macarius, however, insisted on the authority of Honorius, of Sergius, previously patriarch of Constantinople, and of Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, but he was all but unanimously deposed and excommunicated.

146 But now comes the strange result. They condemn all the writings of these heretics, and their memory they anathematize — that is, deliver over to the curse of God — Theodore of Pharan, author of the mischief, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and two of his successors; Cyrus, Patriarch of Alexandria, Honorius, Pope of Rome, and Macarius of Antioch, and all following them. In the thirteenth session they are declared out of the pale of the Catholic church, that is, lost for ever; and, in the sixteenth, anathema is pronounced on the heretic Sergius, etc., etc., on the heretic Honorius, Pope of Old Rome. This council was accepted and confirmed as the Sixth General Council, when the result was notified to him by Leo, the pope who succeeded to Agatho; and he anathematizes expressly Honorius and the others.

Father O. But Baronius rejects this letter.

N*. He does; but his annotator Pagi, as do others, treat this as folly, as indeed it is worse, for all the acts of the council, the letters to the pope, the Emperor's edict, the reading of Honorius' letter, which gave occasion to his condemnation, the acts of subsequent councils, and the old Roman breviary, and every other possible proof exists to shew that it is a mere foolish effort to get rid of what he cannot deny. He pretends that it was the Patriarch Theodore of Constantinople, and that his name was scratched out everywhere and Honorius' put in. But why read Honorius' letter to condemn Theodore? You must know that Baronius' notion as to this is rejected by everyone.

Now mark the result. Constantine, the Emperor, presided with his court and judges in person at the council during the first twelve and the last sessions, and, excusing himself in the interval by public affairs, left his representative. The acts of the council declare it called by his command and recognise his presidency. The general council declares the pope a heretic, and condemned for ever for it; and this was sanctioned by another pope (Leo II), who confirms the council and anathematizes his predecessor. Nor is this all. What Pope Gregory the Great called the See of Peter in three different cities, that is Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch (which he was uniting against John of Constantinople, who claimed to be universal bishop), three, he declared, derived from one (Peter), and which were one, all three were in this same heresy, Cyrus of Alexandria, Honorius of Rome, and now Macarius of Antioch; all successors of Peter, we are assured, are anathematized as heretics, and held to have no place in the Catholic church, and that by a general council and another pope. How am I to get security here? In the pope as successor of Peter, or in the council who sent him to hell as a heretic (happily the poor man was dead)? If you blame the council, your security for the faith is gone by any council, or in the pope either; for they acted very much on the letter of one pope, and all their definitions were accepted by another. If you accept the council, then all the fine theory about a successor of Peter fails, for his successor was a condemned heretic.

147 Father O. But I think Pope Honorius may very well be defended against the charge of being a Monothelite, and Maximus, a martyr, did so.

N*. Well, I should not be indisposed to accept your excuse. There is certainly something to be said for him, though he went very far. But if you are right, what becomes of the authority of the general council and another pope's condemnation of him and his doctrine? No; great as their influence was become — quite paramount in the West at this epoch — no one dreamt then of the popes being infallible. As to general councils, it is rather hard to tell what they were. No Western bishops were in this; only the pope assured them that what he wrote was the judgment of all the West. But that did not make their assembling in the Holy Ghost. Agatho's Roman council was composed of Italian and Sicilian bishops. Only two bishops signed as deputies of all France and England; a queer way, too, of assembling in the Holy Ghost. At any rate the Emperor gathered and presided in the Sixth General Council, and the pope was condemned as a heretic by the council and by his successor. In this Sixth General Council there were at first some thirty or forty bishops, at the end one hundred and sixty.

I will now go on to the Seventh General Council, if we can find out which it is. An Emperor, Leo the Isaurian, who had long known the Arabs, and seen them despise the idolatry of Christendom, had a strong desire to reform the abuses of image worship. He issued a decree in 726, forbidding them to be worshipped, and the pictures and images were directed to be put high up, but were not ordered to be taken away; but Germanus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope Gregory II opposed vehemently; the Greeks rose in insurrection, and, advancing to Constantinople, were defeated. The Emperor now went farther, and in 730 had the images and pictures destroyed; thence tumults, murder, and reprisals by the Government. Germanus and the popes sustained their cause by appealing to the most ridiculous fables, which no one believes now, that Christ sent a miraculous picture of Himself to Abgarus, King of Edessa; insulted the Emperor in the grossest possible language; and Gregory the pope says that Uzziah profanely removed the brazen serpent which David had sanctified, and put with the ark into the temple — a confusion a child could have avoided who had read a little scripture. Hezekiah is commended for doing it. He says, where it is said, "Where the carcase is there are the eagles gathered together," the carcase meant Christ and pious Christians, living men flocking to see Him at Jerusalem, and that so strong was the impression of the figure of Christ on their minds, that at once they made portraits of Him, and carried them about to convert people with. However, he says they did not of the Father and the Holy Spirit. But now even that is done.

148 Strange to say, however, he looked for the Emperor to preside in a council. The Emperor had called, he says, for one, but where was a God-fearing Emperor to preside? However the Emperor persevered, and the new patriarch went with him. His son Constantine called a council in 754 of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of the East, and they condemned images; they called themselves a general council. This went on till one, Irene, a widow of his son, remained with a young child. She wheeled round; and now three hundred and seventy-seven bishops and the pope's legates authorized image-worship. This was at Nice in 787. There were no Western bishops, but the pope ratified it. But the West were not, after all, such image-worshippers as the pope. They held to what the great Pope Gregory had written to Serenus of Marseilles, when he had broken images there, which were then coming in, that all worship of them was wrong, but that they might be useful for the ignorant to recall the mind to those represented by them. Here then superstition had made progress, and the popes had changed with the times, but it seems the West had not.

149 In the Western empire, under Charlemagne, the Council of Nice was rejected. First of all this great founder of the new Western empire assembled his bishops, and put forth a book in his own name, in which he condemned the Council of Constantinople, which suppressed all pictures and images, and equally the Council of Nice, which allowed them to be reverenced and worshipped. He went through scripture and the Fathers, and proved that this worship and reverence was all wrong. But the Emperor's and bishops' book goes farther. Pope Adrian had sent them the decisions of the Council of Nicaea (or Nice), to which they had never been called, and they say, "We receive the Six General Councils, but we reject with contempt novelties, as also the Council held in Bithynia (that is, the so-called Seventh General Council of Nice), to authorize the worship of images, the Acts of which, destitute of style and sense, have come to us"; and then they refute seriously all that the pope had said to the Eastern Emperor. They declare that the Council of Nice is not a general one, because it was not gathered from all parts of the church, and appeal to Gregory the Great's letter to Serenus. But this work of the bishops of France and Germany, then one empire, issued in Charlemagne's name, was not all. In 794 he had a council at Frankfort-on-the-Main, at which were the pope's legates and 300 prelates of Germany, France, and Spain. This council refers to the Council of Nice as the council of the Greeks, and rejects entirely, unanimously, and with contempt its doctrine and decision. All this was sent to the pope. He replies in a long letter on the doctrines, and adds, "We have received the Council of Nice because conformed to the doctrine of St. Gregory [Gregory the Great, which it was not], fearing the Greeks might return to their error. However, we have yet given no answer to the Emperor as to the council."

So here we have an alleged general council received by the pope, disowned publicly by all the West, except Italy, and its doctrine condemned. All the assembled bishops of the West, with the pope's legates, declare that the Council of Nice is not a general council, and reject with contempt unanimously (these are their words) its doctrines and authority; and accordingly it was not for a great length of time received in the Western empire as a general council, and this the Council of Frankfort was. The pope's legates were at both. The pope received and defended Nice, but said he had not written to the Emperor, so he only half agreed to Nice either, but urged Charlemagne to come and help him to get back his territory, which the Eastern Emperor had seized on. Gradually superstition advanced, and Nice was in credit, and Frankfort went down.

150 In Frankfort the Emperor is recognized as President; Louis le Debonnaire's commissioners, prelates of France, condemned the pope in the matter; and they, as Charlemagne, that is, the Western prelates, had before done, do not admit any council or the pope to be universal or Catholic, unless they hold the Catholic truth according to the scriptures and Fathers. Indeed, it is curious enough, for those that cry up the Fathers, that Augustine, a Father of perhaps the greatest authority of any in the Western church, thus speaks of councils, shewing how little he thought them an infallible security for the faith. All councils, be it remarked (not merely, so-called, general ones) claimed the guidance of the Spirit. After stating that holy canonical scripture is superior to all writings of bishops, "so," he adds, "they can be corrected by wiser discourse or reproved by councils if in anything they have erred from the truth; and councils themselves, in particular districts or provinces, are without any doubt to yield to the authority of plenary councils, formed out of the whole Christian world; and prior plenary councils themselves may be amended (emendari) by later ones, when, by due experience of things, that which was shut was opened, and what lay hid is known, without any inflated arrogance, or any elation of sacrilegious arrogance, without any contentions of livid envy with holy humility, with catholic peace, with Christian charity" (De Bapt. con. Don. 2, 3).

It is singular if what is infallibly taught can be amended. The passage is fully given farther on. Now, where is the foundation for the faith here? Which was right, the general council, or Gregory the Great, or Gregory III? What a sea of confusion and contradiction we are in here! Three hundred and thirty-eight prelates, all of the East, calling themselves a general council, vote against images; three hundred and seventy-five, with Pope Gregory III, vote for them; three hundred of the West and the pope's legates, appealing to Pope Gregory the Great's authority and following his instructions, condemn both and the then pope, and declare in the most solemn way that the former council of the two they condemn was no general council at all, but a Greek one, which they reject. The pope takes it easy, because he wants his territory defended. You cannot deny the facts I quote. The Greeks contended about it for a length of time, sometimes one, sometimes the other party prevailing.

151 And now note another important point. In the Council of Nice there were no Western prelates, in the Council of Frankfort no Eastern. Really general councils had ceased, if ever they could have been called so, for in none of the first was the West represented by prelates; they were convened by the Emperors in the East to settle heretical disputes. The only exception was Sardica, and there East and West were so opposed that they separated, and the Easterns sat at Philippopolis, and the Westerns at Sardica. The three hundred at Frankfort remark it fairly enough; they reject it, as they say, with contempt. Further, these three hundred prelates do not hold the pope's authority in any way final. He had approved the Council of Nice, though he shuffled about it when he wanted Charlemagne to secure the territory the See of Rome now possessed. Yet they reject what he had approved. And Louis le Debonnaire's episcopal and ecclesiastical commissioners declare the pope to have been quite wrong. Again, the Emperors had always convened the councils up to the present time, and presided in them; and, as soon as there is an Emperor in the West again, he does the same thing, nor does the pope question it; they assist, and the council states that the Emperor presided. At this time the English and Irish churches were not under the authority of the popes at all, nor for long after.

But another important matter to remark here is, that the breach which ambition on both sides had brought about between the heads of the Roman and Greek ecclesiastical bodies now became complete. They anathematized each other, and no universal ecclesiastical body ever subsisted since. The Emperor's power in the East was reduced to a shadow by Saracens and Turks. The Western Empire, founded by Charlemagne, in which the prelates acted, as we have seen, independently of the pope while it subsisted, fell to pieces by the weakness of his successors; and the pope gradually acquired, through violent struggles with the German Emperors, at last in the person of Gregory VII, the desired supremacy. Yet he died, driven from his see by the Emperor. And mark, there was from this time, confessedly, pitch darkness in everything, as Romanists themselves confess; they are called the dark ages. And a vast number of the popes were the greatest monsters that ever disgraced the name of man, and the clergy the most corrupt of the whole population. But we have touched on this point, and what is necessary we will speak of when sanctity as proof of the true church is spoken of.

152 What I now remark is, that no serious man can find a foundation for the faith of his soul in all this. The word of God is operative by the power of the Spirit of God. "He begets," says scripture, "by the word of truth," but prelates' disputes in councils never begat anyone by the truth.

The Eighth General Council is important to us in this respect, that the Greeks hold one, the Romanists another, for a general one. The Greeks one in 879, the Romans one in 869; the latter, with very few prelates and pretended envoys from the patriarchs, condemned Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, and set up Ignatius, who had been driven away. The legates of Rome were at the former, and it was so far owned of the pope that he agreed to Photius being patriarch, Ignatius being now dead; but as Constantinople would not give up Bulgaria to the jurisdiction of Rome, the pope excommunicated Photius, and he the pope, and all pretension to a Catholic church ceased. The schism between East and West was complete.

From this time out, beginning with A.D. 1122 under Callixtus, there being no imperial power of any sufficient weight remaining in the West, the popes held councils of their own and for their own interests. The first of them passed decrees about the Duchy of Benevento belonging to the pope, and forgave the sins of those who would go to war to recover Jerusalem from the Saracens. They were Western councils, and I freely admit entirely under papal influence for some centuries — centuries, as all admit, of utter darkness and wickedness. That is, as long as there were emperors, emperors called them (it was first an idea of Constantine's to make peace in the church), and when emperors ceased to call them, their power being gone, the schism between East and West was complete, and no universal church ever externally existed since. The East was overrun by the Mahomedans; the West by darkness and atrocities.

153 James. But what came of true Christians all this time? for all this is very little like Christ, sir. I do not know what to think of such Christianity.

N*. There were hidden ones all through, no doubt, who took no part in all these painful and ambitious contests; some in the midst of them who mourned over them. At the time we are speaking of mysticism began to come in, that is, the seeking for a hidden life of God and love to Him in the soul, and leaving outward things to go on as they may, with very little clearness as to redemption. The propagation of the gospel was chiefly carried on in the East, indeed almost exclusively by the Nestorians, whom the so-called Catholic church had cast out, and by the Scotch,* who were entirely independent of Rome. What was done elsewhere was done by force of arms, as the Saxons, conquered by Charlemagne, and forced to become Christians in name, and the Saxons in England still earlier through Ethelbert. This was from Rome, but with distinct orders to leave them their heathen habits in many things and to connect them with Christian profession. Bulgaria and Hungary were brought in by the Greek church, and it was the dispute about that with Rome which brought about finally the division which ended the history of a Catholic church, and constituted a Roman and a Greek one.

{[*That is, the Scoti, who include the Irish, or people of greater Scotland, at least as much as those alone called Scotch in modern times. — Ed.]}

James. It is a sad history; but, I remember, Paul says the mystery of iniquity was already at work, and that things would wax worse, and that in the last days perilous times would come.

N*. It is just there that he tells us that the scriptures are our security, and able to make the man of God perfect.

M. But, Mr. O., is all this true? I thought you said the Catholic church was so holy and there was much unity.

Father O. These facts may be true; but all that supports the authority of the pope, and all the good they did, and how they maintained sound doctrine is left out. How can a poor man like you understand all these questions?

N*. I do not deny there were some godly men among the popes, though all were ambitious as to the power of the See of Rome. Our object was not to record the history of their lives nor to deny that there were some true saints during all this time. Even in the darkest ages many separated themselves and protested when it was darkest, as the Waldenses and others; many protested and remained where they were, saying Antichrist was already at Rome, and even persons held to be saints;* but our point was how councils or popes, or councils and popes can be a foundation for a poor man's faith, or any man's faith as a Christian; and no one can deny the facts I have quoted. I have taken them from Hardouin, that is, the councils and original letters, Petavius, Baronius, Dupin, Fleury, and similar histories, that is, of Romanists. The three first were zealous papists.

{*No one was stronger than St. Bernard and St. Buonaventura, both of the highest reputation for sanctity, and canonized.}

154 And note here, when the schism took place the Greeks charged the Romans with adding an important article to the creed, what is called the "Filioque" clause, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Son. This came in very late, had been adopted in no creed in the ninth century, came perhaps from Spain, and when Pope Leo was consulted about it he said it was right, but forbade it to be put in the creed, as general councils had forbidden anything to be added to their creeds long before, an order equally despised by subsequent ones.

Now, I do not deny that M. cannot judge well of all these things we have been speaking of, nor understand the bearings of all of them; but he can understand that neither he nor any one else can build his faith on such a quagmire of confusion and wickedness.

M. Why, I do not know whatever my faith can be. These councils seem to be only disputes and violence and striving to get uppermost.

N*. And so they were, and really used by the emperors who presided in them to make peace among fighting ecclesiastics. Providence may have used some of them to maintain important points of truth.

I shall have to notice a few more general councils when the papacy grew so wicked that the universal body was obliged to interfere, but I will close this part with a statement of St. Augustine on this point. The schismatic Donatists quoted St. Cyprian against their adversaries. "Who is ignorant," says Augustine, "that holy canonical scripture, as well of the Old as of the New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it is so set before all posterior letters of bishops, that as to it, it is wholly impossible to doubt or discuss whether whatever is found written there be true or right; but that letters of bishops written, or which are now written, after the canon was settled, may be blamed by the wiser speech of perhaps one more skilled in the subject or the weightier authority and more learned prudence of other bishops, and by councils, if there be in them perchance any deviation from the truth; and that councils themselves which are held in particular districts or provinces without any question to the authority of plenary councils gathered from the whole Christian world (called general or ecumenical), and that often previous plenary ones are corrected by later ones, when by any experience of things, what was closed is opened out, and what lay hid is known, without any puffing up of sacrilegious pride, without any inflation of arrogance, without any contention of livid envy with holy humility, with Catholic peace, with Christian charity?" (De Bapt. 2, 3). Excellently well said, allowing even all his high opinion of councils; but if this be so, how can anything but the scriptures be a foundation of faith? Everything else may be corrected, as Cyprian might be wrong, as Augustine held him to be, but no one can at all doubt or discuss if what is found in scripture is true or right. That is soundly and well said; and though I may not have so high an idea of councils from the history we have of them, we could not have sounder principles than Augustine's. But they are not the principles of Rome.

155 It may be well, as we are passing through the councils, to mention the Fourth Lateran Council, under Innocent III, at a time when the papal power was at its height. It was a general council of a very particular kind, a large number of Western bishops, four hundred and twelve it is said, and some eight hundred abbots and priors, others, such as ambassadors, assisting at it. But there was no consulting about anything. The pope had prepared seventy canons or rules, read them out ready-made, and silence was supposed to confirm them. They were simply decrees of Innocent III, graced by the presence of prelates, abbots, and ambassadors. At this council, for the first time, transubstantiation was decreed to be a church doctrine, and confession required yearly to the parish priest. At this council the horrible iniquities of the crusade against the Count of Toulouse (who protected his subjects, the Albigenses) were sanctioned, and the Inquisition began, perfected soon after as a system by succeeding popes.

156 We come now to some important councils, omitting several by which the pope sought to strengthen his power ecclesiastical and temporal. The papacy got so bad that disputes arose in its own circle, and in 1378 there were two popes, this state of things lasting about forty years. But this only made matters worse; Europe was divided, and they could only get money from half, and every sort of ecclesiastical corruption and oppression was introduced to have it, which some spent in dissoluteness in their courts, some heaped up. The University of Paris strove to heal the matter, and, after long negotiating and intriguing on all sides, the cardinals of both parties summoned a council at Pisa for March, 1409. The council deposed both the popes, and after the cardinals had solemnly engaged themselves to reform the abuses which existed, Alexander V was elected, the effect of which was that they had three popes instead of two.

James. What are the cardinals, sir?

N*. A body formed originally of the principal ecclesiastics of Rome, of different ranks in the hierarchy, by a decree of Nicolas in 1059 to elect the pope, a right enjoyed up to that time by all at Rome, and which had led to all sorts of tumults, violence, and bloodshed, and to appease the opposition of the rest added to by Alexander III. Others, perhaps, have added to them, and now many out of Rome are named. They form a kind of court to the pope; they have the highest rank in the papal system, though not necessarily in the episcopacy, as they are from the various orders of the hierarchy.

To return to my history, Alexander V's successor, John XXIII or XXII* was such a horrible monster, and a King Ladislaus, of Naples, whom he had provoked, having forced him to fly from Rome, the Emperor took advantage of it to get him to summon a council, which was called for November, 1414, the famous Council of Constance. Already the state of the popedom and the writings of the famous Gerson had prepared men's minds to consider a council superior to a pope. The council declared its superiority to the pope, tried to get him to resign, which he promised, fearing his conduct was going to be inquired into, but evaded, and they deposed him. One of the other two, for there were three, Gregory XII, resigned, and the third was deserted, and, though he had a kind of successor, the schism thus ended. But little reformation was effected, the council leaving it to the pope whom they chose, Martin V.

{*The succession of the popes is so uncertain, that the numbers attached to their names vary in the best Roman Catholic historians. In the Johns there are three numbers; of others, a question between two, for different writers hold such or such an one to have been no legitimate pope; and if one put another down he broke or pronounced null and void all the ordinations of his competitor, so that at times none knew who was a priest or who not. But of this hereafter.}

157 Father O. But the pope never confirmed the decrees of the Council of Constance, so that you cannot appeal to it as a general council.

N*. You are somewhat bold to say that. It is, as Romanist historians say, the wisdom of Rome to approve nothing at Constance and to change nothing at Constance. It is a kind of bridge, but such a broken one for them, that though it seems to enable them to cross the river, it is likely to plunge them only more dangerously into it. If Constance had not the authority it claims, what comes of the popedom? You have no right to call anyone a pope; there is no legitimate pope at all, for the council deposed John XXIII and chose Martin V, besides setting aside the two other anti-popes. Where are we to find the foundation of our faith here? On the other hand, if the council had the authority, your doctrine as to the infallibility of the pope falls to the ground. And in point of fact you are reduced to this, because since then you have no popes but those who derive their authority from the council.

But then you have another difficulty, your living judge disappears. Popes, save perhaps for an interval of two or three years, you have had, but councils only from time to time, and as your popes actually exist only in virtue of the council's authority, which declares that it holds that authority immediately from Christ, the infallible judge is not a living one. There was none for near three hundred years. Yet scarcely any Roman Catholic now would recognize the authority of the Council of Constance, or what it has pronounced to be the true doctrine. Yet if it be not, the popedom has no legitimate foundation at all. But I must beg leave to deny even what you affirm. John XXIII confirmed expressly its decrees before he was deposed, whatever his confirmation was worth. At any rate it was the confirmation of a legitimate pope. Not only so, but Martin V, though he avoided making any reformation in his court, yet owned the council expressly as a general council met in the Holy Ghost. Nor was this all. He recognized as valid all that had been done in the sessions, though not what had been done separately in the meetings of the nations, for the bishops of the different nations met first among themselves, and then there was a general meeting. Now the famous decree and the setting aside of the pope were decided in the sessions, so that the decree was confirmed by John XXIII before he was deposed, and by Martin V when he was made pope. This decree declares that the council is legitimately gathered in the Holy Ghost, has its authority immediately from Christ, represents the Catholic church militant, and that everyone, even the pope, is bound to obey it, even in what concerns the faith, and threatens punishment to the pope himself if he does not.

158 Father O. But this, as to faith, was introduced by the Council of Basel, as well as another paragraph of the decree.

N*. I know Schelstrat has tried to maintain this, but this is all a fable. It is quoted and referred to subsequently in the council. Not only so, the words he attempts to invalidate in the fourth session are beyond all controversy in the fifth session. In Hardouin's Councils they are left out in session IV, but he does not pretend to leave them out in session V. The Council of Constance was the reaction of the universal conscience of Christendom against the state to which the wickedness of the popes had reduced the church. Nor did it close the open wound. The Council of Constance had decreed that another council should be held at Pavia. Martin called it. It was removed on account of the plague to Siena[-n]: hence few were there. However, they began to reform, and the pope ordered the closing of the council. The prelates protested; he said it was not to be considered broken up, it would be continued. Basel was the place chosen, the council to be held in seven years. It was held, but soon began to be refractory against the pope.

They renewed the two decrees of Constance, subjecting the pope to a council, word for word, and declared they could not be dissolved. This was in the second session. The pope decreed their dissolution. They rejected it, and summoned him. The pope was in great trouble by his local wars, and sent legates to say he recognized them as a general council legitimately continued from the time they had commenced. They received the legates on condition that they swore they approved the decrees of the Council of Constance as to the authority of a general council. The pope Eugene decreed the removal of the council to Ferrara. The council declared the decree of a removal void. The pope. however, began at Ferrara with some of his own Italian bishops, the Council of Basel remaining where it was. The Council of Basel deposed Pope Eugene after long delay, the princes seeking some way of peace, and chose another, Felix V. The princes remained neutral, and, when the popes censured each other, received the decrees of neither, though many held to the Council of Basel as a legitimate general council, as France and England, and would not own that of Ferrara, and sought to transfer it elsewhere. To this the prelates of Basel agreed.

159 Felix went to Lausanne. Gradually the interests of Eugene gained the upper hand. Eugene's council, already transferred to Florence, was moved to Rome. The Council of Basel dissolved itself, calling a future council at Lyons or Lausanne. Felix and Eugene remained popes. Eugene died, and Nicolas V, at the instance of the princes, agreed, if Felix gave up the papacy, to revoke all censures against him and those engaged in the Council of Basel, confirm all its other acts, as well as those of Florence, and make Felix first cardinal and perpetual legate in Germany; and this was accordingly done. Felix, on his part, revoked all his censures, and resigned, and thus this schism terminated.

But is not this a strange foundation for faith?

M. Well, but Father O., is all this true?

Father O. We do not own the Council of Basel at all.

M. Well, but I have been listening attentively, and the pope recognized it as a legitimate general council. And, if all this be so, how can a man build his faith upon such a foundation as this? Why, I do not know what I am to build on. The council condemns the pope, and the pope condemns the council. Nobody dares condemn the apostles, and it is much simpler to believe them than all these disputes. Why, they cannot agree among themselves. How can I tell which to trust?

Father O. All this comes of your pretending to discuss these things, instead of, in a humble spirit, listening to the church. Are you wiser than all the holy and blessed men who have done so, and taught the truth, from Christ downwards, yea, obeyed Christ Himself, who told them to hear the church?

160 M. Yes, sir, but you were to shew us where was the church. Most people in this country don't think yours the true church. Besides, how can I tell who was holy and who was not, hundreds of years ago? It seems one pope was deposed, he was so wicked. And now let me ask you, sir, for I want something certain for my soul — you will excuse me, but it is a serious thing, after all — what a man is to build upon as sure ground for his soul — Are you infallible?

Father O. No, of course I am not; but I teach you infallible truth; if I did not, the bishop would look after it.

M. Is he infallible?

Father O. No, he is not; but he has a sure rule, and even he would be called to account if he did not teach according to it.

M. Who would call him to account?

Father O. Why, finally, the pope.

M. Well, but here was a pope deposed, and two or three popes at a time; so he is not infallible. And we were hearing of one who was condemned as a heretic — two, I think; I forget their names.

N*. Honorius was condemned publicly, and Liberius signed an Arian creed.

M. Aye, well, they are not infallible, and they are not the church. And a council you, Father O., do not hold to be infallible, for they have condemned the pope, aye, and deposed him, so that, after all, you have no right pope, if they are not. And what is the rule?

Father O. The decrees of the Council of Trent and the creed of Pius IV.

M. Well, but I cannot understand them better than I can understand the Bible, if that is all. Why cannot I understand the apostles, Paul and Peter, as well as that, and both must be translated, for all these rules are written in Latin, are they not, sir?

Father O. To be sure, and they are for the clergy. You must receive what you are taught — what the church teaches.

M. But you see, sir, we were looking for the church; it is the very thing I want to find out; we have not found it yet. I took your word for a great many things, that all were agreed since Christ's days — all handed down the same doctrine, and there was a living judge to decide. And now I find it was far different. They were disputing and condemning each other, and the popes had to be put down, they were so wicked; and it makes a wonderful difference to get at the facts, to be sure; and hence I find I cannot trust what you want me to trust on. You made me think all was unity and was everywhere and always, and by all (as you said) held, the holy church that every one could depend on. And it is not so. Can you deny the scriptures to be the word of God?

161 Father O. No, the church honours them as such; but you cannot understand them, and they are written in Greek and Hebrew.

M. I know, but I am no better off with your rule; and I know the scriptures must be the truth, for God had them written. I never cared much about them, to be sure, but that is my fault; and as to understanding them, I can try. I see James, that has no more learning than I, understands them wonderfully, and I will try. I will see what they say, if I cannot understand all, I can leave what I do not, and I dare say I shall some.

Father O. Well, if you are determined to go your own way, and set yourself above holy men and the whole Catholic church, I must only leave you to yourself as an obstinate heretic, and put you, if you remain obstinate, under the church's curse, that you may be a warning and a terror to others.

M. Well, I did not mean any offence, sir; I am an ignorant man, and I do want to find some sure ground for my soul, and, begging your pardon, sir, I do not think that cursing me because you have not been able to shew me one is the way to do me good; nor do I believe Jesus Christ would curse me for looking for it in His own words; so, though I am sorry to offend you, I cannot think He curses me, nor see that it is like Him to do so, and I do not think yours will hurt me if He does not approve it.

Father O. But He has promised that what is thus bound on earth He will bind in heaven. It is the church curses you through her unworthy minister, for the good of others, if not for your own; but be wise, M., give up this searching into religion. You have what has brought millions to heaven, and is the mother of all holy men that have belonged to Christ. Go and earn your bread quietly, and take care of your family, and leave these questions that you can never settle for yourself.

162 M. But that is not what was said to me when they got me once to be a Catholic. Then I was told what a solemn thing it was not to be in the true church, out of which was no salvation, and that I must look seriously to it, and see if I was in it, and so on, and they gave me books to shew me it all, as Milner's "End of Controversy," and so on; and now I am told that I cannot inquire or judge about it, and am to be cursed if I do not obey.

Father O. And did not that book make it as plain as possible? You had better come and speak to me at my house, and I will make it clear for you.

M. Well, I thought it was all plain enough in Milner, to say the truth; but then I had only heard one side of the story, and if I go to your house, sir — no offence — I shall only hear one side then, and of course I cannot answer you, I am too ignorant; but here I can hear both, and I like that; and I have begun to get anxious since I have heard, and I see James is happy in a way I am not. I do not understand it; he is happy with God, and I am not, and he is a changed man, that I see, and I am not. Though I have done every penance, and said all the prayers you bid me I am kept from something; but I am not changed in what I like. I will be very glad to hear what you have to say, for I only want to go right, and I do not know where the real truth is yet; but I want to know, and I hope God will shew me.

Father O. Well, I must leave you to your own obstinacy.

M. Do not say I drove you away, sir, for I only wish to hear all you have to say. And if you won't, we must only go on with Milner as we did before, if Mr. N*. will be so good.

Father O. No, it is no use. You are a heretic in heart already, for you refuse the authority of the church already, and are trusting your own judgment, and searching out what you cannot understand, and will certainly plunge into error — indeed you are, as I said, there already. The church will have to disown you, the only mother, as God is the only Father, of souls for life, and he who has not the church for his mother certainly (as a holy father has said) has not God for his Father.

N*. There is a sense, though I do not like the terms, in which that is true; but you forget, Mr. O., that we have not yet found the true church, so that your warnings can have no effect at all. Every true Christian belongs to the church of God, and has to seek to live in its unity; but Romanism you have not shewn to be that church. As yet we have found, outside scripture, no solid foundation for anything. Popes and councils have striven for superiority. The popes seeking ambitiously for the universal authority, the pretension to which they once condemned, and when the progress of Mahometanism in the East, and the decay of the Greek church, left them free, plunging into such wickedness and oppression as roused the clergy, supported by the princes of Europe, to seek to assert the superiority of a council over them, which they confirmed because they could not help it, evaded as soon as the councils were over, and by their wickedness, and at last specially by their sale of indulgences, which was really selling permission to sin, brought about the Reformation, that is, the breaking loose of half western Europe from their sway, Eastern Europe having never been under it. This brought on the Council of Trent, which, in fixing the Romanist in his errors, gave a deeper character of apostasy from the truth to Rome, and left the separation of Northern Europe where it was.

163 Father O. Well, sir, I think I must wish you a good morning.

N*. Good morning, Mr. O.

James. Well, I never could have thought that what they say such great things about could have been like this. But how can people build their faith on such things? But the history of the church seems a terrible history.

N*. Well, James, you must not boast much, you were very near running into the snare yourself. If redemption is known, and the word of God believed in, it is impossible; but how many are living simply by tradition themselves; and hence, when what seems an earlier and more reverend tradition comes, are led away by it, because they have nothing for themselves in their own souls! I have gone through so much of the history of their councils with Mr. O., in your presence, that I have only a very few details to refer to. We have seen they were always called and presided over by the Emperor, as long as the East had any part in them; that they condemned the pope when needed; that, when there was no Emperor in the West, the pope got them into his hands there, and, as power is a corrupting thing, after getting the upper hand, in a great measure, of the new Western Emperors, the popes became so wicked — and afterwards, through disputes, two at a time anathematizing each other — and so oppressive and despicable, that the clergy at large, in a general council, first deposed both at Pisa, electing a third, and, as the two did not yield, had three, and then succeeded in deposing all, and naming one at Constance; but that he, once named, avoided the reformations demanded, but, forced by circumstances, his successor was obliged to yield, and hold another council at Basel; that this made many reforms, and then the pope, alarmed, called the council, first to Ferrara, then to Florence; the council deposed him, and named another, and at last, both being tired, and the succeeding pope conciliatory, he confirmed the decrees of Basel and Florence, and the anti-pope resigned.

164 Since then till the Reformation the popes had it pretty much their own way; but their excessive wickedness destroyed respect for them, and the oppressions were so great, that God, arousing not princes nor the hierarchy, but simple individuals, brought about the Reformation in His own way; the selling pardons in the grossest way, to get money to build the cathedral at Rome, being — in Germany and Switzerland at least — the exciting cause. The last pope before the Reformation poisoned himself in seeking to poison his cardinals to get their money.

James. Well, to think that any one should make all this a foundation for faith and salvation! It is more likely to make an infidel.

N*. It has made, and does make, thousands and millions. Seeing all this connected with the name of Christianity, the mass of men reject it altogether with disgust, where they think at all for themselves.

James. But what do you say to this, M.? You used to talk so much of the holy Catholic church.

M. I do not know what to say. But what can a man believe?

James. He can believe what Christ and His apostles have said, and, of course, inspired men before them. These popes and others were nothing like this.

M. That is plain enough.

James. Well, see what they have said then, and if you read it, you will find it upset all the Romanist clergy say. But you were going to tell us something more of the councils, sir.

N*. What you were saying, James, was much more important. The only object of referring to them is to shew the false pretensions of Rome, who would deceive us by them. However, I will finish what I had to say, and we will then return to Milner, from which Mr. O. has diverted us, on a point Milner was, of course, careful not to touch.

165 In the Council of Nice Hosius presided under the Emperor, not the priests sent by Pope Julius, who, says the historian, was absent by reason of his great age. It was decided that Alexandria should have jurisdiction over its district, as Rome had over its own. And so at Antioch the old customs were to be maintained. It commanded that bishops should be judged by their own metropolitan. The reason I refer to this is, that the popes attempted by forgery to introduce the words, "The Roman church has always had the supremacy." In the great fourth General Council of Chalcedon the council decreed that Constantinople should have equal honours with Old Rome. The pope's legates protested, and cited the above sentence, and it was shewn by the authentic acts to be a forged interpolation, and rejected.

The pope would not receive this, but it remained part of the council's acts for all that. The pope had a council of his own at Sardica, of which I have spoken, and it was there decreed that, if there was wrong complained of on the part of a metropolitan, it should be brought to Rome, and the pope decide (not the cause, but) if there should be a new trial. This was cited as the acts of the Council of Nice, and rejected by Africa and the East as a fraud of Rome. The second General Council, that of Constantinople, decided that the patriarch of that city should have priority of honour after Old Rome, because it was New Rome, resting the precedency of honour on the importance of the city only — a thing impossible if it had been an idea of necessary supremacy, as Peter's chair. But let us only recollect the Lord's words, "But it shall not be so among you; for he that will be great among you, let him be last of all, and servant of all," and we shall soon feel what the true character of these claims is — the world and Satan, and nothing else.

Ephesus, the third general council, decreed that nothing should be added to the creed. The great doctrinal point on which the Greek church split from Rome was the addition of filioque, "and from the Son," made to the creed. It appears to have come from Spain; and the eminent Pope Leo, a very able man, when consulted about it from France, said the doctrine was right, but that it ought not to be added to the creed. Yet this remains one great point of difference between East and West to this day. So little is there any certainty of faith to be found in this way, so false is it, that if we have scripture we can have what was held always, everywhere, and by all, unless they departed from the faith once delivered to the saints. The rule is true, not because that universality gives authority, for the church only receives truth, but if it was always held it was held by the inspired authors at the first, who received the revelation from God, and hence, and hence only, has authority. And the simple way of knowing what they held is by seeing what they teach. Holding gives no authority; revelation does. Hence we have what is certain in scripture, and nowhere else.

166 I might go into a mass of details, but I do not know that we should gain anything by it. We have seen enough to understand clearly that church authority is no security in matters of faith, though we may rejoice when its teachers teach the truth, and listen to them according to their gift with thankful deference. But there is no rule of faith to be found here.

M. Well, I am sure I am all at sea: excuse me, sir.

N*. It is no wonder. You have no faith of your own; a Romanist, as such, never has; he believes by another whom he calls his pastor, or the church, without knowing what it is. When he is shaken in that, he has no foundation for anything, and that is just now your case. But you had never any faith of your own; you thought what the church taught was right, but you had nothing from God — no real faith.

M. I see James has a certainty about what he believes that I do not understand — that I used to call presumption. I used to be certain that what Mr. O., or the church taught must be right, and so I received it; but I did not know anything as believing it from God, as if God had taught me. And the scriptures were a dead letter for me — a book for the clergy to explain.

N*. Look for it now, M. "If a man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." On this point Rome is infidel and contemptuous. God has ordained gifts of ministry, pastors and teachers, to be helpful to His saints, as evangelists to preach to the world, and we should be thankful for them, and pray to Him to send out labourers into His vineyard. But it is one of the distinctive promises we enjoy, "they shall be all taught of God." Rome confines the action of the Spirit to the clergy. Now God has given a ministry; but if a man be not personally taught of God, he knows nothing with divine faith at all, supposing even he heard it rightly from his clergy, and took for granted it was true, and never doubted it. It is to all the saints, yea, especially to the babes in Christ, that the apostle says, in order to encourage them, and throw them on their own responsibility, "ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." The doctrine of the Holy Spirit's working in grace in the soul, that our faith may be real, is of vital importance. To deny it is to deny that grace — is what is called in theology the Pelagian heresy, and of that Rome is guilty.

167 If it does work, it works holily, it makes us humble, because it applies the word to the conscience, does not give us opinions, or make us judge the word, but makes the word judge us. It is by this it is an "engrafted word," "effectual in them that believe," faith mixed with it, as the scripture speaks. The word without the Spirit remains a dead letter. If we speak of the Spirit without the word, we may be taking our own imaginations for a guide. The word by the Spirit is saving, and brings divine light into the soul. We have discussed the truth of this point. I refer to it here for its practical importance. A man may be orthodox without it, but he cannot have faith. The word cannot be a living word without it. "Whosoever," says the Lord, "hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me." Grace, remember, M., is needed. With this the scriptures, the word of God, will be alike living and certain for the soul.

M. Well, I think I will read them, at any rate. But should I read the Protestant one or the Catholic?

N*. Read both. The Authorized Version is incomparably superior. They have left hard words on purpose in the Douay, and in some passages mischievous expressions, and inconsistent with their own doctrine. Thus, "Do penance and be baptized," for in their system penance is a sacrament that comes after baptism. It is a translation of a translation; but I say read both, because you will soon see, with God's grace, what the truth of God is, and the Douay will shew you that the truth is in the other too.

But we must now separate; if spared, we will go on on other points to find the true rule of faith.

M. and James. Good day, sir.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Fifth Conversation

Holiness

J. N. Darby.

<22003E> 168

N*. Well, M., if you are so disposed, I will come and see you, and look more into this matter. If Mr. O. still deign to visit and seek to keep you, or recover you to his communion, we shall have the matter fairly discussed; and if not, we have "Milner," the book which led you to go over to the Roman communion, and which is commonly used to lead others the same way.

Bill M. I shall be very glad to see you, sir, for I feel more in confusion than ever I did, and begin to feel it is not such a light thing to settle the ground of one's faith. There are things I never heard or knew of; I do not see clear, but maybe I acted hastily. I do not think I could do so now. I think James has a kind of happiness, and a certainty too, that I do not know anything about. I do not want to doubt the word of God, but I have not the kind of faith in it he has, which makes him so sure of everything he finds in it. I do not understand how he can be; yet, to be sure, one ought, if it is the word of God. But, to say the truth, I never studied it; so it is no great wonder perhaps. Any way, I should like to know the bottom of it; and I am sure Father O. will come to call me to account, and he will hardly come here again; so if you will kindly come, sir, I shall be glad.

N*. You need the grace of God with the word, M. — just as Christ opened the disciples' understanding — to understand the scriptures. If you look to Him, He will give it to you. It is written, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him."

Bill M. Is that in scripture?

N*. Yes; in the Epistle of James 1: 5.

Bill M. Well, it gives comfortable words, any way; it is not hard on you, like the priest.

N*. It would be far happier to look directly into the contents of that blessed book, where God has given us His own thoughts in the midst of the darkness of this world, and told us, especially in these last and evil days, when there is a form of godliness, and the power of it denied, to have recourse to it; but I suppose we must go into all they have to allege as the ground of faith, and see whether it is solid. That the scriptures are, they do not deny — remember that; and we can examine all by them, as we have already done as to many points. The scriptures, we are sure, are divine; they do not deny it, only they say you cannot understand them. Why unwritten traditions should be easier or surer, it would be hard to say. The Lord treats tradition in His day as most mischievous and evil. However, we can go into all this if we meet. I shall be very glad to come and see you, and we will examine all that is to be said for the system which they uphold. Good-night to you all now.

169 Bill M. Good-night, sir.

James. Well, Bill, I should have liked to have heard it all; but if it is useful to you I am content, and my mind is at rest, and it might be curiosity on my part; for I see now that it is not the true doctrine of salvation they have, and the rest is not so much matter. They would save us by works and ordinances, and that is not God's way; and, after all, they do not know whether they are saved or not, and God never meant us to be in misery that way; and a man that has his conscience awakened, and judgment before him, must be miserable till he knows he is in God's favour — till his conscience is purged, and he has peace with God; and scripture is as plain as can be as to that, just as plain as it is that we must lead a godly life. But there was a thing Mr. N*. said to me which made plain where that came in, as plain as anything can be, only we have no sense really in the things of God till He teaches us. It was this, Bill: that a man's duties flow from the place he is already in; they cannot be the means of getting it, or they would not be duties. A man's child, or his servant, or his wife, has to obey and be dutiful because they are his child, and so on. What they are bound to do could not be their duty if they were not children, or servants, or wife. Now, if I am a child of God, as scripture speaks, and know I am one, that is the very reason I am bound to behave as a child. That is my duty, and cannot be my duty till I am one, and then we get strength as well as the duty. Scripture says, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under law, but under grace," and "My grace is sufficient for you." So it is just when I know I am a child of God that my duty becomes clear.

170 Bill M. But you do not mean to say we may do as we like till we are what you call children of God?

James. Nay, nay; but we have done what we liked, a deal too much, little else when we could; but on that ground we are lost. Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. But I was answering what has been said — that, if I know I am saved, I can go on as I like after; whereas, if I am saved, I am a child of God, and all my duties as a child of God just begin then. Instead of doing as I like, I am bound to walk, not merely as an honest man, but as a child of God, because I am one; and then that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and delights in the things of God, though he may have to resist temptations from within and from without, and, if he is not watchful, he will fail. And then they that are after the Spirit mind the things of the Spirit. But I speak of duty.

Bill M. Well, that is plain enough, that if we are in a place, the duties of the place belong to us, and we are bound to fulfil them. But, as for me, I want to know how to get into the place. Not that I understand well what it is, either; and I do not understand how you can be so sure of yourself

James. Not of myself, as you mean the words, Bill; God forbid! but I am sure of what God says. True, the grace and Spirit of God must work to dispose our hearts to care for such things, and to give us understanding with such hearts and minds as we have; but the thing in itself is very simple. As scripture speaks, when I receive the Lord's testimony, I set to my seal that God is true, and hence am fully assured of what I find in His word.

Bill M. Of course what God says is true; that is plain enough.

James. Well, if Christ, or even His apostles, have said anything, it is God's word, and we have to believe it.

Bill M. Of course, if we know what they have said.

James. Well, there it is. The Spirit and grace of God bring the word of God home as His word to the heart. It is not my poor wits setting up to judge about it, or teach; a great deal I do not understand yet, and I must wait and hope to get on; but the word comes down on me and tells me what I am (and I know it is true), and what God is and His holiness and love and judgment of sin are revealed to my soul. Now I find there that by Christ all that believe are justified from all things; that He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification; that he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; that God will remember their sins and iniquities no more; and many, many more comfortable words, and I believe them — I am sure they are true, because God has said so — just as sure as I am that, if God had entered into judgment with me for my sins, I should have been lost. I know I was lost in my sins, but Christ came to seek and to save what was lost, and died for our sins, according to the scriptures. I believe in Him. I know He is the Son of God, and God has pronounced His judgment on those that believe in Him, that they are justified and have eternal life; and I believe Him with all my heart. And it is because I see that He has His own self borne our sins in His own body on the tree that I have peace with God. That I could not say till I believed in Him, but I can say it now.

171 Bill M. Well, I can't say it: of course if you can, you must be happy; anybody would.

James. I understand that too; I could not myself once, but God is very gracious, Bill. I was no better, and in myself am no better, than you. I do not say you see clear, but I believe you are a changed man, Bill — thank God for it.

Bill M. Well, I do not see that I am changed, unless it is to be worse, and more unhappy than I was.

James. That is the very reason I say you are changed. You have found out somehow that there is badness in you, and it makes you unhappy. It is not flippantly judging me because I trust with assurance in the Lord Jesus, nor talking of the church that you know nothing about for yourself, only repeating it from others who had got hold of your mind. Now there is a real want in your own soul of something better, and of peace; that is what the Holy Spirit always produces in us. It is not levity and judgment of others He puts into us, but a want in our hearts, and tenderness of conscience; and the gracious God will surely meet such a want, and make all plain in His own wise time. Doubtless, you may get help from others, as I did; but the work within is all His own. Till that is done, nothing is done; and He will do it for you, Bill. I feel confident the Lord is leading you on in His own blessed grace.

Bill M. I hope He may. I am not there yet; but I do feel different towards you and in myself too; and somehow my confidence is shaken in Father O. Still I am afraid of denying the true church. The Lord guide me right.

James. He will, He will, Bill; trust Him for it.

172 Bill M. Well, good-night now; I must be home. But I'll let you know how it all goes on.

James. Good-night, Bill. The Lord be with you.

________

Bill M. Good evening, Mr. O., will you kindly sit down. I am thankful to you for coming to see me; and Mr. N*., as I mentioned to you, is here.

Father O. I am sure it is of very little use arguing on these subjects; but I was willing to make one effort to save you from abandoning the church and ruining your soul for ever. For it is certain, as the holy fathers have said, that he who has not the church for his mother has not God for his Father. But I have little hope of you; for when once a person has begun to judge for himself and despise the faith of all holy men in all ages, to say nothing of the authority of the church, he proves himself to be in a state of pride, which makes him incapable of receiving the truth at all. However, the good shepherd will care for his flock, and I have consented to make one effort more. I had indeed much rather have seen you at my house, where I could have spoken seriously to you without any controversy; and this gentleman — I say it without wishing to be guilty of any offence — is a confirmed heretic, which makes it a still more unsatisfactory way of treating these holy subjects. However I have consented to make a last effort to rescue you from falling down the fatal precipice, on whose edge you are standing; only remember that eternity is before you. This world will soon pass away, and if you are not in the true church, then where will your soul be? Remember what a solemn and terrible thought eternity is, and think of your soul's salvation, and let no carnal or interested motives come in competition with that.

Bill M. Well, Mr. O., I have just begun to get really anxious about my salvation. As to interested motives, I can honestly eat my bread, any way, and nobody has offered me anything to go back to where I was. And one thing that greatly attracted me to the Catholics was, that they were so kind to me. I am much obliged to them, but that won't save a man's soul. As to eternity, I begin to feel it is a very solemn thing; and it is not only dread I feel, for that is all it was when I turned Catholic, but I want to be saved. Now James and this gentleman tell me, and bring scripture for it, that if a man believes in the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart, he will be saved; and that if any one has the Spirit of Christ, he belongs to the true church; that all such are united to Christ, who is the head of the church, and that their lives will prove whether this is really so; and you tell me that I must belong to the one true holy Roman Catholic and apostolic church, or I cannot be saved, and I want to know the truth of it. I see what this gentleman says is in scripture; but then I have been brought to think there must be a true church, and I should not like to be out of it; and what is the true church is the very thing I have to learn.

173 Father O. It is just this pretending to read and judge of scripture which will be the ruin of you. How do you know whether it is true, or how can you get at the right sense of it? St. Augustine says he would not have received the gospel but for the church. And then, besides that, you have only got a false translation.

Bill M. Excuse me, Father O., I have got the Catholic Testament as well as the Protestant one, and it is what has troubled me more than ever, because, though there are hard words I do not understand in the one you approve of, and it is not such fine reading as the Protestant, yet one sees in a minute it is the same thing in the main — different words sometimes, but the same book. I do not pretend to judge all about it, of course; but I can see that the truths they insist upon are in your Testament as in theirs. I found, where it was said in the Protestant Testament, there is no more offering for sin, it is said in the other, there is no more oblation for sin. And then, too, that He should not offer Himself often, for then He ought to have suffered often; and that dashed me greatly about the Mass that I used to think so much of. And it says in your Testament, too, that by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and that is just what James tells me. And then, too, I found in your Testament that it is said, he that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life; and, I believe in the Son of God sure enough, and why should I not believe I have eternal life too? I do not see clear, that is true, for I know I am not what I ought to be; but there is what they tell me in what you say is the word of God, and the true translation.

Father O. How should you be clear, pretending to judge all these things, and perplexing your mind with what you are quite unable to interpret, ignorant as you are? We had better see at once what the true church is, and then you will be rightly guided. There is no end of disputing out of scripture. Why there is no end of sects and heresies, and all come from the Bible.

174 Bill M. If you please, sir, I shall be very glad to hear about the church; but you will allow me to say, sir, that I do not find what I was saying so hard to understand, not harder than many things you say, nor so hard. When it says, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, it is a great comfort, but it is not hard to understand. I may doubt sometimes, if I really believe, when I see how bad I am, though I do not think I can doubt it; but the words are plain enough. And when it is said there is no more oblation for sin where there is remission of sins, it is plain enough too, and I do not see how the Mass can be true; and I see then that, if there was another oblation, it must have been a real one, and that therefore Christ must have suffered, and He cannot do that in the Mass. As to Augustine, I do not know anything about him, but these things I read in the scriptures that the church has given us.

Father O. Who gave them to you? You are not properly prepared to read them; you are not in a state of mind, docile and subject to the church, to do it properly, and so are perplexing yourself. And the Council of Trent very justly forbids any having them without a written permission from his pastor, and I never gave you one; and we may see in your case the wisdom of the church making such an order.

Bill M. And why may I not read them if they are the word of God, and I have read them in a copy approved by the church? There it is with Archbishop Troy's sanction. And the pope says there that we should above all read the holy scriptures. And I cannot see, if God has written so many blessed things for us, so many good words of the Lord Jesus, and the letters of apostles, why those who want to be saved, and know God's will, should not read them. It looks strange.

Father O. They are given to the church, and she dispenses the food in due season.

Bill M. But am I not in the true church if I am a Catholic? and yet it is only we that are not allowed to read them.

Father O. You will get from your pastors meat in due season.

175 Bill M. But I want to know what God has said Himself, and why may not I know that? Why should my pastor keep that from me?

Father O. Because there are things you cannot understand, and will pervert; as St. Peter says, "which the unstable and unlearned wrest to their own destruction."

Bill M. That is a very solemn warning surely, sir, not to let one's mind be prying and judging beyond one's depth; but if we only want humbly to learn, and not to twist anything, may not one trust in God's goodness to keep one from rashness, and pretending to go out of one's depth? I only want to know God's truth; and will He not give me it? I remember hearing of Mary that sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. May not I do that, and believe He will teach me too? Surely His words will not lead me astray, if I only listen to Him, to learn from Him.

Father O. But you do not know what part of His words to take. He could tell Mary just what was fitting for her, and how do you know what is fit for you? It is this wilfulness and presumption that is ruining you.

Bill M. I do not wish to be presumptuous, sir; I shall be very thankful to be helped, and I do not doubt a great many could do that. Only I do not want to be shut out from the word of God, and not hear what Christ and His apostles say.

Father O. Well, if you listen to the church, you will get just what is fit for you, and you will be helped. It is just what I have been insisting on with you.

Bill M. Yes, but you want me to hear the church, instead of having what God says for myself, having it direct from Himself; and that is what I feel I want, and begin to have a great desire for, though very thankful to hear what you, or any that knows better than me, can say to help me, only so as I have the word of God itself; and what even as your own archbishop says is the right reading. And forgive me, sir, if I make bold to say a word as to twisting the scripture. That warning comes from scripture, does it not?

Father O. Yes, from 2 Peter 3: 16; and do you take heed to it.

Bill M. But then the scripture comes to save us from the danger. The scripture itself stops us, and corrects us, if we are willing to mind it, where we might otherwise go astray. If I began to pry into things too deep for me, and hard to be understood, the scripture itself is there, if I mind it, to stop me. It does not tell the people not to read them, but God writes in the scripture what is necessary to guard them against the danger. So I see it is good to read it all, though I may not be able to understand it all, as I am not; one learns nothing all at once. And I begin to feel one may trust to the grace of God to help one. You will forgive my saying so much, sir, but my heart is getting concerned in it; and I have found, now I have read in the Testament, a great deal I cannot understand, and I am obliged to leave it, hoping I may; but a great deal that is very plain, and holy, and very comforting, which shews how gracious the blessed Lord Jesus is to poor sinners, and how He never turned them away; and a great deal that is uncommon comforting, though it pierces one's conscience through, too, very often. But I beg your pardon, sir; I was just letting out what was in my heart, and I will listen to all you have to say.

176 Father O. It is little use when once you have got into this sort of confidence in yourself, and talk about the word of God as if you were a learned man, when you can know nothing about it. But I came to speak of the church, and the right it has to be heard and obeyed. It just shews what you are, pretending thus to reason and teach those who must know better than you. But I will shew you what the proofs of the church are, and, as I have told you, if you are not in that, there is no salvation for you. You ought to know all this, and you have learnt it, and that is what makes me tremble for you. And I must beg not to be interrupted, neither by you nor by this gentleman — though I do not know if I ought to have consented to speak before one who is evidently rooted (if any such falsehood can have a root) in his heretical views — while I set before you the plain irrefragable proofs of the one true church, and that that church is the church of Rome.

N*. I will not interrupt you, sir. It is quite fair you should have opportunity to say all you wish, and as fully as you please. I will examine what you say on each point when you have done.

Father O. I will proceed, then, to state the grounds on which everyone is bound to receive the Catholic church as the only true one, and out of which there is no salvation, as the Fathers all testify. So says Irena us, so Cyprian, so Augustine, so St. John Chrysostom. All declare emphatically that salvation belongs to the church alone.* And if you take the views which all Christendom acknowledges, we shall easily find the marks by which it is known.

{*Milner's "End of Controversy," lib. 2, c. 13.}

177 The Apostles' Creed says, "I believe in the holy Catholic church," and the Nicene, "one Catholic and apostolic church."* The church, then, is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

{*Milner's "End of Controversy," lib. 2, C. 14.}

Now if we look amongst the rival communions, we shall have no ground to hesitate a moment as to which is the true church. In the Catholic church alone you find unity of doctrine, of all that is essential in her worship and in her ecclesiastical constitution and government. Her doctrine is the same from the Council of Nice to the Council of Trent. Every Catholic — English, Indian, Canadian, and of whatever nation under the sun — will join in the same worship in any Catholic chapel here. So, wherever they are, the faithful submit to their pastors, the pastor to his bishop, the bishop to the supremacy of the successor of St. Peter. Take the most ignorant Catholics, they are alike in doctrine substantially; and, however ignorant, will declare their belief in this — I believe whatever the holy Catholic church believes and teaches. Whereas Protestants are split up into a hundred sects, and the same sect varies in its doctrine from one century to another. I must be brief; but the statements I have made are corroborated by facts which everyone can take cognizance of; he has only to ask the first Catholic he meets, or attend the service in any Catholic place of worship.

The next mark is that it is the holy Catholic church. That the church should be holy no Christian can deny; as belonging to God, and sanctified by Christ, to present to Himself without spot; Eph. 5: 25-27.

The Catholic church is holy in doctrine, in the means of holiness, in the fruits of holiness, and, lastly, in the divine testimony of holiness. She is holy in doctrine, especially in that of the Unity and Trinity, in the incarnation, death, and atonement of the Son of God. And she has always been the same. If she was holy in doctrine in the apostles' age, she is holy in it now.

Next, she is holy in the means of holiness; and the principal and most efficacious means are the sacraments, which the Protestants have reduced to two; but all other communions — Greek, Nestorian, Eutychian, Russian, Armenian, Coptic,Ethiopian — before as after their defections, agree with Catholics in making them to be seven. By these all the wants of Catholics are supplied, and the faithful, having free will, and not putting an obstacle in the way, through them have justification, or sanctification, conferred and increased. The fruits of holiness are to be seen in a multitude of saints, in all ages, whose names would be far too many to enumerate here, but whose sanctity has been attested by the miracles they have performed. These last are a divine attestation of sanctity, and have been the stamp of approval and divine recognition put upon the Catholic church in all ages.

178 I might add other marks, as antiquity, the confession of enemies; but they would only be the development of those I have noted, and it is needless. These are a sufficient proof to a reasonable mind that the Catholic church alone is the church of God, out of which there is no salvation; a doctrine which, however obnoxious, is held by St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, and the early Fathers; and is stated in the strongest language. It is this one only Holy Catholic Apostolic church, called Roman, because the supreme pontiff and successor of St. Peter has his See in Rome; into which you, M., had been graciously brought, out of one of the various sects of Protestants which condemn each other, which are confessedly of yesterday; have no pretension to be Catholic, confess they have no miracles; and whose doctrine, or at least what it was at the outset — for they fall into every sort of opinion — is utterly immoral: that no matter how great a sinner any man is, if he believes, he is saved; who have rejected five sacraments, and of the two they profess, have made one a mere memorial, contrary to scripture; and if the other remains, it is administered with such carelessness that we can hardly practically say whether anyone among them has the benefit of it nor not.

And it is not only antiquity, to which I briefly alluded, but an uninterrupted succession of prelates in every see, and especially at Rome, from the apostles and their successors; at Rome from the prince of the apostles down to this day; and we have the record of all their names, preserving the transmission of both grace and truth to us. Take care you do not fall from this one place of safety into the uncertainty and darkness of that from which you have been delivered. My object is to warn you; I might multiply proofs; they may be seen in Milner, more largely in Bellarmine; one you have read, and your very catechism teaches you the same. If you do not receive proofs so plain, no reasoning of mine could hinder your ruin. I have done. Of course, sir, you can now say what you wish. But I must beg you to keep to the point, and not launch out into vague charges; but shew where unity, catholicity, sanctity, and apostolicity, are found elsewhere than in the holy Roman Catholic church.

179 N*. Well, Mr. O., we have patiently listened to you, and you have given us a summary of Milner, or indeed what may, as you say, be found briefly in any Roman Catholic catechism — the common doctrine of the Roman Catholic body, though of course more fully developed in one book than in another. As to Indians, Americans, Canadians, etc., all coming to the same worship, there is a very simple reason for it; they are all on the same ground. Not one understands a word that is said, for it is all in Latin, and where the service is only an outward form, kneeling to a wafer when a bell rings, of course all can do it together. But there is a point which you have assumed, which, when I have answered your statements, I shall touch upon: whether God has not shewn us in His word that through the sin of man the church outwardly in this world would lose this unity and catholicity of character and sanctity too. Not surely that the unity of the body of Christ as built up by Him for eternity would be lost. That cannot fail, nor the gates of hell prevail against it; but does that blessed security, assured by Christ's power to what He builds, affirm that, as an outward body and whole system in the world trusted to man's faithfulness, it would continue in its integrity to the end? I affirm that God in His word teaches us the contrary. There is another point which presses very strongly upon me, which I will with the Lord's help touch upon. It will suffice to speak of it at the close as a most weighty one, and as to which the ground on which the Roman argument stands is profane.

Father O. Profane!

N*. I do not use it as a hard word, but as the one which expresses strictly my meaning. We shall see whether it be just when we come to it. But I will first reply to the pretensions of unity, catholicity, etc., directly.

Father O. That is the best way. And I must beg you to be as brief as you can. I cannot give up all my time to a fruitless discussion.

180 N*. I will try to be brief. But it takes more time to disprove a statement than to assert it. When you say that the succession of Roman pontiffs, of whom Milner gives a list, is known from Peter to Pius IX, it is easy to say it, and Dr. Milner may make a fair show of it without betraying the weak points of it, but I cannot reply without shewing them. It is to me quite indifferent whether they have so succeeded or not. Truth is in God's word, not in a succession of prelates. Still I am to answer you, and consequently must go into the facts. However I will be as brief as I can. And forgive me if I use the word ridiculous. The statement as to unity and catholicity seems to me to be such. You tell me we are to see which of rival communions is one and Catholic. Now, if there are rival communions, there is neither unity nor catholicity. I do not say that the fact of heresies existing, where individuals have been excluded for denying fundamental truths, in the least affects unity or catholicity, because the one Catholic body, if such there be, has done its duty, and rejected a sectarian head of error. There is in such case a one Catholic body out of which he is put.

But that is not the case we have to consider. You call upon our friend M. here to leave the body he was in, and to choose, on certain grounds, another. He has to choose between rival communions. If he takes his own sphere of knowledge, he finds your sect a very small minority, and your place of worship called a chapel, and the one he is leaving, the church. If I go beyond his field of view, then I find rather the majority of Christians condemning your sect, and the pope's claims as corrupt, false, and unfounded, and by a vast body of Christians held to be the corrupt Babylon of scripture. If he goes to the United States, every place of worship is alike called a church. The greater part of Europe and Asia hold your pretensions to be false.

Not only that: I find the most ancient churches as to which you often allege that they agree with you against Protestants, the churches founded by the apostles, and before Rome, refusing communion with you, denying some of your doctrines, refusing your claims of supremacy for Rome altogether; you call them schismatic. But if they are more ancient than you, and some sixty millions of Christians, and a hierarchy pretending with good reason to be yet older than yours, and even as to Peter insisting that they are in possession of his most ancient see, Antioch, how am I to know you are not the schismatics? One thing is certain, that, besides some eighty or ninety million Protestant-professing Christians, there are all the Greeks, more ancient than yourselves.

181 I do not here decide who is right, but this is a clear matter of fact, that there is no catholicity to be found, nor unity. It is a palpable falsehood as to fact if I look at the outward professing body. You insist on the word Catholic, and on your adversaries admitting the term; this is equally false. The Greeks never call you Catholics, nor intelligent Protestants either, and were it otherwise it would be no more than calling Protestant places of worship churches, and yours and others' chapels; it proves really nothing. To use a lawyer's maxim: Allegatio ejusdem rei cujus dissolutio petitur, nil valet (to allege that as proof which is the thing sought to be disproved has no force). There is the Greek body, the Latin body, the Established church, the Lutherans of Germany, each established in different countries, in America all on the same footing. Unity or catholicity does not exist. You know as well as I do that all I say is the simple fact.

Father O. Yes, but the Catholic church maintains unity in itself.

N*. You allege you are at unity among yourselves. A little body like the Moravians could say as much. It proves nothing. This I admit, that the Roman system is admirably organized, that centralization* (which was in no way the case in the early ages) has been carried out with admirable skill. That its leaders have known how to draw into its effective force the means at its disposal in an admirable way as to skill, that it has used its power over the populations to make kings and the civil power subservient to it, is all true. Every intelligent person is aware of and owns this. There have been serious divisions within itself, as Gallicanism, Jansenism, etc. It does not hold on some really important points what its greatest doctors once held, and as to many of its own dogmas, there have been great changes. I do not mean from original truth now, from which it has fatally departed, for that is not our subject, but on the seat of religious authority, which, in its present form, dates only from the Council of Trent; upon the doctrine of election, as to which Thomists and Scotists, Dominicans and Franciscans, have been altogether divided, as they were upon the immaculate conception. I do not insist upon them because the papacy has succeeded in reducing them all to order. Centralized power has prevailed. As to infallibility and the seat of certain truth, surely an important point, the Roman creed is not quite one year old at the present moment, and general councils confirmed by popes held to be in error. On the immaculate conception some eight or ten years old; on transubstantiation some six hundred and fifty. Still the pope has succeeded in bringing all the Roman body into unity of dependence on himself, and he can decree what he likes as a matter of faith, but only for his own body. The Greeks reject his authority and doctrine, the Protestants look with horror on his taking a place which belongs to God only, that is, the greater part of professing Christendom. Unity and catholicity do not exist. But you seem to wish to make some remark. It will not interrupt me.

{*This centralization has been very diligently carried out. Not only in early ages was one universal episcopacy insisted on, contrasted with central power, but in details the process of centralization has been carried on. After canonization of saints came in, prelates besides the pope did it till a decree of a pope in the middle ages appropriated it to the See of Rome. So with indulgences, all prelates gave or sold them. That too was appropriated by the pope.}

182 Father O. Merely that while you admit the Catholic system has resulted in unity and subordination, and, I add, to Christ's vicar upon earth, the Protestant has issued not merely in a multitude of sects, but in rationalism so-called and infidelity.

N*. Forgive, me, I deny the contrast altogether. Protestantism has produced such fruits; that is, the mind of man, breaking loose from the authority of God's word, has taken its own thoughts as its guide, and pretends to judge God and the revelation He has given of Himself. But the mind of man in popish countries has done the same with the authority of what you call the church, and with the word, too. Infidelity is far more general, I do not hesitate to say, in many Roman Catholic countries, than in Protestant ones. I am not at all denying the great evil that exists in the latter. It is more published perhaps in Protestant countries because there is more intellectual activity and greater freedom. Nor is it only my own judgment that I express. Not only the French Revolution was in a Roman Catholic country, and spread its principles over such; but, in more modern times when the violent reaction against the papal system was over, Gregory XVI gives us this account in his Encyclical letter of 1832, "We speak, venerable brethren, that which ye behold with your own eyes; which therefore we deplore with united tears. An unrestrained wickedness, a shameless science, a dissolute licentiousness, are triumphant. The sanctity of holy things is despised! . . ." After stating that the church was exposed to the hatred of the people, he adds, "the academies and schools resounded in a dreadful manner with new and monstrous opinions, by which the Catholic faith is no longer assailed secretly and by mining, but a horrible and impious war is now openly waged against it," and then refers to "attacks on the order of the church by members of the clergy and associations of them."

183 You see, while I recognize the deadly evil of infidelity and corruption, the Roman Catholic nations are not more exempt from them than the Protestant. Nay, no man acquainted with Roman Catholic and Protestant countries but knows that faith and morality are more common in the masses in Protestant than in Roman Catholic countries. Abject superstition, devotion if you please to call it so, is to be found in the darker parts of the land in Roman Catholic countries, but closely connected very commonly with violence and corruption. The Italian brigands are most devout, and in Spain houses of ill fame supply the needed certificate of priestly absolution to commercial travellers who never troubled themselves with priests, when these documents were needed for their journey off the great routes. Whether the recent revolution has made a change I cannot tell. But no one can have been in Western papal Europe without knowing the universal spread of infidelity where there was any energy of civilization, and the degradation and corruption which pervades those countries. This is not in the same way the case in Protestant Europe. Plenty of evil I full admit. Scripture predicts an apostasy and I doubt not we are in the high road to it. But if we are forced to compare them, the evil is greater in Roman Catholic countries. I have replied to your remark, but we were speaking of unity and catholicity.

Wherever external Christendom exists, the Greeks, whom you call schismatics, but who are older than you, have the same succession to boast of. They do not call you Catholic, but the Latin or Western church, and declare you have departed from the truth. It is in vain to say they hold, as against Protestants, the same truth as you do. It only strengthens my argument, that unity is gone, and consequently catholicity. And your friend, Dr. Milner, knows it well and feels it, so that, as I said, what he says is plain self-contradiction even to absurdity. He tells us the true church is Catholic or universal in three several respects — as to persons, as to places, as to times. It consists of the most numerous body of Christians, it is more or less diffused wherever Christianity prevails, and it has visibly existed ever since the time of the apostles. Now this last it partakes with a body half as large as itself, the Greek church — the more ancient of the two. This therefore gives me no help in discovering which is right. But we seek what is universal, and I am told it consists of the most numerous body of Christians. That is, it is not universal as to persons — nay, very far from it indeed. As to places, it is more or less diffused wherever Christianity prevails; that is, again, it is not universal. In fact, in many countries, it is a very small minority. But on the face of the argument it breaks down altogether. It constitutes the main stock of Christianity. But if it is only the main stock, it is not Catholic.

184 I conclude, what every one who is acquainted with the facts knows, that unity and catholicity are not to be found embodied anywhere in Christendom. Whoever be right and whoever be wrong, the unity does not exist, and the Roman or Latin body is not Catholic because it is Roman or Latin, as constantly called by itself, by popes, and councils. When it insisted on Rome's being supreme, catholicity and unity departed, even in outward form, from Christendom. All the tirade of Dr. Milner on free will and Calvinism I pass over as being a question of doctrine; only saying that he is here really dishonest, for he knows as well as I do that Augustine (the most eminent and influential perhaps of all the Latin fathers) held it, and that it was the doctrine of T. Aquinas and of all the Dominicans, that is, of all the greatest doctors of Rome in her most flourishing state. Dr. Milner treats it as something frightful, and spends pages on it in order to attack the Protestants. I offer no comment on the question now. But if it be so horrible ('no impiety can be more execrable' he tells us) he condemns the most famous doctors of Rome; the most famous father of the church, and, till the Jesuits arose, the most famous order of the monks. This is strange unity. I might quote a host of the most celebrated prelates of those ages who held it.

185 Father O. But the church never held it as her faith.

N*. I did not say she had; I only say that Dr. Milner conceals the fact that the most famous doctors and ecclesiastical body, the judges of heretical pravity, held this view, which he charges on Protestants as having held and given up. If it be so, which universally they have not, they would only have done what (according to you in point of fact, though there may be no decree upon it) Rome has done.

But we were speaking of unity and catholicity, and on these points I have done. It is clear from facts that there is none such to be found in the external body of Christendom.

Father O. Then the gates of hell have prevailed against it, which is impossible.

N*. By no means: Christ will build His church in spite of all this sad and humbling failure of man. Of this I will speak. All we have found now is that by your own admission, and by the force of facts, Rome is not that church and because (mark it) she is Rome. The existence of the Greek church, to say nothing of the claims of Protestants or the English episcopacy, is a standing protest against the claims of Rome to Catholic unity. I only add here that I have accepted your four marks of the true church which are those of Milner, and generally given. Were I to search further, my objections on the one hand, and, if I were inquiring, my difficulties, would be proportionately multiplied. Bellarmine (lib. 4, cap. 3, 3, 4) tells us that these marks are variously designated and enumerated by different persons: for Augustine there are six, for Jerome two, Vincentius, three. Of the moderns, one gives three others; Cardinal Hozius four, Sanders six others, Medina has given ten, adding an eleventh in another place, another (he thinks) thirteen. Bellarmine himself gives fifteen. Now, if a sincere soul is seeking to find the true church on your plan, in what confusion he finds himself! How can he find the grounds of a divine faith here? Your doctors give him different marks of the true church, and, if he has found out half, perhaps he cannot make out the rest.

But, further, to say that he has found the church by them, either he must take for granted the whole matter, or know the history of the church in all ages, or how can he tell they are there? How can he tell whether Rome has had always the same doctrine? How can he tell whether Vincentius' rule "what everywhere, what always, what by all" has been verified? The last statement of the rule he knows cannot be true, for common doctrines are not held by all now, or he would not be inquiring. And in all the North of Europe, and North America, all the most learned men will tell him, Rome, as to her distinctive doctrines, does not hold what was held at first. But, when he looks into his Bible, he finds the truth for himself. At any rate he is lost in finding that the greatest doctors have different sets of marks, some of which he knows do not hold good. And this leads me to the point I said I would touch upon, and which I have already alluded to in our conversations, but which comes in naturally here and I return to it as of all importance.

186 Rome, by the confession of her own teachers, has no divine ground of faith at all, and this in a way I call profane if God has given a testimony. Thus Bellarmine on the marks of the church, lib. 4, cap. 3, "They do not make it evidently true that it (the Catholic) is the true church of God, but they make it evidently credible." "We say therefore, that the notes of the church which we bring forward do not give evidence of the truth simply, since otherwise it would not be an article of faith, that this church is the true church. Nor would any be found who would deny it." Now the words which Bellarmine here uses prove distinctly that, on Roman Catholic principles, no article of faith can be founded on the simple evidence of truth.* That is, in Roman Catholic faith, there is no divine faith; for it would be a simple blasphemy to say that, if God had spoken, what is said is credible but not simply true. How I thank God that I believe simply in His word as His servant John the Baptist teaches: "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true."

{*Bellarmine continues — "Nor would any be found who would deny it as none is found who denies sentences which mathematicians demonstrate, but they make an evidence of credibility according to the Psalm 92: 5. Testimonia tua credibilia facta sunt nimis [a bad translation of a bad translation, the Latin from the LXX]. But with those who admit the divine scriptures, and histories, and writings of the Fathers, they make them evidence of truth. For although the truth of articles of faith cannot be absolutely evident to us, yet it can be evident to us hypothetically, that is, the truth of the scripture being supposed." (De N. E., 4, 8.) Now, several things are to be noted here. First, the scriptures must be first believed before I have the truth of the church or any marks of it. Secondly, in order to confound all divine grounds of faith, the writings of the Fathers and histories are put upon a level with God's word. Thirdly, when we have the scriptures, the marks of the church are only known by inferences deduced. It is a very solemn thought that the Roman system has no divine foundation of faith, that is, in principle, it denies the direct claim of authority of God's word over the heart of man.}

187 Nor does Mr. Newman, who became a Romanist, give any other ground for his having changed from Anglicanism to Romanism; no other ground for faith. Keble had told him it was probability as put to account by faith and love. These moral qualities, or what is called the pious affections of believing (see Pet. de Inc., 8, 12-16) I make no difficulty about, that is, a divine disposition given by grace, inclining the will, as Augustine also teaches; but their belief is only probability. Mr. N. says, "My argument is in outline as follows: — That that absolute certitude which we were able to possess, whether as to truths of natural theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result of an assemblage of concurring and converging probabilities; and that, both according to the constitution of the human mind and the will of its Maker, that certitude was a habit of mind, that certainty was a quality of propositions" (Apol. pro Vita sua, p. 70). "I say that I believed in God on a probability; that I believed in Christianity on a probability; and that I believed in Catholicism on a probability; and that all these were about the same kind of probability, a cumulative and a transcendent probability, but still probability; inasmuch as He who made us has so willed, that in mathematics indeed we arrive at certitude by rigid demonstration; but in religious inquiry we arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities; inasmuch as He who has willed that we should so act co-operates with us in our acting, and therefore bestows on us a certitude which rises higher than the logical force of our conclusions" (232). His faith, then, does not rest on divine testimony, but on logical conclusions.

Mr. Newman has since written a book (Grammar of Assent) in which he speaks of a transcendent adhesion of mind, intellectual and moral, when assent follows on a divine announcement, and a special self-protection beyond the operation of these ordinary rules of thought; but adds — which alone have a place in my discussion — from some Roman Catholic divine that faith is more certain than even natural truth; and that concerning those things which it is certain (constat) are revealed by God, no one can be disturbed. (Gram. of Assent, 180, 2nd ed.). But we have not a word how it is certain they are revealed by God, or on what faith rests. The quotation is happy as far as it goes, it would be blasphemy to say the contrary, but it does not touch the question how we get the faith. I notice it because it sounds well. But nobody in his senses would say, if it was certain that God revealed anything, anyone could doubt it. "It is impossible for God to lie," as the apostle says: the question is, what is the ground of faith? how is it certain to us? But even this question, Mr. Newman, in his new book, declares he is not writing about, but the laws of thought, on which I think him exceedingly poor and illogical, though right on some points — but that is not our question now — for he does not get beyond what he calls concrete certainty, that is, practical certainty for matters in this life, which nobody denies.

188 Dr. Milner assures us distinctly of the same thing; though he, sensible of where it placed him, seeks to smother it up in a note to make it less apparent, calling it a vulgar objection (Letter 11 on True Rule). "I believe the Catholic church; and, therefore, everything which she teaches, upon the motives of credibility, namely, her unity, sanctity, etc., which accompany her." Nothing can be clearer than that these statements shew that THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SYSTEM HAS No DIVINE GROUND OF FAITH AT ALL. All rests on motives of credibility (that is, the rules of ordinary human thought where we may be misled), not on any divine testimony. There is no divine faith. I do not deny individuals may through grace have it from God, though in the system and in spite of it; but Romanism has no divine testimony or faith as its basis for my soul, but motives of credibility only.

I am aware that Mr. Newman objects to requiring an infallible proof; that is, one as to which no doubt can exist for the infallibility of the church. But there can be no divine faith without [not indeed an infallible proof (which has no real sense), proof is only the ground of inference, which Mr. Newman justly distinguishes, but] a testimony we know to be infallible, or rather without absolute truth.

In his account of himself (Apologia pro Vitâ suâ), he openly — and his Grammar of Assent carefully, but not openly — confounds the certainty on which men have to act, and must act, with the certainty of divine faith, which is quite another thing. Chillingworth was perfectly right; but Mr. Newman never had, or has lost, the idea of what divine faith is; what it is to say, "impossible for God to lie." Not that he would deny this: but if I am not certain, with divine faith, that God has spoken, I cannot be certain of what is said, that it is divine truth. There can be no divine faith. He argues very hard for concrete certainty; that is, practical assurance on which to act; but so as to exclude divine faith. The church, I am told, tells me a book is divine; and so I have divine faith in what is said in the book. But I have, on their own shewing, only human grounds for believing that the church tells me the truth. I cannot, therefore, have certainty which is of a divine order, that God has said what is in the book; I have only a fallible, or human ground, for believing it.

189 Remark further, that the church, on its own confession, reveals nothing. It professes to be preserved in the faith and to define it when it is called in question. It is only infallible in knowing and expressing what is revealed already; that is, its representatives, or representative and head, are. The question is, ought not the church to have directly what is revealed? This is what is objected to. The faithful are incapable of understanding what Paul, and Peter, and John, or Christ Himself, said to them; though they did say it, and address it to them expressly. This is the real point. The faithful who do believe, that is the church, cannot have, without a written permission, what the apostles said and have left written for them; but of this we have spoken. Infallibility belongs to God. God has spoken and left written records of what He has addressed to the church; the church professes to reveal nothing; but only to hinder the faithful from having what God has revealed.

And remark further, that this is to get in authoritatively between God and the soul; so that God should have no direct authority over it. It is admitted that the mass of truths revealed are the matter of faith, always accepted and taught; only definition is necessary, when heresies or questions spring up; but the thing defined was always believed.

Father O. Just so.

N. But the church can have none of them directly; not even the undisputed truth, unless by written permission. Besides, I deny the fact. The pope's infallibility was never dreamt of, but denied by the early church; though when disputes as to worldly precedence began, a wholly unchristian and antichristian thing, precedence was allowed to him because he was the prelate of the ancient capital city of the empire, and expressly on this ground, and his prescribing in matters of faith, or even order in the council, or Rome's rank* is expressly denied in the Council of Chalcedon.

{*Zosimus expressly owns that the decrees of the Fathers gave Rome this place.}

190 But this is not my object now, and has been spoken of. But, if it defines what was always the faith of the church, still these things were not held as of faith before; though, if revealed to be faith, and that is what is defined, they were always of faith in nature and obligation, yet never really held and possessed by the church; nay, often denied. Thus, the infallibility of the pope is now alleged to be a matter of faith. This was denied by the assembled hierarchy representing the whole church at Constance and Basel — to say nothing of Pisa — was denied formally by the Gallican church, synodically; never held by the Greeks; and in fact denied in every possible way by the acts of all the various parts of the church; for theoretically it was never dreamt of for centuries. The Council of Chalcedon would not accept of Leo's famous letter defining the faith, when required to do so; but because it agreed with other more authoritative documents.

Now I am not discussing the infallibility, but using it to shew that the pretension to define the faith by the church is really a proof that, on matters of faith, the church, at least what has been called such, had been in error as to matters of faith; the whole, or very large parts of it, for centuries.

For the defined point was, it is alleged, matter of faith always, but not believed; often denied, till defined: as, for instance, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary; which the greatest body in the church — the authorised judges of heresy — constantly denied, and openly wrote against for five centuries, that is, almost as long as they existed, and to our own days.

Father O. Yes, but they were not obligatory as matter of faith, till they were defined.

N*. How not obligatory? Were they not always revealed, and really articles of a faith which never changes?

Father O. Yes, but till they were defined the faithful were not bound to hold them as such.

N*. Worse and worse. This is terrible. Here it is acknowledged that truths were revealed of God, always part of the faith in themselves; but, though God had revealed them, the faithful were not bound to hold them till they were defined by ecclesiastical authority. That is, God's truth when revealed is not obligatory till the church makes it so.

191 Father O. We do not say that. But it was not put forward as such till the church was obliged to define it by its being called in question.

N*. But it was revealed; and if held, the authority of the church is not necessary to receive the truth. But further, the contrary to what has been since defined has been held by large bodies of the church, or even all of it; so that the subject was before the minds of the faithful, and before doctors, and even assembled councils; and they have been in error as to matters of faith, when the question was before them.

And now tell me this, Was not every soul bound, for its salvation, to believe in the divinity of the blessed Lord before the Council of Nice? That, when truth is denied, godly care should be taken, individually and collectively, to maintain it, is all very right. But this is not the question; but whether the church's definition makes it obligatory. Were not souls bound to believe in the divinity of Christ before the Council of Nice, as a truth their soul's salvation was concerned in?

Father O. Of course they were. It was always the true faith.

N*. Very well — they were bound to believe what is divine truth before the church so called defined it. But they were not bound to believe in the immaculate conception or the pope's infallibility, and in point of fact very large bodies, counted orthodox now, hold these to be wrong, or the whole church did not hold these doctrines. Yet there was no peril of their salvation. Now there is. Nay, there were those, and many called saints among those, who openly denied what is now necessary to salvation as being of the faith, and it is alleged, always was.

It is thus evident that the whole system is false; that, according to your system, the church so called gives divine authority to these doctrines, an authority which they could not claim before, though God had revealed them. The persons might be wrong, as you say. Be it so. But the doctrines they denied had no divine claim on their faith till the so-called church gave it. They died denying it, in the odour of sanctity. You hold the faithful are bound to believe in the infallibility of the pope because the church has defined it; but that it was revealed before already, really a matter of faith, yet nobody bound to believe it. That is, God's revelation gave it no authority; the church's statement of it does. Yet even you dare not deny that there are truths which a man must believe at the peril of his soul's salvation, before even they are defined at all. You know very well that there is a faith that saves, and notions convenient at times to be established as such.

192 And here I have to accuse your writers of want of honesty, even in their statements in these matters. Thus Dr. Manning says, quite quietly, there had been eighteen councils before this last at Rome;* but says nothing of Pisa, Constance, Basel. But he cannot honestly leave them out; for parts at least of them were confirmed by the popes. They are called general by Bellarmine. Pisa deposed two popes and appointed a third, Alexander V; and the next Alexander calls himself VI, so that Bellarmine says its authority is so far owned. It is therefore neither approved nor disapproved. But then its authority was superior to the pope. The same is true of Constance. The popes have no existence but by its authority; and, as I have said, parts of it at any rate are confirmed.

{*Note this, which is the common enumeration, denies, and justly, the meeting in Acts 15 to be a general council. The list began with Nicaea.}

Many allege, from positive historical documents, that the pope did confirm it as a council. The facts are these. When all was ready for the dissolution of the council, the ambassadors of Poland and Lithuania demanded the formal condemnation of certain errors. Then follows, in the Acts of the Council (Sess. 45), "Our most holy lord the pope said, in replying to the aforesaid, that he would hold and inviolably observe all and singular the things conciliarly determined, concluded, and decreed, and never go against them in any way, and approved and ratified the things themselves so conciliarly done, and not in any other way. And that the same he caused to be said by the organ of Augustine de Pisa, the aforesaid fiscal and advocate of the sacred consistory, who, in the name of the pope, sought public instruments to be made (acts to be drawn up) by the proto-notaries, and notaries ordained and deputed to write the acts of the said council."

He further, formally, by a public act, confirmed, not only the condemnation of Huss, Jerome, and Wickliffe, but the following test of faith to whosoever was suspected of favouring them: — It contained (in what he confirmed) "whether he believes that that which the sacred Council of Constance, representing the universal church, has approved, and approves to the advantage (favorem) of faith and salvation of souls; that this is to be approved and held by all the faithful of Christ; and that what it has condemned and condemns as being contrary to faith and good morals, this is to be held, believed, and assented to by the same for condemned."

193 This the pope confirms of his proper movement and certain knowledge, with all the usual papal formalities (Hard., Conc. 9, 914). That he was an intriguing, unprincipled, tyrannical man, so that his own cardinals were against him, is true, and it was only by word of mouth he confirmed all conciliarly done, though the instruments were called for. But the testing question which owned Constance fully is signed. No honest man could deny he confirmed it. He may have meant to play fast and loose and to deceive. Did Martin declare this to be a general council or not? That he did in writing. As to order in the church, he was not pope if the council had not title to make him so. Nor is there any true succession at all. Why does Dr. Manning say there are eighteen, and keep a profound silence as to this? There are twenty-one more or less owned by Roman Catholics; but these three are (as Paul Sarpi says of one of them) one of the secrets kept close at Rome. The councils are above the popes if they are councils; the popes are not popes if they are not.

I do not go further into Basel. Bellarmine recognizes that some particular decrees were confirmed, and that it was well begun but badly ended; a singular thing, if it was under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, which, if well begun, it certainly was; and if pope and council and all can turn away from the Holy Ghost's guidance, how can we trust them? The conduct of Pope Eugenius as to it was a miserable tissue of political intrigue, and we have already spoken of it. He set up another council, and the council set up another pope, and there was a compromise. My object now is to shew that you cannot trust the statements of papal advocates, even if they are archbishops. There is no real doubt that Eugenius' friends stole the seal of the Council of Basel to use it for a decree to suit his purposes.

But we may return to the marks of the true church. We have found little security in them as yet. We have still to look at holiness and apostolicity.

194 You first allege doctrines, and speak of the Trinity and the Incarnation, death and atonement of the consubstantial Son of God. Now these are most holy and fundamental doctrines. We cannot esteem them too highly, or hold too fast to them, through grace. But where is the person, according to your system, to have learned them when he has not yet got the church? Your whole system fails in its base here. Either the seeker after the true church has learned all these immensely important, saving, and vital doctrines without the church, or cannot use them to find it. Your ground of reasoning is absurd. I can understand natural conscience making a man feel that what professes to be of God ought to be godly. But that such doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and consubstantiality of the Son are the means of judging of the true church, if the true church is to teach and give authority to the scriptures, is simply absurd.

Upon the face of it you suppose a person to be a true orthodox Christian, holding fast the deepest doctrines of Christianity, so as to use them for a test before he has found the true church, according to your view of it. He is a true, good, orthodox Christian, and all Dr. Milner's talk about finding a book printed by the king's printer, etc., is nonsense, an attempt to throw dust in people's eyes; for he supposes a man to have learned the most important truths of Christianity without the church at all, and to use them as a means to judge which is the true one.

But then he is in a greater difficulty. The Greek church holds the doctrines, the Protestant Episcopal church, the Lutheran, the Presbyterian.* So that as a means of learning which is the true church, the confession of these truths is of no avail, for many rival communions hold them. I have already remarked that the distinctive doctrines of popery are very unholy, as that the church has provided an easier way for remission than contrition, and that penance can be commuted for money.

{*That many individuals in Protestant bodies have turned infidel is sadly true, and so they have in popish countries, as Gregory XVI tells us; and in France as openly as in Protestant countries.}

Our friend Dr. Milner next comes to the means of holiness. Here we are in greater perplexity; for I must hold not only fundamental truths, but all the Roman sacramental system, to be able to find the true church. This is the cart before the horse with a vengeance.

195 Now the early church called a hundred and fifty things a sacrament — every solemn truth mysteriously expressed. And as to what is now called a sacrament, if I look at Justin Martyr,* Tertullian,** Chrysostom,*** Cyril of Jerusalem,**** Augustine,***** I find two, baptism and the Lord's Supper, distinctly referred to, and the rest ignored. Anointing accompanying baptism is spoken of as fully by Cyril or Tertullian, but no other such ordinances are taught; and Lombard does not attempt, nor does T. Aquinas (De Sacr., 45); nor I am assured (for I do not pretend to have read them all) do the rest of the schoolmen, who make seven, attempt to quote the Fathers for them. It was Lombard defined them as seven (Lib. 3, Diss. 2, etc.).

{*Second Apology, 93, 97 (Col. 1688).}

{**Tertull. De Cor. 3.}

{***Chrys. in Joannem, 85 B. or 84.}

{****Cyril, Cal. 19, sive Myst. 1 and following.}

{*****Aug. Ep. ad Januar., lib. 54.}

If I turn to scripture, which alone has authority with me, I find distinct reference in 1 Corinthians 10: 1-4, and an allusion in chapter 12: 13 to these two ordinances as characterizing Christians, while their institution by the Lord is unquestioned. Thus if I take ancient authority even — still more if I take the sure word of God — I find you wrong as to the sacraments; if I would take modern, you allege the Greek church. But this is an additional difficulty; for then how am I to choose between you by this sign? I find two who have it, and both unscriptural.

Father O. And what do you make of extreme unction?

N*. Anointing was used not for the dying, but as a sign when people were healed. Your sacrament of extreme unction has not the least ground to stand upon. Thus, in Mark 6: 13 we read, the disciples, sent forth to work miracles, anointed many that were sick with oil, and healed them. So in James, the elders of the church were by the prayer of faith to restore to health, and the Lord should raise them up. But if your anointed sick man, on the contrary, is raised up, the unction goes thenceforth for nothing; it is only pretended to wipe away the remains of sin when men are dying; and yet people go to purgatory after all.

196 But we may have a word on another point — miracles as a proof of holiness — before we turn to the real question. I speak of them only as a true proof of the church. I deny entirely, in the first place, that miracles are the criterion of truth. Many believed in Jesus when they saw the miracles that He did; but Jesus did not commit Himself to them, for He knew all men. That is, a faith founded solely on miracles was of no value whatever. Again, in the time of the great tribulation there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible they should deceive the very elect. Again, of the man of sin, the son of perdition, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Jannes and Jambres wrought many, though God confounded them before Moses. So, in Deuteronomy 13, the case is put of a man giving a sign or a wonder, given as proof and happening, to lead away from the truth of the divine testimony and Jehovah Himself; and it is said, "Thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." It is certain, then, that miracles are positively not a criterion of truth, and, indeed, a number of Fathers insist on this.* When truth and especially the revelation of Christ came, God graciously gave miracles confirming the word; but He begat souls by the word of truth, never by miracles, though, when the truth was received and the heart disposed by grace, the works surely confirmed the word. So scripture puts it, Hebrews 2, "confirming the word by signs following." And in John 15, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but," etc. And elsewhere the Lord says, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake." In a word, the word testifies of Christ and the Father's love; and to establish its efficacy and claim, the works are added. And the character of the miracles is of all importance here. Christ's miracles (the cursing the fruitless fig-tree alone excepted, which only confirmed the truth of what I say, for there rebellious Israel, man under the old covenant, was figuratively judged as having leaves but no fruit) were the expression of the power of divine goodness present in the world in man, the incarnate Lord, who, by a word, removed every fruit and effect of sin.

{*See an excellent summary in Ribadeneyra's life of Ignatius Loyola, written by command of the Jesuit general, of the grounds on which he or any may be accounted a saint, without performing miracles (Lib. 5, c. 13).}

197 Again it is striking in Israel. Signs are wrought to establish God's religion under Moses — they were wrought by Elijah and Elisha in the midst of Israel, when Israel had departed from Jehovah; but in Judah (save one sign given by Isaiah) where God's word was already owned, and His temple as yet stood, no miracles whatever are wrought. The effect of the word in the conscience is what is looked for. Further, if we compare saints' pretended miracles, or other legends of the kind, the difference in their nature strikes the heart and conscience at once. In Christ, or even in His apostles by His power, we find a perfect conformity in the miracles to His Person and mission, and word: the hungry fed, or as He says to John's messengers, "the sick healed, the dead raised, the lame walk, the blind see, demons are cast out, the gospel is preached to the poor," the effect, "blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." As I have already said, His divine power present in goodness, setting aside in men the power of Satan already vanquished. The strong man being bound, his goods were spoiled, as the Lord expresses it. In that He, as man, in His sovereign goodness, had entered into conflict with him in the wilderness, after His baptism by John, the outward effects of sin being in the world, were set aside.

Now if we compare legendary accounts, what do we find? I am almost ashamed to recount such things of the blessed Lord. I do not speak of the Roman church receiving all the miracles I refer to, but I cite them to shew the taste of early ecclesiastical writers and their frauds. The Lord and other boys were playing, and one fell from the top of the house, the rest fled, and the Lord remained. The parents of the dead child came and charged Him with throwing him down; He approached the dead child and said, Zenuine, who threw you down? The dead child answered, You did not throw me down, but such an one did. His mother sent Him to the well to get water, and when He took the vessel up full, it was broken, and so He brought the water gathered up in His cloak, and His mother hid all these things, and kept them in her heart. He was with other boys making fish-ponds and mudsparrows. A boy came to destroy them because it was the sabbath; he destroyed the children's fish-ponds, and the child Jesus laid His hands on the sparrows, and they fled away piping. The boy came near His fish-pond, and the water disappeared; and He said, "As the water has disappeared, so shall you," and immediately he dried up. Another boy met Him as He was returning home in the evening, and knocked Him over in running hastily; "As you have knocked against me," said He, "so fall, and do not rise again"; and the boy tumbled down the same hour and expired. A master was teaching Him his alphabet, and, on the child asking the meaning of "aleph," stretched out his hand to strike Him, when his hand dried up, and he died. And then Joseph and Mary would not let Him go out any more; for whoever opposed Him, they said, was struck with death. Other stories there are of many boys bitten by serpents also, and healed by His clothes by the hand of divine Mary — but I suppose we have enough.

198 But Dr. Milner has quoted, among others, those of the great St. Martin of Tours, and of St. Francis Xavier. Let us take these two patterns of Romish miracle — eminent examples and at different periods, some one thousand years apart, and surely men devoted to the cause they had at heart. I will recount some alleged miracles of St. Martin, called the apostle of Gaul, as St. Francis Xavier is called the apostle of the Indies. I quote from the same book as Dr. Milner, his life by Sulpitius Severus. "When Martin put his foot out of his cell, a couple of miles from the church, all those possessed with devils in the church shewed he was coming, so that the others knew the moment I saw," says the historian biographer (Dial. 3, 6), "one caught up into the air as Martin was coming — suspended on high, with his hands stretched out, his feet unable to touch the ground. St. Martin prayed for them. There were those who, their feet being carried up on high, hung as if from a cloud, yet their garments did not fall down over their face lest the naked part of their body should put people to shame. He met a furious cow that had gored several and was rushing at him. He told her to stand, and she did; and then he saw a devil on her back, and ordered him off; and he went, and the cow was quiet. The cow knew very well what had happened, and came and knelt down before Martin, then, on Martin's order, went and found the herd" (Dial. 2, 9). He was very familiar with demons, knew when it was Jupiter and when Mercury, the most troublesome of all; and when Sulpitius and Gallus went to see him, they had to wait outside — he was talking, as he told them afterwards, with Agnes and Thecla and Mary (deceased persons held to be saints); he said he was often talking with Peter and Paul. Then suddenly a whole lot of devils came, whom Martin denounced by their names. Jove was a brute, he said, and stupid. They beset his dying bed (Let. 3, to Bassula). "Why are you standing there, bloody beast? he said. [He did not imitate Michael the archangel, at any rate.] Thou shalt find nothing in me, O fatal one." In these conversations he had promised pardon to the devil if he repented, telling him the judgment-day was near, crimes were pardoned by the conversation of a better life, and if he even then left off following after men and repented of his deeds, he himself, trusting in the Lord, promised him the mercy of Christ.

199 Now compare this with the Lord's life and words and the miracles themselves, and let any Christian man say, have they the least similitude? Are they a testimony to the Son of God, to the very nature and dealings of God toward the world in grace? or are they vaunting an individual by absurd exploits? One of the anchorites in Egypt was visited by an enormous lioness; the anchorite followed it; her cubs were blind, the anchorite stroked them and gave them sight, and the lioness brought him the skin of a curious beast to wear (Dial. 1, 9). Another lived naked on Mount Sinai, and, when at last seen, said, "He who was visited by men could not be by angels."

I may mention another, as shewing the character of the miracles and the credulity of men's minds when once this system was given in to. Paulinus, the same that complains of their mixing drunkenness with their celebration of his patron saint, St. Felix, relates that a countryman had two capital bullocks which were stolen; the countryman sought them in vain; no marks were to be found where they have been driven. He goes to the said St. Felix, pleading with him to send the bullocks back; that he had trusted him, he really had kept his bullocks, and he was answerable for them; that as he kept them, he should hold him for being in league with the robbers if he did not bring them back; that he saw and knew all things, and therefore could do it, for he knew where they were. He might pardon the robbers, but he must have the bullocks (the pardon belonging to the saint, but the bullocks to himself); he would not go after them nor leave the place; he would give up his life on the threshold if he did not bring them back; and so spent the whole day praying. The martyr heard him joyfully, and laughed with the Lord at his reproaches. He helps him. He is thrust away from the face of Felix to shut the doors at night, and goes and lies down in his stable, crying still on the saint; and frightened by a noise outside, there are the oxen come home without a guide! It may be said this is only the credulity of a rustic. But the account is of Paulinus of Nola, a saint, a prelate, a correspondent of the famous Augustine. (S. Paulini Opera, 433, Ed. Mur., Verona, 1736.)

200 It has been remarked by others that up to A.D. 350 the heathen ridiculed the Christians for worshipping a dead man; after that, for worshipping saints' and martyrs' tombs; and Augustine tells us that, above all, the monks drove a lively trade in relics. We have already seen it forbidden. Strange to say, the heathen insisted on the one universal God and Father, reproaching the Christians with going to martyrs and their memories, as they were called.

Father O. But they did other miracles than these.

N*. Which rest on the same authority and spiritual discernment as these do, and no one can read the accounts of them without seeing that they are legends adapted to the taste and spirit of the age in which they are related. And remark, dear sir, you are increasing the difficulty to a sincere soul, because in saying this you admit that instead of incontrovertible miracles proving the word (and Martin, you cannot deny, was quite unsound too in doctrine, for he offers pardon to Satan as the day of judgment was near), the miracles themselves have to be proved which is quite another thing. Christ's miracles were done openly when no man could deny them, and day after day, always, uniformly the power of Satan quailed before Him, and so of the apostles. Fleury admits the quantities of miracles and false relics that credulity believed in, and Dr. Milner admits they have to be proved. He says indeed Rome proves them carefully. But Rome, who proves them and approves them, accredits herself by them. It was not so with Christ's. He appeals to all the world, to His adversaries. They were open, constant and accrediting God's glory, not man's fame. The name of Jesus was made glorious by it; not Ignatius Loyola, or F. Xavier. Did giving sight to a lioness' cubs, and a lioness bringing the spoils of some poor slain beast glorify God's nature and character, or set up an anchorite and his wonderful doings? And, remark, Rome's provings are after the miracle-doer is dead, and it is not a living power which constantly proves itself, and the present interference of God's goodness to everybody around. It is accrediting the man, and the party he belongs to, nothing else. You and Dr. Milner are using it to that end. And the court of Rome approves the miracle in order to its being approved itself.

201 "I admit," says Dr. Milner, "that a vast number of incredible and false miracles, as well as other fables, have been forged by some and believed by other Catholics in every age of the church." They then have to be proved, and all is still uncertain. Not only so that many false miracles have been forged by Roman Catholics, but the Fathers admit that the heretics have done miracles. Irenaeus tells us that heretics cannot do miracles of goodness, nor cast out all devils, only those they have introduced themselves, though one might think these were all (lib. 2, 31); and in lib. 1, 13 he states that a certain Marcus wrought miracles, and made others prophesy. Cyprian tells us that miracles are no proof in themselves of any one being in the right way though admirable things, quoting Matthew 7: 22 (De Unitate Ecc. 114, ed. Fell). So Jerome in his Commentary on Galatians (lib. 1, c. 3, v. 5) distinctly states that heretics do many miracles and think they have a proof of their faith by it, and appeals to Matthew 7 as the Lord's testimony that they do not prove that they are right. Augustine again, refers to Pontius and Donatus working miracles, and says if they removed mountains and had not charity they are nothing. He refers to Mark 13, that false christs and false prophets shall arise, doing signs and wonders: therefore he says the Bridegroom has warned us that we ought not to be deceived by miracles (Evang. Joh. Tract. 13).

But others of the Fathers are still stronger. I do not quote the imperfect work of St. Chrysostom, which says that miracles are wholly done away (levata). It is accused of being Arian, and Baronius rages against it for more reasons than that, I suspect.* But the statement of the author as to the fact may have weight as having no connection with his heresies if guilty. He declares, as a notorious fact, that miracles had wholly ceased. But the true Chrysostom says that in his time signs were not to be looked for, were restrained (sunestalmena), and were no criterion of a saint according to scripture; that in the beatitudes they are not spoken of and in the reprobate whom he rejects they are (Vol. 1, 136, 7, Ben. ed.).

{*The writer speaks in the strongest way of the scriptures as the only criterion.}

202 And again Augustine (De Unit, Ecc., c. 49 or 19) says, Do not let him say it is true because Donatus or Pontius has done such-and-such wonderful things, or because he has been heard at the memories of our dead, or has had such a vision in dreaming. Let such figments of lying men or potents of deceiving spirits rather be removed. For either they are not true, or if any wonderful things are done by heretics, we ought to be the more on our guard, and he then quotes Matthew 24: 25; 1 Timothy 4: 1.

Again, Bernard, proclaimed after his death by others as the greatest miracle-worker that ever had been (Life by Philip de Claravelli, Opera, vol. 2, 1176, and Bellarmine de Nat. Ec. 4, 14), declares himself that miracles were not wrought in his age or by excessively few at any rate (perpauci); he comforts the monks as to the text, 'these signs shall follow them that believe,' that then nobody would be saved, if believers were to work these signs, for they were not wrought, but that new tongues were spoken when pious religion replaced vicious, and holiness, poisonous lusts, and so on (Sermo 1, de Asc. Dom., vol. 1, 918, par. 1719).

Dr. John Henry Newman goes farther; he tells us that no Catholic is bound to believe for the most part any particular miracle, only in general that the church has power to do them. His words are these, "Though it is a matter of faith with Catholics that miracles never cease in the church, still that this or that professed miracle really took place is for the most part only a matter of opinion, and when it is believed, whether on testimony or tradition, it is not believed to the exclusion of all doubt whether about the fact or its miraculousness" (Gram. of Assent, 2nd ed. 193, 4). Here clearly the miracle is an object, not a means of faith. In his hands they cease wholly to be a proof. For supposing I doubt of each particular one, my belief in the church's power to do them is gone, or rests on wholly different ground. In the first life of Ignatius by Ribadeneyra there was no hint of miracles;* when Ignatius was to be canonized, the account of his life is full of them. Among the rest he raised a hen, accidentally drowned, to life, Xavier invoking him in India, and the hen remained in absolute celibacy ever after; and Xavier routed a great army by his presence. Within a few years, it was alleged that the Virgin had visited a little peasant girl on a mountain in France. The local prelate issued a pastoral against it, but it was attractive. The government took it up and proved the fraud in open court; but then the wind turned round, and church authorities made a great deal of it, and pilgrimages were made there.

{*Far from it, it is a curious piece of Roman sign-making, and shews what these things are really worth. In Ribadeneyra, the disciple and companion of Ignatius himself, we find (lib. 5, 10, Mad. 1586, 335) a long proof in the objection that he did no miracles, that they were not to be sought as proofs. He quotes Gregory, saying the proof of sanctity is not in doing signs; quotes John 15, that disciples were to be known by love to one another; that John the Baptist did no sign; those (Matt. 7) whom He rejected do them. He cites Aug., quoting Matthew 24, Jerome on Matthew 7, 1 Corinthians 13, Augustine, Chrysostom, Gregory Naz., and Nyss. Athanasius wrought no miracles. Then he refers to 1 Corinthians 12; gifts were various. All these are reasons for Ignatius not doing any. Two hundred well-proved ones were produced for his beatification, as is stated by the Pere Bonhours. (Vide St. Ig., lib. 6, 3rd ed. p. 540.) It is a striking thing that, whatever was the reason, Ignatius died without the sacraments. It is asserted that he died in terror. I dare say it is disputed, too, but certainly he died without the sacraments.}

203 But we must have a few words on St. Xavier, surely a self-sacrificing man — one would fain hope from the best motives, but if so, only proving the evil of the system he was in. He carried on his work by the force of the arms of the Portuguese; one of his miracles was Ignatius' miraculous appearance in India, heading the troops, and routing the infidels. The first multitudes whom he is said to have converted already called themselves Christians, but had been made so by the arms of the Portuguese without knowing a word of what it meant. They did not understand the Portuguese nor the Portuguese them. Xavier got some who knew his and their language a little, and translated the creed, the commandments, Lord's prayer, and a supplication to the Virgin, learned them by heart (though subsequent statements give him the gift of tongues) himself, made them repeat them, and say, Lord give me to believe, and then a short word to the Virgin, and then, as sufficiently tested, baptized them. It went so far both in the conduct and relapses of the converts that Ignatius himself was dissatisfied. "Sometimes," writes Xavier, "I baptize a whole city in a day. Much of this success is to be attributed to the Viceroy of India. By his endeavour we have now thirty cities of Christians on this coast. He has lately given four thousand pieces of gold to those who with all diligence profess the truth in the cities of the Christians." Xavier promotes in the same way the Viceroy's efforts, organizing expeditions, and enforcing the Christians to behold Jesus Christ crucified before their eyes during the battle. And he announced far away from the scene, "Jesus Christ has conquered for us, the enemy is routed with very great slaughter." But what was the result? He left India in a few years, disgusted and avowing himself useless, and went to Japan.

204 Now as to some of the miraculous events: — One night as he was praying to the Virgin the devils attacked him in crowds, and beat him so that he was half-dead with the blows, and forced to keep his bed for some days. He spoke so that in one sentence people of ten languages understood him all the same time. An island was infested with tigers; he sprinkled holy water on them and ordered them to leave and never come back, and so it was. I may remark here that Ignatius Loyola himself is stated to have been horribly beaten by devils so as to cry out, and another ran in twice to see what was the matter, and then was forbidden to come.

But to return to Xavier. On a voyage a child fell into the sea. Xavier asks the Mahometan father, Would he believe if his child were restored? He said, Yes. Three days after, the child appeared on the deck; neither he, nor anyone, knew whence it came. Again he gave a chaplet of the Virgin Mary to an infidel. The ship was wrecked; they made a raft, he thought himself with Xavier as in ecstasy; and when he recovered his natural sense, found himself safe on shore, all his companions lost. It is said he raised the dead several times. It is stated he spoke with tongues; but it is quite certain, both in India and Japan, by his own statement, that he used interpreters to begin his work. His conversions were really none.* He converted a whole island, and built churches, in some three years, and left; when gone, through the influence of the chief of another island, the churches were pulled down, and all turned idolaters again. The Portuguese sent an expedition, and they all turned Christians again. That he was a man of indomitable energy and rare courage, is unquestionable. But all his work in India, Japan, and in general the Jesuits' work there and in Abyssinia, has come to nothing. Where European dominion has been established, the Roman Catholic system has continued, as in Brazil, and similar countries.

{*In writing to Francis Henry, a missionary desponding in the work, and thinking of leaving (Epist. 2, 24, Bononiae, no date), "You profit more than you think in preparing infants, diligently obtained for heaven by baptism; for if you are willing to look round in your mind, you will find that out of the Indians, white or black, few come into heaven but those who depart this life under fourteen years in the innocence of baptism."}

205 Now that God can do miracles at any time, if He pleases, no Christian can deny as to His power to do it; that He should interfere extraordinarily for faithful men, or martyrs sacrificing their life for Christ, would be no surprise to me. That He answers the prayer of faith, so that the sick should be healed — where the prayer of faith is — I do not doubt a moment either. James tells us so, and John likewise. Nay, that one having the Spirit of Christ should control the power of Satan, and cast him out, ought to be the case. But when I find in scripture, that true miracles confirm the truth and word of God, and the truth is not present; that faith, founded on miracles, the Lord accounts of no value; that there is no testimony in these to Christ, but to the Virgin Mary, and Ignatius or some other ambitious human being, or head of a party, to make good his party claims; when I find them multiplied continually in the accounts of these persons, as occasion called for them; when I find, that instead of having power over demons, it is alleged that Satan had dreadful power over them, and the demons beat them furiously; when I find the miracles suited entirely to the superstitions of the age, and the object not to be the truth of Christ and the word, I see ground to disbelieve the most, altogether; and if power be manifested in some, to judge that it is not the power of God. That, if a devoted man — if even superstitious men were devoting themselves to God in sincerity — God should extraordinarily help him in difficulty, I have no disposition to deny.

God gives counter-checks that His people may not be deceived. Miracles must be for the truth, or they are not to be received. If they are for what is not the truth, the worker of them is to be utterly rejected; Deut. 13. I add that it is revealed that Satan will work wonderful signs, to deceive, if possible, the elect; and further, that it is only on the side of Satan, that signs and miracles are stated to occur in the last days. Then they will. It is the sign of the coming of the man of sin. It cannot therefore indeed by itself be the test of truth.

206 Further, false and pretended miracles began early in the professing church, because there was this desire to aggrandize men by wonders. In the earlier history of the church, this was resisted. An imperial edict of A.D. 386 forbade carrying and selling a martyr. At a council held at Carthage in A.D. 401 it was ordered that all false martyrs' memories, and unauthenticated relics, should be destroyed; and if popular tumults hindered it, the people should be warned (Can. 14); and the connection is pretty evident with Can. 15, when the emperors are to be begged to destroy the similar remains of idolatrous holy places, fixed by dreams or like superstitions.

We have already seen how deliberately, by Gregory Thaumaturgus, and in Africa, the martyrs' relics, and memories, so-called, were deliberately substituted for pagan holy places, to draw the people off from them. And they got drunk in church to their honour; as they had to Theseus or Hercules. And the Virgin Mary, mother of God, displaced Cybele, the mother of the gods, with the church's, so-called, full sanction. Our friend, Martin of Tours, was useful in this in Gaul. A martyr altar, consecrated by bishops, and frequented by the pious, he suspected, as old priests could not tell whose it really was; so he went to it, and asked the Lord to shew whose it was, and then saw a sordid fierce ghost on his left. He commanded him to tell his name and deserts; and he confessed he was a thief and no martyr; he in punishment, and the martyrs in glory. I add another, that follows in Severus (Sulp. Sev. Vita Martini, 8, 9). He met a crowd, which he supposed to be an idolatrous procession, with an image. It was really a funeral. At some distance, he lifted up the cross and commanded them to stop and lay down their burden. They could not move, with all their efforts, and at last rolled round with a ridiculous vertigo, and laid down their burden. Finding that it was a funeral, he lifted up his hand and gave them the power of going away and taking the body. This is astonishingly like mesmerism.* I forgot to add, that in imitation of Saul, in the thief's ghost case, his companions heard the voice of him that spake, but saw no person.

{*It is related by a Roman Catholic eye-witness, M. Huc, that a great tree, said to spring from the hair of Tsong Kaba, a Buddhist saint, bears Thibetan characters on every leaf, and no fraud in it. (Voyage dans le Thibet, vol. 2, chap. 3.)}

207 The present use of miracles is not to testify of Christ, but to what is called the church; and individual glory is the fruit of superstition, used to confirm false teaching; and many are confessedly false, so that the civil power had to forbid hawking relics about for sale, once opposed by the ecclesiastical authority, now gloried in, in its most absurd and superstitious shapes. But, I repeat, I wholly reject miracles as a test of the truth. They confirmed the word, but the word is the test of truth. When it was settled* that no church could be consecrated without relics, a supply was to be found. The catacombs at Rome supplied them; and when no one knew anything about the bones they got, they gave a saint's name to them; and it was called baptizing them (Mabillon, Posth. Works, 2, 257-287, quoted by Maitland, Catacombs, 181).

{*The second Council of Nice so decided, Canon 7.}

And now allow me to suggest that there is another witness of holiness, which it would be important to have if we are to judge of the church by it; and that is, the church itself being holy, really and practically. In that there is something; for "by their fruits ye shall know them." But I never find this in the holiness alleged as proof of the true church by Romanists. Dr. Pusey reminds Mr. Newman that it is only by faith we can know the church to be holy. What a bitter sarcasm! If it is to be a proof, would it not be a nice way to know it by fact, not by a few individuals of questionable sanctity; but the body being taken in the mass, by the practical holiness produced by the Spirit of God? And here I shall be brief, for it is dismal to think of: but the church of Rome has been the unholiest body of persons probably ever found in the world; and their leaders, the clergy, the worst of them; and the popes, perhaps the worst of them all. Even so early as Cyprian, he declares (De lapsis, 124, Ox. ed.) that the Decian persecution was a light chastisement for nominal Christians. Jerome (Ep. ad Nep., 52, ed. Vall., 1, 261) has to mourn that the Emperor has to make an edict to prevent the clergy surrounding dying beds, to get money from the sick by legacies, an edict not needed for heathen priests; and declares that they were characterized by excessive luxury. Drunkenness in church to celebrate the martyrs' memories was common; Augustine speaks of it (Ep. 22, 29, ed. Ben.) in Africa and elsewhere; and Prudentius in Europe, both testify it. Not only does he state the fact that they mixed their cups with the holy thresholds (Natal. 9 and elsewhere); but, though regretting and disapproving it, he thinks such errors are to be pardoned, because error breaks into rude minds, fancying the saints delight in it. A strange holiness for teachers and taught! This was in the fourth century. Long before this, the pretended holiness of great saints was sleeping with the other sex; proving how holy they were above sinning. And this was common enough to have a name given to it, and, at last, to be forbidden.* I mention so sad a thing here with reluctance, only because it came in quite early in the primitive church, as it is called. It was prevalent in the second and third centuries, and is freely spoken of as excellent, in a book read in the churches (the Shepherd of Hermas, 3, tom. 9, 11), in the middle of the second century, long believed to be the Hermas known to Paul. Irenaeus charges the Gnostics with it. Later down, what pretended to be the church became a sink of corruption.

{*Besides canons made against it, it is denounced by Cyprian ad Pomponium (Ep. 4, ed. Ox). Chrysostom denounces it in two treatises against the men (1, 228, ed. Ben.), and against the women, 248; and in this declares the meretricious acts of the virgins were intolerable. It is degrading in character. (Compare Hieron. Ep. 22, 1, 38, ed. Vall. ad Eustochium.)}

208 Thus, in the tenth century, Ratherius, bishop of Verona, charges the clergy with corrupt avarice, and universal incontinency; the popes, he says, many being married, were warriors, perjurers, heretics, gamblers, and drunkards. There were among the clergy, bigamists, concubine-keepers, conspirators, perjurers, drunkards, usurers. The cause of the ruin of all the people was the clergy. The Italian clergy despise the canons the most, because they are the most given to impudicity and minister to this vice by ragouts, and excess of wine (Dupin, Vol. 8, 19, Fleury, 12, 193).

Damianus, a great champion of Rome, who reduced Milan, till then independent, under its authority, declares the clergy were given up to unnatural crimes. And it was alleged they could not be deposed, as people must have the sacraments. He demanded they should be deposed. The pope answered, they deserved it; but he would depose (out of clemency) only the most immoral. The canons imposed only trifling penances for fornication: Damianus insisted they must be forgeries. Fleury remarks on the pope's answer, "which leads us to suppose that the numbers were too great to treat them with rigour." Pope Alexander II got Damianus' book, and hid it; of which he complains bitterly. In the Romish Council of 1059 he wished to take the matter up; but it was refused, as likely to produce scandal (Fleury, 12, 532, Dupin). Already in 888, in two councils (Mog. and Met., Hardouin 6), canons were made against the danger of incest among the clergy; and in the Council of Oenamheuse, like, and, as it is said there, worse disorders are denounced. In 1045 Rome was full of robbers and assassins, who drew the sword at the altar, to carry off the offerings to use for wickedness.

209 The pope threatened and excommunicated in vain, and at last met it with arms, and drove them away.

Father O. But these were the dark ages, when everything was in disorder and confusion.

N*. The last things I have spoken of were. But this is the church, to be proved such by the mark of holiness, and never to fail; and, allow me to ask, was it not in these very ages that the popes and their church had the greatest power and influence?

Father O. And if they had, they used it to great blessing, establishing the Truce of God, and protecting the weak.

N*. They may have balanced, as the only central power, the rude warriors of feudal times; but, after all, history shews them using it persistently, and with constant craft, for self-aggrandisement, till the pope made the Emperor give his neck to mount on his mule by. But with this I have nothing to do here. We are looking for holiness as a mark of the true church. Can you honestly say it was found here?

Father O. You see yourself there were holy men condemning it all, and the pope too; and canons were made against it.

N*. Canons imposing trifling penances on habitual fornication, and the ecclesiastical authorities not daring to enforce them even; and a Roman council refusing to take it up, for fear of scandal. I have quoted your own authors for these statements.

210 Father O. Dupin and Fleury were very far from respecting the chair of St. Peter as they ought.

N*. But they are sincere and respectable Roman Catholics, and refer to contemporary writers, partisans of the Roman See; and Baronius, whom you cannot deny to have been as attached to it as possible, we have already seen declaring that for a hundred years he must quote the popes to date his history by; but how could he own as popes people put in because they were sons of powerful mistresses of the Marquis of Tuscany, or of the popes themselves? No, if holiness is to be taken as a mark of the true church, the church of Rome is not that true church. If you allow me, I will say a word of what scripture says as to the whole subject before I close; but I am now only following what is alleged as to the true church. That there were those inside and outside the Romish body who sighed and groaned over the abominations committed, is true. Your St. Bernard declared that all that was wanting in his day was to have Antichrist revealed; and hunted saints who left Rome were a witness to the revolt of consciences against these enormities.

Father O. But they were heretics and Manicheans.

N*. I think it can hardly be denied that one class of the Albigenses were, another not. But the Waldenses were not at all so. That is evident by the sentences pronounced by the Inquisition itself, who only treat them as schismatics.* There were many of whom no certain judgment can be formed, as may be seen by the letter of Evervinus of Cologne to Bernard, and Eckbert's tract. Those who came to England, led by a certain Gerard, were, says William of Neuburg, sound in substance as to the Supreme Physician, but unsound as to the remedies; that is, they were sound in faith as to Christ, but rejected Roman superstitions as to the sacraments.** The state of professing Christendom was such, that it gave occasion to convulsive efforts for good, and for evil under protest of good. Waldo sought what was good; and somewhat later such men as Gerard, Groot, Thomas-a-Kempis, and the fratres vitae communis; even Wickliffe, Huss, Jerome; and, on the other hand, there were the Brethren of the Free Spirit, who were very bad; Beghards, Beguines, Lollards, whose real character it is often hard to determine. But all these — generally persecuted indeed, were they good or evil, if not subject to Rome — did not alter the general state of Christendom, which had in every way become intolerable, though nobody knew how to mend it.

{*The records of the Inquisition of Toulouse were published by Limborch. The history of the Albigenses is full of interest. A man escaped from the Saracens gave the Gospels and Paul's Epistles to a man who gave him hospitality. A very great awakening took place, and many companies of saints were gathered. The Eastern Emperors attacked them, and, unhappily, they took arms, and for long years withstood the Greeks; but retreating into Persia, it seems they got infected with Manicheism, which joined with them in rejecting images and superstition. At last the Emperor made peace with them, and transported them to Bulgaria, as a check against the northern hordes. Thence they spread by Lombardy to Spain. There were two classes, the Albanenses and the Balioli. The former held two principles, a good and an evil one; the Balioli, not.}

{**This all of them were accused of. In general they were accused of denying marriage. But it is plain that it was only the Romish sacrament as to it, which they denied; for their wives and widows are spoken of. (Elliott, Hor. Apoc., part 3, ch. 7.) Section 4 gives a pretty full account of all these revolters from Rome. As those who went to, and perished in, England were Germans, and were pronounced sound in faith as to Christ, probably those at Cologne, in Germany, and elsewhere, were also. But it is quite possible some, in breaking loose from the horrible iniquities and superstitions of Rome and Romanists, may have been misled in some points too by heresy. Evervinus' letter is interesting; there is heart and conscience in it, though he saw them all burnt.}

211 Bill M. I beg your pardon, sir; I would not, of course, interrupt you, and I wished to know if Mr. O. would reply to what you say of the Catholic church. But, your reverence, what is the meaning of the church being holy, if all this be true, and Mr. N*. quotes from Roman Catholic books which I do not know, but which you do not deny to be such? If these things are true, it was not holy at all. I am all upset by what I hear.

Father O. I told you that you would be. You cannot judge from all these things, collected to blacken the church, which must be holy. Indeed, when you set about to judge for yourself, you cannot but go wrong; and I see plainly you are on the high road to infidelity.

Bill M. Well, such conduct in the church is enough to make a man an infidel. But you told me that I should look for the marks of the true church, and Dr. Milner, whom you approve so highly, tells me so; and how can I know whether it was holy or not without knowing what it was, and what it did? and surely all this dreadful wickedness was not holiness. It might turn a man an infidel; but I begin to think the word of God is something more than ever I thought of, and that there is something I can believe there surely. There are the words of the blessed Lord, and the apostles, and the rest, as you do not deny; and if I believe them, I shall not be an infidel.

212 Father O. Well, you must go on your own way, and be ruined, I suppose. I do not know whether I should stay and listen to any more, only that I hoped to save you from ruin.

I do not understand what pleasure Mr. N*. can have in raking up all the wickedness he can find of unfaithful men, who are found everywhere, instead of looking at the bright and blessed examples of sanctity that are found in the Catholic church alone.

N*. Pleasure I have none, nor have I searched out the course of wicked men. The history would have been insupportable if I had. I have taken Roman Catholic accounts of the general state of their own body, and merely broad general statements — what you cannot escape if you read ecclesiastical history. You give holiness as one of the marks of the church, the best you allege. Truth you do not attempt to give as a mark, though you slip it under the head of holiness, because, if a mark, then we must seek the truth first outside the church, to know what it is, and see if your church has it; but holiness, which natural conscience, if not corrupted, seeks in that which is of God, at least when the true God is at all known, you call one to judge of the church by, in seeking the true one. How can I do this but by inquiring if the body you present to me as such is holy? That is what I have done, and not by accusations from without, but by complaints of honest men within. If you can prove it to be a body characterized by holiness, you have only to do so; but the shameless corruptions are written on every page of her history. These awakened Wickliffe and Huss to denounce the state of things. These put Wessal in prison. You would refuse their testimony to the evil, however notoriously true; one was burnt for his pains by the Council of Constance, after it had pledged its faith to him, because faith was not to be kept with heretics; the other, defended during his life by the Duke of Lancaster, had his bones dug up and cast away.

But I have quoted your own writers. As to saints being only found in the Roman body, I wholly deny it. That there were some godly men I do not deny, though generally persecuted, and very dark as to truth; and many called saints, anything but such; but the truest saints were hunted down on every side, then burned by your prelates and inquisition for the truth they held, giving their lives rather than give it up. There were many such, whose names live, though often in hidden archives, but whose record is rather on high. And as to the kind of saints you pretend to — those canonized by men — the Greek church have a full complement of them, and some of them as far from sanctity as need be, and those among the most famous, too, as St. Cyril, a most violent and unprincipled man; St. Jerome, the bitterest and most unforgiving and abusive; others, as Cyprian, independent of, and opposed to, Rome; or Augustine, who led the way in an African council in excommunicating all who appealed to Rome after they had decided anything in Africa. The pretension to have all the saints may do very well for ignorant people, who know nothing about the matter, but will not do for those who do. If a calendar is a proof, the Greeks have about as full a one as you. I do not know if they have St. Veronica too.

213 Bill M. Who is that, sir?

N*. It is a curious history enough. There was a story, as there are many such, that some woman gave a handkerchief to wipe the face of the blessed Lord on His way to Calvary, and, as a reward, His likeness was imprinted on it. This was copied, and sold everywhere in Italy at any rate. The word Veronica is a corruption of true likeness, and then was taken to be the name of a woman; and she is in the calendar, and worshipped as such, and the handkerchief exposed to the worship, I must call it, of the multitude at St. Peter's in Rome. One dreads mixing up the very name of the blessed Lord with such things, but it is well to know how that blessed name has been brought down to profanation by the system of Roman superstition.* Sure I am, if any one did so serve in truth that blessed One, she will not lose her reward. Happy she to have been permitted such a service. But it is not in having a handkerchief worshipped in St. Peter's, and what is a fable in itself turned into the name of a woman. Roman superstition really debases all it touches. Forgive me, Mr. O., if the feeling which bringing the holy name of the Lord into such things has led me to express itself severely.

{*See Baronius 34, 133, where it is distinguished from the napkin found in the sepulchre. He quotes from Bede. The latter is said to have been given to Charlemagne. Pope Urban erected a statue to the supposed Veronica, and an altar. The superstition is a late one. Mabillon puts the scene in Gethsemane, and Ducange on the way to Calvary. In 1083 it was alleged to have cured the Emperor Tiberius of leprosy, Christ being now dead. This was supported by a false quotation from Methodius. It is now an object of gorgeous worship at Rome. The English reader may see Maitland, "Catacombs" 260. But the general fact will be found in any history treating of such subjects.}

214 But I will pursue, as briefly as I can, what remains of this sad history, and see if holiness is a mark to be found in the Roman ecclesiastical system, in order to recognize it as the true church. One of your own saints, Bernard, says, in his sermon on the conversion of Paul, "The whole Christian people, from the least to the greatest, has conspired against God. It is not the time to say, 'as the people, so the priest,' for the people are not even as the priest is. They are the ministers of Christ, but serve Antichrist. All that remains is, that this 'man of sin' should be revealed." I refer to this because it attests the universality of the corruption; and, further, that what you look up to as the church — namely, the clergy — were the source of it. It was about this time that the celibacy of the clergy began to be enforced, giving occasion to endless and universal corruption. Still many priests were married, though the popes treated their wives as concubines. And people were desired to receive the sacraments from them if they were dying; only their sons were not to inherit their parishes, for these were even given as portions to daughters. In England it is admitted all the best priests were married; but the king took money for it, and so did the bishops in different countries, for allowing them to live, as they said, in concubinage, so that councils had to forbid it; but it continued (Hard. Conc., 7, 1147, 1804, 1807, 8, 31). Canons as to it are found in Hardouin, from A.D. 1217 to 1302.

Thomas Aquinas advises them to have a wife secretly, as being better than general fornication. In the canon law (Distinction, 81, C. 6) a clergyman convicted of having begotten children in the presbytery was to be deposed. But the gloss says, it is generally said a clergyman is not to be deposed for simple fornication, for few can be found without that sin. All this system of corruption went on increasing if possible; and in an address to Pope Leo, the very year of the Reformation, W. F. Picus, Lord of Mirandola, nephew of the famous Pic de Mirandola, states that the priests, having got into the state described in Romans 1, parents gave meritorious boys to them, and these, when ruined, afterwards became priests. At an earlier period than this, before the Council of Pisa, during the schism in the papacy, Clemangis, the rector of the University of Paris, says, after a general description of the avarice and debauchery of the highest clergy, "if any one is lazy — if any one hate to work — he flees to the priesthood. As soon as he has attained to it, they diligently frequent brothels and taverns, and spend their time in drinking, eating, dining, singing, playing at dice and games; gorged and drunken, they fight, cry out, make riots, and execrate the name of God and His saints with their most polluted lips." And he, as was commonly done, complained of their going from their nightly wickedness to serve at the divine altar. Clemangis further states that the nunneries were brothels of Venus, and that to make a girl take the veil was to give her up to prostitution.

215 This is the testimony of a most respectable Roman Catholic, the correspondent of kings and popes, labouring to heal the papal schism, the rector of the first university in the world. In Innocent IV's time, Matt. Paris, p. 319 (a citation I cannot myself verify, not having his history), gives the parting address of Cardinal Hugo at Lyons, where a so-called general council had been held, saying that they had been very useful to the city; for that when they came there were only three or four brothels in it, now there was only one, but it was the whole town from the eastern gate of the city to the western. That the popes were no better I shall quote only Baronius to shew. That reprobate, Sergius (908, 2), the slave of all vices, the most iniquitous of all men — what did he leave unattempted? Again (912, 7), one pope undid all the acts of another. "What, then, was the state of the holy Roman church? How filthy, when the most powerful and basest harlots ruled at Rome, at whose will sees were changed, bishops given, and, what is horrible and unutterable to hear of, their lovers were introduced into the See of Peter, who are only to be written in the catalogue of Roman pontiffs to mark such times! For who can say that persons intruded without law in this way by harlots can be said to be legitimate Roman pontiffs? The clergy never elected, nor is there afterwards any consenting mention."

I shall have to touch on this as to apostolicity and succession; I only refer to it now as to the mark of holiness. Is it not a solemn mockery to say, "What, then, was the face of the holy Roman church," and then to give such a description? What is "filthy" holiness? I have done. One has only to consult the canons of councils to see the horrible state things were in, or the complaints of the laity, or any sober Roman Catholic writer. The laity tauntingly said to the clergy, sin is one thing for you, and another for us; for us to have one wife is no sin, but to have to do with another woman is; for you it is a sin to have one lawful wife, but you can have a hundred others. And for a century or two it was an outcry for reformation in head and members. If holiness is a sign of the church, the Roman body is not the church of God. It is not holy in doctrine, teaching that God provides by the church an easier way to get forgiveness than true contrition, because that is too hard;* and that alleged wholesome discipline for sin, or proportionate pain in purgatory can be remitted for money. As to holy practice, we have seen what the facts are. Can you deny the statements I have made?

{*As to this, Dr. Milner states what is absolutely false.}

216 Father O. I do not deny that there was evil, or that these statements exist; but it seems to me a sad thing to pass over all that is good, and fasten on the corruption, and specially that of those dark ages. No doubt there were times when the church sank very low; but it has been kept and preserved through all. They were the manners of the age.

N*. Is that — that they were the manners of the age — an excuse for the church when holiness is in question, and we are referred to it as a proof of the true one? I have not turned to accusers, as I said before, but to the most respectable Roman Catholic writers, and, among the rest, the great Jesuit historian, Cardinal Baronius; and I have not gone into details, of which many are to be found, edited with biting sarcasm; but quotations which shew the awful depth of depravity to which all were sunk under the influence of Romanism, its universality, the clergy being the worst, and the popes, if anything, the worst of all. Has the Roman body the mark of holiness to prove it is the true church? It is more decent since the Reformation, but still frightfully corrupt through enforced celibacy.

Bill M. But is all this so, Mr. O.? It is terrible to think of. Please tell me, is it true?

Father O. You have heard what I have said to this gentleman. But I do not see what is to be gained by continuing the discussion on such a ground as this. I came in hopes to rescue M. Of that I have no hope; and you must excuse my pursuing the argument any farther. If it is only to throw reproach on the only true church in the world, it is a scandal to a true Catholic, and shakes the foundation of all faith.

217 N*. Well, Mr. O., we can still take Milner, and see what he has to say. You will please to remember that it is the ground you put it on yourself in presenting holiness as one of the marks of the true church. I have followed you on your own ground, which is indeed that of all Roman Catholic controversialists and catechisms. Only you give a proof of this, that the Roman body has no ground of faith at all. No believer could speak as you do. They know the word of God is true; have received it as God's word. You have only the church; and when your boasted marks, only affording us at best a human ground of judgment, break as a reed, and pierce your hand, you have no ground of faith at all, but are cast on the wide sea of infidelity without a compass.

We remember the loving apostle's word, when he foresaw the evil that was breaking in upon the church: "I commend you to God and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified." To that grace and to that word we trust. You trust the church, which he said was going to be invaded by wolves, and even corrupted by those within, commending the individuals to God and the word of His grace. We trust not the professing body, assailed by wolves from without and corrupters within, but God and the word of His grace, which is able to build us up; Acts 20: 29-32. As I see you are preparing to go, though I have to acknowledge your courtesy in so long listening to what must have been painful to you, and indeed to every one, though you doubtless know something of it from your own writers, I should have been glad to state what it seems to me scripture states of this sad moral ruin of the professing body of Christendom. We have already seen what the apostle says in Acts 20 and in 2 Timothy 3. He describes its state pretty nearly in the very terms which he applies to heathen depravity in Romans 1, adding the form of piety, and tells us to look to the scriptures as our sure resource.

Father O. I have no wish to have your biblical expositions. I am content to hear the church, as its Master directs us. If you and M. will go after your own minds, you must answer for it yourselves. I have felt it useless replying to a system of calumniating what is holy. It is just the way with you Protestants. I will wish you a good evening.

218 N*. Good evening. You will only remember that I have quoted only your own writers attached to the Roman hierarchy and system on the point you raised yourself.

Bill M. Good evening, sir.

N*. Well, M., I must go, I think, too. Mr. O., I suppose, will not return. If so, we can follow Milner with James; and Mr. O. could give us no more, only I was glad you should have been here. It was a very sorrowful and painful part of the inquiry; but when they make holiness a mark of the church, it must be inquired into. Happily I could only go into the general statements, which are full enough; for if details were given, it would be endless and every way unprofitable. But Mr. O. could not deny it, because the state of things is described by their own contemporary writers and admitted by their historians.

Bill M. Well, I am confounded. I never thought of such a thing; and then they seem so holy and devout.

N*. That is what the apostle says, "having the form of godliness," but he tells us to turn away from them.

Bill M. I see that the mark of holiness is wanting, for they avow it in these past ages; and they all say it is always the same church. I do not know how they can dare to give holiness as a mark.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

J. N. Darby.

<22004E> 219 {file section a.}

N*. Well, James, we were able to come back to you, and thought you would like to be present while we pursue our inquiry, and Mr. O. will have no more to say to us. And though it was well for Bill M. that Mr. O. should be there, and not to fancy that if one more capable than he were present, there would be an answer, yet we can follow Milner just as well, and more quietly; and he is what they all refer to, and what M. had and trusted in; and I can give you as before what I have collected in reading, so as to judge how far it is true.

Bill M. I hope you have no objection, sir; but though Mr. O. would not come, a gentleman he knows would be glad to be present, and I said I was sure you would not object.

N*. Not in the least. I shall follow Milner as a guide to the points we have to inquire into; but this gentleman can make any remark he wishes, or either of you, of course, if you have anything on your mind; though I shall have, as you two cannot know much of the details, to go pretty straight forward myself through the history.

James. I am very glad to see you, sir, and obliged to you for thinking of me and coming back.

N*. Well, our next point is apostolicity and succession. To me it has no importance whatever. In the Spirit and word of God there can be no succession. They are themselves complete and perfect, and remain the same. Truth is itself; you cannot apply the idea of succession to it. That truth we have in God's written word. The word of God abides for ever. To talk of succession as to it is simple nonsense. They speak of succession as a means of securing the truth. But we have it in the word. It is very striking how the truth is never made a mark of the church by Roman Catholics. The scriptures are full of it. Christ is the truth; the Father's word is truth; we are sanctified by the truth; the apostle loved in the truth and for the truth's sake. If a preacher did not bring sound doctrine, even a woman was to judge him, and not receive him into her house nor bid him God speed. Souls are begotten to God by the truth. The truth sets free. But for the Roman Catholic system it is no mark of anything; for if the truth were a mark of the church, those who seek the church must have the truth first to judge of it by, before they have the church, and if the truth was really possessed by them, they then would be begotten of God and sanctified before they find the church. And so it was at the beginning; the truth was preached and received, and men thereupon entered into the church, because they had received it, if it was really savingly received; and this they do not deny when first preached to heathens and Jews.

220 As to the use made by Irenaeus and others of this succession against heretics, though soon abused as a mere human argument as I have already said, I have no great objection to it. What was from the beginning is the truth; the surest way of finding it is reading what was at the beginning, which we confessedly have in the scripture; still as a mere external proof, if he could shew that no one had ever held it, and that it sprang up now in his own time, it might be used as an argument. Only it has this defect, that the carelessness of men may lose the discernment of many things in scripture, and truth may be brought up which really was at the beginning, and lost or somewhat enfeebled or even corrupted, so that to the men of the age it may seem new, when only reproduced from scripture. But when heretics said it was a bad God that made the Old Testament, as the heretics did, it might be honestly argued: No one from the beginning ever heard such a thing; and this is what Irenaeus did.

The scriptures were the surest appeal, and Irenaeus does appeal to them, only he shews he has not just confidence in using them in the power of the Spirit of God, and with Tertullian it is utterly so. He is just a lawyer, as he was, arguing a brief. And the result shews clearly the danger of leaving scripture; for what was at first used as a testimony soon came to be considered an authority, and then as more convenient for the corruptions of men, so that the scriptures were put out of sight.

However, that was the use especially made of succession by those early writers. We will therefore examine the succession they plead, and see how far apostolicity in this respect will accredit their system. I take them on their own ground, not on mine; for grace and gift, I am perfectly assured, came directly from God, and not by succession. I examine it only as an alleged mark of the true church. They allege from early writers that the episcopal order can be traced up to the foundation of every see by apostles and apostolic men, or afterwards through them in places subsequently founded, and in particular the succession of Rome to Peter; for poor Paul is nowadays pretty much thrown overboard: his teaching does not suit Rome.

221 James. But pardon me, sir, I do not see how this affects the truth or the authority of the word of God. That is true whether there are popes at Rome or not.

N*. Surely it does not; but the idea of authority of what has been handed down from Christ and His apostles to these days, by those, as they allege, commissioned of God, has great power over the imagination. Wherever the word of God is received by faith, all these things drop like autumn leaves, because we have the truth itself with divine certainty, and know it would be a sin to doubt of it. But all have not this simple faith in the word of God; it has not that simple but absolute authority as God's word over them; and habits of mind are very powerful, particularly when they are superstitious habits of mind. It seems humble, though it is not. It is a sin to yield up our souls to man when God has spoken, it is what the scripture calls voluntary humility; and people are afraid to trust God in His word, and do not know that word.

Here is our friend Bill M. He thought the clergy secured all truth to him, though it was official authority, not truth; and even now he has not the word of God at his command to meet these difficulties. He distrusts his clergy after all they have been obliged to admit, and he does not yet know how quite to trust the word.

Bill M. That is true. I hope you will go on, sir.

N*. I will. We must take Milner then, which is the book they gave you, and see what their apostolicity amounts to.

First, remark that the word "bishops" in the word of God does not mean what it does now. There were bishops and deacons in the church at Philippi; there were bishops in the church of Ephesus, called also elders of the church. You have "overseers" in the English version, of Acts 20: 28, for bishops, which is indeed the meaning of the word. This is equally plain in Timothy and Titus; so in Acts 14. The apostle chose them for every city. There is no one stationary president of any church in the New Testament, unless we take James at Jerusalem to be such; but then he presides over apostles, which is an awkward position for a bishop. I know Timothy and Titus are alleged to be such. That they were on certain occasions entrusted by the apostles with the care of one or several churches is true, but we do not find them in the scripture locally resident as such anywhere. They were at the apostles' service elsewhere afterwards, as need called for it, according to Christ's will. All this is uncontested and incontestable. Tradition localized them afterwards; scripture does not. That very soon indeed there were local presidents, who very early got the name of bishops, I do not contest; but the origin of this lies historically buried in the most absolute obscurity.

222 It is stated that the apostle John appointed bishops in various places in Asia Minor. Thus Tertullian says that the order of bishops, followed up to its origin, will have its standing in John as its author (contra Marcion. 4, 5), Clemens Alex., quoted by Eus. (3, 23), saying he went round to establish bishops, formed churches, and named as members of the clergy persons pointed out by the Holy Ghost. But this was quite at the end of the century and would prove that there were not any bishops before, that Paul had not established any, just as scripture shews. Indeed Tertullian goes farther, for he makes John the author of the episcopate. Certainly, if this be true (which is possible as history, not scripture or the word of God), he was in contrast with Paul, or rather with God's word.* Jerome gives a different account. In his epistle to Evangelus (146 in Vallar. Ben. 101), after shewing from scripture that bishops and presbyters were the same, he declares that if afterwards one was chosen to be above the rest, it was done to avoid schism, lest one drawing [it] to himself should break the church of Christ. However this may be, there very soon were such, but not recognized in scripture. There we find the authority of the apostles, particularly Paul, in these matters, and those whom he employed as serving with him under the Lord, particularly Timothy and Titus.

{*In this same chapter of the treatise (contra Marc.) we have the false point of Tertullian, prescription, which thus wholly breaks down. If what is earlier is truer, if what is earlier is from the beginning, what is from the beginning is from the apostles; and this assumes not that what was from the beginning is true, as the apostle John states it (which we have in the scriptures of the New Testament), but what is earlier is truer, which has no force at all, and is the basis of the whole, because it does not go to the beginning, and often is not true. Unless his assertion, "what is earlier is from the beginning," be accepted as necessarily true — and this assertion is utterly groundless — clearly a thing may be earlier than another, yet not from the beginning.}

223 Eusebius also relates (3, 11), that after the martyrdom of James and the destruction of Jerusalem, the apostles and surviving disciples of Jesus met and chose Symeon, son of Cleopas, cousin of the Lord, to fill up James' place. When we come to details, difficulties accumulate. We know from the Acts that Peter did not found the church at Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, whose episcopal succession is traced up to him. Barnabas, as a Paul, laboured there; all that we read of Peter there is that Paul had to rebuke him to his face for his want of uprightness. Indeed Peter never appears in scripture but as apostle of the circumcision. His epistles are directed to the dispersed Jews who had become Christians. Antioch, which was the Gentile capital of that part of the world, was the known sphere of other labourers. He may very likely have visited the Jews there. But here too Peter is said to have established the first bishop. Eusebius, nearly three hundred years afterwards, tells us he established Evodias the first bishop; Athanasius, about the same time, says Ignatius was the first after the apostles, Origen says the second, Jerome says he was the third.

Bill M. Here is Mr. R., sir.

N*. Good evening, sir.

Mr. R. Good evening, sir. I have taken the liberty to bring with me this clergyman of the Anglican body, Mr. D., who though not of the church of Rome, may shew how universal or Catholic principles condemn the rashness and heady mind which does not listen to the church, and the deadly evil of schism.

N*. Well, gentlemen, I am very glad you are here. We had come to apostolicity and succession, and I was about to take up Dr. Milner's statements on the subject, as he is the authority constantly used in these countries, and to compare his statements with authentic history.

Mr.D. It is a most important point, the security for grace and truth. It is just what keeps me in the Anglican church. It possesses a hierarchy which can be traced up to the apostles, and maintains the primitive faith of the church, though unhappily expressed in language too hostile to the great body subject to the Western patriarch; still these expressions are supportable, because they only refer to the common usages and popular views on the points treated, and not to the recognized faith of the church, which is to be sought in her creeds and formularies, and hence do not preclude the hope of reunion between the Anglican and Roman parts of the same body.

224 N*. I am aware that these are the views of the party you belong to. The authority of the word of God does not allow me to entertain them. Its statements are the truth, so that we have it directly from God, and, with a mind humble through grace, can learn and profit by it.

D. How do you know it is the word of God, and, if it be, how can simple and ignorant people understand it without being taught?

N*. We have spoken of this. The first part of your question is infidelity, which is the uniform resort of Romanists, and of all your school. People who have had it (the word of God) will be judged by it in the last day, when your clergy cannot help them, and therefore it behoves them to look to it now. The ministry of it is an ordinance of God, and to be highly valued; but the test of truth is the word of God itself. And in point of fact, as a rule, the clergy and not the laity, the teachers and not the taught, have introduced heresies.

As to the second point, it is a presumptuous charge against the apostles and other servants of the Lord, for they addressed themselves to the people (what you call the laity in the church) and indeed it is charging God with folly, for it was by inspiration that the apostle and others addressed their writings to all the church. But these points we have considered already.

We have now to see whether what you allege to be a security for grace and truth is really one, or a security for anything. I mean the succession of the episcopate, and particularly of the Roman pontiffs. The succession of the archbishops of Canterbury since they have existed, is much more certain, though doubt hangs over that too, because of the principles of Edward VI's reign. I think if I were to put you to legal proof there, you would find it difficult to make it good. But that I will not meddle with now. We can take the popes, for this is confessedly the key-stone of the arch, and your authorities send us there.

D. By all means, though I should be curious to know your reasons for casting doubt on the Anglican succession. You do not believe in the story of the Nag's Head?

N*. Not a word of it. It was a mere Jesuit invention, by a person named Holywood, set up as a tale nearly fifty years afterwards. There can be no doubt that Barlow consecrated Parker, and then it flowed regularly on. But even all this is a poor security for faith in contrast with the actual word and Spirit of God, which (unless open infidels) no one denies we have. But the Anglican flaw lies elsewhere, as you may see even in Milner (Letter 29): the question is who consecrated Barlow. But I will not go into this now, but see what security Roman succession gives. I deny the principle, and appeal to the word of God as the truth actually possessed by the church. And as regards the truth there can be no succession; it is itself. But we may examine the alleged security.

225 D. Be it so. You have a writer as early as Irenaeus appealing to the succession of Roman pontiffs, as of all other places, but specially to Rome, and giving the clear succession to his own days.

N*. We have, and that there were very soon local presidents who early got the name of bishops, I do not contest. But for all that, nothing is more uncertain than the origin of the episcopal order, the principle on which it is founded, and the succession to which Irenaeus refers. As regards the scriptures, we find in general elders called bishops, as Jerome insists, and no president or presiding authority. The apostles were in direct communication with the elders, or with the church, or with both, employing some Timothy and Titus in personal service when they were wanting, and then recalling them to themselves.

The nearest approach to anything of the kind is James at Jerusalem, who is often therefore called the first bishop. But then he presides over apostles and Peter himself, in the assembly held at Jerusalem, as is evident from Acts 15. If we are to believe Chrysostom (Hom. 38, 1 Cor. 15, ed. Ben. 10, 355), the Lord Himself imposed His hands on His brother, and made him bishop of Jerusalem. So Epiphanius (Haer. 78, 7), "He first took the episcopal throne to whom first the Lord committed His throne upon the earth!" How Peter came into it as a source of episcopacy, it would then be hard to say. How contrary this is to every scriptural thought, I need hardly say.

D. Why do you treat these holy traditions and fathers thus?

N*. What throne had Christ upon earth? Rejection and the cross was His portion. And how could He establish James by imposition of hands and make him bishop, when He Himself was there, and when He had not yet made propitiation so as to lay the foundation, or ascended on high and sent the Holy Ghost so as to begin the work for which He expressly tells the apostles to wait. Besides, if Christ gave James His throne on the earth as a religious supremacy, where was Peter? However great the folly of all this, Chrysostom and Epiphanius knew no supreme throne at Rome, which Peter had received as the first of the apostles. On their system, there would be a superior one at Jerusalem, unless Christ's throne was inferior to Peter's. It is also related by Eusebius that the remaining apostles and disciples appointed Symeon, also the Lord's relative, after James' death and the destruction of Jerusalem. It cannot be alleged that James took the Jewish throne, Peter the Gentile, for then there would be two, and Peter was unquestionably the apostle of the circumcision, not of the Gentiles. If we are to credit what Epiphanius (Haer. 80, 7) calls "the divine word and teaching of the Apostolic Constitutions," James was consecrated by Christ and the apostles (Const. Ap. 8, 35). I know all learned men admit the Constitutions to be forgeries. But this helps the simple mind to judge what we have to trust in these fathers and ancient writings. For this writer-down of all heresies holds these forgeries to be the divine word and teaching.

226 D. But you cannot deny the fact that James was bishop of Jerusalem.

N*. That he was the leader or president there, no person subject to scripture denies; Acts 15; Gal. 2: 2. But from that to a universal episcopacy as a note of the true church and security for grace and truth, is a wide step over a large abyss (and not only that, but the succession from them), and if true denies the pope's supremacy. The apostles as instruments were the security then, and when they were going they did not commend to successors as a security; but Paul commends the elders and flock to God, and the word of His grace as sufficient. And Peter takes care that, by his writings, they should have the truth in remembrance. But we will see what even Roman Catholic authorities and fathers furnish us, that is, on the episcopacy or apostolicity being a security and that by which the true church may be known. We may begin with Jerome, whose authority is so great.

In his epistle to Oceanus (Vall. 69, 416): "With the ancients bishops and presbyters are the same, for that is the name of the dignity, this of age." And it was no casual thought, no occasional argument. In his letter to Evangelus (Vall. 146, old edd. Evogrius) after quoting Philippians 1: 1; Acts 20; Titus 1: 5, etc.; 1 Timothy 4: 14; 1 Peter 5; 2 and 3 John, using the strongest language in citing them, he says, "that afterwards one was elected who should be above (praeponeretur) the others was done as a remedy for schism, lest each drawing the church of Christ to himself should break it!" Again on Titus 1: 5, still more positively: "A presbyter is therefore the same thing as a bishop, and before, by the instigation of the devil, there were parties in religion, and it was said among the peoples, I am of Paul, etc., the churches were governed by the common council of presbyters. But after every one thought that those he baptized were his, not Christ's, it was decreed in the whole world that one of the presbyters should be chosen, who should be set over the rest, to whom all the care of the church should appertain. Does any one think that the judgment that a bishop and a presbyter are one, and one the name of age, the other of office, is ours, not that of the scriptures? let him read again:" and then quotes Philippians 1; Acts 20; 1 Peter 5; adding here Hebrews 13: 17, on which he comments.

227 He continues, "These then that we may shew that the presbyters were the same thing as bishops. But, by degrees, that the plants of dissension might be pulled up, the whole solicitude was deferred to one. As therefore the presbyters know that they are subject to him who is set over them by the custom of the church, so will the bishops know, that they by a custom of the church, rather than by the truth of a disposition of the Lord,* are greater than presbyters," etc. And in the same letter to Evangelus, he tells us, that till the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, in Alexandria, if the patriarch died, the presbyters chose and put into office (as the soldiers an emperor, or deacons an archdeacon) one of their own number; and other more modern authorities state that Mark, who was said to have founded that see, appointed twelve presbyters to be with the patriarch, and, when he died, they all laid their hands on one of their number, and that this continued till the time of Patriarch Alexander in the year 318, who ordained that the bishops should meet and do it.

{*"Dispositionis Dominicae veritate."}

228 Augustine in a letter to Jerome confirms the notion that it is by the usage of the church that bishops have a more honourable name than other presbyters: "Honorum vocabula quae Ecclesia usus obtinent." Urban II in a Council at Beneventum, A.D. 1091, and a countless number of bishops and abbots, decreeing that none but presbyters and deacons could be chosen bishops, declared, Art. 1, "We call sacred orders diaconate and presbytership only. It is read that the primitive church had these alone, as to these alone we have precept of the apostle." The object was evidently to exclude any of the sub-orders being chosen, for in exceptional cases by permission sub-deacons might. But the fact is clearly stated, which is what is important. The Decretal of Gratian quotes Isidore Hisp. to the same purpose, Decr. 21, 1, and what we have seen of Jerome 93, 24; 95, 5, and in the following sections, the relations of bishops and presbyters.*

{*Medina, a Roman Catholic theologian, says that not only Jerome but Augustine, Leontius, Primasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, OEcumenius, and Theophylact were all in the Aerian heresy on this subject. That the church had condemned in Aerius Wycliffe and the Waldenses, but that it was borne in these fathers or dissembled on account of the reverence paid to them. Bellarmine says that (to speak very gently) this is very inconsiderate, as it puts a slur on these illustrious fathers, and makes the church an accepter of persons; and they were guilty, more so than Aerius, who lived before them; and more, the fathers (if this were so) could not be cited as an authority. (Bell. 2, 161; De Haer. 1, 15.)}

I have no idea of approving or disapproving these views, but when you make apostolicity, and in fact episcopal succession) a mark of the true church, your whole ground fails under you. "What was from the beginning" is true. As to the truth, I hold that the truth that was from the beginning is surely the truth for me. But as to that on which you make the certainty of truth rest, I have here your greatest authorities admitting it not to have been at the beginning, as says Pope Urban, "the precept of the apostle refers to deacons and presbyters alone." You, gentlemen, a Ritualist and Anglican Catholic, and Mr. R. a Roman Catholic, would impose this succession upon us as a necessary mark of the true church. But, when the apostle founded it, and as scripture presents it, it has not this mark at all. Your own authorities confess it. Tertullian, if he is to be trusted, gives other and indeed different information. He says expressly (Cont. Marcion. 4, 5) that, "The order of bishops, followed up to its origin, will have its standing in John as its author." And Clemens Alexandrinus, quoted by Eusebius, 3, 23, says, John went round to establish bishops, form churches, and name as members of the clergy persons pointed out by the Holy Ghost.

229 But this was at the end of the century, and where Paul had laboured; and if true, it would prove that there were not any bishops before that. Paul had not established any, just as scripture shews. I have scripture, that is, a positive revelation of God, exhibiting churches to me without this kind of bishops having individual authority; and the founder of these churches, the apostle Paul, instituting another kind of church government: that is, that another order of things was what was from the beginning. And then I have a tradition more than one hundred and fifty years afterwards that the apostle John went round these churches and appointed bishops; and moreover, the most learned of the fathers of the church, as they are called, telling me that in fact it was not so from the beginning, that presbyters and bishops are the same, and that, if one individual was set up over the above presbyters, it was only to keep quiet and unity in the church, because of the ambition of the clergy, a mere arrangement of men, but not God's ordinance.*

{*This was felt so strongly that Roman Catholic doctors have declared that such as Jerome were materially heretics — that is, in what they said; but Bellarmine says this is rash.}

Another most famous doctor, Augustine, tells me that it was according to words of honour by the custom of the church, bishops were greater than presbyters. That is, it certainly was not from the beginning, was not a mark of the church at the beginning, consequently never can be. This then forms no possible security for grace or faith. It shews only how early the clergy began to be ambitious and to create divisions. If you reject Jerome, Augustine and Pope Urban, and the rest who state this, where are your Fathers, your tradition, and your authority? I am then too thrown back on the scriptures which have neither bishops in the modern sense, nor succession. It is possible that as a human arrangement John may have done so, setting aside Paul's arrangement; but this is certain, it cannot have the authority of the word or be alleged to have been from the beginning, and your Peter plan falls to the ground. You have other traditions for him, I know, which we will examine, but to which the same answer will apply.

230 D. But you cannot go against the whole stream of tradition, and make John contradict Paul.

N*. You must remember, dear sir, that we are not proving bishops to be right, or to be wrong; but seeking the sure marks of the true church as alleged by the system you uphold. In the scriptures or in the beginning, as is confessed by those I have referred to, and strongly asserted by Jerome, and fully recognized by Pope Urban in a numerous council, there were none such as you call bishops, and St. Augustine confirms it, saying it was a name of honour by the custom of the church. Tertullian comes to tell us it originates with the apostle John, who went round to do it, and so Clemens Alexandrinus or Eusebius. All state or confirm the fact that there were none at the beginning. If, as Jerome states, it was to meet factions in the clergy, it is possible that John may have accepted and suffered it as a necessity. It is a mere tradition of a century after, and refers to one locality, and we have the positive testimony of scripture that it was not so ordered at the beginning, but positively otherwise, which fact is insisted on by those you call fathers. Paul calls for the bishops or elders, warns them of coming evils, and refers them to God and the word of His grace, without an idea of any bishop being a security for grace or faith or anything else. How can I take it as a mark of the church, when the church in its best estate had no such mark; the scriptures, as confessed by fathers and popes, stating distinctly that it was not so? Your famous rule, "What always," etc., condemns you entirely here; and Jerome and Augustine knew the episcopal succession well enough, and were attached to the unity and order of the external professing body as devoutly as any one could wish.

As to opposition between the apostles, I believe only what is in the word. You by your traditions bring in John changing Paul's system. If it was historically the case, it only proves God would not give scriptural authority to it. I am in no way held to believe these traditions, nor do I know the import of them if there be some historical basis. And remark this, by no possible means can succession be a mark of the true church, as the church must subsist before the mark could be there. If there, it may be used as a testimony, wisely or not, but it cannot be a mark, for it cannot be at the beginning.

D. But we have the lists, up to the apostles, of the episcopal succession, to which the earliest writers appeal.

231 N*. Who furnish them to us?

D. Irenaeus for example. Tertullian makes the same appeal.

N*. Only they?

D. Others may speak of it, but in them we have a clear testimony which none can gainsay.

N*. Well, let us examine what is said, and how far it affords a mark of the true church. We may first take Antioch, as we shall have a good deal to say to Rome. Who was the first person who filled that see?

D. Evodias.

N*. Is that quite clear?

D. Well. He came first after Peter, and Ignatius followed.

N*. Can you rest your case on the certainty of this?

D. I rest it on the general tradition which traces the churches up to their founders.

N*. But Peter did not found the church at Antioch at all. Some of the scattered disciples addressed the Gentiles there, and it was the sphere of Barnabas and Paul's labours for a length of time, and the place whence they went out to preach the gospel to the heathen. Peter was not the apostle of the Gentiles at all. The Lord Jesus expressly sent Paul to them, and the Holy Ghost sent him forth to that work from Antioch, and there he returned when he had gone over a considerable part of Asia Minor. Not only so, but when he went up to Jerusalem, James, Cephas, and John, pillars there in the assembly, when they saw what God had given Paul, gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that they should go to the Gentiles, and themselves to the circumcision. That is, to Paul was given the apostolic commission to the Gentiles. God was mighty in Peter to the circumcision. Whatever commission (which was not from Christ ascended, but risen and in Galilee, nor from the Holy Ghost) he had to the Gentiles, with the rest in Matthew 28, he gave it up to Paul and undertook to go to the Jews. The apostleship of the circumcision was committed to Peter, that of the Gentiles to Paul. So that all your derivation from Peter is antibiblic. Peter we never hear of at Antioch in scripture, but as rebuked to his face for his dissimulation.

D. Is it right to speak of the holy apostle thus?

232 N*. I suppose it is, as the scriptures so speak of him,* and Paul does it expressly to combat this superstitious derival of authority from Peter to which you attach such importance. The Judaizing Christians made everything of it then, and opposed Paul. Paul in the beginning of Galatians boasts of his acting independently of it. So do we. "It made no matter to me" is all Paul has to say for them. Every Christian acknowledges the apostolic title of Peter (to say nothing of his zeal and devotedness) and receives his writings as inspired; but they know he was the apostle of the circumcision, not of the Gentiles; and it is remarkable that Paul owns no apostles but as consequent on Pentecost (Eph. 4: 10, 11); and he tells us that, as to the church outside the circumcision, no doubt in the world at large, he as a wise master-builder has laid the foundation. From him you have no succession, and succession from Peter he rejects and despises. This no one who owns the authority of scripture can deny (Gal. 2: 7-9; Rom. 11: 13; Acts 26: 17; ch. 9: 15; ch. 13: 2-4); and Peter addresses his epistle to the scattered believing Jews, however precious it may be to every saint.

{*Augustine, in a letter to Jerome, calls on him to sing a palinodian for making the scriptures tell a lie as to this, which made Jerome very angry. The Benedictine editors say Jerome recanted. He says he put down borrowed matter in his commentary as well as his own, and perhaps in this way taught error. God is his judge, not I; but I do not see by fruits a sign that Jerome was a real Christian influenced by grace.}

D. But you do not mean to call in question the apostolic authority of Peter.

N*. No, surely not. But I take his ministry as the scripture gives it, the apostleship of the circumcision or of the Jews. So he let in Cornelius that there might be unity, the first Gentile brought in. But the ministry of the gospel to every creature under heaven was committed formally to Paul by a Saviour revealed in glory, and further he had a distinctive ministry of the church, Colossians 1: 23-25: where we see, it was a dispensation committed to him. (Compare Eph. 3; 1 Cor. 9: 17.) Now you have no succession but a Petrine, one which Paul rejects, I may say with scorn, and from an apostle who, it is quite clear, was not the apostle of the Gentiles at all.

D. I am rather afraid of this slighting of the first of the apostles, whose very name is a witness and seal of the testimony Christ bore him. It is hazardous, the spirit of pride, which is just what misleads you all. The authority of the church is gone with you; and now, the authority of Peter, to whom the keys of the church were confided, and the feeding of Christ's sheep.

233 N*. Peter, that is, his writings, have exactly the same authority for me as Paul's, because both are inspired. There is no pride nor hazard in the matter, but simply learning and bowing to what the Lord Jesus, or the apostle Paul himself has said, and there we see that, finally, the mission to the Gentiles was confided to Paul by the Lord Himself, without any derivation from, or reference or subordination to, Peter. But where do you find the keys of the church?

D. In Matthew 16.

N*. I do not. I find the Lord, not Peter, going to build His church; and so Peter, in his epistles, does not speak of doing it, but of living stones coming. Paul does; he lays the foundation. But there are no keys of the church at all. People do not build with keys, and I repeat it is Christ who builds, not Peter. Nothing is said of him as regards the church, but that he was Peter, a stone; the keys of the kingdom were given to him, and there, I doubt not, all he bound or loosed was sanctioned in heaven; but it was not in the church; there, as to this passage in Matthew 16, Christ alone is active.

D. But I never heard this called in question; it seems to me a mere quibble. The church and the kingdom of heaven are the same thing.

N*. Surely they are not. The church which Christ thus builds will be in glory with Him for ever and ever, and, in another aspect, the tabernacle of God. It is what Christ will present to Himself — a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, and that it is in any sense, or at any time, His body or His bride, can in no way be said of the kingdom. Tares are sown in the kingdom among the wheat. He gathers out of it all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; He will deliver it up to God, even the Father. The church, His body and His bride, He will never give up.

When the marriage of the Lamb is come, judgment will follow here below. It is then that He takes to Him His great power, and reigns. The kingdom is the sphere of His title and power as King; the church is His body. But the passage itself is clear; Christ builds the church. The administration of the kingdom is committed to Peter, symbolized by the keys. Scripture, that is, God Himself, is much wiser, and more accurate, where it is wise to be so, than we are, and He has attributed the use of the keys to the kingdom, not to the church. This, as here spoken of, Christ builds, and the temple is not finished yet. It grows to a holy temple in the Lord. And, where such a system of authority is built upon it, it is very hazardous to change what is stated, and then to build on the change you have made.

234 D. But surely there is a church on earth.

N*. Undoubtedly; it is there we are to look for it now. But into that building, as founded wisely by the apostolic ministry upon earth, wood and hay and stubble may be brought in — a distinct thing from the body which is formed, as 1 Corinthians 12 informs us, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, where every member partakes of the fulness of the Head, and is united to Him. But tell me, do you think that there can be rotten, bad, members of the body of Christ united to Him by the Holy Ghost, and who go finally to hell?

D. There may be hypocrites in it on earth.

N*. No doubt. False brethren may creep in, and take their place amongst the members of Christ's body, but they are not united to Christ by the Spirit, and thus members of His body. But you admit that there cannot be really dead, rotten, members of Christ's body?

D. Of course there cannot.

N*. Then the external body you call the church is not the body of Christ; for there, confessedly, are multitudes of bad members. They are members of your church, perhaps priests in it; they are not members of Christ's body. That is, your church is not the body of Christ. They are wood and hay and stubble, it may be, viewing it as a building built by man. But the attributing the privileges of the body to it is all a delusion. The apostle compares it in 1 Corinthians 10, referring to baptism and the Lord's supper, to Israel's coming out of Egypt, and many falling in the wilderness after all. The members of Christ's body do not perish in the wilderness.

D, But you are running after the phantom of a pure church.

N*. I am not running after anything; I am simply taking the statements of scripture as to facts. It goes further, for it not only warns me of the possibility of wood, and hay, and stubble being built into God's building, but that in the last days perilous times will come, and that there will be a form of piety, denying the power; nay, that evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse.

235 D. And what do you make of the gates of hell not prevailing against it?

N*. I thank God with all my heart for it. What Christ builds, no power of Satan shall frustrate or cast down, but that is not built up yet. There is a building into which could be built what the fire of God would consume in judgment, and I do not confound that with what Christ is building for eternal glory. All that God ever set up in good has been entrusted to man, and he has always failed. This does not hinder God accomplishing His purposes all the same. The church, as entrusted to man, has failed, as Adam did, as Israel did when they got the law. It is revealed that in the last days there will be the form of piety, denying the power. The church that Christ builds, the gates of hell will not prevail against. Now when you are claiming security of faith and grace by episcopal succession, you are claiming it for what is connected with man's responsibility (not with Christ's building), for that which the apostle declared would fail. He says (Acts 20) that after his decease, from within and without the danger would arise, and refers the elders of Ephesus to God and the word of His grace. Why after his decease, if he left a secure guard in apostolical succession? Nor does Peter know any such. Nor, I may add, John; for as to the churches he superintended, he warns them of having their candlestick removed, or being spewed out of Christ's mouth, and he knows no such security.

D. But I do not say a particular church may not fail, but only that the whole church cannot.

N*. Pardon me, you refer, and your authorities refer, to Antioch, and Rome, and others, even those referred to in the Apocalypse. And where is the promise to the whole once planted by man, I mean the apostles, on the earth, if each particular one may fall?

D. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

N*. But that is what Christ is building, and it is not complete yet. Living stones are, we may trust, still coming to the living stone; it is not what was externally planted as a whole on earth, already established as a corporation, so to speak, settled by men on the earth, however perfectly, at the beginning, according to the mind of God; still left to man's responsibility, whose dangers the apostle warns the elders of, and which he declares would end in a form of piety, denying the power. What Christ builds will not fail; but when man builds, man's responsibility and its effects come in. Judgment begins at the house of God. And if the evil servant say, My Lord delays His coming, and beat the men-servants and maidservants, and eat and drink with the drunken, his portion would be with the unbelievers. The result, in one case, rests on man's responsibility, in the other on the unfailing power of Christ; but this last is not yet finished, it is not a complete structure on earth. It grows to a holy temple: so scripture teaches us. But now I take you on your own ground. When we diverged to this point, you had just said that Peter, Evodias, Ignatius, was the order of succession at Antioch.

236 Let us see what tradition tells us here, for history is all we can have — statements made long after what men had heard. Theodoret (Dial. 1, vol. 4, 33; Harris, 642), and Chrysostom say that Ignatius was ordained by Peter. Athanasius calls him the first after the apostles (De Synodis, 1, 607; Ben. ed. Pat.); Origen calls him second after Peter (Hom. 6, in Luc.); Jerome says he was the third (Cap. Script.). Now, in the first place, these statements, if to be reconciled, shew that neither Evodias nor Ignatius were successors of Peter, for he was alive during both their lives, and, if the statement be true, Evodias died before Peter did. Indeed Bellarmine, though he makes Peter the first bishop of Rome, admits that the apostles, as such, had no successors (De Sum. Pont. 4, 25). The pope, he says, succeeds to him as ordinary pastor of the whole church, the bishops not — as to them, the apostles having only an extraordinary place. According to him, Christ ordained Peter, or we should have no episcopate at all; he, James and John, and they, the rest; and so they were all bishops.* Still he makes Peter, James, and John ordain James after the Lord's death. Thus, at Antioch, one Father says Ignatius was first after the apostles, another that he was the second, another that he was the third.

{*Of what see? The proof that Christ ordained Peter is as curious a piece of reasoning as we might easily find. It is only worth citing to shew what kind of ground these subjects rest on. See Bell. de S. P., 1, 23, 2, 4, and other places in this treatise.}

This is hard to be reconciled, and to mean the same thing. One says that he was the first bishop after the apostle was gone. Another counts him second, that is, after Evodias, not reckoning the apostle Peter at all. Another, counting Peter in, makes him third. But then here come the Apostolic Constitutions, and Baronius, the great Catholic historian, approves seemingly their views of the case (Bar. 12, 45), that Evodias was named by Paul, Ignatius by Peter for the Jewish Christians. So that there were two bishops and the unity of the church gone, and the fruit of the settlement and decrees of the apostles wholly lost, Paul and Peter acting in contradiction to the object of them. Then they suppose that Ignatius gave way to Evodias when matters were settled, and, when Evodias died, Ignatius came in, and was bishop by himself.

237 In general the Constitutions (7, 46) give a list of one to a see, but in Philadelphia, and Rome also, two, one by Peter and one by Paul. These testimonies may be little worth, and, if true, in splitting the church into two, shew anything but a ground of confidence or security of doctrine: the succession itself has to be settled. Eusebius is quite clear that Evodias was first bishop, then after him Ignatius (3, 22). Now, as Theodoret distinctly affirms that Ignatius received the grace of the high-priesthood from Peter, for which Chrysostom also admires him, all this account is not only utter confusion in itself, but the whole story contradicts the account we have in the Acts, which gives us accounts of Antioch later than the time in which a great part of what these ecclesiastical authors speak of should have happened. That very soon, unless at Rome, the order became regular, no one disputes; but the important links on your system are the first, and, the moment we seek any details of these, all is confusion and uncertainty. We get, as in Apost. Const., a list of names, possibly taken from scripture, as Timothy for Ephesus, Titus for Crete, Crescens for Galatia, but really nothing more than a fancied list of names, because after ages would have it so.

D. But why do you except Rome? Its succession is sure enough.

N*. Anything but that. It is so uncertain, that the best Roman Catholic authors are often not agreed which of two, sometimes of three, rivals was legitimate pope, and to such a point, that you have two, and even three, numbers attached to the names of popes. Some historians say John XX, some XXI, some XXII, for the same person, and so of other popes. But this we will, of course, look into; but, as I have said, the origin is the chief point, though, of course, if there be breaches in the conduit, it will not bring in the water rightly, if water indeed there be.

238 D. But you do not question that there was originally this living water?

N*. No. But I have this water in the perennial spring itself, the word of God, and your long, and, I am afraid, very muddy, canal gives me more mud than water, and what water it gives remains spoiled by the mud that is in it; and we follow the advice of your great friend Cyprian: when the water does not come properly, we go and examine if the spring has failed. It certainly has not, so we get straight to the words of Christ and His apostles. As you insist on the canal water, we, though rejoicing in the fresh springs of God's word, examine your canal with you, because you are trying to persuade people that there is no other way of getting the water, seeing the canal was made on purpose, and that they are all wrong in going to the spring, and should trust you. We have drunk of the water, and engage them to go and drink of it, and they will soon see the difference between that and what your canal furnishes, and learn what the fresh and living water is which God originally gave them. We cannot but think, from your attempts to hinder them, that you do not like the pure water, and have got a taste for mud. Now your grand reservoir is Rome, and we will see whether the security of the first inlet you rely on is very great.

And here I must beg you to remember that it is a security for faith by a clear and unquestionable succession we are seeking. To us it is quite immaterial, because we have the water itself, the divine word, and can reckon on God's grace and Spirit for the use of it, both for drink and for cleansing; but to you the question is vital. It is your security for truth. Now we are met by exactly the same difficulties as in Antioch, to me a plain proof (not merely of particular uncertainty, which no one can, and no one acquainted with the facts does, deny, but) that the system which asserts this apostolic appointment of successors is utterly groundless. Scripture not only is silent as to such, but really denies it. The apostle appointed elders or bishops, many in a place, and on leaving their service speaks of no others, so that the plea of Theodoret is that they were called at first apostles (Com. on Phil. 1), and gradually declined the name, and were called bishops. Of this there is not a trace in scripture, those called apostles having no such office, and in one case merely meaning messenger of an assembly.

239 Tradition, on the other hand, in the only two cases where any details are given, proves, through the uncertainty that surrounds them, that there was no such appointment known, though, as centuries rolled by, and the system prevailed, they traced it up to the names best known at the first. Thus Irenaeus goes up to Polycarp at Smyrna. But Polycarp writes as one among the presbyters in his letter to the Philippians; "Polycarp and the presbyters with him," and afterwards, at the end of Section 5 and the beginning of Section 6, knows only presbyters and deacons. Perhaps the first positive recognition of it is in Ignatius' letter to Polycarp as it stands in the Syriac version. And this was in Trajan's time, in the year 116, at which time nobody doubts that one presiding prelate existed. Yet even he (3, 22) speaks of the succession of presbyters. As to Polycarp himself, Tertullian says he was put into the office by John, referring to no one before him (De P. Har. 32): Irenaeus, 3, 3, says he had seen him young ordained by the apostles; so Jerome (De Viris Illustribus), that he was a disciple of John, and made bishop of Smyrna by him. But in the Apostolic Constitutions we have three bishops, and no Polycarp — Aristo, Stratias, and Aristo (7, 46). But Cotelerius tells us that those celebrated are Bucolus first, and then Polycarp. Irenaeus knows nothing of Bucolus, but, as Polycarp knew John, and he knew Polycarp, traces the certainty through what they taught, that the church had never held that the world was created by another and evil god, who had also given the law; for this was the subject of Irenaeus' controversy.

Next, as to the church in Rome. This double foundation of the church, which we have already seen alleged in Antioch, cannot be admitted for a moment as being laid of God. We find it carefully guarded against in both doctrine and ecclesiastical care in scripture. It is stated that the church of Rome was founded by Peter and Paul (Iren. 7, 3);* but the same thing is said of Corinth (Eus. 2, 25), or, if not founded, jointly established in the faith. Paul and Peter went together by Corinth to Rome. It may be so at the end of their lives, but it seems very uncertain. One thing is quite certain — Peter had nothing to do with founding the church in either place. The divinely given history of the Acts assures us of that.

{*I have already said that I do not think there can be the smallest doubt that "principalitatem," as to the Roman church, was archen, in the sense of origin; It is of that Irenaeus is speaking, so that the context proves it.}

240 D. But they may have journeyed together to Rome to their martyrdom.

N*. It is possible; but the church was long founded, and that does not make Peter bishop of Rome; indeed, in your earlier* traditions Linus is represented as first, or Clement, but never Peter. And now, as to this succession, we are in the same uncertainty. Irenaeus tells us Linus was first, then Anacletus, then Clement; so Eusebius some two centuries later. But Tertullian much earlier than the latter, giving it as a positive register (census) of the succession, says Polycarp was appointed by John at Smyrna, and Clement ordained by Peter for Rome. But then our Apostolic Constitutions do as they did at Antioch, give us Linus appointed by Paul, and Clement by Peter (7, 46). Jerome (Cal. Vir. Ill. 15) tells us that Clement was the fourth from Peter, as he must be, if indeed Linus was the second, and Anacletus third. However, most of the Latins think that Clement was the second from Peter the apostle.

{*But for two hundred years and more.}

But in Optatus Mil. (De S. Don. 3, 3) we have another list given as quite certain — Peter, Linus, Clement, Anacletus. Epiphanius (27, 6), after a very long story as to how it came about, says that it was uncertain whether Cletus (the second, according to him) was ordained by the apostles, but that they were bishops during the lifetime of the apostles (Peter and Paul having both been bishops of Rome together). They having gone away, left Linus and Cletus in charge; then Clement, who had been first named but would not serve, on the death of Cletus was forced to take the see; but that at any rate the succession was Peter and Paul, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Evaristus. And to shew how little secure these lists are, were it of any importance, in what follows he leaves out one known to have held the See of Rome altogether, and puts another quite wrongly in his stead, having left him out in his proper place. Ruffinus (Praf. ad Recogn.) accounts for two of the statements, for people objected to them in his days, by making Linus and Cletus bishops while Peter was living, and Clement appointed by him before his death; he says it was the same at Caesarea, where Zaccheus was bishop. One of the popes (Celestine V) gives us another explanation of the matter; that Clement resigned because one pope should not appoint his successor, and Peter appointed him, and that then he took it afterwards on surer ecclesiastical ground — a singular view of apostolic authority. Remark again here how Paul, who certainly was first at Rome, is ignored.

241 Now let us see what conclusion the most respectable Roman Catholic historians have drawn from the sources to which I have referred. Fleury (54, 2, 26): "The apostles having founded and built up the Roman church gave the charge of governing it to St. Linus, the same of whom St. Paul wrote to Timothy. To St. Linus succeeded St. Clement or St. Cletus, otherwise named Anacletus. It is certain that they were the three first bishops of Rome; but neither their order nor the time of their pontificate is certain. Twelve years are given to St. Linus, and yet it is more likely that he only survived the apostles a year or two, and consequently that they had established him bishop of Rome to govern it under them as they were accustomed to do in other places." There are two things certain here, that Peter was not bishop, and that he did not appoint Clement before his death. All the rest is uncertain.

Dupin, another most respectable Roman Catholic historian: "St. Clement, disciple and coadjutor of the apostles, was ordained bishop of Rome after St. Anaclet." And in a note, "St. Irenaeus, and Eusebius and the ancients put him only the third of Rome, although others make him the immediate successor of St. Peter. But I think it better to adhere to St. Irenaeus." Natalis Alexander (3, 19) makes Peter preside twenty-five years, then Linus twelve, then Cletus twelve, then Clement nine, but the length of time uncertain. Baronius sets them all right (35, foll.); will have Linus succeeding Peter after his death; rehearses endless discussions and opinions, but insists that Linus came first, Clement third, or even fourth, as Tertullian's verses put it, Linus, Cletus, Anacletus, Clement. But he says Anacletus came after Clement. All others make Cletus and Anacletus the same person; but for him they are all wrong, and the true order is Linus, Cletus, Clement, Anacletus; others putting, he thinks, one Cletus for Anacletus or the converse. If you wish to see confusion and contradictions, you have only to read Baronius on the first successors of Peter. Pagius insists he is all wrong.

242 D. But with all this uncertainty, it is clear that there was a succession of the followers of the apostles who presided over the see.

N*. I do not doubt that these companions of the apostles laboured in the care of the Roman assembly; but, as to succession to secure doctrine, there is none such to be found. Some will have Linus and Cletus assistants to Peter, who was often away in his lifetime. Baronius insists it was after his death they were regular bishops. Others insist Clement was the first. It is evident there was a state of things not clearly known, and that all these were efforts to reconcile this with a well-established system which prevailed when the efforts were made, and which were arranged by one one way, by another another — by scarce two alike, while the most learned of the Fathers insists it was only an arrangement to crush factions, and the most eminent confirms his thought. But this can give no security for successional grace and truth, were such an idea just.

But I see, James, your wife has something on her mind, and is only deterred from speaking by our being all here. But we are in her house, not in a church, and she is quite at liberty to say anything.

Mrs. — . I should not think of intruding, sir, on the conversation. I was only saying to James that I cannot understand what the meaning of looking for all this security for the doctrine of the apostles is, when we have the doctrine itself in their own writings.

N*. Well, I should think common sense, to say nothing of faith, which must have a divine basis, could think nothing else. But there is a human thoughtfulness about antiquity, and it looks like a feeling of reverence to make much of these ancient writers — some of them really saints and martyrs; and then you must remember that our friends here, at any rate one of them, considers, like the Pharisees of old, the tradition of the elders as part of the word of God; besides, they profess to take their interpretations of the word from these Fathers. Of this we have spoken; and as to the security of doctrine, it is nothing less than absurd to look for it in an uncertain succession of men, when we have the teaching itself given by God, and proclaimed by inspiration, which none of them can or do pretend to. We have gone into the subject because it is alleged by all Roman Catholics and Ritualists, and alleged by Milner as one of the marks of the true church. It is in that light we are now considering it. Nor can I consider Milner's statement as honest. First, he states it as unquestioned that Simon Barjonas was called a rock, which he was not, but a stone.

243 Mr. R. But it was spoken in Syriac, and the gender makes no difference.

N*. I know your advocates allege this; but you believe that, as we have it, to be inspired?

R. Undoubtedly.

N*. Well then, we have the difference made by inspiration in the sentence itself. Thou art petros, and on this rock (petra) I will build My church. And therefore it is not honest to say Peter or rock. Further, he must have known that the Vulgate and Rhemish alike say, Thou art Peter, as a name. And he was too learned not to know, what we have already seen, that half his authorities take the passage in a different sense.

Next, he gives the list of popes as if it were all a clear case, when his own historians differ entirely, and quietly says he will leave out some, as there would be too many to recount all; whereas an accurate succession, though a matter of perfect indifference to those who have the scriptures, is yet, in his point of view, quite essential; but it enables him to leave out those who would make the pretension to a regular succession a mere farce — forgive me,. gentlemen, for speaking plainly. Dr. Milner not only smooths over difficulties, but conceals the fact that there were two or three popes at a time, anathematizing and excommunicating each other, and Europe divided between them; and when one faction put down the other, and put their pope up, the latter cancelled all the ordinations of his rival, so that a book had to be written as to there being any real ordinations at all.

R. But ordination imprints a character, and cannot be destroyed or revoked.

N*. I am aware this is your theory; but here, as they held the pope to be null, they held all his acts to be null, and declared them all invalid. And, as it is, different Roman Catholic authors hold different popes to have been the true ones; and if so, where is the security of a true apostolic succession?

244 We will go rapidly through their history (not repeating the atrocities they were guilty of, but) in view of succession and apostolicity. I sum up what we have found in a few words. The scriptures, as Jerome and others, and Pope Urban, know no difference between bishops and presbyters. The same persons were called by both names, and there was no resident person holding such an office as is now called bishop. James at Jerusalem is the only appearance even of anything like it. Elsewhere, where Paul had laboured, he established bishops or presbyters. Paul founded the church among the Gentiles and established no bishops, as the word is now understood. The Fathers so called cannot give us any certain list, and historians are disagreed which is the true one, as to Antioch, Rome, and Smyrna, where there is some account of the names. When insisting on the point of succession, they contradict each other.

Then come in the Constitutions, a forgery evidently in their present form but very ancient, which give a totally different account of the matter, and make two, one established by Paul, another by Peter; the more striking because it affects alike both Antioch and Rome, where the contradictions are found, and in exactly the same way. Save this, there is no tradition making Paul the founder of any succession of the church, but Peter, who was not apostle of the Gentiles at all. Tertullian says episcopacy is to be traced to John; Jerome, that it arose from the factious spirit of the clergy.

The fair conclusion to draw is, that there was no such post or succession at the beginning, as I have already said; and that, when it had become important through feebleness of faith and want of dependence on the word of God, they tried to make it out.

R. It is a most bold conclusion against the faith and tradition of the church.

N*. It is a question of fact; and the fact you cannot prove. The scripture, by the confession of your own writers, makes no distinction between bishops and elders, and there is no consistent tradition even on the point, but quite the contrary. Nobody denies that they very soon began to have them. Then they tried to make out the list, but they did not agree.

D. Nobody can deny that bishops and elders are the same in scripture, but there were really bishops with a different name, as Timothy and Titus, whom I name because they were appointed by Paul, not to say James also at Jerusalem.

245 N*. For what sees were Timothy and Titus appointed?

D. For Ephesus and Crete.

N*. You must kindly remember that we are discussing the point of succession. I am not arguing for presbytery against episcopacy or episcopacy against presbytery. If James was bishop, he was bishop over apostles, saying, when Peter and Paul had spoken, "Wherefore my sentence is," so that Peter's primacy is gone. As to Timothy and Titus, they were left merely occasionally by the apostle Paul to watch certain cases, and sent for to go elsewhere afterwards, or to stay with him (1 Tim. 1: 3; 2 Tim. 4: 21; Phil. 2: 19) when he was in prison at Rome; as to Titus, see 2 Timothy 4: 10; Titus 3: 12: so that it is certain they were not local prelates in Paul's time, nor appointed by him to be such. I am aware you have Theodoret's authority some 300 years after for calling them apostles, but nothing in scripture. Those the church sent with money are called their messengers, as Epaphras the messenger of Colosse to Paul, who, as "messenger" in Greek is "apostolos," is so called, as the apostles were Christ's messengers. There were those of the different churches. "Apostolos" means nothing else than "one sent"; and then, being at a loss, they make him an apostle, and then say, "that is, a bishop," apostle being given up, out of modesty.

But it is a lame effort to prop up the case; for apostle means one sent, no more and no less; but, when Christ sent them, they had divine authority and commission. A resident prelate is just one who is not an apostolos. As to modesty, it does not seem to have grown much with advancing years amongst the ecclesiastics. The epistles of Ignatius do not bear much trace of it, though I do not attribute them all to him.

Here is a curious example among so many others of the frauds and forgeries perpetrated in the vaunted primitive church, which got the name of pious frauds: Gospels, Apostolic Acts, Canons, and Constitutions, Sibylline prophecies, Ignatius' Epistles, visions, even a letter from Christ. Nothing was wanting in the way of falsehood, in the early centuries of the church, to impose superstition and corruption on the ignorance they were in, and exalt the clergy at the expense of the authority of the word of God.

Bill M. But is this true, Mr. R.?

R. There is no doubt such things existed, but the church is not answerable for them; they never were received into the church.

246 N*. The Visions of Hermas, which were composed about a hundred years after Christ's death (or little more) and are not forgeries, were read in the church, and nothing could be worse. But I referred to them to shew what was the character and spirit of the times; and no honest man can deny the fact. As to Ignatius' Epistles, they were relied on, and are, by Baronius and Protestant episcopalians.

D. But some of them are true.

N*. They were interpolated, and some confessedly spurious, and now all but three pretty clearly proved to be so; and save in one passage, I think, all the bombastical language as to bishops, presbyters, and deacons has disappeared.

I refer to them to shew (by the multiplying this one passage, so exalting the bishop and putting him on a level with God or Christ) the taste of the times, that it was not modesty and lowering episcopal authority. One modern author, who accepts a great deal of them, seeks to prove by them that they were a recent introduction, and therefore so urgently insisted on as not being quite solid. But oh, what a ground is all this for faith!

But, as we have examined the source, let us examine the stream. Your traditions are not much good. The first Father, I believe, who makes Peter the first bishop, as we have seen, leaves out one and puts another in his place quite falsely. Still history helps us out pretty clearly as to the succession, and what it was worth. Only human history cannot make a divine ground for faith. Of the first popes or bishops of Rome I have only to speak in honour. The heathen emperors ruled there, and any prominence they might have exposed them the more to persecution. The church was poor and without honour, but spiritually great. Some, as Clement, Anacletus (according to some) Evaristus and Alexander, Sixtus and Telesphorus were martyrs. This was the bright time of the church; pagans in power, the church poor, but honoured of God, and a witness to Christ, suffering for Him. It suffered everywhere; but Rome, under the eye of the Roman authorities and a bigoted populace, had a large share in this honour.

R. I am glad to see you own that there was some good at Rome.

247 N*. I pay unfeigned honour to these men thus honoured of God. It is good for us in our days of ease to remember them. They were members of Christ, of that one true church, true saints, as all Christians are, and specially honoured in suffering for the blessed Lord. It was the glory of those days. It is not what you call the Fathers (a name forbidden by Christ, which I use myself merely as a well-known title) that I honour in early days, but these faithful witnesses for Christ, in all the Roman world, and not least in Rome. They were one in spirit and grace. The church was then wholly separate from the world; afterwards the popes were the head of it — not persecuted but persecutors. Superstition and heresy, however, began to invade the church of Rome under the next pope, Hyginus. These heretics Polycarp of Smyrna met, and many deceived by them were delivered, it is said, by his means. In his follower's time, Pius, the superstition increased. Hermas, his brother, with whom he is said to have been intimate, wrote pretended visions, full of the worst practice and the worst doctrines, and even blasphemies, against the Lord. Yet it is said to have been read in the churches, a fact which proves the total want of discernment in the primitive church. A greater quantity of trash could scarcely be found. He states that God took counsel with the Holy Ghost and the angels what He should do with Christ. Then He put (the, or) a holy spirit,* which He had first created, in a chosen body, and the body obeyed the holy spirit put into it, and so the body was to be rewarded, and Christ got more than had been promised, for He had done more than was prescribed to Him.

{*The utter confusion of Hermas as to the one Holy Spirit may be seen in the 10th Command, 2, 3. If it were not puerile folly, it would be outrageous heresy. In Command 6 each man has two angels.}

The similitude is this: A man with a great estate planted a vineyard, and chose a servant, and delivered the vineyard into his care. He does more than what is commanded. The Lord seeing this, calls his son, who is to be his heir, and his friends with whom he was wont to consult, and shews what the servant had done, saying he had promised him liberty, but now he would make him heir with his son, which all approved. And this was confirmed by his sharing presents from his Lord with his fellow-servants. The son in the similitude is the Holy Ghost, the friends the angels, the servant Christ.

I need not cite any more. I do thus much that we may see what was current in the church in those days.* I have already referred to this book as sanctioning the vile things called holiness in these days.

{*Hermas is quoted by the book of Roman Pontiffs, if it be the same (Bar., Pii, 159, 4, 2, vol. 2, 204), and the angelic visitation is treated as true. Origen, Eusebius, Jerome and others say he is the one mentioned by Paul, which is surely a mistake. His book is treated as excellent by Irenaeus, quoted by Eusebius, quoted by Origen, who says some did not value It, by Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian when orthodox and Catholic, but denouncing it when a Montanist; Athanasius says it is a most useful book; Jerome, following Eusebius, very useful and publicly read in churches of Greece, but not known among the Latins. Ruffinus says they had it read in churches, but not quoted as authority to establish faith.}

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

J. N. Darby.

<22004E> {file section b.}

248 But here we begin to get into our old difficulties as to the succession. Optatus, Jerome, Augustine, and others put first Anicetus; next Irenaeus, Tertullian and others put Pius first. Not only so; it is disputed whether Hyginus sat four or twelve years. As Platina, an ancient secretary and historian of the popes, says (sub Pio), "In this place the times vary, as some put Pius, others Anicetus first. The histories also vary. However it may be in so remote a history and such great negligence of [our] ancestors, it will be better to get at the things themselves in some way, [though] done a little sooner or a little after, than pass them altogether" — a strange ground for certainty of faith. In his time arose the dispute of the East with Rome as to the observance of Easter. The East, alleging the apostles' authority, kept it on the 14th of the moon. Victor would have it on the Lord's day, and take the next one to the 14th. Polycarp had come to make peace during the time of Anicetus, but Victor refused communion with all the East, who alleged they followed John; and it remained in abeyance till the Council of Nice, which decided it should be on a Lord's day. So the day of the week carried it against the day of the month, and the church was not divided in spite of Victor.

It is a curious piece of history that the Scotch and British Christians, too, with the north of England, kept Easter as the Asiatics did; and it was centuries after, in 664, that the Roman practice prevailed after a conference in the north of England. It was the Scotch Christians of Iona, who were not subject to any bishop, but governed by presbyters, who evangelized Germany and Switzerland and the north, as far as it was done in early years, but it fell under the power of centralizing Rome. The British and Irish churches did not till long after. The Saxons were evangelized from Rome; and by the Normans, already in subjection to Rome. But this by the bye.

249 When we arrive at Anicetus, we find ourselves in serious difficulties. We can hardly doubt there was such a pope — at least Irenaeus puts him clearly in his list, not, after all a very sure one, as we have seen in Cletus and Anacletus, whom some hold to be one person, some two. And Polycarp, it must be supposed, had interviews with Anicetus about Easter; but when he was pope, and even whether he was pope, is in no way certain. In what is called the "Chronicle of Damascus" no mention is made of him at all; but Soter immediately succeeds Pius. Baronius makes Soter succeed Anicetus, A.D. 175; others declare Soter began his episcopate in 168; others say Anicetus died A.D. 161. Baronius makes Pius pope in 158; but some make the beginning of his pontificate in 142 and Eusebius (4, 11); gives him fifteen years, and says he died in 157, a year before Baronius makes him pope. Baronius gave him ten years, Pagius begins his pontificate in 141, and places his death 151; so that the first year of Pius for Baronius is the sixth of Anicetus for Pagius, who makes Anicetus begin his pontificate in 151, where Baronius places the twelfth of Telesphorus. (Baronius, vol. 1, under these popes).

Now a difference of one or two years' date, I admit, does not make a material question as to facts. But what I have produced from Roman Catholic historians and ancient ones here shews that the history of those times is very uncertain, and that such a succession can in no possible way be a foundation or security for faith or grace.

I may add here that the pope gave letters of peace, as recognizing them, to the Montanists and their wild and demoniac prophecies. Praxias came from the place, and forced the pope to revoke his letters. I apprehend this was Victor, though it would seem Baronius puts it under Anicetus, others under Eleutherius. There are those who introduce a Pope Cyrianus between Pontianus and Auterus; but it is hardly worth considering, though Baronius notices it. It only shews the succession was not very certain.

I may mention here that it was from the time of Cyprian only that Rome obtained the title of Peter's chair. Baronius indeed gives twenty-five years of Peter's holding the See of Rome, but all early authors make Linus the first bishop. Ruffinus, as we have seen, conciliates them by keeping Peter in his apostleship, and making two of them sit in the see while he was alive. The first author who makes Peter bishop is Optatus (De Schis. Don., lib. 2, 3) in the latter part of the fourth century; while Epiphanius (thinking it possible Clement was first named, but would not act till after Linus and Cletus were dead, and then was compelled) says that Peter and Paul were apostles and bishops (27, 6), then Linus. Eusebius simply says that Linus was the first bishop after Peter. He may perhaps be considered an earlier testimony that Optatus. They were nearly contemporaneous, and Optatus is the first who explicitly states it. That Peter was twenty-five years bishop of Rome is a simple absurdity; because if the tradition of his being put to death by Nero be true, this was A.D. 68 or 69. But the Lord suffered A.D. 34. More than fourteen — say fifteen — years after that (Gal. 2) Peter had not left Jerusalem, and there had been as yet no apostolic work at Rome at all. This makes A.D. 49. He is still at Jerusalem. After this he goes to Antioch; but tradition says he was seven years in the see of Antioch, before coming to Rome, and in A.D. 49 he had not yet gone to Antioch, and certainly was not fixed in the see, for Paul was labouring there and rebuked him for his conduct. How long after, we cannot tell — say it was immediately, which I do not believe, because Paul was the apostle labouring there — but I take up the tradition as it is given. He was at Antioch then, at any rate, till A.D. 56 or 57; thus he could not by any possibility have begun to have to address Rome as its pope at all till about eleven years before his death. The whole thing is a fable upon the face of it.

250 Mr. R. But you cast aside all tradition.

N*. I do, as having the smallest authority. But here you have not any two agreeing. You may consult Baronius in the first and twenty-fifth year of Peter, and see what he says with Pagius, who notices the attempt to make two comings of Peter, one in Claudius' and another in Nero's reign, and rejects it all, taking the plain statement of Lactantius that the apostles had been preaching everywhere for twenty-five years, and then that Peter came to Rome in the time of Nero (Lac. de Mort. Pet. 2, 95). That Peter may have come to Rome for his martyrdom, or to see the Jewish saints there, is possible, though we have little proof of it; but vague and late statements that he ever held the see are mere got-up fiction; that he founded the church of Rome, we know from scripture to be totally false, let the good Irenaeus say what he will. No apostle did; of this we are sure from Paul's epistle to them. If we are to believe Dionysius of Corinth, quoted by Eusebius (2, 25), Peter and Paul both planted the church at Corinth too, a statement useful to shew what such statements and traditions of the Fathers are worth. Yet in this passage of Dionysius we get, if it be true that Peter ever was at Rome, a glimpse of the truth, namely that Peter and Paul were taken prisoners to Rome together, or at least went together there on the journey which ended in their martyrdom; but all is utterly uncertain. The only thing certain is that Peter's sitting — still more his sitting twenty-five years at Rome — is a got-up fable, and a very poor and transparent one.

251 I have spoken on this point here, because we are at the date in the history of Roman pontiffs at which it is first called the chair of Peter, or Peter Bishop of Rome.

Of several pontiffs I have nothing to say; but, when we come to Marcellinus and Marcellus, difficulties begin again. Eusebius (his contemporary) does not mention Marcellus, nor does Jerome, which is strange, and very learned men exclude him from the list, and ancient accounts state the see to have been vacant seven years — Fleury says three. Baronius says they are all wrong; that it is a confusion of names, that it must mean months instead of years, that no prudent person will hold the see to have been so long vacant. Pagius makes it, as Fleury, three years instead of seven, with the ancient chronicle called of Damasus (Bar. A.D. 304).

Mr. R. But you cannot doubt Marcellus was pope.

N*. Probably he was. Augustine at the end of the century mentions him; but the church was headless for more than three years. We speak, moreover, of succession, and such a certainty is a poor foundation to rest our faith upon. This Marcellinus is the one charged with offering incense to idols. Some say he was afterwards a martyr. But, further, Optatus (2, 8), where insisting on the succession of pontiffs against the Donatists, and Theodoret (lib. 1, 2), leave him out; the former quite in his own age, one may say, and the latter some hundred years after.

R. But Optatus leaves out Eutychian and Caius too, and Theodoret makes Melchiades succeed Marcellinus, which is surely wrong.

252 N*. What you say is quite correct, and I dare say Marcellus, Eutychian, Caius, and Eusebius were all really popes, though the learned editor of Optatus says whether Marcellus be different from Marcellinus is no slight question — "non modica quaestio est." It is all alike to me, because we have the word itself, as to which there can be no possible succession, and assured grace to use it. But for you, who rest on succession, such uncertainty is fatal.

R. But God will take care of His church.

N*. Most assuredly. But that is not the question, but whether what you allege is the way He takes care of it. You and Dr. Milner and the rest teach this poor man to rest on succession. Now either he must swallow it down true or false, on your word, or he must examine a long history of the church; and, if he can, he finds confessed uncertainty and no sure ground of faith at all.

However, we will proceed; for I have examined your famous succession. Sylvester, from whom the Waldenses date the apostasy of the Papacy, Marius, and Julius I pass over without remark. We then come to a serious difficulty. The Emperors were now Christian in profession, and the actual Emperor Arian, with, we might say, all the bishops, save some rare banished ones; that is, they had denied the faith. The world awoke, as Jerome says, and found itself Arian. So little is the security in the hierarchy for the faith. If the people then had followed the clergy, all were Arian. However Pope Liberius at first was not, and he was banished; and Felix, a deacon of Rome, was ordained Pope by the Arians, and there was the greatest confusion at Rome and even many killed. However Felix was there. Baronius will not own him, for Liberius was alive. Bellarmine says he must be reckoned pope, and gives his reasons. Liberius at last gave way to the Emperor, and signed an heretical creed. Then Baronius says at the utmost Felix could be chorepiscopus, a kind of coadjutor, but will not count any years of his as pope; but this saves appearances, in part at least, not wholly, for if he were not in office his ordinations go for nothing. Optatus and Augustine do not count him among the popes, but he is reckoned in the list, because Felix III and IV would not be such if he be not counted. Liberius returned from exile, brought back at the intercession of Roman ladies. The Emperor wanted them to be bishops together. But Felix was driven out. However he got back again and sought to exercise clerical functions in the city, but was again driven out, and lived on his own estate (Fleury, 14, 7). He ordained twenty-one presbyters and nineteen bishops (Bar. 357, 66). Was he pope or not? What was the succession worth here, two popes at a time, one subscribing an Arian creed, the other ordained by Arians, sitting while the other was alive, and ordaining others: some holding him to be pope, others not?

253 But this dispute did not quite end with the death of Liberius. Damasus who was chosen to succeed had been of Felix's party. This dissatisfied many, and they met and chose Ursinus who was consecrated too. The See of Rome was worth coveting by men who loved the world. Fine chariots, rich feasts, and regal luxury characterized their life. This is not only the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, but Jerome informs us that Praetextatus, a proconsular Roman and of high family and other important offices, when no longer proconsul said that, if they would make him Bishop of Rome, he would turn Christian directly.

Well, there was fighting among the people at Rome who should be pope. Juvenitius, prefect of Rome, and Julian, prefect of provisions, banished Ursinus; his party rescued him and others who were banished. Ursinus' party shut themselves up in a church of Licinus, where he had been consecrated, and they were attacked there, and 137 persons were found killed in the church. The prefect, unable to appease the tumultuary violence, had to go to the country. However Ursinus was banished, and Damasus could amass wealth and leave costly silver vessels to the church at his death. Ursinus then tried again, but the people would not have him; and Siricius was chosen.

R. But the succession was uninterrupted.

N*. And do you soberly think that securing succession in an office that vied with royalty, by fighting and slaughter that magistrates could not stop, is a security for the truth and grace that came by Jesus Christ being conveyed to us, and a mark of the true church? Must not the heart and conscience be dead to everything that constituted Christianity to think so? And, besides, even the succession is not certain. It cannot be said whether Felix was pope or not, or partly yes and partly no, if Liberius lost the papacy by subscribing an Arian creed. But if so, if he really had lost it, Felix should have remained, who had replaced him, and he have not supplanted him again. At any rate we have two popes, one signing an Arian creed, the other consecrated by Arians, both de facto at the same time, whoever was pope. Siricius closed the century.

254 But early in the next we have the succession even more grievously in question. On the death of Zosimus the greater part of the clergy and people chose Boniface, others the archdeacon Eulalius who was consecrated by the prelate of the See of Ostia, who always regularly consecrated the new pontiff. Boniface was consecrated by others. The prefect wrote to the Emperor in favour of Eulalius, who convoked a number of bishops to decide; but there was great division, and he called another council, including the African and Gallican prelates, but, meanwhile, ordered (on a fuller report of the prefect, who said neither were to be trusted) both Boniface and Eulalius to stay outside Rome, and sent another prelate of neither party to celebrate Easter, which was just coming on. Boniface had tried to get in, but was, after first driving back the civil officers, driven back by a large number of them. Eulalius got in, and would not leave on being warned, but Boniface's friends in arms attacked Eulalius', who were not. The Emperor banished the latter for being in the city against orders, and let Boniface have the see. There were the usual tumults and battery and violence on either side. What kind of succession is this?

But towards the end of the same century the difficulty is still greater. Symmachus and Laurentius were both elected popes the same day. In order to terminate the schism they apply to Theodoric, king of the Goths, an Arian, who decided that he who had the majority for him, or was first ordained, should be pope. Symmachus had the majority. The party of Laurentius however subsequently brought him back, and accused Symmachus of crimes. Some of the clergy and others communicated with Symmachus, and some with Laurentius. The king referred it to a council, they to the judgment of God. Symmachus appeared the first time, but, having been nearly assassinated on the way, refused the second time and stood on his privilege, and then they left it to the judgment of God. So he remained pope. The grossest outrages, even against nuns, and fighting and murders, took place on this occasion.

255 A previous council held at Rome had passed decrees against the canvassing and intrigues which took place at the elections, or rather before them. Symmachus was never cleared of the charges. The only really godly man we read of in the case was with Laurentius' party. In their strifes the clergy went so far as to spend all the church's goods to push their candidates, so that civil laws had to be made to repress the abuse. So uncertain was the succession here, that Baronius says that right might seem on either side, and there was not much to blame in Laurentius and his friends in maintaining his right to the Papacy till after the Council of Rome had decided for Symmachus (Bar. 498, 3). But this was a council of Italian prelates held by Symmachus. Symmachus presided himself. Of course it owned him pope. They saluted him with acclamations of long life and his see many years. But it was really no regular council, for the presbyters of his party and deacons signed as well, and it was held a year after his election (Hard. 3, 958).

The Roman Catholic body at that time did not think so much of divine succession. They sent to the civil power, and to an Arian to settle it. To quiet the matter Laurentius was made bishop of another see; so his consecration was owned. Hormisdas succeeded Symmachus, and John, Hormisdas. But then the king, Theodoric an Arian, put Felix into the see — Felix III for Fleury, Felix II for Baronius, as he will not own Felix I at all, though he sat and consecrated various prelates, only Liberius was alive. Felix, though put in by an Arian king, was a good pope, at least there was no competitor; they ordained him on the Arian king's nomination. But the case of his successor was worse still. King Athelric appointed Boniface to be pope; but, if we are to believe Baronius, the Romans wishing to have a pope of their own, chose Dioscurus, and as appears in a letter he quotes, the great body of people were with him. Both were consecrated. However Dioscurus died after some months. Boniface called a council and forced the clergy to condemn and anathematize him after his death, and to give him the power to name his own successor and give it in writing. And Vigilius was named. However in a subsequent council this was all revoked and the writing burned. But if Dioscurus was elected canonically and by the majority of clergy and laity, as rather appears to have been the case, both from Baronius' statements and Boniface being obliged to use such efforts to reduce the clergy to subjection, Boniface was never rightly and canonically pope at all, and the whole succession fails.

256 R. But you have no proof of this, and Boniface was always afterwards owned as pope.

N*. If we are to have apostolic succession as an essential mark of the true church — and it is a vital point in your system — the proof of there being such must be clear, and lies only on you. But you cannot deny that both were consecrated. Baronius, though speaking very cautiously, gives us to understand that the Roman choice by the multitude fell on Dioscurus. He does not attempt to say more than that it happily closed by his death. But if Boniface was not originally pope but Dioscurus, he never could be legitimate pope at all. As to being owned afterwards in the lists, it proves nothing but that he sat in fact, which nobody denies. We shall find a multitude of cases where they are in the lists, and Baronius will not own them. We have seen such an one already in the case of Felix, so that, if you are searching out history, you have to settle, by chronology and contemporary names, which it was. See such a case in Dupin (Cent. 6 under Felix IV). Boniface seems to have pleaded the deliverance of the see from the nomination of the king. He made all the clergy swear to it; and then, when in the subsequent synod it was all set aside and the writing burnt, he absolved them from their oath. The truth is that the breaking up of the Roman empire had put power into the hands of the Roman pontiffs, and all was ambition and wickedness.

After the short pontificates of John II and Agapetus, we arrive at a case in which all pretence of legitimate succession fails. The Emperor of Constantinople was by means of Belisarius engaged in the reconquest of Italy, and the king of the Goths, Theodotus, distrustful of influences not his own at Rome. The clergy met to elect a pope, but he would not allow them to elect the one they desired, but obliged them, under penalty of death, to establish his nominee pope, which they did. Baronius speaks of their wisdom and divine guidance and approbation, that they all consented to nominate Silverius, whom Theodotus had forced upon them. He was son of Pope Hormisdas. He was charged with bribing the king to have him made pope. It is also said this was a calumny. It is possible. Things were in such a state that they were as capable of false accusation as he of bribery. Which was the fact, I do not pretend to say. It is the statement of the historian Anastasius. However he was a pope.

257 But Vigil, who was at Constantinople, intrigued with the empress to be pope, promising to own her favourites who were condemned for false doctrine in the East, if she would have him named. And she sent him with a letter to Belisarius, who was at Rome. The empress had promised 700 pounds of gold if he owned her favourite, and he promised 200 of them to Belisarius if he installed him pope. The Goths had returned to besiege Rome; Silverius was accused of treachery with the Goths. They at last raised the siege however, and Silverius was banished to Patara, in Lycia, by Belisarius, who took off his vestments, and made the clergy elect Vigil; and Vigil sat as pope. Silverius, however, went to the Emperor, who sent him back to Rome, saying, if he had engaged in treacherous correspondence with the Goths, he was not to be reinstated, but if innocent, he should be. But Vigil, fearing for himself, fulfilled then the conditions on which he had got the papacy, and Belisarius delivered Silverius up into his power, and he was sent off to the island of Pontecune, where he died, it is said, of hunger, and Vigil remained pope. This is the pope who had to do with the Emperor and the general council at Constantinople, and condemned and retracted, and retracted his retraction, and at last was let go by the Emperor, who offered to the Romans him or the Archdeacon Pelagius for pope. The two returned together. Vigil died on the road and Pelagius was accused of poisoning him, and could only get two out of the prelates of Italy to consecrate him; all the rest refused. But he purged himself on oath and was the next pope. Nice work to secure faith, and give a sure mark to the simple of the true church!

R. But still they were regularly consecrated, and grace and truth were handed down.

N*. Why the Bishop of Ostia (who was the regular person to do it) laying his hands on a man chosen to be Peter's successor at Rome should convey grace or authority from Peter, it is hard to tell. If Peter had done so, and then his successor on his successor before his death and so on, I might not believe it, but I could understand it. But it is not so. As the case is, the pope, who consecrates ever so many prelates, never confers Peter's authority; and a prelate who has it not, nor any pretensions to it, confers it on the pope. Succession here there is none. However I drop that, as we are examining the facts.

258 Now in Vigil's case the failure is complete on your own shewing. Silverius was deprived by the violence of Belisarius, by the intrigues of some women, and Vigil was thereupon consecrated and made pope. While the pope was alive this was impossible; he could not be Peter's successor while Peter's true successor was there, and he never had any other election or consecration. Baronius tries to make out a second election six days after Silverius' death, but does not dare to hint at a second consecration, so that the fallacy is apparent on the face of it; and Pagius shews that the six days' vacancy mentioned by Anastasius was from Silverius' deposition by Belisarius, and not from his death. It is a miserable attempt to get rid of what is a hopeless flaw in the succession of Roman pontiffs. Pelagius, very probably the poisoner, certainly the successor, of Vigilius, who was no pope at all, has wholly broken the succession of the pontificate, whatever it is worth. We have the true account no doubt in Fleury (32, 57, 58). He wrote secretly to the heretics and remained in possession of the Holy See; at the same time he professed entire orthodoxy to the Emperor, a strange security for faith. Dupin (under the title of Pope Vigil in Cent. 6) tells the truth too plainly: "Although Vigil had mounted the See of Rome in a way wholly unjust, he did not the less remain in possession after the death of Silverius, nor was he the less recognized as legitimate pope, without its appearing even that they proceeded to a new election, or that they confirmed that which had been." Further, Vigil was consulted as pope by foreign prelates as Eleutherius before Silverius's death.

Mr. D. But if you undermine thus the foundations of faith and of the church of God, what have we to rest upon?

N*. And do you mean that one who certainly could not be really pope while another was alive (himself put in by the violence of the king), introduced by an intriguing woman to support what the church called heresy, and paying the general a large sum of money to secure him, and send away his competitor to die of hunger in an island, and his successor so suspected of poisoning him that in all Italy all refused to consecrate him, but two who were not the regular ones to do it — do you mean that these are the foundations of faith and of the church of God? Really it seems to me a man must have his conscience utterly deadened; it is a kind of blasphemy to me to make such things God's security for faith in the church. As to faith, who can tell what Vigil's faith was? — one thing for the Empress and the heretics, another for the Emperor, and then yes and no and yes, as he vacillated between the Emperor and Rome as to the three chapters.

259 R. But it is not certain he wrote those letters to the heretics. It was, as Baronius says, a proof of God's care of the Roman See that he was providentially forced to be orthodox as soon as he became pope, though he had engaged himself to the Empress to favour heresy in order to get it.

N*. Your fairest historians admit he did. I have quoted no Protestant statements. Besides it is a mere shuffle of Baronius that he then became pope, as we have seen. That he made a public confession of orthodoxy to please the Emperor and Rome, when he feared them somewhat, is true; but he went backwards and forwards at Constantinople in just the same unprincipled way. But the fact is, he never was rightful pope at all. He was appointed when a pope was living and only then. But if you say this is so uncertain, how can what is so give ground for certainty of faith? It is, at any rate, certain he never was really pope on your principles of succession. To me, save as I may sorrow over any other sinner, it is quite immaterial; but I consented to examine the boasted succession, as it had been put into other people's heads to puzzle them. My trust is in the sure word of God and in His grace, where, as I have said, there is no succession to be sought; it is itself and always the same.

You may remark here that Silverius was the son of Pope Hormisdas, and subsequently the great Gregory was a descendant of Pope Felix.

I pass over John III, Benedict, Pelagius II, Gregory — a really great man, who just hints at the possibility of a purgatory for extremely small faults (for the gospel had disappeared) and who reformed or composed the Roman Liturgy — Sabinianus, and others, and come to Honorius, in the seventh century, where we meet a difficulty of another kind. Honorius, so far from keeping the faith of others, could not, it seems, keep the faith himself. He is formally condemned and anathematized by name in the third Council of Constantinople, confirmed by Pope Agathon, and anathematized again by Pope Leo II,* whence it is formally taught in Canon Law that the pope can be judged for heresy.

{*It is expressly taught, Dis. 40, c. 6, that a pope can be judged for heresy; and in the gloss, also if he is incorrigible and the church scandalised for evident crimes, because contumacy is heresy; but that the church should pray against it much, as its salvation so depends on the pope.}

260 R. But it is not sure, as Baronius shews, that the letters were Honorius'. A certain Theodore was the person, and that it could not, if they were, be called heresy.

N*. Did you ever read Dupin's remarks on it?

R. Well, I never did.

N*. I should think not. All Baronius proves is that he himself was at his wit's ends about it. No honest Roman Catholic questions it. He is called pope in the acts of the council (the decree was sent to the pope, confirmed by him). Honorius was anathematized by name by Leo II. In a word, the objections are simply, as Dupin says, frivolous and unworthy of attention. As to its being heresy, he states positively in terms what the council condemns, and Leo and Agathon too, and the Roman Council, with Martin and Agathon, popes; so the Emperor in his letter to Rome too. In a solemn judgment on heresy they condemn and anathematize the pope by name. A strange security for the faith! They did not dream of his being such then. And what is the value of the succession of a heretic as a mark of the true church? For my own part I do not think worse of Honorius than of his adversaries. He was in error, but sought to put an end to useless chicanery too. But if he was not wrong, then the popes and the council were wrong in anathematizing him. John IV seems to have no great opinion of him, or at least to think more of Rome's importance, and explains Honorius' doctrine in a statement well meant in the main, but which shews ignorance of the truth of God, confounding man's spirit or conscience with the Holy Ghost, as a Quaker might now. They all confounded, I think, will as a quality of nature, and will in action or selfwill; but on that I contest not. The next pope to John, Theodore, was son of a bishop.

As we proceed, we may see how little like divine order was in the succession of these popes. The Emperors of Constantinople had lost almost all their authority and possessions in Italy, but held Ravenna, where the ex-arch and a governor resided, and Rome. He could not thus directly hinder any pope but those he wished being chosen, but by means of the troops in Rome acted on it indirectly, so that those who sought to be pope bribed the ex-arch to get in (Bar., Conon Pap.). Thus, in the case of Conon's election, the troops held one church, the people another, with two candidates, and could not agree. The clergy and populace went to the Patriarchate and saw Conon, and the troops fell in with the common feeling, and he was elected. The two competitors remained excluded. On Conon's death, Paschal promises the treasures of the church (or, as Baronius says, a hundred pounds of gold) to the ex-arch. One party elect Paschal as pope, another Theodore, and there is a contest between him and Theodore, one holding the inner part of the patriarchal palace, the other the outer, and nothing could be done. The populace see Sergius, and all acclaim him. Theodore gives way, and Paschal has to quit in spite of himself. He sent, however, the gold promised to the ex-arch, and he came down on Rome, and Sergius had to give him some precious treasures of the church, or he would have been sent off. Paschal, charged with magic, died secluded in a monastery.

261 James. But surely, gentlemen — excuse me for speaking — there is nothing holy or of God in all this. It is mere human ambition and wickedness. How can this be a sign of the true church? It is a sign of man's lusts and sin.

N*. Holiness is not required in a pope. The Canon Law says no one is to judge them, save for heresy, as we have seen; and either they adorn their position by their own conduct, or the worth of Peter's excellency rests on them (Dis. 40, 41 non nos.).

Bill M. Well, I must say this is all very strange to me. I did not rest on scripture, and I thought, from what these gentlemen and their friends said, all was holy and blessed, and the pope was called His Holiness, and I took it all for true. But I see now it is all very different from that. How can you, gentlemen, take all this as a proof of the true church? And Dr. Milner has not really told the truth about it. One expects, at any rate a poor man who has not read much does, to find truth in a book like that recommended by people that seem so holy; and it is not honest, I see it plainly. You will forgive me, gentlemen, but I see I have been deceived.

R. But holiness and authority attaches to the office, and not to the man; and we are looking for the true succession in the office. Besides, many were very holy men.

262 Bill M. But, from what I have heard, the succession is anything but sure; and if it were, what is a succession of ambitious men striving for a great place to do with the church of God? I do not see anything very apostolic in that.

D. But you must not impugn the efficacy of sacraments, because the administrators of them were unholy. We are all imperfect.

Bill M. It does seem strange, if holiness is a mark of the true church, that unholiness should be no hindrance to the continuance of grace in it, and God's acceptance of it. Would the greatest villain in the world be the same security for grace and the true faith as the apostle Peter, who was inspired of God? However I do not judge much about that: I am not fit for it. But do you mean that if the church and its heads get unholy and evil, the acceptance and grace of God is as much there as before? Is holiness as much a mark as before? That is hard for an honest man, or any man, to swallow. At any rate, if so, they should not give holiness as a mark of the true one; for, when it is unholy, it is just as true as before.

D. You are pretending to reason, and a person always is ruined when he begins to do that.

Bill M. But you tell me to judge of the church by these marks, and that is what I am trying to do; and when it does not serve your purpose, then you tell me not to judge. I mean no offence, sir, but I do not understand this.

N*. Well, M., we must have patience. I will say a word on Dr. Milner before I close; but we will search farther into this sure succession. What we have seen only gives a faint budding forth of what was to come. The papacy was still in its infancy yet, though already very powerful, and an object of ambition; what you say is in the main perfectly just. Conscience revolts at such a thought, and it upsets their own argument. God is above His own ordinances, and He can inspire extraordinarily a wicked man, as Balaam and Caiaphas. But the moment it is a mark of what the man or the true church is, that is wholly another matter. We are all imperfect; but holiness is that which God works and produces, and a mark of what He owns. He may bear long in patience with us, and does so, but He cannot accept unholiness and sanction that which is contrary to it. He is sovereign and can make a dumb ass reprove a prophet if He will; but what He owns cannot as a mark bear the stamp of unholiness. Where there is the form of godliness without the power, His word is, "From such turn away." But we have closed the seventh century, and I beg you and these gentlemen to remark I have drawn my facts from Roman Catholic sources alone. The names of the popes suffice to point out the places in Baronius and Dupin; in Fleury I have given the place; Tillemont and Platina are the others I have referred to.

263 But I have somewhat more to add of the history while Sergius was reckoned pope. His epitaph is extant (Bar. 701, 8), and by this it appears he was not consecrated till after Theodore's death, who must be considered as a pope, and then Sergius was brought back at the entreaty of the people; indeed it was only then that he was consecrated pope. Thus, during the alleged thirteen years of Sergius' pontificate, Theodore was pope at first, then John (that nobody knows anything about), and Sergius was only consecrated above seven years after he was chosen by acclamation. Then the ex-arch sought to put in another pope, and the soldiers rebelled, and would not let him. Where is apostolic succession to be found? Now without this epitaph no one would have known of Theodore and John being popes. How they were no one knows; papal historians had wisely buried it.

At this time Spain renounced obedience to the Roman See, but northern Italy rejoined it, for it had all been long in what was called schism, not receiving the fifth General Council; and Ravenna still was.

Two events happened about this time, I may note in passing. The Lombards having driven the Greeks out of Italy, Pope Stephen called the Franks in. They had sanctioned already the French mayors of the palace who really reigned, setting aside the puppet kings who did so nominally. The pope received territorial authority under the new Western empire, established in the person of Charlemagne crowned Emperor at Rome. The second fact was the forgery of supposed early decretals, ascribing superior authority to the popes from the first. These were the great foundation of papal authority till the Reformation, when the forgery was detected and exposed, being admitted now by all. There was some opposition from metropolitans at the time; but, as they increased their authority over the prelates under them, they too accepted them.

264 A little farther on in our history we arrive at still greater confusion. At the death of Paul, a Tuscan noble brought his brother Constantine to Rome, and forced a bishop to consecrate him, and he was pope for more than a year, and his election and consecration as pope confirmed by a council. He ordained clergy and consecrated eight bishops. But one of the Roman court, Christophle, went (swearing to Constantine that he would not do it, and perjuring himself) and by treachery brought forces into Rome to drive out the pope. But while this was going on, Constantine, having hid himself, one Philip was taken and consecrated pope. However, Christophle made his way in, and Pope Philip swore that he would not leave Rome till he had been driven out, which was done, and he quietly retired to a monastery. They deposed Constantine, and then elected and consecrated a third pope, Stephen; and Christophle's son went and got Charles, called Charlemagne, and Carloman, Pepin being dead, to send French prelates to Rome to set things in order.

Meanwhile they tore out the eyes of Constantine and his partisans and other suspected persons, and put them into monasteries, or used other torturing processes. The French prelates came and assembled. The blind Constantine was brought before them. They struck and abused him when he cited similar cases of the consecration of laymen, burnt the acts of the council which confirmed his election, ordered the prelates he had consecrated to come to Rome to be reconsecrated, which was done; but many Roman Catholics held the second as simply null and void. His presbyters were left as they were, contrary to the decree of the council. Sergius and Christophle had their eyes torn out by Didier, and Christophle was put to death (Fleury 43, 44, and subsequent; Dupin, Etienne 3, cent. 8). Baronius treats the see as vacant till Stephen was elected. He will not at all allow that the eight prelates were re-consecrated, which is impossible (he holds), and puts in the margin of the historian quoted, "reconciled." So he does for the presbyters, when the same word is used, without saying they were never consecrated by Stephen, as the prelates were.

Now they were clearly reconciled, and remained as they were. It is a mere come-off for Constantine's episcopacy; and as it was the episcopacy of Rome, pontificate was thereby acknowledged. All was confusion. There were three popes all consecrated, one having ordained many others, and even bishops of sees; if Constantine was bishop, he was bishop of Rome and pope; if not, here was the whole clergy vitiated in its source. And they were literally tearing out each other's eyes, and laymen using violence to put their favourites into the see. Stephen got in by the perjury of Christophle and the arms of his followers, Constantine's armed brother being killed by treachery in the fight, and another consecrated pope glad to get off unscathed and end his days in a monastery.

265 Bill M. Well! well! and is that the holy Catholic church? Who would have thought it!

R. There were dark and gloomy days, no doubt, and violence and confusion prevailed; but Stephen was regularly elected and consecrated, so that the succession continued.

N*. How can I say that? Constantine, who had been consecrated and confirmed by a local council, was alive, though his eyes were torn out, and Philip too. And if Constantine were not properly consecrated, then all the clergy he ordained were no clergy at all, and there were no real sacraments; I speak always on your own principles. As to violence, violence there was. But the violence was as much on the side of Stephen as Constantine. The only difference was, that John, Constantine's partisan and brother, was guilty only of violence; Christophle, of perjury too. Rome was an object of ambition, and they fought for it. Stephen ordained in his council that only the clergy should elect, and the people then salute him; that images should be adored, which was forbidden at Constantinople by a very numerous council, and by a still larger one (under Charlemagne, at Frankfort) of several hundred bishops. They condemned images in the strongest terms, however the adorations and superstition prevailed. King Pepin gave tithes to the clergy, and Charlemagne issued orders for the regulation of the church and clergy. The pope's legates were at the Council of Frankfort, where a late Constantinopolitan council, which restored the use of images, presided over by the pope's legates and received by him, was utterly rejected. This was somewhat later in 794; I speak of it here in order not to return to in Pope Adrian answered Charlemagne very mildly, excusing himself. This pope's letter to Charlemagne makes no objection to the Greek doctrine as to the procession of the Holy Ghost. Pope Stephen IV (or V, one having died as soon as elected, and hence not counted by many) ordained that the clergy only should elect, the people being present, and that it should not be done without the Emperor's ambassadors being there, in consequence of the violence often used.

266 The words of the decree are, When a pope is to be instituted, the bishops and all the clergy coming together, let the person to be ordained be chosen, the senate and people being present, and, thus elected by all, let him be consecrated, the imperial ambassadors being present. The reason of the decree is that the violence took place because the consecration of the pope took place without the imperial knowledge, and that according to canonical right and custom, direct messengers from the Emperor were not there who would hinder these scandals from being perpetrated. He made the Romans swear fealty to the Emperor. I refer to this because it shews what this pretended succession was — such scenes of violence, that the Roman pontiff, jealous enough of civil interference, is obliged to call in the representatives of the Emperor, that it may at least proceed with some decency. It forms also a kind of turning-point, excluding (though in ambiguous terms) the people from direct election. But what an idea of Christian care and episcopal succession, if such be the rule; armed men forcing a pope on the see, or armed men driving him away, and lynch-law executed in tearing out their eyes, and a third smuggled into the see between the two competitors, and then smuggled out!

James. Well, it is dreadful to be sure! And when one compares the words of the blessed Lord, how can one think there should be grace, or faith, or anything belonging to Christ here?

N*. There were Christ's hidden ones surely all through, but it is not in the great or the doctors that we find in general anything like Christ. And now all was superstitious, translating relics and the like, though there was, as we have seen, resistance to it. The power of Charlemagne was a remarkable feature of the time, and the way he governed the church in his empire, and led hundreds of bishops in council to reject image worship, as now restored in the East. Still all was confusion and violence; he conquered the Saxons who were heathens, and drove them with the sword to be baptized in the Elbe, and so they were made Christians of. There were devoted men, however, who occupied themselves with the spread of Christianity such as they knew it. The Roman See had very great wealth and possessions, and, Pepin having added large territories to those the see already had, it was hence the object of ambition. Piety was occupied with buildings, and sumptuous clothes of service in the church.

267 After Pope Adrian's death there were again two popes chosen, and the conflict was so serious that the Emperor's son had to go to Rome to settle it. But it does not appear that the second was consecrated, though nothing is known of the matter, save that it was important enough to take the Emperor's eldest son to Rome. The Emperor asserts fully his imperial rights over Rome, and against the pope even, but uses them to have elections free, and forbids tumults. The nobles, it is said (Fleury, 46, 52), were for Eugenius, and carried the day. The Romans all swore however not only allegiance, but that no pope should be consecrated in their presence without swearing allegiance to the Emperor. Still the pope's authority was gradually increasing, to which the forged decretals, which came out about this time, largely contributed. But till the decay of the empire, which was rapid, the Emperors within its limits governed prelates and lords, a bishop and a count being sent to have all things in order. When their power was quite decayed in Italy, the popes were engaged in the intrigues of the great nobles to set up kings and emperors there, the Marquises of Tuscany at length getting authority over Rome, and putting their creatures into the papacy, often their illegitimate children, or those of the popes themselves. I merely state this briefly in passing, as the condition of the empire, that we may better understand the state of things.

It was at this time that the famous history of Pope Joan had its date, a history believed for centuries, not indeed doubted till the Reformation. A German woman, born however in England, went to Athens, and thence to Rome, and became so distinguished in her literary teachings, that she was at length, it is said, elected pope, and held the see two years; but, having given birth to a child on the way to the Lateran church near the Coliseum, died, and was buried with disgrace.

R. But you do not believe this odious fable, invented by the enemies of Rome, and long after the event?

N*. Could you say by whom it was invented? I know Harding, the Jesuit, and Pagius ascribe it to Martinus Polonus, who, remark, was an eminent Roman Catholic writer, the latter thinking even Martin falsified. But why should a famous Roman Catholic invent it? The efforts to refute it are various: some say it was a retort of the Greeks to an accusation of a similar case in one who held the patriarchate of Constantinople; while the strongest argument against this is that the Greeks never mention it at all when most hostile to the See of Rome, but speak of Benedict III as successor of Leo IV. This, with the difficulties of chronology, are the strongest answer to it. But, in numbering the popes, this Joan is required to make them out. John XXI would only be XX without this Joan. It was believed and not questioned for centuries, indeed admitted as true till the Reformation, spoken of as true by ecclesiastical writers, by John Huss without the Council of Constance reproaching him with it. The pope's sex was examined by the youngest sub-deacon from the eleventh century.* Platina introduces her under the title of John VII, saying he would not seem to omit what almost all affirm. Whence did the story originate? It is not a Protestant allegation. It was fully believed and affirmed centuries before Luther. Roman Catholic historians since the Reformation pass it under silence, or deny it, as Baronius in his Annals (853, 56) with Pagius' notes, and others. But before that, it is Roman Catholic historians who record it.

{*This is also attributed to another motive; after receiving the salutation of all, he was set on the night-stool (stercoraria) to shew he was a poor mortal. This continued to Leo X.}

268 R. Leo Allatius ascribes its origin to the history of a false prophetess at Maine.

N*. But this is outrageously far-fetched. What should turn a false prophetess at Maine, who did not conceal her sex, into a pope of Rome who did? And why should the sex of the pope be examined continually afterwards? It is alleged, and still by Roman Catholic authors, that there were monuments recording it (indeed as to some it cannot be doubted, their destruction being also recorded) and that the pope never passed that way (the straight one) from St. Peter's to Lateran.* Now I will not say it is proved; but no one has yet accounted for the story, nor for the facts in connection with the pope. Rome is their source, and, as to some of the monuments of it, there can hardly be any doubt. Men may very well question the truth of the story, but when we are looking for a certain succession as a foundation and security for our faith, this is very serious. It makes such a ground of security worse than nothing.

{*The authorities are cited — too long to go through here — in Jewel's answer to Harding (5, 351, Kele's edition), Basnage (Hist. de l'Eglise, 408 ff.). These authors are Protestants, but the books they cite from are not. So L'Enfant's translation of Spanheim. Those who read German can consult Schroek, who does not think it proved. All authorities are quoted. It is difficult to deal with Anastasius, in the same century, states it; but it is said to be interpolated, and there is a long history as to this, and Jesuit frauds connected with it. It is in Marianus Scotus. Here again it is said the best manuscripts have it not, but Baronius admits he has the story. He was in the eleventh century. Martinus Polonus has the whole story in full in 1278. These are two renowned Roman Catholic writers. But interpolations are charged, as the taking out in editions is insisted on too. That it was then universally accredited is evident. And who should have put it into so many grave Roman Catholic writers? The strongest proof against it is Hincmar's letter to Nicolaus I in 866, which was sent to Leo IV and found Benedict there, but this is sought to be avoided. However, having given a short view of the question, for there is a vast deal more said, I leave the matter where it is.}

269 James. But what a way we have got from anything Christian, sir!

N*. Far indeed; but this you must, if you follow the popes. But it is the very thing which this sad history is useful for, to prove that the Roman system is as far from Christianity as anything can possibly be. But alas! though this story makes the certainty of succession utterly untenable, we shall find in this and the whole condition of popery far more grievous and flagrant facts still, and that their own marks — their apostolicity, as much as their holiness and catholicity — are wholly wanting. It was just about this period that the separation of the Greek and Roman bodies began, and began really about hierarchical importance, though consummated somewhat later, when dogmas were alleged as an excuse. The manners of the clergy, and of the popes particularly, became at this time so licentious and corrupt (incest and unnatural crimes flowing from imposed or lauded celibacy) that it is hard to say in such corruption what is to be trusted. But we will proceed.

Schroek attributes, citing from others, the story of Pope Joan to this. Universally recognized as it was, it must have had some source, and the source was Rome. The attempt to put another on the papal throne instead of Benedict failed, and may be passed over. His follower was crowned, a thing immaterial to us, but shewing the progress of anti-christian character. He began too, to use the forged decretals in his conduct towards metropolitans. His follower absolved the Emperor from a solemn, though forced, oath.

270 I have nothing to remark till we come to the end of the century, when, in 891, Formosus (already consecrated bishop of old, but sent as legate to Bulgaria) was chosen pope, and enthroned, but not consecrated over again, the first example of such a transfer to Rome. Whether it may be considered a succession to Peter may be well questioned. Such translation was strictly forbidden in the early church. But on that I do not insist. He was never consecrated to the Roman See, or to be successor of Peter, as they say. Either the consecration of a pontiff to be Peter's successor has nothing to do with the matter, and any other is as good, or he was not a successor at all — he was only his successor by election, and any special descending grace and security by being consecrated successor of Peter is a fable. After this we are plunged in struggles and confusion, so that to speak of succession is really ridiculous. The empire was weakened, Italian nobles struggled for the crown, and popes brought in German princes to counteract their efforts, and whichever party prevailed put in a pope, who undid what his predecessor had done.

We have an instance of this in Formosus. He is called bishop of Porto, but fled with others from Rome with the pope's treasures. After his return from Bulgaria he was cited to appear, and was condemned by regular process before the Pope, John VIII, deprived of his priesthood, degraded, and, after delay given, anathematized. This sentence was confirmed in the Council of Troyes. The pope condemned those connected with Formosus, who belonged to his own court, and did rob, and would have killed, him.* They fled; but it appears that Formosus not only was banished, but had to swear that he never would join in public service but as a layman. Marinus (or Martin) followed, who, Platina says, got in by evil arts. He undid all that John VIII had done as to Formosus, and absolved him from his oath, and restored him to his bishopric (Fleury 53, 45). He was pope little more than a year. Adrian followed for two months, then Stephen, and then Formosus himself became pope by bribery, says Platina, more than by virtue.

{*The whole history discloses scenes of excessive wickedness, even in the pope's family; one named George was accused of having murdered Pope Benedict, whose niece he had married.}

271 Boniface was then consecrated pope, elected by the popular voice, but died, it is said, of the gout in fifteen days. Platina says he was pope, Fleury that his intrusion was condemned (54, 28). He, too, had been deposed from the subdiaconate and from the priesthood.* Dupin (9, 16) says, Formosus, having returned under Marinus, intrigued to get the Holy See; then the see was disputed by Boniface and Stephen. Baronius will not own Boniface at all; yet he was consecrated pope as well as any one, but died somehow in fifteen days. I may as well quote here, though somewhat long, the statement of the history by Baronius (897, 1), no Protestant account, but a very great stickler for the Roman See. "He (Boniface) held the see fifteen days. He is not to be reckoned among the pontiffs, being condemned in a Roman Council under Pope John IX,** as shall be said in its place, a wicked man, already twice deposed, once from the diaconate, then from the priesthood, but against him Stephen the Seventh, called Sixth, was substituted, the intruded Boniface driven out by one in like manner intruded. All these things were extorted by force and fear, and have brought the greatest ignominy on the holy Roman church. But that some of the intruded pontiffs have afterwards been received as pontiffs, others altogether set aside, as Boniface, of whom we speak, comes from this, that those, however tyrannically they got hold of the see, yet the consent of the clergy having followed (accidente), it was better to tolerate them, whatever they were, than have the church divided by schism, and than that legitimate pontiffs in new electoral assemblies be chosen by accustomed rites. That we should say this, evident necessity compels us, because the universal Catholic church honoured them as legitimate pontiffs, obeyed them and recognized them as vicars of Christ, successors of Peter, and went to them with the respect (cultu) due to a true pontiff."

{*Fleury (54, 31) says it was really for not following the political views of the pope, John VIII.}

{**Not ninth unless Pope Joan be counted as a John.}

This is a direct acknowledgment that they were not legitimate pontiffs, but that it was more convenient to own them than have a schism. If they succeed in holding their ground, better own them. If a stronger, like Stephen, intrudes and puts out the first intruder, and he dies of the gout in fifteen days, then he is not in the list at all. Yet Boniface was as much consecrated pope as Stephen, and if Stephen was consecrated after him, before he died of the gout, Stephen, the successful intruder, was never legitimately consecrated at all. Is not apostolic succession a farce after such facts and acknowledgments as these? The attempt to have a legitimate pontiff would have produced schism, so better to accept unprincipled intruders; and it was done. Luitprand (quoted by Baronius) says, Formosus being dead, and Arnulf (the Emperor he had favoured and brought to Rome to help him) gone home, he who was constituted pope after the death of Formosus is expelled, and Sergius (Stephen, Baronius says, at the instigation of Sergius) constituted pope by Adelbert; and then he relates the horrible history I shall now briefly relate, Stephen getting his act withal to be confirmed by a council at Rome.

272 He disinterred Formosus, set up his dead body on the pontifical throne, and dressed it in the pontifical robes, and, a kind of assembly being formed, addressed it as an unworthy intruder in the see. A deacon was given him to defend him, but, counted as unable to defend him, he was stripped of the robes, the fingers cut off with which he consecrated, and his body thrown into the Tiber, and all his consecrations held for nothing, and the subjects of them consecrated anew. All this was condemned and annulled afterwards. But before we proceed to further history, I must remark that at this epoch all is a sea of confusion as to the succession of the papacy. If I take up an ordinary history, I find John VIII, Marinus, Adrian III, Formosus, perhaps Boniface, and then Stephen VII (or VI).

But if I look a little below the surface, I find Sergius elected pope, as well as Formosus. Luitprand's account of it, quoted by Baronius (891, 3), is that they were in the act of consecrating Sergius when Formosus' party came and drove him by force from the altar; so Formosus was pope.

But then further, most respectable Roman Catholic writers, historians every way recognized among them, introduce two more popes here, Agapetus and Basil. These authorities are Marianus Scotus and Sigebert, who remark that these names were not found in some writers in his time, nor did the latter even die of the gout in fifteen days. Others follow these; — how they came to be put in is hard to say. They may have been antipopes, whom their party owned, the others not. The chronology does not suit; but that is hardly more certain than the list of popes, Leo Ostiensis leaving out Stephanus VI. Now Agapetus and Basil may be supposed popes, and Stephen a real one; Sergius may have just escaped, being one half ordained, and Formosus succeeded by the violence of his followers, who expelled Sergius with no small tumult and outrage from the altar, says Luitprand; but where is the certainty of succession and decency — I will not condescend to say holiness — in your Roman Catholic church? To say nothing of Formosus going against the ancient canons, and being already Prelate of Ostia, never being consecrated pope at all.

273 R. But he could not be consecrated over again.

N*. Be it so; but he was never consecrated successor of Peter at all. He was an ambitious prelate, who had sworn never to come to Rome to be anything but a layman.

R. But Pope Marinus absolved him from his oath and reinstated him in his see.

N*. A strange way of maintaining holiness as a mark of the church! But then, the canons peremptorily forbidding translation from one see to another without any fresh consecration, he seizes by open violence the See of Peter, so called, when another is actually being consecrated, and so becomes successor of Peter. The only thing he was Pope of Rome by was by outrage and violence; and your Baronius is obliged to own that popes who intruded were dropped out of the list or kept in it as it suited convenience, to avoid worse schisms; so that there are many popes not allowed in the lists, who were as much popes as those in it. Agapetus and Basil may have been as much popes as Boniface, and others we shall find, whom Baronius leaves out. Nothing is more uncertain than what you call apostolic succession.

R. But do you believe that Agapetus and Basil were really popes? There is no ground really to suppose they were.

N*. I really do not know. But I know that several most respectable historians say they were, and that Baronius, whom you trust, admits that many illegitimate popes were recognized rather than have schism, and Boniface he does not own, who was certainly consecrated pope. All I say is, that there is no certainty at all in your apostolic succession; and that ordinations too were annulled, and set up again just as parties varied.

274 R. There were doubtless dark ages, and the empire too was in dissolution and confusion, and Italy in the disorder of incipient feudalism, different parties having the upper hand in their time, and this had its effect on the church in those turbulent times.

N*. Quite true; but this merely says that, instead of a holy apostolic succession, a light to the world in the lowliness of Jesus, it had fallen into the world and its darkness, and was a prey to the violences, which set one up and another down, as parties had the upper hand, and so it was. But then what becomes of holy apostolic succession?

R. God has doubtless preserved it.

N*. He has preserved the church in spite of it; but you make it a matter of faith, like its holiness (as Dr. Pusey says); but history denies it in fact, and as we are looking for marks of the true church, which even a poor man can use to find it, we ought to have facts, not believe one thing that he may believe another by the proof it gives. You have no apostolic succession in fact, but require one to believe there must have been, and then take it as a mark, as if it were.

It is well to give Baronius' account of the papacy at this epoch. It will give us a just idea of apostolic succession. He says of Stephen, who had so treated Formosus' body (906, 6): "In this year Stephen, the invader of the apostolic See, and himself driven out, is thrown into prison and strangled." He then quotes his epitaph: "Thus indeed the wicked man suffered, who entered as a thief and a robber [a singular kind of apostolic succession!] into the sheepfold, closed his life by a halter — so infamous an end — through an avenging God."

"Indeed, all things at Rome, sacred and profane, were mingled up with factions, so that the promotion of the Roman pontiff to the apostolic See was in the hands of him that was most powerful; so that at one time the Roman nobles, at another time the Prince of Etruria, intruded by secular power whom they would, and cast down him who might have been promoted to the Roman pontiff by the contrary faction; and this was done almost all this century till the Othos, Emperors of Germany, came in against both opposing parties, arrogating, however, also to himself the election of pope, and putting down him who was elected."

And we shall find consequently two or three at a time, all successors, or none a true pope. But at this moment 900, 8), the faction of the Romans having the upper hand of Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany (Pope Stephen, called Sixth, having been removed, as you have heard), they created a certain person, Romanus by name, who lived, it is said, four months and twenty days, but it is not easy to say what month or day by ancient monuments. But Stephen, he adds, lived to the end of the year. Theodore succeeded Romanus, but lived only twenty days, and John IX succeeded him. Platina says, Romanus set aside the acts of Stephen. At any rate, Theodore buried Formosus and brought back the bishops to their sees, and the priests he had ordained in their offices. Those who replaced them were to be counted of course intruders and false, whatever their ordinations and sacrament-giving were worth; but John IX went farther.

275 Still the same conflict for the papacy; some chose Sergius, who had been trying to be pope a long while, and had been half consecrated (Formosus having, as will be remembered, driven him from the altar), was chosen pope. However John had the stronger party, and Sergius was driven out from Rome, and retired to Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany. John held council, re-established fully the memory and acts of Formosus, restored his bishops in a council, burnt the acts of the council held by Stephen, and forbade any translation again from another see, which the canons forbade under a penalty of being reduced to the state of a layman, and also anyone being placed in the See of Rome without the presence of the Emperor's commissaries, that these violences might not take place.

But decrees do not destroy passion or ambition. Sergius was still hankering after the papacy, and the history of the see is full of darkness here, though the discovery of monuments has thrown some light on it. Benedict IV succeeded John IX, if Sergius was not true pope. If not, Baronius admits that Sergius held the papacy during the time he gives to Benedict (906, 1). Pagius gives to Sergius all these years. Dupin (10, chap. 2) gives only about a year to Benedict; Platina says, three years and four months. Leo succeeded him; he was pope forty days; his house-chaplain Christophle took him and put him in prison and made himself pope in his stead. However our old friend Sergius heard of it, came to Rome, took Christophle and put him in prison in his turn, and seated himself on the papal throne. We hear of no consecration; indeed he seems to have sat on the papal throne already. If he was, all the late popes were no popes at all; or if he was not, then he sat as pope without any consecration and conferred orders. At all events there had been two popes all the time from Formosus, Benedict IV, Leo, Christophle. Really to talk of apostolic succession, as a security for the true church and the faith, is worse than ridiculous.

276 But further, Sergius renewed his hatred against Formosus, annulled all his ordinations, and forced the ordained to receive ordination over again, and annulled all that John IX had done in his council to make valid the acts set aside by Stephen.

It was at this time that Auxilius wrote a book against the pontiffs, assailing the ordinations, annulling of ordinations and re-ordinations, so that nothing was certain. It was hard to know who was a priest and who was not. These were unhappy times, says Baronius, when each intruded pontiff set aside what had been done by another. So here that wicked Sergius, a man, the slave of every vice, the most wicked of all, what did he leave unattempted?

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

J. N. Darby.

<22004E> {file section c.}

276 We must now alas! plunge into details more horrible still. Bad enough that ambition and violence should be called apostolic succession, when it is quite impossible to know who was really pope, and two or three, and even four, were at the same time, of the last few: Benedict IV, Leo V, Christophle, Sergius. But it is now the most worthless of women and their illegitimate children who will dispose of the papal see as they please, putting in their paramours or illegitimate children.

R. They were very sad times, it is quite true. All Roman Catholic historians admit it. Baronius, as you know, says, how can he hold them for really popes who were thus put in? Only he must date by them. But God steered the ship of the church through all these waves and tempests, and the bark of St. Peter was never lost.

N*. St. Peter's bark I think little of; God's church will never, and can never, be hindered from arriving at port. What Christ builds, the gates of hell will not prevail against. But was Christ building all this? And remember we are looking for apostolic succession as a mark of the true church, and holiness too. If they are, it is quite clear the Roman church is not the true one, if church we are to call it. Come now, gentlemen, you make great account of the succession; you believe the existence of the church depends on it. Which of the four I have just named was the real pope?

277 R. We do not answer for irregularities in an evil time. We only say the succession was providentially secured.

N*. So as to be a ground for faith?

R. Yes.

N*. Well, which is the succession here?

R. Well, Benedict IV, Leo V, Christophle, Sergius.

N*. Does not Baronius admit Sergius sat during Benedict's pontificate!

R. Well, yes; but that is uncertain.

N*. What is certain?

R. The distance of time has thrown obscurity over it.

N*. True; that is, the boasted succession is quite uncertain. At any rate Sergius and Benedict were alive together, and which was pope?

D. Benedict was pope after the death of John IX.

N*. But Sergius had been chosen at the same time as Formosus, and was driven, as we have seen, from the altar when he was being consecrated. And if he was (and if not, it does not appear he ever was) Benedict could not be legitimate pope at all. The truth is, it was a struggle between the power of the Marquises of Tuscany and the Roman nobles, who had many of them fortified houses in Rome, who should have the upper hand, and whichever had put his creature in and his adversary's out, so that it is extremely difficult to know who was or who was not pope, till these wretched women, Theodora, Marozia, and the younger Theodora acquired paramount influence by their personal charms and wealth and noble race, and put in whom they would.

James. But what has this to do with apostolic succession? The apostles had little to do with all this.

N*. Nothing, James; save to shew that there was none. In the first case which we have gone through there is no certainty of any succession whatever but violence; in the second, the vilest of harlots putting in her paramours or children.

Bill M. But is this really all true, Mr. R.?

R. Well, the facts are very sad, as all own; but we must believe that God would not forsake His church, and that those who did sit as popes were regularly consecrated, and so communicated the deposit.

Bill M. But we are trying to find if it is His church or not; and you want me to believe it is, to shew me that there must have been succession. But I was told to look for the succession to know which was the church. We are looking for proofs of the true church, and Mr. O. made apostolic succession one of them, as does Dr. Milner. So we must get the fact to believe it is the true church; and there is no succession here, but two or three at a time, and driving one another out like robbers. And how can I know whether they were consecrated or not? Here was one of them driven out in the middle of it from the altar. How can I tell he was ever consecrated? If things went on quietly, we might suppose they were, if it was the rule; but, with all this violence, we cannot tell what was done. Then they set aside the ordinations, and others set them up again. This is no sure foundation to build a man's soul upon. I do not see anything apostolic, or indeed any Christianity in it at all. I am amazed: that is certain. How can people call such things the holy church of God? But I beg pardon; I'll say no more; but it is no good to tell a plain man that this is apostolic and holy, to find the church of God by.

278 N*. There is nothing, M., like having the facts in such a case; and if we are to believe it is the church without proof, I have no need to seek then the proofs or marks that it is so. The word of God is quite sufficient for me to build my faith on through grace. But you know this is the ground you were put upon, and so we went into it.

We have still a little farther to go to make the matter plainer if possible. "It is evident," says Baronius 900, 3), "no one could scarcely believe, nor is it indeed scarcely to be believed, unless one had himself seen it with his eyes, and handled it with his hands, what shocking and what base and hideous and execrable and abominable things the holy apostolic see was compelled to undergo, on which the whole Catholic church turns as on a hinge." This he attributes to princes meddling with it. But it was, remember, in the popes that sat on the see these things were found, and this dark state of things lasted and characterized, as Baronius states at the beginning of it, the whole century, till they called in a powerful Emperor, Otho, to set it to rights, swore fealty to him, got him to name a pope, and then rebelled against him. It had become hopelessly intolerable. It was partly, not all, the consequence of the interference of the Marquis of Tuscany and his family.

It is necessary to mention one fact in civil history to explain the history of the popes. The Marquis of Tuscany had got possession of the castle of St. Angelo, which still exists, and had been the tomb of the Emperor Adrian, but had been fortified and commanded the city. He gave this to a noble Roman woman, Theodora, not his wife, and she and her two daughters lived there and governed Rome. Her daughter Marozia had a son by Pope Sergius, with whom she lived. After Sergius came Anastasius, who, says Platina, lived modestly and in integrity. There was nothing worthy of reproof in him, a good deal to say in those days. After him came Lando. Theodora was all powerful at Rome. A certain presbyter, John, came from Ravenna to Rome, whom she seduced to live with her; one of her daughters living in adultery with Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany, as the other had lived with Pope Sergius. Theodora had a son, Alberic, by the Marquis. Theodora makes Lando consecrate John to the See of Bologna, but Ravenna, a great archbishopric, falling vacant just then, she makes the pope promote him to that. Lando did not live long, and then she, not liking him to be at a distance from her, brings John to Rome and makes him pope. Such is Luitprand's (a contemporary who resided even at Rome) account, adopted by Baronius, Dupin, and Fleury. Muratori seeks to invalidate it some eight hundred years after, but nobody ever doubted it till then. Baronius does not attempt to deny it. His remark is this, "Such was the unhappy state then of the Roman church, that everything was set in motion by the will of the powerful harlot, Theodora, the mother. By her meretricious acts she had this power; but besides, the son of Adelbert, by his wife Wido, had married Marozia, the mistress of Sergius. What then was the face of the holy Roman church! how filthy when most powerful and at the same time base harlots ruled Rome, by whose will Sees were changed, bishops given, and, what is horrible and unutterable to be heard, pseudo-pontiffs their paramours were intruded into the See of Peter who are not to be written save to mark the dates in the catalogue of Roman pontiffs; for who can say that persons intruded by harlots of this kind without law were lawful Roman pontiffs? Nowhere any mention of clergy electing or afterwards consenting, all canons buried in silence, the decrees of pontiffs suffocated, ancient traditions and old customs in electing the sovereign pontiffs proscribed, and sacred rites and ancient customs utterly extinguished!" 912, 8, 7). He justly says all the clergy chosen by them were of course like them. Thus at Rheims, the Count Hugo made his son of five years old archbishop, and took the revenues; then, some getting the upper hand, another was consecrated, and there was a fight, and councils about that, and two archbishops at a time.

280 But if Baronius is right in this, that they were not legitimate popes, where is the succession? I know, he says, though the abomination of desolation was there, destruction did not follow as at Jerusalem, that Christ seemed to sleep in the ship, but He was there and the like, so that the church emerged out of it.

But we are seeking apostolic succession as a mark of the true church, and here we are for some fifty years without a true pope at all. There was no true succession, no election, no consent of the church, but nominees of vile women putting in their paramours or their sons without either. If this be apostolic succession, apostolic succession is a strange mark of the true church. And as Auxilius says, when they each annulled the ordinations of another, all was invalidated; there were no true ordinations, no true sacraments. What security is this for the church of God, or any soul to build its faith upon?

R. But, as Baronius says, the church emerged out of it, and was more flourishing than ever.

Bill M. But all this is very shocking, and to make the church of God, out of this and such things, a security for our faith, and their own great men saying they were not legitimate, so that whatever else there may be, there cannot be succession.

R. But you are not to take an individual's statement, however eminent, as an authority in matters of faith.

Bill M. And what am I to take?

R. The church.

Bill M. What church? The church of Rome governed by harlots? We are just looking for the true one. Is that the true church that was governed by these women, and the creatures they had about them? I never can think that is Christ's church. He does not govern His church by harlots. How they do deceive us!

D. Who deceives you? What right have you to make such charges?

Bill M. Milner deceives me, or had; for I am pretty well undeceived, to say the truth. To talk of the holy church and apostolic succession! And you, gentlemen, I must say, deceived me. You cannot deny these things are true.

281 N*. Allow me to ask, Who was the head of the church of God at this time?

R. Christ is always the head of the church, and He could and did take care of it.

N*. That I admit; but then if He be the head always, we have need of no other; nay, another is impossible: the church cannot have two heads. Christ is the one ever-living head of His body, and Son over God's house. But then what is the pope?

R. He is the head on earth, and vicar of Christ who is in heaven; and what he binds on earth is bound in heaven.

N*. Then they are no real heads, only representing Him who is Head, as you say. But were these infamous dependents on these vile women the vicars of Christ, and was what they did on earth bound in heaven?

R. What they did in their official capacity was bound in heaven.

James. This is very shocking. I had no thought it was so bad. To make these men the vicars of Christ, and their acts Christ's acts!

R. Not their wickedness; I say their official acts.

James. And is all my security to rest on my finding out what were official acts in this horrible history, even if they could represent Christ in anything?

N*. But you will please remember that we are looking for the true church by the mark of apostolic succession. That is the reason I quoted this well-known passage again, as I did as to holiness. But tell me, were their ordinations official acts?

R. Of course.

N*. Well, those of one pope were annulled by another as void from the beginning, and then set up again by a third. Auxilius wrote his book because prelates were disposed to give up their sees, as having no real orders, to persuade them not. What was — perhaps I should say which was — sanctioned by Christ here? But further. Here is your Baronius' account of those whom they did ordain. "Not only was Christ," he says, "asleep in the ship, but (alluding to the history in the Gospels) there were no disciples who should wake Him up, they were all snoring. What presbyters and cardinal deacons can we suppose should be chosen by these monsters, when nothing is so implanted in nature as that each should beget what is like himself? Who can doubt that they consented in all things to those by whom they were chosen?" (912, 8). And so history tells us it was; iniquity, corruption, vice, walked shamelessly abroad; and the clergy, the worst, were screened by official sanctity.

282 Now these were their official acts: I mean the putting the clergy into their offices. Were these sanctioned by Christ in heaven? The gates of hell did not prevail against the church which He builds, and that is all He says; but is this His church, the choice and installation of the clergy, of people like themselves, by these monsters, the work of Christ sanctioned by Him in heaven?

James. You surely cannot say that, sir?

R. All I say is that sacramental grace continued, so that the church endured.

N*. Even that is doubtful on your own ground, from what we have seen. Baronius will not own them for legitimate popes; some put those in the list that Baronius will not. How is a poor man like Bill M. to judge of such questions when he is seeking a mark of the true church?

D. He must humbly take it for granted.

N*. Take what for granted?

R. That God will be faithful to His church in spite of all.

N*. We do not doubt that. It is begging the question. We are inquiring which is the true church. Is he to take for granted that securing grace to monsters of wickedness by sacraments, and they communicating it to profligates like themselves, is sanctioned by Christ, and His way of maintaining the security of the true church, when he has been taught by yourselves to look for holiness as a mark of the true church and apostolic succession? when, if he could read these things, and were not deceived by men like Milner, he would know that Baronius says he cannot own them for legitimate popes?

When he says, Christ was still in the ship, it is saying that He did not fail when there were no legitimate popes, which I fully believe; but that is the ground we rest on, not yours. We own none to be legitimate, nor the papacy itself to be legitimate, but Christ to be faithful, and infallibly to assure His church to the end in spite of these illegitimate popes. But we hold all this to be illegitimate, and therefore not the true church. God is true if every man is a liar; but to make Christ sanction illegitimate monsters as the true church is horrible.

283 R. And how is a man to choose amongst all the Protestant sects?

N*. I do not want him to choose anything, but to bow to the word of God, and follow it.

R. But how can he tell it is the word of God?

N*. Of that we have spoken; but I answer briefly, by divine teaching. Do you not believe in preventing and assisting grace?

R. Yes, surely; I am no Pelagian.

N*. Well then, he learns its truth and power by that, quite recognizing that ministry of grace which may be a great help to him, while he must be himself taught of God.

D. But cannot grace make him subject to the church?

N*. When he has found it, as the word directs him. But he must find it first, and take the word for his rule, that is, believe in the word first.

But, if you please, we will continue our history. John X buckled on his armour, and led his troops with others against the Saracens with success; but Wido and Marozia were jealous of the authority of Peter, his brother, conferred on him by Pope John in Rome. They killed Peter before his eyes in the Lateran palace, and put John in prison, where he died, some say of grief, some of a violent death. Leo VI succeeded; he was put in prison, and died there after a year's and a few days' pontificate. Stephen VII (VIII) succeeded, and was over two years pope. Then Marozia put in her own son John, whom she had by Pope, or as Baronius says pseudo-pope Sergius. Wido died, and Marozia offered her hand and Rome to Hugo, King of Lombardy, brother by the same mother to Wido, who accepted it. But he insulted Alberic, son to Adelbert (Marozia's father) by his wife; he raised the Romans, and put Marozia and the pope in prison. Accounts do not agree how far he was allowed to officiate, some say privately, others more publicly. Alberic made him authorize the patriarch of Constantinople to wear the pallium without Rome's sending it.

For twenty years there is not much to remark. There were three popes after Leo VII who succeeded John to John XII. Alberic, who had so long ruled at Rome, had a son named Octavian, who inherited his authority, though the power of Otho I, an able prince, began to make itself felt in all the West; he was crowned Emperor by John XII (XIII). But this was later. This Octavian, it is said at the suggestion of the Romans, made himself pope, being a mere boy not possibly more than eighteen, probably a good deal less, not of an age to be a deacon, mimicking a pope in a play, says Baronius; but (though on no possible condition to be called a legitimate pontiff, no law in his election but force and fear, but as it was acceded to) it was better, he says further, as those worthless times persuaded, to bear with him than have a schism — no true pope at all, that is, rather than two questionable ones (955, 4). Octavian (or John XII) first led his troops to war against the Duke of Capua, but was forced to make peace. He then began a life of unparalleled debauchery. He wrote to the Emperor, whose influence now was great, to deliver him from the violence of the chiefs in Italy. The Emperor came and was crowned Emperor. The pope swore allegiance on the bodies of Peter and Paul that he would never in any way help Adelbert and Bereuges, the rebellious chiefs referred to; and all agreed that the pope should be canonically chosen, and not consecrated until he had bound himself, in presence of the commissaries of the Emperor, to preserve the rights of all.

284 However, no sooner was the Emperor's back turned than he joined Adelbert. The Emperor sent to Rome to inquire what. this meant. The answer was that the pope hated the Emperor as the devil hated his Creator; that he had turned the Lateran palace into a house of ill-fame; and they related the vilest wickedness of which he was guilty; and, not content with that, violated matrons and virgins in the very churches. Otho said he was a boy, and would, on being spoken to, mend his ways.

It resulted, after several missions, in Otho's coming to Rome, and the pope and Adelbert fleeing. The Emperor entered, and the Romans swore never to elect or have a pope consecrated without the consent of the Emperor. The Emperor, the prelates of Germany who came with him, and nearly all those of Italy, met in council. His misdeeds were publicly stated: he consecrated bishops for money, had made one of ten years old, drunk wine in honour of the devil, and with various cruelties caused the death of persons that were named. The bishops and clergy and people of Rome declared in the most solemn way it was all true. The Emperor wrote to him to say: "You are accused of homicide, perjury, sacrilege, incest with your own relations and with two sisters, of having drunk wine in honour of the devil, of having invoked in gambling Jupiter and Venus and other demons, and we beg you to come and clear yourself." The pope answered, "We have heard that you are thinking of making another pope. If you do, we excommunicate you in the name of Almighty God, so that you can do nothing, not even communicate as layman." They sent again, but John had left. The council deposed him, and chose Leo VIII, who sat as pope more than a year. Eighty-five prelates or clergy of Rome were assembled in council besides Roman nobles.

285 Otho, after troubles, and the Romans again swearing fidelity and giving hostages, left Rome, and at the instigation of Pope Leo gave up the hostages. John returned, held a council of twelve bishops (of the papal states chiefly), and twelve of the clergy of Rome, deposed Leo, who saved himself by flight, broke all his ordinations, perpetrated brutal acts against some who had borne testimony against him, and some three months after, being found committing adultery outside Rome, was killed by the husband — by the devil, if you believe Luitprand; and this is apostolic succession.

The Romans thereupon, not heeding their oaths, chose Benedict. The Emperor returned to Rome with Leo, whom the Romans recognized, and Benedict was brought before them. He humbly acknowledged his fault and begged for mercy, gave up his pallium and crosier to Leo, who broke the crosier and stripped him of his other robes, and he acknowledged himself a usurper. He was reduced to the diaconate, but was to go into exile, where he died peacefully at Hamburg. He seems to have been a quiet respectable man. Leo himself died very soon after.

The Romans, who (it seems) had given the Emperor the right to choose the pope in this synod, sent to him to know his choice. He sent ambassadors to Rome, and Jean, bishop of Narni (one of John's accusers) was unanimously chosen pope, and accepted by the Emperor. The latter seems to have been a wise, moderate, and moral prince. Baronius does not own Leo; he does own Benedict. Dupin does not own Benedict, he does Leo. Benedict had joined in choosing Leo. Certainly John XIII succeeded Leo, not Benedict. Fleury also owns Leo. Platina says Benedict was seditiously elected pope by John's friends; as to Leo, the Romans, finding John insupportable, begged the Emperor to choose one. He said it belonged to the people and clergy, and they chose Leo, whom he confirmed; then changing, they brought in Benedict. The Emperor came, and, tired with all these things, he transferred the right of election to the Emperor. This Platina was in office under the popes, and at last librarian, which involved other important charges.

286 Now here, with this pretended succession, all is uncertain as to who was really pope at all. Baronius has Leo IX afterwards, without any Leo VIII at all, concealing the difficulty; to say nothing of such an one as Octavian, of some sixteen years old (consented to because there he was by his own power, but confessedly no legitimate pope), as a proof of apostolic succession. The consent was merely that he was strong enough to maintain himself in his place till Otho came.

R. No doubt they were dark and dismal times.

N*. Be it so; but the darkness was in the papacy more than anywhere else (the Emperor seems to have been a worthy man), and we are looking for light as to the true church, and do not find it here — not on your own principles. True succession there was none. This is upon the face of your histories. You have no Leo VIII in your greatest historian, though he is obliged to put in Leo IX. The others explain fully what this means. He really sat as pope for more than a year, and died in the see, and John XIII was chosen on his decease. We can understand Baronius, because Leo was introduced by deposing John for his enormities, and he and all the Romans gave the right to choose and establish the popes to the Emperor, in order to have some decency in the matter; and they sent to the Emperor on Leo's death, who sent his commissaries to Rome for the choice of John XIII, being a moderate and able prince, who sought moral order at least in what he held to be divine and the church of God. I gather the facts from Platina, Baronius, Fleury, Dupin, all Roman Catholic historians.*

{*I have consulted Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Luitprand; others I take, as Baronius, etc., cite them.}

But we now arrive at utter confusion and uncertainty as to the whole succession itself. (Fleury 56, 36; Dupin, cent. 10, c. 2; Baronius 972, and following.) Domnus II, Benedict VI, Boniface VII (whom Baronius will not own, who plundered the Vatican church of all its wealth, and went off to Constantinople, but was a regularly ordained pope) follow — it cannot be ascertained as to the two first in what order. Baronius puts Domnus first, making him hold the see three months; Fleury puts Benedict VI first, then Boniface, then Domnus, but says many allege he was never pope. All is obscure as to him. Baronius says, "everything save that he was pope three months after John XIII is obscure." Dupin* puts Domnus first, then Benedict; Platina, Benedict first, then Domnus, then Boniface. Domnus' pontificate is quite uncertain. What comes of succession I know not. If pope, he was pope only three months. After a while he was pope (Baronius says the day after his death). Benedict VI was pope, whom others make to follow John XIII.

{*In this part of his Nouvelle Bibliotheque Dupin gives a chapter on the church of Rome. In Baronius the name of the pope at once gives the reference, as in Fleury.}

287 Crescens, or Crescentius, son of Pope John X, it is said, at the instance of Francon, called Boniface, put Benedict in prison, and Boniface became pope, and afterwards had Benedict strangled, so that he was never really pope as successor to another. After a year or more he too was obnoxious, and Benedict VII drove him away; but he escaped, and took all the treasures of the church with him to Constantinople, and lived on them. He never was truly pope, as Benedict VI was still alive, if we are to count him or Domnus. I do not pretend to unravel this history. Muratori and Fr. Pagius have contested the accounts of others, such as Hormann Contractus. I do not pretend to have examined and settled it. The last two, if I am not mistaken, with Sigbert of Gemblours, put Domnus between Boniface and Benedict VII. He, for once in these times, died quietly a natural death. John XIV succeeded; then Boniface came back, seized him on the throne, put him in prison and starved him to death, and sat as pope four months — murderer of two popes and robber of the church. Baronius will not own him for pope, but pope he was as much as others. It was a question really of political parties (Bar. 983, 1).

Boniface died in the papacy. His corpse was dishonoured by his own party (Dupin, cent. 10, C. 2). On his death a pope was chosen, and held the see four months, but was never consecrated, and is not reckoned. John was then chosen, called John XV. Crescentius took the castle, and the pope fled, but Crescentius was found to be quiet, and John returned, and held the see peaceably. The Emperor was in Italy, and the Romans sent to him. He recommended his chaplain, who was elected, and made Pope Gregory V; but Crescentius drove him away, and set up John as pope. The Emperor came, hanged Crescentius and his principal followers. John was deprived of eyes, nose, and tongue, and made to ride an ass backwards. He is said by Fleury (57, 49) to have been put in prison, but is no more heard of. John XV was the first who canonized any one. The council says, We adore the relics of martyrs and confessors (Bar. 993, 4).

288 Sylvester II followed Gregory V. He demands some notice, as the object of the utmost horror of Roman historians. Baronius declares him a horrible blasphemer, heretic, and schismatic (992, 22, and following), and spends folio pages in railing against him. Cardinal Beuno says he bought the papacy, and sold his soul to the devil, under condition that he should not have it till he said Mass in Jerusalem; but having done so in a church in Rome called Jerusalem, he died thereupon; and we learn from Sigbert that many in the twelfth century would not reckon him among the popes. However Baronius will not quite admit that. His commerce with the devil, however, obtained currency, as he was the most learned man of his age — a great mathematician and astronomer. But the motives of Baronius' hatred are hardly concealed. A council at Rheims had deposed Archbishop Arnulf for giving up the city to the Duke of Lorraine, one of the common political struggles with which the ecclesiastics were mixed up. Gerbert was ordained archbishop, but the pope put him down and set up Arnulf. The Emperor made Gerbert archbishop of Ravenna, a much greater see, and on Gregory V's death he made the Roman people make him pope. When turned out of the See of Rheims, he wrote against the popedom, and brought to light and depicted the frightful depravities and ignorance which characterized it, saying, if a man was not pious he was Antichrist, however he was ordained, and if ignorant, an idol. This, and his nomination by the Emperor Otho, excited the spleen of Baronius.

After him we find the difficulties of apostolic succession in our path. (Baronius, 1003, 9.) "John," he says, "XVI of that name, called XVIII; then another John XVII, more commonly XIX. Marianus Scotus, a writer of that age, calls XVI XVII, and the second, John XVIII; however, more frequent usage makes him XIX, but against all reason, as some in this number, schismatics, unworthy of the name of pope, are included." So Dupin: "John XVI according to us, XVIII according to others." This comes from John VI (or Pope Joan), whom Baronius will not recognize, and John, who sat as pope when he had turned out Gregory V, and was then turned out himself, and deprived of eyes, nose, and tongue. Fleury makes it, with Marianus Scotus, XVII XVIII; Baronius XVIII XIX, only that the first sat only some months, and hence is not counted in dates. The second of these Johns calls himself XVIII (Pagi ad B. 1003, 3). But then he reckons either Pope Joan (John VI) or the John that drove out Gregory. The uncertainty of succession, whatever its value, is evident; XVII and XVIII seem most generally owned, and the expulsor of Gregory owned as pope, so that there were two at a time, and not John VI. Platina counts XVIII XIX, counting the John who drove out Gregory and John VI.

289 In John's time it seems Constantinople and Rome were reunited in communion; under Sergius, not. It is not known why. Sergius, who followed, and his follower, Benedict, were of Henry of Germany's party (Bar. 1009, 4). The Romans made one Gregory pope, who drove out Benedict. He fled to Henry, who brought him back to Rome with an army, on which the Romans drove away Gregory, and took Benedict back. John, his brother, succeeded him by bribery (says Glaber, a contemporary author), when a layman wholly unordained. He dies. These two popes were brothers of the Count of Tusculum. He did not like the papacy going out of his family; so, by money and influence, his son, a boy not ten years old, was made Pope Benedict IX. Some affirm that John XIX was driven out, and re-established by the Emperor, but it seems uncertain. Some give Benedict seventeen or eighteen years; Fleury says only about twelve, but Glaber (quoted by Baronius, his contemporary), ten. His life was one of infamy, murder, and debauchery of every kind, till at last it was insupportable. He had sat ten or twelve years. The Romans put in his place the Bishop of Sainte Sabine, who became Sylvester III. But after three months Benedict returned, and drove out Sylvester of Sainte Sabine. But, desirous of devoting himself to pleasure, he agreed for a sum of money with John Gratian, arch-priest, that he should have the papacy, reserving only the revenues of England. Gratian became Gregory VI. A strange apostolic succession!

But there were now three popes. However, the Emperor came to Rome to put them all down. Benedict fled, Sylvester was sent back to Sainte Sabine, and Gregory arrested and finally sent into exile. No one was found at Rome fit to be pope, and Suidger of Bamberg, who was with the Emperor, was made pope by the name of Clement II, a respectable man, it seems. So now there were four popes at once. Clement II died in nine months; back came Benedict, though the Emperor had sent one Poppo, consecrated pope as Damasus II, but poisoned within a month, as is said. Baronius says Cardinal Beuno is not trustworthy, and Benedict sat as pope eight months longer. Baronius (1033, 8) would persuade us that the church of Rome suffered, did not do, all these things. But who was bribed to set up the boy Benedict? Who agreed to let him go with a sum of money and the English revenues? Who accepted the rule of Theodora and Marozia, and their sons made popes, and fathers of subsequent popes? The only decent popes, with very rare exceptions, were those put in by the Emperors. On the contrary, the evil was at Rome.

290 R. No doubt it is very sad, but your selecting these cases of wickedness gives a false idea of the general state of things.

N*. I am not speaking of the general state of things, however apparent it may be from what has been said. Had I done so, it would have been a history of murders, incests, crimes not to be named, and a depravity especially among the clergy, of which all contemporary writers are witness, as Ratherius and Damianus. Simony was universal. A pope introduced by the Emperor laboured, by himself and by councils, to put a stop to it.

But our present subject is apostolic succession. Now the four I have named are counted among popes at any rate there. Baronius has Benedict IX Gregory VI. He does not own Sylvester III (1044, 1, etc.), but says (from Otho Frisingensis) there were three schismatic popes at once. Damasus he does own. Platina says, "Damasus took the See by force, with no consent of clergy or people, for this usage had become so inveterate, that every ambitious person could invade the See of Peter." But God arranged it, he tells us, for he died in twenty-three days, so that some do not count him among the popes. At any rate Benedict was pope all the time. Baronius says he was regularly chosen, yet reckons among the popes Benedict, who was alive at Rome, and is said to have had him poisoned. Fleury says Benedict at last repented, and retired; and Poppo, whom the Emperor had sent from Germany, was consecrated the same day. I do not pretend to decide who is right or who is pope, but the vaunted succession is not worth a straw. It is making a mockery of religion and Christianity to rest anything upon it.

291 R. Why, then, did God bring it out of all this, and raise it to still greater power?

N*. The power was worldly power, which their cunning and men's superstition put into their hands, and it was over men of the world, and only lasted till it became quite intolerable where there was any conscience left. As to continuing, Buddhism has continued longer — from 540 years before Christ — has been much more moral, and has a vastly greater number of adherents to this day. This proves nothing. Spirituality does not go by number, and true Christians are a little flock.

R. What do you rest on then?

N*. We have spoken of it. The word of God, which knows no succession, being always itself; and the grace of Him to use it, who is ever the same. The faithfulness of Christ to His church can never fail.

As to the history, I should add here that Baronius distinguishes John and Gratian. John was a third schismatical pope; Benedict's conscience then yielded to conviction, and Gratian, or Gregory VI, was a regular and commendable pope. He says (following Otho Frisingensis) that he bought off all the three (heads of Cerberus, as he calls them) with money, (the English revenues being left to Benedict, as having most title), and then was made pope. This does not hang together with history however. It was poor repentance, being bought off with money and England's revenues; but there was a reason for Baronius owning him Gregory VII. The famous Hildebrand owned Gregory VI as legitimate pope, and called himself VII; so Gregory VI must be acknowledged. His paying the others to be gone, he will have it, was canonical virtue, not simony. However that may be, he was deposed in council on the arrival of the Emperor, along with Benedict and Sylvester, and taken to Germany, though Benedict managed to get the see for eight or nine months afterwards. Such is apostolic succession.

On the death of Damasus II, Leo IX succeeded, a very respectable man, a German, sent by the Eraperor, chosen at Worms, but who, it appears, only took the place on condition of the people and clergy of Rome confirming it. Victor II succeeded, also a German, under the influence of Hildebrand, afterwards Gregory VII; after him Stephen X of Lorraine. Then the Romans chose Benedict X; but Damianus and other cardinals left Rome, and chose another, Nicholas II, who was settled in the see by the Emperor's power, and Benedict degraded. And Nicholas first settled the popes should be chosen by the cardinals. These popes were Germans, and at least decent people. On the death of Nicholas there was great conflict for the papacy. Alexander was chosen, supposing it would please the imperial court. But the Emperor was not content. Another was chosen; the Emperor came with an army but was defeated, and in the Council of Mantua a compromise was made, and Alexander was sole pope. Cadulous (Honorius II) does not count in the list.

292 Gregory VII, the most able and ambitious of all the popes, came next. He had long governed Rome, and was seated in the papacy before his predecessor was buried (some say by soldiers, and a host devoted to him; some say the cardinals and people had their part). He sent to the Emperor, at any rate, to say it had been done without his will. The Emperor sent a commissioner to Rome to inquire, and found it better to acquiesce. He pushed the power of the pope to absolute dominion over everything, and enforced the celibacy of the clergy more than any of his predecessors. Meanwhile corruption reigned everywhere. The Emperor Henry struggled against his power, a struggle I need not enter into here; but councils were held in Germany. In that of Bresse, Gregory was deposed, and another chosen, who took the name of Clement III. Henry besieged Rome, took it, and Clement was placed in the see, and crowned Henry Emperor. Gregory sent for the Romans, and Gregory got into the castle of St. Angelo. Henry retired to his camp; Robert Guiscard, the Norman, fired the city, and in the confusion Gregory escaped, and (Baronius, 1083, 1, and following) retired to Salerno, under protection of the Normans, and died there. William, king of England, alone effectually resisted him, suffered his legates to hold no councils, nor the English and Norman prelates to go to Rome. Gregory it was who laid the foundation of Roman pretensions, the pride and the shame of the papacy.

The general state of the clergy at this time was indescribable in vice and degradation of every sort. Gregory VII enforced celibacy, which made it worse. It is impossible to describe the excess of wickedness and its universality among the clergy; but it is not our subject now, but succession. These German popes were brought in as no decent ecclesiastics could be found in Rome, and men were wearied with sin and violence. But, on the other hand, it was the custom for monks, as a way of holiness, to do penance for others by proxy. A man had sinned enough to be put to penance for 120 or 100 years. A monk undertook it, reciting the psalter, with flagellations, it is said about a thousand for 10 pss.; 3,000 were worth a year's penance, and so 15,000 worth five years' penance; thus twenty recitations and the lashes paid the whole hundred years. It took about six days thus for a hundred years' penance!

293 R. But you do not believe these ridiculous stories?

N*. There is no doubt it was the practice. It is the statement of one of the brightest luminaries of the age, who, if superstitious, at any rate sought to stop the floods of abounding iniquity, Peter Damian. He had learned it from Dominic. You may see it in Fleury (60, 52). In his letter, excusing what he had said of voluntary penances, he says that laymen get rid of them by giving so much money, and that was not in the canons, and why not monks by austerities? (Fleury, 60, 52, and Dupin, II, cent., c. 8). It was the same Damian who wrote a book about the prevalence of unnatural crimes among the clergy, approved by Leo IX, which the Pope Alexander II hid away for fear of scandal, refusing in council to take it up. Victor III and Urban II closed this century.

Gilbert of Ravenna, however, was still pope or anti-pope through their pontificates as Clement III, a council of thirty bishops and others having elected him and deposed Gregory VII at the time of the latter hurrying into the see before his predecessor was buried. Gregory, we have seen, died out of Rome, among the Normans. Paschal II, who succeeded Gregory VII, made war on Clement III, and drove him into Calabria. His first successor was, after four months, taken by Pope Paschal's troops and confined in a monastery; his successor had it three months and retired; the third, who took the name of Sylvester IV, was better sustained, but died soon after; so Paschal was sole pope. The Emperor and popes were at war. The Emperor had put Paschal in irons, and made him yield the right of the investiture of the prelates in their Sees. In this, on a trial with Callixtus II, as afterwards in France, the princes gained their point: only it was agreed to be done with the sceptre in Germany, by writing in France — not with staff and ring.

294 On Paschal's death Gelasius II was raised to the pontificate; but the Emperor came, and he, as yet only deacon, fled with some difficulty to Gaieta; but there was consecrated pope. The Emperor made another at Rome, Gregory VIII. After some time Gelasius fled, and died in France, where Callixtus II was chosen by the Romans with him, and acknowledged pope on his coming to Rome. Gregory VIII fled and shut himself up in a fortress called Sutri. After some time Callixtus sent an army, soon joining it himself. The inhabitants gave him up, and he died imprisoned, having been three years pope. All his ordinations were annulled. Honorius II succeeded; then Innocent II by some, and Anaclete by others, the majority at Rome being for the latter. Innocent fled, but was acknowledged by France, England, and Germany, not by Guyenne and Southern Italy. Lothaire came from Germany, and set up Innocent; but, as soon as he was gone, Innocent fled from the Romans again. But some in southern Italy took up arms, and, Anacletus' party being defeated, could do nothing against Innocent. Anacletus died; another pope was chosen, but finding he could not hold his ground, he submitted to Innocent, and all his ordinations were annulled.

R. But Anacletus is never reckoned among the popes.

N*. He was chosen by a large majority of the cardinals, clergy, and people. The civil power established Innocent, but Anacletus was canonically consecrated and installed. Innocent was elected by Honorius' private friends in secret before his death was publicly announced. He died at Rome, having been pope some eight years (Fleury, 60, 45; Dupin, 12, cent., chap. 3; Platina). Baronius makes antichrist of him 1130, 6). This he borrows from Bernard (Epist. 124, etc.), who was excessively active in promoting the cause of Innocent. No plain man sees why he should prefer to Anacletus, who sat at Rome regularly elected, Innocent who did not sit there.

R. But Anacletus could not be pope because Innocent was already.

N*. Innocent was chosen in a hole-and-corner meeting, before it was known Honorius was dead, because they knew this Peter de Lion (Anacletus) would be. But Peter was chosen by the large majority, so that Innocent had to flee, though he sought to defend himself by force — a pretty apostolic succession.

295 R. But the church owned Innocent.

N*. Not the church at Rome, if church we can call it at the time. But we are finding out the true church by apostolic succession, so we cannot find out apostolic succession by the church. But we shall have more of this when even this false plea fails. It is possible that if not Antichrist, at any rate what was antichristian sat at Rome in St. Bernard's time. But what comes for the holy Roman Catholic apostolic church of all the ordinations made for eight years? They were annulled, though I know not why he was not legitimate pope. But then what of all your sacraments meanwhile? Either they were void, or else, as is said, once a priest always a priest, and the decree of the council was invalid which annulled them. And they will have ordained others. All is hopeless confusion. Innocent carried on war in person against South Italy, and was taken prisoner. Eugene had to fight for Rome, was consecrated away from it, had to fly after his entrance, went to France, returned, took St. Peter's, which had been made a fortress, but died out of Rome. Anastasius IV succeeded him; then Hadrian IV. Alexander III was chosen after him, but also Octavian. At first France and England, and partly Italy, owned Alexander, but Germany only Octavian. Both had referred to the Emperor to have it decided, who summoned a local council in Italy to decide who had right. Alexander would not go, Octavian did, the council decided in favour of Octavian, and the Emperor never owned any other; at the end England joined him too.

France and part of Italy held to Alexander. Octavian called himself Victor III. The English and the French, though having long hesitated to pronounce because of the Emperor, held also local councils, who supported Alexander, and the French excommunicated Victor III. The Emperor convened one in Germany, having letters from Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and many prelates beside those present, and then Alexander was excommunicated. Frederick, the Emperor, proposed putting both down, and the French and English kings met him to settle it. Alexander would not go, and nothing was settled; then Alexander called a French council, and excommunicated Victor and all his adherents. Victor died, and Alexander went to Rome. Victor's party, however, chose another pope; Frederick supported him, but was defeated by the Italians, and his prelates were driven out of Lombardy, but Paschal remained seated pope at Rome, Alexander having offended the Romans. He died at Rome, and a successor was chosen to him too, but the Emperor made peace with the pope, and Alexander was received at Rome.

296 Now I do not pretend to say who was canonical pope; but we have half Christendom owning one whom the Romanists do not own, and the sacraments and ordinations in a vast extent of country depended on his being real pope. Out of Northern Italy, when the Emperor was beaten, all his partisans were driven out, whom all supposed in the succession of these sees. What became of succession? If ever there was a thing disproved, it is what is ridiculously called apostolic succession at Rome (Dupin, cent. 12, chap. 9).

If we are to believe the Council of Pavia, where were fifty archbishops and other prelates, with a quantity of abbots of Germany and Italy, and the deputies of France and England, after seven days' examination of witnesses and deliberations, the Emperor having left it to them, Victor III alone was duly elected and made pope. The majority of the cardinals were for Alexander, but the senators for Victor, and they put Alexander in prison; but he escaped by the intervention of the people (Fleury, 70, 41). Though the Emperor accepted Alexander, it does not appear Victor's party gave up. We read of one Lando antipope, calling himself Innocent III, who submitted to Alexander, the latter having made peace with the brother of Victor, who supported Innocent III, and bought the castle on which Innocent maintained his ground. This was the time of Waldo of Lyons. Baronius treats all the testimony received at Pavia as lies (1160), but gives no other facts than what are before us. I cannot find that he mentions Innocent III. Urban III, Gregory VIII, and Clement III follow in peace, as far as our question is concerned. Innocent III followed.

In his days, transubstantiation was made a dogma of, and the Inquisition established. Honorius was his successor. Gregory IX followed him. After him all was confusion. Two popes were chosen, but neither had a sufficient majority, according to the constitution of Alexander III that the majority of cardinals must be two-thirds. Both at last yielded, and then one of them, Godfrey of Milan, was chosen, Celestine IV, and died in about a month, some saying he was poisoned (Fleury, 81, 51). The see having been vacant a year and a half, the Emperor and the king of France, the former having marched against Rome to enforce his letters, at last compelled the cardinals to choose, and Innocent IV was pope; Alexander IV followed. Then three or four months' vacancy; there were only eight cardinals to choose, and they could not agree which should be pope. At last they chose the patriarch of Jerusalem.

297 Again four months elapsed, and Clement IV was chosen. Then intrigues for three years and no pope; the cardinals however made a compromise, and the pope, Gregory IX, made the constitution that the cardinals should be shut up till they agreed. Innocent V, Adrian V who died unconsecrated, John XIX or XX, XXI, rapidly succeeded each other within a year; then Nicholas III. Then after six months' delay, through intrigues of Roman families, one connected with the king of Sicily and Martin IV;* Honorius IV; then a year's vacancy, the cardinals were hardly shut up all the time; then Nicholas IV; then two years and some months; then Celestine was chosen and resigned the see for quiet, at the instance, some say, of Benedict, who got himself chosen in his place. Celestine renewed that decree to shut the cardinals up, and made another that popes might resign — a useless one, says Dupin: no one ever did since (cent. 12, chap. 3; Fleury, bks. 79 to 87). Boniface VIII succeeded.

{*Or II here only, because Marin has been confounded with Martin. This, and one of the Stephens, do not affect the succession, like the Johns and others.}

In Celestine's time, if we are to believe it, the Virgin Mary's house went over the sea of its own accord to Loretto; Raynaldus (we have Baronius no longer) says he does not know from what motive.

I have gone rapidly through these last-named popes, as (though the intrigues of cardinals are very little like apostolic succession, and the ambitions of eight men a very questionable source of Peter's authority, and long vacancies prove what was at work) there is nothing peculiar. We have no pope at all, instead of two at a time. The times were changing. But how the pope could give exclusive authority to his nominees to choose a successor to Peter, I know not; as a human provision against tumults and fighting, we can easily understand it; when they snatched a man from the altar while being consecrated. But what all this has to do with apostolic succession is hard to tell.

298 James. I am sure it is a disgraceful history of ambitious men, not apostolic succession. I see in scripture Paul looked for no apostolic succession, but ravenous wolves to come when he was gone. But at any rate this is all a history of ravenous wolves more than apostolic grace and authority.

Bill M. It is all shocking; but what I feel most is how they deceive one in talking of holy and apostolic. If the church be holy, this is not it. As to succession, no simple person could find out where it really was; and to say that these monsters, as some of them were, were successors of the apostles is too bad; it shocks a man's conscience. Why, the devil was revelling in wickedness there.

R. But the grace was handed down.

Bill M. What grace? And when there was no pope for two or three years, where was the grace and the head of the church then? And when there were two or three, and even whole countries owning each, who can say where the grace and the title was?

R. But we only count those who were recognized by the church.

Bill M. But some recognize some, and others others; and how am I to settle it?

N*. M. is quite right; for example, Gregory VI, was he a real pope?

D. I suppose we must reckon him such, as the great Hildebrand called himself VII, and so Baronius owns him.

N*. But he resigned and owned he was not one, having been set up when Benedict IX was there, but such a monster that he was first driven out, and then went to pursue his pleasures. So in other cases.

R. Well, I hold to the church's judgment on these things, and recognize as popes those she does.

N*. Where is that judgment? We have Baronius declaring that for a hundred years he must put in their names as dates, but otherwise cannot recognize as legitimate popes infamous men put in by the mistress of the Marquis of Tuscany or of the popes themselves; and he admits there was no election or consent of clergy, only it was acquiesced in to prevent schism. I go on your own principles, for I agree with M. that it does shock natural conscience to think such people successors of Peter. It is making grace, or the security of the means and channels of grace, the security of unholiness: grace has its security in holiness. If so, I need not look for holiness as a mark of the true church; it is secured without it, and Christianity becomes a guarantee of unholiness being no matter.

299 R. This is strong language, sir.

N*. Is it not true, if what proves the church and secures grace is the most awful system of wickedness and series of wickedness we have on record?

R. I do not know that we can gain anything by pursuing the subject. The church and its unity are thrown overboard by you, and it is hopeless then to come to any conclusion or to find any security at all.

N*. We are looking for the true church as taught by your own doctors, and just now by the mark of apostolic succession; consequently we must have the facts. Nothing, I admit, can be more absurd than to set any one to build his faith upon such ground, and to say he cannot find the true church, on which the word of God affords him with divine authority the fullest light, without going through this long dark history of wickedness.

D. But all the bright examples you leave out.

N*. Which are they? A few popes introduced by the Emperor were decent people, and poor Celestine, who resigned his popedom because he was not man of the world enough to manage things; but, save two or three, it was one series of wickedness. I have not now gone into the revolting accounts of crime, simony, wars, and violence which make up the history of these times. It was in these times that the cardinal who relates the history of the general council of Lyons at which Pope Innocent excommunicated and deposed the Emperor Frederick, and professed to reunite the Roman and Greek churches, declares that their stay there had made one universal brothel of the whole town, and that with shocking levity, saying that they ought to be grateful; there were two when they went there, but now only one, but that it reached from the west gate to the east. Damianus' book I have already referred to; but I have confined myself to the question of succession. I understand you have not much to say, because I have merely related the facts as recorded in Roman Catholic historians, or ancient annalists.

300 Baronius admits that in some cases there was no choice or consent of the clergy whatever. To avoid the crimes committed, for a long time the Emperor put them in; then, when more free from the Imperial power, to avoid these things it was put in the cardinals' hands, and, as their ambition and jealousies sometimes kept the system without any head for several years, or two were named, they settled that two-thirds must concur, and they were to be shut up till they had a sufficient majority; and this is still the rule. It is said that, after the death of Innocent IV in Naples, the governor shut the cardinals up in the house he died in till they elected one. But, however absurd resting the certainty of one's faith and the continuance of grace on such a history, it is utterly impossible to base apostolic succession on it. We shall find papal breaches in the succession yet wider in the next century, and two or three popes at a time excommunicating one another, and then all deposed.

R. I know it was so, but it has been healed.

N*. Healed by others interfering and putting them all down; but then where was the succession? Through whom was it conveyed when there were two, and half Europe recognized one, half the other? And to whom was the pope a successor, when two and even three were deposed? It was a new appointment by a council, not a succession. Indeed why a choice by people, or emperors, or cardinals, should make a successor of Peter would be hard to tell.

Bill M. I do not see much Christianity at all in all this.

N*. I see none at all. But I suppose we must break up; but we will meet again, and if these gentlemen are inclined, they can of course come; but we will pursue for a while the history of the popes.

301 ON THE SUCCESSION

PART 2

N*. Good evening, James, and you too, M. We can go on without these gentlemen. And as we are going through the facts of history, very little of course can be said, and the great schism which broke out in Rome in this century is so well known that no one can call it in question; but it upsets all pretence of a regular succession altogether. There are a few pontificates to notice before we come to it. Boniface VIII begins the century. He was in continual conflict with the civil powers, (excommunicating and deposing emperors and kings), especially with the king of France, whose agent in Italy finally took him prisoner; and, though rescued by the inhabitants of Anagni where he was, he died almost immediately after of chagrin.

He was violent and imperious to the last degree; many alleged that he was no true pope, as no pope could resign as Celestine had done to make way for him, and if so, he could not be pope as Celestine was. The latter alleged the example of the first Clement, whom Peter had named and resigned, because no pope ought to be nominated by his predecessor, and so was pope after Linus and Anacletus. He was charged also with poisoning Celestine. Wickedness and violence were so rife, that crimes and false accusations from supposing them were both so common that it is often hard to tell what is true. He was charged with heresy, denying the immortality of the soul, and all manner of crimes; but it was all quashed in the Council of Vienna.

Benedict, called XI and so recognized by subsequent popes, followed this title, however set up as Benedict X one who was not reckoned lawful pope — so uncertain is the succession. Raynald (Cent. of Baronius) says he took the name of Benedict XI (though if the thing be more accurately examined he was only X) 1303, 45). He was respectable, but fond of monks, and was (it is believed) poisoned, and it seems to be proved (Rayn. 1304, 35). He revoked all his predecessor's acts against Philip. In all these times excommunication and deposition of kings and emperors were the common weapons of war between state and church.

There were now two parties in the body of cardinals who chose the pope, and so evenly balanced that they could not agree; hence for some time there was no pope. At last they agreed that the Italian party should name three French prelates, and the other choose one out of them in forty days' time, for the parties were the French and Italian parties. The Italian named three French greatly opposed to the French king: but before the French party selected their chief, knowing the ambition of the first of the three, he sent to the king, who told him he could get him made pope if he agreed to his conditions; he accepted all, with one secret one, and was named by the French party, the Italians thinking they had their way, and that a friend of Boniface's, against the king, was chosen. He became Clement V, and did everything openly agreed on with Philip — a nice specimen of succession to the apostolate of Peter. He stayed in France, but after staying awhile at Bordeaux and Poitiers, settled at Avignon, which did not then belong to France, and there the popes were for seventy years, called by the Romans the Babylonish captivity. The Emperor set up another pope at Rome, Nicholas V, but he did not succeed in his plans, so that after some time this Roman antipope submitted himself to Clement. The abuses in the monarchy, and in the way the pope, by various inventions, got all patronage into his hands at this time, incensed the nations. (Fleury, 90, 49; Dupin, cent. 14, C. 1; Rayn. 1305, 2, 3). Clement V passed away.

302 The difficulties were greater than ever. The Italians wanted the pope back to Rome, the French to keep him. The decision being long protracted, the mob assembled, the place was set on fire, some say by the cardinals, others by their servants or the mob. The cardinals dispersed, and could not be got to trust each other to come together. At last the next French king sent his brother, who invited them individually to Lyons, had long conferences with them, but in vain; at last, having summoned them all to a monastery, shut them all up, and would not let them out till they chose a pope. They spent forty days still, and John XXII was elected. Some say, not being able to agree, they did agree to put the nomination in his hands as a cardinal of no account, and he named himself, having sworn not to mount horse or mule if it were not to go to Rome, and so went by river to Avignon, and walked to the palace. At any rate he sat pope at Avignon. Pope John condemned as heretical what Nicholas III had affirmed (Fleury, 95, 15). It was in his time Nicholas V was set up by the Emperor. He also published dogmatic sermons on the beatific vision of God, condemned as heretical by the universities and other doctors, and their judgment was published. He would have left it open, but the doctors were firm. It is said he fully retracted on his death-bed. However one of the friars was burned under John XXII, and two by Innocent VI, at Avignon. Four were also burned at Marseilles for holding absolute poverty to be the right path, which Nicholas III had pronounced right. Benedict XII succeeded John. The first thing he did was to preach against his predecessor on the beatific vision, and then held a consistory, with many doctors, on which the proposition of Pope John was formally condemned, and those who maintained it were declared heretics.

303 Bill M. But I thought the popes were infallible.

N*. So they have decreed lately. But they have been, as we said before, openly condemned as heretics, as Honorius. Liberius signed an Arian creed. And here one condemns the views of another as positively heretical, and another burns two friars for persisting, as to Christ's possessing nothing, in the opinion affirmed to be true by his predecessor, Nicholas III. Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Gregory XI, some time before they died, made a declaration, by which they retracted all that they might have advanced in disputing, or in teaching, or preaching, or otherwise (Dupin, cent. 14, c. 3), so that they hardly thought themselves infallible. I suppose the Romanists would say it was not ex cathedrâ, but disputing, teaching, preaching, or otherwise, takes a pretty wide scope, and what was pronounced ex cathedrâ would come seemingly within teaching, preaching, or otherwise. At any rate, if a man may teach and preach, and in every other way of communicating his thoughts teach error, his pronouncing ex cathedrâ is not worth much. In disputing, a man may be hurried away. But the apostles, whose place they pretend to hold, know nothing of their preaching or teaching error (quite the contrary), and their being safe when speaking ex cathedrâ. It was their teaching and preaching which was inspired. But we are tracing succession.

Why a number of French cardinals electing one of their number at Avignon should make a person bishop of Rome, it would be hard to tell. But we will proceed with our history, for we are at an important epoch.

304 Gregory XI died at Rome when on the point of going back to Avignon. The Romans insisted on a Roman, or at least an Italian, prelate, and attacked the conclave, so that the cardinals were in fear of their lives. The greater number of them were French, but of these many were of the country of Limoges, so that they did not act together, as these wanted one of their party, the other Frenchmen not. There were only four Italian cardinals. It is said that one was made to put his head out of the window, to tell the people to go to St. Peter's, which was taken by the people to mean that they had elected the cardinal of St. Peter's. Meanwhile it was proposed to elect the Archbishop of Bari, who at any rate was an Italian, but not a cardinal; the French party say he was only elected to pacify the people, with the understanding that he was not to take the papacy, the choice being only made under the influence of fear of the populace, and hence having no validity, and so afterwards they certified the king of France. So Dupin. The Italian party, while not denying the clamours and violence but making them arise later in the affair, insisted that the election was regular and valid. Fleury's account gives this colour to it. Raynaldus, of course, insists that it was free, and urges that the people's leaders went to the window, and insisted it should be a Roman, and that the choice of one not a Roman proved that they were free.

The tumults then were great, at any rate. Some would have made the Cardinal of St. Pierre pope, but he disclaimed it; and the Archbishop of Bari was crowned and enthroned pope in the midst of these tumults. He took the name of Urban VI. But the cardinals were not content, and under pretext of the hot weather went to Anagni, and there they chose one of their own body, who became pope also, under the name of Clement VII, who removed to Avignon. The cardinals sent a long account to the king of France, who assembled prelates and doctors, but not satisfied with this, sent ambassadors to Italy to ascertain the facts, and on their report owned Clement to be the true pope. Spain, after some time, owned him too. Urban was occupied with politics and fighting in Italy, but he succeeded in maintaining himself as pope there, and putting down the Clementines tolerably completely, though Jeanne, queen of Naples, was for Clement, but she lost her kingdom and her life. England and Germany were for Urban, Scotland for Clement, Northern Europe for Urban, but Lorraine, Savoy, and other provinces for Clement. Each pope condemned and excommunicated the other and his adherents. Both consecrated prelates and clergy; so that the idea of a secure succession and the maintenance of the church in sacramental grace by it is a simple absurdity. If Urban, as Raynaldus and Platina would have it, was pope, then all France and Spain, and other countries, were excommunicated out of the pale of the church, and all their orders invalid, and all they conferred on others null and void, and all the sacraments which they hold to be necessary to salvation invalid and of no efficacy.

305 James. But what do they say to all this?

N*. They deplore it, of course, and say it was a source of infinite mischief, but, as Raynaldus expresses it, that He who has dominion over heaven and earth brought the church out of it. We shall see how they got out of it; but the whole order of succession and clergy was broken in upon while it did last. Urban may have been true pope on their system, but hardly so if what all the cardinals and others allege was true. He was named, they declare, under violence and threats, to escape the populace. The riots and violence, and the attacking the conclave, are not denied; and as soon as they got out of Rome they protested; and France, and Spain, and Naples, and other places accepted their view of the facts. All is uncertain in the succession. It is not denied there was the utmost violence and tumult. Contemporaries state that the people forced their way armed into the court of the palace of the conclave into which they had been driven with threats by the populace. Bundles of rice stalks were laid under it to set it on fire; and they threatened to cut down the cardinals if they did not choose a Roman. The heads of that district of Rome came and told them they must do as the people required, or they would suffer violence.

The Archbishop of Bari had been previously in consultation with the cardinals, and, though an Italian, being opposed to the Romans, the cardinals thought he would go with them in their views, and was then chosen in a hurry, as it was thought he would reject it. If so, the temptation was too great. This account seems pretty well authenticated. It is to be remarked that the Italian cardinals, three at least out of four, joined the rest at Anagni, where they went, and then to Fondi, to be secure to choose Clement VII. Various depositions are given in Balergius' "Notes to the Lives of the Popes of Avignon," and especially those of the cardinal of Florence. If he tells true, Urban's friends were false and perjured in their statements. One thing is clear, the French would have had a Frenchman for pope* if they could, and that fear actuated them in choosing Urban VI; on the other hand they were jealous of the cardinals of Limoges, because the Avignon popes had been thence. The fullest and clearest account of the proceedings, as far as I know, is the first life of Gregory XI, in Balergius (443, and following). Before the conclave, according to this account, the Romans had driven the upper orders out of Rome, and introduced a mass of rough countrymen, taken possession of the gates, that the cardinals might not leave, and when they met, broke in with them. The Bandarenses, chiefs of the twelve districts, had warned them before individually, and on going into the conclave assembled them, and said they must elect a Roman, or at least an Italian, or meet with worse; and the mob filled the palace and room under the hall of conclave with weapons and dry reeds, and all night rioted there, vociferating while they were saying the Mass of the Holy Ghost.

{*"Notae ad Vitas Paparum Avenionenum," page 1040, and following.}

306 The cardinals sent the three deans or chiefs of the three classes of cardinals (the people having insisted on the windows being opened) in the hope of calming them, but in vain; and a second time, but the people raged violently at the doors, insisting on the nomination of a Roman or Italian, threatening death, etc. They thus chose Bartholomew, Archbishop of Bari, as he had been present at the Roman consultations to force the choice of a Roman, was a doctor of canon law, and supposed to be upright. They supposed he would give it up when elected, and there was calm. For the same reason they had to go through with and crown and enthrone him. The account is by one who favoured Clement, but it all hangs perfectly well together, and the main points are certain. That they were forced by the populace against their inclination is certain, for they would have desired to go to Avignon. Whether it was sufficient to annul the election is another question. Of course the Romans, as such, call the others schismatics. But it clearly was not so certain. The university of Paris, writing to Benedict XIII, just elected, on the point, says: "Clever and upright men scarcely see their way in it" (Quicquam ibi videant). Nicholas, Cardinal Panormitanus, says that the pontificate of Benedict XIII (of Avignon) was probable; for the question was arduous in law and in fact.

307 Cardinal Cajetan (or de Vio, legate to Germany about Luther) reproves those who consider either obedience, so-called, schismatic; declaring that the right of each had been, and was, doubtful, and what is positive on the point is, that both were deposed as popes from their papacy, and Martin V confirmed the decree of Constance, which by depriving both recognized both; and Sylvester Prierias says neither were; as men most skilled in scripture and canon law, and pious, and more, conspicuous as workers of miracles, adhered to each; and that it was necessary to believe there was only one pope as one church, and whichever was canonically elected; but no one was obliged to know which was, nor canon law. In this the people will follow their ancestors or prelates. This is a strange certainty of succession — so uncertain that nobody was bound to say which was true; the general council and pope treating both as true, which, according to the famous Dominican, was contrary to what was necessary to salvation, for men were bound to believe there was only one. Another says plainly that for those forty years he does not know who was pope. (See preface to Balergius.)

Bill M. But this is poor ground to build a man's religion on.

N*. I should think it was; but succession is one of the marks Dr. Milner and all give of the true church.

Bill M. I do not see who is to find it, if it is.

Mrs. James. But I do not understand, sir, how a person who reads scripture can think of such things being a security at all. If my faith rested on all this, where should I be? It is a sad history; but from what I have heard (and those gentlemen that were here yesterday did not deny the facts), I do not see how they can put the church in connection with such things. And when there were two popes at a time, and whole countries, and the clergy in them, following such, succession could not have been a proof of the true church, for there was no sure succession there. But what strikes me most is how foreign it all is to everything in the word of God.

N*. Foreign indeed! We are following it out, because above all it is the ground this pretension to be the true church is based upon. But men may take up scripture as a matter of learning, not in its power over the conscience, and as working faith by the power of the Holy Ghost in grace. A mere store of learning is a different thing from God's word brought with divine power to the soul. It is conscience that is cognizant of, and intelligent in, the word of God, because it is what the word acts on. It is man pretending by his mind to judge the word that leads to what is called rationalism. The human mind thinks it can judge of scripture; but this is denying it to be the word of God, to start with, for, if it be, I must bow to it. And hence it is that, while we must have divine teaching by grace to use it, the simple, if humble, understand it better really than the learned, because they come to it as God's own word for their consciences and hearts, and not to discuss and judge about it, so that it practically loses that character. "I thank thee, O Father," said the blessed Lord, "Lord of heaven and earth, for thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." Of course, if an ignorant person is not humble, and affects to judge about it by his own mind, he will go astray like another. He is not before the word as if God were telling him His thoughts, as He is there.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Sixth Conversation

Apostolicity and Succession

J. N. Darby.

<22004E> {file section d.}

308 Bill M. But a person must know it is the word of God.

N*. But it is by its acting on his heart and conscience, and revealing God to him, that he knows it. I know what a knife is when it cuts me, and honey when I taste its sweetness. It is not a matter of proof. The word acts through grace on the soul, and I am conscious of its actings from God as sharper than any two-edged sword, and I find all things naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom I have to do, and that is God. So I know it is His word, His eye on me.

Bill M. That is true. It gets sharp into the conscience, sure enough, and makes you know what you are.

N*. Thank God you find it so, M. That is just God working in mercy in your soul, though it be humbling to find all the evil that is there, but it is God's light come into it.

Mrs. James. But even when we know it is God's word, and own it with all one's heart, sometimes it takes no effect in the soul. That is what troubles me sometimes.

N*. We are wholly dependent on the operation of the Spirit of God for profiting by it. But that is as all the rest of our history; only it is brought plainly before us when we have to do with the word. Your heart is cold and dull if you are preparing James' dinner, and very likely you do not find it out; but if you take up the word of God, where we know we ought to take an interest and the heart be affected, we find out our darkness and coldness, but so much the better. That is what is needed then, and in looking to the Lord He will help us and give it power in our souls. I find often I may read a chapter, if not watchful, and, through knowing it well, not have a thought out of it, but not if I am looking to God. Then there is always fresh light and divine power on the soul to keep us before God, and lead us on.

309 Mrs. James. It is true, sir. We need grace every moment, and, thank God, we know where grace is. May He make us diligent.

N*. May He indeed do so. The diligent soul, it is said, shall be made fat. But here are Mr. R. and Mr. D. Good evening, gentlemen.

R. I do not disturb you?

N*. Not in the least; quite the contrary. At the moment we were speaking of the way the word of God made its power good in the conscience. But we had been speaking of the beginning of what is called the great schism, which so fatally breaks into the boasted unity of the outward church, pretending, as it does, to be always one and the same.

R. I know you Protestants profess to rest on the word of God, slighting or denying the authority of the church, and resting on private judgment.

N*. And do not you rest on the word of God? We can easily judge what you are if you do not.

R. Of course I do; but you look to private judgment, and we look to the church's judgment.

N*. Well, I attach no importance to the word Protestant, save as it has come to mean a protest against the false doctrines and abominations of Rome. In that sense I call myself so as a matter of earnest faith. At first it was merely a protest of the German electors against the recess of the diet of Spires. And the rationalist sense of private judgment I wholly repudiate. Faith is subject to the word of God; it is blasphemy to judge it. As we have often said, it judges me, and at the last day will judge those who have had it, and not bowed to it. We were speaking of this when you came in. But you bring in the church between God and the soul, to which He speaks by the word, and you have no right to do that. It is openly trampling upon the rights of God in addressing Himself directly to His people, as He has. If by private judgment you mean not my judging of the word, but my having it directly from God Himself, and that no man has a right to come in and hinder God from speaking directly to my soul, then, though it be an abuse of the term, I insist, I will not say on my rights (though, as between man and man, there would be reason in it), but on God's rights, with which you are wickedly meddling.

310 R. But did not the apostles command with authority?

N*. Command with the authority Christ expressly gave them they did; but they never exercised any authority as between God and His dealings with men's souls by the word. They were inspired to communicate it directly to people's souls; but they had no more to do with judging it, or thought of withholding it, than the meanest of God's people. They were channels to give it to them, and they appealed directly to those which people had already had, and those that searched them to see if what even they taught was according to them are commended. Even when persons wrested them, as of course may be done, there is no thought of withholding them, or turning any, even the weakest, from them for that reason. Doing so is a proof men are afraid of the light, be they Romanist or infidel. As to the church's judgment, we are just come to a point where we have necessarily to judge the church.

R. That never can be.

N*. Well, now, can the church answer for me in the day of judgment? Must I not answer for myself?

R. It cannot: you must answer for yourself; but the church will not mislead you here below, and if you follow it, you will be all right then.

N*. How do I know that? Was Urban VI or Clement VII the true pope?

R. Urban, of course.

N*. Well, all France and Spain, and other places too, held Clement VII to be the true pope, so that the faithful in those countries went all wrong by following what you call the church, and were schismatics, and had no true sacraments.

R. But they ought to have recognized Urban, and not Clement.

N*. Then they must have judged for themselves, and judged what called itself the church. And this lasted, with various phases, some forty years or more; so that a whole generation died in this condition. At any rate, to be right, they must have judged the church, and popes too, for themselves, and the ablest men, and the most pious, even saints, as they were called, were uncertain, and could not tell. And some say they were not bound to know which, only to believe in the abstract: there could be only one. But then apostolic succession goes to the wall, for none could find it out certainly; and the sacraments were just as good without it, for they were not both in due succession at the same time. Further, one or other (if either) must have been the true pope, and then all the rest were excommunicated, and could, as I have said, have no sacraments. If not, their validity depends simply on the faith of the receiver. No; your system breaks down altogether here. It is absurd, with two, and even three, popes at a time, and all Europe divided between them, to keep up the fiction of apostolic succession. I do not mind any pope, and very likely neither was rightly pope on their own principles, but that does not help you.

311 R. No doubt they were sad times, and the schism produced infinite mischief; but see how God brought the church out of it. "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall rise again."

N*. The professing church, no doubt, was brought out of the schism at last, but Rome brought it into it. Where was unity then? And all pretension to security by apostolic succession was gone.

Bill M. I beg your pardon, sir, but you say that the pope that was at Rome was the true pope.

R. Yes.

Bill M. What, then, was a Frenchman to do? To judge for himself, and follow him, and go against his own clergy and church, or to follow his clergy in France?

R. He must follow his own clergy in France; and if he was sincere, God would forgive him his ignorance.

Bill M. But I understand they were all excommunicated and condemned by what you say was the true pope, who appears now was infallible; and how could he be all right when the right pope excommunicated him for doing it?

R. Ignorant persons cannot be expected to judge of such questions, and, as I said, God is merciful, and will have compassion on them.

Bill M. Still they are excommunicated by the true church, and have no real sacraments, and their own clergy led them all wrong. It is a different story from what I thought; that it is.

312 N*. What M. says, Mr. R., is quite true. That God has compassion on poor souls deceived by the clergy, if they look to the Saviour, I doubt not; but to pretend that the clergy or the church is a security for any soul is clearly proved to be unfounded by the facts we are contemplating. God's bringing them out of the ditch they were all in is no proof they could keep people out of it. They were in it themselves, and all that hung upon them with them. The blind had led the blind, and both were in the ditch, just as the Pharisees did the masses against Christ. For, as M. has said, the clergy that led the people, all that you call the church, in France, were excommunicated by what you call the rightful pope, while their pope excommunicated the one at Rome; and this was not a temporary accident, but they had their successors, till both were alike put down by the Council, first of Pisa, and then of Constance.

Meanwhile the corruptions in the papal government of the church increased tenfold. The popes made their fortunes out of ecclesiastical benefices, in provisions, reservations, annates, all sorts of inventions to bring money to themselves in conferring benefices. One person is said to have had five hundred benefices. The university proposed an inquiry as to who was pope, so that they were not sure; that both should abdicate, as each proposed an inquiry as to his competitors; if they would not abdicate, a general council, and, as most of the prelates were very ignorant, to have doctors and others with them, though by rights prelates alone had the right to sit there.

It is at this time that Nicholas Clemangis,* rector of the University of Paris, gives such an awful picture of the immorality of the clergy and the corruption of the Roman court, saying, that from the head to the feet everything was given, or rather sold, for money, Cardinals having as many as five hundred benefices; that the convents were brothels of Venus, and to make a girl a nun was to give her up to prostitution; nor is it denied. The famous Petrarch gives a like account of the court of Avignon before the schism. Everything bad, and nothing good, was found there. Everything was sold for gold (Raynald, 1311, 55, and Fleury, 92, 11). It was the same at Rome under Boniface, pope after Urban. Sales of benefices were regularly carried on with every kind of fraud (Fleury, 99, 26). Meanwhile much was done by the princes of Europe to put an end to the schism, and to get both popes to abdicate. France withdrew its obedience, and then Castile, to the pope at Avignon, but rejected Boniface at Rome. Benedict, at Avignon, was besieged by France, and agreed to abdicate on the Roman pope doing so. Boniface refused, but would appear before a council. England supported Boniface; Innocent VII followed Boniface at Rome; Benedict had sent an embassy to Rome proposing the abdication of both; Innocent proposed a council, and the cession of the papacy by the pope.

{*Van der Hardt's "Council of Constance," vol. 1, part 3, where all is gone through, save that he declines much as too shameful.}

313 Gregory XII succeeded Innocent; Benedict proposed conference, and refused cession, excommunicating those who approved it. The king of France burned the bull. Benedict fled to Genoa, then to Perpignan. Gregory was elected under promise to resign if union could be effected; Benedict protested the same thing. At last the cardinals of both sides met at Pisa, and then at Leghorn, and sent a circular letter, proposing a council as the only means, as the popes would not yield, and there was such exceeding difficulty as to law, and as to fact; and they blame both popes as ruining the church, and so did the council, going into all the facts, and charging them with bad faith, and even collusion. Finally they depose both, take off the excommunications of both, as it was so doubtful who was pope, and chose Peter of Candia, Alexander V, who confirmed all their acts. But Gregory, who kept the south of Italy, and Robert, King of the Romans, and his partisans, and Benedict XIII, who still held fast hold of Spain, kept their ground.

Each held a so-called general council, Benedict having a hundred and twenty prelates, but who could come to no conclusion, and sixteen only remained, who decreed he was pope and was not to yield. Gregory held a council, but could get scarce anyone to come, and fled through fear of the Venetians, and went to the south of Italy. Each of these condemned Pisa, and their pope, and each other. Pisa deposed the two as schismatic, heretic, and as guilty of other crimes, all the cardinals of both obediences being there, save one. A new council was to be held. Now there were three popes, two doubtful and deposed, and a third chosen, but it was alleged unlawfully. And this is so much the case that the highest Roman Catholic authorities are not agreed who was pope. Raynaldus counts Gregory as pope all the time, till he gave up at Constance. Bellarmine says Alexander V must be owned, as the next was Alexander VI (De Conc. 1, 8). Raynald 1409, 80) says that is nothing, as the Stephens had two numbers, one of them not being owned, and the Johns three, as two of them were not owned by many. Balthasar Cossa was the leader in the affairs of Pisa, but would not be pope; yet he got Alexander V elected, and governed under him, and then became pope at his death.

314 Dupin speaks of the schism as going on to the Council of Constance; Fleury says nothing either. Platina reckons Alexander V and John XXIII. One reason Bellarmine gives for the authority of the council is that a doubtful pope is no pope. Now I ask if, in such a state of things, we can talk of the apostolic succession. Pisa, Constance, and Basel professedly deposed popes, the two former finally succeeding, the latter not, while the latter pronounced a council to be superior to the pope. Constance confirmed the acts of Pisa, so that we have the authority of the episcopacy as to the wickedness, heresy, and deposition of both popes engaged in the schism; but it consulted without John, and, when he fled because of the charges brought against him, they deposed him. Raynald, however, treats the see as vacant, Gregory having resigned. Who was pope now?

R. It was a time of sad and admitted confusion: only God had mercy on the church.

N*. Is confusion a security for faith? or can apostolic succession be a mark of the true church, when nobody knows who was pope, and at last all were deposed?

Bill M. Who do you think was pope, sir?

R. Well, when so many great and pious men have doubted of it, it would be presumptuous for me to say. The only real difficulty lay between Gregory and Alexander V, and that was healed by the Council of Constance when Gregory resigned, and John, the successor of Alexander, was deposed, and Martin V became pope.

Bill M. But according to that, sir, the only ones who could be really considered so — at least one or other — were set aside, and Martin was nobody's successor, but new made by this council. He does not seem to be the successor of anybody.

315 R. If we consider Gregory as pope, the see was vacant on his resignation, and Martin succeeded him.

Bill M. Pardon me, sir; you say, If we consider him so. But how can I tell whether I ought to consider him so? You say it would be presumptuous to decide when so many great men take different sides, and I am told to rest my faith on apostolic succession.

R. You must take it, trusting to God's care, as the whole church receives it now, when no such questions exist.

Bill M. But this is taking it for granted that it is the true church. I was told to find that out by apostolic succession, which they pretended was quite clear; and what they said to me was not true, for it is not quite clear; and now I am told to believe in apostolical succession by the church's owning it; but I must first know it is the church, and most Christians do not believe it is the church, and do not believe in succession either. I find nothing to rest my faith on here. You are obliged to admit, and these great doctors admit, it is uncertain, and some are for one, and some for another. When I read the scriptures, I have no need of succession; I have what you own to be the word of God, and I feel it does me good. I should be lost in looking into all these histories of the popes, when even learned people do not know what to think. In the scriptures I have what I know is right, though I may be very slow to learn all it means. And, let me ask you, sir, had this council the right to judge the pope, and depose him?

R. Well, it is a very delicate question; perhaps, if he left the faith. But the more probable opinion is — and now generally received — that a council cannot depose a real pope.

Bill M. But it seems they did depose them here.

R. Gregory resigned, and it was doubtful if John was the legitimate pope, and then he could be more easily set aside. A doubtful pope is not like an acknowledged legitimate one; so says Bellarmine.

Bill M. All is then uncertain. If they could not set him aside, another could not be appointed, and you have no real succession from the one that was put in his place; if they could, there was no succession at all. If he was not pope, there was nobody to succeed. All is uncertain that I see.

James. But I do not think Dr. Milner says anything of all this.

Bill M. Ah! let us look at him, and see. Where are we to find the place?

316 N*. It is here, part 2, letter 28, cent. 15, and it is thoroughly dishonest. He says: "The succession of popes continued through this century, though, among numerous difficulties and dissensions, in the following order: Innocent VII, Gregory XII, Alexander V, John XXIII, Martin V," etc. He adopts, without saying a word of the others who had almost half Europe under them and were owned by many of the greatest authorities, the Roman succession. This for a zealous Romanist, we can understand, though an honest man would have spoken of the others. But, more than this, if Gregory XII was pope, Alexander V was not. Alexander died long before Gregory, and was not his successor. Raynald will not own Alexander as pope at all, though relating his case, and that of his successor, John XXIII. Nor could Raynald own John properly at any time; because, if Gregory was pope, John was not, and Gregory's resignation could not validate John's illegal election. Possibly Dr. Milner would say Alexander was Gregory's successor when the latter was deposed by the Council of Pisa. But to say the succession of the popes continued is not honest, for there were three at a time who claimed to be, and Gregory had been, regularly elected at Rome; and if Alexander was pope, it was by the authority of the council who set aside Gregory as not legitimate pope, as well as Benedict. If not, then Alexander was no pope at all.

Bill M. But what do you say, Mr. R., to this? I took their statements all for true.

R. It is not my business to defend Dr. Milner. I suppose he thought Gregory legitimately deposed, and Alexander V to be the true pope.

Bill M. But if you say "the true pope," I have to search out which was the true pope, and I find now other learned men do not think he was, this Gregory being there. He gives it for an unsuspecting person as a plain succession. And it is not plain, for they doubt about it themselves, and, if I have understood, put them all down at last. I see he cannot be trusted a bit.

N*. And your great historians and teachers insist that a council, instead of healing a schism by pretending to depose the pope, made it worse, for they had three popes instead of two. Clearly Milner deceives his readers here, and you, gentlemen, who rest on apostolic succession must either be ignorant of history, or seek to mislead. For two popes at a time, with half Europe believing one to be pope, and half the other, and a council deposing both as no true popes, but schismatics and heretics, and naming a third, and then leaving three, is no regular succession.

317 D. But our English succession is not involved in this.

N*. Your English succession cannot secure the whole church. Besides, it is not so sure either, for though the "Nag's Head" story is a miserable falsehood of the Jesuit Holywood, propagated by Stapleton, you would find it very hard to prove that Barlow, who consecrated Parker, was ever consecrated himself. However this is not our subject. Apostolic succession at Rome is too uncertain to prove anything but the shame of those who allege it, when once history is honestly inquired into.

But we may pursue that history a little farther. There were Still three popes, the French, the Roman, and the Pisan council pope. It had been settled that a general council should be held in three years. John, the Roman pope, called one at Rome, but nobody came. Then the Emperor Sigismund agreed with the pope to call one, which met at Constance, much to the grief of John, who was not disposed to have the council in a place under the Emperor's power (Fleury, 100, 54). John fled the council after a while, and the council deposed him as guilty of perjury, being a heretic, schismatic, and other things. Some twenty charges were not read publicly, as scandalous, but proved — as incest, adultery, fornication, poisoning Alexander V and his physician, etc. He had been a corsair, and afterwards sold all benefices for Boniface IX, then under Alexander, then for himself. This was, according to Platina and Milner and others, the true legitimate pope the successor of Peter. Gregory authorized the council, if John XXIII did not preside.

Raynaldus then counts the see vacant. Gregory gave in his resignation, who, according to Raynaldus, was the legitimate pope, but whom Christendom had wholly abandoned, and then they deposed Benedict, to whom Spain had held, with Navarre and a few others, but by whom he was now abandoned. However, on his death another was chosen, and then his line was extinct. This is a strange apostolic succession, and security by it. The council declared itself superior to the pope, and one large party, now suppressed, held that this was clearly conciliar, and confirmed by Martin. Of this I have spoken. They then burnt Huss whom they had sworn not to touch, as faith was not to be kept with heretics, and Jerome of Prague, and chose another pope, who swore with the rest he would reform the church, but when once in power forgot all that. Martin took up the papacy, while Benedict's successor was pope for himself and little else. Whose successor Martin was it would be hard to tell. It is hardly necessary to pursue the list of popes any farther. Pope Eugenius condemned the Council of Basel, and Basel deposed Eugenius; he transferred the council to Florence, but those at Basel still sat on, and elected another, Pope Felix V. However, he had little influence, and compromised with Eugenius, and resigned.

318 Eugenius at Florence united the Greeks for a time, as Milner says — that is, starved the deputies to agree; but they were all disowned on their return to the East. He had the seal of the Council of Basel stolen, to put to a decree, as if of that council, to serve his interests. The popes that followed were as bad as they could well be, and though the popes had succeeded in baffling the councils held, at the desire of all, to heal the schism, and reform head and members, yet the conscience of Europe was aroused. It seemed prostrate at their feet, and the reform of the court of Rome was in that court's own hands, that is, the hands of those who profited by the abuses and wished to keep them up. Constance had pronounced a council to be above the pope. France held to this principle in what are called the Gallican liberties; intelligence was increased, the royal power much greater by the decay of the feudal system, and the popes could not play off one prince against another as they had. They sought to aggrandize their families in Italy; one (for popes an honest pope) declared it was impossible to be one, and save your soul. He had been a stickler for the Council of Basel, but when pope he condemned appeals to a general council, for these were now becoming universal; but he soon died. Paul II undid all he had attempted to do in the way of reform.

Our old friend, the historian Platina, librarian of the Vatican and secretary to one of the popes, complained bitterly of it, saying they must appeal to kings, princes, and have a general council; so he was put in prison and in the stocks for his pains. Sixtus succeeded, then Innocent VIII. They mocked him at Rome, saying Rome might well call him father. He had seven children while he was pope, and sought to make them great in Italy. After him came Alexander VI, whose infamies are past belief — a thorough debauchee at all times, so as to attract reproof even at the papal court. He was elected to the papacy by bribery and promises, and got rid by various means of those who had bought him in, that he might not have to fulfil them. Almost all (quasi omnia) the monasteries were, says Infessina, turned into brothels, no one gainsaying it. It was currently said, "Alexander sells kings, altars, Christ; he first bought them, he had good right to sell them." He had five illegitimate children; one of the daughters kept the papal court when he was away, and opened the dispatches, consulting the cardinals. One of the brothers killed his sister's husband to marry her better; the marriage was celebrated with pomp in the pope's palace; he killed another, and the pope's secretary who had sought to screen himself under the pope's mantle, so that the blood spirted up upon the pope. He was seeking to poison some rich cardinals, to get their money, and being very hot, drank the poisoned wine himself, the servant who presented it being ignorant of the plot, and died. Is this a successor of Peter?

319 Raynald tries to hide the last scene, but nobody believes him. After Pius III came Julius, who made a league to fight the Venetians and then the French. The French king held a council at Tours, which held that the king could depose the pope. If armed for war he pronounced sentence against him, it had no force; the king should keep the decrees of Basel, and appeal to a general council. A council was attempted at Pisa, but came to nothing. Francis, king of France, and Leo, made it up. But the latter, desirous of finishing the great church of St. Peter's, farmed out indulgences to the gay young archbishop of Mentz, to whom bankers, of the name of Fugger, advanced the money, and they by Tetzel in Germany, and Sampson in Switzerland, commuted sins by wholesale, and the building was completed.

But the consciences of some could no longer bear the iniquity of Rome. Kings were glad to have power in their own kingdoms, saints to get free from the rule of such wickedness, and nearly half Europe broke with the Roman See. Conscience at Rome had sunk below the measure of what there was of it elsewhere; kings and people were weary of exactions and iniquity, and oppression, and the debauchery of the clergy, and God having raised some men of faith, all were roused, and though horrible persecutions* and Jesuitical craft pushed back the effect in many places, yet a very large part of Europe remained separated from the pope. The instructions to Tetzel are extant, promising pardon for anything at any time on confession. As to the actual course pursued, no one denies that it was shocking. The Jesuit Maimbourg (Hist. of Luther, 3rd ed., Paris, p. 9) admits that the agents made people believe that they were sure of their salvation (that is by getting these indulgences), and souls were delivered out of purgatory as soon as the money was paid.** And as they saw the clerks of these same agents carousing in taverns on their profits, much indignation was created. Is this Christianity, or apostolic succession? Was Alexander VI a successor of the holy apostle to secure grace and faith to the church? Was his illegitimate daughter, who managed the affairs of the Roman court with the cardinals in his absence, a successor of Peter?*** Since then, the popes, curtailed of universal dominion, have been more decent outwardly, though not less opposed to the truth, and harassing princes by their unlawful power over their subjects. But the succession has not been in question; all things are more decent since the Reformation.

{*The Duke of Alba slaughtered 30,000 in Belgium; and when Charles IX of France sought to slay all the Protestants in France, and thousands were massacred, the king looking on in Paris, the pope had a medal struck in commemoration of it.}

{**I have known this still promised in Ireland, in the programme of a confraternity.}

{***The accounts of Alexander VI may be seen, Appendix to Ranke. Raynald 1492 and following). Dupin (15th century, 62). Fleury, 1492, 31, etc., 1503, 6, 117 to 120.}

320 James. I am thankful to you, sir, for having gone through all this long and sad history. It is wonderful how any Christian man can take such godless people to be the successors of the blessed apostle. It is making Christianity a security for wickedness, and grace and faith identified with the worst of sin. We are to look for this grace when the most heinous wickedness abounds. That is not Christianity. It separates grace from real Christian life. Besides, I should be sorry to build my faith on being able to ascertain, and be sure of the succession of popes when all is so intricate and uncertain, instead of the word of God which one has oneself, and from God Himself. Peter's successors too cannot be more sure than Peter himself. As to Paul, they do not seem to think of any successor for him, nor of the other apostles. Yet Paul was the apostle of the Gentiles, not Peter.

321 Bill M. Well, I am shocked; who could have thought it? I see plain enough that all this cannot be the ground of my faith. They do not agree themselves about the succession. It cannot be brought down with any certainty; and it seems to me absurd to found one's faith on such a history, or to make it the mark of the true church. I do not believe God would put a poor man, or any one, on such ground as this. And how silent Dr. Milner is about that dreadful Alexander VI! Yet he puts him in, I see, as the channel of grace. It seems it can be bought and sold. I am glad, I am sure, we have got the scriptures. They, any way, are worthy of God, and a comfort to a man's heart, though they search it out. But there is one thing I am not clear about yet: why is it said that the gates of hell should not prevail against it? They seem to have done so.

N*. It was this Mr. O. would not listen to; and I said too I would touch upon it. That is said of what Christ builds, which is not finished yet. It grows unto a holy temple in the Lord. This Christ secures infallibly, and will have all the living stones built up on Him (the foundation, the Living Stone), a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, the dwelling-place of God for ever. But as built by man, however well done by the apostles at first, it is another matter. There is no such promise, then, but the contrary; and the confounding of the two is one great source of the worst of abuse in the Roman and Ritualist systems.

R. I do not understand what you mean. Surely the church of God was established on earth, and it was to that the promise was made.

N*. Undoubtedly. But there is a vast difference between Christ's building and man's building, between living stones coming by grace to the Living Stone, built up a spiritual house, and man's building with wood, and hay, and stubble.

R. Are there two churches then?

N*. No; scripture does not so speak, but what is in the counsels of God to be made perfect in due time by His power, in His own way, He always puts first into man's hands as responsible. So it was with Adam's state of favour at first. The result, according to God's counsels, is in Christ, the second Man, the last Adam. So it was with the law: first on tables of stone, then to be written on men's hearts. So the priesthood, so the royalty in Israel, so supremacy among the Gentiles. In all these was man's responsibility, and man failed; in all perfection is found, or will be in grace, and in the second Man Christ. And so with the church: it was set up right by God, but first entrusted to man's responsibility; in the end it will be set up by divine power, perfected as a holy temple to the Lord. Not a different church, as built by Christ for ever, but an external one built by man in his responsibility, the other built by Christ to be the habitation and temple of God.

322 R. But this is a theory of your own, just to enable you to get rid of the plain promise of God to His church.

N*. Nay; were it so, it would be indeed worthless. I have only referred to the plain statements of scripture; and the result even is declared as plainly, the removing by judgment of what has man for its builder; and, further, that after the apostles there was no security for its continuance in the order of God.

R. Let us hear what you have to say, for I never heard of such a thing.

James. I should be very glad to hear it too; for I could not rightly understand about the church, and what is said of it in scripture.

N*. Well, in Matthew 16 we have the promise as to the church; and a blessed one too. Simon had, through the revelation of the Father Himself, confessed the blessed Lord to be the Son of the living God. It was not that He was the Messiah, or the Christ, true as this was (in the next chapter 1 He forbids them to announce this, because He was going to suffer and to take another and a heavenly place); nor yet that He was Son of man, a title He continually gave Himself, to our great comfort and joy, for we are men. His taking that too in its full display in glory was yet to come, and He had to suffer and accomplish redemption to take it according to the counsels of God, though we know He was it, and it was the name He loved to give Himself. Nay, more, none had as yet confessed Him in the full extent of the title He here gives Himself. Son of God and king of Israel, Nathanael had confessed Him, according to Psalm 2. But the full expression of the living God, Son in the full power of divine life, this was what the Father now gave to Simon to know. This was proved in resurrection. He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection from the dead. This was a wholly new place for man, and consequent upon the accomplishment of redemption. And this glorious truth, that Jesus was not only the Messiah, or Christ, but the Son of the living God, was the basis or rock on which He would build His church.

323 This was the real church of God, built up by divine grace and power, built by Christ Himself — no stone in it not laid by Him, and all living stones. So we read in Peter's first epistle, "Unto whom coming, as unto a living stone, ye also, as lively [living] stones, are built up a spiritual house." Here there is no builder mentioned; Christ is a living stone, and they are living stones, and a spiritual house. So in Ephesians 2, there is no builder spoken of, but "in whom [Christ] all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord." Here again we have no earthly builder, and the temple is not built; it grows to a holy temple in the Lord. This surely cannot fail. What Christ, the Son of the living God, builds, though not yet complete, the gates of hell, the power of him who has the power of death, shall never prevail against.

But in 1 Corinthians 3 we have human builders, and a temple or building which is then in existence. As a wise master-builder, Paul had laid the foundation; the work was well done; but here man's responsibility comes in. Every man is to take heed how he builds thereon. Wood, hay, stubble may be built into the building, and the work come to nothing, though the builder be saved yet so as by fire. And a third case is mentioned: one who corrupts the temple of God; such God will destroy. We have a good man, and a good builder, who has his reward, the fruit of his labour; a good man, but a bad builder, whose work is destroyed, though he is saved: and one who corrupts God's temple, and is himself destroyed. Now in all this we have a temple whose state depends on builders or corrupters. The responsibility of man enters into the question, and the state of things depends on his faithfulness. Hence it may be badly built or corrupted. This cannot be where Christ builds.

It is supposed then, that it is possible that the church as subsisting here on earth may be badly built, and the work destroyed or corrupted. The pretension therefore that this must always be preserved perfect against the craft and power of Satan is unfounded: what Christ builds will. This is confirmed as to the general state of the dispensation in the Lord's own teaching and the apostle's. "Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them meat in due season," Matt. 24: 45. Now here the possibility is supposed of that servant set by the Lord in this place of service being unfaithful, mixing with the world and usurping oppressive authority over the fellow-servants. Now this is just what the clergy, and especially the Roman hierarchy, have done: they have mixed with the ungodly world, and they have oppressed their fellow-servants.

324 The professing church, and especially the teaching and ruling responsible body can be unfaithful and destroyed as hypocrites, and left to weeping and gnashing of teeth. Paul tells us that in the last days perilous times shall come, and then describes their state, adding, "having the form of godliness, but denying the power of it"; and desires us to turn away from such. Thus we know that the professing body, as a whole, will be ruined; that, instead of its being said, "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved," one could only say, "the Lord knoweth them that are his."

We read that an apostasy or falling away will come and the man of sin be revealed. The parable of the tares and wheat tells the same tale, that the mischief that the devil did in the crop Christ had sown could not be remedied till the harvest came, that is, the judicial dealings of God. This did not hinder the wheat being in the garner, but it spoiled the crop in the field. As to the time this began, Paul says in the Philippians, "all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ"; Peter, that the time was "come for judgment to begin at the house of God"; John, that there were "many antichrists, whereby they knew that it was the last time," for antichrist is the mark which characterizes the last times. Jude pursues the development of this power of evil from his day, when false brethren had crept in, to the end of the times when they perish in their opposition.

So far from looking for successors in the care of the church, Paul tells the elders of Ephesus that he knows that after his decease grievous wolves would enter in and ravage the flock, and perverse men arise to turn away the disciples. He has no idea of a successor to his place, but warns the elders to watch, commending them to God and the word of His grace as the resource. Peter takes care by his epistle that they should keep what he told them in remembrance. Neither knows anything of a successor. Both refer to the elders already there. I find the practical ruin of the church clearly stated, and no successor supposed by those most interested in it. The Lord Himself recognizes the difference between the care of human shepherds and its effect, and the security afforded by His own. In speaking of the security of His sheep, He says, "the hireling fleeth because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep; and the wolf cometh and seizeth the sheep, and scattereth them." But further on He says, "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck [seize] them out of my hand."

325 R. But do you mean to say that the church failed from the beginning?

N*. As entrusted to man. The apostles held their ground against encroaching evil; but the evil was there, and Paul tells us that it would break out after his departure. All that was already there. The warnings are most solemn in Jude, who reports its first inroad and progressive character. Paul tells us what the end would be in what was antichristian and in judgment; John, that in principle it was already there; Peter, that the time was come for judgment. Hence we claim as a rule what was from the beginning, nothing after it being to be allowed as certainly good, though good may have remained in spite of the evil. And further the principle of succession is a false one, denied by the apostles; and, if I look to history, it becomes a security for the worst and most abominable evil.

R. But do you mean to say that there was no succession?

N*. Certainly, in the sense you mean it; though always a ministry of the word by the grace of God. Further I find for the ordinary elders the apostles appointed them, or their delegates did. They were never chosen by the people, nor by the clergy, nor by men-invented cardinals. Your sources of ecclesiastical power have no foundation in scripture.

R. But tradition is clear as to the bishops who succeeded in every place.

N*. I admit no authority of tradition in the things of God. But we have seen that it is not. Jerome tells us that there were no such local prelates at first; that they were merely chosen by human arrangement to prevent jealous disputes for primacy among the elders; hence, even in Rome prelacy is merely a matter of jurisdiction, nothing in order is above a priest. Others tell us that John quite late went about to establish them. And at Rome the real history is pretty apparent by the utter uncertainty as to the first three, or, as some say, four: but this we have gone through. For succession you have no scripture ground, but the contrary; tradition is confused and uncertain, though the principle — the church being already far departed from the Lord, which none dare question, for the apostle, nay the Lord Himself, says so — came in very early.

326 R. Well, I must leave you at present; I will call for Mr. D. on my way back.

D. I shall wait for you. But, Mr. N*, you set aside in the strongest way not only all tradition but the whole ordained channel of blessing downwards.

N*. I set aside nothing. We have been inquiring whether it really exists as you state, or whether there are not irreparable breaches in your channel. And mark, the essential character of the great Shepherd is, that He has an untransmissible priesthood. He ever lives, and therefore can save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him. He secures His sheep and will gather the wheat into His garner. And the word of God, the truth itself, and security for it, there can be no succession in; the grace that uses it must be individual.

James. This is what we have to trust in, and can surely trust in Christ and the word of God; and I remember, the apostle commended them to God and the word of His grace, when he expected not to see them again. He spoke of no successor.

Bill M. I begin to see into it. There is a true church of saints that the Lord builds, and that cannot fail, which is not finished yet; and a body formed on earth and put under man's care, and it is predicted it would be corrupted and ruined in its state, and we see that it was.

N*. Just as it happened to Adam, and to Noah, and to Israel, and to the priesthood, and to everything else trusted to man. Man spoiled all as entrusted to him, and indeed it was the very first thing that happened; but all is made good in Christ the last man.

Bill M. But then it makes a trying time for simple people.

N*. The apostle speaks of perilous times, or, as the Rhemish Testament has it, "dangerous.'? But the scriptures have predicted it so as to confirm our faith when we find ourselves there. The scriptures give the fullest directions for them, and the Lord, who ever lives, is able to secure us in one time as in another, and we have His promise.

327 James. That is sure, and I believe, if we hold to scripture and lean on Him and cleave to Him, the danger only makes us feel so much the more how sweet it is to have His help, and how faithful He is.

N*. None shall pluck them out of His hand.

Bill M. I am satisfied as to the truth of this. The word of God is a wonderful thing; how it makes all things clear, and suffices for all times! They say one is not able to understand it. Well, I have not much knowledge in it, but I think it gives understanding more than requires it.

N*. That is just it, through grace.

Bill M. But what do you say to this, Mr. D.?

D. I think it very dangerous ground to set up one's own judgment against the church of God.

Bill M. But I do not set up my judgment at all about the matter. I submit to what the apostles Paul and Peter and John have said, and the Lord Himself. This cannot be false ground. But, begging your pardon, sir, you know we have been looking for the true church; which is it?

D. We desire its re-union; but there is the Roman Catholic, and the Greek, and the Anglican, besides schismatical bodies.

Bill M. But these are all opposed to each other; that I know as to the Roman Catholic and the English, for they tried to get me out of it, because it was all wrong, and I was like to be damned if I stayed; and they did get me out of it, because it was not the true one. And the Greeks, as I learn, condemn them, and they the Greeks; so that I have no surety there at any rate. Scripture you all own to be of God; but these bodies utterly condemn one another, and how is a poor man to know which is the true church?

D. He should stay where he has been baptized: this all own.

N*. No, sir, excuse me, Dr. Milner says your baptism is so uncertain that it cannot be trusted, and they baptize them over again, when you have done it already.

D. That is very wrong.

Bill M. But they say it is very right. How could I tell if I or my children had been rightly baptized? Which of you can I trust? And they told me I must on no account stay where I was baptized; I was outside the only true church.

328 D. Well, I do not deny the disunion is very sad. We pray, and have a society to pray for the union of all, that there may be no such sad division.

Bill M. Do you pray that the scripture may be right?

D. Of course not.

Bill M. Does Mr. R.?

D. I suppose not. All Catholics hold the scriptures are inspired of God.

Bill M. Then I had rather trust it which is surely right, than you that confessedly, some or all of you, are wrong. Besides I have learned a great deal I never knew before. They hide the truth, I find I cannot trust what they say. Who would have thought, with Dr. Milner's fine words, there was such a history as there is behind it?

D. Well, I cannot give up my confidence in the church of God.

Bill M. Are you sure you are of it?

D. Well, there are many things I am not satisfied with. We have departed from many church truths, and we shall never be right till we return to them and unity.

Bill M. Are you satisfied with Rome?

D. I deplore the spirit that will not own us, and I have some difficulties about the worship of the Virgin Mary to the extent they carry it to; but if they would leave us free on these points, unity would soon be re-established. We own their orders and sacramental grace.

Bill M. And do they own yours? Dr. Milner says they cannot; that you have no grace at all, but a very doubtful baptism. It was all this shook me when I was among you. I Now I see God can work in grace in a man's heart by the word, though I am far from being what I feel I ought to be.

D. Well, they ought to own them. If you have attended to what Mr. N* has been going through, you might have seen that we in England have escaped from all the uncertainty occasioned by the great schism.

Bill M. But Dr. Milner says your orders cannot be proved; that they cannot be proved in the time of Queen Elizabeth; that somebody who consecrated the archbishop had never been consecrated.

D. I think it can be proved, or that at least it is highly probable he was; and at any rate the one who assisted the Suffragan of Thetford was.

329 Bill M. Is that all I have to rest my hopes of salvation on? I had rather have the scriptures and the grace of Him that died for me. Very glad to learn from any minister; but when you, gentlemen, give it me as the ground and security of salvation, I find you all disown and condemn one another, and that there is nothing certain for a soul to rest upon. I do not find this in the word of God. It is sure, though it condemns me in many things. But here is Mr. R. returned.

R. I am come to look for you, Mr. D.

N*. We have just done. We have been speaking with Mr. D. on the differences between the Roman and Anglican systems, after closing our survey of the popes' succession. You spoke, when here before, of the common judgment of those who had Catholic principles alike condemning what you call our rashness who rest in scripture. Now our friend Bill M. finds more uncertainty in your discord than sure ground for his soul to build upon. He judges that, as your friends took pains to get him away from the Anglican body that he might have his salvation assured, you must think them entirely wrong.

R. Of course they are wrong in not being united to the sole head of the church, the vicar of Christ, besides other points on which they would get clear when once they accepted Catholic unity. Having got the church's authority they would get the church's truth.

N*. We are on the search for the true church. But I understand your principle, one held by all Roman Catholics, when once the church's infallible authority is admitted, whatever she teaches is to be believed implicitly, though a person does not in fact believe really any one of the things taught. So Dr. Newman puts it as to himself, that, when he joined the Roman Catholic body, he did not hold as true what it taught as vital truth. So, Dr. Milner says, every Catholic will say, I believe all that the church teaches, though he does not know what it is. This is no faith in the truth, for such an one has not even heard what it is. In the word of God I have not only divine authority but the truth itself. It is not a body competent to teach, but a revelation of the truth. Hence, though I go on learning, I have not implicit but explicit faith. I believe what I find there. I do not believe that the church teaches. The apostles and others appointed to it by God's gifts and grace taught or may now teach the church; but let that pass now. Who is this sole true head of the church?

330 R. The pope.

N*. If he then be the sole head, there is no other.

R. There can be but one, and of course therefore no other.

N*. Then Christ is not the Head of the church at all.

R. Nay, He is the head in heaven, but the pope is the head on earth, His vicar.

N*. Then are there two heads, one in heaven and one on earth? Now I know no head but Christ, and could not own any other. The Spirit of God has in a certain sense replaced Him as the Comforter; but there is one only head, that of the church as a body, and this is the way head is spoken of. "He gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body," and this being the scriptural sense of the head and the body, Christ alone in glory can be it. It would be simply a blasphemy to call the pope the head of Christ's body. There is only one unchangeable living head, the source of grace, that nourishes and cherishes it as a man does his own flesh, "for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." To apply this to the pope would be as absurd as it would be wicked. We should have a different head, and perhaps a wicked one, every few years.

R. Christ alone of course can be the heavenly head. But the pope is the head of the church on earth.

N*. But Christ is the head and source of grace to the members of His own body united to Him by the Holy Ghost. No one can be thus united to the pope.

R. But the pope represents Him on earth.

N*. But he cannot be the head of the body as the scripture speaks of it. We are members of Christ. We cannot be members of the pope.

R. But he has the rule and authority down here as representing Christ. I do not understand your mysticism about members of Christ.

N*. What you call mystical is distinctly taught in the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Cap. 2, 52, De Bapt.); only it is ascribed to baptism. Now the children or others are clearly not made members of the pope, and the pope is not at all head of the church as scripture speaks of it. You have made a mere earthly thing of the church, a great tree (to use the scripture figure), and set the pope the chief and now infallible ruler in it, of which the scripture knows nothing. It does know a great fallible system in earth on which judgment will come. But this is figured by a house, or the state of a kingdom, not by a body and a head. I say then Christ is the head of the true church which I own and bless God for; the pope the head of yours. But allow me to ask you, as you are both here, for clearing the ground for our two friends whose minds have been occupied with these questions — Do you believe that transubstantiation is an essential doctrine of the church?

331 R. Most assuredly; we should have no sacrifice without it; no priesthood, which supposes a sacrifice. In a word the whole edifice of true worship would fall to the ground.

N*. But what does Mr. D. say to this?

D. I have no objection. I believe the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed there.

N*. But what does your church say?

D. I am only bound to believe its teaching in a general way.

N*. Well now. It is stated in the articles that transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of scripture, overthrows the nature of the sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. Now, Mr. R., what do you say to this?

R. I reject it as evidently heretical and false.

D. As a scholastic account of the manner of the change we are not bound to it, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent advises also that it should not be curiously searched into.

N*. Be it so; but saying that it is repugnant to the plain words of scripture is not curiously searching into anything, and saying you are bound generally may do to leave a wide margin to make conscience easy, but cannot reconcile its being an essential article of faith and being repugnant to the plain words of scripture. So your church says, "the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adoration as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a forced thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God." So in Article 31, you own, "Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits." Now I know that some of those seeking the union of churches say it refers to what was commonly said, and that it speaks of masses, not of the Mass. But two masses are not said at once, and excusing oneself by saying it was only what was commonly said which was condemned, is a miserable subterfuge, because the same thing is explicitly stated in the decrees of the Council of Trent (Sess. 22: C. 2). What Mr. R. holds to be essential truth and the essence of his worship, anathematizing all who do not hold it (C. of T. 17, canon 3), you declare to be blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. You stand anathematized by Mr. R. and then come to preach to us unity and catholicity. This does not quite hold water.

332 Bill M. It is true though, and the Mass is what was made the most of with me.

D. But I hold it is a sacrifice, only commemorative.

N*. You profess to hold, generally, if you like, that what Mr. R. holds to be the highest divine worship is a blasphemous fable. What he would do to bring people out of purgatory or help them there, you, as far as the act goes, consider would lead people to hell; for I suppose blasphemous fables must do that.

D. But if once the church was one, these things would be easily settled.

N*. Well, then, by your own shewing it is not one; so according to your ideas, and Mr. R. says your common ideas, there is no true church such as you point it out by its marks. Unity and catholicity both fail; and what kind of unity is it when you begin by uniting with blasphemers? That is a strange kind of union. It has always struck me how Roman Catholics, and all who tend that way, are indifferent to truth. Now the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. With you blasphemies are no matter.

D. I wish the expressions were away.

N*. This I understand, but it would be simply your going over to what you now profess to believe to be blasphemy.

D. But I do not believe it to be so.

N*. This is a strange thing. You have professed to believe it, and have your present position by having done so. We must have the truth of God, "whom I love in the truth, and for the truth's sake."

R. But where shall we find truth, if not in the church?

N*. That is Pilate's question. I answer, in the revealed word of God; His word is truth, and by grace you will find it there. As I have already said, what you call trusting the church is simply unbelief. He that has received Christ's testimony has set to his seal that God is true, and we have the apostle's declaration, "He that is of God heareth us."

333 D. Well, I suppose, Mr. R., I am keeping you, and our continuing our conversation can profit little.

R. Well, I should like to talk a little with Mr. N* on the sacrifice of the Mass and transubstantiation. He takes the questions up boldly, I see, and on this point I do not see how he can answer, even on his own ground of scripture, which tells us of a pure offering that was everywhere to be offered. But now I must go.

N*. I shall be very glad to speak with you on it. For the present then good evening, gentlemen. We will meet the day that suits you.

R. And our good friend here will let us come to his house again.

James. Surely, sir. I shall be glad to see you, and happy to hear about it.

D. Will to-morrow suit you?

James. Any day, sir.

D. And you, Mr. N.?

N*. I will.

D. Let it be to-morrow then. Good evening all — good evening, gentlemen.

Bill M. Well, I shall be glad to hear about that. I see one thing, that what they call the church is all fallen and gone away from what it was, and their pretended unity with some of the clergy is all hollow. They are only going away just as I was, only not so simply, for any way I was straightforward, only I knew nothing.

James. But how can people be so deceived as to think of offering Christ in sacrifice now? Why, then His work is not finished, though He says it is. He cannot die upon the cross again. He cannot shed His blood again, and without shedding of blood is no remission. I cannot think how they can speak of such a thing. It is not then a finished work!

N*. It is very simple when once we know what redemption is, and that blessed work which Christ has done. But they do not know this at all; and we must remember, James, that neither you nor I knew it at one time, and when one does not, it is easy to be in difficulties and perplexities. We are not what we ought to be, and look for something to get us out of the uneasiness, and are easily seduced by what seems to offer a resource. The evil is that in this case the enemy has made a system of it, and so denied really, not the fact, but the efficacy of Christ's offering.

334 Bill M. Well, it is just the point I should like to be clear upon.

James. What you say, sir, is true. I see the impossibility of it; but it is not long ago it would have been a snare to myself. How precious a thing is faith! But I feel I ought to be more humble about it, and thankful for the grace that has delivered me.

N*. Thankful, indeed, we ought to be. And you, M., you see just what you want; you want still the knowledge of an accomplished redemption, and that, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. But He will graciously help you on, I fully trust. But now I must say good evening till to-morrow. I am never surprised that any one who does not know redemption should be ensnared by Romanism.

James and M. Good evening, sir.

Mrs. James. Well, James, I am sure we have to be very thankful for the grace that has given us peace. It is a great thing to cry Abba, Father, and know one is reconciled to God. And all through grace. All is simple and clear then. How thankful I am! But who would have thought of all this wickedness, and that the church of God could have come to this? I did not hear it all, but I heard enough. I never thought that what God set up so beautiful had sunk so low. But He warned us of it. But how it shews what man is! The Lord graciously keep us near Him.

Bill M. Well, it is shocking to think, but what I am thinking of most is how they deceive us. Though as Mr. N* said, I do not know redemption clear yet for myself, but it is not in that unholy place Rome, but on the cross of the blessed Saviour, I believe.

James. God will lead you on, and give you rest, Bill. The work is all done, and you will find peace through it yet. Goodnight.

Bill M. Good-night both.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Seventh Conversation

The Mass

J. N. Darby.

<29001E> 1

N*. Well, Mrs. James, good evening. I suppose James will be here.

Mrs. James. He will; for he went to see Bill M., and they will come, I expect, together. Sit down, sir, if you please. They will soon be here; and the two gentlemen will, too, I suppose.

N*. Well, Mrs. James, and what do you say to what you have heard?

Mrs. James. I am very thankful for my husband, and for Bill M. It would have been a great grief if James had been led away from the truth. I could only look up that he might be kept. But to think of his being led into what I knew was false; and then the children! It was terrible! but God is very gracious. I was astonished at some things I heard; and it is a sorrowful thing to think that what the blessed Lord planted so fair and lovely by His Spirit, should have become so awfully corrupt. But I think, sir, when persons have known redemption and forgiveness themselves, and rest in Christ, they do not want all this. They have found a sure resting-place themselves in the work and Person of the Lord Jesus Christ — can cry, Abba Father, in the consciousness of the present grace wherein they stand. They know that what they have got is the eternal grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave Himself for us; they trust that love; they have known and believed the love that God has to them: and their spirits are at rest in the love and favour of God. And I have found that these Romanists (but I do not say but some of them love Christ) are for slaving to gain His favour, and by penances, as if God wanted to torment them; and prayers, as if praying was not a delight and comfort, and none like it; and, after all, it ends in absolution and purgatory. It is not Christianity in which by divine love and God's righteousness we are reconciled to God and have peace. They seem never to have real peace. Satisfied some are, but no true peace with God, or they could not want to be working so to make it, seeing that Christ has died for us and we know God's love.

2 N*. It is most true; still I do not doubt that some of them love the Lord. There is piety, but no knowledge of redemption.

Mrs. James. I see some of them pious, but their piety is all mixed up with looking to the Virgin, who is not God, and never died for us, and of course could not; and to penances, and mortifying the body, and voluntary humility, as you know the scripture says, sir. Their piety is not true Christian grace and happiness, any more than their doctrines are Christian. I never saw one that had the liberty of the Spirit; and pretending still again to offer Christ must keep them there. They do not know what it is to believe that God has said "their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," because of Christ's precious offering of Himself, by which He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. It is a blessing to think what the love of God has been to us.

N*. And is, Mrs. James: we dwell in it; at least that is the Christian's abode, even here below.

Mrs. James. It is true.

N*. But you are right; "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." Well, we must pray for them, and that the word may be blessed to them; for it is sorrowful to think that the pious ones you speak of should be kept from the blessed liberty of divine favour in which Christ set us in Himself, and which we enjoy through the Holy Ghost. The last point you referred to is the one we are to take up this evening. But it is true that when a person really knows redemption, Romanism is at once to them a fable, and the very denial of Christianity; but how many pious persons, and not only among Romanists, but Protestants though mercifully preserved, who do not know redemption! I do not mean they deny it, perhaps have professedly no other hope, but who do not know it so as to possess its present peaceful effect by faith. How many there are who truly own Christ to be the Saviour, who think it presumptuous to be assured of forgiveness and salvation! Yet, Scripture is plain enough. In that day, when the Comforter would be come, they should know, it is written, they were in Christ and Christ in them. How can they cry, Abba Father, which is what distinguishes the Christian state, if they do not know they are children?

But here are your husband and Bill M. Good evening.

3 James and Bill M. Good evening, sir. I see the gentlemen are not here, so we are not too late.

N*. We were speaking, while waiting for you all, of the assurance of salvation, or at least had got on that point, when you came in.

Bill M. I wish I had it.

N*. Well M., it is the plain privilege of every simple believer. It is written, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life"; and again, "By him, all that believe are justified from all things."

Bill M. Well, I suppose then, I do not believe, for I cannot say that I have everlasting life, nor that I am justified.

N*. Your conclusion is not just. Do you not believe in your heart that the blessed Jesus is the Son of God?

Bill M. That I surely do; that is not what I doubt, but I do not know I have any part with Him; and the more I see the blessedness of it, and the more I know myself, the more I doubt.

N*. All this searching of heart is very useful; but, as to the truth, you see, God has pronounced in your case. You believe on the Son, and the word of God declares that whoever believes on Him has eternal life and is justified.

Bill M. I see; at least in my mind, I see it clear.

N*. What we are going to speak of may clear it up still more for you; still it must be a faith wrought by God in your soul. This doctrine of justification by faith was just what was brought out at the Reformation; and indeed they went too far then, so as yet to cloud it a little. They held that personal assurance of one's own salvation alone was justifying faith, and that is just what your reply amounted to; and this was condemned by the Council of Trent, as the vain confidence of the heretics. But this was the believing something about oneself, not about Christ; whereas Scripture presents Christ as the object of faith, and tells us judicially that he who believes on Him is justified. But Christ, not our own justification, is the object of faith, and we know it when we submit to God's judgment about it, instead of forming our own about our state, which must leave us in doubt. And we have to be humbled, and, as to this, emptied of self and self-righteousness in its subtler forms, to bow to God's way of justifying.

Bill M. But it is said somewhere we are to examine ourselves whether we are in the faith.

4 N*. The words are there; but it is only half a sentence, and cutting off the first half entirely changes the sense. The whole sentence is, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, . . . examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me" is an unfinished sentence; and before concluding it, there is a parenthesis which is evidently such, and then the original sentence is concluded with "examine yourselves," etc., as already quoted. And the apostle immediately appeals to their certainty that they were Christians to shew their folly in questioning his apostleship. "Know ye not your own selves, how that Christ dwells in you except ye be reprobates?" How did he come there, if Christ had not spoken in him, for he had been the means of their conversion? Paul had been proving he was an apostle, which the false Judaising teachers had called in question, because he was not ordained and sent by Peter and the others. Paul appeals to his miracles and labour amongst them, and every other proof of his apostleship. And at last, reproaching them for their folly, says, "If I am not an apostle, how are you Christians? 'Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, examine yourselves.' If Christ did not speak by me you are not Christians, for, as he says, I have begotten you all by the gospel." It was an unanswerable argument to them. They denied their own Christianity if they denied his apostleship.

James. I see plain enough; I never noticed that. Why, Bill, it is no precept to examine ourselves at all, but to them a confounding proof he was an apostle.

N*. It is all well to examine if we are walking up to it; but that is another thing. But tell me, M., how should you like your children to inquire if they were your children?

Bill M. Nay, that would never do.

N*. Surely not. It would be ruinous. But if they were to examine themselves, and judge themselves as to whether they were dutiful children, walking up to the place and duty of children?

Bill M. I wish they always did.

N*. We see the difference clearly; and the latter is all right, provided it is done because we are children, and in the true confidence of a child in his father's love. We all pass through the other; and it is very natural, when we are in earnest, till we see redemption clearly; because we are inquiring what we are for God, not believing what He has been and what He has done for us. Now judging ourselves as to holiness of walk and living to Christ is all very right; but if I connect this with my acceptance, I have not learned God's love to me when a sinner, nor the efficacy of that work in the value of which I stand before God. It is in principle self-righteousness, though very useful to make us find we cannot make out any true righteousness. So the prodigal talks of being a hired servant before he met his father; once there and the father on his neck, that was all over; his place depended on what his father was for him, not what he was for his father; his fitness to go in was the best robe — Christ. Yet he was going right from the time he came to himself. Never forget, M., that our duties flow from the place we are already in. The duties are not the means of winning it, for they are not duties till you are in it. You cannot have the duties of a servant to me, because you are not such. Your children are bound to obey you, because they are your children.

5 Bill M. That is plain, but we have a deal to get rid of.

N*. Get Christ as a Saviour and you get power too, and liberty from sin: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace."

But here are these gentlemen. Good evening, Mr. R. good evening, Mr. D.

Mr. R., Mr. D. Good evening.

N*. We were waiting your arrival, and have not entered on our subject, but were speaking of the peace we have through Christ.

R. We are about the hour fixed, I think. Peace is a happy thing no doubt, but we must take care we do not deceive ourselves. Presumption is a dangerous thing, and we may most easily deceive ourselves. "No man knoweth love or hatred by all that is before him."

N*. Assuredly we may deceive ourselves, and there are cases where warning may be timely; but that is the comfort of resting on God's word. This cannot deceive us. Your quotation from Ecclesiastes has no application to our Christian place. "Hereby know we love that he laid down his life for us." Do we not know evil in the world's rejection of him, man's hatred against God? We know perfect love, and alas! perfect hatred in the cross. To say nothing of our own enjoyment of it, it is monstrous to apply this to the gospel or to the Christian. John says, "we have known and believed the love God hath to us." "God hath commended his love to us, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us"; surely we ought to believe in it. Ecclesiastes takes up what is done under the sun — whether mortal man can find satisfying happiness here, and learns that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. It is not the revelation of grace in the Son of God.

6 James. Pray be seated, gentlemen. We are all anxious to hear you on the subjects you spoke of. Bill M. knows more about it than I do; but we are both glad to hear what you have to say, and to know the truth.

Bill M. I should above all, if you are so kind, desire to hear about the Mass. It was made so much of with me, and seems the great point with the Catholics. They go to hear Mass, and say it brings people out of purgatory, and is for the remission of sins. I shall be glad to hear about transubstantiation, but this is a darker matter for me, which I do not much understand. But everything was made of the Mass with me; and if there is still a sacrifice for the remission of sins, it is a wonderful thing and no one should despise it. I see a great deal more than I did of the good of Christ's one sacrifice, but about the Mass I am not clear.

N*. If these gentlemen have no objection, then, we will begin with the Mass, and speak of transubstantiation afterwards. "He goes to Mass" is the very definition of a Roman Catholic, so to say. I do not think, important as it may be and is, it will keep us very long.

R. I have no objection, nor I suppose Mr. D. either.

N*. Well then, we will take up the doctrine of the Mass; we have ample authority as to the Roman Catholic doctrine on the subject, but we had better let Mr. R. make his own statement.

R. We must approach so holy and solemn a subject with reverence, but the proofs of the truth of it are as simple as they are strong. No religion in the world was ever without a sacrifice, and when men left the true God to worship idols, they still kept up this thought, identified, as it is, with the instincts of human nature, and sanctioned by the revelation of God, beginning with Abel, who was surely taught of God as to it, and developed in the sacrifices commanded to be offered under the law. It is impossible to believe that Christians — the true religion of God — should be left without any. Moreover it is contrary to the plain revelation of prophecy. Malachi declares as plainly as words can express it, "From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place there is a sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation." This is express. So we find in Genesis 14 that Melchisedec brought forth bread and wine, and (or indeed for) he was priest of the most high God. And Christ is a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec; so that bread and wine in connection with priesthood according to the order of Melchisedec is fully confirmed. I might adduce 1 Corinthians 10 where we read, "Ye cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the chalice of devils; you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils," etc. Now the table of devils was their altar; hence we must clearly conclude that what is called the Lord's table is also an altar. This makes the institution of it by the Lord very plain which took place on the word,, "This do": in which the sacrifice was instituted, and they were consecrated priests with the command to offer it: for "doing" is a sacrificial word. We have also the uniform testimony of the Fathers from Justin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian, all of whom speak of this sacrifice and in the strongest terms. And it is not merely Catholics, but the whole professing church has accepted it — Greeks and all sects which have sprung up — outside the pale of the church.

7 N*. Well, Mr. R., you have fairly given the proofs alleged by Bellarmine, and even the Catechism of the Council of Trent. Milner does but repeat the same more briefly. One would say, he felt weak on the point. He refers back to what he had said in his letter on the means of sanctity as a motive for being brief — a convenient cover for having little to say, if people do not refer to the letter; for there he has said nothing at all, save quoting Malachi, the universal resource, and the words of institution which he does in this letter on the Mass. Again Dr. Milner's definition of a sacrifice is clearly false and poor. He says, "it is an offering up and immolation of a living animal or other sensible thing to God in testimony that He is the master of life and death, the Lord of us and of all things." Now, not to say that there were sacrifices which were not of living or sensible things under the law, as the meat offering, and confining myself to what was sacrifice in the full sense of it, all that he speaks of leaves out the question of sin altogether. The majesty of God is owned as having power over life and death, but upon the face of his definition no thought of sacrifice for sin has any place. The Council of Trent gives us no definition of sacrifice, but states pretty fully its doctrine of the Mass: only that the church has a visible sacrifice to represent Christ's bloody sacrifice, and that was to be permanent (Sess. 20, cap. 2), referring to the institution of the Lord's supper and Malachi's prophecy.

8 Into what is said of the sacrifice of the Mass itself, I will go fully though briefly. I only note here how the idea of sacrifice is lost in its true value. Bellarmine's definition is "an external oblation made to God alone, which in acknowledgment of human infirmity and profession of the divine majesty, the object of the senses and permanent, by a lawful minister, is by a mystic rite consecrated and transmuted" (Bell. de Sacr. Euch. 10 Lib. 5, cap. 2, 26 ) This would lead us very little to a just thought of the sacrifice of Christ. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, De Eucharistia Sacramento, cap. 4, 71, gives its being offered to God as the essential difference between sacrament and sacrifice in the Eucharist. But leaving these generalities, valuable only as shewing the vagueness and unsatisfactoriness of the Roman Catholic idea of a sacrifice, I turn to that on which it is precise enough, the sacrifice of the Mass. That is a propitiatory sacrifice available for the sins not only of the living but of the dead — truly propitiatory. (Conc. Trid. Sess. 22, 2 ) Christ is unbloodily immolated there. The decree of the Council, after grossly misapplying Hebrews 4: 16, which speaks of Christ's priesthood in heaven, not of sacrifice, adds, "for by the offering of him [Christ] the Lord is appeased granting grace and the gift of penitence, forgives crimes and sins, even very great ones [ingentia]: for it is one and the same victim, the same one now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross, the manner of offering alone being different. Wherefore it is rightly offered according to the traditions of the apostles, not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are alive, but also for the dead in Christ not yet fully purged." So in the Catechism of the Council of Trent somewhat more fully (Part 2 De Eu. Sacr. 76 ) "The Mass is and ought to be considered one and the same sacrifice with that of the cross, for the victim is one and the same . . . . The bloody and unbloody are not two but only one victim whose sacrifice is daily renewed in the Eucharist . . . . The priest is also one and the same, Christ the Lord." And alleges as proof that the priest does not say 'This is Christ's body,' but 'This is my body.'" It is a truly propitiatory sacrifice by which God is appeased and rendered propitious to us . . . . For so delighted is the Lord with the odour of this victim, that, bestowing on us the gifts of grace and repentance, He pardons our sins. Hence this usual prayer of the church 'as often as the commemoration of this victim is celebrated, so often is the work of our salvation being done.'"

9 It is even more distinct in expression than the Council of Trent. Its benefits extend "to all the faithful whether living with us on earth, or already numbered with those who are dead in the Lord, but whose sins have not yet been fully expiated." This is very plain. Christ offers Himself visibly, permanently, or renewedly (both expressions are used); often, daily renewed, is the expression in the Catechism. This sacrifice, offered by Christ, appeases God, is propitiation for the sins of the living and of the dead in Christ when they are not fully purged, says the Council of Trent; 'expiated,' says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, 'confers pardon of sins,' besides many other graces.

Does Christianity recognise this? It not only does not do so, but with diligent care expressly denies it in every part. It is instituted, we are told, that the church might have a perpetual sacrifice by which our sins might be expiated and our heavenly Father turned from wrath to mercy. Let me make a remark in passing that the statement that the priest's saying 'This is my body' shews he represents Christ is a mere fallacy. It is in the Mass a recital of what Christ said at the last supper. The canon of the Mass says, "who" (Jesus Christ) "the day before he suffered took bread in his holy and venerable hands . . . saying, Take and eat all of this, for this is my body." They are clearly and only the words of Christ the day before He suffered.

To clear my way I would say that sacrifice lies at the basis of all relationship of man with God. But at the same time such an expression as turning our heavenly Father from wrath by it is not by itself a true or scriptural way of putting it; though Protestant confessions have continued it on from Rome. God is a righteous Judge, and the atonement was absolutely necessary that grace might reign through righteousness. But the origin and source of all is left out in this statement. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Son of man must be lifted up, the holy victim be offered up. But where to find it? The love of God saw us all lost sinners, and did not spare His own Son for us. Christ "through the eternal Spirit offered himself up without spot to God"; nay, in the same love, said, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." But if righteousness required the propitiation, love provided the victim. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." And this changes the whole character of the gospel; God's love was the source and origin of it all, though it became God to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering. As the apostle John states it, "But we have seen and do testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world." The Father's wrath indeed is not a scriptural expression at all; God's wrath is. A Father is the Father of His children.

10 That the heathen took up sacrifice from corrupted traditions of the truth and the necessity of the human heart, I believe with Mr. R., and do not doubt that Abel's offering was by God's will, for Abel we are told offered it by faith; Heb. 11. That in Christianity there is a sacrifice, I admit as truth and vital truth, the basis of our relationship with God, as what I need for my own salvation. Indeed, I do not doubt a moment that all other sacrifices from Abel on rested on divine and divinely taught reference to this, the heathen sacrifice, being corruptly derived from this original source, connected with false ideas of God, namely, that the gods were hating and jealous beings who had to be won, a thought which still exists in corrupted Christianity.

But you will remark, Mr. R., that the early sacrifices were bloody sacrifices. The law, in special figures of Christ, introduced meat-offerings along with these, and most interesting is the instruction they afford; but what was essential was that death and the shedding of blood should come in, because therein man owned that sin and death by sin had come in, and that only by the death of another could man come to God. Abel came with this; Cain with what cost him far more toil and labour, but which did not own sin and death, and separation-from God, and was rejected with his offering. What first effectually covered man's nakedness was that God clothed him with the skins of slain beasts. Man's state in sin, death, and separation from God was owned, and met. This (which is of the essence of the one true sacrifice and carefully set forth in the earliest types to which you and I both refer, as making the essential difference of what was necessary and acceptable to God, as all their sacrifices, and peremptorily the difference of Cain and Abel's demonstrate) is wholly left out in Milner's and Bellarmine's definition of a sacrifice. When we remember what the sacrifice of the Mass is, it is not difficult to understand why. If death and the shedding of blood be essential to an acceptable sacrifice, the Mass, avowedly an unbloody sacrifice, and so called, is not really one at all. A commemoration or memorial of such it may be, but not itself such. It fails in what is essential, and, I must add, denies the whole true ground of relationship with God; it legitimates Cain's sacrifice which God rejected.

11 Bill M. That is true, though I believe we must have the death and blood-shedding of Christ itself for forgiveness. How dark one is in one's thoughts!

R. But the blood is consecrated apart, expressly to shew forth the shedding of the blood.*

{*Milner, Letter 39.}

Bill M. To shew it forth, it may be; but you do not mean to say, sir, that there is a real shedding of the blood of Christ.

R. Not materially, of course. It is an unbloody sacrifice, and so the church teaches.

Bill M. Then I do not see what it is worth. But I should let Mr. N. go on. I beg pardon for interrupting.

N*. You are quite free, M. I am glad you noticed this truth distinctly. As to its being commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ, and I will add, of Himself, giving Himself in love, and a blessed one too — this is surely true and held by all Christians; but the seventy-ninth Article of the Catechism of the Council of Trent is precise on the other doctrine. "It is not a mere commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross, but also a truly propitiatory sacrifice." It is propitiation and remission without blood-shedding. We have seen it is a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living, and for those of the dead in Christ not expiated; appeases God and obtains pardon; is daily renewed, Christ Himself being the offerer. Now what does Scripture say? It declares positively and in formal terms that there is no more sacrifice for sin. The whole Romanist system is founded on, has its practical existence from, that which is formally denied by the word of God.

12 James. That is true though.

N*. But I must be more precise. We are told that it is the same Christ that offered Himself upon the cross that offers Himself daily in a renewed sacrifice. I read in the word of God — I quote your own translation (Heb. 9: 25-27) "Nor yet that he should offer himself often . . . for then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world; but now once at the end of ages he hath appeared for the destruction of sin by the sacrifice of himself." You tell us that the sacrifice is renewedly offered, permanently in the church. The word says (Heb. 9: 28), "So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation": and again (chap. 10: 18), "Now where there is a remission of these [sins], there is no more an oblation for sins." And He gives the blessed reason in chapter 10: 14; "For by one oblation he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified." The word of God teaches that by His one oblation He has exhausted the sins of many, and appears the second time to take them to glory; and that the sins being remitted, there is no more oblation. You tell me there is, and that for the remission of sins, and truly propitiatory. If we take your translation — "exhaust the sins of many" — it makes it still more clear, that if exhausted, they cannot be brought up again against the Christian, or any other sacrifice be needed. You tell me that it is an unbloody sacrifice, that blood is not shed there. The word tells me (Heb. 9: 22) that "without shedding of blood there is no remission." That is, in every point the word of God teaches me the exact contrary of what Rome teaches, and teaches too in what is the centre and substance of all her worship.

Bill M. Well, Mr. R., I am astonished. This Mass was their great subject with me, besides the church; and I see the word of God condemns it altogether, and I see too that the abiding efficacy of Christ's blessed work is in question.

R. But Mr. N. interprets the Scriptures, and we are not capable of doing that; we must learn what the church teaches from it, and in all ages it has held that the Eucharist was an offering made to God.

13 N*. Excuse me, Mr. R., I do not interpret at all; I set your authorised statements in simple juxtaposition with your own scriptures.

They say Christ does not offer Himself often. You say He does.

They say that there is no more oblation for sin. You say there is.

They say that without shedding of blood there is no remission. You say that it is an unbloody sacrifice, but there is remission.

I need no interpretation; the statements contradict one another. A great deal more might be said, were I to reason and expound; for Hebrews 9 and 10 discuss the point fully, and elaborately, and blessedly, I will add, for us; but it is not necessary. These chapters insist, all their reasonings for blessing and for judgment are founded, on Christ's offering being one only, and once for all, never to be repeated. Nothing can be stronger or plainer. Either the Scriptures are false, which God forbid, or the Romish religion is, in the very heart and foundation of its worship, and of its teaching on the foundation of all our hopes, the work of Christ.

Bill M. Sure it is not interpreting, Mr. R. Teaching is not wanted. If the word of God says Christ is not to offer Himself often, and you say, He is and does, both cannot be true. It is plain enough how the matter stands. I was somewhat puzzled about the church, but this is plain enough. But what it is to be ignorant of the word of God! But then, to be sure, my soul was not right with God. I do not say I am all right now, but this about the Mass is clear enough.

D. But it is a commemorative sacrifice or offering.

N*. You forget, Mr. D., that we have seen that the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the highest possible authority, tells us that it is not a mere commemorative sacrifice, but a truly propitiatory one. The Mass is a denial of the abiding value of Christ's work once for all and completely accomplished and accepted of God, so that He sits at the right hand of God, when, as the Rhemish Testament expresses it, He had been once offered to exhaust the sins of many.

James. But what do the Roman Catholics say to this, sir?

N*. The Council of Trent and the Catechism of the Council of Trent prudently say nothing; they are wholly silent as to it. Bellarmine however takes up the objection as to Christ's not offering Himself again; he replies that He was not to do so in the way of dying, coming out of heaven and dying again, and that the apostle refers to this, for he says, "Then must he often have suffered." But this wholly misrepresents the apostle's argument; he does not say He was not to offer Himself in a bloody way, so as to suffer, but that He was not to offer Himself often, for then He must have suffered often. It is an additional proof. The apostle had no idea of an offering of Christ without suffering. His statement is that He was not to offer Himself often; for that if He did He must suffer: the strongest possible testimony against the Mass. To the point of no remission without blood-shedding, he replies, That speaks of Jewish sacrifices. But to what purpose is the apostle using the witness of these sacrifices? In themselves he declares the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins, and makes the general and absolute statement that there is no remission of sins without blood-shedding, and applies it to Christ, saying that He has suffered once for all, and gone into heaven itself, not with blood of others, but by His own blood entered in once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption; Heb. 9: 22-25.

14 Dr. Milner states that the apostle is barely proving to the Hebrews how infinitely superior the sacrifice of Christ is to those of the Mosaic law, particularly from the circumstance which he repeats in different forms, namely, that there was a necessity of their sacrifices being often repeated, which after all could not of themselves, and independently of the One they prefigured, take away sin, whereas the latter, namely, Christ's death on the cross, obliterated at once the sins of those who availed themselves of it.

Bill M. But that is just a proof that it had not to be repeated. Ah! it is all plain enough.

N*. He adds that this does not militate against the Mass, because it is the same as to the victim and as to the priest, the manner only being different.

Bill M. But even so it is repeated, and according to them has need to be repeated, only in a manner that takes away its reality, for there is no suffering for sin, no blood-shedding. I see through it all. But it is awful to think they should have invented it.

N*. It is awful, but I do not know that we can charge them with inventing it all at once. The Fathers, so-called, though often falsely quoted as to this, used the most glowing language as to the Eucharist, and talked of tremendous mysteries, to act on the superstition of the people who had no real faith. So soon as the full efficacy of the sacrifice of the blessed Lord was lost to the church's faith, and the testimony that all sins were put away from him that believed by the sacrifice, they were obliged, even for those who really loved the Lord, to have some means of quieting the conscience. Persons of severe habits of mind allowed no known forgiveness after baptism; others allowed it once. The church, with growing superstition, provided means for it in a system which gradually developed itself, as the Eucharist turned into the Mass, and absolution. Then purgatory was invented, at least its first germ, in the seventh century. The Mass was not fully developed till a great deal later; but when once perfect acceptance in Christ was unknown, souls could not find rest, and sought it in superstitious observances, and heathenism was deliberately introduced into Christendom. I have said, "Lost to the church's faith"; but the language is not exact: the church never had it since the apostles. In the word our acceptance is clear enough; many a poor soul whose record is on high may have enjoyed it; but in the history of the church our full acceptance in Christ is never found.

15 D. What do you mean?

N*. What I mean is very simple. The apostle Paul tells us that the mystery of iniquity did already work. He tells us too, that as soon as he was gone, both from within and from without the evil would break in, or develop itself. And it is a matter of historical fact, that truth such as Hebrews 9 and 10 afford us, to go no farther, and true faith in the presence of the Holy Ghost were never found in the historical church. Objective truths (and I fully admit their importance), what we may call orthodoxy, were maintained, taking the history as a whole; but the relationships of a true believer with God as perfected in Christ, and the sealing with the Holy Ghost which gave him to know it, and his place as a son with the Father, and the union of true believers with Christ as members of His body, is not found in church history. For example, take Hebrews 10, to which we have referred. The worshippers once purged having no more conscience of sins, that Christ is for ever* at the right hand of God because by one offering He hath perfected for ever* them that are sanctified through the offering of His body once for all; not like the Jewish priests, who stood, as priests do now, to offer often because the work was never really done; the consciousness that we are in Christ and Christ in us, by the Comforter given to us, of which we are assured by the Lord Himself in John 14, "In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you": and blessed it is to know that we are perfected for ever in Christ, and in Him; and in Him our being sons with the Father, and that He is gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God: all this is lost, never found in church history, but a system of ceremonies to make good the loss of it. In Scripture it is plain enough.

{*eis to dienekes, uninterruptedly.}

16 D. But is it not dangerous to say, however sincere, that we are perfected for ever?

N*. Is it not so written in the word? Is it not very presumptuous to say that what God says is dangerous for the soul? That sinful man will abuse every favour God has given him if he trusts his own heart is quite true; but it is not in denying the truth he is secure. We are sanctified by the truth. One truth too guards another, and, remark, every one who professes to be a Christian professes to be perfected for ever, unless he makes a gospel for himself; for Christ's gospel so speaks. Indeed, Dr. Milner, in terms, is forced to admit it; he says, as we have seen, "Whereas the latter," namely, Christ's death on the cross, "obliterated at once the sins of those who availed themselves of it." Now every true Christian has, and every professing Christian professes to have, availed himself of it.

R. But he must use the means the church affords.

N*. I fully admit, and am thankful that God has furnished us with means, as prayer, and the word, and the ministry, the Lord's supper, and fasting if rightly used; but these add nothing to the value of Christ's work; and you will please to remark that Dr. Milner says — is obliged, in commenting on Hebrews 9 and 10, to say — "Obliterated at once"; but if so, it is all settled, and the conscience purged, and if I am to believe the word of God, we are sanctified to God, by His offering, and perfected for ever. Remark another thing; there can be no spiritual affections without this. How can I feel as a child and a son if I do not know whether I am one or not? How even can I be thankful for acceptance before God, if I do not know whether I am accepted? But however this may be, the Mass is formally condemned by Hebrews 9 and 10 There is no more oblation for sin. Allow me, Mr. R., to ask you, Does Christ die in the sacrifice of the Mass?

17 R. Of course He cannot.

N*. Surely not; He dieth no more. But then your Mass sacrifice is of no worth at all, for to redeem and put away sin He poured out His soul unto death; He made His soul an offering for sin; and He does no such thing in the Mass. It is utterly without value. There is, says Scripture, of necessity the death of the testator. I need hardly insist on the death of Christ being the ground and basis of all hope and of the very essence of His sacrifice; Isa. 53: 10-12; Heb. 9. Is Christ made sin for us now in the Mass?

R. No, He cannot now; He is in glory. That was on the cross.

N*. Then the Mass is no true sacrifice. It is Christ being made sin for us that gives the sacrifice its value, that we may be the righteousness of God in Him. The cross alone is a true sacrifice. Does Christ bear our sins in the Mass?

R. That cannot take place now; He sits on the right hand of God.

N*. Then the Mass is no true sacrifice, and can procure no true remission. It is by bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, that He has obtained forgiveness, and has obliterated them at once, as Dr. Milner says. Again, you admit that it is an unbloody sacrifice; that there is no shedding of blood in the Mass.

R. It may be mystically figured in pouring the wine into the cup; but we all own there is no actual shedding of His blood.

N*. "Mystically figured" we shall not quarrel about. We all own the blessed value of it as a memorial and commemoration, but if there be not, as you admit, and it is evident, the Mass is nothing worth — gives no remission of sins nor makes peace with God; for without shedding of blood there is no remission; and He has made peace by the blood of His cross; Col. 1: 20 Thank God, He has made it. Further, is Christ made a curse in the Mass?

R. He cannot be made a curse now.

N*. Then it is no redemption from the curse, for that is by His being made a curse for us — another thing that is so wholly and evidently wanting that I do not ask you about it, but yet is essential to the true sacrifice. There is no redemption in the Mass; for we have redemption through His blood: and if Christ were put to death in the Mass — and the thought would be absurd and blasphemous as a present thing — where is resurrection? As a memorial, I need not bring that in; I commemorate His sacrifice consummated in His death; but if you will have it a real sacrifice, there is no resurrection, and we are yet in our sins. The whole thing is false. Not one element of true sacrifice, the sacrifice of the cross, is there. No death, no blood-shedding, no curse, no cup to drink, no bearing of sins, no being made sin, no suffering the just for the unjust, no forsaking of God — not one single element of what makes the wondrous cross of the blessed Saviour an accomplishment of redemption, on which our salvation rests secure — a perfect and finished atonement through which we have remission, and a perfectly purged conscience, and acceptance with God. It is a mere return to the repetition of Jewish sacrifices, which proved that nothing was really done, only denying thereby that Christ's work is accomplished, instead of pointing to it, as those sacrifices did. If a sacrifice is still needed, the work of redemption is not accomplished. It is only a vain delusion to say it is the same, it is a repetition, not a thing done once for all, as the Epistle to the Hebrews insists, and is not the same in a single element which gives value to a sacrifice, which makes it true and really such. That is found in the cross and in the cross only.

18 But allow me to ask you another question, since we are speaking of the value of the sacrifice, Is it not your doctrine that the body, blood, soul and divinity are in the one species, as you call it — what I should call the bread, but which you, of course, would no longer call such after the words 'This is my body' are pronounced over it — but in the one kind? and that it is on the ground that it is so in the body, that you declare the communicants at large lose nothing by not having the cup, because the blood is in what you hold to be the body — a whole Christ, as you would say — or what is called the doctrine of concomitancy?

R. Surely we do.

N*. But then, if He be a whole Christ, there is no redemption or remission; for, for this the shedding of His blood was needed. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." A whole Christ is the perfect blessed Son of God even if in humiliation on earth, but there is no redemption while He is such. And further, if the pouring the wine into the cup figures the shedding of the blood, how have you the blood still in the body in the one species of bread?

19 D. But is not this somewhat sophistical?

N*. No, Mr. D.; it is merely exposing the sophistry which is found in the attempt to reconcile what is utterly false in every respect, and to satisfy those whom the system you now delight in deprives of half the institution of Christ, and persuade them they have still all. What is false will never stand examination, though it may puzzle. You speak of sophistry because you have no answer.

R. But we do not deny it is a memorial.

N*. It cannot be a memorial if it be the thing itself. And you make it a true propitiatory sacrifice, denying that Christ finished this, and that it was done once for all.

D. But why cannot we consider it as offered to God so as to present to Him, and call to mind what Christ once did?

N*. Then do not call it a true propitiatory sacrifice, but call to mind to whom? If it call it to mind to us, it is all well, we do it in remembrance. But such a view gives wholly false thoughts of God as forgetful (God, forgetful!) of Christ's work, or an unpropitiated God who has need to be put in mind of what has been done to appease Him; and also sets aside other parts of truth. For Scripture speaks of the efficacy of that blood being always under God's eye within the veil, and Christ always appearing in the presence of God for us; so that the eternal efficacy of the one sacrifice is always before God. And explain it as you will, it is a repetition of the sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice at all, as if the value of Christ's sacrifice were not so present to God. But more than this: the offering to God, though needed, is not the sacrifice properly; the Roman Catholic definitions deny, by omission, what is essential. Christ did offer Himself through the eternal Spirit to God as a victim, but then when the spotless Lamb had thus given Himself to God for this purpose in endless love, God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin: that was not His offer of Himself, but God making good that for which He offered Himself. The Lord hath laid on Him our iniquity. He offered Himself spotless to God, and God laid the iniquity on Him; 2 Cor. 5: 21; Isaiah 53: 6. We may look at it as a whole, but when Scripture takes up the question distinctly, it does not confound these two things. Even the Greek words are different: prosphero and anaphero. The first part is Christ offered Himself, prosenegke; secondly, He bore the sins as a victim, and was sacrificed as on the altar — bore the sins there, anenegke. Commonly the Roman Catholic doctors confound these to save the credit of the Mass, but usually they in general take up the first part only, and so really does Bellarmine in his definition, leaving all the true sacrificial part out. Subsequently Bellarmine, feeling the difficulty, treats the question of death when offered: I will speak of it in a moment. Dr. Milner uses the word "immolation," but then it is only to own God's title over life and death; no question of sin is raised in it.

20 D. But what do you say then to those passages to which Mr. R. already referred, as for example, Malachi?

N*. Let us take the passage: "For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith Jehovah of hosts." Is that fulfilled? Is Jehovah's name great from one end of the earth to the other? Has not the great mass of the world remained, and do not some three-quarters of it still remain, heathen? Your prophecy, according to your own interpretation of it, is not fulfilled. It is vain to allege that the gospel went out into all the world, as the Fathers sometimes do. In a certain sense nobody denies it; but the essence of the prophecy is, not that it should go forth, but that Jehovah's name should be great everywhere among the Gentiles, and this is not so: no pure offering is offered.

R. But it will be.

N*. That is no answer; but who told you it will be? That this prophecy will be fulfilled, I am fully assured, but that is another thing from saying it refers to the Mass, for it is not true in fact as to that. Nor is that all; do you own that we Protestants have a pure offering?

R. You have none at all.

N*. Then here is a very large part indeed of Christendom where you would say it had been, where it is not. And the Greeks?

R. Well, they are nearer, but they are heretical as to the Holy Ghost and are in schism.

21 N*. Is their offering pure?

R. Well, I cannot say it is.

N*. And Mahometans in Asia and Africa, where once there were numerous churches?

R. They of course have nothing to say to it.

N*. Your pure offering then has largely lost ground.

D. But there it is in the prophecy, and you profess to receive the Scriptures.

N*. What is in the prophecy?

D. That Jehovah's name will be great among the Gentiles everywhere and a pure offering offered.

N*. That I fully believe. But that it is the Mass is another question. Of that it is not true, the limits even of Christendom have receded. Nor is there the slightest ground for saying that the spread of the gospel will accomplish this work. "When thy judgments are in the earth," says Isaiah, "the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness," Isa. 26: 9. And Zephaniah is as plain as possible. "Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent." I might multiply quotations, but it would be going too far. These shew distinctly that it is when God's judgments are executed on the earth that the universal blessing will take place. The Son of man will gather out of His kingdom "all things that offend, and them that do iniquity." It is Jehovah's power in judgment, not the Father's sending the Son in grace, which sets the world as such right. It is the most gratuitous notion, without any ground whatever, that the pure offering to Jehovah is the Mass. It is neither true in fact, nor according to the statement of Scripture. That an offering of heart, and mind, and praise to God, and worship exists wherever grace works, is true, but the application of the prophecy of Malachi to the Mass has no ground whatever.

D. And what do you say to partaking of the table of devils and table of the Lord? The table of devils was clearly an altar, and so must the table of the Lord be.

22 N*. I reply to these arguments as you all allege them, but they are really only a proof of how little you have to say for your doctrine. You all quote the same texts, because there is nothing else, and prove there is nothing really to plead for your cause, if that could be, against the positive statement of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which formally contradicts your doctrine. The table was in no case an altar, neither with heathens, Jews, nor Christians. The altar was the place of sacrifice and offering; the table the place where they ate, in certain offerings not wholly burnt, a part of the animal which had been offered: but they never did so at the altar. Sacrifice and feasting were never the same; but feasting on what was a part of the animal offered, when done with knowledge, identified him who did so with the altar where the other part was offered. Hence the apostle expressly puts the case of being invited to a feast; in such case what was put on the table they were to eat without any question for conscience' sake; if it was said this was offered to idols they were not to eat, for that would practically, at any rate in the mind of him who said it, identify them with the idol. But that did not make the table an altar. Take the Roman Catholic system: — the people eat of the wafer. That identifies them with the altar; but their place is not at the altar at all. The table is not the altar in any case; the case actually put by the apostle is a common meal; but if it was said, This is offered to idols, then he did not eat, because the animal of which he ate had been offered to the idol, and part sacrificed actually to it. The table was not the altar, but what he ate identified him with the idol; and the table at which he sat covered with idol meat was figuratively the table of demons. If he sat at meat in the temple, the case was more apparent; but even then they did not eat off the altar, but of the meat offered to the idol on it; and that is the ground the apostle takes. It is the communion of the body of Christ, the communion of the blood of Christ; it is not where it was eaten, but what it was which was in question. Take the offering of Christ; did they eat where He was offered? Eating of the altar is not eating off it, as if the table was an altar. We own an altar spiritually, but it was where Christ was really offered once for all: feeding on Him by faith does identify us with that. Bellarmine himself says he does not urge Hebrews 13: 10, because many Catholics take the altar there for the cross. But if this be so, eating of the altar does not mean that the person eats off it so that the table is an altar. We eat of what was on the cross, but not off it as a table. The whole thought is false.

23 As to Melchisedec, if the bread and wine were an offering to God, a priestly service, is it not strange that the Epistle to the Hebrews makes not the slightest allusion to it? And though Christ be priest after the order of Melchisedec, when the word speaks of the exercise of Christ's priesthood, it is uniformly a comparison with what Aaron did, and the Jewish sacrifices. In the Old Testament there is not the most distant hint of his offering to God. Melchisedec was a priest on his throne on earth, not a sufferer on the cross; there was no death in his case, but a testimony that he lives. He brings forth the bread and wine, but bringing forth is no offering. You are obliged to say with Bellarmine, We must suppose that he did so, admitting he brought it out to Abraham to eat, but that he must be supposed to have offered it first. In the account, they cannot deny, there is no trace of it. Now Melchisedec is a figure of Christ when He takes to Him His great power, and reigns as king of righteousness over the earth. Now He exercises His priesthood after the similitude of Aaron in the holy place-heaven itself as Hebrews teaches us — which Melchisedec does not at all. But when Christ takes His own throne, it is He who has suffered and offered the one sacrifice, and therefore, as Melchisedec, He has none to offer; He confers the blessing contained in the revelation of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, on those who belong to Him and have conquered. As Melchisedec, He has no sacrifice to offer, because this has been done once for all. Now His service is different; He is gone within the veil, not without blood, and there, we know, sits on the Father's throne, at the right hand of God till His enemies be made His footstool. Then the rod of His power will go out of Sion. But His present exercise of priesthood is not according to Melchisedec, as the Epistle to the Hebrews fully shews.

I add that Bellarmine's statement, that Judges 6: 18, 19, shews that the Hebrew word used for brought forth signifies priestly offering, has no foundation. Gideon brought out meat, and broth, and cakes, and Jehovah turned it by His power into a sacrifice; but the word does not mean "offering"; habi does, because it is the opposite to this word. Yatsa is "brought out"; bo is "brought in or nigh." The last is used for bringing up to be a sacrifice, which means the contrary to bringing forth (yatsa). But on their own shewing there is no statement of any offering in Melchisedec bringing forth bread and wine, because they are forced to suppose that the offering had been made before it was brought forth. All this, as I have said, I have answered because it is alleged; but it is a mere lame attempt to get up some evidence out of nothing by far-fetched reasoning, the difficulty of answering being, that there is no tangible reason for it — nothing really to answer. I rest on the great fact that the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the truth of Christianity, deny and reject altogether the whole doctrine of the Mass.

24 But let me ask you, Mr. R., where does the sacrifice take place in the Mass?

R. I am not a theologian, and it may be somewhat difficult to answer. But our teachers do not enter on that in their ordinary instruction, but speak of its value and blessing. Some attribute it to the priest's consumption of it in eating it.

N*. And can you really believe that the priest's eating the wafer is the real propitiatory sacrifice of Christ so as to obtain remission of sins?

James. But do they really say that, sir? Well, I could not have believed it. It is a strange system.

Bill M. Well! I am confounded: to liken that to Christ's dying when He had offered Himself up to God for a blessed saving sacrifice! It is horrible to think.

N*. Mr. R. however is right; they do say that. Bellarmine holds it; others, owning it as a probable opinion, seek in another part of the Mass the true point of sacrifice.

James. But there is no such difficulty in finding a sacrifice in the blessed Lamb of God. He offered Himself without spot to God, and bore our sins, and was made a curse for us, and died. And then we know His sacrifice is accepted, for He is risen and gone to sit down at God's right hand. All is plain there.

N*. Because it is a sacrifice: but they are thoroughly puzzled to make one out of the Mass. But why, Mr. R., if this be so, is not the people's eating it a sacrifice?

R. Well, the priest does it as part of his sacerdotal office, which the people cannot do. But, as you have read Bellarmine, you will know what he says as to it.

N*. Well, he is greatly at a loss; he admits bread and wine are offered, first, as such, but offered to be changed; but then the difficulty arises, that they are not yet Christ at all. However, not to follow all his reasoning, he makes three acts which constitute the Mass a sacrifice: first, what is common is consecrated; secondly, it is offered to God as placed upon the altar; and then adapted to change and destruction which is necessary to a sacrifice, only here done sacramentally and under the form of bread. The priest's eating it answers to the burning of the burnt offering. The first offering is necessary to the integrity, but not to its essence; so of the consecration; for the Lord in the institution never so offered, nor is the breaking either. But its consumption by the priest is its essence, though not its whole essence. The consecration alone cannot be it, as then mere bread would be sacrifice, not Christ. Still the consecration is essential to the sacrifice, though destruction being necessary, the priest's eating it is what properly constitutes it a sacrifice. His commentator tells us the opinion of two consumptions or destructions is probable, but the other opposite opinion more probable: that is, that what makes the real essence for Bellarmine is not so at all, but the consecration only. Who could think that all this wretched cavilling was the sacrifice of the blessed Son of God, He Himself offering it? But it is of importance in order to shew that they do not know themselves how to find any truth or reality in it.

25 The learned editor of the Venetian edition of the works of Gregory the Great, after the Benedictines of St. Maur, published with the permission and privilege of the superior authorities, has another system in his Isagoge (9, B. 169 c., 3, 15, 16), and one that shews more reverence at least. He says that the offering may be of a victim to be immolated, or that has been immolated, confounding the bringing the victim up to be a victim, and the actual offering when slain, on the altar. He holds that Christ offered Himself to God at the institution of the Supper, and was an actual victim on the cross. Now He is offered, though still alive, like the scapegoat, as one who has been slain as a victim. The slaying is thus on the cross; the Mass only an offering. Others, he says, put the force of the sacrifice on the slaying of the victim; we in the offering of a victim slain or to be slain. They will have sacrifice to be instituted as a declaration of God's supreme dominion over His creatures; we to represent Christ's death. Surely he has more truth here. Milner takes the other view, but his illustration from the scapegoat is unhappy, because he goes away with his sins on him. Did Christ do that after being a victim? For so he takes it in connection with the goat, whose blood was put on the mercyseat. The editor of Gregory closes by saying whichever opinion seems the truer and stronger to maintain the Catholic dogma against the innovators, let each follow, mindful of that word, in what is necessary unity; in doubtful liberty; in all charity. But this is a poor uncertainty to get forgiveness and grace by, the evident effect of trying to make a sacrifice of what is not one, resulting too in making uncertain altogether what it consists in. In this writer's case, the consumption on the altar being the only true offering after being slain, this second offering after being slain cannot take place now. It is really mere remembrance. Indeed he says pretty nearly as much (c. 12, p. 168) There is a sufficiently plain testimony moreover, of the representative nature of our sacrifice in those words of Christ, "As oft as ye shall do these things, do it in remembrance of me"; and he adds a good deal more, that in doing this continually in commemoration of that (the bloody sacrifice), we confess by act that Christ is entered once into the holy place, eternal redemption being found.

26 R. But these are individual opinions, not the church's teaching.

N*. Be it so; but when the church has taught it is a truly propitiatory sacrifice, her ablest children cannot find what the sacrifice consists in, because there is none there. It is killing under the form of bread, killing being necessary to sacrifice, but no real killing there. It is a striking proof of the falseness of the whole thing. Bellarmine felt the difficulty, for if consecration were the sacrifice, then bread was what was offered, as is evident, though they think consecration turns it into the body and blood; but then it must be that first to be sacrificed I so he will have it to be essentially the priest's eating it, though consecration be essential to it.

D. But do not you think we may treat it with more reverence?

N*. The truth of Christ's sacrifice with the profoundest and Christ-adoring reverence. But treat what with reverence? The Mass, or Christ's sacrifice on the cross? I am citing what they say. What they say of the Mass, and the utter irreverence of it, the moment we think of the cross of the blessed Lord, is just the proof how utterly distant it is from and opposed to the blessed sacrifice once offered there. As a sacrifice it has no relationship with or resemblance to it. You deceive people by identifying them, and desiring for the blasphemous fable of the Mass, as you once professed to think it, the reverence with which the sacrifice of the blessed Saviour should be spoken of. And I shew you that their language as to the Mass is irreverent folly instead of being the sacrifice of Christ. Just think of the priest's chewing the wafer being Christ's giving up His blessed life as a sacrifice for sin. I am almost ashamed to put them in the same sentence.

27 James. I wonder such reasoning does not open their eyes. I should think it ridiculous folly if it was not so shocking. But people do not know these things.

N*. It is astonishing it does not open them. But we must make allowance for the effect of education, and the fact that all their own importance is connected with it. All worship the wafer, but the more ignorant know nothing of the theological explanations given. In a country where I have known the effect of the system well, it is a common expression, "You would not fear the man that can make God?"

R. But you do not attribute that to Roman Catholics in general.

N*. I should attribute it as an effect to the doctrine they teach. It is with the unlettered the natural expression of their belief that the priest by the word, "This is my body," turns the bread and wine into the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. But I confine myself to the sacrifice itself at present.

Bill M. Of course they look at it so. How could they sacrifice Jesus Christ, if it was not Himself that was there?

James. Well, I am glad I was kept from such unholy notions.

Bill M. But you know nothing of all this when you are brought in. It is only, Hear the church, and you have a sacrifice and get forgiveness of your sins; and the Protestant has none. And when you do not know that you are forgiven and accepted, that is a comfort. But we will let these gentlemen go on.

James. I understand well what you mean. It all depends on knowing the value of the blessed work of Christ. But you are right; we will let these gentlemen proceed. Mr. D. was ready to say something.

28 D. I was only going to say that it is the uniform testimony of the Fathers that there is a permanent sacrifice in the church, and that the Eucharist is that sacrifice.

N*. Have you ever examined them for yourself?

D. I have looked at some, but they are quoted by all who have treated the subject.

N*. No doubt. I attach no importance whatever to the statements of the Fathers. No one can have read them, or studied the history of the church, but must know, if he knows the truth at all, how early the truth was lost. If he takes for granted that they have the truth, of course he will receive what they say, if he can receive nonsense and contradictions. But the apostle John warns us to hold fast to what was from the beginning, and that they clearly were not. He tells us that they who are of God hear them (the apostles). You say they were nearer the apostles, and so must be nearer the truth, as they were nearer the source. But we have the apostles and the source itself, and do not want to know what was nearer or farther.

R. But there is the interpretation of the Scriptures, which too are in dead languages.

N*. And there is the interpretation of the Fathers, which are in the same dead languages. For example, on this very subject your most learned men, who quote and read the Fathers, cannot tell what the essence of the sacrifice is in the Mass. But I will refer to them simply because they quoted them. And if we wait on God He will help us to understand His own word, but not mere uninspired writings of men. In these discourses to the people they do speak in the most florid terms, somewhat later indeed, of this tremendous mystery. And they speak generally of the sacrifice, and refer to the passage in Malachi; but it is far from true that they had the thought of a proper sacrifice in the Mass. It was the custom to bring offerings of bread and wine, etc., which were then used for the service or otherwise, as for the poor; and this is constantly spoken of as the sacrifice, which is quite another matter; and the whole service is spoken of in terms which deny the Roman Catholic interpretation of its meaning.

Milner is bold enough to quote Justin Martyr, which, if I mistake not, Bellarmine is too wise to do. Milner refers to his dialogue with Trypho the Jew; but there, after referring to the sacrifice of the great day of atonement among the Jews, and the Lord's coming when rejected, and His coming again when the Jews will own Him — for this Justin held very positively* — he adds, "And the offering of fine flour, which was ordained to be offered for those to be purified from the leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, which Jesus Christ our Lord ordained to be celebrated for a commemoration of the sufferings which He suffered for the purging of the souls of men from all iniquity; and that at the same time we may give thanks to God, that He has created the world, and all that is in it for man's sake."** Again, in the same dialogue, "It appears that this prophecy (Isaiah), concerning the bread which our Christ taught us to offer (poiein***), for a commemoration of His taking a body on account of those who believe on Him, for whose sake also He became a sufferer, and concerning the cup which He taught us to offer,*** giving thanks for a commemoration of His blood."

{*He says all orthodox Christians did.}

{**Dial. c. Tr. 259, 260}

{*** Poiein I have translated "offer," to leave no handle; but it is used for any celebration of a feast, or ceremony for the dead of any kind, to keep a feast, to have an entertainment, dinner, etc. It was celebrated for a commemoration.}

29 But we have Justin's sober account of their Sunday Service, Ap. 2, p. 97, Colonia, 1686: "When the prayers are finished, we salute each other with mutual kisses; then bread and a cup of water and wine mixed [with it] is offered to him who presides among the brethren; and having received these, he sends up praise and glory to the Father of all things through the name of the Son and of the Spirit, and then makes long thanksgiving that He has counted us worthy of these things Himself. And having finished the prayers and the thanksgiving, all the people present assent, saying, Amen . . . . And the president having given thanks, and all the people assented, those who are called deacons among us give to each of those present to partake of the bread for which thanksgiving has been made, and of the wine and water, and carry of them away to those not present. And this nourishment is called by us Eucharist (thanksgiving)." Then after saying it was only given to Christians, he says, "For we do not take it as common bread or common drink; but even as by the word of God, Jesus Christ our Saviour being made flesh, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so the nourishment for which by the word of prayer which is from Him, thanks are given, from which by change our flesh and blood are nourished, we have been taught to be the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus." He then repeats the account of the service: "that they meet, read the Scriptures, and the president preaches; after that we all rise together and offer prayers; and as we have related, the prayers being over, bread is offered, and wine and water, and the president according to his ability sends up prayers and thanksgiving; and the people assenting, say, Amen. And the distribution and reception of those things for which thanksgiving is offered, takes place with each, and it is sent to those not present by the deacons." Now there is not a trace of a sacrifice or the offering of anything to God, except bread and wine, and that by the people. not for them. It is not a question of doctrine, but recounting to the Emperor what passed at their meetings.

{*Kramatos which means wine and water or some other thing mixed, but as water is mentioned I put wine.}

30 So Irenaeus. Lib. 4, 18 (34 Old Editions). God is no appeased by a sacrifice — we offer to God the first fruits of His creatures. And he then declares, that they are not common bread and wine, but composed of two things, the earthly and heavenly. Now that superstition as to ordinances sprang up rapidly in the church, I not only admit but insist on. But God not being appeased by a sacrifice, offering the first fruits of His creatures, and the Eucharist being composed of two things, sets aside the Mass and transubstantiation too. The conclusion Irenaeus draws from it is, that our bodies, being nourished by it, will rise. But the notion of a propitiatory sacrifice in the Mass is not to be traced in him or in Justin. From this last Father I must quote another passage which is positive to this purpose. He quotes the prophet, saying, God would not receive the sacrifices of the Israelites dwelling in Jerusalem, but did accept the prayers of the dispersed, and calls these prayers sacrifices. He had declared that God accepted no sacrifices but from His priests, and that Christians were the true priestly race, as God declared, referring to Malachi's prophecy, and that they offer the sacrifices in His name which Christ taught them — the bread and wine of the Eucharist. I Then, after saying the prayers of the dispersion were agreeable when the sacrifices at Jerusalem were not, he adds, God accepts and calls their prayers sacrifices. When therefore prayers and thanksgivings are made by those worthy, I also say, they are the only perfect and acceptable ones to God. For these alone also Christians have received to offer (poiein), and in memory of them dry and moist nourishment wherein also are commemorated the sufferings which God suffered by God Himself. The last phrase is of a singular structure (en e kai tou pathous o peponthe di autou o theos tou theou memnetai).* But it does not affect our question. If the Eucharist were a propitiatory sacrifice in which Christ Himself, "His bones and sinews," is offered by Himself, it is impossible Justin could thus speak of it. All Christians, priests; bread and wine the things offered; prayers and thanksgivings, the only true sacrifices acceptable to God, and in the Eucharist a commemoration of the sufferings which Christ suffered: no one who believed in the doctrine of the Mass could write thus. All Christians priests to offer bread and wine; then prayers and thanksgivings offered the only true and acceptable sacrifices; and these prayers God calls sacrifices. He is applying Malachi's prophecy. The sacrifices of blood in Jerusalem God had not accepted, but their prayers and thanksgivings He did, and so of those offered by Christians at the thanksgiving of bread and the cup (epi te Eicharistia). These statements of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus do not agree with the doctrine of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice — could not have been used if that had been believed.

{*Dial. c. Te.: 345.}

31 Cyprian affords us little help. He uses sacrifice for what the people bring as gifts. (De Op. et El. Pearson, 204.) He says they offered sacrifices for martyrs after their death (seemingly an allusion to heathen celebrations), and in a letter to Caecilius shewing that there must be wine, not merely water. It does not seems to be His blood, he says, if it be water, and wine be wanting; he refers to Psalm 110, and says, Who is so great a priest of the Most High as our Lord Jesus Christ who offered a sacrifice to God the Father, and offered the same that Melchisedec had offered, that is, bread and wine, namely, His body and blood. Here then is no reference to the Eucharist, but to what Christ offered. And, again, Nor is anything else done by us than what the Lord before did for us, that the cup which is offered in commemoration of Him is offered mixed with wine. No trace of any propitiatory offering, nor even of transubstantiation. (Ep. to Caecil.: 64. Pearson, 148, 9)

As to Tertullian, whom Cyprian owned as his master, he knows nothing of such sacrifices as the Mass. In his treatise against the Jews (5), in his book against Marcion (3, 22; 4, 1), in the last referring as all do to Malachi, he insists that it is by praise, simple prayer out of a pure heart, spiritual sacrifices, that Christian and true sacrifice is offered to God, and that in contrast with any external carnal sacrifice. So to Scapula he answers the charge of not sacrificing for the Emperor, that they did it as God had commanded them to sacrifice with a pure prayer to their God and his.

32 I will only quote one more, because he comes considerably later — Eusebius. Wherever the Fathers are speaking of the contrast of heathenism or Judaism with Christianity, they reject the material sacrifices of blood and incense, and insist on what is spiritual. Eusebius, in doing this, and after largely insisting on Christ's sufferings and being made a curse, and quoting Moses and the apostle in the Galatians, and that He thus offered to His Father for our salvation a wonderful sacrifice and most excellent victim, adds, "He instituted a commemoration for us to be offered instead of a sacrifice to be offered to God continually," mnemes anti thusias to theo dienekos prospherein, and subsequently, after quoting Malachi, as usual, states that Christians offer sweet incense and sacrifice to God, but in a new way, according to the new covenant, prayers, hymns, self-consecration in holiness, quoting the Old Testament to prove they were better taught as they were, that they were more grateful to God than a great number of victims with blood and smoke and odour of fat, repeatedly saying it was a commemoration of Christ's sacrifice which He had instituted. The passage is too long to quote. It is found in Dem. Ev. lib. 1, at the end (p. 38-40, Paris ed. 1628)

Now I do not quote these Fathers to prove any point of doctrine whatever; I would not do so for any consideration. We must have what was from the beginning, the word of God. I quote them to shew that the assertion that the Fathers held the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice is historically not true. But I will now also refer to a proof of the use of sacrifice applied to what the people brought which may seem strange — the Canon of the Mass which originates with the great pope Gregory, famous in such matters. You will see from it at once, that the offering of the people before the service is called 'offering' and 'victim' even, as we have seen it called 'offering' in the Fathers, and the bread and wine called 'creatures' after consecration, as they also do.

The priest with various rubrical directions begins by begging the Father that He will "accept and bless these gifts, these offerings (munera), these holy pure sacrifices which in the first place we offer to thee for thy holy Catholic church," etc. Then for the living — naming the objects of the Mass, and all who stand around, etc. — "for whom we offer to thee, or who offer to thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves, and all theirs for the redemption of their souls for the hope of salvation," etc. And further on: "this oblation of our service, but also of all thy family, we beseech thee, O Lord, that appeased thou mayest receive and dispose our days in peace, and snatch us from eternal damnation," etc. Then, "which oblation, O God, we beseech thee, thou mayest deign in all things to make blessed, imputed (adscriptum), sanctioned, reasonable, acceptable: [he makes the sign of the cross once on the victim (hostiam) and once on the cup], that it may become to us the body and blood of thy most beloved Son!" And then follows the prayer of consecration and the consecrating words, "This is my body," but as recited or said by Christ at the time of institution. And then the cup.

33 Thus we have the clear testimony that what are called gifts, oblations, and so offered and in the Rubric or direction to the priest, victim (hostia) is so called before it is consecrated, and the offering of the people (omnium circumstantium) referred to; and it is called, as by the Fathers, a sacrifice of praise. Further, after consecration, it is said, "Whence, O Lord, remembering the passion, resurrection, and glorious ascension into heaven of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, we thy servants offer to thy illustrious Majesty of thy gifts and bestowings a pure victim, a holy victim, an immaculate victim, the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of perpetual salvation." Then, "on which deign to look with a propitious and serene countenance, and accept, as thou deignedst to accept the gifts of thy righteous servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and the holy sacrifice, the immaculate victim, which thy high priest Melchisedec offered to thee." Then he prays that the offerings may be carried by the hands of God's holy angel to the altar on high, etc., and at the close: "by whom (our Lord Christ), thou, O Lord, ever createst, sanctifiest, vivifiest, blessest, and bestowest on us all these good things." And in saying this he makes at each of the three last words the sign of the cross on the host (hostiam) and the cup. Now the elements are positively called bread and the cup after consecration, and I ask if they really believed that it was Christ offering Himself, could they pray that God would deign to accept it as a pure and immaculate victim, and deign to look on it with a propitious and serene countenance as He had deigned to accept Abel's sacrifice? Could a believer thus speak of the acceptance of Christ's sacrifice when He offered Himself, or is it still in question? And further, at the end speaking of the host and cup, he says that God by Christ creates, sanctifies, vivifies, blesses and gives us all these good things, clearly holding the bread and wine still as creatures given of God.

34 The ancient form which is all confusion by the growing superstition which made the elements after consecration to be Christ's body and blood, but preserved the forms which treated them as bread and wine and as offered by the people,* is turned into blasphemy by using language quite appropriate as applied to God's creatures created by Jesus Christ as if it referred to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. God by Jesus Christ creates, sanctifies, vivifies, blesses and gives to us all these things. Can that apply to Christ Himself? Yet, according to the modern doctrine of the Mass, nothing else is there. The preservation of the old form which treats them as bread and wine still shews the modern doctrine to be as modern as it is false.

{*It is curious enough too that the Canon of the Mass, in speaking of the cup, says (following the Vulgate), not 'is poured out,' but 'shall be poured out,' referring to the sacrifice as a yet unaccomplished thing. 'There was no need so to put it according to the Greek. It is simply 'poured out,' or 'being poured out'; but Jerome has given it historically, having no idea of sacrifice in the institution save as it referred to the cross.}

It is evident that the Roman Canon of the Mass bears tokens of an earlier doctrine and usage on the subject, inasmuch as before consecration the priest offers it for the holy Catholic church; then speaks, in the commemoration for the living, of sacrifice of praise; and then, after the commemoration of the dead saints, prays that the Lord appeased may accept the oblation, and that He would deign to make it blessed and acceptable, that it may become to them the body and blood of His most beloved Son. Then he recites Christ's act and words, "for this is my body," and then adores the host, then consecrates the cup adding several words to what Christ said, and adores it, and then offers the host, but calling it God's gift — de tuis donis et datis, and then, strange to say, begs God may deign to regard it with a propitious and serene countenance, and accept it as God did Abel's, which, if they believed it to be really Christ, would be nonsense or a blasphemy; and then prays that it may be carried by the hand of God's holy angel to His altar on high in sight of His divine Majesty.

35 But there is more than this, though this still shews marks of the corruption of a more ancient system which did not view the offerings in the same light. The Roman Mass stands alone among all liturgies. None attributes the transubstantiation, or whatever it is called, for the word though now used and the doctrine generally believed is not a formal doctrine of the Eastern creed, nor the word acknowledged in their symbols, indeed it seems many still reject the doctrine — we can speak of that when we come to the question; but the Canon, so-called, of all other masses or liturgies is wholly different in principle. What they hold to be the consecrating words are entirely absent from the Roman Mass, and approach nearer to more ancient doctrine. The Greeks say it is absurd to suppose that the mere recital of Christ's words as spoken by Him can make the change — that there must be a positive looking to God to do it. So that after saying, "Take, eat: this is my body which is broken for you, and distributed for the remission of sins," and "this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins," and subsequently saying, "In behalf of all and for all we offer thee thine own of thine own," and in that called of St. James, "We offer thee, O Lord, this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice" — they pray God to "send down the Holy Ghost . . . and make this bread the precious body of thy Christ . . . and that which is in the cup the precious blood of thy Christ, changing them by the Holy Ghost, so that they may be," etc.

I have chiefly copied St. Chrysostom's, so-called, but all are substantially alike. The change is professedly made by the invocation of the Holy Ghost, not by the words of institution, which have been already pronounced when they pray it may be changed. This invocation, which is found in all liturgies, is wholly absent from the Roman Mass.

It is sorrowful to think of the degradation to which, by the superstition of east and west, the blessed commemoration of the Lord's precious sacrifice has been reduced. In the modern service in Russia they prepare the bread and wine in a side chamber and on a separate table. They have a loaf or loaves, and a spear with a cross generally at the handle; the loaves are prepared with a certain seal or stamp upon them; the priest thrusts the spear into the right side of the seal, saying, "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter"; then into the upper part and into the lower with other words; then into the right side, saying, "For his life is taken from the earth"; then the deacon turning the loaf up says, "Slay, sir," and he slays it crosswise, saying, "The Lamb of God is slain"; then again turning it on the upper side, reciting what the soldier did; then mixes the water and wine, reciting John's account of the blood and water coming out of His side. Thus the elements are prepared; then with a procession they are carried to the altar; and the rest of the service already alluded to — invoking the Holy Ghost to make it Christ's body — goes on. They have no difficulty at any rate where to find the slaying of the victim, and at least have it accomplished before the memory of it is celebrated. For if it be a now living Christ, the slaying Him afterwards by the priests eating the consecrated host, as Bellarmine states, is a perfect monstrosity. How either, degrading and degraded as it all is, can be called worshipping "in spirit and in truth," is hard for any to understand. But in the Greek form the whole must be taken as a shadow, for the Christ they thus profess to slay in figure is not yet, by the epiklesis, or invocation of the Holy Ghost, trans-elemented into the body of Christ. But how poor, when spirituality is gone, is the effort to work up by superstition some forms of imitative service!

36 D. But this is not the Catholic service.

N*. No, it is not. There it is done by chewing it in the priest's mouth. While deepening the darkness of superstition where blindly followed, it produces disgust and irreverence where it is honestly inquired into: as to spirituality of thought or worship, that I cannot say it has destroyed, it has no pretension to it.

R. I do not deny I am perplexed. It is clear the principles of the Roman Canon, and the more ancient ones of St. Chrysostom and St. James, are essentially different; the absence of the invocation of the Holy Ghost, whatever its effect, and which it cannot be denied was of very early date, is a very serious point. I am not of course a Greek and always took for granted they were wrong and schismatic, but thought that on this point they were substantially the same as we were, and so Roman Catholic writers declare and Dr. Milner would make us believe; but there is force in the objection of the Greeks, that the recital of the words of Christ can hardly operate such a change. And, as I have said, the invocation was ancient. But long habit and religious authority are hard to break with, and it is a solemnising thought that we receive Christ.

37 N*. If it was His dwelling in the heart by faith, feeding on Him spiritually, nothing more precious or important: but I cannot think the mere physical receiving what is material can add anything to what is spiritual. His words are spirit and life. But this we must look further into in speaking of transubstantiation, though it is hard to separate the two subjects.

R. Yes; they run into one another.

Bill M. But is all this pretended slaying of Christ before all the people, sir, among the Greeks?

N*. No, that goes on in a kind of side chapel. It is shewn to the people when it has been consecrated on the great altar, as it is after consecration in the Roman Mass, as you know. And masses can be said without their being there at all.

James. Well, I certainly had not a thought of such unholy acting like a play. I do not know which is worst, Greek or Roman, but I am sure neither of them is of God. There is nothing of the simplicity that is in Christ. And it is quite clear that a real living Christ, glorified now, cannot even in a figure be sacrificed.

D. But allow me to repeat, Mr. N., that the Greek service (which I admit, though originally more simple and pure, is stuffed with a vast deal of unprofitable dialogue and ceremonies) is not the Roman Mass.

N*. Quite true; I do not adduce it, of course, as such, but it — and not the Greek only, but all other liturgies, and they are more ancient than the Roman Mass — condemns the Roman Mass in the very essence of its doctrine and structure. The words of Christ at the institution of the last supper do not, according to these liturgies, transubstantiate the bread and wine; that is subsequently sought in the invocation of the Holy Ghost. And you must remark here, that I am not setting one liturgy against another as better or worse one than another. What I say is, that all the ancient liturgies, called by the names of St. James, St. Mark, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, and others derived from them, all entirely condemn the Canon of the Roman Mass; so that, if these are right, that is, the universal liturgical tradition — and there is little doubt that these in some form or other were the origin of the Roman liturgy itself — there has never been a really consecrated host in any Roman Catholic Mass at all. If transubstantiation were true, there has been none, no true body and blood of Christ.

38 R. What do you mean? what a strange statement!

N*. It is very simple. That to which all ancient liturgical services attribute the consecration and change in the elements is not in the Roman service at all: the invocation of the Holy Ghost. And Rome is quite aware of this, for, when she has won some who had these ancient liturgies, she has changed her services. The Maronite service I do not know; but for the Abyssinians and Armenians, she has changed them, and not gained much that I see after all. She has retained the invocation of the Holy Ghost for them — I suppose not to scandalise them, and in the Abyssinian has added 'consecrated.' Instead of saying, 'make this bread the body of Christ,' she says, 'make this consecrated bread the body of Christ.' But this makes the matter worse, because it is avowing that what she calls consecrating, all she has in her own Mass, leaves the bread still not the body of Christ. It has still to be made so, so that in her service it is never made so at all. In the Armenian she has been a little bolder, and, instead of 'make this bread the body,' says, 'make this bread, to wit (videlicet) the body of Christ to be,' etc., for blessing, that is, to the communicants. But further, this change by the invocation of the Spirit is according to patristic tradition also, though the Father's use of it denies transubstantiation altogether. We have seen Irenaeus declaring that after the invocation there were two things, earthly and heavenly, denying positively transubstantiation, but making the change he did believe in, the consequence of the invocation. I rest my faith wholly on Scripture, but the antiquity you so rest in, in its ancient liturgical services, condemns this Roman Mass. If we are to believe Gregory the Great, the only prayer at consecration was the Lord's prayer. The Roman Catholic commentators seek to get rid of this, but so he says.*

{*"Mos apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem [dominicam] oblationis nostram consecrarent." Ed. Ven 1771 Vol 8, 56, Ad. Joh. Epis. Syracusanum. Lib. 9, let. 12 (64 Ac.).}

R. It is very perplexing, and tends to make one doubt of everything.

39 N*. To doubt of what rests on tradition, but it does not touch what was from the beginning, the inspired word of God able to make us wise unto salvation. There we have divine authority and divine certainty, the truth itself; not human traditions. It is a common effect of gross superstition connected with the profession of Christianity, and all taken as true together, that when the falseness and absurdity of the superstition, of what man has added, is seen, all is rejected together. Infidelity is its natural fruit when the mind begins to work. The word has never had its just authority, and men do not separate what is human and divine. Without the word man believes as he has been taught, that Jesus is God, and that the wafer is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. He finds the latter a delusion and, not resting on the word which teaches one and not the other, but as to both alike on human tradition, he throws up both and is an infidel.

When we examine the question of transubstantiation, we shall see that the most famous doctors of the church denied that doctrine five centuries later, and that it was never settled as a defined doctrine till 1215, nine centuries later, so that the Mass was impossible. For if the element be not really the body of Christ, such a sacrifice is impossible. I rest on what is said in Hebrews 9 and 10, which chapters not only teach what is inconsistent with it, but formally contradict it in every part. That Christianity has a sacrifice is a fundamental truth, but that Epistle teaches that it was one, only one, offered once for all upon the cross, never to be repeated, and its not being so repeated essential to its nature and value.

Bill M. Well, what do you say, Mr. R.? For me I confess it is plain enough that, if there was to be no more sacrifice for sins, the Mass cannot be true. What made me like it was that there was forgiveness and a present offering one could think of as offered when we were uneasy in our consciences. But I see God will have us not get our consciences made easy from time to time; but come to Christ and have all we are and have done manifested in God's sight, and be reconciled to Him through that one sacrifice Christ has made of Himself in wonderful grace on the cross. It goes a deal deeper into one's soul in the conviction of sin. Of the peace that follows I cannot say much yet, but I see the word of God speaks of it plain enough, and I hope I will find it; but I know that sin is a very different thing when you have to bring it all out before God, and get cleansed there, and when you get your conscience quieted by absolution and receiving at the Mass. It is another thing to be a sinner before God.

40 James. What to me is so dreadful is that the blessed efficacy of Christ's sacrifice is set aside — that which was done once for all at such infinite cost and suffering to Himself, the dreadful cup He had to drink, and the truth that it is done and finished once for all, and accepted of God, so that He sits at God's right hand when He had made purification for our sins and obtained eternal redemption. They may talk about its being the same sacrifice repeated; but then it is not finished and complete; something more is needed to put away sins. To have a sacrifice for sins still is to say the whole work is not finished on the cross; and it unsettles too all our peace before God. And Christ cannot suffer now. It denies the efficacy of the cross and Christ's glory in it, and the sure foundation of our peace and rest, and God's glory too, for all is still unfinished. And what is said in the Hebrews is plain enough. I wonder how persons calling themselves Christians could dare to go so plainly against God's word.

D. You seem to make nothing of the teaching of the church, but take your own crude and rash opinions as a warrant for a dangerous self-confidence.

James. Excuse me, sir. I do not take up any opinion at all. I trust God's word as the truth through grace. An opinion is brought to me which contradicts it, and I do not receive it. As to confidence, such grace as was shewn in the gift of God's blessed Son does give confidence in God, and the work of Christ when believed in, gives peace to the conscience. Confidence in myself would, I know, be as wrong as it would be foolish and dangerous; but it is not in myself, but in God's love and His word, and the work that Christ has accomplished. Will you forgive a poor man if he asks you humbly, Have you got this peace? "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."

D. I am not accustomed to give an account of my own feelings. The privileges and graces given to the church, I know, are very great, and so wonderful that I feel it presumptuous to appropriate them to myself; but I trust, being found within her pale, I shall have the benefit of the grace conferred upon her through His sacraments and the promises made to her. God alone knows how far we have profited by them, and the day of judgment will make all manifest.

41 N*. But this is an unhappy state of uncertainty, Mr. D. How can you invite others to come to Christ and they shall have rest, when you have not rest yourself? Either (and God forbid such a thought!) what Christ has said is not true, or you have never come to Him. And Scripture is quite plain, saying, "We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, crying, Abba Father." The Spirit of adoption, which is the practical condition of the Christian, cannot exist if I do not know I am a child. In your state you cannot say, Abba Father. I speak only from what you say yourself. "I write unto you, little children," says the apostle John, "because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake."

D. What do you mean? that I cannot preach the truth if I am not sure of my salvation?

N*. You cannot preach the gospel as Scripture presents it, and the Lord Himself. You may repeat the words, but you can announce the gospel with no personal consciousness that it is true, so as to preach it yourself with conviction, so as to have truth and heart in your preaching.

D. But I am not preaching to heathens, but to Christians.

N*. I admit the difference, and in some respects important difference; but they, or at any rate the mass of them, and yourself too, have not peace, have not the rest of heart and conscience which Christ promises. Neither you nor they are where the gospel sets a man, where it has put James, and, thank God, many others who have found what Paul declares to be true, "Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have access into this grace [or favour], wherein we stand." Besides, let me ask you, Can the church answer for you in the last day?

D. No; but in following her directions, I shall be able to do so.

N*. Have you followed her directions hitherto?

D. Well, we follow badly the blessed guidance that is for us; still I have as far as I could, faithfully done so, and hope to be able to do so.

N*. And if you were taken away now, you do not know if you would be accepted or not; and when once you leave this, the church can do no more. It has not given you peace, and purged your conscience here, and cannot answer for you there. Conscience must be individual, pardon must be individual, a new life must be individual. Each one must give an account of himself to God individually; and a church and its system which quiets the conscience here, but gives no peace, nor purges it, and cannot answer for us there, is a poor substitute for the perfect and ever-subsisting efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice, by which the believing soul born of God has peace and constant peace. The conscience, really purged before God, and receiving the Holy Ghost, walks in joy, possessing a power in a living Christ, which destroys the dominion of sin. Do not suppose I think the true doctrine as to the church of no moment. It is most blessed and important; but the word of God always puts the individual relationship with God and the Father first, and then the truth as to the church after; because my personal relationship with God must be settled, bringing me into the privilege of a son, before I enter on our union with Christ, or God's ways in dwelling in the assembly by the Holy Ghost. And your doctrine of the Mass sets aside the full abiding efficacy of Christ's blood, hides the love of God, brings uncertainty into the conscience, and fear into the heart; denies the most precious truth of God, and just gives the carnal mind quietness from time to time, without being really turned to God, leaving the heart practically in the world where it was; takes peace from the believer, and gives a quiet conscience to the unbeliever in heart, who has no thought of walking with God. I do not seek to use hard words, but Masses, as you have acknowledged, are really blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits. There is no sacrifice of Christ but one, and once for all.

42 R. I do not complain of your language, because I know it is only a quotation from the Articles of the Established Church. But do you not think this confidence you speak of is dangerous? Does it not tend to destroy humility?

N*. We spoke a little of that already; still it is so common an objection that I still reply. I know your teachers do and must object to it. It would take the whole matter out of their hands; people would not want them. But a vast body of Protestants too resist it.

But I take the matter up broadly, and say, The scripture never recognises a person uncertain of his salvation as in a Christian state. Certainty or uncertainty has nothing to do with humility. If it be uncertain whether a child be really the child of his parent, this has nothing to do with his humility; he may not have the shadow of a question as to his being such, and be a humble obedient child. But true divinely given certainty brings us into the place of humility, because, where real, it brings us into the presence of God through the rent veil of Christ's sufferings to walk in the light as God is in the light. There we feel our own utter nothingness, how far we are from having reached the mark; and all is seen in that light. Yet we have confidence, because grace has brought us there, and we know God is love and loves us infinitely. It is said, the love wherewith He loves Jesus, and that He accepts us because of, and by, and according to, the value of the perfect work of Jesus, who appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Through His offering we have no more conscience of sins — perfected for ever as to acceptance by His one offering. The Lord has given us the picture of this uncertain state in the prodigal son. When he had not yet met his father, though his heart was turned by grace towards him, he says, "Make me as one of thy hired servants." There was no certainty or enjoyment of the relationship. When he met his father, there was no such word uttered. What his father was to him was known because he had met him; the thought of being treated as a servant only proved he had not met him yet. There is a new nature in him who is born of God which loves holiness, but there is no true development of holy affections until we are at peace with God. And the Mass denies the ground of our relationship with Him, the holy and righteous God, and the true scripturally revealed value of Christ's work.

43 R. Well, Mr. N., you have given me something to think of. I see some have a peace I have not. I do not profess to be convinced, but certainly Hebrews 9 and 10, to a plain mind make the doctrine of the Mass extremely difficult to receive. But Protestants I meet have not that peace which such a statement, if believed, would seem to give. I do not mean now careless men of the world, but serious men. It is a serious thing to give up the doctrine and authority of the church. But I have got subjects for inquiry.

N*. Be assured, dear sir, in looking to the Lord, He will give you light and understanding; only give His word its just authority, I entreat you. We own it all, you as well as we, as God's word; and let men say or claim what they may, if God has spoken, we are responsible to hear and bow to what He says. He, though patient in grace, will hold us responsible for it when He judges the secrets of men's hearts, when no priest or church will be of any avail.

44 R. But we are taught to bow to and avail ourselves of them here.

N*. But they cannot answer for you there; and if God has certainly spoken, and in grace too, we are bound to hear. It is true that multitudes of Protestant Christians have not, nay reject that peace; but I do not ask you to listen to them, but to the word of God itself.

R. We have not touched on transubstantiation yet, which is indeed closely connected with our present subject; and I have been sufficiently interested in what has passed to be glad to enter on that too if it were possible. I really desire to know the truth.

N*. I do not doubt it in the least. I think our friends here who first led us into all these questions desire to hear it too; and I dare say James will still let us make his house our place of meeting.

James. With pleasure, sir, and much obliged to you for coming: and Bill M. of course may be here, and will, I know, wish it.

N*. Well, then, it is understood.

R. I will now then say, Good evening: and we are much obliged to James for his kindly receiving us.

James. It is quite a pleasure to me. Good evening, sir.

R. Mr. D., I suppose, is coming. I wish you all good evening. Good evening, sir.

Bill M. I see more into all than ever I did, and what true Christianity is — how Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross; But I dare not say much yet.

N*. Carry it all to the Lord, M. There it will all be clear with Him.

Bill M. But many pious people do not see all this clear. I did not see it at all, or so understand it, for I was not pious before I turned Roman Catholic. But I did not hear of it either.

N*. No, as Mr. R. said, many, even pious, Protestants do not-at all see the holy place where grace has set them. Hence too, they are so mixed up with the world. But, thank God, it is clear in the word: only divine teaching must be there to possess it really. But now I too must say, Good evening.

45 James and Bill M. Good evening, sir.

Bill M. Well, Jim, what do you say to all we have heard? What I think I feel most is, how awfully I was in the dark, and how sad to think how little the true love of God and work of Christ is known and preached! And glad I am to have heard what I have. I think it is over with the Mass, and all that belongs to it, for me.

James. Well, Bill, I am thankful more than I can tell you, having found peace with God and the salvation of His grace, and surely sovereign grace to me, has brought; thankful too, to have escaped the snare I was just falling into. And it is such a comfort too in the house, and my missus was sorely tried about it. And now we can get on happily together, and look to God together for the children. I do not mind so much now about the rest, because I am all clear myself, but glad to hear.

Bill M. I do not so much mind either; but then it is a great thing with the Catholics, and very hard to get them out of it, because they think it is the very body and blood of Christ; and when they receive, that they receive that, and that they are all perfect-like. So I shall be glad to hear. But now, Good night.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Eighth Conversation

Transubstantiation

J. N. Darby.

<31001E> 1 {file section a.}

N*. Good-evening all.

James. Pray sit down, gentlemen.

N*. Well, we are here again to pursue our inquiry into the subject we had arrived at, and examine whether the doctrine of the Romish creed can be held to be the truth. I suppose we may at once enter on the point which it was understood we should speak of — transubstantiation. Perhaps the best way, if our friends agree to it, would be to state from unquestionable Roman Catholic authorities, what the doctrine maintained by them is.

Mr. R. We could not pursue a better method. We can then follow out the proofs and testimony on which it is based, though the plain words of Scripture are the strongest, and it seems to me, conclusive.

N*. Well, we cannot take better authority than the Council of Trent to begin with. "But since Christ our Redeemer said that that which He offered under the form of bread, was truly His body, it has therefore been ever the persuasion of the church, and this holy Synod now anew declares, that, by the consecration of [the] bread and wine, conversion of the whole substance into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord takes place, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. Which conversion is conveniently and properly called, by the holy Catholic church, transubstantiation." (Sess. 12, c. 4.)

That we may complete this account I may add the Canons 1 and 2 of the same Session 12.

CANON 1

"If any one shall have denied that in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently, a whole Christ; but shall have said that they only are in it as in a sign, or figure, or virtue, let him be anathema."

2 CANON 2

"If any shall have said that in the very sacred sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall have denied that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of bread into the body, and of the whole substance of wine into blood, the forms of bread and wine only remaining; which conversion indeed the Catholic church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema."

CANON 3

"If any shall have denied that in the venerable sacrament of the Eucharist under each form, and under every part of each form, when separation is made, a whole Christ is contained, let him be anathema."

Canon 6 declares it is to be adored with divine worship.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, which explains and enlarges on it, is even more precise. (Part 2, c. 4, Sec. 33.) Not only the true body of Christ, and whatever belongs to the true body, as bones and nerves, but also a whole Christ is contained in the sacrament. It is then added, that, by the words of consecration, the bread becomes the body, and the wine the blood; but that, by concomitance the blood, soul and divinity will be with the body in the bread and so conversely of the wine (see 34). What I have now cited gives the doctrines to us on the highest authority, clearly enough. Any reasons of Bellarmine or others we can take up when needed.

R. This is quite sufficient for us as a statement of it.

N*. Well, I affirm all this to be a delusion and a fallacy.

R. That is strong language, Mr. N.; when so many Fathers and holy men have received and taught it, and when it is the common faith of the church in all ages. What you have to meet is the plain statement of Scripture, "This is my body" — words so definite that your own Luther could not get over them.

N*. We will take the statements of Scripture up first then. That it was always the persuasion of the church I wholly deny. That superstition and very high-flown statements are found in the Fathers as to what we receive, I freely admit. But not only was it not the uniform persuasion of the church, but the best known and most esteemed Fathers taught expressly the contrary, and it was not authoritatively established as a dogma in the West, for centuries; and, though gradually dropped into as a general persuasion after John Damascene, never in the Greek church as a body. This we will examine; but before we turn to the Fathers, we will turn to the Scriptures themselves, "This is my body," and chapter 6 of John's Gospel.

3 Allow me however to say that every Christian acknowledges the great and blessed privilege granted to us in the institution of the Lord's supper — that feeding on Him, though not there only, is the very way of life to the soul. Nor is there anything more touching, than that He, the blessed Saviour, should care that we should remember Him, and should even desire with desire to eat the last Paschal supper with His disciples before He suffered. This is not the question; but whether the bread and wine are physically changed into the body and blood of Christ, so that there is no bread and wine there at all; but that Christ, a whole Christ, and that expressed in a profane way, His bones and nerves, alone is there. They admit that it is called bread after consecration, and seek to account for it, saying it is so called, because it has the appearance of it; as when Abraham saw the three men who really were angels. And that it still retains the quality natural to bread, that of supporting and nourishing the body.

R. But where do you find that admitted?

N*. In Part 2, Section 40 of the catechism of the Council of Trent. The difficulty really is of answering what has no solid ground at all. They admit that "the exposition of this mystery is most difficult." At any rate, it is such that "the whole substance of the bread is changed by the power of God into the whole substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into the whole substance of the blood of Christ, without any change in our Lord" (41). Before we examine the positive statement of Scripture, which really presents no difficulty whatever, there are some difficulties on the Roman Catholic view of it, I should like to present to you. The pouring out the wine into the cup, is, you say, a kind of figure of Christ's shedding His blood. In Sec. 76 on the Eucharist too, the catechism of the Council of Trent declares that it is the same sacrifice with that of the cross. At any rate the essence of the doctrine we are treating is that the blood of Christ is really there, the wine being changed into it in the cup, and by concomitance the body, which is under the form of bread, also. First, it is inconsistent (and grossly so) to say it is in His body, and shed out of His body too; I have already remarked that if it is in the body, not shed, there is no redemption. Satan has mocked you with a sacrifice of non-redemption. But I go further: Did not Christ shed his blood on the cross for us?

4 R. Surely, it was a bloody sacrifice.

N*. And now He is entered into glory, though, thank God, and wondrous truth it is, still a man, and there according to the efficacy and power of His precious blood. But He is not there in His body and unshed blood in the state in which He lived on earth.

R. No; He has a spiritual and glorious body and dieth no more. His blood has been shed, and if we speak of His entering in, not without blood, it is as shed upon the cross.

N*. But then, how can we have the body, blood, soul and divinity all in one true present person? By the cup it celebrates His blood being shed. It is the very basis of our hopes. There is then no such whole living Christ, as the One into whom you profess to change the bread, and indeed the wine by concomitance too. As to the cup, it is a contradiction, for it is there professedly as shed, to shew it is, and yet it is in the body all the time. But there is no such Christ now, as a Christ living in flesh and unshed blood: He is glorified in heaven. The Eucharist or Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the cross: that of course (sacramentally if you please) includes shedding of blood of a Christ who. first offers Himself alive to God down here: and such you make the bread by consecration. But there is no such Christ; I do not mean merely that you do not put Christ to death now, but there is no Christ now who is such as could die, and shed His blood. He is actually, livingly, in a state in which He cannot be offered in sacrifice. The Christ which is now, though the same blessed Person, as to His state cannot be a Christ on the cross, nor the same sacrifice offered, nor a Christ living in flesh and blood on the earth, capable of being sacramentally or otherwise, so offered. A glorified Christ cannot be a Christ living on earth capable of dying, nor a Christ offered as a victim of propitiation by bloodshedding. You cannot in truth, life, or reality bring Him back into this condition in any sense. He is not now a Christ who can be sacrificed. If you transubstantiate the bread into the Christ that is now, He cannot be a sacrifice, nor one shedding blood, nor flesh and blood as He was: hence not the same sacrifice. You cannot either make Him again what He was on the cross. No such Christ can or ever will, exist.

5 Is He in the Mass an existing Christ, glorified?

R. No; we hold it is sacramentally His body broken, and blood shed, the sacrifice of the Mass.

N*. Then it is no true Christ. There is none such now. Can He be now truly, really, and substantially the dying Christ on the cross?

R. Well, Christ is now in glory, He cannot die, or be as He was on the cross.

N*. Then you have no Christ in the Eucharist; not a glorified one, for it is His death and blood-shedding which is there set before us, as we all know. Not a dying one on the cross, or the blood yet unshed in the body, for there is no such Christ now. Transubstantiation is a wicked fable, as Mr. D. once owned it. It is neither a glorified, nor a dying Christ, truly really and substantially. It is no Christ at all.

Bill M. Well, Mr. R., which do you think it is? for I do not think it can be Christ as He is now in glory, if we think of the cross, because He is not there now; nor such as He was then, and surely it is not a Christ glorified that we have set before us in the Mass, but the sacrifice of Christ. But that cannot be now. I do understand doing it in remembrance, but I cannot see how it can be a glorified Christ, if it be a sacrifice, nor how a Christ as He was on the cross can be really and truly there, for there is none such now. I begin to see into it more clearly than I did.

N*. You have lost a glorified Christ, for He cannot be in any sense a sacrifice again, and a crucified one you cannot have, for there is none such now; and in fact you have lost both.

D. But what then is taught and given to us there?

N*. I have all Christ's institution, and a most blessed one too. That which we do, as He told us to do in remembrance of Him, and find grace and refreshment, comfort and sanctifying power from Himself in doing it, to say nothing of the deep thanksgiving and deeper affections it awakens in us. I hold it to be as to institutions, the highest privilege. That is not the question, but this conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, His soul and divinity being there, and as I quoted, and the catechism of the Council of Trent says, His bones and nerves.

6 D. But all the holy Fathers teach it.

N*. I am not concerned in what they teach, but they do nothing of the kind. I do not justify what they say, for the grossest superstition and immorality and heresy is found in them, but they do not teach that. The very doctrine of substance and accidents is scholastic Aristotelism. The system of seven sacraments is from Lombard. In the tenth century it was largely discussed, the greatest doctors denying it, and was never settled as a church dogma till 1215, by the same Pope and council that established the Inquisition, at the time the papacy was in its highest pitch of power, in fact governed the world, and all was in a state of infamous corruption, as we have seen. There is another thing which curiously points out how, when the Canon of the Mass was framed, I suppose substantially in the seventh century, there was no such thought. In consecrating the cup, following, I apprehend, the Vulgate, it reads in reciting Christ's words at the institution, "which shall be poured out." That is, it makes Christ not institute a sacrifice or offer Himself at the institution of the Eucharist, but declare that He was going to be sacrificed and His blood shed on the cross. Strange to say, the Canon of the Mass is a positive denial of the pretended sacrifice in the Eucharist. Christ speaks of it as a thing to take place afterwards, not as anything then accomplished in any sense. It is 'effundetur,' not 'effunditur.'

D. But in the Greek it is not so, it is to ekchunomenon.

N*. That merely gives it its character, for it certainly in fact was not poured out yet, and confirms really the general idea. It is the poured out blood which is represented there, and as we have said no such Christ (that is Christ in such state as dead upon the cross, his blood poured out), exists now, while the true spiritual commemoration of it is most precious. But it is not the question, what is in the Greek. First, the Vulgate is the authentic Bible of the Roman Catholics, not the Greek; and secondly, I am not yet inquiring what the truth of the institution is in itself, but shewing that the very Canon of the Mass treats it as no actual offering, but representing what was yet to be accomplished, saying not, "my blood poured out"; but "my blood which shall be poured out."

7 R. It is curious it should be so put, and the fact is unquestionable. The fact too that the living glorified Christ cannot be sacrificed, and that if it be now a real living true Christ, it must be a glorified One, perplexes me, but I fear reasoning about it. The blessings and benefits of it are more pressed upon us than its nature.

N*. I understand that. The pastor is directed in the catechism of the Council of Trent so to do, except with more mature members of his church. Nor would I deny that in receiving, however false the whole thing is, pious souls may think for themselves of the true sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, though not with intelligence. But if the service itself is false, it is a very serious thing. Your worship is all false, though it may be ignorantly so. If you have a true Christ, body, soul, and divinity there, the only true One is in glory, and cannot be a sacrifice at all: He cannot now in thought or sacramentally be a sacrifice. If it is what was on the cross, there is no such Christ in existence. And remember I am not now reasoning against the sacrifice of the Mass of which we have spoken; but you cannot convert the bread and wine into a true, real living Christ as now in this world and crucified when none such exists, nor into a dead one, for there is none such now. If into a glorious One, He is not in a condition to be a sacrifice. A commemoration of it, done in remembrance of Him, shewing forth His death till He come, that we can all understand, and wonderful grace too, that the Lord can care for such poor creatures remembering Him.

James. It is so indeed, wonderful grace. It seems all plain to me.

Bill M. I see it cannot be a real living Christ there, and it is hard to think that the priest should make Christ out of a piece of bread; but the passage, "This is my body," what do you make, sir, of that?

D. I was just going to ask the same question, and there are other passages as "the communion of the body of Christ," and John 6; the unworthy eaters being guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And why should we cast a doubt on the omnipotency of God?

N*. It is not a question of God's omnipotency, which, in the true sense of it, no Christian denies. But God has revealed His ways of dealing and acts in grace and truth according to those ways. Thus, working by the Lord Himself or by His followers to confirm the blessed word of His grace, He gave miracles, sensible signs, works of power which all men could see and multitudes did see, so as to accredit those who announced the truth. The miracle was a plain proof of the senses to confirm the testimony. But here the alleged miracle, which is not the revelation of any new truth, is the thing we are called upon to believe; not only with no testimony to it, but with the fullest testimony against it in every possible way, to sight, taste, touch and smell, and even, as is admitted, nourishing powers, it is and remains bread and wine, can be eaten by an animal, decay, become corrupt, nay, we learn from Corinthians could make people drunk, in a word in every way contradicts the alleged miracle, the very idea of which is founded on a heathen philosophical system of substance and accidents adopted by the schoolmen in the middle ages, never dreamt of in the early church, and a chimera without any real foundation, a mere philosophical thing without proof. Some hidden essence clothed in various appearances, which essence was the substance of bread, while all we can see, taste, or feel, are accidents; the substance becomes, they say, Christ, and these accidents remain. Nor is Christ brought down from above, for then, they say, there would be a change of place* (Cat. Council of Trent, Euch. Part 2, 37 and 44), and space would be in question which, though they speak of a true body, bones and nerves, is not they admit, tenable. It is a creation of Christ** there taking the place of what was bread in this philosophical idea of abstract substance. And if Christ does not change His place and come there it must be a creation of His soul too or changing, if they prefer it, the bread into His soul. And is it then the same soul? If it be His soul as in glory, He does not change His place; if not, is it another? Is it His soul, if He has not changed His place? I am called upon, not to believe a divine truth helped by the confirmation of visible works of power addressed to my senses, but a contradiction and a philosophical fancy in admitted contradiction to the evidence of my senses. This is not what Scripture calls a miracle. What is the truth I learn there? Christ's sacrifice is a truth already revealed, only with a declaration that it cannot be repeated. There is no revelation of any truth in transubstantiation, and no proof of it; but every proof which God does use in miracles contradicting it. And the thing itself, a repetition of Christ's sacrifice forbidden to the believer by the word of God. It is the contrary to a miracle, and a mere fable. Your appeal to the omnipotence of God, which no one denies — though what is contrary to truth, to what He has revealed, to Himself, He cannot do — is only throwing dust in peoples' eyes, the wiles of the enemy. The question is what has He done, not what He can do, of which indeed we are no judges, morally speaking. For I repeat He can do nothing inconsistent with Himself or His wisdom. God, it is said, who cannot lie: and of His wisdom we are no competent judges, knowing it only as it is revealed in Christ. Further we know divine truth only as it is revealed. The question is: Has He revealed that in the Lord's supper He has, and that the priests can turn bread into the body, blood, and soul, and divinity of Christ, as our poor Irish friends say, "make God"? It is really a monstrous supposition, without any truth revealed in it, or any testimony to it. But we will examine what Scripture says. All the direct testimony for it is: "This is my body," and "This is my blood" of the New Testament, "which is," or as you say "which shall be shed for you and for many." Now in ordinary language, nobody would dream of such a use of the words as would make it a change of the bread into the body. Supposing there were two pictures, and I were to say, "That is my mother, and that her sister," who would dream that the pictures were transubstantiated into my mother and aunt?

{*One of the reasons for not keeping the wine with the bread is, that it might ferment and become acid.}

{**They allege it is not a creation, but a change; but to have the body and soul of Christ, really, where there was only bread, He not changing His place, is creation. For that exists which did not exist before. They call it, however, a change.}

9 D. Yes, but you have no power to do it, and the Lord had.

N*. I do not pretend to the power, nor raise any question as to what the Lord could do. The question is as to the force of the words He used, not His power. Such words are used every day without a thought of what is called by the name of a thing being the thing itself or changed into it. Nothing is commoner in the use of language. No one would think when the object named was not already actually materially what was named, that it meant anything but a representation of it. Nor would such a thought as transubstantiation enter into anybody's head when such language is used. When the thing named is there, it states the fact, as "That is my mother," when she is present; but it never means "is changed into." And it is actually certain that in the other part of the Eucharist the Lord does so speak according to usual language, not meaning any change. "This cup is the New Testament in my blood." No person dreams that the cup was changed into the New Testament. That is, the Lord uses the usual language of men in such cases. It is a fact that He does so, and they are, though insisting on the literal words, obliged to change them to make them answer: that is what the cup contains, not what is literally said; but even so the blood is not the New Testament, and another gospel gives it differently: "This is my blood of the New Testament," shewing that there is no thought of a literal application of the words. And note, in the Mass, the words used are, "This is the cup of my blood of the new and eternal covenant" — words, remark, never used by Christ at all; so that insisting on their literal accomplishment, because of His saying it, has no ground at all. Besides literally they cannot be used, as is admitted, if they were spoken by Him, because the cup itself is spoken of, not the wine, so that it is necessarily figurative, proving that all the Lord said, so far as the words are the Lord's, He spoke figuratively (just as we ever speak in such cases); for to say He spoke figuratively as to the wine, where they are forced to admit it, and not as to the bread, is absurd. But further as to the bread. It must be remembered Christ was sitting there with His disciples and held the bread in His hands, gave thanks and broke it. Were there two Christs, two bodies, in one of which He sat, the other which He Himself broke? I am aware that Augustine says we are to believe in a certain way Christ held Himself in His own hands. If it was literally, truly, and substantially, there were two Christs. God may be said to be everywhere; but were His body and blood and soul, for these are personal and individual, in the loaf as well as in Himself? Besides you now pretend, it is a glorified Christ, for there is no other living Christ now, but Christ was not glorified then. Was it one Christ, unglorified, sitting at table, and another glorified He held in His hand? But you say too it is the same sacrifice as the cross. But Christ was sitting at the table, and there was then no sacrifice on the cross at all, and so your own Mass puts it, "it shall be shed"; really it is "which is shed" (not that it was yet, but that it was the figure of it as so shed, was given to them in that character), but it was not so shed yet, shewing it was a figure. It was given to them as a memorial, and a figure; there was no sacrifice as yet, no blood shed. Christ was there a living Christ, not yet sacrificed, not yet of course risen and glorified. That He should institute it as a memorial before He went, as He says, "Do this in remembrance of Me": we can easily understand, but the elements could not be really and substantially a sacrificed Christ, for He was sitting there not sacrificed, His blood not shed. The notion of the Mass contradicts all the facts; all Christ said, all He did, and all He was. Is it not, Mr. R., the sacrifice of Christ we have in the Mass, the same as on the cross?

11 R. Surely, so we are taught.

N*. Was Christ sitting at the table such?

R. No, not yet. He was just on the point of being offered a sacrifice.

N*. Then how could "This is my body" constitute Him a sacrifice?

R. We hold it changed the substance of bread into His body. N*. Glorified?

R. No, He was not yet glorified.

N*. Sacrificed?

R. No, He was not yet sacrificed on the cross.

N*. But the cup was His blood poured out, was it not?

R. Yes.

N*. Then that part of it was as sacrificed on the cross.

R. Well, it was poured out in a figure.

N*. It certainly was not yet poured out in fact. Nay, your Mass says, "shall be shed." But we have now touched the truth of the matter. It is a figure and the bread a figure. You must make the two parts answer to one another, the blood shed, the body offered. But the Christ sitting at the table was not that; that is, it was not Himself. St. Augustine may talk of holding Himself in His own hand. If it be a mere figure and manner of speaking it is all very well, but He could not really hold Himself, and while alive on earth hold Himself as offered on the cross, and His blood poured out. And what He did, He told His disciples to do. If He did what represented Himself crucified, such He commanded them to do. The blood was shed blood, the body an offered body, and that Christ was not really. It was so as taking the place of the passover by a better redemption; Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. And so Israel was to say: "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover," the memorial of a deliverance which had been wrought long ago; then a real sacrifice, repeated yearly: with us repetition is forbidden as denying the perfectness of Christ's once for all; but a blessed memorial which Christ Himself instituted of that which was fully accomplished on the cross.

12 But it is perfectly clear that the living unsacrificed Lord could not hold Himself in His own hand as crucified or glorified. The true living Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, could not be truly and substantially in what is the same sacrifice as the cross, for He was there at the table, His body not offered, His blood not shed.

Bill M. But surely, Mr. R., you do not think the Lord held Himself in His own hand, and that with His blood shed out of His body too? I begin to see it is all an invention of men, or of the enemy, and a wicked one, to destroy simple faith in the one true offering of Christ upon the cross once for all.

R. Well, I am not prepared to solve the difficulties Mr. N. has raised: they had never been before my mind. I took it all piously I trust, for granted, and the grosser material part of it did not arrest my mind.

D. And surely it is much better so to take it. It was just the way the Jews were offended when the Lord spoke of eating His flesh, and drinking His blood.

R. I cannot quite see with you in that, Mr. D., because if it is false it is a very grave error, and what is false about the Lord especially cannot sanctify, and by error we always lose some truth which it displaces. I see this far with our friend M., that the abiding and unchanging efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice, which it is said, cannot be offered often, is in question in it, and it is this which makes it grave for me.

D. But I would not deny the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice. The Mass, as you know, as held, is that same sacrifice, and the church by the Eucharist applies the benefit of it.

R. This does not satisfy me, because Christ upon this system does offer Himself often. It is not the church's applying it merely; that, as far as I see at present, would not trouble me, but we are taught that Christ offers Himself there, and for the living and dead, where there is no sacramental application. It is a truly propitiatory work. Can that be done now when Christ is in glory, and Christ be often offered? I begin to fear I am not in the truth, and I desire to be, and yet I am afraid too to be led away. But we have got back, Mr. N., to the sacrifice of the Mass.

13 N*. Never mind that, Mr. R.; as you said before, the subjects run into one another so much that it is hard to separate them, for transubstantiation is the very basis of the Mass, as is evident.

R. Perhaps you would take up the Scriptures; we may look into the Fathers afterwards. I cannot call to mind any answers in our writers to the objections you have raised, but they quote other scriptures. Milner attacks the established church and others for their inconsistency, but otherwise merely refers to the passages we are examining and turns to the Fathers.

N*. Milner takes care not to quote the Canon of the Mass: "This is the chalice of my blood of the new and eternal covenant!" He quotes Matthew and Mark, saying, "This is my blood of the New Testament," which is not in the Canon, and adds, "Luke is nearly the same." Otherwise he has no proofs at all, only he avoids the Canon of the Mass which shews the absurdity of taking it literally. Bellarmine really gives little else than a few words on John 6 to which we will refer.

But allow me to state what is the real truth as to this doctrine, before I examine the scriptural statements in order to shew negatively that it is not taught there. The doctrine of transubstantiation is simply the fruit of the scholastic use of Aristotle in the middle ages. It depends, on the face of it, on the difference of substance and accidents. The substance of bread is changed into the substance of the Lord's body, the accidents of bread remain. Without this theory, the idea could not exist. But this theory of a particular substance and accidents was a mere metaphysical theory, without any real foundation. We have got nowadays to molecules and atoms infinitely minute, which may be called perhaps substance or essential matter; but all this Aristotelian theory of an imaginary substance and accidents in material objects, is a mere groundless fancy. We see different qualities which awaken sensations in us; colour, form, hardness, etc., and the mind recognises there is something there. Of this conviction, which in relation to us creatures I do not dispute, Aristotle and the schoolmen, who were as a rule wholly under his influence, made a distinct but imaginary substratum in which the various qualities were inherent. There was the substance of bread, etc. But this was a mere philosophical notion, a mere theory of the heathen Aristotelian school, adopted by the schoolmen, and has no other foundation whatever. But the whole doctrine of transubstantiation, and even the word, depends on it, cannot exist without it, is the mere expression of it, only bringing in a miracle on the ground of it, as to the Lord's supper.

14 D. But do you mean to say that the Holy Catholic church, in its most solemn and essential rite, founds its doctrine on a piece of heathen metaphysics? It is a dreadful and irreverent thought.

N*. Most irreverent is the fact that they have done so, in itself, and it shews the wretched state into which the professing church had fallen. But I affirm it distinctly, and, what is more important, the Roman church affirms it. In the catechism of the Council of Trent, De Eucharistiae Sacramento, I read Section 26:* "There are these three things most deserving of admiration and veneration, which the Catholic faith unhesitatingly believes, and confesses to be accomplished in this sacrament by the words of consecration; the first, that the real body of Christ, the same that was born of the Virgin, and sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, is contained in this sacrament; the second, that, however remote from and alien to the senses it may seem, no substance of the elements remains in the sacrament; the third, an easy consequence of the two preceding, although the words of consecration express it principally, that the accidents, which present themselves to the eyes or other senses exist in a wonderful and ineffable manner without a subject (sine ulla re subjecta esse). All the accidents of bread and wine we indeed may see: they inhere however in no substance, but exist by themselves; whereas the substance of the bread and wine is so changed into the body and blood of our Lord, that the substance of bread altogether ceases to exist." Now the Catechism is not content here with stating the real presence according to the Aristotelian and scholastic system, but formally, in the third wonder, bases the whole doctrine and alleged essence of the sacrament on that system. Part of the miracle is that the accidents, that is, all that man's mind can know, are all there without any substance or substratum to inhere in. They could not hold the colour, form, and other apparent qualities to be those of Christ, yet there they are. So they make a miracle of these sensible qualities being there without any existing substratum. They are sensible qualities of nothing, for Christ and no bread is there!** They have a thousand other subtleties to make it out. It is Christ's body, now at the Father's right hand, the body born of the Virgin Mary, but not as extended in space, nor divided when the bread is broken, but all a whole Christ as they say in each part. Now I agree that all this is most painfully irreverent; but it is the irreverence of Roman doctrine. And the whole of it founded, and avowedly founded, on the mediaeval adoption of Aristotelian doctrine of substance and accidents, on logical predicables, not on divine truth at all.

{*I give Donovan's translation printed at the Propaganda press, Rome, superiorum permissu, with the imprimatur of the Master of the sacred palace, and of the vicegerent of Rome.}

{**At the same time they admit an esse (something existing) in the accidents, so that, if one ate enough of the hostia, the body would be nourished by it [Thomas Aquinas, 3, 77, 6] and Cat. Conc. Trent 2. 40, already quoted.}

15 D. But it is not founded on this. It is founded on "This is my body," and "He that eateth my flesh," and other scriptures.

N*. We will look at these scriptures; but, taking them even as you now do, they only state the fact that it is Christ's body: but transubstantiation is what we speak of, and that is based and avowedly based on the false metaphysical notion of the middle ages. And they felt in a measure where this had brought them, for, in further expounding this third miracle, they tell the pastor in the Catechism to caution the people not to inquire into it too anxiously. But they repeat the wonder of the metaphysical miracle; it defies (see c. 43) our powers of conception, nor have we any example of it in natural changes, nor in the work itself of creation. The change itself is the object of our humble faith, the manner of that change is not to be the object of too curious inquiry. So he is to use the same caution in explaining the mysterious manner in which the body of the Lord is contained, whole and entire, under the least particles of the bread. I quote a part of Canon 44 to shew how completely it is this metaphysical theory which is in question. The pastor is to teach that Christ our Lord is not in this sacrament as in a place; for place regards things themselves inasmuch as they have magnitude; and we do not say that Christ is in the sacrament inasmuch as He is great or small — terms which belong to quantity; but inasmuch as He is a substance, for the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ, not into His magnitude or quantity. Is not all this wretched and depraving irreverence and substitution of false metaphysics for divine teaching enough to drive away any spiritual mind from such doctrine? What is become of Christ for the soul? Irreverence, yes, it is; but where is it found? In what the pastor is told by Rome to teach his parishioners. But this was not all the abominable effect of this: it was laboriously discussed by the Roman Catholic doctors, if a mouse ate it, what became of Christ! or according to Matthew 15, or if it was burnt, or any other accident happened; and on this plea the wine was taken from adults.

16 D. But do you not think it very sad that thoughts so unworthy of this deep mystery should be put forth, as the Reformers did, in order more advantageously to pull down a holy doctrine held and taught by the holiest Fathers of the church? It tends to lower and degrade Christ, and it is painful to hear.

N*. Most painful, I admit; but you are altogether wrong in your statement. We will speak of the Fathers by-and-by. It does tend to degrade Christ. All spiritual apprehension is lost in this doctrine, and the Roman doctors, not liking to retain that in their knowledge, as the heathen of old the truth of the Godhead, have been allowed of God to fall into these degrading thoughts, and worship with divine worship that which a mouse can eat: and though the divinity is there with the soul, body and blood, it is all inert, and cannot hinder the mouse's eating it, nor move nor give a sign of life, and what ought to have been a symbol of Christ's dying love, and dealt with, in so using it, as being such. But they have carnalised and degraded everything in their sacramental system. But I was not thinking or speaking of the Reformers. I cannot say how they used it against the Roman Catholics, save as Bellarmine charges them and Berengarius with doing so. I speak of the most celebrated doctors and popes of the Romish church who discussed these questions elaborately: Peter Lombard, whose influence was supreme in theological schools, Innocent III, Alexander of Hales, and Thomas Aquinas who rivalled Lombard in his influence.

Lombard, after insisting at length that the unworthiness of the priest did not invalidate the consecration of the sacrament, adds, "That indeed it may be soundly said that the body of Christ is not taken by brute animals, though it may seem so. What, therefore, does the mouse take, or what does it eat, God knows." Pope Innocent 3 is more precise (de sacro altaris mysterio, c. 4, 2), "If it is sought what is eaten by the mouse when the sacrament is devoured, or what is consumed when the sacrament is burned, it is answered that as the substance of bread is miraculously converted when the Lord's body begins to be under the sacrament, so in a certain miraculous manner it returns, when itself (that is, the body) ceases to be there. Not that substance of bread returns which passed into flesh, but that in its place something is miraculously created, although its accidents may be thus devoured as well as eaten." Alexander of Hales, it seems, taught otherwise. Bonaventura, a more spiritually-minded man, a mystic, holds that however this opinion may be sustained, it can yet never be so sustained that pious ears should not have a horror in hearing that the body of Christ should be in the belly of a mouse, or in a sewer. No wonder. Yet the famous Thomas Aquinas supported this view, because the other derogates from the truth of the sacrament; and his authority prevailed. Now these are the highest authorities of that age: Lombard was some 400 years before the Reformation; Innocent, 300; Thomas Aquinas 50 or 60 years after Innocent. His statement will be found in Part 3 of his Summa, quaest. 80, Art. 3. His doctrine is that, as long as the species or form of bread and wine remains, the body of Christ is there, whether it be sinner or animal that has taken it. As to the subtleties as to species and accidents and substance, as to which we may read folio pages, I leave them. They only shew, when faith and spiritual perception are gone, the degradation to which the holiest things are reduced. Thomas Aquinas, and so Bellarmine, excuses what the more pious mystic Bonaventura says, and justly, cannot but give horror to a Christian mind, such as a mouse eating Christ, by comparing it to Christ's voluntary humiliation in going to the cross. Can any one go lower? This was not the Reformation, Mr. D., but the full bloom of Roman orthodoxy and learning.

17 R. This is all very distressing; it militates against all piety and right feeling.

N*. I entirely sympathise with you. I have referred to it that we may know what transubstantiation means, and Mr. D. may see whether what I have said as to its being based on the scholastic or Aristotelian distinction of substance and accidents be well founded or not. Any one who will take the unedifying trouble of reading Thomas Aquinas' Summa, Part 3, quaest. 74 to 80, will soon see whether it be so or not. It may be seen in other writers, but here you have it in its fullest development, and we have seen it laid down in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. I do not enter into the endless arguments of these reasoners, such as Thomas Aquinas and Bellarmine, as to how the change takes place. What is not cannot be changed into what is, neither can, according to their metaphysics, one substance be changed into another. They arrive at its being simply divine power, it being impossible that such a change can take place according to the nature of things. Secondly, they have endless discussions how Christ's body is in heaven and the same body in thousands of places on earth. This is settled partly by divine power, and partly by this doctrine of substance and accidents, that Christ is there not materially and in extended magnitude, but His substance, and so in every particle a whole Christ if the species of bread and wine remains.

18 They also discuss largely whether Christ is broken when the bread is broken: the more probable opinion is He is not, as He is only substantially (not materially) present, or in bodily extension, or by a change of place. Yet they say His body, blood, soul, and divinity are all there, but in a different way. For if the wine be changed into His blood, how, they inquire, can it be under the species of bread? They say it happens in a different way, that sacramentally the bread is changed into His body, but as His whole Person is there, the blood and divinity are there, not by sacramental transubstantiation, but by necessary concomitancy, and so the body and all else under the species of wine. The common expression in Ireland is that the priest "makes God." All this is the effect of the loss of true spiritual communion and feeding upon Christ, and turning to bad metaphysics. I have heard a poor peasant there striking his hand upon his stomach, say, "I have God in my belly, sir," and why not, if it can be in that of a mouse? And in a public argument on the subject, the Roman champion (being confounded by his adversary telling him he did not believe in transubstantiation, or as they say that the priest could make God) insisted he did, and the other confounded him by saying, "Why God cannot do that!" All this, you will say, is irreverent folly. I quite agree, but it is where this wretched heathen philosophy has led the followers of the Roman system. Well, I think we have sufficiently pursued the inquiry as to what transubstantiation means.

19 R. I feel so too: I had no idea such things were involved in it, but took it as it was taught.

N*. I do not doubt it, dear sir, and therefore it is I have thus far gone into it; for there are pages of subtleties all depending upon scholastic ideas of substance and accidents which we may leave untouched. But these poor Irish were as simple and sincere as you could be, ignorant if you please, but drawing a perfectly just conclusion, though a gross one, from this wretched materialising what is spiritual. But we will turn to Scripture.

R. By all means. After all, it is the only thing which gives us a sure resting-place.

Bill M. But simple souls, sir, do not know of all these shocking profane thoughts as to Christ being eaten by a mouse, and the like. They have only a kind of terror about the body and blood of Christ, but it is mortal sin if they do not receive it at Easter, and then they are absolved in order to do it, and then they are all right until the next time.

N*. They do not, M., I quite admit and thankfully too. But the effect even on them is what you say. Instead of spiritual persons with holy reverence celebrating the memorial of Christ's death, humbled in the sense of the infinite love which brought Him there for us, while they wait for Him who so loved them; but with holy joy and thanksgiving (which is the very name of the ordinance, eucharistia) that He has so loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood, so that saved by Him they can wait for Him with joy, feeding on Him and living by Him meanwhile, they go on with dread if they have divine life, or, as generally is the case, get clear for a time as the Jews did with their repeated sacrifice, and then go on as carelessly as before with a conscience at ease but unpurged till the year comes round, and the same ceremony goes on again.

R. This is but too often the case, but some go with piety and love to the Lord.

N*. I do not deny it, but I have lived too much among the Roman Catholics, not to know what is habitually the case. And those who are pious go, as I have said, with dread. It is not the Eucharist, thanksgiving, for those whom the Lord has loved and saved by His precious death, and waiting for Him from heaven.

20 R. You speak as if a Christian were always confident and assured of his salvation.

N*. Certainly. If he fails in any way he has to humble himself and be heart-broken before God about his failure, and have his heart fully before God about it; but "we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father." We know our relationship as redeemed to God by Christ, by His Spirit dwelling in us. A disobedient child has to mourn over and confess his fault, but it does not raise the question if he is a child.

R. I cannot say I am there.

N*. The system you belong to cannot bring you there nor even allow it. It would destroy all its influence. But it is yours. For I have no right nor wish to doubt that you love the Lord: only you do not know the perfectness of His redemption.

R. But I do not doubt the Lord's having accomplished our redemption.

N*. I do not question it. But He says that those who believe are justified from all things. You say you believe, but do not know whether you are justified. How is that?

R. I am afraid of being presumptuous or thinking too well of myself.

N*. I do not assuredly ask you to think well of ourselves. It was just poor Job's case, and he had to learn to abhor himself; and so have we all. What gives peace is that God is satisfied with Christ's work who died for us, and His raising Him from the dead is the witness of that. And it is no presumption if He has borne your sins, and the terrible debt is paid: to believe it is and to own His love in doing it.

R. But what are we to do about the sins that we are guilty of since?

N*. Since when?

R. Since we were forgiven, since our baptism.

N*. In the outward sense, you had committed none before it, so that as to this it did not do much for you. But allow me to ask you how many of your sins did you commit since Christ bore them?

21 R. Why, all of them; I was not born, of course.

N*. All of them. That is the point. If Christ bore all my sins and I through grace believe in Him, the whole matter is settled as to their being put away. God works by His word and Spirit in us, so that we are brought to repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; we have a new life, are born of God; and there are various ministrations of grace by the way. But the matter is settled with God for my soul as to forgiveness and salvation. As the Lord said to the poor woman, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith hath saved thee"; and He did not deceive her, nor say it for her alone.

R. It is a serious question. Is it indeed so?

N*. Well, I can only leave and commend you to His grace who can make all clear to our souls. Shall we turn to John 6?

R. If you please.

N*. In the first place many Roman Catholic writers admit that it does not apply to the Eucharist. Bellarmine gives quite a list of them, only he says their motives were more right than the Protestants', and that as good Catholics they must hold it does, for the Roman Catechism and other church authorities hold it does. But he evidently feels he is on weak ground here. And it is perfectly certain, taking their own view of the Eucharist, that eating Christ's flesh and drinking His blood in John 6 does not apply to it. No Roman Catholic holds that every one that receives the Eucharist is finally saved: but this is positively affirmed of those who eat Christ as the act is spoken of in this chapter. It is not merely that they have life by it, nor that they live by it, but that He will raise them up on the last day. This is positively declared of every one who eats Christ's flesh and drinks Christ's blood as here spoken of.

R. Where is that?

N*. The Lord declares four times over in the chapter that He will raise up certain persons, to whom He has given eternal life, at the last day: verses 39, 40, 44; and lastly, verse 54, make it dependent on their eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and unfold this truth. They had no life in themselves without it, they dwelt in Him, and He in them, but he that ate of that bread was to live for ever. Christ was their life, and, as possessed of that life, they would never die. In a word, they who ate Christ as spoken of in that chapter would live for ever, and be raised up in blessing. No one pretends that all who partake of the Eucharist will live for ever. It is not of this rite then that the passage speaks, for those who eat as here spoken of will live for ever. Do you believe that everybody that partakes of the Eucharist is surely and eternally saved?

22 R. No, surely not.

D. Nor do I for a moment.

N*. Then it is perfectly certain that John 6 does not refer to the Eucharist, for the Lord says, "If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." Again: "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Now this leaves no loophole for controversy. He has everlasting life; this, a person may say, he may lose; but the Lord shuts out this evasion of the truth by adding, "I will raise him up at the last day." That is, He connects final blessing with the present possession of eternal life by those who eat His flesh and drink His blood. And all confirms it: "he that eateth me shall live by me." Now we all admit, that every one who receives the Eucharist is not necessarily finally saved, but the persons spoken of in John 6 are. It does not therefore apply to partaking of the Eucharist.

D. But this must be taken with the conditions attached to it in the gospel. He has this in eating the grace of eternal life; and if he perseveres, he will be raised up for glory.

N*. I find no "if he perseveres" in the passage. It attaches eternal life, and consequent raising up by Christ, to the eating, shewing that it is a real spiritual possession of Christ by faith through the Holy Ghost. And the whole chapter confirms this thought, that it is Christ personally, not Christ in the Eucharist. He is first spoken of as coming down from heaven, and then as sacrificed, giving His body and shedding His blood, and then as ascending up where He was before. Bellarmine, who has really very little to say on the point, insists on His saying, "I will give"; and that if it referred to spiritual feeding on Christ by faith, they could do it then or at any time, and He need not say, "I will give"; while in the institution He says, "This is my body." But this has no force whatever. First, in the Mass, we have seen it is "shall be shed," so that his argument falls to the ground. And when He says, "I will give," what does He refer to? Clearly to His death, His blood shed out, the sacrifice of Himself, as it is said, "He gave himself for our sins; loved us and gave himself for us." It is what He was going to do. He was the bread of life come down from heaven. That cannot be said of the Eucharist, nay, the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Euch. P. 2, 37, 44) denies it, even in the change which takes place, for then it would have to do with locality and space. It was the Son of God, come forth from the Father, the Word made flesh; and whoever believed on Him had everlasting life; He was that bread of life then: "I am that bread of life"; but He had yet to give Himself for the life of the world, and people to be saved must believe on Him as the crucified Saviour as well as the incarnate Saviour, but if they really did, He was a Saviour, and they were saved. And the grand testimony that He was such by His death was, that He ascended up whence He was before. Those taught of God came to Him; but He must die to save them. Nothing really can be simpler. Whoever ate of that bread, according to the sense of that chapter, would live for ever. Bread that came down from heaven (which is professedly denied of the Eucharist) and One giving Himself on the cross for the life of the world, and then ascending up where He was before, which is impossible to apply to the Eucharist: but it is the same Person of Christ spoken of all through. Nor could the Eucharist give itself and its life. When the thing is examined into, it is absurd nonsense to apply it to the Eucharist. This living Christ, body, soul, blood, divinity, has no sense or feeling, is as inert and helpless as the bread it appears to be, and the wine that can be drunk by the lips of men.

22 Bill M. We have never believed, Mr. R., that he who received the Mass would live for ever in eternal life.

R. No, that is not the doctrine of the church; his final state depends on what he does afterwards.

Bill M. But John 6 says, He who eats that bread will live for ever; so it cannot mean receiving at the Mass, but having Christ really in one's soul some other way. Whatever people get in the Mass, they do not get that.

R. They may get the grace of eternal life, and then lose it perhaps.

Bill M. But that is not "shall live for ever"; and eternal life and then being raised up as having eternal life.

R. No, it is not, nor do I deny that when you look through the chapter, it seems to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ personally; not to the sacrifice of the Mass.

23 N*. I really do not see how a person can doubt it. Especially when we see how the Lord speaks of coming down from heaven, giving His flesh and blood, and ascending up where He was before, which cannot apply to an ordinance, but plainly to Himself in Person. "The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." "I am that bread of life." He was it then personally, when no Eucharist could be in question. Then He says, "I will give," which He was going to do, and so introduces His flesh and blood separated in death, and then, as we have seen, His ascension. The Jews rejected both, would not own He came down from heaven, nor think they could eat His flesh and drink His blood, taking it in a carnal sense. You really give it this sense, though you cover it under the term sacramentally and species of bread and wine; for you say there is no bread there, but truly, really and substantially the body and blood of Christ with His soul and divinity. But we have nothing to do with Jewish unbelief, and the Lord treats the Jews there as hopeless reprobates, and indeed all through John's Gospel, for we take the words spiritually, as Christ in the chapter itself tells us to do (v. 63). "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." As for Dr. Milner, he takes it all for granted, saying, "After which [the miracle] He took occasion to speak of this mystery, saying," etc. The extreme weakness of both Bellarmine and Milner on this point is most striking.

But it proves more. It proves that, in speaking of eating Him and drinking His blood, such language refers to spiritually feeding on Christ, not on any actual reception of the Lord's body and blood. A person who eats, as here spoken of, lives by the life of Christ, has eternal life, abides in Him, and is raised up into glory. But it proves more; it proves that the terms used on this subject by the Lord and recorded in the New Testament are used, not literally, but figuratively. Christ declares His Father gave them the true bread from heaven. Do the teachers of transubstantiation mean to say that Christ was really bread? Surely not. Yet He says, "I am that bread of life." "He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." He was not physically nor substantially bread come down from heaven; that is, "is" was figuratively and spiritually used. Again, the bread which He gives is His flesh which He would give for the life of the world. As bread, as a figure, He was come down from heaven, incarnate in the world. The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. This bread means Him who came forth from the Father, and came into the world, the Word made flesh, the Son of God. He was the living bread come down from heaven. But incarnation was not sufficient alone to save us. He must die, or He would have abode alone, and the bread He gives is His flesh which He had taken, and this He gives for the life of the world. Here we have the cross, the propitiation made for sin. The Eucharist is for believers, His people. This giving His flesh is for the world; and he that eats not this, and drinks not His blood, has no life in him. But the Lord's supper none can truly eat but those who have life in them already, and even if only formally, it is as Christians they do it, not as the unsaved world, to which He came that men might live and be forgiven through Him; and as we have seen he who does eat has eternal life, and will have part in the resurrection of life — he will live for ever. In a word, no eternal life without the cross, without shedding of blood. Hence the blood too must be drunk. It must be shed and taken into the heart, as shed, to be of any use. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. It was not a Messiah to the Jews they were to believe in, true as that was, but One come down from heaven incarnate in the world, and giving Himself and shedding His blood for the world. So must He be received, so fed upon, and thus men would have eternal life. Hence, having spoken of incarnation and death, He adds, "What and if ye see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" You make giving His flesh for the life of the world, after His ascension, contrary to the order of the chapter. Thus, when Christ is said to be bread, it is a mere figure. The bread was Christ in the flesh which He was going to give for the life of the world.

24 D. But then He speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which He gives for the life of the world.

N*. Surely. He gives Himself literally on the cross, His blood being poured out, for it is to be drunk. He actually gave Himself for the life of the world upon the cross, and there His blood was shed, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. And if this drinking of blood were literal, the poor Roman Catholics could not be saved; they never get it at all. They are told that they get it in the body, but that is not poured out; they must drink it to have life. And it refers to Christ as He then was in incarnation and so dying (before His ascension which comes afterwards); and such as do so eat Him, feed in heart on Him as incarnate and dying for us, are eternally saved (v. 54), and men have no spiritual life at all if they do not. That Christ's blood should be shed now that He is in glory is perfectly impossible, contrary to all truth and Scripture. And the blood-shedding here spoken of is after His incarnation as head come down from heaven, and before His return thither; in a word it is His blood as shed on the cross as incarnate down here, shed indeed for redemption, but closing all association with man in the flesh, given for the life of the world, none other. And indeed, whereas we know that He shed His blood for man on the cross, there is not a trace of His taking His blood again, though in its spiritual efficacy it is presented to God, but as shed, apart from Him who presents it on high. That His body was raised, every Christian believes — a man is no Christian who does not; but not that He took back His blood and went up to heaven, having it in Himself as if He had not shed it and died. And indeed it cannot be; for we are to be conformed to His image, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren: and it is said of us, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But what is essential is that Christ's blood can in no sense be shed now. It must be drunk spiritually in memory that He did shed it, or not at all. Hence Christ puts eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and eating Him together, that is faith in His Person and death so as to live by them. Only the recognition of the shedding of His blood, and the drinking of it as so shed, is essential. We have no life else. Now it cannot be shed, and at the same time be in His body as the bread come down from heaven. If it be in His body, then there is no redemption at all. The words He spake were spirit and life: shed blood is salvation. If it be a glorified body, it is impossible. If it be looked at as His body down here, there is no redemption at all.

25 R. What you say I cannot resist the force of. But, as you have said, many esteemed Catholic authors do not apply John 6 to the sacrament of the altar. Still there are principles in what you say which go beyond John 6, and raise the whole question as to what that sacrament is, or what blood there can be for us to drink as spoken of in John 6, save as figuratively. That a glorified Christ cannot shed blood now is clear, and that He gave His flesh for the life of the world on the cross is certain. I confess I am perplexed, and it distresses me. We do, as Bill M. said, attach so much importance to the Mass and sacrament of the altar, and boast, as against Protestants, that we have a sacrifice and they have none.

27 N*. But, remark, Mr. R., if you believe that the blessed Lord gave His flesh and shed His blood on the cross for us, and in your heart feed on the bread which came down from heaven incarnate and sacrificed for us, you have exactly what Hebrews 9, 10, speak of, a sacrifice once offered of perpetual efficacy and never to be repeated, He being ascended on high and seated there now. You have eternal life, nay, shall live for ever. Whatever the privilege of partaking of the Eucharist, which I hold to be very great, it is by that one sacrifice once offered and blood once shed, as Scripture tells us, really received into the heart by faith, that we are sanctified and perfected in conscience, and have assurance, in John 6, of eternal life.

R. I see clearly what you mean, but it is, for us, if we are to receive it, an immense revolution in the mind.

N*. It is, Mr. R., but a blessed one. Only allow me to remark that the foundation of faith remains, only cleared of much that both obscures and mars it, the Person and work of the blessed Son of God; only so as to give peace to the conscience and joy to the heart, instead of dread and bondage.

But we may turn, I think, to the apostle Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 2: 23-29. One thing is clear, that he calls it bread after the giving of thanks as before, has no idea of its being anything else (vv. 26, 27). For him it was bread and the cup after the Lord had said, "This is my body," as before. The words He uses as to the cup are that the cup is the new covenant, as in Luke. There is not a trace that He counted it anything but what it was, evidently. It is done in remembrance of Christ, which could not be if He was then giving Himself. Was Christ the offerer, doing it in remembrance of Himself? We shew forth the Lord's death, but He cannot die as now glorified: the notion of a sacramental putting to death a glorified Jesus is as horrible as it is contrary to all truth. It is a remembrance of what was His death, and His death is over for ever. All He says supposes it to be constantly bread and wine all through. That is what a man eats or drinks unworthily, when he is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So that in saying this He has no idea it is not still bread.

28 R. Let us turn to the words of institution.

N*. We will. Let us, however, carry this with us, that the Lord, speaking in John 6, uses this figurative language. He was the bread come down from heaven. If we remember the occasion on which the rite was instituted, the phraseology is very easy to understand. God, when redeeming Israel out of Egypt, had had the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorposts and said, "When I see the blood, I will pass over . . ."; and they ate the lamb. Of this they were to keep up the memorial, and, if their children inquired, were to say "This is the Lord's passover," when He did not pass over at all; but they celebrated the memorial of it. Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us, where, note, the apostle has no idea but of the one sacrifice of Christ accomplished long ago; and we are to keep the feast with no renewed one, as indeed we have seen that there was to be no more sacrifice for sins; and our feeding on Him is not physically or materially, but spiritually in our souls, in thankful faith for what He has wrought, our conscience being, through the unchangeable efficacy of His blood, perfected for ever before God.

Now let us consider the supper itself. It was to be observed in remembrance of the true Paschal Lamb, Christ just about to be offered, not a memorial of redemption from Egypt as Jews, but from sin and the flesh and Satan by an "eternal redemption obtained" for us. This Christ clearly sets before them, speaking of His blood shed for many, His blood of the new covenant. It was the true passover sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and that, and not deliverance from Egypt, was to be perpetually remembered. Nothing can be clearer than this, and it gives its character to the whole scene. It was the Jewish passover, and another and better, for the whole world and eternity, was just going to be substituted for it in the sacrifice of the true Paschal Lamb, giving His flesh for the life of the world, shedding that blood which by faith cleanses from all sin, yea, by the shedding of which alone remission is obtained. He takes the elements furnished by the supper as symbols of this. And mark here, not one word, as Roman Catholics have admitted, is said in Scripture of changing anything in any way, no such thought is ever expressed in any way. He says, with the bread in His hands, This is my body.

29 D. But excuse me, sir, if it was His body, it must have been changed, for He had taken the bread into His hand.

N*. If it means literally His body. But as to this, your saying "it must," is the admission that there is nowhere any statement that there is a change. Can you refer to any actual statement that such a change takes place?

R. Well, I can call to mind no scripture, but I cannot pretend to know the Scriptures well.

Bill M. I never thought of that, and if there be none, it does make all the difference as to the doctrine. It is only man's way of explaining if it be really His body.

N*. They are not agreed how to explain it themselves. Many did not hold it to be a change, holding that a substance could not in the nature of things be changed and be not itself; they thought that the bread disappeared miraculously and the body came in its place without changing the appearance of the elements, but as the underlying substance. Into all this we need not enter. It is only important to shew that the whole was from human reasoning. But it is held by many schoolmen, and even by Cajetan, Luther's opponent, that it cannot be proved by Scripture. Bellarmine (3, 23) admits it may be so, "it is not altogether improbable," seeing most learned and acute men as Scotus have so held. Quoting Cameracensis, many others* whom I need not recall, might be cited. But let us turn to the words. Are we to believe that Christ held His body in His own hand and His blood poured out too? I know Augustine says He bore His body in a certain manner in His hand (quodammodo), but this "in a certain manner" just shews that it was not really and substantially in His hand, which would be grossly absurd. But what they call the real body of Christ He did hold in His hand and gave thanks and brake it. Did He hold His own body? Or did the living Christ hold the dead Christ with the blood shed out in His hand? Indeed, a bone of Him was not to be broken,** but did He break His own body in any sense? or was it bread?

{*The schoolmen Biel and Occam and the Bishop of Rochester are quoted by Cosins; so further Occam says, it is better and more scriptural to say the bread remains; and Scotus. It was no dogma of faith before Innocent 3.}

{**The word "broken" in 1 Corinthians 11: 24 is not genuine.}

30 James. Surely, Mr. R., you do not think He took His own body in His hand, and broke it.

R. I do not wish to say much; we will continue our examination of the passage.

N*. The apostle Paul has at any rate settled it. In speaking of the communion of the body of Christ (that is, as the passage makes evident, our spiritual identification with Christ as the Gentiles were identified with their idols in partaking of the idol sacrifices, and the Jewish priests with the altar of Jehovah by eating of the sacrifices offered there), he declares what we break to be bread. Where this communion, that is, takes place, it is still bread. And so little does he attach the thought of any substantial change to it, that he is content to say, "The cup which we drink." He saw the broad plain fact which all saw and acted in before him. It was bread He broke, and a cup they drank of. The spiritual sense was communion with the body and blood of Christ, association with it, and if so they could not be associated with demons too. But remark further, it is "Christ crucified" which is in question. He is viewed in the Eucharist not as sitting, true as that may be, thank God at the right hand of God; but as often as we eat that bread and drink that cup, we shew forth the Lord's death till He come. What we eat is bread, and what we drink is the cup, the plain, sensible, evident fact; but what we set forth and declare in it, is Christ's death — His body given for us, His blood shed for us; we do it in remembrance of Him. There is no such Christ to be changed into. There is now no dead Christ, no shed blood substantially to be found. And this is no mere playing with words, it is the essence of the rite, what we shew forth. It is His blood as shed that is set forth, and His death. It is Christ's dying that is the meaning of the rite, and that must be remembrance. He cannot die now. Hence, as so presented in John 6, it comes after His coming down from heaven, and before His ascending up where He was before, as of course His death necessarily did. For in John His death itself, not the memorial of it, is spoken of. But it cannot be in remembrance of a present living Christ in heaven. It is in remembrance of Him once humbled and dying, a state passed and gone for ever. Further He could give no such Christ at the last supper: His blood was not then poured out. The state spoken of, He was not in. He could not say, "This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many," as a present substantial real thing; there was none such. Giving it to be observed as a memorial of its shedding on the cross, that we can all understand; but He could not hold His own shed blood in His hand, for it was yet in His body. A figure of what would be is plain enough Hence, as we have seen, your Vulgate says, "which shall be poured out," acknowledging it was not so then. The truth is the word (ekchunomenon) does not say "had been" or "would be," but gives it that character; it was shed blood which was of any avail; that must be drunk, or there was no life, without that shedding there was no remission. When the Lord said, "Take eat," He had not yet consecrated it by the words said to do so by the Roman Catholic doctrine. As has long ago been urged, when He took and brake it, and said this, it was the bread He had taken in His hand. It was the bread which He took and brake they were to eat as such, as His body, but not a word of being changed into it, and do it in remembrance of Him who was gone, and to eat it in remembrance of that which, though the one foundation of every blessing, was a passing thing in His history; His death and blood-shedding could not be an abiding present thing. And this embarrasses their doctors. They say (Bellarm. 4, 22, 17) that the priest's drinking of the cup* is more for the sacrifice than the sacrament (a distinction unknown of old to Christendom), as the people get the blood in the body all the same, but that the shedding of blood is thus set forth. But then the priest takes it as shed, the people as in the body. And if the priest in eating the bread have taken it as in the body, it is before the shedding of the blood, and there is no sacrifice, no redemption, no remission: and according to Bellarmine, it is the priest's eating it which is his putting Him to death, a sad office to perform, so that he has taken Him to feed on Him before there was any sacrifice, and yet the consecration had taken place which turned it into His body. But such irreverent confusion is the necessary consequence where so holy and blessed a memorial of Christ's death is turned into a profane materialism; and yet after all, taken in sufficient quantity, it nourishes the body, yet there is no substance of bread at all: the accidents do it.

{*The officiating priest alone takes the cup in the Roman ritual.}

31 The note of the Rhemish translation of Matthew 26 also distinguishes the sacrifice and the sacrament, that the sacrament by concomitancy is the whole body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord, but that for the sacrifice it is the bread changed specifically into the body, and the wine into the blood — that being the condition of Christ in making the sacrifice,, so that His body is apart for the sacrifice and His blood apart, but all together in the sacrament. But Paul knows no such difference: the bread which we break is the communion of His body, and the cup which we bless, the communion of His blood, so that the distinction made in the alleged sacrificial part is yet by Paul declared to be the communion, and on the other hand, as often as we eat that bread and drink that cup, which is the alleged sacramental part, he says, we do shew forth the Lord's death till He come; but in His death it is admitted that the blood was separated from the body, shed for us, so that the attempt to make this difference to meet the evident testimony to death and the shedding of Christ's blood in the sacrament — for it was shed blood they were to drink — only brings in increased confusion. The use of "is" for "represents" is too common to dwell upon. That rock "was" Christ. The seven kine "are" seven years, the seven ears of corn "are" seven years. So we do constantly; I shew a picture and say, "That is my mother," and so on.

32 D. But we should look at it in faith, and take it, as really what the Lord called it.

N*. But what the Lord took and broke is called bread, and the cup the blood of the new covenant. Paul calls three times over what we eat bread, and I suppose he had faith. He says the bread they broke which is confessedly mere bread, was what was the communion of the body of Christ and the cup the communion of His blood. So that he formally puts the identification with the body and the blood of Christ in that which is confessedly mere bread. Nor, as I have said, is there anywhere a hint of any change. So that Bellarmine, as we have seen, admits that it is not improbable that it cannot be found in Scripture.

R. I feel that it stands on much less solid ground than I thought, and though I feel that it is an important principle to receive things in simplicity by faith, yet where it is our most solemn religious rite, and remission of sins depends upon it in this world and even in purgatory, one needs a sure foundation for that faith; and here our greatest doctors treat it as not improbable that it cannot be proved by Scripture, and in examining it by Scripture, and the reality of the sacrifice of the blessed Lord, it is difficult to see how they agree. We shew forth Christ's death and yet we are told the blood is in the body, and this is sought to be set straight by distinguishing the sacrifice from the sacrament. But I do not see that this separation has any solid-ground at all. But it is difficult to get rid of an impression or conviction which seemed to have been faith, and it is not only a matter of instruction and persuasion, but interwoven with every religious feeling we have. And then to think we have been worshipping what is only a little bread and water really. Still my comfort is that it was done supposing it was Christ, and Him my soul would worship still.

33 N*. Amen, dear Mr. R.! My spirit goes with everything you have said. I do not doubt a moment your having done it in the purpose of your heart to Christ, and, as your words suggest, that worship remains which turned — forgive me if I seem hard — not a bit of paste into Christ, but Christ into a bit of paste you could put into your mouth. God forbid we should ever lose heart-worship to Christ, alike due to Him, and the best treasure to us; only it is in spirit and in truth that worship is truly offered, not in outward things. And I can fully sympathise with you on the difficulty of getting rid of long cherished impressions. Only experience of human nature tells us that false ones of a superstitious nature are harder to get rid of than any. They are suited to human nature, and prop up human nature, whereas the truth is spiritually enjoyed and foreign to human nature. "Because I tell you the truth, therefore ye believe me not." The Jews were circumcised, the Gentiles not: that they could boast in and cherish, when all its value was gone. You have a sacrifice, you think, and we have not, and that does not humble you. To drink of the cup of Christ, where we had no part but our sins, and His infinite life-giving love was made good, always humbles. We have full liberty wit h the Father through it, not dread, but it bows down the soul in the sense of His goodness; and it is that, and Himself who did it, the Lord's supper brings to us, while we wait for Him till He comes. Blood taken as in the body is setting aside the whole force and meaning of the ordinance: and shed blood is not to be found, nor a Christ in death in existence then or now. There is no such Christ to be transubstantiated into, nor was there then. Your Mass not only pretends to be a sacrifice when there can be no more, but it sets aside the whole force and meaning of the Eucharistic rite, taken as received by the faithful.

34 R. But this is putting it in a very strong way, Mr. N.

N*. I do not doubt there may be personal piety in those receiving it, ignorant of what it involves; but I believe, as far as a rite can do it, the Roman Catholic rite involves the foundations of our relationship with God. It denies that one sacrifice once offered suffices for ever, and that there can be no more offering for sin, and hence, the true and perfect purging of the conscience once for all of those who receive that sacrifice by faith; and it gives a fancied presence of Christ in substance, when there is no such Christ at all, setting aside the spiritual feeding on Him as the bread come down from heaven, with the blessed remembrance of His dying and efficacious bloodshedding. You have the blood in the body, which is no shewing forth His death at all, but a denial of the very point and meaning of the rite so precious to true Christians.

R. I see it is very serious and makes Christianiy, as to its present reality, a different thing. But do you not think all things are possible with God?

N*. It is not a question of what is possible, or whether such things as we may imagine are not what God has instituted and revealed. The Mass and transubstantiation are contrary to what He has revealed and the historical facts of Scripture, and its fundamental doctrines too. According to Scripture there can be no more sacrifice for sin. According to you, Christ was holding His own shed blood in His hand when it was at that time unshed in His body.

Bill M. Why, Mr. R., it is as plain as possible: how could Christ give us His blood shed, when it was there in His body not shed? There could not be two, and if it was not shed, there is no redemption, and in heaven in glory He does not shed His blood. I never thought it was so plain, and then if John 6 refers to it, we never drink it at all, and have no life in us.

R. My dear Bill M., you do not take into account the effect of education and habit, and whatever piety you have being connected with it. You had not been brought up in this way; I was from a child.

Bill M. I hope I did not offend, sir; I only meant to say how clear it all seemed to me. I do not doubt, what you say makes a great difference. And I was brought in by thinking it was the church when I knew nothing about it, and was glad

to get forgiveness ready settled for me, for I knew I was a sinner.

35 R. Oh, I have not a thought of any offence. I am very glad you speak plainly what you feel about it. But it is to me an anxious serious thing, if I have been wrong all my life. I do not say I have, but I cannot answer what I have heard, and I see you are all happy and I am not.

D. But you seem to me to forget altogether the teaching and authority of the church of God.

N*. What church? Yours says that it cannot be proved by holy writ, but is repugnant to the plain word of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, etc. How you ritualists reconcile your maintenance of it to your conscience, honest people do not understand. I know they plead the "words in which it was commonly said," as not being against the formal doctrines of the Roman Catholics, but only against current notions; but that refers to the offering of Christ (Art. 31), and there is nothing of the kind in the one I have quoted. (Art. 28) So that the authority of the church, what you own to be such, will not help you here. As to the Roman Catholic body it was never decreed till 1215 in the fourth Lateran Council, and was rejected by the ablest doctors. So Scotus whom Bellarmine declares was a most acute and learned doctor, though he does not agree with him; but there were many others, as Rabanus Maurus, Bertram. As to the Greek church, indeed the whole church for centuries, it wholly rejected it, superstitious as it had become and disposed to magnify the Eucharist. And what all the early church held as alone consecrating the elements has to this day no place in the Roman service. Nothing can be more distinct than the testimony of the early Greek Fathers against transubstantiation, which we will look into just now. After John Damascene, the doctrine and at last the name gradually prevailed. It used to be called transelementalism.

But we have not quite done with Scripture: the Lord, speaking of the cup, says, "This is my blood of the new covenant shed for many," and again expressed in a different form, shewing that no importance was attached to the letter of the statement, as if it were a literal fact. "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." That is, He speaks of the import and value of the symbol. No one can say that the cup was a covenant. I might give deeds and say, "There is the house conveyed to you," and every one would understand it, and no one would think the parchment was a house. Yet if "This is my body" is literal, so is "This cup is the new covenant," and Paul, who received this directly by revelation from the Lord, gives it in this form: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood": has no thought of any literal blood. It suffices to him to speak of it as the new covenant in Christ's blood, and he calls it bread when thus given and broken, and not only when so broken but when eaten by the faithful (1 Cor. 2: 26); they "eat this bread," and drink the cup, and shew forth the Lord's death. Yet they are associated or spiritually identified with Christ's body and blood, as the Jews with Jehovah their God, and the Gentiles with their gods in eating the sacrifices. But what the faithful did was to eat bread and drink of a cup, but both, the symbol of the Lord's death who gave His flesh and shed His blood for the life of the world. And even when doing it in the profane and unworthy manner which made the Corinthians guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, it was still eating of that bread and drinking of that cup. If one should spit on my mother's picture, he is insulting my mother, guilty of doing so to me. And there is a much deeper sense of the value of the blessed Lord's death, and realisation of union and communion with Him when spiritually realised, than when we materially take it into our mouths and stomachs. The truth is, the whole thing is a delusion.

Familiar Conversations on Romanism

Eighth Conversation

Transubstantiation

J. N. Darby.

<31001E>{file section b.}

36 D. But what do you make of the uniform teaching of the Fathers, Mr. N.?

N*. There you are, I dare say, in your element, Mr. D. The traditions and doctrines of men have all weight with those of the school you belong to. But you know it is written, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," and I suspect, like many who rest upon them, you have not searched them. A man's writing a thousand years ago does not make his word to be more the truth in the least. They were not inspired. We are specially taught in view of the turning away from the truth which had already begun in the apostle's days, the mystery of iniquity being already at work, and warned that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, so that the last days of the church would be perilous times — we are warned, I say, to hold fast by the Scriptures, to know of whom we have learned anything; that that which was in the beginning should abide in us. Hearing the apostles themselves, is made a test of truth. In a word, we are carefully warned against trusting anything but what came out first and by inspiration from God, which no one pretends was the case with those you call the Fathers, who after all were only prelates and doctors of bygone ages whose doctrine was very loose and uncertain. The Fathers generally before the Council of Nice were unquestionably unsound as to the divinity of the Lord, and, after it, the church was whatever the Emperor made it. Athanasius was excommunicated, the Luciferians who held by him were condemned as a sect by Jerome. Hosius, who presided at Nice, gave way; two popes were Arians, or consecrated by the Arians, Felix and Liberius, and the universal church displayed a scene of dispute and contention which never ended in the East till sunk under the power of the Turks, and in the West till Bernard (the last of the Fathers) declared Antichrist was sitting at Rome. But none hardly of the early Fathers were sound in the faith. As to this particular doctrine as we have seen, one whom Bellarmine calls a most learned and acute doctor did not believe it. John Scotus declares it was never known to be of faith till the fourth Council of Lateran in 1215. And all Bellarmine has to say is that it was in a Roman Council, in the case of Berengarius; that is in 1060 and 1079.

37 D. But if these Fathers were not inspired, they were nearer the fountain head; they must have known better than we do. Besides there is the uniformity of the testimony.

N*. There is no such uniformity. Even Bellarmine says it is not surprising if, before the heresy sprang up, the earlier Fathers should use expressions which may be made a bad use of (De Euch. 2, 37, 6) "in malam partem trahi"; a plain confession that they do use what denies transubstantiation. He says this in speaking of Bernard, the last of the Fathers so-called, and so late as the eleventh century, adding that if some did, we must take their other plain statements, for it is certain (constat) they must have all agreed. And this is the consent of the Fathers! But I have no need to get what is nearer the fountain head, that is, the inspired testimony of God, when I have that testimony itself. We have God's own word, and that word written save a very small part for all the faithful, and we are warned to hold fast to it, to that which was from the beginning, and that is practically a warning against the Fathers. They are just those who were not from the beginning, who lived when, as the apostle warns us, after his decease, from within and from without perverse men and wolves would arise. When I sit down to read the Scriptures, I sit down to know what God says to me; I cannot do so with these Fathers. To say the least, they must be judged like other men, human authors.

38 D. And do you feel yourself competent to judge these holy men?

N*. I do not feel the need to read them at all, any more than other books; but if I do, I am bound to judge their teaching by the word of God. If I have my father's express orders, and some one comes to tell me what he thinks, I must know if this statement accords with what my father has expressly said. Nothing can pretend to compare with the word of God.

D. But you may misinterpret it.

N*. So I may the Fathers. But, mark, I have a promise in reading the one, and none for reading the others. Besides as to a great many I do not admit that they were holy men. Cyril of Alexandria was a thorough ruffian.

R. That is strong language, Mr. N.

N*. I appeal to history. He was both at Ephesus, and heading riots at Alexandria, nothing less: and a heretic, an Eutychian as it is called, to boot.* The famous Jerome was one of the most abusive, intemperate, violent men possible. Many were respectable enough, but I cannot venture my soul on such men as these, nor on any men; I can on the word of God. But we will speak of them. Now I admit that many of them speak in the strongest way of Christ's being there after consecration, our partaking of Him whom we do not see there, and the like — speak of tremendous mysteries, and that they early fell into gross superstition; but we shall find abundant passages to shew that transubstantiation was not the faith of the church, and that even the contrary was taught and urged by the Fathers in their arguments against the Eutychians and earlier heretics.

{*He spent the property of the church of Alexandria, which was immense, in bribing the court and Empress-sister against Nestorius.}

But let us look at them. We must not confound the real presence and transubstantiation as Milner carefully does. I regret to say he is not to be trusted. He quotes a regular succession of popes, carefully concealing that there were sometimes three, at other times two, with Europe divided between them; that one drove out another, and set up himself in his place, and when there were three, all three were deposed by the Council of Constance, and another set up by it. So here he quotes English divines, who hold the real presence as though they meant the same thing as Rome; he quotes Cosins' book, which is an elaborate treatise against transubstantiation. Milner gives as his view what is wholly false: he says, "Bishop Cosins is not less explicit in favour of the Catholic doctrine: he says, 'it is a momentous error to deny that Christ is to be adored in the Eucharist we confess.'" There is no such sentence in Cosins at all. And as to Hooker the words he quotes are there, but Hooker does not use this language to make consubstantiation or transubstantiation a matter of indifferent speech, but to prove both unnecessary to the enjoyment of the promise. As to Ignatius, the passage is not found in the longer copy of the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans at all, but it is found in the shorter. Theodoret quotes it, but there is little doubt that these epistles are spurious. At any rate Milner has falsified the passage, for it looks like nonsense as it stands. What is read is, "They withdraw from the Eucharist and prayer," which last word Milner has changed into "oblations." It can have no authority, and refers to the denial of Christ's incarnation, in respect of which the Eucharist was greatly used as an argument against the Gnostics who denied that Christ had really come in the flesh, a truth so distinctly recognised in the Eucharist.

39 The testimony of Justin Martyr is against the doctrine; he says, "Then we all stand up together and make prayers, and, as we have before said, when we have ceased prayer, bread is brought, and wine, and water, and the president offers up prayers and thanksgivings as well as he is able, and the people assent, saying, Amen. And the distribution and reception of that over which thanks have been given takes place to each, and it is sent to those not present by the deacons." And a little before, more distinctly, "Then bread and a cup of water and wine brought to him who presides over the brethren. He, having received them, offers up praise and glory to the Father of all things, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and makes long thanksgiving that we are accounted worthy of these things by Him, and having finished the prayers and the thanksgiving, all the people present exclaim, saying, Amen. And the president having given thanks, and all the people assent, those who are called deacons amongst us, distribute to each of those present to receive [it] of the bread and wine and water over which thanksgiving has been made, and carry it away to the absent. And this food is called amongst us the Eucharist [thanksgiving], of which it is not lawful for any one to partake, but one who believes what is taught us to be true, and has been washed for the forgiveness of sins and the laver of the new birth, and so living as Christ taught. For we do not receive this as common bread or common drink, but as by the word of God. Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh, had both flesh and blood for our salvation; so also the nourishment over which thanks have been given of the word which is from Him, of which our flesh and blood by conversion are nourished, we have been taught to be the flesh and blood of that Jesus made flesh." Now this statement upsets the Roman Catholic doctrine entirely. First, what the deacons carry is bread and wine and water to each; Justin has no idea of any transubstantiation. They are after the thanksgiving what they were before; bread, wine, and water is what was distributed and received. Next, it is of these elements they partake, God's creatures for which they thank Him. It is not a whole Christ to each, but of the elements offered each gets a portion, and, what is a key to multitudes of statements, what is confessedly bread and wine and water, they esteem the body and blood of Christ. But, further, they nourish our body and blood. The idea of being changed and substantially Christ is totally foreign to his mind.

40 Irenaeus is formal and positive in his denial of it; he speaks (lib. 4, 17: 33, 34) of offering God's creatures to Him, and explicitly as sent, created by Him, practically as Justin, for the sacrifice was always of His creatures to God before the giving of thanks. But that is not all. Recognising that we receive Christ in the partaking of the rite, he says, proving the resurrection of the body, "For as the bread which is from the earth, receiving the invocation, is now not common bread, but the Eucharist consisting of two things, earthly and heavenly: so also our bodies receiving the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection." Now I am not answering for all Irenaeus' doctrine, for he was not sound on very important truths, but his statement is a flat denial of transubstantiation. Remark here further that this epiklesis (Irenaeus as now read has ekklesis) is that to which he attributes its not being ordinary bread, and this is wholly left out by Rome!

41 But to proceed. Tertullian says in terms against the Marcionites (v. 40): "Having taken bread and distributed it to His disciples, He made that His body, saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. But it could not have been a figure unless the body had been a truth." Now this is as plain as can be, and shews what these ancients mean when they speak of making it His body or its being His body. He is proving against Marcion that Christ had really a body. If it was merely a phantasm and nothing really, there could not be a figure of what was nothing. Tertullian never could have had an idea of such a thing as transubstantiation in speaking thus. Origen (Hom. 7 on Lev.) says if according to the letter you should follow this very thing which is said, "Unless you shall have eaten my flesh and drunk my blood," the letter kills . . . but if you understand it spiritually, it does not kill, but there is in it a life-giving spirit. I cannot find what Dr. Milner quotes in this Hom. 7, but just preceding what I have quoted above, Origen referring to John 6, "If you are sons of the church, if imbued with evangelical mysteries, acknowledge what we say that it is of the Lord, lest perchance he that is ignorant let him be ignorant; acknowledge that they are figures which are written in the divine volumes, and therefore examine them as spiritual, not carnal, for if you receive them as carnal, they hurt and do not nourish you." This is his whole subject. Jesus therefore because He was altogether pure, all His flesh is food, and all His blood is drink; because all His work is holy, and all His speech true, therefore all His flesh is true food, and His blood true drink, for with the flesh and blood of His word, as with pure food and drink, He gives to drink, and renovates every race of men. Again in Comm. on Matthew, tom. 2, "But if everything (Matt. 15) that enters into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught, the very food also consecrated by the word of God and prayer, according to what itself consists of materially, goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught; but, according to the prayer which is added to it, it becomes useful according to the proportion of faith, and makes the mind become clear-sighted, looking on that which profits. Nor is it the matter of the bread, but the word spoken over it which helps him who eats not unworthily of the Lord, and thus far of the typical and symbolical body. But many things may be said concerning the Word which became flesh, and true food which he who eats lives altogether for ever, which no wicked person can eat; for if he could, he adds, it would never have been written that every one that eats of this bread shall live for ever." Whatever else Origen held, he did not hold transubstantiation. The dialogues against the Marcionites (attributed to him but not his it appears) are equally clear. Taking up the common argument of those days, we read: "But if as they say He was without flesh and blood, of what flesh and what body, or of what blood, giving both the bread and the cup as images, did He command His disciples to remember Him?"

42 We may next turn to Cyprian, the letter Dr. Milner refers to, "That the cup, which is offered in remembrance of Him, is offered mixed with wine." That is, what is offered is wine; he is reasoning against there being only water. "For when Christ says, I am the true vine, the blood of Christ is not water but wine, for His blood by which we are redeemed and sanctified cannot be seen to be in the cup when wine fails in the cup by which the blood of Christ is shewn forth, which is preached by the sacrament and testimony of all the scriptures." So in the same letter to Caecilius he calls after the consecration of the fruit (creatura) of the vine; "we find the cup mixed which the Lord offered, and that it was wine which He called His blood. Whence it appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if wine be wanting in the cup; but how shall we drink new wine of the fruit of the vine in the kingdom of the Father, if in the sacrifice of God the Father, we do not offer wine?" Now this, however little spiritual apprehension there may be as to the new wine of the kingdom, is clean against transubstantiation. "I wonder," he adds, "that in some places, wine is offered in the cup of the Lord, which alone cannot express the blood of Christ. So we see that in the water the people are to be understood, but in the wine the blood of Christ is to be shewn forth: if both are united, a spiritual and heavenly sacrament is celebrated." He held the sacrifice they offered to be the passion of the Lord, quoting 1 Corinthians 11: 26 (Ep. 63, Caecilio). So Athanasius (Ep. 4, ad Serapionem de S. So.) on John 6: 62, "For here also He speaks both of Himself, flesh and spirit, and distinguishes spirit from flesh, that, believing not only what appears but what is invisible of Him, they might learn that what He was saying was not carnal but spiritual. For, for how many men would the body suffice for food, that this should be the nourishment of the whole world? Therefore He reminds them of the ascension of the Son of man into heaven, that He might draw them away from corporeal thought, and for the rest might learn that the flesh of which He spoke was heavenly food from above and spiritual nourishment given from Himself; 'for what I have said to you,' says he, 'is spirit and life,' as much as to say what is manifested and given for salvation of the world is the flesh which I carry, but this and the blood from it of me shall be spiritually given to you as food. So that this (nourishment) may be spiritually reproduced (anadidothai) in each, and be a preservative for all for resurrection to eternal life." So earlier Clemens Alexandrinus (Paedagogus lib. I, 6 and lib. 2, 2). I cite the last as more short and simple. "He used wine, for He is a man also Himself, and He blessed indeed the wine, saying, Take, drink; for this is my blood, the blood of the vine." He did not think it was transubstantiated. He is arguing against the Encratites who would not use it.

43 Cyril of Jerusalem uses language as strong in appearance as may be, but not that the substance is changed, but that faith sees the body there, and he really uses language which shews he never thought of such a change. Thus in the very place where he uses the strongest language, he says (Cat. 22, Myst. 4), "Do not regard (proseche) the bread and the wine as merely such (psilois), for they are the body and blood of Christ according to the Lord's declaration." They were still bread and wine, but to be received as the body and blood of Christ by faith, and citing Psalm 23 (22), interpreting it as a mystical table, apprehended by the understanding (noeten). I quote this the rather because it shews how the passages which speak of Christ's flesh and blood do not contemplate any change of the substance; faith receives it; it is noeta, received by the mind. As bread suits the body, so the word the soul. So in 3, "For in the figure (tupo) of bread, His body is given to you, and in the figure of wine, His blood." They are the tupoi, figures, of the body and blood. So Gregory Nyssen: (oratio octava) in his praise of Gorgon calls them the antitypes (antitupa) of the precious body and blood. There is one passage of Gregory Nazianzen which I must read before I turn to the Latins, shewing how Christendom had sunk into Judaism, but shewing most clearly the vagueness of their thoughts. I am almost ashamed to go through the quantity of passages I collected on the subject, but I do not myself attach the smallest authority to the uncertain and superstitious thoughts of the Fathers; but for you, or at least to clear your mind from the notion that it was a settled doctrine of faith, corrupt and superstitious as Christendom had become, I go through them.

44 R. Do not, I beg you, let it weary you. I can understand that, at your point of view, it is wearisome; but for me it is still a question of what is or was the faith of the church. I have ever held it to be unchanging, and the consent of the Fathers has been held ever as the solid ground of it, as embodying the tradition of the church and authoritatively interpreting Scripture. I see strong statements in what you have quoted as to its being, when consecrated, the body of Christ, but generally as to what we receive, not exactly transubstantiation.

N*. Note then these points. They do not speak as yet of transubstantiation, though, as I have fully admitted, they use very strong language as to receiving the body; such as Protestants, many of them, the Anglican church for instance, still do. Further, supposing some declared it in terms and others stated the contrary, what is become of their authority or the consent of the Fathers? It is a mere private opinion, not the faith of the church.

R. That is true.

N*. The Council of Trent expressly takes, as you say, the ground of the consent of the Fathers, and that we have not certainty on this point. But I will quote then Gregory Nyssen: he is speaking on baptism, in the discourse, eis ten emeran ton photon, etc. "Wherefore despise not the lavatory, nor count it of little value, as if a common thing on account of the use of water, nor esteem it of light moment, for that which is wrought is great, and wonderful effects exist from it. For this holy altar also, at which we assist, is common stone according to its nature nothing different from other stone flags which build our walls,* and adorn our pavements, but since they have been consecrated to the service of God, and have received the blessing, it is a holy temple, a spotless altar, not now touched by all, but only by the priests, and these in offices of piety. The bread again is in the first place common, but when the mystery shall have sanctified it, it is called the body of Christ. Thus the mystic oil, thus the wine, being of small worth before the blessing, after the sanctification which is of the Spirit, each of them works excellently. The same power of the word makes a venerable and honoured priest, by the new [force] of the blessing, separated from the profaneness of the many. For yesterday and the day before one of the many and of the people, he is suddenly presented as a leader, a president, a teacher of piety, initiator into hidden mysteries, and these things he does, nothing changed within, in body or in form, but being according to what appears, the same as he was, but changed as to his soul for the better, by a certain invisible power and grace, and thus applying the mind to many things, what appears to the sight is contemptible, but great things are effected." Now the comparisons made here exclude the idea of transubstantiation. But the passage does more and shews that when the writers of this age speak of its becoming the body of Christ, it does not the least mean transubstantiation; and further that when they spoke of what appeared, they had no idea of a form and a totally distinct substance behind. There was nothing changed in body or in form. Chrysostom, if we are allowed to count his letter to Caesarius as genuine, is quite clear on the point. He says, reasoning against Apollinarius, "For as before the bread is sanctified we call it bread, but divine grace sanctifying it by means of the priest, it is freed from the appellation of bread, but it is held to be worthy of the appellation of the Lord's body, although the nature of bread remains in it, and we announce it not as two bodies, but as one." Now if this be not Chrysostom's it is quoted as such by John Damascene, Anastasius and the Fathers; it is an early writing of nearly the same age (the Jesuit Hardouin holds it is Chrysostom's), and plainly shews that the positive doctrine of the bread's remaining bread caused no scandal then. But Chrysostom himself at any rate, (and where pressing, as he is famous for doing, the importance of this ordinance) speaks of it as distinct from other food. "Do not look at it as bread, nor think of it as wine, for it does not as other food go into the draught. But as wax put to the fire does not lose any part nor leave anything superfluous, so also here reckon the mysteries to be consumed by the substance of the body" (De Poen. Hom 9, 2, 350). This is transubstantiating into us. How little his mind is occupied with literal transubstantiation is evident from the way he repeats word for word in the second discourse on the betrayal by Judas what he says in the first, save the last words. In the first (2, 3 and 4), after saying the words "This is my body" made it the body of Christ, etc., he compares it to "Be fruitful and multiply," which was efficient through succeeding generations; so these. And in the first discourse, he concludes by "Make it a perfect sacrifice"; in the second, "will ever increase with grace those worthily partaking of it." The wicked who partake increase their condemnation. But there is no thought of its being Christ Himself at any rate. The Homily on "Nolo vos ignorare" implies equally that it is spiritually Christ's blood, not literally. Now in Chrysostom we have the Eucharist spoken of rhetorically beyond all the Fathers, and receiving Christ's body and blood; but I find no trace of his not considering it as in fact bread and wine. "We are not to consider it such: they who receive worthily receive Christ." On its being His body, he is plain enough, and saints receiving it; but he does not seem to have thought of transubstantiation in the modern sense. He speaks of the bread and the cup, and indeed when coming to the table to be looking up like an eagle to the sun, to Christ, and there applying "where the carcase is the eagles will be"; but all is such rhetoric that as doctrine it proves little. This is Homily 24 on 1 Corinthians. Were we to take the imperfect work on Matthew as Chrysostom's, the denial of transubstantiation would be as clear and strong as possible. "In these sanctified vessels, in which the true body of Christ is not contained but the mystery of his body" (Chrys. Opera, ed. B., 6, 63, Appendix).**

{* Trichous a rare word, if found elsewhere at all. See Valpy's Steph. under thrigkos. It is not in Suicer's Thesaurus. The sense is plain enough.}

{**These words were left out, not in the earliest editions, but in one or two early ones, and then others said they are wanting in some copies. No doubt, they had left them out. There is no doubt of their genuineness. The Benedictines own they are prave dicta.}

46 D. But you can hardly say it is, or cite it for any doctrine.

N*. Certainly not. But I cite nothing of the Fathers for any doctrine: I should not think of doing so, but the Scriptures alone. I cite them for history; and although I do not think that this work can be considered Chrysostom's, though cited for centuries as such by popes,* and in Roman church services, and though only condemned by Pope Paul IV in the copies which were full of errors; yet (all the evidence carefully weighed) from its unsound doctrine, citation of the Vulgate, and other marks, it cannot be reasonably thought to be his, or even of the same age. But it was early, and historically shews that such a doctrine as the elements not being Christ's body did not hinder popes and the Romish church services using it; and, I repeat I quote the Fathers only as history. I have only one quotation from the true Chrysostom to make; where he treats (in Hom. 82 and 83 on Matthew 26: 26-28) on the institution of the Lord's supper, he explicitly calls (7, p.783, ed. Ben.) the sacrament symbols — tinos sumbola ra teloumena. Yet this is in a passage where he insists that Christ drank His own blood to make it more tolerable and easy for the disciples so to do, a point on which the ancients and ancient liturgies disagree. But we learn this, on a point treated before, that being a symbol of Christ's sacrifice according to Chrysostom, and very justly, there could not be a transubstantiation of a now glorified Christ, nor indeed of a then living one; but an actually sacrificed Christ exists only in memory.

{*Pope Nicolas I quotes it as his in the ninth century.}

47 But we may now turn to plainer statements than the rhetoric of the golden-mouthed, Theodoret in his Dialogues, Dialogue 1 (vol. 4, Paris, 1642). He had been saying that the Saviour changes the names (giving the name of the thing to the symbol, and of the symbol to the thing, calling Himself a vine), and attributes the name of blood to the symbol. Eranistes asks why? He answers: "The purport is obvious to those who are initiated into the divine mysteries. He desired that those who participate in the divine mysteries should give heed to the nature of those things which are seen; but, by the change of names, have faith in the change which is made by grace. For He who called His body natural wheat and bread, and again called Himself a vine, honoured the visible symbols with the appellation of body and blood, not changing the nature, but adding grace to nature." So what follows: "Of what thinkest thou that all-holy food to be the symbol and figure? The divinity of Christ the Lord, or of His body and blood?" This leaves no obscurity as to his thoughts; and "symbol" is the word we have seen Chrysostom use, who with Theodore of Mopsuestia were his theological masters.

But we have another, if possible, stronger passage in Dialogue 2, the more striking because it is expressly the point in discussion. His adversary Eranistes denied two natures in Christ. The Word, he said, was made flesh. There was only one nature remaining; and he insists that flesh after the ascension was absorbed into the divine substance. Not only so, but he brings in the Lord's supper to prove it. "As therefore," he says, "the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before the priest's invocation, but after the invocation are changed and become another thing, so the Lord's body after ascension is changed into the divine substance." Orth.: You are taken in the net you have woven, for neither after the consecration do the mystical symbols leave their own nature, for they remain in their previous substance (ousias), form, and kind, and are visible and tangible as they were before, but they are thought to be what they have become, and are believed and worshipped as being these things which are believed. Noeitai de apas egeneto kai pisteuetai kai proskunetai os ekeina onta apais pisteuetai. These statements of so wellknown and esteemed a father puzzled the Roman Catholic critics. Their discussions about it you may find in the fifth or posthumous volume by Garnier, a Jesuit, de fide Theodoreti (Paris, 1684, 478). The passages are in vol. 4 at the beginning. Thus was written about A.D. 446.

48 The truth is, one reading the Fathers cannot but see that, however rhetorical they may be about it, the thought of transubstantiation could not have been in their minds. I do not refer now to positive statements already quoted, but to collateral statements. Thus Cyprian writing against those who would have only water, says, If wine were not there, there was no figure of the blood; that the wine was the figure of the blood and the water of the Christian people. Who would think of transubstantiation here? So Augustine, It is said the rock was Christ; and insists that it is not said the rock signified Christ, but was Christ (Contra Adamantium 12, 5, and in sec. 3). So the Lord did not hesitate to say, in giving the sign of His body to His disciples, This is my body. And again (Er. in Psa. 3: 1), when the great and admirable patience of our Lord received [Judas] to the feast in which He commended and delivered to His disciples the figure of His body and blood. But were I to cite all Augustine says on the subject I should not soon close. It is a point he insists on continually, so that Cardinal Du Perron had to write a book (Refutatio, etc., Paris, 1624) to explain away what he says. On Conc. Ad. 12, 3 he says, you must introduce "according to you," that is, the Manicheans, which is really only a confession of the force of the passage. Tertullian, Cyril, Gaudentius, and others constantly declare a figure is not the truth, but the imitation of the truth.

49 I turn to Gelasius. Baronius and Bellarmine have tried to deny that he was Pope Gelasius, as it was awkward to have a pope denying transubstantiation, and there were two other Gelasiuses. But there is no real ground to question it, nor does it change the fact that a Father of the church, so-called, taught it, if he were not pope. They have ascribed it to Gelasius Cyzicenus, but those versed in such studies have no doubt that the treatise "De Duabus Naturis in Christo" is the work of the pope. Gelasius was pope in 492. Gelasius Cyzicenus was archbishop in 476. There was another of the name a century before, but he is not in question. We must ascribe it to the pope. He says, writing against the Eutychians and using the argument common to the Fathers, "Certain sacraments which we take of the body and blood of Christ are a divine thing, on account of which and by the same we are made participators [consortes] of the divine nature; and yet it does not cease to be the substance or nature of bread and wine. And certainly the image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the mysteries. It is therefore shewn to us evidently enough that that is to be felt by us in the Lord Christ Himself which we profess, celebrate, and are,* that as they pass, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, into this that is divine substance, remaining however in the propriety (that which was proper to them) of their own nature, so that principal mystery itself whose efficacy and virtue they truly represent" (Gel. de D. N. Ch.). Such indeed was the constant argument of the day against the Eutychians. If one only read the Dialogues of Theodoret, which I have quoted, it will be found to run through them, as we have seen in the much earlier Irenaeus arguing against other heretics.

{*Quaere if sumus be not a mistake for sumimus? Then it would be we take, as at the beginning of the quotation.}

R. This reasoning of Irenaeus and Theodoret and Gelasius seems to me, I confess, to be of great force. There is no mistaking its import; because the comparison of the two natures in Christ and the denial of them by the heretics, and in Theodoret where his Eutychian opponent sought to make good his argument of Christ being made flesh or transubstantiated, and being met by Theodoret by the contradiction of its being so in the Eucharist, as an acknowledged truth too, leaves no question what their faith was, and it is confirmed by the other statements you have quoted. I do not understand how they can say the Fathers taught it.

50 N*. I am glad you see the force of the statements of these Fathers. Indeed the argument against Eutychianism in Theodoret and Gelasius, and of Irenaeus against the Gnostics or Docetae, leaves no doubt as to the common faith of the church; while they held, some in a very strong way, the participation in a spiritual sense in Christ's body, making it as Irenaeus did effectual for the resurrection; so that Chrysostom also has to guard against its being a physical effect, or the wicked would arise with Christ's glorious body (a strange conclusion); yet that transubstantiation evidently, in the proper sense of the word, was unknown.

Bill M. Sure enough, if it was His body, and was transubstantiated into ours who partake of it outwardly, the wicked would be transubstantiated into His pure and glorious body. I do not believe that.

D. But you see that the holy archbishop and doctor guards against it.

Bill M. How can he guard against it? He sees what I never thought of: what a terrible consequence flows from it! But either it is only received spiritually by true faith, or if it be its own efficacy, it must change one as well as the other, and I cannot help saying, though it is a shocking thought, the mouse's too. They may bring judgment on a wicked man perhaps by it, but at any rate the poor mouse is innocent. I do not know what its worth really is, but none of these notions can be true.

D. I wonder so ignorant a person as you can speak so confidently about so holy a mystery, tremendous or fearful, as those holy men justly called it.

Bill M. I am an ignorant man, sir, and all this I never knew, or I might have been spared going wrong. But can you, sir, deny what we have been hearing, or can you explain how the wicked, if they really partake of it (and if it is it, they must partake of it, as I thought I did), do not get their bodies raised in glory, or what comes of it when an animal eats it?

D. I do not pretend to explain anything, but receive it by faith as the church holds and gives it; and you had confessed and received absolution before you took it.

Bill M. That is true, but I was not a bit really changed. I tried to behave myself just at the time, and ate nothing till I partook of it, but I never thought of sin or salvation as I do now. It was only just being safe through these things being done for me, and I had my conscience easy for a moment, but I was not a really changed man at all, and if I did not receive at Easter, I was in mortal sin; so they told me. For my part, though I was not exactly a bad liver, I believe I was in mortal sin all the time.

51 D. I dare say you were, and, not having faith in the holy mystery, got no good of it.

Bill M. Excuse me, sir, I did believe it; I accepted all the priest told me, and joined the Catholics because I did, and did all they bid me. I was in earnest, but I was as to sinfulness just what I was before. I do not pretend to understand much, but that I know for certain; I have nothing to pretend to now, but I know I see the difference.

R. But, Mr. D., we are inquiring whether the views Bill M. and I myself have held are true. You who have very lately adopted them after having long utterly rejected them as blasphemies and dangerous deceits, have appealed to the Fathers, and when we examine them, though some, and especially Chrysostom, use very strong language as to the sacrifice of the Eucharist, yet, as it would seem, one after another teaches what clearly denies transubstantiation. You appealed to them: we have examined them, and do not find your assertion as to what they held, made good. Our friend, Bill M., on the other hand, declares that he was not a changed man in point of fact when he partook of the Eucharist in the Mass. Now Catholics hold that man is born again in baptism, but few or none maintain baptismal grace, and therefore penance is needed, and, perhaps, renewal of heart is called for. Now we know, alas! that multitudes who partake at Easter are not changed men in the least in their lives, nor those even who frequent the celebration of mass and receive oftener. This is notorious. It may be their own fault, but the fact is so; so that you cannot complain of Bill M., when he says it was his own case. It will not do; if we are to believe that what we all confess to be a little flour and water by consecration becomes God, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord Jesus, we can do so, scorning the convictions of one who has had his eyes, he alleges, opened as to real godliness, and this partaking of Christ producing no effect of the kind. It may be painful to have one's faith shaken, but we must find somewhere divine authority for divine faith.

52 D. But there is the church, sir.

R. The church teaches that she believes quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, and we are told to interpret Scripture by consent of the Fathers. Now this we cannot say we have as to transubstantiation. For if some did believe in it (which is not yet apparent), certainly a great many did not, and early ones; so that both rules fail. You talk of the Fathers and the church, but they do not, in primitive times at least, make good your assertion. But I confess I should like to continue our search into these ancient authorities.

N*. We will return to our quotations. I have only given such as I have found in those of these ancient authors which I myself have access to; but these are really sufficient. I will add one quoted from a collection, not having Procopius of Gaza. "For He gave the image of His own body to His disciples no longer admitting [or accepting] the bloody sacrifices of the law," and then it speaks of the purity of the bread by which we are nourished, as the whiteness mentioned in the prophecy as to Judah, a common reference in the Fathers.*

{*The original Greek is found in the margin in Albertinus from a MS.}

I go on to Eusebius in his Demonstratio Evangelica from whom Procopius draws it (lib. 1, 10, Paris, 1628, P. 37). After speaking of Christ's sacrifice supplanting all the Jewish figures of it, he says: "We who believe in him are free from the curse of Moses and justly since they daily celebrate the remembrance lupomnesin] of his body, and of his blood"; and (38) "Christ having offered for us all an offering [thuma] and sacrifice as slain [sphagion] and given to us a memorial, for (or instead of) a sacrifice [anti thusias] to offer continually to God." The sphagion, the actual sacrifice, Christ had offered to His Father (anenegke, a sacrificial term for offering up on the altar); but He delivered there to us also a memorial to be continually presented to God (prospherein the bringing up as such), in place of, to serve instead of, a sacrifice. And again (p. 39), saying how according to Psalm 45 Christ had offered Himself a sacrifice to God in place of the old Jewish sacrifices: "As therefore we have received to celebrate the memorial of this sacrifice on a table by symbols both of His body and His blood, according to the rites of the new covenant,"and then he goes on to cite Psalm 23, as a table spread in the presence of their enemies, etc. Now he speaks of unbloody and intelligent offerings, but they are for men only symbols and memorials. So in book 8 at the very end of the very first part (apo tes geneseos) after the preface (p. 380) he says, commenting partly on the blessing of Judah, which the Fathers are very fond of, and partly on the prophecy of Zechariah: "For by the wine which is the symbol of His blood, those who are baptised to His death and believe in His blood, are purged from their old evils." And after speaking of it as mystic food, and quoting the Lord's words, he adds: "for again He delivered to His own disciples the symbols of the divine dispensation to make it the image of His own body [ten eikona tou idiou somatos]." They were no longer to use bloody sacrifices, nor slain offerings [sphagia] of divers animals as under Moses; but He "taught them to use bread [as] a symbol of His own body" (Eusebius, Dem. Ev.). I have gone a little backwards in date, for Eusebius was in Constantine's time, early in the fourth century; but this does not weaken his testimony, which is plain enough.

53 I turn now to Ambrose, a pious man doubtless, but as superstitious as the most bigoted heart could wish. Our friend Dr. Milner says he passes by Tertullian, Cyprian, etc., but cannot Ambrose, and quotes, as they all do, a treatise De Mysteriis, and another De Sacramentis. But all these things have to be looked into. It is one of the painful things in these inquiries that you cannot trust such writers as Dr. Milner. In the first place, the first treatise is doubtful, and the second is very generally rejected. They both, however, take exactly the same ground as to doctrine. Bellarmine holds them to be genuine, being quoted by subsequent doctors: I will therefore take notice of them. One thing is quite certain, that according to the Romish doctrine both are heretical. There is a good deal of nonsense in them and extraordinary applications of Scripture; but this we must expect from the Fathers. The author, whoever he is, says that the angels also doubted, when Christ rose. The powers of the heavens doubted seeing that flesh ascended into heaven. At last they said: "Who is this King of glory?" and when some said, "Lift up your heads," etc., others doubted, saying "Who is this King of glory?" "In Isaiah also thou hast the virtues of the heavens doubting, saying, "Who is this that cometh from Edom?"

54 Bill M. But do you think the angels and heavenly powers doubt that way, sir?

N*. In truth, I do not. I give it only as a specimen of patristic interpretation. We read the angels came and ministered to Christ, and they told the women He was risen; but nothing is too absurd for the Fathers. However we will say no more of them. But in the first treatise, he states that the washing of baptism clears from actual sins, and refers to the Lord's word to Peter, "Ye are clean," in John 13; but that then He washed their feet, and that was what cleansed from original sin, because, as the devil had tripped him up, he wanted the soles of his feet cleansed (Cap. 5, or §32, p. 335, 2, Benedictine edition). The same is repeated in De Sacramentis. (Lib. 3, cap. 1, 9, p. 364.) Now the Romish doctrine holds distinctly that original sin is done away by baptism. In this second treatise it is noticed this was not done in Rome. The editors state that it was in various places in France.

R. But it is alleged these treatises are not genuine, so that Ambrose may not be chargeable with all this.

N*. It is possible: yet the catechism of the Council of Trent founds its doctrine on them (De Ecc. 2: 32). Bellarmine and Milner quote it as particularly to their purpose, being (like Cyril's) the teaching of catechumens and thus of those admitted already. As the Lord's supper was kept a secret from others, they liked, like the heathen, to have initiation and mysteries, and used the terms. But let us see how they speak of them. In the "De Mysteriis," he does speak of changing the nature as is alleged, but it is not in a material sense; for in the next paragraph (9, 53, p. 340), though begotten miraculously, he says, The flesh of Christ is true [flesh] which is crucified, which is buried, truly therefore it is the sacrament of His flesh. But a sacrament of a thing is never the thing itself, as is urged by Augustine, Tertullian, etc. In the De Sacramentis, lib. 4, cap. 4, §15, p. 369, "If therefore such great force is in the word of the Lord Jesus, that things began to be which were not, how much more does it operate that they should be what they were, and be changed into another thing?" And the comparison which follows shews that, while they thought people received Christ, they had no thought of a corporal or physical change in insisting on its being the body of Christ after consecration. He says, referring to baptism, "There thou wast thyself, but thou wast an old creature: afterwards when thou wast consecrated, thou begannest to be a new creature: dost thou wish to know how a new creature? Every one that is in Christ is a new creature."

55 We afterwards find a direct denial (lib. 4, cap. 7, §27, 28, p. 372) of the doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But this belongs to the whole doctrine of the offering of the Mass, and I will not enter farther into it. It is a fundamental question as to what Christian redemption is.

R. But it is this which troubles me in the doctrine, I am free to confess. It seems to militate against the efficacy of Christ's offering offered once for all, and the statement that there is no more offering for sins.

N*. Surely it does. I will quote for you then what I have alluded to. The words run thus. After reciting the prayer of the service of the Mass which blasphemously prays that the offering may be received like that of Abel and Melchizedec and carried by the angels to the altar on high, he says to the catechumens: "Therefore, as often as thou receivest, what doth the apostle say to thee? As often as we receive, we announce the Lord's death. If we announce death, we announce remission of sins. If, as often as the blood is shed it is shed for the remission of sins, I ought always to receive it that my sins may be always forgiven. I who always sin ought always to have the medicine." Now if we read Hebrews 10 this is in open and flagrant opposition to it. No honest mind can read the two and not see it. The whole effect of Hebrews 10 is to shew there can be no repetition of the sacrifice, and that the forgiveness is complete and full.

R. I confess I cannot reconcile them. Hebrews 10 is very strong; I do not say I realise it, but certainly I cannot reconcile it with the doctrine of the Mass.

D. But these are the private opinions of the Fathers.

N*. No doubt, but it is, you say, by the consent of the Fathers, scripture is to be interpreted. Now, if even some Fathers teach transubstantiation, which in the modern and scholastic sense I deny, certainly many we have cited teach the contrary, and there is no consent. Strange to say, the canon Of the Mass itself calls it bread, after the consecration.

R. How is that?

N*. After the consecration, and adoration by the consecrating priest, both of the bread and of the wine, he says in the prayer, commencing, "Unde et memores," etc. — We offer to thy illustrious majesty of thy gifts (donis et datis) a pure victim, a holy victim, an immaculate victim, the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of eternal salvation.

56 D. But this may mean Christ as the bread of life.

N*. I suppose it may be taken so, but then the blasphemy of the following prayer comes out in all its grossness; in which it is asked that God may deign to look upon it with a propitious and serene countenance, and to accept them as He had deigned to accept the gifts of His righteous servant Abel, etc. There can be little doubt that the prayer is borrowed from the ancient offerings before consecration, but as it stands it is really blasphemy.

R. It is strange and perplexing, but, Mr. N., we are not accustomed to examine these things.

N*. I am aware you are not, but when they are examined, their real and unscriptural, and here really blasphemous, character comes out at once. But Ambrose has made us wander a little from our subject. We may turn to Augustine — along with Jerome the most influential of the Latin Fathers, as to doctrine more so. But of Jerome first, as he has not much on the subject.

Jerome, as superstitious as any monk could wish, knew of no such doctrine. Referring to the corn and wine and oil of which the Psalm speaks, he says, Of which the bread of the Lord is made, and the type of His blood is filled, and the blessing of sanctification is shewn, etc. (Com. in Jeremiam, 6, 31, 4, 1063, ed. Vall.). And again when he introduces Jovinian, denouncing his antimonastic teaching, to combat it he makes him say: In type of His blood, He offered not water, but wine. It is of course said that Jovinian was a heretic, not that there is the least proof he was; but Jerome has no thought of combating this, but only the use of the wine as justifying the rejection of such asceticism. It passes with him as a matter taken for granted, with both as a matter known by all. But there is more than this. In meeting Jovinian's statement so given by him, and speaking of the abstemiousness of Christ, he says it is written, He never was a slave to His throat or to His belly, that is, abstained from drink or gluttony, the mystery excepted (that is, the Lord's supper), where He made it the type of His passion (in typum passionis expressit) — gave it that character and turned it into that.

I may turn to Augustine in his Tractatus 26; he is full of its being spiritually eaten. Many ate the manna, he says, who pleased the Lord, and are not dead. Why? Because they understood visible food spiritually, they hungered spiritually, tasted spiritually, and were satisfied spiritually. For we also at this day receive visible food, but the sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the sacrament another. So again (Sac. 15): The sacrament of the unity of the body and blood of Christ is prepared in some places daily; in some at certain intervals on the Lord's table, and is taken from the Lord's table by some to life, by some to ruin; but the thing itself of which it is the sacrament is for every man to life, to doubt to ruin whoever has partaken of it. The many receive of the altar and die, die by receiving. And after speaking of Judas, he says: See therefore, brethren, that ye eat the heavenly bread spiritually; and if forgiven, approach in security, it is bread, not poison. After referring to the unity of the body the church, he says: This therefore is to eat that food, and to drink that drink, to abide in Christ, and have Christ abide in oneself, and through this he who does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, beyond doubt does not eat His flesh nor drink His blood, but rather eats to his own judgment the sacrament of so great a thing. In the Tractatus 45, he is comparing Israel and Christians. The Red Sea is baptism, etc., "the same faith with different signs," and again, "See then, faith remaining, the signs varied." There the rock is Christ: for us Christ is what is placed upon the altar, and is a great sacrament of the same Christ. They drank of the water that flowed from the rock: "If you attend to the visible form, it is different: if to the intelligible signification, it is the same; they drank the same spiritual drink." This comparison of that rock was Christ with the Lord's supper, because both were a sign of Christ, he very often repeats. We have seen in Tr. 45 on St. John; again in Tr. 26, 27.

57 I will quote enough to give his thoughts. He says in general (De Civ. D., 10, 5) Sacramentum, id est sacrum signum, I cite as a key to many passages. As all things that have a signification seem in a certain way to fill the role (sustinere personas) of those things which they signify, as is said by the apostle, the rock was Christ, since the rock of which that is said signified indeed Christ. So again, Quaest. in Lev. 3: 57, he refers to Pharaoh's dream, the seven ears are seven years, and "That rock was Christ", for he does not say the rock signifies Christ, but as if He was this, what substantially He was not, but by signification. Again on John, Tract. 63: As therefore Scripture is accustomed to speak, he, calling the things that signify as if they were the things signified, largely insists in the questions on Leviticus already quoted, as to the life being the blood. Referring to this principle, he says (Contra Ad. 12, 3) (besides what I have said above) that it does not belong to me to say what becomes of the soul of a beast; I may also interpret that precept as applying to it as a sign (in signo positum). For the Lord does not hesitate to say, "This is my body," when He gave the sign of His body.

58 In the treatise De Doctrina Christiana (referring to John 6) 3, 26 16) He interprets eating His flesh and drinking His blood as a figure, which is, according to the truth of the mystery, done in baptism. If a preceptive expression seems to command a crime or act of wickedness . . . it is a figure. "Unless ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life in you." It seems to command an act of wickedness or crime, it is therefore a figure telling us to have communion with the passion, and laying up sweetly in memory that His flesh was crucified and wounded for us. In the Enarratio on Psalm 98: 9, he says, speaking of eating His flesh, "It is the Spirit that quickens. Understand what I say spiritually. You are not going to eat this body which you see, nor drink that blood which those who will crucify me are about to pour out. I have commended to you something sacramental (sacramentum aliquid): spiritually understood, it will vivify you. Although it is necessary that that should be visibly celebrated, yet it ought to be invisibly understood." I may quote one passage more from Tr. on John, Tr. 26 (on John 6), "The manna signified this bread: the altar of God signified this bread. They were sacraments; in the signs they were diverse; in the thing signified, they are alike . . . all have eaten the same spiritual food. The same spiritual indeed, for the bodily is different, for they had the manna; we another thing, but as to the spiritual what we have."

Now you know, Mr. R., that to maintain transubstantiation you have, believing that Christ is in heaven as a man, to hold that Christ is not in extension as filling space in the Eucharist. This is distinctly held and asserted, but only as substance according to the unfounded and obsolete scholastic material philosophy. But though Chrysostom and Ambrose in East and West speak in the strongest terms rhetorically, the doctrine of the ancient Fathers was not transubstantiation, but the contrary. Such a thing was never thought of as its not being bread, only they would say it was not common bread, after the epiklesis or invocation to which they attributed the change, which made it a sacramental figure of Christ's body and blood, efficacious in blessing where faith was, as Augustine diligently insists. It is historically certain, that some of the greatest scholastic doctors, as Scotus, did not hold it; that even down to the Reformation it was said by the Romish doctors and prelates that it could not be proved by Scripture, so that Bellarmine says this is probable; and that it never was decreed as a dogma till 1215. Bellarmine asserts that a local Roman council had a short time before. The contrary doctrine was used as an argument to prove that Christ had taken flesh and had two natures. Of all the Fathers, Cyril is perhaps the strongest in the Catechetical discourses which he delivered, says Jerome, when a young man. Not only he speaks of the bread and wine as Christ's body and blood, but calls them, in his lecture on the sacramental service, a sacrifice of propitiation.

59 But, after all, I do not see any sign of the thought of transubstantiation, unless in the comparisons he makes, and these have no value, because in these the form was changed as Moses' rod into a serpent, and the water into the best wine, known to be such by tasting; whereas Cyril told them they are not to mind the taste: in the form (tupo) of the bread and wine they have the body and the blood which will sanctify body and soul, and being distributed into our members, we become, as Peter says, partakers of the divine nature. "But," he says, "do not regard (proseche) [them] as mere (psilois, the word constantly so used) bread and wine."

Now Cyril teaches it is a propitiatory sacrifice, and good for souls dead in their sins or without any, and refers to intercession of saints, but I do not think that he had the thought that there was no bread and wine there. He uses the word tupos (Cat. 13, 19, as do the other Fathers constantly, for the figure, as did the Latins typus. This is used by Theodoret as equivalent to symbol, and antitupos, the word used in the Hebrews for the tabernacle compared with heaven. Procopius uses it as identical with image or effigy, on Genesis 49: 12. So that far as Cyril went in the system of superstition, it is (I think) plain he did not believe in any real change of substance. The strongest term he uses is metabebletai, cap. 23, Myst. 5, 7; the Holy Spirit sanctifies and changes all it touches, but it is clear that this cannot be said of everything. W as Christ changed, transubstantiated, when the Holy Ghost came upon Him? or the hundred and twenty on the day of Pentecost? A change took place, but there was no transubstantiation, and this is so clearly the case that he uses the same language in Cat. 21, Myst. 3, as to the anointing: it is not mere (psilon) oil, but efficient for communicating the Spirit, comparing it in terms with the Eucharist. "For as the bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is not mere bread, but the body of Christ, so this holy ointment is no longer mere [ointment] but the charisma of Christ made effectual by the presence of His divinity, and is symbolically applied to thy forehead and other senses. And while the body is anointed with visible ointment, the soul is sanctified with the holy and vivifying Spirit." (Compare 23, 7, and the language of 22, Myst. 4, 6.) He calls it tupon of bread (Cat. 13). If you desire to see the uncertainty and absurdity of the Father's interpretation, read this Cat. 13, 21. The idea of transubstantiation was foreign to Cyril; but what his language shews is that, with these Fathers, those who use the strongest do not mean transubstantiation thereby as now held at Rome.

60 R. But Cyril's language is very strong.

N*. It is the strongest, I believe, used, and therefore I refer to it, and false doctrine I believe, if Scriptures be true, as to its being a propitiatory sacrifice. But this is the force of my argument, that the strongest language does not mean what is now taught; for he says, after the invocation, the bread is not mere bread, using the same words as to the ointment, where there can be no supposition of any sort of change, and which he makes merely efficacious in the anointed and expressly compares with the Lord's supper.

D. But why should we not take his statements simply, that it is the body? These great Fathers whom you treat so lightly use language which all those who reject the Catholic doctrine decline using.

N*. Why should a man have authority because he wrote fourteen centuries ago?

D. Because of the universal reverence of the church, and being nearer the fountain-head.

N*. In the first place they were four and five hundred years from the source, a lapse of time which disappears in the distance. They had fallen into the doctrines and commandments of men; and, remark, the early Fathers held unequivocally the contrary doctrine: replying to the Doceta and afterwards to the Eutychians that there being two things in the Eucharist proved that there was more than one in Christ.

61 R. That is true.

N*. And further if these later Fathers held it, which I do not admit, the consent of the Fathers is a fable, for it is certain that the earlier ones did not, but insisted that the bread was there. I would now shew that the doctrine was not made a matter of faith in the church till quite late in its history. I might quote a multitude of passages from the Fathers to the same purpose as those I have already brought forward, which are to be found in treatises on the subject, but what I have given is sufficient. I add some lower down in age. Thus Ephrem, archbishop of Antioch in the sixth century, quoted by Photius, Bibl. 229, to prove there was no confusion of natures in Christ, compares the case of the Eucharist (as Irenaeus had done with the Docetae, which was indeed usual in writing against the Eutychians), and says, "Thus the body of Christ, which is received by the faithful, does not put off substance known by the senses, and remains unseparated from the grace known by the thought; and baptism, while it becomes wholly spiritual and one thing, preserves what is proper to it as perceived by the senses, I mean water, and does not lose what it has become. So Facundus about the same time, "The sacrament of adoption [baptism] may be called adoption, as the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ consecrated in the bread and wine is said to be His body and His blood, not that His body be bread or His blood wine, but because the bread and wine are the sacrament of His body and blood? and therefore so called by Christ when He gave them to His disciples."* Bede, in the eighth century, is express. (Compare Luke 22 and Psalm 3.) In the last he says, "Neither did He exclude him [Judas] from the most sacred supper in which He delivered to His disciples the figure of His most holy body and blood." So in the Ambrosian office, so-called, it is said, "which is the figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." With this we must remember that the elements are constantly called types and antitypes. I now turn to Bernard.

{*This I quote from a collection of passages.}

62 In his sermon on the supper of the Lord which is much more one on indwelling sin, he says, however, "A sacrament is called a sacred sign or sacred secret. Many things indeed are for themselves alone, others to designate other things, and they are called signs. That we may take an example from common things, a ring is given, absolutely a ring, and has no signification; it is given as the investiture of some inheritance and it is a sign so that he who receives it can say, The ring is nothing worth, but the inheritance which I seek. In this manner therefore, the Lord, drawing near His passion, took care in His grace to give investiture to His own, that invisible grace might be afforded [praestaretur] by a certain visible sign. To this purpose all the sacraments were instituted." Then he goes through these; the partaking of the Eucharist, washing the feet, and baptism. He had said these would be enough for them. He was the last of the Fathers so-called, and was after Berengarius as to whom the question had been very rudely agitated. Aucalaurius, deacon of Metz, in the ninth century, says (De Euch. Off. 1, 29), "For sacraments are somewhat to resemble these things whereof they are sacraments . . . the sacrament of the body of Christ is in some manner the body of Christ. For sacraments should not be sacraments if in some things they had not the likeness of that whereof they are sacraments. Now by reason of this mutual likeness they oftentimes are called by what they represent," 3, 24. Yet he also uses language which is tantamount to transubstantiation, so uncertain were these men.

D. But these are very late, and can hardly be called Fathers.

N*. Exactly so, I cite them not as any authority, but to shew how late a doctrine which subverts transubstantiation passed current in Christendom as orthodox and right. Bernard is generally counted the last of the Fathers: I have already quoted him shewing that till the twelfth century the most eminent men of their day held this with impunity. Bernard had more influence in his day than any man in Christendom.

D. But it was opposed and condemned in Berengarius.

N*. It was, but that did not hinder multitudes of eminent men from holding and defending it. It was in the ninth century especially discussed, and both doctrines were held and taught. There were partial condemnations of this denial of transubstantiation, Paschasius Radbert leading the way for the doctrine. Rabanus Maurus, the most famous man of his day in the middle of the ninth century, was wholly opposed to it, as was John Scot Erigena, Ratramnus, or Bertram who wrote a little later. So we have Alfric in a homily ordered to be read in the Anglo-Saxon churches; the last in the tenth century,* Berengarius in the eleventh, and he was called up about it! All these wrote against transubstantiation; as we have seen, Bernard did too in the twelfth. Paschasius Radbert first wrote insisting on it in the ninth, Lanfranc afterwards against Berengarius. In 1215 it was established as a dogma, in the time of Innocent III, who established the Inquisition and set on foot the crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses.

{*Alfric (he lived about 990) writes thus: "After true nature that water is corruptible water, and after ghostlye mysterye hath hallowing might, so also if we behold that holye housell after bodily understanding, then see we that it is a creature corruptible and mutable. If we acknowledge therein ghostlye might, then understand we that life is therein, and that it giveth immortalitie to them that eate it with faith. Much is betwixte the invisible myghte of the holy housell, and the visible shape of his proper nature. It is naturally corruptible bread and corruptible wine, and is by the myghte of God's word truly Christ's body and hys blood. Not so notwithstanding bodely but ghostlye. Much is between the body Christ suffered in, and the body that is hallowed to housell. The body that he suffered in was borne of the flesh of Mary with blood and with bone, with skinne and with synowes in human limmes, with a reasonable soul living. And his ghoslye body which we call the housell is gathered of many cornes, without bloude and bone, without lymme, without soule and there fore nothing is to be understood therein bodily, but all is ghostlye to be understood." I might add much more: one sentence may suffice. "Thys mysterye is a pledge and a figure, Christ's bodye is truth itself . . . . And He (the Saviour) bad them not eate that bodye which He was going about with, nor that blood to drink which He shed for us, but He meant with those words that holy housell which ghostly is His body and Hys bloude." (Treatise at the end of Wm. Law's Demonstration. Testimony of 33.)}

63 Let us look a little into these cases, for this is the true epoch of the establishment of the doctrine by Rome. I may first mention the second Council of Constantinople of three hundred and thirty-eight prelates (Hard. Conc. 4, 367; 2nd Conc. of this Action 6) in 754. The Council was against images, but they say, "you could not bring the divine infiniteness of Christ in glory into a painted finite image," and adds, "he chose no other form under heaven or type to give the image (eikonisai) of His incarnation than the Eucharist which "He gave to His initiated (mustais) for a type and effectual remembrance . . . . He ordained the substance of bread to be offered having no way the form of a man that idolatry might not be brought in." They call "the bread of the Eucharist" a true image (apseude eikona) of his natural flesh (phusikes sarkos). And a good deal more; but this suffices. His flippant respondent Epiphanius objects to calling it an image after it has been consecrated, saying it has never been so called; a statement so notoriously false that the Roman Catholic annotators have corrected it and cited instances in the margin.

64 The second of Nice (787) brought in images again under the influence of Irene; put down under Leo, they were set up again under Theodora his widow, and a festival established in commemoration. In England (792) and at Frankfort under Charlemagne (794), where some eight hundred prelates were assembled, the second Council of Nice was condemned. So was the doctrine in the Council of Illiberis in Spain at the same epoch, noticed here to shew the dates of these questions. Up to 824 purity as to this was maintained. In the middle of the ninth century Paschasius Radbert introduced transubstantiation in the West, as John of Damascus some few years before the Council of Constantinople (654) in the East, just a century before Radbert. Sirmondi, in a short life prefixed to Radbert's works in the Bib. Max. Pat. says (14, 353), "He first so explained the genuine sense of the Catholic church, that he opened the way to others who in numbers wrote afterwards on the same subject." And Bellarmine says he was the first author who wrote seriously and copiously concerning the verity of the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist.

Paschasius Radbert does not speak of transubstantiation, but he does speak of the Eucharist being really the body and blood of Christ; and that body and blood which was born of the virgin and which suffered, as there could not be any other. That as Christ as man was created in the virgin's womb by the power of the Holy Ghost, so by the operation of the Holy Ghost it is Christ in the Eucharist — faith knows Him to be there as it would the divinity in Christ hanging on the cross. There is nothing of the school doctrine of substance and accidents, and so far from its being a church dogma, he says in his second treatise, to Frudegarde who doubted through reading Augustine, that many doubted. The whole work is the reasoning of an individual to prove his point. He fully holds it is the flesh of Christ, but speaks of eating it spiritually interiorly; and that he who is not dwelling in Christ, though he seems to receive it with his mouth, does not really.

65 D. But you do not mean that Radbert did not believe in transubstantiation?

N*. I do not say that exactly. That he believed the Eucharist was the true body and blood of Christ is quite clear. But the scholastic view, brought in later by Lombard, was not yet established. He was the first that spoke as plainly as he did, but he does not bring it out as it was brought out afterwards, and has no thought of it being a dogma of the church, but twice over in his second letter says many doubted it. And he puts baptism, the chrism, and the Eucharist on the same ground, but he holds that it was the same body that hung upon the cross. He calls it a figure, but says it was the truth of the thing too as Christ was as to God. What I insist on with Sirmondi and Bellarmine is that he was the first that propounded the doctrine; and this tells the whole story: it is a doctrine which came in quite late and was opposed, as we shall now see, by the greatest men of the age.

Bertram or Ratramnus I need hardly quote. The Emperor Carolus Calvus had asked him the question whether it was literally or figuratively Christ's body, and the book is to shew it was the latter. His doctrine is the usual doctrine of the Fathers, that by faith they partook of Christ's body and blood in spiritual efficacy, but that literally it was bread and wine as before, and as we have seen others do, he refers to baptism and anointing as a similar case, nobody pretending the water or oil was changed, only it became spiritually efficacious. In the preface, London, 1688, a list of those who taught the same doctrine at the same time, beginning with Charles the Great to Alcuin, is given. Alfric, whom I have named, is a proof how Ratramn was received, as his statements are taken from Ratramn. The whole history of the writers of this age shews it was now first introduced, and at once called in question. Rabanus Maurus, the greatest man of his day, opposed it He says (De Institutione Clericorum, 1, 31), "Because the sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the sacrament another; for the sacrament is received by the mouth; by the virtue of the sacrament the inward man is satiated; for the sacrament is reduced into an aliment of the body, but by the virtue of the sacrament the dignity of eternal life is obtained." And just before, "and as the invisible God appeared in visible flesh, so also He demonstrated an invisible thing by visible matter," and again as Melchisedec offered bread and wine, the great high priest should do the same. He says (Penitential, 6, 33), "For some of late, not thinking rightly of the sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord, have said that the very body and blood of our Lord which was born and in which the Lord Himself suffered on the cross and rose out of the sepulchre . . . [in opposition] to which error as far as we could in writing to the Abbot Egilus, we have opened up what is really to be believed about His body"; where, for what specifically was spoken, a blank was left in the copy, but plenty is left. In my copy of Rab. Maur. (lib. 6 on Matt.) he tells us He (Christ) "substituted the sacrament of His body and blood for the flesh and blood of the Lamb and breaks the bread which He handed to the disciples, to shew that the fraction of His body was not without His own voluntary act." "Because therefore the bread strengthens the body, and wine produces blood in the flesh, that refers mystically to the body of Christ, this to His blood." There is no doubt that Rab. Maurus was wholly opposed to the doctrine, though held to be the greatest light in his day. There is a curious circumstance, shewing how we have to be on our guard in these inquiries. The works of Fulbert of Chartres were published in Paris. Referring to eating Christ's flesh, it is said, "It seems to command a crime or atrocity. It is therefore a figure, saith the heretic, commanding only communion with the passion of the Lord." But some one reminded the publisher that the words were Augustine's own. Unless the fraud was still more wilful, in the hope nobody would look to the errata, he puts in the errata that the words: "the heretic saith," were not in the MS.

66 R. But do you mean that the text was wilfully changed?

N*. Judge for yourself. He tells us the words were not in the MS.

R. This is very bad.

N*. Surely it is, but they changed Ambrose in the same way. He writes, speaking of the elements, that "they should be what they were, and be changed into another thing," they published it as "what they were should be changed into another thing." They changed passages in the imperfect work on Matthew, ascribed to Chrysostom, from a direct testimony against transubstantiation to the contrary; leaving the part out or boldly changing it. The Benedictine edition has restored in Ambrose what flatly, in terms, contradicts transubstantiation. John Scot Erigena at this time also wrote clearly against this new doctrine. His book was not condemned for two hundred years. But the Emperor Charles asked Ratramn, a man much looked up to, to write his well-known book against the new notion. No Roman Catholic denies this, though they at one time attempted to father it on others. It only proves, says a Jesuit, "that the heresy of Calvin was not new."

67 Thus what history clearly shews is that the introduction of this doctrine in the West was in the ninth century. But it was then and afterwards strenuously resisted by doctors, prelates, and emperors; it was then in no sense a doctrine of the church. But it gradually prevailed; and controversy broke out afresh when Berengarius maintained the ancient doctrine, and appealed to Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, etc. He was brought before several Councils under Leo IX, Victor II, and Nicholas II. In one he was made to sign a confession prepared by Cardinal Humbert, which says at the end, that the body and blood of Christ are handled and broken by the hands of the priests and ground with the teeth of the faithful and sensible (sensualiter), not sacramentally only but in truth. The marginal gloss warns us to apply d is only to the visible form, or we should be worse heretics than Berengarius. (Corp. Jur. Can. Decr. tertia pars, Dis. 2, cap. 42; Lyons, 1671, pp. 19, 31.) He speaks in the beginning of having held it was only sacramentally. (Bar. 1059, 13, 14, 17, 152-3.) John Erigena was also condemned: this was at Rome by the Pope and a hundred and thirteen prelates. Berengarius yielded to fear, but went on afterwards with his doctrine, and wrote against his recantation and denounced the Council. He was again cited by Pope Hildebrand, the most violent of popes who forced celibacy on the clergy. In this Council, Rom. 6 (Hard. 6, 1583), it is declared that the major part held the literal body and blood were there, but that many thought thus, and others thus, and a fast appointed and three months given to Berengarius, having had three days discussion in the synod. Berengarius signed a confession that the bread was substantially changed. As some state, he sold all he had and worked for his livelihood. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote against him and brought the doctrine to England. But at the time, as the English historians of the middle ages declare, almost all the English, French, and Italian bishops agreed with Berengarius; he had been acquitted at Tours, signing a confession which is not extant that I know. Lanfranc was his great opponent, and we have to learn all relating to him chiefly in Lanfranc's abusive statements. In the Council of Vercelli (1050), where Lanfranc was and Berengarius sent two, John Erigena was condemned, and Berengarius. I should have noticed that Erigena was murdered by the students where he taught, it is said at the instigation of the monks.

68 D. But Berengarius was a worthless man, denying his own oath, and teaching the contrary of what he had sworn to.

R. I do not see that this proves much as to the history of the doctrine, Mr. D.; it proves his weakness.

N*. Berengarius was reputed both a holy and learned man. His denial at Rome of what he held proved his weakness assuredly, but we have never been tried or we might have to put our hand in the fire as Cranmer, for signing a confession he was gradually drawn into. It appears the prelate of Angers, where he was archdeacon, agreed with him, and he was defended by many of the French clergy; no doubt when he got back among them his courage, which had failed when alone among his enemies, revived. Lanfranc, then a monk in France, pursued his point with relentless and abusive violence.

But the question is not the character of Berengarius but the history of transubstantiation, and I hardly know how it would be made clearer than by the facts we have been surveying. The Roman historian admits there was only a majority in the Roman council, and decided after three days' discussion. It was not then a dogma of the church. That the doctrine at length prevailed in the Roman church we all know. I quote a summary (from Gieseler, 3rd Div. chap. 5, sec. 77) by Algenis of the current opinions about 1130. "Some think the bread and wine are not changed, but that it is only a sacrament, as the water of baptism and oil of the chrism; they say that it is called the body of Christ not truly but figuratively. Others say that the bread is not only a sacrament but that Christ is, as it were, embodied in the bread [impanatum] as God was personally incarnate in flesh. Others that the bread and wine are changed into flesh and blood, but not that of Christ, but of some son of man holy and accepted of God, that what Christ said may be fulfilled, 'unless ye eat the flesh of [a] Son of man [carnem filii hominis] ye will not have life in you.' Others, that evil in the consecrator annulled the invocation of the divine name. Others, that it was really changed; but by evil in recipients it returned into a mere sacrament." Now it is perfectly impossible a person, presbyter and afterwards monk, could write in this way if it had been a fixed dogma of the church. I have already referred to Bernard in the middle of the twelfth century (Sermo I, in Coena Dom. 2). Indeed the mystics generally took the spiritual as contrasted with the material side. Finally in the fourth Council of Lateran under Innocent III in 1215, it was decided to be the faith of the church.

69 Other circumstances confirm this. It was then the giving the communion to children began to be set aside, it continued locally for two or three centuries; the cup began to be withheld from the laity, although by many such a practice was entirely condemned. Gratian (De ret p. 3, Dist. 2, 5, 12) quoting Pope Gelasius that they should take it in both species or not at all. And this was general, but the withdrawal of the cup began now. Alexander Hales (whose works I have not) discusses it at large. In two centuries the cup was universally refused to the laity. On all these things I do not insist for their own sake, but as a testimony to the epoch of establishing transubstantiation. It was when the Bible was forbidden in the Council of Toulouse and the Inquisition established to root out the Albigenses, and the celibacy of the clergy insisted on to the universal ruin of morals; when the papacy was at the height of its power and morality at its lowest ebb, and when as Bernard says Antichrist was seated at Rome.

D. But the decree was founded on the church's authority by the consent of the Fathers.

N*. We can read the Fathers for ourselves and see if that is true, without blasphemously discussing, as Innocent and Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura and others do, what becomes of the Lord if a mouse eats Him or any other accident happens to the helpless elements, though His Godhead (they say) is there. And we have cited them; and though superstition grew apace, it is not true that there was any consent of Fathers. Many taught exactly the contrary, as we have seen in their controversy with the Docetae and Eutychians; in fact, Cyril of Jerusalem is the only one who at all draws near it; and a vast array of the doctors of the previous centuries opposed the doctrine. The first who really held it was a Greek Father, John Damascene, and there it was identified with the re-establishment of image worship. This was in the seventh century, but a few years after him the Council of Constantinople declared the bread to be the only image of Christ. Damascene says that if Basil calls it a figure (antitupon) he must mean before consecration,* he adds it was not by the body in heaven coming down, but by a conversion of the elements. That it was called so before as well, we have already seen; so that the only effect of this testimony is to recognise the force of the word, and to prove that he was conscious that the word was used and meant to be as a figure. Though thus taught practically by Damascene in the eighth century in the East, it was never made a dogma there till Peter the Great in 1725, though prevailing gradually. In the West, we have seen that it was introduced by Radbert a century after Damascene, and made a dogma of Rome in the thirteenth century; the earlier Fathers being clearly against it, and in the ninth century it was discussed and combated, and not only privately but in a Roman Council.

{*In Basil's liturgy it is expressly called bread, "this holy bread" after consecration.}

70 The progress of superstition is seen indeed in John Damascene, he refers, as we have often seen in the Fathers, to the oil of the chrism and the water in baptism,* to which divine grace was added by means of the invocation of the Holy Ghost, which was, and in the Greek church is still, what consecrates the elements. These are only set apart by the words, This is my body, as a preparatory service in what is called the prothesis, and then carried in procession to be consecrated on the altar. But the language of John Damascene does shew the progress of superstition, for the strongest part of his statement is, as the editor annotator of his works, Lequien, a Roman Catholic of the order of preachers (Paris, 1712) remarks, and as is easily seen, is taken from the letter to Caesarius attributed to Chrysostom, and of that epoch, though not probably his. Now this says, "Divine grace sanctifying it [the bread] by means of the priest, it is indeed freed from the appellation of bread, but is esteemed worthy of the appellation of the Lord's body even though the nature of bread has remained in it, and it is called not two bodies, but one body of the Son," whereas in Damascene we have, "By the invocation and coming of the Holy Spirit they are supernaturally transformed (uperphos metapeiountai) into the body of Christ and the blood, and they are not two, but one and the same thing." This, "although the nature of bread remains in it" has passed away, but so had some 400 years time. A century later Paschasius Radbert first publicly introduced it in the West as we have seen. But Damascene's views were not then publicly adopted. Some six years before his death, the Council of Constantinople (754) called as general, but not received in the West, nor in the East beyond the Emperor's rule, declared the elements in the Lord's supper to be the only image of Christ.** Still; though never dogmatically established, the superstitious feeling grew. I may add that in the Russian part of the Greek church, it is since Peter the Great's time in a certain sense established by law. It seems that through the efforts of Rome and the propaganda, persons from Eastern countries who had received their education there had widely propagated the views with which they had been imbued at Rome. Peter the Great brought many clergy in from the Ukraine, where Romish influence was considerable, and only then 1725) imposed on everyone consecrated bishop, an oath "that he believes and understands that the transubstantiation of the body and blood of Christ in the holy supper as taught by the Eastern and ancient Russian doctors is effected by the influence and operation of the Holy Ghost when the bishop or priest invokes God the Father in these words, 'and make this bread the precious body of Christ.'" Thus since Peter the Great's reign there has, at least by the prelates, been a positive profession of transubstantiation in Russia; but by invocation of the Holy Ghost and not as at Rome, but this is only since the beginning of the eighteenth century; that was rather late in the day. The way it came about was this: It seems Rome had been very active in seeking to win and influence the Greek church, which though itself corrupt enough, was a standing witness against her pretended catholicity, and against some of her doctrines. It had had to do with the struggles in the case of Cyril Lucaris, who had embraced evangelical doctrine and was strangled by the Porte, as was the Cyril of Berrhoea who supplanted him. By like intrigues the Ukraine or Little Russia, and the provinces at the mouth of the Danube and neighbourhood in what had once been Polish, had been very much Romanized, at the same time the clergy had at least received some education at Rome. Peter the Great, who was the ecclesiastical reformer of Russia and remodelled the whole church and monastic system, brought in thence (the Russian clergy being utterly brutish), at least educated men, and then (1725) introduced the oath as to transubstantiation. Mogilas, Metropolitan of the Ukraine, had made a catechism, confirmed in 1643 by the patriarchs, and in vogue till the Synod's Catechism by the Archbishop of Novgorod in 1766 supplanted it. I do not question that the superstition insisted on by John Damascene had borne its fruits. At the time of the Reformation, the Wurtemberg divines wrote to the patriarch Jeremias, sending the confession of Augsburg, and in his answer he quotes the words of John Damascene; he says it is the body of Christ, not a type, he calls it bread when consecrated; nor is there a hint of substance and accidents. The best account perhaps of transmutation in the Greek church will be found in Covel (p.122, C.5, Camb., 1782). But as is evidently quite modern. I thought I might notice the Greek church to complete our review.

{*His words as to the Eucharist are that the divinity being added to the bread, makes it the body of Christ (de Fid. Orth. lib. 4, 112), certainly not the Romish doctrine.}

{**Image worship was restored in the East under Irene (787), but put down for a time by Leo Armenius, refuted in the Caroline books and by the Synod of Frankfurt (794), and Paris (825).}

72 This much I think we have seen: first in searching Scripture, it cannot be said that Christ, in giving the bread and the wine, was present a glorified Christ as actually existing, for then there can be no shed blood, as is evident, and He was not yet so glorified: nor would it be what He was then, for His blood was not shed. Its being done after He was gone and glorified, in remembrance of Him and His sacrifice, is as simple as it is blessed. Next, in the Fathers, we have found that many of them, though speaking in the highest terms of the Eucharist, insist earnestly on the exact contrary of transubstantiation. And this is true of the very early ones reasoning against the Doceta; and then, somewhat later, others in writing against the Eutychians, say things which modern Roman Catholics hold to be 'prave dicta,' and others excuse, saying, when the dogma was not settled they spoke in a way liable to be abused, 'in malam partem trahi.' We have seen that in the West, Paschasius Radbert was the first who positively and clearly expounded the doctrine, that is, in the ninth century, and that it was never formally decided to be the doctrine of the church till 1215. There was a great deal of intriguing of the Western powers at Constantinople on this subject to augment their influence, but into this I need not enter. I may note, however, that in Peter the Great's bishops' oath (and which is indeed its object), and all the Eastern documents I have come across, the change, as in ancient liturgies, is invariably attributed to the invocation of the Holy Ghost, and distinctively to that, the epiklesis of the early Fathers. This is wanting wholly in the Roman missal, so that an orthodox Greek does not hold the elements to be consecrated at Rome at all. In the Romanized liturgies of other bodies, as Armenians and Ethiopians united to Rome, in the former we find in the invocation bread changed into consecrated bread. The Ethiopic goes further, and says, "This bread, that is, the body of Christ." They have not taken away the invocation, but changed it so as to make it an already consecrated bread. In the ancient liturgies, the oblation was before the consecration, from the very ancient habit of bringing the fruits of the earth in kind before the celebration of the Lord's supper. In all, we find the virgin Mary prayed for, not doing which Epiphanius notices as the distinction of a divine Person, as Christ, and many other traces, not of what was primitive then came in. In Justin Martyr's time, the president prayed and thanked as best he could, but at any rate of early times. The change in praying to instead of for saints is noticed in a question in the Corpus Jur. Can., and puzzled the Pope who could not account for it; only saints, could not, he said, be prayed for. But of this we have spoken. But as Scripture really cannot honestly be tortured to mean it, so that the Fathers shew that transubstantiation was not the doctrine of the early church, no honest man who has read them can deny, rapidly as superstition and immorality grew, and dark and ignorant as the so-called Fathers were.

73 R. It is distressing. I do not see how it is possible that Christ could have held Himself in His own hand, and broken Himself, and had His blood shed, it being truly and really Himself, when He was sitting there, and assuredly now His blood cannot be shed. I see too that Milner's statement cannot be trusted, and that the early Fathers, whatever we may think of the authority of their views, did not hold transubstantiation as we do, and that it was made a dogma very late indeed, and yet I may say all our system depends on it.

N* I might add as a confirmatory fact historically, that the feast of Corpus Christi never existed till after the dogma was established: first instituted in the diocese of Liege, dropped for a while, and then re-established in 1311. Other fables are connected with it, but the vision of a certain Juliana appears to have been its origin. At any rate the festival of Corpus Christi was not established before this.

74 R. My heart still clings to my old belief, yet I see I have no adequate ground for it.

N*. Trust God, Mr. R. He helps infallibly those that look to Him. It is written, "They shall be all taught of God," and "if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Search the word of God. You have ever a glorified Christ above, one who once hung upon the tree for us in love, the one real sacrifice of never-ending nor changing value, always before God accepted of Him, and on which true faith ever rests, while it feeds daily upon it, and of which the Lord's supper is the special memorial and presentation, where we discern the Lord's body, and are united as one body in Him. I commend you to Him and His grace.

R. Thank you. I must search the word and count on His goodness to guide me. We have to thank our kind friends here for receiving us and allowing us to occupy their house and time.

James. It is I that thank you, sir, and Mr. N. for coming here to my poor cottage. I have learnt much I never knew, though through grace I confided in Christ and His blessed work. My part was naturally to learn, but all is clearer to me than ever it was.

Bill M. I am sure I am thankful. Why I never thought of such things, and I see my salvation in Christ much better than I did.

N*. Well, we will commend each other now heartily to God. We all need His constant grace; and let us remember one another before Him and look to the faithful Saviour to help us on.

{The reader is referred for other Dialogues on Romanism to Doctrinal, Vols. 5, 6 and 8.}

The Sufferings of Christ

J. N. Darby.

From the "Bible Treasury," 1858-9.

<07008E> 139 {file section a.}

Preface to the First Edition

The numbers of the "Bible Treasury" containing the papers on "The Sufferings of Christ," having been widely sought after, are out of print, and not to be had. Recently, an attack has been made on the doctrine contained in them, and in other articles to which I will just now refer.

The real character of that attack is such that I do not feel it possible to take the smallest notice of it. It seemed to me the best reply to it was to publish the articles incriminated in it. The reader will find them here exactly as they were originally published, with the exception of the correction of errors of the press. I might, I dare say, have made some passages clearer; but it is evident that, under the circumstances in which their publication comes before the reader, my only path was to publish all exactly as it had already appeared. It seems to me that, as it stands, it is quite sufficiently clear to any upright mind. I am not so foolish as to think that all the expressions in it are the best, or absolutely exact or just, as if I were inspired; but what is taught (taught I think sufficiently clearly for any one willing to learn) I believe to be the truth, and hold and maintain as the truth now. To the humblest and weakest of God's saints I should gladly explain my meaning, and should be bound to do so. Here it would be out of place. I have only to beg them to take my doctrine from my own papers.

Two main subjects are involved in the attacks made: the sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane; and Christ's laying down His life. In both I maintain fully the doctrine I have taught in these papers, and I think what is opposed to it is ignorance or fatal error. The first — the connection of Christ's sufferings with the state of the remnant of Israel in the last days — I do not expect those not versed in scripture to enter into; and I would add, that (though this is enlarged upon in an addition to the original article, because enquiries were made as to it) I have no wish to turn aside any one's mind from the deep intrinsic preciousness of the sufferings of Gethsemane to their application to that particular subject, as I think the original article may shew. It was enlarged on because enquiry was made as to it. I think, however, the Psalms will never be clearly understood till this is.

140 As regards the second point, I not only think that the doctrine taught in the "Girdle of Truth" is sound, but I think it one of the most important truths possible at the present time (one which in the present confused state of Christendom lies at the root of blessing), and am thankful that the present attack will spread it more and more. I republish, therefore, from the "Girdle of Truth" the article which has given occasion to the attack.

I have not republished the paper from "The Present Testimony," because only one sentence, which I reproduce here, was quoted from it. The paper in question is that part of the Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, translated from the French, which refers to 1 Peter. In a developed view of the whole epistle, these words occur in explaining at considerable length chapter 3: 18, and following verses, "Put to death as to his life in the flesh, but quickened according to the power of the divine Spirit." I have no remark really to make on it. I think it very just. As to what was He put to death if not as to His life in the flesh? I think it is exactly what the text says. For this sentence I did not think it worth while to print the whole article with the other papers. My worst enemies (I am sorry for their sakes that I have any) are at liberty to make anything out of it they can.

I have to add, though of course I may be mistaken in such a point, that I maintain the translation of the passage in Acts 20, "The church of God which he purchased with the blood of his own." The more I weigh it, the more I am satisfied it is right.

I do not know that I have anything to add, as my object here is not to discuss any point. I have hitherto in my answers on questions of doctrine (though judging some statements severely, because I thought Christ concerned in them) dealt quietly and courteously with my adversaries. But I do see another hand and mind behind what is going on, of which this pamphlet is a clear sign to me. As an attack on myself, I am glad not to answer it. If I have to take my adversaries up because they still carry on their warfare, and Satan is using them for mischief, I here declare I will not spare them, nor fail, with God's help, to make plain the tenets and doctrines which are at the bottom of all this. As regards myself, if I have one desire in my heart, it is that the blessed Lord may be glorified. It is my one joy now when He is. It may be my everlasting blessedness. If there be anything in these papers which dishonours Him — what I say is this: no explanation to defend myself. God forbid. Let them be torn to atoms. It will be easy to gather up anything that is good in them from the only source of it. I will be the first to begin the work of destruction. They are days in which His glory and the truth must be kept clear at all cost: I will put the match to burn all if there be anything which is against it. I have already said, of course there may be expressions less perfect than they might be.* It would be folly in an uninspired teacher or writer to suppose otherwise. Whatever they are, you have them here, my reader, just as they were. If, on the other hand, what engages us is an attack of enemies on them, and of the enemy because it is the truth as I believe, I will deal with the attack as such. I will take another opportunity to correct expressions if needed. The truth that is in question can be dealt with from the papers as they are. The reader has them before him. They were written for edification, not for controversy, though, in part, on controverted points, and not with the watchfulness against misinterpretation which controversy might awaken. But I am not aware of anything in them which, when taken as it is stated, requires much remark. I am not afraid of the conflict, if conflict I must have.

{*In fact any which had given occasion to any uncertainty, as to the purport of the statements relative to the Lord's entering into the sorrows of the remnant, were explained in the original papers printed in the "Bible Treasury," and here reprinted.}

141 Note. Since the publication of the tract containing the papers of the "Sufferings of Christ," and that from the "Girdle of Truth," I have been accused of suppressing the paper on Hebrews 5. My attention having been drawn to the articles in the "Bible Treasury" in 1858, and that in the "Girdle of Truth," which the tract which gave occasion to their publication expressly notices (page 15 of the first edition), I directed the printer and publisher of the two journals to reprint the whole together. I had not remarked that one quotation came from another article in the "Girdle of Truth," forming no part of the series on Christ's sufferings, but on an entirely different subject — Hebrews 5. I therefore did not write to the publisher to publish that. The truth is, I did not write that article at all, nor consequently send it to the "Bible Treasury." It may have been given to me to look over for the press — I cannot say; but I have no recollection of having ever read it, certainly not since it was printed. It contains notes of a lecture delivered at Bridgewater, taken down by a person present. The reader will find nothing new on the present question; nor is there more than is already given in the accusing tract, the paper (which I could only know to be mine by its style and contents) being on a different subject: nothing at all, therefore, is suppressed. The truth attacked is in some respects more clearly stated here than elsewhere. I trust the tract may itself be useful on its own subject; so I publish it, though the reader will find nothing new on the point attacked. One or two expressions I think questionable, though the doctrine be right. But they are not on this point: so I do not notice them. I only see additional reason in the statement now brought under my notice, not to pay attention, in any other way, to what has given occasion to the separate publication of these papers. But I take away occasion from those who seek occasion.

142 I would add that a closer and fuller examination of Acts 20: 28 has more than ever convinced me that my translation is the right and only right one. I reject entirely the ordinary one.

The paper on Hebrews 5 ("The Word of God and the Priesthood of Christ") is published separately and can be had of the publisher, price 1d.

Introduction

*

{*Added to the Second Edition, published 1867.}

A new edition of the tract on "The Sufferings of Christ" being requisite, I take the occasion of making the observations that circumstances have called for. If I have suffered in my poor and feeble measure a trial which my blessed Master went through (and I have) I am not now going to speak of it or of those who have been the instruments of it, and for two reasons. First, if the glory of Christ be in question, it is better to sink oneself: He alone is to be considered. Secondly, I fear falling into any expression which, if God gives repentance to my accusers, might stand in their way on their return. This only I have to beg of my reader, as I had to do when attacked eight years ago on the same papers, that he will take my account of my doctrine from myself. Statements have been made as to it, giving exactly the opposite of what is expressly stated by myself; sentences, with marks of quotation, professing to be my teaching, which are not found in the article cited from, and my accuser's interpretation of the doctrine given in some subsequent passage as my statement. I owe it to brethren who seek the truth to state on what ground I stand in this matter.

143 Admitting the imperfections of poor human nature in my expressions, and immaturity too (of course, I had not scanned and weighed it all as I have since these attacks);* I hold completely and fully the doctrine which it was my object to teach in these papers. If they had been studied with a willing mind, I believe true edification and profit would have been found — I have found the deepest and sweetest in what they seek imperfectly to expound. I am not terrified by my adversaries, nor do I shrink from the consequences of what I teach. I know many brethren have been profited greatly by this unfolding of Christ's sufferings. I can say of my brethren, they are in my heart, if it may be, to live with them, if I can hold the truth here taught. I rejoice unfeignedly in communion with brethren who can receive me, avowing it and holding it. But this truth I hold, avow; and do not, and with God's grace, shall not, give up. I do not press their holding it. It may be truth they have not got hold of. It is not the truth on which fellowship and the testimony of brethren as witnesses for God rest, but instruction and profit for those who are in communion. Hence I in no way require its acceptance. I make it no term of communion at all. The testimony of the Church of God is to be maintained independent of it. I reject no one for rejecting it. The truest saint may be ignorant of what is edifying. I would not disturb the peace of any, but I shall hold to what I believe to be the truth, and the blessed Lord will decide the consequences. I should not think of making it a term or question of communion. I do not believe one fundamental truth is in question in it, though I believe deep and profitable instruction as to the sufferings of Christ will be found in it. I should not for a moment, consequently, have raised the question. I should be grieved if any one who thought me right should for a moment make it, or mix it up with, a question of communion. My earnest desire is that saints may quietly seek profit by it, not contend. Contention on such a subject does mischief.

{*Yet the explanations at the end leave really little or nothing to be desired.}

144 But the question has been notoriously raised, and my part as a violently accused person is to be open and clear. I hold substantially, whatever imperfection of statement there may be, what I have taught in the tract I publish, gladly correcting any ambiguous expressions, but maintaining the teaching itself. I have been in no hurry to publish on it. I have refused, and do refuse, to defend myself personally. I had rather cast my own part on the Lord than do so. Besides, with those I should have to say to, it would have been too painful. I desired to weigh the matter, my own papers on it, the scriptures, and my adversaries' objections. I desired that others should search the scriptures and have their time, for I was aware it was a subject which required spiritual discernment and the examination of scripture: many without this would be unable to judge of parts of it. I was in no hurry and could trust the Lord. I was both taunted and urged to action, but I was resolved to pursue my own course, though the urgency of friends distressed me: the taunts and attacks affected me little — they are common things. Meanwhile I answered every one who honestly enquired of me and demanded explanation. This I was bound to do. I had a correspondence, which I commenced, with Mr. Hall and Mr. Dorman; but since the Portsmouth meeting I never received a hint of objection from any one, nor an intimation on the subject, till I wrote myself. The favourers of Bethesda inundated the country with all sorts of publications to prove my doctrine was the same as Mr. Newton's (following T.R.), the ground on which my present accusers have openly placed themselves. But these efforts I never paid the slightest attention to. I am perfectly satisfied all, from beginning to end, is an effort of the enemy; and when this consists of attacks on oneself, the best way, if one has the conscience of being right, is to leave it to the Lord, and be as a deaf man that hears not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs. So I have been. So I am as regards those who have now taken up this ground-have avowedly taken it up. On this last point too, therefore, I shall speak out. I reject Bethesda as wickedness, as I ever did; and on the same ground I reject the principle, far more widely spread than that chapel, on which it stands. My experience of that principle in America, in connection with other doctrines, but which those called Neutrals have freely fallen in with and accepted communion with, has confirmed me in the conviction, that acceptance of fellowship with those holding any deadly doctrine is infidelity to Christ, and evil and unfaithful, and a work of the enemy. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. That which is not in principle this, is not the Church at all even in its principle — does not gather with Christ, but scatters.

145 When the blasphemous doctrine of Mr. Newton (one for whom personally I have nothing but kindly feeling, and whom my heart, if pained, only yearns over) came out, Bethesda deliberately sheltered and accredited it. I broke with Bethesda, and I reject it still. It is all one to me if it be a Baptist Church or anything else, it has been untrue to Christ, and no persuasion, with the help of God, will ever lead me a step nearer to it. I reject Mr. Newton's doctrine as blasphemy as I always did. The attempt to connect my doctrine with his is folly or worse — an effort of the enemy to palliate and cover his work. I do not quarrel with those who reject me when they think I hold like doctrine: what can I think of those who reject me to palliate what is associated with his? I must leave them at present to their own consciences.

I add, I reject entirely the principle on which Mr. Hall goes. It is, as I told him, the root and principle of Mr. Newton's system, namely, that a person must be in the state or relationship which brings sorrows on any one, in order to enter into the sorrows the transgressor himself is in. I have been furnished with a passage which fully brings out his view, though it does not meet the whole question. In the case of the mother going into prison with a son (or if she never went at all, that would put the case more clearly), he says, "Now she could not share nor enter into either" — that is "first the penalty," "and secondly the inward miserable feeling of having sinned and deserved it." Now I affirm she could enter into it:* it is a fatal denial of Christ's suffering to deny His doing so. The more spiritually minded she was, the more (and that in connection with love to her son) she would feel in her own soul the dreadfulness of it, and learn what evil, that she was never in, was. Christ was not penally there (save vicariously on the cross); but He did enter into it. That is one important part of the question. I hold the doctrine, that Christ could not enter into our sufferings, to be mischievously false and falsifying Christ's true place of sorrow.

{*I speak not of having sinful experience, but of the sorrow and distress, of the upright dread of death, and sense of what has brought it on.}

146 But to pursue this point further still, that we may better enter into that sorrow, is it meant to be alleged that Christ did not taste death — death in itself, not in sympathy* nor in atonement, but death — when He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death?" Mr. Hall admits two causes of suffering in Christ, atonement and sympathy. If suffering be not from one of these, it must, he tells us, be His own relationship to God. I reject this as fatal teaching. It is a denial of the truth of Christ's suffering, and is but human reasoning in the teeth of scripture. I cannot conceive anything more destructive of Christian affections. He did work atonement, He did and does blessedly sympathize; but to exclude His own true sufferings as a man, as for instance, "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness," desertion, betrayal, and a thousand sorrows of Christ, is utterly ruinous and repulsive to the Christian heart; yet these were not atonement nor sympathy. He suffered Himself that He might be able to sympathize. And this view is the whole ground of his system; and hence he makes anything else a putting of Christ necessarily into the state or relation which brought the sorrow on, which is exactly what Mr. Newton did. There are the true sufferings of a human heart, and such as never were anywhere else, which are neither atonement nor sympathy.

{*Was Gethsemane the same as the widow of Nain?}

I reject then wholly, and with my whole heart as a Christian, the system Mr. Hall presented to me. I do not charge him with the statements of Mr. Newton nor with the consequences of his doctrine. I believe he is wholly unaware that he is on that ground. But he is on it, though unknown to himself. My object here is only clearly to state the ground I am upon, without entering into any formal discussion. The great principle is that which is important. It seems to me that every Christian (and that as led by the very instinct of Christian life, as taught by the word) must utterly refuse that propounded by Mr. Hall. Christ did enter into the sufferings of others without being in the state they were in, and He had deep sufferings of His own which were not atonement and were not mere sympathy.

I go on to state further my own views on these points. I hold as to expiation or atonement fully and simply what every sound Christian does: The blessed Lord's offering Himself without spot to God and being obedient to death, being made sin for us, and bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; His glorifying God in the sacrifice of Himself; and His substitution for us; and His drinking the cup of wrath. I believe, though none can fathom it, that what I hold, and have taught, and teach, makes this atonement clearer. I mean the not confounding the sufferings of Christ short of divine wrath with that one only drinking of the cup when He was forsaken of God. I see this carefully brought out in Psalm 22. In the midst of cruel sufferings, of which the Lord in Spirit speaks prophetically there, He says, "But be not thou far from me, O Lord," twice over. Yet (and that is the great fathomless depth of the psalm) He was, as to the sorrow of His soul, forsaken of God. With that no other suffering, deep and real as it was, can be compared. But the Holy Ghost makes here the distinction in order to bring out that wondrous cup, which stands alone in the midst of all things, the more clearly. And this makes other suffering more true and real to the heart, and the drinking of the cup (that on which the new heavens and the new earth subsist in immutable righteousness before God, and through which we are accepted in the Beloved) has a truth and a reality which nothing else gives it. The mixing up accompanying suffering with this, in their character, weakens and destroys the nature of both. We come to the atonement with the need of our sins; once reconciled to God, we see the whole glory of God made good for ever in it. I add, as regards Christ's relationship with God, I have no view but what I suppose to be the common faith of all Christians, of His being His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased, that, as a living man here below, divine delight rested upon Him. Though never so acceptable in obedience as on the cross, there He was as, for God's glory, bearing the forsaking of God. That of course was a special case.

147 But two objections have been raised here to what I have taught, and to these I turn. One is, a certain change which took place in our Lord's position then, His being given up of God and giving up Himself into the hands of men to accomplish the purposes and glory of God and make propitiation for our sins. On this the New Testament is as clear as possible. We read, "No man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come." From His own lips, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." He tells them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes . . . the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of men. Till His hour was come, hostile as they might be, this could not be.

148 Hence He tells His disciples, "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now he that hath a purse, let him take it . . . for I say unto you that this that is written must be accomplished in me. And he was reckoned with the transgressors; for the things concerning me have an end." And again, "When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hand against me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness." Now, though for the purpose of bringing about the work of atonement, delivering the Son of man into the hands of men was not atonement. The hour of the priests and scribes was that of the power of darkness. Before that, if the crowd would throw Him down from the brow of the hill, He passed through the midst of them and went His way. No doubt He gave up Himself. This side of the wondrous picture John gives, when he shews the band of men going backward and falling to the ground, and records the unspeakably precious words of the blessed Lord — "If ye seek me, let these go their way."

But up to this, in the accomplishment of the counsels of God, there was a hand that restrained the will or the force of the people. Now the Son of man was to be delivered into the hands of men. It was not the actual moment of atonement, though the path to it; but the hour of evil men and the power of darkness. Was it sympathy? With whom? To deny a change in the position of the Lord and God's ways with Him as a man on earth (I do not say or think in His relationship with God) is flying in the face of scripture. It was not atonement, it was not sympathy, but the suffering of the blessed Son of God, now going to be delivered into the hands of men, whose hour as instruments of the power of darkness it now was, which it was not before.

But there was complicated sorrow. He was meeting indignation and wrath. He was not yet drinking the cup, He was not yet smitten, but He was going on to it, given up to that which was the instrument of it, pressed that it should be done quickly, was in the hour, which meant all that and meant all that to His soul. It had its own sorrow, but His soul was troubled — first prayed that He might be saved from the impending hour, but bowed to it as the hour He was come into the world for; then urged that it should be done quickly; then was sorrowful even unto death, because, now, just delivered up into the hands of men, He was meeting indignation and wrath. The very thing that made His sufferings then so deep was that He knew that He was meeting indignation and wrath. The wickedness of men was heartless and without conscience, but it led on step by step to the cross, to the cup which He had to drink. He was now as Son of man delivered, or just about to be delivered, into the hands of men, rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, the leaders of Israel. The shadow of death from the cross was not merely foreseen in the sunshine of divine service and favour, but passing over His soul, though not yet drinking the cup. He tells us so Himself. He was in this not sympathizing with others. He looked for sympathy from others, and prayed His disciples to watch with Him. He was not actually drinking the cup, but He was meeting indignation and wrath, I repeat. This gave to His delivering up to man its force and sorrow of death. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and in the days of His flesh made supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death.

149 There are two collateral points which have been insisted upon: the Lord's connection with Israel, and His full meeting and resolving the question of good and evil, so that deliverance might be absolute and eternal. I am not sure but that in the tract these two points are intermingled so as to produce possible confusion in the mind. The latter is far deeper and requires more spiritual apprehension than the former, which connects itself (not with what is absolute and essential, eternal and perfect good, and putting away evil, fully judged and completely estimated in the ways and work of Christ, but) with God's government in the earth, of which Israel is the centre. God has made Israel that centre, as Deuteronomy 32 clearly states, and (while He has called the Church to be the witness of sovereign grace which associates her with Christ in heavenly glory) yet He has, from the moment He took Israel to be His people, never changed His counsel nor purpose in that people. Enemies as touching the gospel, they are still beloved for the fathers' sake; for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. But God has always put men first under responsibility, and when they failed, accomplished, or rather will accomplish, His counsels in grace.

150 But as regards Israel, the trial was twofold, as indeed in a certain sense with all, their faithfulness to Jehovah, and their reception of Messiah, of Him who comes in the name of Jehovah and who is Jehovah Himself, but Jehovah come in grace. The one was the controversy with idols, brought out in Isaiah 40 to 48, where their comforting and Christ Himself withal are promised, but where the question is idolatry, Babylon, and Cyrus, but looking on to final deliverance for the righteous. On that I do not insist further. The other was the coming of Messiah, of Jehovah Himself in grace, as a test. This is treated from chapter 49 to 57 going on to final deliverance of the righteous, but turning on the rejection of Christ, introducing atonement, here especially for the nation, but embracing every believer. This question, I need not say, was brought to an issue in the history of Christ, the future result for Israel being still matter of hope and prophecy, yea, of Christ's own prophecy in Matthew 23 and 24. Christ died for that nation, or it could not have had the future blessing. Now we must remark that what is promised to Israel is fulfilled only to the remnant. The hopes are the hopes of Israel. It is Israel's blessing; but if God had not left a very small remnant, they would be like Sodom. This remnant, a third part, will pass through the fire, through the terrible tribulation such as never was, though in a large degree sheltered and hidden of God. Still they will pass through the fire (Zech. 13: 9; Mal. 3: 2, 3; Is. 26: 20, 21 with what precedes). Abundant scriptures might be quoted to the same purpose. The prophetic part of the New Testament confirms this, in the Revelation and in the Lord's prophecy in Matthew; and it is diligently expounded in Romans 9-11 to reconcile the certainty of these promises with the no-difference doctrine of the apostle.

What part did Christ take in these sorrows in spirit? That their rejecting Him was the immediate cause of their own rejection is evident (Is. 50; Zech. 13, 14, and the Lord's own prophecy in Matthew 23; Luke 19: 42, 44); that He died for the nation John tells us, as does Isaiah 53; that He wept over Jerusalem, the true Jehovah who would often have gathered her children. (Luke 13: 32-34; ch. 19: 42.) That it is in Israel God is to be glorified in the earth, Isaiah 49 makes perfectly clear. Equally so that His rejection was consequently felt by Christ as having laboured in vain and spent His strength for nought and in vain, though the answer brings out necessarily, a far fuller glory as the result of the work which He knew to be perfect.

151 This leads us at once to the truth that the Lord was deeply sensible of the effect of His rejection as regards the nation. The law had been broken, but idolatry given up, and Jehovah was come into the midst of His people with deliverance and blessing in His heart and in His hand — come surely to give Himself for them as an atonement, but first presenting Himself to them, the true Heir and vessel of promise, the minister and crown of all blessing, the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God. But He was the outcast of the people, and laboured as regards that in vain, nor (though the remnant got far better things, as Christ's own glory was largely enhanced by it) could the remnant then have the blessings and glory promised in and with the Messiah — they were to take up their cross and follow Him. Jehovah sent, anticipating the great final deliverance, that Elias in spirit, who was to come before Him and the great and notable day of the Lord. They did to him whatever they listed, and the Son of man was to suffer. The New Testament, as the Old, brings, as to Israel, Christ's presence and the last days together: "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come" (Matt. 10). And "Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," quoting Psalm 119, as He did for the rejected stone. At the same time the body of the nation was now apostate, crying, "We have no king but Caesar," rejecting formally their Messiah, and, in Him, Jehovah come in grace to speak a word in season to him that was weary.

Was the Lord indifferent to all this? Was He, because He was going to accomplish a greater work in atonement, indifferent to the setting aside of God's beloved people, to the present merging all the promises as regards them in judgment and long rejection (wrath coming upon them to the uttermost), to the entire setting aside of the promises looked at as resting on the reception of Messiah come in the flesh, His own labouring for nought and in vain, and being cut off as Messiah and having nothing, and the people apostatizing and joining the Gentiles against the Lord and His anointed so that wrath and judgment came upon them — was He indifferent, I say, to all this? or did He feel it? Sympathy with His disciples we can understand. But was all this no source of suffering to the Lord? He could not sympathize with apostasy. He was in no such case, but faithful to the very end, perfect in it with God; but was it nothing to Himself, no sorrow, that God's people were thus cut off, cut off Himself instrumentally by that very apostasy, so that the then hope of Israel closed with Him, for that Isaiah 50 positively declares? He could not separate His own cutting off from theirs as the consequence of it. This Daniel 9: 26, as well as Isaiah, plainly testifies.

152 Let us see how His Spirit works in His servants. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are the deep and wondrous expression of this; not only that what had been so beautiful under God's eye, how Nazarites whiter than milk had been set aside, but God had cast down His altar, profaned His sanctuary. So Isaiah would have Jehovah rend the heavens and come down (see Isa. 63, 64.) So Daniel in the beautiful pleading of chapter 9. Has Christianity removed and destroyed this feeling? There was one who had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for his kinsmen according to the flesh, Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, God over all blessed for evermore. That was the way Paul would know Christ no more; he knew Him in the glorious and heavenly results of atonement, but his heart groaned over Israel as God's people to whom the promises and Christ in the flesh belonged. He could wish himself accursed from Christ for them, as Moses had wished to be blotted out of Jehovah's book for their sakes — Israel according to the flesh, but God's people according to the flesh, and to whom according to the flesh Christ belonged. Israel was responsible for receiving Him. He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Did Christ's Spirit produce these feelings in His witnesses before and after His coming and rejection, and He Himself remain indifferent, careless, as to His people whom He had foreknown? It was not so. Indignation and wrath were coming upon them, and He felt it. It had well nigh been executed in Paul's time, and by Christ's Spirit he felt it, though his heart had known Christ in glory, and would only now so know Him.

153 This is the language of scripture: "And his soul was grieved," we read in Judges 10, "for the misery of Israel." "In all their afflictions he was afflicted," I read in Isaiah 63. That same Jehovah came as man. Did His humanity dry up His concern for Israel and His lost sheep? The same Jehovah then could weep over the beloved and chosen city, and say, "Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." He was not merely Jehovah, but as Messiah He took Messiah's place in Israel (not in its apostasy surely, but with the godly remnant who, as to earthly promises, could then as well as Messiah Himself take nothing). The Shepherd was smitten and the sheep scattered. He was the Head and bringer in of the promises. His cutting off was the setting aside, as then presented, all the hopes and promises of Israel; and as Messiah He was to be cut off, and, as the consequence of that, judgment, indignation, and wrath, were to come upon Israel.

Indignation is, I may say, the technical word used for the time of trouble in the last days. And Paul says wrath was come upon them. I believe Christ entered into this, felt it all in connection with His own cutting off. No doubt He went infinitely farther. He made atonement for them, but He felt fully the rejection of the people, bore it on His heart, told them not to weep for Him but for themselves, for judgment was coming on them. He was the green tree, and this came upon Him. What would be done in the dry, dead, and lifeless Israel?

But this leads me to cutting off and smiting. Not only is the judgment of Israel connected with the cutting off and smiting of Christ, as we have seen, but the condition of the remnant in Israel in the last days, and of the just as the remnant of Israel from Messiah's days, is deduced from this. It is so in Daniel 9. The weeks are not yet run out for the ceasing of Jerusalem's desolations and wars. The last terrible half-week is to come, of which the Lord tells us in Matthew 24, referring to Daniel 12. And why all this? Messiah was to be cut off and have nothing.* It is not glory gained by atonement which is spoken of here, but Messiah's cutting off so that He had nothing of the glory and kingdom of Israel; but Israel on the contrary came under judgment and a desolator.

{*This is confessedly the true sense; it is given in the margin of the English Bible.}

154 Zechariah teaches us the same thing. The blessed One who had been man's possession (servant) from His youth had been wounded in the house of His friends. His own were guilty of it. But there is more than this in His death; the sword is to awake against Jehovah's Shepherd — "the man that is my fellow," says Jehovah of hosts. "Smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered." His sheep as connected with Him in Israel were scattered, and then the prophet goes on to the portion of Israel and the remnant in the last days; two thirds will be cut off and the remnant go through the fire. We have already seen that in Matthew 10 and 23, the Lord connects the same periods, and in the latter case with His rejection. They stumbled on the stone and were broken; when it fell on them, it would grind them to powder. If I find the details and feelings* more entered into in the Psalms, I find the teaching and history in the gospels of what brought it all about.

{*Though Christ's proper sufferings are entered into in very few, save as from without.

Now I fully recognize that the smiting was on the cross; that is distinctly stated in the papers I am republishing. But I affirm that Christ entered into all these sorrows and sufferings on His way to the cross, and that in a special manner as looking to be cut off, when His hour was come and He was to be no longer absolutely safe from the machinations of the people become His enemies, but delivered by them to men. Further: the charges and accusations made have led me to search scripture on the subject, and I do not find that smiting is ever used for atonement (though atonement also was wrought when He was smitten), but for the cutting off of Messiah in connection with the Jews. Forsaking of His God is that which in scripture expresses the work which stands wholly alone. Some passages may have escaped me, but I have searched. It does not trouble me that it should be so taken, because it is certain that, when He was smitten, atonement was wrought. But I prefer scripture to the sayings of men, and until they produce some scripture which disproves it, I shall believe that the act of cutting off the Messiah is spoken of in smiting, and not the work of atonement, to which nothing can be compared. The smiting or cutting off the Messiah is used in connection with another subject in scripture, though He was there wounded for the people's transgressions, and with His stripes they will be healed. But the cutting off and smiting is referred to the setting aside of previous hopes in the flesh, not to securing future ones in promise, though that work (blessed be God!) was done then. It is not that there was wrath inflicted on Christ for any state or relationship He was in besides atonement. I believe Christ never was in the state or relation which brought it, but that He entered into all the sufferings of Israel in spirit, passed through them in His own soul, felt what would be done in the dry tree, though He was the green one.

155 But what I have said leads me to another difficulty which has been raised: that governmental wrath would, but for atonement, be necessary condemnation. I hold so fully. Israel was the scene of God's righteous government, and indignation and wrath were coming on them in that way. Such is the positive testimony of scripture, these words being used, as they are both together, in the Lamentations of Jeremiah (indignation, as I have said, technically in Isaiah and Daniel for the great time of trial in Israel, and wrath by Paul, and more than one equivalent to them in the Lamentations). But if Christ had not wrought atonement, there could not have been indignation and wrath as chastening and teaching for good. It must have been condemnation. It could not be said, By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, referring to the last days; nor could Jerusalem be told that she had received at the hand of the Lord double of all her sins, nor by the Lord that she should not come out till she had paid the very last farthing, if atonement had not been made. God could exercise judgment as government because of the atonement. He could shew Himself righteous in forbearance as to the Old Testament sins by the blood-shedding of Jesus. He was long-suffering in that government, abundant in goodness and mercy and truth, yet would by no means clear the guilty. But the cross laid the foundation for that. It laid the foundation for heavenly glory, but it laid the foundation for that, too.

Christ, therefore, while He saw and felt, entered into, all the sorrow and indignation on Israel in the fullest way — went on farther that it might not be condemnation, and made atonement. Indignation and wrath in His case was not merely governmental, but the full dealing of God with sin — which is atonement. I find both plainly revealed to me in scripture, for I have shewn that Christ in spirit did enter into the sorrows of Israel connected with His own cutting off. To smite, in Hebrew and patasso in Greek, is used for the cutting off of the Shepherd of Israel; but when smitten, He was forsaken of God, and made atonement for sin — was bruised for Israel's and our iniquities.

156 I have now to turn to another objection which was presented to me in my correspondence — Christ's resolving the whole question of good and evil. It is the one sole and whole foundation of blessing. The same gross mistake was made as to it as to all the rest. He must have known, it was alleged, evil in His heart to have gone through it. It is difficult to deal with such entire darkness of apprehension. Why, God knows good and evil perfectly: has He (the Lord pardon even the question) any evil in His heart? But there was more as to Christ: He had to learn it by going through every temptation by it — its bitterness in its pressure on His own soul. He had none of it. He was the Prince of life: did He not know what death was? He was Love in its expression: did He not know what hatred was? And just because, and in the manner in which, He was Love, was the horribleness of hatred known to Him, even in detail. The love in which He sought the poor of the flock, made Him feel what was the spirit which sought to hinder their coming in. When He denounced the scribes and lawyers, did He not feel the evil they were guilty of?

The truth is, a holy soul knows what evil really is: only He went through it all as trial. Was not His horror of corruption and hypocrisy measured by His holiness and truth? Was not His perfect, absolute confidence tried and pained by the distrust and unbelief He met with, even in His disciples? Was not His delight in His Father's love (I cannot say the measure, for it could not be measured, but) the gauge of His sense of wrath? Was not the horribleness of Satan's asking Him to worship him known in the fulness of His own devotedness to His God? Was He not tested and tried by everything, save sin within, that could try a soul, and, had it been possible, turn Him away from God? Was not sin known to Him by the assailment of temptation and the holiness of His own soul? Did He not learn obedience by its costing everything that was possible from man, and Satan, and God? He knew evil, to reject it absolutely; to feel it absolutely by the tested perfection of good, which alone could perfectly feel what evil was; and die and give up self rather than fail in devotedness to His Father's will and holy obedience; and then be made sin for us, so as to put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. He died for sin, "but in that he died, he died unto sin once; in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." He has no more to do with sin, save to judge the sinner hereafter. The whole of God's glory, as compromised by sin in the universe, was made good, glorified, exalted, in the fullest trial — everything that could try holiness and love. Hence the time will come when in heaven and earth righteousness will be established for ever, sin unknown, and God be perfectly glorified.

157 I am not aware I have any other point to treat which may cause a difficulty to any soul who seeks the truth and edification. I have only again to beg every righteous person not to take any statement but my own for my views. In Mr. Hall's letters to me almost everything, if not everything, was mis-stated through his own want of apprehension of the truth and preconceived notions. Christ did then fully enter into the difference between good and evil, and with God's judgment of sin before His eyes; partly in all His life in the evil He met with every day, and specially at the end, when all evil was accumulated against Him, and the judgment of God against sin was immediately before Him; for, I repeat, this meeting indignation and wrath, then gave all its force to what His soul went through.

I had almost forgotten a statement made to me by letter, that I had stated, in answering Mr. Newton, that there could be no other suffering whatever than the first two mentioned in the tract. I answered that at the time. I merely repeat that answer in substance now. It is a very good plea for mere hostility, but has no true ground at all. In answer to Mr. Newton, what I have now spoken of as the third kind of suffering is fully gone into as a truth collateral to the two others, though not formally called a third kind of suffering. If my memory serves (I have not the tract by me), a third or half the tract is occupied with unfolding it. It was orthodox enough then.

A statement shewn to me is that I have said Christ was cut off under indignation and wrath not expiatory. I am not aware of any such statement. It is contrary to my whole manner of apprehending the matter. He was cut off as Messiah and He entered in heart into the indignation and wrath that lay on Israel; but that is a different matter. I find in Psalm 102 in the "Synopsis" (which I am referred to) "Nor is it [the subject of the psalm] His expiatory work, though that which wrought it is here — the indignation and wrath," which is a very different thing. It states these to be expiatory work. But I have already explained my own thoughts on this point, and I prefer this to any discussion or taking up controversy with my accusers, and it would be endless to meet all the misrepresentations of what I have said. I can only repeat my request not to believe any statement of my doctrine but my own.

158 I do not see how it is possible for any fair mind to make Christ's passing through the three kinds of suffering mean that He was in any sense in the condition referred to. One of them speaks of a condemned sinner; the next, a saint by grace; the third is specially guarded because more obscure. Do my accusers believe that passing through the suffering, such as a saint by grace does, meant that He was a saint by grace? If not, why should the third kind suppose Him to be in the state referred to, where the supposition was more carefully guarded against, where in fact it was said it was not so? I am perfectly free now to change the expressions in the tract; but as so much has been made of it by my enemies, I suppose many might desire to see it as it originally was, so that I have only corrected mistakes and made a sentence or two clearer, and left the accused places as they were, and in the margin noted any desirable changes as far as they are material to clear the sense. The first edition, reprinted from the "Bible Treasury," I left as it was, because I gave it as such. Now I change what I think right. There are only a few passages of any consequence.

I will here add what may make plain how, from surrounding circumstances, Christ could enter into the remnant's sufferings, and, in a certain analogy, ours when converted but dreading wrath still; and why I have said He entered into the sufferings, and passed through the sufferings, without its having anything to do with His relationship or state. In the last days the upright remnant will be oppressed by the Gentiles (the same Roman beast), rejected and persecuted by the apostate Jews who own Caesar, and will, though looking in true faith to God, be fearing wrath before them. Now every word of this was true of Christ; and He felt it as come to bring blessing to Israel, which they rejected, not knowing the time of their visitation. He was persecuted by apostate Jews joining with Gentiles; He was oppressed cruelly by the Roman power. The remnant will feel it as the ruin and sin of beloved Israel; and so did He. They are fearing wrath; and the Lord was doing so too, with the difference that He really drank the cup. It is not that He had brought it on Himself as the nation had; but He passed through the suffering of it so as to be able to succour those that are tempted, to know how to speak a word in season to them that are weary. The analogy of an upright soul fearing judgment is that he is upright, and yet the fear of judgment is on his soul, and perhaps persecution his portion too. Christ can enter into the sorrows of that soul. But in Israel's case the character of suffering perfectly corresponds. "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him," is put by the Spirit into their mouth. But these sufferings of Christ are distinct from atonement. It is not that Christ's feelings were not much more perfect; but He passed through, in His own case, the suffering which enables Him to enter into theirs. I would solemnly ask my reader, if He thinks Psalm 69: 27, 28, is the fruit of atonement, and if atonement is contemplated there?

159 I may add a general remark which has suggested itself to me, which may help every willing mind. It is objected, smiting is spoken of before the cross, meeting indignation and wrath and the like. The error is that of my accusers and not mine. Had they been living in the mind of scripture, and its habits of thinking, they would have found it simply its way of speaking. And when it is stated that there are contradictory statements on my part, which produce confusion, it is also their unacquaintedness with scripture. I dare say I may have followed the scripture mode of speaking without always accounting for it to myself. When called in question, the matter is specifically accounted for. But it is not my intention to give up a scriptural way of speaking and thinking because they think it wrong. I believe scripture more right than they.

Scripture speaks of the whole of the last hours of Christ's life up to and including His death as one period, and it is characterized as one event. It has His rejection and smiting stamped upon it, and to speak of it so is right. Yet to speak of atonement distinctly as wrought in the hour of His forsaking of God is right too. Smiting, indignation, and wrath, the whole of His rejection, and what was involved in it, attaches itself to the whole period in scripture language. Yet He was not actually drinking the cup — not actually smitten. In John, who takes the divine side of these truths, even the time of His ascension is included, and so even in Luke as the blessed effect. And just the same contradiction may be alleged against scripture. Thus in Luke 9, His last journey up to Jerusalem, "when the hour was come that he should be received up." So in the expression, His hour, "my hour is not yet come." Again, "Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." Now this is unequivocally applied to what preceded the cross by the Holy Ghost; yet the smiting was not fulfilled till the cross, but its effect and the whole scene characterized by it was come. Again, "When Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, and . . . knowing that the Father had committed all things into his hand" — was it come or not come? It could not be till after atonement, yet for scriptural language it was come. Again as to His work on the cross: "Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him [that is on the cross morally]; and if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself." Now here, was the Son of man glorified yet in the work of the cross? So "now is the judgment of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out." It is treated as one whole time now come. That is the scriptural way of treating it, as a now in contrast with the previous state of things. And so one imbued with the scriptural way of speaking and thinking will treat it.

160 But scripture goes farther and contradicts itself, as my adversaries speak of contradiction, on this very point. In John 17 the Lord says, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Had He finished it? He contemplated the whole scene as present. On the cross He says afterwards, when He had drunk the vinegar, "It is finished, and gave up his spirit." The treating the smiting as come, and the Saviour as meeting indignation and wrath, then, is perfectly scriptural and the scriptural way of speaking, and so is it to hold that the true atoning work and the fulfilment of the smiting too was on the cross. There, and there only, was the forsaking of God. The cavils of my adversaries, while I admit of course human imperfection in my words, are cavils against scripture. It speaks as I have spoken, and any alleged contradiction and confusion is that of scripture. A rationalist would accuse scripture as I have been accused.

161 But I feel pressed to add as regards Mr. Hall's doctrine, on reflecting on it, my earnest declaration (without an atom of unkindly feeling) of rejecting it as fatal as doctrine and destructive of Christian affection. There may be better thoughts in his mind — I dare say there are; but what he has insisted on against me is a fatal denial of the true sufferings of Christ. For him it is atonement, sympathy, or Christ's own relationship with God. Now sympathy is not a man's own sufferings; hence Christ, according to Mr. Hall, never suffered but in atonement. I read, "It became him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He began that course in the manger and went on to the cross through a course which was not atonement, which was not merely sympathy, though it made Him able to exercise it, able to succour them that are tempted. I do not doubt that Mr. Hall has better thoughts, but all his accusations against my teaching are founded on this fatal and ruinous error. It is a singular circumstance that when a person very hostile to me abroad sought to profit by Mr. Ryan's tract against me, he fell into the same ruinous view as Mr. Hall. Saints cannot be too earnestly warned against it.

Finally, I do not think it possible that an unprejudiced mind would have found in my tract what has been put into it as its meaning. Jealousy awakened by previous blasphemies I can understand and not even regret. But those that have been active in accusing me have taken the other direction, a phenomenon which has its voice. Ignorance of the scriptural teaching on the Jewish remnant I am neither surprised nor troubled at. As I have already said, I have, save errors of the press and a word here and there for clearness, left the tract as it was, noting as far as I am aware the obnoxious passages. The general question and the objections drawn from other books of mine are sufficiently dealt with in the introduction. I feel that as it is, I have been (though seeking only to expound the truth) as a fool in saying so much of what others will take as self-defence. I have, of course, taken up the points pressed upon me by others in correspondence; and the Lord gave occasion to me just before writing this to go through the psalms and scriptures in question with brethren who had had all the difficulties my accusers' tracts could awaken in their mind furnished to them by their reading these tracts. My object, however, while taking notice of all the objections, is to treat of the subject for those who inquire. I have not entered into controversy by any answer to the papers of my accusers. I trust I may never be called on to do it. Their own correspondence with me and other letters gave me substantially all the objections; and if scripture be made clear, accusations and reproach affect me with pain only for themselves. On that I do not enter.

162 I have no views as to the relationship of Christ, but the common faith of the saints. That by which false views on that point have been attempted to be proved as a consequence of my doctrine is founded on a fatal error in the teaching of him who seeks to prove it.

It has been stated currently and in print that I attribute to the blessed Lord the exercises of the soul of a sinner or the experiences of an erring saint. Now I have not been able to find any passage speaking of the experience of Christ. The word is quite strange to my mind and heart. The passage I find referred to by one, I suppose by all, is in page 189, the third kind of suffering. Now that does not speak of the experiences of Christ, and it states the opposite to what is alleged. Man is said to learn when a sinner, Christ to pass through the suffering as a perfect being learning it for others. Passing through suffering as a perfect being is the contradiction of learning when a sinner. I have noticed the passage in the notes to the tract. Perhaps the simpler way of clearing the expression would be to add 'of it,' and read, 'Christ passed through the suffering of it in the last case as a perfect being' at any rate, my statement is exactly the opposite of what is alleged.

I have sought to explain, as many have wished it; but I have not after all expressed my own feelings, which I must now be permitted to do, as the fruit of the enquiry I have pursued — feelings, I mean, solely as to the doctrine in question. I look with unmingled horror on the denial of the truth of Christ's sufferings contained in what is opposed to the paper on "the sufferings of Christ." It is alleged, there are no sufferings of Christ but suffering in atonement and sympathy; or suffering in atonement for sin from God, and for righteousness from man. There is a vast deep of sufferings of Christ, inward sufferings, which are neither one nor the other. When it is said, 'Who in the days of his flesh with strong crying and tears offered up prayers and supplications unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared,' it was not atonement; for if it referred to the atoning sufferings on the cross (though, perhaps, it cannot be said to do so exclusively), yet He was not then undergoing it, but praying, before it was come, to be delivered from death. It was not persecution from man merely, as is evident in the words of the passage. See Gethsemane, where above all it had its accomplishment. This is confessedly not atonement. Persecuting man was not there. He was alone and begged His disciples to watch with Him.* He sweat as it were great drops of blood. Was it persecution or atonement?

{*Nor was it sympathy.}

163 But I hear the chuckle of triumph, Why they are your own words that Christ suffered only from God for sin in atonement, and from man for righteousness! No doubt; and when the question was as to sufferings directly inflicted on Christ in respect of the state or relationship in which Christ stood, which was the question with Mr. Newton, that was quite true. He suffered from God in atonement for sin, and from man for righteousness. Leaving aside now this last, which all admit, Mr. Newton held the heavy hand of God was upon Him as being a Jew and a child of Adam, His relative position, and that He had to extricate Himself from it. That I denied and deny as ever. Inflicted sufferings for the state or relationship in which He was, were only for sin from God and for righteousness from man.

But there was a vast scene of agony for Christ's soul neither inflicted by God for what He was made, nor by man for what He was; but the agonies of His holy soul in this world, His own sufferings, in which He ever looked up to God, and referred to God's will, and which in part were connected with the ruin of Israel and His own cutting off as Messiah, as I have already explained. That cutting off, in the ways of God, must come, but was in no sense suffering inflicted on Him because of the relationship in which He was, or as if He Himself had the sense of failure; but the effect of Israel's sins. Yet He could say He had laboured in vain and spent His strength for nought and in vain. Yet this was by no means the deeper part of His agony. I cannot help feeling that had my accusers been thinking not of me but of Christ, they would not have fallen into this awful chasm, for such it really is. I am inclined to suspect that, not being in communion with Christ in the matter, Satan has deceived them by the ambiguity of the word "suffering," which means both actually inflicted pain, and inward sorrow of heart where nothing is done to the person at all. But if they had been seeking the truth and edification simply, they would not have been thus deceived. It is very possible, writing not for critical controversy but for instruction and edification, this double meaning of the word may not be distinguished in my papers. For grace, if so, it would not have been a snare.

164 But this I say: — if utter and total rejection of the views opposed to me, and belief in the sufferings of Christ besides atonement and persecution, exclude me from communion with my brethren in England and every other Christian in the world — I would not for a thousand worlds make a party on such a subject — I hold to my belief of these sufferings. I shall find them all again in His blessed face and in His glory when I see Him. I will dwell alone with Him, and mourn that Satan has succeeded in deceiving those I love, comforted with the thought that Christ will not give them up.

To the Editor of the "Bible Treasury"

A good deal that is current on the sufferings of Christ leads me to desire to draw the attention of your readers to this point, and to some simple yet important distinctions which it behoves us to make, as to their character and nature. The sympathies of Christ are so precious to the soul, His entering into our sorrows in this world of moral woe, so comforting, so softening, and yet so elevating, that we cannot treasure too highly the realization of them in our hearts, nor guard too carefully against anything that is spurious. That is the more important, because the character of His sufferings more or less connects itself with His Person and nature. I shall endeavour to be as simple as possible.

In the first place, we have to distinguish His sufferings from man and His sufferings from God. Their cause, and the result of them, are equally contrasted. Christ did, we know, suffer from men. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The world hated Him before it hated His disciples; it hated Him because He bore witness of it that its works were evil. He was "light," and he that doeth evil hateth the light, nor comes to the light, because his works are evil. In a word, Christ suffered for righteousness' sake; even as it was from the beginning, in that which was a type of Jesus' history in this respect, Cain slew Abel, because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. We may add, that the love which caused the Lord to minister to men in the world, and testify of their evil, brought only more sorrow upon Him. For His love He had hatred. This hatred of man against Him never slackened till His death, when, in the folly of human exultation, they could shout, Aha! aha! so would we have it. Righteousness and love, and what was indeed the manifestation of the divine nature and ways on the earth, brought out the relentless hatred of the human mind and will. Christ suffered from man for righteousness' sake.

But He suffered also from the hand of God upon the cross. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; when He shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. He was made sin for us who knew no sin, and then He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. There He suffered the just for the unjust; that is, He suffered, not because He was righteous, but because we were sinners, and He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. As regards God's forsaking Him, He could say, Why hast Thou forsaken Me? for in Him there was no cause. We can give the solemn answer. In grace He suffered the just for the unjust; He had been made sin for us. Thus He suffered for righteousness, as a living man, from men; as a dying Saviour, He suffered from the hand of God for sin. It is most interesting to notice the result of these two characters of suffering as expressed in the Psalms.

165 In Psalms 20 and 21 we see the Messiah prophetically viewed as suffering on the earth from men. It was the day of trouble. They imagined a device against Him which they were not able to perform. But He asks life, and has length of days for ever. Glory and great majesty are put upon Him. What is the effect of His being thus glorified by Jehovah, in answer to the scorn and violence of ungodly men? Judgment: His hand finds out all His enemies. He makes them as a fiery oven in the day of His anger; as He said, "Those mine enemies that would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me." The same thing may be seen in Psalm 69: 1-24. The effect of His suffering from the hand of wicked men is judgment on themselves.

166 In Psalm 22 we have, besides all these sufferings from the hand of men, and when they had reached their height (see the whole psalm up to verse 21), His suffering from the hand of God. When under the pressure of the others, God, His only resource, forsakes Him. This is the great theme of the psalm. But what is the result of this? This was the bearing of sin — at least the consequence of His bearing it. It was the judgment, so to speak; it was the wrath due to us. But He came to put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. Hence the result is unmingled and full of grace — nothing else. Who was to be punished for His having drunk the cup at His Father's hand? He is heard. God takes the new character of one who has raised Him up and given Him glory, because He had perfectly glorified Him about sin. He is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. This name of His God and Father He immediately declares to His brethren, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." So in fact He did, when He said to Mary Magdalene, "Touch me not [He was not now coming to be corporally present in the kingdom], for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say unto them, I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God." The testimony was now grace, and Jesus leads the praises of His redeemed. Next, all Israel, the great congregation, is found in the praise also; then all the ends of the world. The fat eat and worship; all that go down into the dust; and the generation that shall be born, when that time of peace is come, shall also hear the wondrous story of that which the angels now desire to look into — that He hath done this. It is an unmingled stream of grace and blessing, widening to the ends of the earth, and flowing down the course of time to the generation which shall be born.

Such is the effect of the cross. No word of judgment follows the tale it has to tell. The suffering there was the judgment on sin, but it was the putting of it away. The judgment was borne, but passed away with its execution on the victim, who had in grace substituted Himself; and if, indeed, we shall be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, He before whom we shall appear has Himself put away our sins; yea, we arrive there, because He has Himself come to fetch us, that where He is, there we may be also. In a word, it was suffering from God; and suffering from God is suffering for sin,* not for righteousness; and the effect, unmingled grace, now freely flowing forth. Christ had been baptized with the baptism He had to be baptized with. He was no longer straitened in the exercise and proclamation of love. When He suffered from man through the whole of His witness among them up to death itself, He was suffering for righteousness. Sin He had not, in His Person, to suffer for. He was no substituted victim in the eyes of men. The result of these sufferings from the power of men is judgment, accomplished on His return — in a providential way already in the destruction of Jerusalem, but fully when He shall return.

{*This passage has been used against me, not for what is in it, but as shewing the evil of other passages. The principle is perfectly just Positive direct suffering from God is for sin, from man for righteousness But that cannot set aside the sorrows of Christ's heart in respect of Israel's rejection, and His own cutting off as Messiah. It does not set aside that He felt what death was, that it became God to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. This is not, in the true sense of the word, suffering from God in that sense of wrath of which Psalm 22 speaks. What is here is right. The utmost that can be said is, that a collateral truth should have been mentioned, as it was m my answer to Mr. Newton, where I said there were only these two sorts of suffering. Directly and properly that is true. My accusers may add the collateral truth if they please. Moreover Christ piously ascribed all these sufferings to God even when they were instrumentally fro n man, as coming from God's will and counsel. The reader has only to go on to the third following paragraph and he will find these other sufferings. Compare pp. 178-180. It is fully entered on towards the close.}

167 But there is another point of contrast, consequently, very important for us. Christ suffered for sin that we never might. We are healed by, not partakers of, His stripes. What Christ has suffered from the forsaking of God as wrath, He has suffered alone and exactly, as to us, with the object that we never should taste one drop of that dreadful, bitter, to us insupportable cup. Did we drink it, it were as condemned sinners. But in the sufferings of Christ for righteousness, and in those which were caused to Him through His work of love, we are, poor and feeble as our faith is, to have a part. To us it is given, not only to believe on, but also to suffer for, His name. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. If we suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are we, and yet more blessed if we suffer for His name. The Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us. We can rejoice that we are partakers of His sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, we may be glad with exceeding joy. The suffering for righteousness and for Christ, I may remark in passing, are distinguished by the Lord Himself (Matthew 5: 10, 11); and by Peter (1 Peter 2: 20; ch. 3: 17; ch. 4: 14).

168 The principle of these two kinds of suffering, however, as contrasted with suffering for sin or evil, is the same. The difference of suffering for good and for evil is touchingly contrasted in Peter's epistle, while both are attributed to Christ; and we are warned against the latter. Christ is presented as suffering as an example, chapter 2: 19-23, where we see, in verse 23, he refers to the revilings and violence of men; in verse 24, he adds His bearing our sins, shewing that it is in order that we may be dead to it, not suffer for that. But this is brought out, as I said, touchingly, chapter 3: 17, 18, the force of which I take to be this: the apostle had been speaking of suffering for righteousness, and adds, It is better, if it be God's will, that you suffer for well doing than for evil doing; for, he adds, Christ has suffered once for sins. That is, this is not your part in suffering; He has done this once for all. Suffering for righteousness may be your happy portion; suffering for sin is, as regards the Christian, Christ's part alone.

I would notice two other characters of suffering in our blessed Lord. In the first place, His heart of love must have suffered greatly from the unbelief of unhappy man, and from His rejection by the people. We read of His sighing in opening the deaf ears and loosing the tied tongue (Mark 7: 34); and on the Pharisees asking a sign (chap. 8: 12), of His sighing deeply in spirit. So, indeed, in John 11 at the tomb of Lazarus, He wept and groaned within Himself at seeing the power of death over the spirits of men, and their incapacity to deliver themselves; and as He wept also over Jerusalem, when He saw the beloved city just going to reject Him in the day of its visitation. All this was the suffering of perfect love, moving through a scene of ruin, in which self-will and heartlessness shut every avenue against this love which was so earnestly working in its midst. It must have been — with bright and blessed moments where its exercise proved sweetness to itself, and led His heart out by times to fields white for harvest — a constant source of sorrow. This sorrow (blessed be God) and the joy that brightens it, we are allowed, in our little measure, to partake of. It is the sorrow of love itself.

169 A weight of another character pressed upon the Lord, I doubt not, often through His life; and must and ought to have done so, though only shewing perfectness (that is, in blessed submission to the divine will). I mean the anticipation, when the time was there for Him to look at it (how often are we distracted by our little anticipated sorrows!), of His sufferings on the cross and their true and pressing character. On His path of life death lay. He could not, as we see, take His part with the excellent of the earth, and bring them into the purposed, or indeed, any real and permanent blessing, without going through death, and death as the wages of sin, for they were sinners. If the corn of wheat did not fall into the ground and die, it abode alone. There none could follow — not indeed the disciples, as He tells them, more than the Jews. And for Him death was death. Man's utter weakness, Satan's extreme power, and God's just vengeance, and alone, without one sympathy, forsaken of those whom He had cherished, the rest His enemies, Messiah delivered to Gentiles and cast down, the judge washing his hands of condemning innocence, the priests interceding against the guiltless instead of for the guilty — all dark, without one ray of light even from God. Here perfect obedience was needed, and (blessed be God!) was found. But we can understand, and just in the measure of Christ's divine, while human, sensibilities, what such sorrow must have been in prospect for a soul who looked at it with the feelings of a man made perfect in thought and apprehension by the divine light which was in Him.

We have examples of these sorrows of the Lord's heart in two remarkable cases, which, of course, though none were like the last, do not at all exclude the thought that others may have been, nor give full light on what He may have felt when in perfect calmness He spoke of His future sufferings to His disciples. The cases I refer to are those of John 12 and Gethsemane. In the former we read, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour." The coming up of the Gentiles had opened out before Him the scene of the rejected Christ passing into the wider glory of the Son of man; but then the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die. This brings before His soul the true and necessary path of His glory — death, and all it meant, to His soul, and He looks for deliverance. He could not wish for, nor fail to fear, the forsaking of God and the cup of death He had to drink. He was heard in that He feared. That was truth, and true piety, in presence of such a passage for His soul.

So in Gethsemane, when it was yet nearer, and the prince of this world came, and His soul was exceeding sorrowful unto death; when the cup was just as it were being brought to Him, though He had not yet taken it (for He would take it from none but from His Father's hand), when His will was that He should drink it, because it was not possible it could be otherwise, if the purpose and word of God was to be accomplished — there this character of sorrow and trial, or temptation, reached its fulness. The tempter (who on His entrance on His public service, and to hinder His doing so, had tempted Him with what was agreeable to the flesh in the wilderness and on the pinnacle of the temple, and had been baffled and bound, and during the Lord's life had his goods spoiled) now returns to try Him with all that was dreadful for the soul of man, and, above all, for the Lord, if He persevered in His obedience and work unto the end. Power had been displayed capable of delivering living man from all the dominion of the enemy. Another awful, dreadful truth had now come out: man would not have the Deliverer. If the Lord was to persevere in interesting Himself in the wretched race, He must be, not a mighty living Deliverer by power, but a dying Redeemer. It was the path of obedience and the path of love. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as my Father has given me commandment so I do."

170 But in both the cases we are now considering, we find Him still with His Father, though occupied with Him about the cup He had to drink, and His obedience only shining out in its perfection. There was no forsaking of God yet, though there was dealing with His Father about that cup which was characterized by His being forsaken of God. "Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." Here He gets the answer, to obedience to death in judgment, of real and complete victory, and the widespread opening out of the revelation of love, though the world was judged therein. But in Gethsemane all was closing in. It was the power of darkness and the deeper agony of the Lord told itself out in few (yet how mighty) words, and sweat as it were drops of blood. But the obedience was perfect. The tempter utterly foiled, the name of Jesus suffices to make all his agents go backward and fall to the ground. He, as far as they were concerned and Satan's power went, was free. But the Father had given Him the cup to drink. He freely offers Himself to drink it, shewing the same unweakened power as ever, that of those given to Him He might lose none. Wondrous scene of obedience and love! But whatever the suffering may be (and who can tell it?) it was the free moving of a man in grace, but of a man perfect in obedience to God. The cup His Father has given Him to drink, shall He not drink it? How utterly, though indeed there, do the unhappy instruments of this power of evil disappear before the offering up of Christ by Himself in obedience and love! The power of death, as that of the enemy, gone through with His Father, and gone, and He in blessed, willing obedience now taking the awful cup itself from His Father's hand! Never can we meditate too much upon the path of Christ here. We may linger around the spot and learn what no other place nor scene can tell — a perfectness which is learnt from Him and from Him alone. But I must turn now to other parts of Christ's sorrow, for I can only touch on its causes and character.

171 Sin itself must have been a continual source of sorrow to the Lord's mind. If Lot vexed his righteous soul with seeing and hearing when so practically far from God, what must the Lord have suffered in passing through the world? I doubt not that, being perfectly in the place God would have Him, He was, not only in degree, but in the very nature of His feelings, calmer than the righteous man in Sodom. Still He was distressed by sin. He looked about upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. His perfect love was relief here, but did not hinder the sorrow it relieved. "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" was met by, "bring thy son hither." But the unbelief was not the less felt. This was at the close, doubtless, and had special respect to their unbelief, which His own love instantly rises over. Still He was in a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, and felt it, even if His soul was also filled as with marrow and fatness. The holier and more loving He was, the more dreadful was the sin to Him (where His people wandered too, as sheep without a shepherd).

172 The sorrows, too, of men were His in heart. He bore their sicknesses, and carried their infirmities. Not a sorrow nor an affliction He met that He did not bear on His heart as His own. In all their afflictions He was afflicted. It was no light-hearted remedy that, even as a living man, the Lord applied. He bore in His spirit what He took away in His power (for all was the fruit of sin in man): only it was in gracious love. The sin itself He bore too, but that, as we have seen, was on the cross — obedience, not sympathy. God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. All the rest was the sympathy of love, though it was sorrow. This is a blessed character of the Lord's sorrow. Love brought Him to the cross, we well know; but His sorrow there had not the present joy of a ministration of love. He was not dealing with man, but suffering in his place, in obedience, from God, and for man. Hence it was unmingled, unmitigated suffering; the scene, not of active goodness, but of God forsaking: but all His sorrow in His ways with men was the direct fruit of love, sensibly acting on Him — He felt for others, about others. That feeling was (oh! how constantly) sorrow in a world of sin; but that feeling was love. This is sweet to our thought. For His love He might have hatred, but the present exercise of love has a sweetness and character of its own which no form of sorrow it may impart ever takes away; and in Him it was perfect. I do not indeed deny that righteous anger filled His soul when occasion called it forth — we know it did — yea, brought out such denouncement of woes, as I believe nothing but perfect love could produce; for what must He have felt of those who took away the key of knowledge, and entered not in themselves, and hindered those that were entering? Righteous indignation is not sorrow, but the love that gives birth to it, where it is righteous, stamps its own peculiar character upon it.

Another source of sorrow (for what has Christ not drunk at?) was, perhaps, more human, but not less true — I mean the violation of every delicacy which a perfectly attuned mind could feel. They stand staring and looking upon me. Insult, scorn, deceit, efforts to catch Him in His words, brutality and cruel mocking, fell upon no insensible, though a divinely patient, spirit. I say nothing of desertion, betrayal, and denial — He looked for some to have pity on Him, and there was no one, and for comforters, but found none — but of what broke in upon every delicate feeling of His nature as a man. Reproach broke His heart. He was the song of the drunkards. Doubtless, Jehovah knew His shame, His reproach, and His dishonour; all His adversaries were before Him; but He passed through it all. No divine perfection saved Him from sorrow. He passed through it with divine perfection, and by it. But I do not believe there was a single human feeling (and every most delicate feeling of a perfect soul was there) that was not violated and trodden on in Christ. Doubtless, it was nothing to divine wrath. Men and their ways were forgotten there; but the suffering was not the less real when it was there; and even when, at least, anticipating that cup of wrath, He would have His too confident disciples watch by Him, He only found them asleep at His return. All was sorrow but the exercise of love, and that must, at last, make way for obedience in death, where the wrath of God closed over and obliterated the hatred and wickedness of man. Such was Christ. All sorrow concentrated in His death, where the comfort of active love, and the communion with His Father, could put no alleviating sweetness, or be for a moment mingled with that dreadful cup of wrath. There, promises, royal glory in title, all was given up, to have them infallibly anew, received in glory, from the Father's hand, with a better and higher glory, which He had ever had, indeed, but now would enter into as man.

The Sufferings of Christ

J. N. Darby.

From the "Bible Treasury," 1858-9.

<07008E> 139 {file section b.}

173 The sufferings of our blessed Lord are too solemn, too holy, a subject to dispose one who feels he owes his all to them, to make them a subject of dispute or controversy. It is my desire to avoid this, yet not so as to let disastrous and fatal error overcome my heart.

I judge, too, that it is much to be desired that the "Bible Treasury" should not be a journal of controversy, but occupy itself with the positive putting forth of truths such as the Church of God requires, and which edify and enlighten it. I am satisfied that in the unwonted movement of mind, the intellectual craving, and that which always accompanies such a movement, the unsettling of the minds of thousands, upon all manner of important questions which exist at present, the most useful and necessary task for a servant of Christ in connection with such a publication is to furnish food to meet the requirements of men's minds with truth, which, by solidly satisfying their awakened desire, may peacefully guard them against being blown about by every wind of doctrine; while holding fast fundamental truth, to give from the divine mind revealed to us in the word what can carry the soul, while steadying it at the same time, really beyond the most venturesome and dangerous flights of human intellectualism. The Christian, through grace, can hope to do this, because he draws not from his own resources, but from the word of God, from divine sources of truth. Such, I am satisfied, ought the "Bible Treasury" to be in order to be useful.

174 I am not unapprized, though happily living out of the reach of most of the religious warfare that is abroad in England, that an attack has been made, without naming them, on persons alleged to hold certain views as to the sufferings of Christ, and that they are declared to be semi-Socinians. I do not think that such an attack deserves an answer — at any rate it does not burden me much; and I do not feel disposed to mix up questions that relate to the sufferings of Christ with so small a matter as personal attacks of the kind. The Wesleyans (whatever the correctness of their views on other points may be) would be surprised to find themselves to be semi-Socinians for such a phrase as this in Bunting's sermon on justification by faith, which I happen to have lying before me: "It is only as a Lamb slain that He takes away our sins." Indeed, the errors, which are said to be renewed and declared to be evil in the passage quoted by the accuser, are blamed because they divide the orthodox. Do they count semi-Socinianism orthodox? But enough and too much.

Multitudes of saints, with perhaps undefined apprehensions of the manner of the application of the sufferings of the blessed Lord to their profit, look at all the sufferings of Christ with an adoring feeling of their infinite value, and believe that all are for themselves, undergone, in love to them, and the means of their blessing. I can only pray God that this feeling may be deepened in them and in myself too. I do not believe one sorrow was wanting to Christ, nor one sigh of His which had not infinite value, nor which is not precious for me, and (blessed be God!) a part of my blessing. He has given Himself for us, and this was a part of that giving, or the fruit of it. We cannot feel it too deeply. The true question lies beyond all this, and is not touched on in the attack I have referred to, which is a additional reason for my not replying to it as such.

175 What I object to and judge to be evil in what is afloat among Christians is not even the doctrine that the sufferings of Christ during His lifetime were vicarious. Even where this is incorrectly stated, I might seek in such a case to make the apprehensions of the mind clearer, where it was needed; but in no case, that I am aware of, should I have an idea of treating it as heretical. On the contrary, the doctrine which I denounce as evil, where it has been carefully developed and justified (and the author of these views is in the good esteem of the writer of the article I refer to) teaches very specifically that the sufferings of the blessed Lord, during His lifetime, were not vicarious; that it is a mistake and an error to hold them so It teaches that they were the consequence of His association by birth with man and with Israel, and that Christ had all the experiences which an unconverted man ought to have. It teaches that Christ was dried up and withered by Jehovah's anger, not vicariously, but by reason of the place He was in This is what I abhor. I do not find the persons so jealous of semi-Socinianism moved to this jealousy by these and the like doctrines, nor others almost equally mischievous, in those they applaud and quote. And this abominable doctrine as to Christ has gone very far. Tracts are published, in which the darkness of unbelief in us, and an inability to pray, are declared to be the partaking of the sufferings of Christ; and that when a Christian doubts of his salvation, this too is the fellowship of Christ's sorrow.

"There were moments," I read, "when Jesus had fears for His ultimate deliverance and safety . . . . He entreated, at least, that a way of escape might be left Him, that He might not be shut in in hopeless despair! Oh, what deep depths we may be led into through our own prayer to know the 'fellowship of his sufferings'; yet who that remembers what joint heirship with Him involves, can expect, or even desire, entire exemption from them? . . ." That is, in desiring to have part in Christ's sufferings, we may get into despair, or all but. Was this doubting His own deliverance vicarious in Christ? What is it in those who come into it after He has wrought a perfect redemption? Nor is this all. I read, "Jesus knew what it was to be apparently set fast in His onward course, as is strikingly expressed under the figure of miry clay. 'I sink in deep mire [margin, mire of the depth], where there is no standing.' 'Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink.' 'He brought me up also out of the miry clay, out of an horrible pit.' It was no light thing that made Jesus express Himself thus. He knew what it was, by painful experience, to be in such a position. Thus He says in Psalm 38: 16, 17, 'When my foot slipped (who but knows the difficulty of walking in miry clay without slipping?) they magnify themselves against me, for I am ready to halt.' He would have shrunk back if He could consistently with His Father's will. 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.' What comfort is this for believers when they are ready to halt (set fast)!"

176 What shall I say to such language? I know not with any certainty whose it is. I have understood that they are the statements of a deceased female, whose life and correspondence I have never seen. Wisdom might have corrected and set them right, if this be so, when she was living; but they have been published as tracts for edification by those who have approved of them, and I am entitled to treat them as theirs. Is suffering vicarious when it is our privilege to pass through the same, and doubt of our ultimate deliverance, as Jesus appears to have had fear for His? Did the Lord slip vicariously? No, reader, you have the fruit, and that published by teachers as piety, of the system I denounce. It is largely afloat. It may be more guarded by the theologians, more nakedly stated when a female's feelings are possessed by it; but the doctrine, the root and principle of it, belongs to a whole school of doctrine.* You have some of the ripe fruits here. Christ slipped, "and who but knows the difficulty of walking in miry clay without slipping?"

{*A popular book of piety, the "Night of Weeping," is unequivocally infected with this doctrine.}

I do not charge the whole school with accepting such fruits as these, but I do charge their principles and their doctrine with being the root which bears them. Some who published the tracts and the biography (if what I am informed be correct) must have been brought, by being habituated to this doctrine and the ignorant application of Psalms and other parts of scripture to Christ, to see what was edifying in saying that Christ's foot slipped — He not having succeeded in overcoming the difficulty of not doing so; and that this is a great comfort for believers when they are set fast in the mire — it is to be supposed when they slip too; and this is the fellowship of His sufferings! Seasons of spiritual darkness are an answer to a prayer to know Him, and the fellowship of His sufferings! "and in no case, perhaps, can Christian experience be more fully or minutely traced out, as a real participation in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, the Head of His body."

177 A justification of the darkness of unbelief — not the travailing sorrows of love for others, which, however, are here confounded with them, but of darkness and almost despair for oneself, viewed as the fellowship of Christ's sufferings — is beyond all, I avow, that I could ever have imagined the perversion of a misguided mind could have led to. If it was vicarious in Christ, I suppose these doctors must make it so in the Christian now, for it is the fruit of his prayers for fellowship in Christ's sufferings. It is not, they tell us, unbelief, but privilege; not a needed exercise of heart, but a conferred one; not one whose blessing is a needed one for the soul who goes through it — its own humiliation or its discipline. For whom is it undergone? Indeed, in the same tract it is said that Christ is to see of the travail of His soul, and Gethsemane and the cross are specifically referred to. So, it is said, ministers travail in birth for their little children, till Christ be formed within them. And this is circulated as beautiful piety. I do not trust myself to express what I feel. It was said by the leader of this school, referring to Christ, that we need not be surprised if a person going up an ice mountain with a heavy load on his back should slip. This ripens under female feeling into the declaration that He did — a conclusion necessarily drawn from this abuse of the Psalms fairly followed out. And these public teachers go a step farther now, and comfort believers with the thought that Christ actually slipped, His path was so difficult.

But I repeat, it is the just and natural fruit of a school of doctrine admired by very many really Christian people. The tree is known by its fruits.

That Christ suffered every possible sorrow which can come upon man through sin (I do not speak, I need hardly say, of final condemnation); and that all His sorrows were, in one way or other (for they were various), the consequence and fruit of sin, though of His own love too, is most preciously true. That in all my sorrows and temptations and trials, even those which come through my faults and infirmities, I may know that He feels either with or for me, is of infinite value. But to make the infirmities of my faith, my hours of darkness, and unbelieving fears of final failure, the fellowship of His sufferings, and His slipping, a comfort to my soul, is the last excess of spiritual pride and folly.

178 But the principle which has borne this fruit connects itself on one side with the question of the vicariousness of Christ's life, at least by the view taken of it by the school I have in view, because the true character of wrath against sin and atonement is lost sight of. It is this last point which I would desire now to give its just place to, and leave all controversy connected with it pretty much aside, though I shall refer to the opinion of old writers.

We cannot have too deep a sense of the depth of the Lord's suffering in His atoning work, of that which no human word is competent to express (for in human language we express but our own feelings) — what the Lord's drinking the cup of divine wrath was to Him. With this nothing can be mingled and mixed up. Divine wrath against sin, really felt and truly felt in the soul of One who, by His perfect holiness and love to God and sense of God's love in its infinite value, could know what divine wrath was, and what it was to be made sin before God, of One too who was by virtue of His Person, able to sustain it, stands wholly apart and alone. Dreadful as the anticipation of it must have been, as it surely was, it was not that which was anticipated. No simple fact of death, dreadful as it was to the Prince of life, still less any human suffering, real and absolute as His were (and without one eye to pity, one heart to feel with the sufferer), could be put on a level with divine wrath.

Hence, in Psalm 22, the Lord expresses it Himself alone; He refers to the violence and wickedness of man in that Psalm; He refers to His own sense of weakness; and, in the midst of all that, contrasts with it God's being far from Him, as the distinct point of conflict in it, but openly declares that in all sorrow where others had help, God had forsaken Him. Hence, as has been said elsewhere, the fruit of this is unmingled grace, and grace and blessing alone, because it was wrath and suffering from God for sin. Sorrows from man's hand might and will bring judgment, if viewed as the fruit of enmity of will; the forsaking of God when Christ is made sin — who is to be judged for that? No, this stands absolutely and wholly alone, and Christ wholly alone in it. It works atonement, expiation. Can anyone else suffer what works this? Hence Christ puts Himself wholly alone in this Psalm 22 — contrasts Himself with others who are believers. They trusted God and were delivered. He was forsaken. Suffering can go on of the deepest and most poignant kind, distress and anxiety even in respect of sin: sufferings can go on even to death with its terrible power as such over the heart of man — can culminate to the very point where wrath is also found; but all close and reach their limit here; all stop totally and wholly in their nature short of the wrath and forsaking of God. They have their place and character as elements of human sorrow, however extreme; but all give way when this is there. Who could feel sorrow though sorrow was there, when wrath, God's wrath against sin, is there? Not merely bitter consequences on the sinner, even to death, for all that is true — and Christ has trodden that path — but divine wrath as such against sin — this stands alone: woe be to him who does not know it.

179 Hence even in Psalm 69, far, very far, as it goes in the sorrows and sufferings of Christ, and that in connection even with sins known to God, long as may be His cry, and to sense and feeling long unheard; yet the Spirit can introduce others into the same place. I do not say they suffer as much or as deeply — surely not; but they could suffer in the same way, because of the position their own sins have brought them into.* "For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded" (v. 26). Hence judgment is looked for on them. It is not atonement. These sufferings from man bring judicial visitation on man. In Psalm 22 not a trace of associating others, or others being associated, with the Lord in His sorrow. All suffering saints are, as we have seen, contrasted with Him. When the redemption is accomplished by it, when He has been heard from the horns of the unicorn, then indeed He associates His brethren with Him; but it is in deliverance, joy, and peace. Who could make atonement, or bear wrath for its accomplishment, but one? In every other sorrow we can bear a part.

{*I have altered this sentence to make its sense clear. It refers to Christ's entering into the sorrows of the remnant, fully explained elsewhere. It ran, "in the same way in the same position" — Christ having entered into these same sorrows in grace; just as by grace He tasted death.}

180 And this difference between Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 is so marked that in Psalm 69, while dwelling on the sufferings which came upon Christ on His drawing near to death, and giving the cry of deep distress as to state and circumstances as its thesis, instead of presenting to us His being forsaken of God while crying to Him, says, "But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Jehovah, in an acceptable time; O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, and in the truth of thy salvation" (v. 13). Hence, even in the expression of His anguish and sorrow, deep as it was, we have no word like Psalm 22; "but thou hearest not." Now it is impossible that a spiritual mind, one who knows something of the value of divine favour and being able to look to Him, however deep and inward the distress, be it even through sins and failures, can fail to understand the immense and absolute difference of these two states: equally impossible, it is true, yea, blessedly so, to fathom the depth of that which Psalm 22 expresses.

Now it is the sense of the true bearing of wrath — direct wrath from God — when made sin and suffering it, the being, as to the state of His soul, really forsaken of God, and because of sin, so that it was necessary and deserved, though through others, but really undergone — that it is of the very last importance, fundamentally important, to keep quite clear and fast hold of and maintain, and to hold as a clear foundation of everlasting truth. As regards the truth itself, I repeat, no divinely-taught mind, however obscure it may be as to the doctrine of the proper nature and character of Christ's living sufferings — however it may (through feelings) run up the depths of Christ's sorrow into mixing with those sorrows His atoning work — no divinely-taught mind will, as to the positive truth, fail to distinguish from all else the reality of Christ's own soul bearing the direct inflicted wrath of God, and the forsaking of God, which in grace He underwent — will fail to distinguish this from all other sorrow and suffering, however deep, in which He could say, for example, "But as for me, my prayer is unto thee in an acceptable time," in which He did not say, "But thou hearest not." He may find many passages difficult to explain — may be confused by the reasonings of others. He may, as to his feelings, confuse anticipating the cup of wrath and drinking it. We have all, more or less, done this; but when the real bearing of wrath from God, the wrath of God for sin, is before his soul and conscience, he will bow his soul before that solemn work, he will know that Christ stood alone in it: nor will he ever mix it up, for one instant, with sorrow, however deep, in which others could bear a part. In all sorrows of active love, in all brought upon us by the government of God for sin, we — at any rate man — (as for example the Jewish remnant, and, in principle, sinners under the law) can bear a thankful part, or have to bow under it. Reproach may break man's heart; he may stand alone and be forsaken of men; he may cry out of the depths, because of sin; but bear the weight of wrath he knows he could not. He adores when he finds another has done it. But this demands a more orderly exposition.

181 There is a double character of suffering besides atoning work, which Christ has entered into and which others can feel: the sufferings arising from active love in the world; and the sorrow arising from the sense of chastenings in respect of sin, and these mixed with the pressure of Satan's power on the soul, and the terror of foreseen wrath. In the former we suffer with Christ as privilege; in the latter we suffer for our folly and under God's hand, but Christ has entered into it.* He sympathizes with us. But all this is distinct from suffering instead of us, so as to save us from the suffering, undergoing God's wrath that we might not. In atonement He suffers for us, in service we suffer with Him: in our distresses about sin and agony of mind He felt with us.

{*I have fully explained this in the introduction, so that I do not add any explanation here nor make any change.}

We shall see that the Lord Himself and the teachings of the gospels clearly distinguish the sufferings of Christ during His ministry here, and His closing sufferings, and these last (even though taking place at the same time) from His atoning work. As soon as the Lord was baptized of John, the Holy Ghost came upon Him and He entered on His public ministry; but as a first and introductory step to it, He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He overcame, the strong man was bound, and He proceeded to spoil his goods; He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. Let it be possession, sickness, death: all and every fruit of the power of the enemy disappeared before His word. He went through sorrow — reproach from man, He took their burdens upon Himself. I have no doubt that Christ never healed a sick man without bearing in His spirit and heart the burden of it, as the fruit and power of evil: but all this was the activity of His love. "Himself bare our infirmities and carried our sicknesses." This is said, remark, when He healed them. Bearing our griefs and sorrows, and delivering us from them by power, is not bearing our sin itself under the wrath of God.

182 But further, Satan was not with Him in the way of direct temptation during the course of His ministry. We read in Luke, "And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season." But at the close of His life He could say, "Henceforth I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me," etc. Here a distinct change takes place again as to the position of the Lord in respect of the presence of Satan. Hence He could say to those who came from the chief priests afterwards, "But this is your hour and the power of darkness." Previously He had sat daily with them in the temple, and they had laid no hands on Him; but this (terrible word for these unhappy men!) was their hour and the power of darkness. He that had the power of death was busy there with the Lord, nor did He withdraw Himself from the trial. His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and he who had the power of darkness brought it all to bear upon His soul; but even here He could look for His disciples to watch with Him. They could be sifted as wheat, though their only resource (as that hour came on with real power) was to flee, or they entered into the temptation; at least when they knew not the power of the Holy Ghost working in them, for they should follow Christ afterwards, as He told Peter at least. This difference of His own position the Lord marks to them very clearly: "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise his scrip, and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one; for I say unto you that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end."

Now all was changed. Before, He had protected them by His divine power, by which He wrought in the world. Now, while His divine Person was ever the same, and His power in itself unchangeable, He was to be rejected and suffer. The glory would come, but first He must suffer many things, and be rejected of that generation. This He taught specially to His disciples from the time of Peter's confession of Him as Son of the living God, from the transfiguration onward, and in His last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Not that He was suffering these things then — His hour, we read in John, was not yet come — but He taught them that He must. (See Matt. 16: 21; ch. 17: 12: "shall suffer," — mellei paschein — and chap. 17: 22. Mark 8: 13; Luke 9: 22.) And it is the more remarkable because it is then He charges His disciples to tell no man He was the Christ, saying, "the Son of man must suffer." He was giving up, practically, His ministry of the circumcision for the truth of God, the witness of Jehovah Messiah,* and about to enter on another, the sufferings of the Son of man. It will be remarked that it is on the suggestion of this title also to His spirit by the coming up of the Greeks, in John 12, that His cross and death rise up at once before His soul. (Compare Psalm 2 and the use made of Psalm 8 by the apostle in Hebrews 2.)

{*This, however, was continued in patience up to His entry into Jerusalem on the ass, when He announces the vineyard was to be taken away from them.}

183 But to return to our immediate point. He tells them that He was about to suffer. We have seen that the prince of this world was to come. Satan entered into Judas, and it was the hour of His enemies and the power of darkness. This He spoke at the time He met the band from the chief priests, at the close of Gethsemane. Here there was a distinctly announced and openly declared change that took place in the character of the Lord's service and suffering — His position. It was not His service as Prince of life, though He ever was this and proved it, spoiling the goods of His vanquished enemy; "the prince of this world cometh." It is the power of darkness, and His undergoing it in agony for our sakes — His soul sorrowful, even unto death — the whole power on His own soul of the enemy, as having the power of death: still this was yet in communion and supplication with His Father about it, and heard of Him. And here we have the most distinct and definite revelation from His own lips, that He was not yet drinking the cup which His Father gave Him to drink. He prays that He might not drink it, that if it were possible the cup might pass from Him, but that if not unless He drank it, His submission to His Father's will was perfect. Here, doubtless, His soul enters in the deepest way into what it was that He had to drink — it was sorrowful, even unto death; but being in an agony (conflict) He prayed more earnestly. He was heard. He did not take the cup from man's hand, nor from Satan's hand, though both were there to press Him down, and all His weakness felt as man; but He goes through the thought of that, and death itself, in heard supplication with Him who was able to save Him from it, and takes the cup in perfect peace, as to man and Satan's power of darkness, from His Father's hand, and offers Himself freely, that none that the Father had given Him might be lost. (See John 18: 4-11.) The Father had given Him the cup to drink. He does not draw back from it, but freely offers Himself for us. Had He not done so in blessed obedience, He had only to walk away before His prostrate pursuers, or have demanded legions of angels to free Him from their power. But how should the scriptures have been fulfilled? But on the cross all is finished. God forsakes Him, and all the wrath of God is poured out on Him who knew no sin, but was made sin for us — on One who in His fully-tried life knew no sin. If any there had been, or any had been possible, the time for consciousness of it had been then. Every trial which could have drawn it out, if it had been there to be conscious of, had reached its full height; but the spotless offering on which no yoke had been, He who offered Himself without spot to God, was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He made His soul an offering for sin, as it is said too in the passage of Isaiah, referred to by the Lord Himself (Luke 22: 37) as that which was yet to come, "and he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sins of many.

184 And now, before I go farther, I ask, Is not His death presented in scripture as that by which redemption was wrought — His precious blood as its efficacious means? Have we not redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins? Is it not by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot? Is it not declared that without shedding of blood there is no remission? Let the reader take Hebrews 9, which I shall allow myself to quote here in full. It is well worth all human authority, be they of what age they may. "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator; for a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first [testament] was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation" (v. 11-28).

185 Let the reader remark that "without shedding of blood is no remission" — the declaration that He must often have suffered if He was to offer Himself often, as the high priest with the blood of others, but that it was once, in the end of the world, He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Let him turn to chapter 10, where, in contrast with standing for daily ministrations, "this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down." Was the way into the holiest to be opened? It was through the rent veil, that is to say, His flesh. Indeed, if we examine the value of the death of Christ, what do we find attached to it in scripture?

186 Do I need redemption? We have redemption through His blood, an eternal redemption, for "neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption."

Do I need forgiveness? That redemption which I have through His blood is the forgiveness of sins — yea, without shedding of blood is no remission.

Do I need peace? He has made peace through the blood of His cross.

Do I need reconciliation with God? Though we were sinners, yet now hath He reconciled us by the body of His flesh through death, to present us holy and unblamable, and unreprovable in God's sight. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.

Do I desire to be dead to sin and have the flesh crucified with its affections and lusts? I am crucified with Christ. "Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed; for in that he died, he died unto sin once, and in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." This is my deliverance also from the charge and burden of the law which has dominion over a man as long as he lives.

Do I feel the need of propitiation? Christ is set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood. The need of justification? I am justified by His blood.

Would I have a part with Christ? He must die; for except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; if it die, it brings forth much fruit.

Hence, unto what am I baptized as the public expression of my faith? As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death; for what indeed has broken down the middle wall of partition and let in the Gentiles, slaying the enmity and reconciling Jew and Gentile in one body to God? The cross. How have we boldness to enter into the holiest? By the blood of Jesus, by that new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh; for till that was rent, the Holy Ghost signified by it that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest.

187 Hence it was a lifted up Christ that was the attractive point for all. "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me."

In the power of what was the great Shepherd of the sheep brought again from the dead? Through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

How was the curse of the law taken away from those who were under it? By Christ's being made a curse for them; as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.

How are we washed from our sins? He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, for His blood cleanseth from all sin.

If I would be delivered from the world, it is by the cross, by which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.

If the love of Christ constrains me towards men in the thought of the terror of the Lord, how is it so? Because I thus judge, if One died for all, then were all dead; and they that live should live not to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again. Hence the apostle knew no man after the flesh — no, not even Christ. All was a new creation. If I would live in divine power, it is always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in my mortal body. If He would institute a special remembrance to call Him to mind, it was a broken body and shed blood. It is not less a Lamb as it were slain that is found in the throne.

All was love, no doubt; but do I want to learn it? Hereby we know it that He laid down His life for us, and that even of God in that He loved us and gave His Son as a propitiation for our sins. It is to the sprinkling of that precious blood of Christ that we are sanctified, and to obedience; and through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once (contrasted with the many Jewish sacrifices) sanctified and perfected for ever, so that there is no more offering for sin; for, having offered one sacrifice for sins, He is set down for ever at the right hand of God.* For He should not offer Himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place once every year with the blood of others; for then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself: for as it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

{*I reject entirely as utterly senseless, what is become somewhat the fashion — the reading it, "one sacrifice for ever." It does not, however, touch our present subject.}

188 Do I desire, therefore, my conscience purged? It is through the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.* For it is by means of death that there is the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first covenant, and in that view He became Mediator. Indeed, a testament could have no force while the testator lived.

{*Note this, and indeed all these passages, for they shew what is the meaning of Christ's offering Himself to God.}

Do I seek the destruction of the power of Satan? It is through death that He destroyed (the power of) him that had the power of death.

What do I find to be the central object of Christ's coming — the groundwork of His glory as man? We see Him made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that He by the grace of God might taste death for every man. And even the purifying and reconciling all things in heaven and earth depends on this (Heb. 9: 23; Col. 1: 20).

Would He sanctify even the Jewish people to Himself? It must be by His blood, suffering, rejected, without the gate. No remission for us, no privileges of the new covenant for us, nor establishing of it with them, without this blood: redemption is not without it. The living sinner as such cannot be presented to God, nor a living Christ offer that by which the sinner must draw nigh. The veil remains unrent, the conscience unpurged, the propitiation unaccomplished. God forbore with the Old Testament saints, and has shewn His righteousness in doing so now — a righteousness now declared in that propitiatory set forth through faith in Christ's blood. It is alleged, indeed, that He came to do God's will in taking the place of the sacrifices, and that His obedience during life is available in expiation; but we read, "by the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

189 It is alleged that His living obedience had the same legal character as His death. Is it the same thing, then, to obey the law with unfeigned heart, so as to be perfectly acceptable to God personally, and to bear its curse for others under the wrath and judgment of God? Is it possible that Christians, who know what the need of their own souls as sinners is, can use such reasoning?

Having thus proposed the blessed value of Christ's death from scripture, and leaving it to its own force without comment, allow me to go yet a little farther into the elements and character of His sufferings as available for us, so that we may the more fully appreciate His grace. Man may be looked at morally in three conditions: first, as a sinner under condemnation; secondly, as a saint through grace, partaker of the divine nature, and of the Holy Ghost as his force; and, thirdly, as suffering, though awakened, quickened, and upright in desire, under the exercises of a soul learning, when a sinner, the difference of good and evil under divine government in the presence of God, not fully known in grace and redemption, whose judgment of sin is before his eyes, exposed to all the advantage that Satan can take of him in such a state — such suffering, for example, as is seen in the case of Job. Christ has passed through all these kinds of suffering — only the last, of course, as Himself a perfect being, to learn it for others;* I need not say that He was perfect in all. But what met the first condition, that of a sinner under condemnation, He went through as actually bearing sin, and so enduring wrath vicariously for others, that they never might have it to endure. The second He was truly in Himself, nay, our leader in that path.

{*Guarded as this statement is by the preceding words, it is what has been especially used against me by Mr. T. Ryan and all his followers, as setting Christ in a false position. But no unprejudiced mind could use it to signify the state Christ was in. It refers on the face of it to the sufferings of Christ because others were in that condition; or Christ would be a sinner under condemnation, and a saint through grace, and He learning when a sinner the difference of good and evil. The last kind of suffering is immediately guarded, only because there was the possibility of misconception. People have confounded His going through the sufferings in His own soul, and being in the state or relationship which occasioned them. He did pass through such sufferings in His spirit; but it was because they belonged to others who were in the state which brought them on, and that He passed through that which makes Him to enter into such. Thus He was upright, feared death and wrath, cried to God with them before Him. What is spoken of is the kind of sufferings, and Jesus' spirit realizing them. If any prefer "realized in His own soul," I have no objection; only Messiah was really cut off. It is what was meant by passing through them, as is evident on the face of the sentence. The whole matter is explained in the introduction.}

190 To the first of these conditions, our being under judgment and condemnation for sin, Christ's death upon the cross is the divine answer in expiation. All that God was in His nature, He was necessarily against sin; for, though He was love, love has no place in wrath against sin, and the withdrawal of the sense of it, consciousness in the soul of the privation of God, is the most dreadful of all sufferings — the most terrible horror to him who knows it: but Christ knew it infinitely. But God's divine majesty, His holiness, His righteousness, His truth, all in their very nature bore against Christ as made sin for us. All that God was, was against sin, and Christ was made sin. No comfort of love enfeebled wrath there. Never was the obedient Christ so precious; but His soul was to be made an offering for sin, and to bear it judicially before God. At the end of the three hours of darkness, this is expressed by the Lord in the words of Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The result, and that to the end of time, and indeed for an endless eternity of unmingled grace for us, has been already touched on, and I will advert to it again in connection with remarkable facts as to the expressions of the Lord Himself. Here the Lord suffered that not one drop of what He took might remain for us. It had been everlasting misery and ruin for us; His own divine perfection in love went through it without one ray of comfort from God or man. All other sorrows pressed Him onward with accumulating power to this, and merged in it, in that darkness which hid all but the wrath He was enduring from God. Judges had been heartlessly unrighteous, and washed their hands of such a One and His matters; the chief priests, who should intercede for the infirm, cry for cruel death upon the guiltless; the friends on whom His heart ought to have been able to count (and He looked for comforters, and would have had the most favoured of them watch with Him) actually forsake and deny Him: and the unfaithfulness of a friend is bitterer than the assault of an enemy. But all this was the proof of the power of one who exercised unlimited dominion (save so far as grace delivered) over, and had his rights through sin and the power of death over, him whom the Lord came to deliver; and it was his hour and the power of darkness. All he can do he does; but it only led the Lord through conflict, of which I will speak just now, in willing offering of Himself, letting His own go their way, to the last scene, when, deprived of all human comfort, He was to accomplish the work of propitiation, alone with God judging sin — that scene which stands alone, which no eye can fathom (though, blessed be God, we truly know its meaning) but His who knows divine wrath against sin as God alone knows it. Bulls of Bashan were there, dogs with no shame of heart, but only to drive the Sufferer to seek for succour where He was to learn in all its utter depth for us what it was to be forsaken of God — an hour passed for ever with divine and eternal glory for fruit. He even could say, so great was the infinite and truly divine value of that hour and work, "therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again."

191 But, willingly as I expatiate on this blessed yet most solemn subject, I must leave it, and turn to another and brighter, yet to us humbling character of the Lord's sufferings — those which He endured as the Holy One glorifying God, when the reproaches of those that reproached God fell on Him. This went on up to His death. They flowed from His declaring righteousness in the great congregation; from His perfectly manifesting God amongst men, who had no relish for the light, so that for His love He had hatred. I do not enlarge upon this simply because I apprehend it can offer no difficulty to my reader. In our little and imperfect measure we have our share in this kind of suffering. It is our privilege as saints. "To you it is given . . . not only to believe on him, but to suffer for his sake." "If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him." "To do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." Quotations could be multiplied to shew how we are thus called to suffer as He suffered, as Paul speaks of his filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, for His body's sake, the Church. In the measure in which we manifest Christ as He manifested His Father, in our walk and testimony, we shall suffer for it as He suffered, and His consolations will abound — a meat to eat which the flesh knows not of. He could thank His Father when He had most sorrowfully and justly to reproach the world.

192 But I now come to the third character of trial in which man stands, which requires a little more attention — that which is not the fruit of holy witness in the world (though it may in a certain way accompany it), nor the enduring the wrath of God in condemnation, which for us would be everlasting misery, but the fruit of sin under the government of God in this world and connected with the power of Satan in it — that which, as used of God, is the means of our learning the difference between good and evil, whether in terror before the knowledge of redemption, or even by various exercises, though in an altogether different state of soul after we know it (for God continues even then His instructive government, founded on His immutable judgment of good and evil); that which in the way of terror brings righteousness, though not without hope, before us, or, when redemption is known and divine righteousness is our state, ministers to practical holiness of life and judgment, according to the divine nature of which we are made partakers.*

{*This and what follows is another passage. which is attacked. I have noticed the matter in the introduction. Here I have only to urge an earnest study of its force as most important for the soul, separating as far as needed the abstract question of evil in every soul, and the special circumstances of the remnant of Israel. This alters nothing, but may make it clear to the mind.}

If we take the case of the remnant of the Jews in the latter day, we shall more readily understand this, though it is in principle the case of thousands of upright souls under the law, and a principle on which God has acted from the beginning of man's failure. The sentence of death, of sorrow on the woman, were judgments pronounced upon sin, as part of the display of God's government in this world, not in themselves everlasting condemnation and separation from God because of the holiness of His nature. That power of death and its terrors over the mind Satan wields (Heb. 2: 14). Here it is that the thought of God's righteous judgment against sin, and the pains of death, and the power of Satan, unite in their pressure upon the soul. So when a soul is convinced of sin, and practically under the law (that is, the requirements of God's righteousness on living man), the judgment of God is feared, the terrors of the Almighty can drink up the spirit. God thus teaches a man what he is, what he is worth in this solemn question between Satan and God — the power of evil and of good. See the case of Job. God sustains man in grace and the sense of integrity, so that he clings to dependence on God, come what will; yet judgment is feared, God's holiness and righteousness pressed on the spirit weighed down with the sense of sin, the power of death as ending nature's hope and leading to judgment is there, and Satan uses it to drive to despair, to destroy faith, and break the spirit of man away from depending on God and believing in His love.

193 Without the atonement, there could be no answer in grace to this state, because we have deserved condemnation; and if new life be there which clings to God, yet this very life gives the sense of God's holiness, which brings judgment on the soul conscious of sin. When the full work of grace in redemption is learnt, the soul obtains a peace only the more solid, and indeed only thereby really solid, that it has passed through these exercises by which sin is known, by which God's judgment of it is before the soul by His own convincing work, and Satan's effort spent and resulting only in bringing us to the answer which atonement gives, and thus his power over us destroyed and gone for ever.

But though the answer to, and deliverance from, this state is the full and perfect redemption wrought by Christ, by which we are wholly taken out of the state in which we stood accused and liable to judgment, and transferred into the position of the Second Adam before God, of Him who is now gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God, there is positive and direct grace in the exercise itself. For, beside this deliverance and salvation by which our miserable case is met, there is a real learning of the difference of good and evil before God — learned, I admit, more blessedly when redemption is known, and we are in possession of perfect good in grace, so that evil is thus judged, and we are delivered from its deceits; but still, profitably learned in the knowledge of our wretchedness, guilt, sin, powerlessness against evil even when we would what is good, and the solemnity of the question involved in the salvation of the soul, where the claims and power of Satan through sin in which we have listened to and subjected ourselves to him, and the righteous nature and title of God are brought to issue in a soul, subject to sin on one side, and quickened to own God's title and delight in His nature and so judge its own evil on the other, and that in the presence of the righteous judgment of God.

194 Now, before obtaining the peace acquired by the knowledge of redemption, Christ sustains, encourages, relieves by times, the soul in this state, but not so as to hinder its learning this deep and solemn lesson which has its fruit in eternity; nor so as to prevent its finding its only resource in the redemption He has accomplished.

But in the case of the remnant of Israel in the latter days, we find these exercises of heart and spirit gone through in circumstances where the government of God is historically developed as to a people sinful under law, yet renewed and quickened of God, so that the desires and consciousness of uprightness are there. The circumstances are, with more complete development, the continuation of those in which the Jews were in the time of our Lord: only that Antichrist is manifested, the body of the people are given up to unbelief and the unbridled influence of Satan — seven devils, worse than the old spirit of idolatry, but along with it, are entered into them. In a word, it is the time of Satan's power, the power of darkness, of the oppression of the Gentiles, of the same Roman beast. In the midst of this the remnant find themselves, on the one side, conscious of the nation's guilt under the law, and of their filling up of their sins, so that wrath was come upon them, the just vengeance of God; yet they feel this because they are renewed and quickened; and the Jehovah they have sinned against is their only hope. Yet how difficult to trust God for help in difficulties in which we find ourselves under His hand by our sinning against Him! Without atonement, they could not be dealt with in grace. The goat of atonement had been offered, so that God could deal with them about their sins for their good, sustain their faith, yet make them feel the weight of their sins, and the darkness they had brought themselves into; and, at the same time, say, "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and seeth no light? let him trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay himself on his God." But the true Aaron had not come forth, so that Israel's sins should be, in administrative application, sent away on the scape-goat into the land not inhabited.

195 Now here the judgment of God against them, the sense of guilt under a broken law and national unfaithfulness, the full power of Satan and the darkness it brings — all rest on the spirit of the people: yet, though smitten in the place of dragons, there is integrity of heart, earnest desires after the law, and after God Himself and His worship, and trust in Him as their only resource. Thus the full judgment of evil is wrought in them, in hope of goodness and mercy prophetically revealed.

Who is to furnish thoughts, feelings, faith, hope, which can be known to be acceptable and a sustaining ground of faith, till they look on Him whom they have pierced and find peace? The answer to this question, as well as the groundwork of atonement, is found in Christ. All this exercise Christ entered into so as to be able to help them: "This poor man cried" — "God hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted," and that, when* He had been really forsaken of God, the real ground of hope for the people. When He was on this earth, the power of Gentile evil, with no fear of God before their eyes, was there; the apostate wickedness of the priestly rulers of Israel who would have no king but Caesar, and who called for the blood of their King to be on them and their children — the power of Satan and darkness was there; the judgment of God standing out in all its truthfulness and terror, not one godly man left; the guilt of Israel under a broken law and a rejected Jehovah and King — of the Anointed as of the Lord — pressed upon the spirit of any intelligent saint, if such there were, as in the last days.

{*This is, perhaps, obscure through its brevity. The meaning is "the answer came, the proof He was not abhorred nor despised; when, etc.}

It was not now, in these last scenes of Christ's life, the manifestation of the Lord in grace to Israel, the revelation of the Father's name to the few given to Jesus out of the world, but the endurance of Israel's own case* under the government of Jehovah when guilty and rejecting their own mercies, yet with the sense a holy soul, wrapped up in Israel's blessings, would have of such a state before the judgment of God;** not made a curse and drinking the cup, but the sense of it under God's government and Satan's power. Here good and evil were fully entered into and proved by the Lord. That is, I He must undergo the whole power of evil, not as in judgment, but as trial. Was Satan using death and darkness, sorrow and terror, with God's judgment sanctioning the pressure of it on the soul — men but His instruments to add to the grief, be they friends or foes? Was Israel's sin and rejection of good come to its height? Was all this used by Satan against the soul of Christ to stay Him in the path? But was He to enter into the temptation which thus pressed on Him and give way; or, trusting God, was He to go on in the path of obedience, and drink the cup itself in obedience to God His Father? In the synoptical gospels we have the trial; in John, the full and blessed answer. He passes through the trial with God, does not take what death imports from Satan's hand, so to speak, nor stop in His path; but, while going perfectly through it as the power of darkness, receives the cup itself (instead of drinking from it under Satan's terror) from His Father's hand and gives Himself freely up in love and obedience to expiate the sin under God's hand and wrath, which Satan had in vain wielded to deter Him from it.

{*If this create any difficulty, it may be changed into "passing in heart and spirit through, and enduring the sorrow of Israel's own case and of the effect of His own being the head of promise to that people and now to be cut off and have nothing, of Israel's case, that is, as under the," etc.}

{**This may be changed to "besides, though not yet made a curse nor drinking the cup, the sense of it under God's government and Satan's power. Here good and evil were fully entered into and proved of the Lord, Himself perfect in the good, and perfectly tried by and apprehending the evil. That is, He must," etc. I do not think myself these corrections and additions add anything, to the instruction contained in the passage, to a rightly disposed mind. They make it laborious and heavy; but if needed, be it so.}

196 The power of evil as trial was broken entirely, and Satan's power of darkness annulled for us. Man might be made to pass through it under the government of God, to learn what he was, what sin is, what the power of evil in which he had been lying is; but the sympathy and sustaining grace of Christ can support him through it, suggest the right thoughts and feelings under it, and be found a resource in every pressure, I so that faith should not fail, however sore that pressure may be. Atonement was needed for this, but the sympathy and consolations of Christ in the trial are what sustain and encourage the hearts of the remnant through their various trials down to the lowest depths of sorrow. If it be asked how they can profit by it, not having any direct knowledge of or faith in Christ, I reply, It is exactly what is furnished in the most admirable detail in the Psalms, where every part of their external sorrow and internal distress is expressed and entered into, the dreadful weight of a broken law, the power of adversaries without conscience, the temptation and pressure of the adversary, with the thoughts and feelings whether of distress or faith, are given a voice to by divine grace, with the witness that He who in all their afflictions was afflicted, and the angel whose presence succoured them, has not forgotten them in their deepest distress;* but, as the poor man, has passed through it for them, and can comfort them under it, putting His seal upon the holy desires He has awakened in them, with the certainty of a divine answer, and that even by that Son of man, the branch which God made strong for Himself. Hence it is that these Psalms, besides the personal piety which is found in them, have been the comfort of distressed souls who were under the law, and not yet knowing the fulness of redemption, for such will be the state of the remnant.

{*I have not suggested any alteration here, and the sense is the same everywhere, because I hold the denial of Christ's passing through the sorrow and distress of Israel to be a fatal denial of the truth of His sufferings. The power of Gentile wickedness, of Jewish apostasy, desertion by man, and Satan's power, were really felt by Him as no remnant ever will feel them, and the setting aside all the promises of God as to their then fulfilment in Him come in the flesh, and that brought about by His own being cut off.}

197 Hence, too, we find in them the desire of the judgment of enemies and the execution of vengeance, because it is by that judgment alone that the remnant of the people will be delivered. Hence, too, we find the assurance that the Lord will build up Zion, and the remnant of His people inhabit it, in Psalms, where the sufferings of Christ are entered into in detail. Indeed, we have in the Psalms a complete and perfect history of the remnant in every circumstantial and moral phase of their path, both of Jews and Israel, and the result in blessing with Messiah, together with the way in which Christ has entered into it, these last Psalms being prophetic of Christ personally, though in many we have the remnant also, while all the Psalms are the expression of His spirit. The godly remnant is the first thought in them — their subject — Christ's sympathy is with them. The first Psalm gives us the godly remnant, the subject of God's government; and the second, Messiah, King in Zion, object of His counsel and decree; and after that, all the various experiences which flow from His rejection, up to the glory at the end.

198 I have already shewn that the time in which Christ went through the distress and sorrow, under which the remnant fall through their sin, was not that of those public services by which He was the light of the world revealing to others His Father's name, but when (going again up to Jerusalem for that purpose, and setting His face as a flint for it, and not hiding His face from shame and spitting, His rejection being the ground of Israel's divorce, Isa. 50) He was subject to the fullest exercise of soul, under the power of darkness, in the hour of His rebellious rejecters, who could triumph in His apparent rejection; when all was changed from the time that He sat daily in the temple, and no man laid hands upon Him; when the prince of this world came.

Few, comparatively, of the Psalms apply wholly and exclusively to Christ. The great body of them express the working of His Spirit in the hearts of His tried ones. The difference (even where suffering is the subject between those which are, and those which are not, exclusively applicable to Him) is very evident, and particularly between His sufferings from the hand of God and from the hand of man, even when this was under the visitations of God and the power of the enemy. It is worth while to note these points distinctly.

Psalm 2 refers personally to Christ as Messiah, the Son of God, born in this world; Psalm 8, as Son of man. In Psalm 16 we find Him formally taking His place among the godly remnant, treading the path of life through death up to fulness of joy in resurrection. Psalms 20 and 21 have, in a certain sense, also Christ alone for their subject; Psalm 22 clearly so. Sins are not confessed till Psalm 25. The integrity of heart of the remnant is presented, or Christ Himself. Besides these Psalms, 40, though mainly of Him, is not absolutely so (see verse 5.) In Psalm 45 He is clearly celebrated; Psalm 69 speaks also chiefly but not exclusively of Him (see verse 26.) In Psalm 72 we find Him again as Solomon; Psalms 101, 102 treat also of Him as king in Israel, and as, though cut off, Jehovah the Creator. In Psalm 110 He is exalted to Jehovah's right hand to be priest after the order of Melchizedek. In other Psalms He is introduced, but He is not their personal subject. I do not call to mind others of which He is exclusively or pre-eminently the subject, though it is possible some one may have escaped me; my object is rather to give a certain number of distinct examples than a list of them. As regards the Psalms which speak of His suffering, the marks which distinguish those which speak of His sufferings from man, and those which express His sufferings under the hand of God, are very clear and decisive. Thus Psalm 20, 21, He suffers from the hand of man. The consequence is, Psalm 21 announces judgment on man. So it is in Psalm 69; though other elements are found there. The Psalm treats of the number of those who hate Him without a cause, who gave Him gall for meat, and in His thirst gave Him vinegar to drink; and He desires that their table be a snare to them; that their eyes be darkened, and that God should pour out His indignation upon them. So even in Psalm 31, though it has less of this character, yet it still has this distinctive mark of the looking for judgment on the wicked (v. 17, 18).

199 I have already remarked that in sorrows from human persecution, on account of what is good, His saints can have a part. The pressure of it, in connection with sins, and the desire of vengeance or judgment, finds its accomplishment in the remnant of the Jews in the last day.* In Psalm 102, where, though the enemies are seen, the sorrow of Messiah is traced to God's indignation and wrath, who has lifted Him up as Messiah, and cast Him down, even to the dust of death, no desire for judgment is expressed, but blessing and grace are the result. This is most strikingly displayed in Psalm 22 where the atoning work of the cross is the distinct and definite subject. As soon as the Lord is heard from the horns of the unicorn, His first thought is (as indeed it historically was) to make known all the blessing of His God and Father's name, where in unclouded blessing in righteousness He now stood, to His brethren. Then He praises in the midst of the Church, then in the great congregation — all Israel in the latter day, then the blessing reaches all the ends of the earth in millennial mercies; then the seed afterwards born. To all the world is that He has done this. No trace of judgment from Him who has borne sin and wrath for us, nor from Him who inflicted that wrath on Christ for us, in the counsels of unutterable grace.

{*It is one of the things which characterize the Revelation also as distinct, in its prophetic part, from an address to the Church on its own ground of blessing, and its taking a proper prophetic and not evangelical character, that we find joy over the judgment of Babylon, and in the souls under the altar the desire of vengeance.}

200 Now in Psalm 69 we have the cross also, and not merely the wickedness of man, though that is fully entered into; but the trusting of God and distress under the sense of sins. How is this to be distinguished from the atoning work of Christ? Here the difficulty presents itself fully, but if we wait patiently on the Lord, all difficulties of scripture are inlets to light and blessing. The mark I have noticed as indicating sufferings from man, and other distinguishing ones, are clearly found in this Psalm. Judgment is looked for on the enemies — an absolute and conclusive distinction in the very nature of the suffering; and there is another characteristic already noticed, but to our purpose here. We read, verse 26, "They persecute him whom thou hast smitten and speak to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded." Here we have evidently more than man's persecutions. They take advantage of God's hand upon the sorrowing One to add to His burden and grief. This is not atonement,* but there is sorrow and smiting from God. Hence we find the sense of sins (v. 5), though of course in the case of Christ they were not His own personally, but the nation's (in a certain sense we may say ours, but specially the nation's sin). But we have the clear proof that they are not atoning sufferings;** because, instead of suffering in the place of others; so that they should not have one drop of that cup of wrath to drink, others are associated with the Lord here in them. "They persecute him whom thou hast smitten and speak to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded." When men are wounded too, when Christ is the companion with them — not a substitute for them, then atonement is not wrought nor the wrath of condemnation endured. Yet God has smitten and wounded. It is not merely man that has caused suffering. Man comes in in malice to add to the sorrow.

{*It goes on to that (as stated p. 179, and also in notes to Psalms, and is fully entered into p. 230) in which in another aspect atonement was made. To make death in itself, or mere cutting off, atonement, is ruinous, unless that death be viewed as the expression of wrath from God. It is the secret or unconscious denial of what sin is, and what it deserves — rests in the outside — is infidelity at bottom.}

{**This may be changed into "that His sufferings are not viewed here as atoning suffering."}

Thus we have, along with the suffering from man at the epoch of the crucifixion (the special object of the Psalm), bringing judgment on man, the third character of Christ's sufferings, the suffering* under the government of God,** at the epoch of His final sorrows, in which the remnant will have its part and into which Christ is entered for them, afflicted in all their afflictions. Hence, too, though in most deep waters, overflown, weary of crying, Christ is not forsaken — His prayer is to God in an acceptable time. Deep as is the distress, it has a character wholly and entirely contrasted with atonement, yet it is not the ministry of Jesus in blessing in the enjoyment of the light of His Father's countenance, but the conflict and agony of His soul when the power of darkness is at work.

{*If clearer to any mind, it may be read here "His fully entering into that which comes upon Israel under," etc. The words express the character of the suffering, which Christ most really went through. This also was used as if it made Christ to be in the state to which that suffering belonged. It is this fallacy which has been the wile of Satan to deceive my accusers: that entering into sorrow and suffering implies Christ's being in the state or relationship which gave rise to it (see p. 220.)}

{**After the word "God" may be added, "through full sense of which He passes, and in the effect of whose evil state He has a part in being cut off as Messiah."}

201 Another very striking fact in the path of the blessed Lord which I alluded to, is this: During the whole of His life of service, all through, including Gethsemane, Christ never addresses God by the name of God. He always says, "Father." On the cross we know His words were, "My God, my God." In His life this title would have been out of place — not of course because it did not belong to Him whom He addressed, but because it was not the expression of the unclouded relationship and conscious blessedness of Sonship in which the blessed Lord always stood. On the cross God was dealing with Him about sin, and therefore as God, in His nature, majesty, righteousness, and truth. Here sin was to be dealt with as such by God, and the blessed One expresses according to truth the position in which His holy soul stood. We are permitted in wondrous grace to see Him in such a one. Infinite and wondrous grace it is. But the terms the Lord makes use of mark very clearly and solemnly the difference of the two positions in which the blessed Lord relatively stood.*: Till the cross the Lord walked in the enjoyment of the relationship of a Son with the Father, yea, an only-begotten Son, knowing that the Father heard Him always. On the cross, as we have seen, all that God was against sin, He, made sin, had to feel and meet and endure; but then, returned into the full joy of all that God and His Father was in righteousness, redemption being accomplished, He brings His disciples into the enjoyment and joy of both. "I ascend to my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God."

{*The writer of an article I have alluded to at the beginning of this paper attacks a tract entitled "The Cross," published in Dublin. No one can be answerable but the editor of the Dublin tracts for expressions found in them, because he modifies them to suit his object, which is popular distribution, and he seeks to make them simple and clear; but the critic's note is most unhappy. The tract states that God was with Christ in the communion of perfect complacency up to the time His people's sins were transferred to Him on the cross, but that then all was changed. The critic then exclaims, "What! the Father's complacency in His Son changed!" Such singular pre-occupation hardly needs, as everyone will feel, an answer. The tract says there was the communion of perfect complacency till then; the note says, "What! the complacency changed!" Now I believe that there never was a time when the Father's complacency in the Son was so great as at that solemn moment; but that is not the communion of complacency. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" is not the enjoyment of communion. The subject precludes my making any remark on so strange a mistake.}

202 When I speak of three characters of the sufferings of Christ, it is not that He did not in detail suffer in a thousand ways; yea, everything was a suffering, His perfectness and love being shewn in enduring. I speak merely of three distinct positions in which, or principles on which, He suffered. Another question arises, connected with these points, as to the active and passive obedience of Christ, as it is called — whether the righteousness of Christ, as obedient under the law, is imputed to us; and then also as to His priesthood. But this I must reserve, if the Lord will, for another paper; it will be time enough then to consider the opinions of men. One thing is certain, that without shedding of blood there is no remission; and it is a singular atonement and vicarious work which had no such effect. There was, we are told, "a sin-bearing life" — that the sufferings of Christ during His life were satisfactory; yet they obtain no remission, for without shedding of blood is no remission. My earnest objection, however, is not against this, but against a doctrine which, on the contrary, declares that these sufferings were not vicarious, but the effect of Christ's being born a man and a Jew, and which makes us consequently partakers of these sufferings under wrath as our privilege. Still, those who insist that Christ's living sufferings were satisfactory, and that all His sufferings wrought the work of redemption, should explain how it is that remission is wholly by something else.

203 Finally, I say, that he who says that Christ — when He said, "I cry in the day-time, and thou hearest not," and when He said, "I know that thou hearest me always," when He said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and when He said, "He that sent me is with me; the Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him" — was in the same position, and accomplishing the same work before God, knows neither the tenor of His life, nor the true power of His death rightly before God. Acceptable He always was; but bearing wrath unheard, and enjoying divine favour, knowing He was always heard, is not the same thing; and he who holds that it is does not yet know what his sins have cost the Lord.

One great root, let me just add, of all this (prevalent evidently in Scotland, and I fear not confined to it, and the true root of Irvingism and semi-Irvingism) is an abuse of scripture language, found, if my memory be not very treacherous, in the "Night of Weeping" — that Christ was made bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. These words have no such application or use in scripture; they are not indeed found there. We, the Church, are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, now that He is glorified and the saints united to Him who is on high. The thought is a totally different one and does not refer to His incarnation, but to our union with Him when glorified. As incarnate, He abode alone. But this would lead me to a point I hope to touch on, the Lord willing, in another paper.

I close this paper, already too long, but justified by the importance of the subject, by stating the different characteristic periods of Christ's life as presented by scripture. First, until He was about thirty years old (save His going up to Jerusalem at twelve years old and disputing with the doctors, given doubtless as a part of what He was in person and grace, and to shew that His relationship to the Father did not depend on any extraordinary anointing for office by the Holy Ghost), He remained in the obscurity of a patient and perfect life, awaiting His calling of God. He then associates Himself publicly with the remnant and is baptized by John, and is owned by the Father, sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost. He thereupon goes up, before His public service, into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He overcomes and binds the strong man. Satan departs from Him for a season. Subsequently to this He goes about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him — does always such things as please Him — is always heard and knows it. Satan comes back as prince of this world, and having the power of death. At the beginning he had tempted Christ with all that might be hoped to allure Him, physically, spiritually, and by the glory of the world. Christ, having overcome, displayed the power which could deliver man from all the effects of that of Satan. NOW, man's enmity is brought out, and Satan proves Him by the power of death and the terrible consequences of what man was in judgment, what He must go through if He will take up his cause being such. This was at the epoch of His last visit to Jerusalem. Finally, He drinks the cup which He had freely and submissively taken at His Father's hand, and works redemption on the cross for those who believe in Him.

The Sufferings of Christ

J. N. Darby.

From the "Bible Treasury," 1858-9.

<07008E> 139 {file section c.}

204 Notice of earlier opinions on the subject.

I said I would take notice of the quotations from ancient writers on the point of Christ's vicarious life and living sufferings. What I have already said will have proved that views of His sufferings, in which (what I avow is to me more precious than clearness) true piety may be found, not only fail in clearness, but are superficial in their nature. And this is real loss; for, far from losing the piety and the holy affections which should accompany the thoughts of Christ's sufferings, a deeper scriptural knowledge of what they were gives seriousness to our spirits, and makes Him more prominent in our thoughts, emptying us of self. What we have to seek is, that everything our mind is engaged in should be filled with Christ, or rather the fulness of the truth of Christ be that in which our minds are engaged. All other things are thus judged, received as belonging to Him, or we are freed from them. This enlarges and sanctifies the mind, for, indeed, He fills all things. We lose ourselves thus even in Him, and there is very real enlargement of heart. If we have peace and a single eye, scripture does thus feed the soul; sets before it a scene that embraces all things, according to the divine view of all things; gives a large, divine view of things in contrast with, and to the exclusion of, a fleshly, narrow one, of which self and the worldly mind and its narrow and confined interests and apprehensions are always more or less the centre; and, moreover, because scripture is the word of God, this gives submission and certainty to the mind, and clearness of judgment as to the walk.

205 I avow, I could not tie myself to any of the ancients, nor own their authority in any way. I may learn from them (I would, I trust, gladly from any one), and own thankfully, what was given them of God. I see in Luther an energy of faith for which millions of souls ought to be thankful to God, and I can certainly say I am. I may see a clearness and recognition of the authority of scripture in Calvin, which delivered him and those he taught (yet more than Luther) from the corruptions and superstitions which had overwhelmed Christendom, and through it the minds even of most saints. But present these to me as a standard of truth — I reject them with indignation. They were not inspired. Their teachings are not the word of God. To this I hold fast tenaciously. It is the safeguard and guide of the Church and of the saints under grace at all times, and especially in these days. The gifted men I respect, when presented to me as such, would become a horror to me if they were in any way substituted for, or made to compete with, the word of God.

I am not surprised if eminent servants of God, not vessels of inspiration, did not all at once cast off every trammel, in which all Christendom, save a few persecuted ones (at that time almost rooted out by persecution, but precious in God's sight) had been bound up. I thank God heartily for the light and courage He gave them. But no one can say they were freed from everything that had overburdened the truth. I do not see that these eminent men were so free from human views, and what governs human judgment according to this world, when they were framing systems for the countries they belonged to, as when they were wielding truth for the deliverance of souls from error. I do not wish to dwell upon the evil which accompanied so much good — evil for which man was responsible, because I do not see that it would be edifying; but I do not wish to blind myself where history shews me facts which ought to have their weight with my conscience. I am writing in peace, because God has delivered us through the instrumentality of these men, some of whom laid down their lives for the gospel and their love to Christ and to souls. I have no wish to depreciate them or the work in which they were engaged — I wish I had the faith of many of them: but do not bring their doctors or their systems to me as authority. You are trenching on the authority of the word of God. Am I to believe consubstantiation? Am I to believe in baptismal regeneration? No honest man can deny that it was, generally speaking, the reformed faith, or at least the faith of the reformers, and that forgiveness of sins was obtained in it.* I may be told, But they preached justification by faith, so that it cannot be. They did preach justification by faith for the deliverance of souls, and taught baptismal regeneration when establishing a system, and tortured themselves to reconcile both. The evangelical party among the reformed have, at the present day, cast baptismal regeneration off, as freer in their ecclesiastical habits. The stricter Lutherans, at least confessional Lutherans, torture themselves to this day to reconcile both. In England everyone knows where we are as to it.

{*It may be alleged this is not the case in Scotland. But their Confession was a hundred and thirty years after the Reformation; and even there it is really taught as to the elect. "Grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed," they say, "that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerate"; but this is to save election. They say, "The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such, whether of age or infants, as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsels of God's own will, in His appointed time." So that, according to this teaching, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is conferred by the Holy Ghost in God's appointed time. Yet this is the efficacy of baptism. The grace promised is not conferred in baptism; yet, by the right use of this ordinance, in which it is not conferred, it is conferred at some other time by the Holy Ghost. And yet it is the efficacy of baptism. This is a singular effort to reconcile the truth felt as to vital partaking of the divine nature, and tradition as to ordinances.

Here is the Catechism of Calvin: "Baptism is to us as an entrance into the Church of God; for it testifies to us that God, whereas we were strangers to Him (estrangiers de luy), receives us for His servants. The signification of baptism has two parts; for the Lord represents to us in it the remission of our sins, and, besides, our regeneration or spiritual renewal. Not that the water is the washing of our souls, for that belongs to the blood of Christ only, but by the sacrament that is signified to us. The water is in such sort a figure that the truth (reality) is found with it; for God promises nothing to us in vain; wherefore it is certain that in baptism the remission of sins is offered to us and we receive it. This grace is not accomplished indifferently in all; for many destroy it by their perversity. Nevertheless, this does not hinder the sacrament having such a nature, although it is the faithful only who experience its efficacy. This grace is applied to us in baptism, inasmuch as we are then clothed with Jesus Christ, and receive then His Spirit, provided we do not render ourselves unworthy of the promises which are then given to us." An explanation, though happily less precise than the Westminster or Scottish, equally unintelligible to me, I avow. We receive His Spirit, provided we do not render ourselves unworthy of the promises given in it. Render ourselves — when? Do we then receive it or not?

The Catechism of Heidelberg, in general use among the Reformers, says, "Why does the Holy Spirit call baptism the washing of regeneration and the cleansing of sins? To teach us, not only that, as the filth of the body is cleansed by the water, so our sins are effaced by the blood and by the Spirit of Christ; but much more to assure us by this sign and by this divine pledge that we are not less interiorly purged of our sins than we are washed outwardly with the visible water."

I need hardly cite less important witnesses of what I allege. The lesser catechism of Luther thus states it:

"What does baptism exhibit (praestat) or confer?

"It works the forgiveness of sins, frees from death and from the devil, and gives eternal blessedness to all and every who believe what the words and divine promises promise.

"How can water effect so great things?

"Water certainly does not effect such great things, but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith which believes in the word of God added to the water: because water without the word of God is simply water, and is not baptism; but, the word of God being added, it is baptism, that is, the saving water of grace and life, and the laver of regeneration in the Holy Ghost; as Paul says in Titus 3 (quoted)."What this faith is I may cite from the greater catechism, which is a violent defence of his views." These leaders of the blind (who said faith alone saved and that externals were of no avail) will not see that faith must necessarily have something which it may believe, that is, on which it rests, and supported by which it endures. Thus now faith clings to the water (aquae adhaeret) and believes that it is baptism in which pure blessedness and life is, not by virtue of the water (as has been abundantly said), but through this, that baptism is united with and confirmed by the word and the divine ordinance, and ennobled by His name." He founds it all on "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."

The Dutch services teach the doctrine of regeneration by baptism as clearly as possible. See the second point in the address at the beginning of the formulary and the thanksgiving at the end. It is asserted in these places without any question or condition.

Calvin is far less positive in his Institutions, with a great deal that is confused, and in my judgment erroneous, as to the identity of the baptism and ministry of John with that of the apostles. He says that the knowledge and certainty of purging and regeneration are given in it. Purification is promised by baptism, but none other than that which is by the blood of Christ, which is figured by water by reason of its power to cleanse. But for sins committed afterwards, we are to look back to the certainty given us in baptism, which is not only for past sins, for the purity of Christ is offered to us. That always flourishes — is undone (opprimitur) by no spots. He says, "Therefore it is thus to be judged; namely, that in whatever time we may be baptized, we are washed and purged once for our whole life," and hence, if we fail, are to recall our baptism. We know how earnestly Luther preached justification by faith — how Calvin taught it — how English martyrs laid down their lives for it; yet all in their catechisms taught that forgiveness was received by baptism, so that men were to look back to it if they fell afterwards. I had often remarked the contradiction in the two aspects of the Reformation in England; so that I could not understand how a man could sign his acceptance of both. If he believed the Articles, he denied the Prayer-book which he usually signed (this was the evangelical position). If he believed the Prayer-book, he denied the Articles, or signed them with a reserve; he had his own explanation, as the other had for the catechism and baptismal service.

What I now notice it for is, that this remark applies to the whole Reformation. The preachers of truth proclaim justification by faith. The same men, when they form national Christianity, teach it to be identified with ordinances. The phenomenon attaches itself to the whole circle of the Reformation. The more the formative side is clung to, the more they approach Rome in giving life and salvation by ordinances. The more they seek souls in grace, the more they depart from it. I am satisfied that a great deal of this arose from confounding the Church as the body of Christ, and the house formed on earth with the responsibilities of the Church of God attached to it, but having quite a different aspect from that of the body of Christ. Then baptism was made to be incorporation in the body of Christ, which the scripture never speaks at all of its being — on the contrary, declares that by one Spirit we are baptized into one body — a baptism which is never for a moment in scripture confounded with that of water. On these points, the Reformers clearly have not scripture to warrant their statements. Nor are they alone in this. The language of the English baptismal service and catechism is too plain to need comment. "We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine own child by adoption and to incorporate him into thy holy Church." "We call upon thee for this infant, that he, coming to thy baptism, may receive remission of his sin by spiritual regeneration." And the catechism, "My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." And in the service for Confirmation, "hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins." On this last point I will quote a passage of the Homilies, to shew the deliberate view of doctrine as to a sacrament, which governed the minds of the Reformers in England. "And as for the number of them, if they should be considered according to the exact signification of a sacrament, namely, for the visible sign expressly commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the promise of free forgiveness of our sin, and of our holiness and joining in Christ; there be but two, namely, baptism and the supper of the Lord." "For although absolution hath the promise of forgiveness of sin; yet by the express word of the New Testament, it hath not this promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. And though the ordering of ministers hath this visible sign and promise, yet it lacks the promise of remission of sin," etc. This is precise enough. Nothing is a sacrament which has not remission of sin annexed and tied to the visible sign. I quote all these, not for the purpose of controversy, but of demonstrating what the doctrine of the teachers of the Reformation was as to sacraments, and particularly baptism. It does not weaken my value for their work, but it does affect their authority as a standard of doctrine.}

208 But (to refer to the points which engage me at this moment) it is remarkable enough that the term "righteousness of God" is not found in Luther's New Testament — the most unfaithful translation I know. He always says the righteousness which is valid before God — die Gerechtigkeit die vor Gott gilt. Calvin is quoted as an authority to shew that Christ's living sufferings went to make up righteousness by atonement; that His life, as well as His death, was needed to complete our righteousness. But if I take his doctrine, I cannot stop here; I must believe that His suffering the torment of hell (dreadful thought!) was needed too.* These are his words: "Nor indeed is it right that the descent into hell should be omitted, in which was what is of no little moment for the effecting of redemption . . . . Nothing was done if Christ had departed by only a corporal death; but it was, at the same time, of consequence (worth while) that He should feel the severity of divine punishment . . . whence also it was proper that He should struggle hand to hand with the powers of hell and the horror of eternal death. We have lately cited from the prophet, that the chastisement of our peace was put on Him; that He was smitten of the Father for our crimes; bruised for our infirmities; by which he signifies, put in the place of surety for the wicked; and therefore He was bound, like the guilty, to pay and satisfy all the penalties which were to be exacted from them." Am I in this to adopt Calvin's view of what made out a believer's righteousness? or is it true that by one offering He has perfected for ever them which were sanctified?

{*It has been suggested to me that, though unwisely using the expression in the creed, Calvin only meant to distinguish suffering wrath from the physical act of death, as I have done. This he does distinctly in the passage here quoted, and I have no doubt rightly; the only difference is, that I have avoided the misapplication of the creed, where hell does not even mean the hell of the damned.}

210 But it is alleged, I am to receive his doctrine as to the vicarious merits of His living sufferings. Here are Calvin's words: "Furthermore, as a curse because of guilt awaited us at the heavenly tribunal of God, in the first place is related His condemnation before Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea: that we may know that the penalty to which we are liable was inflicted on the Just One. We could not escape the horrible judgment of God; and Christ, that He might snatch us thence, submitted to be condemned before a mortal man, yea, a wicked and profane one. Nor is it merely to secure credibility to His history that the name of a governor is expressed, but that we may learn what Isaiah teaches, "the chastisement of our peace was upon him, by his bruises we have been healed." Previously, this made hell necessary, not scourging by an unjust judge — which is right?. I must confess that such a statement as to the sufferings of Christ is very far indeed from carrying any moral weight to my spirit — our deserving God's wrath met in any way by His standing before a human judge. Does this, in any sort of way, meet or correspond to God's wrath against sin? And when it is said that with His stripes we are healed, does any person taught of God for a moment suppose that this refers to a bodily scourging by the soldiers of Pilate, or Pilate himself — precious as this may be in our eyes? I avow (while fearing to say an irreverent word, while touching on such a subject) such interpretation is, to my judgment, and I am persuaded to every rightly taught mind, in the highest degree revolting, whether we think of the true character of Christ's sufferings, or of the true deserts of sin.

Witsius states it more simply and less offensively, yet as a system of doctrine more strongly. "Still more specially do Isaiah 53: 5, and 1 Peter 2: 24, assert that our healing is due to the scourging of Christ, as a part of His sufferings, when they say, By His bruises we are healed. For by that dreadful scourging, by which the whole body of the Lord Jesus was disfigured, as by one bruise, joined with other sufferings, He has merited for us, that we should be free from the buffetings of Satan, and the rod of divine burning wrath." . . . He adds, that "besides healing by example, there remains in the scourging of Christ a demonstration of the righteousness of God."

211 You have now, reader, the statements which are relied on to prove that Christ's living sufferings were vicarious and atoning. The proof drawn from Calvin and Witsius is, that "with His stripes we are healed" refers to His scourging by Pontius Pilate, and that He was judged before a tribunal of man to meet our being arraigned as guilty before God. I do not feel that this requires an answer with any sober Christian. The word "stripes" does not even mean scourging, but the lividness left by blows. Such teaching is simply deplorable.

A passage of Isaiah is quoted, "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," quoted by Matthew 8: 17, "And he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." Now I believe that in the sympathetic exercise of His power in love, Christ never remedied an ill that He did not bear it on His spirit. But this is not atonement. That atonement may be righteously necessary, that He might sympathize with sinners, in respect of what was the fruit of sin, I can well understand; but bearing on the heart in sympathy is quite another thing from atonement. To apply the principle of atonement here is simply nonsense. Was Christ sick in our place when He made atonement on the cross? He did suffer wrath and bore our sin so as to come under it. But in these healings He was exercising power. He healed, it is true, not indifferently; He entered into our sorrows when He relieved us. Thus the passage is as precious as it is intelligible; but the only act referred to is His healing by His power. What did that atone for? Was healing vicarious to make up for our not healing? Will it be said, for our want of health? But then He should have suffered the consequence of it Himself. What was healing an atonement for? Nay, infirmity and sickness were not to be atoned for. It needed what the compassionate Lord accomplished — healing. To say that His healings, shewing that He bore our sickness, means that healing was vicarious, has no kind of sense.

The truth, moreover, is that the word is not at all that which is used for bearing sin as a burden imputed. Nor would the Spirit here accept the LXX translation, which has amartias pherei — bears our sins. It is the word employed in Romans 15: 1; "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Was this atoning? The quotation of such passages shews only the extreme poverty of scriptural intelligence, to be borne with when produced in the first dawn of light, or held in systematic and traditional piety; but when reproduced as pretending to the dogmatic maintenance of truth, is as poor as it is unfounded. "The miracles themselves were the manifestation of His sinbearing work and character." This language shews the real character of the statement and the force of what I have said. If sin be borne before God, man must suffer; but was the exercising power of love bearing sin? It is not said in Matthew's explanation, He bore sin, but took our infirmities, which are not sin, and bore our sicknesses. Wrath of God is due to sin, if it be borne; healing the sick is not bearing the wrath of God. What Matthew says may be a proof of Christ's entering in the fullest way into the sorrows of those who are healed; I believe it is. But this doctrine would destroy all the gracious, sorrowing sympathies of Christ in love; they are but bearing wrath upon Himself.

212 Isaiah 53 is the recognition by the converted Jew, in the latter day, of the way they had treated Christ, which we, of course, anticipate, but is literally applicable to the Jew. It looks at all Christ's course and appearance in the flesh, His sorrows and the way He was received. He was despised and they esteemed Him not. He bore Israel's griefs and carried their sorrows, but besides that, He was wounded for their transgressions. Was that healing the sick? The Lord laid the iniquity of them all upon Him, so He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of my people was He stricken. This remark is connected with His death. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when he shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed." "Because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many." The chapter speaks of His sorrows, and in doing this goes to their full extent, and speaks of His being cut off for sin, and connects His death with this bearing of sin in the most explicit way. This is not saying that all His sorrows were sin-bearing. To say that His healing the sick was His own being wounded for our transgressions, is introducing confusion into all truth, and neutralizing the value of Christ's death.

213 Besides, "the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." On whom? On Christ, Jehovah's servant. But then He was the Christ before it was laid on Him. Further, "when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin": why "when," if it was always? Besides, who offered Himself through the eternal Spirit without spot to God? The divine person in heaven? Clearly not. If Christ was always the sin-bearer, He did not offer Himself through the eternal Spirit of God; He was always by position under sin. The free love of Christ — man — in offering Himself is entirely set aside. This is a very important point. Isaiah 53 gives the general picture of the sorrows of Christ, so opposite to the unbelieving nation's estimate, and pursues them up to that great truth, that He was numbered with transgressors and bare the sins of many.

The statement as regards Dr. Owen is a mis-statement. It is said that he shews that Christ's strong crying and tears which He offered in the days of His flesh were "concomitants of His sacrifice," and in his Exposition of the Hebrews he enters fully into this, shewing that "the days of his flesh" means His life on earth though especially consummated in Gethsemane. These life-time prayers he calls sacerdotal prayers. He quotes the psalms already quoted in proof of his averment, and shews that thus it was with Him "not for a few days, or a short season only, but during His whole course in this world." I do not agree with Dr. Owen in many things on this point, but it is here stated that he calls His life-time prayers sacerdotal prayers. And that it was thus with Him during His whole course in this world.

Now, Dr. Owen states, "There was no time wherein He was not, as to His human nature, the king, priest, and prophet of His Church . . . but, as to His priestly office, He neither did nor could enter upon the exercise and discharge of it, until the end of His prophetical ministry." He speaks of unction in incarnation, declarative unction at baptism. Then, thirdly, to both these there succeeded an especial dedication to the actual performance of the duties of this office; and this was His own act which He had power for from God. "This Himself expresses. (John 17: 19.) . . . In that prayer therefore of our Saviour (John 17), do I place the beginning and entrance of the exercise of His priestly office." Not only so: where Dr. Owen states that from His cradle to His grave He bare all the infirmities of our nature, etc., he adds, as to His sacerdotal prayers, "But yet respect is not had here unto this whole space of time." That is, he declares exactly the contrary of what he is made to state. Whoever reads the Thirty-first Exercitation may easily see that the whole doctrine of Dr. Owen is opposed to what is stated. "His oblation was at the same time and in the same action with His blood-shedding." His entering into the holy place "was consequential to that offering of Himself whereby He made atonement for us." "His obtaining eternal redemption for us was by the sacrifice of Himself in His death. For redemption was by price and exchange. And the Lord paid no other price for sin and sinners but His own blood (1 Pet. 1: 18, 19).

214 As regards 1 Peter 2: 24, it is alleged that its true meaning is that Christ bore our sins up to the tree — not on it. He carried our sins during the whole of His humbled state. This is only want of acquaintance with the use of the expression; and the passage is only an additional proof of what I feel to be important for our souls in this matter. Anapherein epi to is a sacrificial expression, signifying the proper offering up of the victim on the altar. Peter here compares Christ to a victim hid on the altar as our sin offering with our sins upon it. The reader has only to consult Genesis 8: 20, or Leviticus 3: 5, 11, 16; and chapter 4: 10, 19, 26, 31, where he will find the formula of anaphero epi to exactly what there is in Peter used for hala and katar in Hebrew; that is, the positive offering up on the altar as a sacrifice — the causing it to ascend to God, or burning it. The words do not mean at all what they are stated to mean. The cross was as the altar where the victim was consumed by the fire of the proving and just judgment of God about sin; and all was a sweet savour, though also for sin.

In result, this doctrine of an expiatory sin-bearing life (I will touch on the righteousness farther on) is built on no scripture ground. It sets aside the declaration that without shedding of blood there is no remission. It denies the offering up of Christ by Himself, when a man, to be a sacrifice — a most vital truth; for, according to this system, He is it all His life. It perverts, in the most shocking way, such passages as "with his stripes we are healed," and casts at once both Christ's sufferings under divine wrath, as the wages of sin, and His living sympathies into the shade, by confounding them together; making death and blood-shedding to be essential to the first, and turning the latter into sufferings for sin under God's hand. And see the fruits. "If Paul could say, 'I die daily,' how much more Christ? His life was a daily dying. He was always 'delivered unto death.'" Was Paul suffering for sin, then, in so dying, and in an expiatory way? What an absolute proof of entire confusion of mind, as to the very nature of these things, is here displayed! We are told a whole undivided life is our expiation. Mark that, reader: — life an expiation. I ask, if such a statement be not in opposition to the universal testimony of the word of God. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." So that "without shedding of blood there is no remission." It separates redemption from expiation, or gives redemption without blood. No sacrifice is needed for expiation. And what is death when it comes, but the consummation of a life, the same in legal character as itself? He was born "under the law"; He lived "under the law"; He died "under the law." Is, then, one keeping the law in life, so as to be in the perfectness of divine favour, the same thing as being under the curse of the law, because it had been broken? But it will be replied to me, But we say, that He was under that during the whole course of His life. Yes, but scripture says quite the contrary; it declares that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. I admit fully an obedience running through life, always perfect, and unto death, when it was consummated; I admit that Christ was in death perfectly agreeable to His Father. The question is not there, but in this — what expiates sin? Is wrath, and the curse, and the cup the Lord had to drink on the cross, the same as His life?

215 Reader, the word declares that the wages of sin is death.; and Christ died to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. If the corn of wheat had not fallen into the ground and died, it had remained alone. He was once offered to bear the sins of many. We are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Where were we without redemption? And this is forgiveness. Where would you be without that? He hath once suffered for sins, being put to death in the flesh. If death be not written on the old man, you must be judged for its deeds. But it is only in Christ's dying it is so. "Now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

216 One passage I would yet desire to refer to. God "has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." Who knew no sin? Does it speak of the eternal Son before His incarnation? Clearly not. That would say nothing. It was Christ incarnate in this world. It was when by His path through this world, in which His sinlessness was put to the test, it could be said He knew no sin, then it was He was made sin. God did not make the Eternal Son sin in His becoming a man, in the word being made flesh. It would be hard to say which would be worse, the absurdity or the evil of such an assertion. If not, it was when Christ had been fully tested, and in result it could be said He knew no sin, then He was made sin. It is alleged that "during His life He was made sin for us." When? And, remark, being made sin is clearly as an offering.

It is asked, In what sense and for what purpose was He made under the law, if from His very birth He were not the very substitute on whom our sins were laid? Scripture will answer, "He was made under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Besides, He magnified the law and made it honourable — a matter not without its moral importance. It was of moment to honour the law, the measure of God's requirement from His creature, at the moment He was going to take him entirely from under it, to deliver him from it. But this touches on the ground of righteousness, which I reserve for another paper.

____________

I thank you for sending me the query as to the paper on the sufferings of Christ. It was my desire to send a few words to you on a danger to which saints may be liable, through the enquiry which has been raised on this subject. This question of your correspondent C. affords me the ready opportunity of doing so. But for the circumstance of the words "To be continued," being omitted, through a very immaterial mistake, the paper would not have appeared to be closed without a signature, which would have left on the writer all the responsibility of the views contained in it.

The danger I have alluded to is double. First, that the whole doctrine as to Christ, which has been promulgated, should so alarm Christians that they should be afraid almost of dwelling on the sufferings of Christ, and giving them their full human reality, lest they should trench on the perfection of His Person and position before God. The tendency of the mind to being overbalanced by the fear of one extreme, and running into another, is a well-known infirmity of human nature. If the enemy could lead the saints to shrink from a full contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, because of the heartless blasphemies which have been mixed up with the teaching on the subject, he would have gained a point of the utmost consequence. There is no subject more full of blessing and profit — if the divine nature and perfectness of Christ be fully maintained — than the true humanity and real sufferings of our Lord. It is the channel and expression of His love to us, where the heart meets it most near to us. If this be weakened in the soul — and it has been weakened by orthodox persons, the link of the heart with the blessed Lord is seriously weakened. I remember, at the time when Mr. Irving was promulgating his errors as to the person of Christ, a religious newspaper insisting that Christ's learning obedience by the things which He suffered meant His teaching it. Now this, though rightly intended in resisting fatal error, sacrificed precious truth, and tended to the very injurious practice of forcing the word of God. There is the danger of losing — through a just jealousy of the abominations which have been stated as to the blessed Lord — a full practical sense of the reality of His human sufferings.

217 But this danger has another side for every heart that occupies itself with it. It is clear that the peculiar value of this touching part of the Lord's history is that the wretched and cold heart of man may be touched, the affections engaged in a sanctifying way with Christ, and brought up to what is divine, the soul attached to Him, while a reverent sympathy is awakened in the soul with all He went through, and the heart carried with Him into those better scenes into which His sufferings lead Him. Now, the truth has to be guarded; but a diligent dissection of all we ought to feel is very apt to destroy all feeling as to what we dissect; the power of the sufferings of Christ is lost in the effort to be precise as to them, and to guard the integrity of doctrine as to His Person and work. The real guilt of this would be with those who brought out the hateful doctrines which have given occasion to hedge around the truth with precautions. But it is the wisdom of those who respect the Lord so to deal with the subject as to keep alive (in all their freshness, and with the bloom of first ripe fruit) the sense of the sufferings of Christ, and the simplicity of holy and reverent affections with which they have been first dwelt upon. Such I desire for my own soul, such I desire for my brethren. It is well and very important to have the truth clear, and to guard it — especially when it concerns Christ — with holy vigilance. But it is well to have the heart free and fresh. "In that he hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." Let us never forget that. He laid His hand upon the leper, which if another had done, he would have been defiled; but it was not to contaminate Himself, but to drive away what was contaminating from the defiled one. The immutability of His holiness enabled Him to enter in love into the proximity of sin, and all the miseries and sorrows of sinful men, as nothing else but such a holiness could. It was just the blessedness and divine perfectness of His work, when alive here to do so. God was here revealed, and none but God could have done this, and in grace to the fallen.

218 The mistake of your correspondent — and I am very glad of his jealousy of anything which could have in it a particle of the doctrine that has been and is spread abroad — is, that he confounds sorrows with the cause of sorrows. First of all, to dispose at once of his first question, "Was He Himself chastened in respect of sin?" It scarcely needs an answer, because He had no sin, in respect of which He had to be chastened. He was not chastened in respect of sin, nor by anger applying to His Person in respect of sin. But we must not confound voluntary sympathy with sorrows, and entering into them in love, with lying under sorrow by His own position. If He lay under the chastening Himself, He could not enter into it in voluntary love, alive as a man on earth, because in that case He was under it already Himself. Here is just the danger — denying the entering into, because of the fatal doctrine of His being necessarily under. It is just the doctrine of Christ's being necessarily and by birth, when a man, under these sorrows and chastenings for sin, which renders impossible the truth of His graciously and freely entering into them in love; which is just what gives all its value to these sufferings. He could not, as a man on earth, enter in grace and tender goodness towards us into that by sympathy, which He was lying under by necessity in His own Person as man, or more than other men were.

219 This point is cleared therefore. But sufferings endured by others can be fully entered into and endured by the will and love of an individual, which they are not in the smallest degree subject necessarily to, and could cease to undergo, at any moment, if they thought fit. A mother could enter into prison with a child, and suffer the disagreeableness and discomfort of the prison in love to her child, and to win his heart to what is right, to whom it was no penalty for a fault, and from which she was free to go out at any moment, if she were disposed. She may enter into all his circumstances, and endure the pain and misery of a prison life, and feel that it is, for him, a penalty for his faults, without the smallest sense, whatever, of its being a penalty on herself — as indeed it is not. She is gone there in love. It is no penalty. She is not there, at any time, as in a penal condition herself, nor can she have the sense of its being a penalty on her, as if she were in the same case as her son. Yet, in fact, she is enduring all he is, feels it much more herself (for her natural and moral feelings are much more delicate), and she feels all the shame and misery of it as a penalty on him, without its being in the smallest degree such on her. Not only so, if she were there by the law imposing it on her (even because she was the mother of him who had incurred it), she could not feel in the same way for him. Instead of our being under an evil being a cause of sympathy — so far as we are under it ourselves, we cannot in simple and true love sympathize with one who is. We must morally be out of the evil to feel freely for those in it. The sufferings as to the facts were experimentally the Lord's own, and He entered in spirit and thought for His people into the causes of them, and did so, and could do so, exactly, because the causes of them had no application whatever to Himself. The scorn and rejection of the Gentiles He underwent; so will the remnant of Israel; but they have been the guilty parties, and are there because they are, though now in heart repentant, and turned away from them. The terror of God's judgment was before Christ in Gethsemane: so it will be with the remnant of Israel in the last day. They will indeed escape it (which He did not, because of our salvation). Rejection and scorn on the part of the Jews were His portion; so it will be of the remnant. And thus with all this character of sufferings, as treachery, desertion, and scorn.

220 Now, all this is quite a different thing from atonement, where the wrath of God is endured. That the remnant (though they, as ourselves, have deserved it) will never undergo. All these sufferings will form the moral state of the remnant — come upon them as a penalty; they will and ought to feel it as such. They are the fruits of their faults and sins, though at the same time of their integrity, as expressed in the Psalms; but in Christ, while the present fruit of His integrity, they are in no kind of way of His fault, nor is He dealt with as faulty in it by God — quite the contrary. He voluntarily enters into it all in grace.

It may be asked, But how could He enter into the sense of wrath in this way? Nothing can possibly be simpler. Israel is under it because they have deserved it, and (though they are encouraged, and in a measure comforted in hope, yet, not being yet acquainted with the fulness of redemption in Christ) they cry out of the depths under the sense of sin; and the hand of God upon them bears with it the sense and dread of wrath because of sin. Christ felt this, not because He had earned it in any way, or was necessarily under it by birth amongst those who had, so that He needed mercy and some means to escape it; but (exactly the contrary) because, when He was not subject to it, but the delight of His Father, He was going to take it in grace voluntarily all upon Him. He could anticipatively feel what He was going really to undergo, and cry unto Him who was able to save Him from death. They could groan under the dread of the same wrath, which (when rightly and for their own good taught the truth of it, so that there might be truth in their inward parts) they are not finally to undergo at all. I am not here speaking of the degree and spirit in which He suffered, for here, notwithstanding grace in them, the difference will still be great. The truth is, that, so far is sympathy from the being in the same state, the sympathies of Christ are exercised when He is in no suffering at all. He has a nature cognizant of the same sorrows, as sorrows, and hence capable of entering into them. But the spirit and mind in which He enters into them may be as different as possible. His Spirit works in the remnant according to what is to take place from His hand — that is, judgment. He feels and enters into their sorrows, for He has gone through the sorrows. His feelings under them were purely gracious. When they suffer, He is going to judge, and His Spirit works the looking for this judgment. The Church alone has, properly and fully, as to their nature, like thoughts with Jesus Himself. On this side also her privilege is great. We cannot estimate it too highly.

221 Since I sent my reply to some previous questions on the paper on the "Sufferings of Christ," two further questions have been sent to me. After the explanation I have given in reply to the former, a short answer will suffice. The enquiry made is, What is the difference between the doctrine of the paper and Mr. Newton's? The question shews the need of making the matter clear to those who have been occupied with it. The answer is very simple. The doctrine of the paper is exactly the opposite of Mr. Newton's. Mr. Newton taught that Christ, as born an Israelite and a man, was at the same distance from God as Israel and man, because He was one of them, was exposed to the consequences of it, and passed through the experiences an unconverted elect man ought, escaped much of what He was exposed to by being in their position, by prayer, obedience, and piety; but still had the fierce displeasure of God resting on Him as born one of the people. Hence He listened with glad attention to the gospel under John the baptist, and passed then for Himself as from the law to the gospel. Most of this terrible anguish to which He was exposed, as born one of the Jews and of the children of Adam, was before His baptism by John.

I believe, on the contrary, that though suffering from man and feeling for all the sufferings of man and Israel, and the sorrow of love resting continually upon His heart, the sunshine of God's favour was on Him and was His delight and His joy continually, and thus there was no divine displeasure resting on that Holy One, nor was His frame wasted by the anguish of it. I detest it as a false abomination. But I believe that in grace, at the close of His history, when His life-work, as presented to Israel according to promise and gracious service towards man, was brought to a close, He, the object of divine favour, entered into the sorrows of His people.

Your correspondent has said in a short parenthesis "(unless anticipatively);" but what is Israel's sorrow in the last day unless anticipative? They will not undergo wrath at the close. Christ felt it in Gethsemane anticipatively, because He was about to undergo it. But He did it anticipatively; that is, He did feel what Israel will feel, only far more deeply. And He felt it in grace, because He was not under it personally; whereas Israel as to his own position will be; and if Christ had been under it personally, because born a Jew, He could not have entered into it in grace. If the whole family are held under the penalties of high treason, and the mother I have supposed in my previous answer in prison necessarily though not personally guilty, she cannot go to partake of her son's sorrow in love, for the simple reason that she is there by the necessity of her own case. She is not free to go out because she has gone voluntarily in. Christ could have asked for His twelve legions of angels and have been free. Mr. Newton's doctrine was that He was born under it and sought to escape it by prayer, and obedience, and piety, and partially did; mine, that He was not born under it all, but, instead of having to seek to escape it, entered into the sorrow in love and grace for the deliverance of others. That is, one is exactly and essentially the opposite of the other. The question of "How long?" is as to this in itself immaterial; but the point that He was entirely free as born into the world, His state the opposite of what Mr. Newton says, and that by grace He entered into it, makes the difference of a false Christ and a true one — a true one who, being free, perfectly free, can care for others; and a false one who, being subject to it himself, must think of himself and not of others in love.

222 Mere attacks on my statements I should not notice, as I see no Christian profit in it. I leave them, where the will of man is at work in them, to Him whose will is above all human wills. I have always found it a happy course, and the way to be really sheltered from any and every attack. "Thou shalt hide them by thy presence from the pride of man, thou shalt keep them secretly in thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues."

I am uncommonly thankful that the papers on the "Sufferings of Christ" have awakened the enquiry they have. I have no doubt it was needed when the question once was raised. In itself the raising of it would be a cause of regret to me, for fear of the destruction of holy and reverent affections on such a subject. But we all know that it was raised, and a large class of persons in the Free Church of Scotland, and elsewhere were more or less affected by it. The original root in both England and Scotland, was the deadly wickedness of Irvingism. The attempt to meet that in England by explanation led to the statements which have now become notorious. In Scotland it was a more direct result of softened down Irvingism itself. When the English form of the doctrine being put to shame lost its blasphemous virulence, though never given up, it tended to coalesce with the softened and pious remains of Irvingism or semi-Irvingism in Scotland. This is the present phase in which the influence of this doctrine appears. It has sought to support itself by old opinions, and to make use of phrases employed, as is constantly the case, in a general and inaccurate way, when the question was not raised, and no such thought was in the mind of the writer, to sustain a system of doctrine which he, whose words are quoted, never thought of; but its birth and true nature is a distinct false doctrine as to the relationship of God to Christ, which is not Irvingism, but which affects both the person and work of Christ by views which have flowed from Irvingism, or been the result of contending against it without the Spirit of God.

223 But my object now is not to pursue these thoughts farther, but to say that when the humblest saint is honestly exercised on the subject, or troubled by any statements which it cannot clear up for itself, I am bound and ready to explain, and make the truth, or my own meaning, clear as far as I can. I suppose the replies I have made to your correspondents, C. and another from Manchester, will serve as a general reply to any honest difficulty; but as more than one request for explanation has reached me, I would meet the particular points contained in some of these and clear up what may have been obscurely expressed in my own statements on the subject. The Psalms afforded more especially occasion to that part of the subject which remains obscure to many. This is not surprising. The subject is new to most, and the bearing of particular psalms or parts of psalms in many cases new to my own mind; so that, though perfectly clear as to what I reject and what I hold, it is not surprising if I have not made all clear to my readers. Something doubtless is my own fault, but much of it the newness of the subject to themselves.

I got one paper stating that my language is to the effect that Christ suffered from God apart from atonement. This surprised me somewhat, and I looked at the papers and I found, "But the moment He [Christ] is suffering from God because of the atonement for sin, it is exactly the contrary"; and a little farther on, "Christ has only drunk that cup, because He suffered from God — entirely apart, totally alone." Indeed one of the objects of the papers was to shew that Christ's suffering from God was a distinct thing, even if at the same time, from His suffering from man — that the former brought grace and redemption to man, the latter, judgments; and that this distinction was carefully kept up in the Psalms. In one place it is said, in the preceding articles, that He was smitten of God. This, however, is the language of the psalm, and my remark is introduced in connection with it, though the question may remain how far it applied to Christ, how far to the remnant. No one, I suppose, at least no believer, has ever doubted the general application of Psalm 69 to Christ. The knowledge of the degree of its application to Him, or its being exclusively so applicable, must be, as of all scripture, the result of divine teaching.

224 A simple saint is kept, by what he does know, with certainty of the truth of God, from being misled by what is obscure; but we may remain ignorant of many such points till God in His grace carry the soul on to further light and spiritual apprehension. I think it a great mistake to suppose (as is stated, if I remember right, in Horne on the Psalms) because an expression is applicable to Christ or used by Him, that the whole psalm is so applicable. His Spirit speaks in all and throughout each, and in general in reference to the life of a godly Jew. Where an expression served to give utterance to His own perfect piety and sorrow, He could use it, though the whole psalm could by no means be assigned to Him. This is a very important principle to keep fast hold of. There are some psalms, of course, which are positive personal prophecies of Himself.

That, in Psalm 69, Christ is in the mind of the Spirit of God, though not exclusively so, is, I suppose, hardly necessary to prove to Christians, seeing it is one of the most vivid descriptions of His outward sufferings on the cross. It is in respect to the remarks in my papers on the "Sufferings of Christ," which arose out of the consideration of this psalm, that difficulties arose in some pious minds. These difficulties I respect, and delight in the jealousy which would not bear anything that they thought touched the divine perfection and relationship with God His Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever expression might throw a cloud on that, or if any did, I condemn it already: I am sure I have no doctrine which does. I hold His cloudless relationship with His Father, save in the act of atonement, to be an essential truth. It was to make this clear that I drew attention to His sufferings from man which brought judgment on man, and His sufferings from God (that is, atoning sufferings) which brought forgiveness and peace. This clearly distinguishes a life of communion, and the forsaking and wrath on the cross, and denies distinctly and unequivocally, in whole and in part, the doctrine of Christ being subject to the displeasure of God as a born Israelite and a born man. He never was but His delight. He was not by birth subject to what He sought to escape, and did partly escape from by prayer, obedience, or any other virtue or quality. All this is fundamentally false, makes a false Christ — not the true one at all, let it be vicarious or not vicarious. The former indeed is absurd, if He is subject to the displeasure of God by birth and position as the necessary consequences of these; for He is in it whether He delivers others or not — in it by His own position, not therefore for others. But vicarious or not, it is false; it denies, before the question of vicariousness can arise, the true being of Christ and His true relationship to God, which alone made His gracious work for others possible.

225 But then another enquiry presented itself. Did these two statements, of Christ suffering from man and suffering from God in atonement, explain or rather express all that the Psalms contain in reference to the sufferings of Christ? They do give all that we have to say to as Christians, and hence the difficulty many Christians find in entering into anything further. It is true that in the indirect comfort of a soul under law a certain application of the Psalms may be found. I remember when the only passage in scripture which comforted me was Psalm 88, because no ray of comfort was in it; yet I was sure it was a saint who penned it, and I might be a saint though in like anguish. There is a certain truth in this, but it is needless to pursue it farther here. But it is important to give all its value to scripture, without in any way turning aside or shrinking from receiving its full force. God is certainly right. And when the saint holds fast the truth which He has been taught of God, and where a passage is obscure waits humbly till God teaches him, he will not go wrong. But to meet effectually a heresy which uses scripture, we must give their full value to the scriptures of which the heretic avails himself. This frees the spirit of him who respects scripture, and is troubled, inasmuch as what he cannot receive (because he sees it contradicts known truth) seems to have a foundation in some unexplained passage. It will be found universally that heresies are founded either on some obscure and difficult passage, the true sense of which not being known, it is easy to trouble many minds with some apparent sense of it, or on some truth neglected by the Church. The practical neglect of the true humanity of the Lord, of the presence of the Spirit, and the coming of the Lord, laid the Church open to the wild pretensions and dreadful doctrines of Irvingism. So the true interest which the Lord takes in Israel as God's people being lost sight of, and His sorrows applied only to salvation and to the Church, the scriptures applicable to Christ's connection with that people remained open to all manner of interpretations.

226 Christ died not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. But He did die for that nation as such. What God is displaying in that nation (though no blessing can be without atonement) is His government, not the Church's place and portion. These form, besides individual salvation and relationship to God, the two great subjects of scripture, its heavenly and its earthly parts: in heaven the display of infinite grace in the Church; on earth God's government, in result the display of blessing, under the direct government of the Lord in contrast with man's misrule and Satan's power. The Church is, in union with Christ, the centre of the heavenly blessing, and rules with Him; the Jews, the centre of the earthly blessing, the royal nation in the midst of which Christ governs. In all these (individual salvation, the Church, and the earth's resurrection through the fulness of Israel) Christ must have the preeminence; but to have it, man being a sinner, He must suffer (Heb. 2: 10) and glorify God (John 17) where man has dishonoured Him. First of all, everything is based on atonement — the perfect infinite glorifying of God as to good and evil: that which, if it saves us, angels desire to look into. This, as a moral foundation, is the centre of all blessing, and makes the blessing dependent on it immutable. It is not the founding of blessing on creature responsibility — as was the case with angels, Adam, and Israel under the law, but on God's having been already perfectly glorified in respect of every moral question which could be raised. In virtue consequently of this work, man in the Person of Christ is raised up and set at the right hand of God in power, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and set over all the works of His hands. Now Christ must glorify God in every respect in which the divine majesty required it and in which He was to take a place in glory. As regards His life, this was done, not by being in distress under God's hand, which would have glorified nobody, but the contrary — would have been the mere subjection of Him who was without sin to the consequence in His soul of the power of evil and divine judgment without a cause, and effacing the divine judgment of good and evil and confounding altogether what had to be cleared up.* He knew all that was due to God in a divinely perfect spirituality in the midst of evil, and walked in it. To meet this with displeasure would have been the contrary of a display of God's way as to good and evil.

{*However derived from Adam our sinful nature may be, and we lost in him, the divine word is careful to add, "and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," eph'o the condition on which it hung, though not its first cause.}

227 God was glorified in Him in life by His maintaining, in spite of all temptation and trial and sorrow, undeviating communion with His Father, perfect always towards God, and as to the circumstances through which He passed, and equally undeviating obedience to His will.

This God did not visit with His anger and hot displeasure. It would have confounded, as I have said, all good and evil. It was met by what the Lord says, "I knew that thou hearest me always." Just as angels and men left their first estate, the creature fell untempted, or tempted in the midst of blessing. Christ kept His as man, and in spite of the efforts of the enemy maintained Himself in His place of communion and obedience, though in the midst of sorrow and loneliness of walk. He overcame the strong man, and could spoil his goods, and did, walking sinlessly in communion with His Father. The essence of His position as a living man was, that He did keep that first estate so that He remained "that holy thing." Dependence, confidence, communion, and obedience, according to the Spirit of holiness, formed His life towards God. As He knows His sheep, and His sheep know Him, so the Father knew Him and He the Father. The very essence of His position in contrast with Adam was, that He was with God, and never got away from Him or the relationship He enjoyed with Him. The question of good and evil was resolved in the world by the power of godliness in life, in walking in the midst of evil, and overcoming through every temptation, and by goodness dependent on God.

228 But evil and sin had come in, and if any one was to be saved of the evil race, that evil must be dealt with — the true judgment of good and evil maintained according to what God is. This was done in the wondrous work of the cross, where perfect love to the sinner was at the same time displayed. Here, consequently, the very opposite to communion found its place — the forsaking of God. The Lord Jesus drank that dreadful cup, and made atonement for sin and obtained a place for man in the purpose of grace, which is displayed in the fullest way in the Church united to Him, though all salvation and every blessing depends on it. His position was the closest relationship of enjoyed favour in life, and forsaking made only more terrible by it in death — these formed the two characteristic conditions of the blessed Lord with God and His Father. This faithfulness in all was made good in spite of every obstacle and all the power of evil in man and Satan. So that the whole work was complete.

But there was another side of Christ's service, besides its aspect towards God, glorifying Him in life and in death — the interest He took in His people; spiritual or earthly, His sheep or Israel. They, in the path of life, have to go through temptations and trials: His sheep, trials of one character; Israel, of another. His sheep have trials of temptation, persecution, sorrow, and the hatred of the world, sustained by communion with God, when in the relationship with God by grace in which Christ Himself stood when on the earth. John 17 fully develops this position (indeed chapter 14 partially so too). This, consequently, Christ went through. He is their example in it on the one hand, and on the other has the tongue of the learned to know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. We have His sympathies as well as His example. With all this, with more or less clearness, the hearts of His saints are familiar.

In general the subjects I have hitherto spoken of are connected with salvation and the Church, rather than with the government of God, although there be something of this mixed with our sorrows and temptations. But Israel is the centre of that government, and in this Christ must have the preeminence too, must secure the glory of God, and comfort His people with His sympathy. The atonement is the basis of this as of every blessing. It has its own unchangeable character. Christ died for the nation. This was towards God for them. His sympathies with them have yet to be enquired into. It is this point that has exercised the minds of some — how He could enter into the sorrows of Israel, when we view them as smitten of God.

229 I have already spoken of not merely the difference, but the mutually exclusive nature of being subject to these sorrows Himself as born a Jew, and His entering into them in grace. One is subversive of the other, and they are mutually so. I do not pursue this any farther; my object is to explain how He did enter, how, in a fuller personal sense than was once said of Him as Jehovah, "in all their afflictions he was afflicted." If they are to be accepted; if they are renewed in heart, and at the same time dread the wrath of God, which they have deserved, and see death before them, and hostility without the fear of God around them; if they trust God, and yet fear what is before them; if Satan's power is to be let loose against them, and death and judgment still press upon their spirit; if all this were from the hand of God, though human beings be the instruments, Christ (to sympathize with them and by His spirit suggest the right feelings as to it) must pass through their sorrows, not because they are resting on Him in His position, but because they are resting on them, and He will enter into their sorrows. He could say, "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"* Had He need of repentance, or anything to repent of, when He was baptized with the baptism of repentance, in order to walk with the true residue of Israel in the path marked out for them? He was fulfilling righteousness when they were owning sin; but He did come to be so baptized, and it was part of the path of His righteous obedience to do so. He took this place with them, and took it because He was not in it. This was its true character — the gracious and blessed place of answering to God's call, which gave a place and a name to the residue. Still He entered into their position, though exactly from another cause, and in the opposite way to theirs. Theirs was confession of sin, His fulfilling righteousness; He came from heaven, having a title to have a will, into obedience, but we from sin, and a will with no title to it; but He came into the path of obedience in which His people had to tread, and walked in it: when they had to be baptized of John, He too, though He had no sin to confess, He would be with them.

{*I am aware we read, "if they do these things," poiousin. But Luke so uses, very often, the active third person plural for the simple existence of the fact. The outward instruments were, of course, men, and particularly Israel; but I am persuaded that is not the sense here. If any one prefers so taking it, I have nothing against it.}

230 This part of the path was indeed quite different in character from what I would now explain. He could walk with them here. When the other part had to be trodden, He must do it alone. They, hereafter, will have the comfort of its being said, "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his distress." If their piety will be shewn in looking on all as coming from the hand of God, whatever the instrument, so Christ, too, had to receive all at the hand of God, and so to look at it as entering into their sorrows, though He was perfectly free in His soul towards God. He bears their sorrows, though He was not the cause of them for Himself, as they had been, and looks at them as coming on them from God — on them from whom He would not be separated till all was accomplished for them.

Nor was this merely sympathetic feeling.* Because, though government and atonement for sin are two distinct things, yet that government and the wrath borne in atonement would coalesce necessarily if atonement were not already made; for what can finally the government of God, as to a sinner and his sins, be? But till Christ had wrought the atonement, this separation between wrath and government remained, as to the work that wrought it, unaccomplished. What makes the sorrow only discipline for the remnant, when they are not yet brought into the sense of divine favour, was before Him then really (though this be not all the truth on this point, as we shall see) as wrath and the hand of God in wrath. What they dread vaguely, as not yet set free, He underwent in the highest and fullest sense. They are renewed in heart, trust in Jehovah, yet cry out of the depths, and see God's hand upon them. Christ, always perfect in heart, trusts in His Father, yet cries out of the depths, and sees it is a cup which His Father has given Him to drink. I speak now specially in respect of Israel. If the nation was to be spared and restored, His strength must be brought down in His journey, and His days shortened, and that of God. They are not yet delivered from the sense of wrath, though hoping in God; Christ was looking forward to the wrath He was really going to undergo. To Him government became wrath, for He was going to make an atonement, to go through what was needed for the deliverance of the nation, and He was looking forward to this, though not then accomplishing it.

{*This is one of the attacked passages. I have only to urge the reader's earnest attention to it.}

231 Hence, when Peter smites one of the crowd come to take Him, He says, "The cup which my Father hath given me to drink, shall I not drink it?" He said this in peace, because He had gone through the whole agony with God in perfectness, and from man He took nothing, though not insensible to his hatred in it. When Israel thinks of it as coming from God, peace not being attained, they mix up enemies and wrath (so to speak) all together. God's hot displeasure is in the human trials themselves. This was not so with Christ. He takes up the thought of wrath wholly with God. The smiting is entirely God's, and in His case is not separate from that in which atonement is wrought; and taking death as He did, and ought to have done, from the hand of God, He could say, "They persecute him whom thou hast smitten."

Indeed, having given Himself up to the work of the cross, before He was actually crucified, He goes as a sheep before His shearers. He looks at Himself as the smitten One. For His faith the cup is already given Him. He had only now to say, "That thou doest, do quickly." Jesus having bowed to this, men availed themselves of it to trample on Him. As long as His hour was not come, He passed through the midst of them and went His way. Now His hour was come, and, though not actually drinking the cup, He had taken the position of drinking it, taken it into His hand, so to speak, does not expect God to interfere, has been to God about it, and knows it is to be — hence does not answer those who interrogate Him, nor reply. They could have no power at all against Him, unless given them from above: but now the hour for Him to suffer was come. It is not the time for the divine Porter to hold the fold open and free in spite of all; but for the good and divine Shepherd to lay down His life for the sheep. Jehovah was just going to smite the Shepherd, and He had given Himself up to it.* Did men not profit, yea Satan, by this non-interference of God, as He stood with that cup just taken into His hand, though in perfect peace and power, so that when He said it was He, they went backward and fell to the ground?

{*The persecuting "Him whom thou hast smitten" is literally applicable in Psalm 69 only to what was done to Him on the cross. (See verses 20, 21.) Still surely in spirit all that passed from Gethsemane, or when He had given Himself up to the suffering of death and rejection, has this same character. It may be remarked, in connection with this, that Psalm 69 gives the whole course of Christ's suffering life, closing in this solemn bowing to death at the end, His being in the depths. The zeal of God's house ate Him up. It was for the God of Israel's sake He suffered reproach and was alienated from His mother's children. All His grief and holy service made Him the song of the drunkard. Then, verse 14, He turns to what He was brought into at the end, which is the great subject of the Psalm; and the circumstances of the cross are spoken in detail. There we know was the true smiting. It was written, "Smite the Shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered"; but the moment after, in Gethsemane, He had given Himself up to this, all partook of this character morally, though the fact of smiting had not actually taken place. There were the instruments of this as to the outward act; but I need hardly say whose word ordained "Smite the Shepherd," and to whom Christ because of His perfection looked. (See Matt. 27: 31.) I shall further on take up the truth that atonement was not all the sorrow of death to Christ. The reader should distinctly remark that the subject to which Psalms 69 and 102 are applied is the blessing of Zion and restoration of Israel. (See Psalm 69: 35, 36, and Psalm 102: 13-22.) [This note is part of the original tract.]}

232 The difference between Christ and the remnant in the latter days, even as to anticipated sorrow, is this: He goes, when the hour is come, directly and perfectly to His Father about it. It is then that the dreadfulness of this smiting of God, of the cup He had to drink, is all gone through in the agony of it with His Father, in prayer. He is to drink it. Man's will in it and Satan's will in it have disappeared — it is God's will. He enters into no temptation; power and liberty are there; His enemies go backward and fall to the ground. He then offers Himself freely, saying, "Let these go their way"; so that not one sheep is touched, but they are scattered from the Shepherd, whose portion now is smiting. Then Christ let men do what they please with Him; and what did they please? Oh! what a tale it tells of what man is, left to himself. That is, for Christ personally, even the anticipations of God's wrath and man's persecuting are wholly apart. He has gone, as to trial in spirit, through all wholly with God, and then freely offers Himself to man's ways to accomplish His Father's will.

233 Not so Israel: they have not peace with God. They see, because renewed in heart, the smiting of God's hand; but it is all mixed up with the enemy without, the transgressor and oppressor within, the sense and the legal sense of the sin for which they are smitten, and the sense and dread of His wrath. Yet they have hope towards God by grace, through divine teaching as to Jehovah's mercy, though peace-making atonement be not fully known as yet. Hence they can cry and do, as to themselves, "They persecute him whom thou hast smitten, and speak to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded." God in the last days is smiting them, but, in virtue of the atonement, for their good, "till the pit be digged for the ungodly." "Blessed [it is then said] is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest out of thy law."

Hence we find in the Psalms, pleas of integrity; and from Psalm 25 confession of sin, of the people's past sins and of their own confident trust in Jehovah, yet almost despair under a legal sense of sin: the claim to be viewed apart from sinners and a sinful nation, yet the profoundest interest in the hopes and history of Israel. The atonement being made, they have the sympathies of Christ, who, though personally in another way, has entered into their sorrows. Something analogous to their state may be seen in the condition of a soul under the law. But this part of Christ's history is not that in which He learned sympathy for us, and sets us an example, save in the fact of bearing evil patiently. For this reason: we have full knowledge of atonement; we sit in heavenly places in Him, with the full favour that rests on sons.

Now the enjoyment of that full favour as Son was His condition through His life, before His hour was come. The divine favour rested on Him and on His walk; and persecutions and trials were such as we in principle may expect to find. We cannot, if on really Christian ground, be in presence of the wrath of God as that the dread of which is not yet passed away, nor be crying out of the depths, because Christ has taken us out of them. Now the remnant of Israel, on the contrary, cannot be in the place of Christ's living delight in Jehovah and comfort in His favour, come what would, because they are not yet assured of this favour as a present relationship, though hoping in mercy. But, on the other hand, no depth of distress that they can go through can reach that which Christ did in Gethsemane, though not yet actually drinking the cup. All the circumstances they are in answer to His at the close as to the state of the people, and heathen oppressors. But Christ, being in perfect divine favour, and perfect in His ways and thoughts, could separate the anticipation of divine wrath and the malice of men, as He did, and present Himself to that malice for the accomplishing the purpose of God; but He could (as having passed through the experience of a cup given Him to drink, in which the Shepherd was smitten, and the use man made of His being in this position) fully enter into the sorrows of those who had brought it on themselves, as He, save by giving Himself, of course, never did. Hence He can sympathize with them and supply to them the thoughts and feelings which suit their state, although they be not the same as that which He felt when passing through His sorrow.

234 When entering on the path of sorrow after the last supper, which led to the atonement, He (though accomplishing a work in which He must be alone wholly and altogether, yet in the path which led to it and even in the fact of death as rejected of man and with wicked hands crucified and slain) could in His sorrows enter into the sorrows of Israel under the government of God in the last days, when their blood too will be shed like water on every side of Jerusalem. It could not be said to them as to us, "Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus," because they are not in our place of union with Him and liberty; but He could enter into the sorrows they will be under, and though what He then felt towards His enemies is not what they will, for He was not only perfect, but entered as in the divine favour, though through agony, into the divine mind, yet He will enter into their sorrows and supply by His Spirit (as He has done in the Psalms) the feelings suited to them as having passed through, as to suffering and sorrow, all they can do. If He had not, who should help them?

But atonement is not the whole aspect of the death of Christ as suffering. And, indeed, in the Psalms, which are not a directly doctrinal part of scripture, and occupy themselves with Messiah and Israel, it is scarcely viewed in this light, though the facts in which it was accomplished are fully prophesied of. All the present hopes of Israel (as indeed of man), and the accomplishment of all the promises, were connected with Messiah. He was, if Israel had received Him, the crown of all their blessings. But all this must be given up; He must be delivered up, even into the hands of the Gentiles, and be put to death. Did the Lord not feel this as to His beloved people? This is what was expressed in His weeping over Jerusalem — there indeed in sympathy. He was the Jehovah who would have gathered them; but if He was, still He took it all as the obedient man from the hand of Jehovah. This is seen explicitly in Isaiah 50, where this subject is treated. The Lord God had given Him the tongue of the learned. Even what He suffered from man He took from the hand of God when thus given up to suffer, yet even here with no breach in His entire confidence in God, or thought that His portion was uncertain, as has been blasphemously stated. "He is near that justifieth me" are His words when He was under the suffering. So in Psalm 22, He owns Jehovah's hand in His sufferings, "Thou hast brought me into the dust of death." So in Psalm 102, "Thou hast lifted me up" — that is, as man into the place of Messiah and glory — "and cast me down." "Thou hast weakened my strength in my journey, and hast shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days."

235 But these passages shew another truth of the deepest interest. Christ felt it, not only as to the ruin of beloved Israel; He felt it as to Himself, and He received it at the hand of Jehovah. The setting aside of every present joy and hope, of the present accomplishment of all promises, typified in the giving up of Isaac by Abraham; all ending, not in figurative, but in real death: all this Christ's soul passed through. His obedience was tried in it. His devotedness to His Father, His submission in giving up all, entirely up in death. Was it nothing, when every promise and blessing was His natural portion, to find death instead, and the loss of all? Surely He shall have all in a more blessed and glorious way, founded securely on that death and resurrection, the sure mercies of David. Still then He had to give it all up. It was His piety to look to the hand of God in all this, and He did so.

No doubt that, when the Shepherd was smitten, atonement was made for sin; but that smiting was a great and solemn fact, besides the atonement which was accomplished in it. God's Shepherd was smitten instead of feeding His beloved flock. Further, death itself was fully felt as such by the Lord. He, with strong crying and tears, made His supplication to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared. It was no light thing to Him to have death instead of life for His portion as a man — He who knew what life was as a true possession of God. But all this has nothing to do with Christ's being subject to it as born into the world. It is exactly and diametrically opposed to that doctrine. Christ's life was the witness of a holy life in divine delight through every temptation to which we can be subject — a life in which, as regards His Messiahship, He exercised the fullest power, and disposed of all hearts, so that His disciples in going forth needed nothing. Now He says, "But now I say unto you, Let him that hath a sword take one; for this that is written concerning me must yet be accomplished, He was reckoned with the transgressors. For the things concerning me have an end." His path was changed from the active exercise of power in love, to the patient suffering the will of God. Not that He had lost the power, as Malchus's healing shewed; but that He was arrived where other things written concerning Him were to be accomplished. HIS HOUR WAS COME.

236 As a man with death before Him, and as the Messiah of Israel, with the loss of all that belonged to Him, His being cut off and having nothing, He came into a place of sorrow, destined to Him, but not previously the path in which He served God. This He felt as at God's hand. It was His perfectness and piety to do so. He was heard in that He feared. Yet, till forsaken of God, the work of atonement, the wrath that worked it out in the forsaking of His soul, was not yet in accomplishment. He was till then in communion with His Father, pleaded with Him, was heard in His plea. Yet the smiting of God was the present thing before His soul; for, though the outward instruments were men, and the power of darkness at work, He would not stop at secondary causes, nor take the cup from any but His Father's hand. He does not say God's hand. His Father's giving, and the bright joy of obeying was, though going through conflict, the portion of His soul. In atonement itself this could not be. But the difference here is evident. He never asked any other cup to pass. Men had often shewn their malice and sought to kill Him who had wrought many good works amongst them (and surely His heart grieved over this); but He was not given up to them of God, so that His soul looked to His hand in it. Now He did. It was from divine counsels the word had gone forth: "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts," though the wounds in His hands had been made in the house of His friends. And the Lord felt it all, as well as (when it came) the all-absorbing cup of the forsaking of His God.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

in answer to the work of Mr. P. Wolff, entitled,

"Ministry as opposed to Hierarchism and chiefly to Religious Radicalism,"

Valence, 1844

J. N. Darby.

<03007F> 206 {file section a.}

Preface

This answer to Mr. Wolff's pamphlet upon Ministry was written immediately after the publication of that work. The author of the answer having been absent from the country for eleven months, the manuscript remained in the hands of a friend until his return. Since then, evangelistic labours and other occupations, still more important than controversy, have retarded the preparation of the manuscript for the press, to which it is at last given up.

In this interval the Evangelical Society of Geneva, and the Lay Society of the Canton de Vaud, have recommended Mr. Wolff's pamphlet in their reports; so that the approbation which is given to this pamphlet, pretty plainly marked by facts, is now avowed. This renders my task more painful, but less difficult; for I can treat the writing which I am answering, not as that of a young student who is making, so to speak, his first campaign, and whom one would desire to spare, but as a work sanctioned by grave men who must have weighed things, who must have felt their own responsibility towards the Church of God, when they publicly recommended a treatise upon a subject so serious as that of ministry. It is to be supposed that they have examined the reasonings and the proofs advanced as having been taken from the word of God; and, by recommending this work to the whole Church, they have made themselves responsible for its contents.

The Lay Society, it is true, is careful not to take the responsibility of all the contents of the work; but, desiring the refutation of the system which it calls "Plymouthism," it points to Mr. Wolff's pamphlet as answering this end. (Sitting of the Committee of June 9th, 1843: Bulletin, No. 5, pp. 155, 156.)

207 The Report of the Evangelical Society of Geneva makes no such reserve. These are the words (p. 35): "Others have combated this [Plymouthism] with advantage; more particularly a student of our school of theology, in a work whose scriptural arguments cannot be shaken."

There will be found, in the body of this answer, inconsistencies in the feelings which I have expressed with regard to that work. Sometimes my heart has spoken in favour of the writer; sometimes I have not been altogether able to contain the indignation which I felt in seeing the way in which the word of our God has there been treated.

I have left these inconsistencies such as they are, because it was the true expression of what I felt. But now that this work must be regarded as the statement of the feelings of the Evangelical Society of Geneva, or at least of its leaders, and that they have put their approbation upon these arguments by calling them scriptural, the reserve which the circumstances of a young man called for no longer exists. Looked at as coming from the hands of learned, grave, and pious men — men in a responsible position — men who, in other respects, I esteem and love — this work coming, I say, from their hands, requires to be put in its true light. I have not in my life (and I have been in painful controversies) seen such a pamphlet. Of what are these gentlemen approving? It is a temerity which erases with a dash of the pen all that has been written on ministry from the time of Chrysostom until our own; there are self-contradictions of the grossest kind, provided that in both cases these opposed sentiments serve to establish at all costs a system that one loves; it is profound unbelief as to the presence and operations of the Holy Ghost; it is a contempt for the word, such as I have never seen the like of in any controversy; it is assertions boldly made as to the contents of the word and the use of words to give the advantage to the views of the author, which, when one examines the passages in which the word is found, are not supported by a single example, and which must have weight with those who do not know Greek, and who would not suppose — God be thanked for it — that things are affirmed in spite of all truth and of all honesty.

All is levelled to the present system in the desire of saying, We are rich. Ministry is not the exercise of a gift; no gift exists; nevertheless, the Church enjoys all its blessings! And why all this unbelief, and this lack — what shall I say — of conscience? It is this: having too much light to go on at ease with the deadness and the errors which they acknowledge in the systems that surround them, they have too little faith to free themselves from a yoke under which they groan in the work they are doing. They have resolved to flatter the flesh as well as the forms of the systems which shackle them, in order that these systems may lend them the liberty of following out the work which they do not dare to do without that.

208 As to the pamphlet which is before us (every one will judge of it when he has read the following pages), I can only see in it the public statement of the infidelity of the professing church of these last days — a contempt for the word of God, which deserves to be branded in a much more powerful way than I could do it — assertions the most false, which it is impossible to attribute to the ignorance of those who recommend this work; and which proves a use of the word which (if one must attribute such a use of it to the force of party spirit) marks, in a terrible manner, what the estimation is in which the word is held, when it is a question of the interests of a party. These are strong expressions. I should not have used them, if it were only a question of an opinion on ministry, or if they were not Christians who had made themselves responsible for them: but it is a question of the whole basis of the hopes and of the activities of the Church of God, and of the authority of His word, which are sacrificed without hesitation to the interests and to the pride of an irritated party. Weariness of controversy almost stopped my pen. I thought that tears would be more suitable than an answer. But there are souls who have a right to the explanations that are necessary for exposing what the bold assertions are worth which characterize the pamphlet patronized by the Committee of the Evangelical Society of Geneva, and of what weight is the authority of those who can patronize it: and I have deeply felt that he who uses the word in such a way, by concealing himself under Greek, does not deserve to be spared, when presented to us by men quite capable of appreciating the use and the consequences of it. The more they are esteemed (and in many respects they deserve to be so), the more necessary it is to expose the roots of bitterness which they wish to sanction. If it were a Peter who had become guilty of that which draws others away into a path of dissimulation, it would be so much the more necessary to resist him to his face.

209 INTRODUCTION

I do not expect to see principles which are of faith adopted by those who have not faith to follow them. Neither do I think that, at this moment, it is controversy that leads souls to enter the path of faith. It is the time for walking in it by the grace of God, and not for talking about it. The circumstances which surround us, and the progress of evil, call for that which God alone can give, a firm and active walk in the path in which faith alone will find means to exist; for events press upon us every day more and more.

If I answer Mr. Wolff's thesis upon ministry, it is because it is a subject of the greatest importance, and because it will furnish the opportunity for developing the truths which are now most precious to the Church.

If Mr. Wolff's pamphlet were only the production of the student whose name is attached to it, I should probably have said nothing about it. Let us do justice to the writer. It is a work which displays a tolerable amount of diligence, and shows an application the fruits of which at such an age do honour, according to men, to the writer, and are worthy of a more advanced period of life. If anything here or there betrays youth, that will not be a subject of reproach with me. That the activity of a youthful mind should have produced, as he says, a new system, does not surprise me. That, in the eyes of its author, it should be a system before which all that has been said upon ministry in all ages of the Church, passes away like a shadow — that the author should manifest a certain self-confidence, this may be natural to the ardour of youth. I shall not stop at it. He may dispose in twelve lines of all that has been written on ministry from Chrysostom to Mr. Rochat, confessing that he lacked the means of enlightening himself, not having been able to found anything upon the works of his predecessors; and he may deal thus in order to introduce a system of which "the systematic whole is entirely his own": I have no feeling against him on that account. I only recall it because of the importance which this fact acquires, when one reflects that such a judgment is approved by the party to whose jurisdiction the writer, so to speak, belongs. It is at least clear, according to this, that every system of ministry hitherto acknowledged, all the principles upon which ministry has been based, have been obliged to fall before the light which has entered by means of the discussion which has taken place on this subject. In order to combat what is advanced, it was necessary to set aside all that had been said on ministry by all theologians, both by those of primitive times, and by those of the Reformation and modern times. I acknowledge, however, that Mr. Wolff's treatise is the cleverest and the gravest that has appeared in the controversy begun upon this subject.

210 This pamphlet, appearing at the moment of such a controversy, is evidently more than a student's thesis; while it is one fruit of his labour, it is the expression of far more than that. Puffed in the journals of his party, printed with encouragement and the concurrence of persons of that party who seek to profit by its publication, and spread it abroad by their friends and their agents, this opuscule must be considered in the main, as the expression of those who propagate it; for one must not attribute to them the dishonest tactics of a corrupted Christianity, which would like to profit as much as possible by a work, with liberty to disown it afterward, if one saw itself in danger of being compromised by its means.

My intention is to bring to light, for upright souls, the principle of this pamphlet, and to point out the force of certain reasonings, which have a hold upon the flesh and may act upon it, and which are calculated to trouble simple hearts.

The evident and even avowed object of this work is to attack what I shall allow myself to call the new light which God has sent, and to maintain, such as it is, all that exists. In order to this, he borrows all that he can of this light, so that in many respects I find myself agreeing with the writer. After all, this is the road that many are following now. They borrow all the light that they can without troubling themselves to walk in the path of faith which this light has revealed.

In order to sustain at all costs existing things, it became necessary to sacrifice all the principles of ministry established by the Reformation. We must not mistake. When the author says of Calvin's system on ministry, "good as a theory based upon the experience of the Church," that is tacitly saying that this system is not based upon scripture; for he overthrows, without warning his readers of it, all Calvin's system in the body of his work.

Sufficiently young only to be enamoured of his own ideas, he has not been able to keep silence about it, as one may see in his preface. All his system is his own. He has not been able essentially to base his work upon the works of his predecessors. The thoughts of Calvin were in effect based in great measure upon the Bible: but, as Mr. Wolff says, his theory, or rather his practice, was based upon the experience of the Church. A man of sufficient integrity of heart by grace deeply to honour the word, and energetic enough to create a system, Calvin acknowledged, in many respects in theory, the truth as to ministry. In practice, he formed for himself a system adapted to circumstances and to his own character. More light has entered; the word has been searched; the energy of the Holy Ghost is at work; and what he created as a system answers no longer, either to the creative energy of its author, or to the need produced by the Holy Ghost. Those who, led by the Holy Ghost, have searched the word, have, while following the word and the principles and truths that Calvin himself found there, found themselves outside his system in several particulars. They followed the word and not the system. From that time, war has been waged against them. They were innovators, etc.

211 Meanwhile a class of persons has formed itself (the party with which Mr. Wolff is connected), a party which wishes to attach itself to Calvin's ecclesiastical system and to profit by it as much as possible, because this does not require faith (for a Socinian does it as well as themselves), and at the same time to introduce a spiritual activity subordinate to that system.

Mr. Wolff is a partisan of this new system; but he has been consistent. He has felt that, in adopting the principles which Calvin drew from the word, it would be impossible to maintain his system. He therefore denies those principles. His object is to justify at all cost what is being done. I shall give sad proofs of this presently.

Let us first state this important fact that, in order to combat those who follow the word, he has felt himself obliged to set aside all the principles of the reformers on ministry. He has felt that, once admitting what they had drawn from the word, it would be necessary to go still farther and to abandon their practical system; but this requires faith.

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CALVIN'S SYSTEM AND THAT OF MR. WOLFF

Calvin's theory is based upon the existence of gifts; the theory approved by the party which Mr. Wolff represents is based upon this — that gifts have absolutely ceased. It is evident that a system which is based upon gifts, and another which founds itself upon their absence and which makes of that absence its fundamental principle, are two thoroughly opposed systems. One may, in order to spare the flesh, practically follow the same forms, but the principles are completely opposed.

212 Calvin divides the gifts into ordinary and extraordinary, as the basis of the difference between the present and the apostolic condition of ministry. Mr. Wolff affirms that all the gifts were extraordinary, and that Calvin's whole system is false with regard to this, and that ministry has undergone no modification. Calvin's system is founded upon the difference between charges and gifts; consequently, he distinguishes between a bishop and a pastor. Mr. Wolff's whole system is based upon the identity of the bishop and the pastor. If bishop and pastor are not the same thing, all his system falls at once to the ground, because in that case the pastor is a gift given by God, and he has need neither of the imposition of hands, nor of being established by man. If the author can, on the contrary, identify them, he will in this case apply all that is said of the bishop in the epistle to Timothy to the pastor as well as to the bishop.

I do not enter into the detail of differences, for Mr. Wolff's system changes all the Calvin system. I only call attention to the great principles, or rather principle, by which they diverge. Calvin admits that gifts are needed for ministry; Mr. Wolff absolutely denies all relation between these two things. "Ministry," he says, "is exercised without gift." He is consistent: he felt that it is impossible to reconcile the existence of gifts with the system of his party and with Calvin's ecclesiastical system. Calvin admitted the things that he found in the word, then added traditions and customs. He created a system which the light that then existed bore with. The party which now opposes the light is bolder; feeling that they cannot reconcile them, and determined to remain attached to existing things, they confess this unbelief on this point, and set aside at once, the gifts, the Holy Spirit, and the word which speaks of them.

Ministry, according to them, has no connection with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. It is good at least to be clear as to the true foundations of the system which opposes the brethren. It is merely a question of purely natural gifts; the Holy Ghost has nothing to do with it, absolutely nothing. It is not (mark this well) a conclusion which I draw; it is the avowed basis of the whole system. A man must be regenerate by the Holy Ghost in order to be a minister, as he must to be a Christian; but as to his ministry itself, the Holy Ghost has nothing to do with it. These are Mr. Wolff's own words (p. 68): "It is only because their ministry is not a gift of the Holy Ghost, that ministers are ambassadors of Christ."

213 I fully admit that he is perfectly consistent. At the close of the Jewish dispensation, the forms (such as priesthood, etc.), and the power (Christ, who was without forms) are found in opposition. The same thing is true now: faith chooses power and eternal things; unbelief always attaches itself to forms. The Reformation, so precious in many respects, mingled together some things which were of God and others which were of man; the manifestation of the energy of the Holy Spirit disentangles them. Those who have not faith to lean upon God alone now throw themselves boldly on forms and applaud the avowal which flows from youthful candour, or from a certain self-complacency. This avowal is, that power does not enter into their plan. They are ministers, or rather their ministers are ambassadors of Christ, because their ministry is not a gift of the Holy Ghost!

Is it necessary to write any further for simple souls who walk in faith? No. But unhappily there are not wanting persons who seek to embroil others, nor persons who, attaching themselves a little to the light, a little to their own fleshly ease, are ready to fall into the snares that human reasonings may spread for them.

I only desire that great attention should be paid to what the thing has come to. God has permitted it to be said loudly; one can no longer mistake. Mr. Wolff is perfectly right: we must deny the existence and the operation of the Holy Ghost in ministry, or abandon the whole system. Things are coming out every day more distinctly. Such an avowal as the one of which we have been speaking is more than I should have dared to expect for helping souls to see things clearly, and to make them understand that the true question for each one of them is this: Do I believe that the Holy Ghost acts in ministry, or not? Such is the question which arises between our brethren and their adversaries — such is the question which agitates Christendom.

We shall see what are the grave consequences of this question; but it is very evident that the position taken by those who embrace Mr. Wolff's system is to deny the operation of the Holy Ghost in ministry and to resist His energy wherever He may be at work; and this is what I have seen becoming continually more distinctly marked.

214 MR. WOLFF'S JUDGMENT OF THE ROCHAT SYSTEM

I have said that the object of Mr. Wolff's pamphlet is to maintain existing things, and to oppose our brethren. He says of Mr. Rochat: "a scriptural system." This is good, because Mr. Rochat opposes the brethren, and maintains more or less a clergy appointed by men. It matters little who appoints them, as Mr. Wolff says elsewhere, provided that it be men, and that there be no gift.

But, at the same time, although it may be convenient to establish a unity of opposition to our brethren, in order to maintain a clergy appointed by men, in some way or another he must, in another part of the pamphlet, destroy all this in order to maintain with exactness the system of the party. The following are the terms in which, after having called Mr. Rochat's system a scriptural one (p. 9), Mr. Wolff expresses himself with regard to the very same system in page 37 of his work, "I must add here that an election by a church, in Mr. Rochat's sense, cannot agree with a divine vocation of the bishop"; and lower down, "If a church, when it needs a pastor, sets about voting, by means of which the member who receives most suffrages is constituted a bishop, that bishop has received no vocation from God; he is established in the name of man, and by man only. This result is inevitable."I am therefore obliged, according to Mr. Wolff, to suppose it a very scriptural thing, that the one who is bishop over the flock of God should be established without any vocation from God. It matters little. There are thirty-seven pages between these two sentences, and in each place these contradictory statements are made in order to sustain what is existing in his party.

EXAMPLE OF THE SAME SPIRIT WITH REGARD TO EVANGELISTS

After having secured the distinction of an official evangelist, in order to support the clerical principle, Mr. Wolff extols (p. 43) the employment of those who have not received this charge by the imposition of hands. But why so? Because "they are employed at the present time." They ought not to be called evangelists; because "we must carefully distinguish between what is a ministerial charge, and that which is only a testimony rendered to the gospel, voluntarily preached by a zealous and able Christian" (p. 43). But alas! they are so called. This title, therefore, may still be preserved, provided that it is explained, and that one avoids a confusion which would be dangerous for the Church, between those who do the work, and those who are charged by men to do it. I say, those who do the work; for we must suppose that these men who evangelize thus approved, are sent of God. Hence, in our days we see many of these who are sent by men, but "they have not received the imposition of hands." The whole thing, then, is to distinguish the clergy.

215 ANOTHER EXAMPLE WITH REGARD TO TEACHERS

From page 45 to page 48, Mr. Wolff absolutely denies the charge of teacher in the Church. But he fortunately corrects himself (p. 49) by adding these words, "That which has just been said with regard to teachers must be considered as in no wise affecting the degree of doctor of theology that the universities confer." It would be difficult to understand how it did not affect it. If I have rightly understood, this doctor is a kind of pastor, who, by means of the students, extends his functions to a larger portion of Christ's flock. But we have had enough of this adulation of everything which supports the interest of a class and of a party, at the expense of faith, of the action of the Spirit, of the word, and of the truth.

ON THE PRETENDED CONNECTION OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS

The thought of the influence of political over religious ideas is a vulgar one, though well calculated to exercise an influence over those who are, after all, governed by political motives of a special kind; but it will have no hold upon those who are guided by the Holy Spirit and who seek His teaching in the word.

For the rest, it is a very superficial idea. I notice it, because the true Christian is so characterized by a spirit of submission and of obedience, that sincere souls might be troubled by it; and this is how Satan seeks to take advantage of the spirit of obedience, in order to lead the Christian to obey man. No one who has read history a little but is aware that there is not a single accusation brought against the religious movement of our days, that was not brought against the Reformation, and that every movement of the Spirit of God, acting, as it does, upon the inert mass which renders it necessary, is treated by those who love to sleep, or at least to remain on their bed, as a spirit of innovation and of radicalism. Everyone who asserts the rights of God in presence of those who are in possession of an authority which despises those rights, will be necessarily a despot and a radical in their eyes.

216 This is an old accusation, and one which always comes from the wrong side. When Pontius Pilate could find no fault in Jesus, the priests and the rulers insisted the more, saying, "He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place," Luke 23: 5. What do they say against Paul and Silas at Philippi? "These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city," Acts 16: 20. And at Thessalonica? "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also," Acts 17: 6.

I exhort those who are simple, not to make themselves uneasy about a political principle or any other, but peacefully and firmly to follow the path in which the Holy Ghost leads them, walking by faith, and remembering that these accusations (for in how precious a way the word provides for every need of God's children!) — that these accusations, I repeat — are always found in the Bible to proceed from the enemies of the truth.

Moreover, this appearance of discernment and of philosophical depth is nothing but the superficial spirit of unbelief. God has at all times so prepared the suitable circumstances, for the impulse His Spirit should give. The circumstances for the Reformation were all prepared beforehand. They were equally all prepared for Christianity. The blindness of philosophy sees only these circumstances, and does not discern the power of God which is acting in them.

Unbelief is always the same; but those who act by faith know very well that they are led by something very different from circumstances; and often, in their simplicity, they do not know that circumstances favour them, save by the promise that all things shall "work together for good to them that love God," and "who are the called according to his purpose," and such are by no means the weakest. If I must speak "as a man," I say, that the man of one idea generally does more than the one who knows how to philosophize about everything. The energy of the one, and the abstraction of the other who judges everything, very rarely meet.

217 For the rest, the application of the pretty common and true principle, that Christians in general alas! yield more or less to the influence of that which surrounds them, is somewhat badly made. As to the brethren whom the author attacks, he is singularly mistaken; for in England, on the contrary, they are accused of being all aristocrats, and the system is accused of being made for aristocrats who are discontented with nationalism. Philosophers look upon them as a reaction from the extreme democracy of the English dissenters.*

{*The following is a specimen. "This system has great natural attractions. An aristocratic atmosphere exists in it; a sort of Maddra climate, which suits the delicate lungs of good society — of gentlemen, ladies, etc."}

If the Spirit does but act, it matters little: God produces effects of His grace, and the world judges them, passes on, and perishes in its wisdom. Some Christians perhaps yield also to the philosophical and systematizing influence of the age. I hope our brethren will avoid this, as much as they avoid politics. Scientific reasonings upon what is passing do not save souls, neither do they lift up Christians who have fallen. We are the servants of God: God will prepare, and God will direct, all the circumstances; we need not even occupy our minds with them, save in order to admire in it the good hand of our God. Our part is to follow the impulse of the Holy Ghost, and to be guided by the word.

The truth is, that the democratic and radical principle (that is to say, the will of man) is found both in Presbyterianism and in Dissent.* When the Holy Spirit acts, He knows how to touch all the chords of the human mind and to adapt Himself to them in grace, reserving for God all His rights and all His sovereignty; but God alone knows how to do this: it requires power.

{*The thing is evident. The democratic principle is this, that men have a right to choose their own magistrates, the people being the source of power, though choosing them according to certain qualities of which they are the judges. That is the principle of ministry among Presbyterians and Dissenters. They add, in one form or another, some kind of investiture for the exercise of functions. Whoever insists upon the gifts of God is evidently upon totally different ground; there is no question of politics in gifts which come from heaven.}

218 What we must seek for is the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, and not be either democrats, or aristocrats, or despots; but we must be what is divine, and walk according to the principle of the grace of Christ, in whom the sovereignty of God and the heart of man unite, and are at peace. God's will is not that things should go on without this, for they would be going on without Him.

Let us examine the contents of the pamphlet.

CHAPTER 1

ON THE INTRODUCTION OF MR. WOLFF'S PAMPHLET; IN WHICH, WHILE DENYING THE CONTINUANCE OF GIFTS, HE ASSERTS HIS INTENTION OF DEFENDING MINISTRY FROM THE ATTACKS DIRECTED AGAINST IT, AND FROM ALL THE VARIOUS MODIFICATIONS MEN HAVE SOUGHT TO MAKE IT UNDERGO.

In the introduction, the writer declares that his object is to defend the primitive state of ministry against the modifications of all kinds, which people have sought to make it undergo. At the same time, let us remember, the writer affirms that all gifts have absolutely ceased to exist. This is already rather strong.

Ministry exists absolutely without modification; but all gifts have ceased to exist. How then could ministry subsist without modification? In the days of the apostles, as well as now, gifts had nothing to do with ministry!

Let us take the list of gifts preferred by Mr. Wolff himself, the list given in 1 Corinthians 12: 28. "God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues."

This list mentions apostles, prophets, teachers, governors. These are evidently gifts; hence all this had nothing to do with ministry! The prophet might edify, comfort, exhort; but that was no ministry. What does the word of God tell us? We read there, that the Lord put Paul "in the ministry" (1 Tim. 1: 12); and Paul says of himself, etc., "Who then is Paul . . . but ministers?" (1 Cor. 3: 5). He approved himself in all things as God's minister; 2 Cor. 6: 4. If he was "made a minister, according to the gift," he says, "of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power," Eph. 3: 7. In spite of all that, according to this system, Paul, as apostle, was not a minister of the word. On the contrary, "it is" (says Mr. Wolff, p. 68), "because his ministry was not a gift of the Holy Ghost, that he was an ambassador of Christ."

219 This we can understand, that his ministry was the exercise of his gift in responsibility to Christ, and not the gift itself; but I think one could hardly believe that in all the apostle says of his ministry in the passages quoted, and in so many others. besides, he never speaks of his apostleship, and that this is another thing, altogether distinct; he spoke of his ministry and not of his work as an apostle. Reader, can you understand that? There was no connection between his ministry and his apostleship; so that, his apostleship being a gift of the Holy Ghost, it could not be a ministry! The ministers of Satan might be false apostles (2 Cor. 11: 13, 15); no matter for that: the true apostles are not ministers of Christ. There exists no connection between the apostleship and the ministry!

The writer, p. 67, insists on the word gift, declares it impossible that it can be connected with the idea of ministry, and grounds his reasoning on this. In the passage quoted above (Eph. 3: 7), it is grace (charis) and not gift (charisma), a word on which the writer insists, p. 70. But in 1 Peter 4: 10, we read: "As every man has received the gift (charisma), even so minister the same one to another" — literally, exercise this ministry "as good stewards of the manifold grace (charis) of God." In Romans 12 ministry — if even one alleged it meant serving tables — is called a gift (charisma), according to the grace (charis) given.

In 2 Corinthians 3: 8, so far is it from true that the word separates ministry, as being from Christ, from gifts, as being from the Spirit, that there the ministry of the gospel is called "the ministration of the Spirit." In Acts 1: 17 the apostleship is called "this ministry." So also, in verse 25, "That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship."

It will be objected here that the gift of apostle was not yet given. This is true; the gift was necessary for the accomplishment of the ministry. But the apostleship, which is here called ministry, is called gift (charisma) in 1 Cor. 12; so that the distinction between gift and ministry is completely false, unless the writer means that the apostles exercised their apostleship or ministry without gift, in the face of the words of the Lord, who told them to tarry in Jerusalem, until they were "endued with power from on high," that is, with gifts for that ministry. See also Acts 6: 2-4; ch. 20: 24; ch. 21: 19, etc., and Romans 11: 13, where Paul says, "I speak to you Gentiles — I magnify my office" — ministry (diakonian). See 2 Corinthians 4, 5, 6, and 1 Corinthians 4.

220 After these quotations, one can simply leave to the confusion it deserves, a theory which, in order to justify a ministry without gift, has been willing to affirm that ministry has undergone no modification, and to deny all connection between gifts and ministry even in the days of the apostles. In the case of the apostles themselves, we have seen that it is completely false, and that (instead of its being true that the minister could not be an ambassador for Christ if his ministry were a gift of the Holy Ghost, and that ministry was exercised without gift), the word, on the contrary, affirms that the apostleship was a gift and a ministry;* and that the apostles could not be ambassadors of Christ, that is, exercise their ministry, until they were endued with power from on high, that is, until they had received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; which Mr. Wolff himself calls, by way of distinction, the gifts. We have seen at the same time that Peter extends this principle to every gift, whatever it may be; and that each one, according to the gift he had received, must exercise his ministry. Mr. Wolff applies this passage to what was properly called a gift p. 73).

{*The apostleship was a gift and a ministry, and this, it must be said, according to Mr. Wolff himself (for his contradictions are rather humiliating). Mr. Wolff gives the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 as a list of gifts which excludes ministry, and the apostle and the prophet are found in this list; he gives Ephesians 4 as a list of ministries, and the apostle and the prophet are found there also. (Mr. Wolff's pamphlet, pp. 11, 58, 71. No. 5.)}

We have anticipated a little; but all this is the whole subject. We have been brought to this point by the introduction itself. There the writer declares that his task is to shew "that ministry has undergone no modification"; and his system, for the demonstration of this, is, that ministry is exercised without gift, and that there is no connection between gifts and ministry.

221 ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 1, ENTITLED, PRIESTHOOD AND MINISTRY.

I will say but few words on this chapter. It is not true that in both covenants the title of priest is given to all the faithful. It is singular that opposition to the light always shews itself united with the desire of lowering the distinctive privileges of Christianity. The nation of Israel was called a kingdom of priests because of their nearness to God as a nation, but without a distinction of believers or unbelievers; whereas, in the present covenant, believers are called priests because of their nearness to God in heavenly places, a nearness infinitely above what belonged to the Jews; and even what will belong to them during the millennium.

As to the word ministry in Greek, what Mr. Wolff says is entirely incorrect: it is a sample of the way in which the word is used in this pamphlet.

First, when he says that we find the word used in two distinct senses: in a general way for all that is outward ministry, administration, etc.; then in a special way to designate a special service; and when he says afterwards that "when we find this term used absolutely, it always designates the ministry of the word"; all that is false, though convenient for the end he has in view. What does he mean by this, at the same time, in a special and absolute way? And if it be not his intention to put the absolute use in the category of special use, then absolute and general become the same thing, and the contradiction is flagrant. For how can it be, as Mr. Wolff says, that when it is used in a special way it is called the ministry of the word, if, whenever it is used absolutely, it signifies the ministry of the word? It is evident that one of these phrases contradicts the other; one says, that in a special sense it is called the ministry of the word, the other, it has this sense when it is not called so. The fact is, that ministry of the word is found but once; and that in that case it is contrasted with the absolute use of the word in the sense of serving tables (Acts 6: 1-5). All this proves that Mr. Wolff only thinks of his system, and in nowise of the word in the Bible, save to pick out of it what may suit him, if one does not take the trouble to examine things for oneself.

The Greek word is simple enough: it is one who serves, any servant who was not properly a slave; diakonia is any service whatever. It was very natural to use this word in speaking of evangelical service; but the word is used in the New Testament as elsewhere, to signify service; this service might be the ministry or service of the word, or of tables, or of angels, or any other service of whatever kind. The word is used in an absolute way with respect to service of angels in Hebrews 1: 14. In 2 Timothy 4: 11, it is said of Mark, "He is profitable to me for the ministry"; here it does not appear that it is merely a question of the ministry of the word; we see the use of this word diakonos with respect to Mark; when Paul and Barnabas departed from Antioch, they had Mark to "their minister [here, hupereteen]"; it was not, I suppose, to preach to them. At some later period perhaps he may have purchased to himself "a good degree," in the ministry, a more honourable service in the family. When Paul says (2 Cor. 11: 8), "I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service"; it is evident that it is in a figurative sense, however absolute, and it does not refer to the ministry of the word as such. He had been servant of the Corinthians, and others had paid his wages. In Romans 12: 7, we find the word used absolutely, together with, and as distinguished from, divers ministries of the word; and in 1 Corinthians 12: 5, it is used for all services, of any kind, done to Christ. The only time when it is used with the expression "the word," it has its usual sense modified by the expression "word," as it might be by any other. That is, "that service was occupied with this," in contrast with serving tables. But the service of tables was just as much a special service as that of the word; only of a lower character evidently in the administration of the family. And the fact is, that the only time this expression "ministry of the word" is found, the word ministry is used in an absolute way to signify the service of tables (Acts 6: 1); and it is thus explained, in verse 2; then verse 4, the ministry of the word is contrasted with it; but it is added, "of the word"; and thus this word is not used in an absolute way with respect to the word, but on the contrary with respect to tables.

222 It appears to me, that it is limiting the thing, as the word does not limit it, when they pretend to confine the work of the ministry to the ministry of the word: for instance, Ephesians 4: 12. Moreover, it is affirming what ought to be proved. At all events, in most of the passages, it is not so, as we have just seen. Angels have not the ministry of the word; and ministry is contrasted with that of the word in Acts 6, 1-5 The fact is, that what Mr. Wolff says is absolutely false and contrary to the ordinary known use of this word in the word and outside the word. If we consider attentively the use of the word diakonos, minister, he who does the service, this will come out with still greater evidence. For the word diakonos used absolutely one may consult John 2: 5, 9; Matthew 22: 13; ch. 20: 26; ch. 23: 11, and the parallel passages; also John 12: 26. This idea of servant must naturally be modified (as the word 'service' (diakonia); see 2 Corinthians 3), according to the person whose servant one is, or the service one has to fulfil; one may be minister of God (2 Cor. 6: 4), of the gospel (Eph. 3: 7; Col. 1: 23) of the Church (Col. 1: 25), etc. The word, taken in its general use, has its general acceptation of servant (Rom. 16; Phil. 1: 1; 1 Tim. 3: 8, 12). Finally, the word diakonia has the general sense of service, and has to be modified in its application by words which are added — of the word (Acts 6), of death, of righteousness, of the Spirit, etc. (2 Cor. 3). There is not one passage which shews that the absolute sense signifies the ministry of the word, but quite the contrary.

223 CHAPTER 2

OBSERVATIONS ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 2, WHERE HE SPEAKS OF THE VOCATION TO MINISTRY

It is true that the substantive "vocation" is applied to the effective calling of God in a general sense:* but called (as an adjective) is applied in the same sense to Christians and to ministry. In Romans 1: 1, we read that Paul was called an apostle; and in verse 7, that the saints at Rome were called. The same term is applied to the vocation of apostleship, and to the vocation to salvation.

{*I say in a general sense, because the only application in this sense refers to the Jews; and it is quite false to say that vocation (klesis) signifies the effective calling. This word signifies, as in French, a calling, vocation. Undoubtedly, God calls the elect (Romans 8); but so little is it true that this word signifies the effective calling which God addresses to all His elect, that it is only once found used in this sense, and nine times in a more general sense. As in French, the ordinary sense of this word in Greek expresses the character or condition which one is called to maintain or embrace (that is, the vocation). The elect have a heavenly vocation; Christians ought to abide in the vocation wherein they were called. And to shew with what levity the word is used here, the only time when the word is used in the sense of calling according to the immutable purposes of God, it applies to the Jewish nation; namely, in the passage, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." It is a general principle as to the calling of God; but, in Scripture, this word is never applied to an inward and effectual call in the heart. In general, as regards Christianity, this expression is, as a verb, contrasted with election. Thus in the passage, "Many are called, but few are chosen," the chosen or elect are called. Moreover, here are the passages in which this word is found: Romans 11: 29; 1 Corinthians 7: 20; Ephesians 1: 18; ch. 4: 1: 4; Philippians 3: 14; Hebrews 3: 1; 2 Timothy 1: 9; 1 Corinthians 1: 26; 2 Thessalonians 1: 2; 2 Peter 1: 10.}

224 This chapter of Mr. Wolff presents to us all that is false and ridiculous in the principle of his pamphlet. Ministry is exercised without gift; such is the principle of Mr. Wolff. These two things, ministry and gift, are totally distinct. Ministry, he says, is connected with the Lord Jesus; gift, with the Holy Ghost.

And yet Mr. Wolff speaks here of the ministry of the prophet, which, we must therefore suppose, was exercised without gift. A singular ministry this! — that of a prophet without gift; a ministry the vocation of which was from God alone. So that, in this case, we cannot speak of an outward vocation. It would be very difficult to conceive what could be the ministry which a prophet exercised without gift.* The case is more striking than that of an apostle, because the office of the prophet was not so varied as that of the apostle. The only thing the prophet did was to prophesy. Of two things, one, according to Mr. Wolff's system: either they prophesied without gift; or else, exercising a gift, it was no longer a ministry.

{*And one must remember that ministry is "essentially different" from them (i.e. from gifts) "by its nature, its origin, and its object" (Wolff, p. 66).}

One might perhaps have found the means of escaping this contradiction, by saying to oneself (as I endeavoured to do myself in order to find some explanation), It might be that the prophets exercised their ministry when they spoke to comfort and edification, and that it was a gift when they revealed the future. Not so. All was gift — and miraculous gift; for what is said in 1 Corinthians 14, on edification through prophecy, is quoted by Mr. Wolff as a proof that prophecy was a miraculous gift, the signs of which, when exercised, shewed that all pretension to possess it now was merely a delusion (p. 73, No. 12). So that, in the case of a prophet, a person was called to a ministry by God alone; but then, at all events, it was wholly a gift, and the exercise of this gift is no ministry at all.

225 All that can be said on such confusion is, that, the object being to strengthen that which exists, without real fear of God, the consequences necessarily become apparent, if the word is consulted. God has not permitted it should be otherwise. Here the contradiction is ridiculous.

The division of vocation to ministry, which Mr. Wolff establishes, is not even exact. As an instrument, a person might receive his vocation by means of an angel, as well as by means of men. Under the Old Testament it was much more the case. There is something similar in Revelation 1: 1: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave . . . and he sent . . . by his angel unto his servant John."

We have, then, to remark, on this chapter, that prophecy, which was wholly a gift in all its parts, is acknowledged to be a ministry, and that consequently ministry was the exercise of a gift, because the prophet did exercise his gift when he prophesied, and if that was not his ministry, it is very difficult to know what was his ministry as prophet; this is a positive contradiction of chapter 5.*

{*In a word, according to Mr. Wolff, the prophet exercises a ministry which he has immediately received from God (pp. 14, 50); prophecy is a gift (p. 71); but ministry is not the exercise of a gift.}

One remark more on this chapter. Whoever is somewhat familiar with the word of God would have supposed that, after having spoken of apostles and prophets, coming to evangelists and teachers, one would have again found the list of Ephesians 4, or at least some other list taken from the word of God; but not so at all. All lists are given up, because what is now in existence is the only object that one has here in view, and the train of thought in the word is of small import. Thus, after apostles and prophets, we have bishops, evangelists and teachers, because such do exist, but such an enumeration exists nowhere in the word; and the bishop is not found in any list whatever among all those contained in the word of God.* This already presents something equivocal. They are compelled to abandon the Holy Ghost's way of thinking and teaching, so as to carry their point, even to include in the list what is never found there in the word of God, what the word never places there, and to make up for themselves another list, totally different from every list which is found in scripture.

{*It is an invention of Mr. Wolff to support his system, and slyly slipped in here, that one may receive it and get accustomed to it without heeding it.}

226 I repeat, when, to support a system, one is thus compelled to abandon the word of God, that alone is a sad thing.

CHAPTER 3

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 3, CONCERNING THE NAME OF BISHOP, ELDER AND PASTOR.

Mr. Wolff supposes first that there is the ministry of a bishop, properly speaking; but he does not say if it is a general administration or a ministry of the word. Nevertheless, as the writer here uses this term in an absolute way, and as, in that case, according to him (p. 13), the word "ministry always designates the ministry of the word," it seems to me that it is in this latter sense what he calls the ministry of the bishop* must be taken. But he lays down all this — without any proof — at the basis of his system. Mr. Wolff ends his chapter 2 by saying, "we shall first treat of the bishop"; without even mentioning where he finds, according to the word, that it is a ministry. In that case, this false basis once admitted, the only thing that remains, is to shew the identity of the word 'bishop' with other terms; this appears simple, and it would be hard to know why there is such haste to bring forward that point. But, in effect, the whole of Mr. Wolff's system rests on this basis.

{*In effect, I do not believe that the ministry of the bishop is confined to the ministry of the word.}

The apostle had said, Christ "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers." According to Mr. Wolff himself (p. 50), it is a classification of ministry, and he gives it with others in the place we quoted. But the bishop is to be found in neither of these classifications, and, for the system, God's classification does not suffice; a classification must be made on purpose, striking out the pastor from the list of the word, and inserting the word 'bishop'; and then, as a consequence, it must be shewn that pastor and bishop is the same thing. And wherefore all this? Because in Ephesians 4, the ministries are gifts given from on high, and one has to get rid of the pastor as being a gift given from on high.* The pastor, then, is laid aside, and hidden behind the bishop, for whom, says Mr. Wolff, it is but another name — a function of his — and the bishop who is not in the list, the bishop who, according to the word, is not a gift, but a charge, is carefully and with great effort presented to view, to shew that the pastor is nothing else but the bishop.

{*The list of Ephesians 4 is treated as a mere classification of ministry (p. 50).}

227 Whence so many efforts to change what is simple? Christ ascended on high and gave gifts unto men: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Why avoid so carefully the plain testimony of the word? It is a bad sign; it is more than a bad sign. The revelation from God has authority; it is perfect, and it cannot be altered without introducing error. The pastor is given by the Holy Ghost in the list of gifts.* One cannot make Ephesians 4: 11, to be a classification of ministries to the exclusion of gifts, erase the pastor and substitute the bishop in his stead, without betraying oneself as supporting a bad cause, based on something else than the word of God, a cause which cannot bear the testimony of the word, such as God has given it to us. I may be told that no allusion is made to Ephesians 4: 11 — they have made a list for themselves. First of all, this is not true; it is the list of Ephesians 4: 11, with the substitution of the bishop for the pastor. And if even it were a list made up for the occasion, how comes it that the lists and classifications which God gave do not suit our adversaries, and that they must have fresh ones? The reason is very simple; their system is not taken from the word of God.** They wanted to get rid of the gifts, and the pastor is a gift given from on high. And why get rid of gifts? Because, "to pretend to the present existence of these gifts is to set up by the side of ministry a rival power which impedes it" (Wolff, p. 69).

{*I am well aware that the word translated "gifts" in Ephesians 4 differs from the one translated "gifts" in 1 Corinthians 12. In the tract, "On Ministry," I have shewn the true difference. Farther on, I will speak of it in this one; but it matters not as to the change introduced here by Mr. Wolff.}

{**There is still further confusion with regard to this list: Mr. Wolff says, page 47, No. 5 and 6, that the name of teacher does not designate a particular charge, but a function of evangelists and bishops, and that (No. 5) the term "teacher" includes the two charges of evangelist and bishop. Thus, according to Mr. Wolff's system, the list which God gave us in Ephesians 4 is altogether erroneous; bishop takes the place of pastor, this latter word, according to Mr. Wolff, p. 15, being merely the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be, and the word teacher embracing the two, both evangelist and bishop, p. 47, No. 6. It is shameful thus to treat the word of God!}

228 Such is the sad part which the gifts of the Holy Ghost are made to play, according to that system.

But, one might say, in the days of the apostles there were, according to your system (p. 77), gifts, and by the side of these gifts a ministry, entirely distinct, it is true, but which subsisted at the same time (p. 69), which was neither destroyed by means of them, nor "compelled to throw itself into clerical despotism, to maintain its rank and dignity."

This is an evident difficulty. Here is the way in which they seek to remove it. There was among these gifts (p. 77) "the gift of discerning of spirits, which could judge of these gifts and assign to them their proper importance and place." Where is all this to be found in the word? "The prophet had to be subject to this"; and it is added (p. 74), "how much more the other gifts." All this is an invention of the writer's imagination.

The apostle, settling the order of service, says, "Let the prophets speak two or three," he refers to prophets, "and let the others judge." Not a word about him who had the discerning of spirits. The apostle laid down the rule for this, as for every other arrangement in the Church, and those who spoke acted according to those directions.

The idea of the writer is subversive of the apostolic authority. He who discerned the spirits did just what those very words express; he judged if it was by a demon or by the Spirit of truth that any one spoke.

Having based his system on a principle which is false, the consequence and the errors which flow from it are endless.

The writer tells us against that the only time the word 'pastor' is found in the New Testament, it presents itself as the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be. But this "only time" is very awkward for him; it is the passage we have quoted. Christ, having ascended on high, gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. This is what Christ gave. How this word 'pastor' is the ideal expression of what a good bishop should be, one cannot say; but the writer cannot deny that the pastorship connected with the doctorship is a ministry, unless a passage of the word of God is not to be received as evidence. As "in this enumeration of the charges of ministry there is no mention of the elder, or the bishop, nothing can prevent assigning the denomination to the bishop" (p. 15). What a mode of reasoning! Because God has not named a charge in a list of gifts, one of these gifts must be that very charge!

229 The grand argument by which Mr. Wolff seeks to assimilate and confound the pastor given from on high (Eph. 4: 11), with the charge of bishop, a charge unto which the apostle or his delegate can appoint, is, that it is said to the bishops of Ephesus, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God," Acts 20: 28.

That the bishop is exhorted to feed, that I do not deny; but if such a gift be useful in the charge of a bishop, it does not follow that all those who possessed it were in that charge, and still less than that charge was the same thing as the gift. I can exhort my clerk to write well and to count aright, and he must know how to do these things in order to be a clerk; but it does not follow that every writer and book-keeper is a clerk. That charge supposes confidence, which extends to many other things: the handling of money and goods, intercourse with buyers, etc. Thus a man may be a pastor and be lacking as to many things requisite in a bishop, and may never have been invested with this charge. A man may be lacking as regards authority for governing, in discernment, oversight, the gravity necessary to act upon thoughtless minds in the details of life; or a personal knowledge of souls; and at the same time he may be capable of feeding souls with very great success, without being invested with the charge of bishop. That gift, that of feeding, may, together with other qualities, fit him for the charge of bishop; but a charge with which one is invested is not a gift given by Christ ascended on high.

The falseness and the futility of this reasoning, which tends to justify the alteration they have introduced in the list which God gave us, are proved by a similar passage, John 21: 15-17, where it is said to Peter, "Feed my sheep" and "Feed my lambs." Do they mean that, because of these exhortations of the Lord to Peter, apostle and bishop were the same thing? It is of no use saying that he called himself "an elder." He does it in effect, as a touching testimony of affection and humility; but do they mean that apostle and bishop are the same thing? Well, if the conclusion is evidently false in this case, it is equally so in the other, which is perfectly similar. See again 1 Corinthians 9: 7, where Paul applies the word 'feedeth' to himself. He is never called an elder.

230 Moreover, Mr. Wolff is, in this respect, in contradiction with himself. He says (p. 14), that "the names of bishop, elder, and pastor, refer to one and the same charge"; and, on the contrary, he says (p. 15, 40), that "the function of pastor is connected principally with the episcopate"; and he gives as a proof of this that an apostle who was not a bishop calls himself a co-elder. This is very slight ground for denying that a thing called "gift" by the Holy Ghost is a different thing from a charge, of which the passage makes no mention. The last proof the writer gives, to establish the identity of pastor and bishop, consists in the denial that there is a particular ministry of pastor" (p. 16), and saying that it is only the ministry of one who was, at the same time, pastor and teacher; and then he concludes that "the name of pastor is in this passage nothing but one among many functions, attributed to one and the same ministry."

We must always remember that there is not a word of all this in the passage, which presents to us a list of gifts and not of charges, by Mr. Wolff's own avowal, although he contradicts himself. I say, by Mr. Wolff's own avowal, because he admits that the outward vocation was wanting in the prophet, who, consequently, had not, nor was, a charge. This is what I admit, that here, in Ephesians 4: 11, the Greek supposes doctorship and pastorship to be connected; but that is all, absolutely all; and without a single word being said about the attribution of a charge. I say that doctorship and pastorship are here connected, because such a phrase in no way supposes the union of these things in every case; it only shews that they are joined together in this case. Of this we find one of the strongest proofs in the expression, "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Greek form is exactly the same; but if these things can never be connected but with the same person, then the Son is no longer God. This remark overthrows all the reasoning that Mr. Wolff gives here, as well as that of page 47 of his pamphlet. Here again is another example which applies directly to the point in question. The same Greek form is found in Ephesians 2: 20, where it is said, "Upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." The form is absolutely the same, and I can apply to it the phrase of the writer (p. 47). "It is only through error or through ignorance of the language that people can have seen in apostle and prophet two different ministers." But everyone knows quite well that they were different, though connected in certain cases. So that the writer's reasoning as regards the pastors and teachers is false, and according to his expression (p. 47), "it is only through error or through ignorance of the language that he could say all that he has said." He has met with a rule laid down by Greek grammarians, which I admit as a general principle, a rule applied very extensively by Middleton and another English writer, Veysey, but particularly in the famous work of Middleton. But a little knowledge, people say, is a dangerous thing. Mr. Wolff has not had patience enough to examine carefully for himself the application of the rule, and he has applied it altogether wrongly.

231 The fact is, that Mr. Wolff's system cannot hold good in the face of Ephesians 4. This chapter, for his system, is a classification of ministries; but to come to that one must introduce the bishop. On the other hand, to say nothing of apostles, prophets who are mentioned there are for him a gift, and an extraordinary gift too. So that he must lop off prophets, and then expunge pastors from this classification of ministries, and bring in bishops in their stead. When once this is done, teachers still remain, but they are not a ministry; so that this title too must be eliminated and looked upon as a qualification of pastors and evangelists. Here is the process. He easily disposes of apostles and prophets — they are ministries established by God alone. That is soon said. But as to gifts, this they cannot be — they are ministries. But, finally, he is not willing to consider them: in effect it would be rather inconvenient, since he is compelled elsewhere to make them to be gifts. As to pastors, it is an easy matter. Bishops are employed in feeding, therefore pastor and bishop are the same thing; we will put in bishop instead of pastor, and we have now two parts of the system of our day — evangelists, and bishops or pastors. But there still remain teachers in the list, and this is not a ministerial title now. Well, the gordian knot must be cut. It will be neither gift nor ministry, but a qualification of the evangelist or of the pastor. And thus is the revelation of God cut down to the measure of man's will and of man's sin; and man will be content with this.

232 In fine, according to Mr. Wolff, bishop was a charge and not a gift; and these are, according to him, two things essentially different: a gift cannot even be a charge, and the charge can exist without gift (p. 67). But it is quite certain that pastor is a gift. In the passage, Ephesians 4: 11, the apostle speaks to us of gifts which Christ gave when He ascended on high. This evidently is a way of presenting gifts under the most important point of view. Christ, for the good of the Church and the perfecting of His saints, gave these gifts when He ascended up into glory unto His Father. There is no question here of any intervention of man to confer a charge; these are things from on high, which are to be exercised for the good of the Church. It is a question of the body of Christ, and of the joints of supply in that body — joints among which one may be more important than another, but which are all looked at under the same point of view. "Unto every one . . . is given grace." It is not a question here of a charge conferred by men, but of grace given according to the measure of the free gift of Christ.

Is it possible to be plainer or clearer on the nature of the thing itself?

Now Mr. Wolff admits that, in effect, there is no outward vocation for some; he cannot deny it. But does he not perceive that all here are absolutely in the same category and included in the same definition? And it is for this case alone that he chooses to substitute a charge. But the passage gives them all as being of the same nature, and in the same case, and in the same moral order. It is wresting the word in order to take out one of these "gifts" so as to stamp upon it another character and change its nature. The answer is "he gave": it is a gift. Why do violence to the passage in order to make of the thing a charge under another name? Besides, these gifts, pastors and others, are placed in the body as joints of supply, according to the gift of Christ to each. This is never said of the bishop, who, in effect, was a charge, and not a gift, according to Mr. Wolff's distinction.

The bishops (and not a bishop, for there were always several) were local charges; they only acted within the precincts of the particular church where they were found. The bishop was not a gift, nor a joint of supply in the body according to the measure of the gift of Christ, but a local charge, for which, among several other things, the capacity to feed was suitable.

233 The pastor was a gift, a grace; he was given from on high as a joint of supply in that body; he was to act according to the measure of the free gift of Christ, which was bestowed upon him.

The pastor is never presented as a charge established by men, although the bishops who were, according to God, established by men, with a special object of local oversight, may have enjoyed this gift and used it in their locality. These things are connected by one end, as the authority conferred upon the apostles by Christ was connected with what was given to them, and the gift rendered them competent to exercise that authority. For the apostle, although directly from God, was also a charge, and that, we may say, given by Christ as man, acting with authority in the government of the Church; and the charges of authority flowed from that.

The pastor is a gift in the body; the bishop, a charge in a particular church.

If I am asked why I believe that, I repeat, Because God has said it in as many words in the word, and He has done so in the plainest and clearest manner. So that one must alter the lists God gives us, suppress the fact that the passage (Ephesians 4: 11) is a list of gifts, and fall into the grossest contradictions* about ministries, charges and gifts, to enable him to get out of it.

{*Mr. Wolff calls the "ministries" the functions which are found in Ephesians 4: 11, among others, prophecy; and he says that ministry is exercised without gifts. He affirms (p. 70) that prophecy is a gift, and that it no longer exists because it is a gift. We have seen that this contradiction is very cleverly hid by the warning that, apostles and prophets being acknowledged as coming from God alone, he will say nothing about them.}

The apostle, by way of comparison, applies the word 'feedeth' to his own ministry also; 1 Cor. 9: 7.

Hence, according to God, the bishop is a local charge established by men, doubtless, according to the direction of God, by the Holy Ghost (Acts 13: 23; Titus 1: 3); and the bishop must possess divers qualities enumerated in the word. There were several in each church.

234 The pastor, on the contrary, is a gift given by Christ when He ascended up on high. The pastor is placed as a joint of supply in the body of Christ. He is therefore responsible for the exercise of this function, as for a talent entrusted to him; Eph. 4: 11. Woe to the pastor who does not feed!

The bishop may be called to feed and to teach also — as a quality of charge. Historically I do not doubt, that, as man has ever more and more eclipsed the action of the Holy Ghost in the Church, the gift has by degrees been lost in the charge, but this does not change anything in the word; and we live in times, where one must have recourse either to the word or to popery.

If any one would know the history of local pastors, here it is. At first (and that even till rather recent dates in certain countries) the presbyters or elders (for it is the same word) from the central town where they resided, visited the villages around, in order to perform the service and edify the faithful. Gradually the villages wished that one of the presbyters should settle in their midst. This took place; and thus a parish was formed. From the same source came the origin of patronage, or the right of appointing, in the middle ages. The lord of the place promised to endow the presbyter, if he came to reside near him in his village. The right to choose the presbyter was then granted to this lord; and, in imitation of the Jews, tithes were granted. Those who have observed the ways of a separated flock in a large town, will feel no difficulty in understanding how villages were served, and the natural progress in the establishment of parishes — the village flock wishing to have in their midst the appointed minister. Ecclesiastical laws, feudal laws, and other circumstances greatly modified all this, no doubt; but historically the progress is very evident. For us, this in nowise alters the truth which is in the word, and in nowise modifies the duty of acknowledging that which it contains and the ways of God which it declares, and of abandoning, if God gives us light, the tradition of men. The increasing corruption of that which attaches itself to those traditions demands imperatively that the faithful should be decided in this respect, if their desire is to be saved, or at least not be saved as through fire. It is sad preoccupation, to attach oneself to the hay and stubble men have built on the foundation, which is Christ.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

in answer to the work of Mr. P. Wolff, entitled,

"Ministry as opposed to Hierarchism and chiefly to Religious Radicalism,"

Valence, 1844

J. N. Darby.

<03007F> {file section b.}

235 CHAPTER 4

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 4, CONCERNING THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS ON THE VOCATION OF THE BISHOP.

In all the rest of the pamphlet we must expect to find the bishop and the pastor confounded; this will create much difficulty; but we will try to get out of it.

"The bishop," says Mr. Wolff, "can only, it is evident, receive his vocation from God, or from man, or from both together. Hence three different systems."

"In the first system," says Mr. Wolff, "the pastor holds his ministry from God alone; men are not to come in, in any way; this is the system of the Quakers, of the Irvingites, and of those called Plymouth Brethren."

All this is false. Firstly, the Quakers have elders who form a separate class, and who adjoin to themselves such or such other grave person to be elder with them, but with the consent of the assembly. Those who speak or feed may, or may not, be elders. Even their ministers (for the Quakers also distinguish between elders and ministers) are recognized by the elders after a certain time for the probation of their gifts, and they always remain subject to the judgment of the elders.

Secondly, the Irvingites have an angel, a sort of head pastor, and six elders besides, when the rules are followed. All are established by men (namely, their apostles), and they hold to that like papists.

Thirdly, those whom the writer calls Plymouth Brethren (as far as I can dare to speak for them) believe that, as the bishop was established by the apostles, he cannot be established in our day with the same formal authority. They leave the pastor where God placed him, that is, as a gift given by Christ when He ascended up on high and received gifts for men.

In the second system, says Mr. Wolff, the bishop holds his ministry from men alone, and he attributes this system to Limborch and Neander. As to Limborch I know nothing of him. As to Neander, except the direct appointment by men, he is just what people call a Plymouthian, and therefore Mr. Wolff says of him (p. 9): "a new theory, original, wholly destitute of proof." In the third system, which Mr. Wolff calls mixed, "the bishop receives his charge by a twofold vocation from God and men."

As regard this point, or this system, we must always bear in mind that the ecclesiastical system of the Reformed Church of France, etc., distinguishes between the bishop or overseer, and the pastor, so that what the writer says is not at all the system of Calvin — a system based on this, that the ordinary gift of pastor, which is distinct from the bishop, still subsists. According to Calvin, for the Church to exist, it is absolutely necessary there should be gifts now. And Mr. Wolff, on the contrary, says (p. 78), "If there are gifts at the present time, unless they are all there, ministry cannot be maintained in the Church."

236 He goes still farther. This doctrine of Calvin,* he says, "is one of the principal sores of the Church; every church where it may be received will become only a volcano" (p. 70). If a minister believes in gifts, Mr. Wolff advises him to resign his charge. "It can no longer be allowed now for a minister to remain uncertain on this point."

{*We say, this doctrine of Calvin (namely, that there must be gifts), because, in the system of Calvin, there are gifts recognised; but Mr. Wolff, without naming Calvin, judges the system of that servant of God in these words: "To pretend to establish gifts, without miracle, is to parody them" (p. 69).}

Finally, after having destroyed all the scriptural bases of the system of Calvin, in his desire to confound those who in their weakness rest upon God and the word, the writer goes on to establish this last system, which is his own. But what animosity of opposition does not this pamphlet manifest. To get rid of the activity of the brethren, their adversaries think proper even to undermine all their own house. As blind as Samson, without having his strength, they bring down the house upon their own heads, without touching those they wish to destroy. These, taught by the word as to the ruin which is coming, are already gone out of it.

CHAPTER 5

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 5, WHERE THE WRITER SHEWS THAT THE BISHOP IS ESTABLISHED OF GOD.

In general I agree with the writer that the bishop was established of God.

But we have to call attention to the confusion between pastor and bishop — a confusion in consequence of which the passages he alleges are, for the most part, wrongly quoted. The passage, Hebrews 13: 17, "Obey them that have the rule over you," does not speak particularly of pastors, but in general of those that rule — an expression, moreover, which does not prove there was a charge. Hence it is in no wise said that they must give account to God for the souls they feed, God having entrusted these souls to them. They watch over the souls, "as they that must give account." It has often been remarked that "give account for them" is not a faithful translation. We have already considered the passage, Ephesians 4: 11: the bishop is not named there.

237 Acts 20: 28. This passage is very clear, as proving that the bishops at Ephesus, and therefore elsewhere, were established of God; but here again is a confusion the importance of which is great enough.

The writer will have it that, because the Greek word translated established or made — is used in Acts 20 and in 1 Corinthians 12, the establishing is the same in both cases. But he has not perceived that, in the first of these passages, it is a question of establishing certain persons in a charge; and, in the second, of establishing the charge or the function itself. It is one thing to establish a professorship in a university, and to endow it, and another thing to set or establish an individual in the functions of rector of the same university. In the passage, Acts 20, God had set or established certain persons in the charge of bishop; and in 1 Corinthians 12 God had set or established in the Church certain gifts, certain joints or members of the body. He has constituted the body thus. So that there is no analogy whatever between these two passages as to sense.

Hence the writer has quoted no passage which speaks of an immediate or inward call. There is on the part of God the appointment of certain persons; but this is not an inward call. What the writer gives us is nothing but reasoning which ends in very little. One passage only declares that the Holy Ghost had placed certain persons in the charge of overseer; and this I fully admit; but it is not said there was an inward call. And I make the remark, that it is not even said that God set or established bishops in His Church; this is nowhere said. Nowhere either is it said, that God, according to that power which creates and orders, has set such a function in the body. This is said of gifts, comparing them with the eye, the ear, etc., which God has set in the natural body. When He set certain individuals in such a charge, it was, in that case, sanctioning the existence of that charge; but the word of God does not go so far as to say that God has established the charge itself. A charge is not of the same nature as a function in the body. The fact is, that a bishop was a local government; it was not the impulse of the Holy Ghost acting in the way of gift; it was a charge to which one was appointed. The Holy Ghost had established certain persons in that charge. And here is the importance of this remark. It was not something that existed in the individual who acted in such or such a way. It was a charge — outward as to oneself — which one could desire, and for which certain qualities were necessary. Hence, one could be appointed to that charge, and the vocation from God was not, in that case, His own power acting in the way of gift (a power which He had divided, which the Holy Ghost had divided); but that vocation was merely the appointment, on God's part, of an individual to the charge in question, and his being established in that charge. Hence, when it is a question of a charge, we have the only true vocation from God — namely, His appointment of the individual. The Holy Ghost established him in that place, in that function; He did not establish the function itself, save by the act of appointing the individual. It need not be added that the Holy Ghost appointed persons having suitable qualities.

238 What we have then to inquire into is — how God established these bishops. It is thus that we shall discover what that vocation is that is received of God.

Of this we have very plain instances in the word. A man is not established of God in a charge through a quality only; this may render him fit for the charge; but, as Mr. Wolff says, he must be regularly installed in that charge; he is not a bishop, he is not established as bishop, either by God or by men, before that, whatever may be, moreover, his qualities. Accordingly Christ appointed and sent the twelve, to whom, at a later period, after His ascension, He gave gifts, necessary for the charge of apostle, as He had, during His life here below, given that which was necessary to render them messengers of His glory as Messiah on earth. But He had appointed them in His stead. The apostle Paul, specially charged with such a function, appointed elders for the government and oversight of each church. He sent Titus invested with his authority to do the same at Crete. Thus, at least, God established them. This is all that the word positively says on the subject. Am I thinking that the authority of God was wanting there? In no wise. I say that God had established these bishops according to the authority conferred upon Paul by the Lord; an authority which he exercised through the power of the Holy Ghost, as he says on another occasion: "When ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Holy Ghost had established elders by his means.

239 Whatever be the means, that which we find in the Bible, and that which I consequently ask for, is, that the Holy Ghost may establish persons in those charges. For do not come and tell us that the Holy Ghost established the charge, and that it must be continued. That is not what the word of God says. It says that the Holy Ghost established the persons who were invested with it in the charge we speak of. That is what I ask for in those who pretend to be invested with it now. If the simple fact that they are in it were sufficient, without asking who set these persons in that charge, this fact would suffice just as well for the Romish priests as for any others. They would be established by the authority of God, by the Holy Ghost, and they ought to be recognized. It would be complete popery, in its real principle, namely, the authority of God attached to a man, without proof — the authority of the Holy Ghost attached to the possession of a charge, and not the legitimate possession judged by the proof of the authority of the Holy Ghost. That is what concerns the establishment of the bishop by God Himself.

I now ask for the proof of the establishment of the individual in the charge on the part of God. In the case of a gift, it is no longer the same thing; for it proves itself. But a charge of authority needs to be legitimated. One has no right to say that the Holy Ghost established bishops. The Holy Ghost did establish certain persons as bishops. Shew me this and I shall be content; but it is your task.

Mr. Wolff owns (p. 37) that the election by the church excludes the vocation of God. But, to be consistent, you must shew me some one established by a perceptible intervention of the Holy Ghost (otherwise the choice by anyone else excludes it equally); but this they do not pretend to. Or else, you must shew me someone established according to the word by some supreme authority. But in the word this is found to be attributed only to the apostles and their delegates.

240 If it be objected that it is written, "Obey them that have the rule over you . . . for they watch for your souls"; and, "know them which labour among you";* I reply, I consent to this, and I do still more than consent (for the word of God does not need the consent of man). May God lead His children to do so! Such is my prayer.

{*This passage does not prove that the Church recognised those who had laboured, but quite the contrary; for there would have been no need to take cognisance of those who laboured, if they had been publicly and officially recognised by the Church. It would have been an exhortation altogether out of place.}

I bless God that there is in His word ample provision for times when a state of disorder prevents every thing from being outwardly legitimated. The heart of man is put to the test in a most precious way. Those who are humble will discern all that is of God, and submit themselves to it; the flesh will rebel against everything. But when, by using the phrase "The Holy Ghost has established," people seek to force upon me that which man has established, and to determine an order of things as obligatory, in circumstances where God demands patience and humiliation, I require from such to produce their evidence. Such a pretension must be legitimated; otherwise, I dishonour the Holy Ghost, whose authority and name are introduced to uphold that which is only from man, which is only an authority, a ministry, without gift. But it is necessary, and it is the least that can be required, that an authority without gift should produce the clearest evidence that it is established by the Holy Ghost, before one can own in it such an authority. This is what I have not seen as yet. And when this pretended authority is used to hinder the activity of love, or to arrogate to itself the right of ruling it, as it were ex officio, and to deny any gift whatever, the thing becomes most serious. Is it of God? Now this is a question of the utmost gravity.

But here is a person who desires that charge, who possesses all the qualities which the word demands, who is blessed of God in it: for my part, I would support him with all my might, and so much the more because he cannot legitimate his vocation in an outward way, nor say, "The Holy Ghost has established me," and appeal to evidence. But let him abide in sincerity, in that position of acknowledged weakness, because we will both of us, then, rest upon God, and the strength of God will be there. If, on the other hand, I have laboured in a place, if God has blessed me there, if He has gathered many souls, if He has Himself raised up true bishops, who work together and help and teach and watch over souls; and if I have to labour elsewhere, would I scruple to exhort them, nay, to beseech of them, in the bowels of Christ, to watch over the souls which God had given me in that place for my reward? If I have love for souls, if I love Christ, and if I am led by the Holy Ghost, I could not act differently. If these same persons sought to place themselves in a position where it would be a question of a right, all the work of love would be thoroughly destroyed.

241 Whoever cannot feel the difference between such conduct, and the fact of insisting on a ministry without gift, I pity him.

Let us remember also, that elders (of whom there were always several established in each church by the side of gifts) are quite a different thing from a young man who leaves an academy, having perhaps natural talents, perhaps piety, but not one of those qualities required by the word of God for elders. The elders which the word depicts are quite a different thing from the young ministers whom Mr. Wolff presents to us in that sad picture in which he sums up their features by saying, "After suitable study, all preach without gifts." See the last page of his pamphlet.

To recognize a labourer according to his gift in his field of labour is a positive duty; he who does not will suffer for it. This is what religious societies are not doing in their pretensions to direct the work. They respect ministers whom they know to be not established of God; they often allow souls and their own work to pass into a system which they believe to be not of God, and they oppose every other labourer who is not subject to them.

CHAPTER 6

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 6, CONCERNING THE HUMAN VOCATION OF THE BISHOP.

In this chapter Mr. Wolff shews that bishops were established by ministers. I have nothing to add to what I have already said, except that it is very convenient to speak of bishops established by ministers, because we have ministers now. Whereas the word of God speaks only of elders established by apostles and their delegates. Give us then, for the establishment of elders, either apostles or their delegates.

242 CHAPTER 7

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 7, CONCERNING THE ELECTION OF THE BISHOP BY THE FLOCK.

Here again the writer spares me the trouble of saying much. His desire is, at the beginning of the chapter, that the flock should take a part in the nomination of the pastor, and that the ministry should have the right of presenting him. He states all this, without caring much to see what is found about it in the word.

All the system which chooses to appoint pastors in such a way is so much outside all that is found in the word, that I have nothing to say on the subject. I have already explained the origin, historically, of this custom. The flocks which one has in view being in fact unconverted for the most part, it is still less needful I should speak of it. "We cannot but approve of such a custom" (p. 20). It would be convenient to free oneself from the government and consistories, and to follow the liberal influence of the age. All that is outside my task. I have already discussed the subject of all the remainder of the chapter, in the same sense as Mr. Wolff.*

{*See "Remarks on the State of the Church, in Answer to the Pamphlet of Mr. Rochat" (Ecclesiastical, 1, 405-413.)}

CHAPTER 8

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 8, CONCERNING THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS.

In this chapter Mr. Wolff asserts that there were in the apostolic Church two kinds of imposition of hands; the one, miraculous, which communicated extraordinary gifts; the other, ordinary and without miracle, which was conferred by all ministers.

I agree also with the general idea of this chapter, namely, that there was an imposition of the hands of the apostles which was special to them, and which, in general, distinguished the apostle. Long since have I written, and even acted, in making this distinction.

But there are ideas in this chapter of Mr. Wolff, which require to be discussed, not only because of their importance, but also because those ideas bear on subjects, with respect to which Mr. Wolff, while he has received certain views which the brethren whom he opposes have had long since, has nevertheless fallen into the confusion out of which these truths should have brought him. It is comforting, however, to have at least a certain ground, where there is some light in the understanding, and on which scriptural argument can have a hold.

243 When I say that Mr. Wolff had understood certain views which the brethren whom he opposes received long ago, I do not mean that he has borrowed them. I know not where he found them; but I am glad to bear witness that there is a very respectable production on the precious word of God. I will explain where it appears to me there are serious gaps in the system which the writer thinks he has found there; but, at least, he has searched the word on the subject, and this is always worthy of respect.

We must here notice a striking part. The moment one searches the word, it comes out that theology and theologians are worth nothing at all. As to the two kinds of imposition of hands (the difference of which forms the basis of the writer's production, and he is right in the main) "old theologians did not distinguish between them" (p. 27); "hence the vagueness and obscurity into which of necessity they fell" (p. 29). And the writer adds, "This confusion in the ideas has produced two results, both equally sad."

Poor theologians! Even when, at any cost, they will uphold the imposition of hands which is practised in our day, for that is always the object, at least they are compelled to throw aside all the system on which it is founded. In short, it is impossible to search the word without putting aside all the theological system on ministry. This is a singular confession, when one chooses to support that system. It is true, that it is impossible to read the word and to follow, even one moment, the system of theologians, the established system, as to the ideas. It is what I have felt myself.

244 Here now is what Mr. Wolff condemns as one of the sad results of the confusion he spoke of. I am almost afraid I may be accused of irony in quoting, however seriously, what he says. "Some have thought they saw in ordination something mysterious and sacramental, I know not what magical transformation, which must stamp an indelible character on the man who undergoes it; and clerical pride has favoured that error" (p. 27). Such is one of the results of the theological system on the imposition of hands.

Further, the distinction adopted by the writer, and which old theologians had neglected, is, he says, of "so much importance, that it is only in this that I can see the means of restoring to the ordination of the minister all its dignity, by keeping it pure from superstitious ideas."

Here, then, we have all the old system on this subject entirely condemned. Is it surprising that others, who have searched the word before Mr. Wolff, have condemned it also? And it is not merely a question of some flaw in the theory; the ordination of ministers is tainted with "superstitious ideas"; and "clerical pride has favoured that error," the distinction which alone could keep it pure not being found in theology.

And if, on one hand, this was true, as I fully believe it was, and if the thing has gone very far on a very serious point, which is nothing less than the ministry which God has established in His Church; and if, on the other hand, I have found, like Mr. Wolff, that, according to the dissenting system, the bishop or the pastor is absolutely without vocation from God, is it surprising that I should have withdrawn far away, on the one hand, from those superstitious ideas favoured by clerical pride; and, on the other, from a system which establishes pastors or bishops without any vocation from God? That is what I have done, because I believe what Mr. Wolff believes. I know not whether he has hitherto received or not an ordination conferred according to those superstitious ideas. If he has, I hope God may grant him more light. If in keeping away from both these things, I subject myself to the accusation of belonging to a new sect, I must bear it with patience: it is clearly what is demanded by light and a good conscience; and then the blame of men becomes of very little weight. Moreover, I am not the first who is of a "sect" which is "everywhere . . . spoken against." May God give unto us, if we have not the same gifts, the same courage as unto him who endured such contempt from those who, calling themselves Jews, were, most of them, liars.

As to the imposition of hands, I do not at all reject it, provided it is left in its proper place. But this I ask, if an upright man, whose desire is to act according to the word, having the convictions expressed by the writer of the pamphlet, would not have withdrawn from national ordination, and from dissenting ordination? — from one, because tainted with superstitious ideas, and founded on an error which is favoured by clerical pride; from the other, because applied to men who have received no vocation from God; yet in spite of all, acknowledging that, on both sides, there are individuals blessed of God? Then, having seen that theologians had based everything on a false system, he would have waited in order to see clearly the will of God, instead of building up again the things which the word of God had overthrown.

245 I have been present at the imposition of hands done with simplicity, when it went not beyond the light I had; I was present and felt much joy. But I think that ministry can be exercised without it, without any human vocation being necessary; and I found this on Acts 8: 4; chap. 11: 21; Philippians 1: 15, etc.; because I see from those passages, that they preached, that they evangelized, that they announced the word (I will not even mention here either the prophets or Paul), all the words which can express in the highest way the act of announcing the word being used, without the idea of ordination; and it is said that "the hand of the Lord was with them"; and because I see and believe what Mr. Wolff carefully avoids seeing, and what he wants to fashion according to his own mind, namely, that the ministries which concern the edification of the Church are gifts; and if they are not called charismata they are none the less gifts which Christ gave. And I bless God for it; because His work is not hindered, nor clothed with superstitious ideas, although man has marred the outward order established by the apostles.

What I desire is, that ministry be independent, and that it enjoy its true dignity, as being of God, and dependent upon God; that it be the Holy Ghost who may direct both the work and the workmen; and that in the Church of God money may become servant (deacon) — and this is a great privilege — not the master of ministry.

Let us always remember that the ordination of young students, who have just left an academy, is as far as can be from the establishment of elders in the Church; that there is no similarity whatever between the two things; and that what "is practised now" has introduced into the ministry founded on that system, a mass of Socinians, Rationalists, and Arians, and conferred upon them all the rights of ministry.

Mr. Wolff was educated at a school formed by men whom the ministers, ordained according to that system, had expelled from their midst because they believed in the fundamental basis of Christianity. To see oneself reduced to the necessity of choosing between such a state of things and a system which, if it be more scriptural in its forms, establishes its charges in such a way as excludes the vocation of God, or to place oneself outside of all — is one of the most striking proofs of the state of failure in which the Church is.

246 Now what is the place given to the imposition of hands? This is shewn to us in Hebrews 6. The imposition of hands has its place there, as one of the elements of the beginning of Christ; an expression which, in effect, connects this ceremony with things that existed before the gift of the Holy Ghost. It seems to have been a very ancient ceremony, everywhere used as a sign of blessing.

The case of Joshua may be added to those pointed out by Mr. Wolff. This ceremony was at all events used as a sign of blessing, for healings, for children, for those who served the tables, and many others. We must not, I think, confound the case of the sacrifices with this imposition of hands. The imposition of hands on the victim identified the victim with the sinner, or the worshipper with the victim; that is what we see in Hebrews 7: 7. In that case, he who laid his hands on the victim was not a superior who blessed, nor a brother who "recommended" another "to the grace of God," Acts 14: 26. He who offered a burnt offering laid his hands on the victim, and was thus presented to God according to the acceptance and sweet savour of the victim. In the offering for sin, the sin of the guilty one was laid upon the victim, which, thereby, became sin in his stead. Neither in the one nor in the other of these cases was it a question of blessing; nothing was conferred. In the burnt offering there was not even transmission. In that case, the imposition of hands expressed an idea of representation. If one means to say that he who receives gifts or a charge must represent him who conferred them, in this very general sense one might recognize a certain analogy between the imposition of hands on an offering, and the imposition of hands on a man to confer a gift or invest with a charge. But in healings and in the case of children this idea also is lost. For the rest, I am not anxious to dispute anything here. The idea is rather vague and imperfect; but it does not affect the question we are treating. A brother, who has been dead many years, sought to establish, in a short publication, this analogy, and the connection between Hebrews 6 and the sacrifices; but it seemed to me that there was a certain confusion of ideas between blessing and identification or representation. All acts of power, in blessing, presented themselves under the form of imposition of hands — healings like all others; but then there was no representation. In the case of the burnt offering, nothing was transmitted; the imposition of hands expressed another idea.

247 I admit that, in the order of the Church at the beginning, the Holy Ghost was conferred by the imposition of the hands of the apostles: this is incontestable. It was, in my judgment, a sign of apostolic power.

But the writer has thoroughly overlooked the bearing of this fact, and in making gifts to cease (the possession of which he connects with the imposition of the hands of the apostles), he brings in the cessation of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church. This I will now establish.

Mr. Wolff says (p. 270), first, that one must distinguish between the gift and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In this he is perfectly right: this is what the Irvingites did not do, neither also has the writer of this pamphlet on ministry done it himself. Hence I am anxious to call attention again to the point, that all that is found in Ephesians 4 is there called gift, not 'charisma tou pneumatos,' but equally gifts; the word used indicating, according to Mr. Wolff, a free manifestation of the Spirit (p. 72, 5°).*

{*"To each is given," 1 Corinthians 12: 7; "to each was given," Ephesians 4: 7.}

Let us now examine the very grave subject of the gift of the Holy Ghost; for it is certain that, if Mr. Wolff is right, we must give up not only the gifts but the gift of the Holy Ghost.

It is possible, according to his system, that we may not have to give up the life which the Spirit has communicated to us, the life according to the power of the resurrection of Christ: but we must give up the gift of the Holy Ghost as seal, and not the gifts only.

According to Mr. Wolff, p. 73, No. 16, and p. 37, the gifts communicated by the imposition of the hands of the apostles were an extension of the gift they received at Pentecost. In effect, we see one and the same result in what comes to pass on the day of Pentecost, at Caesarea (Acts 10), at Samaria (Acts 8), and at Ephesus (Acts 19). Those who received the gift "spake with tongues, and prophesied." Whether at Caesarea, where the Spirit works in a special way, as a testimony of the admission of Gentiles; or at Samaria, where He is communicated through the imposition of the hands of the apostles Peter and John; or at Ephesus, where He is communicated through the imposition of the hands of the apostle Paul — a proof of his apostolic rights; it is evident that, in all these cases, it was an extension of what came to pass on the day of Pentecost. But what took place on the day of Pentecost was the gift of the Holy Ghost Himself; it was the promise of the Father; it was the Comforter sent by the Son from the Father, and by the Father in the name of the Son; it was the Spirit of truth, to reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment, to communicate the things of Christ to the Church; for it was the Spirit whom Christ sent when He went away (John 15; ch. 16; Luke 24: 49). It was that other Comforter, who was to abide for ever with the disciples; John 14. But the gift which the apostles communicated or transmitted was only, by Mr. Wolff's own confession, "an extension of that gift which the apostles themselves received at Pentecost" (p. 31). It is not a question of giving up gifts and saying they no longer exist; but one must say that the Spirit, who was to abide for ever with the disciples, has no longer an existence on earth. It is the gift that it lost, not the gifts; for the imposition of hands was a transmission of what had been received. Now, that which had been received, was the Holy Ghost the Comforter, the Spirit of truth; this it is, then, that has been lost. It is evidently of the utmost gravity; and, at the same time, nothing is more simple. The imposition of hands transmitted that which the apostles themselves had received at Pentecost; and this it is which would be lost. But it was the promise of the Father, the Holy Ghost Himself, that the apostles had received. It is this, then, which is lost, according to Mr. Wolff! What shall we say of those who, to sustain what is practised in the present day, treat with such inconceivable levity the basis of all power, of all testimony, of all manifestation of the glory of Christ, of the existence of the Church — that is, the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself? of those who recommend and carefully circulate a tract, which absolutely takes away from the Church the Holy Ghost, such as He was given at Pentecost, the Comforter; and who do so, either through partiality for the clergy, or through a sad preoccupation which prevents them from perceiving what they are doing?

249 Are we really come to this, that those who think they are pillars of the Church give their approval to that which denies the presence of the Comforter; and, while denying it, seek to persuade us that the Church enjoys "all the primitive blessings"? The gifts were only "the manifestation of the Spirit." How much we have lost in this respect, alas! is but too evident. All that was, under the apostolic administration, a public sign of the presence of the Holy Ghost to the world — that was directed and even conferred by that ruling ministry — all this is lost. It is that very thing on which I insisted, as being a proof, among other things, of the state of failure in which we are; but to say, on that account, that the Holy Ghost no longer exists in the Church, except as grace of life-and that is what this pamphlet says — is to deny the basis of all Christian hope; it is that which at the same time shews what is. at the root of the question discussed, and that all is lost on the side of those who think to uphold such a system.

I do not conceal from myself that what I say is very strong language. I do not deny that some few have, through ignorance, maintained what I denounce; but the principle here professed takes absolutely away all source of power in the Church, all testimony rendered by the Holy Ghost. It puts out the Holy Ghost, as having no existence in the unity of the body. It is to deny, in its principle, the existence of the Church, and the glory of Christ, and all testimony to be rendered to Christ on earth; for there were only two testimonies: one, that of the twelve, because they had been with Christ from the beginning (and we may add to their number Paul as to the heavenly glory); the other, the testimony of the Comforter sent by Christ from the Father, of the Spirit of truth "which proceedeth from the Father," John 15: 26, 27. As to -the testimony of the twelve, we have it no longer personally; and, according to Mr. Wolff, we have not the Comforter either; for that is what the apostles received on the day of Pentecost. If you think that we have the word, as taking the place of the apostles and of the Holy Ghost, say so at least, that we may know what to abide by; and deny openly — not the gifts but — the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church. Say, it is no longer true that there is one Spirit and one body. You no doubt admit grace to believe; but as to that one Spirit, it is no longer any question of Him. What an awful confirmation of the failure of the Church!

250 Let us now examine the passages quoted for the miraculous imposition of hands; and we shall see that it is a question of the reception of the Holy Ghost Himself, as well as of a particular gift sometimes conferred in that way; and we shall see at the same time by these passages, and by others that we are going to quote, that the reception of the Holy Ghost is never confounded with the faith which the Holy Ghost may have produced in the heart.

Acts 19: 2. The apostle says, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost" — or rather, "if [the] Holy Ghost was [come]" — that is, if that baptism of the Holy Ghost, of which John had spoken, had taken place. It is clear then here, that, although the gifts of tongues, and of prophecies, etc., did manifest the presence of the Holy Ghost, they had not in any way received the Holy Ghost as the Comforter sent by the Son.

Acts 8: 15-17. "Who" — Peter and John — "when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost (for as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid they their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost." We may well suppose that the Holy Ghost manifested Himself as elsewhere, since Simon perceived it; but it is not directly referred to. One thing is clear — that the disciples had not received the Holy Ghost before.

Acts 10: 44. In the case of Cornelius, the Holy Ghost, without imposition of hands, "fell on all them which heard the word": a proof that (although the imposition of hands, according to the ordinary administration at the time of the apostles, was the means used for communicating the Holy Ghost, that the manifestation of power might be there), nevertheless God was sovereign in this respect. It shews, moreover, that when once the Holy Ghost was in the Church, He was to abide there for ever, and that the means of His manifestation was a secondary point. The Holy Ghost was there, ever abiding there; He did not content Himself with only giving unto individuals to believe; but He abode in the Church as in a temple, acting sovereignly for the good of the body, according to the will and the wisdom of God. That all the means of the manifestation are in a state of disorder, that the state of ruin in which we are throws obscurity on all these things, this it is on which I have insisted; but to use it in order to deny the presence of the Comforter is to do the work of the enemy; it is the spirit of unbelief and of impenitence.

251 Other passages present this subject to us under another light also, proving to us that the result of this doctrine is to deny the Holy Ghost, as seal of the promise to the individual; for this presence of the Holy Ghost is something added to faith.

John 7: 38, 39. "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]," etc.)

Galatians 4: 6. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts."

Ephesians 1: 13, 14. "In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance."

We see then in these passages that the seal of the Holy Ghost is added to faith; and if we have not that Holy Ghost of promise, we neither possess the Spirit of adoption, nor the rivers of living water, nor the earnest of our inheritance. It is not here a question of gifts; it is not a question of power in the Church. If we lose what was transmitted by the apostles — what they received on the day of Pentecost — then, that which we lose is the Holy Ghost of promise, who is received by all those who have believed; it is the source of all joy and energy.

Whatever may have been the manifestation that is wanting now; whatever may have been the apostolic administration which transmitted the gift, if the thing transmitted is wanting to us, it is not a question of gifts; it is a question, both for the Church and for the believer, of the Holy Ghost Himself. What the apostles transmitted was the Holy Ghost, and not merely gifts. If we lose that, where is the Church? and where is the Christian? See 2 Corinthians 1: 21, 22.

OF THE ORDINATION OF THE EVANGELIST.

There is one thing more to notice on this chapter.

The prophets laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, when these were set apart for their work among the Gentiles. Reader, you will no doubt think that Paul and Barnabas (for he also was called apostle) acted as apostles in this mission; that what Paul did in all the churches to order what concerned their walk, that all his remarkable labours in Asia Minor, in Macedonia, in Greece, were apostolic labours — the work of an apostle. Not at all; that cannot agree with Mr. Wolff's system, because the imposition of hands, in the ordinary sense, must always be "from the higher to the lower, never from the lower to the higher. Everywhere the minister lays his hands for a charge either for an inferior or equal to his own, and never for a higher charge" (p. 32). That is all very well; but moreover, says the writer,

252 "The blessing must always, in its importance and effects, be proportionate to the elevation of the one who gives it. Hence, when it is Jesus Christ who confers the imposition of hands, it operates miracles, it heals the sick, it raises the dead. When it is the apostles, they share with simple believers the miraculous gift which was laid on their heads at Pentecost" — a fresh proof, it may be said by the way, of what we have said; for it is certain that it was the Holy Ghost Himself, the Comforter, who came down, so that it is this which is lost — and not merely gifts. The writer confounds the special form of manifestation, and the administrative means of transmission, with the presence itself of the Comforter. "Finally," he says, "when it is a question of the other ministers, they invest the candidate with the charge they received themselves."

Thus the ministry which Paul exercised was not in the least the ministry of an apostle.

You may suppose that the conclusions I draw are forced. Listen rather to Mr. Wolff on Acts 13: 1-3: "Paul and Barnabas," he says (p. 28, 2°), "were marked out by the Holy Ghost to receive the charge of evangelist, which was to be conferred upon them by their colleagues." Thus all the labours of Barnabas or of Paul were in nowise an apostolic work. This is rather strong. "But," says Mr. Wolff, "the text expressly tells us that it" — the imposition of hands — "was only conferred upon them with a view to their charge as evangelists." This I have not found. It is quite true that the apostles did not disdain (very far from it) this solemn recommendation to the grace of God for the work (for it is thus that the Holy Ghost designates this imposition of hands, Acts 14: 26); but to say that it was simply an ordination from the higher downwards! an ordination to the charge of evangelist, this, assuredly, is rather strong.

253 But there is still another difficulty. "As to the other ministries," says Mr. Wolff, "they invest the candidate with the charge they have received themselves" (p. 32).

This is indeed very convenient, in order that pastors may make pastors of certain young students who are candidates; but Barnabas, Simeon, etc. (Acts 13: 1), were prophets who had received a vocation from God alone, and not a charge; and Paul and Barnabas depart as evangelists. So that, according to Mr. Wolff, the prophets had invested the candidates with a charge which they had not received themselves.

I hesitated a little, lest it should be dishonouring the precious word of God to introduce all this, as shewing what a terrible mess is the result of the desire to authorize that which is practised. If I have been wrong, may God deign to forgive me, for it is very painful. But such absurdities and such contradictions are always the consequence of having adopted a system, and then seeking, at any cost, to establish it by the word. If the word has been dishonoured, it is the system that dishonoured it, and not I.

OF THE ORDINATION OF THE BISHOP.

We have only one point more to treat, as regards the imposition of hands.

We have seen what is alleged for the ordination of evangelists. We have seen the preaching of the word without ordination presented under every form (Acts 8: 4): they spoke, they evangelized or announced the word (lalountes), Acts 11: 19; both words are used in verse 20. In Philippians 1: 15 they preach, they are heralds (kerussousin)--a word habitually used by Paul for his own ministry and by which he indicates his own function. The only case alleged of the ordination of an evangelist being the mission of the two apostles at their departure from Antioch, there only remains to be examined the ordination of the bishop.

It was necessary for Mr. Wolff to point out the two ordinations, of the bishop and of the evangelist, because this answers to the evangelists and to the pastors of the present day. Having seen what is said about one, let us see what there is about the other.

I admitted the difference in point of fact between the imposition of hands by which the Holy Ghost was communicated, and the imposition of hands which was ordinarily practised (although, as a division, it is inexact). I acknowledge that when it is a question of the imposition of hands by Timothy, it is not a question of the gift of the Holy Ghost; but I stop there. All the remainder of Mr. Wolff's page 34 only contains arguments which are utterly groundless.

254 First, all this reasoning is founded on the idea, that the imposition of hands was only practised for evangelists and for bishops, which is entirely false. For it is never said that hands were laid on evangelists, and it is quite certain that hands were laid on deacons, at least in the case of the seven in Acts 6.

Secondly, Mr. Wolff (p. 34), in favour of the imposition of hands on the bishop, alleges the injunction given to Timothy, to "lay hands suddenly on no man," 1 Tim. 5: 22. But almost the whole of the epistle comes in between the rules for choosing elders and this verse 22 of chapter 5; and all kinds of subjects are treated between the two passages.

Thirdly, the passage, 1 Timothy 5: 22, does not immediately follow after some exhortations about the elder;* but it applies to Timothy's personal conduct. I think it probable that hands were laid on elders; because I see that this ancient sign of blessing and of setting apart for a charge was universally used; and that, among other things, the epistle treats of the charge of elder. But so little is it true that it is impossible to apply to any other than the bishop the imposition of which this passage speaks, it is very evident that it is a direction for Timothy's conduct in every case in which he might be called to lay hands on any one.

{*It may be applied to deacons as well as to elders. The rules for the choice of deacons are nearer to the passage than the rules given for the choice of elders; but, as I say in the test, it is a general rule for the conduct of Timothy, and may apply to every possible case of imposition of hands.}

In favour of the imposition of hands having solely the bishop for its object, Mr. Wolff alleges a second passage, namely, 1 Timothy 4: 14: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." His reasoning on this second text may lead to a conclusion more or less just, but which only serves to establish the fact that the word of God never says that hands were to be laid on the bishop. It may be supposed, and one may reason about it with pretty much probability, but the word does not say so. All that Mr. Wolff dares to affirm on this passage is that it alludes to it; but we have only this reasoning of Mr. Wolff, "If the elders laid their hands on Timothy, it must be supposed that they had themselves received the imposition of hands." But all this does not affect the question, which consists in inquiring who appointed these elders.

255 CHAPTER 9

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 9, ABOUT THE TWOFOLD VOCATION OF THE ELDER.

On the subject of the twofold vocation of the bishop, I find nothing whatever that is scriptural in Mr. Wolff's system. What is called inward or immediate vocation is not to be found in the Bible in the case of the bishop. The Bible supposes that a person may desire to be a bishop, but that is all. Where that desire exists, not a word is said about an inward vocation as a quality requisite for the charge. If a young man desired to be a minister, according to the present system (and it would be very difficult to find the least analogy between that and the choosing of bishops in the New Testament), the first thing which an evangelical friend of the young man would ask him is, "Do you feel yourself called of God to the ministry?" Not a trace of such an idea is in the epistle to Timothy: "If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work," and thereupon follow the requisite qualities, without a single word about inward vocation. It was a charge entrusted to persons who were qualified.

But the confusion is the natural consequence of the confusion which is made between the pastor and the bishop; it results from having denied all the gifts and excluded them from ministry, and from the will to maintain, at any cost, the existing system and the flesh which rests there.

A second remark presents itself here. Mr. Wolff says (p. 36), "that it is God who gives, who sets the bishops in the Church; it is men, the ministers, who establish them." But in the word of God the expression "given" is never used in reference to the bishop; never is it said that God, that Christ, gave bishops.* Never is the word 'set' used as to the charge. The Holy Ghost had put certain persons in that charge. In Acts 20 it is nowise a question of an inward vocation, but of the simple fact that the Holy Ghost had placed them there; and Mr. Wolff himself acknowledges that a person is not set in a charge by an inward and immediate vocation. Hence it is not true that God sets bishops in the Church; but He sets persons in the charge of bishop in a flock.

{*The expression in 1 Timothy 3: 1 is sufficient in itself alone to shew the difference that exists between the gift of pastor and the charge of bishop. If God gave a pastor, he who was such by the grace of God had not to desire that gift, that function; he had it. Neither was it a question of judging of the qualities of the individual, in order to know if he was fit for that place. Christ had already judged that, when He had bestowed on him the grace to be pastor. But as to the episcopate, a person desired a charge, a certain position in a church; and the person to whom that care was entrusted was to begin by examining if the one who desired it had the requisite qualities. Could this be applied to what is said in Ephesians 4? When Christ ascended, He gave pastors and teachers. If anyone desired a gift, he had to apply to the One who gave; and if anyone aspired to a charge, he was to subject himself to an examination, that it might be known if he possessed certain qualities required for that charge.}

256 All that Mr. Wolff says on this subject is therefore altogether false from one end to the other; it is a theory or arrangement for sanctioning that which exists without any scriptural foundation — a theory, which, after all, is a thing quite different from the theory itself, which makes bishops of young students who have none of the qualities which God demands.

Mr. Wolff says that the word of God contains nothing against the Church's choosing among those who have already been called to the ministry, or among those who are ready to be received. There is in such expressions a boldness which really demands something more than the brief remarks I can give here; it is sought to justify oneself by adding to the word of God systems and thoughts of which not one trace is found there. Where is there to be found in the word of God a single trace of choosing among those who are already called to the ministry — unless it be in the case of those who said, "I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos"?

The apostle or his delegates appointed certain persons having certain qualities to a certain charge: was the Church afterwards to choose among them, or even to choose others, leaving them aside? Is it not true that the apostle appointed such a person bishop in such a town? And how, if the Church took no active part in the vocation of the bishop, could it choose among those who were called? It is very convenient to say of any one that he is called to the ministry, because this is done now; but where is that to be found in the word? No one in that case was called to the ministry; but the bishop was established in a special charge.

257 In the case of the bishop, it was a question of a local charge; and Mr. Wolff admits that at that time there were ministries of apostles and of prophets, whose vocation was from God alone. Could the churches choose according to their will among the apostles and prophets? In all this portion of the pamphlet there feigns, in order to flatter that which exists, a contempt for the word of God, which one would do well to weigh before the Lord. God will judge.

When the writer speaks of the candidate for ministry, what does it mean? Was a person candidate for the function of apostle or prophet? Was a person then chosen by such or such a church? For these were ministries. And when the apostle chose and established bishops in each town, even if there were men who desired that charge, were these churches (one knows not where) choosing amidst a company of young ministers the one who suited them? It is wrong, very wrong, thus to treat the word of God.

Finally, whether one takes ministry as being the exercise of a gift, as was the case with the apostles or prophets (for it is absurd after all to pretend to say that the prophet exercised a ministry without gift); or looks upon it as a charge, as was the case with the bishops established by the apostle, by Timothy, or by Titus; the idea of choosing among candidates or among those called to the ministry, is equally foreign to the word, excluded from the word. And the idea that a young candidate or an ordained minister should go and make himself heard, that the population of a place may choose him, is certainly not to be found in the word of God.

I cannot admit that a bishop is not a bishop without the imposition of hands. I have already said that, reasoning from analogy, it is probable that hands were laid on one who was to be bishop. But if the apostle had appointed certain persons bishops, and had established them by his own authority, they would be bishops. It is not a question of the distinction between desire and reality, for a man might have desired to be appointed without being appointed, not having the requisite qualities. It was only a question of this fact: had they been established by the apostles or by some other competent persons?

258 To insist on the imposition of hands as to the bishop (a thing which is not said in the word), then cleverly to add (P. 38, 2°), "Thus he who will be pastor without receiving the imposition of hands, has not really received any charge; his ministry ought not to be received by any church" — this is nothing but a conjuror's trick. For after all the pastor is not named anywhere except in a list of gifts. Such is the fact; and not a word of what is said of the bishop and of his charge is applied to him in the word.

As for the testimony drawn from Acts 13 (p. 38, 3°) we have already found the reasoning of the writer to be entirely false. Thus all the high words he addressed to the brethren at the close of the paragraph are not worth much.* The man who thinks that Paul and Barnabas received the collation of the charge of simple evangelists from prophets and teachers at Antioch, and who makes this the basis of his reproof, needs in effect to cry out very loud in order to make himself heard.

{*"Is it not scandalous," says Mr. Wolff, "to see in the midst of Christians some would-be strong minds resisting, freeing themselves from, duties recognised by the Church at all times, and rebelling against an institution to which the Holy Ghost Himself consented to subject Himself?"}

That in the present system "ministry is debased, so as only to see in it an altogether human order of things," this I acknowledge. Has one any trouble in recognizing the picture we find in page 41?* Where did Mr. Wolff find the original of that portrait? Will he have us to remain in a system which thus degrades ministry?

{*"When the divine vocation in ministry is lost sight of," says Mr. Wolff, "then one sees, as in some churches in our day, the imposition of hands conferred upon those who have no intention of devoting themselves to the service of the Church, or sought after by candidates without any certainty of ever having a charge to fill. To confer such an imposition of hands, or even to seek after it, is a monstrosity. It is to disown the inward vocation and the rights of God; it is making light of the most holy institutions; it is to debase ministry, so as only to see in it an altogether human state of things."}

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

in answer to the work of Mr. P. Wolff, entitled,

"Ministry as opposed to Hierarchism and chiefly to Religious Radicalism,"

Valence, 1844

J. N. Darby.

<03007F> {file section c.}

259 CHAPTER 10

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 10, ABOUT EVANGELISTS.

After having, in support of election by men and ordination, assimilated the pastor to the bishop, Mr. Wolff puts on the same line and in the same condition the pastor and the evangelist, in order that the election and the ordination which he connects with the first may be indispensable for the second. The charges of evangelist and of pastors," says Mr. Wolff, "are so much of the same nature . . . that they may often be blended together, and that one may pass from one to the other," etc. (p. 44).

The grand principles having been discussed, I will try to be brief, on this point.

The author has placed himself here in a complete confusion, which I shall only have to point out.

First, Mr. Wolff will have it that those whom the Spirit of God calls apostles can be nothing but bishops or evangelists.

What connection is there between a bishop and an apostle or sent one? This it would be difficult to discover. Moreover it is a merely gratuitous assertion. I allow myself to consider as being apostles those whom the word of God calls apostles, that is, as having been especially sent by the Lord, although it may not have been, as to all of them, with the same authority.

Secondly, Mr. Wolff confounds the messengers of the churches (2 Cor. 8: 23) with the messengers of Christ. As to the application of the other passages, it appears to me more than uncertain. When Paul says "us the apostles," it does not mean, necessarily, Silvanus and Timothy, who were with him. Even if it be so (and I am not anxious to dispute it), it is never said that their functions were those of an evangelist.

Thirdly, as to 1 Corinthians 12: 28. In spite of Mr. Wolff's assertion, the evangelist is not named here.

In fine, having done with this confusion, I acknowledge that the evangelist was a gift of God according to Ephesians 4: 11.

As to the vocation which, according to Mr. Wolff's assertion, the evangelist receives from men, I stop here. We have seen that all, according to their ability, preached; and that the mere fact that Paul wished Timothy to accompany him does not shew that he was called to a special charge as evangelist, and shews still less that all evangelists had received a vocation from men.

260 Paul tells Timothy to do the work of an evangelist; and this seems to me rather to contradict the idea that a special vocation as evangelist had existed long before. Timothy, at that moment, was a delegate of the apostle for a special object; and Paul exhorts him to do also the work of an evangelist. This is most simple, but agrees very little with the notion of an evangelist specially appointed to that. We have already considered sufficiently the case of Paul and Barnabas.

I admit that all those who bear testimony according to their ability, are not, properly speaking, evangelists. The evangelist is a gift (Eph. 4: 11); but the imposition of hands on an evangelist is never mentioned, either as necessary for his work, or in any respect whatever. We find ever and again in the author the desire to sanction at all costs the present order of things. An evangelist, according to him, partakes so entirely of the same nature as the pastor, that he may settle in a place, after having formed a flock; but I shall say nothing about it, for the reason — that there is not a syllable about all this in the word. If he who acts thus has both gifts, it is all well; if not, it is very wrong.

To understand the way in which Mr. Wolff draws conclusions from the word, I also beg of the reader to compare the quotations which he has made from Acts 18: 26; 1 Corinthians 16: 19, and Romans 16: 3, with a view to shew that Aquila was in turn pastor and evangelist, having, we must suppose, received the imposition of hands. Perhaps we ought to suppose he had received it twice; for nothing authorizes us to suppose that ministry was conferred by wholesale, as it is practised now. A special charge was conferred, those who received the collation of the charge being solemnly recognized by competent authorities, as being called to it of God. For otherwise, it would be a question, not of various ministries or of vocation, but of ministry in general, without a special charge. This is what is practised in our day. One man, after having been recognized as fit to be a bishop, goes on to present himself, upon his own authority, as evangelist; another, after having been ordained as evangelist, goes on to assume, upon his own authority, the charge of bishop in a locality which pleases him. We must remember, that, according to Mr. Wolff's system, it is by no means a question, in ministry, of the exercise of a gift, but of a charge which is only received by the imposition of hands. A man evangelizes without a gift, a man is a bishop without the requisite qualities, a man preaches without a gift, and if any one has been ordained as evangelist, according to this chapter 10, it becomes no longer a question either of the choosing of bishops by the apostle, or of their appointment by him or his delegate; all that disappears. A man abides in the place where he has evangelized and becomes a bishop, "having undergone," as Mr. Wolff says, "I know not what magic transformation, which stamps him with an indelible character, something mysterious and sacramental." After that, the charge is no matter; the qualities demanded in the word are no matter. Pastor and evangelist are charges which are "so near akin," that a man, when ordained for one, may establish himself in the other.

261 I do not know how this strikes the minds of others; but for me, there is something that is most shameful in this servile adulation of what now exists. I admit that there may be skill enough in this, and a certain cleverness; but in the face of the word, and the immensity of the interests which are found in it, thus to be able to use skill to flatter all that exists — and that in the face of the word of God, the testimony of His love — what shall I say? . . . Each one will judge according to the value he may attach to that word and to the grace of Him who gave it.

It is quite true that the church of Jerusalem was a centre, that it exercised a certain authority and a certain oversight; at least it was so during a certain time, the apostles being there. But that Barnabas had received a mission as evangelist or pastor, is what we see nowhere. It is true, that he was sent to Antioch by the Church, which took an interest in what was going on there; and when he arrived there, he exercised his gift, he "exhorted" those who had already been evangelized; that is what we find in Acts 13: 23, in the passage quoted by Mr. Wolff, page 44. Guided by the same interests and the wants that existed, Barnabas goes to seek Saul. In that, he used his Christian liberty, as Paul did when he took Timothy with him.

When Mr. Wolff says that the functions of evangelist are described at length in the pastoral letters of Paul, I hardly know what he means. Nothing is said in the epistles of Paul of the functions of an evangelist. He writes as apostle, he commands as apostle: he shews what he was as apostle, and especially as apostle. Does Mr. Wolff wish to deny his apostleship or to bring down his apostleship to the level of an evangelist, in order to exalt the authority of modern evangelists, as he has done by his pretended ordination to the charge of evangelist at Antioch? I repeat, I hardly know what he means, if it be not that; for otherwise the apostle never speaks of an evangelist except to name that gift (Ephesians 4), or to exhort Timothy to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4: 5).

262 CHAPTER 11

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 11, CONCERNING TEACHERS.

First of all, I admit that there is not in the Church a charge of teacher. In the word, the teacher is presented as a gift.* It is only those who will have doctors of theology like Mr. Wolff, who think that doctorship is a charge. Mr. Wolff, who denies (p. 45) that doctorship is a charge, says (p. 49), that a professor of theology ought to consider himself as a functionary in the Church.

{*But, then, it must not be said that there is a charge of pastor; for these two things are found in the same category, and connected with the same demonstrative pronoun, Tous de.}

When men choose to make all ministries to be charges, or a clergy, and deny at the same time that ministry is the exercise of a gift, they must naturally imitate Mr. Wolff, and seek for information as to those charges. It is not surprising that the author, after having called prophecy a ministry, and denied at the same time that ministry was the exercise of a gift, should meet with difficulties in this respect. But as for the person who, resting on the ground of the word, finds there — in Ephesians 4 — that the teacher is a gift connected with that of pastor; who sees in 1 Corinthians 12 that God has set teachers in the Church; who reads in Romans 12 that he who has the gift of teacher is to be occupied in a modest manner with the accomplishment of the duty connected with the exercise of that gift: the person, I say, who sees all this, does not find much difficulty as to such a simple thing.

All that Mr. Wolff says on the subject presents such confusion, that it is impossible to get clear of it; for he makes the teacher to be a sort of quality which pervades every charge; but in the passages already quoted, the word of God presents to us the doctorship as a gift. It is not only a doma, but a charisma; and, according to Mr. Wolff, gifts have absolutely ceased in the Church.

263 It is therefore somewhat bold to quote Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12 as lists of ministries, and even to tell us (p. 46), "It is therefore in this last passage that we are compelled, by exegesis and grammar, to recognize the proper classification of ministry"; since he affirms that ministry is not the exercise of a gift, and that both these passages present a list of gifts; in Ephesians 4: 11, they are called domata, and in 1 Corinthians 12, they are charismata. See verses 30, 31, 38.*

{*That is, for a writer who says that ministry is never the exercise of a gift, and that ministry cannot even exist now, if there are gifts, a list of gifts is the proper classification of ministry.}

Hence in our turn we might ask ourselves, which was the ministerial charge — with imposition of hands — formed by the different kinds of tongues, and by the gifts (charismata) of healing? If one did not trouble the Church by such contradictions — if one did not seek to weaken faith, a confusion of that sort would only excite compassion. I question whether such a mode of treating the word and the Church might not rather call for severity.

The blame lies in a greater measure with those who encouraged the young man who is the author of such a pamphlet, than with him whom they have put forward, applauded and encouraged in such a work. It is the abettors of the thing who are the most guilty.

I have already answered the remarks on the union of pastors and teachers which the writer presents in this chapter.

In result, admitting there was no charge of teacher, as there was of bishop and of deacon, it is very evident that in the teacher was a gift which might be possessed by an apostle, or by a bishop, or any other, or by a man who only had this very gift of teaching.

CHAPTER 12

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 12, CONCERNING THE CLASSIFICATION OF MINISTRIES.

I have not much to say on this chapter. I will state my thoughts on the subject he treats when I shall speak of gifts.

We have already seen that ministry is the exercise of a gift: even deaconship (diakonia) is called a gift (charisma). I am not speaking of the charge of deacon, but of the service of ministry called diakonia (Rom. 12: 6, 7).

264 The only remark which I have to make here is, that the things which Mr. Wolff will classify here as ministries are presented as gifts in the chapters of the word which are quoted — Ephesians 4, domata; 1 Corinthians 12, charismata; although, according to Mr. Wolff, ministry be not the exercise of a gift.

I shall add, that I do not deny the distinction between a foundation-ministry and a propagation-ministry — I would rather say of building on the foundation; 1 Cor. 3: 10. Moreover, the two words are found in page 51; and I acknowledge that this ministry was to continue from age to age.

It is at least fourteen years ago that I insisted on these very things with Mr. Irving, before the system to which he gave his name was manifested.

CHAPTER 13

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 13, CONCERNING THE PERPETUITY OF MINISTRY.

Mr. Wolff says that ministry will continue to the end of the dispensation; that the apostles and prophets who are the foundation abide, govern, preach, and prophesy by means of their institutions and their writings, and there is no reason for ceasing to establish evangelists and bishops.

That ministry must exist is a point on which we agree.

But, first of all, where did the writer find, as a classification, and as a list of ministries, this catalogue: apostles, prophets, evangelists, and bishops? It is a purely arbitrary list, it is in nowise scriptural. Such an arrangement of ministries is nowhere to be found in the word.

It is well to remember that, to establish his system, Mr. Wolff is always under the necessity of altering that which is found in the word.

Further, I deny that the Church possesses every ministry, and that it has, as Mr. Wolff says, apostles and prophets. That, as foundations, they have accomplished their work, that their writings are of authority in the Church, we all know; but there was in them something else, namely, the exercise of their authority in power, and this was attached to their person. They, the apostles, commended themselves by the power of God. They knew that after their departing grievous wolves would enter in. What would have mattered their departing if all their ministry still subsists? If wisdom in action, influence, promptitude, discernment of the machinations of the enemy, and the testimony borne to Christ, if all did really subsist as during their lifetime, the Church would be in a state far different from that in which it is found.

265 It is a sweet and precious thought that God is sufficient for the Church, in His grace, at all times; but to say that the ministry of the apostle always subsists, is to say that the revelation of certain rules constituted the whole of that ministry, and that there was in the apostle neither personal power nor personal authority: it is to disown the importance of the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. Mr. Wolff himself says that the effect of the gift of prophecy was such that unbelievers acknowledge that God was there, but that it is no longer so now. How then can he pretend that the ministry of the prophet still subsists? Perhaps he will say that when the prophet prophesied, he was not exercising a ministry, but his gift; but he cannot expect that men of good sense will attend to such absurdities.

CHAPTER 14

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 14, CONCERNING THE APOSTASY OF THE CHURCH.

I have already written enough on this subject to spare myself the trouble of saying much about it here, and to spare my readers the wearisomeness of a repetition of what I have said elsewhere.

I must state this, that I in nowise accept the picture as here given of my opinions. Mr. Wolff says that "in our days, an opinion such as would prosper amid ruins has a great chance of success." This is very extraordinary if there are no ruins and if everything is firmly established, as is asserted. If we are in the midst of ruins, this can be understood; but how comes it that an opinion, such as would prosper amid ruins, has in our days a great chance of success? Alas! conscience, the heart, fear even, speak too loudly not to be heard at times, in spite, and in the midst, of cunningly devised systems.

I beg leave to say, that the writer is greatly mistaken in what he asserts on the doctrine of the Irvingites. They did not teach the existence of apostasy, but that the Holy Ghost had left the Church and had returned there. Ecclesiastical authority was their idol.

266 It is, I think, because it has not been recognized that the Church should be visible, that things go on so badly.

Mr. Wolff and others besides him strongly oppose the idea, that the Church should be visible. The Church was at the beginning, and ought always to have been, the manifestation of the glory of Christ by the Spirit; it has almost entirely ceased to be so, and those who have Christ's glory at heart will feel it. The glory of Christ will be fully manifested in the glorified Church; but the Church ought to have manifested it here below.

Moreover, this is the universal order:

Man responsible, man according to the counsels of God; Israel responsible, and Israel according to the counsels of God; the Church responsible, and the Church according to the counsels of God. We might even add, Christ responsible, and Christ according to the counsels of God.

In every case, except that of Christ, man has failed in the responsibility in which God had placed him; but this has only the more glorified the faithfulness of God in the accomplishment of His counsels; this does not prevent God's being righteous in His government, where man has failed. (See Romans 3.)

I do not feel the need of following out the reasonings (p. 55) by which they have sought to make of the Church a counterpoise to the pastor, as if it were a constitution from carnal men. It is just this habit, merely carnal, of the age and of the country, which has done so much harm to souls and to flocks. To my mind, the flock which feels that its business is to be a counterpoise to its pastor, is in a sad state. I am not surprised at many things that have happened, if such principles are approved of. For the rest, all that is merely ad captandum, to catch flies; but alas! all that is based upon the rejection of the Holy Ghost. At the beginning, the Holy Ghost was leading on together all believers as being of one heart; but flesh needs a counterpoise.

I do not believe, as Mr. Wolff makes me say (p. 55), that bishops were functionaries specially destined to the outward service of the Church; besides, it is rather an obscure expression.

It is a fact, that it is not given to every congregation to have a pastor (this is counted among the practical changes which, it is pretended, we have provided for in our theory); it is a fact, I say, and a subject of prayer that it may please God to grant a remedy wherever it be needed.

267 In effect, I do think that bishops were established in a charge, whereas in the word of God ministry is connected with a gift. I think that the bishop was attached to a particular church, which was not necessarily the case with a pastor, because the latter, according to the word, was placed as a joint of supply in the body. To say that, less the miracles, such a pastor was an apostle,* only shews in the writer the ignorance of what an apostle was. An apostle founded the churches which the pastor only fed; he made ordinances for all the churches, with the authority of Christ; he chose bishops, he governed all the churches after they were formed. If one did not know how simple souls are confused through bold assertions, when the word seems to have been examined, there would be no need of replying to such accusations, except that I have always remarked the efforts of my adversaries to bring down the idea of the Church, of apostleship, and of everything to the level where they are themselves, in order to quiet their conscience at the expense of the glory of Christ and of the manifest proofs of the love of God towards us.

{*It is singular enough that Calvin says, "Yet the pastors have a charge quite similar to that of the apostles, save that each pastor has to govern a church." In that which is similar, in what I have said, I think I had the same thought as Calvin; but as to revelation and the power of making ordinances, the difference was absolutely complete.}

Mr. Wolff undertakes to prove four things:

First, That the word apostasy (2 Thess. 2: 3) does not in any way refer either to the Church or to the dispensation (p. 57).

Secondly, That Romans 1, above all verse 22, only concerns the Christian individually; that it is quite a personal thing (p. 57).

Thirdly, that the present state of the Church proves quite the contrary of an apostasy (p. 58).

Fourthly, That the notion of a visible Church is "nothing else but that of the papists" (pp. 59, 60).

268 We shall, in a summary way, touch upon these four points, and shew,

First, That the word 'apostasy' (2 Thess. 2: 3) does refer to the dispensation.

Secondly, That the passage, Romans 11: 22, does concern the dispensation, and not the Christian, the child of God individually.

Thirdly, That the present state of the Church, on Mr. Wolff's own avowal, does prove a state of ruin.

Fourthly, That the notion of a visible Church is perfectly scriptural.

1. — The word 'apostasy' does refer to the dispensation.

It is false that, as Mr. Wolff pretends in 2 Thessalonians 2, there is a reference to the son of perdition only.

We find mentioned there:

First, A system of iniquity which was already working in the days of the apostle. And if it was already working, I ask, Where? Was it in China, or in Africa, or in what was called the Church?

Secondly, An apostasy is mentioned; and

Thirdly, The manifestation of the lawless one.

The son of perdition, the man of sin, is presented as a different thing from the apostasy. It is written, "Except there come a falling away [apostasy] first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." And, although the manifestation of the son of perdition follows the first event that breaks out, the verses we read afterwards shew a power of Satan, to the influence of which shall be given up all those who have not received the love of the truth. Is that a solitary word? Happily, in spite of the folly of some, the thing comes too strongly home, for all to listen to that which almost all, nevertheless, would like to say, "We are rich"; but this expression describes in a few words the pamphlet of Mr. Wolff.

I recommend those who distrust the "Plymouthians" to read in the "Essay on the Kingdom of God," by Mr. F. Olivier, who cannot be suspected of Plymouthism, from page 12 to page 69; or, rather, I invite the admirers of Mr. Wolff's principles to be so kind as to read 2 Thessalonians 2 from one end to the other, and to decide afterwards if there is only one word on the point in question. For the rest, when it comes from God, one word often says a great deal at once; and if the word 'love' in God's mouth tells more than volumes could contain, the word 'apostasy' speaks loud enough to those who feel for the beauty of the Bride of Christ and the glory of His name, from whatever quarter the apostasy may come in.

2. — Romans 11: 22 does concern the dispensation.

I have sufficiently, in other writings, examined Romans 11 — a passage always applied by Christians to Gentiles, or, at least, to the Gentiles of the West, until the consequences of this were felt. The person who can believe that in this passage it is merely a question of an individual threatened with the same fall as that of Israel, and of the fall of someone who stands by faith (for then it is not a principle on which men are standing, but already a reality in the heart of the individual), the person, I say, who can believe that the fall of Israel as a dispensation is applied as a threat to an individual who is really standing by faith, I must leave under the effects of his views.

269 Where, says Mr. Wolff, is it spoken of the Church of the dispensation? Paul answers, "I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles." Is not that the dispensation? He speaks of the reconciling of the world in contrast with Judaism: is this not a question of the dispensation? He speaks of the lump being holy by means of the firstfruits; he speaks of a wild olive tree graffed in: is an individual the wild olive tree? And if he addresses himself to the individual conscience, it is to the Gentiles as enjoying the privilege of the dispensation, and not as to an individual he is speaking. Could he have spoken thus to a Jew? Clearly not. It is therefore perfectly certain that it is not here an entirely personal matter. Is the apostle speaking of an entirely personal matter when he concludes by saying, "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery . . . that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in"?

What the author says (p. 58, 2°) about two apostasies is so thoroughly absurd that I do not know how to take it up. Does he to such a degree count upon the credulity of his readers, or is it that his ignorance of the word has betrayed him? "He speaks," he says, of two apostasies; "and this would prove that there is no general apostasy, and then, that an apostasy does not destroy the Church for ever, since the first serves as a warning to avoid a second?" Is it possible? But, finally, there are two apostasies. Can one simply read Romans 11 without perceiving that it is the Jews who are fallen? I could not have supposed (I think I must say so) such blindness. What are the branches which have been the object of God's severity? Well, according to Mr. Wolff, this passage speaks of a past apostasy of the Jews (that is the first), and then of a future apostasy of the Gentiles (and that is the second); and the first serves as a warning to the second.

In this, Mr. Wolff, at least, sees clearly. He speaks of two apostasies, of a past apostasy, and of a future apostasy; and "the first serves as a warning to avoid the second," that is all perfectly well. But then it is perfectly clear that the first, of which the apostle speaks, was of the Jews, as a dispensation cut off. Well, the second is of the Gentiles; and this also is very clear, for he says, "I speak to you Gentiles." The Gentiles are threatened with the same thing, if they do not continue in the goodness of God; if that apostasy, even, takes place for the Gentiles only, Mr. Wolff cannot very rightly boast of it; there was no need of speaking of the Jews as a nation; the thing had already befallen them.

270 3. — The present state of the Church does prove a state of ruin.

As to what the writer says, page 59, I only see in it the spirit of Laodicea. If Mr. Wolff takes the trouble to read Acts 2 or Acts 4, he will understand the difference between our position and the one which is depicted in those chapters, without dreaming of taking advantage of the state of the Church of Corinth, a state which hindered the apostle even from visiting that church. For the rest, he has been unfortunate in alluding to Sardis, which according to many enlightened Christians is a prefiguration of protestantism; for — O! that consciences would awake! — the Lord says to that church, "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee."

Mr. Wolff may be content with such a state of things; but I do not think that the man who takes to heart the words of the Lord would seek an excuse in the face of such a threat from His mouth.

Moreover, it is not a question of the apostasy of a church, but of the state of the dispensation and of the Church. Faith ever identifies the glory of God and the people of God; it can present unto God His own people with unlimited confidence, resting on the ground of the faithfulness of God, and cannot bear with that which dishonours God in His people. Thus does Moses refuse to receive the glory of becoming the new stock of the people of God; he appeals to the glory of Jehovah Himself who had brought forth His people out of Egypt, praying even to be blotted out from the book, rather than the people; but when he was come down and when he saw the sin of his people, he said, "Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother." Then he took his tent "and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp." Those who "sought the Lord, went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation,* which was without the camp."

{*This name was a rather remarkable anticipation of the tabernacle which was to be pitched by God's command.}

271 4. — The notion of a visible Church is scriptural.

The word of God, it is said, does not intend any visible Church; that is to say that the word of God does not intend the manifestation of the glory of God and of His light in the Church (such is the doctrine opposed to us). It consents to this, that the Church should be one in glory, but not on earth. Here below, there are only churches.

One thing is certain, that, if this principle be true, all the National Churches, the Lutheran and the Presbyterian, are a public lie against the word of God; their unity is a human invention; they are not churches. The word of God, according to the pamphlet, only recognizes the Church in glory, and local churches as at Corinth, or at Sardis.

The thing is most simple and very evident: all the conclusion one has to draw from such reasoning is that those who patronize and circulate this pamphlet are disposed to use every means to oppose the truth which condemns their want of faith.

What is most painful in all this is, that they are content to sacrifice the glory of God in the Church, as well as their own system, if only they can persuade souls not to receive the light. Their system is not of faith. The light of faith once set aside, they hope, yet with little confidence, to uphold it against the attacks of unbelief.

But it is sad to see a system, which gives itself the name of the Church of God, exposed, like the Jews, to the hatred and contempt of the Gentiles, on the one hand, and, on the other, having against it the testimony of Christ and of His apostles — a system which denies its own privileges — a system subject to Caesar, which will neither acknowledge its bondage, nor follow the testimony of faith, which is the only means of deliverance — a system which is ripening for judgment, because it denies the power and the rights of the Holy Ghost. I have discussed this subject elsewhere.

272 The heart and conscience must acknowledge that the Church ought to be one, so as to be able to glorify the Lord on earth; a spiritual man will own this without any need of reasoning. But one must produce testimony from God for those who will not have it so, and in order that those who desire nothing but the glory of Christ may be strengthened and be able to close the mouths of adversaries. I do not call adversaries all those who hold contrary opinions. There are many children of God who are ignorant of the truth on this subject; there are also many who deceive themselves and who, dazzled by the pretension of those who oppose the truth, are carried away unwittingly. Mr. Rochat (who, with the Dissenters, opposed this truth) has acknowledged it publicly. He has acknowledged this sense of the word 'church,' namely, the aggregate of the elect on earth at a given period. I am content with that definition. Only such an expression brings out the cause of the opposition to this truth — that if the word 'church' has such a sense, it is certain that, in that sense, the Church is in a state of ruin. And here I do entreat Christians to give serious attention to this, that when our adversaries accuse me of denying that there is a Church on earth, it is by denying themselves that there has ever been one: if there was, then it is certain that all is in a state of ruin. They admit that there were Churches, but they say that there never was a Church. They feel that, if once this were admitted, the truth respecting our state must necessarily be admitted also; but, satisfied with themselves, they deny the existence of a Church of Christ on earth, rather than confess their sin.

On some objections to the word 'ruin': —

These objections, so many times repeated, seem to me puerile and only betray a conscience which does not like to face the question. The word 'ruin' is used in a moral sense, as well as in a material sense: and it is evident that such is the case, when it is applied to the Church. If I say that a man is ruined, the man still exists; if I say his reputation is ruined, it is not that he has none, but that it is a bad one. If I say that a thing has been the ruin of such a man, it is clear that I speak of the moral effect of such or such a thing, and that I do not mean that the man is no longer in existence. Moreover we have seen that Mr. Wolff himself uses the word.

273 Hence, when I say that the Church is ruined, or when I speak of the ruin of the Church, it is saying that the Church is not at all in its normal state; it is as if, for example, I said that the health of a man was ruined.

Those who oppose this, not being willing to acknowledge the state of misery in which we all are, yet feeling that if the Church in its unity was at the beginning the depositary of the glory of Christ it is so no longer, boldly deny that it ever was. Let us, then, go over a few passages on this important subject. Here is what Mr. Wolff himself says, "We will not stop to refute this notion of the visible Church, this notion being nothing else but that of papists," etc. "As to us, it is enough for us to know that it is spoken in scripture of a Church (in the singular) which God has purchased with His own blood," etc. "This Church has certainly never apostatized; it has never been either outward or visible. When it shall be complete, it will be visible in heaven This Church is always called in Scripture — in the singular and absolutely — the Church. By its side, we find churches, such as the church of Jerusalem, the church of Laodicea, the church that is in the house of Philemon, or in that of Priscilla and Aquila, etc. Those churches are visible, outward, independent of each other; but there is no mention whatever of their unity in one body. We deny that in Scripture a third church is ever mentioned. The Church, and the churches: such is the only distinction it admits. I know that the idea of a visible Church, the body of Christ, is necessary to the invention of the apostasy, and that it serves as its basis."

First, we again find here the entire overthrow of all ideas of nationalism. There is a Church which has never been either outward or visible. The churches are independent one of another. "In effect, wherever there is ever so little spiritual activity, the old systems must fall.["] But this is singular, that the great champion of the independent churches, Mr. Rochat, is compelled to own that there is a third sense of the word 'church'; and that Mr. F. Olivier, who also opposes the views that Mr. Wolff combats, has been obliged to acknowledge the apostasy in his pamphlet, and that he has given on the subject the most striking and painful details: only he wants one to say "kingdom" and not "church"; but he is agreed as to the thing itself. For my part, I insist on this point, namely, that the kingdom cannot apostatize because of the king; but let us now pass on. The apostasy, according to Mr. Olivier, exists.*

{*We might add, and also according to Mr. Gaussen; for in his pamphlet, "The Sovereign Pontiff and the Church of Rome, pillars of the truth," etc., he applies 2 Thessalonians 2 to the papal system, as does also the French Reformed Church. Thus according to him, the apostasy is come; and we must pay attention to this, that it is not a question of the apostasy of a particular church, but of the apostasy which is to bring down judgments which will be executed at the coming of the Saviour. One may consult also "Abridged History of the Church of Jesus Christ," etc., Geneva, 1832, vol. 1, pp. 51-133, where it will be seen how the writer speaks of the Church, both in the text and in notes L.M., pp, 100, 100.}

274 I now come to quotations. The reader will think perhaps that Jerusalem, Laodicea, the house of Philemon, are just thrown out without design. Not at all; this book is full of art. It is said of the church at Jerusalem, "The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." If the church at Jerusalem was not a particular church, as the writer would lead one to suppose by introducing it thus as if by chance, we should have here a most positive passage as to the Church, as one and visible here below. Laodicea is chosen, because it is said of that church, "I will spue thee out of my mouth"; and if this were anything more than the rejection of a particular church, it would be the Church rejected on earth. I have sought to be charitable: but this pamphlet is full of similar stratagems. The church in the house of Philemon, in order to be enabled to apply the church titles and functions to every small assembly. Translate: "the assembly in thy house," and these mysterious ideas of organization will soon disappear.

Let us now consider what concerns the church of Jerusalem. We must remember that the Church, which is one, according to Mr. Wolff will only be so in glory: "It has never been outward nor visible. When it shall be completed, it will be visible in heaven."

The Church therefore does not exist; that is very clear. There is only the gathering in of the members one by one. It does not exist; one may lay it aside, save in the cases where the word speaks of it prophetically, or anticipatively, in hope, realized in spirit; but all action applied to a church on earth does not apply to it. For instance, it is clear that Hebrews 12: 23 applies to it anticipatively; it is of the whole assembly, which will be visible in glory, that the word speaks anticipatively. And this assembly, according to me, was also manifested on earth, but I admit the application given by Mr. Wolff. That does not remove any difficulty, for here is what is said of the church at Jerusalem: "All that believed were together, and had all things common . . . . And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." There is a Church which was one and a visible church; that is very clear; but it is not said that the Lord added to the church of Jerusalem such as should be saved (this is the expression used to designate the spared ones among the Jews, "the remnant according to the election of grace"); but He added them to the Church. We must recollect that there were persons "out of every nation under heaven"; but that Jerusalem was still the centre of the operation of the Holy Ghost. It was there God had begun to gather together the elect; they had been gathered together nowhere else. God, in His sovereign providence, gathers together Jews from all sides, and by the power of the Spirit He forms, unto the name of Christ, an assembly where are found the twelve apostles. Can any one believe that, when the Holy Ghost calls this the Church, He is only speaking of a church which is independent of other churches? No, where else is it said, of any particular church: "the Lord added to the church . . . such as should be saved"? We can understand it when God, ready to judge the Jews and Jerusalem, transferred His elect, daily, into another system, into the Church. Some time after, this body sends out decrees everywhere: does that look like the independence of the churches, of which Jerusalem was only one? Finally, it is not said that God added to the church of Jerusalem, but "to the church," to a church (in the singular), and in an absolute way to the Church according to the writer's own expressions (p. 60).

275 The passage, Acts 20: 28, which the writer quotes in favour of his opinion, can hardly bear the interpretation he puts upon it; for it would be difficult to say how the elders feed the Church, if the Church was not outward, nor visible, and if, indeed, as a Church, it had even no existence. If (as Mr. Wolff says here, p. 61) Acts 20: 28 applies to what is composed of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven, it was not therefore the flock at Ephesus; and he owns this: "It is a church," he says, "in the singular," a church which is not visible, but which will be visible in heaven. But, in that case, how can it be fed on earth, if it did not exist there? For that is the Church which has to be fed, which Christ has purchased — that Church, in the singular. Consequently it was on earth, and it was a flock of God with which the bishops could be occupied according to their position.

276 But there are passages which are too evident for it to be necessary to employ much reasoning. Paul gives directions to Timothy, "that thou mayest know," he says, "how thou oughtest to behave thyself" — rather "how one ought to conduct oneself" — "in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth," 1 Tim. 3: 15. This cannot be said of a particular church, unless it be as an opportunity, as it happened with regard to Ephesus; Acts 20: 28. Certainly it is clear that it is not a question of Timothy's conduct in the Church gathered on high in glory. Therefore, the Church in the singular, the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, was really something owned of God on earth.

In Ephesians 4: 4 we have one Spirit and one body; Christians being "builded together," Jews and Gentiles, to be "an habitation of God through the Spirit." Such is our calling. But, in that case, "the whole body fitly joined together and compacted" "maketh increase" by the working of the members, "according to the effectual working in the measure of every part . . . unto the edifying of itself in love." Here then is, expressly, the unity of the body on earth.

1 Corinthians 12: 13. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." In verses 27, 28: "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first apostles . . . after that miracles, then gifts of healings." Here is the Church in the singular in an absolute way. It is very certain that the apostles were not all in the church of Corinth, and not less certain that the gifts of healings were not in heaven. This is a passage which requires no reasoning. The unity of the body, of the Church, on earth — this is what the passage affirms most expressly.*

{*The reader may further consult Matthew 16: 18; Galatians 1: 13; Ephesians 3: 10, 21; ch 24, 29, 32; Philippians 3: 6; Colossians 1: 24.}

John 17. The Lord asks that those who should believe through the words of the apostles might be one, "that the world might believe that the Father had sent him." Then He adds, without praying: "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; . . . that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." Here we have the glory presented as a means of their being made perfect in one, and as a means of making known to the world that the Father has sent Jesus, and that He loves all those that Jesus has saved, as He loves Jesus Himself. And Jesus prays also that they may be one--those who believe through the word of the apostles, that the world may believe. This must evidently take place on earth, as the glory will take place in heaven.

277 The writer of the theses has felt all the importance of this question. If the unity of the Church on earth is a truth, he understands that he cannot deny the present state of things; but it is evident that to escape the effect of such a truth, and the judgment which such a truth pronounces on their position, those persons deny a truth which is positively proclaimed in the word — and one of the most important truths.

Mr. Wolff passes over 2 Timothy 3 and the epistle of Jude, without stopping to consider them, saying, that in those passages, it is so far from being a question of the apostasy of the Church, etc. (p. 60). It does not seem to me, that to say that perilous times should come, when men would have a form of godliness while denying the power thereof, is to say nothing of the fall or the ruin of the dispensation. The first of these passages is a description of the general state of things in Christendom, a state which proves that those who profess Christianity are become corrupt, like the heathen of old; for what is said of Christendom (2 Tim. 3) is very similar to the picture which Romans 1 traces of the corruption of the heathen. As to the epistle of Jude, what it says of some persons who had already crept into the Church, and who were to be the objects of the judgments of Christ on the ungodly, seems to me rather an important circumstance. It is rather a serious revelation, which shews that it was in the bosom of the Church that the objects of the most terrible judgments of God were found. It appears that Mr. Wolff attaches little importance to this; but it is, alas! to attach little importance to the glory of God in His people. Such is the awful evil which these pamphlets disclose.

As to the progress of the evil, of the mystery of iniquity, this is what I have to say about it. One may, indeed, present the difficulty, that it is Christendom, and not the Church, that is in a state of ruin.

278 Here is my answer: The evil has begun in the Church; Christians have, in principle, fallen into Judaism. The door has been opened to false brethren; and this, by degrees, has formed Christendom! Thus the Church has lost its unity, its power, and its holiness, and has ceased to bear witness to God in the world; and what is called "the church" is now the centre and the power of evil and corruption in the world. After all this, there will be an open revolt, and the lawless one, the man of sin, will be manifested. Thus the fault has begun with the Church, with Christians. Moreover, although Christians may separate themselves from this evil (2 Tim. 3: 5), this does not prevent the state of things, the dispensation, from being entirely marred, nor God's putting an end to it by His judgments to make room for Christ and His glory. Thus, although the elect are glorified with Him, it is none the less true that all will be cut off here below. It was thus that God put an end to the kingdom of Saul to make room for David; and to Judaism to make room for the Church, although, at all times, He has saved the elect. The gates of Hades shall not prevail against the Church; but it is the resurrection which will be the proof of it; for the Son of the living God is mightier than he who has the power of death. This does not prevent God from removing His elect to heaven, in order to send His judgments on the inhabitants of the earth — to destroy those who corrupt the earth.

The repentance of a particular church is not the restoring of a fallen dispensation, as Mr. Wolff pretends (pp. 63, 3°, 64, 4°), alleging even the example of the Jewish dispensation in its falls and restorations; for, after all, as we see, they are reduced to speak of the fall of a dispensation. The writer even goes so far as to say (p. 64, 4°) that "every time there were men who feared God, they restored the whole dispensation, and partook of all its blessings." This is inconceivably bold. Did the faithfulness of some men fearing God restore the unity of the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah? Did it throw down the golden calves? Did it identify the Israelites with the temple and altar of God? Never. Did the piety of Josiah turn away the wrath of God from Judah? No: after the account of what Josiah did, when he "turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might" (2 Kings 23: 25), it is added (v. 26), "Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal." Was the whole dispensation restored? Or did the men who feared God partake of all the blessings of the dispensation, when they said, like Isaiah, "We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before thee," etc.? (Isa. 59: 10-12). Did the men who feared God partake of all the blessings when Jeremiah said that he who should flee to the Chaldeans would save his life (Jer. 21: 19)? Were all the blessings of the dispensation enjoyed when there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal? Was it so after the Babylonian captivity, when there was no longer the ark, no longer the Urim and the Thummim? For it was only later that God put an end to all hope, when they had rejected the testimony of the Messiah. Does any one dare to say that the Jews enjoyed all the blessings of the dispensation, when, according to Mr. Wolff, Jesus acknowledged it with all its institutions? Was that enjoying all the blessings of the dispensation — to be subject to the Gentiles, and to have been delivered by God into their hands? (See Neh. 9: 36, 37.) Was that enjoying all the blessings of the dispensation — to buy the high priesthood for money?

279 I am not surprised that one who could speak of the Jews as enjoying all the blessings of the dispensation, finds the Church in as good a position as at the beginning. Mr. Wolff's parallel is correct enough.

As for me, I see but one thing — the faith of the godly woman who spoke of the coming of Jesus "to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." It appears that, on the one hand, these persons who looked for redemption in Israel knew one another, and that, on the other hand, they knew the ruin and judgment which had fallen upon Israel; because the Israelites also thought that they were enjoying all the blessings of the dispensation, and because they thought they were rich and had need of nothing. Thus it was that the light which had come in grace was found to be for judgment. In this sense, Christ overthrew the Jewish dispensation; but whose was the fault? Who was it, on the one hand, that said, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind"? And who was it, on the other, who judged that they might get rid of Jesus, in order to avert the consequences which their folly in acting thus has brought down on their head? When there is a conflict, in faith alone is there wisdom. But I admit that one who finds that Israel enjoyed all the blessings of the dispensation even unto the coming of Christ, and that the history of Israel is a proof that a dispensation cannot fail or be cut off — that one, I say, who can assert that Israel is a proof of this — Israel deprived of everything — Israel, on whose forehead God has written "Lo-ammi," not my people — that such a one may very well believe the same thing also of himself and of the Church of God. But how can I depict my grief in insisting on these things! I feel that the more earnestly the light is presented to them, the more those whom I love (for whom I could say with Paul or Moses, Blot me out rather from Thy book; for I cannot refrain from seeing that what is now a fallen dispensation was once the beloved bride of Christ — that it is always such as to its responsibility and its duty) — I feel that the more earnestly the light is presented to them, the more it is pressed upon them, the more deeply will they sink into darkness. But what is to be done? Can we leave those who love the light without a warning when the judgments are approaching? We cannot. May God grant us only to conduct ourselves by His Spirit in love, and with such patience as is never weary towards them, and to commit everything else to Himself!

280 The writer does not stop there; he adds (p. 64, 5°), that to speak of the ruin of the dispensation, is to be guilty of an insult against God and other things besides; but it is quite unnecessary to answer such reproach.

God, having placed man under responsibility, will cause the lie of man to abound unto His glory — I have no doubt of it; but nevertheless He will not fail to judge man's wickedness on that account. There was only a very small number of the elect who enjoyed the first blessings of Israel, and, certainly among the ten tribes, they were not enjoyed. And what do we see in the Church? Already, in Paul's day, he said, "All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's," Phil. 2. And he knew that evil would enter in after his departure; Acts 20.

According to Mr. Wolff himself, there remains not a single gift. It is at least very singular, if we enjoy all the blessings of the dispensation, that not one gift remains.

281 Finally, the writer goes still farther, and says (p. 65, 6°), that "if the dispensation is ruined, we are without any commands or any directions from God; we have no longer any right to the use of the sacraments, or to the common worship of the faithful. Nothing remains to us of the dispensation but its ruins. There is not in Scripture one single precept, not one single commandment of the Lord, which can be applied to us, and that we are bound to obey. We can neither attain to the holiness to which the first Christians were exhorted, nor bear any responsibility," etc. It may be that the writer cannot find anything, if everything is not there. For my part, I believe that "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant." I believe that ministry subsists, and that, although there is nobody who can order or settle everything as an apostle would do, it is none the less true that "where two or three are gathered together" in the name of Jesus, He is "in the midst of them"; and that the word of God provides for the wants of His people in their present state, as in every other state. When, by His judgments, God had deprived Israel of the prophets and of the Urim and the Thummim, the writer might have expressed the same complaints and reproach; but this reproach I find very ill placed in the mouth of one who declares that not a single gift remains to the Church. This would lead one to suppose that, in the writer's opinion, gifts were not a means of sanctification. But there are precepts for the "perilous times" as there were for the times of blessing, when "great grace was upon them all," when none said "that aught of the things which he possessed was his own," Acts 4. God never forsakes His people.

CHAPTER 15

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 15, WHERE HE SHEWS THAT MINISTRY IS NOT THE EXERCISE OF A GIFT.

I have already replied to this chapter. I only need to recall the passage of Peter, "As every man hath received the gift [charisma], even so minister the same [diakoneo] one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."

Mr. Wolff says, "Ministry is not the exercise of a gift." The word declares in as many words (1 Pet. 4: 10), that ministry is the exercise of a gift. Mr. Wolff quotes this passage as speaking of gifts properly so called, in order to shew that such a gift cannot exist now; but there must be a singular preoccupation of mind not to see that ministry and gift are absolutely identical in this passage.

282 Further, all the passages quoted by Mr. Wolff, as giving us classification of ministries, are, in the word, lists of gifts (domata) (Ephesians 4); charismata (1 Corinthians 12). The idea of a maximum of ministry, of gifts, is to me quite new. Indeed it was perhaps the principle of dissenters to choose the person who, in their eyes, had the most gifts. It may so happen that inferior gifts are not exercised, when there are superior gifts; and it may so happen for better or for worse. "The spirits of the prophets" were "subject to the prophets," however miraculous even the gift might be. To suppress an inferior gift is an evil; but if, in a given case, there be, according to the Spirit, on such or such an occasion, more edification in a superior gift, the rule of the word is "Let all things be done unto edifying." The fact that Paul spoke during the whole night does in no wise shew that there were no gifts at Troas; any more than his discourse at Miletus shews that the bishops of Ephesus had none. In the case of the bishops it was not a question of gifts, except in a practical way that of feeding: but this does not affect all other ministry.

The notion of a person returning from a place as bishop, because he had exercised his gift where it might be profitable to brethren, is nothing more than the dream of the writer.* The bishop is a charge, and, according to the writer himself, a charge and a gift are two distinct things. A church cannot limit the number of its ministers, because the ministers are not its ministers but those of Jesus Christ, exercising their gifts as service in the body. The word of God gives rules for the edification of assemblies, that all may speak, and all may be edified. As to this, it matters not if it be pastor or prophet, it is a question of abstract reasoning on the inconvenience which might result from several gifts.

{*It is a dream he would wish us to realise (p. 44).}

To say that 1 Corinthians 12: 4, 5, 28, distinguishes between gifts and ministry, is a sad specimen of interpretation. We shall speak of this when we discuss the cessation of gifts.

On the Presence and Action of the Holy Ghost in the Church,

in answer to the work of Mr. P. Wolff, entitled,

"Ministry as opposed to Hierarchism and chiefly to Religious Radicalism,"

Valence, 1844

J. N. Darby.

<03007F> {file section d.}

283 CHAPTER 16

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 16, WHERE THIS WRITER PRETENDS TO PROVE, BY TWENTY-FIVE REASONS, THAT THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST HAVE ALL CEASED.

The writer begins his demonstration by rather a remarkable avowal. It is, that the existence of gifts by the side of ministry is impossible — at least by the side of such a ministry as Mr. Wolff will have. In order that his ministry may exist, it is necessary that gifts should have absolutely ceased. I believe it. It is on this point the popish system (that is, a ministry which has God's authority, having its vocation from Him, without dependence on the Holy Ghost, and without flowing from His energy, without partaking either of His gifts): and so true is this, that if there were gifts, it would no longer subsist. It is important well to understand this position. The basis of the whole pamphlet is the absolute incompatibility of ministry (according to the system of Mr. Wolff and his party) with the existence of the active energy and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Yes, the writer says so (p. 69): "To pretend to the present existence of gifts is to establish by the side of ministry a rival power which hinders it, which enervates it, and which, by placing itself above it, ends either by killing it, or by forcing it to throw itself into clerical despotism in order to maintain its rank and its dignity." What a confession! But at least we can bless God that He has been pleased to compel our adversaries thus to avow what is true as to their system. The Holy Ghost must be excluded! This is what decided me on that point many years ago; but I did not expect to find a public avowal of it.

The writer seeks to avoid setting everybody against him by admitting brotherly exhortation; but even this resource the word takes from him; for exhortation is a gift (charisma) according to the word (Rom. 12: 6-8).

This subject is most important, and it is worth while examining it somewhat thoroughly.

According to Mr. Wolff, the source of error about gifts (p. 70, 1°) is in this, that the gift of the Holy Ghost has been confounded with the gifts or graces of the Holy Ghost.

I admit the difference which exists between the gift of the Holy Ghost and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but not in the least for the reasons given by Mr. Wolff; reasons which appear to me false and contradictory, and which overthrow the whole teaching of the word of God on the subject. When one speaks of the gift of the Holy Ghost, it is the Holy Ghost Himself who is given. The expression itself is only found once, in a direct way, in the word; nevertheless it is alluded to elsewhere. When one speaks of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, one speaks of what the Holy Ghost has given. As, for instance, 1 Corinthians 12: 8, "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit," etc. These are evidently gifts of the Holy Ghost, and not the gift of the Holy Ghost, that is, the Holy Ghost given. But Mr. Wolff confounds all that.

284 I admit that charisma is used for the gifts bestowed by the Holy Ghost; but this word is used in a much more general way. Hence Mr. Wolff contradicts himself by saying exclusively, as we shall see; but we shall speak of it farther on. Let it suffice for the present that I admit the use of the word charisma, not as the only word used for gifts, but when it is a question of gifts: these gifts are the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Let us see now what is absolutely lacking to us according to Mr. Wolff's system, who will have it that gifts no longer exist. With this object let us examine the things to which the expression applies in the word.

In Romans 12 we find the following enumeration: prophecy, ministry or service, teaching, exhortation, ruling, shewing mercy. I stop there, because in what follows practical grace takes the place of gifts by a kind of imperceptible transition. "Let love be without dissimulation," is what follows; but all the things I have quoted are charismata. These things no longer exist in the Church according to Mr. Wolff.

In 1 Corinthians 12: 8-11 we read that it is by the Spirit that are given the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, the gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, the interpretation of tongues: it is the Spirit who worketh all these things. Lower down (v. 28), apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, governments, tongues — all these things are gifts. Consequently, according to Mr. Wolff, all these things are wanting to the Church.

We read (1 Pet. 4: 10, 11), "If any man speak . . . if any man minister," or exercise ministry. These things also, speaking, exercising ministry, are gifts (charismata). Consequently these things are wanting, according to Mr. Wolff.

285 Let it not be supposed that I am forcing anything. The writer (p. 71) quotes these passages, save 1 Peter 4: 11, as speaking of the gifts which no longer exist. He adds (p. 74) that "whoever may speak in the church has certainly not a gift, because of this." Not only then there does not exist, and cannot exist, either miracles or tongues; but further, there cannot exist either teaching or ministry (or service), or exhortation, or ruling, or faith, or governments, or word of wisdom, or word of knowledge, any more than apostles or prophets; one cannot speak nor serve either, for if any one speaks, he is bound to do it as having a gift (charisma). In spite of all that, we are told that where there are a few faithful men, one enjoys all the blessings of the dispensation! !

Such is, if we take the words and the passages according to Mr. Wolff's interpretation, the effect of his principles.

But further, there is a passage where it is a question of gifts, a passage which Mr. Wolff has omitted — it is Ephesians 4. It is true that the word charisma is not found there, but it is equally gifts, and gifts presented in the same character as in 1 Corinthians 12, presented under a very important aspect, as being members of the body (Eph. 4). There is one Spirit and one body, and Christ having ascended up on high, gave gifts unto men (domata): apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors. Perhaps Mr. Wolff wishes these to be ministries, but the word calls them gifts (domata), and not ministries. And it is a question of the one body which answers to the one Spirit (v. 4), as well as in the passage, 1 Corinthians 12; the Church being the habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2: 22). Thus — always according to Mr. Wolff — there are neither pastors nor evangelists either, if gifts no longer exist, It is of no use saying they are admitted as ministries; the word of God only presents them to us as gifts; we are here not to invent a system, but to receive what the word reveals and declares. That is what Mr. Wolff pretends he is doing. In that case, I ask him in what passage these things are presented as ministries and not as gifts (except, that what is true, and what he denies, the word of God, in the most positive manner, presents ministry as the exercise of a gift). Let a person read Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4: 10, 11; and then let him tell us if these things are presented as gifts or not; if they are gifts, we must no longer, according to Mr. Wolff, seek them at the present day in the Church, gifts having ceased.

286 But there is something to point out as to the use of the words. First, the word charisma is used very generally in the word for a free gift, as in Romans 5: 15, 16, where it is used indiscriminately with dorea and charis and dorema. The difference is this, that charisma and dorema signify rather the thing given: dorea and charis, the former the free character of the gift, as with an intention to express that it is a gift; the latter, charis, expresses the grace, the principle by virtue of which one gives freely.

There is something more. Mr. Wolff distinguishes (p. 70, 1°) between "the gift of the Holy Ghost, which every Christian receives when he believes, and the supernatural gifts which are produced by the same Spirit."

Although a person now may receive the Holy Ghost at the very moment he believes, it is nevertheless evident that the disciples, who had believed, had not received the Holy Ghost during the life of Christ here below. We read in John 7: 39, "This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive"; and Peter says to the Jews, "Repent, and be baptized . . . and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." I suppose that this is to receive the Holy Ghost when one believes. Now this is dorea, the gift of the Holy Ghost; but this word is used to designate the gift of the Holy Ghost which Cornelius received (Acts 10: 45), of which gift Peter says that it was the same thing which they had themselves received at Pentecost (Acts 10: 47). It is certain that when the Lord (John 7: 39) speaks "of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet," He does not speak of grace to believe, but of what came to pass on the day of Pentecost, of what happened to Cornelius, to those of Samaria, of the gift concerning which Peter said, "The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." But, in all these cases, it was receiving the Holy Ghost after having believed. (See Acts 2: 31; ch. 10: 46; ch. 11: 17; ch. 8: 20.)

But all that, according to Mr. Wolff, was only miraculous gifts, gifts that were independent of the gift of the Holy Ghost. It matters not that the Lord spoke "of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." It matters not that Peter said, "Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." It matters not that in Acts 8 it is said, "For as yet he was fallen upon none of them"; and that Simon saw that "they received the Holy Ghost" thus, that "the Holy Ghost was given" thus. It matters not that Peter called it "the gift of God," dorean. It matters not that this gift was "the promise of the Father" (Acts 1: 4; ch. 2: 33), even the Comforter, of whom He had spoken who was now ascended to the Father. (Compare Ephesians 4; Acts 2: 33; John 16; Luke 24: 49.) It matters not that this Comforter was to ABIDE FOR EVER with the Church, and that the promise was for as many as the Lord should call; Acts 2. All that was only miraculous gifts, independent of the gifts of the Holy Ghost; and consequently all has completely and equally ceased. Those are the only passages which speak of the gift of the Holy Ghost, of receiving the Holy Ghost. Page 73, 15°, Mr. Wolff disposes of the passages in Acts 10: 45; ch. 11: 17; ch. 2: 4, 33, 38. Page 71, 6°, he disposes of Acts 8: all that, according to him, was independent of the gift of the Holy Ghost, it was miraculous gifts. But the fact is, that we must in the same way dispose of the seal of the Holy Ghost (Eph. 4: 30; ch. 1: 13): for it is the Holy Spirit of promise. See Acts 2: 33, 38; ch. 1: 4; Luke 24: 49.

287 Let us remember that, although Mr. Wolff disposes of these passages as referring to miraculous gifts, they are the passages which speak of the gift of the Holy Ghost, dorean, which he distinguishes (p. 70, 7°) from gifts, charismata, and which also, at the same time, are not the gift of the Holy Ghost, but the gifts which have ceased. That is, the whole system is false from one end to the other, and is nothing but confusion. It was the Holy Ghost who was received, whatever might be the manifestations of His presence.

I admit the difference between the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the gifts which the Holy Ghost gave; but I affirm that what was given at Pentecost, at Samaria, at Joppa, was the gift of the Holy Ghost who was promised: I affirm it, because the word of God says so in the passages quoted.

Having proved the falsehood and the contradictions of Mr. Wolff's system, I will shew what the word of God says on the subject — a subject of great importance.

First, although the Holy Ghost has acted from the beginning in creation, although He has from that time acted in the soul, acted in the prophets and others as a divine Being, as God, using them as His instruments, He had not descended to take His place and dwell on earth, as He has done in the Church. The glorification of Christ, of the Son of man, was necessary for that. This is what is said in John 7: 39; chaps 14, 15, 16; Luke 24: 49, and in the beginning of Acts, as, for instance, Acts 2: 33, a passage already quoted: Christ glorified, ascended on high, sends from the Father, and the Father sends, in His name, that other Comforter who was to abide for ever, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Ghost. This Comforter, witness of the glory of Christ, was the seal of faith in that glory, and the revealer of all the truth. Himself, the God of love, and fruit of that love for the soul, shed it abroad in the heart; it was the Holy Ghost Himself who was given, the Holy Ghost who had been promised, and who was the seal of faith, the seal of him who believed (John 7; Eph. 1: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 21, 22.) That it was the Holy Ghost Himself who was thus given, is what is proved by the passages quoted from John and Luke, and by their accomplishment in the beginning of Acts.

288 We have seen that this gift was to abide for ever, and that it was for as many as the Lord should call. We may add that we are builded together to be the "habitation of God through the Spirit," and that the Spirit dwells not only in the individual, but in the body;* a truth Mr. Wolff has entirely lost sight of, except to deny the unity which results from it. See Ephesians 2: 21, 22; 1 Corinthians 3: 9, 16; Ephesians 4: 4.

{*[The reader will find in the author's later papers a correction of the phrase. Church here would be more exact than "body." This dwelling of the Spirit is in relation to the assembly viewed as God's habitation, house, or temple, rather than as the body of Christ. — ED.]}

Let us now see what are the effects of the presence of the Holy Ghost, of that glorious gift of God. Let us remember that the word of God only speaks of the gift of the Holy Ghost, in speaking of the Comforter, of what came to pass on the day of Pentecost, and of that which corresponds to that day.

First, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

The little children in Christ have the unction of the Holy Ghost, and know all things; 1 John 2. I suppose it will not be denied that this is the Holy Ghost. We are anointed, sealed, and we have the earnest of the Holy Ghost in the heart; 2 Cor. 1: 21, 22. We possess Him — that Comforter — as the earnest of the inheritance; we are sealed — we are "sealed unto the day of redemption," Eph. 1: 13; ch. 4: 30. He is a Spirit of adoption in our hearts, so that we enjoy our relationship with the Father; Gal. 4: 6.

289 He gives us the certainty that we are in Christ; 1 John 3: 24. He lusts in us against the flesh, and produces fruits; Gal. 5: 17, 22. He sets free, quickens, puts to death the deeds of the body, leads, cries Abba, Father; He bears witness Himself that we are children, and sympathizes with our infirmities; (Rom. 8). He leads us into all the truth, communicates unto us that which is of Christ; He is the same who was to shew the things to come (John 16), the Comforter.

He it is — and the same He is — by whom the apostles received spiritual things, were able to communicate them, and by whom, thereupon, others were able to discern them; 1 Cor. 2: 12, 15. And here observe, that it is the same Spirit whom the apostles received in order to know the things of God, and by whom others have discerned them; that is, the apostolic gift of revelation and of communication, and the gift of spiritual understanding in the simple believer.

He is the same Spirit who unites the body (1 Cor. 12: 13); we have all been baptized in the power of one Spirit, to be one body.

This is what must be given up, if one has to give up the gift of the Holy Ghost (dorea), the gift Mr Wolff calls "miraculous gifts."

No, it will be told us — no: the miraculous gifts alone are denied. But I reply that the Holy Ghost whom we have received, the dorea, is what Mr. Wolff calls "miraculous gifts"; that is what was given to the hundred and twenty at Pentecost, what was given to Cornelius, etc. It is He who gave to the apostles to know the truth, and who gave to others to discern the truth — He who was in all the believers the earnest of the inheritance — who was the Holy Ghost of promise, that is, the gift (dorea) given at Pentecost.

He who led into all truth was the same as He who shewed the things to come. The fact is, that it is the Holy Spirit Himself, the third Person of the Trinity, who came down from heaven, as the second did at the time of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. What He does is another thing, which follows after the fact of His presence. If He sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, or if He causes some to speak divers tongues, it is always the same Spirit; or if His presence proves the sin of the world and the righteousness of God, it is always the Holy Ghost Himself who is there — who produces spiritual fruits, or who acts in whatever way it may be; who gives liberty and causes to abound in hope. Jesus Christ Himself was brought again from among the dead by the same Spirit, who was the Spirit of holiness in Him; our dead bodies will be raised on account of His Spirit who dwells in us; Rom. 1: 4; ch. 8: 9-11.

290 The epistle to the Galatians presents to us in a very distinct way this gift of the Holy Ghost, which marks the present dispensation in all its forms, its moral and miraculous effects. He who is led by the Spirit is not under law. The fruits of the Spirit are love, faith, peace, etc. If one walk in the Spirit, one does not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. The Spirit lusts against the flesh; Gal. 5: 18, 22, 26. At the same time, we are told that we have received the Spirit, not by works of law, but by the hearing of faith; Gal. 3: 2. He who ministered to them the Spirit, and worked miracles among them, did it, not by works of law, but by the hearing of faith. Christ had borne the curse, in order that "the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles," and they "might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith," Gal. 3: 14. Here we clearly see what Spirit was received through faith. There was only that Spirit received through faith, who was followed with miracles and who was thus recognized. Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, and thus fitted for the service to which he was called, bears an irresistible testimony, on account of "the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake." Was it another Spirit who rendered him fit for the service of tables (Acts 6: 3), and by whom he confounded his adversaries (Acts 6: 8, 10)? or is it not true that those who have served well "purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus," 1 Tim. 3: 13? And if Timothy had received a gift by the putting on of hands, a charisma (2 Tim. 1: 6), he must stir it up, because "God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Are we to give up also power, love, and a sound mind? Compare Romans 8: 15. This is what Mr. Wolff (p. 72, 9°) puts in direct contrast with the Spirit who sanctifies. When Timothy is exhorted to "keep, by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us," that good thing which was committed to him, was it a question of something different from the Holy Ghost given — the Comforter? If we wait "through the Spirit" (Gal. 5: 5), it is by this same Comforter who is given.

291 If we examine the epistle to the Ephesians, we find one and the same Spirit presented also as working in every way, among the rest in that which Mr. Wolff (p. 72, 10°) declares to be merely miraculous, and this, moreover, I do not deny. He is (Eph. 1: 13, 14) the earnest of the inheritance, the seal of those who have believed, the Holy Spirit of promise. He is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ (v. 17). They had, Jew and Gentile, "access by one Spirit unto the Father" (chap. 2: 18); they were, Jews and Gentiles, "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (v. 22); that is to say, God dwelt there, through the Spirit, as in a tabernacle. It was the same Spirit who revealed to men the mystery by the holy apostles and prophets. It is this same Spirit who strengthens in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in him by faith (chap. 3: 5, 16). There is "one body, and one Spirit" of unity (chap. 4: 3, 1); but "unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ" (doreas)--the word used for the gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. It is the same Spirit whom we must not grieve (v. 30). We ought (chap. 5: 18) to be "filled with the Spirit . . . singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." But here we have, very probably at least, an act which is accompanied with that which was miraculous — "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs"; yet, are we forbidden to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and to sing in our hearts, because the miraculous act has ceased? for one must go as far as this. The word is "the sword of the Spirit": we must pray "in the Spirit" (chap. 6: 17, 18). Here then we see one and the same Spirit acting and manifesting Himself in every way — a Spirit whose presence answered to the presence of God in the tabernacle, and who acted in knowledge, in prayer, by the word, in unity, giving sometimes a psalm or a spiritual song; but it is always the same Spirit, the Person of the Holy Ghost as present, and revealing the presence of God in the Church. I have said enough to shew how the word of God speaks on this subject; I can now briefly state what the word of God presents.

The Holy Ghost has come, in person, on earth in the Church; He is present in Person; He is some one who can be grieved. He is present in two ways — in the individual and in the Church: "Ye are the temple of God, and . . . the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," 1 Cor. 3: 16. "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," 1 Cor. 6: 19. He is, Himself, the gift (dorea) of God, sent by the Son, sent by the Father. Therefore, while He is God, we do not find that prayer is addressed to Him: not that all praise be not due to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but because He is always looked upon as on earth, as the Son was there; and He does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies the Father and the Son, and He is the source of all prayer and praise to the Father who gave Him, and to the Son who is glorified.

292 But, just as the Holy Ghost is the gift, so also, as the sovereign Spirit, as God, He gives, He "divides to every man severally as he will"; and there we find the gifts, the charismata. These may vary ad infinitum, may be more definitely marked, or modified, or lost. In this sense, practically, the Spirit may be quenched in the manifestation of His gifts, or the exercise of these same gifts may be despised. But the Holy Ghost Himself is there unto the end, not only as the sanctifying Spirit, as if it were something different, or, so to speak, another Spirit: it is the Holy Ghost Himself who maintains the rights of Christ, who represents Him, who is the other Comforter sent by the Father and by the Son (and it is not only in individuals, but in the Church) who acts in the Church in righteousness, but as sovereign also.

The manifestation of the Spirit may take place in such or such a way; but it is the Holy Ghost who is there, who manifests Himself. And this presence of the Holy Ghost was so really the presence of God in the Church, His tabernacle, that when Ananias and Sapphira sought to deceive the disciples, the apostle said, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God." And God, as we know, exercised judgment as in His own house, and both the man and the wife, who had agreed together for that, fell down dead.

Was this a question of gifts only, or of the presence of God in the Church by the Holy Ghost? In effect, one of the functions of Jesus Christ, announced by John the Baptist, was, to baptize with the Holy Ghost; this came to pass on the day of Pentecost; Acts 1: 5. Has the Church then entirely lost the baptism of the Holy Ghost? It was, according to Mr. Wolff, the communication of gifts. It is then that the Church was endued with power from on high. Is that power entirely lost? It is very clear that it is not only a question of gifts, if all this be lost, but of the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself in the Church. And mark here that, in speaking of gifts, it is said (1 Cor. 12: 13), "By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews," etc. We see clearly by this expression in what way gifts were connected with Him who, by His presence, constituted the unity of the whole body, and the existence of the Church as established here below, and in fact for ever.

293 The Holy Ghost having come from God, at the same time being God, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Being sent by the Father, He is a Spirit of adoption. Being the Spirit of Christ, He forms our affections and our walk according to the pattern of Christ. Sent, because the Son of man, rejected on earth, was received at the right hand of God, He is especially the witness of the glory of the Son of man, and of the grace that can flow out to the world as following after His glorification. Hence He comes on all flesh, and not only on the Jews; so that here grace and gifts are identified, for instance, in the tongues. The Holy Ghost overflows the narrow limits of Judaism, and, extending to the judgment of Babel, He reveals to all nations, to each in its own tongue, "the wonderful works of God." It was a gift, but it was also a remarkable testimony to grace. Miracles bear the same testimony; they shew that God in goodness had come into the midst of the evil, and both overruled and cast out the power of the prince of this world; for such was the effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost. It was God who in grace had come into the midst of the world, having the Church as the vessel of His power, and thus acting in man, and acting there in testimony to the glory and victory of Christ as man. We see in Acts 2 and 4 the union of all this, and that in the normal state the presence of the Holy Ghost produced grace, unity, power, and joy. God was there, and the evil hid itself, as vanquished before His presence — a presence which, identifying itself with the new man, with the Christian, occupied with the state of things in which sin had plunged the old man; and the effect of this was, as in Samaria, quite natural (although the malice of the heart opposed it): "there was great joy in that city." But the object was not only to bear testimony (that the world might believe) to the grace of God and to the victory of the Son of man over the power of Satan — a testimony borne in the aggregated Church by sovereign grace, to the glory of the Son Himself, who was not ashamed to call His brethren those who were sanctified. The Church itself was also the object. God had given His beloved ones to Christ. Christ had undertaken their salvation. He "loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Thus He nourisheth and cherisheth it as His own flesh. It is not a question of manifesting His rights and His glory to the world, although His glory be found there, and will at a future time be found there in a far more evident way (to wit, when the whole Church will have come unto perfection); neither is it a question of the operation of God properly speaking, in testimony, in the midst of evil. It is a question of the affections of Christ for the Church, and the care He takes of it in His faithfulness. It is a question of cleansing it by the word, in order to present it to Himself in glory, and cause it to grow up into Him in all things while it is down here.

294 Hence (although it is painful for me to be so didactic and methodical on a subject so precious and so full of strength and joy; but it is in order to be understood by those who are occupied with it) it follows that the Holy Ghost acts in three ways.

First, He is God present and working in power.

Secondly, He manifests, by His operations, the glory of the Son of man, and thus the relation of God in grace with the world.

Thirdly, Christ Himself nourishes and leads by His Spirit the Church, His body, for the edifying of it in love.

The first two of these three things are found in 1 Corinthians 12. God, by the Spirit, is there, in contrast with the demons who, as instruments, governed and seduced the world; but then it is a question, first of all, of acknowledging Jesus (and Jesus as man) to be the Lord, faithful to God, the conqueror of Satan. It is for this that God is acting in the world; as it is what makes an essential distinction between the Holy Ghost and demons. No one, speaking in the power of the Spirit, can say, Anathema Jesus; nor say, through a demon, Lord Jesus. Besides that, "there are diversities of gifts"; but not many spirits, as was the case with the demons, of whom there were many. There is one Spirit. There are diversities of services, but one Lord, He to whom the Holy Ghost bore witness. "There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." That which was an operation of God was, at the same time, a gift of the Holy Ghost, and a service done to the Lord whom that Spirit glorified and whom the God "who worketh all" had made "both Lord and Christ," and placed at His own right hand in glory; Acts 2: 30-36. The identity of the operation of God and of the Holy Ghost is seen by comparing verses 6 and 11. If the Holy Ghost works and speaks in us, He works and speaks to render testimony to Christ, the Lord; and thus He causes him who speaks to act and to speak as servant or minister of Christ (not to be independent, because he has the Spirit). Therefore, the apostle says, Many members "are one body, so also is Christ." The members are directed by the head; the head uses the members. Therefore is it said (2 Cor. 3: 8) "the ministration of the Spirit." The Holy Ghost gives the gift, and the individual thus made competent exercises his ministry, according to the passage of Peter, which we have already quoted, "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same" — or exercise ministry therein "as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."

295 Therefore, uniting the three things, as in the passage we are considering, the apostle says (2 Cor. 3: 5, 6), "Our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament [covenant]; not of the letter, but of the Spirit," etc.; and (verse 3) "Ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God."

Was not the apostle acting in his own gift of apostle when he did this? If not, do pray tell me what he did with his gift? No: it is evident that the object of the Holy Ghost was to give the link of these three things: the Spirit acting in gift, the operation of God therein, and the service or ministry to the Lord.

Further, it is not as concerning the Persons in the Trinity that all this is presented to us, but it is the order of the acting of God, of the Lord, and of the Spirit, looked upon as acting on earth. If the Lord and the Spirit had been spoken of, one might have supposed something inferior to God; for the heathen were accustomed to spirits of Python, etc., and to lords in great number. Therefore does the apostle insist upon there being but one Spirit who gives divers gifts, and not many spirits; one Lord who governed all that and was Head in all that — the Lord whom the Spirit glorified; lastly, he insists on this, that it was God Himself, the one true God, who worked in all that.

296 And mark that the writer himself calls our attention to the use of the word spiritual gifts (pneumatika) in 1 Corinthians 12: 1: "A name," he says (p. 70), "which is assigned to them exclusively." He mistakes in saying "exclusively," for the word is often used for the things of the Spirit in general. See Romans 15: 27, 1 Corinthians 9: 11; ch. 2: 13, in which last passage I would translate "communicating spiritual [things] by spiritual [means]"; or "[the things] of the Spirit by [words] of the Spirit." But here the things of the Spirit are gifts. Now, treating of these things of the Spirit, he speaks of the ministries of the one Lord. How then can one say that these ministries were not among those things of the Spirit?

And here I recall what I have already pointed out in part, namely, that in 1 Corinthians 12: 4, 9 it is a question, according to Mr. Wolff, of gifts properly so called (p. 70); the repetition of the same subject in verse 28 is a classification of ministry (P. 50); and (p. 71) 1 Corinthians 12: 28 is a catalogue of gifts, and gives us five. In this chapter, therefore, as on the other hand it is God who works, all the beauty and ornament of Christ in His body on earth was connected with the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost. The operation of God, the lordship of Jesus, the service of the believer, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, were identified in the unity of the body, in the service of each member, in the diversity of gifts which were the manifestation of the Holy Ghost. We have in all that a dissertation on the things of the Spirit, the pneumatika. But it must not be thought that the action of the Holy Ghost consisted solely in fresh revelations; the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom were gifts of the Holy Ghost as well as a prophecy properly so called. As Paul says also in chapter 14, "If I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?" It is sometimes supposed that there must be a fresh revelation if the Holy Ghost is working in the one who speaks; it is not so at all. "He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort."

297 We saw that there is another object, to wit, the nurture and increase of the Church. Here then, it is no longer the beauty and ornament of the Church before the world, even by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, nor the operation of God in testimony, but the care Christ takes of His own body, of His flesh; Eph. 4. "He ascended up on high . . . and gave gifts [domata] unto men." Here the act of giving and the gifts are specially connected with Christ, who, as Head, nourishes the body. It is not a question of adorning the aggregate, or of acting in virtue of the rights of Christ, but of the relationship between the body and the Head. It is gathering and nourishing the Church, and not acting by the members of the Church, by particular acts of power.

The epistle of the Ephesians presents two great subjects as to the Church: First, the coming glory of the Church, a thing which is secured; it will enjoy the glory in the heavenly places with its Head. In spirit, it is seated there in Him. Secondly, Besides that, it is the "habitation of God through the Spirit" here below.

Two things flow from that: unity in humility and the Spirit of peace; grace given to every one according to the measure of the gift of Christ. But the gifts here given, the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, and teacher, have all for object the formation, establishment, and edification of the body. And we must here observe that it is functions or permanent gifts that are given; it is a pastor, it is an evangelist. It is not a gift of such a character given to an individual thus gifted by Christ ascended on high. The pastor himself, the apostle himself, is the gift. Christ received the gift having ascended up on high, and He manifests it in the function of the individual; and the gift is here connected with continual service, and is not merely a manifestation of power. In 1 Corinthians 12 it is rather power given for service, power which might be used through vanity, as it really happened. Here the member serves by the gift, which only acts in the blessing of the body.

I have spoken on this more fully elsewhere, and I only recall the great principle for the aggregate.

In Romans 12 the Spirit of God presents the gifts (charismata), that those who possess them may use them humbly, confining themselves to what they possess, and may be occupied with that. 1 Peter 4 speaks of them, that each one may use them in giving all the glory to God, acknowledging that all came from Him. As to this passage (1 Pet. 4), I am agreed with Mr. Wolff that it is a question of a gift; and the translation, "according to the oracles" is not the word of God, but a sense people chose to give it. "If any man speak [let him speak] as [announcing] God's oracles." But it is of no use saying, as Mr. Wolff does, that this only applies to gifts, and not to that which one now says in the Church. The answer is easy. This passage forbids speaking in any other way, and forbids it with this object, "that God in all things may be glorified." The apostle does not allow that anyone should speak without ascribing the thing to God; and without speaking as announcing the words of God. If any one speak, let him speak thus.

298 It would be a singular commentary on this passage, to say, This means that, if any one speak by the Spirit, then he must speak by the Spirit: otherwise he may speak as much as he likes, without troubling himself about it; inasmuch as a man is a minister, he may speak without thus ascribing all to God.

In 1 Corinthians 12 we have therefore the presence of the Holy Ghost as one in the Church, then the operation of God, then the gifts as manifestation of the Spirit. In Ephesians 4 we have the gifts which Christ received, which are being exercised in the edification of the body. In Romans 12 we have all that is done for good in Christians service treated as gift. Lastly, 1 Peter 4 we have the obligation of thus ascribing all to God.

Now God may withdraw as He pleases gifts which He distributes as He pleases (that is, some of those which are only a testimony rendered to the Church before the world); but Christ nourishes the Church according to His faithfulness, and this rests on another basis. This also may be weakened if the Holy Ghost is grieved. Nevertheless, the Holy Ghost Himself remains in the Church for ever.

And this calls forth an important remark as to this question, whether the evil is without remedy. All the strength and energy of the Church being derived from the presence of the Holy Ghost, the comparison of what the manifestation of the Holy Ghost was at the beginning, and the forgetting of His presence now, will lead us to feel all that is humbling in our state, and to understand the sentence of God unto cutting off, and not unto restoration. But the thought that the Holy Ghost abides for ever with the Church gives us an unlimited source of hope — that God will do all that is necessary for the blessing of the Church in the state where it is. And as it is the presence of God Himself, one can put no limit to what He could do. But what He will do will be according to our need and our state, and not as though He Himself ignored the state which the presence of His Spirit leads to feel, as though nothing had happened. Hence I fully believe in the cutting off of the dispensation, because of the failure of the Church; but I put no limit to what God, meanwhile, may do in grace towards believers. Only, it will be according to the truth, as to their state, and according to the faith which recognizes that.

299 I shall follow briefly Mr. Wolff's remarks. Page 70, 1°. It is Mr. Wolff who mistakes; charismata and pneumatika are not used exclusively for spiritual gifts, as we have shewn in quoting the passages where those words are found. The versions are not mistaken. The expression "the gift of the Holy Ghost" is only found once in the Bible, and it simply means the Holy Ghost given. The expression, "the Holy Ghost which is given" is found elsewhere; but it equally refers to the idea of the presence of the Holy Ghost. For instance, "He therefore that despiseth [his brother], despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit." And, "Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us. Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God," 1 John 3 and 4. We see evidently that it is a question here of the Holy Ghost as present, from whom one ought to distinguish the evil spirits which acted in the false prophets.

If I consult Mr. Wolff, he applies the thing referred to in the passage (namely, what was given at Pentecost) to miraculous gifts. All this paragraph therefore is false; it is Mr. Wolff who confounds the gift and the gifts.

Page 70, 2°. Be it so: three quarters of the gifts are lost; but then how can it be said that all the blessing remains to the dispensation?

Page 70, 3°. I do not say that some gifts are miraculous and others not; but the word distinguishes between gifts which were the signs of power to the world, and the gifts which were for the edification of the Church; and also, between the gifts that laid the foundation and those that built upon it. Mr. Wolff admits it. That is the reason why some may subsist, and others not. For the rest, the word calls gift (charisma) all that in which the Holy Ghost acts in blessing in the Church. This is what Mr. Wolff has not observed at all.

300 Page 71, 4°. I again repeat, if that beauty, that diversity, that harmony, as members of a body, are entirely lost, how is it that we are not in a state of failure and ruin? How can one conceive this?

Page 71, 5°. I find a variety of gifts now very evident, although it is not a variety such as existed at the beginning. The result of Mr. Wolff's system having prevailed practically in the Church is, that all the gifts are confounded and their distinction lost; but it is very easy for a spiritual man to distinguish between a man who has a gift for teaching, and another who has a gift for exhortation, or another who has a gift of evangelist. For the rest, the system in vogue hinders the development of gifts. This is not surprising, when men, "having studied, all preach without gift" (p. 94).

Page 71, 6°. It is not said that the disciples in Samaria received gifts besides the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is said that they had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, but as yet the Holy Ghost "was fallen upon none of them." Nothing more positive or clearer. That the Holy Ghost acted in their heart to produce faith there by the revelation of Jesus, I do not deny; but in the word of God this is never called the gift of the Holy Ghost. Not a word is said about receiving the Holy Ghost till after having believed; the contrary is expressly stated.

Page 72, 7°. That the gifts were the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, of this gift of the Holy Ghost, is perfectly true. This being acknowledged, the word of God calls gifts of the Holy Ghost, not only signs of power, but according to the godliness and truth which grace produces, every instrumentality of blessing which was found in the Church: exhortation, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge; 1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12. What has given rise to all the difficulties on the subject is, the want of godliness, which does not own the only source of all these graces.

Page 72, 8° and page 73, 14°. I repudiate the neological tinge of Neander. On the other hand, Mr. Wolff mistakes if he thinks there is no connection between the gifts conferred and the vessel which contains them. The tone of his fourteenth paragraph is far from proper. When the man who left his house gave gifts to his servants (Matt. 25), he gave gifts to every man according to his several ability. God prepares the vessel as well as places the gift in it; Acts 9: 15; Gal. 1. Paul was "a chosen vessel"; he was set apart from his mother's womb; but he had not yet received the gift.

301 Page 72, 9°. This requires no remark; the confusion which is found there having been already pointed out, namely, that Mr. Wolff speaks as if there were two gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Page 72, 10°. Faith indicates a special gift, that special energy of faith which is not found in all. I see nothing that limits it to the first ages. There are persons endowed with much more faith than others; 1 Cor. 14: 15, 16. He speaks of foreign tongues which served as signs to unbelievers (v. 22), signs which are distinguished from that which was for the edification of believers.

Page 73, 11°. What do these words mean: "The Holy Ghost was miraculous enough?" Can one say that God is miraculous — that a Person of the Trinity is miraculous? That the Spirit whom they had received did act in a miraculous way, and that this was distinct in many respects from His sanctifying action, I do not deny; but it was the same Spirit who acted, though in a different way. Only one must distinguish between the new nature, and the Holy Ghost who produces it and acts in it. The union is intimate; but they can be spoken of separately, for the Spirit is God. I can say, "He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit." I can say, "The Spirit . . . beareth witness with our spirit." I can say, "He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit," and add, "because he maketh intercession for the saints according to God."

The new nature is not God; it worships God. But God has intimately united Himself to it by the Holy Ghost: it abides in God, and God in it. But the most miraculous gifts, when God Himself was speaking, as in the case of prophecy, were subject to the order of God in the Church, because they were entrusted to the responsibility of man, and acted in man as servant of Christ.

Page 73, 12°. I think that this effect has often been reproduced more or less perceptibly.

Page 73, 13°. I am perfectly agreed that if a man speaks, he ought to speak as announcing the oracles of God; 1 Peter 4. Hence, I am very much blamed for having asserted the truth as to that passage. But the thing being thus, it is absolutely necessary that Mr. Wolff's ministers without gifts should be silent, because the apostle says, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God . . . that God in all things may be glorified." Not the least idea that one might be allowed to speak otherwise, for then God would not be glorified. The ministry Mr. Wolff proposes to us is precisely the thing condemned by this passage.

302 Page 73, 15°. True, the centurion and his friends received the Holy Ghost as the apostles did at Pentecost, but it is the only gift of the Holy Ghost which they received. They did not receive another sanctifying Spirit; the Holy Ghost had produced faith. I believe it; but they did not receive, either before or after, the Holy Ghost in another way.

Page 73, 16° and page 74, 17°. In general, I agree with these two paragraphs; but the Holy Ghost who was given has not left the Church — I mean the Holy Ghost given on the day of Pentecost. Here Mr. Wolff confounds the gifts and the gift. That the extraordinary administration of these things by the hands of the apostles has ceased, I do not deny. That the order, the testimony, the power of the Church in the world, are weakened by it, and have by degrees become as it were destroyed, I confess with humiliation. But the Holy Ghost who was given on the day of Pentecost, of which these things were only an extension — the Holy Ghost abides. He is sovereign, He is mighty; and the gifts for edification have not ceased. If the gifts which were signs have disappeared with the apostolic age, the testimony of the Church to the world, in its power and its unity, has also by degrees disappeared with these manifestations of the Holy Ghost.

Page 74, 18°. Mr. Wolff, as we have already remarked, is completely mistaken; the discerning of spirits was not regulating. "Let the other judge," it is said (1 Cor. 14: 29), when gifts were exercised. The rules for the exercise of gifts are given in this passage; and there is no question of the gift of discerning of spirits: a responsibility moreover which is attached to every Christian (1 John 4), although there are no doubt persons specially gifted for that.

Page 74, 19°. This is an extraordinary confusion. First, women had gifts as men had; certain gifts, according to the express promise of God by the mouth of Joel; but the exercise of gifts was regulated, for men and for women, by the Holy Ghost, who had given them, and who had the right to regulate the use of that which He had entrusted; this He has done through the authority of Paul.

303 Page 74, 20°. The bishop was only a charge; but, as a quality of a bishop, a gift (charisma) is required — that of being "apt to teach"; perhaps one might add that of pastor. But the qualities of bishops do not in any way affect the question of gifts, which were found, according to the writer himself, by the side of ministry.

Page 75, 21° and 22°. Mr. Wolff here arranges things in a very convenient way, provided one considers the power of the Holy Ghost as being of no importance in the Church — that power which, for instance, made men to fall down on their faces, and confess that God was there — a power which, according to Mr. Wolff, has entirely ceased. Prophecy which was "to edification and exhortation and comfort" is lost, according to Mr. Wolff; this, according to him, explains everything else.

The loss of all that matters nothing; tongues even — so remarkable a sign by which God acted on those outside, for their conversion, and for the establishment of Christianity in the world, all that is lost. No matter, according to Mr. Wolff. What a distressing and heartless system! — this system which explains everything, and feels nothing! One half of Christendom invaded by Islamism, the other by popery! no matter. Protestantism declining, and in most infidel; the gifts all lost: it is all one. For, according to Mr. Wolff, if there are a few believers, as in the Jewish dispensation, all the blessing remains to the Church. That the sovereign goodness of God has given to us in His written word a sure and complete revelation of His thoughts is precious beyond all that man could say or be able to say. And in the failure and ruin of everything as to power manifested in the Church, this has a value and a wisdom to which an adoring sense of that goodness is the only true response. This is the chain which, by the truth, links us to Him; this is beyond all price — God has revealed Himself therein. That this word is the only guide, as a written rule; this is a thing to which we cannot too firmly cleave; this it is that has the authority of God. Nothing can be added to it, nor taken from it. But does this touch the effects of the power of the Holy Ghost? Far from it; we need the Holy Ghost to understand even, and to use, that word. It is the sword of the Spirit to reach the heart. If gifts only consisted in revelation, and in signs to prove it, there would be something to say; but it is not so. All that was done in the Church, was, as we have seen, by the Holy Ghost: and the presence of the Holy Ghost had in nowise for its only object the confirmation of revelation. He was to abide for ever, and, by the gifts of teaching, of exhortation, of wisdom, of knowledge, to edify and comfort the Church. For the rest, in the word it is never said that the gifts confirmed the canon of Scripture; they confirmed the word spoken by the mouth of those whom Christ had sent. Miracles are not attached to Luke, to Mark, to the Acts, nor declared to be the means of recognizing the inspiration of any book whatever. The books of the holy Scriptures have not had this outward confirmation. If it be otherwise, let it be shewn. That the doctrine which is found there was confirmed, when it was preached viva voce, this I acknowledge. The warrant for the inspiration of Scripture does not therefore rest on gifts, whether in apostolic times, or now. That the authors were inspired, I fully acknowledge. That the Holy Ghost is the author of it every Christian believes; but I do not know where that infinitely precious work of the Spirit is called the exercise of a gift. The epistles may, in part, be considered as the exercise of the apostolic gift perhaps: but in general the inspiration of the written word, that work of the Holy Ghost which guards the pen and the thought of the writer, is a special work. Hence we must not confound revelation with the action of the Holy Ghost in the gifts. Sometimes the Holy Ghost spoke in the way of revelation; but His action for the most part was a different thing from that; it consisted in exhortation, teaching, wisdom, knowledge — things which did not require fresh revelations. Besides, the Holy Ghost never contends with Himself. To those who have received the holy Scriptures as inspired, a spirit which would refuse to submit itself to the written word, would by that very thing be proved to be an evil spirit; and all that it would seek to add would, by the help of the Holy Ghost, be proved by the word to be false, because the word is perfect. This was even true of Christianity in the face of the Old Testament: it rested upon the written word, and presented what had come to pass as the fulfilment of what was foretold, teaching none other things than those which Moses, the law, and the prophets had said, and approving those who (if it was an apostle who preached) "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." And the Lord Jesus Himself preferred the authority of the written word, as an instrument, to His own words: "But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" But the exercise of gifts, making use of the word, explains it, applies it to the soul, exhorts, speaks with wisdom, and only recognizes the revelation by resting upon it: but they are equally real gifts of the Holy Ghost.

305 If, as Mr. Wolff leads one to suppose, the New Testament becomes useless through the gifts which explain and use it, how much more would the Old become so through the apostolic gifts.

Page 76, 23°. It is no question of being on the level of, or above, the word. The same Holy Ghost, who gave the word as the whole truth to the Church, uses and applies it by means of gifts which He gives Himself.

Page 76, 23°. Agreed. The minister must declare his mind, and say that all his hope for his ministry is in the absence of all gifts. If the Holy Ghost acts, he must abdicate his charge. But what an avowal! Does this ministerial system banish shame, as it banishes the Holy Ghost? At least let us take account of the avowal, that the system of a clergy, which hides itself under the name of ministry, that what the party calls the ministry, can only subsist by denying absolutely every gift of the Holy Ghost.

That the pastor has received no authority for regulating or for restricting the gifts of the Holy Ghost, is only confusion, supposing the gifts to exist; and if they do not exist, there is no need of regulating them. Supposing they exist, they are all regulated beforehand in the word: witness 1 Corinthians 14 for instance. When Mr. Wolff says, speaking of the pastor, that "if he reserves to himself a worship where he alone speaks, he is a usurper," it is merely throwing dust in people's eyes. I understand quite well that Mr. Wolff wishes that — denying gifts — the pastor who has none should reserve to himself all that he is pleased to attribute to himself. What is merely from man, man can regulate; but it is very simple, that in the exercise of his gift everyone is free save the discipline according to the word. In the case of all being assembled, the word has regulated the course to be followed: if anyone has received a gift, he is responsible to Christ for the exercise of that gift; and responsibility is always individual. If, as an evangelist, I go out to preach by myself, or if two go together, they do not encroach on the rights of anybody. If I gather people who come for that purpose, and teach them in the exercise of my gift, I encroach on the rights of no one: every one is free to do the same. If any one does it in a spirit of schism, outside the unity of the Church, it is an evil which changes nothing as to the principle. If when brethren are assembled — all for the common service, I arrogate everything to myself, then indeed I do encroach on the rights of the Holy Ghost; but in the case of the individual exercise of my gift, I am only trading with the talent I have received, and that is what each should do on his own account, and he owes it to Christ.

306 I admit that teaching is a gift. I admit also that ruling, or presiding, as some versions translate, is a gift; but in the word this is never applied to an assembly, as would appear to be the case, if we kept to the French version generally used. They are the gifts (charismata) according to Romans 12. That the administration of the sacraments is a gift, this is a reverie of Mr. Wolff's. I have already remarked that Mr. Wolff is entirely ignorant of the principles of the Quakers. They have their elders who are in charge, and besides that a ministry. There are also some among them who exercise a gift before being yet recognized as ministers.

CHAPTER 17

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 17, WHERE HE ASSERTS THAT "TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE MINISTRY THE RIGHT TO ADMINISTER THE SACRAMENTS, IS TO INFRINGE UPON THE CHARGE ITSELF AND TO COMPROMISE ITS EXISTENCE.

It is remarkable enough that the writer has been unable to quote a single passage of the word of God to establish that the administration of the sacraments must be performed by the ministry. Taking away from it gifts, and attributing to it the right of taking possession of the outward forms — these do very well together: but it is very singular that it never entered the mind of the apostle to propose, as a remedy, the system of the writer. Very far from this, in an epistle which formally treats the subject of the Lord's Supper, the Holy Ghost does not give the slightest hint that the ministry presides; but quite the contrary. The state of things which is described there excludes all idea of such order; and never, in applying a remedy for it, does the idea present itself of making the minister preside: for it is singular that, in the epistle to the Corinthians, where the interior of the administration of a church is given to us, no mention is ever made of the elders. There were some, perhaps; but if there were, the Holy Ghost passes over it, authorizing us to act even when there are none. I exhort those brethren who are occupied with this to weigh such a fact taken from the epistle to the Corinthians.

307 As to the quotation given by Mr. Wolff of Acts 6: 1-4, it is so much outside the subject that I need not dwell upon it. The man who can mistake the daily administration of help to widows for the Lord's Supper may very well suppose all he likes; and in Mr. Wolff's interpretation, Acts 6: 1-4, supposes that the apostles had abandoned the administration of the table of the Lord as being of slight importance, and that the deacons, and not the elders, are to preside there. What is said in paragraph 4° of page 81, is therefore unworthy of an answer. To say that the word of God which accompanies the outward act is more important than the Supper itself is to exalt a discourse without gifts above the remembrance of Jesus instituted by Himself. Moreover, where did the writer find this — "the word of God which accompanies the sacrament"? Besides, it is very certain that in the primitive Church there was nobody established to speak a word; for the prophets spoke as God led them, according to the rules given in 1 Corinthians 14. For an apostle to break the bread, when he was present (Acts 20: 11), was a very natural thing, and appears to me very suitable; but I do not see that this proves that the ministry had the exclusive right so to do.

As to baptism, the apostle expressly says that the Lord had not sent him to baptize. It is very certain that Acts 10: 48 is very badly rendered by "He took measures," etc., and that Acts 17: 26, where it is said that God had determined certain things, proves the inaccuracy of such a way of translating. The reader who does not know Greek may consult Matthew 1: 24; ch. 21: 6; Luke 5: 14 — "Moses commanded"; Matthew 8: 4; Mark 1: 44; Acts 10: 33 — passages which, with the two quoted here, are the only passages where this word (which signifies "to command") is found in the New Testament.

308 In result, Mr. Wolff, who does not produce a single passage to prove that the ministry did administer the sacraments, admits that simple believers may do it in cases of necessity. We see that what existed at Corinth excludes the idea of such a custom; and when there was a state of disorder, when the opportunity presented itself of reminding them in what order did consist, or of establishing order if it had not yet been done; and if such order as this would have been the remedy according to God, not a syllable about it is said by the apostle — by the word, but means altogether different are used to remove the scandal. We find that, to support his system he is obliged to confound with the Lord's Supper the administration of help intended for the widows. A cause which is thus maintained is not worth much. That in a large assembly the Supper be administered by brethren who enjoy the consideration of all, by an apostle when there was one, is just what suits order; and I have no fault to find with such an ordinance. There is not one expression in the word of God to lead one to suppose that there was any need of a minister for the Supper or for baptism — we even see the contrary — and now I use the word 'ministry' in the sense of the pamphlet, and in whatever sense people may like to use it.

CHAPTER 18

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 18, WHERE HE MAINTAINS THAT "NO ONE IS PASTOR WHO IS NOT COMPETENT TO TEACH AND PREACH."

If Mr. Wolff is overthrowing the system which Calvin and others find in the word, that is a question which concerns those who build upon it; but — I must say so — I find a thorough difference in the way in which Calvin and Mr. Wolff respect the word. As to the translation of 1 Timothy 5: 17, which he pretends is false, I am bold to say it is not false at all. I have examined twenty-two passages of the word of God where the Greek word kopiao is found, and the result of this examination is, that the translation, in my eyes, is very good. The word is used in two ways: to suffer from the effects of labour, and simply to labour. Wahl's Lexicon (the most accurate I know for the word of God) does not even present the sense chosen by Mr. Wolff.

In Galatians 6: 6 Mr. Wolff sees an elder who receives payment! But there is not a word in it about elders or a payment properly so called. I cannot conceive the desire of debasing ministry which is constantly found in this pamphlet. A minister who is paid without gift — such is the idea Mr. Wolff forms to himself of ministry. It appears to me very sad.

309 The apostle asks for liberality "in all good things" towards those who teach: this is a precious thing. But why seek to attach an idea of payment, and to destroy that of love, and of honour, of attachment, and of affection? Mr. Wolff has not been bold enough to translate the Greek word by "salary"; he has translated it by "honour"; and I think, with Calvin, Luther, and the English translators, that he is right.

This is incontestable — that the apostle meant that when it was a question of choosing a bishop, one should be chosen who was "apt to teach." To say that there were no other bishops, is that which 1 Timothy 5: 17 leads us to doubt.

It is singular that Mr. Wolff dares to say that the administrative functions are not mentioned; for the apostle speaks of the government of the family by the bishop as a sign of certain suitable qualities.

CHAPTER 19

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 19, WHERE HE WILL HAVE IT THAT MISSIONARIES ARE TO BE SENT BY MEN.

We have seen that, in the passage, Acts 13: 1-3, it is a question of the apostles and of the one who said of his apostleship "not of men, neither by man," and who had already laboured for a long time before this. We have also seen that they preached and evangelized without any mission from man; so that Mr. Wolff's assertions are absolutely false. It is rather too strong to quote Acts 13 in order to shew what an evangelist was, and what an apostle was not.

The quotation from 2 Corinthians 8: 23 is inconceivable. Paul speaks of Titus, but not at all as a messenger of the churches, and it was only a question of a collection. The apostle refused to take the money without having with him some brethren from the churches, that the ministry of the word might not be suspected even in this respect. (See chapters 9: 5; 8: 19-21)

Barnabas indeed was sent to Antioch by the church in Jerusalem — the special position of which we have seen, all the apostles being there. But he was not sent there as an evangelist; it was to visit on the part of that church — motherchurch and metropolitan (for it was such), the believers who had already been brought to the knowledge of the Lord by the means of those who had preached without having been sent by anything except persecution. When he came, and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and exhorted them to remain firm; and other persons were added. Thus, the first church of the Gentiles and the church in Jerusalem — preeminently the church where everything had begun — were identified. Barnabas acted according to his gift; and, using his liberty, he brings Paul there. There was not that jealousy which speaks of its field. The church in Jerusalem sends Barnabas where others had laboured, and Barnabas feels himself most happy to find Paul. They had all but one object: Christ and the good of souls. But as to the mission of Barnabas, it is clear he was not sent as an evangelist, for he was sent to Christians.

310 As to schoolmasters, they are most useful in their place; but everything in this pamphlet has its source in the things which are done, and with the desire of upholding them whatever they may be. Except this, it is very evident that the schoolmasters have no connection with the subject we are treating. I suppose that Mr. Wolff will not prevent a schoolmaster from opening a school on his own account: in doing so, I do not think he would place himself on a level with apostleship, although he was not sent by men.

CHAPTER 20

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 20, WHERE HE SEEKS TO JUSTIFY CLERICAL USURPATION.

As to that clerical usurpation of which Mr. Wolff speaks, I have not much to say about it. When one man will be minister, and demands that every other labourer should be subject to him; when he has been named according to a system which is not of God, when he demands from the other labourers, in the same field, a subjection which the apostles did not demand, and when he does this because an authority which God does not own as regards the affairs of His Church, has appointed and established him, then there is clerical usurpation. Besides, I deny that the minister is called in Scripture, elder, bishop, pastor, leader; and I ask for a passage which shews the contrary. Mr. Wolff produces none.

311 It is not honest to quote Ignatius; because, if Mr. Wolff has read him, he must know that Ignatius uses the word 'bishop' in quite a different sense, and says that one ought to obey the bishop as if it were obeying God; the elders, as if it were Christ; and the deacons, as if it were the college of apostles.

I acknowledge, that in general, things ought to be done under the direction of those who lead, in order that everything may go on in unity and for the good of all.

CHAPTER 21

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 21, WHERE HE SAYS IT IS "IMPORTANT AND NECESSARY TO STUDY FOR MINISTRY."

I do not feel the need of answering the chapter on studies; the man who denies gifts, and sees nothing but man in ministry, must naturally cling to this.

God can use learned men or ignorant men. He uses learning as he uses money — the man who seeks it will find his soul dried up, just like the man who seeks to get rich. God, moreover, chooses the foolish and weak things of this world to bring to nought the wise and mighty things. I do not think that the pursuit of learning by a man already called to the ministry will help him in his career. He that is not called, cannot study for the ministry; but all these reasonings flow from this: taking no account of the presence and of the importance of the operation of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, a student, a candidate, evidently bears no resemblance to the bishop described to us by the apostle. The emulation of a young man who studies Greek and theology has hardly the imprint of those qualities required by the Spirit of God for elders. In fine, according to this system, one must at all events have a ministry, and if one cannot find competent men, incompetent men must be appointed — for a ministry is needed.

CHAPTER 22

ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 22, ENTITLED, "HISTORY OF THE SECTS WHICH HAVE ALTERED MINISTRY."

I am not anxious to take up the history of sects. The Papists might add to the list, and prove that protestants, with a ministry, are fallen into socinianism, neology, and all kinds of divisions and errors.

312 But if those who had no ministry — which moreover was not the case in some of the examples presented by Mr. Wolff — have disappeared, those who have one, on the other hand, have remained, and remain to this day; and for centuries the established ministers have taught the mass of the people errors, heresies, superstitions, blasphemies, unbelief, self-righteousness, and with all their might have kept the mass of the people far from God. Blessed indeed if any one, armed for martyrdom, dared to go out, though unsent by man, and seek to deliver those souls from under the ministry which ruined them! I do not think that the supporters of ministry without gifts gain much by comparing the evil done by those who reject a ministry from man, with the evil done by those who will have it and who adopt it. Where the Spirit of God acts, there will be good; where He does not act, all possible ecclesiastical arrangement will not prevent the invasion of the evil.

Mr. Wolff admits that the Montanists, who received a ministry, introduced clerical despotism and several errors of doctrine. The brethren of Rhynsburgh separated because of a point of doctrine.

I have already remarked that Mr. Wolff is completely mistaken about Quakers. Gurney himself is an innovator among Quakers, and judged as such by the "Conservatives" — an epithet which indicates the old Quakers. Here is the doctrine of the Quakers: —

The Holy Ghost is in every man without exception. If they listen to His voice, they are justified by degrees. The Quakers reject justification by faith; a great number even reject the resurrection of the body. They reject the sacraments. They have a recognized ministry, and elders. They prefer their inward light to the written word: they hold absolutely that the Scriptures are not to be called the word of God, and only receive, as coming from God, that portion which may have been applied to them. There has lately been a revival among them, and several have sounder views; several even have left the society. The elders are appointed and established; they have an elevated seat, facing all the others; and nowhere else is a more complete authority exercised. The members of the flocks have an extraordinary fear of them. In many respects there is not more authority among the Roman Catholics themselves. As to practical customs, the Quakers have several things which are very estimable. I do not think I have represented their system falsely; for I have known, loved, and respected very sincerely, several from among them.

313 It would be difficult to find between two bodies a more complete contrast than between the Quakers and those called "Plymouth Brethren," if one except the fact that they believe that ministry is of the Holy Ghost; but even in this they act altogether differently.

When Mr. Wolff takes on him to say that the brethren have introduced modifications in the sacraments, he would have done better to say what they are: this he has not dared to do. The accusation of having done so, without even pointing out in what they have done it, simply proves ill will towards them.

CONCLUSION

We are come to the conclusion — deeply grieved, for my own part, to see such a production issuing from the hands of a young man I love. The skill I do not deny; but the spirit which reigns in it, the way in which the word is used there to serve a system, have produced an exceedingly painful effect. Neither have I any doubt that a serious contest is engaged on the subject of ministry. As to the fact of having for avowed enemies those who hold those opinions — full of unbelief and of contempt for the word — which this pamphlet fully brings to light, it has quite another effect from frightening or deterring me. It is a contest, on one side, between respect for the word, faith that owns the Holy Ghost, and the desire that ministry be free and powerful for God, while freely serving men; and, on the other, the making ministry to depend upon men, and of attaching to it (without there being gifts) an authority as from God, an authority such as to give the right of excluding all possibility of the action of the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Wolff avows it, and declares that, if there is a single gift, his ministry can no longer subsist. My desire is that each soul would reflect as to the position in which such a doctrine places the Church and Christendom.

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<18004E> 145 {file section a.}

I had no thought of even reading Dr. Newman's Apologia pro Vita sua. I know pretty well, in theory and practice, what Romanism is; and the history of the popes is open to every one. But the book has been put into my hands by others, and so far pressed upon me; and I have read it: I cannot say it has won my respect. It has certain charms about it; and the present state of things clothes it with interest. I think it likely to attract and win no small number of minds. There is a seeming candour on the surface, and men's minds are prepared for it, and "quod volumus facile credimus." The circle of university affections is most powerful, formed as they are, just when the heart is fresh and growing to manhood and amiable; and the reference to them is one of the attractive points of Dr. Newman's book, but cannot decide what salvation and the church of God are. If we penetrate below the surface, I do not think the charm of the book remains. The reader must judge when we shall have examined it together.

The secret of the course of Dr. Newman's mind is this — it is sensuous;* and so is Romanism. He never possessed the truth, nor, in the process he describes, sought it: he had never found rest or peace in his own soul, nor sought it where it is to be found, according to the holiness of God. He sank into that system where the mind often finds quiet from restless search after repose, when wearied in judging for itself, but never peace with God. This is positively denied and denounced in the Roman Catholic system. In his search he was never — and this difference is all-important — on the true ground or principle of true faith at all. These things his book shews.

{*No reader must confound this with sensual.}

From the first Oxford influences he came under, he had a horror of Protestantism. I understand that horror. How earnestly, when I was in the state I have referred to elsewhere in these pages, I should have disowned, and did disown, that name! I looked for the church. Not having peace in my soul, nor knowing yet where peace is, I too, governed by a morbid imagination, thought much of Rome, and its professed sanctity, and catholicity, and antiquity — not of the possession of divine truth and of Christ myself. Protestantism met none of these feelings, and I was rather a bore to my clergyman by acting on the rubrics. I looked out for something more like reverend antiquity. I was really much in Dr. Newman's state of mind. But such a feeling as to Protestantism is shallow, and little founded on fact. I do not think, now, that Protestantism has restored the church to purity. It did not see, I judge, the true doctrine of the church, any more than Dr. Newman. Protestantism occupied itself with the positive evils in doctrine and practice that pressed upon men's consciences, and did the best it knew how in raising national churches so-called. Still its nature is misapprehended. As to the word 'Protestantism,' it came from the act of several German princes at the second Diet of Spires. The previous Diet of Spires had left each prince free in his own dominions as to religious matters. At the second the emperor, having settled matters with the pope, succeeded with the legate in getting this rescinded. Nothing was to be changed till the general council was held. The principal northern princes and many free cities protested, nor held the recess for valid, as it was passed only by a majority when they had left. Further, on the Continent, half those separated from Rome are not called Protestants but Reformed. The Lutherans are Protestants.

146 But the matter lies deeper than all this. It is a past history; but it is well it should be known. Protestantism practically broke out about indulgences. The pope, infallible according to Dr. Newman, the centre of infidelity in fact at that time when infidelity was the fashion at Rome, had set the sale of indulgences on foot to get money to build St. Peter's. The sale was farmed out, through the Archbishop of Mayence, to the Fuggers; and the well-known Tetzel, in Germany, and Samson, in Switzerland, were the agents for the sale. But of this hereafter.

I do not enter on the sparring between Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Newman. To say the truth, I think it poor and low on both sides. If Mr. K. thinks Dr. N. dishonest, all this shillyshallying about gentlemen's points of honour is folly. The eternal truth of God is beyond this fencing. If he thought in his heart Dr. N. told the truth, he should not seek to prove that he did not by subsequent writings. If he did not, there is affectation in treating of points of honour. All this is below the dignity and seriousness of an inquiry into God's truth.

147 On the other hand, Dr. N. is vexed and undignified too; his blots, one, two, etc., are poor, and, as I judge, a failure — undignified, and often very poor in reasoning and tone. That he was vexed with being charged with dishonesty, one can conceive; but vexation is a bad counsellor. I say, poor in reasoning. To take an example, what analogy is there between accepting devoutly a false historical statement, and Sir D. Brewster's dreams of inhabitants in the stars? This is a very poor come-off. The author of St. Augustine's life says, with the evident wish it should be so, that a statement, historically false, but which has serious effects on the whole state of mind of him who believes it, "will not be without effect on the devout mind," and that "it has been received as a pious opinion." It is admitted, that the alleged visit of Peter, which is to have this effect, is a pretended visit; but devout minds will be influenced by what has been received as a pious opinion. It is "to be kept quite distinct from documentary evidence," but to have its effect. This Dr. N. tells us is sober. Is it sober to look for the effect of a confessed lying legend on the mind, as a pious opinion? Now the legend has for its object to exalt Peter, and Rome through him. For this purpose falsehoods have been told, and minds encouraged in receiving them; and it is a pious opinion to believe it, and not without effect. This Dr. Newman tells us, is a sober judgment, because it is said it is to be kept distinct from documentary and historic proof. That people may have believed it piously, I may admit; but to justify the reception of a confessedly false legend as a pious opinion, saying that it will have its effect on devout minds, I cannot call sober. It is a proof of what Romanists consider devoutness and piety. It proves another thing, how early the church was deceived by falsehoods; for we are here told, that Innocent I (A.D. 416) lets us know, that it was then received as a pious opinion, "that St. Peter was instrumental in the conversion of the west generally." We do get, not sobriety, but a specimen of the kind of thing called devoutness and piety. I have mentioned, however, this part of the book only to say, that while I think it poor in reasoning, it is of a character which in detail calls for no remark. What is important is mainly elsewhere, and to that I turn.*

{*I find, on my return to England, that Dr. Newman has suppressed all this in his second edition. He has judged, I suppose, as I do, or received counsel to that effect. I have judged rightly in not noticing it. But as many most probably will have the edition I had in writing this, and the point itself has its importance, I leave the paragraph as it is.}

148 It is written, that there will be a falling away, an apostasy; and, though faith may be answered in arresting judgment, when impending, no efforts of ours will avert finally the predicted evil. This evil will, we are told, have a double character in the course of its development: the form of godliness and denial of its power or religious evil, and open denial of Christianity or infidelity; superstitious idolatrous religiousness, devoid of spiritual truth, and open infidelity.

It is a singular, but providentially a notable fact, that two brothers should be eminently conspicuous in these two forms of evil. Mr. F. Newman has given his personal history in his progress to infidelity; Dr. Newman, in his progress in falling into popery. There are some passages almost literally identical in their form. The fact, of course, would have been the same, whoever it might have been; but, as striking in its effect on the mind, two brothers being representatives of the double form of departure from the truth is, I repeat, providentially remarkable. The more so, as they have both come forward to account for it, not by any direct reasoning as to the truth or falsehood of what they have left or fallen into; but, in each case, in the way in which their minds were filled with it, that is, by an account of themselves. Both have known how to render their books attractive, and themselves attractive by them; both of them unquestionably able men, but I do not, for my own part, think possessed of any depth of moral perception: I speak entirely from their respective works, of course. I do not put them on a par; I must say I think the low, and what I must call filthy, insinuations of Mr. F. Newman in his "Phases of Faith," ought, though but short and occasional, to have at once condemned the whole book, and the state of mind of the writer, in every mind that had a spark of elevation, any sense of what is of good report, of what is comely and pure. From such a reproach Dr. N. is entirely clear; I shall defer pronouncing any judgment of his book till I have examined its contents. One thing is striking in both; they seek to persuade us by shewing, in their respective books, that they were wrong, and had each of them to give up everything he held on the points in question. This is singular. Each of these books shews us a mind step by step giving up what they held as true, and finding they were wrong at each step. This has an air of candour. But did it lead them to distrust themselves? Quite the contrary. They would have us embrace the conclusions they have come to, and in which they profess to have the greatest confidence, though in every previous step they had found themselves wrong. Mr. F. N. has given up Christianity altogether, and gives us the phases of his discoveries of mistake after mistake given up; Dr. N., the apology for his life, in which he has relinquished, not the general truths of Christianity, no doubt, but all he once held on the particular points in question. It does seem to me that this shews, not confidence in the truth (for what they supposed such they gave up), but the attaching an immense importance to their own views — I am afraid I must say, to themselves, meaning by that, to the processes of their own minds.

149 I have no doubt that there is a direct action of the enemy of souls in all this — of Satan. On this I do not enlarge; but I am bound to say so. But is it not singular that I should put forward the discovery of my being wrong in everything I held, not as a lowly acknowledgement of error, but seeking thereby confidence in the conclusion I have arrived at as a motive to influence other minds, and that they should be influenced by it, and attracted to the persons who thus acquaint the public so very elaborately with all that has passed, as they tell us, in their minds? The public, no doubt, likes confidences, likes secret histories; and here it has them, and has them very cleverly written — seemingly very naturally and innocently, and on topics which are in vogue. It is admitted behind the scenes in an interesting epoch, and has the actors familiarly and confidingly brought before it. This, of course, attracts. We like to be thus trusted with secrets, to know what has gone on.

But here I must go a little deeper into the nature of this disposition to have secret histories, though I fear I may not please the public if they condescend to read me; but I must tell the truth, and it bears on the character of these books. Men like to hear the secret history, and learn the progress of what is evil, much more than of what is good. Take a young man, in the human sense innocent, gradually getting away from what is honourable and pure, making impulsive efforts to recover himself, but still sinking, — getting, alas! gradually degraded, till he arrives at some terrible and fatal end. Men are interested. The efforts at recovery cast a halo round the sinking man. His degradation is, comparatively speaking, lost sight of. Pity surrounds his end: we like to know the details. A young female, shining in early youth, wickedly and heartlessly seduced, struggling against the engulfing stream for a while, the moral tone of her mind sinking, sorrow often (if innocence be met), with longings of heart that she were back to innocence, but her career still onward in evil, till she sinks in destitution and shame and sorrow! There is not merely pity (for this is right in both cases), but man likes to read the process; and the person whose secret history he follows becomes interesting to him. Now let these persons be recovered from their evil, instead of sinking to ruin: will the steps of their recovery be traced with the same interest? Most surely not. Put one and the other in a newspaper, in a pamphlet, and try. I do not say our moral judgment approves this tendency of mind: grace surely will correct it. I speak of the fact.

150 Such is human nature, such is the public; for the public is human nature locally modified. Suppose Mr. F. W. Newman or Dr. Newman were to return, the one to Christianity, the other to scriptural truth, would their phases of return, or the history of their religious recovery, be read with the same interest? I am fully persuaded they would not. Right-minded people would be glad, individuals would trace it with interest. Dr. N.'s present publication might cause the sale of some of that; but no bookseller would undertake an edition of the history of their recovery as he would of their fall. Alas! that it should be so; but the history of their fall away from truth and into evil, this it is that interests. But this is what their history is a history of.

No one questions that at this moment the power of evil is rampant; its forms are the deceit of Romanism and the insolence of open infidelity. Dr. Newman avows in result that he knows only the one or the other — Catholicism (that is, Papal infallibility) or Atheism; not the truth for himself. (Page 231 of first edition.) What is fearful (though the Christian has nothing to fear, far from it) is not that evil is there, but the perfect impotency of existing forms and corporations (I mean of such as ought, from their position and profession, to stand against it) to resist that evil. This is the sign of approaching judgment, of being given up of God. It was not Satan's power which drove the blessed Lord out of the world: as its occasion, it brought Him into it. But when His disciples could not cast demons out, could not use the power which had come in, then He says, "Faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?"

151 The country is in progress towards these two forms of evil. The National Schools in Ireland are founded on the avowed principle, that it was a vital defect to have the scriptures read in them, and this professedly to please the priests. A lay tribunal has decided that clergymen are not bound to hold the scriptures to be inspired, and that if they do not contravene articles made for another state of the church, they may teach anything they like; that is, that the church is no guardian of the truth at all. On the other hand, when men are subjected to the stultified fatuity that a red gown is like the Holy Ghost, there is no way of meeting such imbecility in public service,* because there is a rubric attached to the liturgy, the expression of patience, ill-advised or not, at the time when men were emerging from these things, which permits what was done in the second year of Edward VI.

{*Since this was written, some little righteous energy (I would I could say, consistency) has been shewn by Dr. Tait, for which I desire to be abundantly thankful.}

Now, it is not the evil I am judging here. If men like red gowns, I am sorry they do not instead love to worship God in spirit and in truth; but what I notice, what is fatal in its character is, that while the word of God is surrendered, and men are judicially authorized to give it up, there is no autonomy, no power, avowedly no power, to stand against or remove evil. The authorities of the national body seek to tide it over with the power of evil: but there is no faithfulness to God: and we have Father* Ignatius at the Episcopal gatherings as a deacon of the Church of England, and having a right to be there; and we have Colensos and Williamses openly setting aside the word with impunity. Neither can be met, neither can be dealt with as evil. They are authoritatively or judicially accepted; there is no intrinsic power at all to meet evil. I do not doubt the faithfulness of the Lord; I have no fear; I hold it to be a time of great blessing for faith; I believe the Lord is at hand. But it is sorrowful when what, in some sense at least, was the professed seat of righteousness declares its incapacity to remove or resist evil. If it be so, we are on the way to judgment. The aristocratic mind tends to popery; the popular to infidelity. Ecclesiastical authorities are powerless against the former; they are the chief abettors of the latter. Truth remains, blessed be God, always itself, and grace cannot fail.

{*[Should it not be "Brother" Ignatius? Father Ignatius was the Hon. Mr. Spencer. — Ed.]}

152 As I have spoken of these two forms of evil, let me add a few words on them before I formally take up the book which has given occasion to these lines. It is, as regards the true object of these remarks, the best judgment on the book. I am greatly confirmed in the conviction, that at the root of Romanism lies infidelity, not of course in the gross form of denying Christianity in its fundamental truths, or the historical basis of Christianity, but in the annulling those truths on which the blessing of the soul depends, or their application to it. It is a sensuous religion, fills the imagination with gorgeous ceremonies, noble buildings, fine music, stately processions. It feeds it with legends and the poetry of antiquity; but it gives no holy peace to the conscience — ease it may, but not peace; and, while accrediting itself with asceticism,* it accepts for the mass of its votaries full association with the world. It holds sin over the conscience as a terror, and relieves from that terror by human intervention, so as to put power into man's hand — into the hands of the priesthood. Looked at as a picture, it fills largely the imagination; in practice it degrades. Christianity and (in its true sense, whatever its shortcomings may have been) Protestantism elevate. I shall refer to this last in a moment: it has largely failed in result, but in its nature, as compared with Romanism, it elevates.

{*"I looked at her," says Dr. N., "her rites, her ceremonial, her precepts, and I said, This is a religion."}

Christianity brings us directly, immediately, to God. Each individual is directly, immediately, in relationship to God — his conscience before God, his heart confidingly in His presence. Judaism had a priesthood, the people could not go into God's presence. They might receive blessings, offer offerings, celebrate God's goodness, have a law to command them; but the way into the holiest was closed by a veil: "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest." When the Lord Jesus died, this veil was rent from top to bottom, and "we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." "Having made peace by the blood of His cross." "He suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God"; "His blood cleanseth from all sin." Hence the essence of Christianity, as applied to man, is, that the Christian goes himself, directly, personally to God — in Christ's name, and through Christ, but himself, into the holiest, and with boldness. He has by Christ access through the one Spirit to the Father, the Spirit of adoption. This being brought nigh by the blood of Jesus characterizes Christianity in its nature. The holiness of God's own presence is brought to bear on the soul: "If we walk," it is said, "in the light, as he is in the light" — yet not as fear, which repels, for we know perfect love through the gift of Jesus. We have boldness to enter into the holiest, that place where the presence of God Himself assures that the confidence of love will be the adoration of reverence while we go forth to the world; that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal body, the epistle (as it is said) of Christ. I am not discussing how far each Christian realizes it, but this is what Christianity practically is. He has made us kings and priests to God and His Father. This elevates truly.

153 Man is not elevated by intellectual pretensions; for he never gets, nor can get, beyond himself. What elevates him is heart-intercourse with what is above him; what truly elevates him is heart-intercourse with God, fellowship (wondrous word!) with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. But, even where the heart has not found its blessed home there through grace, this principle morally elevates; for it at least puts the natural conscience directly before God, and refers the soul, in its estimate of good and evil, personally and immediately to Him. There may be self-will and failure, but the standard of responsibility is preserved for the soul. I do but sketch the great principle on which I insist.

Romanism, wherever it exercises its influence, has closed the veil again. The faithful are not reconciled to God, they cannot go into the holiest, they do not know (as they quote from Ecclesiastes with so false an application) love and hatred by all that is before them; between them and God, they have a priesthood and saints, and the Virgin Mary. Christianity is a divine work which, through the redemption and life of a heavenly Mediator, has brought us to God; Romanism, a system of mediators on earth and in heaven, placed between us and God, to whom we are to go, and who go for us; we are too unworthy to go ourselves. It sounds lowly this voluntary humility, but it shuts out the conscience from the witness of God's presence; it casts us back on our worthiness, it puts away and denies the perfect love of God as known to us (shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us) through Christ. It repudiates the blessed tender grace of Jesus, that High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We must go to the heart of Jesus through the heart of Mary, they tell us. Surely I would rather trust His, blessed and honoured as she may have been and was in her own place. It removes me from God, to connect me immediately with creatures, however exalted, for my heart, and with sinful men, for my conscience, who are to judge of and absolve me. All this is degrading. It is the denial of Christianity, not in its original facts, but in its power and application to man.

154 A few illustrations of what I mean. They hold the great facts or truths of Christianity — the Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ; the atonement, so far as its sufficiency goes (not, however, as effectual substitution); that men are sinners (this also very imperfectly); and the need of regeneration, though they scorn the true force of the word. They hold the inspiration of the scriptures, though they have falsified them, both in adding books which every honest man knows are not genuine scriptures, and in giving a translation as the authentic scriptures. They own in a general way the personality and agency of the Holy Ghost. My object is not here to state exactly every point, but to say in general that they own the great fundamental facts of Christianity. It is not there that the spirit of infidelity shews itself.

But the moment you come to the application of these facts to men — to their efficacious value, all is lost. The scriptures are inspired, but the faithful are incapable of using them. In vain is it that they are addressed by God Himself through the inspired writers to the body of believers — they must not have them but by leave of others. In vain is it that there is a Holy Ghost — He does not so lead and guide individuals as that they can walk in peace and grace, and understand withal His word. They mock at the thought of His dwelling in believers. They bring the divisions and faults of believers to prove He cannot be there; that is, they use man's sin to deny God's goodness and truth, just as infidels do.

155 Even as to the scriptures their universal question is the same as the infidel's — How do you know them to be the scriptures? Their doctrine is, You must believe in them through the church: that is, the scriptures do not command faith in and by themselves, nor is man guilty if he reject them, just as the infidel says. God's word must be believed because God has spoken, and for no other reason, or it is not believing His word at all. Grace, no doubt, is needed for it, as for everything; but man's responsibility is there, as the Lord said, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." They were responsible for not receiving Him, with all ecclesiastical authority rejecting Him: so are men as to the word.

Again, the sacrifice of Christ, they do not deny it. They repeat it in the Mass in an unbloody sacrifice, they say. But scripture says it was accomplished once for all, and contrasts it in its efficacy with the Jewish sacrifices, the repetition of which proved that sin was still there. Whereas the sacrifice of Christ, offered once for all, having perfectly put away sin for him who believes, there could be no repetition, the believer is perfected for ever, and God remembers his sins and iniquities no more. Their repetition shews unbelief in this blessed truth. The believer is not perfected for ever — the sacrifice must be repeated. It is not true that God will not remember their sins and iniquities any more. That is, the sacrifice is not denied; its efficacy, once offered for the believer's soul, is.

Again, take Christ's intercessional mediatorship. Christianity presents to me that blessed One, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; a man tempted in all points as we are, without sin; one who also can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities, who has suffered being tempted, and thus is able to succour them that are tempted. In a word, the Son of God Himself has descended into our sorrows and trials, and passed through them in tender gracious love, that I might confide in His sympathy and love, and know He could feel for and with me. Do they deny His priesthood and intercession? No. But in fact there are a crowd of mediators; above all, Mary His mother. And why? He is too high and glorious. Any poor man would seek a friend at court to have the king's ear; it is the heart of Mary I am to trust, and get the saints' intercession, and reach His heart through Mary's. The whole truth and value of Christ's intercessory love is destroyed and denied in practice. The saints' and Mary's intercession is trusted, their tenderness and nearness believed in, not Christ's. Heathenism denied the one true God the Creator (though in a certain sense owning Him as a dogma) by a multiplicity of gods in practice. God intervenes by a Mediator in the most perfect system of blessing, and Romanism, while admitting the mediatorship of Christ as a dogma, has denied the one true mediatorship in practice by a multiplicity of mediators. It is the heathenism of Christianity, that is, of the blessed truth of a redeeming Mediator.

156 I turn more immediately to Dr. Newman's book. Let me be forgiven speaking for a moment of myself, as what I say has a bearing on these points. I know the system. I knew it and walked in it years before Dr. Newman (as I learn from this book) thought on the subject; and when Dr. Pusey was not heard of. I fasted in Lent so as to be weak in body at the end of it; ate no meat on week days — nothing till evening on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, then a little bread or nothing; observed strictly the weekly fasts, too. I went to my clergyman always if I wished to take the sacrament, that he might judge of the matter. I held apostolic succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there only. I held thus Luther and Calvin and their followers to be outside. I was not their judge, but I left them to the uncovenanted mercies of God. I searched with earnest diligence into the evidences of apostolic succession in England, and just saved their validity for myself and my conscience. The union of church and state I held to be Babylonish, that the church ought to govern itself, and that she was in bondage but was the church.

I would guard this part of what I say. I still think fasting a useful thing in its place, if spiritually used. I still think there were sacramental ordinances instituted. I still think the state has nothing to do with the church. Only I add that, if it be so, the church must not be an imperium in imperio, but a lowly heavenly body which has no portion on earth at all; as it was at the beginning, suffering as its Head did, unknown and well known, an unearthly witness of heavenly things on earth. What saved me then, I think, from being a Romanist was the ninth and tenth of Hebrews. I could not for priesthood, which I believed in, practically give up our great High Priest and His work. What delivered me from this whole system was the truth. The word of God had its own, its divine, authority over my soul, and maintained it through grace. I was looking for the true church honestly but in the dark. I believe in the church now, but I know it in its reality only as the living body of Christ united to Him by the Holy Ghost. I believe there is a church on earth, but, as is prophesied by the apostles, utterly corrupted as an external thing, and ruined — "having the form of godliness, but denying the power of it," causing perilous times. I see the church, the body of Christ, composed of living members united to Him by the Holy Ghost. I see an outward system, the habitation of God through the Spirit; but there I see wood, and hay, and stubble, may be built* in, and has been, and worse, but that God's faithfulness will continue His own work. Christ will build till all be finished, and no power shall prevail against it, until the time come to take those that are His to glory. I believe the appropriating the privileges of the members of Christ's body, as a fact, to all that are built into the house is the fundamental principle of popery, and of all that clings to it. I admit a sacramental system, but to identify it with actual spiritual power is unscriptural and false. One may be corrupted by man, the other is the work of God and secured by Him. I know no salvation out of the true church; but the Roman Catholic church is ridiculous as a security for the soul; for they admit that men may be, and hundreds are, members of it, and lost after all. I would not thank you for such security as that. I do not think Protestantism was fully delivered from this identifying the external sacramental system with the divine power of life — these two distinct revealed aspects of the church; and hence its present difficulties. Romanism, specifically and as a system, identifies them, denies the spiritual power and regeneration by the word, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost — in practice, mocks at it, as an infidel might. It is essential falsehood in this respect. Protestantism does not. It owns the spiritual power and the word; but I do not think there was deliverance from confusion as to it. It is bearing the burden of this now.

{*What Christ builds will be infallibly maintained to the end; and to this Peter refers in 1 Peter 2. But, also, as in every divine dispensation from the beginning, what God had established in a right state has been trusted to man's responsibility, and man has uniformly failed, and the system has been judged. So of the external system of the church — the day will declare the work, for it will be revealed by fire. The corruption will be destroyed.}

158 We are told there shall come a falling away. As I have said I believe it. The apostle has declared (that is, God has declared), "Upon thee [the engrafted Gentile] goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off." Falling away, the opposite of continuing in God's goodness, is prophesied of; the lot of the church, as an outward professing system, is to be cut off. I look for partial present success for Romanism — the unbelief of imagination, and especially in its influence over government — but to make a way for open apostasy, or infidelity, the instrument of desolating judgments on it, when Antichrist and judgment will close the scene. Into that system of corruption which shall thus be destroyed, though for the moment successful, Dr. Newman has cast himself, as many others have, out of the uncertainty in which he has found his mind. His brother, as we have seen, publicly represents the open infidelity. Dr. Newman rests on authority; for him the pope is infallible. I have found (through pure grace, I fully own) the truth deliver me out of all difficulties, and the sure stay of my soul; for the word of God abides for ever. I rest, through grace, on the truth; on divine authority; on apostles, not on the pope. Dr. Newman cannot say, I know of whom I have learned it; I can. I have learned it of Paul, John, Peter — I need not name the rest — yea, of the blessed Lord Himself.

I will examine the process of Dr. Newman's mind. He has set it before us for the purpose. I pity Dr. Newman; I feel his difficulties; I have felt them myself; I do not judge him. But as his book is calculated to interest and influence many, I do not think he can complain if I dissect it freely. It is impossible to do so without speaking of Dr. Newman himself; for the whole part of his book which I comment on is an account of himself. I must necessarily expose his state in commenting on his own account of it. In many things I agree; many of his thoughts I have gone over in my own mind. Strange to say, I find I admit constantly all that infidels hold metaphysically. Only the truth remains, the truth of God untouched. I account for some of their thoughts; I cannot for others. What Dr. Newman calls liberalism is infidelity — man meddling, with his own mind as competent, in divine things. I reject this as utterly as he does. In the two points he professes to name, I do in a measure, I suppose, pretty much as he does; but he need not be so afraid of liberalism. What it hates is truth. Its latitudinarianism will favour — is favouring — popery at present more than anything else does, and has been. I believe the time will come when it will pull down popery. I believe the time will come, as Dr. Newman says, when a mere via media will disappear as satisfying nobody, and the struggle will be between popery and infidelity directly. I believe infidel power will triumph, and popery disappear; but triumph to its own destruction by the judgment of the Lord. But at present the liberal principle, and the majority of dissenters with it, are attacking the Establishment, the via media. It stands in their way. Some have boasted to me of their doing so, looking for the result Dr. N. himself anticipates; that is, putting down the Establishment, and then having a final struggle with Romanism. I have no sympathy with this in any sense or way. They are deceiving themselves too. They will find liberalism too strong for themselves as a system. What is religious, as a system among them, will not, does not, satisfy any active religious or infidel mind now. They may grow for a time by the ruin of others; but they are letting loose what will ruin themselves. But there is another thing besides and behind what Dr. Newman is looking at — the truth of God, the people of God. They will subsist and have their place in heaven when the fashion of this world has passed away.

159 There will be a people, not liberal so-called, not Romanists, but heavenly Christian men, resting on the word of God in true and lowly faith, led by the Spirit, kept, whatever the ruin, against whom the gates of hell shall no. and never can prevail. They will be kept, I mean, in the world, where alone danger for them is. They will have the sacraments, for such there are; but they will have what is inward and essential — true divinely-wrought faith, and the Spirit of God; kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed. May Dr. Newman be found among them, and many of the liberals too; yea, his now poor infidel brother; for grace can gather from every quarter. I am perfectly assured, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church that Christ builds; and I mean that He will keep it as a public profession here until the moment known to God, when He will take His own to Himself in heaven. But that which man has built and corrupted, the servant which has said, My Lord delays His coming, and has beaten the men-servants and maid-servants, and has eaten and drunk with the drunken, will be judged, will have his portion with the unbelievers, with the hypocrites, though called His servant to the end. It is well that men who fear God should ponder these things.

160 The first point which prominently strikes me in Dr. Newman's book is, that, as far as I can find from diligently examining it, neither Christ nor the truth nor the word of God nor any true solid foundation ever was in his mind at all. I hasten to say, I am not speaking of what is called orthodoxy; I am assuming this, as he does. He professed these great Christian foundations before; he professes them now — sincerely, I doubt not, as dogmas then and now, the useless faith of James. But in his search on the point which occupied his mind, in what he discloses in this book, neither Christ nor the truth nor the word of God nor any divine ground of faith is found as an object of research, or possessed as the foundation of his soul. As to a divine foundation of divine faith, it is from beginning to end denied. Romanism has none. It has dogmas, immensely important, fundamental dogmas they are, but no divine ground of faith.* My business is here to shew that it is so, as to Dr. N. His inquiry was between Anglicanism and Romanism. The soundness and fairness of that inquiry I will speak of; but there are deeper principles at the bottom of the result he has arrived at, and to them I now turn.

{*I do not undervalue these dogmas: they are essential to Christianity; and we cannot estimate them too highly, or hold them too fast.}

I affirm that, as far as this book goes, there is no divine ground of faith at all in it. He says he was converted at fifteen. Charity will surely hope and trust it is so. I do not pretend to judge, I earnestly hope it is; my heart gladly believes it, and rejoices in the thought of it. There is One only who judges. I speak of his book, and the principles laid down there. Whether Christ ever appears there, people must judge of, who have read it. I cannot recall the instance. And this is exceedingly important, as to what religion is. Possessing Christ, having the Son, as scripture expresses it, gives a rest and peace to the soul, which does not leave it beating about after truth, as Dr. Newman's was, saying, Where is it? The soul that has Christ knows it has got the truth — for He is it — that it has found the Father. It does not hunger, as not having what the soul needs and craves after. It is not looking about for safety, for it is safe in Him and through Him; not in self-confidence, but trusting the good Shepherd, who knows His sheep, and keeps them. It does not slight the sacraments, but is thankful for them, nor the ministry of men whom the Lord has sent. It blesses God heartily for all these things where it enjoys them, but it possesses the substance of all, eternal life in Christ, shepherd-care in Him. It has peace and rest of heart in Him.

161 And there is another point connected with this. What finally led Dr. Newman to be satisfied with Romanism, which has confessedly a multitude of doctrines unknown to the primitive church, was the principle of development. He was far down the hill, no doubt, long before; but that plunged him into its waters. Now in the Person of Christ, and the value of His work before God, there can be no development. He is the same — and so is the efficacy of His work — yesterday, to-day, and for ever. I or Dr. Newman may grow in the knowledge of Christ. Faithful zeal may resist and dispel errors which arise, and by which Satan seeks to cloud the truth and overthrow faith; but there cannot be a development of the infinitely perfect and completely revealed Person of the Son of God, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Dr. Newman may find (in spite of Bishop Bull, and as Pettau has admitted) that: the ante-Nicene fathers were worse than obscure as to the divinity of the blessed Lord; but Paul is not, who declares that the fulness of the Godhead (theotes not theiotes, that is, proper Deity, not divine character simply) dwells in Him bodily; John is not, who declares, He is the true God, was with God, and was God; and the New Testament, so plainly and blessedly making Christ known to us, is not. There He is Immanuel, Jesus — Jehovah the Saviour. He may rejoice that the Nicene Council re-affirmed this truth. But to say that this was development, and that the church of God for three centuries did not know the true divinity of Christ is high treason against Christ and the truth. It is the folly of a mind who, to excuse itself and make out a point, gives up all fundamental truth — does not possess it. It may lead to Romanism — I dare say it does; I am sure it does not lead to God. The apostle tells us, on this very head, "Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that therefore which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father." There might be the rejection of heresies, as Arianism, whose source was in Platonism and philosophy, or of other similar evil doctrines; but it was not to develop but to maintain what was from the beginning. So the apostle Paul, "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, . . . knowing of whom thou hast learned them." I admit no development: that is popery.

162 I admit of no private judgment, when God has revealed the truth. I will touch on this subject further when I come to speak of Dr. N.'s views of Protestantism. I learn, but I know of whom I learn; I continue in what we have heard from the beginning. The Romish church does not so continue; it does not know of whom it learns, as to the faith of any individual in it. The indiscriminate reading of scripture by Christians it condemns, which the apostle gives as the resource and security of the believer in the last and evil days. We are perfectly sure why.

Next, it is striking how absolutely foreign the search for the truth, or the conscious possession of it, was from Dr. N.'s mind. He was looking out for some via media to preserve from what threatened. The Evangelical system only occupied a space between catholic truth and rationalism (pp. 144, 145). I do not know what else a via media of his own was to do. But I refer to this now to shew there was no search for God's truth in the matter; it was some expedient. "It was necessary to have a definite church theory erected on a definite basis; this took me to the great Anglican divines" 146). Then there were the parties in the controversy, the Anglican via media, and the popular religion of Rome. The Anglican disputant took his stand upon antiquity or apostolicity, the Roman on catholicity 148-153). "It is plain, then, that at the end of 1835, or beginning of 1836, I had the whole question before me on which, to my mind, the decision between the churches depended. There was a contrariety of claims between the Anglican and Roman religions, and the history of my conversion is simply the process of working it out to a solution." It was catholicity, or antiquity. I add that the unity of the church, as one body, was not in his mind at all. It was catholicity, or independent dioceses (148). On reading Leo he suddenly felt he was all in the wrong. "Be my soul with the saints," such as Athanasius (who died excommunicated and banished by the so-called universal church for the truth's sake) and Leo. "Anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels! Perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do aught but fall at their feet in love and worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue." Is there the most distant idea of an approach to the serious search of God's truth on the subject from His teaching? Dr. N. moves in a circle of men's minds to decide a question of the merit of present rival schemes, never for the truth of God. Where he had learnt what he did hold, we shall see in the next article. Even here we shall see he rests on no divine testimony. There is no seriousness. Dr. Wiseman's words from St. Augustine, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum," sounded in his ears incessantly, like "Turn again, Whittington"! (157-8). "There was more evidence in antiquity for the necessity of unity, than for the apostolical succession," etc. The truth of God, as revealed, does not enter his mind. He cannot say he possessed it, or thought he did; for he was uncertain and changing, and that even as to why he was to believe; but in this state he never inquired for God's truth on God's authority.

163 Again, further on (231), he examines the concatenation of arguments by which the mind ascends from its first to its final religious idea: "And I came to the conclusion that there was no medium between atheism and catholicity, and that a perfectly consistent mind, under those circumstances in which it finds itself here below, must embrace either one or the other" (231). Now such a sentence could not by any possibility have been penned by one who possessed the truth himself. One who possessed Christ, knew Him as the Son of God for himself, knew the Father and His love, must have known that there was the possession of truth without being what Dr. N. (when he wrote this) means by catholic. No one who possessed divine truth, as taught of God, whatever the external means — truth as to God, the Trinity, the Lord Jesus, the church as one with Him, sin, salvation (I might enlarge the list) — could have declared there was no medium between atheism and catholicity. And note his grounds: "I am a catholic by virtue of my believing in a God; and if I am asked why I believe in a God, it is because I believe in myself." God's presence in his conscience makes him know God. Now Dr. N. speaks of philosophical correctness. It is not the question here. Either before joining Rome he possessed Christian truth, or he did not. If he did, his position is false; if he did not, anyone can understand why he turned catholic. He had nothing. Nor indeed did he arrive at anything. He came to authority, not faith in any truth. He did not believe, he tells us, in transubstantiation till he was a catholic. Now he receives it on authority (265). He believed that the Roman catholic church was the oracle of God. Transubstantiation passed muster with all the rest, and he declared it to be a part of the original revelation; but this is no true faith in a truth, it is acquiescence in authority, and, after all, it is accrediting Rome for a fact. I might add to this list of proofs that he did not possess the truth nor seek it. I quote this only as short expressions of it on his part, and so proofs. The whole book shews it — it runs through every part of it.

164 I shall now shew that he had no divine ground of faith. His whole ground of believing was, not divine testimony, but probability, and no more; and such is the doctrine of the school, as I shall shew from Keble. No wonder that Romanism delights in this. It has no divine ground of faith. It cannot give the same ground of faith to a heathen and a Christian, nor any sure one to either. It declares, I cannot believe in God's word but on the authority of the church. But how am I to believe in the church? The first converts could not. Antiquity, catholicity, succession did not exist. They were called on to believe in Christ alone. There was no church, and all ecclesiastical authority was against Him. The foundation of the first disciples' faith is different on the Romanist system from mine; and, even after Christ was glorified, the faith of the converts could not be founded, and was not founded on the church, but on the testimony of the apostles. Nor could it be with heathens now; for they do not recognize the church. It is said that there is special grace for them. So heathens have special grace which Christians cannot have. And if, as believing in Christ, I seek, not Christianity, but honestly what church is the best one, I am told I must begin by owning the authority of that church. But this is absurd on the face of it; for what I want to know is, has it authority? Is it the true church?

I return to the ground Dr. Newman was on. Now the truth rests on testimony. John the baptist says, "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." So the apostle John, "He that is of God heareth us"; Paul, "Continue thou in the things that thou hast learned, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." Now if I believe the blessed Lord's testimony or Paul's or John's or any of the inspired witnesses, I do not, I cannot, dare not speak of probability. I set to my seal that God is true. There is no divine faith but that. That Dr. N. never had in prosecuting his inquiry; he tells us so. It was one of the great underlying principles of a great portion of his teaching — "Probability is the guide of life" (61, 62). The difficulty was evident: scepticism, that is, certainty about nothing. Keble met this, he tells us, by the doctrine, "that it is not merely probability which makes us intellectually certain" — mark "intellectually." He had spoken before of the logical cogency of faith (62) — but probability as it is put to account by faith and love. "It is faith and love which give to probability a force which it has not in itself" (69).

165 Thus in itself it was only a probability, and something in myself gives it force. It was reasoning plus right feeling; but no divine testimony at all. Still Dr. N. says that did not satisfy him. "It was beautiful and religious, but it did not even profess to be logical." "My argument is in outline as follows: That that absolute certitude which we were able to possess, whether as to truths of natural theology, or as to the fact of a revelation, was the result of an assemblage of concurring and converging probabilities, and that, both according to the constitution of the human mind and the will of its Maker, that certitude was a habit of mind, that certainty was a quality of propositions," and so forth (70). There are degrees, consequently, creating certitude, opinion, etc.

Now it is quite certain that there is no divine ground of faith at all here, no testimony of God received as such; and if I take these probabilities as that on which the reception of a testimony is based, the certainty of that testimony cannot be beyond the certainty that it is a true one. Nothing can be clearer than that, whatever he might have had in his soul for the foundation of all his inquiry, no ground of divine faith existed at all. He was already on the ground of Romanism on this point — that is, of infidelity. Such a process of reasoning may shew the folly of infidel reasoning, and so far be useful as a means; it never can give divine faith; it is not on the ground of it at all.

166 I might multiply quotations; I only add a few to shew he was always on this ground. Thus, page 202, he preached against the danger of being swayed by our feeling rather than our reason in religious inquiry (223). "I wish to go by reason, not by feeling" (232). This was in 1843-4, on the eve of his becoming a Romanist: "I say that I believed in God on a probability, that I believed in Christianity on a probability, and that I believed in catholicism on a probability, and that all three were about the same kind of probabilities, a cumulative and a transcendent probability, but still probability; inasmuch as He who made us has so willed that in mathematics indeed we arrive at certitude by rigid demonstration, but in religious inquiry we arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities; inasmuch as He who has willed that we should so act, co-operates with us in our acting, and therefore bestows on us a certitude which rises higher than the logical force of our conclusions" (232). Thus we have God's grace helping us in ascertaining probabilities; but, as Dr. N. says, still probability. Now it is perfectly certain that there is no divine ground of faith here at all. No true believer, no one who has received God's testimony and set to his seal that God is true, be he Roman Catholic itself, but knows this has nothing whatever to do with divine faith. It would be a blasphemy to talk of God's testimony being probably true, no matter how high the probability may go. Probability of conclusions is not of the same nature as reception of a testimony.

I might here again add quotations, but they are useless after these. The Romanism of Dr. Newman is not divine faith at all.

I shall now shew further that the principles which led him to the place where he is were all derived from man. This may be very clever with a view to involve Anglicanism in his present position, but is a distinct testimony that all was built on human influences, not on God's word or truth divinely received in any way. Dr. Hawkins gave him Sumner on apostolic preaching. Thus he gave up his remaining Calvinism, and received the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Another principle he received from Dr. Hawkins was the doctrine of tradition: "To learn doctrine we must have recourse to the catechisms and creeds . . . after learning from them the doctrines of Christianity, the inquirer must verify them from scripture" (61). Let me say here, I distinguish fully between learning truth and a standard of it; but this is a poor teaching. The first Christians certainly did not learn it from words or catechisms, for there were none to learn them from; and now a parent, as well as a catechism, a friend, a minister, may have taught us the truth, or scripture may have done so. Scripture is the only standard. The fallacy of the statement is in this, that catechisms and creeds are here introduced, not as teaching, but as authority; that is, the church is. We have received the truth from them as truth, without saying so. Let it be true or false, it is a deceitful presentation of the matter. A parent, a friend, a minister, is not an authority. If catechisms and creeds are only means of learning, there are a hundred others. Their authority is at the root of this tradition.

167 But to proceed: "The Rev. Wm. James taught me the doctrine of apostolic succession." "About this date I read Butler's Analogy, the study of which has been to so many, as it was to me, an era in their religious opinions" (61). From him he learned the doctrine of probability. He had thus given up his early religious convictions, imbibed with what converted him to God, and was prepared for his departure into Romanism. He had been taught by man, and was landed in the denial of divine faith, on the ground of probability as the basis of religious views. Whately then taught him to think and use his reason, "to see with my own eyes, and to walk with my own feet" (62). He learnt from him "the existence of the church as a substantive body or corporation. This led, in its effects, to Tractarianism" (63). Keble's poetry, that is, the sacramental system, subsequently exercised a great influence over him, and what was added to the doctrine of probability, of which we have spoken (68). Froude (a hard rider, we are told, on horseback and in views), professed openly his admiration of the church of Rome, and his hatred of the Reformers. His opinions arrested and influenced Dr. N.; he was his bosom friend (73, 74). Mr. Froude was evidently governed by the wild imagination of an unhealthy mind and a strong will. The theory of virginity, and the real presence, and mediaeval antiquity, carried him away — not the primitive church. He went abroad ill, and was shocked by the degeneracy which, says Dr. Newman, he thought he saw in the catholics of Italy. He died young. "There is one remaining source of my opinions," says Dr. N. (so little conscious is he of what that means, the tale it tells), "to be mentioned" (75). This was the study of Fathers and church history, which resulted in his work as to the Arians of the fourth century. He delighted in and received Clement of Alexandria's wild views. They came like music to his inward ear, reviving the self-invented Berkeleyanism he was in when young, of which we will speak farther on. From this school he learnt what he held about angels — as wild as need be. He then went abroad ill with Mr. Froude, visited Italy and Sicily, and (with a strong impression he was called to some work, of which anon) he began the Tracts for the Times.

168 I have gone through the proofs that God's truth was not what Dr. Newman sought, but to settle the question between the principles of catholicity and antiquity, or Romanism and Anglicanism; that men's opinions, not God's word, were what gradually led him on, and that he had no divine foundation for faith at all, but avowedly only probability, which in its nature excludes the idea of the reception of a divine testimony. I will now inquire a little into his actual progress, in which, it seems to me, astonishing levity of mind is exhibited, a large share of self-confidence, it may be some more direct power of the enemy. I shall be forgiven (as instructively tracing the elements of a history, given to us by himself, which has taken the course Dr. Newman's has) in remarking how much he was occupied with himself. At page 20 or 23 he records the phases of his youthful feeling; he kept even his Latin verses and copy-books made and used when a young boy; small things, but which shew the tone and character of mind which were fully developed in after life, as here depicted. When he left his tutorship for the continent, he had a vision of some future before him, and on his return felt he had a work to do. "I was naturally led to think that some inward changes, as well as some larger course of action, was coming upon me" (81). His imagination was wild and unrestrained too, and somehow or other formed in a popish school. He headed his first copybook as a child with a crucifix and rosary, and crossed himself before going into the dark, before he was fifteen; longed that the Arabian tales should be true; thought life might be a dream, or himself an angel; the world a deception, and his fellow-angels concealing themselves from him, and deceiving him with the semblance of a material world (53-55). Nor when a clergyman had this character disappeared. In 1834 he said of the angels in a sermon, "Every breath of air, and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect is as it were the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God." "Again I ask, what would be the thoughts of a man who, examining a flower, or a herb, or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats as something so beneath him in the scale of existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of some powerful being, who was hidden behind the visible things he was inspecting, who, etc., . . . nay, whose robe and ornament these objects were?" (77). "Also, besides the hosts of evil spirits, I considered there was a middle race, daimonia, neither in heaven nor in hell, partially fallen, capricious, wayward, noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be. They gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the actions of bodies politic," etc. (78). This is connected with his study of Clemens Alexandrinus and Alexandrianism, that is, of the Neoplatonism which corrupted the gospel, and was the true source of Arianism, this Clemens himself being unsound, and Justin Martyr expressly declaring that it was impossible the supreme God could be made flesh.

169 However, my present object is to shew the kind of preparation there was in the state of his mind for his further progress. Depth of conscience, sense of good and evil, the soberness of God's word, subjection to it, one finds no trace of. It is superficial imagination, and on such subjects levity. And he pursued this out. "I cannot but think that there are beings with a great deal of good in them, yet with great defects, who are the animating principles of certain institutions, etc., etc. Take England, with many high virtues and a low Catholicism" (78). This was in 1837. In 1835-6 he had the whole state of the question between Anglicanism and Romanism (152), so that these wild wanderings of mind existed and entered into his judgment of England's ecclesiastical state. Is there anything of earnestness or an exercised conscience here?

I have said there was self-confidence and levity in dealing with solemn subjects. What I mean now by the latter is this. When he was uncertain what he believed, what was the truth, and where it would lead, though growingly inclined to Romanism, he went on acting diligently on the minds of others. He was not at rest himself (he tells us so), yet went on influencing others; not always saying all he had in his mind, but enough to prepare theirs for it. Now, on so solemn a subject as what is the true religion, to act week after week on others without knowing the true religion oneself, I call moral levity of the worst kind. That he was not at rest he tells us (159). "And first I will say, whatever comes of saying it (for I leave inferences to others), that for years I must have had something of an habitual notion, though it was latent, and had never led me to distrust my own convictions, that my mind had not found its ultimate rest, and that in some sense or other I was on journey." This was the case as early as 1833, and even 1829. Now, what does this shew? That with the consciousness of changing views, his mind on a journey he knew not whither, he went on leading and directing others by sermons, tracts, etc. Now, I do think an earnest, serious, conscientious man would not have done this; a modest man would not, he would have waited till he saw what the truth was himself, till he was at the end of his journey. And why did he go on when he knew he had not come to any settled conclusion? Because he had immense confidence in himself. He never was led to distrust his own convictions (that is, himself — his own mind), though they were changing every day; he was on his "journey." This is what I call moral levity and self-confidence.

170 But we may have some other elements of this. The truth is, that at this moment all was over as to Anglicanism in Dr. N.'s mind. It was in a ruinous evil state; he could and was to reform it. But we have the sources of this movement in his mind; it was in full connection with angelical flowers and pebbles. It was not an earnest inquiry into what Paul taught, or John presses on us in the power of the eternal Spirit; not a heart bowed by Christ's words, and because the church does not answer to what she ought to be for her heavenly Bridegroom. It was not the truth, it was not God's word, it was not what God planted at the first wholly a right seed (to make use of Jeremiah's expression as to Israel), nothing of the moral depth of the exercised conscience which such thoughts are connected with, which heart-connection with Christ, and the desire that the church might be what it ought to be for Him, as the word of God will shew it to us, are the source of in the heart. It was Alexandria. So Dr. N. tells. He had been writing the history of the Arians. He had found in the wild mysteries and errors of Platonistic Christianity "the primeval mystery,"* that all nature was a parable, the world the expression of the Logos, or word of God, the stars living beings. For such was Alexandrian philosophy, as displayed in Philo,** and with which the Alexandrian Fathers were more or less imbued. "In her triumphant zeal in behalf of that primeval mystery, to which I had so great a devotion from my youth, I recognized the movement of my spiritual mother, incessu patuit Dea. The self-conquest of her ascetics, the patience of her martyrs, the irresistible determination of her bishops, the joyous swing of her advance, both exalted and abashed me. I said, Look on this picture and on that (the Anglican church). I felt affection for my own church, but not tenderness; I felt dismay at her prospects, anger and scorn at her do-nothing perplexity . . . . I saw that Reformation principles were powerless to rescue her. As to leaving her, the thought never crossed my imagination; still, I ever kept before me that there was something greater than the Established Church, and that was the church catholic and apostolic, set up from the beginning, of which she was but the local presence and organ. She was nothing unless she was this. She must be dealt with strongly, or she would be lost. There was need of a second Reformation" (80). Now, although Dr. N. speaks of the primitive church, he refers essentially to Alexandria. He says (p. 76), "What principally attached me to the ante-Nicene period was the great church of Alexandria, the historical centre of teaching of those times." "The broad philosophy of Clement and Origen carried me away." And this is distinctly connected with his rhapsodies about angels, etc. It is the whole subject from the beginning of 75 to the end of 80. This was what he admired; this forced reformation on his notice. He owed his doctrine about angels to the Alexandrian school (77). He was "drifted back first to the ante-Nicene history, and then to the church of Alexandria." It was the Alexandrian church led him to his reforming undertakings.

{*I should have doubted what Dr. N. meant by the primeval mystery, but for the words, "to which I had so great a devotion in my youth." This was the Platonic system of ideas and demons, material things being merely a representative to sense of archetypal truth. This, though Neoplatonism properly speaking, was a subsequent system, a last effort of philosophy against Christianity, reigned among the Alexandrian Fathers. Justin Martyr never gave up his philosopher's cloak. Clement had his common teaching, and his esoteric for the initiated.}

{**That all this doctrine about souls and angels, or demons, is half Platonic, half philosopho-Mosaic, is unquestionable. It had a semi-Jewish, semi-heathen origin, coming, I doubt not (as no one who has examined Manicheism, Gnosticism, and eastern or old Persian views, can, I think, question), from the East. Philo represents the mixture in the Lord and apostles' time. He held that all was full of living beings (the sun, moon, and stars being not only animals, but most pure minds); that all the air, the space from the moon, the extreme of heaven proper, to the earth, was filled with souls as numerous as the stars; that the higher ones were very pure, and were demons, called angels by Moses, the lower ones loved getting down into human bodies; the root of all the doctrine being the evil of matter. See Philo peri Gen. (1, 263, Mangey) peri Phut. Noe (1, 331), peri tou theop. on. (1, 641), and elsewhere. This Origen held to be true. He maintains it largely De Prin. lib 1, 7 (1, 72, 73, De la Rue), and that they first had a body, and that then a soul entered into it, which desires to depart and be with Christ. Clement is said to have denied it. I cannot find the passage. In the system referred to above, these demons, or angels, were hell to be intercessors, as the Jews also taught.}

172 Let us see a little what the state of this church was, and in matters which made Dr. N. admire it, and seek to reform the Anglican. Strange to say, it is, to say the very least, excessively doubtful whether for years, yea centuries, there was any episcopal ordination there at all, at least if we are to believe St. Jerome. No doubt in his time, and before it, episcopacy was established, and this he recognizes. But on the pretensions of the diaconate at Rome, he exalts presbyters, declaring that according to scripture bishops and presbyters were identical; he says the apostle perspicuously teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops, quoting Philippians 1, Acts 20: 28, Titus 1: 5, seq., 1 Timothy 4: 14, 1 Peter 5, and the second and third epistles of John. But he adds, that afterwards one was chosen who should be set over the others, as a remedy for schism, lest any drawing to himself should make a breach in the church of Christ. For at Alexandria also, from the evangelist Mark up to the bishops Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always called bishop one chosen out of themselves, placed in a higher grade; as if the army should make an Imperator (as they did in the empire), or the deacons choose from themselves one whom they may have known to be industrious, and called him Archdeacon. Now, it is true, he adds, that the bishop differs only in this, that he can ordain. Nor do I doubt for a moment, that this was the universal order in Jerome's time. Nay, the Alexandrian patriarch, whose jurisdiction then was larger than that of Rome, claimed the right to ordain in all his subject-dioceses himself. But it is equally true that Jerome states historically that it had not been so till Heraclas and Dionysius; and this is confirmed by many peculiarities as to the rights of Alexandrian presbyters, and, as is said, the abolition of their rights by Alexander in the time of the Nicene council.

173 But this by the bye. That Alexandrian theology was philosophical, and corrupted by philosophy, is certain: Clement, the great Alexandrian teacher, does not conceal it. He says in his Stromata (ed. Potter 1, 319, line 35), speaking of the nourishment of souls, the peace in the word, and the life which is of God; he adds, "For souls have their own nourishment, some growing in knowledge and intelligence, some fed according to the Grecian philosophy, of which, as in the case of nuts, all is not edible." In lib. 7, 2 (1831, 2), "the word teaches all, some as friends, some as faithful servants, some as servants; he is the teacher who instructs the man of knowledge (the Gnostic) in mysteries (this is the esoteric teaching for a few), the faithful by good hopes, and the hard-hearted by corrective discipline and sensible (aesthetic) powers." And afterwards: "He, the Word, it is who gives philosophy to the Greeks by inferior angels; for the angels, by a divine and ancient ordinance, are distributed by nations, but the doctrine of believers is the Lord's part, insisting on the divine care of all." So in book 6, 8 (773), "All things useful to life are given by the Word, but philosophy more especially to the Greeks was given to them as a special covenant, to be as a foundation of philosophy according to Christ." And in book 1, 6 (p. 337) he makes the sower of the parable to have come thus from above from the foundation of the world. What this philosophy was he tells us (338): "Philosophy, I say not the Stoic, not the Platonic, nor the Epicurean and Aristotelian, but whatever things are said rightly by each of these sects, teaching righteousness with pious intelligence; this, as a whole, I call eclectic philosophy." The law, he says elsewhere, was for the Jews, philosophy for the Greeks, till Christ came (6, 17, p. 823), the whole chapter being a long discourse on this subject, each receiving it according to their deserts.

I am fully satisfied that the East was the origin of much more of all this than we are aware of, corrected partially in these Alexandrian Fathers by Christianity, and already in Plato (and, I suppose, Pythagoras) by Grecian habits of thought. The root of it was, that there was a supreme unknown God who dwelt in the depths of silence, and could have no connection with matter. Hence emanations and the Demiurge, an inferior creator, resulting in Gnosticism — the plague of the early church. Platonism, with its emanated demons and the Alexandrian philosophy, divides into the Christian and heathen parties, Clement giving his perfect Christian the name of Gnostic. Early there was a Jewish party, whom Philo represents. In all Logos was an inferior being, though divine. It resulted, in another form, in Arianism, the doctrine more or less of the Alexandrian ante-Nicene Fathers (not of Irenaeus), combated by Athanasius when it came formally to a head in Arius. Thus it was that Dr. Newman came to be called an Arian. He had imbibed a delight in these ante-Nicene statements. Hence, too, arose asceticism. Matter held, as Plato teaches, the soul down as a nail to the earth; it was to be mortified. Asceticism began in the Alexandrian church, partly indeed by persons who fled in the Decian persecution. Hence forbidding to marry, not that people might be more devoted, but as evil for the Gnostic.

174 Again, Origen — a most attractive, interesting man, I fully admit, but whose name became the football of passion in the church — what was he? First he applied to himself literally, by mutilation, Matthew 19: 12. He held that souls were born into different conditions in this world, according to their conduct in a previously existing state — a doctrine current among the heathen Egyptians, but a well-known eastern idea of Buddhists and Brahmins too. Buddha's great doctrine was, how to escape it by hearing "Bana," and absolute indifference to everything sense could feel, so as to obtain Nirvana (extinction). But Origen held — it is not my part to make him consistent — that the fall (and this was Alexandrian and Philo's doctrine already, and Platonic) was the pure soul of man coming into a body. He was not sound, though he seems sometimes to be clear, on the divinity of Christ. As to the divinity of the Holy Ghost, he was wholly unsound. As to Ammonius (the master of Heraclas the Patriarch, and others), it is disputed whether he is Christian or heathen.

Such was the school Dr. N. delighted in — their philosophy, he tells us, not their theology; but it is impossible to separate them. The fall of man being a pure soul coming into a material body — is that philosophy or theology? Even as to Christ (Origen de Principiis, book 2, e, 6; De Incarnatione, 1, 90, ed. De la Rue), holding, as he does expressly, that the divine nature cannot, without a mediator, be united to a body, and each soul receiving according to its deserts, he states that the Word or Son took one of these previously existing souls from the beginning of creation, and became and remained thoroughly one spirit with him; and then, by the mediation of that, took a body too, though he admits it is beyond even the apostle's thoughts.* I need not go farther. Men's souls were to work their way back to liberation from matter, as also Philo and their Platonic predecessors and Gnostic contemporaries held: that was the object of the mission of Christ.

{*He applies John 10: 18 to the inseparability of the soul and the Word.}

175 To prove the effect of this heathenish system in morals, I may add — what I regret to have to add, but with modern pretensions in these things it is well it should be known — that one form of asceticism was the clergy abstaining from marriage, under the plea of purity, taking to sleep with them females, with the same pretension to purity, alleging they were free from all evil of mind. This was one form of asceticism — not the only one. I know they went into the desert. But this shews the nature of it. This Dr. N. must know as well as possible. He will say it was often publicly condemned. It was often condemned in the East and in the West, but that shews it was a custom: and they had a name, both in Greek and Latin — Suneisaktai (subintroductae), and agapetai (beloved). Irenaeus himself charges the Gnostics with the same practice. It is recognized in the Shepherd of Hermas (III, sim. 9: 11), which was read in the churches — there, of course, in a seemly way. Tertullian, when a Montanist, charges the Catholics with it. (De Jejuniis, p. 554.) My reader will easily understand that it is not only in reference to Dr. Newman I quote these things: we learn what early infected the church. But we do see the wild system which attracted Dr. N., and sanctioned his early mental vagaries, preached to his parishioners, be it remembered, at St. Mary's.

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<18004E> 175 {file section b.}

After this Dr. N. went abroad. Here it was he had the strong impression that he was called to reform Anglicanism. Let us retrace his history thus far. He was converted, he tells us, at fifteen. He believed, too, that the inward conversion of which he was conscious (and of which he still is more certain than that he has hands and feet) would last into the next life, and that he was elected to eternal glory (58). This was a beginning of divine faith, a great change of thoughts. The influence and books, he tells us, were of the Calvinistic school. He, humanly speaking, almost owed his soul to one good man, whom he does not name. But all the special truth which wrought this in 1822, save the fact of heaven and hell, divine favour and divine wrath of the justified and unjustified, which alone took root in his mind, did not remain with him many years. In 1832 he came under very different influences. On reading Sumner he gave up all his remaining Calvinism. He never believed in reprobation. From Dr. Hawkins he received the doctrine of tradition; from the Rev. W. James, apostolic succession; from Butler's Analogy, he learnt to rest his faith in probability,* not on divine testimony; from Whately, to think and use his reason, and see with his own eyes, and believe in the existence of the church as a proper corporate body. Keble added faith and love in man to probability, to give it force, leading him to authority; Froude led him in his feelings towards Rome, and hatred of the Reformers (53-73). This brought him to Alexandria, or at least co-operated with it; for the dates mingle at the close of this history together. There we have now found him, and going abroad to rest himself after his labours in this ante-Nicene study, his wild Platonism in full blow.

176 There was need of a second Reformation. Who was to do it? Here comes the turning-point of Dr. N.'s life. I do not doubt the direct agency of Satan on a self-confident mind; but I must trace it in its human manifestation. "I was exchanging my tutorship for foreign countries and an unknown future. I naturally was led to think that some inward changes, as well as some larger course of action, was coming upon me (81). At this moment, while waiting at Whitchurch for the mail, he wrote the verses about his guardian angel,

"Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend?"

and goes on to speak of the "vision that haunted" him (80). Why, when jaded with study, and obliged to go abroad for his health, was it natural to look for some larger course of action? There is a natural, though unconfessed, sentiment of force in every active mind; but in the Christian, suppressed by the sense of his own nothingness, that without Christ he can do nothing, and the principle of obedience, than which nothing is more humble, and of conscience, which makes our own path being right of the first importance. Dr. N. had this confidence; he thought of acting on others — a larger course of action. I quite believe he was afterwards unaware of the influence he exercised on young men; that is very often the case.

{*It is a singular effect of this reasoning on probability, and I must add of the Aristotelian teaching of Oxford, that in this famous and able book to which Dr. N. refers (Butler's Analogy), it is stated, that the natural propensities of man must continue in heaven, as happiness cannot be without virtue, nor virtue without trial and exercise. Such is the fruit of ignorance of redemption. Bishop Butler's words are these: "This way of putting the matter supposes particular affections" (or propensions as he calls them) "to remain in a future state, which it is scarce possible to avoid supposing." And he is speaking of "the danger finite creatures are in from the very nature of propensions or particular affections." (Part 1, chap. 5, on "Moral Discipline.)}

177 But the sick man, filled with his primeval mystery and inclined towards Rome, having left all the forms of truth that had been the means of his conversion, was looking for a second Reformation, and, through a "vision," a larger course of action for himself. His journey completes this picture. He was not much among the Roman Catholics. His imagination was at work on new scenes naturally enough. "The sight of so many great places, venerable shrines, and noble churches, much impressed my imagination," he tells us. He heard singing in a country church at six o'clock, and his heart thus also was touched (100). Now, a religious congregation singing, when heard from without, has this effect — touches deeply the religious imagination where it exists. It could not have been anything really spiritual in his mind; for he did not know what they were singing. In his weary days at Palermo, "I was not ungrateful for the comfort which I had received in frequenting the churches, nor did I ever forget it." Then again, "her zealous maintenance of the doctrine and rule of celibacy, which I recognized as apostolic, and her faithful agreement with antiquity in so many points besides which were clear to me, was an argument, as well as a plea, in favour of the great church of Rome. Thus I learned to have tender feelings towards her, but still my reason was not affected at all" (p.100).

Now you will remark, as I said at the beginning, all is sensuous here, what acts on the imagination; no question of truth and grace, no holiness, unless celibacy be taken for it, which he believed apostolic — not, observe, self-devotedness, when given of God, which is apostolic, but as a rule; which is so false, that it shews Dr. N. was wholly governed by imagination. Not only does the apostle say, the elder is to be the husband of one wife, having his children subject in all gravity, and let us know that Peter and the Lord's brethren were married though he and Barnabas were not; but in the council of Nice, which Dr. N. had been just studying, it was formally refused to be made a rule, though it had acquired great influence, and was resisted by Paphnutius, an unmarried bishop, as a snare. What its enforcement in the eleventh century, by Hildebrand (though never carried through till the end of the thirteenth), produced is well known. I may speak of it farther on, when I come to speak of the causes of Protestantism. A man must have been wholly blinded by imagination, or Satan, to say celibacy was, as a rule, apostolic. Even the Roman body holds it for a mere matter of discipline; the Greek requires that priests should be married — only bishops not, if I do not mistake.

178 His imagination was fully ripened towards Rome; the primitive church, that is, not the scripture or first, but the ante-Nicene church* was certainly right, the Anglican useless, if it was not the same; he was tenderly turned towards Rome, as to his heart, and, at any rate, Anglicanism needed a second reformation; he had no tenderness, he tells, for it. Rome was a great church, his heart with her; his habits, no doubt, not overcome, he might hope to defend Anglicanism, but it was dreadfully bad. The whole was a foregone conclusion.

{*We have no accounts, I may say, of the church from apostolic men to Justin Martyr (140).}

What was the work he was going to do? He had entire, thorough confidence in himself — confidence unrepressed by grace. The motto chosen from Homer by Froude, shewing his own feeling, he adds, too, shews this transparently, "You shall know the difference now that I am back again." Nor does he conceal from himself what I am proving — "I began to think I had a mission" (82).

Nor was it an uncertainty. He visited Monsignore Wiseman. He wished they should visit Rome a second time. He saw plainly enough his state, as he did afterwards what was going on at Oxford (p. 109). Dr. N. replied to him with great gravity, "We have a work to do in England"; pleased to pander to Romanism, and be in Monsignore's good graces. The state of his mind was shewn; when sick, he cried, "I shall not die, I shall not die; I have not sinned against light." No peaceful conscience, no rest in Christ: the latent conviction he speaks of, of not being at rest, ceased to be latent when death seemed to be there. The pressure of darkness on a troubled conscience, used, I doubt not, by the enemy; but still, conscience, which, if not settled between him and God, Satan would drive him to quiet in his own way. He was sobbing bitterly, while waiting to leave Palermo, and replied to the inquiry of his servant, "I have a work to do in England." Now this uneasiness, if not a bad conscience in a general way (of which, of course, I can say nothing, and is not here so presented), was a bad conscience, which, not possessing Christ for its own rest in Him, looked to the church, because it had not rest; and from his previous studies, feeling he did not possess that, and had resisted impressions and feelings which led him to Romanism, broke out in bitter uneasiness when thus ill. But remark, no destruction of self-confidence, no turning to Christ in lowliness of conscience and heart. He turned to self. "I could only answer, 'I have a work to do.'" This work he was doing afterwards.

179 The rest was merely a process, a question of time. He hated Protestantism, he loved popery, though not agreeing to it. Anglicanism was all wrong, even if it were on the foundation. He pretended to set about and correct it. Romanism was the only certainly right thing in existence. The primitive church had been right and lovely — the only right thing now was Romanism; he hoped to get Anglicanism on right ground, but he had no tenderness for her. And now it is I find the excessive moral levity of Dr. Newman's state, of which I have spoken, come out in full blaze. It was no search for the truth, as such, for himself; he had not accepted all Rome's doctrines, but neither had he when he joined her; but she was the only right church in his eyes: he was looking for the church of his imagination, not for truth.* He did not believe transubstantiation the day he joined popery, more than twenty years before. He says so. After joining Rome as infallible, he accepted it on authority.

{*I say, the church of his imagination; he says, popery is a religion — Protestantism is a religion; the via media is only on paper (113).}

180 See what a state this involves. There were two real religions, Protestantism and popery. The former he hated. Seeking communion with Protestants was the last blow to Anglicanism (182). He counted them heretics. Rome, when abroad, he held as undeniably the most exalted church in the whole world, manifesting in all the truth and beauty of the Spirit, highmindedness, majesty, and the calm consciousness of power. Anglicanism, bishops and all, was at best as a set of unruly boys — Trojans, who would know the difference when he came back. Hence, afterwards, when they trench on his via media he threatens them all. There was a limit to forbearance (178, 180, 183, 184, 200). Anglicanism still remained to be tried. He looked to "that future of the Anglican church which was to be a new birth of the ancient religion"; a system would be rising up (143). Thus inclined to Rome, hating Protestantism, Anglicanism being nothing really, he set about to work. Did he ascertain the truth before he set to work? In no wise. I do not mean that he did not like the ante-Nicene church. No doubt he did. But had he searched out the grounds of truth, or truth itself, before he acted? In no wise. Antiquity was his only ground. "Taking antiquity," he says, referring back to this early period (p. 194), not the existing church, as the oracle of truth (never, mark, the Word), "I thought that the Church of England was substantially founded upon them" [the Fathers] (102). Had he searched them thoroughly? Not at all. "I did not know all that the Fathers had said, but I felt that even when their tenets happened to differ from the Anglican, no harm could come of reporting them. I said out what I was clear they had said; I spake vaguely and imperfectly what I thought they had said, or what some of them had said. Anyhow, no harm could come of bending the crooked stick the other way in the process of straightening it; it was impossible to break it." Thus Anglicanism was but a stick to be straightened. He set about reforming, rebuilding the church, getting a church de facto of flesh and bones, as he says — held the Fathers to be authority, yet did not know all that they had said. Can there be conceived, on so solemn a subject, a man acting with more self-confidence and more levity? Nor does he deny it. "I never had the staidness or dignity necessary for a leader. I had a lounging, free and easy way of carrying things on" (105). Now this is true; but think of a man saying it of his whole status as to the church of God, and in the things in which he was acting as one who had a mission to reform the church, and rebuild it in its beauty as of old.

181 He admits (104) he was widely spreading his principles, not recognizing the hold he had over young men. He laughed when a man innocently thought he meant sacrament when he said the sacrifice of the Eucharist; and did not give himself the trouble of answering it. Accordingly, he tells us, when Dr. Pusey joined the movement, he (Dr. P.) saw that there ought to be more sobriety, more gravity, more careful pains, more sense of responsibility in the tracts and in the whole movement. It was through him the character of the tracts was changed (508). He, however grieved, and, as I judge, justly, though I may not agree with all his views,* and Mr. Keble, in the sense of that responsibility, have as yet remained in Anglicanism.

{*I think the whole Catholic system, Roman or Anglican, wrong in confounding "the body" of Ephesians 1 with "the house" of Ephesians 2, and attributing to the house now the privileges of the body.}

And that he acted in this lounging easy way was so truly the case, that while quite settled in what he was seeking to establish — "a visible church with sacraments and rites which are the channels of invisible grace" — he tells us that he did not know what he aimed at. "I thought this was the doctrine of scripture, of the early church, and of the Anglican church." Of this he never ceased to be certain: but "in 1834 and the following years I put this ecclesiastical doctrine on a broader basis after reading Laud, Bramhall, Stillingfleet, and other Anglican divines on the one hand, and after prosecuting the study of the Fathers on the other." Now, that he held a doctrine immaturely no one can blame; we have all done so. But that he should set about to reform and rebuild the church with a special mission, though he founded it on the Fathers, with his views unformed, seems to me, I confess, intolerable self-sufficiency and levity. "When I began the Tracts for the Times, I rested the main doctrines of which I am speaking upon scripture, St. Ignatius' epistles, and on the Anglican Prayer Book" (96). The visible church on scripture, sacraments and sacramental rites on the Prayer Book, the episcopal system on St. Ignatius. Now the scripture clearly teaches a visible church, and thus is authority that there ought to be one. As to the fact, it is all around us. But why not search scripture as to what it ought to be? I believe it is sadly fallen; but why not go to Paul, and John, and Peter, to know what it ought to be, instead of Ignatius? And note the excessive inconsistency after all: he is going to build a right church, because Anglicanism was not such; and yet he takes the Prayer Book of Anglicans as the rule to prove his point on the matter he was anxious about, although he admits "that the Anglican church must have a ceremonial, a ritual, and a fulness of doctrine and devotion which this had not at present" (204). Was this because it was right? No; "if it were to compete with the Roman church with any prospect of success." Why so? Because he liked that system, not because it could be any authority truth; for the system he was seeking to change. It suited him, the Articles did not. And they were to be interpreted according to Catholic teaching, not the opinion of the framers. "Catholicism" (by which he then meant Romanism), he tells us plainly later, "was the real scope and issue of the movement." And why does he take Ignatius? And why do all who love the system Dr. N. has followed? Why did I myself delight in it, found my thoughts on him? Because he already liked and had adopted the system found in his published writings, not from any real, ascertained authority in Ignatius.

182 Dr. N. must have well known, that since Ussher and Daille they have been called in question; that there are two recensions, besides confessedly spurious letters, one enormously interpolated, the other shorter; so that though defended by learned men, as a document they were of questionable authority. Since then it has been, I think I may say, ascertained — I do not say all acquiesce in it — that five out of the eight letters are wholly spurious, and the three remaining ones, even in the short recension, interpolated, and the passages in favour of unity, which Dr. N. delighted in, are all, save one, false and spurious; for you must know that these pious frauds were the custom of this vaunted primitive church. There was one Leucas, or Lucius, who had quite a manufactory of them. I do not know that it was he who tampered with Ignatius. There were numbers of false Gospels* and acts of the apostles, and that not only by heretics, but by pious people, and this very early indeed.

{*A pretty copious list of these pious frauds, so-called, is in Baronius, 1, 302. The Gospels have been collected by Fabricius and Theile.}

Dr. Newman scarcely even excuses himself here; if he does, it is only for guilt in his vain confidence, so far as he had strong persuasions in 1832, which he has since given up. I do not blame him for giving up what he thought wrong. I blame him for lightly pretending to reform and rebuild the Anglican body, that is, to form a church as it should be, when he had not searched the grounds on which he did it; when he knew he was not at rest but on journey, as he has told us, and doing it in a free and easy way, and, I must say, with some effrontery, telling us that he had "a lounging, free and easy way" in the matter. Was this God-fearing? The more his book is read through, the more it will be seen. Yet he attaches immense importance to his movement. He says, with singular self-complacency, "Great acts take time. At least I felt this in my own case" (206). He sought, he tells us elsewhere, to go by reason, not sentiment — here, that all the logic in the world would not make him move faster; God does not save people by logic. This when people shewed him the evident and necessary consequences of his principles. More of this when his pleas as to his honesty are considered. I do not suppose he was a concealed Roman Catholic before he professed to be so, in the least; but he did know long before where all was tending, and knew he was leading others there, and continued to do so while unsettled, and, full of confidence in himself, charged others as authors of it for resisting him. Yet it did lead him there.

183 But what I insist on now is the moral levity of teaching without his mind having arrived at any conclusions. He says (p. 111), "Alas! it was my portion for whole years to remain, without any satisfactory basis for my religion profession, in a state of moral sickness, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to Rome." Now these are the very years in which he was labouring as having a special mission, influencing diligently others, taking the future of Anglicanism and of souls on his own shoulders. He had confidence in his cause, despised every rival system of doctrine, had a thorough contempt for the evangelical system. Owing to this confidence, there was a mixture of fierceness and sport in his behaviour. If he had brought men on to a certain point, if they stopped, he did not care; he liked to make them preach the truth without knowing it, and encouraged them so to do. "I was not unwilling to draw an opponent on step by step to the brink of some intellectual absurdity, and to leave him to get back as he could." He speaks of the imprudence and wantonness into which his absolute confidence in his cause led him (92-94). I understand this state of mind in a restless spirit confident in its views, but which has found no rest for itself — excited and uneasy, "moral sickness," as he admits. But is it God-fearing? Is it God-fearing to teach others and set the church right in such a state? Can we be surprised at the result? And what must we think of the result such a course in such a state of mind led to? He tells us that, through the storm on Tract go, he had already before lost full confidence in himself. He had confidence in the apostolic movement; "but how was I any more to have absolute confidence in myself?" (132). Did he cease to go on? No; the movement was out of his hands. But on his views he was obstinate, and bearded the bishops. This is clear: he had had absolute confidence in himself. He got completely bewildered in reading Bellarmine and the Anglican divines. This had no tendency whatever to harass and perplex him. It was a matter of convictions, not of proofs (146). But he had been teaching with absolute confidence in himself, without having ever really ascertained the difference, or found solid ground on it.

184 In 1839, the fact that Leo's judgment had settled the council of Chalcedon and the monophysite question upset his via media, and shewed that Rome was now on the ground of Leo in the fifth century, the Protestants on that of Eutychians and Monophysites, that is, heretics.* Here he owns that he had the habitual notion that he was "on journey," had not found his ultimate rest. Yet it had never led him to distrust his convictions. Before and after, he was restlessly teaching others. I feel I need not go farther. The time of his activity, the time of his influence, was the time of his own "moral sickness" and unformed views.

{*Dr. N. very conveniently forgets that Pope Leo, a very able man, who really founded the power of the Papacy, forbade that doctrine to be put in the creed, though he admits it, which makes Dr. N. himself now hold the Greeks to be heretics for not holding. And I may add that a general council, admitted such, forbade positively any additional articles to be added to the creed. That is what Dr. N. calls development.}

I turn for a moment to Protestantism. Mr. N.'s position, on his return from abroad with a mission, was this — the Roman church was the most exalted church in the whole world (161), certainly catholic. Protestantism he hated: it was heretical, save in England; so that to receive a Protestant without abjuration of error was subsequently sufficient almost, if not quite, to oblige a person to leave the Establishment, and was what finally led to it (182). It shattered his faith in Anglicanism. Anglicanism rested only on paper, to be formed by himself by his mission. As it stood, was of questionable catholicity; could be so only by interpreting her Articles as no one else in the world would. There was no motive for keeping aloof from Rome, but the pope's being Antichrist (101); which for my part, however anti-Christian he may be, I do not believe.

It appears Rome's being the great whore, drunk with the blood of the saints, was nothing. This he got over by its being the spirit of the city acting on the church (161). He was determined to clear Romanism. Transubstantiation he did not believe; but Mr. Palmer held that all the decrees of Trent might have a Catholic sense. I recall his own excuses. But Rome's being the harlot drunk with blood, transubstantiation, purgatory, the worship of the virgin and the saints, indulgences, the repeated sacrifice of the mass as an expiation for the sins of the living and the dead, the supremacy and infallibility of the pope — none of these, or other principles and dogmas of Rome was any ground for separation from it.

185 It is astonishing how little hold truth had on his mind, how little prominence it had with him; a very peculiar phenomenon. Being disposed towards Rome is nothing uncommon or surprising; but souls are kept, often almost unconsciously, by some truth which guards them. I was, especially by Hebrews 9 and 10. But truth, it is evident (I do not say mere dogma, common to all) he never cared about. He says the English opposition to Romanism was caused by political motives in Henry the Eighth's time, than which nothing can be more unfounded. He burnt people for giving up his Six Articles, which were essentially popish, though he would not accept the pope's supremacy. The Reformation in England was set on foot by Edward VI, as to authority; but by saints, of whom Henry burned many, as to truth.

But I shall shew what brought in Protestantism, if it is to be used as a name. I have no doubt there were many defects, and could not but be, in the order that was set up. The mere name is nothing. It came from an act of German Electors at the Diet of Spires protesting against the recess of that Diet, passed only by a majority of votes when they had left, which they held to be illegal. The Reformed are not called Protestants abroad. But Protestantism, used as a popular name, was the protest of the conscience, given energy to by faith, against the most horrible system of iniquity that ever withered and overwhelmed the human conscience. It was not merely negative; there was the positive assertion of common fundamental dogmas (this was the very object of the Confession of Augsburg, because this negative character was charged upon it); and articles were added, which are rejected by Dr. Newman and his party — such as justification by faith, the two sacraments, and other anti-Romanist ones; as the counter doctrine was also maintained in the decrees of the Council of Trent refuting formally this teaching; and, further, the authority of the word of God maintained, of the books of which the Council of Trent has given an undeniably false list.

186 It was not simply the right of private judgment in the modern sense. The direct responsibility of each conscience to God, as contrasted with the domination of priests, was maintained, and rightly, as between man and man — not the right simply, but the obligation to judge, was maintained; but it was the public confession of positive truth which characterized Protestantism. Each local body framed its own profession of faith. The authority of the word of God was asserted. The right of every man to judge scripture, or have his own thoughts where God has revealed His name, never entered into the thoughts of the Reformers. The right of private judgment, as often now talked of, whether by infidels, who desire it, or Romanists, who condemn it, is essentially and absolutely incompatible with the absolute authority of scripture, which was the Protestant principle. The question was, What was to have authority-scripture, or the clergy and tradition? The duty to judge by scripture was asserted, and rightly.* It was the putting away of evil, and the teaching of positive faith, and the authority of the word of God, dogmatically and historically in this order. It broke out, under Luther, by resisting indulgences, the profligate and shameless sale of which was destroying all morality, and even the parochial care of the priests.

{*My object is not here controversy, but Dr. Newman's book, or it is easy to shew that Romanism has no sure ground of authority, which the Protestant has. As to private judgment, it is all clap-trap. The Romanist calls on me to judge Protestantism, as much as I do him to judge popery, and to judge that he is right.}

I repeat, while truth was promulgated, and Luther's action the fruit of his having learnt the truth, the first spring of action was the revolt of the Christian conscience against the state of the professing Christian church. I shall give some account of the state of that church, that it may be seen how far this revolt of conscience was well grounded.

187 And here I feel I am on painful, and, for any Christian, dangerous ground. It is, and ought to be, painful to rake up evil, especially in that which bears the name of Christ. There is danger of failing in that article of charity, "rejoiceth not in iniquity." I admit, I trust I feel, both the painfulness and the danger. But with the pretensions which are current, and the deceitful statements of morbid imaginations as to the holiness of the Romish body, it becomes necessary that those likely to be deceived should know the truth. Not only is "corruptio optimi pessima corruptio," but the corruption of Rome was in itself worse than any corruption that ever existed. I shall state from authentic sources, and Roman Catholic sources, what the state of things really was, and shew how early it began. I have verified the statements in the authorities quoted except two — Mansi's "Councils," being inaccessible to me, and Nic. Clemangis' works not in my library. I have only Hardouin's "Councils," which does not reproduce the document; but there is no doubt it is authentic and correct. I refer to the letter of Pope Alexander V, quoted farther on.

Even in the apostles' days Paul complains that all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ; Jude, that evil men had crept in unawares, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. But then there was apostolic power to repress and correct; but Paul knew that after his decease grievous wolves would enter in, yea, that of themselves perverse men would arise. Peter assures us that the time was come for judgment to begin at the house of God.

We have seen that it had become, in the end of the second and in the third century, a common habit for the clergy, under the pretext of purity — unmarried — to live and sleep with unmarried persons, consecrated also to celibacy as above all passion — above that evil matter into which pure souls were descended; for such was the doctrine of these mighty Alexandrians of which Dr. N. was enamoured.

Hermas, to whom I referred amongst others, alludes to it thus (the shepherd had commended him to the virgins who were there): "I said, 'Where shall I tarry?' They replied, 'Thou shalt sleep with us — as a brother, not as a husband; for thou art our brother, and we are ready henceforth to dwell with thee: for thou art very dear to us.' Howbeit I was ashamed to continue with them. But she that seemed to be chiefest amongst them embraced me, and began to kiss me, and so did the rest. When the evening came on, I would forthwith have gone home; but they withheld me, and suffered me not to depart; therefore I continued with them that night near the same tower; so they spread their linen garments on the ground, and placed me in the middle; nor did they anything else — only prayed."

188 Origen complains bitterly of the great multitude of Christians who did not trouble themselves about divine things; and if they attended divine service were entirely indifferent to it when there.

I add Cyprian's account (A.D. 251). He is accounting for the Decian persecution, and says it is only too light a chastisement — "exploratio potius quam persecutio videretur." All devoted to increasing their patrimony; no devoted religion in the priests, no upright faithfulness in ministers, no piety in works, no discipline in morals. Men's beards false, women's faces painted, eyes adulterated from what God had made them, their hair falsely coloured — cunning frauds to deceive the hearts of the simple. Artful deceit (subdolae voluntatis) in circumventing brethren, marriages with unbelievers, prostituting to Gentiles the members of Christ; not only rash swearing, but perjury too; despising authority with haughty pretension; to speak evil with poisoned lip oneself; mutual discord with pertinacious hatred. Very many bishops, who should be an exhortation and example to others, despising their divinely-committed service (divina procuratione), make themselves agents (procuratores) of secular affairs, leave their see, desert the people, wandering through others' provinces, hunt after markets for gainful traffic, etc. (De Lapsis, 124, Fell's Ox. ed.).

Here is Jerome's account of the clergy (A.D. 394). "It is shameful to have to say, the priests of idols, buffoons, charioteers, harlots, receive inheritance; to the clergy and monks alone it is forbidden by law, and prohibited not by persecutors, but by Christian princes. Nor do I complain of the law, but that we should have deserved it. The cautery is good, but now the worst is that I should need the cautery. The provisions of the law are careful and severe, and yet thus avarice is not restrained. We mock the laws by trustees.* The glory of a bishop is to provide for the wants of the poor. The disgrace of all priests is the pursuit of their own wealth. Born in a poor home and in a rustic hut, who could scarcely satisfy my clamorous stomach with millet and the coarsest bread, I now turn up my nose at the finest flour and honey. I know the kinds and names of fishes. I am thoroughly au fait as to what shore shellfish are found on. I discern the provinces birds come from by their savour. I hear, moreover, of the base service of certain to old men and old women without children. They put the chamber-pot beside the bed, take away with their own hand the purulent matter from the stomach, and phlegm of the lungs. They are full of fear at the arrival of the physician, and with trembling lips inquire if the patient is better; and if the old person is a little more vigorous, they are in danger, and pretending falsely joy, the mind, inwardly avaricious, is tortured; for they fear lest they should lose their pains, and compare the living old body to the years of Methuselah." (Epist. ad Nepotianum 52, Vallarsii Ed. 1, 261.)

{*Every one acquainted with English law is aware that it was thus the statutes of mortmain were evaded. The English lawyers thought it was invented here for this purpose, but the clergy did not, it appears, want so long to find it out.}

189 Drunkenness, Augustine tells us, was universal; the clergy had lent themselves, he tells us, to the evil habits of heathens continuing among Christians, in order to win and keep them. He did not (he was a godly, faithful man), but put it down with danger to himself. (Epp. 22, 29, Ed. Ben.) It had reigned in other places (Ep. 22): he would have had the Africans set an example, but at any rate they should follow it. These are his words in letter 29: "But lest they who preceded us, and permitted, or did not dare prohibit, the manifest crimes of the inexperienced multitude should seem to have some opprobrium cast on them by us, I explained to them by what necessity those things had arisen in the church (getting drunk in church at the martyrs' festivals), namely, that when, after so many persecutions and so vehement, it would be a hindrance, when peace took place, to the crowd of Gentiles desirous of coming to the Christian name, that they were accustomed to pass festal days with their idols in abundance of feasts and drunkenness, nor could easily abstain from these very pernicious and yet very ancient pleasures: it seemed to those of old that they should spare for the time this part of infirmity, and celebrate, not with like sacrilege although with like luxury, other festal days after those which they had relinquished; that now, bound together as they were by the name of Christ, and subjected to the yoke of so great authority, salutary precepts of sobriety would be delivered to them, which, on account of the honour and fear of him who gave them, they would not be able to resist; as to which it was now time that, as those who did not dare deny their being Christians, they should begin to live according to the will of Christ, and that those things which were yielded to them that they might be Christians they should reject now they are so." Many said their fathers were good Christians and did so. However in that place Augustine succeeded. But here is a really holy man, the great light of the west, alleging that they had deliberately let the people be drunk in honour of martyrs, that they might not be so in honour of idols!

190 Gregory Thaumaturgus instituted saints' festivals to the same end, and Pope Gregory the First gave the same directions as to England. It was the same as to doctrine and worship. The pagans did not attempt, says M. Beugnot (Destruction du Paganisme, 2, 271), to defend their altars against the progress of the worship of the mother of God. They opened to Mary the temples which they had kept shut against Jesus Christ, and avowed themselves conquered. He adds in a note, "Out of a multitude of proofs I shall choose one to shew with what facility the worship of Mary swept before it the remains of paganism which yet covered Europe. Notwithstanding the preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the ancient worship. After the Council of Ephesus (which decreed that Mary was the mother of God) we see its eight finest temples become in a very short time churches under the invocation of the virgin. Their temples were," etc., etc. "The annals of every country furnish like testimonies." "In truth," he continues, "they mixed with the adoration of Mary those pagan ideas, those vain practices, those ridiculous superstitions, from which they seemed unable to separate themselves; but the church rejoiced to see them enter within its bosom, because she well knew it would be easy for her, with the help of time, to purify from its alloy a worship which was purity itself." Thus some prudent concessions made temporarily to pagan habits, and the influence exercised by the worship of the virgin — such were the two elements of force made use of by the church to conquer the resistance of the last pagans.

191 It was the system. The Romans were passionately fond of festivals and processions. The Saturnalia and other feasts were at the end of December. Christmas* was fixed there; the Lupercalia in the end of January. It was a feast of purification. The purification of the Virgin Mary was fixed there. St. Peter de Vinculis replaced Augustus Caesar, and so of many others. See Beugnot, 2, 263, etc., where the concessions to pagan usages are enlarged on and justified. It is difficult to do this when they sanctified drunkenness by dedicating it to martyrs instead of demigods. M. Beugnot admits that their martyrs' festivals were a very large concession made to ancient manners, for all that passed while they lasted was little edifying! It was that system Vigilantius attacked and Jerome defended. Christians went to the heathen feasts, as Augustine, Chrysostom, and many others testify; they resisted, as in the case of Pope Gelasius and others, and when paganism fell, and the populations entered in crowds, they gave them Christian festivals, so-called, to replace the heathen ones. It was a whole system.

{*The feast now celebrated at Christmas (the very evergreens are pagan) was the expression of one of the worst principles of heathenism-the reproductive power of nature, celebrated at the return of the sun from the winter solstice. The Hindoos celebrate their Uttarayana at this time — have their twelve days, sending of presents, and wishing many happy returns: so the heathen Romans, so the Teutonic nations. Compare Wilson's "Religious Festivals of Hindoos," 2, 173.}

I may take the passage I have referred to in Gregory Thaumaturgus' life by Gregory Nyssen, as describing it in the case of the former. I shall be excused these long quotations. It is the establishment of an immense system, paganizing Christianity, first in doctrines in Alexandria, then in ceremonies everywhere.* "But when, with the divine help, that tyranny had been overthrown, and peace had again accepted human life, service towards God, which lay before them, was free to every one according to his ability; descending again to the city, and going round the whole district in a circle, he made an appendage for the people everywhere to their divine service. Having instituted the general assemblies for those who had been in the combat of faith, and, as they had taken away different persons to different places, the bodies of the martyrs, going round in a procession, they celebrated festivities in a yearly anniversary, holding a general assembly to the honour of the martyrs. For indeed this was a demonstration of his great wisdom, that, remodelling to a new life in a mass the whole generation of his day, set as a charioteer to nature, submitting them securely to the reins of faith and the knowledge of God, he allowed what was subject to the yoke of faith to caper a little in enjoyment. For perceiving that the childish and uninstructed mind of the many remained, through bodily hilarity and enjoyments, in the error of idols, that the principal thing with them should be specially set right, their looking to God instead of vain objects for worship, he allowed them to make merry at the memories (tombs or places consecrated to them) of the martyrs, and to enjoy themselves, and to celebrate festivities, that some time or other their life might be changed to what was more seemly and exact." It is said he only left seventeen heathen at his death.

{*The reader will find some other details on its establishment farther on, connected with another subject.}

192 But how opposite to the blessed delivering power of the Spirit, as seen in scripture! How does it come under the apostle's word, "But now after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." This part of the history gives the decay in doctrine and spiritual state, till on the fall of paganism its ceremonies and feasts were deliberately transferred to the nominal church. Many went on with their heathenism. This was condemned by the hierarchical authorities, but long persevered in. Gregory I condemns it in England, but directs, as Gregory Thaumaturgus did, similar feasts among the professing mass that had been brought in, to keep their fleshly minds contented. This was the primitive church, ante-Nicene and post-Nicene. From this we pass gradually into the medieval. It was a space of nine hundred years, dark, confessedly dark; but we must leave it. Its result was what gave occasion to Protestantism. I shall examine the church, and afterwards the history of the popes. We shall see how far holiness, the alleged note of the church, can be found.

In 953, 931-974, Ratherius, bishop of Verona and Liege, charges the clergy with corrupt avarice and universal incontinency; the popes themselves many times married, a warrior, perjurer, heretic, gambler, and drunkard — such a shame to the whole church could not be a rebuker of others. He says in his Itinerary (Fleury, 12, 193) he held a synod to correct this, but the clergy kept none of the canons; the synods he held were to maintain the canons. There were bigamists, concubine-keepers, conspirators, perjurers, drunkards, usurers. The cause of the ruin of all the people, he says, is the clergy. The ignorance of the clergy was excessive; he says they must learn the three creeds, and be able to read the Gospel and certain services. No one, he says, was fit to be made a bishop, or to consecrate one. They would not give up their incontinency, and counted the rest for nothing. The Italian clergy despise the canons the most, because they are the most given to impudicity, and minister to this vice by ragouts and excess of wine (Dupin, vol. 8, 19, etc. Fleury 50, 100, from D'Achery and Mabillon). He may have been said to be ruthless and violent. The Benedictines defend him. Damianus, a great friend of Hildebrand (Gregory VII), the strictest of monks, re-establisher, if not inventor, of the Flagellators (self-scourgers), the able champion of Rome against the emperor, the reducer of Milan (till then independent) to subjection to the pope, given up to devotion to Mary, who gave up his cardinalate and see, to the great pain and offence of Hildebrand, out of piety, in a book entitled "Liber Gomorrhianus," the name of which betrays its import, addressed to the pope, complains of the way in which the clergy were given up to such crimes, it being alleged they could not depose them for it, as people must have the sacraments: they committed them, we read, with their own children — I apprehend, those who came to confession. Pope Leo approved the book. His letter of recommendation is prefixed to it. Damianus refers to canons which gave trifling penances for fornication; if even with a nun, and habitually, five years' penances. (These canons he alleged to be forged, or of uncertain authority, though amongst the canons.) Damianus demanded the deposition of those guilty of these things. The pope answers, they deserved by the canons to be deposed, but out of clemency he would depose only the most immoral. On which Fleury remarks, "which leads us to suppose that the numbers of the guilty were too great to treat them with rigour." The next pope, Alexander II, got the book, and hid it, of which Damianus complains bitterly. In the Romish council of 1059 he wished them to take it up, but it was refused, as likely to produce scandal. (Fleury, 12, 532; Dupin.)

194 Already in 888, in two councils (Mogunt. et Metens. Hardouin, vol. 6), the clergy are forbidden to have a mother or sister in the house, though it had been allowed. In the latter case examples of vice had given occasion to it (Conc. Mog. cap. 10). Renolf of Soissons gave like orders (889). In the council of Aenamhense (1009), connection with women is forbidden; but it is added (101), "but it is worse that some should have two or more, and (nonnullus) such an one, although he had sent her off whom he lately had, during her life should marry another."

In the time of Gregory VI (1045) Rome was full of assassins and robbers, says Fleury, quoting William of Malmesbury. They drew the sword even at the altar and the tombs of the apostles, to carry off the offerings as soon as they were put there, and use them for feasts and to maintain corrupt women. He exhorted, excommunicated in vain, and at last seized St. Peter's to begin, and drove away or killed those who were stealing the offerings.

In 910 and 927-941 Clugny (that is, the reformation of the monks) began. Before, in the confusion of the empire, laymen, women, had the monasteries as inheritances; abbots had their wives — as Campo, who had seven daughters and three sons, and his second, Hildebrand, and all their monks. Yet, in the well-known discourse of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, he says, the whole Christian people, from the least to the greatest, had conspired against God. It is not the time to say, As the people, so the priest: for the people are not even as the priest is. They are ministers of Christ, but serve Antichrist. All that remains is, that this man of sin should be revealed. (Sermon on conversion of Paul.)

Pope Benedict VIII rages against the licentiousness of the clergy (forbidding marriage), but more because the clergy, who were serfs, had children by free women, and the church lost her property in serfs. Still, he declares, in language which I do not transfer to these pages, the universal and — open profligacy of the clergy, more shameless than the laity, between the years 1012 and 1014 (Hardouin, 6).

It was at this epoch that the prohibition to the clergy to marry was rigidly enforced, and, as is known, by Hildebrand. The wives were treated as concubines by the popes; but they were married, and openly, with ordinary solemnities very often. In England, it appears, few were not, but the kings made them pay for it (Hard. Conc. Lon. 7, 1147). Lanfranc allowed it: later, Anselm raged against it. It shews the state of Christendom, that many of the synods forbid the children born of the priests inheriting their cures. They gave them as portions even to their daughters. Paschal, pope, died 1118, ordered men on their death-beds to receive the sacrament from them, rather than from none; and that their sons should be admitted to the priesthood in England, as almost the major part of the clergy, and the better part, were in this case (Paschal's letter in Hard. 7, 1804-1807). That the bishops took money for allowing the priests to live with women is recognized (Conc. Lat. 114, Hard. 8, 31),* and in the Constitutions of Canterbury, where it is said, as spiritual judgments did not hinder the evil of concubinage, they were to be mulcted in their benefices.

{*Thomas Aquinas counsels them to have a wife, secretly, or with connivance.}

195 Decrees as to this may be found in Hardouin from 1217 to 1302; the canons of Conc. Lat. 4, 1215, enforced by Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1236, Hard. 8, 1236. In the canon law (Distinct. 81, 100, 6) it is said, that a clergyman convicted of having begotten children in the presbytery is to be deposed. The gloss on this is — But it is generally said, that a clergyman is not to be deposed for simple fornication, because few can be found without that sin.

The literature of these ages teems with the bitterest reproaches against the clergy, as setting an example of simony, money-getting (one was alleged to have five hundred benefices), and licentious morals, brawls in taverns, unnatural crimes, impossible to be quoted, increased by a prohibition to marry, a measure not however fully carried into effect for two centuries, and long resisted in the north, as in England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the people often insisting that the priest should have a wife. Pope Alexander IV (as quoted, it is not in Hardouin, and I have not access to Mansi) admits the evil state of things in 1258. "So a drowsiness of deadly carelessness seems in the greater part to have oppressed the vigilance of pastoral life, which we say, groaning, as the too great corruption of Christian people crying out from many regions testifies; which, when it ought to be cured by the remedies of a sacerdotal antidote, alas! grows greater by the contagion of evils, which proceeds from the clergy, so that it should be anywhere true what the prophetic complaint bears witness to, saying, As the people is become, so the priest."

196 I may now go on to a later state of things. The bishops received money regularly to allow the priests to keep women. This was forbidden by the Council of Paris, 1429 (C, 23, Hard., vol. 9, Derlusanum (Tortosa), 1429, 100,2; the council of Basle, session 20, C, 1). But it is said, it was again authorized by a local council of Breslau, that they were to put them away under a penalty of ten florins. I have not the German local councils to verify the quotation in this case.

Later again, W. F. Picus, Lord of Mirandola, that is, the nephew of the famous Pic de Mirandola (as quoted in a literal extract which I cannot verify, not possessing his works) says, that priests left the natural use of women, and good boys were given up to them by their parents, and, when grown older, then were made priests of. I give it literally, only in Latin: "Ab illis (sacerdotibus) etiam (proh pudor) foeminae abiguntur ad eorum libidines explendas, et meritorii pueri a parentibus commendantur et condonantur his, qui ab omni corporis etiam concessa voluptate sese immaculatos custodire deberent. Hi postea ad sacerdotiorum gradus promoventur aetatis flore transacto jam exoleti." This was an address to Pope Leo in 1517, the year Luther began the Reformation.

The receiving of money by bishops for priests' concubines was evidently general; complained of in Constance, written against by authors. Theodorich, Archbishop of Cologne, ordered them to be dismissed, and then took money from the priests for it. In the council of Paris, already quoted from Hardouin, they complain, that because of the concubinage of the clergy, with which many ecclesiastical and religious men (secular clergy and monks) are infected, the church of God and the whole clergy are held in derision, abomination, and reproach by everybody, and that most iniquitous crime has so prevailed in the church of God, that Christians do not now believe simple fornication to be a sin. These testimonies may be multiplied ad libitum.

I go on now to what preceded the Council of Pisa, a council that is a great trouble to Roman Catholics, as I may shew farther on. Clemangis was rector of the University of Paris, the most famous then in the world, the correspondent of popes and kings, earnestly seeking the healing of the schism; for there were two popes then. This led to their using all possible means to make money, provisions, annates, tenths, exacting in every shape and every way, giving a right to their favourites to a living, whoever had a right to present to it. He declares that many of the clergy did not know their A B C. He attacks the cardinals for their pride and insolence; though drawn from the lowest ranks of the clergy, they had up to about five hundred benefices. He says, "he is not willing (non volo) to enumerate their adulteries, rapts (stupra), fornications, by which they pollute the Roman court, nor relate the most obscene life of their family — nothing inconsistent, however, with the morals of their masters." The oppression of the bishops was intolerable: if any ecclesiastic was put in prison for any great crime, on payment of a certain sum he came out as white as snow. He complains of the bishops, as we have seen they did, making the clergy compound for keeping a concubine. "If any now is lazy, if any one hates to work, he flies to the priesthood. As soon as he has attained to it, they diligently frequent brothels and taverns, and spend their time drinking, eating, dining, supping, playing at dice and games, gorged and drunken; they fight, cry out, make riots, execrate the name of God and His saints with their most polluted lips. Sicque tandem compositi, ex meretricum suarum complexibus ad divinum altare veniunt." This was a common complaint. "The bishops," he says, "go to court; perhaps they were better away, for what could they profit by their presence, who at the utmost enter the church two or three times a year; who pass whole days in falconry and the chase, who eat most exquisite feasts, in shouting and dances, and pass their nights with girls and effeminate persons; who drag, by a base example, the flock by crooked paths on to the precipice," etc. Were the monks and councils better? They are Pharisees, false doctors, the ravening wolves spoken of in scripture; he calls the nunneries brothels of Venus. To make a girl take the veil is to give her up to prostitution. All that Dupin ventures to say as to this last is, that he describes it in very strong terms, and apparently too violent (outrès).

197 Clemangis admits that there are exceptions to this state of the clergy, but that the majority are such. Now, I do not doubt a moment that there were godly men who shrunk away from all this iniquity, and sought communion with God, some persecuted, some not; and communities of another character, not under vows, as the brethren of the common doctrine, Groot, Thomas a Kempis, and many others, whose schools merged in the light of the Reformation. But this is the character of the so-called Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. Christian conscience, yea, natural conscience, was weary of the wickedness.

198 I shall be told that the doctrine of the church was holy. Dr. Milner, a standard book in England, tells us, that there is the doctrine of holiness, the means of holiness, the fruits of holiness, the divine testimony of holiness. That the church itself was holy* he does not attempt to shew; he speaks of individuals, a number of persons, who have given their names to churches as saints, and besides that, it was certain, there have been a countless number. As to sanctity of doctrine, he speaks of the Trinity and the Incarnation, etc., most holy doctrines surely, but not doctrines about holiness. He identifies justification and sanctity, saying, "the efficient cause of justification or sanctity" — the principal and most efficient means being the sacraments, and then her public service. The attestation of sanctity is miracles.

{*Dr. Pusey tells us, in defending himself against Romanizers, that it is by faith the church is recognized as holy. What a confession! And note — holiness is one mark by which we are to recognize the true church (a doctrine I do not except to); but when we come to seek it as a mark, then we must believe it to be holy, by means of faith. What a satire! What are we to believe to be holy? the unholy church. And how is it then a proof? I am to know the true church by its holiness, and when I find an awfully wicked body, believe it is holy because it is the church! I must say this is a mockery, and a mockery in holy things; a trifling with the claims of God.}

Now, there is not an attempt to say that the church is holy; in fact, I do not admit the doctrines of Rome to be holy. It is not holy to confound sanctity and justification; it is not holy to make sacraments the principal means, leaving out the word and Spirit of God, to which Christ and His apostles directly ascribe sanctification. It is not holy, it is Manicheism, to make holiness, and a holiness necessary to the clergy, by a prohibition to marry. It was the most unholy and wicked doctrine, against which the apostle warns us as a doctrine of devils, the fruit of a conscience seared with a hot iron. The fruits of it have been produced. They characterized the church. If a man can devote himself to the Lord, body, soul, and spirit, without a snare to himself, be it so. It is a grace and gift from God. But the moment you forbid to marry, you are on Manichean and Gnostic ground. It is urged, in order to defend Rome, that the passages in Paul's Epistle to Timothy apply to Gnostics. I admit it. They held that matter was a bad thing, hence that Christ had no material body, and other extravagances of every kind; but as a way or means of holiness, they taught abstinence from women. This was the doctrine of the Alexandrian school Dr. N. admires. They were infected with it. The Albigenses, the medieval fruit of Gnosticism in Christendom, constantly practised it; their perfect, or bonshommes, did not eat meat, nor have to say to women.

199 The Roman Catholic church taught holiness in this way, and of this kind. Their doctrine was unholy; what the fruits of it were we have seen. Further, the doctrine of indulgences was a horribly unholy doctrine. We are told it is only the remission of the temporal punishment of sin. But if a man died with the sacraments, he never could have any other. It was purgatory that was feared. A good Catholic has nothing else to fear; besides, the ignorant masses were not so nice as to this. The terror of sin was on their consciences, and the Roman church helped them to get rid of this terror; not by Christ's blood for the repentant, known by faith, and therefore purifying; not by having their soul restored by the operation of the Spirit of God; but by pardons bought with money. It was used to build and adorn churches, farmed out to bankers. A money tariff was made for sins, or the commutations of them, and years, thousands of years, of purgatory avoided by paying money. It was a traffic of sin — security as to future sins too. The nominal church had returned to pagan vices, as Paul foretold it would. (Compare Rom. 1 and 2 Tim. 3.) The difference was this: corruption had its way in paganism; it was horrible as horrible could be. But Papal Rome systematized it, and made a tariff for sin. Not in the known world, that I am aware of, has there been iniquity like this — a tariff made for sin! Can Dr. N. be surprised that there arose a protest against it? that there were Protestants? The word of God was brought out; no one can deny it. Old truths were maintained, and justification by faith preached. Truth was preached. That man's will, long suppressed, broke out; that the church was not set up as at the beginning, I admit; that a vast mass of Protestantism has fallen into infidelity, alas! I do not deny, though in Germany there is a strong reaction, and it is far more the case among cultivated Roman Catholics: only they do not publish it, as in Germany. But a protest against Rome could not have been delayed. It had been going on at Pisa, at Basle, at Constance, by legal attempts, by the centum gravamina, by the complaints of Bernard and Wessalas, and holy men of times previous to the Reformation. All the difference was, that God then raised up men of sufficient faith to brave the pope; whereas previously the reformation had been left to the popes, and all was worse than ever.

200 I admit and feel that it is dismal work going over all this wickedness; and I have still to pursue the task. If we pursue the study of the truth, it nourishes and sanctifies. We are occupied with unseen things; but as the imagination of men is sought to be filled with an idea of the holy Catholic church, it is needful to turn to the facts, that one may know that what is called the Catholic church was the unholiest thing in the world — that it had extinguished the truth, put to death the saints, and corrupted morals, till it became intolerable. Satan was not allowed to set aside the dogmatic foundation of the evidence of a divine Saviour, as in the mass of the population in the East by Mahometanism; so that still I do not the least doubt many unknown pious souls were found, and some known, however dark in knowledge, as Bernard; but these felt the evil. As Bernard said, it only remained for Antichrist to come. My object here is not to go through the Roman Catholic controversy: when God's word is believed, it is very simple. Hebrews 9 and 10 suffice to prove it apostate in its central doctrine. I believe it false in all that distinguishes it. Its pretension to catholicity is absurd, as probably the majority of Christendom, and certainly the most ancient churches, are outside its pale. Unity hence fails in its first element. There is no external unity now. Nor was there in the Roman body in former times. The great modern doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary was denied by the most powerful body in the Roman system, the Dominicans. The prince Archbishop of Breslau left that system not long ago because of its being papally decreed.* Transubstantiation was only decreed in 1215, having been rejected by the best of the fathers and doctors for centuries: the contrary doctrines were used earnestly by them against the Eutychians. Whatever apostolic succession is worth, it is far more elsewhere than at Rome. But I cannot enter now into all these questions. I am accounting for the Protestantism which Dr. N. hated.

{*Dr. Pusey, in his "Eirenicon," has fully shewn what Dr. Newman's statement as to the unanimity of modern Romanists on this point is worth.}

201 It will be alleged that there was individual sanctity. Now that there were God's hidden ones in all times I cannot doubt a moment. And if the character of their holiness shewed want of scriptural light, it was not necessarily the less sincere. Still it is beyond all question that the universal unholiness of the professing world, and especially of the priests, and the idolatry prevalent in Christendom, exposed those whose consciences were oppressed by what was all around them to fall into the snares laid for them by Satan in the shape of false doctrine. The effect of this was, that Christendom was composed of, first, unholy, iniquitous, and persecuting orthodoxy (a few souls groaning under the state of things, such as Bernard, who said, All that remained was for Antichrist to come; and others, that he was born already at Rome); secondly, of a vast number (for they filled the country from Asia to Spain) who had fallen into Manichean notions, and sought holiness by judging all matter as itself unholy, but whose devoted and blameless walk won the conscience of the population, till they were put down by fire and sword; and thirdly, of a number — whose doctrines it is hard to discover — whose constancy and blameless walk astonished conscientious men; and lastly, of others who were counted only schismatics, whose only fault was that they could not own the corruption which reigned around them. One class or another of these was spread all over Europe. It is a sad history; for they were all hunted as wild beasts all over the country, burned and tortured, and it is often hard to ascertain what they really did hold. The inquisition was invented for putting them down. Of one large class, Albigenses and Waldenses (of whom the former, I suppose, were, as to their leaders at any rate, more or less Manichean), the judgments at Toulouse may be found in the end of Limborch's History of the Inquisition, other notices in many popular books. and a good deal of research as to them collected in a note to Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae. Of the Moravians, before they were driven out of Bohemia and Moravia, the best account is a German work — History of the Bohemian Brethren by Gindely.* Prague, 1857.

{*"Geschichte der Bohmischen Bruder." Part of a larger work. "Bohmen u. Mahren, im Zeitalter der Reformation." Gindely is a Romanist; but fair enough as a historian.}

202 But I must add a few words as to the character of the holiness that was introduced as the church declined, and when it had lost its first love and true Christian holiness of walk. We have seen, by contemporary statements of Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine, that this was the case, and dreadfully so. I now only notice the character of what was substituted. It was at a time (and it is not without importance to note it) when Jerome complains bitterly that there was no need to make laws against heathen priests and deceivers, but that there was against Christian priests besetting the sick-beds of old persons in order to get their inheritance. A new kind of sanctity was introduced — devotedness to the saints, monastic habits of life, celibacy, etc. Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, and Martin of Tours, were the great promoters of this. Sulpicius Severus gives us the history of the last, Jerome and Paulinus furnish us with their own history; but it was a spurious holiness, false miracles and wonders, accompanied with drunkenness and violent tempers. No one can deny that the men I have named were the types and promoters of this kind of devotion.

Let us see some of the historical characteristics of it. First, as to Martin of Tours, the apostle of Gaul, he lay on ashes, as he was, for his bed, and covered with a sack and the like; and when he put his foot out of the cell to go a couple of miles to church, all the possessed in the church shewed he was coming, though in different ways, so that the clergy learnt thus he was coming. "I saw" (I quote from Sulp. Sev. Dialogues 3, 6) "one caught up into the air as Martin was coming — suspended on high, with his hands stretched out, his feet unable to touch the ground: Martin prayed prostrate in sackcloth and ashes. Then you might see the unhappy men cleansed by their going out in different ways; these, their feet being carried up on high, hang as if from a cloud, and yet their garments fall not down over their face, lest the naked part of their bodies should put people to shame." So in Egypt. Two friends went to see one of the Anchorites. An enormous lioness came and sought him, and they all followed her. She took them to a cave, and they saw what was the matter: five cubs were all blind. The Anchorite stroked their eyes, and they saw. Soon after the lioness brought a skin of some rare wild beast — how acquired we do not learn — and brought it to the Anchorite, and he took it and wore it (Dialogue 1, 9). Another lived up in Mount Sinai, naked; and, when at last seen, he said, He who was visited by men, could not be by angels. Martin met a furious cow that had gored several. She was rushing at him. He told her to stand, and she did; and then saw a devil on her back, and ordered him off; and he went, and the cow was quiet. Nor was that all. The cow knew very well what had happened, and came and knelt down before Martin, then, on Martin's order, went and found the herd (Dialogue 2, 9). He was most familiar with demons; knew when it was Jupiter, when Mercury, who was the most troublesome of all, and specially when he had the saints with him. When Sulpicius Severus went to see him, all was harmony, and Martin was talking, and women's voices within, for two hours, while Sulpicius and Gallus were outside. This turned out, as he told them after he came out covered with ashes and filth, to be Agnes, and Thecla, and Mary: often Martin said Peter and Paul,. but then all of a sudden a whole lot of devils came, Martin denouncing them by their names. Jove, he said, was a brute, and stupid (brutum et hebetum). Alas! they beset his dying bed (Letter 3 to Bassula). "Why are you standing there, bloody beast?" he said; "thou shalt find nothing, O fatal one, in me; the bosom of Abraham has received me"; and so expired. Yet he had promised pardon to the devil if he repented. The devil was accusing some monks who had sinned after baptism. Martin replied that crimes were purged by the conversation of a better life, and God would pardon; and then said to the devil, if he, as judgment-day was near, even then left off following after men, and repented of his deeds, he himself, trusting in the Lord, promised him the mercy of Christ. I might multiply all kinds of stories; but this surely is enough. He died in 402, or thereabouts. When he dined with the Emperor, he gave the cup to the presbyter first, as superior to him; such was the lowliness of the ascetic worker of miracles (Life, 23).

203 This was the kind of sanctity now introduced. Paulinus' was specially shewn in honouring St. Felix. He had festivals in honour of his saint. But, alas! as we have seen, this change to honouring saints instead of heathen demigods, thus systematically established, did not change the habits. He deplores the votaries honouring the saints with drinking bouts. Verum utinam sanis agerent hoc gaudia votis, nec sua liminibus miscerent pocula sanctis (Natalis, 9). So elsewhere.* He adds, he has covered St. Felix's house with holy pictures; that the gaper may drink in sobriety, and forget too much wine. He implores the aid of St. Felix directly, not even his intercession, for sickness and a bad eye; he calls himself him that is thine; he seems to make the saints particularly efficacious wherever a part of their body was. This is the holiness Baronius compares with Protestantism (394, 93).

{*However, he thinks such joys are to be pardoned, as error creeps into rude minds; nor, conscious of so great a fault, fails in piety in fancying amiss the saints' delight in it.

. . . "Ignoscenda tamen puto talia parvis,

Gaudia quae ducunt epulis, quia mentibus error

Irrepit rudibus, nec tantae conscia culpae,

Simplicitas pietate cadit, male credula sanctos

Perfusis halante mero gaudere sepulcris."

Is this holiness — is it a system of holiness? Paulinus does not approve of it. But it was common; and the system which gave rise to it was approved by Rome, as a system. In the well-known letter to Mellitus, Gregory I desires Augustine not to pull down the temples, if well built, but to sprinkle them with holy water, put relics of saints in them, and as they were accustomed to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifice of demons, the solemnity was to be changed somewhat. On the festival of the saint whose relics were there, they were to make booths about the cleansed temple, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasts; that while some external joys were reserved to them, they might be better able to consent to internal ones, as it was not doubtful it was impossible to cut off all at once with hard minds. He cites Jewish sacrifices as a condescension to heathen habits in Egypt. (Lib. 9, 71, or 11, 76.)}

204 As to St. Jerome, it is impossible to have a more eloquent description of Romish holiness than the efforts of the excellent Tillemont to keep poor Jerome's name among the saints. He sought to overcome his nature, I dare say. He fasted excessively, lived in grime and filth, did everything possible to subdue flesh by flesh's efforts; but nature is not overcome thus. Tillemont declares that he was very little exact in stating things as they were, following more his own ideas than the truth. These, however, he says, are the defects of a great genius But he did not weigh what he said, and, which is more to be regretted, attacked St. Chrysostom; indeed, whoever he had as an adversary was the basest of men: he had too great an idea of his eloquence, shews it, was naturally jealous and envious, so as to wound his greatest friends and alienate them. It is hard not to recognize that he had in his natural character a sourness and bitterness which pained many. He was soon on fire when offended, and did not easily pardon. Are we to say, he asks, if so many saints who have admired him, and the church who honours him amongst its saints and doctors, have been deluded — a humble son of the church cannot say that — St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine are excellent models of a perfect virtue to animate us to imitate them? But others have had great sins, as David. We may say even that the defects of Jerome are useful, as teaching us what the substance (le fond) of virtue and Christian piety is. For if it consisted in an even and uniform life, in which few faults are committed, one would have to prefer Ruffinus to him. But the church leaves him to God's judgment, and has always had the greatest respect for Jerome. Not the services he has rendered the church by his labours;* these are not virtues. Tillemont can see that in his case his austerities would not do. Doubtless, he says, they were very useful to him (which his own account, by the bye, does not shew, though I do not question their sincerity in seeking to maintain incorruptness in celibacy, which he held the highest of virtues), yet, if we had nothing else to praise in him, we should have reason to fear they had rendered him proud, and had been the cause of that severe and critical spirit which some have blamed in him. He then shews what he thinks proof of what constitutes a saint: first, his love of his solitary life and poverty, though he could have enjoyed the favour of Pope Damasus and the wealth of Saint Marcella and Saint Paula, two rich women who admired him greatly; and his fleeing those who honoured him — humility which was shewn in not exercising the functions of priest, for which he had been brought up; his eleemosynary charity and laborious service for others, when he might have been glad to be writing; he hopes his anger against his heretical adversaries, and certainly his conduct in exalting St. Augustine, when he might have seemed a competitor, the more so as he had quarrelled with him. Such is Tillemont's kindly and gracious excuse for what he was obliged to tell in his history; for in fact Jerome's language, particularly against those who deprecated monkish sanctity, saint and image worship, was regular Billingsgate; for this is really the only word to describe it by. Tillemont then makes a saint of him in these words. The scripture does not call him alone happy who is without spot and does not sin; but, moreover, him to whom God does not impute sin, because he hates it by a pure and sincere love of righteousness, and that he covers it by the nuptial robe of charity, which covers a multitude of sins — a deep and deadly error, arising from a confusion of Proverbs 10: 12, quoted by Peter, and Psalm 32: 1. I believe, as to God's government in the church, fervent charity may keep many sins out of sight by Christian forgiveness so as not to come before God for present judgment; but to confound it with Psalm 32, quoted in Romans 4, is a denial of the gospel and the truth, but the foundation of Romish righteousness and sanctity, even in the hands of the very respectable Tillemont.

{*He corrected the translation of the scriptures.}

206 Another painful question may be asked — Why bring all this failure up, if things are changed? Is there such vice now? In the first place I reply in the inquiry, Has the Romish body the "note of holiness"? The facts are everything. It certainly has not. But I must answer. There is no doubt that the light and spiritual energy of the Reformation caused a certain amelioration in Rome; but I still must say, that where the action of this is not directly felt, it is not changed. Mr. Froude, whose hard-riding imagination had made a picture of medieval holiness, as we learn, was checked by the degeneracy he found in Italy. We have seen what they degenerated from. I have known a good deal by personal experience in several countries, and a good deal more by that of others; and I believe that in principle and practice there is no change, though there may be more concealment.

It is thought infidelity is found among Protestants especially. It is a mistake: more, I believe, in the bosom of what is called Catholicism; but not published, as among those called Protestants. Go to France and Italy, and see the state of men, in towns especially.

I turn to the popes, to see what their history affords as a stay to the soul, or if it were a cause of righteous revolt. The absence of the emperors from Rome, and their presence at Constantinople, made the episcopate of Rome a post of great importance and political power. Its ecclesiastical jurisdiction was really comparatively small. It was respected as the see of the capital, and had a primary rank — if worldly rank is to be looked for in Christ — which Constantinople contested with it as the new capital. But Augustine, the great western doctor, and the African council, forbade appeals to Rome as intolerable. But I confine myself here to their history, that we may have what we are called to look upon as infallible, as commanding our respect and submission as holy, as of God.

207 Already, in the fourth century, intrigues for the possession of papal power became a source of public trouble. In 366 Pope Liberius died, and contests for the see began. Damasus was elected by a majority, Ursicinus by a large party, both being consecrated bishops of Rome. The Emperor banished Ursicinus; but his partisans met in the churches they possessed, and refused communion with Damasus. The Emperor took away the churches. They met outside Rome, and were banished the country. In the dispute the parties fought for victory, and a vast number of Christians were killed, even in the churches.

But the origin of the violent feud is more important than the feud itself. The Emperor Constans was an Arian persecutor. Liberius had condemned Athanasius, and communicated with the Arians. When called on to subscribe an Arian creed, it appears he repented, and recalled his condemnation. The Emperor summoned a council at Arles, where the legates of Liberius signed a semi-Arian creed. Afterwards, at the Council of Milan, hesitating, he was banished, and Felix consecrated pope by an Arian minority. Rome murmured, and Liberius was restored, after three years' exile, but signed an Arian creed; and there were two popes — one said to be really Arian, and in communion with Arians who had made him pope; the other, who had signed an Arian creed against his conscience. Felix was driven out by the people, who favoured Liberius, though the clergy had mainly submitted to Felix. Liberius wrote to the Eastern bishops, who had condemned Athanasius, to declare his agreement with them, and that he never agreed with Athanasius. Hosius, of Cordova, the president of the Council of Nice which condemned Arius, had given way to the Emperor before Liberius. Felix is counted among the popes as Felix II. Damasus was of the Felix party, and hence the riots. It is stated that in the riots about Felix, which were very great, many were killed; that there were real massacres in baths, streets, and churches, of laity and clergy who favoured Felix; but there is some obscurity as to the history. (Bar., anno 357, Tillemont, vol. 6; Hilarii P. Fragmenta, p. 1335, where he interrupts his history, or rather Liberius' letter to the Eastern bishops, and turns to anathematize Liberius.) Efforts have been made to screen Liberius, by questioning what Sirmian creed he adopted. So Baronius. But, if we are to trust Hilary, there can be no mistake as to his Arianism; nor does Tillemont nor Dupin defend him from this accusation, nor Jerome either.

208 Zosimus became pope in 417. He formally approved Pelagianism. The synod at Lydda accepted Pelagius' confession of faith. Augustine and the African bishops had condemned him. Zosimus reproves them sharply. The African churches met in 418; Pelagius was condemned and anathematized; and they add, if any one presumed to appeal beyond sea, no one was to receive him into communion. There is as to what follows some conflict of dates; but a decree of the Emperor Honorius was obtained, Pelagius and Caelestius banished from Rome, and Zosimus now condemned what he had approved, and cut them both off from communion. On the death of Zosimus (418), two popes, Boniface and Eulalius, were elected. Boniface attempted to maintain his place by force. The prefect kept the peace, and reported in favour of Eulalius to the Emperor Honorius. Honorius confirmed Eulalius, and banished Boniface from the city. Boniface maintained his ground outside, and his partisans appealed to Honorius. The Emperor cited both before him. The prefect told him neither could be trusted in their statements. Difficulties arose in the decision. Honorius forbade both to go into the city, and sent a bishop for the Easter ceremonies. However, Eulalius went in. His adherents were unarmed. Boniface's, who were of the populace, made a violent attack, and the prefect hardly escaped. But Honorius, glad to terminate the matter, condemned Eulalius for going in, and appointed Boniface. Eulalius was driven out of the city by force. (Baronius' Annals, 419.)

It was about this time that the popes alleged forged canons of the Council of Nice to maintain their authority in Africa. The African bishops had the records of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, besides their own, searched; found they were forged, and refused to submit, reproving Pope Celestine, and denying his right to send his legate a latere. These appeals of evil persons the popes were constantly receiving as a means of establishing their authority. (Hardouin's Councils, 1, 934, Prohibition to Appeal, Can. 125, Letters to Pope Boniface, 939, and to Celestine, 947.) The letter to Celestine is very strong indeed, Faustinus, the legate's mission, being wholly rejected.

209 The fifth general council condemned three chapters of the fourth. Pope Vigilius, who was at Constantinople, had demanded the council called the fifth; then objected to it, and would not assist; was exiled by the Emperor, published a constitution condemning the chapters, saying that he did not condemn the council of Chalcedon (the fourth), on whose authority they rested. The Romans wished him back. The Emperor agreed, and said they might have him or Archdeacon Pelagius for pope, or the latter after Vigilius. They wished Vigilius, and said they would take Pelagius afterwards, as he prescribed to them, and the Emperor let him go, on his confirming the council which condemned the three chapters. He died in Sicily on the way. Pelagius, who was suspected of poisoning him, succeeded him, publicly declaring however his innocence. Vigilius himself had climbed over the wall into the Papacy, Belisarius having, by the empress's orders, sent off Pope Silverius, who would not submit to the Emperor's theology, and put in Vigilius. Silverius however returned. Belisarius gave him up to Vigilius, who sent him to the island Palmaria, in guard, where he died. (Fleury, 537-558; vol. 7,356,482.) Baronius (sub an. 538) counts Silverius pope till his death. Vigilius had promised two hundred pounds of gold to Belisarius, and would not pay it. Pelagius' own election was very uncertain. Vigilius had at first condemned the three chapters in his judicatum. Thereupon the Roman clergy separated from him. The Africans excommunicated him. He, seeing he had condemned thus a general council to please the Emperor, and that the clergy turned against him, retracted; but meanwhile, it seems (Conf. Pagi ad Bar. 555, 8, note), the Roman clergy elected Pelagius. Then Vigilius yielded, and got into favour again, and the Emperor told the Romans they might have which they liked, and Pelagius, who came back with Vigilius from Constantinople, certainly joined in ill-treating him. Baronius says, no day or month is named when he succeeded, and complains bitterly of all this. Vigilius had condemned the council of Chalcedon, and written to the three other patriarchs (who were heretics according to it), anathematized the doctrines of the council of Chalcedon and Pope Leo in his famous letter, adopted by it, and renounced communion with those who defended it. Baronius denies the authenticity of these letters; but Pagi and Fleury both admit they are genuine. Silverius was really murdered by want and starvation. "He died of hunger," says Fleury; and indeed all historians remark that Vigilius was chosen pope when Silverius was alive, and never afterwards. Baronius tries to get out of it by supposing Vigilius was re-elected after Silverius' death; but it is merely because it ought to be. Silverius was son of Pope Hormisdas. (Fleury, and Baronius, 53, 120.) Vigilius ordained eighty-one bishops.

210 Pope Honorius was condemned as a heretic by the sixth ecumenical council. Baronius laboriously seeks to prove that Theodoret did it, and left his own name out, and put Honorius' in; but Pagi, his annotator, has, in very few words and by facts, shewn the absurdity of his attempt. Pope Adrian II refers to it, and says heresy was the only ground for thus resisting such a superior authority. He was anathematized also by Pope Leo II. (See Fleury, 40, 28. For the acts of the council, see Hardouin; quoted in Baronius and Fleury.)

Symmachus and Laurentius contended for the Papacy (498). It was a violently contested matter. Both were ordained pope the same day, and they appealed to Theodoric at Ravenna, Gothic king, an Arian, to decide. As most were for Symmachus, he was to be pope. He was accused of all sorts of crimes, and never was cleared. There was fighting in the streets for a length of time, and many killed and wounded. The only godly man we hear of was on the other side. Symmachus made regulations to hinder these contests — in vain, however; for men will be ambitious. The clergy had in other cases sold all the church's goods, and even the vessels of service, by auction, for pushing their candidates; so that it had been forbidden by rescripts and laws of the senate; and after Vigilius' election, more than 3,000 solidi were not to be paid at court after an election for the royal confirmation, etc., for a pope; 2,000 for a metropolitan. This was in 532. The king wrote to John, the new pope, recalling a decree of the senate in the previous pope's time, and allowing his officers to take so much. (Fleury, book 7, 625).

The history of the papal influence was this — when there were emperors, they ruled; but the pope's influence was growing ecclesiastically, though often resisted. When the empire fell, they were the chief influence (except the Arian Goths in Italy), and did pretty freely what they pleased, increasing in power in respect of Constantinople. However the Gothic kings confirmed them, and interfered, and were appealed to, as we have seen. When for a time the eastern empire reconquered Italy, the popes were servile and submissive to the emperors; they could not help it. When these were driven out again, they were oppressed by Lombards, but established in Rome by the Franks, Charlemagne however fully holding his own, and ruling at Rome. When the succeeding Carlovingian emperors were weak and divided, their power grew. Powerful emperors contended for the right of confirmation of popes and local investiture of prelates; and the history of the middle ages is the history of this conflict, the popes raising Italy against them (Guelphs and Ghibelines), and the emperors sometimes doing as they pleased. But the German emperors having to contend with subject princes as powerful as themselves, and jealous of them, the pope and they coalesced against the emperors: the popes even supported the rebellion of a son against his father the Emperor. In Boniface the eighth's time they laid their hand on France; but this was more united, and there was a signal failure. The pope had to give way. The next pope had his seat at Avignon, under French influence — the Avignon popes and the court being degraded to the last degree. At the end they had one pope at Rome and another at Avignon, this giving rise to the question whether the authority of a council were not superior to that of a pope, and to the three councils of Pisa, Basle (Florence, Lausanne), and Constance, which so puzzle Roman Catholic theorists. There was a universal cry for reformation in head and members, always avoided. At last came the Reformation, which threw the whole power into the pope's hands, the bishops holding only under him. And though Louis XIV maintained Gallican liberties, as they are called, yet the clergy are simply slaves to the pope. The Jesuit society sprang up at that time more powerful than the pope himself, and recovered southern Germany to popery.

Analysis of Dr. Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua: with a glance at the history of Popes, Councils, and the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<18004E> 211 {file section c.}

I have now to see in what way the state of the Papacy gave occasion to Protestantism. From 887, then, the popes were engaged in the strifes of the Italian nobles, when the power of the Empire fell. Another circumstance has to be introduced here. A number of forged decretals were produced at this time, which formed the foundation of the pope's pretensions subsequently — the Isidorean collection. No doubt political circumstances were a means of the popes' power, but their canonical pretensions leaned on these forged decretals. They declare the notable falsehood that all churches had their origin from Rome — "A qua omnes ecclesias principium sumsisse" — and then go on to state its consequent rights. It is said they were written between 829 and 845; appear at Mentz in the time of Archbishop Autcarius; alleged to be brought from Spain at the end of the eighth century, or thereabouts. Some think they were forged by Autcarius himself, at Mentz; and that there were some old decretals which gave rise to them, or, as some allege, introduced to accredit the forgeries. At any rate, what gave legal (not political) force to papal authority from this date was the forged Isidorean collection. It is admitted on all hands they are forgeries. They were not detected till the Reformation. Calvin states it (Inst. 4, 7, 20, and the Cent. 2, 7), and fully (3, 7) demonstrated it. Bellarmine says they are ancient, but does not dare defend them as genuine; and Baronius gives them up (6, 865, and following, with Pagi Ann.). Hincmar combated, in 870, the authority of the decrees, but used them too. However no one denies their spuriousness, but they served their purpose when wanted. They were used by Nicholas I in 864.

212 I turn to the history of the popes from this time. After the death of Formosus (897), Boniface took possession of the see, and held it for fifteen days. Stephen VI (VII) drove him out, and took possession. Baronius here remarks: Boniface is not to be counted, Stephen is; future popes having owned one, not the other, the clergy thought it better, though all was taken by fear and violence, to sanction it, rather than by electing a legitimate pope to have a schism (Bar. 1, 897). Stephen dragged Formosus out of his tomb, clothed him in pontifical robes, and put him on the throne; charged him with intrusion into the see (he had been made pope in a tumult, Sergius having been chosen by a party), stripped him then of his pontifical robes, cut off the three fingers which were used to bless with, and had his body thrown into the Tiber, and re-ordained all the clergy he had ordained. Baronius says he should not dare to count him among the popes, if he had not found it done by those of old (6, 987). Stephen was put in prison and strangled. Baronius owns he had only the fact of subsequent recognition by the church to accept such a pope 1, 897).

I should have, perhaps, mentioned the history of Pope Joan. A woman, an Englishwoman, who had received a learned education at Athens, became, it is said, pope in 855. She is said to have died in childbirth, having been taken with pains of labour in the street, going to the Lateran church; so that the popes never pass that way. This seems unquestionable, and it is certain that the sex of the Pontiffs was examined for long years, and the story believed till the time of Reformation, that is, for many centuries. She is put by Platina, who speaks of the story as of uncertain authority, between Leo IV and Benedict III. The whole controversy is fully gone into in Basnage, 7, 12, and Schrock, 27, 75-110. Baronius and Fleury pass the Joan of Platina over in a suspicious silence, and make Benedict elected on the death of Leo IV. Here there was a contested election too: Anastasius was chosen by the people and installed pope, Benedict by the clergy, and Anastasius was driven away.

213 To continue. After Stephen was gone, the Roman faction having the upper hand at the time, Romanus was pope somewhat more than four months. I quote Baronius' account: "Thus indeed all things, as well sacred as profane, were mixed up with factions, so that promotion to the Apostolic see of the Roman pontiff was in the power of the party which seemed the strongest. So that at one time the Roman nobles, at another the Prince of Etruria intruded by secular power whom he would, and put down when he could, the Roman pontiff promoted by the contrary faction. Which things were carried on for almost a whole century, until the Othos (German Emperors) came in between, in opposition to both parties, but arrogating to themselves in the same way the election of a pope and his deposition when elected." Romanus disappeared. Theodorus was pope twenty days. Benedict IV succeeded, of whom nothing is known; he seems to have been a respectable man. Leo V succeeded. After forty days he was driven out, and put in prison by Christopher. He was, after seven months, driven out, put in prison, and obliged to retire to a monastery by Sergius, who was all-powerful through Adelbert, Marquis of Tuscany. It is to be added, that these popes undid the ordinations of their predecessors, as having no legitimate title. One Auxilius wrote a dialogue, by decrees and canonical examples, to guard against the intestine discord of the Roman church; namely, on ordinations, exordinations, and super-ordinations (Baronius, 907, 3). "That reprobate Sergius," says Baronius. (908, 2), "the slave of all vices, the most iniquitous of all men — what did he leave unattempted?" "One pope undid," he says, "all the acts of another; what, then (912, 7), was the face of the holy Roman church? how filthy, when the most powerful and basest harlots ruled at Rome! at whose will sees were changed, bishops given, and, what is horrible and unutterable to hear of, lovers were introduced into the see of Peter, who are only to be written in the catalogue of Roman pontiffs to mark such times. For who can say that persons, intruded without law in this way by harlots, can be said to be legitimate Roman pontiffs? The clergy never elected, nor is there afterwards any consenting mention," etc. Yet succession depends upon this, we are told! Baronius says, "Christ indeed seemed to sleep, but He was in the ship; and that this proves the unfailing security of the church." Of the church, I believe; not however by, but in spite of, the popes.

214 On the death of Lando, Theodora (who lived with Adelbert, marquis of Tuscany, and whose daughter Marozia was concubine of Pope Sergius), makes John, son of Sergius and Marozia, pope (John X). Marozia became wife of Guido, marquis of Tuscany. She being angry with his brother Peter, had Peter killed, and John seized and put in a dungeon, where he died — they say suffocated. The Emperor at this epoch got a lance, made out of the nails of Christ's cross, from Rudolf, king of Burgundy, after threatening fire and sword if he did not give it to him; afterwards gave a large part of Swabia to him, because he gave it up; and always beat his enemies with it.

Afterwards Pope Stephen, the marquis of Tuscany and Marozia make another son of hers, by Pope Sergius, pope, by the name of John XI; but Alberic (son of Adelbert, marquis of Tuscany, by Theodora, not his wife), who ruled at Rome, put John in prison. There he remained three years, and there was no other pope made. In 936 Leo VII became pope. I pass over a number which need no mention. Octavianus, son of Alberic, was a clergyman; and as he governed at Rome, made himself pope (John), being at the outside not eighteen years old. Baronius again remarks here (955, 4), that though not of an age to be made bishop, or even deacon, he was owned afterwards in the succession, the clergy being supposed to consent, not to have a schism. The truth is plain enough — he ruled at Rome. However, the Emperor Otho comes to Rome (963), and holds a council, which deposes John, and elects Leo VIII, whom Baronius will not own, because nobody could depose a pope; yet he was ordained pope, and ordained priests and deacons, and held the see a year and four months (Fleury, book 56, sec. 7), and they swore fidelity to them. But Otho having sent away some of his troops, the Romans rose against him, and tried to kill him; which he knew, and had the advantage; but when the Emperor left, Leo had to fly, and John was pope again. However, being one night out of Rome with a married woman, he was caught in the act of adultery, and had his head smashed, and died without the sacraments.

215 The Romans chose Benedict V pope. Otho came and besieged them, and they were forced to give up Benedict to him, and Leo re-enters. The Emperor committed Benedict to the keeping of the Archbishop of Hamburg. The Emperor held a council at Rome. Benedict appeared; owned he had sinned; was stripped of his robes, and his pastoral staff broken: he had joined in deposing John, and swore fidelity to Leo. No wonder Baronius does not own Leo, as he recognized the right of Otho to establish the pope, of investitures, etc., under pain of excommunication, exile, and death. However, the next Leo was Leo the ninth, so that on Baronius' principle he must be reckoned such. Baronius has no Leo VIII at all. After Leo's death they sent to Otho to know whom he would have, and he sent ambassadors to Rome, and John XIII was chosen. He was followed by Benedict VI who became odious to the Romans. Crescentius, son of Theodora and Pope John X, took him, shut him up, and afterwards strangled him; while yet alive, Boniface VII became pope. After the death of Benedict they drove out Boniface, and Donus became pope (though some do not count him among the popes), then a relation of Alberic. But Baronius inserts Donus, and does not count Boniface.

I pass over the popes named while temporal influence prevailed. The Germans were more respectable; but Baronius does not like them. In 1002 or 1003 we have John XVI, called also and commonly XVIII for a few months, and then John XVII (usually XIX). Baronius will not own him but as XVII, because it would be recognizing schismatic popes. Baronius (10, 1003) puts two popes John; he says, to make the numbers run right. Crescens had expelled Gregory V from Rome, and made a Greek pope. The Emperor and Gregory V marched together on Rome. But some servants of the Emperor, fearing his clemency (John was a favourite at court), followed, and caught the pope, and put his eyes out, and put him in prison (Fleury, 57, 50). Benedict VIII now took the see after Sergius IV, but another party chose Gregory VI. But Benedict, being son of the Count of Tusculum, carried the day; but the party of Gregory VI roused itself, and Benedict fled to the Emperor. However Benedict was restored in less than two years.

216 After Benedict, John, a layman not in orders at all, had the papacy. He was Benedict's brother, another son of the Count of Tusculum. He got the papacy, says Fleury, partly by money (59, 3), evidently by family influence too. The patriarch of Constantinople very nearly succeeded in buying the universal papacy of the East. The Romans drove John XIX out; but Conrad, the Emperor, came with an army and set him up again: he died that year, 1033. His nephew, son of Alberic, Count of Tusculum, was made pope, a boy of about twelve years old, says Fleury; not quite ten, says Glabeus, in Baronius — by money also, and intrigue too (Fleury, 59, 81; Bar. 1033, 5) — Benedict IX. His life was infamous, and through his plunderings and murders he became so odious, that the people drove him out. Sylvester III became pope, but only held it three months; he was of another powerful family, says Baronius. But Benedict, with the Tusculum family, attacked Rome, and was reinstated. But his conduct became insupportable, and he agreed to leave for a sum of money, and the papal revenue of England, to follow his pleasures freely; and they made John Gratian pope, as Gregory VI. But all three called themselves popes. Gregory VI gave up the papacy, in a council called to settle matters, as having entered on it unlawfully; as Benedict was paid to go out. But Baronius, who speaks of it as a beast with three heads (5, 1044) coming out of the gates of hell, insists Gregory VI was a real pope, owned so by Gregory VII, Peter Damianus, etc. The number designating the pope is constantly uncertain, because whether such or such an one was really pope is uncertain. Him who is called John XIX Baronius calls XVII. Benedict is VIII or IX: so Stephen.

But when things are at the worst they mend. The Emperor came, gathered the clergy and nobles of Rome; they agreed to have things done decently, and the Emperor took up Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, and he became Clement II. No fit person, it is said, was found in Rome. However, Clement II died in nine months, and Benedict came back and held the papacy for nine months, then, as it seems, repented, and gave it up. Sylvester went back to his see. What came of Gregory I know not. The Emperor sent Poppo, bishop of Brixia, to be pope. He lived as Damasus II twenty-three days; and was said to be poisoned. Bruno, six months after, in a diet held at Worms, was chosen pope. But Baronius says, Benedict was tearing it to pieces and defiling it: so Dupin (II century, chap. 4), who refers to Clement's being poisoned. A circumstance is to be noted here. Hildebrand, afterwards Gregory VII, came with Bruno. The Romans had sent to the Emperor, and asked him to give them a pope, through dread, it appears, of Benedict; and after his choice at Worms, Bruno (Leo IX) came in his pontifical robes. Hildebrand got him to take them off, and be again chosen at Rome. He it was who established the modern papacy (Bar., Fleury, Dupin). Everyone who searches for himself must look to the facts, not the title of the pope, as the succession is so uncertain, that VIII in one is IX in the other, and sometimes, as in the Johns, there are three enumerations.

217 We have seen already the state of the clergy; the buying and sale of benefices was universal, even of the popedom; and immorality, the most degraded, all but universal among the clergy. The chase or pleasure was their occupation. On the death of Leo, the Romans sent Hildebrand to the Emperor to choose a pope in Germany; they had no one fit in Rome. The Emperor assembled a council at Mayence, and Hildebrand got them to choose Gibbard, bishop of Eichstadt, a near relative to the Emperor, who did not wish to lose him. However he went, kept his bishopric too, and became pope. He was very near being poisoned by a subdeacon in the sacrament, but could not lift the cup. They say another devil openly seized the poisoner.

Hildebrand was now the soul of the papacy at Rome. A great change took place under Nicholas II. On the death of Stephen, the Emperor, who kept things in order, the Roman nobles, the Alberic family, and others, chose the bishop of Veletri as Pope Benedict. The cardinals opposed; but Fleury says he held the papacy nearly ten months; but Hildebrand got the bishop of Florence chosen at Florence. When he had arrived, the Romans sent to the Emperor, who sanctioned the choice of Florence; the pope was Nicholas II. He recognised publicly the Emperor's rights, but decreed, when pope, that the cardinals should choose the pope, thus excluding the Emperor and the Roman people. This laid the foundation of the modern papacy, which was born in Hildebrand, Gregory VII. Therefore it is I have noticed this part of the history. Benedict abdicated.

218 This was the era of Damianus, whom we have previously cited. Alexander II was the first chosen by the cardinals 1061). Another was chosen at Basle, and consecrated through Lombard influence, Pope Honorius. He came to Rome in arms, was at first victorious, but afterwards beaten, the German princes deserting him to weaken an infant Emperor. He was deserted by his soldiers, got into the castle of St. Angelo, was besieged two years by Alexander, and then fled. But Honorius never gave up his claim. One great means of the depression of imperial power was, that the archbishop of Cologne stole away the young Emperor from his mother, who had maintained his authority, and went over to Pope Alexander's side, so that the Emperor was null, though nominally saved. There was a council at Mantua, where the archbishop appeared, as did Alexander, who was charged also with simony, and Honorius. Alexander was recognized pope, Honorius pardoned, the Emperor's rights nominally saved, and some of the German party promoted. The archbishop charged Alexander with having despised the Emperor's rights. P. Damianus wrote on this, that Honorius contrived to claim and exercise papal authority as far as he could (see Bar. 1064, 40), and the archbishop of Ravenna favoured him. After Alexander, Hildebrand was pope, as Gregory VII. He decreed absolutely the celibacy of the clergy; was resisted everywhere in the north of Europe, where there was some more respect for morality; but prosecuted it earnestly.

The papal system was now established. I have only to notice, till I come to those near the Reformation, the dying struggles of the imperial power which had given popes for nearly a century, as Baronius admits, and the Avignon popes, and the schism; and briefly. Before I turn to this, I give Gregory VII's account of the state of the church. I have not preserved any reference here, but have no doubt of the correctness of the extract. "Alone with my mind's eye, I look at the west, south, and north. I scarcely find bishops, legally such by their entrance and life, who rule the Christian people for the love of Christ, and not secular ambition; and among all secular princes, I know none who put God's honour before their own, and justice before gain. As to those amongst whom I dwell, as I often tell them, Romans, Lombards, and Normans, I denounce them as, in a certain way, worse than Jews and Pagans."* Gregory having excommunicated the Emperor, the latter and his bishops chose Guibert (Clement III) pope. Gregory would have attacked him at Ravenna with an army (Fleury, 1080, 4). He sought the help of the Normans, the Italians (Lombardy) and Germany being for the Emperor. The latter (1084) entered Rome and set Clement III on the Papal throne. Gregory retired to St. Angelo. The Emperor besieged him there. Robert Guiscard, the Norman, freed him, and, after staying awhile in Rome, retired to Salerno under the protection of the Normans. Gregory VII died at Salerno. The small papal party secretly elected Desiderius (Victor III). Clement returned to Rome; he had been expelled in 1089, and came back in 1091 (Fleury, Bar.). Didier refused to be pope, and when chosen went back to Mont Casino, and would not be ordained, but at last yielded. The Normans and others came to Rome, and turned out Clement III from St. Peter's by force. Still, it appears, he held the upper hand there; for after the death of Victor III (Didier), Urban, named by him, was chosen at Terracina, under the influence of Mathilde, the great protectress of the popedom then, by a small assembly, forty persons, clergy and laity partly, by proxy, John, bishop of Porto, having their authority. (Fleury, 63, 41; Dupin, II cent., chap. 6; Bar. 1088, 1, et seq.).

{*An abbot Transmundus having put out the eyes of some monks accused of rebellion, and torn out the tongue of one of them, Desiderius, abbot of Casino, put him to penance. Gregory, then cardinal, approved the act, got him out of the abbot's hands, gave him an abbacy, and afterwards made a bishop of him. Anything for power.}

219 It is important to notice at this part of the history, that what destroyed the power of Clement and the Emperor in Italy was, that Urban got up the crusades through Peter the hermit, and when that took effect, Clement was rejected. He was driven, it appears, from Rome by the crusaders. Pope Urban the second (Grat. Decr. part 2, Caus. 23, Quaes. 5, c. 47) says, "Enjoin a measure of suitable satisfaction to those who have killed the excommunicated. For we do not consider those as guilty of homicide who, burning with the zeal of their Catholic mother against the excommunicated, shall have happened to have slain some of them." At this time this was the greater part of Europe.

220 The remaining facts may be briefly recounted. Paschal II raised the Emperor's son against him. That son banished him from Rome, and Gregory VIII was set up as pope. The Roman pope died in exile, or two days after his return; but Gelasius was elected as Roman pope, but died in exile soon after. Calistus II followed as Roman pope; he treats of peace with the Emperor. Gregory was his prisoner. Calistus was not elected, Baronius admits; he was chosen by a few cardinals and clergy at Clugny, when Gelasius died, as trusted by him (Bar. 1119, 1 and 5). After Honorius there was a contested election between cardinals and people, but the circumstances are of no moment. After him the cardinals who had been beaten in Honorius's case chose Gregory (Innocent II). Other cardinals and the people chose Peter (Anacletus II), favoured by the laity. Innocent had to leave Rome, went to France, owned by Rernard, and in general in Europe; but Anacletus was pope at Rome. On Anacletus's death, the schism for the moment is ended by St. Bernard's influence. The Emperor Lothaire brought back Innocent; but as soon as he was gone, Innocent had to go back to Pisa. Gregory was elected in Anacletus's stead as Victor, and submitted to Innocent, but the Romans renounced obedience to the latter. Celestine followed quickly. Baronius says Anacletus's presence at Rome was the triumph of Antichrist, and that it was easy to see who was the successor of St. Peter (1130, 3). The next, Lucius, was killed in a rebellion of the Romans, by a blow of a stone, when assaulting the Capitol; or of chagrin, as some say. Baronius, Dupin, Fleury, do not say how he died. His successor, Eugene, fled from Rome, but returned. Then came Anastasius IV; Adrian IV followed. Then a disputed election — Alexander and Victor; the latter given up by the Emperor when beaten by the Lombards. Lucius III and Urban III sat at Verona, not at Rome. Lucius fled, being hated and despised by the Romans, who attacked his territories, and he finally settled at Verona, where Urban was chosen.

From Urban III on to Boniface VIII, that is, taking in Lucius, from 1181 to 1294, the history of the papacy is that of a worldly power, yet using excommunication as its weapon, contending against the emperors, using Sicily and Lombardy as their main arms against him with various success, but in result successful. But it wearied the world, and when Boniface attempted to use the acquired power against Philip of France, he signally failed. His successor repeated his acts. And the next pope, chosen by French influence, removed to Avignon, in France. This, as being practically secular history, I leave untouched. "My kingdom," says the Lord, "is not of this world, else would my servants fight"; the pope's was.

221 The most remarkable pope of the period was Innocent III, who held the fourth council of Lateran, when transubstantiation was for the first time decreed. He established the inquisition in the crusades against the Albigenses. We may notice that, the see having been vacant three years through election intrigues, there was a compromise, and Gregory X made a decree for what is now practised, that the cardinals should be shut up till they chose a pope. Celestine V reserved it, and then resigned, as the cardinals were two years and a half before electing him. The person who got Celestine to resign got himself chosen in his place — it was Boniface VIII. Celestine gives a curious reason to justify his abdication. He says Clement, who was named by Peter, resigned, that no pope might be named by his predecessor; and then came third after Linus and Anacletus. So Peter made a blunder in beginning the matter. It is known the succession of the first three possessors of the see is hopelessly embroiled.

As to the manners of the clergy and the court of Rome in Innocent's time, Matthew Paris is quoted as giving the parting address of Cardinal Hugo, at Lyons (P. 819. I have not the book to verify the quotation.) "Amici magnam fecimus postquam in hanc urbem venimus utilitatem et eleemosynam. Quando enim primo huc venimus tria vel quatuor prostibula invenimus [here in the sense of lupanar], sed nunc recedentes unum solum relinquimus, verum ipsum durat continuatum ab orientali porta civitatis usque ad occidentalem."

From 1309 the pope lived at Avignon, under French influence and protection, proclaimed his rights over others, and submitted to France. The struggles with the Emperor went on. Louis was set up an anti-pope at Rome — Nicholas V; but he was soon given up to his competitor at Avignon. The friars Minorites and Italian cardinals sided with the Emperor, who was preparing a general council against the pope who meanwhile died. Benedict XII succeeded at Avignon. France would not allow him to make peace with the Emperor; the Emperor was deprived of the sacraments by the pope; but the clergy who would not administer them were banished. But Louis took ecclesiastical powers in hand, and lost influence. Clement VI succeeded Benedict, and anathematized the Emperor, and set up an anti-Emperor who was forced to fly. But the conduct of Clement, who had deposed an ecclesiastical Elector to gain voices for his anti-Emperor, had wearied men of the popes. Clement got the upper hand, but injured the Papacy. The Electors of the empire meet, and declare the King of Rome receives his power from Electors only.

222 From 1313 to 1316 the see was vacant: the cardinals would not elect. Clement V, first pope at Avignon, lived in adultery, sold all the benefices he had to dispose of, and left immense wealth (Fleury, 92, 11). Yet this same Clement, in opening the council of Vienne, describes the state of the whole church as corruption itself, clergy and laity (Raynald, con. of Bar. 1311, 55). This is Petrarch's account of the court at Avignon. He died in the Papacy of Gregory XI, and had lived at Avignon. "It is the third Babylon, the fifth labyrinth. Here dreadful prisons, nor the tortuous way of a dark house, nor the fatal mixing of the fate of the human urn, lastly, not imperious Minos, nor a voracious minotaur, nor the monument of condemned lusts (veneris), are wanting; but remedies — love, charity, faith to promises, friendly counsels, or thread by silent help, marking the perplexed way — Ariadne and Daedalus. The only hope of safety is gold! A fierce king is appeased by gold, and heaven is opened by gold; nay more, Christ is sold for gold!"

During this time, from the universal corruption and squeezing for money, the consciences of godly men were rising up against the state of things — Milicz, Matthias Von Jannow, both Bohemians, before Huss; in England, Wickliffe (1360, etc.). Gregory XI died at Rome, and a pope was elected then in a riot: Raynald says the uproar was afterwards. However this may be, for all was violence and confusion, the cardinals elected another, Clement VII, who went to Avignon; and there were two who divided Europe between them. Benedict XIII succeeded at Avignon, Boniface IX at Rome, and then Gregory XII. This brought on the Council of Pisa, which put down both. The council chose Alexander V. He dissolves the council, and does not reform.

223 There were now three popes. The exaction of money became intolerable, selling of benefices public. It was said it was allowable, as the pope could not sin in it. This brought on the council of Pisa, "a council," says Bellarmine, "neither manifestly approved nor manifestly condemned" (De Conc. lib. 1, C. 8). That it is approved, the succeeding Alexander being called VI shews, for Alexander V was made pope by that council; and the same circumstance shews John XXIII to be confessedly a true pope, though moderns say no. John XXIII being obliged to fly, Rome consented to a new council, which met at Constance. Here first they voted by nations. John was deposed, accused of every sort of horrible crime. He had first fled the council. Gregory XII resigned. Benedict XIII remained determined, was deposed, and finally deserted by all but the Spanish town he lived in. Martin V was elected by all. The council had formally decreed a council superior to the pope, and had acted on it. Martin condemned all appeals from popes, and after a little reformation dissolved the council. It was here John Huss was burnt, and it was declared that faith was not to be kept with a heretic, he having had letters of safe conduct. Martin confirmed the articles of faith of the council of Constance (Raynald, 1418, 2). Martin V quarrelled with cardinals. He appointed a council first at Pavia, then at Siena; but which met afterwards at Basle under Eugenius. But there was no reformation really, and the universal complaint continued. France made regulations for herself. Eugene IV succeeded Martin V. The iniquities with which John XXIII was charged were so dreadful, that, when presented to the chief men of the Council of Constance, they thought it better not to have him called to account — the apostolic see would be discredited altogether, and all his promotions of ecclesiastics held void.

I should add, that the Council of Constance had ordered that a council should be held within a limited time, and a second within seven years; and these were held in consequence. Eugenius, fearing reformation from the first, sought to dissolve the council. The council, under his own legate, resisted, confirmed the decrees of Constance that a council was above the pope, and could decide so as to subject all, the pope included, in articles of faith, schism, and reformation. The cry universal echoed in these councils for reformation in head and members. The French held a national council to back up the Council of Basle against the pope's effort, and even the Emperor, though yielding to the pope for a time to get crowned, returned to the council. But this pope tried it out. It condemned the pope, and deposed him, and elected Felix V. Meanwhile, the council having cited the pope (1437) to appear before it, he appointed a council at Ferrara, and the two sat together. The Council of Ferrara condemns that of Basle. From Ferrara it was transferred to Florence. The Council of Florence ended in 1442, the pope appointing one in Rome; that at Basle, in 1444, appointing one in Germany. Felix V had one at Lausanne, but subsequently resigned the Papacy, on condition of having all his cardinals and promotions to benefices owned, and certain personal privileges. Nicholas, the other pope, withdrew all his acts against him and the Council of Basle.

224 The pope of Rome had thus seemingly gained uncontested supremacy; but the fact that all the respectable clergy had met, condemned deposed popes, and named others whose successors all subsequent popes have been, made their position very different. All their theologians avoid, if possible, pronouncing a judgment on these councils, even when they hold the supremacy of the pope in the highest way. Bellarmine admits that Pisa can neither be approved nor condemned. If it be condemned, the pope is not pope, for the popes are the successors of the council's nominee; if it be approved, then a council can depose a pope. Neither proposition would do. The like is the case of Constance. That council deposed three popes, and chose another. But then it openly declared that a pope was subject to a general council, and that a council represented the universal church, and could act in its name, and was infallible; and it acted on it; and again, the succession depends on their act. Moreover, Martin V sanctioned the doctrine that a general council represents the whole church (Fleury, 106, 14). Bellarmine recognizes the power of a council to settle schism. He refers to Popes Cornelius, Symmachus, Innocent II, Alexander III, and the Pisa and Constance councils. No remedy, he says, is more powerful than a council. So for false doctrines in popes, as Marcellinus, Damasus, Sixtus III, Leo III and IV. Marcellinus, he said, had to confess it; the rest purged themselves.

225 Now, though the popes had the upper hand, the universal conscience of the church was roused; the weightiest, godliest doctors declared there must be reform in the head and in the members. This became the universal cry all over Europe; whenever the pope went too far, there was an appeal to a general council. France maintained, in what are called the Gallican liberties, the doctrine of Constance. The popes themselves (instead of governing an ignorant and prostrate Europe, whose princes, being divided and jealous of one another, were glad of the pope's help, while he was always himself and one in his purpose, and scrupled at no weapons), were now judged by laity and clergy, who were subject to them, and gave themselves up to mere petty local ambition. France and Germany were considerably emancipated in the spirit of men's minds, deliverance being looked for anxiously, and though disappointed in their hopes of redress from the councils, were groaning so much the more, though hopelessly, under the burden. Spain and Portugal were more content, because they liked that title of the pope which divided the new world between them. But men's spirits craved deliverance; threatened councils, appealed to them, were ripe for some deliverance. The unheard-of infamies of Alexander VI, and even the crimes and conduct of Sixtus and Julius, only sunk the Papacy lower, though none opposed it; and the shameless sale of indulgences, practically an allowance to sin, gave the last blow to man's conscience, and opened the door to the testimony of an offended God. I shall briefly trace this, which will lead us to the Reformation.

Nicholas V arranged matters peaceably with Felix V, the Lausanne pope, who was during his life to be respected as such, though without power. Calixtus IV followed him. They succeeded in gaining influence in Germany; but the attempt to rouse the people to a crusade against the Turks utterly failed. Pius II failed in like attempts; he condemned appeals to a general council (Raynald, 1460, 10, 11), where we see it was become a general thing. This same pope, as Aeneas Sylvius, had been a great adherent of the Council of Basle. Paul II was arbitrary. The cardinals at this time bound themselves all when in conclave, as in the case of Eugenius, to reform the papal court in head and members, hold a council, and to many other points. Eugene confirmed this by a bull. Paul bound himself in the same way, but by a decree rejected it all, and by cajoling and violence forced all the cardinals but one to join in, though some very reluctantly (Raynald, 1431, 5, 1458, 5, 1464, 61, 62). Platina complains bitterly of his undoing iniquitously all Pius II had done, threatened to complain to kings and princes (for parliaments, universities, kings, everybody did so now), and have a general council, and got put in prison and in the stocks for his pains. Sixtus IV succeeded. He occupied himself with low Italian intrigues and conspiracy to advance his family. Innocent VIII came after him. He was famous for promoting and enriching his illegitimate children, though one of the conditions (in conclave) of election was not to do it. He was the subject of pasquinades on this account. Rome, they said, might well call him father. It appears he had seven children while pope. The general fact is stated by Raynald (1492, 23). He received pay from the Sultan for keeping a rival brother safe when the Turks were invading Europe.

226 To Alexander VI one hardly knows how to refer. He is recognized to have been — except it be his own second illegitimate son — the most horrible fiend who has come under public notice. A thorough debauchee at all times, so as to attract notice and reproof even at the Papal court, elected pope by bribery and promises, he got rid, in one way or another, of those who promoted him. His second son killed his eldest brother, and the pope's other favourite, Peroto, who had hidden himself in the pope's mantle, so that the blood spurted up in the pope's face. (Casillo, Appendix to Ranke.) Alexander had made a cardinal of him when quite young, but he left the clerical order to be a prince in Italy. France made him Duke of Valentinois to reward the pope for his divorce. He killed his sister's husband to marry her better. This same sister, when the pope was away, kept the Papal court, and opened the despatches, consulting the cardinals. She was one of the pope's five illegitimate children. Her marriage was celebrated with pomp in the pope's palace. Infessina's language is bitter to a degree on the occasion, and he declares that the universal corruption of the clergy through Innocent and Alexander's care of their children made men fear it might reach the monks and people of religion. "Although," he adds, "the monasteries of the city were almost all (quasi omnia) turned into brothels, no one gainsaying it. The current lines on him were, 'Alexander sells kings, altars, Christ. He first bought them, he has good right to sell them.'" Engaged with his second son Borgia in poisoning (as he had poisoned others already) some rich cardinals, to get their money, at a feast prepared for it, he took, being very hot, the poisoned wine, and died.

227 I cannot be expected to go into the details of such a life as this. Raynald tries to cover the way he met his death, but no one believes him. The very brief pontificate of Pius III needs no notice. Julius II was engaged in wars. The cardinals had all sworn to reform, and to have a general council. He was occupied fighting against the Venetians, and afterwards the French, etc. Louis XII had a council at Tours. Germany prepared her griefs, and sought a pragmatic sanction like France. The French council held that the king could renounce allegiance to the pope. He should keep the decrees of Basle, and appeal to a future council. If Julius, armed pronounced sentence upon him or his allies, it would be of no force whatever. The king and Emperor summoned a general council at Pisa, but it was mainly composed of French bishops. The pope convoked another at the Lateran. The Pisan came to nothing, though it deposed the pope by a decree. A number of cardinals were engaged in it, founded on Julius' promise to have a general council within two years. I only refer to it to shew the confusion all was in. The Emperor and King of France adhered afterwards to the Lateran. Francis I and Leo X made a treaty. The pope by this had again quietly the upper hand. The Councils of Constance and Basle, on the first of which the succession of the Papacy depends, maintained the authority of councils and bishops. France held strongly to this. The Councils of Florence and Lateran V set up the pope. In result half Europe broke off, and the pope by the Council of Trent remained absolute in the rest, if we except the Gallican liberties.

This brings us to the last act which brought about the Reformation: not the wisdom of princes, nor the power of councils, but God rousing conscience and faith — conscience long wearied, and faith which He gave, roused by the excessive wickedness which the popes, grown secure in wickedness, countenanced for mere aesthetical purposes. Julius II had begun St. Peter's, Leo wanted to finish it. Italy had been flooded with fresh light from Constantinople, and the educated clergy were infidels. Elegant Latin or Greek was alone sought after, pleasure and literary pursuits. It is said that Leo himself was an infidel; but there is no proof of it. At any rate St. Peter's was to be finished, and for this purpose money was to be raised. For this purpose an old expedient, by which the piety of the ignorant had been before that imposed on, was resorted to, but with a recklessness that passed all bounds. Indulgences were issued, as to which there are very pretty theories, but which are but allowances to commit sin for money. I know well it is said to be commutation of penance, and shortening, consequently, the duration of purgatorial pains; but penance had taken place of the need of holiness, and as a man with the sacraments would not go to hell, purgatory had taken the place of hell, and when a man wanted to sin, he got rid of the purgatory he was afraid of by paying a sum of money: he wanted to sin, and paid so much money to do it with impunity. Guilt (culpa) was settled by sacraments, so that he did not much trouble himself about it; the pains which remained, about which he did care, by money. Now, too, it was not provided for troubled sinners, but offered everywhere to bold ones who wanted to sin. Each sin had its price. The object was to get money. Grace, or holiness, or any doctrine, no matter which, was not thought of.

228 Albert, brother of Joachim of Brandenburg — a young, elegant, sumptuous Archbishop of Mayence, and Elector — spent, like Leo, more than he could afford, and applied to Leo for the farming of the indulgences; but he had not paid for his pallium, or archiepiscopal robe, some 30,000 florins, and could not have it without; for the pope wanted money, and Cardinal Pucci had suggested this means of getting it. The Fuggers were bankers of Augsburg, and Albert owed them money already; however the affair seemed a good one, and they advanced the money for the pallium, and became bankers for the indulgence-money. A certain Tetzel (whose life, it is said, the Elector of Saxony had already saved, when Maximilian was going to put him in a sack and throw him into the Inn, and who had before preached indulgences with success), undertook the matter for Albert. It is stated that he declared that, if a person had violated the Virgin Mary, he could give him pardon: that as soon as the money was in the box the souls were out of purgatory. It is certain from his own statement, that he urged that when a man had pardon (plenary remission, say the instruction) for his sins on confession and contrition, which he got on confessing them or undertaking to do it, still for mortal sin there was seven years' penance on earth; and men committed countless ones, and God knew how long they would be in purgatory; and that, save for four cases, reserved to the pope, he could give pardon for everything now, at any time on confession,* and plenary at the hour of death, so that they would slip purgatory altogether for a small sum. As to condemnation, the confession, contrition, and absolution had put all that out of the question.

{*The instructions themselves to Tetzel are in Gerdes' Hist., Ev. Ren. vol. I, document 9. These say once in life, and in the hour of death even, for reserved cases; for others as often as need was. Section 30.}

229 The Jesuit Maimbourg does not attempt to conceal the iniquity of what was and had been going on. Before this, indulgences had been largely used to make money — farmed out to quaestors, who made all the money of them they could. It was one of the charges against John XXIII, giving power to his legate to appoint confessors, and free every one from sins, and all the penalty besides, if they paid what they were rated at. Still Maimbourg admits it went on with Leo all the same, that Tetzel was employed because he had got in great sums for the Teutonic knights, that the agents made people believe they were sure of their salvation, and souls were delivered out of purgatory as soon as the money was paid; and as they saw the clerks of these same agents carousing in taverns on their profits, much indignation was created (Maimbourg's History of Lutheranism, 3rd edition, 12mo, Paris, p. 9 et seq). This, he admits, was the origin of Protestantism. No doubt popes had made money of indulgences before. It was now an habitual resource; that is, religious iniquity of the profoundest kind was. The sale of liberty to sin was the settled practice of the Romish church, the authorized practice and doctrine of its popes and leaders. It was farmed out to profit. I repeat, no heathenism, horrible as was its corruption, ever was guilty of such deep and dark iniquity.

It will be said that Tetzel's conduct was a gross abuse. Be it so. To a rightly constituted mind the principle is far worse than the abuse. The pope getting money to build or ornament a grand church, by a universal commutation of godly discipline (if we go no farther) for money, really for an allowance of all sorts of sin for money, is worse than the abuses that a reckless agent may be guilty of. Dr. N. knew this. An ignorant man might be ignorant of this; Dr. N. was not; he knew this gave birth to Protestantism. Has he not learned to hate such things as this?

230 In Leo's time light had come in; the condemning of popes by councils had weakened confidence; the people were weary of the iniquity long ago, but the authority that sanctioned it had now lost a great deal of its influence, and the excessive insult to conscience, shewn in the present sale of indulgences, filled the cup. The princes were angry at their oppression by the pope; they had long complained, though they had not dared to stir. But when God raised up Luther to apply the word of God to the conscience, and shew the iniquity of all this and after some time the want of foundation for the pope's power, all was providentially prepared. People came to confess to him, guilty of all sorts of crimes; and when he insisted on putting practical penance on them, they produced their letters of indulgence, and were easy in their sin. My business here is not to pursue the history of the Reformation. For my own part, I do not for a moment think it established the church on its original basis; nor did its leaders see this any more than Dr. Newman does; but it was the righteous rising up of faith, with the power of the truth and word of God, as far as it was possessed, against the most iniquitous system that ever the sun looked on, of which nations and conscience were alike weary. I challenge Dr. Newman, or any one else, to shew me a like system of iniquity in the world. That gave rise to Protestantism. If natural conscience even was not to have been finally destroyed by the heads and authorities of Christendom, it must have protested. That protest first made by Luther's faith was Protestantism.

I have followed out the historical state of what Dr. N. looks at as the holy Catholic church, and that of the popes its leaders, according to him, the alleged vicegerents of Christ on earth. If details were gone into and the statements of private historians, 911 would appear far darker than I have made it. But it is needless. A righteous soul will judge whether "the note" of holiness is to be found in this history. That upright souls there were who groaned under it, I admit. But what did they groan under? Who made them groan?

But Dr. N. tells us that normally infallibility resides in a pope and general council. "It is to the pope in ecumenical council that we look as to the normal seat of infallibility" (280). I will therefore run through the ecumenical councils, and see what we can trust to in them.

231 Constantine, the first Christian emperor, meddled, as did his successors, largely in ecclesiastical matters. As a political man, he felt his government hindered by the dissensions of the bishops, which roused the whole Christian world. He took up the Donatist question; he directed certain bishops to hear the same a second time, others to rehear it, and at last heard it himself, and put the Donatists down. Meanwhile the Arian controversy raged in the East. It had spread from Alexandria over the whole eastern world, and divided the people into two factions (Euseb. Life of Const., book 2, 61 to the end). Thereupon the Emperor writes a letter, saying the East had been the source of light to the world; how grieved he was, and so on, that, as they were one in faith (Alexander and Arius), they ought to hold their tongues on nice points, and not let such delicate questions before the ignorant, and make confusion. But in vain; so he summoned a council at Nice in the hope of settling it. The invitations came from himself, and he provided horses for the bishops to come, or allowed them to use the public posts; he had them to meet in the palace, and presided himself. A glowing description is given by Eusebius of his coming into the assembly, and taking his seat at the head of it. When the bishops had bowed and said a few complimentary words, he sat down, and the bishops too. Then he made a long harangue to them, and gave liberty of speech afterwards to the bishops, soothed them, answered objections, reasoned with them, and brought them, though with difficulty, to some kind of quietness, and got all but five to sign, who were banished. The Emperor held thus a strong hand over them; having once made a decision in a council, little or big, he enforced it, for peace' sake, by his own authority. The orthodox suffered as others, if they were not quiet — Athanasius himself among the rest. That Constantine convoked and managed the council is beyond all question: Eusebius, Ruffinus, Epiphanius all agree. That he presided is equally certain; he sat in a little golden seat at the head, the bishops down the sides, of the apartment. Alexander of Alexandria, Epiphanius tells us, got him to convoke it. Hosius subscribed first, then the two presbyters sent by Silvester of Rome, then the rest.

I may note here that in the early councils scarce any Western bishops were ever present. The West had not the mental activity of the East, and they did not raise useless questions as the Easterns did. In no one of the first six general councils were there a dozen Western bishops, in many not half that number. Three are found in this first one. A note, said to be of Dionysius Exiguus, says, they did not sign at Nice, because they were not suspected of heresy (Hard. 1, 311). If this were so, it gives a curious character to the decrees and signatures. It was to force the suspected bishops to declare and bind themselves. The number of prelates is uncertain; Eusebius says 250. In Hardouin you have 318 names, which afterwards was held to be a mystical number.

232 The late councils were, on the contrary, wholly Western, and of the Latin church. There were no Easterns. At Florence Pope Eugenius attempted it, but it was a complete failure; the assent a few Greek prelates did give was utterly repudiated by their church when they went home. All these late Western councils, save Pisa, Constance, and Basle, were assemblies called and managed by the popes for their own purposes, with, in general, a vast majority of Italian bishops. Pisa, Constance, and Basle, were the fruit of the struggles of the conscience of Christendom against the hopeless wickedness and oppression of the papacy and the popes. There has been no council since which represented East and West. It was attempted at Sardica, and failed; they split, and held two; the most complete one was Ariminium, under Constantius, where 400 bishops undid the work of Nice by dropping the words — "of one substance with the Father," though they rejected many statements of Arius: but it did not succeed; the Westerns had been dragged in, and afterwards protested.

Catholicity is a fable as to fact. As to holiness, to seek it leads into a tissue of horrible facts. Unity in the outward body there has been none, since the pretensions of the popes and Constantinople began.

The second so-called general council consisted of 150 Eastern bishops, called together by Theodosius; and the bishops so declare in their letter which precedes the decrees, and ask expressly the confirmation by the Emperor of what they had decreed. They communicate their decrees and canons to the Western bishops in common, then assembled at Rome, giving Constantinople the second rank after Rome, but on grounds which refer merely to civil rank in each. They confirm the sixth canon of the Council of Nice as to the independence of the larger divisions of the hierarchical system. Their creed is the now accepted Nicene one, an article forbidden by Pope Leo being added. But the pope had nothing to say to the council; the popes did not accept its canons; but they are received in the universal church. Baronius seeks to invalidate one, but is corrected by Pagi, who shews it to have been universally received.

233 It is worthy of note here, that the article added to their creed is still rejected by the Greeks, who hold the creed as settled by the Council of Constantinople. And it is further to be remarked, that the general council of Ephesus forbade any other creed to be proposed to any one, and the great Pope Leo, the means of Dr. N.'s becoming a Romanist, this very article in particular. This added article, which came from Spain and France, is the great subject of division with the Greeks, though they do not believe in purgatory either, nor, of course, recognize the popes. Not only did Pope Leo formally forbid its being inserted, but had the Constantinopolitan creed engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates on this account in the church. (Compare Pearson on the Creed, on the eighth article, where the authorities are cited.)

We have not much security from councils as yet, nor is the pope found in an ecumenical council hitherto, save by his presbyters at Nice, who subscribed in their place after Hosius, the Emperor's confidant, as it appears. The council of Ephesus followed, in which the pope acted very ably by his legates, but in which no other Western prelates were present. The Emperor had convoked the council, and his commissioner forbade them to meet till all the Eastern prelates were there: but Cyril, and the bishops of his party, drove him out, took possession of all the churches, and settled the matter by condemning Nestorius before the Easterns came, Nestorius and his party protesting, but not daring to go. The Easterns, however, did not yield: Cyril was excommunicated and deposed by them; and it was only on Cyril's giving up some points that John of Antioch was reconciled some years later with Cyril, through the Emperor's means. The result was, Nestorianism spread through the East even to China. The Emperor gave up Nestorius to have peace, and he was banished. But Leo, in his letter subsequently to Flavian of Constantinople, adopted at the council of Chalcedon, does not use the word Nestorius objected to — Deipara. The whole course of Cyril a disgrace to any sober Christian man; he was the true source of Eutychianism, and I judge his soundness very questionable on the atonement.

234 The next council of Ephesus was convoked as the previous one; the pope's representatives were in it. But Cyril's violence against Nestorius had left Eutychian sects at Alexandria, and bore its fruits here. The Archbishop of Alexandria presided as before. Why was not the Holy Ghost here? Yet they beat the poor old Archbishop of Constantinople in such a way, that he died of it in a few days, and others were sorely maltreated. Pope Leo condemned Eutyches in the famous epistle to Flavian, too rhetorical for such a subject, and questionable, I judge, in some expressions; but doubtless a remarkable document, and substantially sound, and asked for; a council in or near Italy. The Emperor refused; but the council first convened at Nice, and then removed to Chalcedon, was held, which also condemned Eutyches, adopting Leo's statement and Cyril's two letters to Nestorius, on the ground of their intrinsic merits. The legates asked if this and the other councils agree with Leo. The bishops answered, Leo agrees with them. There was a great struggle for jurisdiction and rank between Leo and Anatolius, the legates having orders to resist all advance in rank of Constantinople. Leo's predecessor denied any to it. But it was maintained and increased to equal dignity and second rank in precedence, and the contested jurisdiction given it, the legates staying away that day, then complaining of its being done; but it was confirmed. Anatolius gave way afterwards in form, but kept his ground in fact. The canon remains in the universal canons; but the popes would never own it. Pretty work for the lowly servants of Christ! The Romans were charged with forging part of a canon here to give supremacy to Rome, as they were convicted of it just at this time in Africa, which peremptorily rejected the pretensions of Rome, and sent off its legate. But what I mainly refer to in the council was this, that Theodore and Ibas were declared sound in the faith. And Leo confirmed twice over the doctrinal decisions of the council. But in the following ecumenical council, Pope Vigilius first gave a judgment in favour of the three chapters, as it was called; but he had to do with a powerful Emperor who had now re-conquered Italy, and he made the pope come to the council, and finally forced him* to sign and confirm its decrees, which condemned the three chapters which Chalcedon had pronounced sound, by which confirmation, moreover (Baronius says) it became a general council. But if it did, we have alleged infallible authority, a pope in an ecumenical council, condemning what the same infallibility approves. What kind of infallibility or security is this? The truth is, the best of these councils were disgraceful scenes of turbulent violence, even Chalcedon.

{*I do not enter into the details: they were wretched enough.}

235 God has taken care of His church, and the faith that is true, blessed be His name; and He uses any means He pleases; but the history of the means shews that, if they are rested in, it is worse than a broken reed. It is an utterly false principle to sanction the means God has employed, because He has employed them. The wickedness of the Jews was the means God employed for our salvation, with the utter want of conscience of Pilate. Who justifies them?

The third general council was perfectly shameful, and really produced lasting disasters to the church at large. No one acquainted with history can deny it. It was really the fruit of the pope's jealousy of Constantinople, and consequent intrigues. Constantinople had not been what was called an apostolic see; it was raised to eminence by the importance of the city as the capital. Old Rome could not bear this. At any rate, these councils, which we are told are to secure us, rested the preeminence of Rome and Constantinople on their being capitals, old and new Rome. The Christian has nothing to do with these worldly intrigues. They enable him to judge the whole system by the faith of Him whose kingdom was not of this world. At any rate general councils confirmed by popes have directly contradicted one another. In very deed, if we examine their history, we find no trace of the Spirit's presence, but every proof of His absence, though the faith may have been substantially preserved.

I am not writing a history of the councils, but meeting what is referred to in Dr. N.'s self-defence. I pass to three others, to shew how groundless, how wild, these foundations of faith are; how unsimple, compared with the precious word of God, the statements of the Lord and His inspired apostles, or other servants.

236 First, Pisa. Here is a council on which the whole succession of the pope and Roman clergy depends. Yet Bellarmine declares that it is a council which can neither be approved nor condemned. The reason is very simple; there were two popes, Benedict and Gregory. The council was formed by a number of the cardinals of each, and the prelates and others they brought together. They summoned formally the two popes, and deposed them; they chose a third, who confirmed all their acts, and is recognized pope. If they do accept the council, then it is above the pope, and can act without him; for this is what amongst other things is confirmed. If they do not accept it, then the succession of popes is a false one. Benedict and Gregory held their ground, but in vain. The council had decreed a new council, and Alexander, the newly elected pope, had John for his successor. The Emperor was able to get him to hold a council, to which he went. Here was normal infallibility; but the council deposed him for crimes, and the other two as schismatics, etc., and chose a fourth, Martin, whose authority, of course, depended on that of the council. He tried to destroy it by an evasive confirmation, and closed it without any reforms.

Now, if normal infallibility rests in a pope in ecumenical council, it is not to be found at all; for in the early councils they contradicted one another, to say nothing of their being horrible bear gardens; and in the later ones, the existence of popes depends on their action without a pope amongst them.

Is it to this the Christian is reduced he who seeks the truth or even the true church? He cannot receive a priest, nay, not a sacrament, till he knows he is one. I say this on their own ground, and we are supposing a person inquiring. He cannot take it for granted, or he is decided already; he looks to the person who established the priest, and finally to the ultimate source of certainty and authority. In Rome it cannot be found. It is not a question of profiting by a recognized ministry, but finding the truth, and a true one. But this normal seat of infallibility is not to be found by a person competent to inquire; and what a thing to search for, when their own authorities cannot tell me which council, or what part of it, has authority, if a person is not competent!

Whereas, if I receive the scriptures as the word of God (and if not, I am an infidel) I have the teaching of Paul, and Peter, and John, and of the blessed Lord Himself. Surely I have need of holiness and grace to learn; but I have infallible authority to learn from. It is in vain to say it is a rule of faith, not a proper means of communicating truth. I insist urgently on the difference. I may learn there; I may have learnt from my mother, a minister, or others. I may have done so from the Bible. But I have a certain rule here; the Romanist has none, if the question is raised. They say the universal church is right. But where is it to be found? The majority of Christians, and the most ancient churches, are outside Rome. One will tell me the seat of this authority is in the pope; another, the pope with a council; another, a council as independent of and above a pope. And if this last be not held, there is no true pope to be had, no true succession. And this not as an individual argument; it has been decreed twice by assembled Christendom, held by universities the most famous in the world, denounced, no doubt, the other side of the Alps, at Rome. But when I inquire of their greatest authority about that council on which their cause depends, which was confirmed absolutely by a pope, I am told it is uncertain — cannot be condemned or approved! As another is a secret not to be spoken of! There is no known seat of infallibility for a person capable of inquiring. The whole thing is as foreign from God's dealings, and His way of securing us in the truth, as it is possible to be. I might much enlarge upon this point, but I refrain. That which I have said is enough to shew what the Roman church system produced, as its own best authors record it (individual authors teem with reproaches and scorn), what its popes were, what refuge its councils were to the inquiring mind. I close this part of my inquiry.

237 The question of Dr. Newman's honesty has been raised. It is a painful kind of subject. But, I must say, I do not think him honest, without in the least meaning that gross dishonesty which sets about to deceive and say what is false. But a false way always begets false ways — that kind of dishonesty of which scripture says, "deceiving and being deceived." Every one saw, and Monsignor Wiseman saw, as he tells us, and Dr. Newman knew that his path led to Rome. He counted Rome the most exalted church in the world; hated Protestantism, though he had a special mission to reform Anglicanism; had a presentiment that he himself should land in popery; admits now the scope and issue of the movement was such; knew his leading was leading others into it; hence was willing to bend the stick beyond what was straight, in order to straighten it — that is, to go beyond the truth to gain the result he wished. He was not, as many thought that he was, a concealed Romanist, seeking to gain others; but he did know or feel where it led, though there were difficulties from habits of thought in his own mind, yet continued without his conscience being stirred as to the path he was pursuing, and bending everything as, I must say, no honest mind could do to the purpose he had in view. I suppose, from what he says of visions and secret feelings as to a mission, that there was some direct action of Satan: else it was connected with the most absolute confidence in himself, and the most total absence of the truth, or any concern in it. When he joined Romanism, he did not yet believe its principal tenets; he submitted to authority — that authority, I have no doubt, Satan's. It is characteristic of Rome to be regardless of the truth, of Christ to be the truth. It is the more solemn in his case, because he declares he is now certain that he was converted to God by that which he gave up.

238 Till the end of 1842 he was in doubt, not certain, that Rome was right (246). But long before this, for he disclosed it in 1839, he had a strong presentiment that his existing opinions would ultimately give way, and that the grounds of them were unsound. Only before 1839 he felt such a strong presentiment was not a sufficient ground for disclosing the state of his mind. Perhaps not, if he had not been active in a work and mission confided to him. At that time he knew (174) he was disposing young men's minds towards Rome: this in 1839, and he had mentioned his general difficulty to A. B. a year before. He stayed then, because he had not made trial how much the English church would bear. As to the result, he says, namely, whether this process will not approximate the whole English church, as a body, to Rome, that is nothing to us (176). "I am more certain that the Protestant spirit which I oppose leads to infidelity, than that which I recommend leads to Rome" (177). In page 195 we read, "I have felt all along Bishop Bull's theology was the only theology on which the English church could stand. I have felt that opposition to the church of Rome was part of that theology, and that he who could not protest against the church of Rome was no true divine in the church of England. I have never said, nor attempted to say, that any one in office in the English church, whether bishop or incumbent, could be otherwise than in hostility to the church of Rome." Yet in the next page he says, "You cannot tell how sad your account of Moberly has made me. His view of the sinfulness of the Tridentine decrees is as much against union of churches as against individual conversions." In page 116 he tells us, "We had a real wish to co-operate with Rome in all lawful things, if she would let us, and the rules of our church let us; and we thought there was no better way towards the restoration of doctrinal purity and unity." Yet opposition to the church of Rome was part of the theology of the church of England divines, and none in office in the church of England could be otherwise than in hostility to the church of Rome, yet he talks of saving his protest.

239 So as regards the Articles. "I wished to institute an inquiry how far in critical fairness the text could be opened. I was aiming far more at ascertaining what a man who subscribed it might hold, than what he must, so that my conclusions were negative rather than positive" (124). "In addition, I was embarrassed in consequence of my wish to go as far as possible in interpreting the Articles in the direction of Roman dogma, without disclosing what I was doing to the parties whose doubts I was meeting, who might be thereby encouraged to go still farther than at present they found in themselves any call to do." This, he tells us, was from being enjoined, he thinks, by his bishop to keep the men straight who were going into popery through his means.

What a labyrinth of disingenuousness! I ask any man if this be plain uprightness. I do not mean he intended to deceive; but a false way, I repeat, leads to false ways. His pretension to reform the Anglican system, for which he had a vision and a charge, led him into this tortuous course, through absolute confidence in himself. My reader will perhaps say that it is a hard word, "absolute confidence in himself." It is his own. In the storm that arose on Tract 90, he says, "But how was I to have any more absolute confidence in myself? how was I to have confidence in my present confidence?" (132). "Am I wrong in saying, a vision, a mission, a charge?" (81). Going abroad he wrote the verses about his guardian angel, which began with these words,

"Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend?"

and goes on to speak of "the vision which haunted me." While abroad he repeated to himself the words, even of old dear to him, "Exoriari aliquis . . . . I began to think I had a mission" (82), and so wrote to his friends. It was at this time he said, "I shall not die; I have a work to do in England." Nor did this ever leave him. When Tract go came out, in writing to Dr. Bagot of the See of Oxford, he says (134), "I think I can bear, or at least will try to bear, any personal humiliation, so that I am preserved from betraying sacred interests which the Lord of grace and power has given into my charge." The words of St. Augustine, securus judicat orbis terrarum — the whole world judges in security — came into his mind as a light from heaven, in connection with Leo and the monophysites, and Cardinal Wiseman's lecturing on the Anglican claim. "I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall. The heavens had opened and closed again" (158). At this time he wrote the sermon in which it is said, "Compared with this one aim, of not being disobedient to a heavenly vision." Now, what was this mission? At this time the effect of the vision was, "the church of Rome will be found right after all." Already, when abroad, we have seen he held Rome to be the most exalted of all churches. In 1839 he held the churches of Rome and England were both one (163). His via media was then gone (161). His mission was to reform the Anglican church.

240 But in the beginning of 1839, in an article in the British Critic, he says (143), "Lastly, I proceed to the question of that future of the Anglican church which was to be a new birth of the ancient religion." Yet he had no prospect as to it; the age was moving towards Rome, he knew (204). But in defending Anglicanism he did not at all mind framing a sort of defence, which they (the High Church clergy) "might call a revolution, while I thought it a restoration. Thus, for illustration, I might discourse upon the communion of saints in such a manner (though I do not recollect doing so) as might lead the way towards devotion to the blessed Virgin and the saints on the one hand, and towards prayers for the dead on the other. If the church be not defended on establishment grounds, it must be upon principles which go far beyond their immediate object. Sometimes I saw these further results, sometimes not. Though I saw them, I sometimes did not say that I saw them; it was indeed one of my great difficulties and causes of reserve, as time went on, that I at length recognized, in principles which I had honestly preached as if Anglican, conclusions favourable to the Roman church. Of course, I did not like to confess this, and when interrogated was in perplexity. If Leo had overset, in my own mind, its (antiquity's) force in the special argument for Anglicanism, yet I was committed to antiquity, together with the whole Anglican school. What, then, was I to say when acute minds urged this or that application of it against the via media? It was impossible that any answer could be given that was not unsatisfactory, or any behaviour adopted that was not mysterious." Now this was already the case in 1839 (155, 156). He was preaching principles favourable to the Roman church at that date; knowing them to be such, did not confess it, and was mysterious in his conduct (204,205).

241 Is it possible that Dr. N. now does not see the want of simplicity and uprightness in this? When he found out he was preaching principles favourable to Rome, when he declares a true Anglican divine must be hostile; if he could not bring himself to confess it, could he not have stopped, instead of adopting a mysterious behaviour? I certainly judge an honest man would have done so. He says in this page, "I simply deny that I ever said anything which secretly bore against the church of England, knowing it myself, in order that others might unwarily accept it." But for him, as we have seen, the whole question was between the churches of England and Rome. He recognized, by 1839 at any rate, that he was in effect preaching in favour of the latter. When he continued to do so, was it that others might accept it or not? He was all this time remaining without any satisfactory basis for a religious profession in a state of moral sickness, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor able to go to Rome. "But I bore it till, in course of time, my way was made clear to me" (112). But he had the presentiment he was going there, was teaching conclusions favourable to it, knew it, and preached on, and was mysterious in behaviour, with the conviction that he had a mission from some heavenly vision, to which he would not be disobedient — that vision being that Rome was right. He had a secret longing love of Rome (202), preached conclusions favourable to Rome, knew it, but never said anything which secretly bore against the church of England.

Dr. N. may think this honest; I avow I cannot. His friends may attribute it more to his "absolute confidence in myself." This, doubtless, had a share in it. But it does not make it honest. He had a great sense of his own importance. His secession is a great act (206). It is a great event (245). But this does not solve the question of honesty. He was seeking disciples (247) till he gave up his place in the movement; but this last was only after Tract 90, that is, in 1841. Yet he knew in 1839 he was preaching principles favourable to Rome, yet tells us (247) he was fighting for the Anglican church in Oxford. I may admit the being deceived, but I cannot admit it was not deceiving. He charges (131) others as being as bad; but this is a poor defence. I think the only possible excuse is a confusion and self-deception which comes from the enemy.

242 He says in 1845, when a Romanist, "I do not think at all more than I did that the Anglican principles which I advocated at the date you mention lead men to the church of Rome. If I must specify what I mean by Anglican principles, I would say, e.g., taking antiquity, not the existing church, as the oracle of truth" (194). Yet in page 205 he says, "I recognized, in principles which I had preached, conclusions favourable to the Roman church. The prime instance of this was the appeal to antiquity."

This confession was the effect of habitual mental dishonesty. I do not now enlarge on Tract 90. Dr. N. has still no consciousness of it. Thus (129) his attempt to shew the articles purposely left questions open, and those on which the controversy hinged. Article XII positively states that good works, which are the fruits of faith and follow after justification, are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ; and the XIII, which is Of Works before justification, says, "Works done before the grace of God and the inspiration of His Spirit are not agreeable to God." Dr. N.'s comment is, "They say that works before grace and justification are worthless and worse, and that works after grace and justification are acceptable; but they do not speak at all of works with God's aid before justification." They do not, because they say that good works, without any distinction at all, are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification; that is, they say there are not any such. Nor can the miserable plea, that "which" distinguishes some, namely, those that spring from faith, and follow, be of any avail. Not only is it evident to every upright person that it is not the meaning of the sentences, but the title disproves it, and the next article sets it at rest, because it says of works done before justification, "Forasmuch as they spring not from faith in Christ, they are not pleasant to God." He says, "They say that councils called by princes may err; they do not determine whether councils called in the name of Christ may err." To be sure. But they say, general councils (none, that is) cannot be called without the commandment and will of princes; and that general councils, which cannot be called in ally other way, may and have erred.

243 That is, it applies to all general councils. No; all this is offensive dishonesty. He was trying, as he says, how much the church of England could bear; he did not expect people to look at the articles for themselves. I think his answer to Mr. Kingsley, as to the sermon on "Wisdom and Innocence" being a Protestant sermon, dishonest; but I will not enter on that part of the book. It is to be noted that, already in 1833, when abroad, he was forming theories which tended to obliterate "the stain upon my imagination" his youth had left as regards Rome. And note, this was not merely his feelings, which he tells us all through the book led him Romewards; "but as regards my reason, I began in 1833 to form theories." It was deliberate; it was his reason. Foolish his theories were; but that is not my subject now. It was the genius loci like the Prince of Persia, one of his Alexandrian middle demons, neither good nor bad absolutely, which infected "the undeniably most exalted church. in the whole world."

I cannot but think that Dr. N.'s book to prove himself honest proves distinctly he was not. As to a Protestant theology in the interpretation of the articles, "it sets his teeth on edge even to hear the sound" of it. He had led many on so far towards popery, that he was forced, when ordered by Dr. Bagot to try and keep them, to stretch the articles as far as possible, without their being aware why; as we have seen him say. Was he honestly asking what they did mean? Not he; he tells us so: but what they could bear by perversion. "Men had done their worst to disfigure, to mutilate, the old Catholic truth; but there it was, in spite of them, in the articles still" (171). We have seen how he found it there.

It will be said, But his protest against Rome saved his consistency. His consistency in what? Forming theories in favour of it, tenderly loving it, counting it the most exalted church in the world? But there was no conviction in his protest either. In excusing himself when he retracted his words against Rome, he tells us, at the time he protested, "I said to myself, I am not speaking my own words; I am but following almost a consensus of the divines of my own church. They have ever used the strongest language against Rome, even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their system. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such views, too, are necessary to our position" (233). Yes, they spoke against Rome, but they believed what they said. They were opposed to Rome; Dr. N. favoured it. He has explained their words when urged against him; but there is no explaining them to an honest mind. I admit he did not believe in transubstantiation; he thought they adored the Virgin Mary too much. But these were slight things; he joined the church of Rome when he did not believe them a bit more. He believed them because Rome was now an oracle, and what she taught must be right.

244 I do not think I ever met, in all my experience, a mind so effoeta veri as Dr. Newman's, so perfectly incapable of valuing truth; and truth of doctrine has more to say to truthfulness than we are aware, for we are sanctified by the truth. In that conviction which wholly overthrew his whole scheme of the via media, it never occurred to him to think even whether in one case error was opposed, in the other, truth.

In studying the monophysite history — that is, the controversy whether Christ had one nature or two, or rather, whether the divinity did not take the place of a human soul — he found Eutyches on one side, and Leo, a most able pope, on the other, who wrote a famous letter, accepted by the Council of Chalcedon as rightly defining the doctrine; and the doctrine so defined has been ever since accepted. Eutyches sought imperial protection. Well, here was a pope instructing a council, and a heretic condemned, the universal church accepting the council's act. At Trent a pope confirms a council's decisions, which the Protestant world does not accept; consequently the Protestant world must be as wrong as Eutyches. What the composition of the Council of Trent was; what the doctrine was that was condemned; whether Eutyches, held what was contrary to the faith of the apostles or not; whether Trent condemned the faith of the apostles or not, is never a subject of his inquiry even. There was a pope, and a council, and Eutyches; and a council and a pope, and half the European world, against it, the Greek church absent. But as in the two cases there was a pope and a council (whether general or not even, is a question), half Europe must be wrong, as Eutyches and many Orientals were. The only question for Dr. N. was analogy of position. What was condemned was a matter of total indifference to him. Dr. Newman knows very well that another pope and another general council condemned a part of this same council of Chalcedon for all that — what was called the three chapters. But this was no matter; he was on journey to Rome.* But, as we have seen, when he joined Rome he did not believe in transubstantiation more than before. He says, "People say that the doctrine of transubstantiation is difficult to believe. I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation." Is it possible for truth to be more absolutely null in a human mind, or true faith to be more absent from it?

{*His protest was really to avoid getting the credit of being on his way there.}

245 Another principle which really led Dr. Newman to popery was the doctrine of development. I will say a word on this. I deny it absolutely in divine things. In the human mind there is development. In the present truth there cannot, for God has been revealed. There is no revelation more, nor meant to be any. Individuals may learn more and more, but it is there to be learned. The scriptures give two positive grounds for this — that I am to continue in what I have learned as the only true ground of safety, that I know of whom I have learned them. There is a negative ground of proof — the apostles committing us, when they should be gone, to that which would be a security for us. If the Person of Christ be the foundation truth of Christianity (as scripture declares it is) as the Son revealing the Father, it is clear there can be no development. His Person cannot be developed. But I quite understand it will be said, Of course not; but the revelation of it can. Equally impossible. He Himself is wholly, fully revealed, and reveals the Father. The Holy Ghost has revealed, and is the truth.

Hence John, who treats this subject, declares that was to continue (abide in them) which they had learned, and they would so abide in the Father and in the Son. They could not have more. If any doctrine other than this, or "para," beyond or on one side, besides "what he preached," says Paul, "was preached," neither the doctrine nor the preacher were to be received. If the church did not possess fully the revelation of the Father in the glorified Son by the Holy Ghost, it did not possess Christ at all, as there revealed; if it did, it could not be added to nor developed. If it did add to it, it falsified Christ. That men speculated about it, and their foolish and irreverent speculations had to be rebuked, repressed, corrected, that is true; but whatever was more than returning to the simplicity of the first revelations, or went beyond its fulness, was pure mischief. Either the apostles and first church had a full revelation of Christ, or the church never was founded on it. If they had, there was no development of it. So of His work. It is complete, or the church is not saved; was completely revealed, or the church had not its ground of justification and peace. If it had, there was no development. That much was lost I believe.

246 The greatest stickler for church authority does not pretend the church receives a fresh revelation. He merely says that the church pronounces on truth as having been revealed. But then there can be no development. Till revelation was complete there were further truths unfolded, but it was by revelation. Once that complete, all is closed; and Christianity completes it. The word of God is fulfilled, completed, says Paul to the Colossians. We are to walk in the light, as God is in the light. It was an unction of the Holy One, by which we know all things. "The Spirit," says the apostle, "searcheth all things, even the deep things of God." And then the apostle tells us he spoke by the Holy Spirit in words which He taught. The true light now shines. We have the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost may guard the saints against error, and shew it is error; but the apostles were guided into all truth. Thus John, in a passage quoted, "Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall continue in the Father and in the Son." We have the "glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." So again: "Continue thou in the things that thou hast learned, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." Paul, in going, commends them to God and the word of His grace, as sufficient. Peter writes that they should have, after his decease, these things always in remembrance. As Tertullian justly says, "What is first is the truth." If Eutyches introduces error, Eutyches may be condemned, and truth stated; but this is not development, but maintenance of the truth as it had been revealed.

247 The church does not teach; the teacher teaches. The church abides in and professes the truth she has learned. She is, or ought to be, the pillar and ground of the truth; but she does not teach it. T he mystery of iniquity began in the apostles' days: the last days were already come. The Truth was there; but men, like Satan, abode not in it. But abiding in it, walking in it, in the truth perfectly revealed in Christ, this was the duty of the saint, even if the professing church would not, and the time should come when they would turn away from the truth: Paul declared they would.

In result, Dr. N.'s book presents us with this history — a man who declares that he was converted in a system and by truth which he afterwards gave up.

I value the doctrine of the church of God deeply, as the body of Christ (Eph. 1), and on earth the dwelling-place of the Spirit (Eph. 2). I believe the confounding these two to be the source of popery, and men's present confusions. But I do not believe that trusting the church is the ground of faith, for then there could have been none. Heathens and Jews did not receive the church at all. "Of his own will begat he us," says James, "by the word of truth."

However, I am analysing Dr. N.'s account. He was converted, he is still perfectly sure, at fifteen, by the power of certain truths, and by the instrumentality of a clergyman he calls Calvinistic. He got then and there (29), in the system he left, conversion, of which he is "still more certain than that he has hands and feet" (56); and the beginning of divine faith, so he calls it now. In a word, he owes his salvation to what he got then. He, indeed, all but admits it as entirely obtained there. Next we see him gradually giving up the truth which was the means of it, by intercourse with Dr. Hawkins, Froude, Whately, James, and Bishop Butler.* The result has been, that he has wholly apostatized from all true ground of faith. "Speaking historically of what I held in 1833-4, I say that I believed in a God on a ground of probability, that I believed in Christianity on a probability, and that I believed in Catholicism on a probability, and that all these were about the same kind of probability accumulative, a transcendent probability; but still probability, inasmuch as He who has made us has willed that, in a religious inquiry, we arrive at certitude by accumulated probabilities."

{*[That is, with Bishop Butler's book, the "Analogy of Religion." — ED.]}

248 It was thus he was "led on into the church of Rome." That is, it was by giving up all true faith. Faith is the reception of a divine testimony by the operation of the Spirit of God, and can have no possible connection with probability. To say it is probable that God speaks the truth would be a blasphemy. He who receives a thing as probable does not believe that God has said or taught it at all. What led Dr. N. to popery was giving up faith. In this way he was in a sick state of soul, neither able to acquiesce in Anglicanism, nor to go to Rome; but thought, by some vision first, and then a special call, as to which he was not quite sure, but that it came from Satan. He says he had a mission, a charge, and was diligently making converts (247), until, after Tract go, he gave up the lead in the movement. All the while his heart was towards Rome: she was certainly Catholic, he was not quite sure that England was; at any rate, she needed a complete revolution in her state. As to the true unity of the body, he never had an idea of it. He threatened his Romanist friends, and threatened the bishops; he knew, as we have seen, at the bottom of his heart, that he was going to Rome; had a secret longing love of it, and knew he was disposing others to it, yet worked on. The result of his account is this: the truth was the means of his conversion to God; departure from all true ground of faith, that of his going to Rome.

Romanism - Part 1

Romanism: or an answer to the pamphlet of a Romish Priest, entitled "The Law and the Testimony."

J. N. Darby.

<18003E> 30 {file section a.}

And you have not one word, then, to say for the Mass, the very centre and distinguishing feature of the whole Romanist system!

The omission is intelligible, but remarkable. The pretension to offer Christ still, as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead, is so subversive of Christianity, so contrary to the express testimony of the word of God, that it is natural for one who seeks to conciliate Protestants to Romish doctrines to pass over it in silence, if he can.

The best way to win to these doctrines is to conceal them, to direct the attention from them. You cannot deny that the Mass is the centre of your whole system. "He goes to Mass" is the very term familiarly used to designate a Romanist; "he goes to church," to mark out a Protestant. Why have you omitted this subject in your effort to enlighten poor Roman Catholics and disabuse prejudiced Protestants? The pretence to have a sacrifice still offered up on earth, when the word of God declares, that "by one offering Christ has perfected for ever them that are sanctified"; that "there is no more offering for sin, where remission of sins is"; that a continual offering was a memorial of sins, proving that they were not put away — the declaration that you have an unbloody sacrifice, when the word of God declares, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," and that consequently, if the oblation of Christ was to be repeated, He must often have suffered: such a plain distinct testimony of God's word on the very point, makes it natural you should omit all mention of it. The sacrifice of the Mass is the proof that, in what calls itself the church of Rome, there is no true remission of sins; for "where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for sin."

This is a very solemn point, dear reader. If the word of God be true, there is no remission of sins in the so-called church of Rome. Hence, those belonging to it are continually, as the poor Jews were, "offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins"; for they are unbloody sacrifices, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Romanism has a form of piety, but it denies the substance. God forbid that I should use a hard word as to souls as precious as my own, and who believe they are in the right; whom, I trust and believe, I love with unfeigned charity; such as I have lived amongst for years, and loved and served as well as I knew how. It is not want of love to speak plainly in what concerns the salvation of souls. I would not use an abusive or hard word that could offend them, but I say plainly, that that is not the church of God, nor is the true remission of sins to be found, where a sacrifice is still pretended to be offered. "For where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for sin." The church of God enjoys the perfect remission of sins by one perfect sacrifice, in which the precious blood of Christ was shed, offered once for all, and which never can be repeated; for Christ can die no more — can never suffer again, nor need He, for He has by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified. The Mass is but a return to the weakness of Judaism.

31 Hence this one capital point is sufficient for everyone taught of God, and must lead everyone who bows to the word of God to reject the Romish system as an entire departure from Christianity as revealed of God. Yet I will take up briefly the different points the author of "Law and Testimony" has touched upon. And, first, some general observations which I would address to the writer.

You lean much upon the Fathers. Forgive me if I think you have not much read them. You tell us, that you have taken from the authenticated work of every author you have quoted, as may be ascertained by reference to their writings. Now, that you are not personally acquainted with them, you have afforded most unequivocal proof in your pamphlet, in this: that you have supposed the Clement who wrote the Stromata to be the Clement who was, as you say, a "fellow-labourer of the apostles, who was Pope of Rome, third after Peter, and is often mentioned by St. Paul, in his Epistles." "The church, he writes," you say, "which is one," etc., and you quote "St. Clem. 7 Stromat." Now, the very smallest acquaintance with the Fathers would have saved you so glaring a mistake as you have here made. There was a Clement, companion of Paul, who wrote a letter to the church of Corinth, and who (though there is the greatest confusion and contradiction* as to the succession of the first bishops of Rome) is stated by respectable historians to have been the third bishop of Rome. Two letters have been attributed to him; one is believed to be authentic — a pious effort to compose the strifes of the church of Corinth. But (must I say so? As my readers may be peasants of the North of Ireland, it may be necessary) Clement of Alexandria, who never was a bishop at all, was the author of the Stromata. He flourished from 192 A.D. to the beginning of the third century. He was president of the school of Alexandria. He was a great philosopher as well as a Christian, but of doubtful soundness** enough on some points, and full of philosophical speculations. However, whatever the value of Clement's opinions, one thing is quite clear, that you did not consult him yourself; whether you did the other Fathers, which you quote, every one must judge by this example for himself. One thing is certain: you must be an utter stranger to the Fathers, to have taken Clement of Alexandria for Clement of Rome.

{*Some make Clement Peter's successor; others the fourth, putting Linus and Anacletus between; some seek to reconcile the two accounts by saying Linus and Anacletus were bishops under Peter, in his lifetime. Learned men are not agreed by thirty years as to the date of Clement's epistle.}

{**The very learned Jesuit, Petau, accuses him of Arian sentiments — that is, as to doctrine, for he lived long before Arius.}

32 Your definition of the church introduces another point in which the flagrant departure of Romanism from the Christianity taught by the apostles betrays itself in a remarkable manner. It is, you say, an assembly of Christians, united by the profession of the same true faith, and communion of the same sacraments, under the government of lawful pastors, whose head is the pope. Now scripture is as explicit as possible in saying that Christ is its head — and it cannot have two.

The statement of the Catechism of the Council of Trent is curious enough on this point. It says — it could not say otherwise — this church has also but one ruler and governor, the invisible one, Christ, whom the Eternal Father hath made head over all the church, which is His body; the visible one, him who, as legitimate successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles, fills the apostolic chair. One would have thought that made two. God "gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body"; or, if you prefer the Rhemish translation, "hath made him head over all, to the church which is his body" (Eph. 1: 22, 23); and again (chap. 5: 23), "the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church."

33 Now this is practically very important, because the glorious Head, living in heaven, gives the true church, His body, a heavenly character, though its members may be despised on earth; whereas a glorious head on earth, greater than emperors and princes in the eyes of men, gives it a worldly character which neither Christ nor the true church ever had: besides Christ as the Head is a source of grace, which it is impossible the pope or any man can be. But the grand point is, Christ is the one sole Head of the true church; the pope is the head of yours; therefore yours is certainly not the true.

One little word in addition as to your definition. You tell us it is an assembly of Christians united by the profession of the same true faith. Hence, as there are millions in the Greek church who say they are the true church, and millions of Protestants who say they are, and millions of Catholics who say they are: and you tell me that their being united in the same true faith is part of the definition by which I shall know which is the true one, I must find out what the true faith is, before I know which Christ's church is, or if any of them are; for each of them tells me it is. Of course they honestly think themselves so; and you tell me that profession of the true faith marks the true church. Well then I must necessarily know what is the true faith, to know who professes it; that is, I find the true faith before I find the church. And so it always was; for it was on receiving the true faith from the apostles, or other servants of Christ, that people at the first became members of the church; and they did not, and could not, become so otherwise.

But, again, you give us the usual marks of unity — sanctity catholicity, apostolicity, and add infallibility, perpetual visibility. The first four are given in "Milner's End of Controversy"; indeed they are the well-known marks as given in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. Nowhere is the truth given as a mark of the true church. This is strange — still more strange, since in your definition of the church, the profession of the true faith is made essential to it.

It is very convenient to assume it as a definition, and to drop it as a mark; but you have replaced it by a very convenient substitute — infallibility, which means, take it for true without inquiry. Before, I was to take the true faith, as shewing Christ's church; now, I must without inquiry take the church and all it teaches, as securing the truth for me. Which is the right way? Both cannot be. Holding and professing the truth are not infallibility. Every true Christian holds and professes the truth, but he is not infallible. If the church professes the true faith, she holds a true faith which exists all ready to be professed, as it was given by inspiration to those whom Christ sent to reveal it. If she is infallible, she is the source of truth, not the receiver of it. Now that is true of God alone.

34 But, in giving the first four marks, you allege your system justifies you. They are those given in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. The only point I would now insist upon here is this very solemn one, that the truth forms no mark of the true church in the system of Rome. She dare not present it as a test; she disclaims it, she avoids it. She pleads unity, sanctity, catholicity, apostolicity. We will examine these just now.

Truth cannot be borne as a test. All that is taught is to be received without any test at all, though an apostle could say, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." They of Berea were noble in the apostle's eyes, because they searched the scriptures to see whether these things were so. But the test of truth cannot be endured at Rome; it is not pretended to be one of the marks of the Romish body. In place of that, it would impose all it teaches without any test at all — pretending to be infallible, which is the attribute of God only. Do I assert that man, by his own powers, is able to fathom the truth? No; but the Lord has said, "They shall be all taught of God; whosoever, therefore, hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me." God may employ any one, a minister of the word, a mother, a friend, a book to present the truth — grace applies it to the heart; that, the church, even the true church, has no pretensions to do, though she is an instrument to hold the truth up before men; but God alone can bring it home.

On the other hand, the Roman Catholic, having relinquished the truth as a test of the true church, saying that the truth is to be searched for in vain, leans not on grace, but entirely upon human powers, to find the true church. He points out, to use the words of a celebrated controversialist and bishop, "certain exterior visible marks, such as plain unlearned persons can discover, if they will take ordinary pains for this purpose, no less than persons of the greatest abilities and literature." This is stated in reply to the marks of the true church, which the author declares to be laid down by Luther, Calvin, and the Church of England — namely, truth of doctrine, and the right administration of the sacraments. That is, truth of doctrine and the right administration of the sacraments are objected to as adequate marks of the true church, by which it may be known.

35 Now, if it be a question for heathens or Jews — for them the whole question is, just how to be saved. If they believe and are baptized, they are saved, and members, it is to be supposed, of the true church, before they have discussed its merits at all. If it be a question which arises among Christians, who seek among Roman Catholics, and Protestants, and Presbyterians, and other bodies, where the true church is to be found; if, I say, the question arises among Christians, they have not all knowledge, doubtless, but they have saving faith, or they are not Christians at all; and hence, the truth is a most sure means of ascertaining the true church. Thus, if I know, as a matter of my own salvation, that the divinity and atonement of Christ are the very truth of God, and I found everything calling itself a church which denied these fundamental doctrines, I could at once say, That is not the true church. Souls may be ignorantly in error there — may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved; but I cannot own the body as the true church of God.

And here a great and important question arises, on which I desire to say a few words, from its intrinsic importance, though the book I am commenting on relieves me from the necessity. They quote the scriptures, and, consequently, suppose us capable of understanding them, heretics though we may be, capable of receiving proof from them. But the subject is too important to pass it over with this remark, conclusive though it be. It is said we cannot judge scripture; it is alleged that laws require judges, and the like. Now I do not go upon the ground of our capacity to judge scripture. My reason, dear reader, is very simple — it judges us. "The words that I speak unto you," says the Lord, "shall judge you in the last day." "The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, and pierceth to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow, and soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." There is a conscience in every man; God's word speaks to it, and judges everything in his heart. It is the light which manifests all things — the revelation of God and of Christ, who is light. I do not judge if the light be clean; it shews whether I am.

36 When Christ was in the world, when He spoke the words of God, were not men bound to receive them on peril of condemnation? Did it require the church's authority to lead men to receive it? All the religious authorities — authorities which they quote to confirm their doctrine — rejected Him. Are His words less binding, less true, less holy, less gracious now? The word of God is not judged — it judges. Woe be to the man who hardens his heart against it! Men did then: what was the consequence? God, by John Baptist, mourned to them, they would not lament; He piped to them, they would not dance. Hardening their consciences against the conviction of sin, they (to use the words of the blessed Lord) rejected the counsel of God against themselves; that is, to their own eternal ruin. The word (which was, and, blessed be God, yet is spoken and sent in grace) will judge them, and all who reject it in the last day; for God knows that, when He sent it in grace, He sent it with ample proofs to men's hearts and consciences that it is His word.

But a word more on this. It is not denied that the scriptures are the word of God. The Council of Trent has added seven books to the canon, never publicly received into it before, and against the express testimony of Jerome, the author of the Vulgate translation, which they receive as authentic. But leaving these contested ones for the moment (for in the New Testament there are none such), they own that the scriptures are the word of God. They own that Peter wrote his epistles as an inspired apostle; Paul his, John his, and so of the other books of the New Testament (and the same holds good as to all the Old Testament, to the Jews). Now, save the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, all the books of the New Testament are addressed to all the faithful; in one epistle, that to the Philippians, the bishops and deacons being added. That is, to express myself in modern language, the New Testament was addressed not to the clergy but by the clergy, the highest and wisest of them assuredly, to all the faithful in general, or in particular places. Now, if the faithful in general were incompetent to use them, how came the apostle to write them to them? The apostles thought what they wrote was suited to the mass of the faithful; you think it is not; which is right? And mark what a monstrous position you put yourselves in — the apostles wrote (to say nothing of the guidance of the Holy Ghost yet) in the way they thought best suited to the mass of the faithful, writing to all of them; and even in one case particularly insisting that care should be taken that it was read to all. You think you can do it better than they. What monstrous presumption! Did they do it badly, in a wrong manner, so that you can do it better? If really looked into, it is blasphemy; for it is the Spirit of God who addressed all this, save the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, to all the common mass of the faithful.

37 But another very solemn question arises here, that of the authority of God in the matter. God did address the writings in question to the mass of the faithful as binding on their consciences, directing their lives and rejoicing their hearts. Now I do not insist here on the right of every Christian to read the scriptures (though no man has a right to call it in question), but on the right of God to address Himself to whom He will, and of the sin of intercepting what He has addressed to His servants. If I have sent directions and promises to my servants, he who hinders their having them as I send them, and directly from myself, meddles, not with the right of the servants, but with mine. God has sent His word to the faithful, not to the clergy (I except Timothy and Titus, as to this argument, however profitable, and in spirit binding on all). He who hinders their receiving it, or pretends to claim control over their getting it, flies in the face of God's authority and God's own acts. To pretend to communicate God's thoughts better and more clearly than His inspired apostles, and to hinder His communications reaching His own servants, when He has addressed them to them, is a strange way of proving any to be the true church of God. And that is exactly what the clergy of the Roman Catholic system do.

But I will enter on your marks of the true church. They are unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity. You refer to some other points, which I will advert to in their place.

First, unity. That the church of God was one at the beginning, and manifestly and publicly such, is evident to every one that reads the scriptures. That it is not, if we consider it as a public visible body on earth (for the true body of Christ will be infallibly so in glory, and is so always in the living unity of the Spirit) is equally evident, from the simple fact that we are inquiring which of two or three bodies, or if any of them, be the true church. Unity of doctrine, and general discipline, which you give as being unity, is not sufficient. These may prove sameness in two bodies, as well as unity. There must be corporate unity — a single body. I therefore seek more than you do in unity. Further, your proofs of unity are utterly vain and useless; they are as true of the Greek body, which detests and rejects you, as of the Romish, which denounces the Greek as schismatic and heretical. They have bishops and the assemblings on Sundays, and the Eucharist, and the same doctrines, and the same general discipline, which you plead as proofs for Rome. You would find these in the Protestant Episcopal church too all over tile world. Perhaps, indeed, we may except a confession to a priest. But what a strange mark of unity you have given us here. It is perfectly certain that if it be one, no Christian for centuries after Christ was in the one true church. There is not an historical point more incontestable than this, that private confession to a priest is a novelty unknown to the early church. After the earliest times men did public penance for scandalous falls, and no confession was imposed as to others. There was indeed for a time one penitentiary priest at Constantinople, and, as it appears elsewhere; and such scandal arose, on a certain occasion, from it, that it was abolished by Nectarius; and his successor, Chrysostom, at the end of the fourth century, urges, over and over again, confession to God alone. Augustine's words are equally clear; so are Ambrose's. In the thirteenth century alone it was first made obligatory by the Lateran Council under Innocent III — the same pope under whom the Inquisition was established, and the Crusades formed against the Albigenses, and the atrocities of that "holy war" perpetrated in the south of France.

38 We agree that unity was at the first; and it does not exist now. There are Romanists, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Protestant Episcopalians, Presbyterians, all composing nominal churches, containing, the smallest of them, millions of professing Christians. Your talking of unity of doctrine and discipline amongst Romanists is nothing at all to the purpose. So there is amongst the millions of the Greek church; so there is in the smallest body of Christians you may affect to despise. The question is, Is unity found in the whole professing church? If you tell me, But none of the others, save Rome, are in the truth, that is just the question to be solved, and I must first have the truth to judge by. If I have that, according to the word of God, to judge by, then I judge the Romanist system to be apostasy from the truth of God. That you are at one among yourselves proves nothing at all, because others, as the Greek body, are that also. Nay, to go further, Mahometans are, as to doctrine and general discipline, with pretty much such a schism as Greeks and Romans shew under the name of Christ. Nay, in China we have numerically more than all put together in one system, worshipping heaven and the manes of their sainted ancestors.

39 You will say, and say justly, But these are not Christians — have not the truth of God at all. But then I must know what the truth is, to judge that. I do (blessed be God!) know the sure precious truth of God, the doctrine of Christ, as God has revealed it. But when I use this, I find that you have it not.

But you have the pope. Is this a security for unity? Why, you know well that there was a time when there were three at a time, and all three set aside by a council, a general council — that of Constance. If such unity as you speak of was necessary to the existence of the true church, and the pope was the keystone of it, where was it then? and where is your apostolic succession? In which of the three am I to trace it? There was a regular double succession of popes for fifty years; and then we have a council deposing a pope;* and mark it well, the present succession of the apostolic see, and the consequent existence of the whole Romish body, depends on the right of a general council to depose a pope, and its superiority to the pope, for it flows at best from the pope set up by the council when they had deposed John XXIII. I say, at best; for these three popes are each of them sources of an ordained clergy. Again, when Pope Liberius solemnly signed the Arian creed, and the vast majority of Christendom were Arian, where was the unity of the church through the pope then? Now I will not affirm that the story of Pope Joan (that is, that a good-for-nothing woman was pope) is true; but with the real uncertainty whether it be not true, what is become of succession, as a secure test of the true church?

{*One of the three resigned; one died in a corner of Spain, anathematizing all as true pope; another council deposed the Roman Pope, John. The Spanish one had a successor, but who can hardly be said to have been one, and retired.}

40 We have touched now on the question of apostolicity, as well as unity; but, on other grounds, this mark will not help you out in your assertion that the system of Rome is the one true church. The apostolic succession of the Greek and Eastern bodies is as sure, and indeed much surer — to say nothing of the Protestant — than that of Rome. So that this will not hinder my being a Greek, or an Armenian, or even a Protestant. How will this visible external mark help me? Am I to settle all the nice questions of the Council of Constance? Am I to settle whether Urban VI, or Clement VII, or their successors, were the true popes of their day? or, when the successors of each line were condemned by the council as guilty of heresy, perjury, and contumacy, and were excommunicated, am I to consider them popes or not? or, instead of them, the third set, Alexander V, and his successor, John XXIII, and who was in turn degraded by the council for his crimes? It is a dreary scene; yet it is not I, but you, who have referred me to apostolicity as a test of the true church.

Do you say, that the poor man has nothing to do with all this? But this is apostolicity. It will not, you mean to say, bear examination. For how am I to settle apostolic succession but by knowing it exists? Is this a simple external visible mark? Why, it is a question your most learned divines are at sea about, and avoid. They tell you the pope and a general council together are infallible; but how, when a council condemns a pope and deposes him, a deposition on which the best line of your present orders, and the validity of the succession of the actual Peter, depend? Again, which are the general councils? This they dare not say; because if they admit Constance to be one, then the church can act without a pope, and depose him; if they deny it, their succession is gone, because the present popes derive their succession from this act. Am I to settle all this, before I know the truth of God for my soul, or find the true church? Where am I to find the records? How many historians am I to read? What is the authority of these authors? What a difference from the truth learned from the simple word of God! Or am I to gulp down as I find it, because Rome is infallible — I know not why?

But one word more as to the pope and unity. You tell us, when a heresy spread, a council was assembled by the authority of the pope. Now, if you have the smallest acquaintance with ecclesiastical history, you must know that all the early councils were summoned by the emperors. They were held in the east; and when Christendom in those quarters was torn in pieces by clerical contention and ambition and doctrinal discord, the emperors tried to make peace by gathering these general assemblies, none having been held (if we except that recorded in the Acts) before the emperors professed Christianity; and then it was only bishops and others within the Roman empire who met. The council of Antioch before that time formally condemned the very term as heretical which the council of Nice established as the only secure test of orthodoxy against Arius (that is. Homoousion); and this circumstance being pressed by the eastern bishops who got influence over Constantine, the affair ended in Arius being received as orthodox into what you call the Catholic church, and dying in its communion; and in Athanasius, who held what both you and I believe to be the truth, dying in banishment. And in the subsequent reign (the emperor being an Arian, and the orthodox persecuted), the pope signed the Arian creed, as a more dutiful subject than I suppose he would be now. But this by the bye; it is perfectly certain that, in the first and great general councils, the pope did not assemble them by his authority. Is this what you refer me to as securing me in the knowledge of the truth and the true church?

41 But you tell me also that I have a test in its catholicity, that is, its universality. But here the voice of facts speaks too loud for you not to sink into what is ridiculous. "It must contain," you say, "more members than any other community or denomination of professing Christians." More members! a majority! Is that all the truth of God has to depend upon? What has that to do with universality? Why, if I live in England a poor countryman, such as you address your book to (the immense majority are Protestants — indeed, save Irishmen, none else scarcely could be found), and if I am to take such a poor test as the name of a building, everybody knows that if I asked, Where is the church? I should be shewn the Protestant place of worship; all else are chapels. Indeed this test would hold good in Ireland. But is your test of the true church reduced to a majority? Go to the east, where little is known beyond their own doors, and there this simple external visible test is the certain exclusion of all pretension of the Romanist to be of the true church.

42 But some facts on this point require a little comment. You tell us that Rome has two hundred and thirty millions of adherents. Where have you found them? The fact is, that you have exaggerated by pretty nearly a hundred millions. There are in the world, on a rough calculation — for nothing more can be given here, or indeed be arrived at, as to some countries — there are in the world about one hundred and forty-three, say one hundred and forty-five, millions of Romanists, eighty-five millions of Protestants, sixty millions of Greeks, and perhaps four or five millions in all of other denominations, as Armenians and the like in the east. Asia and Africa contain a certain number of Protestants and Romanists difficult to enumerate, and scarcely changing the proportions. That is, there are about as many professing Christians who hold that Rome is right and who hold that she is wrong But who, in his senses, would take this, or the contrary, to be a means of ascertaining the true church? Had men gone by numbers, they would, in the fourth century, have gone from the confession of Christ's divinity to the denial of it with the different emperors and the same pope, who would have helped them in and out with the majority into (not unity, thank God, for some would not give up the truth for an emperor or a pope, but into) so-called orthodoxy, if majorities were to decide it. And alas! being mere professors, so it happened that they did wheel about with the turn of the tide.

I have spoken briefly of three of the marks of the true church — unity, apostolicity, catholicity. As to unity, the Romish body is one, the Greek church is one, and so of others: but general visible unity is lost, or we should not have to inquire which is the true church. Catholicity, or universality, you have given up the pretension to; you claim only a majority; so that, if universality be a test, Romanists have not the true church, nor, since there are Romanists, any other body either.

This test, by your own confession, and change of it into a simple majority (itself more than doubtful), makes the whole ground on which you search for the true church a perfect absurdity. Your own statement proves, if universality be a test, that there is no true visible church at all. Lastly, apostolicity is the most absurd test imaginable; for, while pretending to be simple and external, the succession of bishops from the apostles' day must be ascertained, or the mark does not exist at all. And in the next place Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and even Protestant Episcopalians have it, and prove it as gaily as Romanists themselves; while the only place where it is known to be most grievously damaged and upset is in the papal succession, where for fifty years there were two popes at a time, both ordaining other successions; and at last three, all put down for heresy, and another set up by a council which upset all their claims together. I have reserved the question of sanctity: it is a painful one, and I shall speak of it at the close.

43 I shall now refer to your use of scripture. First, your quotation of it is important. It is then available, intelligible to the faithful, and conclusive. We can understand it with God's help (without which we can do nothing right), and it binds our conscience. Your use of it is another thing. You quote, for example, passages, or parts of passages (for one is applicable to the state of glory), saying, that Christ would have one fold and one shepherd (that is, no longer Jews or Gentiles as distinct people); Christ's prayer, that they all may be one; then the passage which applies to glory ("the glory that thou hast given me I have given them," precedes what you quote). Paul's direction to the faithful, to be careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; a direction to Timothy to keep what was committed to his trust; and one to Titus to reject heretics. It is clear, you say, from all these texts, that no one can be a member of the church of Christ unless he holds the same doctrine as she teaches. Well, how this conclusion flows from a prayer for unity, or an exhortation to keep it in the bond of peace, is, I confess, beyond me, and, with all humility, I apprehend beyond anybody; because there is nothing in the passages you quote about the conclusion which you draw. Common sense tells us, that a person who is a member of a body, and does not hold what it teaches, is, in some respects, inconsistent. But your conclusion is utterly false; for either the church must teach some error, or no member can ever be in any error whatever without ceasing thereby to be a member of the church at all; for if he be in any error, he holds something the church does not teach, or else she teaches error.

But, though you tell us the texts prove it, you (strangely enough) give in the same sentence a totally different reason for it. The church has received authority from Christ to teach all nations. Allow me to correct an error of a very grave character, on which all your reasoning, and all the Romish reasoning, is founded. You say the church teaches. Now I deny that the church teaches at all; she holds the truth, has learned the truth, is sanctified by the truth; she teaches nothing. She is taught, and has learned. Ministers, whom God has sent for that purpose, teach. It was never said to the church, "Go ye and teach all nations." It was said to the apostles, when Christ ascended; and they went and taught, as did certain others, sent by the Holy Ghost; and the church was gathered and built up. Then those whom God raised up as pastors and teachers, waited, or were to wait on their teaching.

44 But there is authority, you allege, also in matters of discipline; but this resides in the body. The passage you quote from Matthew 16 (your text-book failed you here, or you failed it; it is Matthew 18: 17: chapter 16: 18 is your favourite passage of the rock, on which it is built) does not speak of doctrines, but it does speak of the whole assembly, where a man is, and not of clergy or church teaching, or doctrine. If one Christian wrong his brother, the latter is to seek to win him alone; if the attempt fail, he is to take two or three, that all may be clearly established; and, if he do not hear them, the injured party is to tell it to the whole assembly; and, if the trespasser neglect to hear them, then the wronged man may hold him as unclean and a stranger. What has this to do with the clergy settling doctrine authoritatively, or with the clergy at all, or with doctrine at all? Just nothing. But when nothing is to be had, we must get the best sounding passage we can, that there may be an appearance of the authority of scripture: with the reality of it Rome can well dispense. Shall I tell you what the citation of this passage by Rome proves? That there is no passage in scripture to favour her pretensions — not a trace of one; had there been one, this would not have been always cited, while the smallest attention must prove it to have nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that Rome is forced to pervert scripture to have some appearance of being justified by it.

This is all you have to say for the unity of the church. The unity of the church I believe to be a most precious truth; but if you place it where you do, scripture will not bear you out, because it speaks of the saved, quickened, sanctified members of Christ, called to glory, as His body, the church. There is another view of the church. It is the habitation of God through the Spirit; Eph. 2. As the body of Christ, it is surely preserved and kept; but as a responsible body on earth, its career will certainly close. A falling away will come. This is positively declared in scripture: "that day will not come unless there be the falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, who exalteth himself above all that is called God or worshipped."

45 As regards the texts to prove the universality, you quote a number of passages which do not apply to the church at all, in which she is never named, and the context of which proves to demonstration that they do not apply to the church. I shall quote one to shew how utterly untenable this application is: "Ask of me and I will give thee the Gentiles for thine inheritance, and thy possession to the ends of the earth." But continue: "Thou shall rule them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Is that the church, or judgment? Any one may see, by looking at the epistle to Thyatira in Revelation 2, that it is a judgment to be executed when the church is glorified with Christ. But your proof that these promises apply to the church destroys, on the contrary, all your arguments. You say they are to be fulfilled in the last days. To prove that the last days mean the time of the church and its universal prevalence, you quote the passage of John, which shews that the last days are those of Antichrist. Is the time of Antichrist's rule the time of all nations flowing into the church? For that s the passage you are proving applies to the universal prevalence of the church. Why, in Antichrist's time, instead of all nations flowing into the church, if any one confesses Christ he will be killed. Your friends, the Fathers, speak with the most terrible apprehensions of those days, when Christianity is to hide itself in dens and caves, and, save in such places, scarce such a thing as a Christian known, and if known, slain by apostate fury. This was a very untoward proof of your doctrine.

Another proof you give us of the universality of the church is, that the gospel is to be preached in all the earth. This is more untoward still, because this is not done yet, very far from it; as gathering the nations, the very large majority remain heathen, and a very great part have never been visited by the preachers of the gospel. So that the mark of catholicity or universality is not yet to be found at all. If all the ends of the earth seeing the salvation of our God applies to and means the catholicity of the church, then the church is not catholic yet: for all the ends of the earth have not seen the salvation of our God.

46 But you quote another — "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations." Surely this word shall be accomplished; but you should have finished the sentence, for it destroys even the hope of catholicity, as you state it. It continues — "and then shall the end come." So in Revelation 14 it is said, the everlasting gospel should go to ?11 them that dwell on the earth, and to every people, and nation, and tongue, and language, saying, Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come. Indeed, if you would take the trouble to read Psalm 98 (97), which you quote, you would see it states the same truth; it closes by saying, are to rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth.

You tell us that every succession of bishops* and priests . . . communicated to their flocks and successors the same doctrine they themselves had received from their predecessors. Did they? Why the whole world was Arian at one time, save the persecuted. But that is not all. If the bishops and priests did this, why are you seeking to bring the professing Christians of (geographically) the greatest part of the world back to what you consider the truth? Did all the Greek bishops of the East do this? Do you own that they did? If so, why seeking to win them to Rome, and glorying in having here and there a little parcel of "united Greeks," and all the Asiatic bishops, and the Egyptians, to say nothing of poor England? Did they, rejecting you utterly as they do, deem they had the true doctrine handed down? I deny it altogether as to Rome. It has been proved a hundred times over, that it has corrupted the doctrine of the apostles. But I take a shorter road; because, if the whole body of Greek and eastern bishops, who teach different doctrine from Rome, have done so, then Rome is wrong; and if they have not, their bishops and priests have not communicated to their flocks and successors the same doctrine they had received. It is merely an assertion that yours have, which is just the thing to be proved; it cannot be itself a security, because a very large proportion (as you admit) have not done so. The bishops of some hundred millions, between Greeks and Protestant Episcopalians, teach quite different doctrine from Rome. Have they taught what they received? It is sadly poor ground you stand on for your proofs of the true church.

{*The author tells us, when he is vaunting the papacy, that it is the only institution which has so continued. — Law and Testimony, p. 67.}

47 As to your texts for apostolicity, I have no doubt that the Lord sent the apostles, and was with them, and will be with all who, sent of Him, walk in their footsteps and preach their doctrine, and that these will be sent to the end of the age. But how does this prove that the Romanists are these persons? Your proof is that, unchanged by lapse of time, Rome is teaching in every age the same doctrine God revealed and the apostles promulgated. Now this is just the question. In order to settle it I must know what the apostles promulgated. There is no way so good as having it from their own lips addressed to all the faithful; but when I take this sure and admirable criterion, I find that you teach all the contrary of what they promulgated. You teach that there is still a sacrifice for sin, and they very earnestly teach there is no more such. They teach there is only one mediator, and you teach there are a great many, and in most solemn acts leave the true one totally out. In the Confiteor used for renewing the remission of sins the name of Christ is not found, neither as confessed to, nor as demanding His intercession, though you have Michael the archangel and saints in plenty. You teach the pope is the head of the church; they teach that there is but one, and this is Christ; and so with a multitude of the most fundamental doctrines. I take the test you appeal to, and I find it totally condemns the system you advocate. I conclude you are not the real successors of the apostles at all, to whom these promises were made. The pretension is ruinous to you if you are not. What is a loyal man's judgment of one who pretends to be king when he is not? That he is a rebel in audacious hostility to the true king. If you are not the apostles' true successors, the pretension to be so proves you to be in bold and presumptuous hostility to the Lord, and to those whom He did send; and that is the truth. The question is not whether the Lord gave apostles and ministers, but whether you are those He gave.

You tell us to remember our prelates who have spoken to us the word of God, whose faith follow, and denounce the Reformation as setting them aside. As to the mass of the prelates at the Reformation, they did not speak the word of God or anything else to the people; and those who did preach did not preach the word of God. To know at any time whether they do, I must have the word of God to judge by. The apostle tells the Hebrews that their leaders had: does he tell me that your prelates do? How should he? Their faith was to be followed. The apostle puts his seal on it, though in truth the passage speaks of practical faith. They were to remember those whose death had crowned their profession. But how this teaches me that the pope or a priest teaches the right doctrine, no human wit could divine; nor will it do, for Protestants at least, to say to them, Obey your prelates. The question is to know whether they could own you as true prelates — a very different matter.

48 Here your mild winning preface gives place to judgment. You quote a passage which applies to the last and final message of the Lord Jesus to the Jews, and in which He declares judgment on that impenitent race, if they did not receive it; and you apply His title in sending it to yourselves, and His denunciations to your Protestant brethren, as you call them. Happily we are not Jews, and you are not Christ. Your threats do not awaken terror, but pity for your presumption and ignorance of the passage which you thus quote at random. The apostles were strictly forbidden on this journey to go to any but the house of Israel. They were not to go near a Gentile, shewing the true character of their mission.

In fine, the passages you quote, which embrace the whole world in prospect, prove, not indeed that Christ has failed in preserving the true church, His body — those livingly united to Him by the Spirit — those whom the Father has given Him (as He says, "Those whom thou hast given me I have kept"), for this is impossible; but that the visible church, those particularly called clergy, have wholly failed in acting up to the responsibility connected with these passages. They have not to this hour, though eighteen centuries have elapsed, carried the gospel into all the world. Instead of that, another thing has happened. So corrupt was the visible church, that God has allowed the greater part of what was professing Christendom to be overrun with Mahometanism,* which has spread AT LEAST as widely as Christianity; and what you call the Catholic church has had so little spiritual power, that well-nigh half the church split off from it, and became the Greek church (I am speaking according to its own pretensions, for I believe what you call the Catholic church to be Babylon); and subsequently, by the grossness of its corruptions, lost nearly half the countries which remained to it; and in others, as France, Belgium, Bohemia, and Moravia, only escaped the same result by suppressing by the most cruel persecutions the profession of the truth — in Spain and Italy burning those who had any conscience in maintaining it, and in France celebrating the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew by medal and rejoicing.

{*Christianity, as a prevailing religion, is less widely spread now than in the sixth century. The largest of all the continents, Asia, and all the north of Africa, is lost to it. Of course within its own limits the population has increased.}

49 Have you never read so much as this warning, drawn from the case of Israel: "On thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off?" Of the professing church you have lost rather more than half; of the heathen world you have not gathered in a quarter, yet you claim catholicity — that is, universality — on such texts as, "All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." Have you not shame in quoting it?

But this leads me to your next question — the infallibility of the church. You have quoted passages from the Old and New Testament to prove the church is infallible. First, for the quotations from the Old, if I can call quotations passages, or bits of passages, with the beginning or end or middle left out. I can hardly think you read the passages, as I have no wish to have an ungracious thought of you. But you must allow me, at the risk of being tedious, to refer to and complete those passages you have adduced. Not one has the smallest reference to the church.

The first is, "I have made a covenant with my elect, I have sworn to David, my servant, thy seed will I settle for ever." Now, allow me to say, the church is neither David nor the seed of David, nor ever called so in scripture, nor by any sober man. And, further, if you will take the trouble to read the psalm, you will find that it is a plaint that the family of David is utterly overthrown, his crown thrown to the ground, and all that is contrary to the hope founded on this promise. Now do you mean that this has actually happened to the church? If so, what comes of your argument? You are unfortunate in your quotations. You see why I am unwilling to believe that you have read the passage you quote from. Now if you apply it to David's seed, of which it speaks, the case is quite clear. It has been set aside, their throne has been cast down, as Ezekiel speaks, "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, till he come whose right it is, and I will give it him."

50 When Christ displays His glory, then indeed the promises to the seed of David will be accomplished. Till then His throne is cast down to the ground. But in whatever way you please to interpret the psalm, it is a complaint that the promise, which you cite, as to present fulfilment, wholly failed. Is that what you think as to the church?

In your quotation from Luke there is not a word about the church, but a statement that the throne of David belonged to Christ as come in the flesh, for He is born of the seed of David, according to the flesh, but that is not the church's connection with Him.

I turn to other passages. Did you ever read Isaiah 66? This is what it says, "For, behold, Jehovah will come with fire, and with his chariots, like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will Jehovah plead with all flesh; and the slain of Jehovah shall be many." Then he describes their idolatry and abominations, and continues, "For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto Jehovah, out of all nations, upon horses," etc . . . . Then comes your extract, and after it follows this — "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." Now do you believe that that applies to the church, and that it is this dreadful judgment of all flesh by Jehovah which has set up your clergy, brought out of all nations? or if you do believe it, do you think any sober Christian can think this an evidence that you have solid proofs of what the true church is?

51 Again, why did you not begin and finish the quotation from Jeremiah? Suffer me to do both for you. You begin with — "And they shall be my people." Now what precedes is this — "And now, therefore, thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God," Jer. 32: 36, etc. Is that the church? Has He scattered it in wrath, anger, and fury, into all lands; and is it only at some future restoration to its original place, that He will own it as His people? Do you believe it applies to the church? And now see how it finishes.

You close with — "I will not cease to do them good." The prophet continues, "But I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart, and with my whole soul. For thus saith Jehovah; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans," etc. Now do you believe that God has utterly dispersed the church, and that it is only when He shall bring it back again, that He will begin to put His fear in the hearts of those who compose it? Or is it not as plain as possible to what it all applies?

But I am bound to hope that, whatever it may be of Isaiah and Jeremiah, you certainly never have looked at the passage in Ezekiel, because you expatiate on every member of the phrase you give, and shew in detail how it applies so beautifully and clearly to the church. But the middle of the passage is entirely left out, though you give it as a continuous whole. This is what comes in after "shall do them." "Another shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever," Ezek. 37: 25. And this is what precedes: two sticks, representing Israel and Judah, which had been separated, were to become one in the prophet's hand; these two parts of Israel, being separated, were to be united; and then it is said, "And say unto them, thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all; neither shall they defile themselves with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God; and David my servant shall be king," etc., which you quote.

52 Now every one who has the smallest acquaintance with scripture history knows what the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel are which were separated in the time of Rehoboam, and what the land means where their fathers dwelt, and that it has nothing to do with the church founded by the apostles. But if you will apply it to the church, instead of proving the infallibility of the church, you prove that it has been divided, scattered, given up to idolatry and transgression, and that it is only when it is brought back from this state that God's sanctuary (which it had wholly lost) was set up in the midst of them, and that then the heathen would know that God sanctified it, when His sanctuary was in the midst of them. They had been in idolatry, divided and dispersed, and had not had God's sanctuary amongst them. Do you believe this applies to the church? But it is the passage, taking what your citation has left out of it. If it does apply to the church, does it prove its infallibility? And why do you cite only a part of the passage? I will not for a moment charge you with garbling scripture in this way, and applying passages in such a manner. Your church has taught you this; you have got it in her schools of theology, and have not examined for yourself. But do you think that your church's garbling passages, cutting out parts of them, leaving out the beginning or the end or the middle or all three, is a proof of her infallibility to a sober Christian taught of God or any man of sense at all? Of course, if a person examine nothing, there is no reason why he should not receive anything, even the church of Rome, or Mormonism, or anything which superstition or fanaticism may propose to his imagination.

53 But you quote Daniel too: "In the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed." In the days of what kings? The ten kings, if you examine the chapter. Do you mean that the church was only set up after the ten kingdoms existed; that is, after the destruction of the Roman empire? But what does the prophecy say of this kingdom? A little stone, cut out without hands, was to smite the feet of the image, and the whole image was to be totally destroyed, so that no trace was found of it; and the stone that had smitten the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. That is, it first destroyed every trace of the empires and kingdoms of the image, and then extended itself. Do you mean that the church first effaces and obliterates every trace of the empires, east and west, and then begins to spread? There is a judgment of the earth, which you have sadly overlooked: you are not indeed the only one.

This is all you quote from the Old Testament to prove the church infallible, in not one of which the church is mentioned, and not one of which can apply to her, and if they do, instead of proving her infallible, prove she has utterly failed, and lost the presence of God, because this is the truth as to Israel who has so lost it, of which they expressly speak.

We come now to the New Testament. And here I must notice that infallibility is used in two senses totally different, and when one is spoken of or proved, the other is assumed to be so. We are sure the church is infallible; that is, it will surely be kept through this world as to its eternal salvation, till Christ takes it to glory. Till that blessed day He will always have true members of His church upon earth, will keep them, secure eternal life to them and for them. In this sense the church cannot fail. There will infallibly be a church. But infallible is used in another sense, that a person or a body can never fail in what it teaches. The church is said by Romanists to be infallible in what it teaches. Now this is a very different thing. I may be infallibly kept of God for salvation, yet never teach at all, or even fall into error sometimes.

54 Again, an individual or the church may be kept in the truth by grace, and yet have no pretension to be infallible in teaching. Now I doubt not that God will maintain the truth in the earth, and the church too; though there may be partial failure, yet in spite of failure He will preserve it. But the church has nothing to do with teaching infallibly. She has to learn and hold and profess the truth, not to teach at all. Some of her members may; but no one says they are infallible. Somewhere God will always preserve the truth, and some witness to it, in the earth. Thus, when Arianism overspread the world, and the pope received it, and put his signature to its doctrines, many, though banished and persecuted and hidden through violence for the most part, still held fast the truth. So, amid the disputes and violence which characterized the conduct of ambitious bishops (so that one very large council of them, held at Ephesus, is called "the council of robbers" in ecclesiastical history), yet God preserved the substance of the truth. And if the Eastern church erred, and patriarchs erred, and popes became Arian, still some held fast the faith and a witness for it. You may find a whole council of bishops establishing semi-Arianism at Sirmium, and accepting Arianism at Ariminum and Selinica; but yet God preserved the truth.

But no one is infallible but God. Hence, when an apostle or a prophet was inspired by Him, he spoke the perfect truth. But an apostle or prophet was not himself infallible; for Peter denied the Lord, and, even after he had received the Holy Ghost, carried away all the Jews with his dissimulation. Yet the humblest child of God, if waiting humbly upon Him, will be kept in the truth.

I now turn to the texts you quote; and first the famous passage — "Upon this rock I will build my church." Now the confession of Peter was a remarkable one; it was revealed to him by the Father Himself — a personal favour conferred upon him, which belongs to no one else. We may receive his faith, as every true Christian does; but the revelation is not made directly to us but to Peter alone. "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas." Now nobody is Simon Barjonas but himself, not even the other apostles, and certainly not Pius IX. Thus taught of God Peter made a confession which none had yet made — Christ was the Son of the living God. Several had owned Him to be the Christ the Son of God, but he adds the living God. So in his epistle he says, "He hath begotten us to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; unto whom coming as unto a living stone, ye also as living stones," etc. Now, here was more than a Messiah come to the Jews, and owned to be, as in Psalm 2, Son of God. It was the power of life in God Himself which was displayed in Him; as He says, He is the resurrection and the life Himself. Now here, in the Person of Christ, was that power of life and resurrection on which He would build His church, and the gates of Hades — that is, of Satan, as having the power of death — should not prevail against it. It is always true. The resurrection of the saints will be the great final proof of it; the resurrection of Christ was the pledge of it, and has given us a living hope.

55 Here, if I may so speak reverently, the Son of the living God, He who was the power of life, was pitted against him "who has the power of death, that is, the devil." But the knowledge of the Person of Christ, as Son of the living God, removed all question as to the issue of the conflict, and laid a foundation for the church which nothing could shake. It was not mere Messiah glory, nor the kingdom: the living God was engaged in the matter in the Person of His Son. Satan did his best — the Lord allowing it — in Christ's dying on the cross; but it only demonstrated Christ's absolute victory in the resurrection. This is the foundation of the church, so that it cannot fail — the Person of Christ as Son of the living God. God forbid I should trust a church, or be of it, which was founded on a man simply! Be he an apostle himself, he is but a man, and this will not do to build God's church upon. Is God to build on a mere man? Christ (for He says, "I will build") on Peter? It may do very well for man's church; it is natural man should build on man; but it will not do for God's. It would be impossible, and destructive to His glory. God is not going to set aside His Son for Peter.

But Peter, let men say what they will, is never called a rock.* He is called a stone; he partook of the nature of the rock, God having quickened him with this life, and given him to confess Christ in this character. But Peter means a stone, and does not mean a rock. People do not build on a stone, even if it partake of the durability of the rock to which it belongs. Peter is not the rock nor a rock; he is, as to his name, a stone. Peter having just confessed the true, living, and divine foundation of the new thing, which the rejected Christ was going to raise up in contrast with rebellious Israel; and Christ, having recognized that the Father Himself had taught Peter this great truth, carrying far beyond the hopes of Israel, says, "Thou art a stone," thou participatest in this truth; and on this rock, this eternal truth of My Person, which you have been given of the Father to own, I will build the church. The Father had revealed this great truth of Christ's nature to Simon, and Christ gives him besides the name of Peter; for the confession of truth, by divine teaching, connects a man with the strength and durability of the truth he so confessed; he abides livingly with it and by it. The Lord adds that He will give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven (not of heaven, but of the kingdom of heaven to be established on the earth); and here Peter had to serve, whereas Christ builds the true church. He used the keys on Pentecost, and with Cornelius and the like.

{*It is well-known that this is the grand foundation for the pretensions of the pope. My interpretation, though flowing from my own full conviction, is, as to the main point, nothing new. The Fathers, whom the Romanist so much leans upon, give frequently the same. Thus Augustine — "Thou art therefore Peter, and upon this Rock which thou hast confessed, upon this Rock which thou hast owned, saying, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my church-that is, upon Myself, Son of the living God, I will build my church; I will build thee upon Me, not Me upon thee." (Sermon 76.) In the same sermon he says, "Because Christ is the Rock, Peter the Christian people": so in many places. Chrysostom says on the passage — I borrow the quotation here from another — "On the Rock, that is, the faith of his confession." Gregory I, or the Great, "Consolidate your life in the Rock of the church, that is, on the confession of the blessed Peter." Cyril of Alexandria gives two interpretations — the two we have just referred to: one, that it is Christ in whom is all the church hid safe, as in a cave of a rock, leaving poor Peter out altogether, save as an individual member: the other, that it is the unmoved faith of Peter. Pet) an oimai legon to akradanton eis pistin tou mathetou. (Cyr. Alex. ii, 460, 593. Aubert.) Ambrose was cited by Luther in his dispute with Eck, as since by others — "On this article of faith the church is founded." I do not quote these as the smallest authority, for, as is general with the Fathers, not only they do not agree with one another, but they do not agree with themselves; but to shew how little, after all, the most essential points of the foundations of Romish doctrine were matters of faith then, Cyril we have seen giving two interpretations, both rejecting the Romanist sense. Augustine, in his Retractions, says he had very often (saepissime) given the one I have quoted; for it was not said, Thou art Petra (a rock), but (Petrus) a stone; but that he had once applied it to Peter, following a hymn of Ambrose's and if the reader liked it better, he might choose that! (1 Retract. 21: 1). Think of a Father, whom the author so especially applauds, treating this mainstay of papal authority in such a manner! He once accepted the sense found in verses of St. Ambrose, which everyone was singing; but that afterwards, very often indeed, he had shewn that the rock was not Peter; but that if any reader liked the former meaning better, he had full liberty. If that is not a solid patristic foundation for the See of Rome, I know not what is! But the good Father did once render good service to the See of Rome. A certain pope, named Zosimus, had pronounced in favour of Pelagius and Celestius; but Augustine, in spite of this, maintained his grounds and set Zosimus right, who then condemned Pelagius and Celestius, whom he had before declared sound in the faith.}

57 As to the Lord's sending the Paraclete, and teaching the twelve all things, surely this precious promise has been fulfilled. To apply it to the church is mere nonsense, because the Lord says, He shall bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you. Now He has said the things to the twelve, not to people alive now. The Holy Ghost may graciously act in any Christian's heart to make him attentive to Christ's recorded words, but He cannot bring to his remembrance what Christ has said to him, unless he pretend to have fresh revelations and then have forgotten them. Hence, though the church pretends to be infallible and to teach all truth infallibly, it has never pretended to have recalled to it what Christ had said to it. It would prove the absurdity of the pretension on the face of it; but then unfortunately this is what the Lord has said, and you have quoted.

You say this states plainly what the Holy Ghost would do when He came. Quite true. But do for whom? He could not do this but for those who had heard Jesus during His life; and mark, He was to teach the apostles all things, and guide them into all truth — that is, the work which the church pretends to do is done long ago. It may be formed by this truth, have it, be kept by it; but it was all taught to the apostles. If you say, that is what we say — we have learned and kept it; we own it was all taught to the apostles, not to us; our boast is to keep it safe; then the verses you quote as a promise to yourselves do not apply to you at all, for they speak of teaching all things, and bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had said to them. In a word, the thing was complete before you were there, as the text you quote proves. The only question is, Are you acting on, believing, and are your ministers teaching, truths received long ago? The promise is not to you, but to others long since gone. Whether you are doing so, I try by what these persons have confessedly left us. When I try this, I find you abusing their record to every false pretension to exalt self, and that you have departed altogether from the truth they taught and were guided into. The Holy Ghost has not to teach the church all things, because He has taught all things already to the apostles: the text you quote proves it. That He may apply it now to the heart is all very true; that devoted men may teach the same truths to the heathen, or build up the faithful in detail, is all true; but the truths are taught. There is no question of infallibility, because the truth is already there.

58 That the Holy Ghost remains with the church, dwells in all true Christians, acts in them, helps them, makes them obedient to the truth, and that He will never go away till the time of glory comes, I fully believe. But this does not make them infallible. There is no place for infallibility, when all the truth is there. What are they to be infallible about, when nothing more is to be revealed? That, as weak creatures, we may be kept, preserved in the truth, so that the testimony of it should be always as a fact preserved in the world, is most true and most precious, and that God, I doubt not, will accomplish, according to His sure and precious word. You say, "If the Holy Ghost did come and remain with her, and if he continued to teach her all things whatsoever the Son of God revealed to her, how could she fall into error?" Now what is the meaning of this — "continued to teach her"? Was she then ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth? Continued to teach her all things whatsoever the Son of God had revealed to her — revealed to her when? Why continue to teach her what was revealed to her? She had then wholly forgotten it? "Continuing to teach her all things whatsoever the Son of God revealed to her" has no tolerable sense. Why did she not keep by the Holy Ghost what had been revealed to her, instead of being taught anew? But I repeat, When revealed to her? It was revealed, all of it, to the apostles who had conversed with Jesus. It has not to be revealed to the church.

You quote also John 16; but it is the same thing in substance, save that, as the passage of John 14 spoke of remembering what He had said, this speaks of shewing them (not to the church) things to come. Does the church pretend to have new prophetic revelations? Not one. Where are they authenticated and promulgated with her sanction? In a word we have great pretension to authority when self is exalted; but when the test of reality is to be met, be it as to the past or the future, she is dumb. She has never authenticated one saying of the Lord as brought to her remembrance, nor dared to commit herself to a thing to come which she could shew; nay, nor any fresh knowledge of the glory of Christ not in the written word. Yet this was the remaining part of the Holy Ghost's office, as stated in John 16 — indeed the whole of it, as teaching and revealing. "He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you: all things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you." Now what of the past, present, glory of Christ, or of the future, has this boasting body, which calls itself the church, ever taught which is not revealed in the word given by the apostles? Let them produce, authenticated by the church, some new truth not in the word. If not, what is revealed to her? unless she boasts of forgetting it continually to be retaught it anew, and pretends this is the special glory of God, and a proof that she exclusively has the Holy Ghost — namely, that she has not kept the truth, and has to be taught it afresh. That individuals (enabled by God) may, through the help of the Holy Ghost, teach the truths revealed long ago, every one admits; but no one pretends such to be infallible.

59 But, further, the Lord promises to be with the apostles in teaching all which He had commanded them to the end of the world. It is urged (what is not in the passage) that, as it is to the end of the world, it must be for their successors. Whose successors, and successors in what? In bringing the heathen to the faith? I do not doubt that, though it be not with the title of apostles, whoever do the same service in grace will find the Lord with them in the service, according to their measure; and this is what is promised. Though secured, when inspired to reveal anything, the apostles were not infallible. They had the Lord always with them in their service; in like service, they who accomplish it will find the Lord with them, I doubt not, to the end. There is nothing whatever else in the promise; not a word about infallibility — it is not the subject of the passage, any more than the church; it speaks of the Lord's help in the missionary service they were to perform in His name. He would not abandon them in it; surely He did not.

Thus you have cited from the Old Testament passages which, you allege, speak of the church, which declare the body they contemplate has been divided, dispersed, idolatrous, doing detestable things, and deprived of the presence of God — His sanctuary being set up only when promised restoration takes place. This is a very strange proof of perpetuity and infallibility, which secures from every error; and the citing them equally curious as a proof of infallibility in teaching. From the New you have cited passages which declare that all truth was revealed to the apostles; and hence, if the Holy Ghost has always to continue teaching the church what was revealed to her, affording a proof that she had not kept the truth, and had to learn it again; an equally curious proof of infallibility and security. You quote one, a serious and important one — "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." The church of God has been established of God to maintain and uphold the truth; and I am sure, however dark the times, God will never, till judgment comes, leave Himself without a witness of the truth, in and by the church, binding on the consciences of men. Blessed be His name that it is so!

60 But you cannot speak of the whole visible church as having continued to be such; because you believe that half Christendom, and undoubtedly the most ancient part of it, where it was first established by all the apostles together, and the latest under apostolic care, has departed from the truth, and is not a pillar and ground of it. The Greek church is disputing with you for the holy sepulchre, and for many years the Turks using whips to keep the combatants quiet; while now we have the West arrayed against the East in a war which had its origin in this very dispute. This immense body of the most ancient bishoprics in the world has ceased to be a pillar and ground of the truth. All Protestant Europe and America have equally, in your judgment, abandoned it. It is not a promise then that the whole visible church is necessarily and always such; for by your own account a very large part (nay, if we include the Protestants, Nestorians, and Eutychians, the greater part) is not; if they are, you are not. It is not then the body of the visible church as such. Where this true church is to be found is another question; but your use of the passage is certainly unfounded. You cannot present the visible church as a security for the truth, when you affirm that half of it has gone away. If you tell me they are not the church, but we are, this is just what is to be proved; at any rate, they were, and thus the ground of securing is gone.

61 I have now examined all you have alleged for this. In conclusion I reply to your assertions. The Old Testament never speaks of the church. Paul declares it was a mystery hidden till the Holy Ghost was given — hidden from ages and generations — hid in God. Christ, no doubt, founded His church (that is, on the day of Pentecost, and in general by the apostles), but He promised to be with them, not her, to the end of the world. The Holy Ghost will surely abide with Christ's true disciples till He takes them up to glory. He did not declare that he would teach the church, but the apostles, all truth — a promise undoubtedly fulfilled; and it is equally sure that Satan's power will never set aside the church of God, and she is, according to God's counsel, the pillar and ground of the truth, whatever may be the condition of the visible body called the church; which we have shewn, by your own account, cannot be what this passage applies to. But that you are it, is a very different question.

Instead of declaring that the professing church could not fail, mark it well, the Lord has declared the express contrary. He has said, first, as warning (referring to the Jews, lest the Gentiles should deceive themselves by their conceit), "Be not high-minded, but fear . . . upon thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." He has further declared that a falling away or apostasy (so that it is certain that it would not continue in God's goodness to the end, for apostasy is falling away from it) would come; and that the day of Christ's coming to judge could not come till it did. He has declared that the presence of Antichrist was the mark of the last times. He has declared, the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the last days perilous time shall come (men running into all kinds of wickedness shall have the form of piety, denying the power of it); and warns the true disciple to turn away from such, and refers him to the scriptures as able to make him wise unto salvation. You seek to turn him from them, and to trust in that in which it is certain, by God's word, apostasy was to be found.

You may ask, what do we make of the promises of God? I answer, they are infallible; but he who has the scripture, the true servant of Christ who has the truth, has them before his eyes, but has all the rest of the word, so that he does not misapply them. Satan applied true promises to Christ without reference to obedience. He used the rest of the word to shew that His part was to walk with God, and He would surely have all that God had promised to the true believer. He does not look for the heirs of promise in what denies the truth, to which God Himself has referred him for warning. He knows that all the unfaithfulness of man will only glorify the faithfulness of God, and that God will certainly preserve the truth and His saints (even should there be partial failure amongst them) till Christ Himself comes to fetch them, according to His own promise, at the end. They do not count the mass of ungodliness and corruption and worldliness around them to be the little flock which is to inherit the kingdom. They do not take the tares for wheat, though it be not their business to root them up, as you have pretended to do (rooting up, for the most part, as the Lord warned, the wheat with them); but they are sure the Lord will keep the wheat for His garner, and that the Holy Ghost will never leave them till He does, nor allow the truth to fail in the earth. It shall be maintained to the end by the church taught of God.

62 But I am touching on the next point, the perpetual visibility of the church. That there is a great public body called the church of Christ is notorious. The marks you now give you rejected, when, as you alleged, Luther, Calvin, and the church of England pleaded them as such: but we cannot expect error to be consistent. But suppose I was born in Greece or Russia, and I was told that I should obey my pastors, and that pure doctrine and the same sacraments were the marks of the church visible, what would be the effect? Why I should remain a Greek, and abhor you as false. I should have to go to the Propaganda at Rome to find you out, you are so invisible in those countries. Is the true church to change with countries, and east and west? and can these be the adequate marks of it, which, in one, would make me take a body to be the true church, which in another three days' steaming would make me reject as schismatic and heretic? You are tired, I am sure, of the Greek church. But there it is, as ancient as yours, with the same claims. It has its pastors, it has its sacraments, it has what it calls the true faith, as you allege of yours, it has its visibility.

The marks you give me make me a Greek when in Russia, and you at Rome condemn me for using them when I get there, and, if I were born in Russia, persuade me they are insufficient, and that I must leave what they prove to be the true church there, and join you. Yet there are these Greeks in spite of you. God has taken care by their existence to make all your pretensions and marks futile nonsense. They are proved to be worth nothing to secure a man's finding the true church; for some of them prove two or three to be such, while the existence of the two or three proves the essential ones to be false. God has taken care that the sober godly inquirer should have patent proof, if he take the pains, that your allegations of unity, universality, visibility, perpetuity, tradition, and all the rest, are just worth nothing; because, in the dreadful departure of the professing church from God, He has taken care that there should not be unity, and, consequently, no universality; while visibility, and tradition, and perpetuity, and antiquity are as strong for one as the other, and therefore prove nothing for either. Blessed be God, the spiritual man, who has his Bible and reads it, wants no such proof. He knows that the truth of God has been perverted, the forms of piety assumed, and the power gone, the headship of Christ abandoned (though Romanists alone have ventured to set up another head, and hence are worse than Greeks), and subjection to ordinances brought in. He sees the Spirit's words fulfilled — "In the last days perilous times shall come" — the form of piety, denying the substance. But of this a word at the close.

63 Must I turn again to your use of the Old Testament? can afford to be brief after what we have already examined. You quote Isaiah 60: "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee." But again, whom am I to accuse? I honestly lay it on your church, and not on you. You have left out, between what I have just copied and the next verse of the chapter, an all-important verse, which shews the absurdity of the application of the passage: "For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but Jehovah shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." Now, whatever is the subject of this chapter under the name (justly used after the Vulgate, though not in the Hebrew) Jerusalem, it had been in darkness, though existing, and in an awful state, as the previous chapter shews. Truth failed, and he that departed from evil made himself a prey; but now Jehovah visited her, and while all else was in darkness, light and the glory of Jehovah was here. Indeed Paul has quoted part of the preceding description to shew the awful state of the Jews. But do you believe that the truth having failed, and he that departs from evil making himself a prey, is a description of the true church? Is that indeed what the church of Rome is? Or, again, when the full light and glory of Jehovah has risen on the church, so that it is in "cloudless manifestation and universal visibility," as you say, how comes darkness just then to cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; or why did you leave that verse out? So Jehovah goes on: "In my wrath I smote thee" (v. 10); and again, "Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee" (v. 15). When and how long was this unfailing and perpetually visible church forsaken and hated of God? Apply it to Jerusalem which is named, and nothing is more simple: we know it has been her state.

64 You quote also (and the same a little before) Isaiah 2. If you take the trouble to read that chapter, you will find that it is concerning Judah and Jerusalem, and describes the blessing as being brought about by the dreadful judgment of Jehovah, when men shall go into the clefts of the rocks for fear of Jehovah, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth. Well may the Spirit of God add, "Cease ye from man."

Again, Ezekiel 17, we have these things explained by the Spirit: "Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof," etc., and then describes the conduct of Zedekiah, and at the close predicts the raising up of Christ as seed of David. What has this to do with the church? The seed of David is not the church.

In Jeremiah 31 it is revealed: "He that scattered Israel will gather him." Has God scattered the church? Is the church the backsliding daughter of Ephraim? Further, the Lord says, "Like as I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build, and to plant, saith Jehovah." Has God watched over the church to pluck it up? And the prophet adds, after the verse you quote, what you do not quote: it runs thus: "Then I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith Jehovah. Behold the days come, saith Jehovah, that the city shall be built to Jehovah, from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner," etc., "and it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more for ever." Jeremiah addressed the Jews, and told them that God would not cast them off in that future day, and that the city should be built, and that then they who had been so utterly plucked up should never be so any more. Is this the church?

65 That God's name may be great among the Gentiles (Mal. 1) no one disputes, and that under the figure of Jewish offerings they should offer theirs, every Christian can believe; though I do not believe it applies to the church. And here allow me to ask a question. All the passages which you have quoted you have applied figuratively up to the present; now that there is a question of oblation and sacrifice, you apply it literally. Why so?

The apostles were the light of the world, and so set doubtless. But how does this prove that you are that light, or that it was to be perpetual? Though, however dimmed, I doubt not that God has never suffered it to be extinguished. The Lord is speaking of His true disciples, poor in spirit, pure in heart. Do you mean that the mass of the professing church, Romish, Greek, Protestant, or Presbyterian, are that? I have been in many Roman Catholic countries, and in Protestant and Presbyterian; and, though doubtless there are blessed exceptions, the mass of pleasure-hunters, and money-hunters, and passion-governed men, are not what the Lord describes in Matthew 5. Or do you mean that, when their character is wholly changed, they are as much light as before? Or is it the judgment of the Romish body, that moral condition or holiness has nothing to do with the light the saints should give? The Lord, on the contrary, says in this same chapter (which you take care not to quote), "If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is good for nothing." You may salt other things with salt; but if the salt be savourless, what other things shall salt it? In fine you tell us, because Christ said to the apostles, "Ye are the light of the world," therefore the church is so at all times — that is, the outward professing Romish body; a strange conclusion where nothing is proved at all. The word of God says the contrary, that the day shall not come except there be a falling away first (e apostasia).

Romanism - Part 2

Romanism: or an answer to the pamphlet of a Romish Priest, entitled "The Law and the Testimony."

J. N. Darby.

<18003E> {file section b.}

65 Your chapter on tradition is hardly worth an answer. Every one knows that tradition in scripture always means a doctrine delivered, and never has the Romish sense of it. A passage you quote shews it: "The traditions you have learned by word or by our epistle." The apostle had preached to them by word of mouth, and written an epistle to them: they were to mind all he had taught them. Next, your arguments are a mere nullity. You urge that the apostles taught by word of mouth before they wrote to the churches. Undoubtedly. Who ever doubted it? The question is, whether, since they wrote, what men have retailed for seventeen centuries can be relied upon — a question you do not so much as touch upon. You refer to Timothy's committing the truths Paul had taught him to faithful men: an excellent service, a thing which is done, be it well or ill, among different sects of Christians in their theological schools and colleges, and I doubt not was very well done by Timothy. But how does this make it authoritative teaching? No man's teaching is held, even by Rome, to be infallibly authoritative, save that Ultramontanes hold the popes to be infallible, which the Council of Constance, as we have seen, held them not to be. The question is not, whether Timothy taught or whether you do, but whether you have got what he taught besides what is written. You have no authentic truth by tradition. In the very epistle you cite we have the proof of it: "And now ye know what withholdeth," says the apostle; for when he was yet with them he had told them of these things. Now, here is an instruction given by word of mouth, which we have not got. Can you produce any authenticated church statement of what it was?

66 Tradition is very convenient to say (I leave something you can have no proof of), in which you must obey me blindly; but when we come to ask what are they, they are not to be had. The Rabbis, to whom you refer for purgatory, keep the poor Jews in blindness by the same means. The early church was frightened by the warnings of the apostle, and thought the final judgments would come after the revelation of antichrist, on the fall of the Roman empire; but this consent of the Fathers as to the millennial scheme and Christ's soon reigning at Jerusalem (for scarce could any topic be found more generally believed by them), this sure tradition belied itself; and already in Augustine's time, and after it passed off into a more general spiritualization, and the faith of the early church (which is declared positively by Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, to be held by all the orthodox) was cast off as a fable, and the early Fathers left on these points in oblivion and forgetfulness; and the account between tradition, universal tradition, and an orthodoxy founded on tradition, having been thus far falsified by fact, had to be settled by modern orthodoxy, passing as lightly over its grave as it could. Though they misapplied it, I believe, in the substance, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Nepos, and the orthodox of those days, were right, and not Origen and Dionysius and the moderns. But I believe it, because scripture is clear upon it.

67 But you mention two things in particular, which you say are founded on tradition, and which are not in scripture — Lent and Sunday. The apostles, you say, instituted the solemn fast of Lent. If they did, certainly it is not found in Scripture. But let us see what the facts are. I need only quote Irenaeus, a godly Father of the church, who had heard Polycarp, who had heard John. There was a dispute between Victor, the bishop of Rome, and the churches of Asia, as to the celebrating of Easter. Victor would have it on Sunday, and the Asiatic churches celebrated it (as did all the old British, till the sixth or seventh century, if I remember right) on the day of the resurrection, whatever day of the week it fell upon. For the Passover was computed by moons, and was held upon the fourteenth day after the new moon, and the resurrection was three days of course after, and this did not always fall on a Sunday. The Easterns went by the days of the month, the Westerns by the days of the week. Well, Victor refused to own them as Christians at all. Irenaeus agreed, it seems, with Victor in opinion as to the day it should be kept upon. But earlier than this, some thirty or forty years before, the aged Polycarp, himself a disciple of John, came from Asia to Rome, to confer with Anicetus, bishop of Rome, about it.

Think of a disciple of John himself (and a most blessed old man he was, and a martyr too) going all wrong, and insisting on a tradition derived from John himself, contrary to the pope's tradition and his authority too! Well, Polycarp would not give in, nor Anicetus either; but they agreed, it seems, to part in peace, and each go his own way. But Victor, a more energetic and less Christian man than Anicetus, orders all the Christians in Asia to change their rules in this respect, and follow Rome, and give up their apostolic tradition. However, they would not; and then he excommunicated them all in mass, as far at least as Rome was concerned. It was thunder, however, not lightning, for they did not obey; and the bishops elsewhere continued in communion with them. This did not please all the bishops, says Eusebius, some of them writing pretty sharply to him (Victor); and Irenaeus warned him not to cut off whole churches who observed the tradition of their ancient customs. This was at the end of the second century; and then he adds (says Eusebius), not only was the controversy about the day, but about the form itself of the fast; for some think they ought to fast one day, others two, and others more, and some measure this day forty hours, day and night; and this variety of observance had not its birth first in our age, but began long before, with those who went before us . . . . And then he adds, and thus the disagreement as to the fast commends the unanimity of the faith. — (Euseb. 5: 24).

68 Now this little bit of ecclesiastical history gives occasion for one or two remarks: first, how the Roman bishop sought to satisfy his ambition, not quite two centuries after Christ; but, secondly, at the same time, not only Polycrates at Ephesus and others, but other bishops besides paid no attention to his orders, and even rebuked him sharply; thirdly, what a slippery thing tradition is! Here, as to this very Lent, which is adduced as a proof of apostolic tradition, Polycarp, who conversed with John, has one from him which he will not give up; because he who leaned on the Lord's bosom, he says, had so kept it and taught. But Victor, who professed to have Peter's and Paul's too, excommunicates whole churches, because, after Polycarp's clear tradition, they kept John's. Could not tradition secure certainty on such a trifle as this? The conflict was maintained till the fourth century, and even long after that the Asiatic way was maintained in certain churches derived from that country.

It is urged that the Holy Ghost was to teach things the apostles could not receive while Christ was alive. No doubt; but what has this to do with tradition? Further, that the Holy Ghost was still teaching. This would tend to shew that tradition was not needed; for, in that case, the church had always the same teaching as the apostles themselves, and did not want theirs by word or letter. There is a passage or two important to cite, as regards tradition and apostolic succession.

But I must give the reader a few more quotations from the Fathers as to this Lent, which is not in scripture, says the author, in which he is surely perfectly right, but is observed by tradition from the apostles. The Romans in the fourth or fifth century observed Saturday as a fast, and the Easterns and many of the Africans dined and ate as usual, and did not think of fasting. A hot Roman in St. Augustine's time attacked all the churches for not following the Roman custom. It was alleged, as the origin of the custom, that Peter, having to contend with Simon Magus, fasted along with all the Roman church on Saturday. If he did, I am sure it was a very godly and excellent thought and act for that time; hence the Romans did it every Saturday, when there was no Simon Magus at all. St. Augustine wrote a letter to a presbyter, Casnelanus, on this hot-headed Roman's book. He gives a pleasant reply enough to the Simon Magus reason, that, if he was a figure of the devil as they said, they would have that work every day of the week.

69 But in replying to this we have from him general remarks on fasts which touch our present point of tradition. He says, it was the opinion of the most, that it was a mere Roman custom in reference to Peter's conflict with Simon Magus. "But if," he continues, "it be answered, James taught this at Jerusalem, John at Ephesus, others in other places, which Peter taught at Rome, that is, that men should fast the Saturday, but that other lands had deviated from this doctrine, and that Rome had remained firm in it; and, on the contrary, it is replied, that rather certain places of the West, among which is Rome, have not kept what the apostles delivered, but that the lands of the East, whence the gospel itself began to be preached, have continued, without ever varying, in what was delivered by all the apostles along with Peter, that they should not fast on the Sabbath (Saturday), that dispute is interminable, generating strifes, not finishing questions." — (Augustine, Ep. 36). And then he says that the unity of the faith was the point, for that the glory of the church, according to the psalm, was within: "The king's daughter is all glorious within"; that the observance was only the garments, and that she was in golden fringes, clothed around with variety: so the Vulgate, circumcincta varietate, after the Seventy. — Psalm 44 (Heb. 45).

What a testimony this bright light (as the author alleges, and justly, compared with much of the Fathers) affords of the certainty of tradition, and about fasting, and about Roman tradition too! It was a source of interminable disputes, he says. In the same letter we have another statement, which I will quote, on the point: "But since we have not found, as I have above remarked, in the evangelical and apostolic letters, which properly belong to the revelation of the New Testament, that it is clearly prescribed that fasts should be observed on any certain days, and therefore, that thing also, like many others which it is difficult to enumerate, has found in the garments of the daughter of the king, that is the church, room for variety, I will tell you what the revered Ambrose answered me when I asked him about this." And then he relates how his mother was uneasy, because at Milan they did not fast the same days as at Rome; and was she to follow the custom of her city, or that of Milan where she then was? Ambrose, a light too among the Fathers, told her he could not teach her better than he practised — a good deal to say too, if he went beyond fasts; and so she was to do at Milan as they did at Milan, and to do at Rome, in such matters, as they did at Rome. So Augustine recommends in the beginning of the letter: "In those things, concerning which divine scripture has settled nothing certain (and we have seen he states that it had not settled any certain day for fasting), the customs of the people of God, or the institutions of those of old (majorum), are to be considered as a law." This is a strange way to talk, if these are apostolic traditions too. We see, however, the real source of it — following old habits which were made a law of.

70 However, we have something about Lent itself from Augustine. "The quadragesimal period of fasts, indeed, has authority (that is, scriptural) both in the old books — in the fact of Moses and Elias — and from the gospel, because the Lord fasted so many days, shewing the gospel not to depart from the law and the prophets. In the person of Moses, namely, the law, in the person of Elias the prophets are found . . . . In what part of the year, therefore, could the observation of quadragesima be established more suitably than on the confines of, and close to, the Lord's passion?" And then he shews many wonderful mysteries in the number 40. But where is the apostolic tradition here?

But we have something more from the Fathers on quadragesima. We have seen Irenaeus telling us that some fasted one day, some two, some several, some forty hours continuously. Now, this last is the real secret of this number forty. Tertullian is a Father who lived in the end of the second century, an upright and able man; so that the famous Cyprian used to call him "the master," saying, Bring me the books of the master. This was the famous Cyprian who wrote a celebrated book about the unity of the church; though he would not yield to Rome on what both thought a vital point, namely, re-baptizing heretics. But this Cyprian tells us that the church in his day (Cyprian. de Lapsis) was corrupt to the last degree; that professing Christians were bent upon money-making, men luxurious in their habits, women painting their faces and adorning their hair, cheating going on in a shameful way, marriages with heathens taking place, bishops leaving their sees and flocks to carry on secular affairs, and making long journeys to gain money, not helping their hungry brethren, but seeking large fortunes, seizing on property by insidious frauds, and employing usury to enrich themselves. In other treatises he insists on the evil state of Christendom.

71 Such a state of things seemed to have moved Tertullian, who lived just before Cyprian, and driven him (Jerome says it was the envy the Roman clergy bore — to him) to believe in the rhapsodies of Montanus and his two prophetesses of Phrygia, who were much stricter in their lives and fastings. The pope was on the point of receiving them too (already acknowledging is the term used), when a certain Praxeas, afterwards a famous heretic, came to Rome, and put the pope off it, who then excommunicated and rejected them. Our famous Tertullian would not give them up, and said they were rejected, not because of the spirit they alleged they had, but because of the fasts they gave themselves up to. However, this led him to say something of these fasts; and from him we learn that the Catholic party had their quadragesimal fasts from this — the forty hours that Christ passed, as was alleged, in the grave; and that the scriptural authority (for none of them knew anything of apostolic tradition) they had for it was this: "When the Bridegroom shall be taken away, then shall they fast in those days"; and that as Christ was taken away till His resurrection, therefore they fasted these forty hours — a curious reason, by the bye, for doing so, when He was, according-to this theory, restored to them. But let that pass. Here we have, from the two earliest Fathers who speak of it (Irenaeus and Tertullian), the original of quadragesima, that is, forty.

But you shall have, reader, a specimen from history also. After relating what we have stated as to the observation of Easter, and that the Quartodecimans (the Asiatics who kept it the third day after the fourteenth of the moon) alleged that John had taught them; and the Romans boast that they had received their way from Peter and Paul, but that neither could bring a writing to prove it (he does not seem to have valued oral tradition much), he goes on to speak of Lent. Socrates, lib. 5, c. 22. "For these who are of the same faith, the same differ among themselves in rites. It will not therefore be out of place to add somewhat about the various rites of the churches. First, therefore, those fasts which are kept before Easter you will find differently kept among different people; for those who are at Rome fast three weeks continuously, except the sabbath and the Lord's day (it is a question whether this does not apply to Novatians). Those who are in Illyria, and throughout Achaia, and those who live in Alexandria, fast six weeks before Easter, and call that the quadragesimal fast. Others, again, follow a different custom from that. They begin their fast the seventh week before Easter, and, fasting three only of five days with intervals, call the time nothing the less quadragesimal; and I cannot but wonder why, although they differ among themselves about the numbers of days, they still call it by the same name of quadragesimal."

72 "But of this appellation each different person, according to his own invention, gives a different reason: for not only in days alone, but also in abstinence from foods, they are found to differ. For some, indeed, abstain altogether from eating what has had life; others eat fish alone of such as have had life; some, with fishes, eat also of birds, affirming that they also are formed out of water, according to Moses; some abstain from fruit of trees, and from eggs; some eat only bread; others do not use even this. Some, fasting to the ninth hour, eat without distinction of every kind of food afterwards. There are other observances, again, in different nations, and innumerable causes are alleged for them; and since no one can produce a written precept concerning this matter, it appears that the apostles left to the choice and will of every one that each one might do what is good, neither from fear nor necessity." What a certainty of apostolical tradition we have here! Sozomen gives the same accounts. Lib. 7, c. 19. Cassian, too, tells us, as others state (I have not his works), the same thing. For a long time there were only thirty-six days' fast, even when six weeks or forty-two days were kept; because they never fasted on the Lord's day, till at last either Gregory the Great or Gregory II (in the close, that is, of the sixth, or beginning of the eighth, century, for it is disputed which) added Ash-Wednesday and the three following days to make it forty. Think of an apostolic tradition, arranged seven hundred years after Christ, and grown from forty hours to forty days, and all the original reasons gone!

73 But I have yet one extract more from this same Cassian, for which I am also indebted to another. Cassian was a monk, founded monasteries and nunneries, was ordained deacon by Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, and made priest by Innocent, pope of Rome. He will give us a sounder idea, perhaps, of this apostolic tradition. "It is, therefore, indeed to be remarked that, as long as the perfection of that primitive church remained inviolable, this observance of quadragesima (Lent) did not exist at all; but when the multitude of the faithful, abandoning that apostolic devotion, daily gave themselves up to their wealth, etc., it then pleased the body of priests, that men, bound by secular cares, and almost ignorant of continence or compunction, should be recalled to holy work by canonical obligation of fasting, and compel them by the necessity of a legal tenth (thirty-six days is tenth of 360, or nearly a year )".

What a history of Lent in the way of devotion! and think of apostolic tradition! The reader will not think that I attach great value to Lent or tradition; but I have quoted these passages because Lent has been selected as a point brought forward as a matter of apostolic tradition for a thing not in scripture. We have seen now what, in this carefully selected case, such an assertion is worth, and what solid authority the Fathers are.

I am now going to quote something in favour of what the author says; for you may generally find in the Fathers both sides of anything, except the truth itself. Jerome says (he is writing to Marcella against the Montanists, who had three Lents) that one Lent in the year is observed, according to the tradition of the apostles, and says just that much in passing. Leo calls it the apostolical institution of a forty days' fast, which the apostles instituted by the direction of the Holy Ghost. But then Jerome also says (to shew what a solid thing apostolic laws founded on tradition were in those days), "But I think you should be briefly put in mind, that ecclesiastical traditions are so to be observed (especially those which are not in opposition to the faith)" (how much such a reserve shews he could have thought them apostolic!) "as they have been delivered by our ancestors. But let each province abound in its own way as of thinking, and consider the precepts of their ancestors' apostolic laws"! Epist. 52, Ed. Benedict. 71, Ed. Veron.

74 As to Leo, Pagi (a very learned and highly-esteemed Roman Catholic commentator on Baronius's Annals, and another) tells us that Leo was used to call everything an apostolic law which he found either in the practice of his own church, or decreed in the archives of his predecessors, Damasus and Siricius. (Pagi, Critic. in Baron. an. 67, note 15.) I use another's quotation in this instance also.

You have now, reader, the authorities for Lent being proved by apostolic tradition, and for the Romish assertion to that effect.

I turn to the Lord's day, the other example selected by the author; it is old battle-ground. My answer to this is easy, a lighter and a happier task. It is always distinguished in the early church from the sabbath, which invariably means Saturday. As regards the law, the change of the whole system involved the abolition of the Jewish sabbath. The Jewish sabbath was the sign of their covenant; but this was broken on their part, and gone, and buried on God's part in Christ's grave. The sabbath, which was the public sign of it, Christ passed in the grave.

No establishment of any form of relationship with God took place under Moses without the sabbath being anew introduced — a very remarkable fact; and in Ezekiel 20: 12 it is said, "And I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that sanctify them." Hence these sabbaths could not be preserved as a Jewish sabbath, according to the commandments; because, when once Christ was crucified, God did not sanctify the Jewish people any longer. This the Lord shewed beforehand, over and over again during His ministry, in the way He acted and spoke on the sabbath days.

But, further, the sabbath was the sign of the rest of the creation; and, sin having entered into the world, and man having rejected Jesus who had come into its sorrow, there could be no rest of creation in connection with the first Adam. So "If they shall enter into my rest, though the works were finished from the foundation of the world"; grace, and power, and redemption, must be the basis of rest and blessing. Hence, when they maliciously and unreasonably accused the Lord of not keeping the sabbath, He does not pay heed to their malice, but says (in the touching revelation of a grace which, if it could not find its rest where sin and misery were, could begin to work where all was ruined), "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." We can rest neither in sin nor sorrow, but can work in grace, where both are, and find occasion for work, if not rest, in it. The sabbath of the Jew, as the rest of man in creation, whatever physical mercy it may be to him as it is, could not remain spiritually as the valid sign of a state of things which was abrogated and passed away.

75 Is there no such witness of rest, and a better rest too, which remains for God's people? Surely there is. If now our rest is not on earth, because it is polluted, it is prepared in heaven, where we shall have our place in glory by resurrection (or an equivalent change), as Christ entered there by it. Hence, not God's rest in the first creation, but the day on which Christ rose from death, which had passed on Adam, the head of the first (and which He had in grace taken on Himself), became the witness, as far as a day is, of the church's hope of rest. She does not celebrate her joys and her hopes on the day her Lord was in the grave (how could she? It was the proof of the ruin of the old, of the first, Adam), but on the day on which He rose, the day of the triumph of the Second, who is the Lord from heaven. The Jewish sabbath fell with the whole system of which it formed part.

It was not the church changing a day, which was gone before the church existed; the cross abrogated it and all it was connected with. The church could not have existed, had the sign of the covenant made with Israel remained in force as a witness that the covenant remained entire. The sabbath was the witness of man having a share in God's rest under the first covenant; but he could not. The covenant was gone, and the sign with it. The resurrection inaugurated with divine power a new ground on which man could rest — a new scene in which he was to find blessing, when the ordinances of blessing were not to be imposed as law, but revealed in grace and spiritually understood.

Have we not proofs from scripture of the institution of the Lord's day not imposed as law, which would be contrary to the very nature of Christianity, but established in grace? The plainest. First, the Lord Jesus assembled on that day His disciples, and met them: two or three assembled in His name, and He in the midst of them. Next Lord's day He did the same thing. This the Gospels give. The Acts inform us that the disciples met on this day to break bread. In the Epistles the day is remarked as that in which the faithful were to lay by for the poor saints, as God had prospered them; and in the Revelation it is expressly called "the Lord's day" — "kuriake emera," the apostle being peculiarly blessed on it.

76 Such is the scriptural warrant, not for making a law, but for recognizing the Lord's day, the first day of the week, as one of worship and blessing; and so it has ever continued. The word of God gives it according to its unfailing perfection. It does not make a law of an ordinance where grace reigns, but it marks out distinctly the character and blessing of a day given us by grace, as the Lord's day, the day on which He began all things new for our eternal blessing. The Old Testament has, in more places than one, recognized the eighth — that is, the first day after the old week was closed — as the day of special blessing. This was a pertinent figure.

Thus we have seen what tradition affords on one of the topics produced by the author, and what scripture affords on the other; that tradition is obscure, variable, and establishes nothing — can demonstrate nothing — which scripture does not prove; and that scripture is clear and simple. For Lent there is no warrant, and it is not in scripture; and, as to the Lord's day, even to the very name, we have the clearest testimony possible of its observance in scripture.

But you say that the doctrine necessary for salvation was carried down by tradition from the expulsion of Adam from the garden to the time of Moses. If I am to believe tradition, there were writings. Seth, we are told, set up two pillars, and engraved what was necessary to be known, that it might not be lost; and we are told where, which, I am ashamed to say, I forget, and cannot now search for. However, though I judge it certain that the use of letters was far more ancient than is supposed, and that there was in those ancient times a mass of knowledge now lose, of which we have traces in heathen mythology and heathen notions (just shewing how insecure a means it is), and that God has given us just what is needed of it in the scriptures; yet I do not believe in Seth's pillars. At any rate nobody ever read what was on them. But your reference in the case is most untoward; because this tradition was so powerless, that the whole world departed from God, so that He had to bring in the flood to destroy men from off the face of the earth. And after the flood all was so wholly lost, that even Abraham's family were fallen into idolatry (Josh. 24: 2), and God had to begin afresh by a new revelation of Himself to him. There were traces of truth which remained, as sacrifices; but the devil had got such complete hold of them that they offered them to him, not to God. Such was the effect of tradition in the case you quote. Your saying that the reference of sacrifice to a Redeemer to come was known to the Jews by tradition is monstrous. Their prophets are as clear on it as possible.

77 In fine I do not certainly contest that Christ established a church on the earth; no doubt He did. As to her being known by the four marks, we have examined them. Unity is gone; and universality is gone with it, as you admit you only claim a majority, which upsets both; apostolicity breaks down, for the Greeks have it more than you (for they have not a double and treble line of popes for a long while, as Rome has had). As to sanctity, we will speak of it hereafter. And, moreover, the marks are not marks at all; for the church was as true when there had been no succession, no catholicity — that is in the days of the apostles — as any can be now. If these marks are a test, the church wanted them when it was truest and purest.

We are next told of the Fathers and of the unity of the church. Of the latter I have spoken already. It is natural that, when men are in possession of a wide field of power, they should not wish it to be broken up. We have already seen that the true church, the body of Christ, united livingly to Him by the power of the Holy Ghost, is, and must be, as seen of God, always one; and that it will shine forth as one in glory. And we have seen that what is called the church-Christendom — is divided; and that the boast of the Romish body of being one within itself proves nothing as to the unity of the whole church; while the truth is that nothing can be more evident than this, that it is not the true church at all but the most corrupt of any body that pretends to the name; its marks fallacious; while, as to truth and holiness and spiritual union with a heavenly Head, she avoids the test of truth, belies in practice the test of holiness, as every honest conscience knows and as I shall shew hereafter, and has another head of unity on earth in place of Christ.

78 I will now, therefore, speak a little of the Fathers whom you adduce as witnesses. Only remark, that the Fathers cannot tell us whether the visible church is one now (the only really important point), for the plainest of all reasons, that they lived centuries ago. If they only tell us that it began in unity, we do not want them for that, because the scriptures are plain enough upon it, historically and doctrinally. Only that unity they shew to us was composed of real saints quickened of God, though false brethren were already creeping in unawares, as we learn from Jude, and the mystery of iniquity already at work, as Paul teaches us. They shew divisions always ready to break out, restrained by God's grace and apostolic care; they shew that there ought to be unity, but a unity which is called the unity of the Spirit; the power of God by the Holy Ghost, keeping the true members of Christ bound together in one body — not a vast body of persons, three-quarters of them infidels, and few of the rest doing more than going through a routine of forms. The scriptures shew us such a unity as God can create and own. The Fathers may echo it as a duty, but cannot tell us what is now.

But we will spend a word on them. The name sounds well and seems to claim respect. Some of them were godly men, a very few martyrs for the Lord's name, a few more confessors in persecution — a real crown of glory for a Christian; but as to doctrine, they (and in particular some of those who suffered) are the loosest, wildest, most absurd, writers that ever wrote a book, to make sober men wonder how any one could possibly read such a mass of nonsense, bad morals, and heresy. If books containing such doctrine as is found for the most part in the Fathers, notions with such an absence of common sense, and such morals, were written now, every honest Christian in the country would forbid them to his children, or they would lie a lumber, so as to render such a prohibition unnecessary; while, as for the doctrine of some of them, Christians would be apt to burn the books, and Romanists the writers. This will scandalize some people, perhaps; but as people are talking so much about the Fathers, it is better the truth should be told. I admit piety is found in some, and, on some points, doctrinal truth in part of others; but there is not a child's religious book in these days which would not contain more and sounder truth than a whole folio of the "Fathers."

79 All the early Fathers held the millennial reign of Christ, which is now rejected by Romanists, to shew how much their authority weighs where it does not suit. Most of the Antenicene Fathers were unsound as to the Person of Christ, and corrupted by Platonism.

You may think that this is mere Protestant abuse of authorities which are against us; but we have already seen that you are not much acquainted with them, and I shall produce the highest Romanist authority for what I say. The very learned Petau, a Jesuit, a man whose theological works are of standard reputation in the Romish body, after speaking of heretics, says, "Others were indeed Christians, and Catholics, and saints; but as the times then were, that mystery (of the divinity of Christ) being not yet sufficiently clearly known, they threw out some things dangerously said" — (Pet. de Trin., lib. 1, c. 3, s. 1.) Poor Jerome, at a loss to maintain their orthodoxy, says, "It may have been that they have erred through simplicity (simpliciter), or have written in another sense, or that by unskilled editors (copyists) their writings have been by degrees corrupted, or at least, before Arius, as a mid-day demon, was born, they have said things innocently and less cautiously, and which cannot escape the calumny of perverse men" — (Hierom. Cont. Ruffinum, lib. 2, 17, Ver.)

Now I have no objection to take the excuses of Jerome; but if, in such a fundamental point as the divinity of the Lord Jesus, such excuses have to be made for them, what can be said of their authority? This is said by Jerome, when the famous Clement of Alexandria, presbyter, and Dionysius, patriarch of Alexandria, were stated by another Father, the first to have said that the Son of God was a created being, and the latter to have fallen into Arianism, as he surely did when writing against the Sabellians; and, when it was objected against him, said he did not mean it. Jerome will not allow that their writings were corrupted by heretics. The title of this chapter of Petavius is this: "The opinions of certain of the ancients on the Trinity, who flourished in the Christian profession before the times of Arius, discordant from the Catholic rule, at least in the manner of speaking, are set forth; as of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clemens Romanus." Think of all these eminent Fathers, if we except perhaps Tatian, holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith on the subject of the divinity of Christ, or at least expressing themselves so! What a comfortable security for right interpretation! I do not pretend that Petavius is warranted in all he says;* but if so very learned a Jesuit judges the Antenicene Fathers thus, even if some of them may be speciously defended (as the Protestant bishop Bull, and the Jesuit Zacharia, and Horsley, and Burton, have attempted to do), while some certainly cannot, what possible reliance can be placed on them? And remember, that it is on the capital point of the divinity of Christ.

{*Clement calls Christ "the sceptre of the majesty of God"; and he quotes the Old Testament as calling Him "the Holy of Holies." He says, on the other hand, that God had chosen the Lord Jesus Christ; and this is all on the subject. Petavius, I apprehend, had it only secondhand, and refers to both epistles, one not being authentic; but they are now published.}

80 Let us now give a few details. Justin Martyr, and, it seems, Athenagoras (and it was a common notion) held that Christ existed in the Father as His word or reason, and became a distinct person only for the purpose of creation. Justin denies the possibility of the supreme omnipotent God coming, going, acting, descending, or shutting Himself up in a narrow body, as described in Genesis; and that Abraham, Isaac, etc., never saw the Father, and Ineffable, and of Himself Lord of all things aplos, and therefore of Christ Himself, who is God by His will, His son and messenger, because He is the minister of His will. — (Dial. c. Tryph. 282, 286.) This is Arianism; yet, in other places, he speaks of Him clearly as God. Clement of Alexandria uses language which makes his doctrine as to the Godhead of Christ uncertain. He says that He had a nature nearest or very near (parechestate) to the Father; and, as to the humanity of Christ, he writes what is utterly heterodox, denying that Christ could possibly be nourished by food, and saying that He only ate that people might not think He only appeared to have a body.

As to Origen, he was as heretical as he well could be. He unequivocally declares the Son to be inferior to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son; and held that all men had lived before they were born, and were born here according to their previous merits, could recover themselves here, and be saved, as could the devil, and, as it seems, when in a heavenly state fall, for all that, afterwards: in a word, every wild notion that might grace a Mormon.

81 Tertullian received Montanus and the Phrygian prophetesses as having or being the Paraclete, and treated the Catholics as carnal. The term by which Arius was finally condemned, and which had been condemned as heretical by the previous Council of Antioch, was withdrawn after the Council of Nice, and Arius was thereupon received into, and died in the communion of, what is called the Catholic church, this famous word being revoked; and Athanasius died in banishment, deposed from his see by the Council of Tyre. Now, I am satisfied that Arius's views are the most deadly error possible. But what, then, can I think of the Fathers, if compelled to think of them?

Hermas, who is presented as an apostolic Father, tells us, in his Similitudes, that the Son (seen in his vision) was the Holy Ghost; and that God took counsel with the angels what to do with Him; and He made a pure body, and put Him into it, and that was the Christ. Yet this book, we are assured, was read in the churches.

And now for one or two further details. Ignatius, you tell us, was bishop of Antioch after Peter had fixed his chair at Rome. You are aware that it is contested that Peter was at Rome. It seems, indeed, almost impossible. However the succession of the bishopric of Antioch is nearly in the same obscurity as that of Rome, probably because they had not at the beginning such bishops as afterwards. Euodias is alleged to be the first at Antioch: some say Peter put him into it, others Paul. The most authentic histories declare he became bishop of it after the death of both. Some, to clear up matters, say that Ignatius had the Gentiles, and Euodias the Jews, and then Ignatius both. If this were the case, it is possible this may have created difficulties in his own path, and this is that which makes him speak so feelingly of adhering to the bishop, for such is his principal subject. His exhortations to unity and avoiding heresy are all very well, though there is evidently an excessive excitement produced by the thought of a man just going to martyrdom, and very full of it, and (I must say) not very full of Christ. Blessed as his end may have been, Polycarp and the Vienne martyrs shine, it seems to me, much more brightly. There is more peace, more calmness, more humility. Still it was given to Ignatius to honour his Lord by giving up his life for Him, and every true Christian will honour him.

82 I have already remarked that you have taken Clement of Alexandria for Clement of Rome, and I have said what is needed on the former, who was the head of the school at Alexandria, and not a bishop at all. He avows that he must conceal all the highest parts of Christianity as known to the initiated, and only say what suits the public. He was more a philosopher than anything else. Tertullian, as I have said, was forced out of what is called the Catholic church by its worldliness and evil, and, after having written to prove it right by prescription, left it as a hopeless case. Cyprian in the main was a bright specimen of the Fathers, and a martyr; but he resisted Rome energetically, and never yielded, maintaining a correspondence with a famous bishop of Asia Minor, Firmilian, to resist its principles. Even he speaks of the Father commanding us to worship Christ, just as Socinus did. As to what is quoted from Hilary, one of the best of the Fathers, I cordially agree with his very scriptural statement. Whether Rome be that church is another question. No such unity as he speaks of exists now at all. St. Augustine too was a bright light for the times — I have nothing to object to what is quoted from him. That modern Rome is the church is our question. The church redeemed by Christ's blood He purifies by the word, and presents to Himself a glorious church. All its members are members of Christ, and will be in glory; but this no Romanist ever pretends to be the case with Rome.

As regards what I have stated as to the Antenicene Fathers being obscure as to fundamentals, I do not deny that passages may be found shewing that they held Christ to be God — there are many. But it is not denied that there are many which deny that He was the God over all, o epi panton Theos, that being ascribed to the one supreme God. It cannot be denied that Justin Martyr, for example, teaches, in reasoning with Trypho as to the Being who visited Abraham, that it could not be the supreme God, who is the Lord of the Lord on earth (that is, of Christ in these appearances to the old Fathers) as being Father and God, and is the cause of His being both powerful and Lord and God (I use the translation of a learned and orthodox theologian). The passage is to be found in Dial. c. Tryph. 388 E. Justin declares (Dial. c. T. 283 A.), that it was not the supreme God who appeared to Moses in the bush. Trypho had said there was an angel and God there. Justin answers, that even so it was not God the Creator of all things. On the other hand, he declares, pages 227-8, that there neither is, nor ever was, any other God than He who created all things, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who led the Jews out of Egypt. He held (and it is not denied to have been the general doctrine of the Antenicene Fathers) that the wisdom of God, which dwelt in Him always, came out, as it were, into distinct existence, in order to the creation by the will of the supreme God. They owned Him to be God, but His eternal existence was endiathetos and not prophorikos. There was more than one source of this. First, they had only the Septuagint Greek translation, which in Proverbs 8 reads, "The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways," ektise (not possessed me, ektesato). Secondly, Platonism, to which indeed Justin refers, and the efforts to meet the accusations of the heathens as to God the Son, to which the Platonic doctrine of the logos afforded a reply.

83 Now I do not desire to accuse these Fathers of heresy, save Origen. But I am forced to read a mass of barbarous folio volumes to know what they do hold, and there I find Platonism in abundance. There I find it denied, over and over again, that Christ is God over all. There I find Him spoken of as having personal existence only just before the creation, and existing by the will of the supreme God as His minister or servant. I find indeed, when they are not philosophising or meeting difficulties, that their own faith was for the most part more orthodox. But if I want to make orthodox theology out of them, I am obliged to read another set of volumes, in which Romanists deny and affirm their orthodoxy, as in Zacharia's edition of Petavius' Dogm. Theol.; and Protestants labour honestly, as Bull, and Burton, and Horsley, and Kaye, to prove they are all right and orthodox against Romanists and Unitarians; declaring that these learned Romanists undermine the orthodoxy of the Fathers, that there may be no resource but the church, and proving very clearly that the Unitarians are utterly unfounded in what they have said. But what security does this afford for the truth? — what reliance can be placed on the Fathers?

If I turn to scripture, nothing can be plainer. I may try to reason against it; but there I find, without any discussion or philosophy at all, that Christ is "God over all blessed for evermore"; that He and the Father are one; that He "was in the beginning with God, and was God." I find that when Isaiah (chap. 6) saw the glory of Jehovah of hosts, he saw the glory of Christ. In 1 John 5 I find that He is the true God and eternal life. I find that He created all things; Heb. 1; Col. 1; John 1. In a word, I find the proper eternal divinity of the Lord Jesus, and His distinct personality, taught as plainly as any truth possibly can be. John the baptist goes before Jehovah's face, but it is before Christ. God with us, who saves the people, is Christ, the God-man (an expression, by the bye, condemned as heretical by an early council — men were to say God and man) revealed as plainly as testimony can make it; yet the unity of the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) shining through every page, from Genesis to Revelation. I am not, of course, bringing all the proofs of the Trinity in unity here (it would be out of place?; I quote only a few passages to shew the positiveness and clearness of scripture, which gives these great foundations without a cloud and without hesitation.

84 The author quotes the Fathers on the sanctity of the church. I have not need to say much here. The Fathers cannot tell us what the Romish body is now. No one denies in the abstract that holiness is a characteristic of the true church of God. But the manner in which this truth is treated is singularly characteristic. The Fathers shew "the sanctity of the Catholic church in her origin, in her first preachers, in her doctrine, and in her sacraments." Now is it not singular that her practice is left out here? I should have thought that the first thing holiness would have to be sought in was practice. That the church's origin is holy is certain, for it is God Himself; and, as to power, the Holy Ghost glorifying Christ in the gospel. That her first preachers were is no less sure, for they were apostles, and prophets, and saintly evangelists; that her doctrine was is doubtless true, for we have it in the scriptures from God Himself, and are assured that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; that her sacraments, as moderns call them, were, no Christian will dispute either, if the term be rightly used. But then this only leads us to inquire, since this was so in the beginning, whether the doctrine and practice of Rome be like this; and if it be not, then we must conclude that she is not the true church, nor even like it.

But this question of practice our author avoids; it is too practical a one. Only, after a quotation from Tertullian on apostolic succession as a security for doctrine, which has nothing to say to holiness (Tertullian, who broke with the Catholic church, so called, because of its looseness), we just find "holy" in the virtuous lives of her children who observe her precepts. That reserve saves a good deal. We are told too, that the Fathers say there cannot be sanctity out of the Catholic church; but would it not be better to shew that there was in what called itself so? Now I have already given a quotation from Cyprian (and others could be added) which shews that, in some two hundred years after Christ, the self-called Catholic church was sunk into the lowest excesses of vanity, corruption, fraud, and avarice, bishops and all; so that God, he says, treated them most gently in sending the Decian persecution. Indeed the choice of bishops was more than once the occasion of bloodshed and war; yet Cyprian was a great stickler for unity.

85 On the catholicity of the church I have already spoken. That the Fathers used the testimony of the church universal against heretics is quite true; nor, though not a final authority, are they to be much blamed, when it was universal. But we have seen they were not preserved by it themselves, nor was the church; and the question still remains, Is the Romish system in the truth? The Fathers, with their usual inconsistency, when not pressed by the heretics, equally declared that the scriptures alone were authority. They argued, and argued as it suited them. Thus Cyprian, against those who deserted what he belonged to, preached unity as obligatory. But this same Cyprian was exceedingly opposed to the pope and Romans on the re-baptizing of heretics, and wrote against the pope, and never would yield to him. Stephen, the said pope, urged "Let nothing be innovated on what has been handed down" (traditum). Hereupon our good Father changes all his language. "Whence," he cries out, "is that tradition? Does it descend from the authority of the Lord* and the Gospels (Evangelica), and come from the commandments and Epistles of the apostles? For God bears witness that these things are to be done which are written, and speaks to Joshua, the son of Nun, saying, 'The book of this law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all things that are written therein.' If, therefore, it is commanded in the Gospels, or contained in the Epistles of the apostles, or the Acts, that those coming from whatever heresy should not be baptized, but only hands imposed on him in penance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed. . . . What obstinacy is that! [in the pope, remember.] What presumption to prefer human tradition to a divine disposition, and not take notice that God is indignant and angry, as often as human tradition sets aside, and passes by, divine precepts, as He cries out and says by Esaias the prophet, 'This people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.' Also the Lord, in the Gospel, reproving and blaming, lays it down, and says, 'Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may establish your tradition,' mindful of which precept the blessed apostle Paul himself also warns and instructs, saying, 'If any one teach otherwise, and do not acquiesce in the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and His doctrine, he is puffed up with pride, knowing nothing: from such turn away.'" — (Ep. 74, ed. Oxon.) Here every tradition is to be judged by scripture. O si sic omnia! and this is a pope!

{* De Dominica et Evangelice autoritate, which I have translated Gospels, because we have apostles and their epistles in the next phrase.}

86 The truth is, the Fathers were men, and reasoned as it suited them. The scriptures are the word of God, and speak plainly. "He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." But the letter of our good prelate affords us some further and excellent advice — "It is simple with religious and simple minds, both to lay aside error, and find and dig out the truth. For if we revert to the head and origin of divine tradition, human error ceases [we must remember that tradition means any doctrine delivered by word or writing]; and the principle (ratione) of the celestial sacraments being considered, whatever lay hid in obscurity and a cloud of darkness, it will be brought out into the light of truth. If a canal, which conducts water that before flowed copiously and abundantly, suddenly fails, do not men go to the fountain, that there the reason of the failure may be known — whether, the veins being dried up, the water has dried up at the source? or whether, being perfect there and full, running forward, failed mid-way? that if it be caused by the fault of an interrupted or leaky canal, which hinders the water from flowing constantly and without interruption, the canal being re-made and strengthened, the water collected for the use and drinking of the city may be re-presented with the same richness and purity as it flows from the fountain, which now is what the priests of God, keeping the divine precepts, have to do. And if in any one (or any thing) the truths have tottered or vacillated, let us return to the original of the Lord, and the gospel (originem Dominicam et Evangelicam), and the apostolic teaching (traditionem), and let the principle of our acting spring from that whence its order and origin has sprung." Here, remark, tradition does not mean what is now received; for the truth was tottering and lost, and he insists on going back from that to what was originally delivered.

87 Now we have gone up to the fountain, as Cyprian recommends, and we have found a rich and inexhaustible fountain of pure water of life in the very same source which he urged men to go to. We have found that the canal has been choked with filth; so that, though a little water has oozed through, the result has been mud, undrinkable and contaminated — that the little that trickled through the filth, which has gradually filled up the channel, is utterly tainted; but when the grace of God had led us to the fountain, we have found the water as pure, as fresh, as abundant as ever, and only the more delicious from having found it again. We have found the truth easily discovered and dug out, as Cyprian has said, once arrived at the treasures of the scriptures which God gave. I have already quoted from Irenaeus a passage, where he states that, if we cannot find the solution of all that is in scripture, we are not to look for another God, but leave these things to God, because the scriptures are perfect as spoken by the word of God and His Spirit.

You quote the famous saying of Augustine — that he would not believe the gospel, if the church did not move him to do so. He speaks rather of what led him to do it than as authority. Still it is a very serious statement to find uttered. We will examine it; but you must forgive me for increased hesitation as to your having looked at the original. I am not aware what 2 T. Ep. 53 means exactly; but this passage is in a treatise against a letter of a Manichean, which was called Fundamenti. The old and new editions of epistles have neither of them, in number 53, anything to do with it. However, it may appear as an Ep. in some edition I do not know of. But I have another reason for my hesitation. One would think, from your extract, that it was a continuous passage. This is in nowise the case. You read — "Lastly, the name itself of Catholic. These so many and so great ties bind the believing man to the Catholic church; and unless the authority of the church induced me to it, I would not believe the gospel." Between "Catholic" and "these" there is nearly as much as you have quoted; but that is no matter, for it does not change the sense. But when you say, "These so many and so great ties," I can hardly suppose you translate for yourself. It runs — "These so many and so great (tanta), most dear or cherished, ties of the Christian name bind."

88 Now, the sentiment is left out in what you say. His affections were in play, and this he expressly speaks of in what follows in contrast with the certainty of truth; and the last and famous phrase is in quite another connection — nearly half a page of my copy farther on, and in another section. Nor have you ever finished the phrase which you end with "Catholic church." This I will do for you. You see you cannot be surprised if I believe you did not read the passage which you quote; for certainly your manner of quoting it would lead your reader to suppose it was one continuous paragraph. St. Augustine writes — "Lib. Cont. Epist. Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti, sec. iv" (v. in another edition) — "These, therefore, so many and so great most dear* ties of the Christian name keep the believing man in the Catholic church, though, on account of the slowness of our intelligence or the merit of our life, the truth does not yet clearly (or openly) shew itself." That is, his affections — perhaps I might say superstitions — linked him to the church, though he did not see the truth clear. What a different thing from being a security for the truth! And so little was it intelligence of the truth that he is speaking of, that he begins his reasoning by saying, that simplicity of faith keeps the crowd safe, not vivacity of intelligence; and therefore, if he leaves aside the wisdom which Manicheans did not believe to be in the Catholic church, many other things would hold him quietly in its bosom. This shews what the dear ties were, and how little it had to do with the certainty of truth.

{*One or two manuscripts read "clarissima," instead of "charissima," but the Benedictine editors do not receive it.}

But this is clearer still, if we cite all that follows the words, "the believing man to the Catholic church." I finished that phrase for you just now; I will now add what comes after the close of it — "But with you" [Manicheans, who were not Christians at all, held there was a good God and a bad one; they had a gospel of their own, Manes having, as was pretended, perfected with far clearer light what Christ had taught, and rejecting much of the scriptures] "but with you, where there is nothing of these things (the most dear ties) which should invite or hold me, the promise of the truth alone resounds; which indeed, if it be so manifestly shewn that nothing can come into doubt, is to be preferred to all those things by which I am held in the Catholic [church]. But if it is only promised, and not exhibited, no man shall move me from that faith which binds me, by so many and such bonds, to the Christian religion."

89 Now here the bonds which did hold him were of no force if the truth was elsewhere, so that he does not look at them as themselves the truth. But, further, however confident he was that it was not the case, yet, if the truth were clearly shewn elsewhere, they lost their power, so that they did not in themselves secure the truth. Is it not singular all this part should be left out? But he proceeds to reason with the Manichean, to see if he has the truth. It is a mere argumentation to put the Manichean out of the field by beating his argument; and here it is we find the famous phrase you and others quote. This piece, called Fundamenti, began — "Manichaeus, apostle of Jesus Christ by the providence of God the Father. These are healthful words from the perennial and living fountain." "Bear with me," says Augustine, "if I do not believe he is an apostle. I ask, who is he? You will answer, an apostle of Christ. I do not believe it. You will have nothing you can say or do. You promised me the knowledge of the truth, and now you compel me to believe what I am ignorant of. Perhaps you will read me the gospel, and thence you will maintain the character assumed by Manichaeus. If, then, you will find any one who does not yet believe the gospel, what will you do with him when he says, 'I do not believe'? But I would not believe the gospel if the authority of the Catholic church did not move me to it. To those, therefore, to whom I have yielded, saying, 'Believe the gospel,' why should I not yield when they say, 'Do not believe Manicheans'? Take your choice. If you say, believe the Catholics, they themselves warn me not to yield any faith to you; wherefore I cannot believe them unless I disbelieve you. If you say, do not believe the Catholics, you will not do right in compelling me by the gospel to [embrace] the faith of Manichaeus, because I believe the gospel by Catholics preaching it."

90 We see at once here, that to put the Manicheans out of court, he insists, that when he attempted to use the gospel to make him receive Manichaeus (Manes) and his doctrine, it could not take effect, because he had believed in the gospel by means of the very Catholics who condemned Manichaeus. Now it is a very foolish and bad sentence; but is merely a reasoning used in an argument ad hominem to frustrate the Manichean by taking the ground from under his feet; and it supposes a person refusing to believe the very gospel he appealed to, and then insisting he could not use the gospel against Catholics, because it was through Catholics he had believed. It is no business of mine to defend Augustine, though he were a bright testimony to the grace of God. His reasonings are often weak and foolish enough, and admitted to be so by Romanists, and I may almost say by himself, for he excuses himself as writing in haste, and admits that, not having been able to meet Manes in the plain sense of scripture, he had turned it into allegories. But the close of the chapter shews clearly what he meant. He had been led to believe the gospel by the preaching of Catholics, and, thus led to it by them, he could not read it as condemning them — an argument which has no force. It is in no way a quiet dogmatic sentence as it is presented. It is to be hoped that he did not mean that when, through the instrumentality of the preaching of the Catholics, he had been brought to believe in it as the word of God, he still held it merely by their authority; because if he really believed it to be God's word, and that he had really faith in it as such, however brought to that conviction, he must believe it, because God had spoken it: otherwise there was no divine faith.

He who received Christ's testimony set to his seal that God is true. Anybody may move me and lead me to receive the Bible; but when I receive it, I have faith in it because God has spoken: otherwise it is mere human faith. It cannot be doubted — for we have his account of it — that the word of God had reached his heart with deep conviction within. It had its own title in his heart. Did he rest this on the church's authority? I hen it was human faith. A man may bring me my father's letter; I recognize it as his. Its authority is not the bringer's, but the writer's, though the fidelity of the messenger may have been necessary for my getting it. Once received, it has my father's authority — the authority of him who wrote it. There is no pretence that "commoveret," the word Augustine uses, can mean the authority. It proves that the church had a practical influence over his mind, which led him to do it; all very well. It was Catholics' preaching which had led him to faith; he was converted from heathen wickedness and Manicheanism; but it was not their previous authority on which the scriptures rested, but an authority over his mind.

91 But I take higher ground than shewing it was a mere argumentative phrase to excuse Augustine. If the principle be the sober judgment of Augustine, that he would not believe unless on the authority of the church, this is not believing because God has spoken, but because the church had. If one tells me something, and another accredits him, and I believe the first because the other declares what he says is true, it is clear I do not believe the former, though I believe the fact he relates; for I do so because I trust another, not him. That is, if I believe the gospel because the church authenticates it, it is because I do not believe it without: that is, God's saying it is insufficient. I do not believe God in it at all. There is no faith in God's word.

But see what ground the Romanists set me on here, for this is the real truth of the matter. God has spoken; the apostles and evangelists have recorded His revelation: if they deny it, they are infidels, not Christians. I am to believe God, because the church accredits what He has revealed. I am to believe the church because Augustine accredits it; that is, the authority of God Himself (who, in sovereign grace, has spoken to us) is reduced to the opinion I may form of the judgment of Augustine. What a favourable position! as if God, when He has spoken, cannot give proof that He has, so as to bind the Christian's, nay, every man's conscience! Now I have a very poor opinion of the judgment of Augustine, and I shall tell you why; but what a foundation on which to rest belief-in what God has said! I must have Augustine's authority for its being true; for if the church accredits the scripture and Augustine accredits the church, the judgment and authority of Augustine is my stay, and the base of the whole. I say, if God has spoken, His word obliges to believe because He has spoken: woe be to him who does not! You plead Augustine's word, that though he has spoken (for you dare not deny this, or you are an infidel) — though God has spoken, you would not believe Him unless the church guaranteed it. Is this faith? God speaks; I cannot believe what He says till some one else accredits it! It is as awful ground to go on as it is unstable and insecure; and this is all the ground that the Romish body can give as security of our faith!

92 The truth is, Augustine was first attracted by Ambrose's preaching, by his kindness and eloquence, and began to doubt his own Manicheanism; but he was converted by the scriptures, and established in the faith by the scriptures. "Therefore," he says, "as we were infirm in finding the truth by mere reason, and the authority of the holy letters was needful for us, I began now to believe that thou wouldst in nowise have given so excellent an authority to the scriptures in all lands, unless thou hadst written that by it I should believe in thee, and by it I should seek thee." This accordingly he did, passing through much conflict; and at last abandoning himself to tears under a fig-tree, he heard a voice saying, "Take and read, take and read"; and he arose, took up the Epistles to look at the first thing he opened at, and found a passage which was his deliverance. Such is his own account in his Confessions when he is relating the facts, not reasoning with Manicheans. He was not very nice in reasoning with these. He wrote a book against them early in his career; and when he could not make any proper sense out of the scriptures literally, or none could be made (so he says), he turned it into an allegory to get out of the scrape, hoping he might do better afterwards; and so, indeed, he tried to do in a treatise on Genesis according to the letter.

As to St. Vincent of Lerins (not Sernis), there is a sentence of his almost as famous as St. Augustine's. It is this, that we were to believe quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, what was believed always, everywhere, and by all. May I guess that you did not quote this famous rule, because you have only, as you allege, a majority — really just half; the Greek church, older than you, thinking you all wrong, and the Protestants thinking you Babylon? If man's opinion and agreement is to be the ground of faith, according to Vincentius Lirinensis, we can have none at all in these days. But the passage you do quote is an unfortunate one, because it was just the very order of Pope Stephanus, which the holy martyr, and the African church, and Firmilian, and Asia Minor, and the East, resisted as subverting the church, and condemned by scripture, in a letter of which I have given an extract.

93 Allow me also to quote a passage of St. Jerome: "Hear another testimony, by which it is most manifestly proved that a presbyter is the same as a bishop" (Tit. 1: 5, seqq.); and then he quotes other passages. "But that afterwards we should be shewn who should have the pre-eminence over the rest, it was done as a remedy for schism, lest every one drawing [people] to himself should break up the church of Christ; for at Alexandria also, from Mark the Evangelist to bishops Heraclus and Dionysius, the presbyters always named as bishop one chosen from among themselves, and placed in a higher grade." . . . "Nor is the church of the Roman city to be esteemed one, and that of all the earth another. Both the Gauls, and Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If authority be sought, the world is greater than a city. Wherever there is a bishop, Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or Alexandria, or Tanis, he is of the same worth, he is of the same priesthood. The power of riches and the humility of poverty make neither a higher nor an inferior bishop; but all are successors of the apostles." Am I attaching any authority to Jerome? The learned but irascible and superstitious monk is one of the last to whom I should; but it is just a proof that these Fathers said what suited them at the moment of writing, as other poor mortals do sometimes — indeed rather more, so that there was a name for their way of reasoning. It was called economical; that is, they used reasoning proper to confute their adversary, without the least believing it was the truth themselves (like Augustine's allegories).

But we are arrived at the sacraments.

As to baptism, except Quakers, all own it as a Christian ordinance, so that the scriptures you quote for that are freely accepted. Moreover every true or even orthodox Christian admits we are all born in sin: only I do not admit the application of John 3 to baptism. There is an allusion to what you have quoted from Ezekiel, which has nothing to do with baptism; but from the very words you quote (and reading the whole passage makes it still plainer), it refers to the restoration of the Jews; and the figure of baptism refers to the reality; just as John 3 does also, where the Lord is telling Nicodemus that he must not marvel because He said to him that they, Jews, who thought themselves already children of the kingdom, must be born again. It was a sovereign operation of God, going like the wind, and hence could embrace Gentiles; but he, as a master in Israel, ought, from his own prophets, to have known that such new birth was needed for Israel, as the passage from Ezekiel, for example, shews. The Lord tells us that the water which really cleanses is the word: "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 12: 48; ch. 15: 3); and Paul, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] by the washing of water by the word," Eph. 5. Baptism refers to this true cleansing, and so does John 3.

94 As to confirmation, you have produced scriptures which shew that the apostles, and apostles alone, conferred the Holy Ghost by laying on their hands; as to "the bishop, the successor of the apostles in the ministry," complete and absolute silence. In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, in which, according to your system, we might have expected it, not a word is to be found. The laying on of the apostles' hands conferred it, and that it might be clear that Paul was as great an apostle as the rest (Acts 19), a case is recorded in which he also did so. You have quoted some other passages which prove anything but this. "He who hath confirmed or established us with you in Christ" — was Paul confirmed along with them? This is too ridiculous. He, at least, says he never went near the other apostles to be confirmed, nor ever received anything from them. When, therefore, he says, "confirmeth us with you in Christ," it is pre-eminently clear he was speaking of nothing of the kind. Besides, bebaion is not the rite of confirmation. And further, it is God here, not an apostle or a bishop, who has done it.

As to anointing, we read, "Ye have the unction of the Holy one, and ye know all things." Again, why not finish Ephesians 1, "in whom also . . . ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption of the purchased possession"? Is confirmation the earnest of the inheritance? But if you say that it is the thing itself which is, and that confirmation is the sacrament by which it is received, then the text speaks of the thing (as it surely does), and not of any sacrament at all. That is, it has nothing to do with the matter. Now that sealing and anointing are the reality of the thing, and not any rite, we have the certainty, because the word of God says, that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power," Acts 10: 38. And again, speaking of Him, "Him hath God the Father sealed," John 6: 27. No one will have the folly to say it could mean a sacrament as to Christ.

95 The history of confirmation is clear enough; we hear of it first early in the third century, yet not separate from baptism, but conferred at the same time and with nothing to say to a bishop. In the next, however, it was soon left to the bishop to do. This separation of it from baptism, and leaving it to the bishop, was not established in the East nearly so soon. It continued an act of the baptizing minister, and is treated even by Jerome as that part of baptism by which the Holy Ghost is received, only left to the bishop in order to maintain his dignity. I give some quotations which shew this.

First, there is Tertullian (De Baptismo, 7, 8). Having spoken of the water, he says, "Next going out of the laver we are anointed with the blessed unction, according to the former discipline (that is, the Jewish), with which they were accustomed to anoint with oil out of a horn for the priesthood, with which Aaron was anointed by Moses, whence Christ has His name from chrism, which means anointing . . . . Then the hand is imposed, calling and inviting the Holy Ghost, in the way of blessing." We see it is distinctly given as a part of baptism, without thinking of a bishop, and that the laying on of the apostles' hands as its source never entered his mind.

In a commentary, commonly attributed to Ambrose, in 4 Ep. ad Eph. (given in Keble's note to Hooker), we read, In Egypt presbyters sealed or signed (that is, confirmed), if the bishop is not present. And in the Apostolic Constitutions, lib. 7: 43, 44 (cap. 28 in ed. J. G. Cotel.) the form of baptism and prayer to be used by the priest is given, and then it is said, And after this, when he shall have baptized him in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, he shall anoint him with myrrh, adding, Lord God unbegotten, etc., cause that this anointing may be efficacious in the baptized, so that the fragrance of thy Christ may remain firm and stable in him, etc. Afterwards there is a prayer for purity, vigilance, etc., by the coming of the Holy Ghost. Now, the Apostolical Constitutions are of the fifth century,* so that the anointing and confirmation was still the baptizing minister's office. When they were composed, it is very possible they were Alexandrian, certainly Greek and Eastern.

{*They are quoted farther on, as being of Clemens Romanus of the first; but that is a mere false pretence.}

96 In Cyprian's time (256) they were brought in the west to the bishop, but on their baptism. Referring to the case of Samaria, he says, "which also is done among us now; that those who are baptized in the church are offered to the presidents of the church, that by our prayer and the imposition of hands they should obtain the Holy Ghost, and be perfected by the Lord's mark" (Ad. Jub. 73, p. 202). And so much was it held to be a part of baptism, that (Ep. 72) the African council say to Pope Stephen, insisting that heretics should be rebaptized as well as have hands imposed, 'Then indeed at length they are fully sanctified, and can be sons of God, if they are born of both sacraments, since it is written, "unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."' Every one knows that all solemn acts or mysteries were called a sacrament in those days; there were seventy or even a hundred of them, for aught any one can tell, if we take the word. I cite this to shew that it was considered as part of baptism. Eusebius quotes a letter of Cornelius (Pope) to the same effect, as to a baptism of Novatus,* on what seemed a death-bed; "for he," the dying man, "did not get the other things which it is necessary to receive according to the rule of the church, nor was sealed by the bishop; and not having got this, how should he get the Holy Ghost?" That is, this was the part of baptism by which, on their system, men got the Holy Ghost — (Euseb. lib. 6: 43, p. 244). We have already seen that these same bishops (to whom Cyprian says persons were brought to be confirmed and anointed, so as to receive the Holy Ghost), he also says, were running through all the provinces to make money by fraud. What a picture of the "Catholic church"!

{*Novatus was sound in the faith, but separated from the so-called Catholic church for its low state of morals, which now began to trouble many consciences.}

But there remains a quotation from Jerome, which will complete the history of this rite* — "I do not, indeed, deny that this is the custom of the churches, that the bishop runs off to those who have been baptized, far from the greater cities, by presbyters and deacons, to lay on his hands for the invocation of the Holy Ghost." . . . "But if you ask in this place why we, baptized in the church, should not receive the Holy Ghost, unless by the hands of the bishop, which we assert to be given in true baptism, learn that this rite descends from that authority, that after the ascension of the Lord the Holy Ghost descended on the apostles; and in many places we find the same practised . . . . Otherwise, if the Holy Ghost came down only on the demand of a bishop, they are to be pitied who, baptized by presbyters or deacons, in small towns or castles, or in remote places, have fallen asleep before they have been visited by bishops."

{*Adv. Lucifer, col. 181, vol. 2.}

97 Remark here, that he overthrows entirely the doctrine of Pope Cornelius, just cited from Eusebius. What a mess these Fathers make of it! "But sometimes the safety of the church depends on the dignity of the chief priests, for if a certain extraordinary power, eminent above all, were not given to him, there would be as many schisms in the church as priests. Thence it happens, that without anointing, and the command of the bishop, neither a presbyter nor a deacon has the right of baptizing, which, however, frequently, if necessity compels, we know to be lawful for the laity to do. For, as one receives anything, so also he is able to give it, unless also the eunuch indeed, baptized by Philip, is to be believed to be without the Holy Ghost." I quote this as shewing — first, that it was a part of baptism; next, that the bishop did it merely as a matter of order and human arrangement, and that after all it was all as good without him, if need was, being reserved merely to maintain order and his dignity, and that even Jerome had not the smallest idea of his conferring the Holy Ghost exclusively as the successor of the apostles. He goes into the case of Samaria; but his reasoning, though to the point as to Lucifer, his adversary, has nothing to do with our subject. For this he only refers to its coming on the apostles (of course, therefore, without laying on of hands), and insists, if the bishop was not there, it was had all the same, quoting as a proof the eunuch of Ethiopia.

I thought a plain history of the facts would be the best means of dispelling the mists and halo which surround the word "Fathers." The earliest, Tertullian, "a most ancient writer, and a man of great erudition," according to the author, speaks of it as a part of baptism done in imitation of Judaism. Gradually this part was reserved to the bishops, for order's sake, but declared by Jerome not to be essential, but a matter of order, and got established gradually, like other superstitious corruptions of early practices, as it is now used. St. Jerome, "that most learned Father and doctor of the church," is unfortunate, for he very satisfactorily refutes on the point what the pope had laid down. Indeed, as I have said, you may prove anything but the truth by the Fathers. They said what suited them in their controversies.

98 But I have another little word to add here. The author, in the quotation alleged to be from Jerome, after the words, "And having invoked the Holy Ghost, lays his hands on them," continues, "Where, will you ask, is this written? In the Acts of the Apostles," etc. Not a word of this latter part is in what Jerome says; on the contrary, he goes on to prove it can be had without it. The author, I suppose from quoting secondhand, without reading the Fathers, has fallen into a sad mistake here. It is the adversary of the orthodox — namely, Lucifer, or a Luciferian — whom Jerome, under the name of "Orthodox," is confuting, who says this. It gives us such a due to the origin of these different rites, that I will quote it. Indeed, Lucifer has in many things, perhaps, the best of it. "Are you ignorant," says this honest but stern resister of Arianism in every shape (Jerome, it appears, rather agreed with Cyprian that heretics should be re-baptized, which the pope would not allow), "that this is the custom of the churches, that hands should be afterwards laid upon the baptized, and that the Holy Ghost should be invoked? Do you ask, Where is it written? In the Acts of the Apostles. Even if the authority of the scripture was not to be had, the consent of all the world on this point would have the force of a precept. For many other things also, which, through tradition, are observed in the churches, have assumed (usurpaverunt) to themselves the authority of a written law."* That is just it. Lucifer was a very faithful, but, as it appears, rigid and somewhat violent man. He was banished by Constantius for refusing to condemn Athanasius. He refused to receive Arian bishops as bishops on retracting their error, and said they must come as laymen. However, Jerome is refuting him in the work quoted from; and the author has quoted Jerome's adversary as Jerome himself. What security for the faith!

{*I may add that the learned editors of Vallarsius' edition, after the Benedictine, acknowledge that Jerome holds that a presbyter can confirm and do all, unless ordain; and they cite different passages I have referred to, and add Pope Innocent's declaration to the contrary, pretty much on the ground of the Luciferian. I add here, Cyril, in his catechism, shews that it was a part of baptism instituted after the analogy of Christ's, who received the Holy Ghost after his. It was always done immediately. See "Life of Basil," by Amphilochus Dionysius, St. Ambrose, Opatus, etc. In confirmation of what I have said of the Greek church, a canon is cited. A presbyter may not sign infants in the presence of the bishop, unless, indeed, he has been desired by the bishop to do it. Infants were confirmed at their baptism. I quote all this note secondhand from Bingham. See Gennadius de Dog. c. 52.}

99 I turn to penance. Your quotations of scripture prove that you have as little consulted it as you have the Fathers. You say, "St. Matthew and St. John record the same event," namely, Christ's coming to His apostles after His resurrection. John states a part of the communication Christ made to His disciples at this interview — the power of forgiving sins; Matthew another part — the power of baptizing and teaching all nations whatsoever Christ had commanded them; and in conclusion, Jesus Christ assures them that He would remain with them to "the end of the world." This you do, in order to shew that the power to forgive sins remains to the end of the world. How can you expose your own ignorance to such a degree, or presume on that of others? The interview mentioned in John 20 was in Jerusalem, the day of the resurrection; and Matthew 28, in Galilee afterwards, the last thing recorded by him before the Lord's ascension. The whole fabric falls, being incorrect in every part.

Now how comes it that for other things the bishops are successors of the apostles, as you tell us? and here "a person must have a very perverse heart, and covered with a dense spiritual blindness," not to see that, on the contrary, all priests are their successors, proving both by the same text of Matthew, which says nothing about either, and thus can be arbitrarily applied to one as well as the other? Again, you quote, "Hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation," as referring to penance; 2 Cor. 5. But the apostle declares that this was preaching the gospel. "Now we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did beseech by us, we pray in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Yet you dare to say, "Can language convey more expressively, more definitively, or more clearly, the power which God gave to the priests, of reconciling the world to Him by the ministry of religion?" All this is foolish trifling. What do you mean by the ministry of religion? The apostle speaks of beseeching by the gospel in Christ's name; you of penance. Are you going to put the world under penance? Is this your embassy?

100 But, further, you have not given a correct account of penance, as Romanists teach it.

You say, "the necessary dispositions — namely, contrition of heart, and a firm purpose of turning from his evil ways." This is not a real account of Romish penance. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, according to which you are ordered to teach your parishioners, states the contrary. The "integral parts are contrition, confession, and satisfaction." "We sin against God by thought, word, and deed; when recurring to the power of the keys, we should, therefore, endeavour to appease His wrath, and obtain the pardon of our sins by the very same means by which we offended His supreme Majesty. In further explanation, we may also add, that penance is, as it were, a compensation for offences which proceed from the free will of the person offending." Again — "On the part of the penitent, therefore, a willingness to make this compensation is required, and in this willingness chiefly consists contrition." But still more clearly, after quoting the Council of Trent, it is said: "From this definition, therefore, the faithful will perceive that contrition does not simply consist in ceasing to sin, purposing to enter, or having actually entered, on a new life: it supposes, first of all, a hatred for sin, and a desire of atoning for past transgressions." You have left all this out. It is easy to talk of contrition of heart; but it chiefly consists in the willingness to make compensation, satisfaction — to atone by one's own free will.

But there is another part of the doctrine you have omitted. "Contrition" (it is still the Catechism which is instructing us), "it is true, blots out sin; but who is ignorant that, to effect this, it must be so intense, so ardent, so vehement, as to bear a proportion to the magnitude of the crimes which it effaces? This is a degree of contrition which few reach; and hence, through perfect contrition alone, very few indeed could hope to obtain the pardon of their sins" (by that they could do without a priest or confession). "It therefore became necessary that the Almighty, in His mercy, should afford a less precarious and less difficult means of reconciliation and of salvation; and this He has done, in His admirable wisdom, by giving to His church the keys of the kingdom of heaven. According to the doctrine of the Catholic church — a doctrine firmly to be believed and professed by all her children — if the sinner have recourse to the tribunal of penance, with a sincere sorrow for his sins, and a firm resolution of avoiding them in future, although he bring not with him that contrition which may be sufficient of itself to obtain the pardon of sin, his sins are forgiven by the minister of religion through the power of the keys."

101 Justly, then, do the holy Fathers proclaim that "by the keys of the church the gate of heaven is thrown open," that is, to sinners who have not repented as they ought: those who have do not want the keys. Penance, then, is substitution for adequate and right repentance — it is making the conscience easy when it has not properly repented, that is, hardening it. Who does not know this to be the case? A conscientious soul, grieved with sin, is miserable because it has not done its penance in a right spirit; a careless, sin-loving heart goes to confession in order to receive at Easter, as they say, and begins its score of sins again merrily, when the old one is wiped out. It is sorry, no doubt, for having committed them when they are over — who would not be? — and afraid not to receive when Easter comes round, and for the moment proposes to do no more such. Real, thorough contrition is not required; penance supplies its place. Contrition, he is taught by his "church," chiefly consists in this willingness to make satisfaction or compensation; and so he gets absolution for the past, and begins over again. Can there be a more iniquitous system? It is not a notion, taken up by the ignorance of these poor sinners, but established by the deliberate teaching of what calls itself the "church." Now, I believe that remission of sins is, or ought to be, administered in the church of God still: first, in reconciling the world — which has nothing to say to the matter we are on now, even as to ordinances, because restoration or penance, whatever form it has, belongs to the church. Heathens are received by baptism, not by penance: whenever a poor Jew or heathen is received into the church, he receives, as to his present manifest standing, forgiveness; he stands before God as a forgiven man: all recognize that he enters by baptism. Further, if a person be justly excommunicated for sin, being a Christian, he is, on restoration, forgiven his sin as to his public standing before God; so that the forgiveness of sins, in this sense of the word, as to a man's manifest standing and condition on the earth, does continue, and will, as long as the church subsists.

102 The history of confession I have already given. Auricular confession is a very modern introduction; it was needed when an easy way of letting off sin was wanted coincidently with the growth of priestly power.* The passage of James, "Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed," is the plain proof that confession to a priest was unknown. It was a useful mutual exercise of charity, so that chastisement might be removed, when the heart was right before God. Was it to priests that many came and confessed their deeds in the passage cited from the Acts, when they burned their books of magic? The reason why baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is valid, and "I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" is not, is a very simple one; it is this — Christ positively ordained one, and did not so much as hint at the other. Besides, you know very well that in case of necessity a layman, nay, a woman, can baptize a child: will you allow the same power in penance? If not, why do you assimilate them, as if one proved the other?

{*Leo shews this epoch when in the West they began to give up public confession for private (Ep. 136, 1, 719); yet he treats public as allowing more faith.}

You quote St. Chrysostom. But he wrote urgently against confession to a priest, as we have already seen. I do not deny that Christ gave power to His church to forgive sins in the sense I have explained it. I believe it to be a glorious truth, that whosoever is rightly in the church is enjoying the absolute, full, unlimited, forgiveness of all his sins. But we are talking of auricular confession to a priest, and of satisfaction and penance substituted for real full contrition, in order to have it.

I come now to the Eucharist. I have already remarked that you have not ventured to say one word for the mass; you seek to justify transubstantiation, not the sacrifice. You quote John 6. There are three points in this chapter as to Christ: He is the bread come down from heaven (that is, the incarnation); there is His flesh and blood (that is, His death); and His ascending up where He was before. In all we are to own Him. The Lord's supper most preciously presents Him in one of these. It presents a dead Christ, the body broken, and the blood shed. You say the Jews took Him literally; but they certainly knew nothing about the Lord's supper. "The disciples," you add, "knew likewise that Christ meant what He said." . . . "The sublime mystery they did not comprehend." But then they did not understand Christ at all, but took Him quite wrong; and therefore the Lord corrects them, and says, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." He takes care they should understand He did not mean them to rest in the letter of what He said. They took Him according to the letter. They were quite wrong. Many, supposing He meant it literally, went away. The rest held to Him, because His words were eternal life.

103 You urge that God could make man out of slime, Eve out of a rib, and a pillar of salt out of Lot's wife. No doubt; but when He made a man, he was a man in form. He did transubstantiate the mud. But a man was a man to all intents and purposes, not to all intents and purposes (save your telling us otherwise) unchanged mud. He did not look or taste like slime, remain unable to move, speak, think, and go on as before. So of Eve: nobody, when she was changed, could take her for a rib. God gave proof to man of the change. So in the case of Lot's wife. Here there is none — no sign of God's power of any kind. We must believe, we are told, not reason. Yes, if God has taught it.

You quote John 6, and you quote, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven," words as plain as "this is my body." Am I to believe that Christ was transubstantiated into living bread? The words are just as plain, just as positive: why not believe them? Are we to eat Him incarnate and alive on earth? Where? Yet "he that eateth of that bread shall live for ever." In the Lord's supper I cannot, for His body is presented broken, not whole; His blood shed, not in His body. But again, the Lord declares that whosoever eats Him, as He describes, is fully and finally saved.* They "shall live for ever." They "have everlasting life, and he will raise them up at the last day." "They abide in Christ, and Christ in them." That is, it is the real vital saving possession of Christ by faith in the perfect efficacy of His life and work, in which those who possess will abide, and Christ raise them up, consequently, at the last day. But this is confessedly not true of all who partake of the Eucharist. That is, the passage does not refer to it; it refers to what the Eucharist refers to. Further, the terms of the institution preclude the literal sense; for, whatever image He employed, it could not then be literally Himself; because His body was not yet given, His blood was not yet shed, and this is what it is expressly a sacrament of. The Lord plainly shews what He meant in saying, "This cup is the new testament in my blood," which is clearly a figure; and "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine," Matt. 26. Nothing can be plainer. But the Lord did not really hold in His hand a broken body and shed blood; for His body was not broken and His blood was not shed. Yet that is of the very essence of the truth, for it was shed for the remission of sins, and there was no remission without it. In a word, the testimony is as plain as possibly can be, that the literal sense is untrue and impossible; shed blood there was none. Now Christ is glorified. There is no dead Christ; it cannot be He in reality — He in the letter; for there is no such Christ in reality as broken and His blood shed. He is alive for evermore. 1 Corinthians 10 is the plainest of all in reality;** it speaks of the body as broken.

{*Had not the Vulgate unquestionably given a false translation, another proof would here suggest itself: "Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood, ye have no life." In the Romish system they have life by baptism. The Vulgate reads, Ye shall have no life; still, as addressed to Jews, as it was, the force is the same. For it was not by the Eucharist they were to get life, but by baptism.}

{**The Vulgate, in all these passages, has unequivocally corrupted the text (at least translated it untruly), but it changes nothing of the substance of the argument. See the previous note. To say a Jew should not have life but by eating the Eucharist is denying his having life by baptism. Take it as feeding by faith on Christ's death, and all is clear.}

104 As regards a mouse eating it, I am not fond of such arguments; because, though I do not believe lifeless bread to be my living Lord, save as faith realizes Him, yet it is a memorial of Him, and there is no profit in irreverent associations. Yet you have in nothing met the argument in the smallest degree. According to your system, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ are there; yet it cannot help itself against a mouse. The argument has the same bearing as Isaiah's. The idolater makes a fire with part of a tree, warms himself, roasts at it, and says of the rest, It is a god, and worships it. Here a mouse eats it; it is turned into corruption; and you adore the rest as God. The argument may be a painful one, but it is complete. He cannot deliver himself, says Isaiah: a deceived heart has turned him aside; he cannot say, I have a lie in my right hand. When the Lord says, "Do this in remembrance of me," it was saying it was a memorial of Him when He was gone, not His presence. But there is no life in the wafer. It is monstrous to say it is God, and eat it literally, let Fathers say what they may. It is not a living Christ; were it so, it were no sacrifice either, nor shedding of blood. I live by the life of a living Christ; I feed, commemoratively, on a dying one (such as, blessed be God, He can be no more, and is not now). Hence the cup, and drinking the cup, are essential to the import of the sacrament, and that the blood be nowhere else; for, if not shed, there is no remission.

105 And now mark the amazing import of this point. The Romanist as such does not partake of the cup. The reason, as is alleged, that it is all the same, is what is called the doctrine of concomitancy — that each element contains all — that in the bread the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ are all found. Now, if the blood be in the body, there is no sacrifice, no redemption, no remission of sins. Without shedding of blood, says the Holy Ghost (Heb. 9), there is no remission. Now, if the blood be in the body, it is not shed. That is, the poor Romanist — and with it I do not reproach him but what calls itself the Catholic church, and the enemy of souls — the poor Romanist has the sacrament of there being no redemption, or no remission of sins; for, as he receives it, His blood is yet in the body. Think how the enemy has mocked his poor soul! No doubt the Fathers spoke of it as the flesh and blood of Christ; but they say plainly now — I repeat I do not cite them as of weight, for there is no one less worthy of authority than they — but, as an historical fact, they say sufficient (not certainly to shew that they were not superstitious enough, but) that superstition had not travelled in five centuries as far as it had in fifteen. It went faster with the people than even the clergy, in some respects, for they brought in their heathen habits. Of this anon. I will quote enough from them to shew that, when it suited them in argument, they say the contrary of Romish doctrine: it is very possible, when it suits them or their imagination is at work, they teach it too. It just shews what they are worth. The mere saying, "flesh and blood," means nothing.

106 But to the point. First; when the controversies as to the two natures of Christ were on foot, and yet earlier, on the possibility of His taking flesh, which the Gnostic heretics denied, they insist on the bread being there when He is spiritually or divinely present, as a proof that the two things can be together. Here their whole point was, that it was still bread; just as His flesh, as a living man, was true flesh, which the heretics denied. Thus Tertullian: "He made the bread, received and distributed to His disciples His body, saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body; but it would not have been a figure unless the body was truly such; for an empty thing, which is a phantasm, cannot have a figure." The reader must know that early heretics denied that Christ had a real body: Tertullian argues, from the Eucharist being a figure of His body, that the body must be real. Irenaeus argues in the same way, and is very positive as to the bread being there after the consecration, of which he speaks: "For when the bread, which is from the earth, receives the invocation of God, it is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two things, earthly and heavenly; so our bodies," etc.

So Augustine (after saying that people said Christ was immolated at Easter, and constantly, though He never was but once long ago, and could be but once) says, "For if the sacrament had not a certain similitude of these things whereof they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; but from this similitude they receive, for the most part, even the name of the things themselves." What can be plainer? "For the Lord did not hesitate to say, This is my body, when He gave the sign of His body." "The feast at which He commended and delivered to His disciples the figure of His body and of His blood" (on Psalm 3). "He who abides not in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, beyond all doubt neither eats His flesh nor drinks His blood, although he eats and drinks for judgment on himself the sacrament of so great a thing" (in Joann. Tract. 26: 18). Chrysostom is quoted also, as saying, "Before the bread is sanctified we call it bread; but, divine grace sanctifying it through the ministry of the priest, it is freed from the name of bread, and judged worthy of the appellation of the Lord's body, although the nature of bread remains in it" (Epist. ad Caesarium).

This last quotation has a very curious history. It was quoted by Peter Martyr. The Romanists cried, Forgery. Peter Martyr deposited it at Lambeth. It was taken away in Queen Mary's reign. Bigot published it at Paris (he was a Romanist). The edition was suppressed, but the Archbishop of Canterbury got the sheets as they passed through the press, and published it in England; and others have done so.

107 These may suffice to shew that, rapidly as superstition grew, four or five centuries (that is, as long ago as Edward III) had not sufficed to obliterate the original doctrine of the church of God. It was made a dogma of the church only in the thirteenth century, in the Lateran Council, under Innocent III, the bloody instigator of the crusades against the Albigenses in the south of France, and the establisher of the Inquisition. In the tenth it was openly disputed, many prelates supporting the writer; and in the ninth was openly maintained, and the author not condemned as heretical at all, that transubstantiation did not take place. The reader may remark that several of the quotations I have given are from writers whom the author has quoted, shewing, when speaking soberly, how little they attributed to their own words the force which is attributed to them; or rather they spoke rhetorically about it in discourse, and shewed at other times it was only rhetoric. Again, what a ground to put our faith upon in order to receive it!

But I will add some other passages of the Fathers, shewing distinctly, as a learned Romanist has admitted, that, up to Chrysostom, the church did not really hold transubstantiation as a doctrine, however rhetorically individuals may have spoken. I attach no kind of importance to their opinion but historically, as the Romanists lean on them; it shews what a broken reed his way of assuring true doctrine is, and that is our point now.

The passage of Justin Martyr quoted by the author proves the contrary of that for which he cites it. Justin treats the Eucharist as bread, wine, and water, and as nothing else literally. The author has not, as so often has occurred, given the whole passage. "This food," he begins. What food? Hear Justin. "Those called among us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread, and wine, and water, over which thanks have been given, and carry it away to the absent, and this food is called among us Eucharist . . . . For we do not receive these things as common bread nor as common drink; but in the same way." (This the author has entirely changed; I suppose, as usual, quoting from a text-book. How honest they are — that is, the instructors of the Romish body — we have seen by this time.) "As by the word of God, Jesus Christ, our Saviour, being made flesh, had flesh and blood for our salvation, so also the nourishment by which flesh and blood, through change [into them], are nourished, over which thanks have been given, through prayer of the word which is from Him, we have been taught to be the flesh and blood of that Jesus made flesh." Now here, whatever it was to their faith, it was really and substantially bread, and wine, and water, such as nourished the natural body. No Romanist could say that bread and wine and water were given to be partaken of by each person present, nor that they took what nourished their body, on being changed into it. Hence the author, or his text-book, omits it.

108 Theodoret, in answering the Eutychians who held that there was only one nature in Christ, says, "He that called His own natural body wheat and bread, and gave it the name of a vine, He also honoured the visible symbols or elements with the name of His body and blood, not changing their nature, but adding grace to nature" (Dial. 1, tom. 4, p. 17). The Eutychian heretic Eranistes (Dial. 2, P. 85, ed. Schulze 4: 126) says, "As the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before the invocation of the priest, but after invocation are changed, and become another thing, so also the body of our Lord, after its assumption, was changed into the divine substance." Theodoret replies, "Thou art taken in thine own net which thou hast made; for neither do the mystical symbols depart from their own nature after consecration, for they remain in their former substance, figure, and form," ousias kai tou schematos kai tou eidous. This is most unequivocal. Indeed, the controversy with the Eutychians and Monophysites, who confounded the divine and human natures in Christ, proves clearly that transubstantiation was not believed in. They used the fact of its being still bread and wine against the Eutychian doctrine, as they had against the Gnostics the fact of their being material creatures.

So Ephrem of Antioch, "The body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its own sensible substance, and yet it is united to spiritual grace; and so baptism, though it becomes wholly a spiritual thing and but one thing, yet it preserves the property of its sensible substance, I mean water, and does not lose what it was before." (Quoted by Photius, cod. 1: 229.)

109 Pope Gelasius writing also against Nestorians and Eutychians on the two natures in Christ, says, "Doubtless, the sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we receive are a divine thing, on account of which, by them, we become partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine does not cease to exist." (Facund. lib. 9, c. 5.) "As the sacrament of His body and of His blood, which is in the bread and consecrated cup, we call His body and blood, not that the bread is properly His body, and the cup His blood, but because they contain in them the mystery of His body and blood. Hence the Lord also Himself called the bread He had blessed, and the cup which He delivered to His disciples, His body and blood."

This may suffice. The real historical truth is that, when they departed from the simplicity of scripture, they got into the doctrine of a union of grace and bread in the sacrament, and then into a kind of consubstantiation, such as Luther held. When Paschasius Radbert had taught something more than this, he was violently opposed by many church authorities. Berengarius, who taught the contrary, was at last, and indeed more than once (though supported by church authorities), being persecuted by Hincmar, forced to retract; and at last, as I have said, in 1215 transubstantiation was made a dogma of the faith, but never before.

Romanism - Part 3

Romanism: or an answer to the pamphlet of a Romish Priest, entitled "The Law and the Testimony."

J. N. Darby.

<18003E> {file section c.}

109 Next we have extreme unction, for which you have not much to say. What has the account in the Acts, of the apostles healing the sick by anointing them, to do with extreme unction? Intimated by Mark, says Trent. Why intimated? Was healing the sick the sacrament of dying men, to go prepared into God's presence? This is too absurd. And James says, "Is any sick?" not when they are dying, but when chastened for sickness for sin — "Let him send for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." That is, he was to be healed by their prayers; and, if sin occasioned it, be forgiven and relieved, not "prepared" to die. So the quotation you give from Augustine states — "Will deserve to obtain the restoration of his health"; and it is most certain that for centuries, up to Bede's time, that is, the ninth century, it was looked at as a remedy to restore health. The Greek church so uses it still, and the Council of Trent says, it may be so interdum. Indeed there is nothing to be said for it, as the short article of the author shews.

110 And why, if extreme unction wipes away the very remains of sin, do people who have had it go to purgatory? What ineffectual means all the Romanist sacraments are! A man is absolved, but that will not do; he has his viaticum, the Eucharist, in which is remission, they say, but that will not do; extreme unction to wipe off the remains of sins — "reliquias peccati abstergit" (Conc. Trid., sess. 14, C. 2.) — yet the poor man goes to purgatory after all, to burn there for them himself; and then they say masses for him to get him out, though they could not keep him out. How different the peace of him who trusts the word of the living God, who believes His testimony! "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth from all sin." "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." "Being justified by faith we have peace with God . . . and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us." "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Such is the peace given, and the certainty of divine love, by the faith of the gospel. We know no hard God, who will keep us down to the last farthing: Christ has paid it for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. The Lord grant many poor souls labouring under this cruel bondage may know His love who gave His Son for sinners, and the salvation which is in Christ!

As to the sacrament of holy orders, you quote passages which prove that, by the laying on of the apostles' hands, gift was bestowed on Timothy: another, to shew that he was designated by prophecy. I do not doubt either. When you can shew me gift so bestowed, or a man marked out by prophecy for it, I shall own it with delight; but still you will not have proved that he is a priest. The scripture owns no priesthood now but Christ's, and that of all saints, in the sense in which all Christians are kings and priests. He "hath made us kings and priests to God and his Father." "Ye are a royal priesthood," says Peter.

But the New Testament has not the smallest trace whatever of priests as an order. The priesthood of Christ is exercised on high; all Christians follow Him there in spirit. Romanists have returned in this, as in all their system, to Judaism, and to Judaism after it is set aside; so that they are the beggarly elements of this world, just like heathenism, as which the apostle treats them in Galatians 4: 9-11. The New Testament speaks of a ministry as characteristic of Christianity — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Every true Christian blesses the Lord for it, however it may have been abused. But priesthood there is none, save of Christ and all true Christians; it is distinctive of, and essential to, Christianity that there is not, save as we all are priests. That is, we all go within the veil rent, directly and with boldness into the presence of God, where Christ is entered for us, into the holiest of all. The assertion of a priesthood (Christ apart) between us and God is a denial of Christianity. You do not attempt to quote anything till five centuries after Christ.

111 As to the word sacramentum, none in the least degree acquainted with the early ecclesiastical writers can attach the least importance to it, for they called every mystery a sacrament. Thus, one says there are three sacraments in baptism. Augustine says the number seventeen is a great sacrament; that one hundred and fifty-three, being three times fifty (the Pentecostal number), with three (the number of times it is given), has great weight, and if you begin with one, and go on adding each number up to seventeen, you will have one hundred and fifty-three (I leave my reader to try), and that is the meaning of the one hundred and fifty-three great fishes taken at the Sea of Tiberias. As I was on the word sacrament, I gave this one little example of Patristic matter, so that it may be understood why I said a child's book now would not contain such nonsense as they have: I think my reader will excuse my giving him any great quantity of it.

As to the obligation of marriage, it cannot be held too highly; instituted in paradise, and confirmed by the Lord Himself, its sanctity, I doubt not, is the providential bond of all moral order in the world. If, as the apostle teaches us, one be wholly given up to the Lord's work without any snare to himself, it is all well. After what I have said of sacrament, I shall not be expected to insist on the word one way or another. In Ephesians it is simply, in the original, "This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the church." That is, the union of the church to Christ, as His body, is a great mystery — she is His bride.

112 We are told that the pope's supremacy was defined in 1439! It is very possible. The world had passed through the dark ages; Christianity was overrun by Mahometanism in more than half its territory; and here was the true secret of it. The patriarch of Constantinople had then recourse to Rome. For a long time after the seat of the empire was transferred to Constantinople, the ecclesiastical chief of that city and Rome contended for supremacy. However, old Rome had precedency by decree of the Council of Nice, for ambition governed all these pillars of Christendom. You have still traces of this horrible ambition in Ireland, in the Archbishop of Dublin being primate of Ireland, and he of Armagh primate of all Ireland. I say they fought as to whether one should carry his cross — what a symbol to use for it! — upright or level when he went into the province of the other. My reader must forgive me if I forget how it was settled; but it was. The rivalry of Alexandria and Constantinople was the source of endless disputes — one ever favouring the holders of doctrine condemned by the other, to make a party; and the emperor convening councils to quiet them, and banishing them often to keep the peace, or making decrees themselves on doctrines which only led to new disputes, till they became contemptible. They were discussing some of these points when the Turks besieged Constantinople.

The Constantinopolitan patriarch assumed at length the title of universal bishop, and was denounced by Pelagius II and Gregory, as antichrist, for his pains. The latter wrote to Phocas, who had murdered the Emperor Maurice and succeeded him, to congratulate him, Maurice having favoured Constantinople. Phocas acknowledged Rome as the head of all churches. Decretals were passed which gave the universal supremacy to Rome, everywhere owned to be forged now; and the eastern empire declining under the inroads of Saracens and then Turks, at last a union was proposed between the East and West, long opposed and rivals in doctrine and practices, as a proof of holiness and unity as marks of the true church. What a picture, to be sure, it all is of servants and followers of Christ, as they pretended! This attempt at union was under Pope Eugenius IV. It was a desirable distinction for Rome. A council was sitting at Basle at this time; Eugenius dissolved it; it would not obey, and deposed him; but he declared it null, and called another at Ferrara, which afterwards, because of the plague, was removed to Florence. The Council of Basle chose a new pope, Felix V. Most of Christendom owned Eugenius, but many universities Felix: however, he resigned when Nicholas V succeeded Eugenius.

113 But to return to the council at Florence. The Greek emperor came, and Josephus the patriarch; and the Greek divines, particularly Bessarion — made cardinal afterwards-gave up the Greek doctrine on the procession of the Holy Ghost, for the Greeks deny the procession from the Son. They admitted purgatory, which they did not before — now do not. Think of half Christendom not believing it for fourteen centuries after Christ, and agreed the pope should be the head of the church! But alas! they had reckoned without their host; for when they went back, the Greeks would not submit to the terms, and they themselves declared that all had been carried at Florence by artifice and fraud, and the separation has continued to this day. And this is the bride of Christ! It seems the pressure of the pope was worse in their eyes than the pressure of the Turks; that is, of the Council of Florence, which clearly sets forth the pope's supremacy. Less than a century after, it becomes intolerable to the West too, and the Reformation arrived. So much for universality. Of course, some ground must be found for the supremacy, when it is there. The forged decretals established it. Scripture must be forced to contain it. I have already discussed the passage in Matthew; I need not repeat it.

But some of the points are to be cleared up. First, it is exceedingly doubtful if Peter ever was at Rome. Scripture never shews him to have been there, and it seems to me impossible to reconcile what it does state with his having been there. I admit respectable writers think he was, but scripture speaks only of Paul. Peter certainly did not found the church there. There were many Christians before any apostle was there, and Paul was the first that went. In the free exercise of their ministry, as the Holy Ghost has recorded it and thought proper to give it to us, no apostle founded the church at Rome. Paul, who preached the full and blessed gospel to the Gentiles (which was not Peter's office, as we know he was apostle of the circumcision, or of the Jews) — Paul went there as a prisoner. The gospel was never apostolically in Rome, save as in prison. It is possible that Peter closed his life there; but this is the utmost that can be historically admitted, because we have a divine account of what passed till then, and his presence is incompatible with that account. History is silent for a century afterwards, and then every country sought to have it believed to have been visited, and its chief see founded, by an apostle or apostolic man. John lived at Ephesus, yet he certainly did not found the church there, as we know from scripture. So history alleges that Peter founded the church at Antioch — a statement entirely unfounded, because we have, in the Acts of the Apostles, a long account of the church at Antioch; and all that Peter had to do with it was to divide it, when it existed already, by leading away all the Jews by his dissimulation, so that Paul had to resist him to his face. It is just as little true that he founded the church of Rome. We have Christians at Rome two years at least before Paul went there, and Paul there two years, who began working with the Jews; and none of them, Christians, Jews, or Paul, know anything at all of Peter at Rome. He may have visited Rome to see the Jewish Christians after this, and been martyred there, but that is the utmost possible.

114 But we have in scripture a great deal of Peter and Paul, which is much more important than traditions about the former. And here let me state that I have not the smallest difficulty in saying that, in point of order, though all had the same apostolic authority, Peter was the first of the twelve. With Paul he had nothing to do; he had it during the life of Jesus, and God was mighty in him afterwards. He first introduced the Gentile Cornelius; but then this had a definite and specific direction. When the Jews had rejected the gospel, and put Stephen to death, the apostles did not leave Jerusalem, as we learn from the Acts; and Paul, miraculously raised up of God as an apostle in an extraordinary manner, does not go up to Jerusalem, but preaches at once in Damascus, and afterwards is sent out from Antioch directly by the Holy Ghost. Jerusalem, the true mother church, having been dispersed, and having ceased to be the source and centre of the gospel which the Jews would not receive, Antioch, not Rome, became the point of departure, and to it Paul returns. Long after, he sees the apostles at Jerusalem, and they agree that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Gentiles, and Peter to the circumcision, or Jews; that is, Peter was not apostle of the Gentiles at all. He taught the same gospel, of course, as to salvation; but his ministry had the Jews for its sphere.

115 God, says Paul, was mighty in him towards the circumcision, as in me towards the Gentiles; that is, the Jews were the sphere of Peter's ministry. His epistles are directed to the Christian Jews in Asia Minor. He was nowhere apostle of the Gentiles. Of the church, as founded among Gentiles, Paul was the divinely appointed master-builder — Paul only in the account God has given to us. The apostles may have gone anywhere afterwards, and doubtless did; but God has given His account of the order He recognized; and there Paul is apostle of the Gentiles, and Peter of the Jews. He was nowhere the founder or origin, by his ministry, of the church among the Gentiles according to God. He was so feeble on the point of their admission and liberty in Christ, that Paul had to withstand him to the face.

As to Rome, no apostle founded the church there; Paul, the first apostle who went there, went there as a prisoner. This has been always the place a full gospel has had there. When the church fell into Judaism, which nothing but Paul's energy saved it from as long as he lived, then they naturally began to look for the apostle of the Jews, as their original founder, and Paul had the second place in their minds — his gospel, as he calls it, none. But they should have gone to Jerusalem — it was impossible — it had fallen. Its principles, once instructive as figures, were really the same as heathenism now; and to that Christendom consequently gave itself up. It turned again, as the apostle speaks in Galatians, to the beggarly elements to which it had again desired to be in bondage. They kept days, and months, and years; Gal. 4. The Roman system is merely a return to heathenism founded on Jewish forms (which God has judged), and claiming the name of Peter, the apostle of the Jews. It is that against which Paul was struggling all his life, and foretold would come in when he was gone. Voluntary humility, worshipping of angels, keeping days, and months, and years, trusting in works, he has long ago pointed out and denounced as signs of abandoning Christ. Of these Rome is the source, and Rome has the heritage. It is a mystery of iniquity fully developed, which is fleshly religion; just as the great mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, and the true people of God marked by boasting in Christ Jesus, worshipping God in spirit, and having no confidence in the flesh.

116 As to the keys of heaven, it is nonsense. He had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and opened the door on Pentecost to Jews, and, in letting in Cornelius, to Gentiles. When Hilary says Peter believed first, the good man makes a mistake. It was Andrew (John tells us, in the first chapter of his gospel) who sought him, and brought him to Jesus. Jesus gave him the place of eminency he had among the apostles. Saint Ambrose owns that Paul was to learn nothing from him; but Peter, to know that the same power was given to him as to himself. The truth is, that Paul, and not Peter, had the doctrine of the church revealed to him — its unity and union with Christ. This is not the subject of Peter's teaching. Paul declares he had it by express revelation, as a mystery and dispensation committed to him, and that he was minister of the church as well as of the gospel to fulfil, that is, complete, the word of God by this wonderful truth of the one body united to Christ from among all, Jews and Gentiles. See Colossians 1: 24, 25, 26; Ephesians 3: 1-10; Romans 16: 25, 26, and, indeed, other passages.

As to your reasoning, it has not much force. You see I admit that, amongst the twelve, Peter was the first, but this was evidently a personal pre-eminence. "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas." Pius IX is not Simon Barjonas. It was a personal gift and energy of faith which made the Lord call him a stone, as he called James and John sons of thunder. Every Christian owns that in the blessed apostle; but gifts, and God putting His seal on them, do not go down by succession; if they do, where is Paul's? where is John's? If popes have Peter's inheritance, who has John's and James's? If it is a principle of successors, with equal power and authority necessarily continuing, where are the other apostles' successors, with their authority? No; this is all nonsense. God was mighty in Peter, and God was mighty in Paul. But this was personal — exclusively and entirely personal; and they say so, as it is evident. You cannot have a successor in gift, or it is not a gift. An office may have a successor in it. But that is not the case here, for there are no apostles now sent by Christ Himself directly from Himself. But gift and God's being mighty in one is confined to the one He is mighty in. To talk of a successor to that is at once nonsense and blasphemy. I have said Peter and Paul say so. Thus Paul speaks: "I know that after my decease grievous wolves shall enter in, not sparing the flock: yea, of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them; wherefore, watch," etc. Now here Paul most plainly declares that he looks for no successor, but that, when he is gone, evil will flow in; and then commends them to God and the word of His grace, which the Romanists certainly step in and deprive us of — hinder us from going directly to God, and defrauding us of the word of His grace. Peter so little looked for a successor, that he writes, in his epistle, that he was writing to them because he would take pains that after his decease they should have the same things always in remembrance. So that these two great apostles never thought of having successors.

117 This is of the utmost force. Paul ordained elders for the care of the churches. As to successors, he so little thought of it, that he declares evil would flow in, and that in the last days perilous times and apostasy would come. But of this in a moment. No; there are two great systems: one leans on succession and ordinances, which the apostle denounces; the other on God and the word of His grace, to which he commends us, as able to build us up, and give us an inheritance among the sanctified. Rome has chosen the former; the true Christian blesses God for the latter.

Their reasoning is too absurd to dwell on. There is the consciousness of its weakness. You say the Pope of Rome is the successor of Peter; . . . the pope, therefore, is by divine appointment Peter's successor. That is logic to be sure: can anything be more glaring? And to this you append (it is happy that you hang it on such a peg), "whoever, therefore, is not under the care and government of this one shepherd belongs not to Christ, is not of the one fold, and cannot be saved." We thank Rome for her tender mercies. We have read, "If thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." You will surely forgive us if we trust an inspired apostle more than yourself — an apostle revealing God's precious grace to us poor sinners, more than Rome's anathemas, especially when they hang on reasoning such as this. The pope is the successor of Peter; therefore the pope is by divine appointment the successor of Peter; therefore whoever is not under him cannot be saved. If that is not convincing, what should be?

118 But your facts, however eloquently stated, are not much more solid. You say, Is there any institution in the world which has remained unchanged by the lapse and vicissitudes of nineteen hundred years, except the primacy and government of the Roman pontiffs? Now, first, the primacy of any bishop was violently denounced as late as Popes Pelagius and Gregory; and for centuries Rome exercised no jurisdiction out of what was called Libra; that is, seventy suburban sees. Many sought her influence as eminent, many resisted her as in error, and would never yield, as all Africa and Asia under Cyprian and Firmilian, who denounced the Pope Stephanus heartily (Cypr. Epp. 73, 74). In those days the primacy of Rome was unknown. It has never been owned in the Greek church. Only at Nice was it settled to have precedency of Constantinople. At the General Council of Chalcedon the pope's legates presided, but the council set aside the precedency of Rome. They state that, as Rome had been the imperial city, the Fathers had accorded precedency to it; but as now Constantinople was, it should be on an equality — ton ison apolauousan presbeion. Leo's legates protested, and produced his orders that they should allow of no diminution of his importance, for it seems he expected it. They withdrew; but there the canon of an acknowledged general council is declaring them equal. The legates had produced the Nicene decree with an addition of their own, stating that Rome was the head of all churches; but the genuine canon was brought forward, so that that plea was overthrown. Pretty work for the successors of apostles! But think of all this horrible ambition being made the foundation of the church, so that a person cannot be saved who does not submit to it! Is this Christianity?

But when you say, "Has any institution," etc., you upset your own system. When you went upon apostolic succession, you gave us the succession of all the sees in the world as securing sound doctrine; now it is only at Rome, and nowhere else. Which is true? If it be only at Rome, the security you gave us for doctrine is entirely gone, and the universality and apostolicity of the church so called with it; you destroy your own groundwork. But further, "the name of every pope, from Peter to Pius IX, you tell us may be seen in every bookseller's shop." Nay, not only so, "but should any claim this dignity without being legitimately appointed, he would be hurled from the chair of Peter as a usurper by the united voices of the Christian world." Indeed! How came it, then, that for seventy years there were two (and half Europe obeying one, and the other half the other), and part of the time three? Which of these was legitimate? and are both of them in the lists in the booksellers' shops and Catholic libraries? Your foundations are rotten here, and your eloquence rash. The popedom is a great worldly prize. Already in the fourth century you will remember Damasus and Ursicinus contended for it, and there was what amounted to a civil war, and abundant bloodshed; and Damasus beat his opponent and was pope — a strange successor to Peter, though he be such in the booksellers' shops!

119 Peter's apostolic position, then, I own, as apostle of the circumcision, and first among the twelve; but that the command was given to every successor of Peter to the end of the world is a mere chimera. Scripture excludes the idea. It is Barjonas who was blessed, because of the revelation of the Father to him.

You justify next the invocation of saints and angels. In vain has Paul denounced the worshipping of angels (it is not latria, but threskia, all religious deference or service whatever) as a voluntary humility, saying, that it is leaving Christ the head. In vain has he declared that there is but one mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. Rome will return to heathenish ways and Jewish superstitions, for such they really are; and, in order to do so, she has consecrated books of Jewish superstitions, as if they were the word of God; and has dared to do it in the sixteenth century — a deed never ventured on before.

We will examine this point. First, Genesis is quoted: "The angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." Here, then, Rome is bold enough to teach us that angels redeem us from evil, that angels can bless us. But we can never get whole passages from Rome. All is garbled. Here is the whole, "God, before whom my fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." The angel was the God of his fathers. Are you ignorant that angel is applied to all those manifestations of God in favour of His ancient people? Do you not know that Stephen says that Moses was with the angel in the bush, who said, I am that I am? Do you not know that Hosea says that Jacob wrestled with the angel and prevailed; yet Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, because he had seen God face to face? that God had called his name Israel, a prince with God, because he had wrestled with God and with man and had prevailed? See numberless other passages; and are you not ashamed to quote this passage? You quote Zechariah. Here, too, we find the same angel of the covenant, the angel Jehovah, Malak Jehovah, interfering for Jerusalem — that angel who could say, as we have seen, "I am," and before whom, consequently, Zechariah shews us Joshua standing to be judged, and Satan at his right hand to resist. Will you say that angels are to judge too? Anyone the least acquainted with the Old Testament knows who this angel of the covenant is.

120 The cases quoted of Jacob, and so of Manoah, shew that this angel was Jehovah Himself, He who appeared to Abraham and to Isaac, the Word of God, the second person in the blessed Trinity. That Michael the archangel will stand to accomplish God's will in favour of Israel in due time, I doubt not — all angels do this; but it has nothing to do with the matter. The angel in Revelation 8 and 10 is also undoubtedly the Lord Himself, acting as priest in chapter 8; and in the glory of the Lord taking possession of the earth in chapter 10.

You quote one figurative passage of the twenty-four ancients presenting as figurative priests the incense, according to a Jewish image, on high. The church in glory will be composed of kings and priests; and here it is prophetically set forth in this character in figure; but it is when it is complete in glory. Hence twenty-four, because there were twenty-four classes of priests established by David. And the whole is a symbolical vision — no statement of what goes on now at all, but shewing (what scripture tells us plainly) we are made kings and priests; and hence they were on thrones and crowned. Now this takes place only in resurrection, and all have yet to wait for that. Have you nothing but a prophetical symbol of resurrection glory to base your worship on, when the resurrection is not come?

You quote Tobias also: that is, the Apocrypha. This is one of the terrible sins of Rome. She has pretended to authenticate as scripture what was never owned as such till the middle of the sixteenth century, and what the very person who made the translation which she declares to be authentic states not to be scripture at all. Over and over again he (Jerome) declares there are twenty-two books, excluding thus the Apocrypha from the canon; and in particular, in his preface to Tobias, says it was not in the Hebrew scriptures. In his preface to the Books of Solomon he says, "As, therefore, the church reads, indeed, Judith and Tobias, and the books of the Maccabees, but does not receive them among canonical scriptures, so also let her read these two volumes, for the edification of the people, not to establish the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas." He refers to Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom. Athanasius reckons them up also, twenty-two, both in the Synopsis (if it be his, for some have doubted it), and in the fragment of the Festal epistle, giving them, he says, because some would dare to mix apocryphal books with divine scriptures, and speaking of Tobias and others as read, but not canonical.

121 Origen tells us the same, Eusebius also. But, to be brief, Christ never cites these books, nor are they found in the Hebrew at all. They were never owned by the Jews as part of their scriptures. Josephus is distinct as to what was received, and says there were none after Artaxerxes; that there were others, but not canonical, and that the prophets gave their sanction to books as forming part of the canon. He owned they have no kind of authority whatever; and all authority, Jewish and Christian, declared they were not of the canon till the Council of Trent. Now, the oracles of God are committed to the church, as of old they were to the Jews. The church gives them no authority — it cannot to what God has spoken; but when God had given them, He entrusted them to the church to keep — only watching over it in all His providence — and Rome has proved herself not the church by deliberate unfaithfulness to this, by setting up as scripture what all Jews and the church, and all witnesses, declare with one voice is not. She is self-condemned here. See what is said in Maccabees: "If I have written well, and as befits the story, that is what I wish; if ill, it is to be pardoned me." Why, it is blasphemy to ascribe such words to the Holy Ghost; and of that blasphemy Rome is guilty.

Lastly, no passage has been even attempted to be quoted of addressing saints or angels. But I will here also give the history of this matter. The first commemoration of the saints was praying for them, that they might speedily see the face of God. Gradually, between rhetoric and Jewish and heathen practices, the saints took the place of the heathen demi-gods. But Romish practice goes farther, because they found prayers on the merits of the saints, as may be seen in the Roman Missal (as on Patrick's day, for example, March 17). As to praying one for another on earth, it is clear and simple, and the New Testament teaches it, and shews it practised — never to saints absent. As to the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost, who knew what would come in, has recorded for us that she never asked anything of the Lord, without being rejected in her request, the Lord saying, What have I to do with thee?

122 The great and dreadful evil of this doctrine is this: the grace of the gospel shews us two great things: first, that Christ has wrought so great and glorious a work, that I can go directly to the Father, in His name, certain that He hears me, and have boldness to enter into the holiest by His blood; secondly, that Christ in His rich grace came down here, was tempted in all points as we are, without sin — that He is touched with the feeling of my infirmities, and knows, having learned here below, how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He has shrunk from no suffering, no humiliation, that I may have confidence in His love, and readiness to help. The invocation of saints and angels comes to deny all this. He is too high, too exalted; His heart not tender enough! Saints who never shared our place are to be more trusted; the tender mercies of the Virgin Mary, who never shed her blood for me, is to be more trusted. It is all shameful dishonour put upon Christ's grace and tenderness. I know no one so kind, so condescending, who is come down to the poor sinner, as He. I trust His love more than I do Mary's, or any saint's; not merely His power as God, but the tenderness of His heart as man — none ever shewed such, or had such, or proved it so well. None entered into my sorrows, none took a part in them, as He; none understands my heart so well; none has inspired me with such confidence in His. Let others go to saints and angels, if they like; I trust Jesus' kindness more. If it is said, He is too high, I answer, He became a man that we might know His tenderness; and He is not changed. And why go to them? Why, in Jesus' name, not go straight to the Father? The need of all this troop of mediators only shews that men do not believe the gospel. They cannot go to God Himself. Now Christ has brought us to God; suffering, the just for the unjust, He has brought us to a God of love, our Father, having put away our sins. Rome would turn us out again, to leave us trembling at the doors of the saints. I would rather go to God Himself. He, I know, loves me; He has given His Son for me. Which of the saints has done that? As to angels, they are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. Looking to them is treated as apostasy in scripture.

123 If you will have Fathers, here is a quotation for you — Ambrose, on Romans 1: "Men are accustomed, when feeling shame for having neglected God, to use a miserable excuse, saying that by them (the saints, etc.) they can go to God, as by counts (officers of the court) people go to the king. Away then! Is any one so mad, or so unmindful of his salvation, as that he should give the honour of the king to a count, when, if any should be found to treat of such a matter, they would rightly be condemned of high treason? And so they think they are not guilty who defer the honour of the name of God to a creature, as if anything more could be kept for God. For therefore men go to the king by tribunes or counts, because the king, after all, is but a man, and is ignorant to whom he ought to trust the common weal; but to find favour with God, before whom nothing is hid, for He knows the merits of all — there is not need of one to plead for us (suffragator), but of a devout mind." I might quote many more from Origen, using not latria, but honour and do homage to. So Eusebius from Dionysius I reverence the true God alone, and none else. So continually in the early conflicts with the heathen; and the well-known passage of the epistle on Polycarp's martyrdom, when the Gentiles refused his body, lest they should do homage to him; "Not knowing," they say, "that we could neither abandon Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of the saved, nor reverence any other. For to Him, being indeed Son of God, we do homage; but martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love deservedly, because of the great love they have shewn to their own king and leader, with whom we would be partakers and fellow-disciples."

Ambrose thought, then, though saints were used only to go to God by, it was high treason against Him; and the saints round Polycarp's martyr-pile, that it was abandoning Christ to reverence them (sebein). Alas! ere long the high treason was committed, and Christ indeed abandoned; while Fathers condemned, Fathers sanctioned, and scripture was forgotten. As to the latter, the statement that it is clearly set forth in it is totally without foundation. Invoking saints is not found even in the passages the author has quoted. In genuine scripture the case is found of a saint in his confession going to do homage to an angel; but the angel positively forbids it, ordering him to offer it to God, for he was his fellow-servant. But what says Rome? — Heed.

124 The invocation of angels was forbidden by the Council of Laodicea which calls it a secret idolatry. Athanasius uses the invocation of Christ as a proof that He is God; and says, "no one would say God and an angel bless me" (exactly what the author attributes to Jacob); and so other Fathers. And, as I have said, they were prayed for as not yet in the presence of God, that they might speedily arrive there. There was superstition enough, but not Romish doctrine. We learn that Theodoret recommended that, to win the Gentiles, they should present to them the saints and martyrs in lieu of their demigods. It is just what has happened — there are curious facts connected with this. As soon as the Council of Ephesus had decreed that Mary was the mother of God, temples, with all their worshippers, dedicated to the gods, passed over to Christianity as a profession, and Mary took her place as Cybele had before.

I will give the account of this transformation, as given us by M. de Beugnot, a very learned Romanist, whose work was crowned by the Institute of France. "After the Council of Ephesus the churches of the East and West offered to the adoration of the faithful, the Virgin Mary, victorious over a violent attack (she had been decided to be mother of God then). The peoples were dazzled by the image of this divine mother, uniting in her person the modesty of the virgin and the love of the mother — emblem of gentleness, of resignation, and of everything that virtue presents of sublime; who weeps with the unhappy, intercedes for the guilty, and never shews herself, but as the messenger of pardon or of kind succour. They received this new worship with an enthusiasm sometimes too great, since, for many Christians, this worship became the whole of Christianity. The heathen did not even endeavour to defend their altars against the progress of the worship of this mother of God. They opened to Mary the temples which they had kept shut against Jesus Christ, and confessed themselves conquered. It is true they often mixed with the adoration of Mary those heathen ideas, those vain practices, those ridiculous superstitions, from which they seemed unable to separate themselves. The church, however, was delighted to see them enter into her bosom, because she knew well that it would be easy for her, with the help of time, to purify from its alloy a worship whose essence was purity itself." M. de Beugnot, Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident, vol. 2, 271. His illustration of the fact is in the following note: "Among a multitude of proofs I chose only one, to shew with what facility the worship of Mary swept before it the remains of heathenism, which still covered Europe. Notwithstanding the preaching of St. Hilarion, Sicily had remained faithful to the old worship (heathenism). After the Council of Ephesus (that which declared Mary the mother of God), we see its eight finest pagan temples become in a very short space of time churches under the invocation of the Virgin. These temples were, first, the temple of Minerva at Syracuse; second, the temple of Venus and of Saturn, at Messina; third, the temple of Venus Erycina, on Mount Eryx (it was said to have been built by Aeneas); fourth, the temple of Phalaris, at Agrigentum; fifth, the temple of Vulcan, near Mount Etna; sixth, the Pantheon, at Catania; seventh, the temple of Ceres, in the same town; eighth, the sepulchre of Stesichore. The ecclesiastical annals of each country furnish similar testimonies." And that is pretended to be Christianity!

125 The truth is, all this system is a mere mixture of Judaism and heathenism. The heathen temples were built over the relics and tombs of heroes and demigods. They sprinkled themselves with holy water on going in, for which they had a place at the entry. They had their images, which they justified in the same way — their priests, their chancels. They believed that every admirable man had gone to heaven, and there interested themselves in the affairs of those who prayed to them. Their temples were built in a similar manner. Rome has not been able to exclude Christ,* but it has overwhelmed Him with heathenism, as far as possibly can be, the clergy having accommodated it to popular customs to win the people. Thus the direction given to Augustine, when sent to the Saxons, was to adopt their feasts and customs as much as possible, and give a Christian turn to them. Christmas day is a curious example of this. No one knows the day Christ was born. The Greek church kept His birth and baptism together on the 6th of January, called Epiphany. Hear again M. de Beugnot, 2: 265: "The Romans had acquired in their religion an excessive passion for public festivals; and Christianity, far from opposing a disposition which required only to be directed with more wisdom, adopted a part of the ceremonial system of the old worship. It changed the object of the ceremonies, it purified them of their old filth, but it retained the epoch at which many among them had been celebrated. It is thus that the multitude found in the new religion as much as in the old the means of satisfying its ruling passion."

{*In the Confiteor, recited for obtaining absolution, He is totally left out as Christ.}

126 Think of the blessed Lord sitting at the well of Samaria, and teaching that men should worship in spirit and in truth, for the Father sought such to worship Him, and the "church" taking care the ruling passion for shows should be gratified! The author adds in a note, "The Saturnalia (a festival of unbridled joy) and many of the festivals were celebrated in the calends of January. The Nativity (Christmas) was fixed at the same epoch. The Lupercalia, pretended festivals of purification, took place in the calends of February. The Christian purification was placed on the second of February. For the feast of Augustus, celebrated in the calends of August, was substituted that of St. Peter, de Vinculis, fixed on the first day of that month." So, he adds, to the Ambarvalia, St. Mamert substituted rogation days for country people; so numberless temples became dedicated to worship called Christian. At this day the Pantheon (that is, the temple of all the gods) is dedicated to all the saints. It is well known that the statue of Peter at Rome was a statue of Jupiter Olympius, and they took out the thunderbolt and put in the keys. It all hangs together.

Nor is it merely so modern an author as Beugnot, however learned, who speaks of the corruption of Christianity by the influx of heathenism. Augustine gives us very precise information as to it. He thus writes in a letter in which he is recounting to Alypius, Bishop of Thogostan, the manner in which he had put down the drunken feasts, which were held to celebrate the martyrs (for such was the case in Africa; and so determined were the people to have them, that the clergy had winked at it), and would now explain how he had excused to the people those who had let it go on, by shewing how it had risen in the church, for he must needs excuse the clergy. "Namely, after so many and so vehement persecutions, when, peace being made, crowds of Gentiles, desiring to embrace the Christian name, were hindered by this, that they were accustomed to consume festive days with their idols, in abundance of feasts and drunkenness, nor were they easily able to abstain from their pernicious and so very ancient pleasures, it had seemed good to our forefathers, that they should let this part of their infirmity pass, and that they should celebrate other festal says after those they left, in honour of the holy martyrs, or not with similar sacrilege, although with similar luxury."

17 Is this the holy Catholic church, which, to get in crowds of Gentiles, suffers them to go on, without the least moral change, with their feasting and drunkenness, only substituting holy martyrs for idols? It is not I that make the charge, or account for it thus; it is the sober historical account of Augustine, Presbyter. He says they called it laetitia, joy, endeavouring in vain to hide the name of drunkenness. He told them that not even the carnal private people were found publicly drunk in the name of religion. In another letter he says to Aurelian, Bishop of Carthage: "But since these drunkennesses and luxurious feasts are not only wont to be believed to be honours rendered to the martyrs, but also a solace of the dead [they did not think of praying to them, at any rate], it would seem more easy that they may be persuaded then from that filth and baseness, if it should be prohibited out of the scriptures, and offerings for the spirits of them that sleep, which it is to be believed really help somewhat, over their memories (that is, when buried or celebrated), should not be sumptuous," etc. And Chrysostom advises his hearers to partake of the meal to be appointed in honour of the martyr, besides his martyrium, under a fig-tree or vine, instead of joining in the heathen feasts in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, where was a famous temple to Venus with all sorts of wickedness.

Can one doubt for a moment of the heathen character of all these feasts in honour of martyrs and saints? But what a picture of the state of the church! The holy Catholic church setting them to get drunk in honour of a martyr, because it was sacrilege to get drunk in honour of an idol, and they would get drunk somewhere! No wonder a priest did not include practice in the elements of her holiness. But I anticipate the last point. It was invocation of saints led us to these festivals in martyrs' memories.

128 Purgatory remains besides. On this Rome is very weak. She has recourse to it, because full redemption by the work of Jesus and the reality of a new nature is not believed. It is not believed that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," as scripture says it does; it is not believed that "he that is dead is freed from sin," and has left it all behind if he be a Christian, "absent from the body, and present with the Lord," Christ being his life, and he a member of His body. None of this is believed. Hence they must have a purifying fire after death for the Christian, for such only go there (and not those who die, as they say, in mortal sin). Nor do they really believe even in the efficacy of their own rites, as we have seen. If they send men to purgatory, they do not believe that extreme unction abstergit reliquias peccati, wipes off the remains of sin; nor in the other means used for a dying man. They can give no certainty, with all their boasting of being the true church: a man may be of it, and lost after all. Nay, they cannot keep him out of purgatory, with all their rites, even if he be finally saved. They know no other God than one who will exact the last farthing; a God of love, who is a Saviour, they know not.

But let us see their proofs. The Council of Trent was uneasy about it; it is anxious that curious questions about it should be avoided. And the author takes care here to tell us that Romanists receive many doctrines on the authority of the Catholic church which are not contained in the written word. To be sure they do: I suppose, by such an introduction, that purgatory is one of them. It is a candid avowal: they have no warrant from scripture for many things they teach. Now, I repeat, the church has to receive and keep the truth, but cannot reveal it; God may use a man — a Paul or a Peter; but the church, as such, receives and keeps it. The church's teaching is all very well as a conventional expression; but the church cannot reveal anything, and that is the whole point here. As a body it is impossible. Its members may teach it, or they may be the instruments by which God reveals it; but the body, as such, cannot reveal it: God uses individuals' minds or mouths for that. The church is not, by its very nature as a body composed of many individuals, capable of it. It may, and ought, in its common faith to maintain the truth. We are told that they have been revealed by Christ, and always taught by the church. Revealed to whom? to the whole church as a body, or to an individual? If to the latter, then it is not to the church it is revealed, nor she who teaches it. The church receives the revelation made to the individual. If the revelation has been to the whole body, let the author say where and when it was made as to a single truth. This is an important point. I deny any truth was ever revealed to the church as a body — that is, that God so revealed it to the body, that it becomes to others a revelation by the church. It cannot be. Where has it been? I admit her duty to guard it when revealed, and hold it up before men.

129 But I turn to particulars. Moses does not teach the creation of angels, but he teaches the creation of all things — the heavens and the earth, and all the hosts of them. All the creation is spoken of as referred to man; other scriptures state it clearly. "He maketh his angels spirits."

I have already spoken of the sabbath and the Lord's day.

Moses does not speak of rewards and punishments of a future life; because he was shewing the ways of God with Israel in and on the earth by favours and judgment here, God being present with them and dwelling among them on the earth. Other scriptures of the Old Testament are clear enough.

If the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son rests on the church's authority, it is not worth much. The Greek church does not hold it. The early teachers extant are very loose indeed as to the doctrine of the Spirit, though not denying it; and, as we have seen, on the whole doctrine of the Trinity in general. But in John it is said, the Father sends, and the Son sends from the Father. As to the discussion between Greeks and Romanists, it is endless metaphysics. That the Holy Ghost is a divine person, one with the Father and the Son, scripture is clear. He wills, distributes, comes, is sent, is grieved, leads, intercedes: in a word, He does every kind of personal act; yet what is spoken of as done by Him, it is expressly said, God does, in the same chapter; 1 Cor. 12.

Further, the Spirit is called not only the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, in Galatians 4; the Spirit of Christ, even when speaking in the prophets, 1 Peter 1: 11, and Romans 8: 9; and of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1: 19. He is, indeed, oftener called the Spirit of the Son than the Spirit of the (your) Father. The word procession is never applied to the Son. The Greek Fathers, before the separation from Rome, never use it but in connection with the Father, as it appears; the Latin, from after the Arian controversy, do. Charlemagne raised the question, and Pope Leo said it ought not to be put in the creed. It rather appears, that the dogmatical assertion (the Council of Nice had only, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"; the second, that of Constantinople, added, "proceeding from the Father," without adding "and the Son") first took place in Spain, where Arianism prevailed; but from the fifth century, the Latin Fathers speak of both Father and Son. The Greek held to the terms of scripture. The Council of Ephesus commanded nothing to be added to the creed. Pope Leo not only said to his legates at the French Council, it ought not to be inserted, but, to hinder it, had the creed fixed on at Constantinople, engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates, and fixed up, without the addition of "and the Son." It was only in the papacy of Nicholas I, in the latter end of the ninth century, that it was regularly inserted. The Greeks objected, and, in what they call the eighth General Council, ordered it to be removed.

130 So much for the church's teaching, and Vincentius' "what always, what everywhere, what by all," as the sure rule of faith. The Latins did not quote church authority for it, for they had none to quote. All the world knew (for heathens Lucian's Philopatris gives the substance of the creed very exactly, though in scorn) that church authority had never sanctioned it, and a General Council forbidden all addition, and Pope Leo this particular one. They appealed to deductions from scripture, such as "He shall take of mine, and shew it unto you"; "All things that the Father hath are mine"; and they said He was received from the Son, and hence proceeded from Him. I do not decide anything about the time; but, as to the Catholic church having always taught it, there cannot be a greater mistake, or more unfounded assertion. And see what a proof the author gives us — she teaches it: therefore it must be right. That is a convenient argument in a book which is to prove she is right. The quotation of Mr. Whiston is unhappy. He wanted to have acknowledged as scripture acknowledged impostures of an Alexandrian, Arian seemingly in his views (as it appears Mr. W. was too), of the fifth century, and which our priest himself quotes in ignorance as of the first, but not as scripture.

131 The first authority adduced for purgatory is the Jewish church; the quotation to prove it is mistaken. The Lord killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up. But what has this to do with purgatory? Hell was Sheol, the invisible place of death, or even the grave. It is a simple statement of the power of God to do what He pleases, to bring down and lift up. Ecclesiasticus, we have seen, is not scripture. The author speaks of the Jewish church believing it, as many portions of the Bible record; but the Jews did not receive this as the Bible at all. That the unbelieving, Christ-rejecting Jews believe in a purgatory is, I believe, quite true; but that is a strange authority for a Christian. They do not know redemption, but boast of being God's people in a fleshly way, but have no real resting-place for their souls. They want a purgatory. The Romanist has the same boast and does not know redemption for his own soul, and he wants a purgatory too. I would not have put their faith on the same ground; the author has thought good to do it. He must know the Lord's judgment of that ground — "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

As to funeral feasts amongst the Jews, it is very likely: they are not the only ones who have them. When people are hard pinched, they will quote anything. The author quotes Zechariah 9: 11: "By the blood of thy covenant thou hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." What sending people out of a pit where there was no water by the blood of the covenant has to do with purgatory, it would be hard to tell. The prophet is speaking of Ephraim, and God's dealings with the Jews, and nothing else; and declares that, in virtue of the blood of the covenant, He will deliver them from a pit where there was no resource to refresh them. The whole chapter refers to God's dealings with Ephraim and Judah.

Next comes the well-known passage of Christ's going to preach to the spirits in prison. I have no doubt that it was the Spirit of Christ in Noah; as in the same epistle Peter says, the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets; and that it is not said He preached in prison at all, but to those who are spirits in prison now, because they did not listen when He preached in Noah; and the force is then obvious. The Jews would not listen to the Spirit of Christ speaking by the apostles, and the few who did were despised and persecuted. There was no living Christ to help them on earth. Well, says Peter, it was only by His Spirit He went and preached in Noe, and there were only eight souls saved then, fewer than you; yet the others are in prison for not having listened. Let it be remembered that the passage speaks only of the disobedient in the time of Noe. Now God had said then, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." Yet these are chosen as the only ones with whom His Spirit should strive afterwards; and, mark, it was the Spirit which then strove, Christ's Spirit, which went and preached. Moreover, Peter, in another passage, says that the sparing Noe, and bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, was a proof that God knew how to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished. How so if they were preached to afterwards to be delivered? The sense, then, to me is evident, and the whole Roman Catholic application of the passage fails. But at any rate, who ever heard of preaching in purgatory? That is not Romish doctrine. People go there to finish penance and be purged, not to hear sermons.

132 Christ said to the thief that he should be in paradise. It is monstrous, well-nigh blasphemy, to quote this. Do they mean that the blessed Lord went to purgatory? When Paul was caught up to paradise, and heard unutterable words, he did not go to purgatory, I suppose. Departed souls are in an intermediate state, no doubt, because they have not their bodies; but they are "present with the Lord," 2 Cor. 5. They "depart and are with Christ, which is far better" (Phil. I); they are the same day in paradise with Him (Luke 23); the Lord Jesus receives their spirit (Acts 7). Paul did not descend into paradise; he was caught up there. But it is monstrous and horrible to make purgatory out of the paradise the soul of Christ went to at His death. His work was so blessed, that the poor thief, justly hung for his crimes, could go straight to paradise with Christ Himself, and not go near any purgatory, because he was purged by the death of Christ. This was what the Lord told him, and teaches us — that the Lord's work was so perfect, that it takes a thief into paradise, as sure as Christ is there, for Christ had borne his sins, and His blood cleansed him from them. The thief thought he would have to wait till Christ came in the glory of His kingdom. No, says the Lord, you shall not wait till then; you shall go straight to paradise with Me to-day. His work was perfect for him — cleansed him; and those wretched teachers would make purgatory of it, and send the Lord there! The Lord forgive them.

133 As to agreeing with thine adversary, etc., Matthew 5 is meant. There is the general idea of reconciliation in grace, or judgment if not; but the specific application is to the Jews, with whom Christ was on the way. They would not be reconciled, they are under judgment, and as in prison, and there they will stay till they have as a nation received full chastisement. Then they will come out. So in Luke 12. It is definitely connected with an appeal to the Jews, why they did not discern that time (that is, when the Lord was in the way with them).

As regards forgiveness in the world to come, purgatory is not forgiveness, but purging when a man is forgiven; and no forgiveness in the world to come means never forgiven at all; as Mark expresses it — "hath never forgiveness." It is the same thing. The Jews had three periods, or ages, here translated worlds. But it has nothing whatever to do with another place, but with another time. The first was before the law; the second, under the law, in which they were; the third, the age (world) to come, or that under Messiah. In this they knew that there would be more abundant grace and forgiveness than under the law. If their sins were as scarlet, they would be as white as snow; but here was a sin that would not be forgiven even then. Till the kingdom was set up (it was at hand then), the world to come was not arrived.

As to baptism for the dead, baptism has nothing to do with penitential acts and prayer. Paul is speaking of those fallen asleep in Christ, and suffering himself every hour; and after expatiating on what the resurrection is, from 1 Corinthians 15: 18-28, he resumes, What would they do who enter into the ranks in the very place of those fallen asleep (the dead), if the dead do not rise — Who would take place along with them, if they are to remain dead, and get only that for their faith? To join such ranks, and replace them in them, would be madness; and if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men, he declares, most miserable. The passage speaks of baptism, and not of things done for departed souls. If purgatorial fire can be called by a figure the last baptism, what has that to say to baptism for the dead?

It is not sins he is speaking of in 1 Corinthians 3, when speaking of wood, hay, stubble, but preaching and teaching; and if, though a real Christian on the foundation, all his labour is bad as labour, from teaching nonsense and futility, even if not heresy, when put to the test by trial, it all goes. He is not lost, but his work is; and he sorely shaken and disturbed. Paul is speaking of his own, Apollos', or others' work, not of their sins. Origen believed nobody would be lost, not even the devil, and that hell served for purgatory, and men came back, and might fail over again. He is a pretty authority to quote for purgatory.

134 What Christ's walking in Solomon's porch, on the feast of the dedication, has to do with admitting the authority of the book of Maccabees, no human wit can tell. The feast after the dedication was there, and he met the people on it. The Maccabees tell us how it came to be celebrated, as Josephus does many other things which the Saviour joined in as a Jew. But He could do that without sanctioning the book of Maccabees. As to these books, the first is a fair useful history of the times, never admitted by the Jews into the canon, nor owned as scripture till the Council of Trent. The second, the one quoted, is a very worthless, bad, self-contradicting book, giving three contradictory accounts of Antiochus' death. I have not the decrees of the Council of Florence; it is possible it may have been admitted there near 1500 years after Christ. The second of Maccabees ends — "I will make an end of my discourse also with these things, and if, indeed, well, and as suits the history, it is as I should wish; but if less worthily, it is to be pardoned me. For as always drinking wine, or always drinking water, is bad for us (contrarium), but to use them alternately is delectable, so for readers, if the discourse is always exact, it will not be pleasant. Here, therefore, it shall be completed." Think of the audacity, be it Florence or Trent, of saying that a book which gives this description of itself, is inspired!

But let us take the case alleged; it is quoted for this passage: "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." Now, that this was a Jewish superstition, like many others, this may lead us to believe; just as they thought the stars were living beings, and many other things, as previous existence of souls. But here the case does not answer at all for the point it is quoted for. Idols were found on the persons who were slain, and the cause of their death manifest. They had died in mortal sin; but this does not send a man to purgatory in the Romish system, but to hell. But I must go a little farther here, and charge the Vulgate, or at any rate the present reading of it, with being an entirely corrupt translation, or rather version. The Maccabees are in Greek, and the passage in Greek runs thus: "He made a collection of two thousand drachms, and sent it to Jerusalem, to present a sacrifice for sin," that is all; and then speaks of it as done well and comelily, thinking of the resurrection. And after saying it was a good thought, referring to what went before, he says, "Wherefore he made a propitiation about the dead, to do away the sin." The shape in which it is, therefore, in Latin is only a clothing put upon it, by I know not whom; it is not much matter. The author also highly commends Razis for killing himself — 14: 2 (I do not know whether that is canonical); and gives such a history of his deeds as I must leave to the reader to believe, if he can, and admire if he will. He ends, after running himself through with a sword, and doing all manner of feats afterwards, by plucking out his own bowels, I do not know how, and throwing them at the people. I do not know whether this is a part that, as the author says, is not very exact, to make it pleasant; Rome says it is inspired.

135 We are told next that the Apostolic Constitutions were written by Clement, the companion of Paul. Why there is not a writer, ancient or modern, Roman or Protestant, unless his friend, the Rev. Mr. Whiston, that believes it. They are universally recognized as an imposture, written four hundred years after Clement. As to Constantine, it was poor work to cry so for him, for he would not be baptized till he was on his death-bed (though he had managed the church for years, and called a General Council and managed it), in order that he might be sure to be washed quite clean. They might as well, indeed, believe in purgatory as seek to secure themselves by such shifts as that. But prayers for the dead did not form purgatory at all; they were used long before purgatory was believed in. The real history of the matter was this. The full acknowledgment of grace is the hardest thing for the proud heart of man to submit to. Its tendency is always to look at God, as Rome does, as an austere man, who will exact the last farthing; and to maintain his good opinion of himself in pretending to satisfy God, while, after all, as works cannot quiet the conscience, he has recourse to ordinances to pacify, if they cannot purify it.

Hence, even while Paul lived, he had to struggle incessantly against this tendency. Peter slipped into it at Antioch, and most of Paul's Epistles were written against it — that is, against Romanism, or what is now called Puseyism, shewing it as the mystery of iniquity which was corrupting the church — a form of piety denying the power, and which would go on till it broke out into open apostasy. It is characterized expressly in his epistles by works, ordinances, voluntary humility, worshipping of angels — the very things Rome now boasts of, and by not holding the Head, that is, that real union of the church with Christ, which, while it puts her before God in the same place as Christ as to acceptance, is the power of a new life, in which saints live to God as dead to sin with Christ, and alive to God through Him — perfect acceptance, perfect peace with God, and a really new spiritual life manifested in all a man's ways. The devil and man's heart do not like this; he will have pleasure and ordinances, build tombs of the prophets, have memories of martyrs, celebrate ordinances over their tombs, and get drunk at the celebration.

136 Man is naturally idolatrous; and a corrupt church will, as we have seen, furnish him with martyrs, if he cannot have demigods. Still, the poor "Catholic church" did not get its present stature all at once. There was what in these times is called "development." The blessed energy of the apostle hardly held the saints, of whose conversion he had been the instrument, even during his own lifetime, in the power of the truth. They were already then returning to the beggarly elements of heathenism under a Jewish form. "After his decease," as he warned it would, that "mystery of iniquity," which worked as leaven while he was there, spread freely, and the full knowledge of redemption, as he had taught it, was gone. Heresies sprang up like weeds, the general remedy used against it was not truth and grace, but external unity, no matter how much evil; and with the influx of numbers corruption came in. Jude warns us of what was going on; and John, that there were already so many antichrists that the last time was apparent.

In the third century superstition had made ample progress, and we find, not indeed prayers to saints, nor purgatory, but prayers for them. If the knowledge of redemption was practically lost, if works and ordinances had taken their place, if the corrupt morals and proud asceticism of Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, had taken the place of the gospel, men's minds wanted something to mend them when dead, who knew neither redemption nor holiness when living. At first, as given by Origen, it was calling them to mind, with thanksgiving for them, and prayer for resemblance to them. The first person who speaks of these prayers for the dead pretty definitely, is the upright but ardent Tertullian, who left the "Catholic church," as no longer bearing its looseness; and, with an African imagination, though a Father, fell into the wild pretensions of Montanus. His disciple, the martyr Cyprian, also speaks of them; he who tells us that all morality was gone, men given up to shameful vanity, women painting their faces, bishops running about all the provinces to make gain by fraud.

137 But then, at this time, they prayed for martyrs, apostles, prophets, patriarchs, saints, and all the departed together, that they might have part in the first resurrection; and the Virgin Mary, among the rest, was prayed for in the same way, and not only among the rest but especially for her. Cyril of Jerusalem says the same in connection with the Eucharist, saying, We believe it to be a considerable advantage to their souls! So St. Austin says, as to the drunken bouts, the people believed it to be a solace to the martyrs; and he says, since it was to be believed, it was something (aliquid). But then here a difficulty arose; a step was made in the superstition, and, the saints and martyrs being greatly exalted, they were considered as enjoying the beatific vision; full heathenism was flowing in, and they were to help the living, not the living to help them. This was an immense change indeed in the "Catholic" view of things. Epiphanius justifies prayers for saints, because it put a difference between Christ perfect and other men's imperfection, shewing he had wholly lost the notion of Christ Himself being our righteousness, and that, when we depart, we are with Him; but shewing too that all other men were held to be prayed for (not a word, remark, about purgatory all this time). So Hincmar, in the ninth century, tells us, "Grant to us, O Lord, that this oblation may be of advantage to the soul of thy servant Leo (a St. Leo), by which, in its immolation, thou hast granted that the sins of the whole world should be loosened." In the thirteenth century, as given by Pope Innocent, it had become, "Grant to us, we beseech thee, O Lord, that, by the intercession of the blessed Leo, this offering may profit us."

Such was the progress in this superstition. How different from the peace of "to depart and be with Christ is far better"! From this scripture truth they went back to Judaism, and believed they were in hades, waiting. Now we know that till the resurrection we are not in our perfect state of glory; we do not wait in a separated state in that sense; but scripture is very clear as to it — "To-day," says Christ, "thou shalt be with me in paradise," for redemption was accomplished. "Lord Jesus," says Stephen addressing Christ in heaven, "receive my spirit," and so fell asleep praying for his murderers. "We are always confident," says Paul, "knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, and desiring rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord," 2 Cor. 5. And again, "Desiring rather to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." Nothing can be plainer; but the power of it was lost. That Christ had by one offering perfected for ever them that were sanctified was forgotten; that God would remember their sins and iniquities no more was lost for their consciences; and hence the intermediate state became a kind of prison for the departed, where prayers, they knew scarce how, would do them good; yet at first they were joined with thanksgiving, but there was no thought of their living in purgatory — it is never supposed a moment in their prayers. They also looked to their having part in the first resurrection, which all, they supposed, had not. But then "Fathers" had other notions as regards purgatory, to say nothing of Origen who was out of the way wild and heterodox.

138 They held that at the last day men would be purged with fire; to this they apply "baptized with fire." It was not now, but in the day of judgment; he owned that was the fire of the day of judgment. Thus Ambrose (I take this quotation from another) — "All must pass through the flames, though it be John the Evangelist, though it be Peter; the sons of Levi shall be purged with fire, Ezekiel, Daniel," etc. So St. Hilary, "Because to the baptizing in the Holy Ghost it still remains to be consummated by the fire of judgment." "As we are to render account of every idle word, can we desire the day of judgment, in which we are to undergo the unwearied fire in which the grave punishments of a soul to be expiated (purified) from sin are to be undergone?" "If," he adds, "the Virgin herself, who conceived God in her womb, must undergo the severity of judgment, who is so bold as to desire to be judged by God?"

139Jerome speaks a similar language in the closing sentence of his Commentary on Isaiah — "And as we believe the eternal torments of the devil, and all deniers and impious men who have said in their heart there is no God, so of sinners and impious men, yet Christians, whose works are to be tried by fire and purged, we think there will be a moderate sentence of the Judge, and mixed with clemency."

He is speaking of the final judgment depicted in Isaiah 66. I quote it to shew what the fire of purgatory then thought of was; but I cannot let it pass without remarking how entirely the truth of God was lost and abused. Redemption cleansing from sin — God's not imputing it — never enters into their mind. They know nothing of the blood of Christ cleansing from sin. Secondly, they have no thought that all are utterly condemned if they come into judgment — "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." Thirdly, impious Christians they make better off than other impious people: the Lord says they are worse off — "He that knew his Lord's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." The light that was in them was darkness, and how great was that darkness!

Austin says (Enchir. 78, ad Laurentium 110: 29) (another witness of the thick darkness the best were fallen into, and which shews the idea of intermediate punishment, not purgatory, but rest or misery, according to deserts) — "With the sacrifice for the very good, it was thanksgiving; for the not very bad, propitiations; for the very bad, though they are no help for the dead, they are a certain consolation for the living" (that is, a lie was, for the dead were not helped). "But those whom they profit, they profit for this, that there should be full remission, or that damnation itself, at any rate, should be more tolerable"! The Benedictine editors cite masses said to mitigate hell; and Augustine goes on to shew they will not get out, that God may remember mercy in (not after wrath, he says) wrath, and alleviate them from time to time.

Is it not deplorable? I might cite more passages, but these may suffice. Prayers for the dead there were in the third century; in the next, at any rate. Purgatory was decidedly unknown for six centuries. The Greek church has never received it; the Fathers are all confusion about it. It was a Platonic and Jewish idea. The purgatory generally spoken of in the fourth and fifth was the final judgment, which would be in measure to Christians — which, mark, denies the other. St. Augustine, after saying that an unmarried man built gold, etc., a married one, wood, hay, and stubble, and, reasoning much on the subject, says — Some were willing to prove an intermediate fire by the fire trying every man's work; and thought they who had lived without indulging their affections wrongly would not go there, and the others would, adding — "I do not oppose, because perhaps it is the truth" — non redarguo quia forsitan verum est. That is, it began in the fourth or fifth century to be hinted at as possible. (August. de Civ. Dei, lib. 20: 26.) Prayers for the dead, disproving purgatory, are found there from the third, shewing the knowledge of redemption to be lost; and purgatory began to be hinted at merely in the fourth or fifth, the purgatory of a final judgment proportioned to sin being then taught (redemption being wholly lost as a doctrine giving peace to the soul), and in the sixth and seventh it began to be established as a doctrine. This is the true history of it.

140 Here our author closes his subject. Why have we nothing of indulgences?

I had reserved the point of holiness as a proof of the true church. I have no longer need to say much. It is a painful point to touch on, because it seems like attack. But when holiness is advanced as a proof — and in its place it is a very real one — what can one do (since it is a proof, though not taken alone) but shew that holiness did not characterize what is called the Catholic church? I say not alone, for scripture always gives counter-checks. A man comes to me with the truth in form, but unholy — that is not the Spirit of God. The Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit. Another comes to me with a great appearance of holiness, but he has not the truth. It is not the Spirit of God, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. God guards His children thus on every side. But holiness is a proof in its place; I must therefore touch on it.

We have seen in the third century Cyprian declaring that corruption was universal, and that the bishops were running about everywhere for money, and making gain by fraud. We have seen that the martyrs' memories were, in the fourth and fifth, celebrated with drunken feasts, and Augustine fearing a sedition if an attempt was made to stop it. We have learned from him that this was deliberately allowed, to please heathens coming in and let them go on in their own ways unchanged, only substituting martyrs for idols. This is holiness neither in practice, purpose, nor doctrine. St. Augustine — De Opere Manichaeorum — complains of their running about to sell relics, to make money; and so great was the superstition, that the fifth Council of Carthage orders the innumerable altars to martyrs to be overturned, unless it made a tumult; and, if it could not be done, warns the people not to go.

141 Hear Jerome now as to priests (so-called). A law was made by Valentinian against priests and monks getting inheritances. Jerome says he does not complain of the law, but of its being necessary. The caution of the law is provident and severe; yet even so avarice is not restrained. We mock at laws by means of trusts; and, as if emperors' decrees were greater than Christ's, we fear the laws and despise the Gospels. And then, "It is the ignominy of all priests to study their own wealth. Born in a poor house, and in a rustic cottage, I, who could scarce content the loud cry of my belly with millet and coarse bread, now am nice about fine flour and honey. I know the kinds and names of fishes; I am knowing on what shore a shell-fish is gathered; I discern provinces by the savour of birds, etc. I hear, moreover, of the base service of some to old men and old women without children — themselves put the chamber pot, besiege the bed, receive with their own hands the purulence of the stomach and the expectoration of the lungs. They tremble at the entrance of the physician, and with faltering lips inquire whether they are better; and if the old person is somewhat more vigorous, they are in danger, and with feigned joy their avaricious mind is tortured within; for they fear lest they should lose their pains, and compare the vigorous old person to the years of Methuselah," Epist. 52: 34.

What do you think of such a state of the clergy, and general enough at least to require a law, not from heathen, as Jerome remarks, but from Christian emperors? Is that holiness? Were bloodshed and tumults, through ambition in the election of bishops, whether from individual ambition, as at Rome, or disputes between the clergy and people who should elect, as happened in France, a holy state of things? Hear Sulpitius Severus in Gaul, de Vita B. Martini 23: "But that I may insert less things than these (although, as is the course of our times, in which all things are depraved and corrupted, it is almost the chief thing, he did not yield priestly firmness to royal adulation); when many bishops from divers parts had come together to the Emperor Maximus, a man of a ferocious spirit, and elated with victory in the civil wars, and a base adulation of all around the prince was to be remarked, and the priestly dignity, by a degenerate inconstancy, had bowed before the royal attendant, in Martin alone apostolic authority remained." He relates he gave the cup of honour to a presbyter to drink before the emperor," And it was celebrated in all the palace that Martin had done at the king's dinner what no one of the bishops would have done in the festivals of the lowest judges." It was a mixture of the lowest servility and the haughtiest pride: so it ever is in such case. Pride at last got the upper hand.

142 But your doctrine, you say, is holy. Is it holy to have an absolution to facilitate men getting ease to their consciences, when they have not thoroughly repented? That is the express doctrine of your sacrament of penance, and the daily snare of millions in practice. The doctrine of attrition and a sacrament, or contrition without it, is the most iniquitous principle ever invented to content men with sin; and so it works. Can you shew me a more dreadful set of persons than a multitude of the popes, though with honourable exceptions in early days, yet never without excessive ambition? What do you say to indulgences? As a doctrine compounding for penances, as a practice compounding for sins, and paying for my faults with another's dreamed-of superfluous merits, and all disposed of for money? Is that holy doctrine? Are the taxes for sin in the Romish chancellary — that is, how much is to be paid for each — holy in doctrine or in practice? Good books forbidden at any price; all sins set off at some price! Is it a holy thing to teach, as to corruption produced by celibacy, si non casti, cauti? Let me ask, what was a great part of the bishops' revenues, at the time of the Reformation, derived from? Do you know that in Rome, at this day, according to statistical accounts, of over three thousand children born, considerably more than two thousand are given up to be brought up by avellin institutions, illegitimate or abandoned by their parents? Are not Romish countries known to be walking in corruption and evil, even more than Protestant ones? Do you think a person travelling through Spain, or Italy, or France, would find holiness characterise the country? Their state is awful. Do I say, then, that Protestant countries are holy? Far from it. No one is, but he who is born of God, and who is led by the Spirit of God. But I say that the professing church, and, above all, the Romish body, is not; not a person who goes to the East but would sooner trust a Turk than those called Christians; but this is of long date.

143 I will close this by a passage from Eusebius: "Wickedness of unutterable hypocrisy and dissimulation was risen to the highest pitch; the pastors of note among them, despising all bond of piety, turn in contention one against another, only increasing in strife, threats, envy, hostility, and hatred one against another," Lib. 8: 1. Austin declares that, in his day, if any one would live godly he was mocked, not by heathens simply, but by the professing Christians.

But to close. The truth is, all this has been predicted. Even in the apostles' days Paul declares, with a sorrowing heart, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." He declares that the mystery of iniquity did already work, and would issue in apostasy, in God's own time; that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse; that in the last days perilous times should come; that there would be a form of piety without the power. We have seen this fulfilled. It fills the heart with sorrow, but not surprise; it tests but it confirms faith; it shews the pretension to universality and external perpetuity, as a visible body, to be the sign of a false church, not of a true one; for the scriptures speak of apostasy, perilous times, and judgment, cutting off, if professing Gentiles do not continue in His goodness, while it is prophetically declared they will not. God will surely keep them that are His, and His own true church will be preserved and maintained, till the time for the Lord to come and take it into glory with Himself.

As to the outward professing body, the Lord has declared that the mystery of iniquity, which existed in the apostles' days, would go on till the full apostasy which would bring the judgment. The tares were sown by Satan in the field; the Lord will reap it in judgment. It is a solemn subject, as solemn for Protestants as for Romanists, for God will judge righteous judgment as to all, and there is grace in Christ for the one as for the other. Yes, holiness is a mark; but it is not forms of piety. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; but God will have reality; it is the real putting on of the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. It is being renewed in the spirit of our minds — this is the holiness which God will have. It is wanting, alas! in many Protestants; but it is that which every man who knows the actual state of Ireland, and still more perhaps other countries professing Romanism, knows does not characterise the vast bulk; he knows that corruption and evil are (with the exception perhaps of Belgium) in the proportion of its influence; France bad, Italy and Spain morally insupportable.

144 Yet holiness is a mark of the true church; but, my reader, Protestant or Roman Catholic, note it well, truth, the truth of God's holy word, is another; not the uncertain vacillations of Fathers with the growing superstitions of the mystery of iniquity, but God's own pure, certain, blessed word, written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, by apostles and evangelists, and addressed to Christians and whoever has ears to hear. Lastly, grace is a mark of the true church. The knowledge of a God of love, a God who has given His Son because He loved poor sinners; of that Son's having perfectly accomplished redemption by His own offering of Himself once for all; the knowledge that His blood cleanses from all sin, that He has made peace through the blood of His cross, and that by Him all that believe are justified from all things, and have eternal life; that God will remember their sins and iniquities no more. Yes, holiness, the truth, and the knowledge of a perfect and accomplished redemption of a God of love, mark the member at least of the true church, of the body of Christ, mark the children of a heavenly Father.

May you, reader, as a repentant sinner, know them for yourself!

Operations of the Spirit of God

J. N. Darby.

<03004F> 73 {file section a.}

I would desire to say a few words on the operations of the Spirit of God — the connection of His working in us with Christ; and the separateness too of the operation of the Spirit in us, from the work of Christ as wrought and perfected for us already.

I do not assume, by any means, to give a full or adequate view of the operations of the Spirit — "Who is sufficient for these things?" I see enough, indeed, to see the paucity and dimness of what has appeared to my mind, compared with the glory of what is still shewn to be onward. Blessed that it is so — most blessed — eternal blessings! Still I would speak of that which the scripture seems to make clear. If others have learned more, they can be led forth to communicate it; if less, they will not begrudge what I do: what I hope is, that it may lead into more searching and attainment of the power of these things.

Christians, and real ones, are too apt (though this may seem a strange assertion) to separate, and too apt to confound, Christ and the Spirit. That is, they separate Christ and the Spirit in operation in us too much; and they confound the work of Christ for us too much with the Spirit. The consequence of both is, uncertainty, meagreness of judgment, and doubt.

The work of the Spirit of God in me, in the power of life, produces conflict, labour, discoveries of sin, and need of mortifying my members which are on the earth; and the more what "Christ is" is revealed in my soul, in the comparison with the discovery of what I am, the more do I find cause of humiliation — the more do I find, by the contrast of Christ looked at as in the flesh here sinless, God condemning this evil root of sin in the flesh in me. And much more, by the discovery of what my blessed Lord is, as glorified, do I see through the Spirit, how short I am of "attaining," though I may be still changed into the same likeness, from glory to glory. Hence, though at peace, hope, perhaps animating hope, and joy betimes filling the soul, yet there will be exercised self-judgment and sorrow of heart at the discovery of how every feeling we have towards God, and every object spiritually known, is short of the just effects they should produce and call out; and hence, too, in case of any allowance or indulgence of evil, deep self-abasement and utter abhorrence. Hence, when the fulness and finishedness of our acceptance in Christ is not known, anxiety and spiritual despondency arise, and doubt, sometimes issuing in a very mistaken and evil reference to the law — a sort of consecrating the principle of unbelief, putting the soul (on the discovery, by the Spirit, of sin working in it) under the law and its condemnation; and not "in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."*

{*The sabbath (i.e., the rest of God) was connected with the manna (Christ) sent down (see John 6); conflict, with Amalek at the waters of Rephidim. Every Christian will more or less painfully have to learn his own heart; for that is the separating, sanctifying process. The great object is to separate this from our justification; and that it should be a matter of judging ourselves, not of expecting God's judgment on us. When this discovery of sin in us is made previous to any clear knowledge of the work of Christ, it is habitually accompanied with terror or despair — a very intelligible effect; when after that knowledge, the sin is perhaps more deeply abhorred, but it is not with terror as to our condemnation, but characterised by a loathing condemnation of the sin itself.}

74 We hear of God hiding His face from us, and the like language, which faith never could use; for faith knows that God ever looks on His Anointed, never hides His face. And if we have such thoughts, they are to be treated as pure unbelief, and dealt with accordingly. Every believer must acknowledge that it is not true, if he believe the full and perfect acceptance of the saints in Christ; and therefore to account it true is the lie of his own heart, and unbelief.

The Spirit of God judges sin in me; but it makes me know that I am not judged for it, because Christ has borne that judgment for me. This is no cloak of licentiousness: the flesh would indeed always turn it to this, it would pervert everything. But the truth is, that same Spirit which reveals the Lord who bore my sins, as having purged them, at the right hand of God, and which therefore gives me perfect assurance of their being put away, and the infiniteness of my acceptance in Him — that same Spirit, I say, judges the sin by virtue of its character as seen in the light of that very glory; and when this is not done, the Father (into whose hands the Son has committed those whom the Father has given Him to keep) as a Holy Father chastises and corrects, and purges, as a husbandman, the branches. Here, moreover, the discipline of the Church of God, as having the Spirit, comes in, the disuse and neglect of which has much ministered to the distrust of the full and happy assurance of the believer. For the body of the Church, as such, ought necessarily to assume itself (for such is the portion of the Church according to the word) as a sacred people — a manifested sacred people; and then, through the Spirit dwelling in it, to exercise all godly and gracious discipline for the maintenance of the manifested holiness of that sacred people. The Church is the dwelling-place of the Spirit. The Spirit reveals the condition of the Church in Christ, and of the individuals who compose it ("In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you"), and effects, maintains, and guards the character of Christ in the Church in grace and holiness: "Ye are the epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God."

75 If my soul rests entirely on the work of Christ and His acceptance, as the One who appears in the presence of God for me, that is a finished work, and a perfect infinite acceptance — "as He is, so are we in this world": so that "herein is love made perfect with us, that we should have boldness in the day of judgment." Now, what men substitute for this is, the examination of the effects of the Spirit in me: the effects of regeneration are put as the ground of rest, in lieu of redemption; whence I sometimes hope when I see those effects, sometimes despond when I see the flesh working; and having put the work of the Spirit in place of the work of Christ, the confidence I am commanded to hold fast never exists, and I doubt whether I am in the faith at all. All this results from substituting the work of the Spirit of God in me, for the work, victory, resurrection, and ascension of Christ actually accomplished — the sure (because finished) resting-place of faith, which never alters, never varies, and is always the same before God. If it be said, "Yes, but I cannot see it as plain, because of the flesh and unbelief," this does not alter the truth. And to whatever extent this dimness proceeds, treat it as unbelief and sin, not the state of a Christian, or as God hiding His face. The discovery of sin in you, hateful and detestable as it is, is no ground for doubting, because it was by reason of this, to atone for this, because you were this, that Christ died; and Christ is risen, and there is an end of that question.

But it will be said, 'I fully believe that Christ is the very true Son of God, one with the Father, and all His work and grace, but I do not know that I have an interest in Him this is the question, and this is quite a different question.' Not so; but the subtlety of Satan, and bad teaching, which would still throw you back off Christ. God, for our comfort, has identified the two things, by stating "that by him all that believe are justified from all things." In a word, to say, "I believe, but I do not know whether I have an interest," is a delusion of the devil; for God says, it is those who believe who have the interest — that is His way of dealing. I have no more right to believe that I am a sinner, as God views it, in myself, than that I am righteous in Christ. The same testimony declares that none is righteous, and that believers are justified.

76 I may have a natural consciousness of sin, and a Spirit-taught consciousness of sin, and what it is. If I rest in this, I cannot have peace: in Christ's work about it, I have perfect peace. But am I not desired to examine myself, whether I am in the faith? No. What then says 2 Corinthians 13: 5: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith?" etc. Why, that if they sought a proof of Christ speaking in Paul, they were to examine themselves, and by the certainty of their own Christianity, which they did not doubt, be assured of his apostleship. The apostle's argument was of no value whatever, but on the ground of the sanctioned certainty that they were Christians. But I have dwelt longer on this than I had any purpose; but the comfort of souls may justify it. It is connected with man's seeking, from the work of the Spirit of God in him, that which is to be looked for only from the work of Christ.

If my assurance and comfort or hope be drawn from the experience of what passes within me, though it may be verified against cavils thereby, as in the first epistle of John, then it is not the righteousness of God by faith; for the experience of what passes in my soul is not faith. I repeat, that by looking to the work of Christ the standard of holiness is exalted; because, instead of looking into the muddied image of Christ in my soul, I view Him in the Spirit, in the perfectness of that glory into the fellowship of which I am called; and therefore, to walk worthy* of God, who hath called me to His own kingdom and glory. I forget the things behind, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and my self-examination becomes, not an unhappy inquiry whether or not I am in the faith, never honouring God in confidence after all that He has done, but whether my walk is worthy of one who is called into His kingdom and glory. But the disconnection of Christ from the operations of the Spirit is an evil, and tends to the same point, though the application be not so immediate.

{*Whenever this is not the case, our standard is apt to be — as little of the fruits of the Spirit as we can ascertain ourselves to be Christians by: and then to go on, after the examination, as we went on before, being satisfied with ascertaining that.}

77 In the teaching of ordinary evangelicalism, a man is said to be "born of the Spirit," its need perhaps shewn from what we are, and its fruit shewn, and the inquiry stated — Are you this? for then you will go to heaven. These things have a measure of truth in them. But are they thus presented in Scripture? There I find these things continually and fully connected with Christ, and involving our being in that blessed One, and He in us; and consequently not merely an evidence by fruits that I am born of the Spirit of God, but a participation in all of which He is the Heir, as the risen man (in the sure title of His own sonship), as quickened together with Him — a union of life and inheritance, of which the Holy Ghost is the power and witness.

It is thus expressed in the epistle to the Ephesians: "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. And you hath he quickened . . . even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ." So in Colossians 2: 13: "And you hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." "If ye then be risen with Christ."

The operation of the Spirit of God, while acting in divine power, is to bring us into living association with Christ. His operation in us is to make good in us, to connect us with, to reveal to us, and to bring us into the power of, all that is verified in Christ, as the second Adam, the risen Man, in life, office, and glory — "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." We are "heirs together," "suffering together that we may be glorified together," and thus finally "con-formed* to the image" of God's Son, in that God "hath quickened us together," and "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together," etc. (Eph. 2: 5, 6). And the Spirit of God works in us thus in life, and in service, and suffering, and lastly in glory, in the resurrection of our bodies also.

{*The word 'together' is found here also in the structure of the Greek word.}

78 I would trace, briefly, the testimony of this through Scripture. It may be seen there, both individually, and besides that, also corporately, as in the Church. The Spirit is spoken of first, as quickening; and secondly, as indwelling. We are born of the Spirit. As regards individuals so quickened, as indwelling, it associates them with the glory of Christ, as it sheds abroad also God's love in the heart, and with the power of Christ's life, as having eternal life — life in Himself as Son of God; and it also reveals and makes them, according to His good pleasure, instruments of the revelation of His glory as Son of man: this consequent upon ascension, as the former is declared and witnessed in resurrection. The special subject of which He is witness in the Church corporately, constituting the Church the present faithful witness, is, that Jesus Christ is Lord, which is immediately connected with the glory, "to the glory of God the Father."

John 3 first brings the subject of the operations of the Spirit before us at large. "A man must be born again," born of water and of the Spirit. But while this is generally taken simply that he must be regenerate to be saved, the passage states much more. He cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God, a kingdom composed of earthly things and heavenly things, of which a Jew must be born again to be a partaker (however much he fancied himself a child of the kingdom) even in its earthly things, which Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, ought to have known, as from Ezekiel 36: 21-38; and to the heavenly things of which the Lord could not direct them then, save as shewing the door, even the cross, a door which opened into better and higher things: wherein (as, in the Spirit's work, being prerogative power, "so was every one that was born of the Spirit," and Gentiles therefore might be partakers of it; for it made, not found, men what it would have them) the Lord declared that God loved not the Jew only, but the world. In this passage itself, then, we have not merely the individual renewed, and fit for heaven, but the estimate of the Jew, a kingdom revealed, embracing earthly and heavenly things, which the regenerate alone saw, and into which they entered — to the heavenly things, of which the cross, as yet as unintelligible as the heavenly things themselves, formed the only door wherein was exhibited the Son of man lifted up, and the Son of God given in God's love to the world. "In the regeneration," of which the Spirit's quickening operation in the heart was the first-fruits as His presence was the earnest of the heavenly part, "this Son of man would sit on the throne of his glory."

79 The principle, then, on which men dwell, is true; but the revelation of this chapter is much wider and more definite than they suppose. It is not merely that the man is changed or saved; but he sees and enters a kingdom the world knows nothing of, till it comes in power; and, moreover, that such a one receives a life as true and real, and much more important and blessed, than any natural life in the flesh. It is not merely changing a man by acting on his faculties, but the giving a life which may act indeed now, through these faculties, on objects far beyond them (as the old and depraved life on objects within its or their reach), but in which he is made partaker of the divine nature, in which not merely the faculties of his soul have new objects, but as in this he was partner with the first Adam, the living soul, so in that with the second Adam, the quickening Spirit. And we must add, that the Church, in order to its assimilation with Him in it, is made partaker of this, consequent upon His resurrection, and therefore is made partaker of the life according to the power of it thus exhibited, and has its existence consequent upon (yea, as the witness of) the passing away (blessed be God!) of all the judgment of its sins; for it has its life from, and consequent upon, the resurrection of Christ out of that grave in which, so to speak, He buried them all. It exists, and has not its existence but consequent upon the absolute accomplishment and passing away of its judgment.

This, then, is the real character of our regeneration into the kingdom, where the charge of sin is not, nor can be, upon us, being introduced there by the power of that in which all is put away. The life of the Church is identified with the resurrection of Christ, and therefore the unqualified forgiveness of all its flesh could do, for it was borne, and borne away. The justification of the Church is identified with living grace; for it has it, because quickened together with Him, as out of the grave, where He buried all its sins. Thus are necessarily connected regeneration and justification; and the operation of the Spirit is not a mere acting on the faculties, a work quite separate from Christ, and to be known by its fruits, while the death of Christ is something left to reason about; but it is a quickening together with Christ out of my trespasses and sins, in which I find myself indeed morally dead, but Him judicially dead for me, and therefore forgiven and justified necessarily, as so quickened. The resurrection of Christ proves that there will be a judgment, says the Apostle (Acts 17). It proves that there will be none for me, says the Spirit by the same blessed apostle; for He was raised for my justification. He was dead under my sins; God has raised Him, and where are they? The Church is quickened out of Jesus's grave, where the sins were left.

80 Then, as to the power of this life and the other operations of the Spirit, I find, in the Lord's account of his own testimony, the statement of communion and displayed glory. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." He testified that which He knew in oneness with the Father, which He had seen in the glory which He had with the Father before the world was.

The operations of the Spirit, in giving us life in the Son, and revealing the glory (ours therefore withal) into which He has brought His manhood, and which consequently is revealed in it, answer just to this statement of the Lord concerning Himself. Our communion — living communion with Him and the Father — and our apprehension and expression of the glory which is His; of these two John 4 and 7 speak. In these chapters and elsewhere we have to remark, that we are taught, not of the Spirit's operating on, but dwelling in us. The Spirit of God does operate on (whether in mere testimony, for the reception of which we are responsible, as in the case of the rulers of the Jews and Stephen — "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye"; of which I do not speak now at large or efficiently), in convincing, renewing, and quickening us. This being done by the word, it is by faith wherein (that is, in the reception of the word) we are quickened (that is, the revelation of Christ). "We are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ." "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." These are sufficient to shew the manner of the operation: how, being a testimony, the natural man rejects it, though guilty for so doing, for it is God's testimony; and how it is effectual, in the quickening power of the Spirit, but is by faith in consequence of the instrument employed. The power of it I have already spoken of; whence we see, while they that believe not make God a liar, they that believe have the witness in themselves; for they are made livingly partakers, in communion, of what they believe.

81 But the work (in virtue of which they are thus made partakers of life and fellowship with God) being a perfect work, the Spirit, who takes up His abode in the believer, is a spirit of peace and joy, a spirit of witness of all that Christ is and has done, and, we must add, of the Father's perfect acceptance of both.

That the natural man rejects these things and receives them not, we shall see; but the conscience being awakened, and peace made, the Spirit is witness to the renewed soul of them.

Now, in John 5 we have the Spirit's operation, wherein, as to the manner, the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear live; and though, by the Spirit, it is still the Son speaking from heaven (as before on earth, i.e. on Mount Sinai, which was by angels, as far as mediately, not by the Spirit). As to the manner and character of the testimony, I would speak more when I come to John 7, where it is the witness of the glory of the Son of man, as thus given and present among believers.

I turn now to the instruction which chapter 4 supplies, where it is compared to the living water; and we see at once the stupidity and incapability of the flesh to receive the things of the Spirit in the repeated replies of the woman to the statements of the Lord, which, one would have supposed, must have awakened her to something beyond her ordinary thoughts. It is not the capacity of the flesh to receive it, but the revelation of the Lord concerning it, that I now refer to. It is not as a quickening agent He now speaks of it, but as a gift — that which was given by Him. Here, we must remark, Christ is the giver, not the gift. "He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him" (it is spoken of as indwelling), "it shall be in him a well of water." Given as the energy of indwelling life, divinely given — the gift of God (as afterwards) that I shall give him — it springs up into everlasting life. It is divine life from the Son, enjoyed by the power of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us; not as the Spirit of God revealing His glory; but the power of life, having its communion and result in the eternal source from which it flows. Whether Jesus were in humiliation, or whether Jesus were glorified, this power was in Him; and though the expression of the power may be different, still it was the same power. He had life in Himself, as the Son of God. He might raise to natural life, or He might raise in resurrection life, and hence the difference; for now it is in the latter, being, in ultimate purpose, that in which power conforming to Himself is, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. It is life more abundantly, even if they were alive before.

82 With this new life withal, specially the Spirit dwells and bears witness. He might communicate the life then 7 but it could not be in the revelation or character which belonged to Christ as risen, or as the Head of the body. It was this great truth that was breaking through the clouds all through the Lord's discourse to His disciples; while He was affording to the nation to which He came, not only this, but the most ample evidence of every prophecy fulfilled, and power exercised, which left them without excuse as to His actual reception, whether we regard His character or Person. Through this operation of the Spirit, so indwelling, with our new man, it is that God is specially known and enjoyed; but being the Spirit of the Son, in that we are quickened of the Son, God specially enjoyed and worshipped as the Father. This is the great result of the revelation of the Son, and our life in and by Him. And herein is eternal life; John 17: 2. God was known in a measure to a godly Jew; but if He were sought in an especial manner of relationship, it was as Jehovah. To us the special manner of relationship is, "My Father and your Father, my God and your God."

We know Him as sons; but it is God who is known and enjoyed. This we find hinted at in this fourth chapter of John: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth": but it is said just before, "shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." This communion with and knowledge of God is matter of exceeding joy — I mean, knowing Him and enjoying Him as God. There is a depth in it which, in that we do it in the peace and communion which is the result of all question of sin being laid aside, is, perhaps (it is hard to compare things in these subjects), beyond all other of our thoughts, and lasts through and beyond the actual covenant blessings which are our portion to enjoy as children. These chastenings may remove for our need: "If needs be, we may be in heaviness through manifold temptations." But though the joy may be weakened, the spring of righteous confidence in God is there; and, indeed, we are thrown more abstractedly and essentially upon God. We should joy in God at all times; but we are apt to turn to the blessings conferred, and in a measure to forget the Blesser. See Psalm 63. Hence the deprivation, that we may remember Him. But properly, this well of water springing up into everlasting life is that partaking of the divine nature in which ("having escaped") we joy in God, repose in Him, delight in Him, are filled into His fulness, know Him indeed in the blessedness of actual revelation; but still in the name of God, as such, the power of this communion is conveyed, being rooted and grounded in love, knowing God, and known of Him, it supposes all the rest of truth, and it is found in Christ. "He hath given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, that is, in his Son Jesus Christ: he is the true God and eternal life." Of this we have the perfect exhibition in Jesus, in spite of all trial; for how should the Spirit, which dwelt in all fulness in Him, even as a man, be grieved with divine perfectness? "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." "That the love [says the Lord, speaking of the converse, and therefore the power of this] wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them"; and so, as to the form of it, as it were with us: "In that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." But now we speak of it as specially knowing God. I think, if the Psalms be studied, what Christ's Spirit passed through and teaches us will be deeply learnt in this — there, of course, among Jews it is Jehovah, when He speaks of covenant-blessings, as we have more specially to say, "Father." But not resting here on this distinction, if the Psalms, and parts of Psalms, in which Jehovah is used, and in which God is used, be referred to and compared and studied, the deepest practical instruction will be derived as to this power of communion from the Spirit of Christ itself. Only we must remember that, for us it is founded on an accomplished work, and that which He passed through, as accomplishing it, is to us the fellowship of His sufferings, or loving chastisement. We may look to Psalms 42, 43, as an example of this. But, further, if we turn to our Lord's personal history, and note the difference between that word, "Father, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but thine be done," and "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" we shall see the deepening entrance into another character of communion, in which the whole power and character of God were called out, borne indeed by Jesus our most glorious and blessed Head; that to us in that day, that power and character might become infinite and eternal joy; and is now to us all as sons, through the consequent gift of God by virtue of His resurrection; for such is the power of eternal life to us consequent on Christ's death.

84 O that the Church more entered into these things — walked more in the power of unseen communion with God! I say not this, as though I did; but I say it only as so knowing the blessedness of it in Him, as to pray and desire it for the Church, in the sense of the lack of it often.

Hitherto I have spoken, either of the quickening power of the Spirit of God, as introducing us into the kingdom; or, as dwelling in the individual, as the power of eternal life, through which his communion with God is carried on: this there must be where there is life according to Christ Jesus. There remains a wide field to treat of, on which I feel almost deterred from entering; not because I fear there is not boundless joy in passing over, and learning it in one's own soul, entering into it; but because it is boundless, and that I feel deeply my inadequacy to do so properly, even to satisfy my own mind: and I will add, especially when one considers the responsibility of being a communicator, and, as it were, teacher of these things to others. The deep interest and importance of the subject is my excuse: I would not have done it if it had not been pressed on my own mind. It is the largeness of the subject which deters me.

There is one thing I feel it important to notice ere I pass on: though the Spirit is life, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, and Christ as quickening Spirit is our life, yet the Holy Ghost is also spoken of as personally acting in power on our souls — acting in blessing; for He is God; and while we are made partakers of the divine nature, and have this life of God in us as born of Him, yet this is not the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Ghost is God. Therefore we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs"; and therefore, the scripture speaks of the inner spiritual man being strengthened, renewed, as "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." Though our outward man perish, our "inner man is renewed day by day"; so "the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

85 The next point, before I pass on to its character and operation, is to advert to the fact of the special indwelling of the Holy Ghost: I mean in individual believers. I do not speak of this as if it were new to many who read this paper, but because I daily find it is new to many who inquire: and it puts the subject in entirely a different light. We shall see that it is connected with, and consequent upon, the ascension and glorifying of Christ; but we must remember that, while the coming down of the Holy Ghost is witness of ascension-glory and divine righteousness, and that our association in it was consequent (in the necessary course of the divine ministrations) upon Christ's entering into the glory, yet was it withal the power to us of all that whence it came, and into which, and association with which, it brings us; and so we shall see in the texts to which I shall refer, closing with the one which more especially introduces me into my present subject; "In whom" (we read in Ephesians), "after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." I know that this has been referred to gifts merely. To these I hope to refer before I finish this subject: but that it is not confined to these is manifest, however these may display it, because, in that case, where there were no gifts, there would be no earnest of the inheritance: but the Comforter Himself was to abide for ever. Besides, gifts are not spoken of here, but the Holy Spirit itself as the earnest; but to confound them, is to confound the Giver and the gift; for the Spirit distributes of these to every man severally as He will, and they are only the manifestation of the Spirit given for profit; and confounding them (unconsciously perhaps) undermines the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, and confounds the power of witnessing to others (which may be with no vital or sanctifying power) with the blessed and sanctifying communion with, and anticipation of, things hoped for and treasured up in Christ as ours, and to be displayed in that day. In a word, the Spirit which distributes the gift is not the gift He distributes, though He be displayed in the gift; nor are the things in which the given power is displayed necessarily any earnest of the inheritance at all; as in the gift of prophecy, as in Balaam's case, and as Paul states the possibility that a man might preach to others, and he himself be a castaway. And though their characters in some instances are indicative of the dispensation, and their number and circumstances may be different, yet the existence of extraordinary powers and acts in themselves were not characteristic of this indwelling and earnest of the Spirit. Many and remarkable miracles were wrought, and great power exhibited in service, before this came, before the Son of man was glorified. But these did not constitute the indwelling of the Spirit in the Church, for there was none such; nor in the individual as an earnest of the inheritance, for they might be there, as in the case of Balaam, already adverted to, and the individual not be an heir. The Spirit in them might search, and find the things they administered were not unto themselves. I propose to return a little to this, and would now pursue my more immediate subject.

86 In the Galatians we find — having shewn that they were sons through faith in Christ Jesus, not servants — "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father"; clearly distinguishing between the regenerating power and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and speaking of one as a consequence of the other — that it dwelt in an individual who was (and because he was) a son of God. We also see its distinction from a gift, for it is put in the heart to cry, Abba, Father. Further, we see that, as in such sort, there, it is proper to, and characteristic of, the dispensation. For it is not the portion of the heir when an infant, and as a servant, under tutors and governors, which they, even if heirs, were previously, not in immediate communion with the Father personally. They had not the mind needful for it, not having the Holy Ghost thus. But it is their portion when they take properly the place of sons, which they do in this dispensation; and though they do not as yet enter upon the inheritance, yet are they to have the mind renewed in knowledge concerning it, and enter into the full interests of the Father's house.

87 Again, says Peter, "We are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, which is given to them that believe." We find it in similar language in Ephesians, and Romans 8: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and if Christ be in you," etc.; and in Ephesians: "That ye may be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." These are connected with communion, and mark it as an individual thing in which the heart has its portion by faith.

Again, where the connection of things hoped for, and the power of communion in which they are enjoyed in the certainty of God's love, are brought together, "hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us." Again, in 2 Corinthians 1, "For all the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" — a very full and blessed passage: God, the great Author of it all and power by which it is wrought, establishing us in Christ, our glorious and blessed Head, in the communion of all like glory with Him; in the communion of that in which, by the fulfilment of all the promises in their amazing blessedness in Christ Himself, God is glorified: and this, while we are assumed in grace into a portion with Him, we being the very subjects of the blessing, not merely in consequence but in association, and therefore having all the consequences. It is ours, the promises being in Christ, to the glory of God by us. Now God stablishes us in this portion: how do we know it? How is it marked? How enjoyed, and the earnest possessed, while we have it not, when the glory is not yet come? God hath established us in it: that is the assurance and security. He hath anointed us with that unction from Himself — the Holy One — whereby we know all things (compare the whole of 2 Corinthians 1: 7 to the end, where this is fully explained); but then the having the Spirit is the seal or mark whereby we are significantly denoted as belonging to God, as His heirs: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; but being given us to dwell in us, in that we are heirs, we have it as an earnest in our hearts; abounding in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost; knowing that we are sons, and delighting in the thought of the inheritance, and of being like Him who is "the firstborn among many brethren"; and in this joy of the Holy Ghost, filled (it may be in the midst of much affliction) with all joy and peace in believing, the soul entering, as associated with Christ (and in this lies much, and that of the very kernel of the joy, though not all), into all the glory in which the promises of God are fulfilled in Him. I say, not all the joy; because it is not only (with what riches are we endowed, yea, beyond all thought!) "As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you": a blessing known, had communion with by the Spirit, as our portion, of which the glory is the display, as enjoyed along with Him; but "that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me"; and therefore they are not only companions with the Son of man in the glory, but in adoption sons of God, as brethren, being brought into this joy, as in the Father's kingdom, more properly the Father's house, where the place is prepared for us by the great Firstborn. Thus the Son's rich and unjealous love (for it is divine), in giving us the glory which was given to Him, displays us in the glory, which approves before the world that the Father has loved us as He loved Him. Was ever anything like this in love? Does it not, in its very conception, prove it altogether divine? None could deal, act, or know in such sort but God; and the very possession of these things in our hearts is the witness that God is there, if they be known in love, holy love; for "he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." And these things we have now, not in possession indeed, but in (the earnest of the) Spirit; as the same Spirit by the apostle speaks: "These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full," "that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." This is a very holy place to dwell in, one that becometh saints — one that nothing but the blood of Jesus could purchase — none but God by His wondrous work in Christ present us faultless in the presence of. Yet, blessed be His grace (and the more blessed because it is holy and enjoyed), in that we have the Holy Spirit revealing it, giving us a divine spiritual communion with it, sealing us as heirs of all of it and the power of our joy in it; -this is our place, our portion: O my soul, dwell there in joy — joy with Christ. You will note, He says, "His Son Jesus Christ"; which is not only the expression of faith, but presenting our blessed Lord in that character — the Saviour, the anointed Man — in which He has brought us into fellowship, and associated us with Him in this sonship, and given us fellowship moreover with the Father as sons; ourselves sons, though in Him. And the converse of this is met in that expression, "I say not that I will pray the Father for you [as if the Father did not Himself love you]; for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." This they had believed, but knew not yet in its fulness, known thus by the Holy Ghost (the Spirit of sonship given), namely, that He came forth from the Father. In this they were dull: it is the life of the saints. And this it is that makes the notion of sonship in Christ only when incarnate so destructive to the very elementary joy of the Church, and abhorrent to those who have communion by the Spirit in the truth.

89 But the joy and blessedness of which I speak leads me at once to the statement? "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Here again, you will remark, it is an individual matter — the believer's portion, however it may be ministered. "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given], because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Now this statement (as I think we shall see) is one of extreme importance, and connected with the whole character and state of the dispensation, as being that of God's blessings, which are beyond all dispensation, except the fact of giving the Spirit as the power of divine life and worship, inasmuch as they lead into communion with Himself.

John 4, of which I have already spoken, though it involves, does not rest on dispensation; but that, on the passing away of "this mountain," or even of that on which Jerusalem stood, the living power of communion with the Father everywhere, even with God as a Spirit, should take place. Hence it was a quickening power, shewn in humiliation, as well as in glory; yea, according to love in gift proved in humiliation: and the hour then was, as well as was coming. Not so, though they may include these things, chapters 3, 7. Chapter 3, as we have seen, contains the kingdom, and shews what must belong to a Jew to enter into its earthly portion, the quickening which alone could bring even the nominal children into the kingdom, because it was God's kingdom.

But here, in chapter 7, we have the gift of the Spirit consequent upon the ascension-glory — on the glorifying of Jesus. His brethren, representing in their unbelief the Jews, had proposed at the feast of tabernacles that Jesus should shew Himself to the world. Jesus' reply was, their time was always ready, His time was not yet come. On the eighth day of that feast, and peculiar to it (the day of resurrection, the feast of the new week, the beginning of a new scene), the great day of it, Jesus stood and cried. And as the water out of the rock (and that rock was Christ) followed and supplied the children of Israel through the wilderness, they came to keep the feast of tabernacles as at rest in the land; so Jesus, His people being united to Him their glorified Head, would so fill them with the Spirit, that out of them should flow — not merely out of Him to them, but out of them should flow — rivers of living water, even of the Spirit which believers should receive. But it is said, "out of his belly." Now this is to me a blessed expression: the use of it for the thoughts, feelings, condition, of the inner man, is familiar in Scripture. On this the peculiar blessing all rests; and herein the essential difference of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost as now, and when operating on prophets before. The possession of the Holy Ghost rested now on union, and consequently was a constant thing, and an earnest to the person in whom it dwelt of his own interest in the things it communicated. He was brought into communion, as united to the Head, in all the things in which that Head was revealed; and he had the Spirit by virtue of his being so united — the necessary witness therefore of his interest in them. And as this union was connected with a divine nature communicated, the mind, thoughts, feelings, joys, sorrows, interests, consolations, fears, hopes, and streams of love which that nature entered into, were now the portion of the saint, and that, withal, according to the power of the energy of the Spirit, which, though indwelling, still acted independently (i.e., as regards us), though, according to the order and revelations of the dispensation of which He was the power, speaking what He heard. I am not now speaking of the conflict still, and therefore, existing with the flesh (and, I must add, with the world, for both are the consequence of this very thing), but of the thing itself. This earnest of the Spirit is in connection with the glory of Jesus, therefore full of victory and full of hope. And yet (as it was the glory of the man witnessed, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in those not yet glorified, though sanctified to God) it became, on the one hand, the complete witness of the highest possible assurance of understanding, because Jesus was on the throne who had entered into the whole conflict, and of the Father's acceptance of Him in divine righteousness: yet withal, on the other hand, it entered into all the circumstances through which that righteous Man did pass; so giving the pattern and formation of knowledge, the tongue of the learned, in all the trial through which the saints as led of the Spirit had to (and must) pass — their portion — and therefore a Spirit of perfect sympathy, the sympathy of the Spirit of Christ, as knowing the glory, and therefore sensible, according to God, of the extreme misery, and sorrow, and degradation, into which, as to circumstance, those in whom (as the witness of Jesus) He dwelt were plunged; and what their trial on the way to that glory and the path of patience towards it. Also was it witness of the Father's love as shewn in the glory; and hence it passed, as the river of that divine refreshment in the wilderness, through them, as flowing in their hearts, for they were united to Jesus, to refresh all to whom its heavenly and blessed streams came; that drinking in this as the parched ground, a desert land, they might spring forth in green and refreshing fruits, which the great Head of the Church might find delight and joy in; while their joy was full in communion with that from which it flowed. For wherever the river is received, it is the river still.

91 Doubtless, not shewing Himself as amongst the Jews, His natural brethren, to the world, any individual amongst them, believing then, took the place of substituted and anticipative blessing then proposed; but, being a matter of faith, it is, if "any man thirst" — and thus it is the portion to any man of faith. Then we have to enquire, on what this depended, whence this flowing stream came. It was sent from the Father by Jesus glorified, and becomes the witness of all the acceptance, which the glorifying of Jesus, the great responsible Man under our sins, declares; and of all the glory to which He is entitled, and all that is displayed in His Person, as there sat down (which is our hope, for we shall see Him as He is, and be like Him); and, moreover, of communion with Him, not according to that glory in which He will appear to earth (for I know not that that will need the Holy Ghost, though communion vitally with Him in any way does and will, but of this in the previous chapter); but according to the glory in which He sits on the Father's throne, in which we who are sons shall know Him in that day, and the Church knows Him now as sitting on the Father's throne. There is a glory which He will take — His own glory as visible Lord and Son of man, in which every eye shall see Him: but there is a glory in which the Spirit now reveals Him, in which the Church knows Him, in which, though Son of man, He is one with the Father; a glory which He has taken as man, a glory with the Father (John 17: 5), and which in itself He had with the Father before the world was, but which He has now taken as man, and which the Spirit communicates to us who are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and gives us communion with Him; and which forms the power and object of hope to our minds. As it is written, "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness through faith." That righteousness is established for us in Christ upon the throne; for He who bore our sins is gone to the Father in glory. The reward and end of that righteousness is this glory. Hence we see that this is our portion in hope, for the righteousness is ours. And as in Christ, the glory is ours too, although the oneness with the Father (which gives Him the place in which the glory is now) is His only, yet is not this without its blessing, for the Church knows it in Him; and the full divine source of the glory is manifested. As now Christ is in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us; so, in the day of His appearing, shall it be Christ in us, and the Father in Him, that we may be made perfect in one.

92 But this is not all of these streams of living water, though it may be the great source and fountain, the glory of the Man on the Father's throne. For, as the feast of tabernacles was on the accomplishment of the promises held in the land, and as Solomon spoke of it on the great typical celebration of it, "The Lord hath performed with his hand all that he spake to David my father with his mouth"; so to Christ Himself all the promises are made, as Heir of all things, as Son of God, as Son of man, and Son of David. As many as are the promises of God, in Him are they Yea, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us. Now as that which we have spoken of is for the glory of God manifested in Him, so, as it is by us, He takes the promises as man, that, having purged and sanctified the children by His blood, He might introduce them in witness of the Father's love as co-heirs. Hence as to them also, that which He is heir of as the glorified man (in title as Son of God) is, in knowledge and communion by the Spirit, part of these living streams. Therefore it is there added, "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ is God, who hath anointed us, and hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." It not only then reveals the glory of Jesus as now on the throne of God as man, but also that which He takes when He appears in glory, when all shall be blessing, we being called to inherit a blessing; and therefore the moment the earth comes into blessing, it becomes a portion of our inheritance in Christ. "The Lord shall hear the heavens," etc. Whatever there is promised to Christ as the seed and great purpose of God (see Gal. 3); whatever things there are in which the glory of God is displayed, and is the furniture, and reflection, and exhibition of that glory by Christ (and all things are for Him); is to that glory by us. Of this — in its wide and fullest blessedness as second Adam, Lord from heaven withal, the witness in blessing, evil being conquered, of all the Father's love unfolded in and on the creature taken into the inheritance — of this, I say, the Spirit is the joy to us in hope. And, as the promises are to us in Christ, and we see Christ, though all things be not yet put under Him, crowned with the glory and honour, in which He is the securer of them all (sustaining all things), the firstborn of every creature, as well as Firstborn from the dead, and Head of the Church — we, being in Christ and partakers of the Spirit, have all these as abounding in hope; for they are witness of the Father's love and blessing, contributing to these rivers of living waters (that is, the knowledge of the glory of Christ as in them), enjoyed within by the Spirit; and, where so enjoyed, flowing over; for no human heart ever, when so enjoyed, could contain them.

93 And this surely is a joyous thought — for now we must take the promises in the widest sense — all things in heaven and in earth, all are Christ's as heir; for indeed He made them all, and all are to be reconciled in Him; and if reconciled to God, how full the blessing! Well may the streams flow through the desert when Israel is there passing, for desert it shall be no longer when Israel is owned: the streams were not indeed thence, but they were there for the firstborn when the firstborn were there. A most blessed picture this of divine favour and exalting hope! The wilderness shall flourish and blossom as the rose, when in divine favour Israel obtains its inheritance: so, when Israel passes through it, for Israel (though the wilderness be unchanged by it) the streams which would renew and gladden it flow — refresh Israel blessedly through it. Thus beautifully does the song of Moses, when he would as his God prepare Him a habitation, and as his father's God exalt Him, declare, on his emergence from the Red Sea, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed; thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." To God they were already brought, so we. Afterwards: "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." The place of Israel, as the redeemed tribes in hope, was Canaan, and Canaan strictly within Jordan — so that Moses chode with the two and a half tribes when proposing to stay without; and the rest only are then called the children of Israel. So of the Church. But the promises to Abraham were all from the river of Egypt to the great river; and there was a day coming when the wilderness and the solitary place would be glad for them, and the desert would rejoice and blossom as the rose, and see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of their God; yet still the sanctuary which God had prepared for Himself to dwell in was the place where they were to be brought in. Blessed portion! So with the saints now: they have their place in heaven, and they know it now in spirit and in hope; know it as theirs, though evil spirits may yet for a very little season be to be resisted there, and have their hold till the great conflict comes which shall exclude them for ever. Thus they have their place, their seat in the heavenlies beyond Jordan; blessed inheritance, where to them Christ has set the glory — the glory of the Father, and His own!

94 Yet though it be thus, the world and all things are theirs, though it be a wilderness and they strangers in it. The moment they are redeemed, though they be not in the rest of Egypt, nor have the leeks and cucumbers, and the onions, and the bondage; and though the world be a wilderness to them, a dry and barren land where no water is, they are called out into it as theirs — theirs, yet only as a wilderness — but called out to hold a feast to the Lord there. And be it so, that they have holden a feast to the golden calf, while Moses is in the mount to receive the given law, it does not alter what it is to the heart of faith. They have been led forth, and not only do they know in spirit that they have been brought to God (so in spirit to be in the heavenlies), but they find, and it is because they find, Jesus there; and finding Him they find all things theirs, even where they are; and they can be fed only from heaven, guided only by what is heavenly, drink only thus from the rock, or rather have the river of God flowing in themselves; but in Jesus they know their inheritance. "All things are theirs, and they are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The wilderness is now only to pass through; there is nothing in it for them, yet all is theirs. But when Israel is in the wilderness, when the Church is thus passing through the world, which is its inheritance, the river is there, yea, it is in their hearts; and they sing (for the redemption-work is complete in title, though not accomplished as to the creature in power), "But you hath he redeemed . . . reconciled"; "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation." When the water revives the wilderness itself, when the Son of man actually takes the world as His inheritance, and the Spirit is poured out, shall it not then be glad, and rejoice and blossom? Well, it fills the heart of God's people, of him that believeth in Jesus now, and does so because he is in the wilderness: and shall he not rejoice and blossom? Yea, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; and though often the heartless sand may drink it in and give no return, but be parched, and arid, and fruitless as before, yet wherever the earth of God's hand and the seeds of God's planting are, there shall they also be refreshed and spring up through it.

95 I feel it very important to remark here the individual character noticed before, because it is the saving principle in the midst of desolations and evil, whatever common good it may produce. It is not, They shall drink of the river from the rock, or drink of some common river, but, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water"; it is the personal possession and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. So the gospel of John (which gives what is essential and uniting, and not consequences) continually treats of it.

There is another point of view in which this indwelling of the Spirit has its peculiar feature and character in this dispensation. It results from the exaltation of Christ. The position in which He is the witness of all things being accomplished; and He Himself is personally in possession of the result of that accomplishment, and we united to Him in it, He being there continually. Consequently, it is as different as possible from any previous testimony of what was to be, let it be ever so blessed; as indeed the mystery was not fully revealed, nor (as I have already remarked as to the fact) had the testimony they had any necessary connection with enjoyment of the things witnessed, no, not even where the witnesses were saints, as 1 Peter 1 shews. It was as different also as possible from any operation of the Spirit producing fruits, even as the living Spirit of Christ (though this was ever surely saving), because it never witnessed, and never could witness, a living Christ and glorified Man in the heavens, with whom they were one, who had accomplished all the things they were to enjoy, and which gave the title to, and ground of, their enjoyment of them. This could only exist when Jesus had accomplished them, was in the glory, and thence sent down the Holy Ghost, the power of communion to those united to Him. The thing itself did not exist, the work was not accomplished, and Jesus, as a man, was not in the glory. Therefore we read, "The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." The fact is, the union of the Church with Him as one body was not yet even revealed, but was a mystery hid in God (as Christ now is), known therefore and enjoyed only by the Holy Ghost given to them which believe. It was not, of course, that there was any different work by which man could be saved (a believer knows this is impossible), nor another Spirit, for there is but one. But that Spirit could not then testify that the believer (to whom He witnessed and whom He influenced) was then in union with the risen Jesus, with the Man who was actually glorified as a present thing, as He does now to a believer's soul; for the thing did not exist to be testified of. If it be said, It was true to faith; I answer, It was not as true to faith that they were in union then, and knew Jesus as now glorified; for Jesus was not glorified, and therefore the Holy Ghost had not, on the footing of this union, taken up His abode in a believer's heart — "was not yet," in the sense of dwelling as the witness of the glorified Man, in those who were united to Him. This made all the difference between being free, and hoping to be free on the certainty of a faithful man's word, who never lied, and was able to perform. Both were certain; but they were not the same thing. "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." This was the better thing reserved for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. This is that which made the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than the greatest born of woman — this presence of the Holy Ghost with and in believers, as the result of the accomplishment of Christ's work and the witness of their union with Him. This, too, I apprehend, is the difference between the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect. The children of Israel might have believed the Lord's promise, and did, as Jacob shewed — as Joseph shewed, when he gave commandment concerning his bones (Gen. 50: 24): but, however surely this faith was exercised, they could not say, "Thou, Lord, in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation"; for the work of their redemption was not accomplished. They could sing that when they were brought out of Egypt through the Red Sea, though they were only brought into the wilderness where there was no way, nor food, nor water; for they were redeemed. I now take in the whole course, not any particular type.

97 I dwell thus much upon this, because many find it very difficult to understand how, if the way of being saved is the same, the state of those that are so can be different; whereas "the heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors," having no free and immediate intercourse with the father's mind, nor understanding of the father's interests.

Known sonship with the Father, and union with Christ, seeing what Christ's title is, are primary characteristics of this indwelling of the Spirit; and though we see not yet all things put under Christ, yet we see Him crowned with the glory and honour, so that we rejoice in the prospective title, knowing that "He is not ashamed to call us brethren."

Thus, in Romans 8, where this presence of the Spirit as the very character of this dispensation is much brought out, after shewing His moral operations (i.e., as life in the soul), and the quickening of the body, then spoken of as personally dwelling in present witness with us, He bears witness that we are children, therefore heirs, "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together." Now, in this we have the whole case — children, the assembly of the firstborn, put, as Israel, was in the wilderness. Israel is My firstborn. Next, Canaan before us, heirs of God; for that was His land, and His title in Israel reached from river to river — Canaan and the wilderness, heaven and earth; "joint-heirs with Christ," as they of Immanuel's land; and "if so be that we suffer," they must pass through this world as a wilderness simply. Now the Holy Ghost takes up all this, and in its two great characters — the glory and the suffering; the glory belonging to us as children and co-heirs; and this we have in hope. When our prospect is dimmed, we become careless about it, and profane in our minds; when bright, we need nought but manna, and the water, and patience for the wilderness, longing for the rest, submitting to the will of God concerning it. And when our souls are really dwelling as in the glory, when the grapes of Eshcol really fill our souls, there is deadness to all, save the savour and brightness of the hope: what is heavenly is heavenly to us, for we are heavenly minded, we see the glory of the Lord, and it is in a place where His eyes are continually — a land not watered by the foot, but by rivers that run among hills and valleys, the very dwelling-place of the Father's kingdom. The Spirit in the revelation of God (for it is God) causes us thus to dwell in the fulness of God; and from hence we estimate the inheritance, the fellowship with Christ in it, and the glory. We dwell in it in the sweet savour of divine delight in Jesus, who fills all things, and will in very deed do so, and is now revealed so to us by the Spirit. His presence, as actually taking it, shall fill and gladden heaven and earth, banishing evil. But then, now it is, "if so be we suffer"; for the very dwelling in this glory, and seeing in spirit the whole creation reconciled, brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (it cannot be of their grace), waiting for the manifestation of these sons, make us the more and distinctly sensible how it groans and travails together in bondage until now; and our body too being part of this, it becomes sensitive and sympathetic groaning. Now we know this groaning of the creation by our dwelling in the glory, but it becomes sympathetic because we are connected with it in our body, and that as unredeemed. But then it is not merely the selfish feeling of evil. The intercession of the Spirit in us is according to God. The Spirit, as dwelling in us, estimates the evil not according to mere human pain in it, but in the divine estimate of it, as interested in and dwelling in them who are in the midst of the evil, and partakers of it as to their bodies; and all their groans, which take up the known groanings of the creation (for it is as to the body which is of it), are not from selfish pain, but the Spirit's sense of the evil as dwelling in us; and though we, as to the mind and intelligence, cannot tell what to ask for, yet He that searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit who dwells there is; for He makes intercession according to God. Thus the Spirit, that other Comforter, in and through our hearts, feeling in the nonadoption of the body that it dwells in a world groaning under the bondage of corruption, not only teaches from the glory, so that we say, "We know," but expresses (in sense of it all, yet according to God) the need according to God, to be met in the saints now by more enlarged and deeper communion, and that glory in hope which shall put it all away.

99 As regards our own exercise on these things, I would say a very few words. As in the Spirit, our joy is full, the savour of heavenly things is fresh, our path easy. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," there is communion which makes all light, and we walking and dwelling in it, and everything shines in it. The Holy Ghost is the communicating power of all fulness. But when we come to the wilderness, there is exercise, difficulty; the heart is proved; all is opposite; it is a wilderness; and rest in a wilderness only keeps us in a wilderness still, and indeed will be found going back soon in heart after Egypt. For rest we shall find it a wilderness, and bring the chastenings of the Lord of faithfulness upon us. Now even where trouble is, if the heart be right in the sight of God, God is known through it all; it is not that the trouble will not be felt — far from it; the more perfect the faith, the more it will be felt: the more I know, the more my heart and thought is in Canaan, the more I shall understand what the wilderness is: yea, the very worship of God, blessed as it may be, will be and savour of the wilderness; my mercies are mercies of the wilderness; my food, food for the wilderness; the cloud may guide me to Canaan, but in Canaan I shall need no cloud for the way — still, where the spirit is bright through grace, though it feels all this, it has rich and deep experience of God, which works hope that maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto us. In that patience of spirit which is learnt only in the wilderness (what patience shall we need in Canaan?) the deeper parts of God's character are learned. If faith had to bear six hundred thousand rebellious ones, as if it had begotten them, how would it learn, through cultivated communion, the depth of God's patience, the wisdom of His purposes, the extreme perfectness of His love, uncaused by anything it found, bent upon blessing! How He knew the end from the beginning, and while we were travailing in heart about present circumstances, God was using them for bringing forth to that heart the certainty of future hopes, or forming it for the enjoyment of them! And how in us would the moulding of heart in this intimacy of God's ways intrinsically form us for the estimate of the glory in breaking the links (which seemed strange to those occupied with present things) which tied us to those things, that the life in us might grow up into unhindered association with whatever was heavenly! It requires the wilderness (not to give a title which would bring us to God, but) practically to put God instead of Egypt within us; I do not say it ought, and that we ought not to be as Caleb and Joshua ready at once to go up, and the grapes of Eshcol be our encouragement in going onward, rather than the sons of Anak our fear; for they bear the stamp of the beneficence and power of Him who called us there — they were the grapes of His land, and this Lord was well able to bring us in. But it is God's way habitually with us. But when our faith tastes those grapes, when our hearts are thus, we can rise over trouble, however felt; and when we are spiritual, all trouble is the instrument of the blessed experience of God.

100 God's purposes are not ours, and He always works for His own, which are our perfect blessing, the making of us conformed to the image of His Son, co-heirs, "the glory of God by us." Now in our blessed Master, as learning obedience by the things which He suffered, we see this path in the wilderness in perfectness, feeling as none else felt, but seeing (even then in perfect submission) the divine perfectness of the Father's ways, and the end too they led to — His glory — enjoyed as joy set before Him, as a river of sure and blessed water too thus to give rest and refreshment. "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not." Here was true grief, and thoroughly felt as grief. There is no true grief but where there is no resource around; and around Jesus had none. "Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were not" — the word to her was, "There is hope in thine end."

But let us look to Jesus. "In the same hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." "All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." How did the rivers of water flow forth here from this heart-smitten rock! There was none indeed without: but how did they flow from the revealed depths within! The waters gushed forth, His own soul full, "All things are delivered" — I can reveal the Father — "Come to me." How did His pent soul burst forth from the "Then have I laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought!" and in vain, as to present circumstances, to spread these living streams in the wilderness, which have, blessed Lord Jesus! refreshed the Church, and shall refresh it through the wilderness, till it need nothing but Thyself in Canaan. And are we not sons? poor indeed, but still, in exaltation of His fulness, "he that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." And where the Spirit of God really is, there is no breaking, no smiting, no operation of patience through the word, but brings forth more of them; for we are associated with infinite fulness now in Jesus. Because all perfectness was there, it all burst forth at once, and "I thank thee" was in one hour with "Woe unto thee."

101 In us often, that these streams may flow and flow pure, there is much process; and when the flesh is at work, and our will is at work, then, till laid low, there is no perception of the brightness and fulness before us, yea, with which we are in communion (for the flesh hath no communion with it, the will no part or portion in it): until we are brought to say, "I thank thee," "I glory in my tribulations," there is no "All things are delivered," as they are ours in Jesus — no real "Come to me," though in our mere judgment we may say, There is the place where it is to be found. And this is deep work; but it is God's work. Thus much for the flowing of these living streams in us: they are all heavenly; and only as we are simply heavenly will they run. Wretched me, that we should need so much to make God's blessed refreshing streams flow! Wondrous love, that He should patiently do so much! May we be enabled to say always, though not callous, "I thank thee!" Still, in all this bondage of corruption though the will by which it came in was in man, not in the creature without (therefore Jesus's was pure sorrow, because it was all according to God — ours not), though this will yet working in us must be subdued; yet, where the Spirit is, God, seeing it in love (i.e., towards us), and putting in action the special process in love, that this will may be broken, every groan which does come (when we know not what to ask for, nor how) is the perfect intercession of the Spirit, whose mind is known to Him who searcheth the hearts, so that we may be comforted; and resting in God, God will shew us the brightness beyond. A true groan to God, however deep the misery, however prostrate the spirit, however unconscious that we are heard, is always received above as the intercession of the Spirit, and answered according to the perfectness of God's purpose concerning us in Christ. Therefore the charge is, "Ye have not cried unto me, when ye have howled upon your beds": and there is no consequence of sin which is beyond the reach of this groaning to God, nothing indeed but the self-will which will not groan to Him at all. This is a blessed thought! such is our intercourse with God in joy and in sorrow; and I doubt not that in us poor, but blessed creatures, the truest, the most blessed (what will shine most when all things shine before God), are these groans to Him: they cannot, indeed, be in their fulness but where the knowledge of the glory of blessing is. I can see them precede the greatest works and words of Jesus. The sense of the wilderness, taken into His heart, made but the streams which could refresh it flow forth in the sympathy of the Spirit which it called forth; and now the Spirit is in us. I believe I must for the present close these thoughts. This has touched but upon one point (and, oh! how narrowly and poorly! what muddy water!) — the presence of the blessed and heavenly Spirit in the desert, as in our hearts, with joy for the things He gives in union with our Head, and refreshing for the scene He passes through, where God's poor pilgrims are; the Messenger of all their sorrow according to His estimate of it, who knows, loves, and effects the blessing of the portion of Christ in His people, as dwelling in them — their blessed Paraclete. "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."

102 Hitherto we have seen the blessed Spirit generally, in His characteristic living operations, and not so much ecclesiastically, if I may so speak. The third, fourth, and seventh chapters of John's gospel have given us clear instruction in this:

103 Firstly, as quickening or giving life.

Secondly, as given; and thus a well of water in us springing up into everlasting life — thus, too, as manifesting, or connected with the riches of grace, making us know the Father as seeking such to worship the God of love, and enabling us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, as thus known in the grace that has sought us — brought in by faith to fellowship with Him, fellowship with the Father and the Son, out of every nation: in a word, the dispensation of the manifested Son, manifested to faith as One with whom we are in union through the Spirit — this by the gift of grace.

Thirdly, as flowing forth from us, a river of refreshings, and this in connection with the glory of the Son of man; and therefore not so much the power of worship as the earnest of glory, and the power of refreshing, and glorious testimony that man in Him prevails and has the glory; though yet he must wait for it till He be manifested to the world set right indeed by His presence in that great feast of tabernacles.

The first of these chapters (John 3) closed proper Jewish intercourse, shewing that they must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God: and so was every one that was born of the Spirit (the cross, or the lifting up of the Son of man, closing all present earthly associations, and introducing heavenly things as yet unknown). In the second (John 4), the Lord, having thereon left Judea, going into Galilee passes through Samaria, and there, with one of the most worthless of that reprobate race, shews the gift of God, and the consequence of the humiliation of the Son of God, thereon introducing the Father's name and spiritual worship by grace. Thus the gospel dispensation is introduced by it, and its worship, sonship, and joy. In the third (John 7) we find it flowing forth from filled affections to the world, the witness, though not the accomplishment, of that day when Jesus shall appear in the glory witnessed of, and it shall be as life from the dead: and that, indeed, through His then unbelieving brethren here below. Chapter 4 (that is, the second of those alluded to) is more large and general, as the power of all living communion with God, and thus is specially the saints' place. It identifies itself more especially with the present prayer of Ephesians 3, founded on the title, "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," though that goes farther. Chapter 7 (or the third here alluded to) identifies itself more especially with the former part of the prayer of Ephesians 1, the portion of the Church also, it is true, but more its hope than its communion, and founded on the title, "God of our Lord Jesus Christ"; looking thus at the Lord as the Head of the body — the Firstborn among many brethren, the Firstborn from the dead, the Head of the body the Church, as is plainly seen in the testimony of the apostle which follows — not in the nearness of the divine nature as Son, but in appointed, though righteous, headship as man, the appointed Heir of all things: both indeed hanging on His being the Son, but one connected with His nearness to God, even the Father, which is indeed oneness; the other His manifestation in glory according to divine counsel, when He takes His place with the Church toward the world; though, of course (and necessarily), the Head of it — she the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

104 That I may not omit the intervening chapters of John, but that we may see what a summary of divine theology it is, as a testimony to the Person of the Lord Jesus in its height above all dispensation, I would here observe, that chapter 5 contrasts the entire incompetency of any restorative power connected with the law (because it required strength in the patient, which was just what the disease of sin had destroyed, as well as his righteousness which would not have needed it), in a word, the entire futility of all remedial processes, with the absolute life-giving power of the Son of God in union with the Father; and shews, in addition, on His rejection (the rejection of His word, for so that power wrought), the judicial power put entirely into His hands as Son of man to execute judgment on all that rejected Him, that all men might honour the Son, even as they honoured the Father.

Chapter 6 shews what was proper to Him — His place and that of His disciples — as rejected. First, it shewed Him (who fulfilled that word, Psalm 132: 13-15, "He shall satisfy her poor with bread" — the Jehovah of Israel's blessing in the latter days, when Zion shall be His "rest for ever") as prophet, refusing to be king, and thereon going up to exercise His priesthood of intercession apart on high. In the meanwhile, the disciples were toiling alone on the sea, and the wind contrary, aiming but not attaining. Immediately on Jesus (who could walk on all the difficulties) rejoining them, they were at the land whither they went. This blessed little picture of the order and circumstances of the dispensation having been given, the humiliation of Jesus, as the portion of the Church during His priesthood, is then shewn as affording its food and strength of life. First, His coming down and incarnation — the manna, the true bread that came down from heaven; next, as sacrificed, and giving the life He had thus taken as man — believers thereon eating His flesh and drinking His blood, thus living by Him; then, closing by the question, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" This, as we have seen, is followed by the instruction of chapter 7, where the time for the manifestation of the Son of man to the world was not yet come, and the gift of the Holy Ghost as the intermediate witness of His glory as Son of man is spoken of. This point has been spoken of in the former part of these remarks; I revert to it now, merely as shewing the beautiful order of the instruction of the Spirit in the gospel of John.

105 There is another point connected with the operations of the Spirit of our God, which remains to be touched upon — His corporate operations, or His operations as acting in connection with the body of Christ, both as maintaining, and the very centre of, its unity; and also as ministering in the diversity of His gifts; and also the distinction between this and His individual presence in the believer.

This last difference will be found to be important, and to flow from, and be connected with, the whole order of the economy of grace, of which the Spirit of God is the great agent in us, and though not received there, still in a certain sense in testimony in the world.

This difference depends on the relative character which Christ stands in: first, with the Father, as Son, and us by adoption made sons with Him: and, secondly, with God, as the Head of the body, which is His fulness the Church. We shall find the Scriptures speak definitely of both, and distinctly: in one, the Lord Jesus holds a more properly divine relationship with the Father, and introduces us by adoption into something of the enjoyment of that nearness; in the other, a relationship (though all be divine) yet more connected with His human nature and His offices in that, and therefore God is spoken of as His God. The distinction and reality of these two things are expressed by the blessed Lord going away. Having accomplished the redemption, which enabled Him to present His brethren along with Himself as sons to the Father, in His (the Father's) house, spotless, and sons by adoption, and to assume His place as the Head of the body, the Church, He did not yet allow Himself to be touched and worshipped as in bodily presence in His earthly kingdom; for He was not yet ascended to His Father, so that He could bring forth the fulness of His glory, and that that kingdom should be manifestly of the Father, and have its root and source in that higher glory; but putting His friends, and that for the first time, into the place of sons and brethren, He says to them (thus setting the saints, and Himself for them, in their place), "Go, tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"; thus establishing these two relationships, and His disciples along with Himself in them.

106 Then the Lord ascended up on high for the accomplishment in power of what He now spoke of, in the truth and efficacy of the work which He had accomplished, and the value of His presented Person before the Father, as well as the blood by which sin was put away.

On this statement in John hangs in fact the distinction to which I have alluded, followed up in Scripture by many other passages. It is the definite revelation of the characters in which Jesus Christ was going away, and which He was to sustain in our behalf on high, placing us in fellowship with God and the Father in them. There was another point, however, connected with this, involved in the position which Christ assumed: He is the displayer of the divine glory, His Father's glory. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." He shall appear in the Father's glory. He was on earth "God manifest in the flesh," seen too of angels: again, "the brightness of God's glory, the express image of his person." His glory too was sonship, as of the only begotten of the Father, as again, "the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." In Him all the fulness was pleased to dwell; and, as afterwards stated, in fact, as in good pleasure, "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Thus we see the Person of the Lord Jesus, the place in which divine glory is in every sense manifested. But He is now hid in God: that is the position which He has now taken. And thereon the Holy Ghost is sent down into the world to maintain the witness and manifestation of His glory (not brought out yet visibly on earth, but personally accomplished on high, "crowned with glory and honour"), and to be the earnest and testimony of His title to the earth. The Church on earth is the place and depositary of this. "He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you."

107 Now, the Holy Ghost, as thus sent down from heaven, is the witness of what Christ is there for us towards the Father; and what His title is as of God towards the world and specially therein what the power of the hope of the calling and inheritance of God in the saints is. The enjoyment and testimony of these things may be much blended in the operations of the present Spirit; but they are distinct. As for example, the display of my portion in Christ as the Son before the Father may fill my heart and make me a witness and a testimony of it, to the blessing and comfort of the Church, if the Lord accompany it with the suitable gift of communication; and the power of it in my soul in joy is intimately blended with the thing to be expressed; because so the Holy Ghost acts in this work. It is therefore said, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Still they are quite distinct: for a man may have these things shewn to his soul, and enjoy them, and yet not have the gift to communicate them to others; though they be the deep (possibly, I suppose, the deeper) joy of his own: so that, though connected when both are there, they are distinct things. I suppose that those who have gift of testimony have often found as much (or more) joy in hearing the blessed things of Christ, as in uttering them; though the sense and joy of the blessed things may have ministered to their capacity of utterance. I would speak then distinctively of these two points, though their blending, if the Lord will, may be noticed.

Operations of the Spirit of God

J. N. Darby.

<03004F> {file section b.}

107 In the earlier passages in John, and the remarks which were made upon them, the Holy Ghost who is sent was spoken of as the power of life, the power of communion, the power of communication. In the latter part of John and other places the sending of the Spirit is specially spoken of, because the absence and going away of Christ were brought before their minds as a present fact; and hence the Spirit is shewn as the sustainer of the relationships induced by the mystery of Christ being thus hid in God, and another Comforter sent. Life communion with God the Father and the Son, communications concerning the glory of the Son of man, were all distinct and blessed things; but they were not the revelation of the dispensation in which they were ordered, nor the display of the relationships which those dispensations brought to light, though to the instructed soul they might imply them. This is taken up first in the close of John's gospel. We shall also find it brought out on other ground later in the close of Luke.

108 It is introduced in John by the statement made to His disciples, "As I said unto the Jews, so now I say unto you, Whither I go, ye cannot come." In the earlier part of the subsequent chapter the Lord introduces their comfort — that He was to be the object of faith as God was; that He was not going to be alone in blessedness, and leave them here to themselves in misery, but going to prepare a place for them; and that He would come again and receive them to Himself; that where He was they might be — a far better thing than His being with them in the condition they were in. But meanwhile they knew where He was going, and the way. This resulted, as He explained to them, from their knowing the Father (to whom He was going), in knowing Him; for He was in the Father and the Father in Him. Thus, the great scene into which they were brought in the knowledge of the Person of the Lord Jesus, and His oneness with the Father — He in the Father and the Father in Him — was introduced; the scene of associated blessedness, into which the disciples were brought by the living knowledge which they had of Jesus, was declared; but the power in which it was known and enjoyed was not yet. But the knowledge of the Father through the Son, as the object of faith, was now declared, and the subsequent display of His glory in the world by reason of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus spoken of. The Lord, then, urging obedience to Him as the way of receiving blessing, takes the place of Mediator to obtain the Comforter for them — another Comforter, who should not leave them as He was doing, but was to abide with them for ever. This it was that was the power of their association with that of which they had heard before — the fellowship of the Father and the Son: first, of the Father with the Son, and the Son with the Father; and then of them with both, in that it was by the Holy Ghost dwelling in them, the Comforter now sent. Thus, though they could not come there, they saw Jesus, and He came to them, and with the Father made His mansion with them, till He came and took them into the mansions of His Father's house.

109 This chapter 14, then, gives us the blessedness — the knowledge of the Father and the Son, by the Son; the order of it, obedience to the Son; the power of it, the presence of the Comforter obtained through the mediation of Christ; but thereon (consequent on this presence) their knowledge that He was in the Father, they in Him and He in them — a blessing far beyond mere mediation, but consequent on the presence of the Spirit obtained by mediation. This also is added as a consequence: that the Father and the Son would come and make their abode with them. Still, in this chapter, whatever the effect of the mediation in their knowledge was, Christ does not go beyond the place of Mediator here, and therefore He tells them that the Father will send the Spirit in His name, and He (the Spirit) would recall all the Lord's words and instruction to them.

This chapter* settles the ground of our present blessing on its basis, as to the place of the great objects of it — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is quite distinct from the subsequent chapters. The Person of the Lord as the object of faith, and His mediation, are spoken of in it. In chapter 15, we see that, even here below, Israel was not the true vine, but Christ. Of His life below they were to be the personal witnesses, for they had seen it: of His exaltation as Head on high, the Holy Ghost, sent down, thereon, by Him.**

{*In fact, in chapter 14, Christ speaks much more as on earth (see verse 25), though on the ground of His going away, and shews them they should have known His Person (in the power of which He speaks; as, "I will do it") there, and thus have known where He was going, and the way. After verse 16 He speaks more of their position on His going away, and its consequences, still as being yet there. Hence the word is (they being looked at in this character, and the Father on high), "I will pray the Father, and he will give." In chapter 16, where union has been treated of, and they as it were placed in Him before the Father, it is, "I say not that I will pray the Father for you"; and they ask in His name; for they were so placed before the Father. And in the end of chapter 15 it is, "whom I will send." "Arise, let us go hence" closes the mere individual earthly place.

Chapter 15 does not declare the exaltation of Christ as the Head on high, but (Israel, the nominal vine, being rejected) His being the true vine Himself, even here below, and fruit bearing to be the test of abiding in it. We know that it is in exalted headship in heaven at God's right hand, that He is now thus the living source of fruit bearing; but this is no part of the statement in chapter 15; but the testimony of the Holy Ghost is direct evidence that He was gone up there, accepted and glorified of the Father. Remarking this much elucidates John 15. It is the then connection of the disciples with Him, and fruit, but not exaltation to heaven.}

{**Herein is a distinctive difference of the apostle Paul's ministry. He could not have the second part of the witness mentioned in the chapter. He had not been with Jesus from the beginning. When he saw Jesus, he saw Him only in the glory of His heavenly Lordship, of which the Holy Ghost testified to. This made his testimony a more purely heavenly testimony; as he says, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." Peter, in testimony, would hardly have said this, though preaching the same truths; he says, "A witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed."}

110 Hence, in this passage, it is not the Father who is spoken of as sending the Holy Ghost in the Mediator's name, but the Lord Jesus who sends the Comforter from the Father, in connection with His glory, to testify of His glory, proceeding from the Father. It is to be remarked here, that while much of this latter part connects itself very closely in detail with the operations of the Holy Ghost, given in connection with the Lord Jesus, as calling God His God as well as ours; as the Man who, through grace, places Himself in association with us in deed as in glory, yet He never, in this part of scripture, puts Himself out of the place of the Son paramount to all dispensation. Though He may take the lowest place in service and obedience, still it is on a principle paramount to all dispensation; or though the acts alluded to may have their place in connection with dispensed power (as the testimony of the Spirit will be found to have), yet still Christ holds the place here, in which He sends Him for that purpose, as paramount to the associations revealed by the Spirit, so sent, in those acts. He testifies that all that the Father has are His, as Son (though the acts by which He may do it may be the witness and consequence of a union with Christ), putting, by grace, ourselves and Him, not merely as sons before the Father individually, but as a body with its head before God.

This distinction will be found to be important; because the exercise of the dispensed power may depend on the condition of the body through which it is dispensed, the testimony of the sent Spirit to the glory of the Head who sent it never can.

And this is what is peculiar in the state of the Church. Its standing in Christ is above all dispensation; it is as sons along with the Father. Its manifestation in time may be by dispensed service; and here it partakes of all the responsibility of a dispensation on earth, as of deeds done in the body. Thus this gospel begins anterior to Genesis, which recounts the creation of the scene on which dispensations have been displayed: there, "In the beginning God created"; here, "In the beginning was the Word," by whom all things were created. And the Church derives its existence and heavenly fulness from this sovereign source, the purpose of it being effectuated consequent on the rejection of the Son of man, who would have been the righteous crown of all natural dispensation, but who, as risen, associates the redeemed Church with Himself, in a position paramount to it all, even His own association of sonship with the Father, in the privilege of the same love. And the Holy Ghost is here sent down of Him, the witness and power of this, and therefore in His own action paramount to all dispensation, but this only in the fact of His testimony to Him as so exalted; and this is the point John here takes up. Now the manifestation of His (Christ's) corporate headship to the Church (in which He says in our behalf, "My God," as He had said so in blessed title of righteousness when the Pattern of our place below) depends (and hence the present manifestation of the Church's glory as united to Him) on the obedience of the Church, and its suitableness to be made an instrument of display here — quite a distinct thing from the certainty of its union to, and the known and infallible glory of, its Head on high. This is a permanent revelation, not a responsible manifestation which partakes of the nature of a dispensation on earth, though the glory testified in it may be above all mere dispensation, for its Head and for itself. The joy, moreover, and sense of glory, may also depend on obedience and consistency, not the permanent fact that the Spirit testifies of His glory in the Church. Thus in John 15 it is written, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." There could clearly be no doubt of the Son's continuing in the Father's love; but the dispensation of this on earth hung on the obedience on earth — in Him, infallibly perfect, and therefore so its consequences — in us continual failure and its consequences also.

111 We have seen that the testimony of the Spirit is to the glory of Jesus Christ. Sent by the Father in the Son's name, He is the power of union and communion with both, associating the disciples in the fulness of blessing with both, and the presence of both manifested thereby to the believer. Sent by the Son — the exalted man — from the Father, He is the witness of His glory, and that all that the Father has is that holy but rejected One's also.

112 From the remarks I have already made, it will be seen that in John 16 the Spirit and His testimony, as there presented to us, are the indefeasible portion of the saints, the necessary testimony of the glory of Christ. It forms and sustains the Church, instead of depending on the Church's obedience, although the extent of the Church's enjoyment of the blessing may hang upon that obedience. He is the witness of the acceptance by the Father of the obedience of Christ, the perfect Son of God, and of the glory of His Person: thus establishing our present standing with God and our Father, and the place of the Church, owning this by His operation through grace, in contrast with the world which rejected Jesus as the Son of God.* Hence, although the obedient disciples of the Lord Jesus were the instruments of the testimony, yet these are dropped as regards the testimony in the first instance; and the subject spoken of is the Comforter's testimony in a conviction of the world. He is present as the witness of the glory of Christ. That is, as the abiding power of the dispensation, the necessary character of the testimony of His very presence in the world was this — that He was come into condemnation of the whole world before God; for it had rejected the Son whom the Father had sent in love to it. He had said, "I have yet one Son"; and they had cast Him out. Not merely Jews were in question, the world had done it: "He was despised and rejected of men." Every grace of God, every righteousness of man, had been shewn in the Son of God: they had seen no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. Nay more, as the Lord had distinctly shewn of the world, they had both seen and hated both Him and the Father — hated Him, blessed and perfect in His ways, without a cause.

{*As it is the direct testimony of the presence of the Holy Ghost, convicting the world of sin in its rejection of Jesus, and of the Father's reception and owning of Him as His Son, and consequent judgment, the disciples (not yet properly the Church) are entirely omitted; but as regards them in detail, the great principle of obedience being the ground of blessing is preserved in chapter 14, where this point is spoken of: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, who shall abide with you for ever."}

113 It is on this solemn ground the Lord appeals to His Father in chapter 17. For the children, He had called for the holy Father's care. As to the world, He appeals to His righteous Father's judgment. He and the world now were entirely contrary, the one and the other. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me." The presence of the Holy Ghost, sent down on the departure of the blessed Son of God, proved the world to be in irreparable sin in not having believed on Him. Nothing else was seen in the world. It lay in wickedness. Righteousness there was none. The only righteous One had been rejected and cast out and slain. God had not interfered to prevent it, nor Jesus resisted it; for deeper purposes were in accomplishment. But the evidence of sin was complete, irrefutable, and in itself in the world irreparable, in the accomplishment of its highest act — an act shewing hatred to the gracious presence of the Lord as well as contradictory of the righteousness of man before Him. Righteousness thereon was not looked for on earth in man; for sin had been proved. It was found only in the reception of the righteous Man, the Son of God, on the throne of God on high, and the condemnation of the world in seeing Him no more as so come. This also was testified by the presence of the Holy Ghost sent down as a consequence of Jesus being there. The judgment (not now executed) was proved as against the world; because he who, in leading them against Christ, had been now demonstrated by the world to be its prince, was judged: the rest would follow in its day. Thus the presence of the Holy Ghost, convicting the world in these things, formed the testimony to Christ's glory here — His witness against the rejecting world.

To the disciples He was in blessing: in leading them into all truth — truth which they were unable to bear till He came — truth connected with Christ's glory, and the consequent breaking down of all they then knew and clung to; and not only leading them into all actual truth, but shewing them things to come — the portion of the Church — their portion, and God's future dealings with the world too. In this He would glorify Christ, taking of His and shewing it to them; and all that the Father had was His. This then the Holy Ghost did, as against the world and with the disciples, in the testimony of Christ's glory. If by grace a man received the testimony as against the world, and was subdued by it, and gave up the world and followed Christ with His disciples, he became the happy subject of that further service of the Holy Ghost, guiding, shewing, and glorifying Christ as the possessor of all the Father's. This is the office and service of the ever abiding Comforter (in whatever degree enjoyed) for the need of Christ's glory, till the Church be caught up to enjoy it there, and the world be actually judged; so that there shall be no need of testimony to either on these points, though the Holy Ghost may be to the Church the perpetual power of enjoyment in them and God's glory by them.

114 The presence of the Holy Ghost implies and involves this — the need, before God, of Christ's glory. In this He acts as a servant, as it were, not speaking of Himself, but what He hears, that speaking. Whatever the means instrumentally used, this is the subject and the power. The Holy Ghost is faithful in this service. He must be so; for Christ is to be glorified. And this secures the witness of Christ's glory, in whatever measure, according to its faithfulness; this is the Church's delight.

In all this the Holy Ghost is spoken of as being on earth, and being sent in lieu of Christ, who is gone on high, in distinctness of Person. And the glory of the Person of Christ, the great subject of the gospel, is still treated of in its aspect to the world which rejected Him, and the disciples who by grace received Him.

It appears to me that the communication of the Holy Ghost, as noticed in chapter 20 of this gospel, is (as to the place it holds there) of the character already spoken of. The whole of that chapter is a sort of picture of the dispensation in brief. It is not the Head and the body, but Christ in His personal title to send, as the Father sent Him; and giving them, in His risen power capacity to execute the mission, the abiding essential service of those now called to it, whatever measure of power it might be executed in. But Christ has not only gone to the Father, and been seated in the glory which He had with Him before the world was, and sent the Comforter, the witness of that glory, and the assurance to the saints of their sonship and fellowship with Him in it — 'His Father and their Father'; but He takes a place as Head of the body (is its Lord indeed and source of supply, but also its Head), and to receive for it that which He sends forth and ministers to it. Christ has a double character in this — Lord, and Head of His body united to Himself. But the Holy Ghost is, in all operations from creation downwards, the proper and immediate agent.

115 As Head of the body, the Lord Jesus displays the Church with Himself in a common glory; but in all this He is spoken of as the subject of God's power (see Eph. 1: 19-23), and even where spoken of as Lord, still as a recipient, and as made so: though while this is true (because He humbled Himself and became a man, so that God also has highly exalted Him, that He should have a name which is above every name), every believer finds the very basis of His faith in that He is the true God and eternal life.

Philippians 2 is the full statement of this great truth — this blessed truth (having all its value from His being truly and essentially God), that He humbled Himself, that, as a man for our sakes, and as obedient to death, He might, as man, be exalted to the place of Lord, due to Him in glory. As my subject is the presence of the Holy Ghost, I do not remark farther on this passage, than that it seems to me a special contrast with the first Adam, who, being man, sought to exalt himself, and became disobedient unto death, or under death by disobedience: whereas the history of the Second Man is, that He made Himself of no reputation in becoming a man; and death to Him was the highest, fullest act of obedience and confidence then, as man, in His Father. And therefore God highly exalted Him; as sinful man was by his disobedience cast down, who sought to exalt himself and to be as Elohim. In this, then, we have the great doctrine of the exaltation of Jesus as the new man, the Second Adam, the Head of a new race — the depositary of power; in whom man was, according to Psalm 8, "set over all things."

The divine power in which He could sustain it, and the title of sonship in which He held it (for, indeed, He was the Creator), is not now my immediate subject. This point may be seen in Colossians 1, and the double headship resting on it, of creation and of the Church. At present it is the connection of this gift of the Holy Ghost that we have to speak of. It is not, perhaps I need hardly say, as if there were two Holy Ghosts, or the Holy Ghost given were not so given at once, whatever the results, but that the place and power of the Spirit, so given, are distinct. In the one He is the pledge and power of Sonship with the Father; in the other the effectuator of the Lordship of Christ, and the animating energy of every member according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and the power of unity to the whole body. We do, however, see that Christ risen, but not yet glorified, could communicate the Holy Spirit to them, though, till glorified, He could not send it down as witness of His Lordship. We have seen, that while (as individually blessing us) He fits the soul for the exercise of whatever gift is bestowed, He may bless in fulness of communion when no gift is in exercise — so that they are distinct; the former point, its connection with the apprehensions and enjoyment of the soul, being the difference of habitual Christian gift from the previous workings of the Holy Ghost: that, before it was put, "Thus saith the Lord," and individually the prophet might find he ministered to another. In the exercise of it by a real Christian (though he might minister it without actually realizing it in communion at the moment), he ministers the things which are his own, and known as such through the earnest of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

116 I would now trace some of the scriptures connected with this point. In this the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of power, not a Spirit of sonship (though it may be, the sons, having the Holy Ghost, have the power according to His will, by His presence working in them). This presence of the Holy Ghost is withal corporate presence, that is, His operation; though, as the body, it works by individuals, of course, but by them properly as members of the body, working in power, not in communion. Consequently, we see, if the gift was not available for the body (where the edification of the body was the intent of the gift), it was to be suppressed in its exercise, even though confessedly the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the particular gift of the Spirit was to be subjected to the title and rule of the Holy Ghost in the whole (as the member to the mind of the whole body), for the glory of Christ (though power was entrusted to the individual for that use of the whole body, for that glory), and the glory of the body with Him; for no power was rightly used out of the objects of the grace that gave it.

This train I have been led into by the first scripture I would refer to — Luke 24. There Christ is looked at as exalted in glory, and the world and all flesh alike here below. It is not there, "Go . . . disciple all the Gentiles," as in Matthew; but repentance and remission of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem — merely the first place here below amongst them. This commission Peter was accomplishing in his early sermons in Acts, though Paul carried it out farther, as regards the Gentiles, not beginning however at Jerusalem. The word of the Lord in Luke was, first, "Ye are witnesses of these things"; then, "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in Jerusalem, till ye be endued with power from on high." And afterwards He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.

117 In the first sermon of Peter we have precisely this: "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." He then quotes the testimony of Psalm 110, and says, "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." The rejection of this testimony set aside the form of the commission in Matthew, in which Jerusalem was made the formal centre of organized evangelization according to her ancient standing, the Gentiles being treated as Gentiles.*

{*It was only in grace she could have so stood; but grace had not put her out of this place till she rejected it for herself. I do not know but this point has been noticed in the "Christian Witness" by a brother already; but, because it unfolds the present subject, I do not pass it by.}

But the character in which the gift of the Spirit is here presented, as given to believers and forming the Church, is very distinct. Jesus sends the promise of the Father. It is the same great common truth. But in what character is it sent? It is to endue with power from on high. It displays itself in exhibition in the first instance to the world, not in communion of sons with the Father, though, of course, the very same and only Holy Ghost which was the power of this. Its primary testimony is to the Lordship of Christ.

We have seen the identity of the expressions in Luke and Acts (see Luke 24: 48, 49; Acts 2: 32-36): let us observe the terms in which the Spirit, by the apostle, bears witness to Jesus.

"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him. . . . This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. . . . Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

118 Now, in the whole of this passage, it is clear that our blessed and adorable Lord, who had humbled Himself to become so, as we have seen from Philippians, is spoken of as man. As man He is made Lord and Christ. This we shall see to be directly connected with consequent operation and power of the Spirit, but yet not the whole of the principles connected with it. The corporate character of the scene of its operations was not yet developed. We have already, then, this first point distinctly brought out: the testimony through the medium of the disciples, as the Spirit gave them utterance, to the Lordship of Christ as man before the world. But whatever the rumour occasioned by the facts, the word of preaching to the Jews is all of which the effect is related. They were to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of sins, and they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost: for the promise was to them and their children, and to all afar off, even as many as the Lord their God should call. Whoever, then, received the word gladly was baptized, and there were added about three thousand souls. The assembly was now formed, and the Lord added to it daily such as should be saved.

The testimony had been given to the world, beginning at Jerusalem, by these witnesses chosen of God, to the Lordship of the man Christ Jesus. The Church had been formed by it, and then the Lord added to the Church such as should be saved — the remnant of Israel.

In this we see the operation of the Spirit, founded on the exaltation and Lordship of Christ, by chosen witnesses; but antecedent to the Church, and forming it. Of this character is all preaching.

When the assembly is gathered, then the Lord adds to it daily such as should be saved. The highest privileges of the believer are then known, in the revealed portion of the believer brought home to his new man by the Spirit of adoption — the Holy Ghost given to him, the seal of the faith wrought in his heart by God.

The work of the Holy Ghost is then pursued in abundant testimony of Christ's power, proposing (Acts 3) the return of Jesus and the times of refreshing on the repentance of Israel, the opposition and rejection of the testimony by the rulers, the disciples' confidence — His power, and blessing, and judgment within the Church — the determined opposition and rejection of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, and constant testimony thereto of the apostles as His witnesses; as is also, say they, the Holy Ghost which is given to them that obey Him. We have then (Acts 6), the exhibition of the energy of the Holy Ghost providing for the circumstances even of partial failure in the Church. Then, on the renewed testimony, in His own prerogative power in Stephen "full of the Holy Ghost," the judgment of the Jews' rejection (nationally) of the Spirit is pronounced, and the Jewish history closed with that which introduced the Church (as so witnessing) into heaven, on its rejection, as full of the Spirit, in Jerusalem the centre of God's earthly system; and actually the spirit of the saint in the intermediate state there. "They stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"; and with intercession for the unhappy people, as Jesus on His rejection, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Thus the Spirit, so acting, recognized the Lord Jesus; as Jesus, as the Son, had commended Himself — His spirit — on His rejection, to the Father.

119 This broke up, as has been frequently observed by those familiar with these truths, the earthly scheme and centre of the Church. Matthew's commission, as has been remarked, in its original form dropped; for the Jewish people, by their rulers, having nationally rejected the testimony by the Spirit to the exaltation of Christ, as they had rejected the Son of God in His humiliation come amongst them as Messiah, Jerusalem ceased to be the centre from which the gathering power thereto was to flow.

Thereupon accordingly, the Church was scattered, except the apostles. I would remark, in passing, on the very distinct manner in which the personal presence of the Holy Ghost is presented to us in all this history. Ananias lies to the Holy Ghost — tempts the Spirit. The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, and so also was the Holy Ghost which was given to them that obey Him. "Filled with the Holy Ghost," as the Lord had promised, was the power and source of their speech, as we see on every occasion. Thus the Holy Ghost, as that other Comforter present with them personally, was clearly before their minds. As the Son had been with them once, so, according to promise, the Holy Ghost was with them now. The Son had brought the love of the Father (now indeed yet more clearly apprehended by the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of adoption), and the Spirit now fully revealed to them the Lordship of the man, Jesus, who had been slain and rejected by the world.

120 But another great framework and form of the dispensation was now to be introduced. Saul, through the instrumentality of a simple disciple, Ananias, receives the Holy Ghost on his conversion, and begins to testify of Christ at Damascus. The Gentiles then receive the Holy Ghost, and are admitted through the instrumentality of Peter. Acts 11, 12, and 13 will distinctly shew what prominency this presence and power of the Holy Ghost held. There is, in addition, the service of angels, in the apostle of the circumcision; but the gift of the Holy Ghost is just the sign of acceptance.

But in the calling and conversion of Saul a new and blessed principle was presented, as identified with that to his mind: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" In a word, the unity and identity of the Church with Christ, of which the apostle thus called — irregularly called, as one born out of due time — became the eminent witness and teacher. Indeed, though there may be kindred truths in the other epistolary writings, we never definitely read of "his body, the Church," save in those of Paul. He seems specially to call it his gospel. In this (the power, in whatever form, of the glory of Christ, the knowledge of, or unity with, Him) the Holy Ghost is found to operate and unfold itself. Not clearly quitting the ground of the Lordship of Christ, but withal working as the power of unity in the whole body and diversity of operation in the particular members. In each, at the same time (for this highest and most blessed character of it, I need hardly say, was not lost), "the Spirit of adoption crying, Abba, Father"; but this was a distinct individual operation, though of the same Spirit — a joy true to the individual saint, were there but one, though enhanced doubtless by communion, and which contemplated our joy with the Father, as sons along with the blessed Son of God, Jesus, the Firstborn among many brethren.

The corporate witness of His Lordship and glory, and of the union of the Church with Him as Head over all things, is a distinct subject. The ground of this in union, as well as the Church's blessing and portion by virtue of that union, is specially found in the Ephesians, and is there therefore looked at as regards the blessing and profit of the Church. Its administration, and, therefore, the general order of it in its principles and exhibition before the world, is found in Corinthians, the epistle which affords the apostolic directions for the management of the Church in its internal economy here below.

121 But before I enter on the formal economy of the Spirit, as presented in these chapters, I would turn to the doctrine of the word relating to it, as the ordinary portion of the Church in general, as there are one or two passages of scripture which speak definitely of it in this light. The resurrection had marked out Jesus to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness. He might be of the seed of David according to the flesh, but He was the Son of God according to entirely another life, spirit, and energy. Of this His resurrection was at once the proof and the glorious character; for it was triumph over death, of which, according to that life and holiness which was in Him, it was not possible (though He might imputatively take sin) that He could be holden. In this resurrection and power of accomplished and triumphant liberty — liberty of perfectness and sanctification of man to God in a new state of life, in which man had never been — He became the Head of a new family, the Firstborn from the dead, the Head of the body, the Church, having in all things the pre-eminence, and the Son, taking His place now, as such, in resurrection. Thus our justification became in fact identified with our position as sons, and as risen (i.e., with holiness, according to its character in resurrection) before God as children. Therefore it was that, if the apostle had known Christ Jesus after the flesh, henceforth he knew Him no more; for he now knew Him in this character of resurrection, the Head of the new creation — the new family of God — the Second Man, and so to us the quickening Spirit, when our living souls had spiritually died in the first Adam in sin — the head of a new family of men, with whom, in the close, the tabernacle of God should be.

The justification of the Church having been first reasoned out by the Spirit, the apostle turns to this: first, as regards death and resurrection, in Romans 6; then, as regards the law, chap. 7; i.e., first, "nature" or "the flesh" in se, then the operation of the law on the question into which spiritual understanding and a new will brought the conscience; and in chapter 8 he takes up the presence of the Spirit in moral operation and witness. Having stated the source of this mighty change and holy liberty, in "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (the breath of life to our souls being the very same power in which Christ was raised from the dead, and our partaking in all the consequences of that resurrection; God having done what the law could not do, i.e., condemned sin in the flesh, and that in atonement, in grace to us), the apostle proceeds to instruct us what the power and the character of the Spirit in this new nature is.

122 It is the Spirit of God, as contrasted with man in the flesh. It is the Spirit of Christ, in respect of the form and character of this new man. It is the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead, according to the power and energy in which it works full deliverance in result. Thus its moral character and operation were unfolded, as a Spirit of power and deliverance and character in us, in answer to the question, Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?

But there was also the doctrine of the relationship which we have in the new man, as well as moral character and power. As many as are led of it are sons; sons, and therefore "heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." And here the groaning is not the question of what we are as to God's judgment of evil in us, a spirit of bondage to fear; but our own judgment of it in its effects because we are sons, and are certain that we are, and know that we are heirs. We take up the groaning of the whole creation, of which we are part, as in the body, and express it to God in sympathy, in the sense of the blessedness of the glorious inheritance when the creation shall be delivered; suffering with Christ in the present sorrow by His Spirit, and express it in the Spirit of God, even though we have no intelligence to ask for any actual remedy. In this, then, the Spirit has a double office: the witness with us, for joy, that we are sons and heirs, and helping us in the infirmities lying on creation and on us in the body; and when He, thus acting in us in sympathy, thus groans in us expressive of the sorrow, He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for us according to God.

The epistle to the Galatians with less fulness teaches us the same truth, securing the foundation on which it rests. But we see, thus far, the sons joint-heirs — joint-heirs with Christ, and the Spirit at once the seal of the redemption which is accomplished, by which they have it; the witness of sonship in them, and the earnest of the inheritance which they have with Christ: known by the revelation of the glory of Christ and the things to come connected with His Person. Thus we have it expressed in Ephesians 1: 2-14.

123 There is another very interesting passage as instruction upon this point (2 Cor. 1: 20, 22), "All the promises" belonging to Christ as heir. "All God's promises are in Christ yea, and in Christ Amen, unto the glory of God by us." The promises are of God, and in Christ. God then establishes us in Christ, and then, for our knowledge and assurance and enjoyment, we are anointed, sealed, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts; knowing it by the anointing, as in 1 John 2: 29; sealed, as in Ephesians 1; and having the earnest in the heart so as to anticipatively enjoy the blessing known, and for which we are sealed.

Having spoken on this passage in a previous paper, I do not enlarge on it. But there is another collateral passage which I would not pass by, relative to the knowledge, communication, and reception of the revelations of the Spirit; shewing our entire dependence on that blessed Comforter and power of God for all knowledge of these things (1 Cor. 2): "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Man's heart never conceived them, but God revealed them to His saints by His Spirit. They had received the Spirit which was of God, that they might know. They spoke by words which the Holy Ghost taught, communicating, as I should translate it, spiritual things by a spiritual medium; and they were, moreover, spiritually discerned: they were known, communicated, and received by the Spirit.

Having noticed these collateral passages, I pass on to the point of corporate operation of the Holy Ghost in the union of the body. The testimony to the Lordship of Christ, and that character of His exaltation, we have already seen in the addresses of Peter to Israel. This, of course, is never lost: but we have seen the additional truth of the identity of Christ and the Church — the very basis of Paul's special ministry, brought out in the question to the apostle, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Just as the sin of the first Adam was brought out by the terrible question, "Where art thou?" It is upon this that the grace of the ministration of the Spirit now was to have its course. The Spirit had borne witness by certain disciples; and the Church thereby had been gathered. The Church now was to be the vehicle for the testimony and witness of the Spirit corporately. The distinct revelation of this position of the Church, and its establishment in it, in the intelligence and actuality of its standing, began by the scattering of the assembly at Jerusalem, and by the apostle (having been called and enabled by the Lord, and having preached at once, and thus laid by in a measure for a time) recommencing the work from Antioch as a centre, whence he was separated to the work to which Christ had called him, not by the appointment of Jesus after the flesh, but by the authoritative direction of the Holy Ghost in the disciples. Paul had no part in the testimony mentioned in John 15: 27. It was only the Holy Ghost's testimony, and seeing the glory of Christ, and hearing the words of His mouth. Hence it was not a testimony to the exaltation and Lordship of Him whose companions they had been on earth (that God had exalted Him to be Lord and Christ there); but starting from the point of His Lordship seen in glory, that He was the Son of God, and a testimony, and of course owning it, to the union of the whole body, Jew and Gentile, with Him so exalted to God's right hand. Hence the operations of the Holy Ghost — always following the testimony concerning Christ, while still declaring and subservient to His Lordship — wrought in the unity of the whole body according to the operations of God.

124 Hence we read in 1 Corinthians 12, "Concerning spiritual things, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say, Lord Jesus (or, call Jesus Lord) but by the Holy Ghost." That is, whoever does so (i.e., in Spirit) does so by the Holy Ghost; for it was the Holy Spirit that testified that Jesus was Lord, not an evil one.

There were, along with this testimony, "diversities of gifts," yet not many spirits, "but the same Spirit. And there were differences of administrations [ministries], but the same Lord [not 'lords many' — Jesus was Lord]; and diversities of operations, but the same God [for the operations were truly divine] that worketh all in all"; there were not "gods many": all were the operation of the one true God.

125 It is not the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) which is here presented to us, though from other scriptures we may know its connection with it, but God, the Lord, and the Spirit, working in the Church upon earth; though, lest we should suppose He was not God, it is afterwards said, "All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."

We have here, then, these two points: the Lordship of Christ, and that taking its place as to the services of which the gifts were the power; and the unity of the whole body, in which, as by its members, the Spirit wrought according to their diverse appropriate functions. The operation being all the while God's operation, but ordered according to the functions of the body, and the purport of the whole; for the members' service was for the good of the whole body.

From this, I think, we distinctly learn the order of the ministration of the Holy Ghost, as thus presented to us. What additional instruction the word may give us, we shall afterwards see.

First, there was the primary testimony that Christ was Lord — more correctly, that Jesus was Lord. That formed the great basic truth. All was subservient to this. The Holy Ghost as in operation, though supreme to distribute, was subservient to this. This was the great testimony He blessedly rendered. It is this, and not as touching the question of His divinity, makes the apostle say, "To us there is but one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ."

He bore it in gracious faithfulness now, as hereafter every tongue shall be obliged to confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Upon this hangs consequently the responsibility of every gift. We are servants by them to the Lord Christ. "Ye serve the Lord Christ." "Such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies." "Paul the servant of Jesus Christ" is the well known glory and faithfulness of the apostle. It was to "the Lord, the righteous Judge," he looked. Thrice he besought "the Lord" that his thorn in the flesh might be removed. "He that is called, being free, is Christ's servant."

126 These gifts of the Spirit, then, set them in ministries to the Lord, in which they were individually responsible for their exercise to Christ — talents with which they were to trade; but then they were responsible to exercise them within the body, according to the order in which they were set in the body, and in subjection to the mind of the Lord the Head of the body. This preserved entire the full personal responsibility and liberty; for no one was Lord but one, not even an apostle, and yet mutual dependence, healthful for all, even for an apostle; for the Lord's authority was as great over the foot or over the hand, and as exclusive, as over the apostle himself. Nor would an apostle, having still the flesh to contend with, keep his place unless this were carefully held. Though by pre-eminence of gift he might guide, lead, direct, and, by revelation from the Lord, give a commandment to the Church, he could not in the smallest degree or tittle touch the direct responsibility of the least member to Christ the Lord Himself; he would have been setting up himself as the Vine, as lord over God's heritage, had he done so. The apostles were alone as helpers of joy, and that by authority entrusted for edification, but never as lords over their faith. Authority, however, as gift from the Lord, increased responsibility; but of this more hereafter. If he, the apostle, counselled any member by the Spirit, woe be to that member if his counsel be despised. Of course, if he revealed a commandment of the Lord, the believer became directly responsible to the Lord for obedience to that commandment. And though he specially, and the whole Church, might judge by the Spirit, still it was always with this remembrance — "another man's servant."

But, it must be distinctly remembered, this was not for private right or title in an individual. I recognise no such thing as right in an individual. Right, in the human sense of it, is some title to exercise his own will in man, unimpeded by the interference of another. Now Christianity entirely sets this aside. It may be very speciously maintained by dwelling only on the latter half of the definition, because grace does give a title against the interference of another; but that title is in and by virtue of responsibility to God. No man has a right to interfere with anything in which I am responsible to God. But the light which Christianity sheds on this is, not my meddling with the will of that other, but my obligation to do the will of God at all cost: "We ought to obey God rather than man." And having first done the will of God, then to suffer for it; for it is better, if the will of God be so, to suffer for well-doing than for evildoing, for Christ, in the best sense, has once suffered for sins. If we do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. But this right in the individual, in the human and common force of it, Christianity cuts up by the root, because it pronounces the human will to be all wrong, and the assertion of its exercise to be the principle of sin; so that we "are sanctified unto obedience," as unto "the blood of sprinkling." Thus the idea of all having a right to speak in the Church could never enter into the Christian mind. It has no place in the scheme of Christianity, which begins its moral existence by the breaking down the human will as evil. The Holy Spirit has the right, which He exercises sovereignly, of distributing "to every man severally as he will"; and hence responsibility subject to the purpose of the Holy Ghost in all. For the manifestation of the Spirit (which gifts are — they are not the Holy Spirit itself) is given to every man to profit withal. There is purpose in it, to which the power of the Holy Ghost is to direct the use of these gifts for the good of all, as this epistle clearly shews us. The gifts to men or in man (both are used; one refers to Christ, the other to those to whom Christ gives them) are not the Holy Ghost, though they be by the Holy Ghost, and hence are guided by the mind of Christ, for the accomplishment of which they are given. Thus, to display the gift of tongues, or to use it where there were none to whom they applied, is described by the apostle to be the folly of childhood: they were given to profit withal. So also the spirits of the prophets — the highest desirable gift — were subject to the prophets. The not seeing this, and confounding these gifts of the Spirit in man with the Holy Ghost Himself, has led to much and mischievous confusion. And it has been thought impossible that they should ever be restrained, or subjected to even apostolic rule, turning, as every departure from scripture does, to the licence of the flesh and human will, or the even worse delusion of the enemy.

127 The Holy Ghost Himself, dwelling in the individual, and especially also in the Church as such, guides, directs, and orders by the word the use of these manifestations of His power in man, as He does everything else, I repeat, by the word; just as the conduct of one led of the Spirit is ordered and guided by the word, the power of the same Spirit directing and applying it. It is this that maintains responsibility, whatever the power given, and, by that, unity, through the Holy Ghost, in the whole body; for, power being given, its exercise would be by man's will else, or it would not be in man at all. This was true in the highest instance where error or failure could not be. When the Son of God in infinite grace and counsel of wisdom became a man, it was not to destroy responsibility, but to fulfil it all in absolute abstract perfection. "He became obedient." Even in working miracles He would not depart from this. He would not make stones bread without God His Father's will. It was precisely to this the enemy (Satan) sought to lead Him — to what might be called the innocent exercise of will, and using His power for this. But He was perfect, and the enemy confounded. He was content to do God's will. He kept His commandments, and abode in His love. And if therein He, a divine Person, could shew that He loved the Father, and in His suffering there was a therefore that the Father loved Him, still He blessedly adds, and this was His perfectness, "And as my Father hath given me commandment, so I do." And thus closed His blessed and perfect career, with this true word to the Father, "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Blessed Jesus! justly art thou glorified in all things — our Lord!

128 This difference now however exists, that Jesus having taken the place of power — "all power given to him in heaven and in earth" — His place is not merely the manifestation of perfect obedience in self-humiliation, but the manifestation of exaltation and power. But this, while it has altered the position of Jesus, and the place of His disciples, as vessels of this power, in the testimony of the Spirit of God, has in no way touched the principle of their responsibility, though its sphere may be enlarged by it; nor has it let in the principle of human will in the smallest degree, because power has been increased; but it has merely introduced the principle of that responsibility into the exercise of the power entrusted, whatever it may be, and connected it with the Lordship of Christ, whose servants they are in it, that they may minister it to His glory, in love and testimony to the world, and in the edification of the Church. And the word affords the rule for the order of its exercise, as of all things else.

129 It is a part of this responsibility and reference to the Head of the Church, not to "quench the Spirit," nor "despise prophesyings," be they the simplest or by the humblest in the Church as to mere circumstance, if God be pleased to use them.

The title and the right are God's, proving them divine, and therefore good: the responsibility man's, and the gift only the occasion of responsibility in that; the Lord Christ being He under whom it was exercised; and by that responsibility necessarily independent of others; for no man could serve two masters; but within the Church exercised according to the mind of Christ, of which the Spirit is the power in the Church, and the written word the guide and standard. It is in this last point the Scriptures hold a place, which in many respects the apostles held, that is, of revealing the mind of Christ. They cannot have in themselves the place of power, but they do contain the wisdom of God, and, as to this in the New Testament, the mind of Christ. We must distinguish this point of revelation. The other point of apostolic office may be spoken of hereafter.

There are some other points to be noted in this 1 Corinthians 12.

Having spoken of the Spirit, and the Lord, and God; the first two shewing the relationship and power of this service, the last making us understand that it was withal truly God's power and working; and then in the same language (that the divinity of the Spirit might be recognized, though in a certain sense taking the place of service, as acting in the subject instrument of Christ's Lordship) ascribed the power and working to the Spirit: having cleared this point, the apostle takes up the subject in connection with the unity of the body. And here Christ, at least the body of Christ, becomes the subject of divine operations: first is rather the fruit of those operations; for we are by one Spirit baptized into one body — thus is Christ. And the whole is spoken of as the subject of divine counsel; Christ only being the Head, and we in mutual dependence; but the whole sphere is looked at as a subject-scene of operations. It is not merely now the Holy Ghost bearing witness by which the world was convicted, or individuals convinced, and the Church gathered; but "now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him." "God hath tempered the body together." "God hath set some in the Church, first, apostles," etc. They were "the body of Christ, and members in particular."

130 We have thus the operations of the Spirit of God formally established in the corporate unity of the body, in the various gifts of the different members, of which the Spirit itself formed the unity and the power; subservient to the lordship of Christ, and therefore directing the Church by His mind, whether for its own edification in love or testimony to the world; God setting the members of this body as it pleased Him.

The control of the Spirit, as communicating the mind of Christ, over the exercise of these entrusted powers is next brought forward — after stating the superior excellence of love to any gift. Love was, and witnessed, God, and was the bond of perfectness in essential blessing. These, the testimony of power; prevailing indeed over evil, but still ministered in the midst of it, and not to continue, therefore, but to pass away or cease. The use of these for the purpose of love thus became the true test of grace and the mind of Christ in using them; otherwise, turned into personal display. The edifying of the Church was to be the rule of all used there, and no individual title, for they were to follow the mind of Christ.

This also gave rise to a distinction in the gifts, of those suited to the world, and those meant for the profit of the incumbent of the Church. Thus "tongues" were a sign to unbelievers, not to the Church; this was their use. One gifted with tongues was not therefore to speak in them, unless there was an interpreter; for the Church would not be edified: it would by the subject matter, if there was an interpreter. So "signs," or "miracles," confirmed the word.

The gift of tongues was peculiar and characteristically evangelical; overreaching the consequences of man's sin and judgment in Babel, and setting aside manifestly the confining the testimony of God to the Jewish people; constituting an active ministry towards those without, which was distinctively essential to Christianity. It thus became, distinctively, manifestative of the Holy Ghost, on the Jews, and on the Gentiles (the hundred and twenty and Cornelius), as sent down, the witness of this grace, and of glory and headship in Christ. Miracles had been wrought among the Jews; even there, however, it was amongst those departed from the covenant, or when at first that national system was established. In Judea the prophets recalled to the law, and let their predictions verify themselves or be owned by faith. Their summons to the law required no verification; its obligation was acknowledged. But tongues were properly applicable to the Christian dispensation as acting on the world, and therefore because the characteristic manifestation of the Holy Ghost sent down as acting before the world that needed this.

131 "Tongues, miracles, healings," then, might be exercised by those gifted thereto in the Church, but they were exercised as the witness of the beneficence of Christ's Lordship to the world, and not towards the Church already alive in heaven by the deeper quickening power of that beneficence. This was their general character. The proper character of the Church's blessing was edification: "Let all things be done unto edifying"; or, as expressed in the Ephesians, "the edifying of itself in love."

This appears to me the true distinction: signs too to the world, and edification to the Church; not that usually made between miraculous, and not miraculous; as if God gave no positive gifts to the Church now, and as if miraculous were synonymous with supernatural, and that the Holy Ghost had ceased to act; and thus human powers are practically referred to as the sole agent in the Church. If miraculous be spoken of as meaning those which were signs to the world, I have no objection, provided the direct power and gift of the Holy Ghost be not set aside in those which are not for signs but for edifying: otherwise great dishonour is done to the Holy Ghost.

There is this distinction given us in these gifts by the fact of some being for signs, some for edifying: the former are to act on the senses and mind as applicable to those without; the latter on conscience and spiritual understanding, and consequently the subject of intelligent judgment and reception. This remark is of importance. The Spirit of God acting in the force of responsibility in us is always paramount to any means of power and gift — even if real; for, thereby the authority of God is owned and set up over ourselves. The true use of gift in the Church is just to enforce this: wherever it departs from this it is clearly false in principle. "I must judge them which say they are apostles" — "let the rest judge" — "the spiritual man judgeth all things." Self-will, which refuses the enforcement of responsibility by gift, or which would use gift to exalt itself, instead of enforcing it, are alike the flesh set on by Satan to its own lawlessness. There is no remedy for this but grace, and the power and presence of the Holy Ghost condemning and mortifying the flesh in each. The want of this is recognized as possible, and to come, by the apostle: "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears."

132 I should also remark, that the Holy Ghost teaches us here that while He distributes to every man severally as He will, and uses whom He will, so that all openness is to be maintained for His operations, there are distinct permanent gifts whereby men are constituted teachers, prophets, or the like, though their teaching and prophesying may still be in constant dependence on the action of the Holy Ghost Himself. These directions, in fine, as to tongues and interpretations — the number and manner of prophets speaking — women speaking — shew the distinct control of the Holy Ghost Himself (thus is its order expressed in the word) over the exercise of all entrusted gifts in the Church, where the Holy Ghost habitually dwelt and guided for the edifying of all. Liberty and guidance is characteristic of Christianity, and is distinctive of power making willing, and the wisdom of God for us.

This testimony to the world, and edifying of the Church, involves also another consideration, besides the signs wrought by the Church before the world — a principle of service a little modified by the position of the apostle Paul — that the operation of the Spirit in gift, though working in and by, precedes the formation of, the Church. Gift of evangelizing, though it be in a member of the Church, yet is clearly antecedent in its own character to the existence of the Church; for it is by that the Church is gathered.

133 The highest form of this was shewn in the apostles at Jerusalem, as we have already seen. And though the evangelist may go forth from the Church, and be aided by the Church, it is a gift exercised not towards the Church, or to its conscience, and of which the Church, therefore, cannot be properly cognizable. It must be exercised on the possession of the gift, and bears its evidence in its fruits, by acting in the primary work of God's Spirit on the conscience of the unconverted; judging it, not judged by it; coming in the grace and truth of Jesus to it. Other gifts, as prophesying, may convince others in conscience, but its exercise is in the Church, and the Church, having a conscience taught to the Spirit, is bound — it may be through other prophets efficiently, but is bound — to judge; but the evangelist is to the world, and there is no competency of judgment, though there may be holy counsel and advice, as from the Lord. As aiding in grace, temporally, the Church, or rather each individual in it — be it a woman — is bound to have no fellowship with doctrine not according to the word; and the Church should take all needful notice of this, and not be partakers of this sin. The same would apply as to any evil practice; but the exercise of the gift, as such, in its nature, though it flow from the midst of the Church, goes forth out of it, and, not referring to its conscience, does not raise a throne of judgment there, which responsibility to God does, in what is addressed to the Church. The evangelist is responsible to God for the exercise of his gift towards those without, and becomes manifest in their consciences in the sight of God.

The highest form of this was the apostles' on the day of Pentecost. It was a direct authoritative address, as the apostles of Jesus, appointed by Him, and ratified in power by the Holy Ghost to the world, thereby forming the Church, and becoming, in a certain subordinate sense, heads of the Church, to guide, regulate, order, and direct those whom they so gathered, which gave the subsequent character to apostolic office.

Thus the evangelist becomes, in a certain sense, independent of the Church, though the man be always subject to it; and though the ministry of evangelization be in the Church, yet the Church is not properly missionary, nor the manager of missions. It is "a city set on a hill," formed by missions from God.

The sense of this position of the evangelist I believe to be most healthful to the Church, keeping it in its place and from assuming the place of God as if it were the sender. It is gathered, and does not send: God sends; though, in love, those whom He sends may go forth from its bosom. This was clear in the first apostles: "As my Father hath sent me, so send I you," was the Lord's word to them.

But this was true of ministers of this character, inferior in rank to the apostles, and of the whole body when under this character — a character assumedly this, as "scattered," not "gathered"; as "going," not "sending." They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and many believed. Nay, before this, Stephen (of whom we may perhaps say, he had gotten to himself a good degree and great boldness in Christ Jesus), full of the Holy Ghost, was mighty in the word. Philip in like manner was blessed in Samaria, which, when the apostles heard, they sent Peter and John to confirm the work; but the work was done before they even heard of it.

134 This is the character then attached to evangelizing in the word. The weakening of it in individual energy will always weaken that and the Church too; for God will be independent of man, though he cannot be of Him, nor of his neighbour in love.

I said this was a little modified in Paul, yet withal clearly sustained in principle. But he went out as one born out of due time — after the body was formed, in a certain sense. This, therefore, was recognized; not in sending him, but in his going forth from it and returning to it, whence he had been commended to the grace of God.

The positive independence of his mission he is most careful to assert. "It was not of man, nor by man." Immediately Christ was revealed in him that he might preach Him among the Gentiles, he conferred not with flesh and blood, but straightway preached Him in the synagogues. Thus the character of this ministry was fully maintained.

But after a lapse of time Paul comes from Tarsus, brought to Antioch, and there for a year assembles himself with the Christian congregation, and teaches much people; and then "the Holy Ghost," certain prophets being there, while they fasted and prayed, "said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." Thus, while directly sent of the Holy Ghost, they went in obedience to Him, not to the Church; they went from the bosom of the Church, commended of them to the grace of God for the work whereunto He had called them, and returned to the bosom of the Church. Not returning any intermediate reports indeed as responsible to them, for the true apostolic office would thereby have been detracted from; but communicating for the joy of all what God had done through them. Thus, though it was not a gift exercised in ministry in the Church, its union with the Church was maintained, and the comfort of all sustained therein. The apostle became — authoritatively sent amongst those whom he had himself thus gathered — the apostle of the Gentiles.

I have said thus much of evangelization, because, though not a sign to the world, but a ministry flowing in the Church, it was still towards the world, and came in a special place in the distinction of gifts as for the world or the Church. It was, if I may so call it, a moral gift, i.e., a gift acting on conscience, but not as within, but as that of the natural man. It is not actually mentioned in the gifts God has set in the Church. It is amongst the gifts which Christ conferred, on ascending up on high, for profit, and the work of the ministry, and the edifying of the body of Christ; as are pastors also; for the special subject of that epistle (Ephesians) is the love towards and the blessedness of the body in its union with Christ, and consequent unity. Having completely redeemed it, and filled all things, it being His fulness, He ministers from on high the gifts necessary for its advancement in grace, security from being deceived and led astray, and its self-edifying till it grows up into Him. This was not what the Church was to the world in display of Him, but what it was to and for Himself; though in that, in the number who had that gift, the evangelizing minister of His love, as a helpmeet for Him in grace.

135 This is the real difference of this epistle to the Ephesians and that to the Corinthians. There the Spirit is looked at as present, and operating in the body generally, in the power of God, "as God hath set in the Church" — witness of, and subservient to, the Lordship of Christ, and therefore including that in which it was the witness of this to the world; and therefore the gift in its exercise is dependent in many respects on the competency of the Church by its state to stand as a witness, or the wisdom of God in so using it. Here (in the Ephesians) the state of the Church is not adverted to. It is not its internal administration that is the subject, but Christ's own love to His own body, His spouse; one he cherished and nourished as His own flesh, and thus cherished and nourished for Himself. Hence we have Christ, who loved the Church, viewed as ascending up on high and filling all things, giving the gifts; and it is said — not the Spirit works as He will in power, but (while the same unity is spoken of, though more of blessing than of membership) "to every one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." This, then, is not the witness of the power of God above the flesh and its ruin, and the Lordship of Christ; but of the love of Christ and the ministration of that, and of the counsels of God, as to the place He has given the Church with Christ; it had, therefore, a more permanent character; for Christ's love to the Church is permanent, not resting on the suitableness of the medium to display power, but on the Church's own need of that gracious and tender love. This love, therefore, we may reckon upon.* I do not say that our faults may not hinder the manifestation of the love in plain and happy favour. Surely they may; still it is always in exercise.

{*For that very reason the extraordinary power of apostles and prophets does not continue — they were the foundation in that power-the word by them does.}

136 Perhaps it may be said that the evil state of the Corinthian Church shews it was not a ministration of gift dependent in any way on that state; for these, so evil, came "behind in no gift."

It shews, indeed, that our patient God does not withdraw the honour conferred by His goodness at once on shortcoming; but the principle is exactly shewn by it. The Church, still in unity, though having failed in practice, is corrected by the apostle in all points, shewing the importance of the apostolic energy which still sustained it, that its safeguard was not mere primary position; but while it held its place, though falling into evil, it could be restored by that and all go right — Satan not be allowed to get advantage after all. But still this was just the evidence that the state and administration of the Church was in question, not the self-moved tender love of Christ to it, caring for it as His spouse; it stands in Corinth as the responsible witness of His glory, not the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. In Ephesians it is the blessed and holy privilege of grace, not the condition of the Church itself, which is in question as the ground and theatre of the display of Christ towards the world. It is what Christ is towards the Church, not what the Church is for Him, or what God has set it in its Head and body, towards the world around it. It is "till we all come." Hence, as the special personal care and love of Christ for the Church, it is not "the Comforter whom the Father will send in my name" — nor, "whom I will send unto you from the Father" — nor even members which God has set in the body subservient to the Lordship of Christ; but gifts which He, ascending up on high, has given, on leading the adverse powers captive. He who fills all things has given these the tokens of the nearness of His love — "that he might fill all things," and "he gave."

This, then, is the portion of the Church in Christ's love as caring for it, in the midst of His filling all things — as His body, the place of the manifestation of supreme grace; that which is given to the Church, not for His display of Lordship to the world, but the link of the Church as associated with Him, and to lift it up into heavenly places and to form it in spirit into all His fulness; preserving it from being frittered away in mind into various and strange doctrines, and ministering to its direct growth into the heavenly character and fulness of Christ. This is the character of these gifts here — the link and association with the heavenly fulness of Christ.

137 The Church, is "the fulness of him that filleth all in all." But He is the Head of the body also as exalted over all things to it. The Anointed One is set in this place that He may, by immediate communion and gift to it, according to this anointing, associate it through the ministration of these gifts as His body into all this fulness. It is here, not merely the headship over all things to it, but the entrance into the understanding of His fulness as filling all things, as descended into death and ascended on high above all; and by the communication of the gifts as the Anointed, the "Christ" — then entering into intelligently and spiritually as — though subordinately, yet really — associated and brought up into this fulness. This is the portion of the Church. It is a step above and more intimate than the witness, or even partaking, of Lordship, though the sphere in which that is held. For indeed this fulness in Christ involves divinity, though fellowship with it be communicated by the Anointed Man, or, at least, the ministration of that fulness in gift.

He "filleth all in all," and the Church is "His fulness"; but then this is spoken of One whom God — "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ" — has raised from the dead; and this is just the connection of the Church with it. He is in the Father — necessarily, therefore intrinsically, divine; we are in Him, and He is in us. All the fulness was pleased to dwell in Him; as afterwards stated as to the fact: "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; and we are "filled full" in Him.

But in the passage immediately preceding the one we are upon in Ephesians (that in the end of chapter 3) this is pursued more directly as to the power in us; because the Colossians treats more of the fulness of the Head for the Church; this of the Church as the fulness of Him that filleth all in all — the corporate fulness, as His body, of Him that is Head over and fills all things. We read of "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man — able to comprehend the length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; that we may be filled with [eis, lit. "unto"] all the fulness of God." Thus the Holy Ghost becomes in us now the power and strength of this fulness. Chapter 2 had introduced — after stating access to the Father by the Spirit through Jesus for both Jew and Gentiles — the additional truth that they were "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." This ground having been parenthetically unfolded in its fulness in chapter 3, chapter 4 resumes the thread of chapter 2, while taking up the unity mentioned in the first.

138 We, "strengthened with might by his Spirit, . . . that Christ may dwell in our hearts," thus "rooted and grounded in love," "able to comprehend with all saints" the plenitude of blessedness and glory in divine counsel and fulness, and to know the love of Christ, that we might be filled with the fulness; thus we find it in Christ, known by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. Thus this fulness of God is known, even in Christ, for so are we brought into it. And this is by power working in us that we may enter into that into which we are brought. "Now unto him . . . that worketh in us" — concludes the apostle — "be glory in the Church!" Now all this blessed fulness (of which the unity of the Church united to Christ is the centre and scene of development, while it extends to the whole sphere of the display of God's universal glory), in the love of Christ her Head, is ministered to the growing up of the body by these gifts of Christ. They are the ministrations of Christ the Head in the body. It is His gift — the edifying of His body — that they might grow up into Christ's fulness, of which we have seen the character just now. This gives us the character of the gifts. Here there is actually no mention of the Spirit, though doubtless the Spirit was the medium of power,* but they are given by Christ, who fills all things, that He may introduce the Church into His fulness — the Church in which the Spirit dwells: His fulness being the fulness of God — in Him all the fulness dwelling — and He filling all in all, and the Church His fulness.** It is then here, Christ according to this blessed fulness giving in love to His members, for the growing up into Him in all things who is the Head, till we all come to the measure of the fulness of Christ: not the display of His Lordship to the world (the Spirit acting as subservient to that display, divinely distributing, "God working all in all"). It is Christ giving to the Church to minister on the ground of union — entrance into communion with His fulness.

{*See chapter 2: 22; chap. 3: 16. But chapter 3 has brought it into union with divine fulness, and that, as we in Christ, so Christ is dwelling in us, and therefore pursues it here as of Christ ministering of and in the power of that fulness, for the bringing up of the Church into it in actual joy, security, and fellowship by these ministrations of it.}

{**Ephesians 1 presents specially the presenting of God to the saints; chapter 3, Christ's dwelling in them, that they may realise His fulness.}

139 I would now turn a little to the character of the gifts here spoken of. We shall see they are associated with this special character of giving to the Church, not witnessing by the Church. Having urged upon them in individual lowliness, which the sense of the excellency of the calling would induce (a calling which had its existence in the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace), the apostle proceeds to declare what gifts Christ gave (as gifts, nothing righteously to exalt) to man on His exaltation (that being of Him who first descended, and that into the lower parts of the earth), as now far above the heavens, so that He filled all things, captivity being led captive; that the powers of darkness having the Church captive were now led captive themselves, so that Christ could freely communicate to the Church, so delivered, communion with His fulness, who in this act displayed how He filled all things, and accordingly gave these gifts for this purpose — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These I would now notice.

It is to be remarked that all gifts of sign to men as such are entirely omitted; all that dealt with nature, and all even that merely dealt with the flesh in the Church; those only are mentioned that are initiative, and that edify in the Church. Thus miracles, tongues, healings, helps, and governments are omitted; apostles and evangelists, prophets, pastors, and teachers are introduced.

As to apostles, what has been observed will partly lead us to some distinction in this office. Primarily, they are no part of the body properly speaking; they gather it. The house is built on them. Thus the twelve were sent as Jesus was sent of the Father. Paul was sent of the Lord directly. But in another character they had a place in it, in the continual exercise of their functions. In the former character they stood alone, save in one particular which they possessed in common with prophets. But, as authoritative regulators of the Church by revelation, they had a peculiar and definite place. In the one particular of revelation of the mind and will of Christ and of God, the prophets might be associated with them; but these had no authority delegated of the Lord in their office as sent forth. The holy beneficence of this arrangement, I think, is evident. Thus while the Church was regulated and ordered responsibly and authoritatively by an apostle, yet they had to say, "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." In the sense of revelation, as laying down the foundation, their work is complete and fulfilled. The word of God is written for us. The fruits of authoritative regulation were left (as every dispensation had been) in the responsibility of man, and men have entirely failed. But the revelation of the will of God is complete, and is there for us to refer to by the Spirit, according to the light of the word in our present condition, not by imitation, but by obedience. Hence tradition disappears; for at best that is imitation, not obedience; a very important distinction, as will soon be found in its application.

140 But, moreover, it is clear to me that, in a subordinate sense, apostles and prophets had a place beside this. That the apostles expected no continuance of their functions is clear, for the apostle Paul declares the evil that would come in after his decease, and commends them to God and the word of His grace; and Peter says he will take care that they have the things in remembrance. And, indeed, one familiar with the New Testament will see that the character of the Church's responsibility is founded on the departure of direct apostolic authoritative care. The Church could not leave it to them as the complete competent authority, who had communicated the Lord's will, and before whose departure the Lord began to act in judgment, if equally authorized communicators were constantly with the same authority present in the Church. The casting a dispensation on responsibility of a given deposit would have been entirely set aside, that is, the whole principle of God's dealing to the end, and the assumptions clearly taken up by the apostles falsified, and the Bible set aside, by a constant succession of equally authoritative communications. For the principle of the office of which we now speak is the authoritative revelation of the will of Christ.

141 We find that, in one sense, apostolic ministry precedes the Church, the Church being gathered by it. Its character being, then, gathering by the authoritative revelation of the will of Christ (as the testimony to Christ in the power of the Spirit, whether by themselves or others, draws and quickens souls). Under this evangelists came, another testimony of their gift being of God, and that He could in His sovereignty communicate important parts of it to others; but apostolic service found its place also in the Church, where the participated evangelist's gift did not (that is the regulating authoritatively the gathered, according to that revealed will).

But, as has been elsewhere stated, a new principle was introduced in and even before the apostolate of Paul, on the dispersion of the order of the Church at Jerusalem — individual agency according to the energy of the Spirit, according to its measure, the operation proving itself and its own efficacy. So even the apostle of this owns: "The signs of an apostle were wrought in me"; "Make full proof of thy ministry"; "Let no man despise thee." Hence, though subsisting not in authoritative revelation of the will of God, nor power in the Church, in a subordinate sense, it seems to me that the gift of apostle and prophet has not passed away. Barnabas was an apostle: Junius and Andronicus were of note among the apostles: and it was praise to a church that they had tried certain whether they were apostles, and they were not, but liars. Doubtless, these pretenders set up for the highest form of apostolate. But the Church could not have been commended for trying them, if there had been question only of the twelve and Paul. In truth, the word 'apostle,' though now of definite force, has it not properly; it just amounts to one sent, a missionary. The messenger of the Church is called "your apostle," in the original.

That which seems to designate the character of apostle, is the being directly sent of Christ, raised up to act on his own personal responsibility to Christ; not merely a gift exercised on such or such occasion subject to church rules, nor the going forth with good tidings to sinners; but as one sent by Christ, acting from Him on his own responsibility to Christ, having a given errand and sphere in which to exercise his commission. In this sense, while the authoritative primary revelation of God's will, gathering and regulating the Church, has clearly closed in the scriptural record to apostolic ministry, I do not see but that apostolic service may still subsist, and probably has been exercised, though the name may not have been attached; men raised up and sent by God for a certain mission, to effect a certain result in the Church, or on sinners, though with no fresh revelation, but with a special energy in which to fulfil it, beyond the bounds of mere circumscribed gift as members within, but special in its relation to Christ. The faithfulness of its accomplishment, the mixing of other things with it, or the failure in clearly following in particular instances, does not, it seems to me, touch this question. In the same way, prophets, who were associated with apostles as the foundation, because they revealed the mind of God, may, it appears to me, in a subordinate sense, be believed to exist. It is not that they now reveal fresh truths not contained in the word (or the foundation would not be completely laid — this, I hold, never can be touched), but that there may be those who not merely teach and explain ordinary and profitable doctrine — truths, and guide by the Spirit into present truth, but who by a special energy of the Spirit can unfold and communicate the mind of Christ to the Church where it is ignorant of it (though that mind be treasured up in the scripture) — can bring truths, hidden previously from the knowledge of the Church, in the power of the testimony of the Spirit of God, to bear on the present circumstances of the Church and future prospects of the world, shewing the things to come; only that these things are all actually treasured up in Scripture, but they can give them present application and force according to the mind, intention, and power of God, and thus be practically prophets (though there be no new facts revealed, but all are really in the word already), and thus be a direct blessing and gift of Christ to the Church for its emergency and need, though the word be strictly adhered to, but without which the Church would not have had the power of that word.

142 This reference to that word, I hold to be the essence of the Church's safety, accompanied by acknowledgment of, and dependence on, the Spirit of God, the Comforter — the plain written word (that of which it could be said, including now, of course, the New Testament, that from a child — scorned by some as knowing it in the flesh — thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus). No tradition can in the smallest degree take the place of this; it is at best the certifying of men's minds as to the certainty of certain points. But see what the apostle refers to in assuring them that they should see his face no more (clear evidence, as we have seen, he thought of no apostle or successor to supply his place): "I commend you to God" (says the blessed witness of Christ — that is the first great point; it must always, and in a special manner now that He was gone, be found in Him directly) "and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up." This was exactly what was needed. Let a teacher unfold, a pastor graciously guide by, or a prophet apply in power, this word. This was what was able to build up and give an inheritance. Now, no tradition, however guiding, is a word of God's grace. It may direct the forms of man, it may order the rules of the Church, it might even record a form of correct doctrine; it is not the word of His grace "able to build up."

143 This makes, I trust, this point, and the sense in which there may be, in a subordinate and inferior sense, apostles and (in a nearer sense to their original character) prophets, now clear. Revelation of new, unknown, and unrevealed truths being quite excluded, prophets, as expressing the mind of God, could speak, and did, to exhortation, and edification, and comfort, in thus applying the mind of God to the saints. So did the prophets of highest character of old.

These subordinate parts of the gift we see again participated by others, and diffused in the Church, that unity and deference for all might be maintained. He that exhorted was to wait on exhortation; and so one that taught — not necessarily a pastor — was to wait on his teaching, using his talent.

These might, in a certain sense (that is, apostolic and prophetic ministry), be called extraordinary, coming on special occasions and with special objects into the Church, though always witness of the goodness of God and for the glory of Christ. Evangelists were of another character, the natural and constant testimony to sinners of the grace that was revealed in their good news of God, in what we call the gospel. Any saint had to tell it, but there were those specially gifted to proclaim the glad tidings. Timothy is exhorted to do this, in the midst of his care of the Church for the apostle. It is always in such case healthful, and a good sign, that we labour in the sense of the grace of Christ, and generally an evil sign when we do not. None can so deeply understand the basis of love without it. An apostle wrought in this work. The bearing on souls is understood by it. Specifically, grace is felt and understood in the heart. We are on the ground our own souls have felt the need of.

144 The next class — for they are brought together as one — is pastors and teachers; for watching and feeding, and that with the word, are most clearly united and identified: only pastorship includes guidance in holy wisdom and grace, and applying teaching to the state of the saints. We have seen the subordinate part of this distributed by itself — "he that teacheth on teaching." But the gift here is guiding as pastor; shepherding and feeding the flock, applying the word in wisdom, watching against intruding heresies, building up by the word, guarding and securing from evil, guiding the feet of the saints into straight paths; in a word, the care of the saints. It is not here, as was remarked, government controlling the flesh, but the ministration of grace, nourishing and cherishing, guiding and feeding: some were "pastors and teachers."

These were the ministrations: the first two (apostles and prophets) being in their primary sense the foundation-extraordinary; the last three (evangelists, pastors, and teachers), the ordinary abiding ministrations of the Church, to build them up in Christ's known and thus ministered fulness; that the body of Christ might be edified, "grow up into him."

The primary and full object was the perfecting of the saints — their being formed and fashioned according to the pattern of this fulness and into it; but there was a formal and instrumental object as the medium of this. As to this in its twofold character, the Greek preposition is changed, and the article omitted: "for [pros] the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [eis] the work of the ministry with a view to [eis] the edifying of the body of Christ," Eph. 4: 12. This ministerial work was clearly merely ancillary, and the edifying the body of Christ, for the perfect enjoyment of the fulness by the saints, "for the perfecting of the saints," is the direct and positive object. The other two were the service and form of blessing in which this object was carried on, and to which, therefore, these gifts were directed for the other, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to full-grown men — to a perfect man — to the measure of the stature, in mind and in blessing, of the fulness of Christ, of which we have before spoken; that we be no more children, nor blown about by every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, being preserved through these gifts of God.

145 This leads us to see the blessing and importance of these gifts, definitely committed by Christ, as He sees good in grace, for the good and communication of His blessed fulness to the Church; whereby, fed with what is good, it should be preserved and guarded against hankering after the false trash of deceivers. They are gifts to the Church, not to all, but for all. The development of these in full liberty and openness of ministry is most important. Nor can they be really or rightly developed otherwise. Hence God has commanded — made it a matter of command, and thus guarded the closing of the door by making it a matter of personal responsibility — that he that exhorteth shall wait on exhortation, and he that teacheth on teaching; and, "as every man has received the gift, so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." So "Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves," exhorted the people much at Antioch. By this use of every gift in its place as the apostle speaks, "the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth," and, "according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love." Still, observe, these ministrations are all to the edifying and increase of the body, not to the external testimony of Christ's Lordship to the world. They are the fulfilling of His love to the Church, in ministering to it of, and so building it up into, His fulness — not the verification of the assertion of His Lordship to the world.

The only other reference of importance, that I am aware of, as to distinctness of subject, is in the book of Revelation, which I shall only briefly notice, because its character is quite different. In the first three chapters, the unity of the body ceases to be recognized, and the Spirit is not seen acting in the Church in the power of this unity, of which Christ is the corporate Head; but Christ is seen in a judicial though priestly character in the midst of the churches, and the Spirit is a Spirit of address and prophetic warning to them, not of gift in them. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." This might be gift in the apostle, but this is the character of the address; and hence every individual with an ear is called upon to hear for himself.

146 After this the Spirit is seen in His fulness in heaven, not in the Church, and is sent forth as the providential agent of the Lamb's power, as the seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth, not as the power of communion and gift in the Church at all. Thence it is seen as in the Church, as the bride directing her aspirations and desires after one object, the coming of the Bridegroom: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." And this closes the whole scene.

I have now traced the operations of the Spirit individually as a Spirit of adoption, His highest and most blessed office in us. Then as coming paramountly to convict and guide, as shewn in John, as the Comforter sent.

This is traced, after the unity of the body with Christ is revealed, in His corporate operations and character, first, as the witness of Lordship in Christ, acting in the members of His body in witness; then as the ministration of His love to His body for its growth up into His fulness: lastly, as a prophetic and judicial witness to the churches themselves, thenceforward only in heaven as regards the Church in acting on the earth.

Such are the operations, as fully developed, of this blessed agent of divine power in us and towards the world. The chief topics, I believe, are noticed: I pretend to nothing more. Those who seek to search Him out, must do so by His own aid in the word itself. And may they, while dwelling on it here as a subject of thought, be led to refer to that Holy One Himself in His presence and personal power, as One who is with the Church — the Comforter sent — not merely resting in thoughts about Him, but led, actuated, directed, by Him, and honouring Him as energized by Him in all things!

This is specially the Church's need.

The Doctrine of the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, of the Reformation itself, of Scripture, and of the Church of Rome, briefly compared with the Remarks of the Regius Professor of Divinity

*

J. N. Darby.

<03001E> 1

{*Oxford, 1831.}

I shall first shortly state the reasons which induce me to take notice of, and comment on, the "Remarks" upon the sermon lately preached at St. Mary's. If the Regius Professor of Divinity had simply undertaken to refute the sermon preached at St. Mary's, to which his remarks apply, it might perhaps have been unbecoming, or at the least premature, for a third person to enter into the discussion, or do more than watch its progress. But this is expressly disclaimed, and a very different office is assumed. "I must now come," says the pamphlet referred to, "to the exposition of the gospel; and I trust that I shall not be thought unreasonable or presumptuous, if I say at once that I am not entering into controversy." It is true the author professes, at the close of the "Remarks," "I am not entering into controversy, but am merely stating facts." But for this purpose he has said a great deal too much. "When the doctrine of the Church is misrepresented," he continues, "and there is danger of young disciples being misled, I feel it my duty as a faithful soldier of Christ to stand between the dead and the living, and to stay the plague."

This itself were language a little strong for any supposed or real misrepresentation of the doctrines of the Church of England. But the author has indeed altogether said too much or too little. If he meant to confine himself to the vindication of the doctrines of the Church of England from misrepresentation, he has said too much. If he meant to tell us what was not or what was the gospel, he should have surely said a good deal more. But that I may not leave it uncertain how much these remarks call upon every one to satisfy themselves on the whole principles of their faith, I shall conclude the quotation already adverted to. "The sermon now before me professes to contain an exposition of that gospel which Jesus Christ delivered to His apostles; but in the name of Paul, of Cephas, and of Christ, I say that this is not the gospel." In saying this, the Regius Professor has laid the solemn responsibility upon every one concerned about his own soul of enquiring what his faith is; and whether it be founded in truth, if at all similar to what is thus authoritatively pronounced to be not the gospel; (for, what is the gospel? is a question of individual salvation, which men must judge of responsibly); and, I will add, responsibility to judge of that proposed to be substituted in its place, and to see what conclusions it will lead us.

2 This is no vindication of the doctrines of the Church of England from misrepresentation, nor a mere statement of facts. It is, in good truth, a standing between the living and the dead, if the author be right. If the preacher be right, and I follow the author of the "Remarks," I am not, according to the former, in the way of salvation. If the author of the "Remarks" be right, in receiving the doctrine of the preacher I am departing from the gospel of Christ: I am not amongst the living but the dead. I am justified therefore in the fullest comment upon the evidence brought to sustain such a charge; and in enquiring what are the grounds on which I am here called upon to believe that this is a deadly contagion, in which the Church of England has no part; and how far the Regius Professor is warranted in bringing the views which he does in these "Remarks" bring forward in opposition to, and as contravening, what he says is not the gospel. I am not here concerned to defend the preacher: with him the author says he will not enter into controversy; and it is his part, if he see good, to defend himself. But the author of the "Remarks" has thrown the whole question open, and forced it upon the judgment of every one who is interested in what the gospel is; for he has raised a controversy for every soul. I shall leave therefore the sermon itself unnoticed, and discuss merely the statements made in the "Remarks," as bearing on the general subject.

I know not with what consistency with the injunctions contained in the preface to the Articles, I am led by Archbishop Lawrence and the Regius Professor of Divinity to travel into the mind of Cranmer, through the vacillating opinions of Melancthon. Those opinions we can judge of, according to the testimony of the author of the "Remarks" himself, only by the help of dates, and we must be certain of getting a right edition, before we can know what was that mind which he held, and which therefore Cranmer held, and which therefore the Articles are to be supposed to hold. I there read, that a person "shall not put his own sense or comment" on the Article, "but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense." The authority of this document I do not pretend to state: whatever it be, of this I am sure, that Archbishop Lawrence's Bampton Lectures, especially the last two, are a very singular comment on it. For my own part, I soberly think Article XVII to be as wise, perhaps I might say the wisest and best condensed human statement of the views it contains that I am acquainted with. I am fully content to take it in its literal and grammatical sense. I believe that predestination to life is the eternal purpose of God, by which, before the foundations of the world were laid, He firmly decreed, by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and destruction those whom He had chosen in Christ out of the human race, and to bring them, through Christ, as vessels made to honour, to eternal salvation. I believe therefore that those who are endued with so excellent a gift of God, are called according to His purpose working in due time; that they obey the calling through grace; that they are freely justified; that they are adopted to be children of God; that they are made conformed to the image of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ; that they do walk holily in good works; and that at length, through the mercy of God, they do attain to everlasting felicity. And, I might ask, does the author of the "Remarks" believe this? that is, believing as he does that the Church, that is, every baptized person, is predestinated and chosen, does he believe all this of every such person?

3 But as the historical enquiry has been started, I shall beg leave shortly to follow it, that we may, as far as a brief opportunity allows, investigate the grounds on which the author of the "Remarks" states, that the Lutheran Church was the source from which the Church of England derives her doctrine; and that Calvinism was "a contagion flowing from the close contact into which those who fled from the Marian persecution were brought with the Calvinistic doctrines." And here I must remark, that it appears to me that the Regius Professor of Divinity puts the Church of England into a very discreditable position. Choice between Lutheran and Calvinistic she may be allowed to make. That she drew her doctrines originally from Scripture; that her founders were themselves taught of God, so as to be able to teach others, or lay the basis of the Church they were about to rear or reform on the stable foundations of the word of God, is in no case suggested or supposed. In fact, when we would ascertain her thoughts and her foundation, — we are directed to Melancthon. In the Bampton Lectures of Archbishop Lawrence, there is not an expression on which he remarks, of which he does not discover the words and the source in some German reformer. For my own part I cannot believe this: and it would seem to me an ill way of securing confidence in her doctrine, to lead the minds of students to so mazy and uncertain a path to discover her meaning and ascertain the foundations of her authority (however it may suit those who put their "comment on the Articles," instead of searching the authority of Scripture for their plain and grammatical meaning). But let us ascertain some of the facts. Peter Martyr and Bucer were Regius Professors of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge respectively during the reign of Edward VI. "Bucer," the author of the "Remarks," states, "died in 1551, when Calvin had scarcely begun to propagate his peculiar opinions respecting predestination. His first public controversy was in that year, and his first publication on the subject in 1552." Let us now see what were the views of Bucer, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. After stating some of the difficulties usually objected to what are called Calvinistic views, he thus writes:

4 "But those who wish simply to follow the word of God easily free themselves from these. For, first, they firmly rest in this: that God Himself testifies concerning Himself, that out of the race of man, ruined by its first parent, He chooses some to re-form them to a new and blessed life; and has, or esteems the rest as vessels of His wrath, in whom he should shew examples of His just vengeance; whereby He should commend to the elect His mercy, because He translates them, born to the same death, into the inheritance of the divine life. This judgment of the Lord concerning men, the Scripture everywhere preaches and inculcates; as well in the history of the Lord's acts, as in the oracles themselves; for Cain was rejected; Abel elected. In the time of Noah all were destroyed by the flood save eight men: and of the sons of Noah, blessing came upon two, a curse upon the third . . . . And where do we not see, as in whole peoples, so in private men, and these otherwise most closely united, that some are taken, others rejected? From these examples, therefore, and oracles, witnessing clearly the same thing, of which Scripture is full (in which, namely, the difference which God puts between men is declared), the saints have the fullest persuasion, that, before the foundation of the world, some are elected to life, appointed also before their doing anything, to that to which God at length brings them, namely, that in them He should give an example of His wrath, and that in that way His name should be sanctified in them. And, when they see it thus to be pleasing in the sight of God, they render thanks with our Lord to God the Father for this very judgment, as well that He hides this mystery of salvation from the wise and prudent of this world, as that He reveals it to the elect little ones; however He may will that the revelation of the mystery should be equally offered to both. Thence, whereas God nevertheless commands the gospel to be preached to every creature, and to call them to the communion of the gospel, be they who they may; the saints do not dispute why it is God's command to call them, whom nevertheless He will not have to come, yea, whom He hardens lest they should come: but they thus judge; it is the Lord who commands, it is our part therefore to obey, and to account it sufficient that in the meanwhile we so far serve the Lord as to the reprobate, that every excuse of their wickedness should be taken away from them, and they should be obliged themselves to confess that God justly condemns them."

5 Again, "When we speak of God, we all understand the Author of every good; and he who affirms that any good is not effected by God, does not hesitate to deny that He is God. For if ever so little good be not from God, then is He not the effecter of every good; therefore neither is He God. But, when these preposterous patrons of divine justice say, that all men are alike called by the gospel, and that like grace is offered and bestowed upon all, that they may follow, God calling them, and that men's embracing this grace of God is in their power, we will ask them, Whence is it that some, making good use of their power, embrace the grace equally offered to all — that some reject it, making bad use of their power? If they say, That is from man, not from God; now the chief good from which all the rest hang, the embracing the offered favour of God, is from man; and man has that which he has not received, nor is God now the effecter of every good; therefore neither is He God. This conflicts not only, as I have said, with Scripture, but also with common sense. But if it be from God that any one hears effectually and fallows God's calling, then in any case God does not give His grace to all equally. For to those who follow the call of the gospel He gives that very thing which He does not give to those who reject the gospel. It remains, therefore, as yet and always, that human reason is condemned in the judgment of God, if you permit it to judge about God, the judge of all. If therefore in practice it comes to this concerning the whole dispensation of our salvation, it is not wonderful if it happens, in that it so seemed good to God, that all mortals should be alike called by the gospel, although He may not wish that all should follow that calling: for many are called, few chosen.

6 "The saints therefore will ingenuously confess, yea and will preach, that God wills that the gospel indeed should be preached to all, and that thereby all mortals should be called to life; but that He does not will that all should believe the gospel, for neither does He bestow that on all, but hardens many, lest they should bear to hear it. It comes indeed, as He Himself says, to many unto judgment: and Paul teaches, that the gospel, which in itself is a power unto salvation unto all, is a savour of death unto death to them who perish. In that is fulfilled, that, 'Hearing, hear ye, and understand not; seeing, see ye, and perceive not.' When the blessed Paul preached Christ to all the elders of the Jews at Rome, undoubtedly he did it the Lord willing and commanding it: yet when many did not believe, he himself testified that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in them: 'Hearing, hear ye,' etc. God therefore willed that they should be called by the gospel, and yet should not come. So when Joab," etc.

He then enumerates other similar instances. "This, therefore is the method of God; thus it seems good to Himself, that all indeed should be called to Him by the eternal word, but not to draw all to Him by His Spirit; but howbeit that those who are not drawn cannot come to Him; nevertheless, whoever have been called, it is necessary that they should afterwards condemn themselves for despising the mercy of God."

7 "Philip Melancthon," he says, "is accustomed to say* that man had a free will in the affairs of civil life, but not in the affairs of the life which God approves."

{*This, which was part of the Article on free will in 1553, was omitted in 1562.}

Again: "For it is certain that any one's obeying the call of God, which is the beginning of our whole salvation, is the gift and work of God, which God bestows on some, denies to others. For these He persuades that He may effectually influence, those not so; and these whom he effectually influences cannot but follow, and those cannot follow whom He does not effectually influence. He wills therefore altogether that some should hear, and hear effectually; some hear and despise. But why God so wills and does, blessed Augustine has only two things to answer: O the depth of the riches! and, Is there unrighteousness with God? adding, to whomsoever this answer is displeasing, let him seek more learned persons, but let him take care lest he find presumptuous ones: De Sp. et Lit. c. 34. Nor will those who are truly pious answer anything else." Bucer on Romans 9.

In the same commentary on the Romans, he confutes the presciential or Arminian notion of election, quoting Augustine writing against the Pelagians, against Origen and Ambrose: saying, You say, not of present but of future works — that of future works Jacob was loved; but you contradict the apostle, saying, Not of works that it might be by grace, etc.; bringing also the evidence of an infant dying after baptism to shew that it could not be in prescience of future works.

On Romans 8. "For the apostle in this place is occupied with teaching, that God destined us to salvation before we were, not merely before we had done anything good: and from this he sets about to prove, that this will of God concerning our salvation was certain and unmoved, which no creature could turn aside: as that which God draws from Himself and His own goodness, which cannot be changed; and without any respect to our merit which varies so miserably . . . . Therefore  . . . praefinition, which we commonly call predestination, is that designation of God, by which He marks out with Himself, and now singles out, and separates from the rest of men, those whom in their own time, brought into this life, He draws and grafts into our Lord Jesus; and thus drawn to and planted in Him, by Him begets again, and sanctifies according to His good pleasure." "But then," etc. He then states the appointment of everything by God to its own use.

8 "Hence also is the predestination of the bad. For, as God also forms these out of nothing, so He forms them to some certain end: for He does all things wisely, without any exception, even to the predetermined and good use of the evil. Also the impious are organs and instruments of God, as below, chapter 9. God made all things for Himself, the wicked also for the day of evil. But this theologians do not bear to call predestination, but they call it reprobation: but God does everything well and wisely. Therefore also everything has a determined end" (nihil non destinatum). After adducing instances he proceeds:

"But whereas God formed these and all other wicked men, who will deny, that He knew, before He formed them, to what He willed to use them; and that He then ordained and destined them to this? What therefore forbids us to say that there is a predestination of these also?"

Again on Ephesians 1.

"The term election is used in two ways: sometimes for election to some external office, as 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' Judas the traitor was elected indeed to the apostleship; but to the inheritance of eternal life he was not elected. Again, election sometimes means a designation of some men, out of the common lost mass, to the knowledge of the will of God, and at length to eternal life, of the mere favour of God; and it is of that election the discourse here is, and of that Christ also speaks, 'I know whom I. have chosen.'

"On the whole, election is the mere gift of God, and therefore favour, and not reward. Read Augustine; he certainly has the clearest and most evident testimonies. Election, therefore, is the destination and certain commiseration from eternity, before the world was constituted, by which God separated, from the universal race of lost men, those whom He was pleased to pity, to eternal life, out of His purely free mercy, before they could do anything good or bad. It is certain, I say, and immutable, through Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, and our mediator," etc.

9 "And the words of the Holy Ghost are plain by which He ascribes the hardness of heart, the dullness of ears, the blindness of eyes, in Pharaoh, and therefore in all like him, not to the flesh, or the devil, but to God Himself, who owes no man anything, and does everything most justly. If, therefore, any one object, If nothing is done on the part of men, in what relates to election, which concurs with the divine work, God seems to be unjust, that He does not give the same reward to all: he is to be answered, There is nothing similar between God's thoughts and ours."

Hence we may estimate the value of the quotation of Dr. Lawrence* from Bucer, appended to his own views of the subject. "He who doubts about this (namely, about predestination), cannot believe himself to be called and justified, that is, cannot be a Christian. It is to be assumed, therefore, as a first principle of faith, that we all are foreknown, foredetermined, and separated from the rest, and selected for this, that we should be eternally saved; and that this purpose of God cannot be changed."

{*In the appendix to his Bampton Lectures, Dr. Lawrence gives this as a sort of conclusion to his view of election. Having seen what Bucer's own was, we shall see how suitable such a sentence was to Dr. Lawrence's. I give it as Dr. L.'s quotation, because I cannot lay my hand on it in Bucer; but I do not doubt his literal correctness.}

I have now only an historical remark or two to make before I turn to Peter Martyr, the Oxford Divinity Professor in the days of the blessed Reformation.

This Bucer was a man highly esteemed for his moderation and powers, and, having long resided at Strasbourg, was therefore invited over to assist in settling the Reformation in England, and was accordingly appointed Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He had a very important share in the settlement of the English Liturgy, which was translated into Latin on purpose that he might revise, give his opinion and corrections; and many and material alterations were made accordingly at his suggestion and by his advice. In fact, this may be said to have been the formation of the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer: and from its validity the whole validity of the English succession hangs. For King Edward's first book was in truth (what King James was pleased, while a Scotch king, to designate the present Liturgy* itself) little more than "an ill said mass": but in this it assumed substantially its present form. There were alterations in Queen Elizabeth's book, as since also; of which some have approved, some thought that they were to conciliate the then Papists. But anyone who will take the trouble of comparing them, will see that the second book of King Edward may be considered substantially as the settling of the Liturgy. Moreover, all the first bishops of Queen Elizabeth were ordained according to this book; that is, on the principles of episcopal succession, in effect, all: and (some having called in question the validity of their ordination, it having been abolished by Queen Mary, and not legally revived) an act of parliament was passed against those who should dare to impugn the validity of what was done under that book.

{*The alterations of 1662 were made subsequent to this, and some additions in King James's time; many were projected after the revolution.}

10 One circumstance or two more may be mentioned to shew the estimation of Bucer, and, if need be, his intimate connection with Cranmer. It was by Cranmer he was invited into England: and, receiving triple the usual stipend during his life at Cambridge, he was buried in the University Church, the vice-chancellor ordering the members of all the colleges to attend his funeral.

A few more quotations from his commentaries on points directly before us shall close what relates peculiarly to him. On "Moreover whom he did predestinate," Rom. 8: 30. "He repeats what he had said concerning the predestination of the children of God, and unfolds it more fully, using an elegant gradation. But what he wished to shew was, that they were already glorified with God: that is, whomsoever God had foreknown as of His own, and had already predestinated, they were certainly destined to the glory of the sons of God. For he calls them, and surely draws them unto the full faith of his Son: they are profited by that (that is, they certainly receive remission of their sins). But, their sins being pardoned, the glory of God is restored to them, of which but just now under sin they were destitute."

"By faith therefore alone this will be the portion of all, that they will enjoy the love of God, pardon of their sins being received, that is, being justified." . . . "If therefore the chief and proper effects of justification come to us by faith, it is manifestly collected, that we receive justification itself by faith, and that all our salvation consists in this, that we embrace with living faith the mercy of God offered to us in the gospel, in our Lord Jesus Christ."

11 On "Called according to his purpose," Romans 8: 28.

"For that not only renders our confidence in God the fountain of all righteousness more complete, but will incite us also, freed from all solicitude for our salvation, that with the utmost endeavour we should endeavour with all our strength to answer to this so sure and blessed vocation."

"But the predestination of the saints of which the apostle treats here is the election and destination of the saints to eternal salvation."

"As to the question, In what respect are we to consider predestination? as to that Philip Melancthon teaches very religiously and diligently, for nothing else truly but that we should be more sure of our salvation, and more firmly rest in the promises of God."

"In that security therefore by good right are we concerning the eternal love of God towards us, that we may boast most confidently about it."

Here then closes what specially relates to Bucer, invited over by Cranmer to assist in settling the Reformation here. And having borne a very prominent part in the completion and settling of the Liturgy, he died, after exercising the office of Divinity Professor at Cambridge till his death; honoured in it as an eminent instrument in the establishment of the Church of England, when her faith was to be formed and her services arranged.

I shall now turn to Peter Martyr. The diffuseness of his style renders it difficult to quote from him; but the reader will, I dare say, be persuaded that the toil was at any rate more to the writer.

"We ought to know, that there are various elections of God: for some are to fulfil certain offices, as to a kingdom, or to the apostleship: but others are to eternal life. And these are sometimes distinguished . . . sometimes however they are united."

Reasoning from Augustine, he says,

"Neither is it any objection to preaching, that the number of the elect, as in truth it is, is certain and immovable. For what we do in preaching is not to transfer men from the book of the reprobate to the book of the elect, but in order that those who belong to the elect may be brought, by the ministry of the word, to the end destined for them; which same ministry, as it is useful to them, so it is destructive to -the others, and takes away all excuse from them."

_______

12 "These places, and very many other like ones, manifestly declare, that men are predestinated before they begin to be; which those who take from us, snatch from us along with it a great consolation, which we receive from this, that we know that we are predestinated by God to glory before all eternity."

After much reasoning and scholastic discussion, in which, as Bucer, he says, "But since God does all things with a destined purpose, nothing by chance or fortuitously, beyond doubt whatever He creates and makes, He destines to some end and use. In this respect neither the impious, nor the devil himself, nor sins, can be excluded from predestination." Then distinguishing, however, between the predestination of saints, as Bucer did, and what he says is more properly called reprobation, he thus defines them:

"I say, therefore, predestination is the most wise purpose of God, by which before all eternity He fixedly decreed, to call those whom He loved in Christ to the adoption of sons, to justification by faith, and at length to glory by good works, whereby they might be conformed to the image of the Son of God; and that in them might be declared the glory and mercy of the Creator." "Purpose," he says, includes "will." "But this will we ought to understand to be that efficacious will which they call of a consequence, i.e., producing a consequence: by which is caused that the predestination of God should not be frustrated." "By which He fixedly decreed." "By these words we are taught that the predestination of God is immutable. For Paul says, in 2 Timothy, "The foundation standeth sure; the Lord knows those who are His"; and he quotes from the well-known conclusion of Romans 8; James 1: 17; Isaiah, "I am God; I change not"; and Paul, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance."

Again: "Let us define reprobation, the most wise purpose of God, by which, before all eternity, He fixedly decreed, without any injustice, not to pity those whom He did not love, but passed by; whereby in this just condemnation He might declare His anger against sin, and His glory."

13 After reasoning on the causes, saying, amongst other things, "Whereas predestination is the purpose or will of God, but that is the first cause of all things, . . . it cannot be that there should be any cause of it," he says, "For men who are predestinated, and those things which God hath decreed to bestow on the elect by predestination, such are calling, justification, glorification, may be called the matter about which predestination is conversant."

Again: "There is ambiguity in that word for (Propter), how it is to be understood. For if good works are understood, as in truth they are, and are done because God predestinated us to this end, that we should live rightly (as the epistle to the Ephesians has it, to wit, that we are elect, that we should be holy, without blame before Him, and that God prepared good works that we should walk in them), as to this opinion, the proposition is to be affirmed. But if that word for, is to be referred to the efficient cause, as if good works, which God foresaw we were about to do, were as merits and causes which could move God that He should predestinate us, this sense we admit in no way . . . . For vocation, which is the effect of predestination, is the cause why we should be justified: justification is the cause of good works: and good works, although they be not the cause, are yet the means by which God leads us to eternal life. But none of them is the cause or the means why we should be elected by God; as, on the other hand, sins are the cause indeed why we are damned, not however why we are reprobated by God. For if they were the causes of reprobation, no one could be elected; for the condition of all is alike, for we are all born in sin . . . . These things being now thus settled, reasons are to be given, on account of which we deny that foreseen good works are the causes of our predestination."

He then argues, that justification would be of works if election depended on foreseen works; and that good works are the effect of predestination; and that if we were predestinated for foreseen works, Paul's exclamation about it would be nonsense. And he reasons, that foreseen works could be no such moving cause, from the cases of Tyre and Sidon, when God did foresee and did not spare. Then, again: "For it is useful for us, that our salvation should not hang from our works . . . . But if we believe that our salvation remains fixed and certain in God on account of Christ, we cannot but be of good courage."

14 Both Peter Martyr and Bucer reason soundly and fully, that judgment is to be taken, not from the fathers, but from Scripture. I shall here just mention several heads of argument from Peter Martyr, drawn from several pages of his commentaries. He reasons on the words, "many called, but few chosen," to shew the distinction of the elect even in the called body. He reasons, that God could not have decreed what was not to have place; he distinguishes between His efficacious will, and His revealed will (voluntatem signi); and that Christ was the first effect of predestination.

He says, "We in no way say that grace is common to all, but that it is granted to some, and to others by the will of God it is not given": and he reasons, that it is theirs only that are drawn, and peculiar to them; and declares it absurd to reason that all are drawn, and some will not come," etc. That sufficient grace is not given to all — that Tyre and Sidon had not what was sufficient — that external vocation is common to predestinated and reprobate; and that thereby God does not mock them with general promises, but their damnation is rendered just. That all have not power to become the sons of God, but those who are born of the will of God, and that Christ is to be said to have died for all, "sufficiently, but not efficaciously." That the reprobate subserve the divine purpose, to illustrate and declare the power of His sincerity; that the reprobate can do many good works to a certain extent, and, on the other hand, the predestinate fall into the grossest sins; instancing Saul, Solomon (who he seems to think fell away, "lapsus est, imo defecit"), Ahab, Joash, and quoting Ezekiel; and, on the other hand, David, Moses, Aaron: and that good works "sometimes subserve predestination, sometimes reprobation. Predestination through them brings the elect to life; and as to reprobation, they are sometimes reasons why the fall is made more terrible." . . . "Sins also tend as to reprobation, so to predestination. For those who are reprobate, by them are drawn to eternal ruin. Those who are predestinate, through them illustrate the glory of God, when they are snatched out of them."

As to perseverance, we may quote our author, on 1 Corinthians 1: 8: "When he preaches a faithful God, he shews that He can be rendered false by no fault of ours. Therefore if He have called us by a just and efficacious calling, there is no doubt that He will perfect the work which He has begun, that we should be preserved by Him blameless in the day of our Lord (. . .): however often, which is our infirmity while we live here, we may have fallen.

15 "St. Paul seems to reason thus: Thou hast already obtained grace through Christ, and you have obtained many gifts through the same; that therefore which remains you will have, that you should be blameless in the day of the Lord. Nor does the same write otherwise in sense to the Romans: The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Wherefore we also use this kind of argument, if at any time we may be (as is the case) of a dejected mind. We have been called to salvation, we have believed in Him that calls, we have obtained remission of sins, and have obtained gifts not common to all: we shall be saved therefore; nor will God cast away the work of His own hands. You may ask, as to calling, How can I determine whether it is effectual or otherwise? or concerning the faith with which I am endowed, whether it be temporary? I say that the Spirit of Christ bears testimony with our spirit, that we are the children of God: which St. Paul to the Romans has taught the Church to be a mark of the elect. In the second place, from the effects, and, as they say, à posteriori: good works make our calling and election certain. For Peter, in his latter epistle, chapter 1, when he had made copious mention of good works, adds, 'Wherefore, brethren, the rather give diligence, that ye make your calling and election sure.' But if, in the last place, you enquire, Whereas the spirit of one's neighbour by no means appears to us, shall we be able to judge of him in any other way than by works? Certainly Christ has left no other criterion by which we may judge concerning our neighbours, for He said, 'By their fruits ye shall know them,'" etc.

As to certainty of faith and hope, on Romans 5, "Hope maketh not ashamed," he says, "For Paul wished to intimate, that the pious could not be frustrated in their hope." There stating, that it could not depend on works, for they were uncertain, he says, "But that it is true and certain, Paul shews, not by one word only, but by three very significant ones; for, first, he uses the word, knowing (sciendi), which indicates a certain knowledge (cognitionem) of a thing. He makes mention also of making boast, which has no place with holy and prudent men, unless concerning those blessings which they certainly and firmly possess. Lastly, he adds, that hope maketh not ashamed; but, deservedly, he very often brings in the persuasion of that certainty, because hence especially consolation is to be sought in affliction."

16 After reasoning against its connection with works actual or prospective, he says, "But it is worth while to see how they get on when they say, on the one hand, that hope is a certain expectation; on the other, however, that it is a most firm dogma, that none can be certain of his salvation, unless it shall have been individually revealed to him by God. Here they feel themselves at a loss: they confess that it is difficult to see how that is certainty of hope. Here they miserably fret themselves, sweat, and use many glosses. First, they determine . . . that certainty of hope which flows from certainty of faith . . . . But they go farther, and say, that we by faith believe generally and absolutely that all the elect and predestinated will be saved, but that hope causes us to trust that we are of the number of the elect: as if hope had a particular knowledge subordinate to faith: that what had been generally comprehended through faith, should be separately applied to us through hope . . . lastly, they conclude, that the certainty of hope is less than that of faith: we on the contrary make the certainty of both equal. As much faith as we have, so much also we have of hope, for neither does faith retain any certainty for itself which it does not transmit to hope . . . . But they seem to me to do as those who, when they defend a city in a siege, diligently shut and fortify all the rest of the gates, but in the meanwhile leave one open, by which when the enemies enter and plunder everything, they may perceive that they have lost their labour; so they indeed labour extremely, lest there should seem to be any uncertainty arising from the goodness, power, and clemency of God, or the merit of Christ. Yet in the meanwhile they determine our will to be so liable to change, that no man can or ought to promise himself perseverance, even from the word of God: and so wholly take away all certainty, that the saying of Paul can have no place, 'Hope maketh not ashamed'; nor can the certainty, which they endeavour to establish, be of any profit. Indeed, if we consult the sacred scriptures, we shall understand that God is not only generally good and powerful, but also that He is good and propitious to our own, selves, and therefore will confirm our will that it should never fall away from Him; for, as we have mentioned a little before, He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear, but will with the temptation make a way to escape; and (1 Corinthians 1) He will confirm you unto the end blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ; for God is faithful, through whom ye were called. There are, besides, very many other testimonies in the sacred scriptures, which promise to us both perseverance and confirmation of will through Christ. Wherefore we say that that certainty of hope is a firm adherence in the promises offered to us, and received by faith, that we shall not fail of obtaining our ultimate end. Of so great virtue is this hope, that, as Augustine says to Dardanus, and in very many other places, it calls that which is about to be, done already . . . . That certainty arises chiefly from the worthy judgment which we are able to entertain by faith of the constancy of God, which no unworthiness of ours can cause to fail; which if we look at when drawing us away from this confidence, we ought against hope to believe in hope; and, however much that may oppose its voice, trust that we shall be saved by Christ: proposing to ourselves our father Abraham, to whose steps we ought to hold fast by faith. He, etc . . . . so, although we be unworthy, and our faith and our sins hinder us, yet let us not distrust that we shall be saved by Christ, unless we wish to be subject to infidelity, which Abraham specially abhorred; for he did not doubt through infidelity, says the apostle: whence the uncertainty of our adversaries is wholly taken away from pious minds." . . . "Wherefore," speaking of Job's expression, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,'" let us imitate him; and if we have fallen, and our unworthiness sets itself before our eyes, yet let us not distrust. Let us detect, meanwhile, our vices, and let us amend them as much as we can: but on account of them let us by no means fail in our hope of salvation. For if, when the promises of God are set before us, we will look at our own worthiness, we shall be led to despair rather than to any hope; for there is no one whose soul is not burdened with many and grievous sins. Besides, Paul teaches that we have peace towards God through Christ, and by faith which is in Him; which certainly is altogether done, or at any rate would be very turbulent, if we should perpetually doubt concerning His will towards us": and then he reasons on our calling Him Father in our prayers, and how unpleasing it must be to a father for a child to doubt his father's love. "Hope therefore is a faculty breathed in by the Holy Spirit, by which we expect, with a certain and even mind, that the salvation begun by Christ, and received by faith, will be in time accomplished in us, not by our merits but from the mercy of God." Then, after comparing the hope of present circumstances, as Paul's hope of escaping the persecution of Nero, etc., "That we may reply to this, we repeat what has been said before, that hope receives its certainty from faith: but faith has its certainty from the word of God; wherefore it is consistent, that both are as certain as the promises are which are set forth. But God promises us remission of sins and eternal life simply, and has commanded that we should believe and hope for these things without any doubt. In these things, therefore, neither faith nor hope can deceive us; but if at any time the minds of saints are disturbed, as if they should doubt concerning the promises of God or their own salvation, that does not happen through the fault of faith or hope; but that while we live here, we are not perfectly furnished. Therefore this doubt springs from the flesh and human prudence." And again: "These evils arise from our corruption"; and he then compares them to mathematics, of which ignorance may doubt the certainty, but it is to be attributed to ignorance alone.

18 Here I close my quotations from Peter Martyr, the Professor of Divinity at Oxford. I have but few remarks to make upon these men. That they were honoured and blessed in the churches, is beyond controversy with those who are acquainted with the history of the Reformation in Germany, where Bucer was greatly blessed and looked up to for his moderation and depth of scriptural knowledge: or with that of the Reformation in Italy, where Peter Martyr took an active and leading part — we might almost say, save the preaching of Ochinus at Naples, the leading part; till the persecutions which hung over the Church drove him from Italy.* Bucer, I may add, was converted by hearing Luther.

{*Peter Martyr's leaving Italy was much called in question by many then as a desertion. However, it appears many of those who boasted most fell away in the time of trial.}

We have seen then the place they held in the Reformation: we have seen their doctrines. I have given them at the length I have, partly that it may be manifest that there is no forced interpretation of particular passages, but a regularly argued-out development of the principles they themselves sustained, and preached too; and partly, as affording matter bearing upon almost every point called into question by the author of the "Remarks." The attentive reader of the foregoing quotations t cannot but have taken notice of this — taken notice, I mean, that the conclusions met in the "Remarks" are here stated as the just, blessed, triumphant, and love-inspired consequences of truths held by them to be the objects of certain faith, and therefore affording the equal certainty of sanctifying hope; "for he indeed that hath this hope in him," and he only, "purifieth himself as he is pure." He will see that they are equally and expressly opposed to the Arminian (so called, but properly Pelagian) notion of prospective works, or the (new and if you please Melancthonian) notion of church election, as contrasted with individual. I am not here arguing the point of the truth of these things; but arguing on the facts of the history of the times.

19 And now, were these notions originated in the university by some unrecognized individual to which the Church is pot a party? They were the argued published opinions of the Professors of Divinity of both universities. But were they merely the particular opinions of these individuals there, as a particular pope may sometimes err, and not give the opinion of the Catholic body? No, they were called to the chairs of divinity, because they were what they were, and because they held these opinions. They were called by those who were the ordering instruments of the reformation of the Church of England, that, in constituting it as it stands now, they might form its opinions, and establish its principles: her formularies were submitted to their correction, and their advice taken upon them. If, certainly, the testimony of the Professor of Divinity of our university be competent to state and vindicate the doctrines of that university, and declare the opinions of the Church of England (and I am content to admit that he is), them am I fully warranted in taking the matured testimony of the Professors of both, as witness of the doctrines approved by both, and as a declaration of the doctrines of the then Church — at least I will not say a vindication of them from misrepresentation: and all this, observe, when, according to the author of the "Remarks," "Calvin had scarcely begun to propagate his peculiar opinions concerning predestination."

20 There is one other person whom it may become us to take notice of, whose name is a host in the Church of England, and who was its pillar and defence, as far as man went, on its re-establishment; than whom no one could be mentioned as more a witness of its character and principles — I mean Jewell. It is well known his Apology was quasi-symbolical.

On 2 Thessalonians 2: 13, 14, he writes (Works, 143, title, A View of, etc.), "God hath chosen you from the beginning; His election is sure for ever. The Lord knoweth who are His. You shall not be deceived with the power and subtilty of antichrist; you shall not fall from grace; you shall not perish. This is the comfort which abideth with the faithful when they behold the fall of the wicked; when they see them forsake the truth, and delight in fables; when they see them return to their vomit, and wallow again in their mire."

"When we see these things in others, we must say, Alas! they are examples for me, and they are lamentable examples. Let him that standeth take heed that he fall not. But God hath loved me, and chosen me to salvation. His mercy shall go before me, and His mercy shall follow in me; His mercy shall guide my feet, and stay me from falling. If I stay by myself, I stay by nothing, I must needs come to the ground. Although all the world should be drowned with the waves of ungodliness, yet will I hold by the boat of His mercy, which shall safely preserve me. If all the world be set on fire with the flame of wickedness, yet will I creep into the bosom of the protection of my Lord; so shall no flame hurt me. He hath loved me, He hath chosen me, He will keep me. Neither the example nor the company of others, nor the enticing of the devil, nor mine own sensual imaginations, nor sword, nor fire, is able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the comfort of the faithful; so shall they wash their hands in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, saith Paul, you are my children, etc . . . . Whatsoever falleth upon others, although others fall and perish, although they forsake Christ, and follow after antichrist, yet God hath loved you, and given His Son for you; He hath chosen you, and prepared you to salvation, and hath written your names in the book of life. But how may we know that God hath chosen us? how may we see this election? or how may we feel it? The apostle saith, Through sanctification and the faith of truth; these are tokens of God's election. Have you received the gospel? It is the light of the world; it teaches us to know that God is God, and that we are His people. The credit you give to the gospel is a witness of your election." Again, in his Defence of the Apology, Works, 67, Eng. fol. Lon. 1611: "Now concerning the assurance or certainty of salvation, the scriptures are full. St. Paul saith, There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God beareth witness to our spirit that we are the children of God. I know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature else, shall be able to remove me from that love that God beareth towards me in Christ Jesus our Lord; Romans 8. But as these words perhaps have not the sense of the Church of Rome, without which," etc., and then he goes on to the Fathers.

21 Having quoted thus much, we may add that this Jewell was a great friend of, and during Mary's reign lived with, Peter Martyr abroad: and in a letter, dated the 5th November, 1559, he states that there was much talk that Martyr would again be invited over; but he feared that the Saxon or Lutheran influence would prevail. Peter Martyr died just after the Apology was printed.* I am not able to verify the references to the letters.**

{*[Jewell sent Peter Martyr a copy of his Apology on February 7th, 1562, just after it was published. Martyr died November 12th, of the same year, in his sixty-third year. — ED.]}

{**[The following extracts (translated into English) from the Letters of Bishop Jewell in the fourth volume of his works published by the Parker Society supplies the needed reference, pages 1221 and 1222.]

"As to what you write about religion and the theatrical habits, would that it could be accomplished! For our part we have not been wanting to the good cause. But those who are so mightily pleased with such things have followed, I believe, the ignorance of the clergy; and since they found them to be nothing but logs without ability, learning, and morality, they were willing that they should be made agreeable to the people by a comical dress . . . . These are indeed, as you very well write, relics of the Amorites. Who can deny it? And would that some time or other they may be taken away and extirpated even to the lowest roots! . . . The queen, however, diligently inquired of the messenger, what you were doing, where you lived, what your state of health and what your circumstances were, and whether your time of life would admit of your undertaking a journey: she altogether wished that you should by all means be invited to England; that, as you had tilled the university by your voice, so you might by the same voice water it in its present disordered and wretched condition. Since then, however, somehow the Saxon deliberations and the embassy from Smalcald have put an end to those counsels. Yet, whatever be the reasons, nothing is at this time more talked about than that Peter Martyr is invited and daily expected to come to England."

From Strype's Annals (i, 382) it appears that Martyr was invited to England in 1561, but pleaded his obligations to Zurich as his excuse for declining the offer. — ED.]}

22 And as further evidence how little then the Lutheran church was taken as the standard, even by authority, Bishop Cheyney was held in disrepute on account of his Lutheran opinions. If Jewell's letters to Peter Martyr and others be consulted, it will sufficiently appear what feelings he had towards the maintainers of the Interim, that is, Melancthon's party in the Lutheran Church.* It is said, I know not on what authority, that Jewell esteemed Calvin's Institutes so highly, that he learned the greater of them by heart: he was very famous for this gift of memory.

{*[Thus in Jewell's letter to Peter Martyr, dated London, November 6th, 1559, he says:

"Many of our chief men, and these not unknown to you, think of you and desire that you should be invited at the earliest opportunity also, spite of all the Smalcaldists."

Again, in his letter to Peter Martyr dated Salisbury, February 7th, 1562, Jewell writes:

"But as to what you write, that a sort of interim and farrago of religion is sought after by certain ones, may God avert it!" — ED,]}

We may remark here, that, as the language of Article XVII may be traced through Bucer and Peter Martyr, even in the rapid translation I have here given, so it was not changed in the revision of 1562, save to omit the words, "Although the decrees of predestination are unknown to us, yet."*

{*Perhaps "fervently" for "frequently" was a change, "vehementer," in 1562. See Bishop Sparrow's Collection, or Burnet.}

But there were then those who, "in the name of Paul, and Cephas, and Christ," or however of Peter, and Paul, and of Christ, said that this was not the gospel; and came forward to stand between the dead and the living, to stop the contagion of this doctrine of assurance of salvation. The following is the decree of the council of Trent upon the subject:

"But although it be necessary to believe that sins neither are nor ever were forgiven, save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ; yet to no one boasting his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and resting in that alone, is it to be said that his sins are or have been forgiven: since amongst heretics and schismatics this vain confidence, far removed from all piety, may be, yea, in our time is, preached, and with great earnestness against the Catholic Church; but neither is that to be asserted, that those who are truly justified ought, without any doubt at all, to determine with themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from his sins and justified, save he who certainly believes himself to be absolved and justified; and that by this faith alone absolution and justification is wrought, as if he who does not believe this, doubted concerning the promises of God, and concerning the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For, as no pious person ought to doubt concerning the mercy of God, concerning the merit of Christ, and concerning the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, so every one, when he considers himself, and his own infirmity and indisposition, may tremble concerning his own grace, and fear, since none can know with the certainty of faith, in which fallacy cannot exist, that he has obtained the grace of God."

23 I leave the contrast of these passages, with the question now passing before us, to the judgment of every right-ordered mind.

I add the following: "No one also, so long as he lives in this mortal life, ought so far to presume concerning the secret mystery of divine predestination, that he should certainly determine himself to be altogether in the number of the predestinated: as if it were true that, being justified, he could no more sin, or, if he sinned, he ought certainly to promise himself repentance; for, unless by special revelation, he cannot know whom God has chosen to Himself."*

{*The reader will find anathematising canons as to the connection of free-will with justification in Canon 3, and a following one of this Session, "De Justificatione," Sess. 7, I think.}

The passages I have here quoted are very strong evidence of the opinions propagated generally at the Reformation. Of this they are direct evidence, viz., of the views of the Church of Rome; as Bucer and Peter Martyr are evidence of the opinions taught in the universities, and sanctioned by the English reformers, as those on which the Church of England was founded: and it is a very simple question, to which of the two are the doctrines here discussed on either side most like?

24 But the author of the "Remarks" cannot but have been aware that the doctrine of assurance, as directly connected with consequentially, I will not say as being, as some hold, justifying faith, but that the doctrine of assurance in fact is taught, not only in the confession of the reformed churches in France, but also in that of Augsburg. I certainly should have stated the confession of the French churches to have been a much more formed and material document. This, however, of course, is matter of judgment. In this point the confession of Augsburg is as decided as possible; and this is material, as shewing, not merely the fact of its being taught in the church, but that it was one of the points on which, as essential to Christian truth, they separated from the apostate church of Rome: as if, as the council of Trent expresses it, "to doubt of it were to doubt of the promises of God, and the efficacy of Christ's death and resurrection." That the soul of a saint may be disturbed, as Peter Martyr says, we admit; but to make doubts which arise from the flesh and the corruption of our nature, the state in which a Christian ought to be, or the justifiable standard of the frame of his mind, is to make unbelief the rule of faith, to deny the power of Christ's atonement as received by faith, and to affirm the propriety of disbelief in its efficacy and in God's promises, or that being justified by faith we have peace with God. But we must not pass yet quite away from history. As to this appropriating character of faith, and consequently the connection of the sense of salvation with justification, we may quote what the author of the "Remarks" has already recognized as sound doctrine. He has commented much on, and indeed spoken of it as a leading error, the confounding of justification and salvation; but he is charging here not the preacher, but the reformers, nay, rather, the authorized formularies of the Church. "As is more fully declared in the homily of justification," is the language of the Articles. And where is this homily to be found? I suppose the author of the "Remarks" will not deny that it is the homily in three parts, entitled the homily of salvation. The homily of salvation is in fact a full treatise on justification: but I shall quote a passage from the third part, as evidence of their view, and also of the author of the "Remarks." "These articles of our faith the devils believe, and so they believe all things that be written in the New and Old Testament to be true: and yet for all this faith they be but devils, remaining still in their damnable estate, lacking the very true Christian faith. For the right and true Christian faith is, not only to believe that holy scripture and all the foresaid articles of our faith are true, but also to have a sure trust and confidence in God's merciful promises, to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ; whereof doth follow a loving heart to obey His commandments."

25 And proving that profession with ungodliness cannot have this assurance, they reason: "For how can a man have this true faith, this sure trust and confidence in God, that by the merits of Christ his sins be forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God, and to be partaker of the kingdom of heaven by Christ, when he liveth ungodly?" Well, the author of the "Remarks" says now: "I dare not in this life count myself to have apprehended, or pronounce my sins to be forgiven."

But I quote it now as evidence of the way in which the homilies identify salvation with justification (for they use them as identical terms, or rather assume, that in proving justification they were proving salvation), and how a true faith is made by them to consist in the confidence in God's promises, that our sins are forgiven, and that we shall be partakers of the kingdom of heaven by Christ, and that both are at once concluded by faith.

Farther, as to the historic evidence of the alleged Lutheranism of the Church of England reformation, we may remark, that, when the persecuted English protestants fled to Germany on the accession of Mary, the Lutherans would not receive them into their cities at all; this was rather singular evidence of the Lutheran character of their views. It is evidence of this, that so far from the contagion being merely brought back, they were in the full Calvinistic disease before they left England. I am quite aware that the sacrament question was connected with this. But what other substantial difference was there? For example, what was the point on which the two parties of the Reformation finally split at the conferences at Marburg?

Farther, an evidence of the estimation in which the Lutherans held the English reformers, we may quote Melancthon, quoted in a note to Mosheim: "Some vociferate that the English martyrs are martyrs of the devil. I am unwilling thus to insult the Holy Spirit in Latimer, who has past his eightieth year, and in other holy men whom I knew." Note in Maclaine's Mosheim, vol. iv, p. 383. [Cent. XVI, sec. iii, part ii, chap. 2, xvii.]

Melancthon, indeed, it is evident, did not agree with them in this opinion, that these Lutheran English were martyrs of the devil; but even his language is a little gentle if he was the author of all these opinions for which they were burnt.

26 But as the Lutheran Church has been referred to and as we have been told that "the Loci Theologici of Melancthon in any edition after 1545 may be taken as speaking the sentiments of all the Lutheran divines," and the Church of England views are attempted to be rested on this basis; it may be worth our while to advert to the history of the Lutheran Church briefly. It is not perhaps astonishing, though it might seem odd, that the author of the "Remarks" has never once adverted to Luther as having anything to say to the opinions of the Lutheran Church. It would indeed have destroyed all the groundwork upon which the argument that the Church of England was Lutheran rested, and its object too: still we must be allowed to refer to them in considering the Lutheran Church. It is well known that one of Luther's principal and most laboured works was on the bondage of the will — its absolute and unqualified incapability of doing anything but sin. I shall confine myself to two quotations, exhibitory of his views: merely mentioning, that it is stated by historians, that declarations of Luther were extant, written many years after, in which he stated, that this and his catechism were the only things on review in which he could feel thoroughly satisfied. He thus writes: "It is a granted* position that free-will in all, is alike defined to be, that which cannot will good." "And indeed if it were not so, God could not elect any one, nor would there be any place for election, but for free-will only, as choosing or refusing the long-suffering and anger of God. And if God be thus robbed of His power and wisdom to elect, what will there be remaining but that idol fortune, under the name of which all things take place at random? Nay, we shall at length come to this; that men may be saved and damned without God's knowing anything at all about it, as not having determined by certain election who should be saved or who should be damned; but having set before all men in general His pardoning goodness** and long-suffering, and His mercy, shewing correction and punishment, and left them to choose for themselves whether they would be saved or damned; while He in the meantime should be gone, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian feast. It is just such a God as this that Aristotle points out to us," etc. Bondage of the Will, p. 281 (of Coles's translation).

{*That is, by the opposite party, as represented by Erasmus in his Diatribe.}

{**These expressions refer to some expressions of Erasmus, in which he speaks of God having used all goodness towards Pharaoh, etc.}

27 Again, he says, quoted by Milner, IV, 461, "You undermine at once all the divine promises and threatenings; you destroy the faith and the fear of God; in fact, you deny the Deity Himself, unless you allow a necessary efficacy to His prescience."

I shall now give a quotation from Melancthon, from his Loci Theologici before 1545, when in the state in which Luther speaks of it so strongly in the opening of his "de servo arbitrio," as incomparable. I give the quotation from Milner, who says the book is rare. "The divine predestination takes away the liberty of man; for both the external actions and the internal thoughts of all created beings whatever, take place agreeably to the divine predestination. The judgment of a carnal mind resists this sentiment; but a man of a spiritual understanding approves it. Moreover, the mind which is deeply affected with a sense of the divine predeterminations will always have the profoundest reverence for God, as well as the most steady dependence on Him." (Phil. Melancthon's Loc; Theol. ap. Milner, V, p. 300.)

I suppose only the author of the "Remarks" would appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. But we will have his thoughts after Calvin's views were presented to his mind. I quote from the same source, p. 333.

Melancthon writes to Calvin. After stating his hypothesis on the subject, he says, "I do not write these things to you in a dictatorial spirit; it is not for me to dictate to so very learned a person, and so very well skilled in the exercises of piety; and indeed I am satisfied that these views of mine agree with yours, but they are stated in a ruder, less refined manner, and are adapted to use."

Do we say, then, that this steady basis of the Church of England doctrine did not change his opinion? Far from it. The above sentence disappeared from the Loci before 1545: but that all the Lutheran doctors followed his opinions, is one of the most monstrous statements that could be made. Did the author of the "Remarks" ever hear of the Interim? of the convocation at Torgaw? or the Form of Concord, which itself again divided the whole Lutheran Church? Why the university of Jena owes its origin to the resistance of the Lutheran doctors to the new opinions of Melancthon. Nor let it be said, this does not apply to the Loci Theologici; for at the conference at Torgaw, where Melancthon advocated submission to the Interim, the statement of these his later views gave occasion to the divisions of the Lutheran Church.

28 Mosheim (a man, I suppose, latitudinarian enough not to bear hard upon Melancthon) gives the following account of his changes: and if we are told he was as a Lutheran jealous for the credit of Luther, it does but further prove the point.

In the question of indifferent things, or, as it is called, the Adiaphoristic controversy, arising from the Interim, we have the following: "But in the class of matters indifferent, this great man and his associates placed many things which had appeared of the highest importance to Luther, and could not, of consequence, be considered as indifferent by his true disciples. For he regarded as such, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the necessity of good works to salvation, the number of the sacraments, the jurisdiction claimed by the pope and the bishops, extreme unction, the observation of certain religious festivals and several superstitious rites and ceremonies." Mosheim, Cent. XVI, sec. iii, pt. ii, c. I, xxviii.

Is this the basis on which the Church of England is founded? For this is Melancthon after 1545.

Again: "The Synergists, whose doctrine was almost the same with that of the Semipelagians, denied that God was the only agent in the conversion of sinful men; and affirmed, that man co-operated with divine grace in the accomplishment of His salutary purpose. Here also Melancthon renounced the doctrine of Luther; at least the terms he employs in expressing his sentiments concerning this intricate subject are such as Luther would have rejected with horror; for, in the conference at Leipsic already mentioned, the former of these great men did not scruple to affirm, that God drew to Himself and converted adult persons in such a manner, that the powerful impression of His grace was accompanied with a certain correspondent action of their will, etc. But this representation of the matter was far from being agreeable to the rigid Lutherans. They looked upon it as subversive of the true and genuine doctrine of Luther, relating to the absolute servitude of the human will, etc., and hence they opposed the Synergists, or Semipelagians, with the utmost animosity and bitterness." Flacius was the leader of the other party. Such was the way in which Melancthon may be stated "as speaking the sentiments of all the Lutheran divines." The history of the Lutheran Church, after the death of Luther, is the history of its divisions and controversies, occasions by Melancthon's holding these very opinions in which he departed from Luther.

29 But there is one remarkable circumstance which I cannot refrain from noticing — that the same opinions in Archbishop Lawrence produced the same result; and (not to refer to public acts, as they are not written) his published charge of his views as Archbishop was direction to his clergy to cultivate reciprocal feelings with the Roman Catholic priests, as there was no difference between the churches in any material point. He here at least was a genuine Melancthonian Adiaphorist.

I have now done with the historical part of this enquiry. If any one wishes to see a foreigner's view of the settlement of the English Church, he may consult Mosheim, Cent. XVI, sec. iii, pt. 2, c. 2, xvi. We have seen the doctrine of the professors of divinity in England who were called over at the Reformation. We have seen the views of Luther, and the real character of Melancthon and his views. I suppose we need not attempt to prove Calvin a Calvinist. That is, we have seen not merely the doctrines upon which the Church of England was founded, but we have seen the principles on which the Reformation itself was founded, and arose as the assertor of truth against the errors of the Church of Rome: and we have seen this confirmed by the Church of Rome's stepping out to meet them as a fundamental point of difference, as the primary turning point which upset their errors. And accordingly we have found, in more than one instance, that when these are departed from, acquiescence in the principles of the Church of Rome in material points has been held indifferent; or that there was no difference at all. Such is the state of things which history presents to us: and I think the attentive reader will have already found every point called in question by the author of the "Remarks" fully stated in the affirmative in the extracts from the Professors of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. As to justification in baptism, everybody knows that the Roman Catholics were baptized in all that the Church of England holds essential. If therefore the reformers held this to be justification, how they could have turned the world upside down by their arguments with the Church of Rome on the point, is hard to tell. Surely, if this had been their view, all their arguments, nay their lives, for the doctrine of justification by faith (the Articulus stantis or cadentis ecclesiae), would have been very little to the purpose.

30 For my own part, I cannot discern one single jot of difference on this head between the statement of the author of the "Remarks," and the doctrine of the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome held, that righteousness could not be imputed without faith, as well as the author of the "Remarks." The Church of Rome held, that "it were necessary to believe that no sins are, or ever were, remitted, save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ," and that "no pious person ought to doubt of the merit of Christ's death," as well as the author of the "Remarks." The Church of Rome held, and does hold, that past sin is put away in baptism, only a little more clearly stated than by the author of the "Remarks," that is, original sin in infants, or actual also in adults: so that a person is therein called, pardoned, accepted in Christ; while subsequent evil was to be put away by subsequent repentance. They hold the necessity of good works, and the freedom of the will, as well as the author of the "Remarks." But what they did not hold, and what the author of the "Remarks" does not hold, was, such a reception of the value of Christ's death by faith as gives peace and assurance of conscience, so that "gloriemur confidentissime," as a former Professor of Divinity at Oxford expresses it: which the reformers did hold, did preach, and did profess; and that so universally as to be made a special matter of condemnation as their opinion at the council of Trent.

With some remarks on this point I shall close this tract, as it has extended to so great, but, I hope, not unprofitable, extent. And here I must remark, that while I have canvassed the facts, I have abstained from any observations on the spirit, manner, or expressions of the "Remarks" in question. I was not disposed, nor did I feel it my object, so to do, though I think there was ample opportunity. I do not think it the remark of a frank or honest-minded person to comment upon the expression "added another word," when the author must know, as every one else, that this was a mere question of the structure of language, and that the idea is as much added in the Greek word, as it is in the English word freely: I cannot think this worthy of a mind estimating things in the great purposes of God's glorious gospel.* And here I feel myself at liberty. I cannot but feel it one of the singular evidences of the way in which our spiritual thoughts can be cramped by a system, that when the question is as to the whole plans and counsels of the invisible God, and our entrance into them by the glorious gospel of the blessed God, for we have the mind of Christ, and our reconciliation into His communion of love, so as to enjoy all His counsels and see them accomplished in Him who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His Person; and be enabled to say in Him, "Grant thee thy hearts' desire, and fulfil all thy counsel": I should find myself brought down to the enquiry of what five or six men held — saints indeed, from whom I should be willing to learn, but who, as individuals, were but the objects of the everlasting counsels and glory of Him, who hath gathered us also into the same inheritance. I traced this indeed, not as regards their individual opinions, but the great broad facts on which the work proceeded, for the sake of those who may be accustomed to walk in their steps, and to have assumed very different facts from those which are indeed true. But the truth of God receives no testimony from man, though He may give it to them and honour them thereby. May we in this day be honoured as faithful to that which is given us.

{*The observation on the other word (received) I think just, as far as negativing any argument from it, as used in that text.}

31 I shall close by very freely discussing the principles advanced by the author of the "Remarks," as principles in which the peace of God's children is concerned. Because the statement amounts to this: that a justified person, justified by true faith (for I suppose the author will not say that hypocritical faith justifies, in the teeth of James, and indeed, in the plain sense of his own statement), may be damned. Observe, that a person justified by true faith, may yet be damned. It is not that a man may be deceived by a false faith, etc., but that a man whom God has justified by a true faith may yet be damned: nay, as we know that the world around us are nominally Christians, and actually baptized, and yet that it is a strait gate and a narrow way that leads to life, and few there be that find it; that most of those whom God has justified will be damned: and this is the doctrine they would give us as comfortable. This is the point which men are anxious to prove — this strange fatuity of self-will by which men will claim the title, after God has actually taken them in hand, yea justified them by the power of His grace in Christ, though they were ruined sinners, to damn themselves. Strange comfort! Whether the statements of page 19 are consistent with the views of the English and German reformers, they will judge who have read the extracts already given. But I must remark, that I am not here arguing the question of election. The author has brought it to a much nearer and closer personal point. How and in what is a man justified? and what is this justification worth to him? As to justification by baptism, I find nothing in the Articles about it. It is not mentioned in the Article on justification; and in the Article of baptism, justification is not mentioned; it is called a sign of regeneration. But let us see first the consistency of these views.

32 God will not impute righteousness to any one who has not faith;

But God imputes righteousness to every baptized person;

Therefore every baptized person has faith.

Again:

Every baptized person has faith;

But every infant in the Church of England is baptized;

Therefore every infant in the Church of England has faith.

But this faith is manifestly genuine faith, or else a man may be justified by virtue of being a hypocrite; therefore we may say,

Every infant in the Church of England has genuine faith;

But he who has genuine faith works in love;

Therefore every infant in the Church of England works in love.

Such is the genuine and necessary consequence of the proposition of the "Remarks": and let not this be thought idle. Two things essentially distinct being declared identical, one may, nay must, affirm of one, what is true of the other: but in doing this the absurdity of the identification is shewn, and in truth nothing but pure Antinomianism can result from making baptism justification, if justification have anything to do with faith; because then justifying faith may be without any fruits at all. In truth these views are the height of Antinomianism: or anything which justifies, or puts a man actually and efficiently amongst the children of God, without any reference to a total change in the principle of his will. What a child's past sins are which are blotted out, I know not; save that this idea was necessary to the notion of justification; but what the author means when he says, figuratively, i.e., spiritually rises again, it would be hard to tell.

33 But let us see the consistency of fact in which it results. "Every baptized person feels," observe, not ought to feel, or is in fact, but feels, "assured that he is called, pardoned, chosen, and accepted in Christ." This I can call nothing but a funny assertion. Did the author ever meet with a poor broken-spirited Roman Catholic? I mention them, because anyone conversant with them knows their principles to be identical with the author's, as here expressed, save that a priest lets the Roman Catholic, and a Protestant quietly lets himself off. But will the author walk through the streets of Oxford and ask any of the inhabitants of it, except those who hold the principles which the author condemns, Do you feel assured that you are called, pardoned, chosen, and accepted in Christ? But these things are trifling with religion. Peace is something real; to be chosen and accepted, ay and pardoned too in Christ, is something real; and to feel it is something real; and it is adding mockery to misery to tell a man that he feels pardoned and accepted, when he neither knows nor cares one farthing about the matter, or perhaps is groaning under a sense of sin which he knows not how to get rid of.

But the inconsistency of those who speak of these things from theory, without any acquaintance with men's conscience (though it is there generally that the utter folly of their notions comes out to light), was never more glaringly manifested than in these "Remarks." We are told in one page, that every baptized person feels assured that he is pardoned; but in the next, the author says, "I dare not say my sins are forgiven." I suppose the author is not a baptized person; or if he tells me, Yes, but I may have committed sins since I was baptized, then I suppose he felt assured he was pardoned when he was an infant, and felt nothing at all; or at any rate it results, that every baptized persons' feeling assured that he is pardoned comes to this, that nobody does in point of fact. There was peace preached by Jesus Christ, and the atonement of Christ was not only for original but for the actual sins of men: there can be no application of this in faith when all are baptized in their infancy, save that in which I can say, My sins are forgiven. Theory, the theory of a Roman Catholic, can apply it to original, and therefore there every unbeliever rests.

34 But sin is a thing which affects the conscience when a man thinks: and it is only the direct exercise of faith in the blood of the atonement, which can give knowledge of actual forgiveness, which purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And here consequently is the association of salvation with it; because the redeeming love of God is personally known, the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God. And hence persons holding these general views can go along with the world as others, because they have never personally come to God. And, I add, its thoroughly Antinomian tendency cannot be too strongly pressed; because what is it that is to be got over in man? The enmity of his heart against God; the carnal mind, which is enmity with God; and the friendship of the world, which is enmity with God. But how is the enmity of the natural heart to be got over but by bringing in love? And how? By knowing that "he loved us." And how shall we know this? but "hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us." For observe now, the enmity is a real thing, and the love must be a real thing: as Paul expresses it, "by whom we have now received the reconciliation" (or, if you please, "atonement"): and to be produced it must be by practically knowing "he first loved us," which is known by the value of Christ's death received by faith, and the Father's love as manifested in it. If I rest in a pardon received in baptism, I can feel assured that I am pardoned without ever personally coming to God in my conscience, which is the root and essence of Antinomianism; whereas if it hang on the exercise of personal faith in Him, this brings me directly into His presence and subjection. But if I now exercise faith in Christ's death as an atonement and reconciliation, now that I am writing this; I must believe that my sins are everlastingly forgiven and rejoice in the Father's favour, or I do not believe in the efficacy of Christ's death, or the Father's manifested love therein.

I say, that not to see it is neither more nor less than unbelief. A man may be brought afterwards to believe, but at present he is not properly a believer in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I can see that he really believes in His Person, but Satan is clouding his mind, then I may feel a good assurance that he is a forgiven sinner, though he cannot. But I am not to sanction his unbelief, but minister the sure mercies which I may be given to know myself. But if I am told, True, if it be so with you, you are very happy; but how do you know you will continue to believe? This is still unbelief. I may wait on a person's weakness of faith, but cannot preach it: it is simply getting back into distrust of God, which is the devil's greatest triumph. "I knew thee (said the unprofitable servant) that thou wast an austere man." "I heard thy voice in the garden," said Adam, when the devil had effected his first self-ruining purpose, "and I was afraid, and went and hid myself." The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is not of their perseverance, but of God's faithfulness. Their confidence is, not that they would not fail, but God; it is a trust in His promises, as the opposite is unbelief. "They have known and believed," as John expresses it, "the love that God hath to them": and they rest and hang upon this as a child upon a parent, yea, much more. Nor is this present enjoyment, or confidence in the favour and known love of the everlasting God (how better known than in the gift of His only and glorious Son?) merely stayed by the witness in their own hearts, but it hath also the stable foundation of testimony which they dare not disbelieve, yea, which it is sin not to believe, and a great dishonour to God. They believe that God did not shew them this love in the gift of Christ, and the earnest of the Spirit, to leave them as uncertain, as they were before of their estate. They read, "who also shall confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ." And they believe it; and bless God that to such poor and mere sinners He could have destined such things and shewn such love. They believe that, if any man sin, they have an advocate with the Father; and that He is the propitiation for their sins; and they do therefore believe that if they should fall, through mercy they will rise again.

35 They reason, with wondering faith, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." If "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Observe here the singular and marked contrast between the argument of natural unbelief, and of that holy faith which believes in God. It is plain, says the author of the "Remarks," from this passage, that salvation and justification are distinct things; and therefore, though we be justified, we are not made thereby sure of salvation; I suppose, because of our own weakness and sinfulness and infirmity. But faith is that which sees the intervention of God's power, and leans on it; it knows that it has been justified, and from its justification concludes infallibly its salvation: one indeed has taken place, says unbelief, which it cannot help ascribing to God, but that is no proof that he shall obtain the other. God reconciled when we were enemies argues faith: certainly, having reconciled us, He will now save us from wrath; and again, if we were reconciled by His-death, surely His life shall save us. Thus, while unbelief sees nothing but that they are distinct things (and they are distinct only because we are in the body, and therefore the latter is matter of faith and not of sight), faith sees yet the certainty of one from the other, as proving God's love with an even stronger argument, and the certainty yet again of the same from the power of the Instrument now exalted in life, who reconciled us by death. The sinner doubts no more about his falling than his standing: he knows certainly that he would fall instantly if in himself; but he knows that God has promised, and that God will perform, and that He cannot fail; and that none, not Satan himself, can pluck him out of His hands; nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor life, nor death, nor any other creature, can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord.

36 The comparison of the argument of Paul, and of the author of the "Remarks" gives the key to the whole of the sentiments expressed, be they in whom they may. The saint is persuaded, "that he who hath begun a good work in him, will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ." Unbelief is not so persuaded. The scripture hath said, "Faithful is he which hath called you, who also will do it"; and the saint believes it. Nay, but I cannot be sure of it because of my infirmity! That is, you do not believe the word of the testimony of God: you are making your weakness a greater evidence of the result than the power of God! Such precisely is unbelief. But a justification without the exercise of a personal faith in Christ, the sent of God, the Saviour, cannot possibly be accompanied with any knowledge of salvation, nor can it either be accompanied with any renewal of heart, for the heart is purified by faith. But the love of God, and God who is loved, are known by faith; and therefore we can say, "who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." But indeed it were endless to quote passages, for this simple reason, that this is the gospel. The Jew could be circumcised and brought into the covenant of God; nay, the Jew could, if so given of God, walk uprightly. But the Jew could not know, what in faith he might hope for and trust in, what is the essential distinction of the Christian — the finished work of the atonement, and the earnest of the Spirit shed abroad till the redemption of the promised possession. This is Christianity, and received into the heart by faith; and this therefore unbelief can never know anything about. "Blessed is the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile." There is not a man in the world that is not a hypocrite, that has not guile in his heart, till his conscience is washed in the blood of the Lamb. But what blessedness, what reconciliation, what purging of guile, if the forgiveness of sins be not known?

37 But the author of the "Remarks" says, "I bless Him, that He has taught me, not to trust in my own works, but in the assistance of His Holy Spirit." What will the Holy Spirit assist him to do, according to this view of the case, except to work? So that he trusts in his works after all, and the Holy Spirit is a mere assister or helper of him in this. But He never taught him to put his trust here; but they shall be to the praise of the glory of His grace, who have trusted in Christ. And they who have so trusted have ever, according to His promise, been sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of their inheritance. There is not such a thing in Scripture, as trusting in the assistance of the Spirit, contrasted with trusting in works; nor in common sense either. And Christianity is a fable if it does not enable one who believes in the atonement to pronounce his sins forgiven. I do not say but there may be doubting souls under gracious influences; but I say as to this, It is unbelief.

38 Let us put the case of the jailer at Philippi: "What must I do to be saved?" What would the author of the "Remarks" answer? Why, as to being justified, if you are baptized you will be justified; but perhaps you will not be saved at all; nor can I give you any assurance of this, nor indeed will you be able to pronounce at any given time subsequent whether your sins are forgiven or not: the former will depend on how you receive the Spirit; as to the latter, nobody knows on what; in short, I dare not pronounce as to myself. Was this the answer of the blessed and believing apostle? No: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Well then, supposing God gave him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, would the man be warranted or not in saying in his heart, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and shall be saved. People became Christians because they believed that it was the salvation of God, and that they had there what they had not elsewhere, namely, salvation. Again, what is the testimony of Peter? "We believe, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." So in Peter's account of the message to Cornelius, Acts 11, "Who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

But there is one idea which runs in the strongest way through the writings of the Reformation, and is one great hinge of this matter — the acceptance of the person. "By the which will we are sanctified," says the apostle, "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." And what then? Why, that, "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." As to our salvation depending on the manner in which we receive the Spirit, though the sentence be sufficiently obscure, as the person is supposed to be justified already, if it mean anything it is Pelagianism, or at least Semipelagianism; for the manner of my receiving the Spirit must depend on my will previous to the Spirit's influence, if it has any meaning, which is just Semipelagianism.

This part of my subject I feel fully to be most feebly treated: I know that none but believers can feel assurance; but I know that it is the direction of the apostle to "draw near with full assurance of faith." I know that believers will supply infinitely more than any pen could write, or tongue of men or angels could tell: if it be made the instrument of strengthening any soul or convincing it there is such a thing as peace (a peace which, having received forgiveness, is able to rest with undoubting assurance on the promises of the God who gave it, when its possessor was in his sins), I shall be satisfied, yea, abundantly thankful. The hope of the Christian is, not of forgiveness, which the hope of one who cannot pronounce his sins forgiven must be, unless he be a madman; but because he can, of glory. "Beloved," he says, "now are we the sons of God." For, "behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us: and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And he that hath this hope in him," not a vague estimate of the portion of somebody or other, "purifieth himself, as he is pure." He who throws down the assurance of salvation, throws down all Christian progress; for I affirm, that there is not one atom of Christian holiness in the person who has it not, nor any purification which is truly of the sanctuary. "He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not hath made God a liar, because he hath not believed the witness which God hath given concerning his Son. And this is the witness, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Well, but after all, though he have this life, he may lose it and perish. "My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand." "He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, . . . shall not come into condemnation,* but is passed from death unto life."

{*In full truth, judgment. Our Lord is contrasting His two characters of life and judgment; He exercises His power towards the saints in giving life.[John 5: 24]}

39 There are two points fully stated here, and on which we have seen Paul exercising faith, of which Christ, given, dead, and risen, is witness to us by the Spirit. First, inasmuch as we are justified by it, no condemnation. Secondly, that we have eternal life, and so, further, that we joy in God. How a man can do that who dare not say that his sins are forgiven, I know not. But there is this ignorance, further, of the very place of the Church; namely, that they are redeemed and risen in spirit, and are thus, their bodies being not redeemed, a witness of God's power in the midst of and over sin, to the praise of the glory of His grace; whereby, according to His counsels, the glory of the Son, and the power of the Spirit are displayed, till the redemption in those who are kept by the power of God until salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

40 I have stated many texts. The question is, does the author of the "Remarks" believe in them? For example, does he believe that the sheep of Christ shall never perish and that no one can pluck them out of His hand? If he say, I feel so the strength of my flesh warring against me, that I cannot believe this, then I say, It is indeed unbelief; but it is unbelief through which many a child of God has passed, and here are the promises which apply against it. But if he deny and reason and preach against them, and the faith of God's children in them; then I say, however softly expressed, or guarded by gentleness of manner, It is impiety and presumption. He must deny God's willingness or power; for it is in that they trust: and he must deny God's testimony and word; for on that they rely, upon the carnal suggestions of nature. He must preach the power of sin and Satan, against the power of God, in spite of the testimony of God's word, which, because the children were under those, has declared this; and bears witness to the deliverance by Christ. For the testimony of this is the gospel. And, to conclude, God hath predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son: but "whom he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things?" It is simple question of the power of God; we know through faith in Christ that God is for us: if God be for us, who can be against us? "He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again: who shall separate us from the love of Christ? For I am persuaded," etc. Who is he that condemneth? why not reckon upon salvation as to this? If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead dwell in us, God shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in us: why not reckon on salvation as to this? In a word, we know that we are alive in our souls and spirits; we know that there is no condemnation for us; and we know that our mortal bodies will be quickened; what are we to doubt of? It is a poor office to make God a liar in the assurance of His grace towards His children.

41 But there is one other sentence to which (as exhibiting the inconsistency of these views in the light of the Scripture, and how little they flow from this as opened to us by the Spirit of God) I must advert: "It is a mistake to say, that a free gift excludes conditions; on the contrary, the very nature of a covenant implies conditions." If one merely had to cavil in argument, one might reason on this as as extraordinary a sentence as could be written; but I must go a little deeper. Take it on the surface, and the argument is simply nothing, and the expression "on the contrary" makes it almost ridiculous. But if we are to assume that there is a latent idea which takes away the absurdity, namely, that the free gift of the gospel is a covenant; then I say, that the argument flows from a direct contravention or ignorance of the whole statement of Scripture on the subject. In the first place, the argument proceeds on there being a covenant with man. There is no such thing in Scripture. You may call the law on Adam one, if you please, by which he fell (though I think incorrectly). And the covenant which God made with Abraham, and confirmed to Christ, has no conditions: and the difference of this as a pure promise is at length argued by the apostle on this very ground, to wit, that there was no second party but as a receiver, as contrasted with the one at Sinai; and therefore simply received by faith, which believes in a thing done by someone else.

Thus in Genesis 15: the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, etc., and Abram said, What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? etc. Then the Lord promised him his seed should be as the stars; and he believed the Lord, etc. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Then God directed him to take the pieces of the heifer, etc., and divide the birds: and when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between these pieces. In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, etc. Now here we have a covenant of gift, where the only party was simply God; who condescendingly entered into it, that man might know the solemnity and immutability of His promise. And here, accordingly, Paul contrasts the difference of the law, and the gift of the inheritance. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise, which the law could not disannul. The law was conditional, and therefore was forfeited (yea, before its conditions were declared) by the making of the golden calf, and was temporary: but the inheritance was of promise, and therefore secure. Why? Because it rested upon the unity of God. When a second came in, it was not merely of promise; and of this the mediator was evidence, shewing that it was not of one. But the inheritance is simply of the promise of God, and therefore of gift: and His covenant was a solemn pledge merely, as connected with the promise, of the security of the gift, and not including two parties at all; save as a Giver securing the faith of the receiver by His solemn engagement of mere mercy to assure, which none could claim; and the receiver of the thing promised waited for by faith upon the assurance of the promise and covenant. To pursue this subject into all its branches would carry us too far here; but the simple perusal of Genesis 15 (if the reader find difficulty in following the argument of Paul in the Galatians) will amply demonstrate the point in question. I shall close the subject by two passages from Melancthon,* as he has been so much insisted on. From the Confession of Augsburg 5. [A.D. MDXL. — ED.]

{*The fact is, Luther composed the Confession at a previous meeting of the confederates, by desire of the elector: Melancthon dressed them up for the diet.}

42 "They are condemned who teach nothing concerning this faith by which remission of sins is received, but command consciences to doubt whether they obtained forgiveness; and add that this doubt is not a sin."

I do not give the reasoning on this subject, it would be to transcribe pages, merely their opinion. The following is from the Saxon Confession (a document prepared for the council of Trent). It may be seen in the Sylloge Confess., or in Op. Mel., 123, on "Credo remissionem peccatorum." "Here many and great corruptions are brought in by the adversaries: I believe, that is I doubt, they say: also, Then I will believe when I have sufficient merits: also they do not say, I believe the remission of sins to be certainly freely given on account of the Son of God."

43 Again: "As therefore from what has been now said, it is manifest, what the word faith means in this proposition, we are justified by faith; hence it may be understood, that the monks err perniciously, and others whom, converted to God, they command to doubt whether they are acceptable to God. Lastly, the error concerning doubting is altogether a heathenish imagination, and abolishes the gospel, and [on the other hand] takes away true consolation from those who feel the anger of God."

That no notice is taken of the prospect before the Church, I am not surprised. One would think that the progress of infidelity, and everything which might obliterate the peace of mankind, and separate him from God, were calculated to awaken even the unbeliever: not one nation scarcely in Europe not in a state of insurrection, though all are trying to keep peace; while even at home every opinion that could agitate the state is forcing itself into notice, however men may wish for rest. But there was one sign yet wanting to complete the picture to the believer, the unbelief of the body; and that also stares them in the face. The Lord deliver many souls, yea, He will deliver every one of His sheep, before the time of helpless judgment leave no room for repentance, and the Lord awake, as it were, out of sleep to the judgment that He hath commanded, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, when the Lord shall make it empty, and turn it upside down, and it shall reel to and fro like a drunkard. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the way, if his wrath be kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

The Covenants

J. N. Darby.

<03002E> 44

The covenant is a word common in the language of a large class of Christian professors, and also of many true Christians; but in its development and detail, as to its unfolded principles, much obscurity appears to me to have arisen from a want of simple attention to Scripture.

The giving of the Church to Christ before the worlds, and the consequent giving to us of the blessings therein involved, seem to me indeed to be most clearly declared in Scripture, as in 2 Timothy 1: 9, 10. But little heed seems to have been given to that which is really contained in this covenant, as administered in dispensation, in its connection with the character and hope of the Church. Without weakening, then, the foundation whereon all rests, or pulling stones out of it to polish or carve for less needful and appropriate uses, while that whereon they should rest is gone, let us see the plain revelation afforded by the blessed word, on what, in their great branches, the covenants are founded.

The mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself, He hath made known unto us; even that He should gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. This (however consistent everything was with it, or even typical of it) was hidden from ages and from generations. In fact, however progressive the intimations might be (better hopes sustaining believers in greater darkness, as was the case in prophecy), the limits of the actual dealings of God, as to dispensation, were narrowed, and the terms of them lowered with the falling condition of man and that growing darkness.

The promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, had a wider scope and was a more comprehensive promise, than was any subsequent revelation of resulting details, in the sphere subject to his power; it took the character of the work higher up. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." The call and the promise to Abram again had a wider and a fuller meaning and purpose than any dealings with the Jews, not only at Mount Sinai, but even the previous deliverances which constituted them a nation — a people marked by God as the favoured subjects of His strong hand and mighty arm, however more immediate and manifest the hand of God might be. It had therefore a more immediate and determinate object; not the out-reaching prospect of faith, but the visible actings towards the subjects of present deliverance. The law, given from Mount Sinai, took entirely another ground; and whatever was contained in it (as a figure for the time then present) was based upon the obedience of man, as to its terms of promise and blessing, and not in the supremacy of God, however flowing from it.

45 If we turn to the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, we shall see at once the characteristic difference (even in the subjects of praise) in the dispensations. The whole song of Moses, most beautiful as it is, is about the hand and power of God doing wonders. "Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power." So in Revelation 15, "Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty." The song of the Lamb is, "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."* We have the mind of Christ; and as Christ is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, so is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God; and so in the resurrection, when the Lord returns, shall in the Church also be manifested the power of God in Christ, "according to the working of his mighty power, whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself." And then, in fact (as now known by faith) being indeed quickened, shall be manifested "the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe; according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places."

{*[It is well known that for "saints" the best authorities read "nations," though some have "ages." — Ed.]

But now let the Church learn, and let the saint learn that, if it looks with marvel and admiration at the deliverance wrought by the right hand of the Lord at the Red Sea, it too shall ere long sing even in higher and more blessed strains; but now it has a more intimate and distinct lesson to learn — a peculiar, a privileged lesson — the ways of God, the mind of God; and therefore it must be content to suffer. It is not the time, properly speaking, for power to be exercised in its behalf, but for "being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Now in this there is often found in us that which savours not of the wisdom of the holy and graceful ways of God; there must be suffering; this must be wrought out in the understanding of His mind. Often we have so to learn it. For the rest, the sufferings are the occasions of the perfect display of this grace in a spirit and character altogether beyond the wisdom of man. He, who through death destroyed him that had the power of death, is the pattern of the wisdom in which the Church is led forth into beauty. So we find in Psalm 139, in which the wisdom and knowledge of God, shewn in power manifested in weakness, is illustrated in the fashioning of the members of Christ* out of the lower parts of the earth, and in "awaking still with thee": the wicked are afterward to perish. Hence, in leading forth the people which He had redeemed, He led them not in the triumph of power, altogether above the circumstances through which they passed, as was the case in the deliverance from Egypt (even the present destruction of their enemies by power entirely above them, which they knew only in effect); but, "when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them and they follow him." "It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings; for both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." I mean our fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus, having the quickening of that eternal life which was with the Father; a place, not merely of effects in deliverance, but fellowship with Him who so delivers. Hence, I say, Jesus having led the way in grace, and the grace being thus fully manifested, let us not shrink from the sufferings in which we are formed inwardly; for it is communion with, and being conformed to, the image of the Son.

{*[Striking as this analogy of the language may be, it is certain that neither type nor prophecy revealed the mystery of Christ and the Church. This I add to cut off any wrong use of these words. — ED.]}

46 But in looking at the Church's introduction into the knowledge of this image, and fellowship with it, I have, perhaps, wandered too far from the simple question of the covenants. Now I say that this fellowship with the Head triumphant formed no part of the revelation of the covenants, though clearly purposed and formed before the world was, before the ages or dispensations which came in meanwhile, but was reserved for the revelation of the Holy Ghost, sent down upon the exaltation of the Head into the place, according to the character and glory of which the fellowship itself was to be. And this was manifestly necessary; for until the glorification of the suffering Man, there was not that to which the Spirit could testify as existent; nor that accomplished by reason of which the sinner could righteously apprehend fellowship with the glory of the holiest. Indeed this glory was consequent upon the wages of sin, as it was acquired by the exceeding excellency of that by which sin was put away. It was not the perfecting of the creature, but his change into that which by nature he could not inherit, for flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom of God. It was not the fashioning of creature glory, but the result through death of redemption and higher glory. It was not blessings of creature things conferred on the creature, but the communion of the creature with the Creator: a new and clearly an infinite truth; not casual, nor medial, but infinite and supreme; the knowledge of which is the Church's present portion by the Holy Ghost; known in Jesus, known in communion with Him; the highest link of the supreme glory; a new, a very glorious truth, in which God is revealed (as not otherwise), manifest in the flesh, revealed without in personality.

47 Now I would enquire in how far the covenants unfold these things. The Abrahamic covenants (though wider in the scope and testimony, as we have seen, than the local blessings and promises to Israel, as the apostle also so fully argues) contained none of these things. They proposed the person of the Redeemer, the promised Seed; they proposed the blessing of all nations, but they went not beyond Abraham's being the heir of the world. This may disclose brighter things now that the veil is rent; but in the promises and covenants given to Abraham, he did not outstep as yet in expression the limits of what belonged to the first Adam, because the second Adam (who was also the Lord from heaven) was not revealed, and was simply testified of as the seed of Abraham in whom this blessing should come, whatever it was.

These promises and covenants are in Genesis 12 and 15, and confirmed in chapters 17 and 22. The first promise runs thus: "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless him that blesseth thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Afterward the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, "To thy seed will I give this land": here we have nothing beyond the earth and the families by whom it has been divided.

48 In chapter 15 we have the promise of a seed, numerous as the stars of heaven, and (after stating the circumstances in which they would be intermediately placed) the giving of the land to them, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, confirmed by the covenant of the Lord passing between the pieces of the victims.

In chapter 17 this is established as an everlasting covenant with Abraham (his name being changed), and with his seed after him, throughout their generations — that God would be a God to him, and to his seed after him; and that He would give to him, and to his seed after him, all the land wherein he was a stranger, for an everlasting possession; and that He would be their God. And circumcision was given to Abraham as a seal.

In chapter 22 we have the confirmation of the promise to the seed. "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is by the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." In the latter part of this promise we have the confirmation of the blessing of the families of the earth to the seed, that is Christ; which was (in chap. 12) made originally to Abram. Still (whatever be the manner of its accomplishment), it reaches not beyond the original promise to the families of the earth; nor is He, in whom it was to be fulfilled, revealed otherwise than as the seed of Abraham. The other promises, and the formal covenant, are all of the land, and of a seed numerous and prosperous, who should inherit it, and be a blessing. In all this (however unconditionally it establishes that) we have nothing beyond that which is earthly. The promises and covenants in Abraham are established upon grounds which cannot be shaken — not the stability of a professed obedience, but the stability of the declared promise of God — two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, His promise, and His oath. Whatever intimations of circumstances or gathering of hope there might be, the covenants themselves expressed no more. They were confirmed to Isaac, chapter 26, and to Jacob, chapter 28; but no particular remark is called for as to the terms of the covenants in them.

49 We then come to Mount Sinai — the first covenant made with Israel as a nation. And here, as the covenant was of course confined to the nation or literal seed recently delivered, so the subject matter of the promises was honour and blessing before that God whose all the earth was. This was the old covenant, as we afterwards read of the new covenant, which latter implies (as expressed in its terms) that it was made with the same people: both (whatever their character) dealing with them as a people — i.e., in reference to earth, although putting them as on earth into relationship to God. The new covenant (however its terms then might introduce new principles applicable to strangers) could not be said to be "not according to the covenant I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt," were it not a covenant made with Israel — the same people with whom the former covenant was made at Mount Sinai. Whoever will but examine Jeremiah 31, from which this very important testimony is quoted, will at once see that the new covenant is to, and with, Israel; as moreover it is not quoted by the apostle in any epistle except that to the Hebrews.

The first covenant, then, was a covenant made with Israel; the second covenant is a covenant made with Israel, but not yet accomplished in its effects. The use which the apostle makes of it is to shew that the old covenant was faulty, and they should not rest in it — that it was ready to vanish away, thus leading them on to the Mediator of the new, in the manner which I shall now just attempt to set forth; but without in any way speaking of the covenant, as made with the nation, being brought in as to the effect therein described, or that they had come under it, although God's part in it was sealed.

We have, then (passing by, at present, the wider Abrahamic covenants) two covenants with the house of Israel on distinct and different terms: the first, at Mount Sinai; the second, with Christ as its Mediator and its seal.

Now, as to the covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai, its terms were these: the people undertook to obey all that the Lord should command. "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation . . . . And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord." Nothing could be more distinct and express than was this condition, "If ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, ye shall be," etc.; and the people undertook the terms explicitly. Now it is remarkable that the previous condition of the people had been unfolded as resting entirely upon grace. As such it was manifested in their deliverance from the power and prince of this world; in the healing of the water which they had to drink; in the giving of the sabbath in which the manna would be an abiding portion — bread given daily otherwise, the needful and surely apportioned supply of grace; in the waters given in the time of their need, though they murmured and tempted the Lord, yet freely given to them from the stony rock; in the power of mediatorial intercession against their enemies, with their discomfiture, the Lord being their banner, and Joshua their leader; in the ordering of needful government in the household of God, though this was not of principle but from a stranger.

50 But though the real ground on which they were the people of God, and were known and shewn to be such, was thus of grace before the terms of Mount Sinai and its covenants came in at all, yet for God's sure and wise purposes, and the sure (I do not say the whole) wisdom of which we can see in the exhibition of man's failure and the progressive unfolding of dispensation — in this wisdom the conditional obedience is proposed to Israel; and on that stipulation they take all the promises. How long it lasted was displayed by the noise of those who sang. The first principle and foundation of the whole system was broken and laid low before the mediator returned with the order of that obedience which was pledged in it. The covenant was gone. So much for the covenant of works of man's undertaken obedience. "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." But the Lord was not only shewing the failure of man in obedience, and the characteristics of the perfection required under the law, but there was also, however narrowed the scene in which they were displayed, the progress therein of unfolding dispensations. The first covenant had ordinances of divine service, a holy order. It is remarkable to observe here that, coincident with the failure of man under natural principles, there arose the testimony of another foundation, and other and gracious ordinances of divine life. When I say coincident with the failure, I mean rather with the exhibition and evidence of the failure; and then is seen the evidence of the scheme of grace. Progressively had the character of the connection between God and man lowered, and progressively had man sunk to the hopeless state of having a broken law, a rejected God of glory, whose hand had been itself shewn in their favour as a covenant God. But as the natural portion of man was thus evidenced to be hopeless, the dawn immediately arose with coincident and answering clearness of that work and order of grace on which the divine purpose and mercy could stand.

51 The covenant of Israel at Mount Sinai at once contained the proof that the obedience of man was a hopeless ground, under any circumstances, for relationship with God to rest upon; and it also contained the complete typical development of that on which it surely would and could rest — on which comfort and peace and divine blessing could refresh the heart of man, weary with his own way; and this is the use which the apostle makes of it. It is not, Behold here the effects of the new covenant on earth; but the old covenant is a defective, faulty covenant. But the foundation of the new has been laid in the blood of the Mediator. It is not to us that the terms of the covenant, quoted from Jeremiah by the apostle, have been fulfilled, or that we are Israel and Judah; but that while the covenant is founded, not upon the obedience of a living people (to whom the blessing thereupon was to come, and the blood of a victim shed by a living mediator) but upon the obedience unto death of the Mediator Himself, on which (as its secure, unalterable foundation of grace) the covenant is founded.

But, as we have seen, in the very act of forming the covenant, that the obedience of sinful man as its foundation was evinced to come to failure, and that therefore it carried with it, in the good mercy of our God, the testimony of another and a stable foundation; so did it also of the place into which we were to be brought by it. The holy order which accompanied the covenant (or which the covenant had) was the type of heavenly things. It was not "the days come in the which I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah"; but a hope which entereth into that within the veil; and to this, I repeat, the apostle immediately turns. I am not, of course, denying that practical righteousness will accompany this through the love of it in the heart: surely it will; but the manner in which we are associated with the bringing in of the new covenant is the revelation of that of which its holy order was the pattern and type. That is just this — we have seen the covenant sealed in the death of the Mediator, and therefore the end to us now of all hope from any earthly association with Him, or any blessing on earth; the Mediator's own death to this world being the foundation of our entrance into, or portion in, the place we hold with God. On this, in Hebrews 9, the apostle laboriously insists, and it is indeed a distinctive characteristic of the dispensation. Then, if we turn from the Mediator, as the foundation in giving or sealing the covenant to us, to consider Him as maintaining it for us toward God, we shall again find in the pattern of the heavenlies (introduced in connection with the old covenant) the place belonging to us by virtue of our connection with the Mediator. The high priest enters, by virtue of the blood of the mediatorial victim (which in accomplishment we know to be Himself), into the holiest of all; hence, in the antitype, necessarily in resurrection and ascension life. This is His special place of high priesthood, that in which He exercised it as distinctively such, where Christ is now entered for us, even into heaven itself.

52 This, then, is our portion in the new covenant, so far as we have any ordered interest in its being sealed in the blood of the Mediator. That Mediator, being gone into the heavens, into the holiest of all, has not accomplished the actual new covenant formally with Israel and Judah, as it shall surely be fully and distinctly accomplished. But as the patterns of the things in the heavens were given when the old covenant, dependent on their own obedience, was given from Mount Sinai; so now, when the new covenant has been founded in the blood of the Mediator (not yet accepted or owned in grace by the nation), the heavenly things themselves are disclosed to faith by the entering in of the Mediator into the holiest through resurrection. The veil being rent in His flesh, and the Mediator Himself dying (the exercise of His priesthood, and the offering of His blood in the holiest, by which we have access there, being necessarily a resurrection and ascension work), we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way through the veil (that is to say His flesh). During the first, this way was not yet made manifest; nor, moreover, was the conscience so purged once for all as to have a portion there. Both these blessings are now the portion of the children of God; and the whole of our portion now is not in the formal accomplishment of the new covenant with Israel and Judah, but entirely in the heavenlies with Christ, according to the pattern of the then tabernacle, with this only added — that the veil is rent from the top to the bottom.

53 It is, then, the annexed circumstances of the covenant with which we have to do, not the formal blessings which in terms have taken the place of the conditions of the old, though some of them may, in a sense, be accomplished in us. Thus the heavenly and distinct character of the dispensation is most plainly brought out; and we find that our place is to be identified with the Mediator, as gone within the veil, not in the blessings which result to Israel in consequence of His title and power to bless in grace therefrom resulting. It is generally stated that the high priest came forth and blessed the people on the day of atonement, when he came out of the most holy place; but there is nothing of the kind in the account of it in Scripture; and to me it seems rather to involve mistake, for his place on that day formed no part of his kingly office; but on that day it was either humiliation or ascension to glory, or offices purely priestly — death, confession, intercession, and the like.

There is a passage in Leviticus 9, which (being of a more comprehensive character) seems to embrace this part of the subject more distinctly. This chapter embraces the offerings of the high priest on entering on his office. Then Aaron offers his offerings, and, having gone through each several kind, he blesses, and then comes down. This was a priestly blessing after the offering, but before he came down from the offering; and then Moses and Aaron (who shew forth the union of the kingly and priestly office) went into the tabernacle of the congregation (not necessarily implying the holiest of all, but the house, including the holy place and holiest), and came out and blessed the people; and then the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people; and then was the complete and public witness of the complete acceptance of the burnt sacrifice by the Lord. This, as it is a more general statement of all connected with the institution of the priesthood, seems more definitely to set before us both the priestly blessings from the offered sacrifice; and then (after the return from that) the royal and priestly blessing of the people; whereupon the full glory came in public witness. This, however, I remark by the way, for, though to me it is a deeply interesting type of the order of these things, that which I now desire to rest on, and to present in its brief heads for the consideration of others, is that the place into which the founding of the new covenant in the blood of Christ has brought us is, not that of the terms of; the covenant made with Israel and Judah, nor yet of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for that the sphere of their ministration was the earth; but it is into the revelation consequent upon the death of the Mediator, and His assumption of the high priesthood in resurrection and ascension glory — a heavenly state of things, a place in the heavenlies, in which we have fellowship with Him gone within the veil, previously unrevealed, though founded in the death of Him that was promised and typified by the ordinances given with the old covenant as to the constitution of the tabernacle of the congregation — the veil only being as yet unrent, and the way into the holiest not yet made manifest, nor the communion of a purged conscience with it established (the identity of the body of Christ with their Head, and their privilege there to sit, as now represented in their Head, being as yet unknown); thus confirming in the distinctest way, in the ordering of dispensations, many principles often alluded to in previous papers. There are many subjects and principles of the deepest importance connected with the covenants, which are here barely or not at all alluded to (such as the difference of the very nature and terms of the two, whatever their application, on which in fact all our practical peace rests; the unconditional character of those made with Abraham, as the ground of the infallible warrant of Jewish hopes, not dependent on that in which to their own present sorrow and the instruction of mankind they have so entirely failed). All this, though I would not pass it without allusion thereto, I do not lengthen this paper by entering into substantively, having very briefly, and I fear superficially, endeavoured to touch upon those heads which bring out the covenants into their proper place, and which shew our position as connected with them.

55 There is one passage connected with this subject which I have omitted, to which I would allude. In the statement of restored blessings to Israel, in Ezekiel 36 the detail of earthly things is most distinct; it is, all of it, restored Israelitish blessing. Amongst them, however, we find a work to be done in them to qualify them for the holding and enjoying of those blessings before God. "I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."

This is not expressly the new covenant, but it is in fact a more explicit statement of the manner of the blessings contained in it, and connected with it. Hence the reproach of Nicodemus by the Lord, when (stating in terms tantamount to these, what was needful for a man to see, to enter into, the kingdom of God) He was met by the uninstructed question "How can these things be?" The Lord indeed shews the universal character of the operation: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." But its application in the conversation is Jewish; it was that which was necessary for the enjoyment of the earthly things of the kingdom of God, of which the promises and the covenants with Israel and their forefathers were the pledges and assurance from God. Hence does our Lord add the observation, "If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" — even of these other and higher things, which belong to the kingdom entered into by the new and living way: and hence our Lord, though not then revealing these things at once, introduces His death — the death of the Mediator, the Son of man, in whom the earthly things were expected, which was the door that opened the way into any heavenly things whatever (as yet undisclosed), and ordered by the rejection of the Son of man (then beginning to shew itself) by those to whom He came in present earthly blessing: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up"; but founding every hope of eternal life then on this lifting up, and its opening to the world. For as sent on an errand of mercy had He come; and thus was the distinction between the earthlies and the heavenlies.

56 I scarcely feel it necessary to add that I take the whole of Hebrews 9 as having one uniform subject, the covenant; and that the terms testament and testator are but accommodations to the English reader which obscure or destroy the sense.*

{*[This is true of all the epistle, and indeed of the New Testament as a whole, save in the parenthesis of Hebrews 9: 16, 17, where "testament" and "testator" appear to be called for, and naturally flow out of the last clause of the preceding verse (that is to say, "the promise of eternal inheritance"). One insuperable objection to taking these two verses as maintaining, like the rest, the reference to "covenant" is that the Greek work cannot mean covenanting victim, but one who disposed things (i.e. a "testator"). The death of the covenanter is in no way an axiomatic necessity; whereas the condition of men being dead is essential to bring a testament into operation. Such, too, is the judgment of the author in his German, French, and English versions of the New Testament, as well as in the "Synopsis of the Books of the Bible" (in loc.). — ED,]}

Remarks on Light and Conscience

*

J. N. Darby.

<03003E> 57

{*These remarks have chiefly reference to Dr. Wardlaw's Friendly Letters to the Society of Friends.}

Allow me to say a few words on a very simple principle, connected with the exercise of men's hearts before the Lord, and with questions which are now occupying the thoughts and anxieties of a body of persons, who must at present be the object of the deepest interest to any real Christian, even if not within the reach of those kindly affections by which so many are united to them. It does not appear to me that, in the agitation which the introduction of long neglected truths has produced among them, any body of Christians has presented an adequate or satisfactory exhibition of Christian truth and practice; nor has anything more struck me as to the extreme defectiveness of the views of the most noted Christian teachers at present before the world, than this manifest failure.

I am not about to enter into diffuse reasonings, but present a few considerations for their thoughts and consciences.

The first in importance is the light in every man.

A little simple attention to Scripture I think will make this very plain. It has been confused, it seems to me, by systems of doctrine current previously in the mind. AS to mere argumentative refutation, Wardlaw has, with the ability of mind with which God has endowed him, plainly shewn the inconsistency of their doctrines in their most favourable point of view, and, I think, however courteous and polite in his statements, plainly shewn Joseph John Gurney to be by far the most inconsistent of all. For in Mr. Gurney's system, while he holds justification in an evangelical point of view, he still makes the mediation of Christ to be the procuring cause of that light from which accountability springs — that is, that the mediation of Christ created the guilt which it put away; and, consequently, that there was no guilt in man previous to the mediation of Christ. This is clearly an untenable position, and I cannot help feeling that the position held by Mr. Gurney is the most inconsistent and unsatisfactory of any engaged in the anxieties which press upon Friends.

58 But, while Dr. Wardlaw has refuted very ably in many respects the views he opposes, it does not appear to me that he has given anything on the other hand, upon which a sincerely anxious soul could rest; and it also appears to me, that his view of "Christ in us" — "Christ's dwelling in our hearts" is as objectionable as that of the Friends itself; and that in his anxiety to avoid mysticism, he has destroyed in statement the living power of Christianity itself as a present thing. His view of the law written in the heart, his substitute for this inward light, I believe to be most unsatisfactory, almost as unsatisfactory as the inward light itself. For if the law (of which he, with many others, speaks) be so written, it is not merely a knowledge of the divine will without, but that which in some instances at least (for of such the apostle is writing) produces the effects of the law done; and moreover, it is spoken of (I take their use of the sentence) not as a law known externally, which is their ground of defence, but written in the very language, we may say, of the power of the new covenant. It appears to me, then, I confess, that this law written on the heart of unbelieving Gentiles, is, at the least, as objectionable, if not more so, than the inward light of Friends, and as untenable from Scripture.

As regards the passage in John 1: 9, I cannot but think that a calm attention to its statements, and inquiry into its import, will shew to any mind taught of God that, while the divine perfectness was there as the Light, our Lord is spoken of as a Person coming into the world, One to whom John the Baptist bore witness. This was surely Jesus Christ come in flesh — the expected Messiah of the Jews, of whom there is this double testimony — that "he was in the world" (for the testimony was not confined to the Jews, nor was He merely their Messiah, but an universal object of faith — "he was in the world)"; and, further, that He surely was Jesus, the Messiah, "come to his own [the Jews], and his own received him not." How could it be said that any inward light came to His own and His own received Him not, and that, as distinct from, and additional to, His being in the world, and the world not knowing Him? If this were the inward light, would it not prove that this light was in the world, and men completely unconscious of it? which would refute itself. Both are simply and plainly true, and the whole passage most intelligible and to the purpose, as relating to the incarnate Son of God, who was intrinsically light, and as living, as a man, a light to man, and was both in the world and made the world, and the world knew Him not, and came specially to the Jews, and the Jews received Him not; though to as many as did receive Him He gave authority to be sons of God, not servants as they were (even though godly) under the law; and to whom John bare witness, as sent before Him. As the Lord Himself elsewhere designates Himself, "While ye have the light, walk in the light. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

59 Further, as to the law written upon the heart, perhaps I shall startle some in saying that the scripture never speaks of "a law written on the heart." God puts His laws into the heart in the new covenant, but this is another and a distinct thing. Nor is sin ever said to be "the transgression of the law," but the contrary. I am aware that expressions in the English scriptures may carry such a force; but it has no such force in the original scripture.

The passage on which accountability is made to rest on a law know, which is after all inward light, is 1 John 3: 4: "Sin is the transgression of the law." Then it is argued further, "Where no law is, there is no transgression"; still, "until the law, sin was in the world": therefore, as there was no outward law, there must have been an inward law, as elsewhere, "These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, and shew the work of the law written upon their hearts." To follow this reasoning in Scripture —

First: "Sin is the transgression of the law."

The law is not mentioned in the passage. It is a reciprocal proposition. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is equivalent to the spirit of selfwill and unrestrainedness. This may be, and was, whether there was a law asserting restraint on this will or not. When there was, its acts were actual transgressions; but without this, sin was there, though there were no such actual transgressions till "law entered." And sin was not imputed where law was not. Not that God will not judge the secrets of men's hearts in that day, according to the gospel; but that the times of this ignorance God winked at, passed by, in His dealings of retributive justice, not having a law by Him revealed to their consciences, on which He could deal with their conscience. On the contrary, He gave them up to a reprobate mind. They did not discern to retain Him in their knowledge, but set idol-creature gods (all the argument is of the world after the flood); and therefore God gave them up to an undiscerning mind, as to that which related to lower things of good and evil in themselves, and towards others. It is astonishing, in the face of this positive testimony, to hear the abstract reasonings of men.

60 On the other hand, as to this imputation of offences, we have the prophet's witness: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities," Amos 3: 2.

Now He calls all persons everywhere to repent, seeing "He hath appointed a day in which he will judge this habitable earth in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead," Acts 17.

In the day when God judges the secrets of men's hearts, they that have sinned without law, shall perish without law: and they that have sinned under the law, shall be judged by the law; Romans 2.

This general review of the passages may clear the point as to the fact of the first text quoted not being the transgression of the law. I insert the Greek: "he hamartia estin he anomia." Sin and lawlessness may be reciprocally affirmed one of another. Next, I state that the law is not said to be written on men's hearts. Were it so, I do not see that we are a step removed from the inward light, save downwards — that is, we have the law written upon the heart instead of Christ there. But as to the fact, there is no such sentence as "the law written in the heart."

The apostle states, that in these particular instances, in which the Gentiles did the things contained in the law, they shew the work of the law written in their hearts. The law is not said to be written there, but that particular act which the law required was shewn to be upon their conscience. For when the Gentiles who have not law (it is not the law at all) do by nature* the things of the law, these, not having law, are a law to themselves, which shew the work of the law written in their hearts. Written agreeing with work, not with law at all. These are the only words in which the law is said to be written on the heart, an expression which ought in itself to have awakened suspicion in one acquainted with the truth. The expression, "law written on the heart by nature," is surely one which should startle anyone who knew the truth of God. Dr. Wardlaw gets out of this difficulty by saying nature does not exclude grace, and that the law could be known responsibly without any subjection or conformity to it. It is a laborious effort for which the statement gives no occasion. The force of the sentence is, that there was something written proved by the deed done.

{*Nature is opposed to law and dispensation simply, abstract from all question as to grace or power.}

61 Next, as to the assertion of the contrary. It is stated, Where no law is, no transgression is: but the apostle is there shewing that sin and transgression of law are different things, but that there was no present imputation of it where there was not the latter.

Between Adam and Moses death reigned over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; for Adam was disobedient to an express and positive command, and there was present imputation and punishment, besides the effect upon his soul. Sin was in the world, and death reigned by sin until the law, thus expressly distinguishing sin from the law and transgression; sin being there when the law was not, and when consequently transgression was not, and giving afterwards the respective consequences of sin when there was and was not law. Sin is anomia but it is not transgression of law, although that is the character of sin when the law comes in, and it becomes then an imputable transgression.

Where then is the universal accountability of man which Christ met as light and life, and the way of peace by atonement in contrast with their state?

It is most strange to me how the students of the scripture should have passed over this plain and all-important statement, to look for confused and reasoned notions of a law in the heart, or a light in the heart, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.

"The man (the Adam, the race man) is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." This is God's account of fallen man. Satan never deceives by a mere abstract lie; he tells much attractive truth, but never leads to obedience by it. What he gave as a promise to man, God pronounced to be true, but he had it by disobedience. He knew evil in guilt, he knew it in disobedience, he knew it in the admitted power of sin over his soul, he knew it as a creature over whom it had power, he knew it by and with a bad conscience. God knows good and evil, but He knows it by the infinite and intrinsic possession of good, and Himself being good, and therefore knows evil as that which is infinitely repudiated by Him; and in this, therefore, His holiness is infinitely seen. A creature knows not so, as a mere creature, for he is not supreme. Evil known to a mere creature is known in conscience; he is subject to judgment in the knowledge of it, and hates the judgment and the Judge; because selfishness cannot like its own condemnation, nor can it like to be subject to any, and cannot therefore please God. This knowledge of good and evil may be darkened in its judgment, because a false rule or guide may be introduced; God may give up to a reprobate mind, or Satan introduce a law of darkness, having power to deceive and blind, which is not God's, and which may be made its estimate of right; but the knowledge of good and evil is inherent in fallen human nature. Man unfallen was not, properly speaking, holy:* he was innocent, he knew not evil, but only beneficent good. Fallen man knows evil, with a conscience subject to judgment, and hating God. Here then is the revealed accountability and condition of man as man. There may be a false standard. The law of God is the true one, evil having come in. Paul thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and the time was to come when those that killed the disciples would think they did God service. However wretchedly and inexcusably false the standard assumed from men, there was the sense of good and evil, and of obligation thereupon. It was still lawlessness to God, and sin. Subjection to God is now shewn in obedience to Christ, and honouring Him in everything.

{*Holiness is separation from that which is evil; but from what could Adam separate, where all was very good?}

62 The law of God given, which surely is perfect for its purpose, could not have been the law to Adam; for it is conversant about evil, and implies the knowledge of it. Adam had a law, which he broke, which implied no knowledge of evil — "Thou shalt not eat of such a tree" — a command which He who knew all things gave him. Adam fell with the knowledge of good and evil, for he got it in disobedience; but he had that knowledge then, to which the law, when it came in, applied the standard and prohibitory restraints, though it gave no new life so that righteousness could be by it. In the meanwhile, sin reigned by death, with the knowledge of good and evil and a guilty conscience, however Satan and man's lusts might darker and debase it. But none of these things gave life, nor was it their object; the fall certainly did not, yet in this came the knowledge of good and evil, conscience, so as that God said, "The man is become as one of us," i.e. as to this. Yet death came in with this. The law, which gave a standard of actual accountability to this, did not give life, nor pretend to it; on the contrary, wrought wrath, entered that the offence might abound, was a ministration of death, of condemnation, and the strength of sin; not through any fault of the law, but the contrary, being just, and true, and good, if it did not give life, sin by it only became exceeding sinful.

63 But under all and any of these circumstances, God, who is the author of life, could and did give life; and Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Eli, and Samuel, and David, and Hezekiah, and Anna, and Simeon, and others whom we cannot number, but who are written before and live unto God as from Him, all in various circumstances are witnesses to His quickening and justifying power. They have "obtained a good report through faith." I do not enter here into the power of darkness, which is most important in connection with this subject, and the active instrumentality of him who rules the darkness of this world, because I desire to confine myself to the points under consideration; but in any general view of the state of man it is most important, all-important, to be taken into the account: indeed without it our general estimate must be false: just as three sums, however correct, will not make a right result if there be a fourth left out. From the beginning, till peace and glory be brought in, this the power and deceit of the adversary has been, as still is the case, the leading source of evil and alienation from God, however man's estate may help him and his efforts to dishonour the Lord.

I would present then this sentence, "The man is become as one of us, to know good and evil," as a very simple and easy solution of many difficulties most elaborately constructed by man's wit and reasoning, and draw attention to what the law really is, as presented to us in Scripture in the passages referred to, and its connection with the accountability of man. It never gave life — God alone could do that: and I do entreat those who teach, who have the knowledge of the original, to weigh the force of the passages on which they rest so large and important a system. I would also urge upon them the difference of sin and sins — two things never, I believe, confounded in the Holy Scriptures.

64 As to the rule of faith, primary and secondary, the Spirit and the Scriptures, this question has really also been raised, though under different apparent circumstances, by the Roman Catholics; and it has appeared to me always in that controversy, that there was a sophism scarcely ever noticed, which was at the root of all the difficulty; and that is, confounding a rule, or standard, with the means of communicating, or power that communicates, anything to our minds: the tacit assumption that one was equivalent to another. All Milner's "End of Controversy" hangs upon a statement concealing this false assumption. "The rule of faith, or means of communicating Christ's religion," he says, "must be such, or such"; which he then shews Scripture not to be, having identified these two ideas. Admit their identity, and no one can answer him; separate them, and his argument comes simply to nothing.

The Friends, it appears to me, have made the same mistake. The Scriptures are the only rule or standard of faith and practice; but the power that applies them to our minds is the Spirit, and the instruments may be many. To make a rule, or standard, we must have the whole thing fully out and expressed. A parent, a teacher, a friend, may communicate truth, but none are a standard.

My use of the standard may be ignorant or imperfect; still it is a perfect standard in itself. I, as a teacher, may have stated perfect truth, but it is no standard. The whole truth having been communicated: no fresh revelation to an individual soul of part of the same truth is a standard. The Bible may be the means of communicating truth; but its great value is, that it is the standard as well as the depository of all truth. A truth may be most perfectly communicated to me, as a measure of corn may be most accurately weighed; for the ascertainment that it is so, a standard is required. The Spirit of God may enable me to use the standard of the word, but this does not make the Spirit of God the standard, any more than the perfect skill of the weighmaster or measurer makes his hand or mind the standard.

I may have spiritually learned truth, and may, as far as known, use this known truth as a test to all presented to me, and so far the intelligence of the Spirit may be a guide. But a standard must be a standard of everything, and for this it must be the whole record of truth, and the perfect record of truth. Moreover, there are principles of universal application implanted in every regenerate mind: God is righteous; holiness is the thing which characterizes God and the saint in communion. But what righteousness is, how sinful man is placed and led in it practically, and what is holy in conduct, is another thing. And if this be not in the mind of man naturally, it must be revealed; and if revealed to be a standard, it must be revealed with authority for all, or it is not a rule or standard which every one must be responsible to; and individual responsibility, and mutual sense of righteousness, is destroyed, and manifest fruits of righteousness cease to be of avail as a test of conduct and fellowship, because there is no standard, or common subject of reference, to which they are to be brought. For to be a standard by which man can act before God, it must be perfect, common to all, perfect with God's perfectness; the necessary consequence otherwise will be the destruction of individual responsibility, and the setting up of authority without any perfect rule.

65 I have spoken of these things merely to illustrate the difference between a rule or standard, and the power which perceives, uses, or may have learned or appropriated part, but which part, though useful to communicate, cannot be a standard to another; or authority abstractedly is set up, and we lean upon man as infallible at once. No man, or any but God, is infallible — no apostle, no prophet: he may be absolutely right at any given time, but not infallible, for that is the impossibility of being wrong. To receive what a man says without a standard must be to suppose him incapable of being wrong. And the question therefore really is, whether there is a standard at all, not what it is. Because a standard is a complete communication of divine truth, by which everything can be tried; and therefore every and all truth necessary for the guidance of those to whom it is proposed as a standard must be there, or it could not be such a standard.

Any subsequent communication of divine truth has nothing to do with being a standard, as is evident, however certain the perception of it in the Spirit; and though truths may be impressed upon the soul of any man, and as an instrument at any given time for the communication of them, this has nothing to do with being a standard.

66 If it be contended that the Spirit in each man is the rule or standard on every particular occasion, and consequently must perpetually communicate the way of truth and the truth itself, then it is an assertion that everybody is infallible, and that there is no standard at all — that men are not responsible, but automatons. If I am told that the Spirit always does suggest, and is always right (and this would apply to practice alone, for truth must be expressed to be a standard), but that men do not always listen to it, then I say, How is this to be known? Where is the ground of judgment? What is the rule or standard of this? Or, is each man the warrant of all possible conduct? or, are others the irresponsible judges of him? The question still evidently is, Is there a standard, a perfect revelation of God's will at all — in a word, a complete revelation? If there be, let us humbly admit, that the Spirit, in its active divine operations, takes any scope you please, our judgment of which must be subject to this same word of revelation; but we have to acknowledge that it has given us a perfect rule by which we judge of the pretensions to its operations, and any alleged truth in, or proposed by, any. If there be any such revealed authenticated standard, it is manifest that the written word of God is that standard.

I would make a few remarks as to the communication of it. How was it to be judged of, or how was the communication of it authenticated, if any operation of the divine Spirit in an individual be not such standard? It will be still remarked that this is a question whether there be any standard at all. But I say, in reply, that God having been pleased to communicate any revelation authentically, as the communication of Moses as having His authority, whatever should afterwards be revealed is always triable by consistency with this. It might be revealed with equal authority, and would be necessarily, as from God, consistent therewith; no apparent authentication would be sufficient to excuse the reception of anything inconsistent with the original revelation. Though God might afford and did afford some superior authentication, as in the case of our blessed Lord, He always took care to validate a previous revelation by that, and appeal to it, as Christ, though perfectly competent to reveal, ever appealed to the word (so the apostles), and thus there was mutual authentication. Nor would a prophet have been to be received, had he spoken anything contrary to the law and the testimony; he acted in solemn warnings as to present conduct, but always applied to conduct upon the ground of the existing law and testimony. Then Messiah coming, authenticated and sealed the authority of predictions, by sealing the prophecy, whether all the particulars were fulfilled or not; and with the words of the apostles* and companions of the Lord, the Church was left to the written testimony as the law and standard. In a word, faith recognizes that the Lord has provided in His great mercy a perfect and common standard of His mind and will in the revelation of His word. And there cannot be a greater or more signal mercy, nor one more worthy of a beneficent God; an imperfect one would be but a mockery, and throwing them into the hands of designing men, and necessarily destroy responsibility to it or any standard at all, or make it an unholy and blind responsibility to man.

{*The apostles were the authorised orderers of the Church: and in the Gospels we have the Lord's own ways, if they be admitted to be authentic. And my controversy is not here with infidels, or those who question the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament. If men wish to do this, let them avow it, and it may be reasoned on its own grounds.}

67 The communication, the apprehension, the application of truth — of all contained in the word of this whole of truth — is by the constant living operation of the Spirit of God. It appears to me there is a vast difference between the revealing operations of the Spirit of God and the communicative operations — that the one are to conscience when they are more than external testimony; the other, not. A revelation may be by an ungodly unconverted man; and when by a saint, as usually, though by his understanding, they are not to his conscience, there is nothing personal in them; he may afterwards, as we read in Peter, search and inquire into their application, and who is interested in them, like any other person, and find it not to himself at all. This is not the case in any internal operations of the divine Spirit for our good and personal guidance; immediate responsibility arises therefrom. On the other hand, when the Spirit of God is pleased to use us as a means of communicating truth, it does not necessarily act on our conscience at all; it may not be applicable to my conscience in its present state at all; nay I might preach to others all truth, and be a castaway; I might say, "I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh." "How goodly are thy tabernacles, O Israel!" And this shews a distinctive difference in the operation even when the Spirit does operate. When a revelation, it is not as such a communication or operation on the conscience or will of the instrument at all. There is an operation of the Spirit by truth on both, which may be of the same truths as have been long revealed, and are no proper subject therefore of revelation at all, though they may be new to him in whom the Spirit works. I put no limit then to the Spirit's operations. But I say He has Himself given a standard, a rule, by which we can judge all pretensions to them, being ourselves spiritual.

68 There is a point yet unnoticed, in which Dr. Wardlaw's statements seem to me most ruinous of the real living power of Christianity. He states that Christ in us is equivalent to Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith — that is, having Christ as the object of our heart's affections, as the apostle says, "Inasmuch as ye are in my heart," etc. I confess this seems to me most pernicious, and that the Church has lost the indwelling of the Spirit, as a truth, most sadly.

The life which we have of and from Christ is a life of union with Him. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." Faith is the mean or instrument whereby these things are wrought, because it is by the word He begets us; but there is a life: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," as much and as truly as "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." And to assert that Christ by the Spirit dwells really in no man, is quite as great an error as to assert that He dwells in every man and the word of truth refutes both. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; and "if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness." To see how the word of God teaches us in this, that we are born, quickened of God by the Spirit, is recognized by all, we may say, who hold the truth: but I fear confusedly by some, being looked at as a mere operation on the understanding and will, and not the communication of divine life, born really of God. As we have seen, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, the seed of the divine life which thereon abideth in the soul. While this is of the operation of the Holy Ghost and is of God, it is not the Holy Ghost nor God, as needs scarcely be said. It enjoys, apprehends, is cognizant of, has a taste for, divine things, as being of God; but it knows and has the revelation of these things only by a superior power, which guides into truth, shews things to come, and takes of the things of Christ and shews them to us. Besides this there is a partaking of the Holy Ghost.

69 The Holy Ghost cannot dwell in a defiled uncleaned place. He could dwell with Jesus, speaking of Him as an anointed Man, because He was intrinsically pure, perfect, and spotless.* How then with us? The scripture says, "we are quickened together with Christ" — that is, as out His grave, "wherein also ye are risen together with him, through faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Christ, having borne our sins, met Satan, and undergone death, His resurrection is a power of life, clear from, and paramount to, beyond, and having left behind all these — beyond the reach of all these. But we are risen with Him: that is, the life which we have of God, as quickened of the Holy Ghost, is as the life of Christ after the sins are completely put away. It is communicated to us consequent upon His having borne and put away the sins, yea, is the witness of His having put them all away (as he says, therefore, "hath quickened us together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses"); for His resurrection is the witness that they are gone. Now, the blood being the life, which He gave for them, and shed, having given His natural life in the energy and perfectness of the divine life in obedience, the shedding of the blood is the characteristic term and expression of this; and we, as washed in His blood, are cleansed from all sin. Our quickening, then, by the Holy Ghost being then our quickening together with Him, implies our absolute justification thereby — that is, by what He has wrought. Hence the Holy Ghost not only quickens, but can take up His abode in and with us, because He views us according to His value of the blood of Jesus (that is, infinite or perfect cleansing). Thus the high priest was anointed without a sacrifice, the sons of Aaron after and upon the blood of the sacrifices, typifying the same truth.

{*The difference of the Holy Ghost in fulness in His nature, and the anointing, was typified in the pure flour mingled with oil, and the unleavened wafer anointed with oil, in the meat offering, which was the type of the human nature and faculties of Christ the Lord.}

The Holy Ghost, then, consequent upon faith wrought in our souls by His divine and quickening operation, dwells in us, as consequent upon, and witness of, the blood-shedding of Jesus; by virtue of whose resurrection, as having borne our sins, we are quickened. And here and hence is assurance; nor is it till we thus see clearly the power of the resurrection that we have this assurance. The resurrection is the triumph over all the results of sin, and him who had the power of it.

Thus, consequently, the Scriptures speak of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost: "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God?" "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of promise, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption; in whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession."

70 And that we might not think this to be merely what are called miraculous gifts, we are told how "He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, is God; who also hath sealed and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts"; and therefore we are told that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs" (for it is "the earnest of our inheritance"), and afterwards "helps also our infirmities," as in trial here, "making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

So in Galatians 3. "Ye are all the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus"; and then in chapter 4, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father," etc.

How the Holy Ghost manifests itself, whether in connection with the life of Christ, as risen, or with the ascension of Christ as glorified, is another thing very important and valuable, but not my subject here, but the actual presence of that other "Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you"; and He was to "abide for ever." I now speak of it as connected with the life of Christ, as belonging to the sons, the earnest of the inheritance, a well of water in us springing up into everlasting life. He who weakens this, weakens, I believe, the great stay and blessing of the gospel. If I dwell in love, God dwelleth in me, and I in God. If I confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in me, and I in God. And if it be disconnected with the sacrifice of Christ, and faith in Him, in those quickened by His Spirit, it is but an ignis fatuus, leading into misery and confusion. To deprive those of it who have been given this living faith, is to deprive them of the living power and blessing of both the sufferings of Christ and the glory that is to follow. The possession of the Holy Ghost is the distinguishing characteristic of the believer, of the Church of the living God. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him. Nor do I know anything which has reduced and degraded the Church into the world, or given occasion and opportunity to delusion and spiritual pretensions, so much as the neglect of the plain scriptural truth given us on these subjects. If a man did not believe in the truth of the Holy Ghost's dwelling in him, as an additional privilege and blessing to being born again, and his, because he was so connected with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the Scriptures are so full of passages speaking of it, that he might easily be thrown into the hands of designing or misguided men, who could use all these passages which had no force in his mind to mislead or bewilder.

71 The uniform effort of those who make pretensions to gifts now, for example, is to deny the power of the child of God as individually having the Spirit to judge of and understand the word of God, and know its force, and so judge them. So precisely does a Roman Catholic priest; so would any carnal man.

Let us then thankfully receive the word of God as an infallible standard by which to judge, and know that the power and capacity by which we can do it is the Spirit of God dwelling in us, revealing these things to our new man, so as to act on our conscience, and guide our feet into the way of peace, and to reveal to us the glory of that fulness which makes us abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Let us know that the knowledge of good and evil is our ruin, taken by itself: for we are guilty, and must dread therein and dislike our Judge. Then the law cannot help us, because it does not give life, and therefore only further works wrath.

But being quickened, we are quickened with Him who, as rising from the grave, hath put for ever away all our sins — if not all, none; and are made partakers therefore of the Spirit, a witness to us of the efficacy of this work, and earnest of the inheritance before us, a revealer too of it to our souls, taking of the things of Christ (even all the Father's things, for He is heir of all things as Son), and shewing them to us, and guiding us in the way, guiding our hearts and feet; for as many as are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

72 And let us adore Him who hath done these great things for us, and be thankful and humble under such great and exceeding mercies, in which our God is glorified. To Him be the glory, by Christ Jesus our Lord, for ever. Amen.

The full doctrine of the Holy Spirit, though the principle of it has been stated, has by no means been entered upon here. If the Lord permit, I may go into it more fully when He gives occasion.

To avoid ambiguity, I would say, that the graces of the Spirit seem connected with Christ risen (His life in us, as the fulness and headship, being in Him); and the gifts bestowed, in whatever measure or way they may be manifested, with Christ ascended and glorified.

The Resurrection, the Fundamental Truth of the Gospel.

J. N. Darby.

<03005E> 147

Many have, perhaps, been able, in looking at the Church's hope in Christ, to see the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection. But the more we search the Scriptures, the more we perceive, in this doctrine, the fundamental truth of the gospel — that truth which gives to redemption its character, and to all other truths their real power. For instance, who does not know that Christianity has its root and its foundation in that solemn and all-important event, the death of our blessed Saviour? But if it had been possible that death could have held the Saviour in his power, death, instead of being the foundation of joy, and the certainty of salvation, would have been the source of a black despair which nothing could have dissipated.

It is the resurrection which throws its bright beams even into the dark tomb of Christ, the tomb of the only righteous One, and the trophy of the apparent victory of the prince of this world. It is the resurrection which explains the reason of that momentary submission to the power of the devil and subjection to the necessary judgment of God. We see also how this truth characterizes the preaching of the apostles. We read (Acts 4) that the priests were "grieved that they preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead." "This Jesus," said they, "hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses"; and when they were about to choose someone to fill the vacancy which the crime and death of Judas had made in the number of the apostles, Peter, standing up in the midst of them, declared that the resurrection ought to be the solemn subject of their testimony. "Wherefore," said he, "of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be a witness with us of his resurrection." And, not to multiply passages, Paul says, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15); and the whole chapter shews us the importance of the resurrection of believers as well as that of Christ Himself — two truths indissolubly united and developed in the New Testament. And it is a remarkable thing, amidst the subtleties and resources of Satan, that as he opposed the pretended righteousness of the Pharisees to the perfect and divine righteousness of Christ our Saviour, so had he prepared the incredulity of the Sadducees to oppose this fundamental doctrine of the resurrection preached by the apostles who were witnesses of it (Acts 5: 17).

148 It is by this doctrine of the resurrection, and by the glory which shall follow the resurrection itself, that the foundation and the hopes of the Christian faith are bound together; and by the same doctrine it is that justification and that which is the power of the Christian life — sanctification,* are necessarily united.

{*The believer is sanctified through and in Christ; and it is his actual sanctification which is the source of all practical holiness. He is holy, and therefore is to be "holy in all manner of conversation." This principle, that God has sanctified us and that therefore we are to be holy in spirit and ways, has ever been the same. God has separated from existing evil to Himself, and then given a variety of directions to keep the so separated person in practical separation. See, as to Israel's sanctification, Leviticus 20: 24-26. Sanctification now is God's separation of individuals from the world unto Himself in Christ, so that those so separated are "not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world." They are in Him as risen and sanctified in the power of a new life, if this be real in them.}

It is commonly said that the resurrection of Christ is the proof of the truth of the Christian religion, and the demonstration that the work of Christ in His death was accomplished. That is indeed a truth for infidels. If we would prove the truth of Christianity to those who do not believe, the fact of the resurrection is the pivot, so to speak, on which the evidence of its truth turns. God gave it for this end. But for Christians, for those who already believe in the blessed Saviour, for those whose hope is already founded on the certainty of the word, and who desire to find the power of that word in their regenerate souls, the resurrection, as set forth in the Scriptures, contains much more.

The misery of the Church, and one of the consequences of her long slumber, has been to be satisfied with having, by the grace of God, recovered, as far as it is indeed the case, the truth of the completeness of the work of Christ. There Christians are too often apt to stop, or rather in the hope of having a part in it. We little think of searching the word to discover the riches contained in it, to find the revelation of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, the portion and heritage of every regenerated soul.

149 Sometimes this indolence of the flesh excuses itself under the name of wisdom, which would avoid speculative knowledge; sometimes even under an outward activity which has little real power, because it is habit and duty (or, at least it is the consequence of habit and duty), and not the expression of the life of a soul constrained by the love of Christ acting powerfully in it. It is not thus with lively Christians: they hunger and thirst after God. And where shall they find that which shall satisfy their desires, if not in Christ, and in all the glory which is His, in the goodness and power He has shewn forth, and which alone can satisfy the souls of His believing people?

Paul had none of those thoughts, wise as they may seem according to the flesh, when he spoke of the doctrine in question. He regarded all things as loss in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord, for whom he had suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung, so that he might win Christ and be found in Him, not having his own righteousness, which was of the law, but that which was of faith in Christ, the righteousness of God by faith; that he might know Jesus Christ, and the power of His resurrection from among the dead. One thing he did, forgetting the things which were behind and reaching forth to those which were before, he pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3).

He found, then, in the resurrection, not only the evidence of the foundations of his faith (Rom. 1: 4) and the proof of the accomplishment of the satisfaction for sin (1 Cor. 15: 17), but much more still. The resurrection was, to this apostle of the faith as to Peter, the object and source of a living hope, the power of the life within. He sought to know the power of the resurrection: he suffered the loss of all things, if by any means he might attain unto it. If the Church has lost her life, her spiritual power, it is not by concealing from herself that which acted with such energy on the soul of the apostle Paul, which presented itself as the dawn of blessing to the mind of Peter, that she can hope to recover it. Beloved brethren, let us then seek the truth on this point and examine the blessed word of our God, that we may be instructed on these powerful objects of faith; and may the Spirit of God guide us into all truth, according to His gracious promise — a promise He never fails to fulfil: let us then expect its accomplishment!

150 I said that the foundation and the hopes of the Christian faith are bound up together in this truth. 1 Corinthians 15 clearly shews the resurrection to be the object of Christian hope. As it regards ourselves, the same chapter teaches us that it is also its foundation. "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins."

With regard to the Person of Christ (the fundamental truth of the whole of Christianity), we find that He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1: 4). In the same epistle we read, "who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification," chap. 4: 25. In chapter 8 of the same epistle we find that the glory of the risen Christ is the object of our hope: "He hath predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (v. 29). What can be more beautiful, more striking? The manner in which these are brought together is very clear. The Church sees Christ glorified at the right hand of God. There she sees the evidence that all has been accomplished for her, and that a righteousness belongs to her in the Person of Christ, which will not defile even the throne of God. But in this glory she also sees the result of that righteousness. (See Phil. 2: 6-10.) She sees in the Person of Christ the glory consequent upon it; that is to say, the glory which belongs also to the Church herself, as participating in this righteousness, by union with Christ. "The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them." Here we have the true sense of Galatians 5: 5: "We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." We do not wait for righteousness, we have it already in Christ by faith. Such is specially the position of the Church. Justified by faith, but seeing in Christ not only this righteousness accomplished, but also the glory and, so to speak, the recompense consequent upon it, we, as justified, as filled with the Spirit through which we thus behold Christ — the Spirit whose presence is the seal of that righteousness, we wait for the glory as that which belongs to us, as that which is due to the righteousness in which we participate.

The use which Paul makes of this truth as regards the justification of the sinner, is very remarkable; and we shall see that, by laying the resurrection as the foundation of justification by faith, justification is inseparably united to sanctification. In the end of Romans 3 the apostle had spoken of the blood of Christ, as the thing which God had proposed as the object of justifying faith. In chapter 4 he continues the subject; and, speaking of the justification of Abraham, he proves that he was justified by faith: but the subject of his faith was, that his seed should equal the stars in number. How could such a truth as this become the subject of a justifying faith? We have the apostle's answer: "He considered not his own body now dead," "being fully persuaded, that what God had promised, he was able to also perform; and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness; and not to him only, but to us also, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." Faith, then, in the power of "God who quickeneth the dead," was the faith that justified Abraham. Peter gives the same character to justifying faith: "You," says he, "who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead," 1 Pet. 1: 21.

151 The Church sees Christ dead for the sins that she had committed. This is the end of all that she had done, as descended from the first Adam; of all that the members do, as having in them, by extraction from him, the nature of the first Adam. The amazing love of the Saviour led Him to put Himself in the place of the Church, and to become her substitute in meeting the pains of death, the just judgment of the most holy God, and the sufferings consequent upon His wrath — a judgment which He felt in all its power (because He was Himself holy), even according to the power of God — wrath of which He felt all the weight, all the horror, because He loved according to the love of God. He, I say, having given Himself unto death for that object, giving up the ghost, bowed beneath the weight of our sins. Satan, the prince of this world, who had the power of death, though finding nothing in Christ to give him power over Him, rejoiced in his victory over the only just One, the only hope of the world, saying, by the mouth of his servants, "Aha! aha!" and death boasted of having swallowed its only noble victim. But its joy was short; the triumph of the prince of darkness was but the display of his defeat. He had had to meet, not men captive in his power in the first Adam, but the Captain of our salvation. He had had to enter into combat with Him — he had had to put forth all his power, all his strength, against Him who had taken our cause in hand. But Christ had submitted Himself to the justice of God, not to those who persecuted Him whom God had stricken. The devil outwardly carried out the sentence, because he had the power of death over us by the judgment of God, but the sentence itself was God's justice against us; and God's justice was satisfied, and Satan's power destroyed: "Through death he destroyed him who had the power of death," Heb. 2: 14.

152 The resurrection shone upon the world, like the rising of the sun. Faith alone beheld it, the faith of those whose eyes were opened to see the great and sure result of the combat, the consequences of this judgment of God — the faith of those whom God had chosen to give testimony to the complete victory of Him, who alone had undertaken, who alone could undertake the combat; to give testimony, I say, to a world whose blinding by Satan was clearly demonstrated. The victory was gained by Christ alone; but the Church, as the object of it, participates in all its results. It is very much to lower the position of the Church, merely to say she is blessed by Christ, blessed of God. She is blessed with Christ; she is the companion of His glory, the co-heritor of all the promises. She has fellowship with Him who blesses; she enters into the joy of her Lord. Partaker of the divine nature, she feels derivatively, and in communion with Him who is its source, the joy, the delight which the God of love finds in blessing, because He is love itself. How is it, then, that the Church participates here below in the victory of Christ, and in the fruits of that victory? It is by union with Him, who has been to every one of her members a quickening Spirit, and has quickened them and united them to Himself as members of His body.

Christ is their life, and they are rendered partakers, in virtue of their union with Him, of all the consequences of what He has done, of all that is in Him as risen, of all the favour in which He stands before God — a life and union which make them the objects of the satisfaction which God takes in Him, and which will make them, when the time is come, participators in all the glory to which He is heir, and in which He will be manifested. The Church is looked at by God, and consequently by faith also, as dead with Christ: her sins being put on Him, the remembrance of them before God is buried in the grave of Christ. As the just God He remembers them no more: to do so would be not to estimate aright the blood of Christ, not to be just towards Him. "He is faithful and just to forgive us." The blood of Christ, and not our sins, is before the eyes of God. He esteems us as bought with the price of His blood.

153 But the saints are also looked at as risen with Christ, living before the Father in the life of Christ, chastised by the Father (who loves them perfectly as He loves the Son Himself) when they turn aside from the ways which please Him — ways suitable to such a life, to such a union. "I am the vine," said Jesus; "my Father is the husbandman." God righteously regards us in Christ, as perfect before Him as Christ Himself is perfect — our sins gone in the cross: In love He chastens us as being in Christ, when we do not walk in His ways according to the power of the risen Christ, as inheritors of the glory which He inherited in resurrection.

The Scriptures speak thus on the subject: "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son," Col. 1: 12, 13.

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it," Col. 2: 12-15. The victory of Satan over the first Adam rendered him master of his possessions and of his inheritance: "The creature is subject to vanity." The victory of the Second Adam over Satan spoiled him of all that which he had taken from the first Adam.

God, in the loving-kindness and wisdom of His counsels, has not yet manifested the results; but the victory is fully gained. The Church knows it — at least she ought to know it. The consequences to us are these: "If ye then be risen [with] Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory," Col. 3: 1-4. The prayer of the apostle for the Ephesians on the same subject runs thus: "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling," the calling of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory (He is called the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ is regarded as Head of the Church and as man), "and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." And when we "were dead in sins," continues the Spirit by the mouth of the apostle, "he hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," Eph. 2: 5, 6.

154 The saints, then, are regarded by God as risen with Christ, and consequently as perfectly justified from all their sins. They are clean, according to the cleanness with which Christ appears before God, being presented to God in Him and with Him. But how does the saint actually now participate in blessings so great? It is by partaking of that life, in the power of which Christ is risen. Thus it is, then, that by the doctrine of the resurrection, as it is set forth in the Scriptures, justification and sanctification become necessarily united; thus it is that I share in the righteousness of God, by being quickened with the life in which Christ was raised from the dead, coming up out of the grave, all our trespasses being forgiven. But this life is the life of holiness here below. It is the source of holiness in us; it is holiness itself, the life of God in us. It is in this that we have the will to belong to God, acknowledging the grace which has redeemed us, and convinced that our life is not of us but of God. It is in the power of this life that we seek the things which are above, which are in Christ and which are His, that our affections are carried out towards God; and in this consists true sanctification, the old man being judged as dead, because Christ has died on account of it. "The body is dead on account of sin" — that is its only fruit — "the spirit is life because of righteousness." Christ then, in giving us the life, which is a new and holy nature in us, makes us partakers of all that He has done for us as risen from the dead, and of all His acceptance before the Father of glory.

155 Moreover, we cannot rightly estimate sin but by the resurrection, and for this reason, it is the doctrine of the resurrection, and of our being raised with Christ, which teaches us that we were dead in sin. Otherwise it would perhaps be a healing, an amelioration of man such as he is, a preservation from death by the help of Christ, a troubling of the waters, that we might plunge into them ourselves and be healed. In this way it is that the natural man looked at the extent of sin, as the Jews and Martha and Mary expressed it, when they said, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?" "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."

But if we have been raised with Christ, it is because we were dead in our sins. The doctrine of our entire misery, our complete fall, flows from, and (so to speak) springs out of, this truth. And the blessing is proportionate; for death is passed, and everything that belongs to the old man is dead, through faith, with Him. We have another life quite new, in which we live, saying, "We are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh."

There is another consequence, namely, the feeling of the entire favour of God attached to the idea of being a son — "the grace in which we stand." Having entered by the cross, we stand in the favour of God in the holy place; having received not the spirit of bondage, but the Spirit of adoption, we cry, "Abba, Father!" Our participation in the resurrection is our being born of God. As delivered, we stand before God as His children, His accepted ones, His holy ones. Love was manifested towards us in that we are in Him, such as He is before God, even in this world, because we are united to Him by the Spirit He has given us. Our filial relation to the Father, as being purified from sin, clothed with the robe of righteousness (a relation which gives joy to the soul), flows from this doctrine. He has given us the privilege to become children of God — not servants, but children.

156 Here then are some sweet results from this truth, which exist even here. Our union with Christ is the foundation. We may follow these results, even as regards our body, into the glory. The resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits, that of the saints the harvest. There is an intimate connection between the resurrection of the saints and the resurrection of Christ, on account of the union of the Church with Him, because of the one Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, and which dwells in Him and in all the members of His body.

It is not thus with regard to the wicked, although it is the power of Christ which raises them; yet it is not because of union with Him, nor by His Spirit dwelling in them; for the Spirit does not dwell in them. Therefore actual resurrection is a thing which belongs to the saints, as a full accomplishment, in result, of their union with Christ, not as a necessary preliminary to their judgment; indeed Christ has already been judged for them and suffered the penalty of all their sins. The resurrection of the saints is the consequence of their having passed through the judgment of their sins in Christ, not the preliminary to their judgment by Christ.

It is the reception by Christ of the Church, who suffered with Him that she might be in the glory with Him in His kingdom; as in John 14, "In my Father's house are many mansions." Christ is not gone there to be alone: "If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." This is the judgment of the Church at the return of Christ. They are manifested before His judgment seat, but already glorified. This does not deny a difference of glory among the saints, that some will be on His right hand and others on His left in His kingdom. It only shews that the resurrection of the saint is the result of the accomplishment of their judgment in Christ, and the full completeness of the life which she already possesses as risen with Him, the effect of the union of the saints with Him, as dwelt in by the same Spirit. It is necessary that, when Christ is manifested, the bodies of those who are His should also enjoy the privileges of the kingdom, as part of that which He has purchased, thus delivering them completely and finally from the power of Satan and of death. "If the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead," says the apostle to the Romans, "dwell in you, he who raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you"; a passage which evidently reveals to us, that the resurrection of the saints is a consequence of the resurrection of Christ; that, in fact, the resurrection of the Church is a consequence of the interest which God takes in her, as He does in Christ her Head.

157 We shall see then that many passages manifest this special place of the saints in the resurrection, and that the Scriptures speak of the resurrection of the Church as a thing entirely distinct from the resurrection of the wicked. In this manner Paul, in a passage already quoted, says (Phil. 3), "If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead." Also in 1 Corinthians 15: "Christ the first-fruits, afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming." In Luke 20 we find in one of our Lord's discourses on this subject, that the existence of the relation between God and Abraham necessarily supposed the resurrection, not merely the life of his separated spirit. Many other passages declare also this truth, and moreover that this resurrection was a thing which belonged exclusively to the children of God. He speaks of "those who shall be accounted worthy to obtain . . . the resurrection from the dead." How are they found worthy to obtain the resurrection, if the resurrection is a thing common to the saints and to the world (in a word, if the saints and the world are raised together)? The Lord adds, "Neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." See how the power of the resurrection is identified with this privilege of being children of God.

The subject is treated of in a connected manner in John 5: 21-29: "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life. . . . The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment." Here are two great means of upholding and of vindicating the glory of the humbled Son. He quickens — He judges. He quickens and the Father quickens also. He alone judges; the Father judges no man.

158 The saints are quickened in order to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. Christ, in judgment, claims and maintains His glory and His right over all those who have neglected Him, or who were opposed to His glory, in order that all, even the wicked, should honour the Son as they honour the Father.

To this end we find that there are two resurrections: the resurrection unto life, that is to say, the fulfilment of His work in the quickening of the saints, applying to their bodies the power of the resurrection which had already been applied to their souls, when they were regenerated; and the resurrection unto judgment, in order that those who have done evil should be judged. I do not here speak of the interval; but I merely say that there are two resurrections, which are different, as well in their objects and character, as in the persons who will take part in them. I will just remark, by the way, that the expression, on which those who object to the interpretation which supposes an interval of time between these two resurrections rest their opinion, has in no respect the force which they attach to it. The Lord says, "The hour is coming." See, say they, a proof that the resurrection of the just and the unjust will take place at the same time, forgetting that the Lord uses the same word (in verse 25) to specify the time of His ministry, and, at the least, eighteen hundred years of a new period which commenced at His resurrection.

These two characters of the two resurrections, of which I have spoken, are very important, and distinguish in every sense these two events. The one, that of the saints who have suffered with Christ, is the application to our bodies of the power of the life of Christ, who has saved us, in order to accomplish His word toward us — resurrection being the redemption of the body, and the consequence of what Christ did when He saved us from the judgment; the other, the vindication of His glory in judgment, and the exercise of the justice of the living God against all those who have sinned. The first resurrection, consequently, is that which we anxiously wait for, to the end that we may be with Him, and, when Christ appears, we may also appear with Him in glory — an epoch which the whole creation is expecting. See Romans 8: 19, where it is called "the manifestation of the sons of God," "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

159 There is a passage in the Scriptures which has struck me much on this subject, and which conveys a special instruction on the difference there is between viewing the resurrection as an event common to the Church and the world, or as a privilege which belongs separately to the Church in consequence of the power of the life which is in Christ. I speak of John 11. Jesus says to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Here is real faith, a truth she had well learnt. She was not a Sadducee. This is the faith of the Church generally; "He will rise again at the last day." Without doubt. The same thing might be said of the most wicked man. "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? — that is, the power of Jesus when present, the power which He will manifest when He comes again. "She saith unto him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." Here again is a good confession: those who are saved doubtless believe it also. But here, in fact, the faith of the greatest part of the Church stops.

"And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee." Why did she do this? why so much haste to quit Jesus that good Comforter, and to call her sister? Was there not the secret consciousness that she could not hold converse with Jesus on subjects such as these? She believed Him to be the Son of God; but "I am the resurrection and the life" was something too deep for her; her heart was not at ease in the company of Jesus speaking thus. And have we nothing similar to this? Are not the sweetest, the most blessed privileges of the Church too often the things which send the children of God away? They are not at their ease when Christ speaks of such things. They must go and seek some Mary. It is a call for some other person than for them. What were the different characters of these two women, both loved of the Lord? "A woman, named Martha, received him into her house; and she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving." The heart of Martha was not at ease, through her want of communion with Jesus, and could not enter into the most blessed and encouraging truths in the things which the heart of Jesus, full of consoling power, poured forth to relieve the miseries by which it was broken. To understand them was beyond the habits of Martha's mind; and, saying all that she could say in answer to Jesus, she goes to seek some one who, her conscience tells her, is more capable of understanding that which had just proceeded from the heart of Jesus — more capable of maintaining communion with Him and of sustaining a conversation which was painful to herself, because her spiritual understanding was unequal to it. How often is Martha's state called wisdom! How often are the things with which the heart of Jesus overflows — the revelations of our blessing — designated things likely to trouble the Church, perhaps regarded even as reveries! How often does the Church persist in remaining in darkness, fleeing from Jesus and His goodness, to conceal from herself her incapacity of communion with Him in these things — satisfied with herself because she can make the confession of Martha, because she can say with her, "Yea, Lord, thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."

160 "I am rich, I have need of nothing." Poor Church — yes, poor every one of us! May the love of Jesus shine upon thee! O may He give thee such confidence in His love that thou mayest never tire of drawing from His heart those sweet truths which are enclosed therein — truths which attach the soul to Him, and which give strength of soul to walk in the world separated in heart unto Him — truths which give power to that secret communion with Him which will make us faithful in His absence, joyful in His presence, calm in soul in the midst of all the misery of a world ruined by death; hastening to run towards Him when we hear those sweet words, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." Be it so, O Jesus our Lord! Deign, O deign to look upon Thy Church, Thy poor Church, who loves Thee and whom Thou lovest. If she is weak, strengthen her; if she has turned aside, O God, she loves Thee. Bring her, O bring her back to Thyself, even to Thyself — her blessedness and her joy, her eternal joy, her Saviour, and her strength. Bring her near to Thee. Where can she find that which shall renew her strength, if not in Thee, who art the resurrection and the life?

161 One thing only remains to finish the sketch which I have attempted to make of this important subject. I well know that, far from having exhausted, I have but slightly touched upon it.

With respect to the dispensations of God, the resurrection is the fundamental subject of the word of God, since sin and death entered into the world, and sin reigns unto death. If sin reigns unto death, then resurrection only can be the victory over it; and it is a complete and final victory. For he that is dead is freed or justified from sin. "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him," Rom. 6: 7-9. Throughout the Scriptures we find this truth more or less fully disclosed — the foundation of every hope and of all moral judgment. (See Psalms 17, 49; Isaiah 38.) And even the restoration of the Jewish people is described as a resurrection. (See Ezek. 37; Isa. 26.) There is the source of joy, as in Psalm 16, Job 19. And it was a truth so positive — a notion so necessary to the thoughts of God and of His righteous ones, that when God said, "I am the God of Abraham," the Lord explains it as shewing that Abraham was to be raised; for "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," Matt. 22: 32. I said that one thing only remained.

It is generally thought that Revelation 20 is the only support which the word of God gives to the notion of a separate resurrection of the Church. We have already seen that this idea is connected with all the truths in the word of God.

That the saints will rise when Christ comes, is a thing acknowledged, as we have seen (1 Cor. 15: 23; Phil. 3: 20, 21; 1 Thess. 4: 15-17.) In the Apocalypse 19, 20 we get the details. There we see that the resurrection of the saints will precede, by a thousand years, the resurrection of the rest of the dead, in order that they who have suffered with Christ, should also reign with Him when He takes the kingdom, and that they should appear with Him in glory when He appears who is their life. This is the important and striking completion of this great truth — a completion which crowns with results so important a truth — which, having its root in the lower parts of the earth, that is, in the grave of Christ, drawing its strength from the life of God, stretches out its branches, and lifts its glorious head towards heaven, covering with its spreading boughs all the inhabitants of a blest earth — the tree of life, from which are gathered the fruits of all the promises of God.

162 Christian, do you know the power of the resurrection of Christ? Are your thoughts those of one who is risen with Him, set on things above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God? Is your salvation a thing accomplished for your soul, so that in the perfect confidence of a new life before God, you can, under the conduct of the good Shepherd, as sheep known of the Lord, go in and out and find good pasture in the fields of His delight? Are you, as being raised up with Him, dead to sin, dead to the pleasures, to the greatness, to the fading glory of the world which crucified the Lord of glory? Do the things of the world exercise no longer an influence over your thoughts — over your life; those things which, as far as man was concerned, caused the death of Jesus? Do you not desire to be something in the world? Ah! you do not hold yourselves for dead. The darkness which surrounded the cross is still upon your hearts. You do not breathe the fresh air of the resurrection of Jesus, of the presence of your God. Oh! dull and senseless people of God — people ignorant of your real treasures, of your real liberty! Yes, to be alive with Christ is to be dead to all that the flesh desires.

But if the risen life of Christ, the joy of the light of His presence, the divine and tender love of which Jesus is the expression and the object, beam on you; if the beauty of holiness in the heavenly places; if the universal and perfect homage rendered to God by hearts which never tire, whose adorations serve but to renew their strength; if all things full of the glory of God, giving occasion to praises, whose source never dries up, and whose subjects never fail; if these things please you, then mortify your members which are upon the earth. "Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." And think you that the honours, the glory, the greatness, the pleasures, the lusts, of this world, of which Satan is the prince, can enter there? The gate is too narrow — the gate of death, the death of a crucified and rejected Christ — the gate of death, which, if it be deliverance from the guilt of sin, is also deliverance from its yoke. By that gate sin enters not: there must be left all that pertains to the flesh. Those are things which cannot be hid with Christ in God; they have played their part by crucifying Him on earth.

163 The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Christian, do you believe this? It is a new life which enters into those holy places, where all things are new, in order to be the joy and enjoyment of a risen people. Christian, Christian, death has written its sentence on all things here: by cherishing them you only fill his hand. The resurrection of Christ gives you a right to bury them, and to bury death itself with them in the grave, the grave of Christ; that "whether we live, we may live unto God," inheritors with Him in a new life of all the promises. Remember, that, if you are saved, you are risen with Christ. May He, from whom all grace and every perfect gift proceed, grant you this!

The Doctrine of the Wesleyans on Perfection,

and their employment of Holy Scripture as to this subject.

*

J. N. Darby.

<03006F> 164

{*Lausanne, 1840. (Translated from the French.)}

Introduction

The main object of this tract is to establish the true meaning of certain texts, which, as experience proves, have been the occasion of much difficulty to sincere Christians. With this view the form of a dialogue has been adopted. In fact, certain conversations, of which this is a summary, gave occasion to the undertaking. That form seemed most favourable to the statement of objections, and of the texts brought forward. Whatever of importance has been advanced from the word is here answered; it is hoped that nothing of that kind has been passed over. It has struck us, that the best reply to the entire work, which contains many of the arguments it was judged necessary to meet, is to be found in the character and tone of that work itself.* It appeared, therefore, essential to confine ourselves to warning simple-minded believers against the way in which God's word is therein quoted. This, in fact, is all that we have done.

{*The reader will be reminded, by occasional references to the tract here alluded to, and also by the concluding remark, that the original of this dialogue was published in a foreign country under peculiar circumstances.}

One important remark, omitted in what follows, may be here introduced. The source whence John Wesley derived this doctrine was by no means the Bible; he himself honestly confessed it. He believed the Bible confirmed his ideas, but he did not derive them thence. He learned them from Bishop Taylor, Law, and Thomas à-Kempis. It was not till four years after he had studied the first of these writers, and while he was still deeply imbued with his doctrines, that he took the Bible as the sole standard of truth.

Thomas à Kempis is well known by his work on the imitation of Christ. He was a Catholic, who, as far as he had light, was pious; but in whose writings the cross of Christ scarcely once appears as an atonement and the way of salvation. He must be regarded as a man who endeavoured to love God, but who had the least possible knowledge of the love of God, and of the truth of the gospel.

165 Law and Taylor, though nominally Protestants, were much his inferiors; they were less humble, and, if possible, yet more ignorant of the gospel. Both of them were mystics: Taylor was likewise very superstitious; and neither the one nor the other had the slightest conception of grace. No one charges them with insincerity; but no instructed Christian who has read their works doubts their utter ignorance of the gospel. Such are the three sources whence John Wesley acknowledged he first derived the doctrine which he has introduced into the Church. Their influence is easily perceptible in his ideas of perfection. We shall see that in the exposition which he gives of his doctrine, there is not so much as an allusion to the love of God to us.

The zeal with which God inspired many Christians in Wesley's time was tarnished by these opinions — opinions derived from very different sources from the word of God: but a great number of those who partook of the revival, and laboured with equal or even greater blessing, never received them.

___________

A. Good morning, brother; I am very glad to meet you. I have been wishing to see you, for I am told you have adopted these new opinions; and I desire to learn from your own lips what you think of them. For my part, keeping to the word of God, I cannot receive them.

N. Why do you call them new opinions? They are God's truth. Does not God command us to be holy as He is holy — perfect as our Father who is in heaven is perfect? Would you have us preach sin, and tell Christians that they must needs go on sinning to the end of their days, and thus make death their saviour? Thank God, I cannot admit such things; I ought to be free from sin; and if I am not so yet, as God has promised it to me, He will fulfil His promise. He has commanded it; and He commands nothing which cannot be realized. The word of God is full of exhortations to perfection. And behold the fruits of this doctrine: what holiness, what zeal, what love, and that in a body of one million, two hundred thousand Christians: admirable testimony to the grace of God!

166 A. Softly, my dear friend. You have brought forward so many things at once, that it will take a little time to answer you. As to the fruits you refer to, I must differ from you; I suspect such boasting. I readily admit that there are many dear Christians among the Wesleyans; and then, the Church of Christ in general is, at the present time, in such weakness: there is so little liberty and joy; there is, in my judgment, such glaring deficiency in the manner of presenting the gospel, that I am not surprised that many are led away by a doctrine which promises something better. By a freer testimony, for example, of the love of God for sinners; by presenting, more decidedly, Christ as the means of deliverance, it may in some degree supply the deficiencies in the present style of preaching.

N. But how can good be done by a doctrine which, taken as a whole, is false?

A. I will tell you. They say, "We ought not to seek sanctification by human effort; but that by receiving Christ as our sanctification the germ of sin is destroyed, and we are perfectly holy, and without sin or evil concupiscence." It is true that we shall never, by any strength or effort of man, attain to sanctification; and that if we look to Christ, we shall find an abundant spring of life and holiness. I grant also that a soul which is under the law, and groaning beneath the burden of its wretchedness, will get no blessing by useless struggles for deliverance. But all this does not hinder the doctrine, as a whole, being false. For it is false to say, that by receiving Christ as our sanctification we can ever, on earth, attain to perfection, and extirpate entirely sin from our nature. It is an error which connects itself with a host of other errors, destructive of the most precious truths and consolations of the gospel; and which injures, in a high degree, our sanctification itself.

N. But how can it injure sanctification?

A. Before I answer, let me briefly state my judgment as to the history of Wesleyanism. The ruinous condition of the Church, a century ago, gave rise, through divine grace, to a remarkable movement. Some truly devoted men felt impelled to preach, and to call men to repentance. But instead of adhering to the word, certain of them framed for themselves a system of doctrines and discipline — doctrines which, while admitting salvation by Jesus, have put aside many of the most precious truths in connection with it — a discipline admirably suited, in a worldly point of view, like that of the Jesuits, for the aggrandisement of their society (for indeed it is a society, not a church), but in the highest degree injurious to the souls of men. I am perfectly convinced that Christians who are not members of their body, but who well know them, will not be found to confirm the testimony which the Wesleyans bear to themselves.

167 Let us now turn to the doctrine of God's word. I observe, in the outset, that the reproach which you have learned to cast upon preachers of the gospel does not appear to me to be a fruit of the Spirit of God — when you say, for example, that such persons preach sin. Do you believe, then, that all who have not received the doctrines of Wesley love or preach sin?

N. Not exactly so: but you say a Christian will go on sinning to the end, and that it is death which delivers us from sin.

A. My dear friend, that is not what I say, but this: that the root of sin will remain in us until we are dislodged from the body, or until we are changed, because we expect the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body (Rom. 8: 23), which has not yet taken place. But I do not say that we ought to walk according to this evil principle: quite the contrary; we ought to walk "in the Spirit," although "the flesh" still exists.

N. I do not understand what you mean by the flesh. It is said (1 Thess. 5: 23), "May the God of peace sanctify you wholly, body, soul, and spirit. God is faithful, who also will do it." Now what is there more in man than body, soul, and spirit? And if we ought always to walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5: 16), then it follows that we are disputing about words.

A. By no means; for the moment you affirm that we can be perfect, and that there is no longer sin in you, a multitude of things, which the word of God calls sin, cease to be so in your estimation. The contrast between your condition and that of Jesus Christ becomes less sensible to your mind. You attenuate sin. Real sanctification suffers in proportion, and the distinction between sin and sins is entirely lost sight of. It is because your doctrine attenuates the idea of sin; because it does away with the rule, and lowers the standard, of sanctification, that I oppose it with all my might. This is no difference on a point of knowledge or speculation merely, but involves the question: What is sin? — a question that is evidently fundamental and of the highest importance in practice.

168 When you say, that body, soul, and spirit are the whole man, I reply, Alas! no. Before the fall, body, soul, and spirit were in Adam; and after the fall there was additionally in him a will in rebellion against God; there was in him sin, which the word of God calls "the flesh," Matt. 26: 41, etc. There was a something which "lusteth against the Spirit" (Gal. 5: 17), and which "cannot be subject to the law of God," Rom. 8: 7. This is that truth, which those who preach perfection carefully conceal, a truth bound up with the whole doctrine of the "new man." Now, to say, I do not know what "the flesh" is (an expression in the mouth of all those who have received this doctrine), is of itself a melancholy proof of the effect it produces. For it is certain that there are few words more frequently employed in the word of God than "the flesh," or any subject more often and carefully treated; for it is that principle which lusts and struggles against the Spirit of Christ in the man in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells, and which cannot be subject to the law, if we are under the law.

N. True; as long as the flesh exists, it cannot be subject to the law of God. But we are under the law of love; and Christ and Belial cannot dwell in the same temple, that is to say, in our body.*

{*See Wesley, p. 17.}

A. I do not like to hear the word of God inaccurately quoted, as you have just done, to give the apparent sanction of its authority to a thought which is not in it. It is clear that Christ and Belial do subsist together. They were together in the world, of which Belial himself was "the prince," when Jesus was alive upon earth. But the word says 2 Cor. 6: 15), "There is no concord between Christ and Belial," which is a very different matter. Our body is not the temple of Belial; it is the temple of the Holy Ghost, although the root of sin still remains in us. And herein consists the essential difference between us and Jesus Christ, according to the flesh. He was born of the Holy Spirit, even as to His flesh; but we were conceived in sin; Psalm 51: 5.

There is to me, I confess, something very grievous in your incorrect quotations, for by such means you throw dust into the eyes of those who are not well versed in the Scriptures. When you say, we are under the law of love, you say well. At any rate, the expression does not displease me; but as I know what it means in your doctrine, I confess it conveys an idea which pains me much. We have a much higher standard of sanctification by the rending of the veil (Heb. 6: 19; ch. 10: 20.) Made partakers of "the divine nature," we judge to be sin everything which was not in Christ while on earth, and which Christ risen cannot sanction. At the same time I see the complete sanctification of our persons by the blood of the Lamb. Instead of this, your doctrine uses the gospel as the means of lessening our responsibility, teaching us to make light of things which would be condemned as sins under the law. The light of God's holiness ought to make us judge everything which is not agreeable to that light; whereas, we are told that under this law of love these things are not imputed to us as sins — that they are not, correctly speaking, sins at all. The gospel becomes, by this means, not salvation by grace, but only a less rigorous law. Sin, as I said, is attenuated, and that to a degree almost inconceivable.

169 And when you say, "As long as the flesh exists," where do you find in the word that the flesh has ceased to exist? I read there (Gal. 5: 17) that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other. Again I read (2 Cor. 12: 7) that Paul needed a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet him, lest he should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations. It appears, therefore, that a man's being caught up to the third heaven by no means changed the nature or tendency of the flesh in its opposition and unthankfulness to God. Peter learned this by humbling experience (Gal. 2: 11), for although he was filled with the Spirit, he ceased to eat with the Gentiles, and did not walk uprightly. Instead of treating these things as if they were not sins, Paul withstood Peter to the face and reproved him before them all; Gal. 2: 14.

N. I admit that in some Christians there is a conflict with the flesh — that all they can do is to get the mastery over sin; but there are some who, having received Christ as their sanctification, are dead to sin and have no more conflict. They have crucified the old man with his affections and lusts. Several passages expressly declare this; and when you refer to the Galatians, you ought to remember that they had "fallen from grace"; and no one should speak as if authorized, from such a state, to prove what a Christian can be who has fully received Christ. In the same epistle (chap. 6: 14) Paul, speaking of himself, says that he had crucified the old man; in chapter 2: 20, that it was not he who lived, but Christ who lived in him; and he says, Reckon yourselves to be dead; and, as the apostle John affirms, such cannot sin, because they are born of God; 1 John 3: 9.

170 A. You admit, then, in contradiction with what you lately said, that what you call Belial, and the Spirit of Christ, exist together in the same person. For if there are conflicts in Christians, and if the flesh can lust against the Spirit, it is evident your principle is altogether false. If you say, that the conflict is not against the Spirit, but is that of a man whose conscience is awakened, I reply from the word, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit," and not merely against the conscience. But taking this principle to be applied to the Galatians, it is added, in the broadest terms, that "these are contrary the one to the other": and when the apostle adds, "so that ye cannot* do the things that ye would," it is only a consequence which he draws from it for the Galatians. And the apostle does not go on to say, But you have power to escape from this condition, but he introduces at this point an altogether new principle: "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law" (v. 18). It is so far from true, that the apostle who, doubtless, was eminently faithful, speaks of himself only, or of his state of sanctification, when he says, "I am crucified with Christ" (chap. 2: 20), that he affirms that all Christians are crucified with Him. In this same epistle (chap. 5: 24) he asserts, "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Here, then, is no question of any degree of sanctification, or of the reception of Christ by certain souls for their sanctification; but the apostle is speaking of what is true of all Christians. This truth is clearly taught in Romans 6: 1-11, where Paul says, "So many of us" — mark the expression — "as were baptized into Jesus Christ . . . are buried with him [Christ] into death; . . . that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. . . . For he that is dead is freed from sin." But the apostle derives hence this clear and simple conclusion — not, You have therefore no more evil concupiscence — not, You are entirely dead to all sinful inclination; but — "Let not sin therefore REIGN in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." A poor, miserable, and unintelligible conclusion to those who assert that sin no longer exists in a man who is crucified with Christ; a conclusion which we receive most heartily through grace, but one which is altogether different from that which you derive from this passage. It is indeed incompatible with your interpretation of it. If sin no longer exists in us, it is a weak conclusion to say, Let it not reign; and to say, Let it not reign, is incompatible with the thought that it no longer exists. The conclusion which the Holy Spirit draws, and which we have just pointed out, is constantly that of the word of God in similar passages. Paul says to the Colossians (chap. 3: 3), "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." He then concludes thus in verse 5, "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." And if you would know how the Christian is dead, you have only to read Colossians 2: 11, 12, 20. To be dead, therefore, is really true of an Christians, according to the mind of God. There is very culpable negligence in quoting such passages in proof of a state of perfection in certain Christians. The same may be said of what you advance from 1 John 3: 9. When I examine the passage, instead of finding that the apostle is there speaking of Christians who have received Christ for their sanctification, after a particular manner, and one which makes such persons perfect, I find, as in the passages we have referred to, that he is speaking of all Christians. For, as a distinctive mark between them and the children of the devil, he brings forward the character of that nature which they have received from Christ, and consequently that of their life and conduct, etc. (v. 9). The quotation of such a passage shews, I repeat it, very great negligence, not to say more.

{*I quote from the authorised version, but, excellent as it is, in this verse it contains an error. It states an impossibility of walking according to holy desires; the original does not. It says, not "so that ye cannot," but "in order that ye should not." It does not affect the question here.}

171 N. Do you think, then, that we must always go on sinning? Is it not said of many of the faithful, even before the coming of Jesus Christ, that they were perfect? So far is it from true that we are saved by death, that Enoch and Elijah were translated without passing through death. Job was perfect. Noah was perfect. Abraham and the Jews were commanded to be perfect. Paul says to the Philippians (chap. 3: 15), "as many as be perfect." There are more than a hundred passages which affirm the same truth. The Lord Himself has said, "that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17: 23); and Paul says to the Ephesians (5: 27) in speaking of the Church, "That he might present her to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." In truth there are so many passages which speak of perfection, that I do not understand how you can deny it or attribute to death what the word of God so clearly applies to our state, whilst we are in this present life; for that word to Abraham was, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect," Gen. 17: 1. And it is manifest that the thorn in the flesh of Paul, of which you have spoken, was not a sin, for God could not try him in this way.

172 A. I hasten to reply that I am quite of your opinion respecting Paul's thorn in the flesh. It assuredly was not a sin, but some chastening, something outwardly painful, which God sent to arrest the working of sin, and to prevent it from hindering the apostle's labours. All that I infer from this passage of Paul is, that to be caught up to the third heaven does not change the flesh; that the flesh being ever the same may grow proud even of this higher knowledge of God; that the remedy does not consist in a change of the nature, but in some means of subjecting and taming that nature, which is still evil. The passage from Paul is a clear proof of this. When you ask, Are we to go on sinning? I answer, No — assuredly not! Your question evidently betrays that device of Satan which I wish to expose, and by which he beguiles the simplicity of men. The advocates of this doctrine confound, as far as they can, sin with sins; that is to say, they confound the actions we commit in following our evil nature with that nature itself, so as to deny the very existence of sin in the man who has put on Christ. I do not say that we ought to sin; for we ought to walk after the Spirit, and not after the flesh; Rom. 8. But I say, on the other hand, that sin is in our nature. The precept, not to walk after the flesh, shews that the flesh is a thing evil in itself. Still the flesh is neither temptation nor Satan, but something in the man, which is not at all sin actually committed — a something which, in our fallen and corrupt nature, cannot, as it is written, be subject to the law of God; Rom. 8: 7. Now we ought never to live according to this principle; and God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear; 1 Cor. 10: 13. And herein consists the difference between Christ and us as to His humanity. He was born of God, as to His flesh — we are not.

173 As to Enoch and Elijah, if they did not see death, it is because they were translated, which comes to the same thing; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; 1 Cor. 15: 50.

Our death does not save us;* still it is equally true that we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit are not yet made partakers of the fulness of salvation; for we are "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body," Rom. 8: 23. We have not yet got possession of it. Meanwhile, there is an immense difference between my condition in this body and that in which I shall be stripped of it after this life, as there is likewise between the latter state and that in which the redemption of this body shall be completed in the resurrection. After death I am unclothed, but I am not yet clothed upon. Absent from the body, I am, already, present with the Lord; 2 Cor. 5: 8. Although I am not, then, perfect in the glory, I am nevertheless delivered from this body, which as yet does not partake of that resurrection which I enjoy in my soul through the Holy Spirit. This body, which caused me to groan upon the earth (not, it is true, without consolation), and which made all groan who then had the firstfruits of the Spirit, has to all of them ceased to be a cause for groaning. That which held us bound (in fact and not in heart) to the creation which is still subject to the bondage of corruption, no longer binds us down — the link is broken. If the goal of our hope is not attained when we are unclothed, we at least, in dying, lay aside a burden, a spotted garment, that we may at once enjoy the presence of the Lord, without hindrance; and so that the pure air and genial warmth of His presence may penetrate our souls, now liberated from every obstruction. My death, therefore, is not my saviour. When death approaches, it finds me already saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am already risen with Him. It is a fact already accomplished in my soul, which, by the Holy Ghost, experiences the blessed effect of it, and triumphs already in a "hope which maketh not ashamed." The putting off of this body adds nothing to my title in the presence of God; for I am there, by faith, what Jesus is. I am merely stripped of a body, which had not partaken of redemption, to be introduced to the presence of Jesus before my heavenly Father, waiting for what remains, to wit, that I should be clothed with "a glorious body, fashioned like unto the glorious body of Jesus Christ."

{*Yet if taken in its full sense, it is nothing less than death that does save us. "He that is dead is freed from sin." In this true scriptural sense it is death, and nothing else, as regards the first Adam state, which saves us. Christ saved us by dying for sin; and we are dead to sin, and have to reckon ourselves dead by faith.}

174 I have again to reproach you with negligence in your manner of citing Scripture. I take this opportunity to press it seriously upon you, that when quotations are turned aside from their drift and true meaning, we not only deceive ourselves, but it is certain we are not led by the Spirit of God. All confidence is shaken, and the practice to any extent, if it be habitually repeated, and for the support of that which is not the truth, forces on me the conviction that he who so does is really, although unconsciously, the instrument of the adversary. Alas! we are too apt to lose sight of the agency both of the Spirit of God and of the spirit of the enemy. I look not at the man; but I repeat that, when I see the word of God quoted in a way which is evidently false, and continually for the same purpose, I can see in it nothing less than the work of the tempter. Shall I remind you of the passages you quoted respecting the state of death as to sin, in which you say the perfect Christian is found? Well, the more I read them, the less do I think them applicable to your doctrine, and the more evident it is to me that all, without one single exception, are spoken of all Christians, to whom the Holy Spirit addresses analogous exhortations by way of practical conclusion. "Mortify your members which are on the earth." "Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies." And the same remarks apply to Romans 8: 10-12, which you have not quoted.

I have the same complaint to make as to two passages which you just now brought forward. You say, Christ "will present the Church to himself without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." But this presentation will take place in glory, when all the children of God are glorified. This passage, therefore, is opposed to your view and does not convey it; for it is above, through resurrection, they will be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, and not here below. Just so, when you say, "That they may be perfect in one" (John 17: 23), you pass over what goes before and determines the sense of the passage: "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be made perfect (or consummated) in one" (v. 22).

175 As to the examples you have pointed to in favour of your doctrine, I will use that of Job only, because we have his history in detail. The principle which you have advanced seems to me to have been there discussed pretty much at length. There was "none like Job in the earth." If, therefore, we find, in the instance of such a man, that your idea that he was without sin is utterly false, all the examples which you have cited fall to the ground at once. The question opened in the book of Job is this: Can a man, full of grace, a perfect man, be said to be entirely exempt from sin, so that he may present himself before God as being without sin, and rest in his state as righteous before Him? Or is the contrary true — namely, that sin is still in him; and if, through grace, he has walked worthy of his vocation, ought he not still to consider and judge his state before God more and more? Instead of resting satisfied with the grace which has been given to him, ought he not to judge himself, forgetting the things which are behind (in other words, all his spiritual progress), in order to refer always to God alone in this respect, reaching forth, with a humility which, in the fulness of confidence in God, nevertheless judges itself continually? I do not say that he ought to watch only, but ever to judge himself; that is, he ought always to have before God a consciousness of the nature which is in him, although it may not act, which indeed is not necessary to our recognizing its existence. Now Job was a man full of grace. He recounts his experience. We at once perceive that his mind was taken up, not with the grace of God or with the grace which is in God, but with that which was wrought in himself. He looked upon the manna which had been placed in his hands — he kept of it until the morning, and it bred worms and stank. God had seen all this before Job was sensible of it, and He sent him successive trials, until they brought out the workings of sin, and from his heart — where it lay hid — brought and laid it on his conscience. Having turned back to his own heart, the flesh claimed to itself the effect of grace, and poor Job took pleasure in himself. His conscience and his heart became, in consequence, less impressed with the abounding goodness and perfect holiness of God. He was taken up with his own goodness, and that of God was necessarily lost sight of in proportion. He contemplated his own holiness, and that of God had, by so much, less hold on his conscience. But God, who loved him, sent him sufficient trials to shew him what was in his heart and to bring him back to the contemplation of the goodness and perfection of God only. We see in chapter 29 what was Job's sentiment about his own holiness and the grace which dwelt in him. "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness and it clothed me: my judgment was a robe and a diadem," etc.

176 In fact, Job was a man full of grace; but, alas! he felt it; and his heart needed to be better taught to know what he was before God. Trials came: Job remained as exemplary in his adversity, as he had been in his prosperity. The root of sin was not yet reached. He then became more remarkable for his patience than even for his goodness, and the scripture bears this testimony to it, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job," James 5: 11. God at last permits his friends to come and offer him consolations. Ah! how many privations we can endure in solitude; but no sooner do our friends become witnesses of them than our pride is aroused. The compassion of man often excites our impatience; and Job, so distinguished for patience, at last curses the day of his birth! What, afterwards, was the final result of all these trials and of all the lessons which Job gathered from them? Instead of repeating that the eye which saw him gave witness to him, no sooner has he looked upon God than he exclaims, "Now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes," chap. 42: 5. Such is the history of the perfect man according to the Bible. You will say, perhaps, that I take pleasure in iniquity, and that I am seeking to defame the most eminent saints. Not so: but with all these saints I rejoice in God rather than in man, having learned with them that "were I to say I am perfect, my mouth would condemn me."

N. But I fully acknowledge that it is the grace of God which produces perfection in me.

A. That may be. But, in speaking of your perfection, you dwell on the effect produced in yourself, and not on its source, which is in God. You do not forget your progress, that is to say, "the things which are behind," to press toward the prize of your high calling. You manifest, unconsciously, the spirit of the Pharisee. The Pharisee began by giving thanks. What distinguishes the pharisaical spirit, therefore, is not the omitting to give thanks to God for His blessings; but its essence is this: that instead of saying, I thank Thee for what Thou art, it says, I thank Thee for what I am. The Pharisee thinks of the grace which is given and he is exalted, instead of thinking of the grace which gives and forgives.

177 N. But how will you get rid of the passages which I have quoted, and which speak of perfection? You have not replied to them.

A. I have not forgotten them; they are the least tenable points of your doctrine; and prove that it is entirely contrary to the truth and the holiness of God; for you thereby attenuate holiness on the one hand, and sin on the other, by not properly taking God into the account. You say, "Be ye holy, as God who hath called you is holy," 1 Pet. 1: 15, 16. But the passage reads, "Be ye holy, for he is holy." Now every Christian acknowledges the force of this exhortation. I repeat, therefore, that to cite such passages in proof of a state of perfection in certain Christians, is to throw dust into the eyes of the simple: for you very well know that no one is holy as God is holy. In fact, when I examine what you mean by being "perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," and "holy as God is holy," I find that in your opinion the most pious are guilty of errors, which are departures from the perfect law, and require the atoning efficacy of the blood of Christ, without which they would be exposed to eternal condemnation.* But pray tell me, what you mean by being perfect as our Father who is in heaven is perfect, if the most pious do things which, but for the blood of Christ, would expose them to eternal condemnation. Could we have believed, if we had not had it before our eyes, that any one would be found to affirm, that a man who does things deserving eternal condemnation, is nevertheless sinless, and the germ of sin so entirely eradicated that he is perfect as his Father who is in heaven is perfect? And if it is said there is a divine perfection to which neither man nor angel can attain, why mock us by pretensions which are afterwards reduced to so low a standard? You say that a perfect man has all the sentiments of Jesus Christ, and that he always walks as Jesus walked,** yet the most pious do things which deserve eternal condemnation. Truly, you would plunge us into unheard-of confusion.

{*See Wesley, p. 40.}

{**Ibid., p. 17.}

178 N. It is not I, but Jesus, who says, "Be ye perfect as your Father who is in heaven is perfect," Matt. 5: 48. And "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked," 1 John 2: 6. And again, "As he is, so are we in this world," 1 John 4: 17.

A. I know very well that these words occur in the Scriptures; but the use you would make of them is to persuade us that there are Christians who are without sin, perfectly purified from all sin, and clear from the existence of sin in their nature. But the word of God does not make use of these expressions to this end. When it is said, "Be ye perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5: 48), Jesus Himself explains the passage by that which precedes it. This perfection consists in acting according to love, and not according to the law of retaliation, which says, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth"; it is to act towards men, according to the principle of the divine conduct towards us, according to the grace of our heavenly Father. There is no allusion here to the root of sin in our nature.

The word perfection is employed with reference to the three great revelations of God. For He made Himself known to Abraham as "the Almighty," to the Jews as "the Lord [Jehovah]," and to Christians as "the Father." God said to Abraham, "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17: 1); which means, that he was to walk before God, always confiding in His almighty power. Abraham did not so, he failed in this respect; for he told a lie (Gen. 20: 2), precisely because he did not confide in God's almighty power. Here, again, the passage has no reference to the sin which had descended to Abraham by nature; but it has to do with his acting in full confidence in the almighty power of God. In point of fact, Abraham still had sin, and therefore had a fall. It is said to the Israelites, "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord [Jehovah] thy God," Deut. 18: 13. Now this referred to their not imitating the abominations of the Canaanites in their idolatries; and not at all to the state of purification from all sin of this or that Israelite. The contrary is so true, that in the same book (Deut. 29: 4) Moses tells them, "Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day." It referred, therefore, solely to their faithfulness towards God in rejecting every species of idolatry.

179 N. But the fulness of grace was not then existing, for it is said that the Holy Ghost was not yet given. But when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, then it is we arrive at the state of perfection.

A. Why, then, did you cite these passages, as though they supported this doctrine of perfection? But I turn now to the third passage: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," Matt. 5: 48. Observe there is a difference in the expression. It is not said, Be ye perfect before me, or, with thy God, as it had been said to Abraham and to the Israelites; because the name of Father reveals to us the fulness of grace. According to that precious name we are already children, accepted in Christ as Christ is accepted by the Father; we are already made acceptable in the Beloved, righteous before God as Jesus Christ is righteous, loved as Jesus Christ is loved. Now it is not said, Present to God a character of perfection, so that by this means ye may be accepted and made well-pleasing to Him; but, Ye are the children of your heavenly Father: shew forth, therefore, His character in the world; "for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good; and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." He acts according to grace, and not according to law; ye saved sinners, ye are the proof of it; be His witnesses. The publicans love those who love them, but your Father loves His enemies. Act by this rule; and "be ye perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." It is not said, Be ye perfect with Him, or before Him (as though you were without sin), but as He, act in love towards your enemies. I therefore repeat, that the question here is, not whether or not sin is in the flesh, but what is that principle which ought to regulate the conduct of the children of God, in contrast with the principle of law or of natural justice. But if by being "perfect as my heavenly Father" is to be understood the absence of sin from my nature — if it really means that I am perfectly to resemble Him in this respect, then, as perfection in us, according to you, still leaves things which expose us to eternal condemnation, it would be the same with the perfection of God — an impiety and absurdity too gross to delay us for a moment!

I said that you attenuated the idea of sin and holiness to bring them on a level with the state of your own soul. You say that man is not now bound to fulfil the law given to Adam, or that of Moses, but only the law of love, which tolerates many errors and deviations from the perfect law. If you had said that you cannot be what Adam was (although some have gone so far as to maintain the contrary), and that we do not fulfil the law of Moses, because we are sinners; if you had added, we ought to be humbled on account of it, because sin is the cause of it, I should have nothing to object. But you assert that we are not bound to fulfil these two laws, and thus you reduce the standard of holiness; and instead of confessing such things, and humbling yourself on account of them, you say they are not sins at all. So true is the charge I bring against you, that you even tell me that deviations from the perfect law are not properly sins, although they expose us to eternal condemnation. According to you, nothing is properly a sin but a voluntary transgression of the law of God. It follows that the lusts by which Paul was convinced of SIN were not really sinful, for his will was entirely opposed to them; and so with faults and sins of negligence. Except voluntary sins, for which we read in the epistle to the Hebrews there is "no more sacrifice," all the rest are neither sin nor sins. So that when Paul exclaims (Rom. 7), "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do," he was quite wrong in considering such things as sins, and still more in being so distressed on account of them.

180 N. But Romans 7 does not describe the state of a regenerate man.

A. I am not of your opinion. I admit that Paul is there describing not a state of freedom, but the judging of the flesh in the presence of the law. This, however, is not the question which we are now considering. Whether it be or be not a regenerate man who is speaking, if nothing is sin but the voluntary transgression of the divine law, it is plain that sin in the flesh, of which the apostle is here writing, is a mere fancied thing: for what can be less voluntary than the doing that which we "would not"? If, therefore, he did the things which he would not, it was no more a voluntary transgression; and on your principle he was quite wrong to be so distressed about it.

N. But in chapter 8 he declares that he was "free" from it.

A. Doubtless he does. But that does not hinder that, according to your system, it was not sin at all; for in chapter 7 he declares that it was so little voluntary, that it was not he who did it, but sin that dwelt in him. My dear friend, all the experiences we find in the New Testament are quite against your doctrine; and your definition of sin, that it is nothing but the voluntary transgression of the divine law, absolutely denies the existence of sin in the flesh — the existence of that sin which dwells in us even when it is subdued by the Spirit. It is a definition which attenuates the idea of sin, to make us satisfied with ourselves, instead of adoring the grace and the goodness of our God. Assuredly lust is sin; my failures in the fulfilment of the duties of love proceed from the sin which is in me. These things were not in Christ, because He was "without sin." He ever did the will of God perfectly. He never acted, as I at times do, with precipitation. This forwardness of the flesh, even when I am doing good with all my heart, will not be imputed to me, not because it is not sin, but by reason of Christ's expiation of it. These things are, nevertheless, the consequences of a nature which is in me, and was not in Christ, who was perfect, not only as God, but also as man. There is a principle at work in me, to bring forth evil, which principle there was not in Him. I shall not be judged on this principle because Jesus has borne the guilt of it and put it away; but that is the very reason why I should judge it.

181 Finally, the passage which you have cited, "As he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4: 17), is something quite different from what you would make of it. In the first place, the reference is to Christ and not to God. It is said in chapter 3: 3 of the same epistle, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." And what is this hope? It is that, "we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (v. 2). Thus, "as He is," is to be as Jesus is now in glory, and not as He was, which is never said in the word. Now it is certain that, in our present state, we are not as He is. If we examine the whole of this passage (1 John 4: 17) attentively, we shall clearly see what the Holy Spirit designs to teach us. It is said (ver. 9), "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." And in verse 17, "Herein is love perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." Now love perfected with us does not make us say, So that we may be such in ourselves; but, "that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." And what gives us this boldness? It is that God has manifested His love in sending His Son into the world; and He has finished or perfected this love by putting us into Christ Himself before His face, and that in the power of the life in which He lives, and by union with Him through the Holy Ghost who dwells in us. United to Him, even while here below, we (in this world) are not what He is personally in the glory, but perfectly as He is before God, and that by a real union, which communicates His life to us, and makes us to be accepted in the Beloved. We are loved as He is loved; righteous as He is righteous. In principle and in hope we are made partakers of His glory. And this life is imparted to us here below, so that we walk in it in the certainty of being accepted as Christ is accepted and loved as He is loved. Whoso touches us touches Him, and Himself can say, speaking of us, "Why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9: 4). God, in Christ, manifests His love toward man; but man, in Christ, is presented to God in the perfectness of Christ's acceptance, and he has the enjoyment of it in the nature which has been communicated to him, and by which he participates in it. The nature which we have received is the nature of Christ Himself. It manifests itself in our walking according to its own principles. Yes, we are partakers of the divine nature: we are one with the last Adam. But then this nature does not change the old man, but judges him in all his thoughts and in all his ways.

182 N. But I do not say that lust is not sin; it is desire which is not sin. And when you maintain that we cannot observe the law, you seem to forget that it is written, That the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; Rom. 8: 4. In fact God never commands man to do what man cannot accomplish. And in this epistle of John, which you imperfectionists would get away from, it is declared, eight times over, that he who is born of God sinneth not.

A. You certainly did say that lust is not sin, and your definition expressly declares it; for the lust in my nature in not a voluntary transgression of the divine law, if I have a will, through grace, directly opposed to it.

N. If I said that lust is not sin, it is because James says, When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin (James 1: 15), and you confound temptations with lusts.

183 A. Alas! into what uncertainty and contradictions does error plunge the mind of man! As to the argument you derive from James, that apostle himself affirms that "every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed."

N. No. The proper translation of that passage is not, of his lusts; but, of his desires.

A. Your distinctions are deplorably subtle and dangerous. Thus men play with poison. It is in vain that I look for this difference; for the word which you translate desire, is the same Greek word which Paul employs in Romans 7 to express the lust by which he had been convinced of sin. And pray observe, it is there said that sin produced lust (v. 8). It is true that when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin as an act; but it is just as true that sin, which is in our nature, produces all sorts of lusts. With your definition of sin, which it totally anti-scriptural, you may indeed reason on the subject; but you will find yourself constantly in opposition to the declarations of God's word. Temptation may, doubtless, be distinguished from sin. When I abhor the evil, and the new man rejects with indignation that which Satan presents, or, it may be, flattery, it is a temptation and not a sin. But lust in me is always sin. I do not say it will be imputed to me; but that is solely and absolutely because of the blood of Christ. But the "new man" judges it as sin. Woe is me, if I do not judge it!

N. But Christ had desires.

A. Oh! see to what you are reduced, to bring Jesus Christ down to your level in order to exalt yourself! It is a fearful principle. No, no; you dare not say that Jesus Christ had desires like those which are found in our fallen nature. You will reply, that there are desires which are not sinful. I admit it. There are for example hunger, thirst, and such like. These desires are the result of wants which our heavenly Father knows to exist in us. But would you venture to compare those desires which are in the human heart, and which, you say, occasion in the most pious, errors which require the blood of Christ, with the desires which were in the heart of the adorable Saviour? Is it not true that all the thoughts of Christ proceeded from the Holy Spirit, while He still felt the wants and sufferings of a man? Did then those evil desires which are in us, which require to be kept under, and which, if not restrained, produce sin, exist in the heart of Jesus Christ? My dear friend! the more I look into your doctrine and its tendency to reduce to the same level God, Christ (who knew no sin), and us poor vile creatures fallen from our first estate, the more do I see that, instead of being a doctrine of sanctification, it is a doctrine which, while it pretends to exalt our condition, abases all that is worthy of being exalted, exalts all that should be abased, and destroys the distinction between good and evil. You tell me, moreover, that God commands nothing but what man can accomplish. Where do you get that in the Bible? The law, for example, was given to the Israelites, that is to say, to man in the flesh. Can man fulfil it?

184 N. No: but we can by the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.

A. In one sense that is true; but that, by no means, establishes the principle upon which you lay so much stress, that God commands nothing but what may be accomplished. The law was given to man in the flesh, and the New Testament teaches me, very clearly, that God did not give the law in the thought that man could keep it. The carnal mind pretends to do so; but the word tells me that the law of God was given to convince man of sin, by the discovery that he did not keep it, so "that sin might become by the commandment exceeding sinful." The law entered, says the apostle, that the offence might abound. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin is dead; Rom 7: 8. Remark here, in passing, that sin produces concupiscence or lust. When the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, then Paul knew sin. "The strength of sin is the law," says the same apostle elsewhere; 1 Cor. 15: 56. I gather, therefore, that in giving the law, God's purpose was to convince man of the sin which is in him; and not, as you say, with the thought that man could and would keep it.

185 N. But it is said God has condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; Rom. 8: 3, 4.

A. That is true; yet the iniquity of the flesh is there again pointed out, as being ever the same in its nature. But we have been made free from the law of sin and death, by the new life which we have in Jesus Christ, strengthened by the Spirit of God, which is here called the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus. We are able then, in walking according to this new life, to keep from failing in obedience to His commands, while we still judge and because we judge the flesh. But as soon as we think and act after the flesh, the law is no longer fulfilled. On the other hand, God, in giving us this life, in which we walk in love, has, at the same time, given us the knowledge of a state which convinces us that we are very far behind Jesus Christ (that is to say, from the perfection of the example set before us). "I know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him [does not look merely at the law, but] purifieth himself, even as he is pure," 1 John 3: 2, 3. If then God gives us strength to walk in His ways, that strength is given to us through a knowledge, which, at the same time, makes us understand that we cannot, here below, attain even to that which we know. Thus, instead of an end which we can attain to embolden us, God sets before us that which hereafter will assuredly be accomplished in us, but which preserves us ever in humility, ever in the feeling that we are not all that we would be. But this very thing keeps us ever advancing towards our great end. Your principle, which has a semblance of requiring nothing but what is just and suitable, is, accordingly, entirely opposed to the mind of God; it is akin to self-righteousness, which, instead of being "strong in the grace" which God has given to us, prefers saying, I have attained to the end. God has given us a full pardon at the very outset of our career; and at its termination He has set before us a glory, the power of which is in us by the communication of the life of Christ: but the nature and the very excellence of this glory make it evident to us that it is not a thing to which we can ever attain while here below. We "rejoice in the hope of the glory of God," Rom. 5: 2. "We are saved by hope" (Rom. 8: 24); and in the confidence of the certainty of God's grace, we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.

N. But it is said that we are "made free" from sin itself, and not only from the law of sin.

A. If you had read the passage, you would have seen that the apostle, in saying "made free," tells them that he speaks "after the manner of men," because of the infirmity of their flesh. He says made free, as contrasted with slavery; and therefore he adds, by way of marking the contrast, that they had become servants to God; Rom. 6: 22. It is a simple comparison between a slave and a freed man, introduced to make the matter better understood. And pray observe, that it is not the condition of a perfect Christian only, but of all Christians without exception; so that this passage is not at all applicable in support of your doctrine.

186 The same observation applies to the eight passages of John, whose epistle is loved by all who love God, notwithstanding the misplaced reproaches of those who so despise their brethren. Do your eight passages prove that certain Christians have attained to perfection, so that they no longer sin, while other Christians have not attained that end? By no means; they are spoken of those who are "born of God." "He that committeth sin is of the devil; neither hath he known God" (1 John 3); so that, according to your quotation of the passages, every one who is not perfect is of the devil. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; and he cannot sin because he is born of God." This is true, therefore, of every Christian; and I cannot understand how anyone, ever so little conversant with this matter, can reconcile such quotations with a simple heart, except by singular prejudice of mind. You will reply, that many scholars in one and the same class may have made very different progress; but this is said of the entire class and does not apply to the greater or less progress of the scholars.

N. But is it not said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself?

A. I have already answered you in principle. God necessarily commands what ought to be, not what man can perform; for this commandment, which is the essence of the law, was given to man in the flesh, when he was "without strength." And we have already seen that, although it is the eternal law of perfect beings, it becomes, when it is imposed upon those who are already under sin, a ministry of death and condemnation; 2 Cor. 3.

N. I admit it: but we who are under grace can accomplish it.

A. I have answered you, likewise, on this point. Under grace a new life has been given to us. It is the life of Christ in us, which sees and considers Jesus Christ glorified, and which knows that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Now this life judges all things in us according to the perfection of our hereafter state in the resurrection. It discerns that we have not yet obtained the redemption of our body. It judges the old man in us — his root, his trunk, and his branches. But all the while the Christian purifies himself as Christ Himself is pure. Observe, it is not only said that he aims at growth in Christ, but that he purifies himself as He is pure. He does not say that he is purified, but that he purifies himself after the resemblance of Christ glorified; and, knowing that the time is not yet come for the redemption of his body, he dreams not of perfection here below.

187 N. I think I understand you. The Christian has already in his soul "the power of the resurrection." Nothing which is not after the power of the resurrection can satisfy him. He does not think that he has attained it, although he follows after such a purification of himself as he sees in Christ, whose life he possesses, and into whose image he is already changed from glory to glory; 2 Cor. 3: 18. Yet it seems to me discouraging to say to a Christian, You never can attain the object you have in view.

A. But he is certain of obtaining his object! And it is evident that, instead of discouraging him, it is, in God's mind, the very way to urge him onward; "for every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure," 1 John 3: 3. And Paul says, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; Phil. 3: 13, 14. This view, according to your system — which lowers all the privileges of Christianity — this view, I say, according to your system, may discourage; but it is because your Christianity is, in a great degree, man's Christianity and not God's: a Christianity which works in order to obtain eternal life, and not because God has given it to us. What you really want is, not to be able to say, "I shall apprehend here below"; but it is to be able to say with the apostle, that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus; Phil. 3: 12. What you really want is to believe that, through grace, we have in us the very life of Jesus — eternal life by our union with Him; that all things are ours; that we are joint-heirs with Christ; that we are assured of the love of God; that we are loved of Him as Jesus Christ is loved. Therefore with joy and gladness of heart we press onward, while on earth, toward the realization of this glory. By the power of the Holy Ghost we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory; by faith we are already made partakers of a perfection which will be given to us in its fulness, when Jesus Christ returns. "We have our citizenship in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself," Phil. 3: 20, 21.

188 No; we say not that we must stumble; for, theoretically, why cannot we walk every moment after the Spirit? But, practically and by experience, we know that in many things we do offend all; James 3: 2. But, while confessing our fault, and that we are without excuse, we know that God is faithful, and that He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. God, who loves us, and brings good out of evil, although He never justifies it — God, I say, humbles us either by His Spirit or by His chastenings, and gives us a deeper understanding of the boundless riches of His grace. And even I speak not now of outward falls; and I am very far from affirming that failures are necessary for our instruction; but in point of fact we do learn, in the tender and faithful care of our God, that His grace is sufficient for us, that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. But your doctrine fixes the heart upon low views, and in the belief that you have realised them, your Christianity becomes debased and proud. Your watchfulness is no fruit of confidence in God's love, and joy in His holiness and in communion with Him, but of fear; for one of your perfect men may, at the end, find himself in hell! In fact, one of your most distinguished teachers, who assuredly was a child of God, was four times perfect. He fell away from this state, he tells us (and the reason assigned is curious enough), because, in the state of perfection, there was unfaithfulness in his conduct: he consequently lost what had been given to him; and you caution us against those who profess that once in grace we are always in grace and infallibly in glory. I admit that the presence of the Spirit gives a happy inconsistency to those who are in this system; and I bless the Lord for it. Mr. Wesley, who thought at first that a perfect man could not fall from that state, afterwards affirmed that it was a great error to think so.

189 N. But we see some who are in this state of perfection and divine joy. They are made perfect in love: loving them is perfect. They are filled with the Holy Spirit and with all the fulness of God. Moreover, Jesus Christ, "in whom was no sin," has left us an example that we should follow His steps.

I quite see that you have a principle which, in virtue of our union with Christ, places perfection higher and presents it to us such as we cannot realize upon earth. On your principle, although we heartily follow Jesus Christ, the old man remains unchanged by nature, even when it is so kept under that it cannot act. Notwithstanding, I cannot renounce my views of perfection here. It is a state so full of joy and so desirable! I have seen individuals so blessed and so sanctified!

A. It is the truth that sanctifies: and if your doctrine is not truth, notwithstanding all appearances — notwithstanding the reality of a portion of this blessedness — after all, it cannot be a sanctification according to God. In fact, instead of making me advance, that which you offer makes me retrograde. By what you call the law of love and the life of Christ, you send me back to the perfection of Adam, and even much lower; for you cannot deny the presence of evil, and that boasted perfection of yours you consider quite reconcilable with things which may expose us to eternal condemnation, and which require to be expiated by the blood of Christ.

You will say, perhaps, that there is a more exalted perfection and which is heavenly and divine. But why, then, do you understand of your notion of earthly perfection all the passages which speak of the former? I believe, on the contrary, that the entrance of sin has completely altered the nature of our relationship with God. I could never more return to the state of Adam before the fall. I now partake of "the divine nature" by promises infinitely superior to anything Adam enjoyed. I do not see that God has restored the first Adam, but He has united us to the last Adam. Our glory does not consist in our ignorance of evil, but in the enjoyment of the results of a complete victory over evil itself. Although the law, in its essence, is the rule of every pure being before God, it is, on that very account, no longer the character of our state before Him; for we are very far from being pure according to its requirement. And the thought of grace does not exhibit the creature in its perfection before God, but is the bringing in of the nature, goodness, and power of the Creator into the midst of evil, over which His perfections are victorious. Grace, therefore, recognizes the existence of the evil, over which it triumphs.

190 By our union with Christ the divine nature is communicated to us; but the final result (that is to say, perfection) will be found only in resurrection. Until then, or at least so long as we are in this body, we ought always to live according to the Spirit. But we ought not to deny the existence of evil; for to deny it is to change the very essence, riches, counsels, and all the fulness of grace. You would replace me before God in the condition of our creation and even much below it. I, on the contrary, see the introduction here below of the life and nature of the Creator into the midst of evil itself. But I see my perfection only in my being presented before God when, the last victory having been won, I shall be fashioned after the resemblance of the last Adam, who is the accepted and glorified Man according to the counsel of God the Father. In the meanwhile, all the riches of the "divine nature" are developed in my heart and understanding, in order that, when I shall be made perfect, I may find myself in the presence of God, whom I know, the friend of my weakness and the glory of my strength. It is to this end the Spirit has been given to me. He is the seal of my redemption in Jesus Christ. He is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory; Eph. 1: 14. He is not in me the seal of the fruits which He Himself produces; but He is the seal of the redemption which has been accomplished in Jesus Christ.

I now return to some texts which you have cited. "Made perfect," say you, "in love." If you do but read the passage, you will see that it has no reference whatever to the absence of sin in the flesh, but to that full confidence in the love of God r which sets the heart at liberty in His presence, and gives us peace and joy in communion with Him. The whole passage reads thus: "Herein is love made perfect with us [see margin of our Bible], that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love," 1 John 4: 17, 18. You see at once that there is no question here touching the absence of sin from the flesh, but concerning an entire assurance in the love of God; for His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us: not that we loved God, but that He loved us. There is, therefore, an essential difference between these passages and your doctrine.

191 This love of God is shed abroad in the heart: God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us. Made partakers of the divine nature, and filled with the Holy Ghost, we are hence filled with love, that is, with the consciousness of His love; and, consequently, we love in a divine manner. But it does not follow that the flesh is changed. The soul which is full of the Holy Ghost thinks of the love which is in God, and not of the love which we have for God — it, consequently, acts in love.

And this leads me to what you say about the condition of certain souls, when they are set at liberty, and have tasted of this love. The truth of their state, I doubt not, is this: they are filled, they are absorbed with it; hence, as the capacity of the heart is limited, they suppose that nothing else exists, or ought to exist, within them. But sin is still found in their nature. Nay more; it sometimes sends forth shoots, precisely because they stop and dwell on the effect of this love in themselves, instead of on the source whence it springs. For from the moment we look on ourselves, and on the effects which grace produces in us, communion with the source of grace is suspended. Owing to the deceitfulness of the heart, the very effects of grace become an occasion of sin and especially of falling into pride.

Vain is the effort to draw fresh strength from the effects of grace already received; for the conscience is never therein brought into exercise, not even in our most elevated spiritual life; whilst it is in continual exercise so long as we are thinking of God. And as the liveliness of conscience in the presence of God is ever the cause of our safety in practical walk, the moment I look back to myself to contemplate the grace which is in me, from that moment I am in a way to fall, and am very far departed from the source of my spiritual strength. Think of this: for, notwithstanding all you say, the heart is deceitful. I believe that the feeling of God's love shed abroad in the heart is, by the persons you refer to, confounded with the absence of sin. But to be occupied with this feeling is, in reality, a way to fall into sin.

Mr. Wesley distinguishes this state from a state of perfection, which, in his opinion, shews itself in three ways, by the experience of the heart, first, in the absence of sin; second, in perfect love; and third, by the witness which the Holy Spirit bears to the perfect man, of His complete sanctification, as of his justification. But when I search the Scriptures for proofs of this witness borne by the Holy Spirit, I nowhere find them. If I consult Mr. Wesley, the only answer he can give me is, that if these things are affirmed to me by a true man, and no sufficient reasons exist for disbelieving the statement, I ought not to reject his testimony. "But not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth," 2 Cor. 10: 18. When I turn to Paul, I meet with very different language. Does Paul go back to rest upon his own feelings? His conscience bears him good witness. "I know nothing by myself," says he, "yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord," 1 Cor. 4: 4. Again, I say, that it is in vain I search the whole Bible for this witness, given by the Holy Spirit to our souls, of our complete sanctification. I clearly see in the Scriptures that we are children, heirs of all things, objects of God's perfect love — that in communion with Him we have the enjoyment of this love, that we may glory in Him; but as to our entire sanctification, I nowhere find it. It is a notion which can in no way be made to accord with the true perfection — that perfection which is ours, and already enjoyed by us in hope, but which will be completed only in the resurrection. For we "ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body," Rom. 8: 23. "For we know that the whole creation (of which our bodies are a part) groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (v. 22). Observe, these words do not occur in Romans 7 but in chapter 8, which speaks of the soul set at liberty — the soul that has received the witness of the Spirit, and is at liberty, because it has received this witness. As to the other passages which you have quoted, you join two together, which, however, are not connected in the word, that you may derive from them an inference which may have some appearance of truth. You tell me that He in whom was no sin (1 John 3: 5) has left us an example that we should follow His steps (1 Pet. 2: 21). This is not in the New Testament. We read (1 Pet. 2: 21, 22), that "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." Now, He is the example, not of what we are (which it would be folly to pretend), but of what our conduct ought to be. Elsewhere it is said, "He was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin," 1 John 3: 5. But in this latter passage nothing is said of Jesus Christ as our example.

193 John declares, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," 1 John 1: 8. This text is, of itself, enough to destroy your whole system. In order to elude the force of this declaration, you comment upon it by making it the same as another passage, "If we say that we have not sinned," etc. But this conveys quite a different idea, and exposes the fundamental error of your doctrine, which confounds sins committed with the sin which dwells in us, that you may entirely deny the latter.

There are two passages which I should wish you to compare with your lamentable definition of sin, which consists, say you, solely in the voluntary violation of the law of God. The first is, "Cleanse thou me from secret [faults]," Psa. 19: 12. The second says, still more expressly, "And the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. It is a trespass offering; he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord," Lev. 5: 18, 19.

N. But that was under the law.

A. True; but should your estimation of sin be less scrupulous, less exact, less holy, and less perfect, now that we have a larger and deeper knowledge of God? See in this the fault of your system, which lays down that lust is not sin; that errors which expose to eternal condemnation are not sin; and that nothing is sin but the voluntary violation of the law of God. On the contrary, I am persuaded that whatever in my heart separates me from communion with God, because it grieves the Holy Spirit, is sin; for, whatever it be, it proceeds from my corrupt nature, and I have no desire to lower the standard of sanctification in order to escape from this conviction. Moreover, my assurance flows from quite a different source from yours. It is founded on the certainty of the love of God for me a sinner; and this love was manifested toward me while I was in my sins. It is founded on the certainty of my resurrection with Jesus, through the faith of the operation of God who has raised Him from the dead, and by which I am seated, such as He is before God His Father.

194 I am aware that you but seldom read the Old Testament: but have you ever noticed that leaven was forbidden in the cake which represented Christ, and which was an offering to Jehovah of a sweet savour; while leaven was commanded in the cake on the day of Pentecost? Now the latter was the type of the gathered Church, and, because of the leaven, which represents sin, it could never be burnt as a sweet savour to Jehovah; Lev. 2 and 7: 13.

Once more I say, then, my opposition to your system is grounded on your definition of sin and on your lowering the standard of our sanctification; for sanctification is and ought to be founded on our union with Jesus Christ risen and glorified, which teaches us to purify ourselves even as He is pure, and not to say, as you do, that we are without sin, and afterwards confess that we do things which expose us to eternal condemnation.

If you have comprehended what I said to you about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you will, without difficulty, understand what is contained in Philippians 3. This is, that the perfect Christian, instead of being perfect here below in this body, has apprehended the doctrine of the resurrection. He has been renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him. He does not persuade himself that he has attained the end, because he knows no end but the calling on high in Christ Jesus. And, instead of imagining that he is such as Jesus Christ, our well-beloved Saviour, was, when on earth, he says in this sense, Though I have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know I Him no more.

N. But you are opposing our views of perfection, because you require a more perfect sanctification — a higher perfection than we do.

A. Exactly so. But I oppose it likewise because you lower the notion of sin to place it on the level of your state of perfection. And why? In order that you may say you are perfect; and that from this perfection, thus lowered, you may finally conclude that you are without sin. You affirm that there is a second class of Christians who are righteous as God is righteous; who, in this world, are as God is. Then, by an inconsistency which, nevertheless, explains itself, you tell us these same perfect ones do things which, but for the expiation of Christ, would expose them to eternal condemnation. I add, likewise, on this subject, that you pervert texts by separating them from their context.

195 N. But I have some other texts to bring forward. In Ezekiel 36: 25, 26, it is said, "From all your filthiness will I cleanse you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." And in 1 John 1: 7, it is written, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."

A. Dear brother! your first text is a promise which God makes to the Jews for the last days, as you may see in reading the chapter which contains it, and where it is accompanied by earthly blessings, particularly with the restoration of that nation to their land. It is a promise to take away their hardness of heart, and to give them a tender heart capable of receiving the instructions of the Lord; but it has nothing to do with the destruction of sin. Therefore this promise is also fulfilled in us as soon as we are "born of God"; for to me it is clear that our Lord in His conversation with Nicodemus particularly alluded to this; John 3. It is applicable, accordingly, to all those in whom, as you allow, sin is not destroyed; it speaks not of the radical destruction of the old man, but of the communication of the life of God. As to the cleansing from all sin by the blood of Jesus Christ, He has done that by His expiation; but the change of heart is constantly ascribed to the Holy Spirit, and to that water of which it is said, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet," John 13: 10. The priesthood of Christ is specially applied to this office; and the necessity for that priesthood is owing to the continuance of the existence of sin in us, and of its effects through our carelessness of walk.

N. But we find also in the Lord's prayer, Let thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven.

A. That petition is a prayer for the state of the earth, and not of my heart. Christ, who did the will of God every day, might address it to His heavenly Father. It is a desire which will be fulfilled when the kingdom of the Father shall come; a kingdom which is the object of the preceding petition, and which petition, in fact, introduces the one we are now considering. How many are the ardent desires of the heart that are expressed by sighs and cries to God, and will be accomplished only by an entire change of the circumstances in which we are placed, when the children of God shall be manifested!

196 N. But if I am not entitled to say that I am perfect, I ought, at least, to aim at becoming so, for it is written, "Let us go on unto perfection," Heb. 6: 1.

A. Have you examined the passage you have just quoted?

N. No, not particularly; but the expression seems to me very simple.

A. I have already begged of you always to read the context before you receive a passage as having such a sense or such a bearing; and in order that you may ascertain the meaning of the Holy Spirit. For example, there is no reference in this passage to the state of sanctification, but to the advancing in knowledge. Paul, therein, draws a contrast between the principles of the doctrine of Christ (such as a believing Jew might have understood them before the day of Pentecost), and that knowledge which the Holy Ghost gives of the fulness of the glory of the Son of man exalted above all.

I add one remark in connection with this passage. You will find at the end of the preceding chapter (v. 13, 14) that milk is suited to babes, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. This character of men of full age is expressed in the original by the word which is generally rendered perfect. For, in Greek, the word perfect signifies also one of full age. To quote all the passages where the word "perfect" occurs is really a mere waste of words. The expression is most frequently applied to the state of a man who has fully apprehended the whole extent of the truth which is in Christ, both as regards the privileges and the conduct of Christians, which full apprehension leads us to the conviction of our state of imperfection. Therefore, when Paul says, "As many of us as be perfect," he adds in the same passage, "I count not myself to have apprehended." Jesus Christ had apprehended him for the resurrection of the dead. Having learned the purpose of Jesus, Paul pressed towards the mark, and, by so doing, acknowledged the imperfection of his actual condition. I might lay down that the ordinary sense of the word 'perfect' in the Greek, is to have reached our full stature in Christ, without any reference to the presence or the absence of sin.

N. But this sense does not rest solely on the word 'perfect.' For example, it is said, Every one that is perfect shall be as his master; Luke 6: 40.

A. Well, this passage has nothing to do with the existence or absence of sin, but refers to the principles of the believer's conduct (that is to say, to the complete reception of the principles of his Master, as a rule of conduct). Here, again, the Christian ought not to act on the law of retaliation, nor on the principles of the Jews, but on those of Jesus Christ Himself. The whole of the Lord's exhortation is as follows: "Give to every man that asketh of thee," etc. (Luke 6: 30). "Love ye your enemies," etc. (v. 35). "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful," etc. (v. 36). "And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?" (v. 39). "The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master" (v. 40). You see therefore, that there is no allusion here to the nature of the disciple, but to the light and principles which ought to guide him.

197 For my part, I admit no example but the perfect walk of Jesus Christ Himself. But Christ, in His nature, was without sin, and I was shapen in iniquity: and although I put off the old man and put on the new, the work of God does not consist in restoring the first Adam here below, but in communicating to me the life of the last, to which I shall be made conformable when I see Him as He is, and never till then. It is a fact that many passages are brought forward, as though they were applicable to us on earth, which in the word are applied to the glorified state; such as Romans 8: 23; Ephesians 5: 25-27; John 17: 22, 23.

What we have just said of that text ("Every one that is perfect shall be as his master"), equally applies to the following expressions: "for the perfecting of the saints" (Eph. 4: 12); "that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works," 2 Tim. 3: 17. The words here translated 'perfecting' and 'throughly' are different Greek words from that which is employed in Philippians 3: 15, and in other places. They have no reference to indwelling sin, or to that which exists in our nature, but to the teaching of Christ, and to the reception of all the principles of His doctrine, in order to the full edification of all believers.

N. Have you read the pamphlet which has been published lately?*

{*Exposition de la Perfection Chretienne par Jean Wesley, et suivie de notes par Anthelme Boucher. Lausanne, 1840.}

A. I have examined what appeared to me the most important part of it, namely, all the passages of the word of God which are therein quoted. We have already spoken of the principal ones. The greater part have not even so much as the appearance of relation to the subject. For example, in order to shew that we may attain to perfection on earth, this passage is cited: "Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," Heb. 3: 7. There is not, in the whole chapter whence I take these words, a passage that has more reference to the subject than that. Again, in that work, these expressions are brought forward — "to be full of the Spirit," "to be filled with the Spirit," to prove that we ought to be without sin. It cannot be necessary, I should think, to refute such reasoning. There are many passages referring to the work of Christ for us, which are applied to the work of Christ in us; as, for example, "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb. 10: 14. "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," which "cleanseth us from all sin," Rev. 7: 14; 1 John 1: 7. "Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," Heb. 9: 26, etc., etc.

198 As you have yourself referred to this pamphlet, I have some further remarks to make upon it. You may observe, in the first place, the way in which the question is stated: it is not at all the love of God for us. The perfecting of love and the accomplishment of love are nowhere in it presented as the love of God for us; but as a love which is required from us and which is exacted in the very language of the law. This is the leading idea. Christian perfection is represented as consisting in the accomplishment, on our part, of the highest requirement of the law; and it is added as a second principle, that God commands it and declares it indispensable. I fully admit that the knowledge of the perfect love of God (1 John 4: 10) necessarily produces in us a reciprocity of love. It is feeble, doubtless, but it is real, and it is pure; for we know the love of God, by being made "partakers of the divine nature," and by this love being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. Then God dwelleth in us and we in Him. The love with which He loves us is, therefore, shed abroad in our hearts; and the consciousness which we have of this shews itself in our love for Him. The brightness of His countenance shines on ours, and ours reflects its mild and powerful rays. This reflected shining is well pleasing to Him, because He knows the source whence it proceeds. And as it is by the gift of the Holy Ghost that we have known the love of God, it is by that same Spirit that the love of our hearts returns, without effort, towards the love which we have known in Him.

199 But when you tell me that God commands this love, and requires it as indispensable, you place me under law, and do away with the very principle of justification by confounding it with sanctification; you put aside grace, the grand principle of the gospel, God justifying the ungodly. By thus confounding this love where it exists, with perfect holiness and with the absence of sin, you assuredly give proof of a deep ignorance of your own heart — an ignorance which must go on increasing, and which is found in all whom I have met with entertaining this thought. It is possible that some who are sincerely seeking communion with God may escape this delusion, by those happy inconsequences which result from the working of the Holy Spirit within us; but these errors and this darkness are the natural consequences of the principle itself, and are seen in the great majority of those who have embraced this doctrine.

Let us never confound a conduct void of offence with absence of all sin (that is, with the extirpation of the germ of sin from our nature). The Christian ought, certainly, to maintain a conduct void of offence; he ought ever to walk in the Spirit; he can never justify himself for having walked one moment in the flesh; all his faculties should be used, not by the flesh, but by the new man, that he may never stumble. He can never excuse himself by saying, "Alas! it is the flesh which is still in me, which occasioned my fall"; for that flesh ought to have been mortified, while the Spirit ought to regulate all our thoughts. He ought to have exclaimed, "Alas! I have failed in watchfulness, in prayer, in the use of the means of grace." Perhaps he has not sufficiently examined the state of his own heart; and his distress, as in the case of Job, has been permitted for his instruction. Still he is without excuse. The blood of Jesus Christ, doubtless, expiates the sin; but as for himself, he has failed; for God is faithful, who would not have suffered him to be tempted above what he was able to bear. And if he should go on to plead, "I am but a child; I am still so weak in faith"; I reply, It makes no difference; for if the fear and distrust of self, which properly befit weakness, had been found in his heart, he would never have failed in this way: if he has fallen, it is because sin (that is, the principle of selfwill) was active within him.

200 Allow me to direct your attention to another defect in the reasoning of those who propound this doctrine. You bring forward the cases of several believers of the Old Testament, who were called perfect. I prove to you that they have sinned: on this you reply, "That proves nothing against those who are under the more excellent grace of the new dispensation." But why, if so, did you cite them?

It is remarkable, that after the day of Pentecost, not even a single instance can be mentioned of a man's being called perfect. There is an important reason for this. The gift of the Holy Spirit has made us capable of detecting and judging the "old man," of condemning sin in the flesh, and judging nature; because we have the full knowledge of the relationship between our new man and Jesus Christ. Under the former dispensation, a man, who kept the commandments and ordinances of the law blamelessly, might be called "perfect," because it had not taught them to discern between the old and the new man, as we can do in the full light which the new dispensation has brought us. A man who walked well was perfect. But the manifestation of the new man, Christ risen, has caused us to know and discern, as a perfectly distinct thing, the old man Adam and his condemnation. With Paul we now can say by the Spirit, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2: 20); and in another place, "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me," Rom. 7: 20. The being "made free," spoken of in Romans 8, has rendered us capable of judging the old man, as a nature condemned by God, because we assuredly know that we have another nature, in which we live, and by which we can thus judge it. Your doctrine of perfection, on the contrary, carries us back to the law, and takes away the full light of Christ, in order to make us satisfied with ourselves.

But, observe, the principle which I have advanced supposes that we walk "in the Spirit" by a much higher rule, which admits of no pattern of conduct save the life of Christ on earth; and no standard of perfection but the glory of Christ above in heaven. What we do is not what we are. Since the fall, and since our regeneration, these two things must be distinguished. Jesus Christ is the example of what we ought to do, but He cannot be the example of what we are; for we are, actually, born in sin, and He was not.

201 I will add another remark, connected with what I have just said. One would never have believed that anyone could have maintained that a state of perfection here on earth was the chief end of the birth, life, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, of the Christian revelation, of the preaching of the gospel, and of the scripture truth of election. And who indeed could have imagined that heaven, that our being made like unto Jesus in glory, our being with Him, the joy of His presence, that the exemption from all evil, from sorrow and from tears, that the possession of the glory of God, and life with Jesus Christ in His presence — in a word, that the union of Christ with the Church in glory should form no part in the great end of all that God has done in Christ, and that all these things (and even many of the texts which speak of them) should be taken as referring only to what we are on earth?

Raise, as high as you will, the standard of holiness which we can attain on this earth, I hope to agree with you. But, as I have already told you, your standard is too low for me; for, according to you, a man does not commit sin although he does things which expose him to eternal damnation. And again, you say, the very highest point we are to aspire to is to be made like the first Adam, not like the last Adam. But at least do not refuse me, as the chief end of the work of Christ, the presence, glory, and heavenly rest of God. Say not, as you do say, that that which I can realize on earth is "the rest which remaineth for the people of God." Alas! if it is thus with you, your religion, my dear friend, is of an earthly character. Instead of opening heaven before us, instead of encouraging us by such a motive to advance indefinitely in the career of holiness and piety, instead of making us feel, by that which imparts to us this new strength, that we are still far from the end to which, through grace, we shall surely attain, all your efforts are directed to the making the whole revelation of the grace of Christ serve to set up again a sort of Judaism. Paul, who perhaps attained the highest rank among the soldiers of the faith, has said, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable," 1 Cor. 15: 19. It was because he had received the first-fruits of the Spirit that he groaned within himself (Rom. 8: 23), that he fought, not as one that beats the air, but kept under his body and brought it into subjection; 1 Cor. 9: 26, 27. Is this, then, the rest which remaineth for the people of God? Alas, what delusion! What, then? are there no internal combats? I will admit, if you please, that we may go on until we no longer have to struggle in conflict with our enemy, who harasses us with all his might. But what? — shall we not want continual watchfulness to hold in an enemy who is our prisoner, but whose enmity and malice are unchanged, and who at any moment may break out and do us hurt?

202 I have but one more remark to make on the manner of quoting scripture that occurs in the pamphlet of which you spoke. I desire to call your attention to the criminal practice of joining the middle of one passage to a part of another, just as if the Holy Spirit employed the latter on the same occasion as the former, when it is not so. Take the following instances. I am struck by this even in its title-page. I read there, "Be ye perfect," which is part of a sentence taken from Matthew 5: 48. "Every one that is perfect shall be as his master," another portion from Luke 6: 40: and to these is joined, in a manner still more surprising, this fragment from Paul, "Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded" (Phil. 3: 15), the whole concluding with the verses, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing," etc. (1 Tim. 6: 3, 4).

A simple mind would naturally conclude that "teaching otherwise" was a reference to the thought continued in the preceding verse. But no; the beginning of the third quotation is in Philippians 3: 15; and the last passage, "If any man teach otherwise," etc., is taken from 1 Timothy 6: 3, 4, in which the Holy Spirit applies the words to the duty of servants to their masters, and the honour which servants owe to the latter, if they are children of God. What can be said of such quotations?

Sometimes two passages are mingled in one quotation, and the reader is left to unravel its parts. It is said, for example, "He that shall endure unto the end, in the faith which worketh by love, that man shall be saved." There is no such passage in God's word. The author has inserted a portion of Galatians 5: 6, into the middle of a passage taken from Matthew 24: 13, and has connected it by the words in the and that man, which are not found in either verse. Now the verse in Galatians has no reference to the "enduring to the end" mentioned in Matthew; and this last passage speaks of the afflictions of the disciples in the distress of Jerusalem.

203 "By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified . . . if they do but hold fast the beginning of their confidence." It is true the places are given whence the texts are taken; but the condition, appearing in the latter words, is not at all connected in God's word with the truth laid down in the former.

Let these examples be a warning to you to be on your guard. And beware of receiving as a genuine quotation — either as to its terms, or as expressing the meaning of the Holy Spirit — any passage, the sense of which you have not verified in the context.

I have now two general observations to make on the two principal parts of this pamphlet. To prove the point that the state of soul depicted in Romans 7 is no other than that of an unregenerate man, the writer proceeds to bring forward, on behalf of every regenerate man, all the texts which had been brought forward as characterizing the state of a perfect man, in contradistinction with a Christian who still knows internal conflicts. Then, when the writer is trying to prove that such or such a passage does not apply to a regenerate man, in order to bring out the contrast, he quotes the very same passages (chap. 8), as if they were only to be understood of the regenerate generally. One example will explain what I mean: (p. 101) — the regenerate man: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," etc. Now we have before seen, that this text has been already quoted to shew that the state of a perfect man is altogether distinct from that of a regenerate man. It is now applied to the latter, in order to make it appear that Romans 7 does not at all describe the state of regeneration. Such inconsistency cannot be of the teaching of the Holy Spirit. What purpose can it serve to plunge us into principles which contradict each other? Such confusion ever marks false doctrine.

The assertions which we find at the beginning of the article, entitled "Evidences of the New Birth," etc., p. 170, appear to me entirely at variance with that instantaneous change, greater than justification itself, of which Mr. Wesley speaks. Here it is a question of degree, "in some degree," as it is said, in the condition of all. But, tell me, what mean the words, "at the commencement of our justification?" Is justification a work which is effected in us progressively? Here, again, all the characteristics of perfection are given as evidences of the new birth.

204 I now come to my second remark. In the whole of Mr. Wesley's work on Christian Perfection, the love of God towards us is never once mentioned, either as the subject of our gratitude, or as a motive to obedience. We are not told that the thought of this love holds any place in the heart of the perfect man. This is an extraordinary fact. I read in 1 John 4, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us" — a doctrine very remarkable in this epistle, which treats of that "perfect love which casteth out fear." It finds place there, precisely that we might be kept from the error into which Mr. Wesley — too confident in himself — has fallen, in company with all mystics: an error natural to the heart of man, who, when through grace, he loves God, turns back upon himself, reflecting upon what he is towards God, and forgetting what God is towards him.

Two great truths are constantly to be kept in view. First, To love God, because He ought to be loved, and so to reflect His image in purity. This is what the law requires, but man has failed in this. Secondly, Grace presents to us the love of God towards us, when we were unworthy of it. It places us in Christ, on a new and immutable foundation of eternal joy; it presents to us God Himself under an aspect unknown to Adam, and which was impossible under the law (for the law necessarily requires perfect love in us; it cannot, it ought not to spare any sinner). But, by the regenerating power of the life of Christ, we are renewed in the image of God; but we are renewed entirely on the principle of an eternal gratitude, which alone puts God in His right place with regard to the creature; and which puts the creature, dead and made alive again, in its place in relation to God. The Wesleyan system deliberately replaces the creature under the requirement of the law, and thus overturns the entire gospel.

N. But there can be no doubt that Mr. Wesley preached the love of God to sinners.

A. I do not deny it, though it was in a vague manner. He preached it even more than some others who proclaimed the necessity of regeneration rather than made proclamation of the love of God. Nevertheless, he replaces the regenerate man under law. In other respects there is a great deal of confusion in his doctrine; for in the midst of the highest requirement of law, he allows of things which require the expiation of the blood of Christ. However, he clearly proves what I say, by the very fact that, in the character of a perfect Christian, he makes no mention of the love of God towards us. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The same remark may be made on the note, entitled "Evidences of the New Birth," in which, as in his exposition of Romans 7, the author again completely confounds the regenerate with the perfect man. Confusion and error always go hand in hand.

205 Allow me, on this subject, to quote a text which has struck me forcibly. Ignorance and error are spoken of among you as distinct from sin. But I read in Matthew 6: 23, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." If, therefore, I am in error, in darkness as to certain things, my eye also has been in some degree not single. Nothing remains then but the alternative — thine eye is evil. Darkness has ensued. A false judgment ever proceeds from wandering affections.

To conclude, I think that Satan has been jealous of the work of the Holy Spirit, which was awakening a desire of some better way. To destroy the effect of this desire, in whole or in part, he has mixed up his work with those right desires which were stirred in the hearts of many Christians. Alas! that is what he often does. Let us ask of God to guide us into all truth, and, in His mercy and the multitude of His loving-kindness, to bring good out of evil itself. May He give us to try all things by the light of His word, and with the power of His Holy Spirit. Amen.*

{*The references to Wesley are to the "Plain Account of Christian Perfection," by the Rev. John Wesley, 16th edition, Mason, 1835.}

Remarks on the Presence of the Holy Ghost in the Christian.

J. N. Darby.

<03008F> 314

I desire to make a few remarks* of a practical tendency and of deep interest, on the effects of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Christian.

{*This paper forms a sort of Appendix to the Edition in French of "The Operations of the Spirit."}

The Spirit of God, as dwelling in us, may be considered in two aspects: for He unites us to the Lord Jesus, so that His presence is intimately connected with life, that life which is in Jesus; John 14: 19, 20; Gal. 2: 20. "He that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit"; and further, His presence is that of God in the soul. The scripture, speaking of Him in the first of these characters (which is sometimes linked to the second), says (Rom. 8: 2, 9, 10), that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law of sin; so that the Spirit is life because of righteousness. It is, however, also said (v. 9), "if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you"; and then His in-dwelling and action are blended, since (inasmuch as both are manifested by the formation of the character of Christ in the soul) "the Spirit of God" becomes "the Spirit of Christ." The "Christ in you" of verse 10 expresses the idea more clearly, especially as the apostle adds, "if Christ be in you, the Spirit is life." But in verse 16 the Holy Ghost is carefully distinguished from the Christian, for "He beareth witness with our spirit." In verses 26 and 27 the two characters of the presence of the Spirit are there remarkably shewn out in their mutual connections:* for "the mind of the Spirit," known to God, who searches the heart, is the life of the Spirit in the saint. But, on the other hand, "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities," and "maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God." The reason of all this is simple. On the one hand, the Spirit is there and acts with power according to the mind of Christ; on the other hand, and in consequence of this operation, the affections, thoughts, and works, are produced, which are those of the Spirit; but yet they are also ours, because we are partakers of them with Christ, "our life" (Col. 3: 2, 3), for "God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life."

{*This is largely unfolded in the Second Part of "The Operations of the Spirit."}

315 But the effect of the second aspect of the presence of the Holy Ghost is yet more important. The Spirit is the Spirit of God; He is God, and is, therefore, the revelation of the presence and power of God in the soul — a revelation known through and in a new nature which is of Him. Consequently, that which is in the nature and character of God is developed where God dwells, i.e., in the soul of the saint; not only is it produced in the new man, the creation of God, but it fills the soul, because God is there, and there is communion with Him. For instance, the new nature loves, and this love is a proof that one is "born of God," and knows God. But this is not all; there is, moreover, the in-dwelling of the Holy Ghost — that is to say, the presence of the God who communicates this new nature to us. Therefore we read (Rom. 5: 5) "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." We are loved — we know it, and have the proof of it in the gift of the precious Saviour, and in His death for us (v. 6-8). But there is something more; the perfect and infinite love shed abroad in our hearts (poor vessels as they are), and the Holy Spirit, who is God, is there (and is free to be there, because we are purified by the blood of Christ) — He is there to fill these vessels with that which is divine — the love of God. It is also added (v. 11), that we joy in God. Therefore, looking at the presence of the Spirit as demonstration of power in the soul, the apostle John affirms that "hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us," 1 John 3: 24. But, as this might be applied merely to the varied energy of the Spirit in the soul, it is stated, farther on, that "love is made perfect in us," namely, the love of God to us. Here it is no longer a question of us, of our affections, of our thoughts; but the soul is filled with the fulness of God, which leaves no room for anything else; there is no discord in the heart, to spoil the essential character of divine love. God, complete in Himself, excludes all that is contrary to Himself; otherwise He would be no longer Himself.

To avoid mysticism (the enemy's corruption of these truths) the Holy Ghost adds by the same pen, "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us" (1 John 4: 10); and the proof of this is based on that which is above all human thought and knowledge, namely, on the acts of God Himself in Christ. On the other hand, the presence of the Spirit is not given him as the proof of God's dwelling in us, two things which are identical, but it is written, "hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit." This presence of God in love not only fills our narrow souls, but places us in Him who is infinite in love. United to Christ by the Holy Ghost, one in life with Him, and the Spirit acting in us, "we dwell in God, and God in us." Therefore it is said that "God has given us of his Spirit"; that is to say, God, in virtue of His presence and of His power, makes us morally partakers of His nature and character, by the Holy Ghost in us, whilst giving us the enjoyment of communion with Himself, and at the same time introducing us into His fulness.

316 I would here just point out the distinctive characters of the epistles of Paul, Peter, and John. Paul was raised up in an extraordinary manner for the especial purpose of communicating to the Church the order, method, and sovereignty of the divine operations; and to reveal the place which the Church holds in the midst of all this, inasmuch as she is united to Christ, and is the marvellous object of the counsels of God in grace; as the apostle says (Eph. 2: 7), "that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus," or by His dealings with regard to the Church: the wisdom of God, the righteousness of His ways, and the counsels of His grace on this subject, are largely and (as all revelation) perfectly set forth in the writings of Paul. John takes up another point, that of the communication of the divine nature, what that nature is, and, consequently, what God is, whether in His living manifestations in Christ, or in the life which He communicates to others. Without this community of nature communion were impossible; for darkness can have no fellowship with light. But, as we have already seen, the apostle goes still farther: we dwell in God, and God in us, by the Holy Ghost; and thus, as far as we are capable of it, we enjoy what God is in Himself, and become the manifestation of Him (the limit to this manifestation being only in the vessel in which God has taken up His abode). How great are the varied riches of the goodness of God! This communion with Him, which raises us as far as possible towards the fulness of Him who reveals Himself in us, is certainly something very sweet and precious; but the tenderness of God toward us, poor pilgrims on the earth, and His faithful love, so needed in our weakness to carry us onward to the goal, are not less so.

317 The testimony of Peter, in his first epistle, treats of that which God is for the pilgrim, and of what the latter should be for God. The resurrection of the Messiah has set the pilgrim on his road; and thereon are presented the faithfulness of God, and the encouragement which His power gives to our hope by this resurrection of Christ the Son of the living God, though rejected of men; and lastly, the apostle speaks of the walk, the worship, and the service which flow from it.

John presents to us that which is most exalted in communion, or rather in the nature of communion; consequently, he does not touch on the subject of the Church, as an object of divine counsels, but of the divine nature.

Paul treats of that which is perfect, not in respect of communion, but of counsel. In his writings God is glorified more especially as the object of faith, though he speaks of communion too (Romans 5: 5). Where, in the same chapter (v. 11), he speaks of God as the one in whom the Christian is to glory he places Him before and not as in us — as the object for faith to lay hold of and not as dwelling in the heart.

This divine and infinite blessing — this love perfected in us, communicated by the presence of the Holy Ghost, and realized by our dwelling in God and He in us — has led some to think that, when this point is attained, the flesh can exist in us no longer; but this is to confound the vessel with the treasure placed in it, and of which it has the enjoyment. We are in the body which still awaits its redemption: only God can dwell in it, because of the sprinkling of the blood by faith. This sprinkling does not correct the flesh, but only renders testimony both to the perfection of the expected redemption and to the love to which we owe it.

When in real enjoyment of God, we may for a moment lose sight of the existence of the flesh, because then the soul (which is finite) is filled with that which is infinite. But even in these moments of blessedness one cannot doubt but that the flesh is an obstacle to the larger and more intelligent action of love. Paul, caught up into the third heaven (a privilege which the flesh would have used to puff him up with, and which made a thorn needful), is a proof to us that grace does not change the flesh. Alas! even the joy of which we are speaking, without watchful dependence upon Christ, gives dangerous occasions of action to the flesh, because there is so much littleness in us, that, forgetting who gives the joy, we lean on the feeling of the joy, instead of dwelling in Christ, the Fountain-head of it. Nevertheless, it is certain that the love of God, made perfect in us, is a reality, and the Christian is called to know God, and to enjoy Him as dwelling in Him.

318 I have but one more remark to make.

When we are full of the love of God, we enjoy it with a power that hinders our seeing anything, especially the objects of the goodness of God, save with the eye of divine love. But where there is a real knowledge of the existence and nature of this love of God, the walk will also be characterized by faith in that love, even though the heart may not realize the whole power of it; and, thus, we shall dwell in God and He in us. But since this fulness of joy can only be realized by the action of the Spirit, it is easy to understand that, if grieved, He will become a Spirit of reproof, judging the ingratitude with which such love, as the love of God is requited, instead of filling the heart with that love; though it is impossible for Him to cast a doubt upon it. It is evident that the love made perfect in us is the work of God; and this it is which forms the joy — the whole of the state. That which the Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts is the love of God; and this love, powerful in our hearts, cannot but shew itself externally.

That which I have said does not, properly speaking, belong to the operations of the Holy Spirit, but the subject is of the greatest importance. And this importance, which is that of the fruits and grand results of the presence of the Holy Ghost (for by it the love of God and of Christ is glorified, as far as it is possible here below), seemed to render a few remarks upon this subject desirable.

May God bless them to the reader! May it please Him to realize in us the things of which I speak on the subject of revelation, and may He so bless as that the truth may have its full weight on the soul; so that we may know, with all the beloved Church of Christ, what it is to have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us according to the power of the love of God!

A few remarks connected with the Presence and Operation of the Spirit of God in the Body, the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<03009E> 319

My dear brother,

I have read the unpublished tract you sent, and I proceed to give you my judgment upon it.

I cannot help seeing in it some expression of the same restlessness of the flesh which it professes to condemn, and (as it seems to me) of quite as evil a character, because, whilst on the other side this restlessness is against certain individual qualifications, on this side it has a more unbelieving tendency, inasmuch as, however unconsciously, it is directed against the presence, power, and acting of the Holy Ghost in the Church.

And here I begin by admitting that what is called open ministry has given occasion to the flesh. But I do not think the remedy for it is to deny the presence and operation of the Spirit of God: which, as far as it goes, is the principle of the tract. And I will add further that, while I admit that the flesh has taken occasion from spiritual liberty to take licence to itself (as God has warned us it would), and while I think that flesh acting thus ought, as in every other case, to be judged by the Church if the individual does not judge it for himself, I have no hesitation in saying that I have found spiritual devotedness and spiritual intelligence and brotherly joy unequivocally inferior, and a very carnal following of particular ways of thinking taking their place, wherever teachers (with a comfortable opinion of themselves, because able by natural qualifications to be acceptable to many, without denying that they might have gift) have absorbed into their own hands the ministry of the word. It is, and has been in all ages, one of the first symptoms of spiritual decline in the Church. Another consequence is, that sisters lose a most blessed place which God has given to them in the Church, and take one which He has not given, and which is really only a dishonour to them before God. Moreover (while I would press upon every heart, and especially upon those who would act upon the deplorable and unchristian principle of "having a right to speak," that grace is swift to hear and slow to speak, and that, while faithful in the exercise of what God has given, one must ever be ready to esteem another better than oneself), I believe that the love of power is as much to be dreaded in those who can gratify the ears and minds of many (and that is not edification), as the love of doing in those who can please but few; and this especially where spiritual power is on the decline, and teaching looked to stimulate, instead of the Lord enjoyed in grace. The consequence is, you will find more or less the teacher take the place of the Lord. Seemly flesh is not more pleasant to God than rude flesh, though it pave the way more easily for the Church's contentedly leaving God and forgetting His presence. Teaching, precious as it is, is not His presence. I dread much when I hear people say "dear Mr. Such-an-one." It may be accompanied with grace in other ways; but I do not think they would have so spoken of Paul or Apollos, when the grace and holy power which puts the conscience in the presence of Christ was in its energy, though they would have esteemed them very highly in love for their work's sake. You may perhaps think I am blaming others — I am not. I have seen the same spirit working as regards myself; and I think I may say I have struggled against it, though this (in the feebleness of the Church as to labourers) is not easy; but in trusting God for this, I have found that blessing has followed, whatever the danger seemed. I believe that the Holy Ghost dwells in the Church. This will never make man careless in watching over the saints for their good — quite the contrary; but the belief of it will hinder his taking the Spirit's place. God will be respected in the Church, and His Spirit in the whole body and in the least of its members. And those that honour Him, He will honour.

320 The pamphlet you have sent me is just the setting aside of all this, and the expression of the decline, in the writer's case — I might almost say, the ceasing to believe in the presence and operation of God in the Church. I do not suppose that you can force, so as to be profitable, the speaking of those who have little gift or but few words to say. The forcing a member to act may not restore the tone of the body, want of which has disabled the member from acting; but to take this state as the healthful one, because the acting of the members made the body in its sickly state ill at ease, is a sad mistake. This is the progress of the thing: when real and fresh joy in the Lord is there, and the saints think much of the Lord, a few words spoken about Him recall Him, and they are full of joy and happy. If another can speak largely of His grace (though in fellowship this would be to me exceptional), they feed; Christ is still thought of, His glory present, and the soul perhaps carries away meditation for another moment. The speaker and the hearers together think of Christ. Where the Lord is much less thought of, the few very same words would not recall Christ scarcely at all to the heart, because He is not there in the same way, and they are wearisome, they do not stimulate; and he who once was wont so to speak thinks himself and his gift despised. Perhaps, too, some defect of education or the like has accompanied these few words; it was quite or almost overlooked when Christ was very present, but now it is very evident and displeasing. If sometimes he went beyond what the Spirit gave him, this, though perceived and (if there was faithfulness) mentioned in grace, with the recognition of Christ in all the rest — now that Christ is not the source of the same blessing, has not the same place in the hearer — becomes remarked and offensive, because what man is is now much more prominent. Hence the more accomplished teacher who does not offend the ear and the taste becomes necessary — a dreadful snare to himself and to the whole assembly. But when this comes to be insisted on as the right thing and those who have educational qualifications come to insist on this state of things as the right state, it is very sad. Failure, and building on failure to sanction the position which the flesh would assume for its ease because of failure, are two very different things. The first man has to confess; the last is assuming his ease in it and setting aside God and his own responsibility at once. And I do avow I have a little distrust of this, coming always from those who take the whole matter to themselves on this ground.

321 I think, if the history of the Church be examined, it will be found that the decline of any revival always took this road.

One word more of general remark. I do not at all say that in any gathering where such is the state of things, those who can edify very little or not at all are to force themselves on the gathering, or to be encouraged in that state of things to speak. If it does not edify, it can be of no use. The point is, that all should feel what the state of things is, and above all not sanction as right what is the proof of failure and decay. I have no hesitation in saying that worse spiritual decline is always the consequence.

322 I turn to the pamphlet to shew as briefly as I can (and it will not require many words) that its reasoning is without foundation, its statements unscriptural, and its principle the denial of the operation of the Spirit of God in the Church.

First, let us remember this, that the presence of gift did not in the smallest degree hinder the working of the flesh in speaking: it was at full work, to the marring of edification, and that in the grossest shape (for men were speaking what nobody understood at all), when the gifts were undeniable. It is not the presence of real gifts that is any check to this fleshly confusion. It was the most undeniable utterance-gifts, tongues for example, when there could be no mistake as to the Spirit's power, which were the occasion of carnal confusion.

This is of the last importance, because the assertion is, that persons speaking without gift, on the assumption that they have it, produce confusion, and the remedy is that they should recognize that there is no gift now; and thus the ministry be left to persons, gracious persons no doubt, who, by their human attainments, are capable of satisfying in general the demands of the flock for instruction. Now the answer at once is that all this is without foundation. The edification of the flock had to be watched over against the licence of the flesh where there were gifts, as much as on the assumption that there are none. The question does not lie there at all. The ground of the argument is all a mistake. It lies much more in the spiritual grace which can maintain the edification of the body.

And just see where this reasoning places me. It destroys absolutely the applicability of scriptural directions to the assemblies of the saints; so that I have no scriptural rule nor guidance in ordering that edification. I admit that there is a great difference in fact as to gifts. The Church is shorn of well nigh if not all her glory and ornament, and well has she deserved it. Hence there is a necessary modification in the application. I cannot regulate the speaking with tongues when there are none; but if the principle of ministerial edification be different, if the thing regulated by the scripture does not exist at all in any shape, then the rules for order and edification of the assembly are gone with them. I have a teaching without the operation of the Spirit and without the regulation of the Spirit. It is not "edification by gift" that is in question, but it is the existence of any assembly on this principle. It is a new sort of assembly which is proposed, to which the scriptural directions do not apply, such as have been already formed in the Establishment and among the Dissenters, and which I have left because they are not scriptural. Now I am told that it is all a mistake to take these scriptures and apply them at all; they are based upon that which exists no more. It is in vain to say we meet as brethren, and the ministry is a distinct question. I admit we meet as brethren, but at the same time we meet in the unity of the body, where God acts by the members; and it is the Holy Ghost acting in the unity of the body by its members which is called in question; for these members are what are called gifts in Corinthians, and in the use of another word in Ephesians too. It is this that makes the question serious. That the flesh has used liberty for licence I do not doubt: the gifts did not hinder that. It may be, too, that in a given gathering there may not be a teacher at all; this is very possible, because the gifts are in the unity of the whole body, not in a single gathering. The state of the Church may make our weakness very apparent in this respect; but if we are humbled, we shall accept this position and be blessed. The attempt to restore gift by, or rather to substitute for it, the quietness which decent human attainment may give, is just to avoid the holy, humble, God-owning confession of the state we have brought the Church to. It is building again (and worse) the things which we have destroyed.

323It is, after being awakened, refusing to acknowledge and bow our heads on account of the sorrowful state of the Church; and this I see fast growing in many a mind because of the blessing which God in His sovereign goodness deigned to bestow on those who did so own and humbled themselves on account of that state. The Lord keep us lowly, and keeping the word of His patience.

And now as to the arguments of the writer. They are based on his explanation of the word charisma.

If I might be allowed to suppose a case so very simple that all might understand it (yet in the plainest seriousness), I would say: —

I mean by boots coverings for the feet and ankles, drawn on, without strings and being tied; and I affirm then that there are no boots made at Stafford at all. It is replied to me, "Why the town lives by making boots, and sends them all over the world." No, I say, there are none made there that is what a boot really means, at any rate, what I mean by a boot.

324 Would it not be evident that my statement was good for nothing at all, because it was founded upon a meaning which I had attached to the word which did not exist in reality, though some boots might be so made? The reasoning was based on a false ground, and therefore was all invalid. The question is, Are there gifts according to Scripture? I attach a meaning to the word 'gift' which is not scriptural, and then use it to prove, as to the present fact and time, that there are no scriptural gifts. The total fallacy of such a proceeding is evident.

But I shall at once be stopped short by the remark, But you must prove that it is not scriptural. It is just what I proceed to do, and from the only possible source of reasoning on it — an examination of Scripture itself.

This is the writer's statement of what gift is: "Charisma, or gift, I look upon as quite distinct from everything of man's doing — distinct from the natural ability or talent he may possess of God, distinct from the improvement and sanctification of that talent, and alike distinct from any attainment he might make by the diligent use of means. It is the Holy Spirit giving, in distinctness to anything we see in man. It is that giving when the power of the Spirit is manifestly seen using the creature indeed, and yet clearly to be distinguished from the creature; as, for instance, we see in the gift of tongues, etc. . . . So I believe it was of all gifts of the Spirit, etc. . . . Such I believe to be of (?) the true nature and meaning of gift; and I am not aware that there is any passage in the New Testament in which charisma, or gift, can be shewn to be something different from this."

This statement is constantly referred to and in substance repeated. We shall find that the writer's statement involves the whole question of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the body, the Church; because He must act in some way if He be there to act in the body. I say the presence of the Holy Ghost in the body, not His merely acting in grace in individual minds. This question is entirely overlooked in the writer's statements.

But as to the word gift itself. Charisma, or gift, is the Holy Spirit's giving, etc. Now I should not have made any difficulty as to the expression "gifts of the Spirit," as a general human expression, sufficiently exact to convey historically what was meant; but when this is insisted on as a definition, it is important to notice that there is no such term in Scripture; and the Holy Ghost is never spoken of as giving. Nor do I apprehend that this distinction is without intention on the part of the divine Spirit. At any rate, on a very important and delicate subject it is well, when we are defining, not to speak otherwise than the word speaks.

325 Next, that charisma is a free gift, or a something freely given, and not attained by man's labour, is evident. The word means it. But then it is quite beside the mark to speak of the word meaning "the Spirit's giving." First, it is used independently of all question of the Spirit's giving in several passages. In Romans 5: 15, 16; chap. 6: 23, it is the free gift of God unto justification and eternal life; in chapter 11: 29, it is used in the most general way possible, and applied to God's purpose as to the Jews. This the writer recognizes in the latter passage. It is very doubtful whether the statement made there as to charismata Theou could be applied to what are called spiritual gifts. At any rate, the word by these passages is proved not to have any particular application to the Spirit's giving in its meaning. It means free gift; and whatever is free gift may be called charisma. Now here there was nothing of the Spirit being seen, manifestly seen, using the creature, and yet clearly to be distinguished from the creature. This life was "I live, and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." So that free gift was not necessarily (in the case to which the writer compares it and which is called effectively charisma) what he affirms in the same place it must be, as the only true meaning of the word; so much the contrary, that in the case alluded to a man could say, "I, yet not I, and the life which I live." That is, precisely the contrary was the case to that asserted by the writer. Charisma, or gift, is not what the writer asserts.

Further, in cases of spiritual* gift, properly speaking, I suppose when the apostle preached at Athens, when in the synagogues he spoke as a Jew to Jews, he did so in the exercise of his apostolic gift; and yet there is no appearance of such a distinction before the heathen, and the Jews, "of the creature and the gift." That there was great power in what he said, and thus demonstration of the Spirit, I doubt not; but it has no appearance at all of an utterance, as it is called, which attracted supernaturally the attention of the hearers — "the Spirit seen using the creature, and yet clearly to be distinguished from the creature." Again, I suppose the epistle to the Hebrews (if it be allowed to be what Peter alludes to as Paul's epistle to the Jews; and at any rate it is the inspired production of the Holy Ghost, as every other epistle) is really by the gift of the Holy Ghost: it is according to the wisdom given unto him a gift, the writer insists, indistinctly. Yet there is nothing but a spiritual mind developing certain great truths from the word — by inspiration, by gift, I have no doubt; but how in a way clearly distinguished from the creature (i.e., distinguished evidently from spiritual attainment, however sanctified on the face of it, as "tongues, working of miracles, healings," etc.)? That it is real gift and real inspiration, I have not the smallest doubt — that is just what I insist upon; but I do not see anything of this miraculous form of utterance or power so distinct from any improvement or sanctification of talent he possesses of God, or attainment he might make by the diligent use of means. I do not see that this distinction was so strong in the apostle's mind when he says, "when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you," etc.

{*Though, indeed, this is not a scriptural expression: we have pneumatika, a much wider meaning than spiritual gifts, and includes, in the way of explanation, what the demons did — every thing that related to spiritual manifestations.}

326 I know not whether the writer would allow the holy Scriptures to be written in virtue, or in exercise, of a gift: if not, all his statements are of little importance, for in that case it is evident that the most important communications from God (and that, inspired ones too) are not gifts. But if we are allowed to consider them as such (and for this I refer to 2 Peter 1: 20, 21, for the principle), then I beg the reader to consider the beginning of Luke (1: 1-4), and say how far, in this case, gifts are distinguished sensibly from what man is capable of by spiritual attainment. So Paul in the Corinthians. I suppose it will hardly be denied that these were the fruits of apostolic gift, "though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent." Is there anything in this so clearly distinguished from the creature? For my own part, that which to me so exquisitely distinguishes the general character of the New Testament inspiration and gift is, that the Holy Ghost — instead of, as in the old prophets (with the exception of, perhaps, a few passages in Jeremiah, which, by the way, is a very interesting point as to this prophet), giving oracularly certain revelations with "thus saith the Lord" — enters (as come down in the unity of the body, as dwelling in the creature, and associating Himself with all its affections, sorrows, and feelings, helping its infirmities) into all the sympathies, and acts in all the affections which redemption has created and left room for and which become the unity of one body, and binds it all together. "He who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God." I cite this not as a gift, but as the expression of the way in which the Holy Ghost introduces Himself into the sorrows and sufferings of the body, as being still connected with the creature. What a marvellous sympathy of God in and with the creature! He who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to God. And were the gifts not of this sympathy and unity? Let any man read the epistles of Paul and say. Let him read Philippians, Philemon, 2 Timothy, Corinthians, or indeed any: and yet surely apostolic gift, prophetic gift, and doctoral gift were in exercise here. I do not deny that there is sometimes a distinct enunciation of positive fresh revelations. The book of Revelation is a clear case of this; and so in many passages of Paul's epistles. "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord," and so on. But will the writer of the tract be bold enough to say that when the apostle spoke thus he was exercising his gift; and that all that is found with it in the same epistles is not the exercise of gift, but spiritual attainment merely, though addressed as from an apostle? But if not, his view of gift is surely completely falsified; and it is manifest he has confounded gift with another immediate action of the Holy Ghost, with new revelations. It is not pretended that God keeps infallibly now as He did in forming the written word; but that is not the point: it is to know whether He works now, so as to give competency, and to guide in speaking, and lead to speak, or to be silent. We have seen that when the apostle was not at the same height of spiritual apprehension and power, he repented having written a letter which we possess as an inspired epistle.

328 Nor can I see that the fact that certain gifts were evidently supernatural, as miracles and signs (which are by the apostle declared to be inferior to others, and as tongues said to be signs to unbelievers, as indeed miracles were also to confirm the word), should exalt such form of gift above that which edified the Church, or converted souls, but which had not necessarily any such form, and whose power was seen only in the conviction of a sinner's conscience, or the edifying of a believer's soul.

In the passage in Peter we have a very important principle indeed on this subject, which seems to me to preclude altogether the reasonings of the writer of the tract. As every man has received the gift, let him so minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Thus, whatever manifold grace may be, it is to be ministered as a charisma; for the simple fact it, whatever charis (grace) gives is a charisma, no matter what. If any man speak, let him speak as oracles of God; if any man minister (i.e., serve in any way) let him do so as of the strength God supplies. That is, he sums up the whole matter into general parts which embraced the general good of the Church as in ordinary exercise, speaking and serving; if any man speak, he must do it from God — as expressing what God gave him; if he served, as of the ability which God gave him: that God in all things may be glorified. All was to be presented as coming directly from God, "that God might be glorified." Now this is the very thing the tract sets aside. It is perfectly clear that the reasoning of the apostle is null, if it be translated "according to the oracles." Besides, that is not what is said; it is as oracles, not even as the oracles. What the apostle is speaking of is the source to which it is to be attributed, in order that this source may have the glory, and not man's attainment. That is, charisma is the source of speaking (charisma being simply the expression for all that the manifold grace gives) and it is forbidden to speak in any other way: it is to be ascribed to the gift of God. And I apprehend that if saints, one and all, were honestly thus to wait upon God, there would be a great deal more real gift, and gifts of less human attainment would be better appreciated; while many a person would be kept in healthful silence, because he could not say that he spoke as of God: and if this were demanded, the flesh would be more easily detected, if he pretended to do so. At any rate, such is, I have no hesitation in affirming, the only true meaning of the apostle.

329 Further, I proceed to shew that as regards the distinction of gift from diligence in the use of means, though the gift be not thus acquired, the writer is wrong: and further, that while gift is really gift, inasmuch as God give it, yet that God prepares the vessel, so that suitability is God's way of acting in this.

First, as to diligence in the use of means; the statements of Scripture shew the writer's notion of using the creature independently of such diligence to be entirely false. In 1 Timothy 4 the apostle thus addresses his beloved son in the faith: "Till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon (or occupy thyself with) these things, give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear unto all men; take heed to thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." Is the possession of gift so contrasted here with the use of means, so that profiting should appear? Again, "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee, by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. The whole of these directions prove that the possession of charisma was to be accompanied by the use, the diligent use of means, so that profiting should appear; and that the writer's confined use of it is entirely a false one.

Further, as to being distinct from natural endowment. The writer instances tongues. I really cannot say as to this, it may have been so; but the general rule in gifts for edification is otherwise. The principle of scripture, of the Lord, is natural endowment, gift, and diligence through confidence in His love. The last two we have seen in Timothy, while in Peter we have been guarded from the abuse of it, into which the writer has fallen. In Matthew 25 we have the express statement of the Lord, that when He went away, He called His servants, and gave to each of them according to his several ability; and they then traded with the talents as His given money. So Paul was a chosen vessel, as well as the receiver of a gift; and I think no one can doubt the remarkable qualities which preceded his call. Nor in reading the history of Peter and James and John, "who seemed to be pillars," can any one doubt that the Cephas and Boanerges of the Lord had qualities before the day of Pentecost, which the Lord had, in divine wisdom, prepared and chosen for the purpose for which He employed them by His gift. And, while equally apostles, it is clear that all were not alike in this respect. Is it unnatural with God to do thus? or, when He chooses before He gives the gift (as we know He did both with Paul and the others), are we to suppose that He chooses without display of wisdom or without a fitness which He Himself has prepared in His instrument? That it is not what would have appeared in man's eyes may be very true, for "God seeth not as man seeth"; still He seeth, and in some fair and ruddy youth who is taken from following the ewes great with young, or in some poor fisherman of Galilee, He may have prepared and chosen a vessel which will put man to shame, but glorify the profound wisdom of God in His poor creatures; while in the learned and freeborn Jew of Tarsus He may shew, in an energy which God alone could have sustained, what it was to count those things which were gain loss for the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord, whose very name he had once sought to destroy. The Lord chooses the vessel, and He chooses it in the wisdom which has prepared it for His use. And it is not the substitution of mere spiritual attainment for the creative wisdom which has prepared it, and for the divine grace which has filled the vessel with His own gift, which will put either God or man in his place.

330 Let us turn to Romans 12. The apostle, after exhorting every man to think soberly of himself, according as God had dealt to every man the measure of faith, for that we are all members of the same body (a point we will, D.V., touch on presently) adds, "having then gifts differing according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry on ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation; he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." Now I ask, is it possible (if the apostle had the idea of gift which the writer has) that such a passage would have been found? Could he have spoken of ministry — not of the word properly, but of any service to the saints — teaching, exhortation, giving, and ruling, and then pass on to what are fruits and the walk of grace, heading all with the word 'gift' (charisma), "Having therefore received gifts," if such a thought had been in his mind as the writer insists on?

331 It is quite evident that, while some gifts bore externally the stamp of supernatural power, or, if believed, having the character of new revelation, were necessarily assumed to be such, the piety (and I apprehend the enlightened and scriptural piety of the saints, whose record is in the word) recognized everything as a gift (charisma); and, as the Holy Ghost and He only did everything in the Church that was good, it was attributed to Him; not as His gift, but as His working. To say otherwise would be to confine His working to signs or revelations, which is clearly false. And hence the lists of gifts are altogether diverse, according to the subject of the writer, and none of them complete as if it were a regular enunciation of certain known things, because all that was done for God, God was the doer of it; and that doing was gift to the Church in him in whom it was accomplished, and Peter forbids its being done in any other way. The service or ministry which we have (I have no doubt in Peter, but certainly in Romans 12) as gift, being by Peter contrasted with speaking, and indeed in Romans 12 too. It is clear that exhortation and evangelizing were neither signs nor fresh revelations, yet they were gifts. Indeed, receiving the word (not on the ground of signs, but) by faith in the conscience, is the only true receiving of it; and the fact of signs accompanying it is just the proof that it was not a sign itself. And now see what we have lost as coming from God — we may have it, it seems, as man's sanctified qualities and attainments, but not as a gift from God.*

{*Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, healings, tongues, interpretation, helps, governments, speaking, ministry, exhortation, presiding or ruling, shewing mercy, discerning spirits, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge. These are all named as charismata to which we may add evangelists and pastors (domata) from Ephesians 4.}

Further, either there were in the primitive Church two sorts of ministry, one which came as a gift from God, and one which did not (which I leave anybody to believe that will, and which I have no doubt Peter forbids expressly), or else the ministry which is now sought to be set up is altogether different, and is not recognized in Scripture at all; and this is a very serious point, the proper operation of the Spirit being hereby absolutely excluded, His will in sovereignty in distributing, but above all, His operation. The individual, it seems, may be sanctified in this as in everything, but the Holy Ghost never operates in the Church. He may work in a soul for its good, but He never works in the Church. And this is very important, because it goes a great deal farther than a personal question of gifts, even to the living existence and functions of the body — which I beg may be carefully remarked. These gifts are always treated by Paul as membership of the body, the Holy Ghost animating the whole and acting in the parts. There must be no body then, or at any rate no members of the body. I admit freely that this is a figure; and I do not pretend to say, such a member is such a gift; but the figure means something. It means that the Holy Ghost is dwelling in and making one the body of Christ, and acting by every one of the members in one way or another, His actings being called charismata in the members. It is quite true that some of these may be ostensibly and evidently the power of God; still all that is done must come from the same source, according to what is given to each: if not, it comes from the mind and flesh of the individual, and is good for nothing. And, though certain gifts were before the body, and operated for the gathering of it, yet, being of it by the then union of it all together, they are all treated by the apostle as members of the body. And it is important to remark here, that gifts are never treated as separated isolated things, though in responsible individuals, as complete in the individual, as a separate acting of the Holy Ghost in him; but as the consequence of the Holy Ghost acting in the body of which they were members, and they acting merely as members of the body.

332 And the apostle is so far from presenting that which is adorned with the outward ostensible sign, as being the most valuable and important gifts, that he states exactly the contrary, distinguishing the two kinds. Comeliness, says he, is put upon what is less comely; for our comely parts have no need: but God has thus tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked.

Let us, passing over for the present the passage of Peter which forbids speaking save as oracles of God, consider now the passages of Paul's epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Ephesians.

I add Ephesians, though the word be not charisma. There may be a shade of idea: substantially they are the same thing. Doma is not more human attainment than charisma; there is no difference in this respect. That is, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, were gifts properly speaking (spoken of in a different point of view, I admit, but not the less gifts) in the fullest and highest sense of the word, the consequence of Christ's exaltation; and, with the exception of pastor, which is here identified as the same person, not gift, with doctor, declared elsewhere to be distributions of the Holy Ghost, who is not, as we shall see, left out here. The Church had been declared to be the habitation of God through the Spirit. And they are engaged to walk worthy of this calling. There was one body, they are told, and one Spirit; but to every one of us is given grace (charis) according to the measure of the gift (doreas) of Christ. Christ had ascended up on high, He had given gifts to men, and He gave some apostles, etc.

333 The principle stated is that there is a unity of the body in one Spirit; but that to every one of us grace (charis) is giver according to the measure of the gift of Christ. The charismata in Peter are said to be received according to the manifold charis; that it is Christ who fills all things, who being ascended up, and so Head of the Church (and this is the doctrine of the whole epistle), has given in particular these gifts. Every one has received as a member of the body; but these notable gifts are particularly marked out, which especially minister of the fulness of Christ for the gathering or nourishment of the body, that we might grow up to Him in all things, who is the Head. They come from the Head (to the Church over all things), that we may grow up to the Head; of whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every one part maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love.

Is all this to be given up? For surely (call them domata or charismata) these were no sanctified human attainments — they are gifts which Christ ascended has given according to the power of the one Spirit in the body, so that each member should work severally in his place to the edifying of the body in love. Is all unity and membership gone? or are the members dead? or are they now to work on some other principle than the living power of the one Spirit in the body which animates each member in its place while it makes it a member in the unity of the whole body? Or will it be said, that at that time, besides the perfect corporate system of working by joints and bands, through the power flowing from the Holy Ghost as a centre, there was another system, another sort of teachers, another sort of pastors besides, who were not of this perfect system of divine workmanship? If not, and there is another sort now, then not only are gifts gone, but membership and unity and the body are gone. Not only we have failed as to them, but they are gone as on God's part, so that my faith cannot look to them; for if they exist, then (if it be not a dead body) does the Holy Ghost work in the several living members for the good of the body, and gift in the true scriptural sense of it subsists; and blessed be God that it does! And this is the question — the existence and unity of the body in its living members.

334 And here a word on what is called impulse in passing. I have no love for the word, but rather the contrary; but I am not frightened by a word either. If by impulse be meant the real present acting of the Holy Ghost leading saints to speak and guiding them in speaking, it is surely the only thing of any value or power. If they are not so led by the Holy Ghost, they must be led by something else, which will not be, to say the least, the present acting of the Holy Ghost: and therefore if even very good things may be said, it will not be power; for in every sense power belongs unto God. We have already seen that organic utterance (if there be any gift, which is simply such, i.e., the use of the creature without his mind) is the lowest kind, and the Corinthians are treated as children in understanding for thinking much of it. We have seen real, proper gift, or charisma, identified in the case of Timothy with the diligent use of means; and I add here that the mind using truth, and the Holy Ghost using the mind, are two very different things, for God is in one of them; but the Holy Ghost's using the mind is gift, properly and truly gift, and stated by the apostle to be the superior kind of gift. Having already spoken of this, I cannot be charged with any wild idea of impulse; but I do say that the acting of the Holy Ghost in and by man, in a member of the body (which is what the apostle calls gift), is what we are to look for by faith, and is the only thing of any real value or power. I admit that the Holy Ghost can, in another's mind, use what is not such. The testimony of Christ printed on a playbill for an oratorio may be used by the Holy Ghost in the reader's mind for conversion; and the mind's statement of truth may be used in another soul by the Holy Ghost for blessing; but it is not what we are to look for; it is not power in service.

335 Take another point, "Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." I suppose, when filled with the Spirit, the Holy Ghost was acting, and acting immediately, I may say sensibly. Is all this to be laid aside too? Is it wrong to be filled with the Holy Ghost, or wrong to hope that there may be more of it? And this "be not drunk with wine" is wonderfully like "these men are not drunken as ye suppose," when tongues were spoken. I am not adducing this to shew that we are not to look for tongues, but that the notion of denying gift goes much farther than is supposed — that it goes to denying the present acting of the Spirit of God, the being filled with the Spirit, as well as the unity of the membership of the Church of God, which are either dead, or active by virtue of the Spirit in what is called in Scripture gifts, and that eni ekusto, to each one, and called charisma too.

For let us turn to Corinthians: we have the same principles as in Ephesians. Only (the subject not being the exaltation of Christ over all things, as the one head of the body), the subject is approached from a different side to suit the pneumatiko, and the contrast of the one Holy Ghost with the many demons. But while thus taking it up on a different ground, it comes to the same statements: the same doctrine is found in it. First that which distinguishes the Holy Ghost is that He says, in the saint, "Lord Jesus": a demon would not, But this shews that it acted in the mind, person, and faith of the individual; as indeed the demons often did, when really such, as in an oracle. See the case of Legion: "what have I to do with thee? I pray thee torment me not"; only it was by blinding the mind, and not by light. Nor do I doubt that this often happens now.

Then there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit Here I would remark by the way, that this is not calling them gifts of, or given by, the Spirit, but merely that it was not as with demons, many, each acting by himself; but that though the gifts were many the Spirit was one. It was clearly the operation of the Spirit in these gifts; but He is never said to be the Giver of most of them, I doubt not of all: Christ is said to be the Giver, as in Ephesians 4, and so in Acts 2, "being by the right hand of God exalted, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." But in the economy of God, the Spirit is rather said to operate or distribute than to give: something like Eliezer (Gen. 24), who had all the goods of his master in his hand, and distributed them, disposed of them, but they came from another. I say something like, because the word 'master' is irrelevant here, and the Holy Ghost being God, the operations are the operations of God — a truth carefully preserved in this chapter. To explain further this distinction, I could notice the words employed — it is given through (dia) the means of the Spirit; according to (kata) the Spirit; in (the power of ) (en) the same Spirit.

336 But to pursue — one more point. Whatever were the manifestations of the Spirit, it was for profit, not for display; but, whatever they were, the point insisted on is, it was "one and the same Spirit." "For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body; so also is Christ." And here I would ask, Is Christ so now? That man has marred and maimed this body, as regards its condition on earth, is admitted — yea, earnestly urged; but in the principle of its existence, can it be said now, "so also is Christ"? This evidently is a most serious question.

Haggai could say to Israel, on whom Lo-ammi was already written, "As in the days when ye came up out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you, fear ye not." What a blessed and important consolation this! and ground on which faith could rest in its hopes, its confidence, or its labour.

For, continues the apostle, by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, whether Jews, etc., and have all drank into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many, etc. But now the members are many but the body one; and, after a passage above quoted, it is said, "that there may be no schism in the body, but that the members may have the same care one for another."

"Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular: and God hath set in the Church, first, apostles . . . and seek earnestly the better gifts."

Now what I would remark here is, the way in which the gifts (charismata) are indissolubly knit up with the unity and membership of the body. And this is no casual idea: we have found the same connected with the headship of Christ as domata in the Ephesians. Here we see the basis is stated, "by one Spirit we have been baptized into one body," and this baptism with the Holy Ghost is what distinguishes the Church, and the ministry of Christ Himself as exalted on high in respect of it — "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." Having stated the principle in chapter 12, and the excellency of charity in chapter 13, in chapter 14 he applies it to the state of the Corinthian church, and we have connected with this subject singing, blessing, and giving thanks; and he prefers doing it with his mind. That is, the whole action of the Holy Ghost in the body is brought out in connection with this subject, whatever pre-eminent gifts might be found among them.

337 And, further, this universality of action is assumed as a possibility in the whole body, in respect of the most public and evident gifts. "When ye are gathered together in one place, if all speak with tongues, will they not say, you are mad? but if all prophesy, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all, and the secrets of his heart being revealed, he falls down and confesses that God is in you of a truth" (i.e., that God is in the assembly, in the saints). Is all this gone too? He does not fall down and confess that God is in such or such a gifted person; much less does he admire or look up to the spiritual attainments of an individual: he confesses that God is in the assembly, among the Christians. And is this to be lost, and not even sought, and individual attainment substituted for the presence of God in the assembly? For this is the real question: not merely whether such individual acts on such or such a principle, but whether I am to look to God or to man — to God's presence in the assembly, or to man's competency by acquired attainments. Can I be satisfied with the latter without some very clear proof that the former is not to be sought-that God has abandoned the assembly of His saints? For if there, is He not to make His presence known? If He do, it is a manifestation of the Spirit in the individual who acts; it is a gift, and, if you please, an impulse. It is God acting: that is the great point.

And here I remark that the application of "the rest" ("let the rest judge") to a certain number of recognized teachers, is entirely against the sense and spirit of the passage. That an unspiritual man, in whom the Holy Ghost's power is not, is incapable of so judging is quite true, though "the spiritual man judgeth all things." But what the apostle is considering is the power of the Spirit of God in the gathered assembly; so that God is confessed to be in them; so that all might speak with tongues, all prophesy, the person entering be convinced of all, judged of all; and the Holy Ghost so acting that they might all prophesy one by one, that all may learn (a very good position for everyone to be in sometimes), and all may be comforted.

338 Let us turn to Romans. Here again the same principle meets us. "For I say," says the apostle, "through the grace given unto me, to every one among you, not to think highly of himself, above what he ought to think; but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." Here again we have a very important principle: no false pretension, sober thoughts of self and gift. Charisma (as we may see in what the apostle goes on to say) is spoken of as God's dealing to every man the measure of faith — this is to be the ground for every man to act upon; if he goes beyond it much or little, he is in the flesh and in folly, let his attainments or acceptance be what they may. We want God in order to be profited, and that is according to the measure of faith, and that in every man. For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, but each members one of another, but having different gifts (charismata), according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy [let us prophesy] according to the proportion of faith.

It is, then, in the unity of the body, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. This is the principle of gifts (charismata); happy are we that it is so simple. That there were gifts which had a sensibly miraculous character I do not deny, and such as we have lost; but I deny that this was the necessary character or real meaning of charisma (but the effect or produce of charis, grace, here applied to the action of a member of the body in service.) These gifts, however, were by no means the most important ones, and their absence does not touch the truth of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the body, acting (as He is still sovereign in doing) in the unity of the body in its several members, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. I add here, I have no doubt that the object of the apostle in this passage is to confine each to this measure of faith, to think soberly of himself, and to confine himself to what God has dealt to him; first, as to the nature, and secondly as to the measure, of the gift; and I add, that I do doubt that many a brother's gift would be recognized, if he did not go beyond his measure in it. If he prophesy, let him prophesy according to the proportion of faith — all beyond that is flesh, and putting himself forward; and this is felt, and his whole gift rejected: and it is his own fault, because he has not. known how to confine himself to it, and therefore his flesh was acting; and his speaking is attributed to this, and no wonder. It is also true as to the nature of a gift; if a man sets about to teach, instead of confining himself — to exhorting, if he exhorts, he will and cannot edify. I humbly think — but in this I fully confess I may be mistaken, and desire that he may be blessed with every gift — that this is our brother's mistake. This tract is teaching: I believe his gift to be much more exhorting, and that it is out of the measure, if not out of the nature, of his gift — a gift in which I know he has been blessed. I do not think his estimate of Charisma is scriptural, or according to any sober measure of teaching from God. I trust he will bear with me in saying this: we owe such a remark to each other — that I say not to the Church. I will add, to shew that I do not despise anything that comes from him where I can trace divine teaching, and that I think his suggestion on sophia is of importance for the understanding of that point; and though I have not examined it fully in the word, several passages connect themselves with his remark, in my mind, which make it of interest and importance to me.

339 I add yet further, that I recognize fully certain gifts which we may call permanent, or perhaps more accurately attached to the person; He gave some apostles, etc. I have spoken of it elsewhere. I repeat it now, that the putting forth of another part of the subject, which is of equal (I apprehend indeed of much greater) importance, namely the presence of the Holy Ghost acting in the body, should not be exclusive. The main point is the Holy Ghost's acting in the unity of the whole body and in each several member; but in so doing, Christ constitutes certain persons as vessels of certain gifts, and gives them for the service to which He is pleased to call them. I do not believe either will be kept in their place of blessing unless graciously owning the other. But it is equally clear that the unity of the body, and the presence of God in it, is of more consequence than that which ministers to the maintenance of that unity. Yet these do help to maintain the saints in that unity. But if they despise that unity manifested in the positive action of the Holy Spirit in all the members, then they become a positive and crying evil. It is the principle of popery; which, as a practical fact, places the operation of the Spirit in the teachers, not in the body.

340 Along with this, unity may be much insisted on, as we know from popery; but it is the unity of slavery and death.

There is no such evil in the Church as the claim of spiritual power in the Church, where it is not fully owned as really and practically acting in the members of the body. These cannot on the other hand by the Spirit deny His operations in special service. But it is service — a service to Christ and the saints. Christ gave Himself for the one; He acts by the others, by whom He will, by the Holy Ghost.

I add one word as to the translation of 1 Peter 4: 11.

Is it not evident here that the question is (not of a rule according to which things should be done, but) of the source of power and capacity; so that it should be attributed to that source, even God Himself, and thus He receives all the glory? It is not the scriptural accuracy of what is said, but the divine source to which all is to be attributed, that the apostle is insisting on. It is quite true that if it is not according to Scripture it does not come from God. But this is a means of proving the thing. The literal translation of the passage is this, "If any man speak, as oracles of God: if any man serve (or minister — the word means any service, not properly of a slave), as of the ability which God supplies: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ."

"As oracles of God," it seems to me, cannot, by any possibility, be translated "according to the scriptures."

I do not in the least pretend here to have treated the subject in full; but merely to have said what I believe a sufficient reply to the ground our brother has taken, and to afford light to the saints on it.

Affectionately yours.

A letter to the Saints in London as to the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church.

J. N. Darby.

<03010E> 341

PREFACE

In correcting this tract for a third edition, I have not entered on the distinction to be made between the body of Christ and the habitation of the Spirit — in that one is composed of members livingly united to the Head, the other built (see 1 Cor. 3) by the instrumentality of responsible men on earth: I have treated it elsewhere. It is an important practical point in connection with the present state of the Church of God, but does not affect the great fundamental principles which govern the whole enquiry, as here pursued. I have corrected the passages in which there may have been so far confusion between the two as to lead to any practical obscurity of the mind on the subject.

The importance of the question of the Holy Ghost's presence in the Church on earth, will render some inquiry into it profitable to us.

It is a great question of principle regarding the position and walk of the saints which has arisen wherever that testimony of God specially committed, as I believe, to those commonly called the brethren, has existed. It is a question of vast importance — a principle resisted abroad as well as in England; and the resistance to which is always connected with the establishment, in one shape or other, of a clergy under the title of ministry. All I shall attempt here is to set the principle clear. There is, I fully believe, as real a question of God's truth as in Luther's days: I do not say as important a one; because in Luther's time the question was one of the ground of individual salvation — of the basis of our standing with God. Whereas the question now at issue is the position and standing of the Church, of the saints gathered when they are saved. But no one will think this a trifling question. It is closely connected with Christ's glory and the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. The question in Luther's time was the value and efficacy of Christ's work; or, in other words, justification by faith. What existed he assumed to be the Church. The question now is the presence and power of the Holy Ghost as forming and embodying the Church in unity. This evidently is important. It has been accompanied among the brethren with the revival, as I judge, of the clear doctrine of justification by faith, which was much buried under collateral doctrines, as regeneration and its proofs, which had really taken the place of justification by faith; so that, in general, assurance of salvation was rare, and considered to be a matter of spiritual attainment. Besides, there are truths to which God recalls the saints as being important at such or such a time, as leading to peculiar and needed blessings, or as bearing on peculiar evils or dangers, and against which therefore the malice of the enemy will be particularly directed, to oppose or undermine them. Such I believe the doctrine of the Holy Ghost's presence in the Church to be at this time. The unity of the body as Christ's spouse, separate from evil, is closely connected, yea, identified with, this great doctrine, which is founded on the exaltation of Christ as Son of man to the right hand of God, in testimony of the full completeness of His work, and His infinite favour with God. And hence its connection with the full, free assurance of salvation in the soul, and the joy of adoption by the Holy Ghost. No one taught of God could knowingly undervalue such a doctrine; and I do especially believe that no one specially taught of God now, "men having understanding of the times," but will on the contrary feel its peculiar vital importance, as ministered of God in the Church for saving souls, and the Church itself from the current delusions of the day. This is the question before us.

342 There are three great points connected with the doctrine of Christ, or positions in which He may be viewed: a crucified Christ, accomplishing the work of redemption, in virtue of which, as testified of in resurrection, justification is the portion of the believer; an exalted Christ, in whose name, and by whose sending, the Holy Ghost the Comforter is come down on earth, and dwells in the Church; and Christ coming again in Person. Now the first of these, namely, justification by faith, was preached by Luther, and souls were delivered, and many peoples set free from the burden of popery. But the Holy Ghost sent down here, though taught in a measure as a truth, formed no part of that which characterized the Church; and therefore it fell under the power of the magistrate, when delivered from the Pope. The doctrine of the Lord's second coming fell into the hands of real fanatics, who would have set up what they called the fifth monarchy by the sword; and in Germany did attempt it, and held a city they called their Zion for some time under Munzer.

343 That which characterized the ministry and testimony of those called the brethren, however feeble, and feeble they were, was (with the accompanying revival of assurance by faith in the simple testimony of redemption) the bringing out and walking in the faith of the two latter doctrines: namely, the Holy Ghost in the Church, and the coming again in Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this ministry was blessed both in gathering many into a simple position by it, and extending the happy influence of these truths among many who were not so gathered. With this connected itself the unity of the Church as the body of Christ by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and that, separate from the world, as bride of the Lamb. A comparison of what the Church was at first when filled with the Spirit led them to the sense of our present ruined state, and to seek in earnest devotedness more conformity to its early path, and that nothing should be owned which was not of the Holy Ghost. And they waited for God's Son from heaven. If the presence of the Spirit gave them the consciousness of being the bride, He made them also earnestly desire the coming of the Bridegroom, and the joy of that day when Christ should come and receive them to Himself, and take the kingdom and the glory.

They entered in spirit, in their little measure, into that word, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come"; and they were happy and blessed. And where, beloved brethren, let me ask you with the apostle, is that blessedness ye spake of? Did you suffer so many things in vain, or for an error, if it be yet in vain? Did you begin in the Spirit, or was it all a delusion of your imagination which wiser minds have discovered, and that you are glad to give decently up, and to end in the flesh?

Now the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church was (with the waiting for Christ's coming), the grand doctrine on which the whole testimony of those so-called brethren was founded. And this it is which it is sought to deprive you of. Let us not deceive ourselves; this is what is in question. It will soon be seen everywhere, save as this truth itself is forgotten anywhere. It may be clothed in terms which may seem not to deny it, because that would alarm — in terms suited, alas! to the failure of spiritual power, and therefore of discernment, which may be found among us. It may begin in practice in one place, and be avowed in doctrine in another. It may change its shape where it is detected, and testified against. But the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, and His presence as the power of the unity of the body of Christ, is what is in question.

344 I dare say it may not be admitted: but if one comes to rob me of my treasure, his not telling me he is, nor admitting he is, cannot satisfy me. But this, perhaps, it will be said, they do not mean to do. I will admit they may be ignorant of the truth itself, and therefore of the loss of it, and therefore not be aware of the mischief they are doing. But, if one is urging the vessel on the shoals, and he is mentally innocent, because he does not know them, that will not content me as a passenger if I know, nay, not even if I suspect them. But is it denied? Is it not admitted? It has been distinctly taught that the acting of the Holy Ghost in the body being in the members, the presence of the Holy Ghost practically was by the teachers. Now, because there is truth in this, and that the Holy Ghost does act by the teachers, the denying such a doctrine is treated as if it were denying the Holy Ghost's acting in the teacher, and, in a word, denying ministry. But it is no such thing. What is affirmed is the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church itself on earth. No doubt when there, He acts, among other things, by teachers, etc.; but He is present in the Church. And anyone can see that, assuming His acting in the teachers, and denying His dwelling in the whole assembly or Church as such; or denying His acting properly in the way of gift in any, but that grace just sanctifies natural talent and education; and that there is no dwelling in the whole body, as distinct from the members (these teachers being the members who are to act), is throwing the whole matter into the hands of certain persons who have more natural talent to the exclusion of the body. It is the reconstituting a clergy who form the Church, and who are to judge of the qualifications of others whom they admit into their ranks: for this is demanded also. It is just the clergy over again. I recognize that God forms the vessel individually for service as well as puts a gift into it, when I look at the individual. I have no doubt that the blessed apostle Paul was a man of most extraordinary natural character. But this truth, which I find in Scripture, does not make me deny that the Holy Ghost dwells in the Church.

345 But I will first bring out the idea before the minds of brethren, that by it they may be able, through grace, to judge of the statements by which it is pared down and destroyed, and what they are losing for their souls if these statements are listened to. Let us remember the question: the dwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Church as such. That I may not misrepresent the doctrine I combat, take  - 's account of it: "A dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church, apart and distinct from the members, is what I confess my inability to receive." Again, "But from the way in which I have heard some speak of the Person of the Holy Ghost in the individual, and distinct from this the Person of the Holy Ghost in the Church, the thought has arisen in my mind, which one almost fears to express, Do they believe in two Holy Ghosts?" Again, "I see these precious promises of the Spirit's abiding and presence during our Lord's absence, in John 14, 15 and 16, but surely no dwelling here, nor through the Acts of the Apostles, distinct from the individual believer." We have then distinctly before us the question. It is denied that these two things are distinctively true — the Holy Ghost in the individual, and the Holy Ghost in the Church. I have found this view fully confirmed by the statement, that the blessing of the body is the aggregate of the blessing of the individual members. My view, which is commented on, is, "The Holy Ghost dwelling in and making one the body of Christ, and acting by every one of the members in one way or another"; and, "the Holy Ghost working in the several living members for the good of the body."

I now turn to the main point — God's dwelling with man. This I believe to be the peculiar and special blessing of man, and the highest honour that could be conferred on him, unless it be his actually in glory with the Lord, when something more is added, viz., being like the Lord and with Him. God came to walk in the garden, but Adam, a sinner, was not there to meet Him. But this deeply important truth is much more distinctly stated in Scripture. Redemption is the true ground of God's dwelling with man. He did not dwell with Adam; He did not dwell even with Abraham; but as soon as Israel was brought out of Egypt, and the Spirit inspired the song of triumph, what was the leading thought? "He is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation." So in God's own preparation of it: "In the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established." This leading thought of what distinguished Israel is clearly a distinct one from dwelling or acting in an individual. Further, this is a constant thought as distinguishing the people of God. So in Exodus 29: 45, 46, "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them; I am the Lord their God." So, 2 Chronicles 6: 1, 2, "The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness, but I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever." So Exodus 25: 8; 1 Kings 6: 13; Ezekiel 43: 7. So indeed to the same purpose, Deuteronomy 23: 14. But it is needless to multiply passages.*

{*It is the final testimony of triumph and blessing; "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."}

346 We may take notice in all this that it has nothing whatever to do with the dwelling in an individual. It was a distinct thought altogether. The serious question is, are we worse off now as to this? There were then also operations of the Holy Ghost in the way of prophecy and testimony, but it was a distinct thing. We may expect this to be modified in many ways when the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven; because in Christ, where our proper acceptance is, we are characterized rather as dwelling with God — in His house. Still the other is true by the Holy Ghost sent down. What we have to inquire is, whether this presence of God in the midst of His people is spoken of in the New Testament, and that distinct from His gracious presence in the individual. If there be any material modification of it, this may also claim our attention. It would be difficult to suppose that there was less real presence of God in the midst of His people now than under the Old Testament. It is true we look for His presence in glory; but surely meanwhile the main doctrine, as to the actual condition and existence of the Church, is the presence of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, as truly and really the presence of God in the midst of His people as the Shechinah of glory. If God was in His holy temple then, God is in His holy temple now — most truly, though after another manner: not merely in individuals, the aggregate of whose individual blessing is the blessing of the whole, but in His spiritual temple, the Church of the living God. And here I would remark further, that His personal presence as acting in any power in the Church is wholly denied. It may not be in words (this I should think much less of; the faith of simple saints might at once meet it); but it is undermined and taken from us without our being aware of it. It is vain to cry out about its not being fair to impute to a person what he denies. Are the saints to be robbed of their heritage and blessing, because he who does so denies he is doing it? It may be through ignorance, but it is much fairer to detect than to deny it, if the thing be so. Man may speak by the Spirit,* may use Him, may act under His gracious influence, but He, the Holy Ghost, does not act. That would be impulse. No one pretends to inspiration in the sense of new revelation, but simply that the Holy Ghost acts in leading, guiding, filling and using the vessel. That is, He acts by us. The distinction, however, is wholly unscriptural. The Holy Ghost speaking by a man, and a man speaking by; the Holy Ghost, are used as equivalent terms; as Acts 1: 16; ch. 6: 10; ch. 20: 24; ch. 21: 4, 11; compare chapter 11: 28, ch. 28: 25; Mark 12: 36; compare Matthew 22: 43. The difference of the expression most clearly amounts to the lowest Arminianism** as to the Holy Ghost. That is, man acts by it, but the Holy Ghost does not act by man. And I beg the attention of brethren to this — it is just simply not believing in the personal presence and actings of the Holy Ghost. I am satisfied that it is simple unbelief in the presence and actings of the Holy Spirit.

{*In every shape and way the acting of the Holy Ghost Himself is denied. Suppose a person believes he is led of the Spirit of God to exhort his brethren (I say nothing now of gift), this is denounced as "impulse." Man may act by the Spirit, but this would be the Spirit acting by man, and this cannot be. The Holy Ghost could not lead any one to speak, for it is quite clear this would be impulse. And who is to speak? Persons of proved competency. And how are they to be proved, if there is not to be an opening for their action? But the answer is ready — sent by the leaders of principal meetings to try their hand in the country, and these leaders are exclusively "the other" who are to judge; 1 Cor. 14: 29. This is the avowed plan in some places. It would be much more honest to fall openly into the old dissenting plan, for it is nothing whatever but setting it up again, and I do not doubt there are men of God there. But my answer is, I believe in the Holy Ghost, not merely as sanctifying competent persons, but as acting as a living Person in the Church of God, and God present in the Church through the Spirit. It may be well to add here, what may perhaps seem incredible, that the authoritative explanation at Plymouth of this matter, in commenting on Mr. — 's tract and the expression "meeting the Holy Ghost," is that they go to meet God and not the Holy Ghost, and we go to meet the Holy Ghost and not God. This charge against brethren, untrue as it is, is sufficient, as well as the statement they make as to themselves, to shew their view on the subject, if view it can be called. Any comment on it here would carry me too far.}

{**See pp. 20-23 of "Some Thoughts."}

348 And now to the statements of the New Testament on the subject. That the presence of the Comforter is the distinguishing truth of this dispensation, founded on the work of Christ, I ought not to be obliged to insist on. Suffice it to say, that it is on the fact of this presence that the Lord grounds the advantage of His going away. "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go away, I will send him unto you." And all the blessing, communion, and testimony (save the personal testimony of the disciples as living with Him, and that was by His bringing all to their remembrance), is founded on the presence, personal presence, of this other Comforter. This is evidently of the last importance. Here it is well to remark on the force of this word 'Comforter.' He was One who, by being down here, was to take the place of Jesus when He went away; and was to take up and carry on the cause of the disciples as Christ had done, only more powerfully in a certain way because of Christ's work and exaltation. It is the same word as is said of Christ, "we have an advocate with the Father" — one who is charged with and maintains our cause. This the Holy Ghost was to do, and to guide, comfort, sustain, direct the disciples as Jesus had done, with the difference noted. And further, He was not to leave them as Christ had; He was to abide with them for ever. This name of One come down to take Christ's place, and abiding for ever, is of all moment in this case; for the Holy Ghost, come as the Paraclete in place of Christ, was to be amongst them as Christ was. Christ had acted among, and for, and by, them too — not they merely by Him; though, no doubt, what they did when sent out was by His power, as in His name. Now, they were to have another Paraclete, who was to be among them in His stead (though glorifying Him), and to act among and for, and by them; and lead, and guide, and correct, and direct, and sustain them, and to be with them for ever. This was not merely natural qualities sanctified by grace, and man acting by the Spirit; it was a living divine Person acting for them, and by them. That, He being grieved (and withal in the sovereign counsels of God), much of that in which He shewed His power is lost, is true; but to say, because man has abused this grace, and feebleness has followed, because God has not honoured those who did not honour Him, or because the flesh has abused the doctrine, that He does not dwell amongst us, is merely that kind of unbelief hateful to God, which is called in Scripture "tempting God." The place was called Massah and Meribah, "because there they tempted God, saying, Is the Lord amongst us or no?" And here I will remark on the "with us," and "in us." The distinction is perfectly scriptural. The Lord said (John 14: 25), "These things I have said unto you, being yet present with you" — the exact phrase in Greek which is used concerning the Holy Ghost, translated, "He dwelleth with you." Christ was yet dwelling with them, but another Comforter was to come whom they would know (though the world would not, because it did not see Him) because He dwelt with them; and then He adds, as to the manner (which was not so of Jesus come in the flesh) a new thing, and therefore put in the future tense, "He shall be in you." This new Paraclete was to be thus their Counsellor, Guide, Orderer (as Jesus had been), manage their cause and affairs as dwelling with them. Hence we see the importance of distinguishing this living presence and acting of a Comforter from a man's using his talents in a sanctified way by grace.

349 But, further, this is fully brought out in Scripture as a distinct thing from being in individual members. Both are spoken of; but they are spoken of to different purposes in Scripture. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own?" etc. (1 Cor. 6: 19). Here accordingly it is applied to personal sanctification. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," 1 Cor. 3: 16, 17. Here it is clearly the Church of God, the building of God which some might corrupt by false doctrine. They were God's building. The Spirit of God does then clearly distinguish the dwelling in the individual and the dwelling in the body. And this is so much the same thought and connected with the idea of the presence of God in Israel, that in 2 Corinthians 6: 16 it is distinctly introduced. "For ye are the temple of the living God: as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." And now I would ask, What is there debasing in the blessed doctrine that God dwells in His holy temple? We might perhaps say (were it not for that precious blood of Christ which has cleansed us) that it was a debasing idea that the Holy Ghost should dwell in our poor wretched bodies as His temple. But His testimony is to the value of that precious blood as cleansing us, so that His presence in the believer is a glorious testimony to the infinite preciousness of Christ's work, and His presence at the right hand of God the Father. But His presence in the Church as His temple, though no doubt founded on the same great truth, is at least more easily apprehended. Because, when I think of the Church, I do not think of the flesh, but only of the redeemed people of God on earth. Here, my soul says easily, the Holy Ghost can dwell. It belongs to Christ, whom the Spirit glorifies. Both, we have seen, are true, and distinctly true; but when I think of a man, I think readily of what he is in his infirmity; and (though it would be wrong) might be easily led to say, Can the Holy Ghost dwell in such poor vile creatures? But when I think of the Church, I do not think of the first Adam state. I think of the fruit of Christ's redemption. Here, my heart says, the Holy Ghost ought to be.

350 But having seen that the scripture does speak of both distinctly (that is, that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that the Church is so too), I would quote some passages which speak of both one and the other, that we may see that both are fully taught in the word. We read (John 4), "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 7, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; and this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." These are evidently personal and individual. And this presence of the Holy Ghost is connected with life, joy, the sealing of our persons, and the certainty of salvation (and that, known in our own hearts), and strength to resist temptation, and fruits against which there is no law. "He that stablisheth us together with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." So that we know that "all the promises of God are in him yea, and in him amen, to the glory of God by us." We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith." Here He is acting in, and on, and in testimony with, the individual as himself livingly united to Christ. But there is another truth besides. God is to be in His temple. What is a temple without God? There was Israel where God dwelt; and a temple built with hands, where God vouchsafed in a certain manner to dwell. Then Christ was the true temple, as we know, when He was here; as He took the place of Israel as the true vine. Is there none now? Or is it only the individual poor weak saint that is so? No. God has broken down the middle wall of partition, and through the glorious though seemingly debasing work of Christ has made both one, making peace, and reconciling both Jew and Gentile in one body to God by the cross, and has built them up together to be His habitation through the Spirit (Eph. 2). In a word, the Church of God (not looked at as individuals, but, on the contrary, as brought together into one by this glorious work of Christ), is God's habitation through the Spirit. So, as the apostle draws the consequence, there is one body and one Spirit. And it is against this blessed truth that all the effort of the enemy is now directed — a body formed into one, by the cross of Christ breaking down the middle wall of partition, and the presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth consequent upon the exaltation of the Head, so that there should be one body and one Spirit, and a habitation of God on the earth: God having exalted Christ above all principality and power, and given Him to be Head over all things to the Church. The same doctrine is taught in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as in Ephesians. Now, that the Holy Ghost acts in the members of the body is fully admitted. Moreover this acting of the Holy Ghost in the members is proper gift, as anyone reading 1 Corinthians 12 may easily see: but, though He acts in the members, His dwelling is in the Church or whole assembly. We might as well say, as to my soul, because it acts livingly and sets my members in motion, that it was only as dwelling in the members that it did so, as hold that the Holy Ghost's dwelling in the Church was only individually in the members: for "so is Christ." For surely the Holy Ghost is much more, as the other Comforter, an independent living Person and agent distributing severally to every one as He will, than my feeble soul is in my body; and in which of the members was He acting when the place shook where they were assembled? And hence, I am persuaded, it is that one can be made partaker of the Holy Ghost, as in Hebrews 6, and yet lost. Looked at as the individual seal and earnest, by which, after believing, we are sealed to the day of redemption, that cannot be: but as dwelling in power, according to the principle of this dispensation in the Church, it is supposed we may partake of it, not as the power and seal of living union (in that case it would bring forth fruit meet for Him by whom it was dressed), but acting in divine ministry and energy in the midst of the Church as a Person dwelling there: God making it His habitation by the Spirit, so that one could lie to Him; for in lying to the Holy Ghost they had lied to God. So the stranger fell down and confessed that God was in them of a truth: not merely in the individual who spoke, but in the assembly, as He was lied to not in any working in a member: HE WAS THERE. There might be persons, we know there were, who were false brethren, in whom He did not dwell as a seal or earnest at all; but He was in the Church. It is the presence of the Holy Ghost, as sent, which constitutes and is the power of the unity of the body. Grace acting in the members may aid to maintain this in the bond of peace; but the great and blessed doctrinal truth we have in Ephesians, and 1 Corinthians, and elsewhere, is that the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter sent down from heaven, is the constituent power of unity to the body. No grace in the members, nor sanctifying natural talents save as practically maintaining it, has anything to do with this. They are in this individuals as before. The other character of its presence is making the outward assembly on earth the habitation of God. (Compare the end of Ephesians 1 and 2.)

352 And now, suppose man has grieved this Holy Spirit, that the Church has lost many of His manifestations; supposing its practical unity is gone and scattered — that the wolf, because there were hirelings, has caught the sheep (though not out of Christ's hand) and scattered them, and the ruin is felt. Am I to confess the sin of man, and say, "Let God be true and every man a liar," and therefore recur in faith to the promise that the Comforter should abide for ever with us? or to say that unity is gone; that opening for the Holy Ghost to act in the members is a "bygone mode of God's dealing in His house," because the Holy Ghost acts "neither in mode nor in measure, as in New Testament times"; and therefore that we, not having New Testament directions, must make arrangements for ourselves as to ministry? It may be said the Holy Ghost remains. But His acting is denied altogether, it is impulse.

353 That is, because man has perhaps abused a principle, instead of correcting the abuse, the blessing is denied altogether. It is just simple unbelief in the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost. For my own part, I desire through grace to correct the flesh whenever it appears; but I am not going to retrace my steps: I "fear" to do so, because I know God led me on the road. I have found the blessing. Were we happiest when this was believed or since it has been denied? And if we have failed in maintaining or in using the blessing, are we to humble ourselves, or to deny the blessing? We found it when there was no such unbelief or teaching amongst us. There was blessing enough to cheer and help us on in spite of much weakness and infirmity. And I shall not deny God in His truth and blessing because man knows not how to use it, if it even be so; but I do not believe it. We may be humbled; but God will help and meet us according to our faith. I own a ministry, have always owned it; but I cannot deny the blessed truth of the Holy Ghost dwelling in the Church, and acting as so present in the various members of the body as He pleases. And here I will add, I do not say among the gathered brethren. The only difference as to those is, they have acted together on this truth.

The Holy Ghost in the whole Church may own a brother's gift elsewhere, in a chapel where he is minister; only he denies a blessed doctrine which God has taught, and, I fully trust, will maintain among us. And let it be here remembered, that stated ministry has never been denied, but always in exercise amongst us — always owned in principle. In half or more of the services, one who has gift has exercised his gift on his responsibility to Christ. This is known to every one. And for my own part I recognize it fully, be it one or two, if they agree together to do it. The teachers have waited on their teaching. It is an utter untruth or sheer prejudice to deny or lose sight of this. It is only in the meetings for worship, when the saints assembled as such, that this has not been the case. The profit of a stated ministry, all that is true in a one-man ministry, has been in the fullest exercise among those called brethren. In their worship they have not sought sermons, but the presence of God — the accomplishment of that promise, that where two or three are gathered together in His name, He will be in the midst of them. I avow I do not go there to hear a sermon; nor do I like to hear one. I go to worship, to find the Lord, and worship Him. And I judge that if brethren are become incapable of enjoying this, it is a very bad sign. I do not go with my ears there to hear man, however gifted, but to worship God; and I beg to press this on brethren. I feel thankful if any one be led of God (I trust we may be forgiven for still thinking this possible, in spite of the efforts to rob us of it), to give a word of exhortation or comfort. I know that the flesh has abused this, forgetting the word "swift to hear, slow to speak" — "my brethren, be not many teachers." But I add, most decidedly that, though I have seen liberty used for licence (and "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"), I have found where God was owned incomparably more of His presence and blessing than where man's arrangements have taken the place of God. There might be evils to deplore and to correct; but there was God to enjoy, because God was owned. Elsewhere I have found decent things of man, a fair show in the flesh, but a sepulchre. The God I found my delight in was not there. For even God's grace or gift in teaching is a wholly different thing from God's presence in the way of worship. But I add that, where in worship this latter is slighted, I never found even the former. It is written, "Cursed is the man who putteth his trust in man." Correct the evils, brethren; but let us not disown God nor His goodness. If you cannot know His presence in worship nor what the blessing of this is, humble yourselves. You have suffered great loss, you have spiritually declined. Forgive me! But if (which I cannot believe, for I at any rate have found it among you) you have forgotten this joy — pardon me here also — I, poor as I am, and I feel this unfeignedly, I have not forgotten it. I shall, with His grace, continue to trust Him. I will, if need be, begin afresh, and am not afraid of not finding His faithfulness and love, and of enjoying with a despised remnant that sweet and blessed fellowship with Him which He has granted us in times past. And, if I am to take my place among you, I shall freely exercise, when the just occasion offers, the ministry with which I believe God has entrusted me in my weakness, the gift of His grace; and, when we meet as saints, I shall be glad often to wait, not merely to compose my spirit, to gather up my strength from the Lord, before I enter on His work, or open my mouth to speak in His name, but to wait in the hope to gather up strength through the blessing conferred upon some other beloved one of God, or by our joining together, whoever may be used as our mouthpiece, in thanksgiving, and prayer, and praise. For the joy of the Lord is our strength. I do not expect to be edified if the flesh act amongst us, and we shall do well to own where it has been so. But I do expect the Lord's presence, and His acting amongst us, if we wait upon Him, to guide, to use, and to bless us. And to Him, and to that hope I cleave.

355 I would add, in this second edition, some notice of the unity of the Church by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, as intercourse with saints seems to shew that this truth has been little laid hold of. The epistle to the Ephesians offers at once the testimony of the word on the subject. I would first notice that the body the apostle speaks of is of those actually quickened, subjects of the power which raised up Christ, not merely objects of purpose and counsel, though that of course was true of them. They had been dead in trespasses and sins. They were quickened together with Christ, raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. They were united to their Head in heaven by living union by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, they were, if afar off, brought nigh by the blood of Christ, having been aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. But they were not introduced into anything of which Israel was in possession.* Peace was preached to them afar off, and to them who were nigh — to Gentiles and to Israel. The latter were to be introduced as well as the former. That which distinguished them was broken down, "the middle wall of partition," and of both one new man was made, both being reconciled in one body by the cross. That is, on the foundation of the actual accomplishment of the atonement on the cross, those then actually existing in two distinct conditions, namely, Jews and Gentiles, were reconciled and made one new man of — reconciled to God in one body (the actual accomplished work of the cross, setting aside the Jewish order of things, being the ground of it).

{*This introduction into the place of promise on earth is the subject of Romans 11.}

Next, the work itself is spoken of under the figure of a building. They were built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. These prophets are the prophets of the New Testament. This can scarcely be doubted by those acquainted with Greek, because the two words are united by a single article, which, as every scholar knows, proves them to be the same persons, or identified as one set of people by a common condition. But the English reader can easily see that it is so by looking at chapter 3: 5, "as they are now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." This passage clearly and definitely shews who the prophets are who are referred to, namely, the prophets of the New Testament. We have then persons brought out from among Jews and Gentiles reconciled to God in one body, and builded on the foundation of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament. This grew up to a holy temple. Hence they were builded together for a habitation of God. They were God's dwelling-place, just as the temple had been of old, only that it was by the Spirit. God was in His holy temple; but it was by the presence of the Holy Ghost there.

356 The Ephesians, to whom he addressed himself, were builded into this one habitation of God. In this chapter, then, we have in the most distinct way possible, the saints, Jew or Gentile, losing their own proper natural place, and united together, consequent on the death of Christ, into one new man, formed into one body, and so, by the unity of the whole, forming a temple and builded together to be a place where God dwelt by the Holy Ghost. Hence, passing over the development of the mystery in chapter 3 (in which the apostle shews that it had not in other ages been made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, so that by the Church the manifold wisdom of God should be known on high), in chapter 4 he comments practically on the walk suited to this calling to be a temple of God in the Spirit. They are to keep its unity in the bond of peace. There was one body and one Spirit — this one body, of which we have been learning in chapter 2 as reconciled to God, the power of which unity is the one Spirit sent down from the ascended, exalted Head. The Holy Ghost could not thus come down indeed at all till the Head was glorified on high. The subject of His testimony was not yet there. The ground of His presence in sinners in the effectual righteousness of the exalted Head was not yet established in the presence of God on high. The body could not be formed before the Head was there on high. "The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Being so given, He was the power of unity in that body so formed into one, by His coming down; and being thus in it, wrought by joints and bands for the edifying of the body of Christ. That is this unity of the body, the new man formed on the exaltation of the Head, by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, and formed on earth, the Holy Ghost having come down to earth, though its title and place and head were in heaven. And while He dwelt in and united it (so that it was the habitation of God), it made increase of the body, each part working in its measure — the body grew. As then before we had the building in which God dwelt, so here we have the body in which He acted vitally in blessing; both designating the saints united in one, and on earth, consequent on the death and exaltation of the Lord Jesus — the glorious Head to which they were united. To this testimony on this all-important subject much might be added from 1 Corinthians 12, where the "so also is Christ," so clearly marks the present state consequent on the exaltation of the Head, for it was not so before; and the gifts there spoken of had their place of exercise and service beyond all controversy on the earth. But the reader, if he gives himself the trouble of reading the chapter in connection with what has been said, cannot fail to apprehend the evidence it affords of the truth treated of. That the body is one, and one on earth, though belonging to heaven, consequent on the exaltation of Christ as its Head, and acted in by one Spirit operating in members set every one of them in the body, that is, in the whole assembly of saints, and that on earth.

What is the Church?

J. N. Darby.

<03011E> 358

This is a question raised in many hearts by that which is passing around us — a question of the deepest interest in itself, even though circumstances did not make one feel the need of a clear and satisfactory answer. But the state of the professing world, now so much agitated on the question of the Church in every form, and in which a multiplicity of movements (in general only creating more perplexity and questions in most souls) present themselves as the reply to the need which is felt of finding the truth on this point — this state of things, I say, will render a serious examination of what the word of God says on the subject useful to many. Enlightened by that only true light, they may, by learning at the fountain of light, while putting themselves in possession of the light itself, be able to judge calmly and soundly of all that presents itself as such, and, as a consequence, claims submission, or at least adherence, to the course which is proposed, as being according to it.

But this is not all. I doubt not but that God has not only permitted, but that it has been His will, that this question should be raised, in order that His children may learn what is the extent, and what are the thoughts of His love; and that they may take morally, and with true Christian devotedness, a position practically answering to His infinite goodness. For the question of the Church, seen as presented in the Bible, is one eminently practical. The position in which the Christian is placed by the very fact that he is a member of the Church of God, governs the affections, and forms the character. This consideration makes still more opportune a work which views the Church in the light of God's word. As a matter of fact, the question of the Church is generally presented as a question of the organization of some new body amongst Christians — a question of which the heart gets wearied. Hence it follows that many persons discard the subject altogether, as injurious to sanctification, and seek, and induce others to seek, spirituality by setting aside a point of which, after all, it is evident that the New Testament is full, and of which it treats in terms which attach to such a point great practical importance. In fine, if, as many serious Christians think, we are in the last times, although circumstances can add nothing to the essential importance of truth, the fact that we find ourselves to be near the end of the age, makes its practical importance to be more felt. The obligation under which the wise virgins were, to watch and to keep their lamps ready at all times, became an imperative duty, when the cry had gone forth at midnight, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him."

359 The considerations I have just presented will have clearly pointed out to the reader the object of this paper, namely, an examination of the teaching of the word of God on the subject of the Church, and of the practical results for our souls which flow thence. My aim is not to examine the basis of individual salvation, although the teaching of the word on the Church throws much light on this point. It is even of consequence to understand that they are distinct things; for God never passes by our individual responsibility, whatever privileges may be conferred upon us by being joined to an assembly. We are saved as individuals, although God may, if He sees fit, gather into one body those whom He saves. Salvation is a thing which, though complete in Christ, supposes in the heart of the person enjoying it, personal exercises, which go on necessarily and exclusively in his own conscience, and which bring his soul into immediate connection with God, and without which all relationship with Him — all happiness — the very existence of spiritual life — would be impossible. The intercourse between God and an intelligent and responsible soul, which before was in sin, necessarily supposes that consequent on the establishment of this new relationship many things pass within which are for that soul alone. The special form which the relationship takes may add much — may give special character to it; and this is the case; but this does not do away with personal relationship. This is one of the essential differences between the truth of the word and the idea of the Church as it is viewed by the Romanist; who, making ordinances a means of salvation, attaches salvation to being of the Church, instead of making the Church the assembly of those who are saved. If but one individual were saved, his salvation would be equally perfect and sure, but he would not be the Church. This (the Church) includes an additional thought, an additional relationship, to that of the saved individual. What is this thought? Let us lay aside human definitions, and cleave to the word.

The Church is something infinitely precious to Christ. He "loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of. water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." This is a revelation that makes us feel the importance which God attaches to what He calls the Church. What an object of the affections of Christ — of His care; and how glorious will be the accomplishment of the counsels of God respecting this Church! What a privilege to be part of it! This passage teaches us, moreover, that there is, in the union of Christ and the Church all the intimacy* that exists between a husband and a wife beloved — a feeble figure after all of the reality of this great mystery — that we are thus members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones; that the Church holds to Christ the place which Eve held with regard to Adam — the figure of Him that was to come; who was associated with Adam in the enjoyment of all that had been conferred on him by God. This last thought, it is true, is only suggested here by the analogy of the position of Eve, used by the apostle to represent that of the Church; but it is taught as a doctrine elsewhere. It is natural to suppose, that what holds so prominent a place in the mind of God should be found more than once in the word; and such we shall find to be the case in passages, the bearing of which we will presently consider. At the same time, it will be easily understood, by the nature of the thing itself, that this position is quite peculiar; that such an association with Christ is a special object of the counsels and purposes of God; for the place of a bride, like that of Eve, is a very special one. She is not the inheritance; she is more than a child, however dear, as a child, she may be to the father. It is a higher thing than being God's people, though both may be true at the same time. It is difficult to imagine anything more closely linked with self than one's own wife, one's own body. "No man," says the apostle to express it, "ever yet hated his own flesh." It is one's self. It must be evident to the reader, that from such a relationship must flow immensely practical consequences; because it is connected at the same time, with the closest affections, and the most absolute duties. The Lord Himself expresses the force of the position of His Church, the first time He speaks of it in a formal manner after the commencement of its existence, when He says, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

{*It is well to remark that it is no question in this passage of mutual affection, nor of anything connected with fleshly imaginations. It is the love of Christ only, perfect according to His own heart before the existence even of the Church, having as the object of His labour of love the presentation of the Church to Himself without spot and glorious. All is on the side of Christ Himself, and the object perfect according to His heart.}

361 Let us notice the three chief points presented by Ephesians 5 which has suggested these reflections. First, Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it. It is redeemed at the cost of His blood, of His life, of Himself. Having thus purchased it exclusively for Himself, He begins, secondly, to fashion it, to sanctify it, that it may be according to His own heart's desire; that He may, in the third place, present it to Himself a glorious Church, without the least thing unbecoming the glory, or that might offend the eye or the heart of her divine Bridegroom. There is here a testimony to the divinity of Jesus, so much the more remarkable as it is only by the way; and the allusion is made as to a known truth. God, having formed Eve, presented her to the first Adam; but Christ Himself presents the Church to Himself; because if He be the Second Adam, He is at the same time the One who can present it to Himself as being the author of its existence, of its beauty, and of the perfection in which it must appear in heaven, to be worthy of such a Bridegroom, and of the glory that is there.

We will consider its history farther on: but we may already observe here, that whatever may be the circumstances through which the Church is called to pass, she is always considered as a whole, as much while she is being purified by the word upon earth, as when she is presented glorious to her Bridegroom in heaven. The redemption of this body by the blood of the cross was made upon earth. Her purification through the word, by the Spirit, also takes place on earth. The glorious result, at the return of Christ, will take place in heaven, for which place she will have been made ready. Although the marriage has not yet taken place, the relationship has always existed as to its rights. I do not speak merely as regards the eternal counsels of God, but in fact as to the knowledge and the duties of those who were called. Since Christ purchased the Church to Himself (I speak of the fact, and historically now, always allowing time for the communication of the truth as to this, by the Holy Ghost), the Church has been His, as regards the conscience of those who were called to the enjoyment of this position. The relationship exists; and as Christ has always been faithful, the Church ought to have been so also. Her purification, on the part of Christ, had necessarily reference to this relationship, as this passage formally proves. It ought to have been viewed in the same light by Christians, by those who, alas! may fail in this relationship as in all others. But their responsibility is in connection with the obligations that flow from it.

362 The manner in which this truth must act upon the knowledge of an accomplished salvation, and upon sanctification, as well as upon the joy of hope, is plain. For with regard to the first, the existence of the Church is based on the fact that Christ has loved it, and given Himself for it. So that its purchase, its salvation, and the gracious, perfect love of Him who redeemed it, with the end in view, which cannot fail, of presenting it in glory to Himself, form the basis of its whole life — of its everyday relations.

It is not a people put to the test, by a rule given. The Church is the object of a perfect work, through which Christ purchased it to Himself, when it was enslaved to Satan, defiled, and guilty. It has no other responsibility, as the Church, but that which is based on its being the purchase of Christ. This tells her, no doubt, that she ought to be entirely His; but if she ought to be His, it is because she is so already. The Christian, instructed of God in this doctrine, has the peaceful assurance (an assurance which gives a calmness that is the basis of the sweetest affections) that he belongs to Christ, according to God's perfect love, and the efficacy of a work in which Christ — that His heart might have satisfaction in the object which the Father had given Him — could not fail.

363 The influence of this truth in the conscience is equally great as regards sanctification; for it is the purification of that which already belongs to Christ in an absolute manner, in order that it may be fit to live with Him for ever, a purification which extends consequently to the thoughts, the affections, and the manner of viewing things in all respects. Being wholly His, the Church has to do with Him in each movement of the heart, in each sentiment; if not, she fails in her relationship with Him, in every circumstance in which it is not so. As to the result which He has in view, He will certainly no more fail in that, thanks be unto God, than He has with regard to the redemption. He will present the Church to Himself without spot or wrinkle. But the heart of the Christian ought to respond to that work.

The influence of the relationship of the Church with Christ upon her hope, is no less great. She is outside the judgments which the coming of the Lord will bring upon the world — outside the course of the prophetic events which will take place in a world of which she forms no longer part. She awaits the happy moment when the Lord will call her, taking her to Himself to realize the glory and the joy of the relationship which she already knows by grace.

Such is the position of the Church, and her relationship with Christ. But there is a consequence resulting from these, the figure of which we have seen in the connection in which Eve was placed with the creation, but on which I will make a few more remarks by the way. Christ says, the apostle, in Ephesians 1, is the Head of the Church, "which is his body, the fulness of [or that which makes complete] him that filleth all in all"; that is to say, Christ is the Head, and the Church the body; and as the body is the complement of the head to make up a man, so it is with Christ and the Church: He as Head directing, exercising all authority over the Church, His body — but the Church, as the body, rendering complete the mystical man, according to the eternal counsels of God. For it is evident that this is no question about the divine Person of Christ, but in the counsels of God, Christ, as Head, would not have been complete without the Church.

Let us remark by the way, that it is this thought which was completely hid (hid in God) under the old covenant; and which is not found in the whole of the Old Testament. The idea of a Christ not perfect, simply in His own Person, as an individual, would have been unintelligible to the most advanced saint of the Old Testament. There was to be blessing under His government — but the being a part of the Christ, as a member of His body would have been incomprehensible. The union between Jew and Gentile, which flows from it, will come before us afterwards. Now the effect of such a union of the Church with Christ, has been to associate the Church in His dominion over all things and with all His glory, such as He received it as Mediator from His Father. And such is the force even of Ephesians 1: 21, 22, which we have just quoted. That is why he sets forth the members of the Church as a new creation; as being the fruit of that same power which placed Christ there (chap. 1: 19 to 2: 7). And that is connected with the whole of chapter 1, where the apostle has revealed the fixed purpose of God, as to the administration of the fulness of times; which is, that He will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in Him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance. In the meantime, God has given us, who have believed before the manifestation of Christ, His Spirit, as the earnest until the redemption of the inheritance itself Therefore the apostle shews, that, in order that we might enjoy the inheritance with Christ, we are the objects of the exercise of the same power which placed Him above all things, when He was in grace in our state; and that in Him we are in His state. If it be asked how such things can be, chapter 2: 7 tells us the reason. But numerous declarations confirm the consequences to us of this union. We speak here only of the consequences. "The glory," says the Lord, "which thou gavest me, I have given them, that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." "And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," Rom. 8. "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3). I do not speak of these things, as being all exclusively characteristic of the Church; but as of things which to us are the consequence of our belonging to it.

364 After this short review of the position of the Church with regard to Christ, and the whole creation which will be subjected to Him, we will consider, in a more consecutive manner, the doctrine of the word respecting the Church itself, and then the position it holds historically in those ways of God, the course of which is given to us in detail in the Bible.

The fixed purpose of God, as it is expressly revealed to us in Ephesians 1, is to gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth. The Church will be associated with Him as His body — His bride — at that time (Eph. 1: 22, 23, [2: 7]). But all things are not yet put under Him. God has not yet put them all, as a footstool, under His feet; nor is the Church as yet presented in glory to Christ, who as yet is sitting on the right hand of God (Heb. 2: 8). It is needless to quote passages to prove that the Church is not yet glorified nor raised. We are, dear Christian reader (you and I), proofs of it* — happy to be so — waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

{*I do not feel it needful specially to notice here the heresy of a handful of enthusiasts, who think that the Lord has come, and that the resurrection is past already (some avowing this latter doctrine as a necessary consequence of the other; others saying nothing about it). Revelation 22: 16-21 suffices to refute this idea. It is well to bear in mind that the Revelation was written long after the destruction of Jerusalem.}

365 Whilst waiting, then, for the happy moment of our meeting with Jesus, is there still a Church? Did it enter into the thoughts of God, that there should be a Church upon earth, till the final accomplishment of His magnificent designs respecting her glory in heaven? There can be no doubt about it to one that is subject to the word. Let us examine the word on this point. Christ Himself is the first to announce the commencement of the Church:* "Upon this rock I will build my Church." The declaration, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, shews plainly that it is not a question of the Church already presented in glory. It is upon earth.

{*This declaration of the Lord (Matt. 16) has a very decisive character, if we consider the circumstances under which it was uttered. In the beginning of the chapter He had pronounced the judgment of the Jewish generation, giving them His death, under the figure of Jonas, as the sign; and leaving to themselves those who were seeking a sign. Then He asked His disciples what was said of Him. Peter, on this occasion, makes the unique confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." This latter part is only found on this occasion, and it is what gives its peculiar importance to this confession. The Son of the living God, in building His Church, would shelter it from the power of Hades and of him who had the power of death. The death of the Messiah might break the links between Israel after the flesh and the head of their blessing, whatever grace might do afterwards for that nation; but whatever was based on the power of the resurrection (and it is in resurrection that Christ has been declared the Son of God with power) was secured against him, who, at the most, had the power of death. Peter is always full of this idea of life (1 Peter 1: 3, 21, 23, 24; ch. 2: 4, 5). Matthew 17 adds the millennial glory of the Son of man; and towards the end, leading His disciples back to the subject of His rejection amongst the Jews, explains the ways of grace, and on this occasion introduces Church action (chap. 18: 17).}

I would notice a few important points which are revealed by this passage. The Church was yet to begin. Christ recognized as Son of the living God, was to form the foundation of a new work upon the earth. The fact that there are believers upon the earth, and even believers acknowledging Jesus to be the Christ, does not constitute the Church. It was so when Jesus spoke, and yet the Church was still to be builded. This was a work to be done as regarded the children of God; which thought is confirmed by a declaration of John respecting the involuntary prophecy of Caiaphas, that Jesus should die for the Jewish nation; "and not for that nation only," adds the apostle, "but that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." There were already children of God, but they were scattered abroad — isolated. Christ by His death was to gather them together; not merely to save them, so that they might be together in heaven (since they were children of God, that was done already), but He was to gather them together in one. They were believers already; but the Church* was yet to be builded by the gathering together of these believers, and that upon the earth. We know that this has now taken place as a fact, through the word of Jesus, and through the power of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. We may cite here the request of Jesus, that not only those already manifested, but those also who should believe through their word, might be one that the world might believe. Before passing on to the epistles, we may remark by the way, that the Lord, besides the general idea of the Church which He was about to build, gives us an insight into the practical operation of the assembly in detail (Matt. 18); attaching to it, at the same time, the efficacy of this operation, and the authority of heaven itself — though but two or three should thus form the assembly — provided it was really in His name they were thus met. How precious the light that the word affords for times of darkness!

{*Remark here, that what is falsely called an invisible church, was precisely the state of Israel — a body of professing Israelites, by birth and ordinances; and a certain number of isolated believers in the midst of that, enjoying through faith the goodness of God, and their common faith when they met. (See Matthew 3: 16; Luke 2: 38 ) It is out of this state that the Lord has brought believers by "building the Church."}

366 But through the descent of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the Church has received a much fuller development. The fact of her existence is declared in Acts 2. "All that believed were together,* and had all things common," and "the number of them was" already "three thousand." "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved."** The union and unity of the saved ones were accomplished as a fact by the presence of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. They formed one body upon the earth — a visible body owned of God, to which all whom He called to the knowledge of Himself joined themselves, and that as led of the Lord who was working in their hearts. It was the Church of God, so far composed of Jews only. The patience of God was yet waiting in Jerusalem; and if this city owed ten thousand talents, by the death of Jesus, He was still proposing repentance by the testimony of the Holy Ghost. God was remembering mercy, and declaring that, on the repentance of the nation, guilty as they were, Jesus would return. This is the subject of Acts 3. But Jerusalem turned a deaf ear to the call; and subsequently her rulers, resisting, as always, the Holy Ghost, stoned him through whom He was testifying. From that time, though the unity of the whole was preserved by the conversion of Cornelius, a new instrument of the sovereign grace of God appears on the scene. Saul, who had been himself consenting also unto the death of Stephen — Saul the persecutor, the expression of the hatred of the Jews against the Christ, becomes the zealous witness of the faith he had sought to destroy. But this sovereign grace, whilst still mindful of the Jews, no longer goes out from Jerusalem as its starting point. It was from Antioch, a city of the Gentiles, that Paul went forth to fulfil his apostolical work. But this event was accompanied by a very remarkable development of the doctrine of the Church; or rather preceded by a revelation, which made not a new gospel (for the way of salvation is ever one and the same), but a new starting point in the preaching of this gospel as regarded the Person of Christ Himself. Up to this time, although they had preached a Christ exalted, the only Saviour, yet it was as a man known amongst the Jews by signs and miracles, as they knew, and whom God had raised and made both Lord and Christ. I need not say, that this testimony was quite according to God, and in its proper place in the midst of the Jews. "Ye also," the Lord had said, "shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." Peter and the other apostles, having accompanied Christ during the time of His ministry, followed Him up to the time that the cloud received Him out of their sight. They had received the testimony that He should return in like manner. The consequence was, that the relations of Christ with the Jews were always maintained on the ground of faith in Him — exalted to the right hand of God, no doubt — but whose sceptre was to go out from Sion, and who awaited the repentance of His people. But we have seen the testimony of the Holy Ghost to a glorified Christ rejected by the blinded nation; and the death of Stephen, in making this rejection signally manifest, reveals to us the Son of man in the glory of God in heaven receiving the spirit of His servant above, instead of returning to Israel here below. This transition from the character of the Christ or Messiah to that of Son of man (suffering, and inheriting all things in heaven and on earth) is often taught by Jesus in the Gospels. See, for instance, Luke 9. It is now being accomplished as a fact (the Lord, at the same time, not losing His rights as Christ). They are reserved for the age to come. But here Paul enters on the scene, and God, whilst continuing the work at Jerusalem, begins a new one; and that by a new revelation of His Son, to him who was not to know Him personally after the flesh. Saul sees Jesus for the first time in heavenly glory, too resplendent for human sight. It is not Jesus known upon earth made Lord,*** but the Lord of glory who, as such, declares that He is Jesus. But for Paul and his ministry, where is He found on earth? In those who are His. Seen unequivocally as Lord in heaven, Saul asks, "Who art thou, Lord?" "I am," replies the Lord, "Jesus whom thou persecutest." The saints were Himself, His body. The conversion of Paul identifies itself with the full revelation of the union of the Lord in glory with the members of His body upon earth. His starting point, his knowledge of salvation, could not be separated from these two things. They are reproduced in his epistles. Thus (2 Cor. 4) he says, "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel**** of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." This, whilst setting forth in a still more striking manner the worth of His sufferings, invested, at the same time, the preaching of the apostle with a peculiar character.

{*This passage shews the futility of the objection — an objection refuted besides by a thousand experiments — that the gathering together in one is an impossibility. It may be so materially, and it was no doubt the case here. When they broke bread from house to house, they were not three thousand at once together. Yet that does not hinder, in the mind of God, their being gathered together in one place in moral and real unity. There is no question of disposition here, but of facts which demonstrated the power of the Holy Ghost.}

{**The word rendered here by "should be saved" (a meaning given in other good versions) is a word used by the LXX. (and I doubt not in Luke) for the remnant of Israel, who were to escape the judgments of God. Now, what the Lord did with them was to add them to the Christian assembly.}

{*** An examination of the Acts of the Apostles will shew that Jesus is never preached as Son of God, before He is so by Paul after his conversion. With Peter, it is always the Man known upon earth glorified. But Paul immediately after his conversion, preaches Jesus in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. We must not think that there is any imperfection in the ways of God here; on the contrary, it is a proof of their perfection. The expression, "raised up his Son Jesus," is quite a different word from Son of God. It would even be more correctly translated "servant."

{**** Literally and properly, "gospel of the glory."}

369 I will not enlarge on this part of the relations* of Paul with Christ, in order that we may come to that which concerns more directly our subject — the Church. Whatever God's way upon earth may be, it is evident that all question of Jew and Gentile was at an end when the question was about the Lord of glory and the members of His body. The relations became heavenly, and in the unity of the body of Christ thus known in heaven, there was neither Jew nor Gentile. The Church was upon earth according to this revelation of her position, for she was persecuted; but she was identified with the Lord in heaven; it was He (the Lord glorified) who was persecuted in His members.

{*It is, however, a subject full of interest — the contrast between a Christ, object of prophecy and of promise, and a Christ revealed in the fulness of His Person, as beginning and foundation (having accomplished His work) of the new creation, its Head, filling all things, having re-established the relationship between God and them, a relationship ruined by sin; and, at the same time, beginning, foundation, and Head of the Church, which He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, having united it, quickened in Himself, by the Holy Ghost to Himself as His body. These two things constitute the mystery in its whole extent.

The second part is more fully treated in the word, as concerning us more particularly, and also the admission of the Gentiles which flowed from it. But what presents the highest interest in this subject is the glory of the Person of Christ Himself, which is the foundation on which the fulfilment of all these counsels of God rests.}

370 To what precious ground does not this introduce the heart! We have (and that from the mouth and the heart of the Lord Himself) the strongest expression of our union with Him — that He considers the feeblest member of His body as a part of Himself. Let us pursue, however, our subject, that we may get the doctrine as a whole.

We will examine the epistles of Paul. Of the epistle to the Romans, the Church is not the subject. Having convicted the Gentile without law and the Jew under the law of being both guilty before God, it shews the individual justified before God, not by the law but through faith, introducing resurrection as putting him in a position quite new as regards justification, as regards life (that is, a new life outside of the dominion of sin); and as to the law, by grace the believer was justified, renewed, an heir of God, had the feelings of the Spirit, and was kept for glory by a love from which nothing could separate him. This well established, the apostle reconciles (chapters 9, 10 and 11) the admission of Jew and Gentile, without distinction, to the enjoyment of these blessings with the promises made to the Jews; and he shews that the Gentiles have been grafted in to be a continuation of the line as children of Abraham in the enjoyment of the promises.

But, although the main subject of the epistle to the Romans does not afford opportunity for teaching concerning the Church, the exhortations at the end of the epistle furnish us with an element which flows naturally from the revelation made on the way to Damascus. It is that, being members of the body of Christ, we are necessarily for that reason members one of another (chap. 12: 4). "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing," etc.

The Church is absolutely one. It is evident here also, that the apostle speaks of what is upon earth; and even though there were members whose souls were with the Lord (thus being no longer able to glorify the Lord upon the earth, whence He had been rejected and where Satan exercised his power), he refers to those only who were still down here. The body in its practical and true sense was composed of those only.

The First Epistle to the Corinthians furnishes us with precious instructions on the point now engaging our attention. This epistle gives us details of the interior of a local and particular church, being addressed at the same time to all who call on the Lord. It teaches us that the Christians of a locality gathered in one body are the realization so far of the unity of the whole body.* The church at Jerusalem was, at the beginning, both these two things at once; and though there were many assemblies, yet the Christians of each locality gathered together in a body, and formed the church or the assembly of God in that locality. "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth." There was but one. It was composed of those that were sanctified in Christ Jesus, of called saints who were at Corinth. The apostle reckoned on their being confirmed to the end. They were outside the world, a body known as entirely separated from it by their profession and common walk as a body. Their individual relations with the world are discussed, and go no farther than the ordinary communications of life; but even in these the most formal and complete distinction is marked between the brethren and the world. There were those without and those within; that is to say, it was not a moral difference in the individual walk alone, but a common walk as a body, and as a body formally separated from the world. (See 1 Cor. 5: 7-13; ch. 10: 17, 21, 22. Compare 2 Cor. 2; ch. 6: 16, 17.) The Lord's Supper was the external sign that gathered them together (1 Cor. 10: 17). Now the presence of the Holy Ghost was found in the body — in the whole body of the Church; but it was realized and manifested in the local body according to its state.

{*People have wished to make an invisible Church of the whole body, and visible churches in which evil might be found. But it is very evident that baptism introduced not into a church, but into the Church in general upon earth, so that this way of looking at it has no support in the word. The true distinction is not between the Church and the churches, but between the Church viewed in its human responsibility, and the Church in the counsels of God — counsels which shall be infallibly accomplished. "The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." Such are the two sides of God's medal, and not an invisible Church and visible churches.}

371 This presence of the Holy Ghost in the body is distinguished from the presence of the Holy Ghost in the individual. The body of the individual is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6: 19). But the Church was also the temple (chap. 3: 16, 17), because the Spirit dwelt in it.

Having gathered this scattered information, we may examine the chapter 12) which expressly treats of our subject, introduced by that of the spiritual powers which were manifested in the assembly. The demons are many. The Spirit of God is only one Spirit, whatever may be the manifestations of His presence. These manifestations of the Spirit were found in the gifts; and these were given for common use, the Holy Spirit dividing to every man severally as He will. These gifts were found very largely developed among the Corinthians. Having long been carried away by the craft of demons, they were in danger of confounding the energetic manifestations of these demons with those of the Holy Spirit, because they were looking for power rather than for grace. The apostle gives them, first, an absolute rule for discerning between the Spirit of God and the demons, in the confession that Jesus was Lord — a confession which these demons would never make. Afterwards, he takes pains to make the Corinthians understand the true doctrine of the presence of the Holy Ghost; the effect of which went much farther than to produce the confession of the Lordship of Jesus; though this confession was the touchstone of it. The Holy Ghost united all Christians in one body; and Christian service, or the exercise of gifts, was nothing more than a member of the body exercising its functions for the good of the whole body. It was that one and self-same Spirit which divided to each, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ"* — Christ; for the Church is Himself, His body. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." The unity of the body being thus established, all the gifts came under the idea of members of this body; that is, all exercise of ministry was the activity of the members of the body. It is well to recall here that the consequence of this truth is that the gifts have for the sphere of their exercise all the extent of the body; it is even their duty to edify it if that be given them.

{*The identification of the body with its Head is expressed in a remarkable manner by the use of this word.}

372 But other truths of the greatest moment are revealed to us in this chapter, and particularly the means God used to produce this unity, to form this body. "By one Spirit ye are all baptized into one body."* Christ having fully accomplished His work, and having ascended up on high, has received the promise of the Father; that is, the Holy Ghost, and has sent Him into this world to be, on the one hand, the witness of this accomplishment, and of the personal glory of Jesus at the right hand of God; and, on the other, to unite the members of this body to Himself, and at the same time to one another, whether Jews or Gentiles; who, all distinction being lost, form but one body, united to its Head in heaven, that is, to the Lord Jesus.

{*The Lord's Supper is the sign and the external centre of this unity; as the presence of the Holy Ghost is the power of it; 1 Cor. 10: 17. This declaration gives a very interesting character to the Lord's Supper.}

373 Two truths clearly result from the teaching of this chapter; first, that the formation of the body is accomplished by the presence of the Holy Ghost come down from heaven; and, second, that this body is formed upon the earth. Its unity, such as it is presented in the word, takes place essentially upon earth, since the Holy Ghost has come down here to accomplish it. The accessory circumstances confirm this truth; for it is most evident that the gifts in question are exercised upon the earth. The disciples were the body of Christ, by the union produced among them by the presence of one Spirit; who being one was found in them all, and at the same time in the whole of the united body. It is well to recall the passages already quoted, which teach us the difference between these last two points. While 1 Corinthians 3: 16 reveals to us that the whole is the temple of the Holy Ghost, chapter 6: 19 shews us that each believer individually is the temple of God.

It is evident that this unity will not be lost in heaven, when all the members of the body are reunited; and that God keeps the souls of those who sleep in Jesus for that day of glory; but the manifestation of the unity of the body of Christ is now exclusively upon earth, where the Holy Ghost has come down to establish this unity. Faith knows very well that souls are preserved with Jesus for that day; but thus disunited from the body, they do not for the present enter into the account, being in a position where communion with a body on earth is no longer a possibility, any more than manifestation of unity or service for the glory of Christ.

Where the Holy Ghost has come down, and where He abides, there is the manifestation of the Church, whilst its Head is seated on the right hand of the Father. The Spirit, in speaking to the Church, addresses Himself to Christians on the earth, and to them alone. Thus it is said: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the Church; first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers; after that, miracles; then gifts of healing," etc.

374 I need not stop to prove that this applies to earth.

Here, then, we are taught by God, that the Church, which is the body of Christ, is formed in unity down here upon earth by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, and manifesting Himself by gifts in the members of this body. Let me add that this presence of the Holy Ghost is to be distinguished from the regeneration of souls, and even from His work in the hearts of the regenerate: it is His presence in the body, sent from above as truly and personally as the Son was sent of the Father, though not in the same manner. It is evident, from Acts 1: 5, that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is the descent of the Holy Ghost.

The epistle to the Galatians treats of the question of justification, and of the right to the enjoyment of the inheritance, through promise, as contrasted with the law; and only touches the doctrine of the Church by the single declaration, that the Christians are all one in Christ Jesus (chap. 3: 28).

But the epistle to the Ephesians treats the subject at length, and requires special attention.

Chapter 1 after having laid the foundation of sovereign grace, declares (v. 10) the fixed purpose of God; which is to "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth"; and, having pointed out the children of God as sealed with the Holy Spirit for the inheritance in the end, shews us the Church united, as His body, to Him who was constituted Head over all things.

Chapter 2 reveals the working of the power which has united the Church to Christ and the manner of this union; and shewing that the Jew by nature was a child of wrath quite as much as the Gentile, and that both were dead in trespasses and sins, presents both as quickened together with Christ, raised up together, and seated together in heavenly places in Christ. Thus the distinction was lost; God having made of the two one new man; reconciling them both in one body by the cross. Now that was the Church. That work had its accomplishment in the Church. The Christian was built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (of the New Testament, compare chap. 3: 5), Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. The Gentiles were builded together with the Jews to be the habitation of God through the Spirit. This chapter teaches us then (according to the word in Matthew), that the Church, by its union with its Head in heaven, was accounted as being there; and that its calling was absolutely heavenly. As Israel was separated from the nations, so was the Church from the world — it was no longer of it. Its formation on earth began after the breaking down, by the cross, of the middle wall of partition. It was as a new man: Jews and Gentiles being reconciled to God in one body. Besides, we find that instead of a temple made with hands, where Jehovah dwelt, this union of Jewish and Gentile believers in one body, formed the habitation of God upon earth; and that this habitation was by the Spirit. This latter truth gives us the true character of the Church upon earth — a character, it is evident, of the most important bearing — a character which involves the deepest responsibility; and, let me say it, a character most precious. For the responsibilities of Christians all flow from the grace which has been shewn them. This character, in fine, thanks be unto God, in spite of its unfaithfulness to this responsibility, the Church cannot lose, because it is made to depend on the grace and the promise of God, that this other Comforter, the Spirit of truth, would not go away as Christ did, but abide for ever with those that were His. It is also most plain, that it is on the earth that all this takes place; though, being on earth, our special position is to be seated in the heavenly places in our Head, and to wait for the realization of our condition when we shall be gathered unto Him.

375 Chapter 3, the whole of which is parenthetic, unfolds this mystery, hid through all ages, but now revealed, of which the apostle was the minister; viz., that the Gentiles should be of the same body with all saints. But I will reserve my remarks on this passage, till we come to the second part of our subject — the place which the Church holds in the ways of God.

Chapter 4 is the application of the doctrine of the second; and the apostle beseeches the saints to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they were called; which vocation is, to be the habitation of God through the Spirit. The sense of the presence of God always produces humility; and the apostle, in pressing this point, exhorts them to keep the unity of the Spirit (that which has been set forth, chapter 2), in the bond of peace. For the doctrine in question is this, "There is one body and one Spirit." This leads the apostle to the subject of gifts in connection with the body. Christ had gained the victory over Satan, and could confer on the Church He had redeemed the power which would be the testimony of that victory; for it was rescued from the slavery of the enemy, and could be the vessel of this power and this testimony. Christ, by means of these gifts, was nourishing and ministering to the growth of this body. The exercise of them was for the edification of the body of Christ. It is worth while quoting the verses which follow what we have just examined. "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." Thus the unsearchable riches of Christ, by which He fills all things in the power of the redemption which He has accomplished — these riches, I say, form the basis of the edification of the Church of Christ, who is no longer looked at as a mere Messiah fulfilling the prophecies and the promises, but in a greatness of which no prophet had any idea, and of which no prophecy had foretold the extent — each member supplying, according to the grace given, these riches of Christ to the body. The body itself, developed in its members, grows thereby into that fulness of which Christ is the measure (the truth which reveals this fulness being the means of making the body grow up into Him, whose fulness is revealed). Thus the perfect stature of Christ is always the object and the only recognized measure.

376 What infinite grace! Yet it could not be otherwise; since the revelation of Christ is the means by which the Church must grow; and Christ is such, filling all things, from the dust of death up to the throne of God. Having come down in love, and gone up in righteousness, He expels for faith, from the universe which He has made His by redemption as well as by creation, the conquered enemy; as, in fact, He will expel him from it, when He accomplishes all the effects of His power. And where is this body found? Where are these gifts exercised? Where does this growth take place? Blessed be God! down here. It is that which Christ does after the accomplishment of His work, whilst He is seated on the right hand of God. It is through the Holy Ghost. It is the body — the Church — that one body which is the vessel of this ministry, and of the Spirit which accomplishes it through the members of the body; and which causes the body to grow according to the mind of God in Christ, who is the Head of it; a body, the members of which are the members of Christ. Moreover, the apostle has before him the whole body; and "the whole body" viewed upon earth. Charity necessarily embraces all the members of it, as being the members of Christ. The connection between all this and the Church, seen in the whole extent of her privileges and of the thoughts of God, is shewn in a striking manner at the end of chapter 3; where the apostle exclaims, "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

377 I will not go over the infinitely precious teaching of chapter 5 again, because I have already called the attention of the reader to this portion in beginning our thesis; but it is clear that the epistle to the Ephesians treats the subject of a Church which is one body, whose Head is Christ — a body formed and developed upon earth, since the ascension of Jesus, by the Holy Ghost sent from above who makes it His habitation — a body in which the glory of God will be reflected throughout all ages — a body which is the vessel upon earth of the Spirit, which He who, having gained the victory over Satan, and established the glory of His redemption everywhere, from death up to the throne of the Father, has sent to be the testimony of the power through which He has overcome; and who associates the Church with its Head in the heavens, giving it a heavenly calling, as being seated there in Him. This body, formed in its perfection at the beginning, was to grow by the energy of the Holy Spirit which dwelt in it, just as a child, perfect in all its parts, grows through the power of the life which is in him, in order to attain to the state of manhood.

The epistle to the Colossians brings before us some precious instructions on the subject we are considering. The epistle to the Ephesians has taught us that God would gather together all things in Christ, and that the Church was united to Him as His body, associated with Him in His dominion over all things. The epistle to the Colossians teaches us the same truth under another aspect. We shall also find that the idea of Christ which is presented in chapter I contrasts with all that He was as the hope of the Jews, according to the testimony of the prophets, as much as that which is found in the epistle to the Ephesians, but in a different manner. Let us first look at what is said of the double glory of Christ — Head over all things, and Head of the Church. In verses 15 and 16 He is presented as the First-born of every creature; and the reason if it is given — He has created all things. He who had created all things, having taken His place as a man in the midst of the creation, must at all events be the Head of it. This thought is confirmed in verse 17. The second part of the glory of Christ is declared in verse 18. He is the Head of the body, the Church; who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead. These are the two truths presented in Ephesians 1: 22, 23; only the two things are considered separately here as two diverse glories of Christ, in whom it has pleased all the fulness to dwell. The reconciliation of all things and of the Church follows. Having made peace through the blood of His cross, the thought of God is to reconcile all things through Him, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. This answers to verse 16. Then the apostle, addressing the Christians called at Colosse, says to them, "And you that were sometime alienated . . . yet now hath he reconciled." This answers to verse 18. They were part of the Church of which Christ was the Head, and of which the reconciliation takes place now. Verses 24 and 25 present, as following this distinction of the double glory of Christ and the double reconciliation, a double ministry — the ministry of the gospel to every creature under heaven, and the ministry of the Church, which is the body of Christ. This ministry, a complement in its doctrine of all the preceding revelations, completed the teaching of the word of God (v. 24-26). The Church was a mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations — a mystery which admitted the Gentiles into all the privileges which it revealed, and spoke of a Christ, not the crown and accomplishment of the glory of the Jews, but who, in the Gentiles, or in the midst of the Gentiles, in Spirit, was the hope of glory. The presence of Jesus amongst the Jews ought to have been, and will one day be, the accomplishment of the glory which had been promised to them. But the presence of Christ in Spirit among the Gentiles was the hope of glory — of a more excellent glory — a heavenly glory. In Ephesians, Christ is considered as exalted at the right hand of God, whence He sent the Spirit to confer upon the Church the gifts which were the testimony of His victory and the manifestation of His power as man victorious over the enemy — a glorious Head of the Church which was upon earth. In Colossians, He is considered as present in the Church, securing to the Gentiles the possession of the heavenly glory into which He has Himself entered. This chapter, then, brings the Church into prominence in a very interesting manner. Christ raised is the Head — the Church is His body; its practical reconciliation takes effect now, being founded on the peace made through the blood of the cross. Gentiles belong to it quite as much as Jews; and Christ in Spirit dwells in it, the hope of glory. This last expression teaches us, without controversy, that the Church is contemplated as exclusively upon earth, though having the sure hope of a heavenly glory. Its unity is not declared as in the epistle to the Ephesians; but it is self-evident that the body of Christ can be only one.

379 I confine myself to the doctrine; adding that the epistle, as a whole, shews that the Colossians were in danger of losing sight of their close union with the Head of the body — Christ, in whom everything was accomplished, and they complete in Him; and of seeking, by forgetting this truth, to add something else, which was nothing but the setting aside of Him. Consequently, the epistle brings into prominence the riches and the perfection of Christ to remind the Colossians of them; whilst the Ephesians, who held fast the faith of their union with Him, were able to profit by the teaching which revealed to them the whole extent of their own privileges. The faithfulness of the one, and the unfaithfulness of the other, have both turned, in the hand of our God, to the blessing of the Church in all ages.

The first epistle to Timothy furnishes us with some precious thoughts in a short sentence: "The house," it is said (chap. 3: 15), "of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here we stand on ground more connected with the practical character of the Church upon earth. It is the house of God — it is there that truth is found and nowhere else; there alone is it maintained in the world. Let us understand this declaration. The Church does not create the truth, but has been created by it. It adds to it neither authority nor weight. The truth is of God before it is received by the Church; but the latter possesses it. It exists because it possesses the truth, and it alone possesses it. Where, besides in the Church, is the truth found? Nowhere. The supposition that the truth is anywhere else would be the denial of the truthfulness and ways of God. The truth can be nothing but what God has said; it is the truth, independently of all church authority; of any but that of God, who is the source of it. But where the truth is, supposing a body to be constituted by its means, there is the Church; and the Church which possesses it, and subsists by possessing it, thereby manifests it to the world. The authority of the Church cannot make that which it teaches to be truth. Truth alone does not constitute the Church; that is, the meaning of the word 'Church' embraces other ideas. A single man holding the truth is not the Church; but the assembly of God is distinguished by the possession of the truth. An assembly which has not the truth, as the condition of its existence, is not the assembly of God. The passage under consideration, and the importance of this point must be my excuse for this little digression, which is but indirectly connected with the subject of the Church.

380 There is one more passage, which presents the Church in so complete a manner, as to its hope and its service, that I will quote it in closing this series of testimonies from the Bible. It is that of Revelation 22: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

In this passage we find the Spirit introduced in a very remarkable manner, somewhat analogous to Romans 8. Both passages shew how far the Holy Ghost is considered in the word of God as dwelling upon the earth since the day of Pentecost, and as identifying Himself either with the believer or with the Church. In Romans, it is "He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit; because," it is added, "he maketh intercession for the saints according to God." Now it is our groanings that are spoken of there. Here in the Revelation, the Spirit and the bride say, Come. The Spirit so takes His place with the bride, that the sentiment of the Church is that which the Spirit Himself expresses. The Spirit is upon earth and animates the Church, being the true source of its thoughts. The Church, animated by these very thoughts, expresses her own affections under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Had it been only an expression of affection, one might have questioned its legitimateness; and that also of the groans spoken of in Romans 8; but since the Holy Spirit connects Himself with it, this desire of a feeble heart has the power and authority of a divine thought. This, then, is what characterises the Church, in her desires and in her hope. She desires that her Bridegroom should come. It is not a question about prophecy; it is Christ, the communicator of the prophecy, who presents Himself: "I am the bright and morning star." The Church knows Him. She will be with Him before the great day of His manifestation comes — she will appear with Him in glory. But when He is thus presented in His Person, it awakens the earnest desire of the Bride that He should come. But there is also a testimony to be borne. It is what follows. She calls upon those who hear, but who have not understood their privilege of being of the bride, to join this cry, and to say, Come. In the meantime, she already possesses the river of living water, and, turning towards those who are athirst, she invites them to come and make a free use of it. How beautiful a position for the Church — for our hearts! The first affection of her heart is towards her Head — her Bridegroom, who is to come like the morning star, to receive her to Himself in heaven, before He is manifested to the world. Then she desires all believers to share this desire, and to reinforce her cry that He may come. In the meantime, she is the vessel and herald of grace, according to the heart of Him who has shewn grace to her.

381 What more blessed position could be thought of, for such poor worms as we are, than that which sovereign and creative grace has given us? If the reader examines John 17 he will find that the object of the chief part of the chapter is to place believers, beginning in a special manner with the apostles, in the same position as Jesus was; they taking His place upon the earth. We well know, that He alone, by His Spirit, can be the strength through which they can accomplish such a task.

This truth enables us to apprehend what the true position of the Church is. Christ was upon earth, but at the same time one with His Father. He was manifesting Him upon the earth. He was a man upon earth, but He was a heavenly man, displaying upon earth the spirit and sentiments of heaven, where love and holiness reign; because God is love and holiness. He says, "The Son of man which is in heaven." He was separate from sinners and yet at the same time perfect in grace towards them. In His case, His Person was the cause of it (He being at the same time true man and acting by the power of the Holy Ghost in a dependence upon God, which constituted His perfection as man). In the case of the Church it is clear that the question is no longer of a divine person, yet she is not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world. United to her Head in heaven by the Holy Ghost come down from thence, dead and risen with Him and seated in Him in heavenly places, her character is purely heavenly. She is upon the earth, where the Holy Ghost has come down, to manifest there a heavenly walk — the motives and the mind of heaven. She lives above in Christ by the Spirit; her life is hid there with Christ in God; she seeks for nothing down here, declaring plainly that she is yet seeking her country. She is one, she knows it: it cannot be otherwise. Can her heart recognize that Christ has another bride as companion of His heavenly joys? The manner of her being necessitates her unity, as well as the character of her Bridegroom, and the unity of the Spirit. She is upon earth; she sighs after her country, but still more after the Bridegroom who will come to receive her unto Himself, that, where He is, there she may be with Him. In the meantime she bears testimony upon earth, as united into one body by the presence of the Holy Ghost. This is the place where God owns her, till Christ comes to take her to Himself. From that time she will bear testimony in the glory and by the glory to the love which has placed her there, and to the mighty redemption which has taken poor sinners and placed them in the same glory as the Son of God, and in the same relations with His Father, except that which is essentially divine — "that in the ages to come he [God] might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

382 What we have already said leads us naturally to the second part of our subject — what place the Church holds in the ways of God.

The heavenly aspect of this question finds its answer in several passages which we have just examined, which treat the subject of the nature of the Church. God has willed that His Son, Ruler of all things as Son of man, should have a bride to share His glory and His dominion. Glorious position! testimony of the infinite grace of God! Such is the Church — the companion of Jesus in the heavenly glory. This will take place at the same time with the earthly glory, which will be the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. God, for the dispensation of the fulness of times, will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him, as Head; whose bride and body the Church is. The Old Testament, which gives us the history of the ways of God upon earth, and in its prophetical part announces what the result will be, does not reveal to us this mystery. The Church, as such, does not come as part of the course of the ways of God upon earth. The object of the counsels of God from before the foundation of the world, she had been hid in the depths of these counsels, till Christ having been rejected upon the earth, might become her heavenly Head; and the testimony to this glory, having also been rejected by the Jews, who, in a certain sense, had a right to the promises, the door was fully opened for the revelation of this glorious mystery — hid in all ages.

383 In considering a little the facts, either with regard to man or with regard to the Jews, the suitableness of these ways of God will be understood without any difficulty. Until the rejection of Christ, man had been put to the test in every way-without law, under the law, and even under grace, presented in the Person of Christ, for God was in Him reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Now man, by the death of Christ, has proved himself an enemy of God, an enemy who hated even His mercy, which was nevertheless his only resource, because it was of God. Christ as new man, raised, glorified, at the right hand of God, outside the world, takes as man the place where man was to be in the counsels of God. There is a man at the right hand of God to whom the Church can be united as His body by the Holy Ghost.

Such a heavenly standing of the saints could not possibly exist before. The body could not be before the Head, to which it was to be united, had taken His place, such as it had been prepared for Him in the counsels of God. There was not a glorified man in heaven before, to whom the Church could have been united.

384 If we consider the Jews, the thing is still more intelligible for other reasons. They had prophecies and promises. Christ was to be presented to them. Till they had rejected Him, God ever faithful, could not set them aside to establish anything else which denied their privileges, blotting out all distinction between Jew and Gentile — a distinction which the Jew was bound carefully to maintain. The crucifixion of Jesus has put an end to all that. No one is a Jew in heaven. But man having completely failed in his responsibility, and the Jews having rejected the one in whom the fulfilment of the promises had been presented to them, God (before fulfilling them, as He will do) has revealed the hidden mystery which was connected with the heavenly glory of the Son of man; that is, with the body united to Him, gathered during the rejection of Israel — a body which was to be manifested in glory with Him, when He should in His sovereign grace resume His dealings with Israel upon earth: for "blindness, in part, has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in." Israel, unfaithful as men, have lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises by the rejection of Him in whom they were to have this enjoyment. They were, after all, children of wrath as others; but that will not hinder God from fulfilling His promises. He cannot be unfaithful to His promise, whatever the unfaithfulness of man may be. His gifts and calling are without repentance, and the blindness of Israel is only temporary. This is what Romans 11 teaches; as the Lord Himself said to them, "Your house is left unto you desolate . . . till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." But here is the perfect wisdom of God. Israel having rejected the Christ when He came to present Himself to the nation, they are without remedy. It will be the sovereign grace of God which will reinstate them as being only poor sinners in the enjoyment of the promises, according to the word. Israel, under chastening, and kept for that day, abide without the true God, and without a false god, according to the prophecy of Hosea 2; and God, during this interval, brings in the fulness of the Gentiles, displaying His multiform wisdom* in the calling of the Church, a heavenly people, established upon more than promises, on a perfect redemption, accomplished through the act by which Israel placed themselves under condemnation. But it was not only that man and Israel had been fully tried in the history of past ages, before the accomplishment of redemption. God had also displayed His wisdom in His ways with both. His power, His patience, His mercy, His government in the hands of man and according to the conditions of His holy law, by promises, and by miraculous interventions, by chastenings and blessings, by righteous judgments, by the most tender care and the most magnificent providences, had all been displayed. Even a world swallowed up in the mighty waters had borne witness, in disappearing before His judgments, to the ways of God with man upon earth.

{*[The Greek word translated all various, multifarious (Eph. 3: 10) is remarkable. — ED.]}

385 Angels had seen these things; they had seen the wisdom and power of God in exercise in His ways with men on the earth. The Church was to supply them with quite a fresh manifestation of the depths of the counsels and wisdom of the infinite God whom they adore.

The demonstration of the inability in which man was found, to profit by the ways of God, furnished the occasion of it. It was no longer proofs that God was governing on earth, but the care which, leaving apparently in the hands of the wicked that which was the dearest object to God upon earth, prepared it thereby for heavenly glory and joy.

There remains yet one thing to which I would call the attention of my reader. It is, that, until Christ was glorified, the Holy Ghost could not come down to earth; for the object of His testimony, the heavenly glory of Christ and the redemption accomplished by His means, were yet wanting. "The Holy Ghost was not yet* [given], because Jesus was not yet glorified." We shall see with what clearness the word of God presents the Church to us, as quite a new revelation of that which had no existence before, save in the eternal counsels of God, who thus predestinated for her an existence outside the course of ages.

{*The expression "was not yet," which is the simple and exact translation of the passage, shews to what a degree the presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth, come down from heaven, and dwelling in the Church, was a reality for the apostles, and filled their mind; as being to them, the whole of the idea of the Holy Spirit; for indeed He was there. This is evidently not a question as to the existence of the Holy Ghost as a Person; but since He was now come down and His presence was upon earth, in consequence of the redemption and the glory of Christ, this presence was to them the Holy Ghost. The same expression occurs in Acts 19: "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." They had been told by certain disciples of John the Baptist, that the Lamb of God would baptise them with the Holy Ghost; and what they said to Paul was, that, not only had they not received Him, but that they did not know whether He was yet.}

386 The writings of Paul, who was chosen to bear this testimony and to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ — a ministry which was connected with these truths — are full of this doctrine; bringing into prominence this glory of Christ, which was beyond all that the prophets had spoken. Thus 1 Timothy 3: 16. Having spoken of the Church, in a passage already quoted, he naturally turns to the truth of which the Church was the pillar — this mystery of godliness. A Messiah, the fulfilment of the prophecies, was not a mystery; but a Christ such as the apostle presents Him in verse 16 had never been known before: "God manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Certain elements found here were connected with Messiah upon earth: because this same Messiah, ascended up on high, must come down again to fulfil the promises made to the Jews; but such things as a whole, had never been presented to faith.

As to the Church, the thing is true in a still more absolute manner. This is what the apostle says of it, Ephesians 3: 9-11: "And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." It is impossible to get anything more absolute than "hid in God." This mystery of the Church, hid in the depths of His counsels, did not get disclosed, nor did she exist in fact, till then. It is "now," that unto the principalities and powers is made known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. They had seen His patience, His power, His government; but never a heavenly body upon the earth, united to His Son in heaven. Thus God could set aside, for the time, the course of His earthly government, to enter into relationship with a heavenly people. This passage is very clear on this point; that the Church neither existed nor was revealed before. Up to that time it was a mystery hid in God; who, having established it in His counsels, was testing man under His government, before creating a heavenly system, based upon an accomplished redemption, in union with the Second Adam in heaven. It is important that the reader should get very clearly in his mind the teaching of this passage. The object of the apostle is to shew, that the Church is a new thing. There had been other means to shew forth the wisdom and ways of God, earthly means. Now, heavenly powers saw, in the Church, a kind of wisdom quite new. Not only the Church had had, as yet, no existence; but it had not been revealed before its existence; it had been a mystery hid in God. This last point is confirmed by other passages which we will quote; but it is well to develop the first point, by the teaching of the end of chapter 2.

387 The truth of the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body, the Church, is established, as the consequence of the cross, in verses 14 and 15, in the most formal manner. The middle wall of partition, established by God Himself and absolutely binding, had been broken down only by the cross; and by means of this, also, they were both reconciled in one body — those who were afar off, and those who were nigh. Then, they had been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That is, the Church could exist only after the cross had rendered possible the union of Jews and Gentiles.* The enmity of man against God having been manifested, the enmity of his nature — Jew or Gentile — and the Jews having lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises, grace received in a sovereign manner both the one and the other, according to the eternal counsels of God, for a better inheritance. God (having been manifested in the flesh, and having set things on the footing of eternal realities outside all earthly economy or dispensation, and, received up into glory, having acquired a people which was associated to Himself according to the election of God) purposed, before the foundation of the world, that He should share this glory with His bride and His body.

{*This union would have been a sin before the rejection of Christ, before the cross.}

To return to the revelation of this mystery. Speaking of the Church, the body of Christ (Col. 1: 26), the apostle calls it "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints; to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." For the Jew, Christ is the accomplishment of the glory; but Christ, present in Spirit, becomes the hope of heavenly glory for those in whom He dwells.

388 Thus, also in the epistle to the Romans — "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest," etc.

The more the epistles of Paul, or of Peter, are examined, the more examples we shall find of the contrast between the hopes and the election of Jews and Christians (only Peter never treats the subject of the Church), and the more we shall find the eternal election of the Church brought into light. In Ephesians 3 this mystery is called also the mystery of Christ; for indeed before it was Christ an individual man, and not Christ the Head of a body spiritually united to Him: and the apostle declares, that it was by a special revelation that it had been made known to him (v. 3-5) — the knowledge of a mystery, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men (this mystery being, that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs of the same body).*

{*In the epistles it is Paul only who speaks of the Church; and as we see (Eph. 3: 3), he speaks as of a truth which he had received by a particular revelation. He alone employs even the word in its application to the whole body. John speaks twice of a particular church. I recall the expression already quoted, "minister of the Church to fulfil [complete] the word of God." There was yet wanting to this word something of the revelations willed of God, namely, the Church. God made use of the apostle Paul to administer this truth.}

These passages shew sufficiently the way in which Paul presents the Church as an essential doctrine of truth; but yet as a mystery, which had never been revealed under the Old Testament, and which never had any accomplishment before the death of Jesus had closed all those relations of God with Israel, which had reference to the prophecies and promises, so far as they depended upon the faith and faithfulness of man. They shew that blindness having come upon them for a time, God, who will fulfil His promises to His earthly people, has found, in the period of their blindness, the occasion of manifesting this admirable fruit of His eternal counsels; viz., the Church which, when Israel is restored through grace to the enjoyment of the promises made to them, will shine as the bride of the Lord in the brightness in which He will Himself be manifested.

389 Such is her destiny! Whilst waiting, what is her place and what is her calling? We have said that the Holy Ghost, come down from heaven, gathers her upon earth. If the Bridegroom delays His coming; and if souls go to wait with Him for the moment of the assembling of all that are His, raised or changed, in His presence in the air, those of the redeemed who remain gathered down here, where the Holy Ghost the Comforter abides, always form the Church. There may be ignorance, the members may be scattered here and there, the Church may have been unfaithful and stripped of her ornaments; but it remains equally true, that until Christ calls her to meet Him in heaven, she is always the Church, always the bride of Christ. She has been espoused as a chaste virgin to Him; but it is to a heavenly Christ. Israel is His people upon earth. Whilst Christ is in heaven, the Holy Ghost is gathering the Church to be His in heaven.

However, it is no merely that the Church has a heavenly calling; this is not the whole truth as to her relations with Christ. She is also His bride and His body. When all the thoughts of God have been fulfilled, she will, as a fact, be with Him. Her thoughts and her character are (or at least they ought to be) formed after her portion, according to God. Also she is already united to Christ by the Spirit. She is one and can be one only. But she is characterized by yet other traits. When the world rejected Christ, it passed judgment and condemnation upon itself. "Now," said the Lord, in referring to His cross, "is the judgment of this world."

The Church was set up in grace, when the relations of God with the world, on the footing of the responsibility of man, were ended for ever by the rejection of Christ. Thus she has been called to come out of the world to be received of God. She is Christ's alone. "Come out from among them," says the word, "and I will receive you." It is a peculiar people belonging only to Him. "Ye are not of the world," says Jesus, "as I am not of the world." And this is true, not only as regards individuals; but "that they may be one," says the Lord, "that the world may believe." It is a unity perceptible to the world outside itself. "What have I to do," says the apostle, "to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? Them that are without God judgeth." The Holy Ghost was upon earth to establish the closest and most formal union between the members of the body; they were members one of another. This unity was recognized among them. All knew that a Christian was not of the world, because he was of the Church. If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. This unity was truly and distinctly manifested in each locality. There was the church of each place, as the very addresses of several epistles shew. But this local unity proved the universal unity. Any one member of it was thereby a member of the universal unity. Teachers, evangelists, apostles, Timothy, Titus, Paul, did not belong to one church more than another. The gifts were members of the body. The idea of a member of a church is not found in the Bible. The thought there is very different; it is that of members of the body of Christ. But these "joints and bands," which might exercise their activity in local churches, proved the unity of the whole body, and made it visible and perfectly perceptible to the world.

390 Christians acknowledged one another, and were acknowledged as one body — a sole, well known, and well defined body, having common interests, and the most intimate ties, as a body apart from the world. The Holy Ghost cannot unite the Church with that world out of the midst of which He has taken her. Persons might come in unawares into the formal body, but it was a distinct body, into which they come as false brethren. It is plain that if the Church be one in the midst of the world, her duty is to glorify the Lord in that unity, and by that unity, and as a whole. For this responsibility cannot be separated from any position whatsoever in which we are placed by God.

But the motives are so much the more powerful as the grace of that position is excellent. We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city set on a hill, the epistle* of Christ, an epistle which ought to be read and known of all men. The body of Christ ought to reproduce, by the power of the Spirit — that power which overcomes all the separative principles which selfishness and sin have introduced into the world — the character of its Head; and thus glorify Him on the earth. The bride should manifest her attachment to the Bridegroom — that she is wholly and exclusively His!

{*It is not said "epistles." It is the whole of the Church of Corinth which was "the epistle."}

391 People talk about an "invisible" church. The word says nothing about this. It is a notion which quite denies the force of the passages we have just quoted. The scattering of the children of God has hid them. Would any one venture to maintain that individuals should be invisible; that is, that they should conceal their Christianity? "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." It is clear, then, that individuals should not be invisible. Now, if that be true, to say that the Church may be invisible means nothing short of this, that these individuals ought not to be united. Yet it is certain that the Lord says that they ought to have been one, that the world might believe.

If there be divisions, they are carnal, and walk as men. If the duty of all individuals be to let their light shine before men, and if all these individuals are closely united, and form a separate body outside the world, making everywhere a profession of their union (as it was undeniably the case at the beginning), to say that this body is invisible has no sense. "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." But this in passing.

The question I am now treating is not, how far the Church realizes this position. I am speaking of the Church such as it is presented in the word.

But if the Church be the bride of Jesus, she ought to desire as such to glorify Him during His absence. Her heart must be given to Him — she must receive her directions from Him alone. If she be the house of God, she must seek to keep herself pure on account of the holiness of the Spirit who dwells therein. If she be the pillar and ground of the truth, she will not be able to endure anything but the truth, which is the basis of her existence; for the glorious revelation of Christ, who has accomplished her redemption (God manifested in the flesh, preached to the Gentiles, received up into glory), has given her being; and she is the witness of it.

Conscious of being the bride of the Lamb, she will have the affections proper to such a relationship; she will long for the coming of the Bridegroom to receive her to Himself. She will understand that she belongs to Him in heaven; and consequently will not mix herself up with the world, nor confound her expectation with the coming of Jesus to judge the world, while she believes it firmly.* She knows that, when He appears, she will appear with Him in glory. Thus, separated from the world by the Spirit who is the power and earnest of this hope, she will seek to realize it as much as possible upon the earth "He that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

{*When it is a question of the responsibility of individuals, whether Christians or of the world, the New Testament speaks of the appearing of Jesus. For the joy and portion of the Church, according to the counsels of God in grace, it is the coming of Christ into the air, before His revelation, that the word presents to us as the object of faith and hope.}

392 This is also the force of the teaching of Philippians 3, which, however, has an individual for its object. I quote it because I speak of the normal effect of this truth in the heart of the Christian. He who has learnt it will have the conscience that the Church is one — can be only one. He will have the conscience that she belongs to Christ and can belong to none other. He will have the conscience that she ought to manifest this unity, and render a constant and practical testimony that she is His alone. The presence in her of the Holy Ghost, who gathers the members in one body, will be the power and life of this testimony. The path will be the path of faith; and the path of faith will be the path of sufferings, but they will be the sufferings of Christ for His body, that we may be glorified together.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOLUME 1]

Brief Scriptural Evidence on the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, for plain people.

J. N. Darby.

<07001E> 1

The doctrine of everlasting punishment having been much called in question, and the minds of the simple shaken, and the faith of some overthrown (though I have been occupied with the subject, more at large, for some time back, with the purpose of writing on it), I have thought it well to publish some brief pages meanwhile for plain people. And here to such I would suggest to distrust those who talk much about Greek to those who do not understand it. It is easy thus to impose on people. It is useful to know Greek, no doubt, in studying the New Testament, because it was written in Greek; and it is perfectly fair to refer to it with those who, knowing Greek, can judge of what is said; but it is very suspicious when much quoted to those who do not; for how can they judge about it? A man tells you "eternal" does not mean "eternal" in Greek. That sounds very conclusive; but how can you judge whether it does or not? Now in all those who talk much about Greek to plain people, I have generally found trickery; and that their Greek has not been worth much when put to the test by those who did understand it. Without pretending to be very learned, I know Greek, and I have studied the Greek Testament, and I have not been led to place any confidence in their statements about the Greek, but the contrary. The Spirit of God will guide more surely a plain man, if he be humble, in fundamental truths, than a little Greek will those who trust in it.

Now, to a plain man, the statements of his English Bible leave not a doubt on the mind that the punishment of the wicked is eternal.

These statements, I have no doubt whatever, are substantially right. No doubt, being a human work, translations are imperfect, and the translator's views and feelings are apt to be transfused into them. But in the main, the doctrine presented by the English Bible, and the faith produced by it in a plain believer's mind, is sound doctrine and divinely-taught faith, though it be possible some passages might be more exactly rendered. None, however, that I am aware, affecting this truth are misrepresented by the translation. And it is quite evident to me, and to any plain honest man, that God meant to produce on the mind of the reader the conviction that eternal misery is the portion of the wicked, and I do not believe that He meant to produce the conviction of a lie, nor frighten them with what was not true. Now I shall quote many plain passages, adding my unhesitating conviction that the attempts to undermine this doctrine of scripture (and I have been compelled to examine a good many) have entirely failed, and that the arguments used are either dishonest, some of them flagrantly so, or contradictory and fallacious, and that all of them subvert other fundamental truths. And I declare also my conviction that a sound knowledge of Greek confirms the plain man's scriptural faith. I shall state why in a few plain words at the end.

2 I give a body of texts (some of which by themselves might not prove the point), that the effect the Holy Ghost meant to produce may be wrought according to the full testimony He has given. I beg the plain reader's attention to these passages. Some refute the doctrine of the salvation of all; some, the notion that the wicked will perish, i.e., cease to exist. Some shew that the human notion of divine love, which denies the vindication of God's majesty and holiness against sin by wrath, and the eternal impossibility that light should have fellowship with darkness, is an unscriptural and an unholy notion. Some refute particular arguments used in favour of these errors. So that, if the mind be solidly imbued with these passages, the error is confuted; and, lastly, some of them shew, that the doctrine of scripture is, that there is wrath, and that everlasting misery and punishment is the portion of unbelieving and rebellious sinners. Some shew that it applies to all kinds of sinners, without law, under law, and unbelievers of the gospel.

I shall quote figurative as well as plain statements, because figures are meant by God to produce some conviction, the exact force being no doubt to be sought in exact expressions. Matthew 3: 10, 12; ch. 5: 22, 29, 30; ch. 6: 15; ch. 7: 13, 23;* ch. 8: 12; ch. 10: 28, 33; ch. 11: 22; ch. 12: 31, 32; ch. 13: 40,** 41, 49; ch. 18: 8, 9;*** ch. 22: 13; ch. 23: 33; ch. 25: 46;**** ch. 26: 24. Mark 3: 22; ch. 8: 36; ch. 9: 43; ch. 16: 16. Luke 12: 4, 5, 9, 10; ch. 16: 19-31. John 3: 3, 15, 36; ch. 5: 29 ;***** ch. 6: 53; ch. 8: 24. Acts 1: 25. Romans 1: 18; ch. 2: 5-16; ch. 9: 22.******  1 Corinthians 1: 18 ;******* ch. 3: 15. Philippians 1: 28; ch. 3: 18. 2 Thessalonians 1: 8-10; ch. 2: 10-12.  1 Timothy 6: 9.  Hebrews 6: 6; ch. 10: 26-31; ch. 11: 27. James 5: 20. 2 Peter 2: 9, 17, 21; ch. 3: 7. 1 John 5: 12. Jude 13. Revelation 14: 9, 10; ch. 20: 10-15; ch. 21: 5-8.

{*Mark this and chapter 10: 33, because it is impossible to believe that Christ could say these things of those who were redeemed and saved as much as others, though to be punished awhile.}

{**In those two verses, 40 and 49, it will be said "world" means age or dispensation; be it so, I believe it does; but that does not affect the judgment pronounced as to that which is to follow.}

{***Here everlasting fire or hell-fire is in contrast with life; if they go into one, they do not go into the other; nor is any particular word used which. might, as they allege, make it apply to a peculiar period of happiness. Life and hell-fire are contrasted.}

{****Now here in Greek "everlasting" and "eternal" are precisely the same word; and what one means for life, the other means for punishment.}

{*****Here, they will tell you, "damnation" means judgment. So it does; but it is in contrast with having life. And in judgment "no flesh living shall be justified." The judgment is at the end of all.}

{******God is minded to shew His wrath and make His power known. Though love, He is God, and His majesty must be maintained against rebellion and sin.}

{*******Now in this, as in Mark 16: 16, perishing and being damned is contrasted with being saved, so that any plain person must conclude that they are not saved. Some are saved, and others perish because they reject the cross.}

3 Now no one can deny that the effect of these passages is, to lead men to believe that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness, as well as His love in Christ; that, if this love be despised, and the gospel rejected, damnation is the consequence; that, as to those who come under wrath, their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched; that they have never forgiveness; that they are not saved, but perish; and that they are tormented for ever and ever in the lake of fire and brimstone; that having despised the sacrifice of the cross, there is no more sacrifice for sin. But men seek to evade these plain testimonies, and begin to reason, and to speak of Greek.

Now there are two systems by which men seek to set aside these plain passages. One is that all will be saved, all, even the devil himself, though some few of them do not like to say anything so plain as that.

4 The other is, that the wicked will not be saved (the soul not being immortal at all), and that the fire of hell will in time consume them.

Now these two systems quite destroy one another. It is the latter which most prevails here in England, the former in other countries. Those who hold the latter say that the former is monstrous and unscriptural: first, because of the passages which declare that some people are to be damned and others saved, and very many which speak of destroying body and soul in hell, or something of equal force; and also because, if they are saved, they are saved without the atonement and regeneration, for there are those who have rejected the one and despised the other, and for whom there remains no more sacrifice for sin. And indeed nothing can be plainer. And so as to the devil and his angels. For, to be consistent with their views, they must save them too. For they say God is to be all in all, and, being love, there can remain no misery. But if so, the devils must be saved too. But then, they have no Christ, no Saviour; so that, according to this doctrine, if I tell a man he cannot be saved without Christ, I am not telling him true, for there are those who are, according to this system. That is, the whole gospel is subverted as to every one. But is it not plain to an honest mind that when it is said "he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," this does not mean "he that believeth not" shall be equally saved with him that believes — only he shall be punished for awhile first? For that is the doctrine of the first class, or Universalists, as they are called. And when it is said, they which believe on Him "should not perish, but have everlasting life," is it not equally plain that it does not mean that, though they would not believe, they would still have it and not perish at all? And when it is said "whose end is destruction," it does not mean that their end should be to be in happiness like others, though they waited a little longer? And when it is said "hath never forgiveness," that it does not mean one will have it in the end? And when it says, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," that it does not mean they are to get out of it safe and sound and to be in glory like the saved? God has said, "these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Now, who would believe that this meant that the condemned were to go for a short time into punishment, but had or would have eternal life quite as much as the others? Eternal life and eternal or everlasting punishment answer to one another, and mean the same in either case. They argue that it means eternal in neither! But will any one believe that "eternal life" does not mean life for ever and ever? If its lasting for ever is only to be understood from the word "life," because it is Christ's life, why add the word eternal? The plain reader will hardly believe that they say eternal is added to confine it to the next age, or millennium!* But this is quite a fallacy; for we are said to have it now, before the millennium comes at all. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life."

{*This they base on their Greek, of which a word just now.}

5 The punishment of the wicked, then, is said to be of equal duration with the life of the blessed. But further it is said to be of equal duration with the life of God. In Revelation 5: 14, it is said that they worship Him who liveth for ever and ever. And in chapter 14: 11, it is said, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. Now if the punishment of the wicked is said to endure as long as the life of the blessed, and as the life of God Himself, I ask, how could God have expressed more strongly to living men its enduring everlastingly? If He has said "it hath never forgiveness" — if He has said "their worm dieth not" — what could God have said more if He had meant to convey what eternal punishment was? And note here, that Revelation 20, where they are said to be in the lake of fire without, is after the millennium, and all is over, when it is said It is done, and God is all in all.

Hence the advocates of the second system of error have declared that the first has long been proved entirely absurd and untenable; and they have set up another, namely:

That the soul is not immortal at all, and that death means simply ceasing to exist, and therefore, that life is to be found only in Christ; and that, after a certain quantity of punishment, the wicked will be turned out of existence, or consumed by the fire of hell, and exist no more.

Such is the doctrine much in vogue, in this country, on this subject.

Now, upon the face of this doctrine the grossest inconsistency at once appears. For, if death means ceasing to exist, the soul not being immortal at all, and that anything beyond this is found only in Christ, how come the wicked to be alive after death in order to be punished? Where do they get this life?  They cannot be alive to be punished at all. "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life," say they. Now, if this means literally that the wicked have not life beyond death, they cannot exist when dead to be punished. It is quite clear to a Christian man, that "life" is used here in the sense of life in which we live to God in blessedness; for having no life is said of those who are naturally alive, but are dead in trespasses and sins. They have no divine life or blessedness, instead of being dead to sin and alive unto God.

6 But then the scripture is most clear and positive, that there is wrath and punishment and judgment and torment after death for all who are not saved. And this they cannot deny, without denying the whole testimony of God. But if there is, then men do live after death; and death does not mean ceasing to exist, but ceasing to exist soul and body together in this world. And that is what is as plain as possible from scripture. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and AFTER THIS the judgment." Why here, the judgment, which is to bring on men the whole extent of the consequences of sin from the wrath of God, is after death. Though sin makes always miserable; yet the coming of wrath, in the true full sense of the word, does not begin till after death, and by judgment, instead of death being the end of the man. And mark, this is not anything peculiar to those that have heard of Christ, though they doubtless are far more guilty and will be beaten with many stripes. It is appointed unto men. It is their common natural portion as sinners* — death and judgment.

{*And Christ's death as bearing the sins of many is contrasted with this in its efficacy for the saved.}

Again, "Fear not them which kill the body, but after that have no more that they can do, but fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell." Now here death (instead of being the whole wages of sin, though it be its wages) is made comparatively light of, if taken alone, but what comes after in body and soul in hell is the thing to be feared. And note, there is no such thought as a man's soul dying with his body, as they say who teach that simple death was the whole wages of sin, alleging the passage; "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."

This threat is also quoted by them to prove that man was not created immortal;* for how should it be said "thou shalt die," if he was immortal? Now I should think this was a very plain proof that he was immortal. If I say to a child, If you do such a thing, you shall be whipped, that would not surely mean, you shall be whipped at any rate; so, "if you eat, you shall die" means, plainly, death was a consequence of eating. And so the apostle tells us, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." But that death thus coming in was not ceasing to exist is evident, because "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." Again, "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But . . . fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell."

{*Others say he was conditionally immortal, for they do not agree in their systems.}

7 That is, we have the positive revelation of God, that their comment is a false one, that death is not the whole wages of sin, but that judgment comes after it. But then, to get out of this, they say that death was the wages of Adam's sin, but that these punishments are the wages of our own. Now the apostle does not state the matter so. He says, "and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." That is, he connects the sin of all men and Adam's sin together, as bringing in death itself on all; so that this will not do either.

But were it even not thus disproved by the apostle's statement, there is another thing remains: if Adam's sin brought in death on all his posterity, and man is not immortal (for that is their doctrine), where do sinners get the life from after death (that is, after ceasing to exist at all)? Their sins cannot give it them. They tell us that, death having been pronounced on man, there is no immortality, no life, but in Christ. Well then, see what it comes to: the wicked have life in Christ in order to be punished for their sins, and this life, which they have in Christ, is not eternal life: for if it be, they must be (if not eternally happy or saved) eternally miserable. And moreover, this life, which they have of Christ to be punished in, is to be consumed by the wrath and punishment of God! If it is not life in and from Christ, then death does not put an end to a man; death is not what they pretend it is; man is, in a word, an immortal being. And further, what was the worth of Christ's death? Some of them say it was just simply death as the wages of sin. But "He bore our sins"; and if so, our sins being merely a measured quantity of punishment, it is not the wrath of God due to us as lost sinners, but merely a partial punishment He had to avert. But further, as regards the wicked, the death of Christ, they say, averted death from them so that they should be punished. He did not bear their sins — that is clear — for it is for them they are to be punished; so that Christ's death was necessary to keep alive the wicked in order to punish and then consume them, and was applied to this purpose by God!

8 And now some general remarks. Note this, all kinds of expressions are used, beside eternal punishment, as Their end is destruction — They shall not see life — They have never forgiveness — They have no life in them — Christ shall deny them — He never knew them. So that the argument as to the meaning of "eternal" in Greek, were it valid, leaves many other statements untouched; but it is not valid. They pretend that "eternal" means what belongs to the millennial glory of the dispensation that is coming. Now I believe in the glory of that dispensation; but I say "eternal" does not mean this in Greek, and I challenge any man who knows Greek to produce me one passage where it does. It is used sixty-eight times* (besides three which refer to past time), and not one can be brought to shew that it means the millennial period. Many prove that it means "eternal" in all, and many prove that it does not apply to the millennial state when used in the connection in which they say it does. I shall quote some plain ones to both points.

{*That is, the Greek word aionios.}

That it means "eternal."

2 Corinthians 4: 18: For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 5: 1: A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

1 Timothy 6: 16: To whom be honour and power everlasting.

1 Peter 5: 10: The God of all grace who hath called us to His eternal glory.

So in Hebrews 5: 9; ch 9: 12, 14.

These passages shew that the natural meaning of the word is "eternal," in contrast with temporal.

As to the second point, that it does not mean "millennial," the reader will find that eternal life is quite as often said of our having Christ's life in this world as in the next; because it is that divine life which is a real thing given us, as true in this world as in the next. Its full development is in the next, of course, and therefore we naturally speak of it as there; but scripture equally states that we have it here; so that it certainly does not mean a millennial condition, though we have it then as now. The word translated "for ever,"* does sometimes mean, when used in other ways, what is not eternal. It is used for the duration of anything in uninterrupted continuance, though the thing in its nature may not last for ever, and hence for the whole of any particular period — as the whole of man's life, sometimes the whole course of this evil world, the whole of a dispensation. But when it is used in connection with the subjects we are treating of, there is not the least doubt it means eternal, and indeed wherever it is not used with a particular subject which limits it; and when translated for ever, it never means the millennial age, as alleged.

{*Eis ton aiona. It is used twenty-six times, of which twenty-three clearly mean "never" or "eternal." Of the other three, one is obscure, namely, Abraham and his seed for ever; the two others cannot be used as a proof: one refers to the Comforter abiding with the disciples (John 14: 16); the other, sinners being reserved for the blackness of darkness for ever. Not one can be brought to shew that it refers to the millennial time of glory. We have the expressions THIS world, and the world TO COME, as to which men may reason, but never the words above used.}

9 Many other arguments from the use of it in Greek might be urged; but I do not go farther here, as I might only perplex those who do not understand that language. In a passage which relates to our subject we have plain proof, however, that "everlasting" does not mean millennial. For it is said, "depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Now, on their own shewing, the devil and his angels are not there till the millennium is over; so that it does not mean millennial. Further, they insist on the words "destroy" and "destruction." Now we have already shewn, it cannot here mean to put an end to the existence of what is destroyed; because it lasts as long as the life of the blessed, and even of God Himself. But that it does not mean so in many passages is plain. The very title given to the angel of the bottomless pit would shew it. He is called Apollyon, i.e., the destroyer; now he ruins no doubt many, but he cannot destroy in the sense referred to. So "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." "The lost sheep of the house of Israel" is the same word; and it is the strongest used.

10 I have thus stated some of the strongest scriptural proofs of the doctrine, and I have met the main arguments of the systems which error has attempted to set up. The attentive Christian will find that both subvert the work of Christ and the claims of the holiness of God; for if men are saved who have died in the entire rejection of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and for whom there is no more sacrifice for sin, then salvation by these means is not needed for us. Or, if death is the whole wages of sin, and man is not immortal at all, the sufferings of the Son of God and His being forsaken of God in wrath are really set aside: it is not that which comes from the necessary majesty of God's holiness, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And at any rate, Christ merely set aside a certain temporary punishment for some, and secured its infliction on others, as without Him men would have ceased to exist, like a horse or a dog! He procured eternal life for some, and a temporary life for others, in order that they might be miserable! No Christian, I think, but must see that this is not what God teaches us. Nor is there the smallest ground for one doctrine or the other. It is alleged that in Colossians Christ is said to reconcile all things that He makes; but this is merely the visible creation, to the exclusion of a third class who are mentioned in Philippians as being obliged to bow the knee to Him, namely, those under the earth, strictly, the infernal things or beings, but who are not included in the reconciliation. So that, when compared with Philippians 2, it proves quite the contrary.

The result of our examination is to leave in its full force eternal punishment (the terrible consequence of the enmity of man's heart against God), and eternal blessedness (the result of God's free and blessed grace), in their plain scriptural sense, as commonly believed by simple-minded Christians. It is equally clear that the just divine vengeance which inflicts the punishment will know how to apportion the many stripes and the few stripes, to distinguish duly those who perish without law and those who are judged by law (though all be shut out from the presence of God, as in the judgment which devours the adversaries); and that the sovereign divine grace which has called any to glory will know how and when to place on the right hand and on the left in the kingdom, according as He has prepared it for them, while giving to each his reward according to his labour (eternal blessedness with Jesus, and like Jesus, being the common portion of all).

11 The thought is indeed solemn: but I can say that the examination of scripture on the subject has not left a cloud on my mind as to the truth taught in it; while the examination of the systems opposed to it has satisfied me, that they are fallacious and superficial, not taught by the Spirit of God, nor the truth of the word; and that sound and full examination of the Greek they plead confounds their statements.

And now, poor sinner, mark this: you may fancy that you are to judge God, and that you are competent to say that He ought to assign so much or so much punishment to so much sin; but know that He is to judge you. The notion of His love, which makes it an obligation incumbent on Him to act so and so in it without His being able to help it, and so that eternal punishment cannot be, is a false, unscriptural, and senseless notion. He is love; but He is God, and acts freely and holily in His love. God is love; but it is GOD that is so. Love is what He is. But the first question is, who He is; and He is God, and doeth what pleaseth Him. Now, mark this. If the Spirit of God has touched your conscience, you know that you deserve to be shut out of the presence of God for ever. You are conscious that you have deserved eternal wrath and punishment. If you are not, you do not know yet, by divine teaching, what sin is. And I pray you to remark that, in this question, it is not what may be, or what might be, which is in question. You are a sinner: — What, in your own conscience, does sin deserve? And further, if it is a question what sin deserves, it is a question of what Christ bore, what His atonement was; for He bore our sins and was made sin for us.

God speaks plainly of wrath, indignation, vengeance, because of sin. What was the wrath due to sin, which Christ bore when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree? It is not a speculative question, of what might be, but of what saves you! Do you believe, that what Christ bore, when He made His soul an offering for sin, was merely the amount of a certain temporary suffering? that this was what sin amounted to in the presence of God? and that this too was what God's wrath amounted to? Do not be led astray by any abuse of the blessed truth that it was Christ's divine nature that gave infinite value to His work. It did so, blessed be God. But He "bore our sins in his own body on the tree." And "it pleased the Lord to bruise him." "He was wounded for our transgressions." "The chastisement of our peace was upon him, with his stripes we are healed." Now was what He bore for us, for you, a mere amount of temporary punishment, or the holy wrath of God, the awfulness of God's forsaking Him while He was alive, His soul being made thus an offering for sin? That wrath which shuts out from His presence, while the soul can know what it is — is not this what we have deserved? It is not merely torment and then ceasing to exist; though Christ, as a divine Person, gave infinite value to His work.

12 Some mightier creature might well have borne temporal punishment due; but the wrath and judgment implied in eternal punishment a divine eternal Person alone could bear.

Those who deny eternal punishment quote also sometimes the scriptures of the Old Testament, such as the following — Genesis 6: 3, "My spirit shall not always strive with man"; Isaiah 57: 16, "For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wrath; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made"; and again, Psalm 49: 12, "Man being in honour abideth not; he is like the beasts which perish."

Now any plain godly reader can judge from such quotations as these what such an argument is worth; for it is clear that nothing but exceeding inattention, or positive dishonesty, could apply such passages as having anything to say to it. First, as to Genesis, it is most plain, that it is God's patience with man before the flood, while the ark was a preparing, when, according to Peter's comment, the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. Their spirits-being cast into prison, when thus judged, is plain proof enough that they subsisted after their death.

As to the second, Isaiah 57: 16, it is equally plain that the Lord is speaking of men in the earth. If He contended with them continually — did not cease and spare them, they would perish as living men. The stumbling-blocks were to be taken out of the way of His people. The high and holy One would revive the hearts of the humble, and the heart of the contrite, for He would not strive for ever, nor be always wroth. "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him . . . I have seen his ways and will heal him," etc. Now what has all this to do with hell? Just nothing at all. Let me advise the simple reader, when a quotation is made, always to read the context before he receives a new doctrine.

13 Lastly, Psalm 49. Again I say, read the Psalm, and it will be at once seen that it applies to glory in this world. "For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever . . . they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish." What "man being in honour" has to say to his being in hell would be hard to say. "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them." Is it not evident that the doctrine here taught is, that death blasts all the earthly glory of man? "His glory shall not descend after him"; but even here, dark as were the views of what was beyond death, there is no sign of any final destruction or of final recovery.

I add a word for the reader who does understand Greek. The etymology given as early as the time of Aristotle, and by him, is aien on, always existing. The earliest use of the word is in the sense of a man's life. It is so used frequently by Homer of the death of his heroes and in other ways. It is used by Herodotus and the Attic poets, so far as to say anepneusen aiona. Very much later it came to mean one whole dispensational period or state of things; but, when used by itself in its own meaning, it had very clearly the sense of eternity. It is thus used by Philo in a passage which can leave no doubt, en aioni de oute pareleluthen ouden oute mellei alla monon uphesteke. "In eternity, nothing is either past or to come but only subsists."

In conclusion, I say (as has been remarked by others) that, if God had meant to convey the idea of eternal punishment, He would not have used expressions stronger than He has used; nor do any exist.

A Letter to G. V. Wigram,

Containing brief comments on "The Reply of Philomath to the 'Brief Scriptural Evidence on the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, for plain people.'"

J. N. Darby.

<07002E> 14

Montpellier, March 22nd, 1848.

My dear Wigram,

The pamphlet you have sent me has a voice, which, though it may be in a disagreeable way, has given me pleasure. For it surely proves that my tract has taken effect; and the effort to undo the testimony is so utter a failure, that it confirms me in the conviction that the Lord was with me in the matter of the publication. I have been even much struck with the way in which some very important points acquire new weight by the utter inability to meet them. I return you a notice of the tract, in case you should have need for any one: of course, I pass by all the abuse.

As to the tract of W.B., noticed in the first page, Mr. Seabrook should have explained, that it denies entirely every doctrine and every principle which he holds on the subject. It teaches that death and destruction involve the cessation of existence, and that no man has life out of Christ, and that, unless men are saved by being regenerated in this life, they perish totally and entirely when the judgment comes — exist no longer. Its principle is entirely the contrary of Mr. S.'s, of universal salvation. They are one only in rejecting the doctrines of scripture. W.B. has not been honest in his book; he speaks of immortality as if scripture spoke of it in passages where he knows full well the word means the incorruptibility of the body, of which he has himself given the evidence in his tract. In the Lord's mercy, the progress of the error-was arrested. I had answered the tract, and left my answer, on going abroad, to be printed. The publication having been stayed in my absence, at the instance of a friend of W.B., because I had noticed the want of honesty; when returned, I found the progress of the doctrine so completely dropped, that I found it needless to print the reply.

As to the force of the texts strung together, I leave it still to every honest, simple mind. In page 5 of Mr. S.'s tract I note the remark, that age, in Matthew 8 (aion in the singular) is used for a specific period — this age. I believe it is; but my previous remark, called mystification, is the whole matter. The fact that the judgment spoken of in that passage takes place at the end of this age, does not in the smallest degree affect the duration of the punishment to which that judgment sentences the guilty. They are cast at the end of this age, by the sentence pronounced, into a furnace of fire, where is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

15 As regards the second paragraph, I was not aware that the writer went so far in error as he does. He tells us that the eternal life here spoken of is a reward life. Now I read in scripture that eternal (aionios) life is the gift of God, not the reward of works, though its full enjoyment may close and crown them. As to the persons referred to in Matthew 25, I believe they are the Gentiles living on the earth when the Lord comes. What then? What has that to do with the duration of the punishment inflicted on them? They are unbelievers and believers, as I judge, and the third class are the messengers from among the Jewish people, as I apprehend; their reception of them, as bringing the word of testimony, the Lord considers as being equivalent to receiving Himself, though they, on receiving graciously the messenger, were unaware that the Lord took it as done to Himself. That was all they were ignorant of: and what has that to say to the duration of the punishment of the goats, who also were ignorant that, in rejecting the messenger, they would be treated as rejecting the Lord Himself? Otherwise, note, the special privilege called eternal life is obtained by natural kind conduct, with no real motive which refers to Christ at all; for they acted in ignorance of what they were about and that which merited eternal life, which redemption does not acquire for any one. Mr. S. says, page 6, "It is not said, everlasting torment"; but the only other time kolasis is used, it is translated torment in the English version, and rightly enough, though punishment be equally well given as the sense here. Mr. S. says, the word is age-lasting punishment. That is easily said; it is what I positively deny: his business is to prove, not to say it. I shall quote farther on some passages to shew that it cannot be assumed to be so. Next he says, as minister of the circumcision, the Lord refers to Isaiah 66. This is an unhappy remark, because the Lord positively declares that this applies to Gentiles, and His throne as Son of man: "He shall gather before him all nations," or all the Gentiles. The judgment of the Jews was closed in Matthew 24: 31.

16 My next remark, on which Mr. S. comments in page 6, I repeat, as of an importance which no cavil can touch. John 5: 29 contrasts a resurrection to life and a resurrection to judgment; and that resurrection to judgment is not at the beginning of the millennium, so as to last that age, but at the end, when Christ on the great white throne judges the dead, when the millennial age is over, and after which Christ gives up the kingdom, that God may be all in all, when without are dogs and murderers, etc. Judgment at the close of all is contrasted with a resurrection to life. Mr. S. says, We know full well that there are those who will be justified in judgment. The answer is, The word of God says no man living will. Those who believe in Jesus will not come into judgment (for that is the word, as Mr. S. justly insists in John 5). The passage in Psalm 143 is not cited in Romans 3, nor is it an unconverted person out of Christ. "No man living," comprises all men, without exception, If God entered into judgment with them, they would be condemned. Moreover, the Psalmist speaks of a pious and converted man, who felt the holiness of God: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant." "My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land." "Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God." In a word, the whole psalm shews that the divine life was unquestionably there. It is not the present state of all men, but as far as possible from it; and because he was not in that state, he knew that no man living could be justified. And mark, that eternal life is not the term used in this passage; resurrection to judgment is contrasted with resurrection TO LIFE. Further, life and death are not God's holy contrasts here at all, but life and judgment: some are raised for life, and some for judgment: if raised for judgment, they are clearly alive. But scripture does not speak of life merely in this low physical sense — does not use it as meaning that men are not dead. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." Living men are "dead in trespasses and sins"; and "to be spiritually minded is life and peace." "He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son shall not see life." And I beg the reader to remember and bear this in mind, because a great handle is made of it without any foundation. As I have based nothing on any use of hades or sheol (pp. 8, 9), I have nothing to add on the subject, nor have I any views that hell is always used for hell-fire, for hell is used for it sometimes. But here I have a more serious remark to make on the statements of Mr. Seabrook. "Hell-fire," he says, "is always spoken of as the fire of gehenna, and of bodies." Now the very text that Mr. S. quotes particularly insists on the contrary. Both do in sense, but one of them in terms. Matthew  10: 28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." What can I say of this being referred to, to prove that hell (gehenna) only refers to bodies? The reader will readily see that the same emphasis is found in sense in Luke 12: 5. I have said nothing of hades as a ground of argument; Mr. S. has of gehenna, of which the reader must judge for himself. Mr. S. is mistaken in saying, I have not read or thought; but it requires no comment.

17 His statement on the work of Christ goes far to satisfy me of the unsoundness of his views on it; and for this reason — the entire silence as to substitution or bearing of sins. Universalists always base redemption-efficacy on the Person of Christ, to the exclusion of the bearing of sins. Mr. Seabrook seems to me to do the same here; he speaks of the essentially divine character, and a work equal to His Person, but declares, which I beg earnestly the reader to note, that there is no forgiveness of the punishment of sins, but only the gift of life, as the forgiveness of Adam's own sin; but that, as regards sins, "God will render to every man according to his works," and "Jews and Gentiles are said to be punished according to their misdeeds." "There is no remitting the punishment for personal sinful actions to any one." "Adam was punished before he died, but the wages of his own transgression brought death, both personal and relative." What does ours bring? What does it deserve? Do our sins deserve the wrath of God s or, if we are all punished for our sins, and "the Bible never speaks of forgiving or remitting the punishment for personal, sinful actions to any one, for God will render to every man according to his works," "Jews and Gentiles being punished according to their misdeeds" — if this be so, why did the Lord not only lay on Christ the iniquity of us all, but He was "bruised for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed"? Why is it said, He shall bear their iniquities? Why does Peter, referring to this passage, say, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree"? And why is the remission of sins, not of sin merely, the grand primary declaration of the gospel, and the free gift, of many offences unto justification, in contrast with the unity of Adam's one act, which brought in death? "For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift of many offences unto justification."

18 But it is not true, that it was by Adam's sin to the exclusion of ours that death reigns; for the apostle says, "and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And James 1: 15 declares the universal effect of it in man. Now, as to remission of sins. Let the reader take his Bible, and read Matthew 26: 28; Mark 1: 4; ch. 3: 28, 29; Luke 1: 77; ch. 3: 3; ch. 5: 20. So Matthew 18 and the whole parable, which is very instructive on this point; ch. 24: 47; Acts 2: 38; ch. 5: 31; ch. 10: 43, ch. 13: 38; ch. 26: 18; Ephesians 1: 7; Colossians 1: 14; Hebrews 1: 3; ch. 10: 2, 12; 1 John 1: 9. Let me beg the reader to consult these passages, and he will soon see what place this capital truth holds in the testimony of the gospel, which Mr. S. here boldly denies. See also as to the fruit of personal sin, even as to temporary death, 2 Samuel 12: 13. Mr. S.'s statement has no sense, but I suppose it is merely a mistake: "the sin of fallen nature, which is death." When he says, the wages of the sin is death. his translation is wrong, and the usual one right. He must know that abstract nouns have the article in Greek, and have not in such a sentence in English. The authorized translation is perfectly correct — "The wages of sin is death."

But let the reader well note what this Universalist doctrine, which pretends to exalt God's love, ends in (and I suppose Mr. S. has "read, thought, and enquired about it") — total silence as to substitution, and total omission of the doctrine of Christ's bearing sins, and consequent denial of the forgiveness of them, as every man is to be punished according to his misdeeds. And then, reader, if so, what have they deserved? It is clearer and clearer that this doctrine is not Christianity, though Christians may fall into it.

As to what follows in page 11, I beg the reader's attention. The attempt to get rid of the doctrine of eternal punishment is sought to be sustained by declaring that the Greek word, aionios, so translated, does not mean eternal, in the common sense of the word, but millennial. This, of course, puzzles people. I did not avoid the question. Their whole system depends on it. If eternal does mean what we all take it to mean, their system is a cruel and wicked deception of the enemy. And now watch the result. I challenge the advocates of the error to produce a single passage which proves that aionios means millennial. There are about seventy passages in the New Testament, in which the word is used. THEY CANNOT PRODUCE ONE! Yet all their system depends on this. Mr. S., to get out of the difficulty, calls it carnal, and asks me to produce one which contradicts it. Surely, when they affirm a word means something, and their system depends on its having this meaning, their business is to produce a passage which proves it. The absence of this meaning is the whole point. It might have any other meaning possible; that would make no difference. It has not that meaning which is necessary to their system: it rests with them to prove it has. Who ever thought that scripture was written to contradict false meanings given to words? Universalists build a false system on the meanings of a word, declaring that others have mistaken its meaning. They are challenged to produce one which proves it has the meaning they allege, and they cannot. I have no need to bring one to contradict it. They must prove what they allege.

19 But now, reader, I go farther, and I will produce a great many which contradict their assertion, and prove that aionios does mean eternal in the common sense of it. Indeed, I had done so already.

2 Corinthians 4: 18: "The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal." That is, not temporal, nor merely millennial, nor for an age, nor for many ages merely, but not temporal, nor for time. The visible are proskeira, for a time; the invisible, aionia, eternal, not for a time: if the word aionios meant millennial, that would be for a time too. Aionios does not mean, and is not, millennial, but eternal in the plain sense of the word. So in 2 Corinthians 5: 1: "We have an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Philemon 15: "For perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever," aionion, eternally again contrasted with for a season. Hebrews 13: 20: "Through the blood of the everlasting covenant." The efficacy of Christ's blood (according to, or in the power of which, He was raised from the dead) I suppose lasts longer than the millennium. So Hebrews 9: 12: "He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Is it only for a thousand years Christ has obtained redemption for us? And mark here, it is not eternal glory, or men might cavil about its being the vestibule to the universal happiness which followed, but eternal redemption. Again, Hebrews 9: 14: "Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God." By no possible artifice can eternal be made to mean and to be millennial here. Romans 16: 26: "According to the commandment of the everlasting [aionion] God." Here again the application of the term millennial would be blasphemous nonsense. Further, more particularly as to life, aionial life does not mean millennial life, though those who possess eternal life now will no doubt be in millennial glory. See 1 John 1: 1, 2: "That which our hands have handled of the Word of life. For [and] the life was [has been] manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." That is, Christ, as He was with the Father, and as He was seen in the world, was eternal life. This expression certainly, therefore, does not refer to the millennial state, but to something far more essential, fundamental, and important, blessed as that state may be and surely is.

20 Again, "God hath given to us eternal [aionion] life, and that life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John 5: 11, 12). Here again it is evident as to our possession of it, that it is impossible to distinguish eternal life from the possession of life in the Son; that life is eternal life. He that has the Son has life in the Son, eternal life, for He is eternal life (v. 20); and he that has not that, has no life at all spiritually. The distinction of eternal life being millennial is utterly false. Christ is the true God and eternal life. In John 3: 36 we have the same truth, that Christ is life — eternal life; and that he that has not eternal life has none, and never will have, stated in a negative, that is, in the strongest manner. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." It is impossible to state it in a more absolute universal manner — "HE SHALL NOT SEE LIFE." In other cases, as Jude 7, "Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire," there is no pretence for making it mean millennial. So in 1 Timothy 6: 16, "To whom be honour and power everlasting [aionion]." These passages positively contradict the statement, that "eternal" means and is the millennial glory. I might add many more, as the case of the ruler (Mark 10: 17); he did not think of millennial glory.

21 As regards what follows, it is a pity that Mr. S. has not given the passages in which life is connected with world. That eternal is said to belong only to the sheep, believers, the elect, etc., is perfectly true, and (as Mr. S. has failed to produce a single passage which proves that eternal means millennial) very important too. But he has forgotten that life itself is declared not to belong to any others — that they "shall not see life." Mr. S. tells us "that where life is used in connection with world, eternal [aionios] is not once prefixed." The reader would perhaps suppose that the scripture speaks often of life in connection with the world. Just twice, and both in the same passage — John 6: 33, 51. I have searched under zoe and zoopoieo (life and quickening); and I find only these. If the reader will take the trouble to read the passage from verse 26, he will see that eternal life is expressly in question — only that Christ does not confine it to the Jews, amongst whom He was, but, as universally in the Gospel of St. John, extends the object of His coming to the world. See John 1: 4, 7, 9 (the limit of efficacy is given in verse 12, compare verse 21); ch. 3: 16, 17, 19. The limitation to faith is in the same passage, and eternal life contrasted with perishing and condemnation; for the distinction between life and eternal life is utterly futile. See John 3: 36; ch. 4: 42; ch. 6: 27 (see also ch. 12: 32, where it is expressly referred to the present bearing of the cross); ch. 14: 31; ch. 15: 18, 19; ch. 16: 8, 20: 28; ch. 17: 18, 21, 23, 25; where again, though the world is the object, the distinction is carefully maintained between the bearing and sphere of the testimony and the reception of it. "The world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me": so, "I pray for them, I pray not for the world." (Compare also John 1: 10, 5.) Hence, John 6: 33, the Lord says He came down from heaven to give life unto the world, but He adds, "But I said unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And this is the Father's will that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." All that the Father had given then to Jesus would come to Him and have part in the resurrection of the last day, that is, have everlasting life, millennial glory. They would have eaten of the bread and lived by Him; but if they did-not eat of the bread, though He was there for life, they would never see life; if they did not eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, they had no life in them. That is, His coming for the life of the world, and people having part in that life, are carefully distinguished in the passage. He came down to give life, but He was not received save by those whom the Father gave to Him: that a man may eat thereof, says the Lord, and not die; but whoever ate had not only life, but eternal life (v. 54). The distinction attempted is unknown to, and denied by, scripture. The other verse is 51, where the Lord speaks of His death, namely, that it applied to the world, as He spoke of His incarnation or coming down from heaven. But He declares that if a man eat, he should live for ever (eis ton aiona); that if he did not eat, he had no life in him (v. 51, 53). That is, He positively denies, in the passage, the distinction attempted by Mr. S. "He that eateth me, shall live by me," but whoso eateth hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day; he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever (eis ton aiona). The passage cited levels the whole fabric attempted to be raised on it. Mr. S. has stated in Latin (cum multis aliis, that is) that there are many other passages than these two verses. He should have produced them. It is stated, he says, "over and over again, that the world is to have life." It is never stated. We have examined the passage quoted. He says there are many others. There are not. As to God being the Saviour of all men, specially of them which believe, it is evident that Saviour here applies exclusively to providence and saving life in this world. God's careful providence is extended to all, specially to believers. "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe." The apostle trusted in the living God in the midst of all difficulties, and dangers, and insults, because He preserved (and everyone who has examined it knows that soter has this sense as often as, or oftener than, that of eternal salvation) all, and particularly faithful men (not properly believers, but rather faithful men).

23 In 1 Timothy 2: 2-4 the apostle shews that kings, and those who seemed the most removed from the influence of the gospel and hostile to Christ, ought to have our prayers; for that was acceptable to our Saviour God, who shut none out, but was willing all should be saved. But the passage knows no other salvation than coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is indeed written, as Mr. S. says, that God has given to us eternal life; and it is indeed not once written that He has given to the world such life; and I add, it is not once written that He has given to the world any life, nor that the world is to have it. 1 John 2: 2 says nothing about the world being saved — not a word; it speaks of Christ being the propitiation for the world. That Christ died for all, many scriptures testify; and I firmly believe, the blood (by which every attribute of God was glorified) put on the mercy seat makes it a place of access to all sinners under heaven. But scripture does not ever say that Christ bore the sins of all. This bearing of sins is a truth which universalists carefully keep back.

2 Timothy 2: 10 proves nothing at all, save that eternal glory was associated with the salvation he sought for the elect. No one doubts that, I suppose; and it is clear by the following verses the thought of the apostle goes no farther. If it did, it would upset Mr. S.'s theory altogether; for dying with Christ is made the condition of living with Him in any way. But it is evident the apostle speaks practically of what was before him. (Compare Col. 2: 20; ch. 3: 1, 4; and Rom. 6: 1, 11.) I have now examined all the doctrine and the scripture.

As regards the shades of difference between universalists, I know nothing; but I know this difference between the deniers of the scriptural doctrine of eternal punishment, that some say that the scripture teaches plainly that all will be saved; and others, that this is absurd, and that it has been plainly and completely refuted by scripture, because scripture says that believers will be saved, and that those who believe not shall be condemned; and these therefore allege on the contrary that those who do not believe will be destroyed after a certain quantity of suffering, and utterly perish. This is a shade, and I should think a deep shade, of difference; inasmuch as one view subverts all the principles, all the reasonings, and all the interpretations of the other. God's love makes Him save all, according to one; it does not according to the other. The beautiful harmony of salvation for all and glory for some, is all a delusion according to the other. And the texts said to maintain it by one, prove nothing of the kind to the other.

24 And now a few remarks as to the words.

First, it is stated (p. 16), that there is another word for endless applied to "life by Christ." But Mr. S. carefully abstains from telling us where. It is a pity, too, he has not told us what the word is. There is no such word that I know of or can find. There is a word applied to Christ Himself (Heb. 7: 16), "according to the power of an endless life," in reference to His priesthood; but this has nothing to do with the question: it is the inherent nature of Christ's life, and means indissoluble. And not only so, but the reference to such a passage would be most unhappy, because the proof given that Christ has a priesthood of such a nature is, that He is so eis ton aiona. That is, the word said by Mr. S. to mean a period which is not endless, in contrast with this power of an endless life, is the word used here to prove that the life is endless. "Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever [eis ton aiona] after the order of Melchizedek." The truth is, that in this phrase aiona cannot be referred to the millennium, nor to an age, as a short specific period, because it would be rather till the millennium. So in the passage John 6, he that eateth this bread shall live to the millennium, which would be absurd. It is just simply for ever. Again, verses 22, 25, as to the Jewish priests, death forbade them to continue, "but this man, because he continueth for ever [eis ton aiona] hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him, seeing he ever [pantote] liveth to make intercession for them." Here again, eis ton aiona (for ever) is used as the opposite to liability to cessation because of death; that is, to have eternal continuance is equivalent to endless, unceasing life. Further, the great argument used is, that aionial (or eternal) does not mean endless, but millennial. If it does not, the whole question is decided, because punishment is declared to be aionial (eternal).

What does the word then mean in scripture? They say the word does not mean endless. I refer to other Greek books to prove what the word does mean. It is said they were written in a different age, with different notions. But they do inform us what the word means in the language, though of no authority for any notion whatever. The scripture, I am told, is richly sufficient. I turn to scripture: and I ask, of about seventy times the word is used, to produce a passage which proves it has the meaning they allege. They do not venture to produce one; and try to get out of the difficulty by asking me in turn to produce one which contradicts it: I have produced several.

25 Further, I cite Philo, who lived in the same age, and who treats the point in question, and his statement is as plain and positive as possibly can be; he insists in a remarkable definition, that the word is precisely what they say it is not. Mr. S. says, it is assuming the point in dispute: it is assuming nothing. Philo states, in the strongest possible way, that the word specially means what Mr. S. says it does not. Mr. S. says, he probably did not know Hebrew. But we are talking of Greek, which was his native tongue. Mr. S. says he did not become a Christian: perhaps not; what then? He says he was a Hellenistic Jew writing in Greek. That is, he used precisely the idiom of the New Testament; the writers of which were, as to their language, Hellenistic Jews, writing in Greek, directly taught and inspired of God. I beg the reader to refer to the citation I have given from Philo, and he will see its force plainly. Mr. S.'s arguments themselves shew it. I fully accept the statement that the proper thing, the grand matter, the only conclusive way, however, is to turn to the Holy Spirit's use of language in scripture; but there, I repeat, it has not been attempted to produce a passage which proves what is alleged. Several prove that the word has the sense of eternal or endless. On the whole, the attempt to upset the scriptural proof given of the doctrine (in which I have let scripture speak for itself to the conscience of the reader) has only abundantly confirmed what it has sought to impugn. Mr. S. puts the question, as to Matthew 25, "Are the sheep and goats believers and unbelievers?" Now, as this would be plain to ordinary Christians, however obscure the faith of the sheep might be, as they know of no spring of acceptable good works but faith, Mr. S. will excuse my asking if he believes all men are really men, in the ordinary sense of the word. I do not pretend to know his opinions; but there are those who hold that some men are devils by birth, and hence are not included in the salvation of all men, so that the force of this latter statement is only kept to the ear. Is this Mr. S.'s view? It is but fair to know what the positive opinions are we are called on to embrace as scriptural. The principles of universalism, as generally taught, embrace the salvation of devils; for they say that God is love, and God is to be all in all. That is, a salvation without a Saviour, for Christ never became a devil to save devils. Mr. S. has not stated, and does not, that I know of, hold this; but then the argument that God is universal love becomes mere human selfishness. And the second question arises, Does Mr. S. hold that some men are really devils naturally? And is that class of men or devils to be saved? Some may think this too ridiculous and absurd; but what is too absurd for man to hold? And some do hold it seriously. What Mr. S. says is true: men are agitated on this point. Were it not so, I should not have replied to Mr. S.'s publication. As they are, it was well to examine it.

Yours affectionately,

J. N. DARBY.

Scriptural Enquiries as to some of the doctrines contained in J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

J. N. Darby.

<07003E> 27

You will not disapprove my following the advice you give the readers of your Theological Tracts (which the Holy Spirit Himself gives us), by proving what you have presented to them, as well as what is presented by the Protestant Churches. I have proved the latter now many years ago, at least in some measure. But the apostle tells me to prove all things; and my experience teaches me that it is quite as needful to prove new things as old. Indeed the need of it is more obvious; for old may be approved by the long experience of true saints as sure ground for their souls, and what is new has certainly to be proved at first. The approbation of centuries has no weight at all with me. Nor even is the constant faith of the saints in all ages a measure or a proof of truth; but neither is a light disregard of it a proof of a state of soul which gives competency to judge of truth. Christ brought in new things; but the well-instructed scribe possessed the old, and held them fast. Our whole enquiry must be, as to either new or old — Are they in the word?

Now I judge that some remarks you have made on the subject of resurrection are just. The Church had greatly lost sight of it: it had along with it lost sight of the Lord's coming, and hence had used language as to the separate state of the soul, which I judge to be quite unscriptural. The statement I thus make will, I trust, tend to assure you that I am not prejudiced against your views, as if governed by ecclesiastical orthodoxy.

I think there has been entire failure where you judge that there has; and I judge it to be a very great and real evil. But you cannot deny the tendency of man's mind to run into some opposite extreme, when offended by an error. These moral Scyllas have been the wreck of many a mind, which had rightly avoided some Charybdis, that had too much engrossed their attention.

Now I am sure you will allow me calmly to investigate your reasonings, and judge them by the word; and at the same time to quote other passages, when you seek to overthrow the application of a particular one.

28 I take your examination of 2 Corinthians 5. Now I agree with you that mortality being swallowed up of life is not the soul's going to heaven — that our house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, is not the separate state. Nor is mortality being swallowed up of life accomplished till our full glorious state — our house not made with hands — is put on. I further admit, that Paul in this passage does not express any desire of death. Nay, he even says that was not the object which occupied his desires, but something else. Thus far (and they are very important points) we agree. I believe, as you do, that he connected this state of glory with the coming of the Lord Jesus. But then the apostle goes farther. His desire is that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now mortality was his present state in the body; not when (according to your idea) body and soul had ceased to exist, but when he was groaning, being burdened, and desired that life, which he possessed, might, in the power in which Christ had overcome death, swallow up all trace of mortality. He does not say how this was to be; but had he been changed and never seen death, this would have taken place, and given the full proof of the power of this life, and the just and only adequate force of the apostle's expression. He so saw the glory, and what he possessed already, as wrought of God for this self-same thing, that he wished the power of life which he possessed to swallow up mortality. Of course resurrection will produce the same effect in result; but Paul was comparing his present condition and the glory before him, and applies (in desire) the power of life in Christ, of which he was made partaker already, to the present production of this result. The mortality (to thneton) was what he had while alive.

Having thus spoken of the sense of the passage, allow me to examine some of your comments.

And forgive me if I judge that you have made the apostle say many things which he has not said, and attached meanings to his words which ought to be proved, not asserted.

You make him say, "'We are confident,' I say, of so glorious a re-creation in Christ Jesus awaiting us; and are, therefore 'willing rather to be absent from the body,' that is, from our 'natural body,' our present mortal and corruptible nature which separates us from the Lord, and to be possessed of our 'spiritual body,' our new incorruptible nature, in order 'that we may be present with the Lord,' which cannot be until the resurrection, when 'mortality shall be swallowed up of life.'"

29 Now you cannot deny that the greater part of what you make the apostle say here, he does not say. He says none of the things which concern your doctrine. He does not say "and be possessed of our spiritual body"; he does not say, "our new incorruptible nature, that we may be present with the Lord"; and when you say, "which cannot be until the resurrection," it only applies to what you say, not to what the apostle says. He does not say that he was confident of so glorious a re-creation; nor does he say he is confident of anything, a sense in which the word employed is never used in the New Testament.* It means, to be of a confident spirit, of good courage, bold.

{*It is used by Plato with peri (about) as "confident about" a thing; but used by itself it means the tone of mind, and is always and only so used in the New Testament.}

The 'therefore' is not connected, as you make it, with this glorious future state, as making him confident, but with what he already possessed while in the body. "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident," etc. Now you cannot fail to see how immensely important this is to the whole question. It was what Paul had already as God's workmanship, which made him so courageous at all times. Now if all this was totally to perish — that is, if what God had made him to be was, "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing" — how could that inspire him with confidence? The utter total perishing of what God had wrought was a strange ground of boldness.

And remark here that your doctrine involves believers in the same plight as sinners. In vain God has wrought in them by the same power as in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, Ephesians 1: 19, 20. In vain that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, John 3: 6. In vain Christ Himself is their life, Colossians 3: 4. And, because He lives, they shall live also, John 14: 19. No: body, soul, spirit, the life they have in Christ, all perish together. The earnest of the Spirit goes. The Holy Ghost abandons them. Do you believe that that eternal life which they have in the Son (1 John 5: 11) perishes; or that they have it not really?

30 Again, you say, "The apostle desired to 'be' present with the Lord, not as a disembodied soul, for he says, 'not for that we would be unclothed.'" But the apostle never says that he desired to be absent from the body, but that he was willing rather. That is, not that it was his object of desire, but that he preferred it to being in the body. All this shews that you have not sufficiently taken account of what the apostle says. He did see the glory, and seeing it, would have mortality swallowed up of life, of that life whose power was already in him; for he was quickened together with Christ and by the same power — Christ was his life. He knew God had wrought him for this glory, and he had received the earnest of the Spirit; so that, if death did come, he was not the less confident — he would be willingly absent from the body and present with the Lord. And you will please to remember that he had actual death just before his eyes. He was writing to them about a persecution which had made him despair "even of life." Now it was not his desire to die, but to be glorified; but so well did he know that he had life in power of Christ risen, that if he did die, he knew he would only gain by it.

You tell us that "absent from the body" means having received it again in glory. I say it, because the apostle says, "it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body." But does it not seem strange that "absent from the body" should mean taking it in glory? It does not say so at least.

Again, you say, "Man, the one compound being, is compared to an 'earthly house' or 'tabernacle' which will be 'dissolved.'" Why man, the one compound being? Compounded of what?

You tell us that saints are to put on Christ — to put on incorruption, and hence that these expressions cannot allude to the body as distinct from the soul. Now I admit that the corruptible may put on incorruption, or a man put on a character; that is, put on may be used as a figure of a change of state or character. But you have not quite seized the force of the argument here. It lies in the word "tabernacle," not in putting on or off. Now I humbly conceive that an earthly dwelling-place of a tabernacle does suppose some one dwelling in it; that is the idea conveyed by the figure. And you must remember that the Holy Ghost dwelt in the apostle, and that he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. I his surely is not part of the perishing compound. What comes of the living union of the members with the Head?

31 But the apostle certainly does not speak of man — the one compound being. He speaks of being in a tabernacle which made him groan; he speaks of the tabernacle being dissolved, not of his being dissolved; he speaks of his having a building of God, eternal in the heavens. That is, his language is entirely the opposite of what you have felt necessary to the support of your argument. He does not speak of a compound being, but of a tabernacle in which he was, and which made him groan. the apostle's words are not at all what you make him say.

You do well to deal with the passages which you consider the strongholds of those opposed to the doctrine. But you must be aware that there are other passages which treat of the subject, which you would have done well to have considered along with this one, as naturally suggesting themselves.

I suppose you believe that Christ was as truly a man (though truly God) as we are. What did He mean when He said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"? And when He said to the poor thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise"? Surely He did not deceive him. This is the more important because the thief was looking for the time of glory, and hoped to be remembered then, and said, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." But the Lord (who could bring out of His treasures things new and old) would not leave him, as you would leave us, without hope till then; but assured him of that new thing, for He brought life to light by the gospel, as well as incorruption. "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." Was Christ there without a soul? Had He not a human soul? What became of it at His death? And remember, if He lives, I do. The thief's body was on the cross, Christ's in the tomb. How was he in paradise with Christ? Again, Stephen — to whom the heaven was opened, and who was full of the Holy Ghost — was he deceived when he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," just in the words of his Master, with the reflection of whose glory his face shone? But he was full of the Spirit, suffered like his Master, and looked to being with Him. Again, the apostle says, that to die is gain, though to live is Christ (Phil. 1: 20-23). Now it is hard to suppose that dying is gain, if it is merely the dissolution of my whole being. But this is not all. The apostle in this passage is discussing life and death. Now having this as his subject (without speaking of future glory) he says, that to depart and be with Christ is far better. Here, dying is gain, and he explains this by saying that departing and being with Christ is far better, but that he should continue with them for their profit. Now permit me to observe, if "departing" alluded to all the saints going up into glory in resurrection, the apostle could not contrast continuing with them with that departing. There would be no sense in what he says, for then we shall all go up together. His departing from them was then by death in contrast with his continuing with them, yet he thought it "far better," though "to live is Christ." Again, I read of body, soul, and spirit being sanctified; so that scripture distinguishes these things very clearly. I read, the end of faith is salvation of souls. I read of those "who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Surely this teaches me to distinguish between them; and to distinguish between them in death. Again, when I read of souls under the altar before Christ's coming to judgment, I admit it is a figure, but it is not a figure to represent that such beings do not exist at all. White robes are given them, and they are told to wait. Now I might force the figure perhaps to mean that, in God's sight, their martyrdom cried for vengeance; but how white robes could be given to what did not exist, would be hard to tell.

32 In a word, I find your tract representing the apostle as saying what he does not say at all, and that you forget a crowd of passages which are opposed in the plainest way to what you make him say.

Again, you say, "God has conferred through Christ the gift of immortality." Now out of what treasure did you get this? You do not state in this tract. You could not, I suppose, state that "bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel" had anything to do with it, because bringing it to light would prove that it existed before. Besides, you know, I am sure, that the real meaning of the word is "incorruption."

You tell me indeed that "the believer is here taught (2 Cor. 5) that he himself in his one totality, not a part of himself, must be 'dissolved.'" But then in referring to the passage I find the apostle saying quite the contrary and distinguishing himself and his tabernacle. You try to prove he must mean something else; but he says that his tabernacle must be dissolved, not himself in his one totality. And I find the Lord telling me in the most explicit way, that the killing of the body does not reach to the soul. They kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Matt. 10: 28). Am I to believe Him or your doctrine?

33 I do not deny then the importance of the resurrection, but I bow to the plain testimony of scripture, that the soul lives meanwhile, "for all live unto him."

But you quote another passage in your reasoning, on which you make another apostle also say what he does not say, and forget a crowd of passages which shew your doctrine to be unfounded. You make Peter say, "Believers are begotten again unto a hope of life."

Does he say this? You first say a living hope, or a hope of life, and then drop what the apostle says, to put your interpretation as his statement. Had you not better let him speak for himself?

You will find this word "living," I may say, a favourite word with him. It is not surprising; he was taught it first by the Father. Christ was for him the Son of the living God. Of this resurrection (as Paul teaches us in Rom. 1: 4) is the proof. Hence Christ's resurrection had begotten them again to a "living hope." Ought not "begotten again" to have suggested to you that life — new life — was actually received, not hoped for? Hence, using this same word, he tells us Christ is a living stone, and that we are become living stones built up on that great foundation. That is, the doctrine of the apostle is solemnly and emphatically the opposite of what you make him say. He says they are living stones, as Christ is a living stone; you tell us they have only a hope of life.

And what is the doctrine of other parts of scripture? "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3). "He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." We wait for glory, we wait for the redemption of the body. Why thus distinguished? They who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit wait for this; we wait for the redemption of the inheritance, but (how much greater soever the enjoyment may be) we do not wait for our own redemption — we have it through His blood. We do not wait for life, because he that hath the Son hath life. We shall not have glory till Christ comes (there you are right, according to scripture), but we have life; in believing, we have life through His name. When He who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory; but we are dead and risen with Him, and therefore seek the things above. The inheritance is reserved in heaven for us — that is, glory is; but not life — it is hid with Him there, but we have it, or it could not be called ours. You forgot, too, in quoting, "kept by the power of God," to add, "through faith," which would entirely destroy your application of it; for you say that "believers among the living or the dead are kept by the power of God." But the apostle says "through faith." Are those who have ceased to exist, in "one totality" of body and soul, kept through faith? Surely if I take the word, and prove your statements by it, you must feel yourself, they do not a moment stand the test.

34 You speak of the future life of believers being in resurrection. Be it so; but their present life, what is it? Have they no divine life in Christ? What becomes of that?

Allow me to add, though it be another subject, that no true Christian denies that abundant mercy has saved him; but that abundant mercy has so made him feel his sins, that he knows that they must be put away from before the eyes of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look at sin. He believes that Christ has put them away — has borne them in His own body on the tree; that by His stripes he is healed; and hence that God is just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. He does not doubt the mercy. He knows it is sovereign goodness; but the way that grace has operated is in the gift of His Son for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Do you believe this? The love shewn in this is not perhaps always sufficiently put forward; but denying the justice of God (that is, His righteous hatred of sin, and the judgment due to it) is not the scriptural way of enhancing the love. Whatever men may do, scripture, while telling us that God is love, tells us that His righteousness is revealed in the gospel — His righteousness for us — blessed be God — still His righteousness. It tells us, that we are made His righteousness in Christ. It tells us, that wrath is revealed from heaven. It speaks of a wrath to come, from which Christ has delivered us; that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God; that if Christ be denied, there is only a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. This is not what it delights to dwell on; it comes on purpose to speak of love. If it speaks of wrath itself, it is in order that men may escape it. It is love that speaks, where wrath is spoken of. But it does not conceal — does not deny the truth of God's character in righteousness if love be despised; nor hide from us that by nature we are children of wrath.

35 I will take up in another paper the question, whether the destruction spoken of is taking away existence. I turn to the general interpretation of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. We have seen the Lord speak in the most positive way of the distinction of soul and body, and declare that man could kill one but not the other. In the next place, the Lord (in Luke 20: 38) declares in the most positive manner that all live to God, referring to persons acknowledged to be dead. You tell us that this means that they will live hereafter, but that they do not live at all meanwhile. But then meanwhile God is the God of the dead, or ceases to be the God of Abraham. The force of the Lord's argument is not that God has been the God of Abraham, nor that He will be, but that He is, and that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; adding, "for all live to him." They will be raised, for they live now — is His statement. That they lived in His purpose was nothing to His argument, for that did not hinder His being the God of the dead now, if they do not exist now. God was not going to leave them in this imperfect state; He would raise them; but He declares that they do live, and that all live to Him. Is living in His memory, when they have ceased to exist, His being the God of the living, not of the dead? Is it their living to Him? They lived as much for a Sadducee as that. The question is not here whether He quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that are not as though they were, but whether He is the God of things that do not exist — that are extinct. Christ says He is not, for that they do live to Him; you tell me they do not — it is only in His memory — but that they will hereafter. Which am I to believe? I do not need, then, the parable of Lazarus to found the doctrine of the soul's living existence after death, because I have the Lord's own positive explicit teaching on the subject — man can kill the body, he cannot kill the soul.

I admit then freely it is a parable. I do not press the letter of the parable, nor say that, when the rich man's body was in the grave, he had literally a tongue to his soul so that water could have cooled it. I go farther, I admit that the parable is adapted to Jewish notions. Abraham's bosom is clearly a figure for the best possible place in another world, according to Jewish ideas. All this seems to me very clear. But then the parable is surely meant to convey something. You say that the sense is, supposing these three men brought into each other's presence, when the probationary scene was over, such as is here described would be the character and circumstances of their interview. Be it so. But why would it have this character? Was it not what happened after death that produced such sentiments? Was it not the misery, the unhappiness, consequent on death in another world, which was to produce the conviction Christ desired in the living? Did the Lord mean by such a picture to convey the idea that men suffered and enjoyed nothing after death? He does not say the man rose, and had his place in Abraham's bosom; He says he died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Would not this sanction the idea that the just after death (i.e., when he died) subsisted still? "He died and was carried into Abraham's bosom." Does that mean — is it consistent with the idea — that when he died he ceased to exist (and so also the rich man), but afterwards he arose and went into Abraham's bosom? Does it not contradict the idea, that on dying he ceased to exist? And, however useless, does not the torment of the rich man, his body being in the grave, teach that he existed while his body was there? He was buried, and lifted up his eyes in Hades, being in torment — a figure, no doubt, but a figure of something which was to act on the conscience. He was buried, say you, and thereon ceased to exist. Can the Lord's statements fall in with yours?

36 If you examine the passage you will find that the Lord in these chapters is setting aside Jewish thoughts and enlarging their thoughts as to grace.

Chapter 15. The elder brother represents the Pharisees, or Jews who murmured against grace — the prodigal, the poor sinner, received back by divine love in a way quite above law.

Chapter 16. The unjust steward shews that man, and especially Israel, had lost their stewardship of God's goods in the world, though they had them in possession; and that they ought when, in this state, to use them, not for present enjoyment, but with a view to future blessing; and thus, when they failed, when this earthly scene was done with for them, when they left their stewardship, they would be received into everlasting habitations. Then, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Lord shews that they must not suppose (as the Jews did) that riches were a proof of divine favour; for one had only to lift the veil of another world, and how would all be reversed! And remark, that there is no thought of a destruction of the rich man according to your idea: he was remaining tormented in the flame. It applies neither to the non-existence you suppose on man's dying, nor to the destruction you suppose to take place at the end. It was a continuing torment. Did the Lord mean or consent to mislead them, or frighten them with an untrue representation? for He clearly meant it to act on their consciences. You talk of the rich man being disowned by Abraham, but Abraham had nothing to do with his being there. It was his portion on dying. Surely the alarm to the living was an unwarranted one, if there was no consciousness and no continuing misery after death. The parable would not convey such an impression to any one, but on the contrary — that there was misery and happiness meted out when men departed from this world.

37 I will add only a word on your reasonings about the conscious and unconscious state. Forgive me if I say these words are a blind. There can be neither a conscious nor unconscious state of what does not exist. There is, on your theory, no being in existence. If God creates a new one, it is not that which was before, it is a new creation, as much as when a man is born. You compare it with this; you forget that when a man is born, it is a new being. He did not exist before; he is referred to no previous existence. But if God brings a new man into existence out of nothing, how is this new man to answer for what another man did who lived four thousand years before? Surely it must be the same man to be responsible. But it is not, if he has totally ceased to exist. Hence even the fantastic notion of the pre-existence of the soul supposed its existence to continue. Consciousness or not, is not the question. You deny its existence. What does not exist, cannot be even unconscious.

You say that material organization is necessary for every condition of being. Do you believe God then to have a "material organization."? When you speak of ghosts, you forget that the idea of Christians is that the Lord Jesus receives their spirits, as the Father did His, and as they believed the Lord Jesus did Stephen's. They believe these passages shew the existence of a separate spirit, and a happy existence.

As regards 1 Thessalonians 4, I fully accept the application to the coming of the Lord, and the contrast between the hope He gives, and what is commonly given; so that I have no remark to make on the positive teaching of your tract. But when the apostle says "them that sleep in Jesus," the word sleep is not calculated to convey the idea of non-existence, but the contrary. They are lost to their brethren, for the time, like a man asleep; but it is only sleep: and to call death "sleep," would surely not tend to make us think the dead saints are "extinct."

38 As regards 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection was the grand public proof that life was not gone, that death was overcome, that Christ has destroyed the power of him who had the power of death. It was also the only full perfect state of man in glory like Christ to which we are predestinated. But though this were the proof and the perfection of this purpose of God and of Christ's victory, it does not follow, because all would fail if this were not true, that man does not exist meanwhile; for this reasoning is applied first and principally to Christ. Now it is certain He did not cease to exist when He died. If Christ be not risen, Paul says, our faith is vain. That was His victory, the proof of acceptance. Satan could not destroy a soul, but he had the power of death, and though he had nothing in Christ, yet Christ underwent death for our sakes. Had He been holden of it, victory would have been on the side of the enemy who had the power of death. So with us: if there be no resurrection, then Christ is not raised; if He be not, our faith is vain. But then it is certain that this reasoning does not imply non-existence, unless Christ was "extinct." If you think this, you ought to say so; we shall know the import of your doctrine better.

In result, on proving your statements by the word, I find the scripture positively states that the soul is distinct from the body; declaring (Matt. 10: 28) that man who can kill the body cannot kill the soul; shewing me Christ commending His Spirit to the Father (Luke 13: 46); Stephen full of the Holy Ghost (Acts 7: 59) doing the same thing in the Spirit; the Lord declaring to the poor thief that he should be that day with Him in paradise (Luke 13: 43); Paul in speaking of his death — exclusively in contrast with his being with the saints, which he will be in the resurrection — calling it departing and being with Christ, to which nothing can be more opposed than being "extinct" (Phil. 1: 23). I find this confirmed by a crowd of passages, which suppose, or allude to, or are consistent with it.

39 And I find in one very plain passage, which you seek to shew does not apply to it, you are obliged to make the apostle Paul say what he does not say; and to mean what his words plainly contradict.

I find too that in other passages, as in 1 Peter, the rich man and Lazarus, and Christ's answer to the Sadducees, you are obliged to force the passage, and make it mean what it does not say, in order to sustain your doctrine. Thus you say "all live to Him" does not mean that they are alive, but live in God's memory; that a living hope, is a hope of life, though the same word is used more than once just after in a meaning which does not allow of such a force being given to it.

In a word, I find scripture forced by you to maintain your view, and contradicting it in the plainest passages possible — passages which you have omitted to notice. I reject therefore your doctrine as unscriptural, and antiscriptural; and I judge that every one who bows to the word must do so.

I do not at all say that you are a Unitarian, for I apprehend your tracts shew you are not, at least on some points; but, unless I strangely deceive myself, your exposition on the points treated of in these tracts will be found in the doctrines of the notes of what the Unitarians call the Improved Version.

The Lord willing, I shall in another paper examine your views on Christ's sacrifice (which you set aside, as Unitarians do) .

Scriptural Enquiry as to the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment

contained in J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

J. N. Darby.

<07004E> 40

I beg my reader who may not know Greek not to suppose that I have any thought of unsettling his mind as to the plain English words in scripture. My object is just the contrary. In the English Bible, there are no doubt defects, as in every human work. I have found passages which I think might be more exactly translated, and have taken the pains to translate for myself the whole of the New Testament, save a few chapters. But I am sure of this, that the more intimately a person is acquainted with the idiom of the language — the more he is familiar with what the learned call the usus loquendi (that is, the customary forms of speech) — the more he will see how thoroughly well acquainted the translators were with the language they were dealing with. I can confidently affirm this to be the case in the New Testament; and as far as I can pretend to judge of the Old, I can bear the same testimony: so that, on the whole, while admitting some human defects, the reader who knows neither Hebrew nor Greek may be assured he has the sense of the original. Taken as a whole, it is the most perfect translation of any book I have ever read. I am told the Dutch translation is very good: I cannot compare them, but of those which I can, the English Bible is by far the best. Forty-six or forty-eight of the most learned and capable men were long engaged in it — divided into classes of six, who did the part they were most competent for; and then it was passed to the others, and revised by all, and compared with translations in other languages. My object then is, not to lead you away from your English Bible, but back to it with confidence. When persons object to a doctrine, that the original word has not the force ascribed to it in English, one is obliged to enquire what is its force in the original: but my object in this is that the humble English reader may be assured he has God's mind in what he reads. I add the Greek quotations, that those who know that language may see all is well founded and fair.

I now desire to notice two points, which I omitted in my former tract, as deserving to be taken up distinctly. I mean the force of the word Eternal in the original, and the real scriptural doctrine as to Christ's death. I shall say a few words on the first, from its close connection with the whole subject, and because the denial of the force of the word "eternal" is always connected with low views of sin, and a false estimate of Christ's death; and ends in a practical denial of it. Though I have found such loose notions as to what "eternal" means, always accompanied by unbelief in the real atoning efficacy of the sacrifice of Jesus, still, the latter lying at the foundation of all relationship as Christians with God, I shall treat it last, and more fully than the first; and I shall shew, as I did as to the former points, so as to this yet still more important one, that you have garbled the scripture you quoted by important omissions, denied some of its plainest statements, and left aside a mass of the plainest truths it teaches.

41 I turn to the word "eternal." The word used in the Greek Testament, as it is well known to those familiar with it, is aionios, formed from aion. This latter word is used in classical Greek writers for "man's life," and in scripture for "a dispensation" (or course of events in this world ordered of God on some particular principle), as well as in the sense of "for ever." Homer, Herodotus, and the Attic poets use it in the former sense, and say, he breathed out his life [aiona]. In this sense, evidently, we have nothing to do with it. It has the general force of one continuous existence on a given principle of life. Again, it is figuratively used for the continuous subsistence of a given system going on in the same principle — as for example, the dispensation which was to close by Christ's coming. Hence the word is used for the course of this world, as always going on in the same uniform manner. But its proper force being continuous uninterrupted existence, it is particularly applied to that in its highest sense; that is, to eternity and to God. That this is its real sense, I shall bring the best authority to prove, and then examples from scripture in which it is so used, and in which it is impossible it should be taken in any other way.

Thus Aristotle declares that its force is aien on, always existing: we could hardly have a clearer expression for God or eternity. If anything can be more express, it is Philo's explanation of it. Philo was a Hellenistic Jew, who flourished in the time of the apostles, and hence is the best possible authority for the force of words used in the New Testament, when it is a mere question of Greek. He says, en aioni de ou te pareleluthen ouden oute mellei alla monon uphesteke; "in eternity [aion], nothing is either past or to come, but subsists." Nothing can more fully shew that this word, in its own simple full force to a Hellenistic Jew of that age, meant eternity in the strictest sense.

42 Another remarkable proof, that this was the force of the word, is its being the term used for certain imaginary beings, of which oriental philosophy (which had adopted some names and natures from the Christian revelation, and in this shape sought to call itself Christian) made the main fabric of its theories to consist. They were called aiones, because they were immortal and unchangeable. The following is a part of Mosheim's note on this subject, whose learning no one, I suppose, will dispute. "Aion properly signifies indefinite or eternal duration, as opposed to that which is finite or temporal. It was, however, metonymically used for such natures as are in themselves unchangeable and immortal. That it was commonly applied in this sense even by the Greek philosophers at the time of Christ's birth, is plain from Arrian, who uses it to describe a nature the reverse of ours, superior to frailty and obnoxious to no vicissitude: ou gar eimi Aion all anthropos meros ton panton os ora emeras enstenai me dei os ten oran kai parelthein os oran. I am not an Aion, but a man, a part of all things, as an hour of a day, I must subsist as an hour, and pass away as an hour." This contrast of aion with such passing away gives the clearest possible proof of the received force of the word. Thus its natural force, and the use of it in the time of Christ and the apostles, is clearly proved. I shall now shew from scripture that the word is there used properly and distinctively for eternal; and this by passages in which it can have no other meaning than that, and only that. 2 Corinthians 4: 18: "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal [aionia]." Can anything be more positive than this? In the verse preceding: "an eternal [aionion] weight of glory." 2 Corinthians 5: 1: "A house not made with hands, eternal [aionion] in the heavens"; where the same contrast is maintained. Philemon 15: "Departed for a season that thou shouldest receive him for ever [aionion]." 1 Timothy 6: 16: "To whom [God] be honour and power everlasting [aionion]." 1 Peter 5: 10: "The God of all grace who hath called us to his eternal [aionion] glory." So Hebrews 5: 9: Salvation is called "eternal"; chapter 9: 12: redemption is "eternal," and that in contrast with what was only temporary; and again, chapter 9: 14: "Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God." So Luke 16: 9: "When ye fail they may receive you into everlasting [aionious] habitations." Now these passages shew in an unequivocal manner, that the word, taken by itself in its proper sense, meant eternal or unchanging, unceasing duration, in contrast with temporary.

43 That examples may be found in which the word when, connected with another, may have the sense of unchangeableness during the whole existence of that other, is true; but that in nothing alters its own proper meaning, where used to express that. Thus in English, if a child asks me, have I lent him something or given it him for ever, I may say, I have given it you for ever; yet the perishable thing will not last for ever: it means the gift is not to be recalled; it is given with a constant and unchangeable purpose, as long as the thing lasts. Does that produce in the mind of any English person any doubt as to what "for ever" means, as to the proper sense of the word? It confirms that sense, though there be a modification of it by the application of the words. So it is in Greek, aionios means eternal: it is used in a way which can leave no doubt of this.

There are passages where its connection gives it a modified force, as applied to what is of unchanging character and existence, while the thing subsists which is spoken of. After all, there are but three such. It is used seventy-one times in the New Testament. Besides these I have mentioned (in which its sense is not only beyond dispute, but in some of which it is contrasted with partial duration), it is used forty-four times with life, to signify the portion of the blessed. No Christian, I suppose, doubts what is the duration of eternal life. That is, in fifty-four cases it certainly means eternal in the common English sense of the word. And God is called everlasting, Romans 16: 25. Consolation is said to be everlasting, 2 Thessalonians 2: 16. The glory of the saints is said to be eternal, 2 Timothy 2: 10. Judgment is said to be eternal, Hebrews 6: 2, that is in contrast with temporal judgment. In chap. 9: 15, the inheritance is said to be eternal. I may remark that, in all these passages of the Hebrews, eternal is really used in contrast with the temporal dealings of God with the Jews as a nation. Chapter 13: 20, the covenant founded on Christ's blood is said to be eternal in the same way. 2 Peter 1: 11, the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is spoken of. Revelation 14: 6. The gospel announced by the angel is said to be eternal. Now these passages certainly do not weaken the proof of the word; many of them confirm it in the strongest way. We have now sixty-two, out of seventy-one times it is used, in which the plain meaning of eternal is not to be disputed. That from Revelation 14: 6 alone may be said to be obscure, though I have no doubt myself of its force. In three passages, in one and the same peculiar phrase, it has a special force, pro chronon aionion — before times. Here it is used with a word, "times," which necessarily modifies its sense, and it may be taken for "before these times or distinctive periods in which God has been acting continuously and without change on special principles." That is, His unchangeable purposes unfolded themselves in created time in certain forms which displayed what He unchangeably was. Before all these various displays of God's nature in His ways, eternal life was ours in His purpose, before and independently of all these. The doctrine of the Church preached by Paul had been kept secret during all these developments of what God was in His ways; life was given us in Christ before — it was promised before.

44 Now beside these three very special passages which I have noticed, and which certainly do not affect the general meaning of the word when used in its own proper sense in the ordinary way, there remain five which speak of punishment. Matthew 18: 8: "To enter into life maimed than to be cast into everlasting fire." Matthew 25: 41: "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire"; and verse 46: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal" — where the same word is applied to both life and punishment, and surely in the same sense. Mark 3: 29: "Is in danger of eternal damnation." 2 Thessalonians 1: 9: "Punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." Besides, there is Jude 7, where the cities are said to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. On this passage, which is no doubt figurative, I would remark that the cities are spoken of as still subsisting before them, under judgment, as a present manifestation of the consequence of sin; prokeintai deigma puros aioniou diken upechousai. They are now suffering continuously (for that is the undoubted force of the Greek word, which is in the present tense), as an example before your eyes. No doubt in speaking of cities, it is figurative; but the figure used is present continuing consequences of sin before their eyes, as an example, to warn those before whom they then lay under its effects. Having said thus much (and I do not think any Greek scholar will venture to deny that is the force of prokeintai upechousai diken), I leave what I have said as to this word to its own proper effect in the conscience, as pronounced of God.

45 I omit many passages which, though not using the word, have the same effect — such as "hath never forgiveness"; because Mr. Ham's doctrine would not, I apprehend, deny their force, though it leaves them out. But the last example leads me directly to enquire the force of these words on which much is rested; that is, perishing, destruction, etc. Now that it would be a dreadful thing to be destroyed by the judgment of God, no one will deny. Still, man is so perverse, that he will calculate with that, and loves sin so, that he will sin on. Now though, alas! he may forget eternal punishment; or his passions hurry him on; though he may hope for forgiveness after all, and go on in sin, miserably abusing a goodness, as to the true nature of which he deceives himself, he will not calculate with eternal punishment. Passion may govern, lusts may enslave; but one cannot quietly prefer an eternal misery one thinks of and believes in.

Does then destruction, as used in scripture, mean the extinction of being? Let me turn to examine, by the word of God, your tracts which present this notion to me. They declare that all the terms used concerning future punishment convey the idea of complete extinction.

Before proceeding farther, I set aside the idea that "if it [eternal punishment] exceed the capabilities of our mental apprehension, it loses its hold on our moral being." If you merely mean that eternity is beyond the grasp of a finite mind, no doubt that is true; but it is nothing whatever to the purpose, because that is as true of eternal life. I suppose you will not deny that that, if we believe it, has a hold on our moral being. On the other hand, it is an incontestable fact that the thought of eternal punishment has, and has had through ages, an immense hold on men's moral being; and through grace the announcement of it has had the effect of leading men to flee for refuge to the hope set before them in Him who saves us from the wrath to come. You would not have to complain of the common Protestant doctrine (and every one knows it is not confined to Protestantism), if the doctrine you complain of had not been universal. Exceptions did but prove the rule. It had been preached, and very loudly preached, and insisted on by some, and held by all, whose very name of orthodox proved — to say the least — the universality of their opinions. They believed it, and it did affect them. It had a moral hold on them; nay, in a vast number of cases, probably a vast majority of cases, the belief of it was that which first had such a moral hold on them, that they turned to God, and found refuge from the expected (and as they thought, deserved) eternal misery, in the atonement which you deny. To deny this, in the face of the universal experience of ages, and the known history of thousands of souls, and of the whole Church of God, and all professing Christendom, is a mere absurdity. It has a hold on our moral being. Your putting on paper that it has not, will not destroy the fact that in men's souls it has. You, dear sir, would not like to be eternally in misery, and you know very well what it means; and so does every poor man that may read this tract; and so does every one of my readers, high or low, rich or poor, one with another. No; you oppose it, because it has too strong a hold on our moral being. Man will settle non-existence with himself, or temporary purgatory with his priest, or perhaps his own imagination; but he must settle eternity with God; and man does not like that. Anything but God for him who is not reconciled with Him. But what brings us into God's presence is that which has real hold of our moral being.

46 But to proceed. If I examine scripture, I find that your assertion, that the terms of scripture concerning future punishment all convey the idea of complete extinction, is totally unfounded. Being tormented for ever and ever does not; everlasting punishment does not; being punished with few and many stripes does not; weeping and gnashing of teeth when cast into outer darkness does not; being lost even while we exist here does not; the smoke of torment rising up, though a figure no doubt, does not convey this meaning; an undying worm, though also a figure, does not. I do not know whether you consider these as similar terms and words to those you have selected; but you have, either from prepossession, forgotten them all save the last, or been very culpably remiss in omitting them, and saying, "All of which convey the idea of complete extinction."

47 Besides, I have another remark to make. You speak briefly and vaguely and give no citations here; so that one must search for oneself in replying to you. But several of the words you refer to, as, "plucked up root and branch," "thorns cut up," "consumed, burnt up," are either not found at all, or drawn from the Old Testament, and apply to temporal judgments executed on the earth. Thus the men of Belial are as thorns, and the man that would touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear, and they shall be utterly burnt with fire in the (same) place. This surely refers to an earthly judgment, and while a figure, alluding to thorns, surely does not unfold the ultimate results of God's judgment about them. It is found in 2 Samuel 23: 6. "Plucked up root and branch" is not, that I can remember or find, scriptural. Malachi 4: 1 speaks of leaving neither root nor branch; but this is an earthly judgment, and a different thing entirely. When these wicked ones are cut off out of the earth, they shall not leave successors or sprouts after them of the same kind.

"Consume," is not used in the New Testament that I am aware of, save in 2 Thessalonians 2: 8, where the wicked one is spoken of, and where also an earthly judgment is spoken of: "Whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the brightness of his coming." This wicked one is spoken of as subsisting afterwards, first for a thousand years and then as still with the devil in the lake of fire. You would find it difficult to prove, from this passage at least, that "consume" meant to cause existence to cease, and the being to become extinct. In the Old Testament I read of consuming off the earth. But while used in very various senses, as the zeal of God's house is said to have consumed Christ, I do not see any place which touches the question of subsequent existence. Earthly destruction is often spoken of — of peoples, kingdoms, circumstances, prosperity; but I see nothing said of the soul nor of the body even, but of a visible state of being upon earth. Now the Lord has said that destroying the body on earth does not destroy the soul. I find no passage where "consume" is used which goes any farther. Judgment on earth is the natural subject of the Old Testament.

48 "Burnt up," is not used of people in the New Testament, that I am aware of, or can find. Nor is it used of people in the Old, save of the two captains who came to take the prophet by the king's command; so that I hardly know why you have brought it forward. Certainly there is no passage in which it is used which bears in any way on the subject before us.

"Ground to powder" is used once in the New Testament by the Lord, and spoken of as accomplished by Himself "He who shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whom soever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder." I confess my inability to discover how this shews that a man on dying becomes extinct. It is in contrast with being broken by a stumble over it; and seems indeed to express very vividly the different fate of the Jewish people, as rejecting Messiah when here, and their judgment when He returns. Though as a general principle it may be more largely applied perhaps; but if it proves anything, it proves degrees of judgment, not common extinction. But even suppose it does apply, the crushed person has ceased to live, but he physically remains; for being "ground to powder" is a change of state, not absolutely ceasing to exist. But, as I said, it is a figure, and to be interpreted by more direct instruction. There we find torment, everlasting punishment. Now torment, weeping and gnashing of teeth, certainly are not meant to represent that those who are tormented and weep have ceased to exist.

I have followed then your references to these passages, and sought out some others you have omitted; and I have found they entirely subvert your statements. A search into scripture, to which you refer, does not the least bear you out: indeed some of the words one is at a loss to find there, or are found only in a single passage to which I have referred, and which cannot be applied to the subject you treat. The wicked are compared to chaff burned in unquenchable fire, by John Baptist (in Isaiah 5 it is a mere comparison, and the judgment of the wicked otherwise expressed), and nowhere else that I am aware of. So thorns burnt up are only in 2 Samuel 23: 6, already considered. We will consider the words of John the Baptist a little farther on.

Let me now turn to the use of the words "perish," "destroy." Now in usual English it is quite certain that in speaking of these subjects, these words do not convey the idea of extinction. When it is said, "They shall without doubt perish everlastingly," this is not meant to convey, nor is it received as meaning, that they will cease to exist, but that they will be utterly cut off from the presence of God for ever. When Judas is said to be "the son of perdition," it is not supposed to mean that he would cease to exist, and that like other people who are not saved, but that, as Peter expressed it, he would go to his own place. Punishment is spoken of — being beaten with many stripes: this is not non-existence. But it is certain that "perish," and "perdition," and "everlasting destruction," when used about the things of the soul, do not convey to an English reader, nor do those who use them mean to convey, the ceasing to exist. Even when I say, "the world that then was perished," I do not mean that it ceased to exist; but that its then state and form was ruined by the flood through God's judgment. To judge of the force of the word more exactly, we must of course seek its use in Greek. Now it is an entire mistake to suppose that it means always to cease to exist; other passages will prove to us that where it refers to the subject we are treating of, it does not.

49 I quote the following passages to prove the Greek translated "destroy" or "perish" does not by any means simply mean to cease to exist, or to cause to cease to exist. "Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10: 6). "The Son of man is come to save that which was lost" (chap. 18: 11). Every time "lost" is used in the parables of Luke 15 this is the word employed. So in many other passages. Again, read 2 Corinthians 4: 3, where it is certainly applied in the sense of morally condemned, and not in the sense of having ceased to exist; and its meaning here goes farther than in the passages just quoted, which declare that men were in a ruined state, but God could save them. This passage speaks of them as finally condemned: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." It is used by the apostle John (chap. 18: 14): "That one man [Christ] should die for the people," where Caiaphas had used the ordinary word die — chapter 11. Indeed it is constantly used for dying without an idea of ceasing to exist by it. So it is used of marring bottles. So the devils (Mark 1: 24): "Art thou come to destroy us?" Now it was not ceasing to exist they dreaded. They say in another Gospel, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" Now these passages shew clearly that the word does not necessarily nor simply mean "cease to exist," or to cause to cease to exist; but also to be ruined while we exist, whether as a present moral condition or as a final and eternal state.

50 But other passages will prove that it was not the intention of the scripture to attach the sense of ceasing to exist to the word where the final state of the wicked is referred to. Thus it is called everlasting punishment as well as everlasting destruction. It is said of the devil, and the beast, and the false prophet, that "they are tormented day and night for ever and ever." This, mark, is in the lake of fire. It is said of those who receive the mark of the beast, that "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." Now I am not here arguing the doctrine of scripture on the subject, because I much prefer to leave it to its natural effect on the conscience. But I say that these passages amply shew that when the scripture speaks of perishing and being lost, of everlasting destruction, it does not mean to convey the idea of ceasing to exist. And mark, these passages speak too of the lake of fire, which you say is to destroy the wicked. Again, at the close of all (Rev. 21: 8), when the new heavens and the new earth are there, and all things are made new, the wicked "have their part in the lake of fire which burneth with fire and brimstone." It is not then a fire which simply burns up the present world like a lake: such an idea indeed is as foreign from that of a lake as can possibly be. The lake of fire is never connected with the elements burning with fervent heat. Note, too, that the words "for ever and ever," which are applied to torment, are those which are applied to the duration of the life of God — "who liveth for ever and ever."

If I take the noun "perdition" or "destruction," the result is the same. It cannot be shewn by a single passage that it means ceasing to exist; in many, it means turning to a bad account, and the like. I will note some of them. "To what purpose is this waste [of the ointment]?" (Matt. 26: 8). "Why was this waste of the ointment made?" It is a bad use of it here, Mark 14: 4. Judas is "the son of perdition." Now it is certain, as we have seen, this does not mean cease to exist (John 17: 12). Deliver to die (Acts 25: 16). "An evident token of perdition" (Phil. 1: 28). Now the courage of the Christians was no sign that their adversaries would cease to exist, but that they would be ruined, God being with the Christians. "The son of perdition" (2 Thess. 2: 3). He does not cease to exist when judged, he goes into the lake of fire a thousand years before Satan, and is thereafter tormented for ever and ever. (See Rev. 20: 10; 2 Pet. 2: 1.) "Damnable heresies" (heresies of perdition); the heresies did not make men cease to exist. I am fully satisfied that in other passages the word does not mean ceasing to exist, but these shew it does not.

51 The conclusions drawn then by you from the supposed force of the word are entirely unfounded. The word in a great many instances cannot mean this, and that even when it is used in reference to our eternal ruin; for we are said to be lost, while we certainly are existing (the word "lost" being the same in the original as that translated "perish" or "destroyed"); while other passages applicable to those said to perish or be destroyed, prove that they exist still (shewing that it was not the intention in scripture to attach this sense to it).

We have already seen, in a former paper, that the soul does not cease to exist, with the body; and that the parable of the rich man certainly teaches that the wicked exist in misery.

The consequence of sin is not ceasing to exist — it is death, and after that, judgment. It is not appointed unto men to cease to exist; "it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." That cannot be, if they have ceased to exist. Is there any sense, or possibility even, in making people cease to exist, because it is their natural condition to do so; and then making them to exist again (though, mark, it would not be them, but others), in order to make them cease to exist again; this last being the dreadful judgment of God? Yet this is your theory. When they die they are, you say, extinct; then they begin to exist again for the judgment of the great day; the effect of which is that they are burned up and cease to exist again.

I have examined, then, all the words referred to. Some are not used in scripture, some not in connection with the subject we are speaking of; others have decidedly another sense than that you have attached to them; while passages and expressions you have omitted expressly contradict your views. Forgive me if I say there is a little carelessness in dealing thus with scripture on so solemn a subject. It is too serious a one to deal so lightly with.

Now as to the passages on which you reason in detail. "The wicked," you say, "are compared to chaff, to thorns cut up for rapid consumption in unquenchable fire." As regards the latter, it is taken from Isaiah 33: 12. But this only speaks of a present external judgment which would fall on the enemies of Jerusalem who came to spoil the Jews: they would perish on the earth, instead of executing their purpose. This is so entirely the case that, though in English translated "the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up," it is in the original "ammim" [peoples]. This therefore has nothing whatever to say to the matter. It does not touch in the smallest way the question of the existence or state of a soul after death.

52 Next, you say they are compared to chaff. This, as we have seen, refers exclusively to the language of John the Baptist: "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Remark here that the whole is simply a figure, and, indeed, applies to the Lord's dealing with Israel, His floor. The good grain would be gathered into His garner; the chaff would undergo punishment, as chaff is burned in the fire — hopeless and impossible to escape from.

Whether this figure means ceasing to exist is to be judged of from other passages. Now we have seen that the Lord speaks of abiding torment in the lake of fire. And in Matthew 13 when He speaks of the tares being burned, He says, The wicked shall be cast into a furnace of fire: "there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." They were not extinct then; they had not ceased to exist; so that I have the word of God declaring that it does not mean extinction. There are those who are tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Now this mere figure — for the words are spoken of chaff, not of men, your interpretation of which is contradicted by a number of passages — is really all you have to produce.* You do not tell us so; we might suppose there were many such; but there are not. The same state is represented by being cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Here there is no idea of extinction, or ceasing to exist.

{*There is another from Revelation, which I shall consider farther on. It will be seen then why I treat this as really the only one.}

Now as to an undying worm, and fire unquenchable: they are figures, you say, borrowed from Isaiah. But figures of what? Extinction and ceasing to exist! Far from it. Exactly the contrary. It is a perpetual shame and judgment kept up, subsisting before other people's eyes, as a warning of the effects of sin, and a solemn testimony of God's judgment. No doubt in Isaiah it is applied to bodies, and is used by the Lord figuratively; but the perpetuation of the punishment is the point insisted upon in Isaiah. These are His words: "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." Now does this passage teach continuance, perpetuation of their state, or sudden consumption? It carefully teaches its continuance, its perpetuation. This is its specific object. No doubt it is referred to carcases; it says so. But what it takes pains to shew is, that the judgment exercised upon them would be a perpetual abiding testimony before the eyes of men. The Lord borrows this figure, as He does the word gehenna, translated hell, to carry it far beyond carcases. But the figure is of the abiding of the judgment: hence, their worm does not die — their fire is not quenched. It would be absurd to use such a figure to mean that the worm and the fire were there, but there was nothing for them to act upon. But the fact is, the statement of the prophet is precisely that it would not be a sudden consumption, but always there — as shewing the effects of sin — from moon to moon, from sabbath to sabbath, when men came up amongst that people, who were to remain before the Lord. The carcases would be there — the gnawing worm there — the fire unquenched still. And this is adduced to shew it means sudden consumption!

53 I am not now discussing the doctrine. It is grace which warns us of it, that we may not be obstinate sinners, adversaries of God. It is that dark and solemn back-ground, which brings out the grace that saves us from it. But I deal with your statements as to scripture; I search the word: they fall to pieces at its touch.

Let us refer to the passages: "It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire" (Matt. 18: 8). Why everlasting? Do you really believe the Lord meant to alarm us with this word, when it meant nothing? What matters its being everlasting, if we are to be instantly consumed by it? Everlasting fire (and this [see v. 22] is hell fire) has no real meaning, if I ceased to exist; it may as well go out. But, according to you, it is the fire that consumes the world. Is this, then, to be everlasting? Is it hell that is to consume this earth, and that by a fire that is never to be quenched? Besides, why would it be better for him to be cast into the sea with a millstone round his neck? He might as well, according to your interpretation, live on. It would be but to exchange instantaneous consumption by fire for drowning: and if left for the fire, he would have a much longer life to please himself in. Is that the force of this most solemn warning of the Lord? Again, when in Mark the Saviour insists in His warning that the fire never shall be quenched (alluding, as you say, to the passage in Isaiah which pressed the perpetuation of the punishment, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched), you would have me suppose that He meant that for all that they would after the first moment be perfectly insensible to it. The worm might live — to do I know not what. They would have ceased to exist: the worm would have nothing to gnaw upon. Is this what the Lord presents? Is it what is presented by Isaiah 66? Is it not solemnly and urgently the contrary? Let any honest mind, who would think it blasphemy to charge the Lord with trifling on any subject, especially on this, judge. How solemnly does He repeat it!

54 Let me quote to you a passage from the book of Revelation, which I have already alluded to. "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night." If this be figurative, as doubtless it is, it is not a figure of the extinction of being — of ceasing to exist.

You say, "We are likewise assured that the agent by which the destruction of the wicked shall be effected is fire, and that it will be that fire which shall consume the heavens and the earth": and you quote Peter as proving it. Now all that Peter says is, that the earth will be given up to fire in the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men; but not a word of the men being subject to it then. Now I believe, from Revelation 20, that the wicked congregated against the camp of the saints and the beloved city will be judged by fire coming down from heaven. But then the earth is not burned up. The lake of fire is there spoken of distinctly as something else (which, remark, has already subsisted for a thousand years, at any rate), the devil being then cast into it, and the beast and the false prophet being there, and to be tormented there for ever and ever. The lake of fire is certainly not then simply the consuming of the elements in a given day by fervent heat. The wicked, some of them, were in the lake of fire before, and it is another fire which comes down from heaven and consumes the wicked on earth — a fire by which the world is not consumed. Nor are the wicked dead yet even raised. The apostle then sees a great white throne, and One that sat on it, before whose face the earth and heaven fled away; and then the dead, small and great, stand before Him (whereas the previous fire which destroyed the wicked on earth, had come down from heaven on the hosts on earth, who had gone up over the breadth of the earth), and they are judged out of the things written in the books. For this, the sea gave up her dead — death and hades gave up theirs. They were judged; and there was a new heaven and a new earth; but the wicked have their part in the lake. Thus neither the living nor the dead wicked are consumed in the fire which melts the elements.

55 Every part of your statement is, in the most positive way, contradicted by the text of scripture. The lake of fire existed at least a thousand years, and some were in it before the end. At the close the wicked in rebellion are destroyed on the earth by another fire which does not destroy the earth. The dead are then called up to be judged before the great white throne; the heaven and earth (which gives up its dead) fleeing from before the face of Him that sat upon it. Moreover, the resurrection of the just, or the first resurrection, is placed in this chapter a thousand years before this event; and it is at that epoch that the living wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction from His presence. See Revelation 19, where He comes forth to execute it. For it is at His coming back from heaven the saints are raised to meet Him, and then appear in glory at the end (says the Lord) of this age; not when seated on the great white throne. Then heaven and earth flee from before His face: then He does not come to the earth. Remark further, both Peter (in the chapter preceding the one you quote) and Jude declare that the wicked mockers are reserved — the former, for the mist of darkness for ever; and the latter, for the blackness of darkness for ever. I repeat, then, your doctrine on this subject is utterly contradicted by scripture, and that in every particular. I prove it, and it crumbles to pieces before the word.

56 One or two texts, cited in the "Leaves for Truth Lovers," remain. But I must repeat here a remark already made: except one, which I will notice, they are all taken from the Old Testament. Now it is the positive doctrine of the New, that life and immortality (incorruption) were brought to light by the gospel. Why then, to prove your point, do you have recourse to what was professedly dark on the subject? Besides the one I shall just now notice, and that alluding to John the Baptist, you have quoted only one from the New; and to explain this you have recourse to the Old; and you have omitted all the positive instruction of the New on the subject. And let me recall to your recollection, and to that of my readers, that your doctrine applies to saints as well as sinners. Those who have eternal life, those who live because Christ lives, those who are in paradise with Him, whose spirits He has received, as well as mere natural men — all perish alike, are extinct. And you bring your proofs from the Old Testament, in which, we are assured by the apostle, the full revelation on this subject was not given, the truth about it was not yet brought to light. Is not this a strange way of getting at the truth? the rather, as the Lord Himself declares that the soul does not perish with the body — a passage which you have not thought it necessary to notice. Now the Old Testament saints had to do with a manifest exercise of the judgment of God on the earth, of a God enthroned at Jerusalem; or who had promised the land to those He had called out from their country and kindred (or even elsewhere, as in the case of Job). In the midst of the confusion and disasters occasioned by sin, and the delays of God's judgment by patient mercy, they looked sometimes by grace through the veil, and saw that city which hath foundations — as Job 19, Psalm 16. But in general they were occupied with the present government of God, and it was meant that they should be; and beyond that, habitually all was dark and the shadow of death. You would bring us back to this — deprive us, yes, even the saints, of the doctrine of life, if not of future incorruption.

57 Now you will find that what I have just said is plainly shewn in the passages of the Old Testament which treat of it; and that they close in the human view by the boundary of death. You quote, for example, Ecclesiastes 9: 5: "But the dead know not anything": now how does this go on? "Neither have they any more a reward." Do you believe that applies to anything beyond this world? You know well you do not; you teach the contrary. "For the memory of them is forgotten: also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." Is it not as clear as the sun, that all this applies to this world, as does the whole book — speaking of what is under the sun in the days of the life of our vanity?

You quote Psalm 146: 4. The psalmist is contrasting the help of man on the earth and the help of Jehovah. Men are not to trust in princes, for their help is vain. Once dead, all their plans and projects are over: happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help. He turns the way of the wicked upside down. He shall reign for ever, Zion's God to all generations. Now what have the thoughts of man on earth perishing to do with the state of his soul after death?

But you chiefly rely on Job 14: 12: nor are you singular. It has been at all times the resort of those who have gone even farther than you; and, with much more consistency, when they had extinguished body and soul, left them there; instead of creating a new person for a few minutes, as if he were the same, to extinguish him again in still less time. Thus speaks Job: "Man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." And if they do not, what does that prove? I believe that fully; but I would remark, that we cannot take all that Job says in the vexation of his spirit as revelations, any more than all his friends say, who did not speak rightly of God as he did. They all utter many acknowledged truths which no Christian doubts, and the writer of the book was inspired to give them; but it is only when we come to Elihu that we have an understanding of the case, which is in the inspiration of the Almighty, and perfect in wisdom by knowledge fetched from afar. This I say, not as my opinion, but as the declaration of the inspired Elihu himself.

58 We must remember that an historical book being inspired does not mean that what every one has said in it is, but that the writer was inspired to give it to us. We learn the speeches of wicked men, the acts and deceitful words of Satan, recorded by inspiration; now they clearly were not inspired. God has given us a full picture of man and his ways, and of His own ways in patient mercy with him, till the full truth was revealed in Christ. But then man's ways were anything but inspired of God. The imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, and that continually. To have a true inspired history of him we must have him as he is, not flattered by his own vanity; and hence the painful and frightful pictures we have in scripture. It tells the truth. Man hides it, because he is ashamed of himself; while he does for pleasure the thing he is ashamed of.

But in this case I see no reason to attribute the words to the unbelief working in Job's heart by the side of much right feeling. It was the evident apparent effect of death. A man died, and man saw him no more till the close of all. So it will be; he will not rise (he does not say live), but "they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep." But what is that sleep? That he cannot tell you: only he uses terms which, while they are consistent with the ignorance of another world and of the intermediate state, certainly do not say the dead have ceased to exist, and imply the contrary. For when I say they shall not rise, they shall not awake nor arise out of their sleep, these words suppose some one who is asleep, who will not awake till a given time. It is not a statement of non-existence, but the contrary. Great obscurity, save by some special revelation throwing its sudden light in on the soul-such was doubtless their state. It would have proved the book not genuine, if we had the doctrines and notions even of the apocryphal books in it; but it is left in this obscurity by the God-fearing though harassed spirit of this holy man, painfully learning what his own heart was. He does not go beyond his measure. As to this world, man is gone; he himself desires even to be hid in the grave. "If a man die, shall he live?" he says. Now if you do not apply this to living again in this world, you contradict your own doctrine, and make Job an absolute infidel as to any resurrection, as to any living again at all. But Job is speaking, as all Old Testament saints speak, in view of this world in which they had to say to God: the other was undoubtedly dark to them. But all he says is, that man will not rise again (that is from the grave), till the close of all things. I believe so (not speaking now of the special revelation of the first resurrection, of which Job, of course, is not speaking here, but of man as such). I believe just what Job believed, that when man lies down "they shall not rise, nor awake, nor arise out of their sleep, till the heavens be no more." What difficulty then can it give me? Job does not reveal to me what comes of his soul meanwhile. I do not expect him to do so. The Lord tells me it is not destroyed with the body. The apostle uses this same word "sleep," adding "in Jesus" for the saints, who have their gain in death, because He receives their spirits. Can its use in Job create a difficulty? No, all is exactly in its place.

59 You add, "St. Paul says, to die is gain — not because he expected to live in a state of glory when dead, but because he knew that he should rest from toil and suffering — he would be taken away from the evil to come" (Isa. 57: 1). Forgive my saying it was because of nothing of the kind. He says (it is found in Phil. 1: 21-23), "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." To live was not such a weariness: he says, "to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." You have entirely misrepresented the passage: he does not talk of avoiding the evil to come, but of the good to come in being with Christ, when he says death is gain. Your remark is very unfortunate; because, in another place, he does speak of rest, but there it is not connected with death: "To you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels."

And if I turn to Isaiah — which you patch on to Philemon, to explain a clearer revelation by one less full — I find what we have seen already, only in even a more remarkable way, and certainly as far as possible from extinguishing the righteous: he has done with the trouble of this world, and, in this sense, he is at rest. But is that all the prophet tells us? Here is the passage. "The righteous perisheth" — mark the word — "and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness." Now, I ask, does this encouraging revelation," he shall enter into peace" — mean he shall be extinct? No. It is not so clear as the New Testament; of course it is not. How could it be as clear as when Christ had lived through death, and risen out of it? But while the general subject is the government of this present world, as it ever was amongst the Jews, it consoles the righteous with the thought, that in dying he would enter into peace.

60 But you quote, as I stated, one more passage from the New Testament: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours." No doubt. We all believe that. But is that the whole passage? No. First there is added, "and their works do follow them." Are they then extinct? But suffer me to ask you further, how I can think or pronounce people blessed who are extinct, or have ceased to exist. And mark, he does not (if I follow the way you quote the passage) say, Blessed are those who have risen again, but, "blessed are the dead." Now it is impossible to conceive that a person who does not exist is blessed: indeed it is simple nonsense to say so. But the emphasis is on "who die in the Lord." Now, if they are extinct, the same as ungodly people, why are they more blessed in death? for that is the time you refer it to. But, besides all this, you have not quoted the passage as it is in scripture — a serious thing, it seems to me, when you profess to teach from it as God's word. The passage runs thus: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." Now of two things one: either, "from henceforth" refers to a particular prophetic moment, and therefore has nothing whatever to do with the extinction of a soul by death; or it is a positive revelation that people are immediately happy on their death. And when it is added, "and" (though they rest from their labours on earth), "their works do follow them," being connected with "from henceforth," directly contradicts that for which you quote it. Why did you leave out these words?

You also quote the passage from the Psalms: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades," and argue that the application of it to Christ, is a proof that David's soul being left in hades, had ceased to exist. I should have thought that a soul's being left in hades, if it proved anything, proved that it did exist, or it could not be left there. The difference as to Christ was, that it was not left there; but both are supposed to exist, or they would not be thus reasoned about. It is quite true that David is not ascended into heaven. That expression is not applied to souls, nor does scripture speak of their being glorified; but it does of their subsisting after death, and of their being in hades. And when it says, "David was buried, and his sepulchre there," it speaks of him as a known man on earth being dead and buried: not of his soul surely being buried: his soul is left in hades: be it so: it subsists then. What Peter would not do, as you say, I cannot tell: but I know, he does adduce his body being buried — which his soul, at any rate, was not, and his sepulchre being there — as a proof that David was not ascended. What other proof does he bring?

61 As to Psalm 17: "I shall be satisfied when I awake with the Lord's likeness," and never till then. But I am always confident — blessed be that grace which has pardoned and received and quickened me — knowing that if I am absent from the body, I shall be present with the Lord. So Paul, at Antioch, is insisting on Christ's not seeing corruption, and that the psalm does not apply to David, for he has seen corruption. Does he say anything about his soul? Not a word. Stephen fell asleep — the word used by Paul as to David — but Christ received his spirit.

You quote the case of Samuel. Error always loves obscure passages. But this proves the contrary of what you quote it for. How could Samuel be brought up, if he was totally extinct, and had ceased to exist? How could he be disquieted, if he were not? I agree with you, that Samuel meant that Saul would be among the dead, as Samuel was; but Samuel's being there proved he had not ceased to exist when he was among the dead.

You quote Psalm 16 as referring to David, to prove that he expected nothing before his hope in Psalm 17; but you cannot use Psalm 16 as referring to David in one place, and in another prove, from Peter, that it does not. "In thy presence is fulness of joy," comes after "thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." Thus, if it do apply to Christ's ascension, it certainly does not shew the soul to be extinct in the meanwhile; for Christ certainly was not extinct; so that your reasoning from it is demonstrably false. Christ was in paradise before His ascension to the right hand of the Father, of which He speaks here: but the whole path was a path of life to Him: "In him was life." To say He was extinct, would be to give up being a Christian altogether, and yet worse than that.

62 I have now gone through all your statements on this subject, in which your great resource is the obscurity of the Old Testament on this point, an obscurity of which the New informs us; and, avoiding reference to the passages, and where you merely reasoned from a word, and sometimes one not used at all, or quite to another purpose, I have been obliged to examine the passages, and their context. But if the examination has been necessarily longer than the statement, it was worth while, for the sake of the souls of many poor sinners and saints too, not only to shew the positive statements of the New Testament, but to follow you through your assertions and quotations, and see what they were worth.

I have again proved your doctrine by the word. I find that you omit all the clear positive statements of scripture; that your statements contradict them; that you assert, as to the use of words, what is not borne out by the fact; that you quote passages in part, or without the context, to prove your point; that your reasonings will not bear the light the moment the passages are consulted; and that what you do quote proves the contrary of what you quote it for. I reject your statements, therefore, when I have examined them, as unworthy of being entertained a moment longer. I only pray God heartily that you may be delivered from the snare into which you are fallen; and that He may preserve others from that which your words lay for them.

You have got some truth as to the importance of resurrection which others have not, but your own reasonings have carried you away. I cannot think you have examined the passages you refer to, or the use of words in them. Did I think so, I must judge you hardly honest in your reasoning, which I am not willing to suppose; but is it right thus carelessly to throw notions before others without carefully searching out their truth by the word? Why did you leave out "from henceforth" in quoting Revelation 14? Why do you speak of plucked up root and branch? I have searched concordances, lest my memory should deceive me — I find none such. Why speak of "burnt up," when it is only used of the captains who would take the prophet? Is this serious enquiry into truth?

I shall shew in another paper that your statements as to the "Atonement" — a yet more important subject — subvert, even in a more open way, those of scripture.

Scriptural Enquiries as to the Doctrine of Atonement in reference to J. P. Ham's theological tracts.

J. N. Darby.

<07005E> 63

I now turn to your statements on Christ's death; and if your error as to this is more important even than that which I have already noticed, so also your mis-statement of the contents of scripture is proportionately bolder.

I would set out by saying, that it was God's free and perfect love which gave Christ for us, and which is the sole source of our salvation. Those who deny atonement (for you do deny it) in vain claim to be the only ones who believe in this love. Secondly, I should not deny that the way in which the gospel has been sometimes stated has obscured it; that is, that the effect has been, that God has been considered as simply a righteous being, and that Christ has died in love and propitiated Him. I say the effect; for those who preach in the most defective way on this point do not in the least deny that God's love is the source of all this; though practically their manner of putting it obscures this blessed truth-that for wretched, lost, unhappy man, God has in infinite, compassionate, perfect as well as tender, love, given His Son, that whoever believes on Him may not perish, but have everlasting life. Blessed be God! He has done so; He has seen our need and visited us in it, and accomplished the perfect work needed to deliver us, and made sinners, through Christ, partakers of His glory. He calls us from sin and ruin by His testimony of His love in Christ.

But love is not exalted by denying that righteousness which must display itself in wrath against sin. The only effect of such a denial is to destroy the sense of our need of this love, and in the same proportion (and that is indeed entirely) the sense of it, and the real restoration of the soul to God by it; that is, to destroy the knowledge of God. If my sins were such that the death of the divine Son of God was needed-if God was so holy that He could not receive me unless my sins were washed away-put away out of His sight, how great was that love which would look in mercy on a mere defiled, worthless, and ungrateful sinner that, in his horrible pride, had thus offended Him, and had given the Son of His love for such! How great that which could willingly undertake such a task, saying, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!" How great the peace, too, when-in the perfect certainty that my sins are put away, and judged by God to be put away in the presence and by the act of God's righteousness, according to God's own mind and holiness-I can stand in the presence of that love without fear, and in the knowledge that it has done that which has brought me there according to its own perfectness. It is not a false, unholy love which slurs over the evil, but one which proves the love of the Holy One in putting it away.

64 But let us examine your use of scripture. You are unknown to me; but surely you must be very inexperienced in the use of it, and quote it hastily, or I should not know what to think of your application of it, or your assertions about it. But I will examine them.

I will take one of your "Leaves for Truth Lovers" entitled "The Death of Christ." You say, "Fear or dread of God very often arises from not understanding the meaning of those expressions which state that Christ suffered for us, and shed His blood, or died for us." Now I should have thought that that which would have produced fear or dread would have been such passages as "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God" (Ps. 9: 17). They "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe" (2 Thess. 1: 9, 10). "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10: 31). "Our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12: 29). "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. 12: 19). "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever" (Rev. 14: 11). And such like.

The death of Christ indeed gives the serious conviction of the solemn truth of the righteousness of God, in the "wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom. 1: 18), and that it is impossible that sinners, if not justified from their sins, should escape, since Christ could not when He took them. But while Christ's suffering for us thus confirms this most solemn truth, that there is and must be judgment against sin, still it carries with it the value of Another's taking it on Himself, and brings hope and encouragement by the love shewn in it, if not perfect peace yet. It makes us, if believed in, hate the sin that has made One who has so loved us suffer for it, and ourselves for it; but it is not dread it inspires.

65 But I continue. You say, "They think that God is so severe that He would not pardon mankind without inflicting a most awful punishment either upon them, or upon Jesus Christ His Son as their substitute. But this is not the meaning of Christ's sufferings and death. Christ came into our world to assure us that God loves us dearly, and that He is ready to pardon and justify . . . . Now in shewing mankind this lovely image of God, He fell a victim to the wickedness of self-seeking men, who put Him to a violent death. In this way He suffered and died for us. Some persons say, that Christ's sufferings and death were a payment to God to liberate mankind from the charge of sin. But this cannot be true, because we are told by the apostle Paul, that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself [not reconciling Himself unto the world], not imputing their trespasses unto them.' If God does not impute or reckon men's trespasses unto them, He could not be supposed to have made Christ suffer by way of reckoning for them. Besides, God says, 'I will be merciful to their unrighteousness [not I will exact satisfaction] and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.' God forgives sin, and therefore cannot have received any compensation for sin. If it were written in the Bible, instead of Christ suffered for us, Christ suffered as a punishment for us, then such doctrine would be clear; but no such language occurs anywhere in the Bible. This doctrine of satisfaction for sins represents Christ as having stood in our place to do something for us to God; but the true doctrine is, that Christ was in God's place to do something for God concerning us. Thus 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them' (2 Cor. 5: 19). 'We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.'"

Were you really serious when you wrote all this? Did you really weigh your statements? For one hardly knows where to begin with such a multitude of mis-statements and errors. But, first, I shall separate out what is true in whole or in part. First, I fully admit that "Christ came into our world to assure us that God loves us dearly, and that he is ready to pardon and justify us." I might not thus express it perhaps, but in the main substance of the thought I heartily agree. I only desire in my own spirit and testimony to be able better to bring out, that Christ was in the fullest way God's blessed witness of love to the world. Would to God it were more testified of, and more fully and freely, to this poor sinful and perishing world, which has such false ideas about God!

66 I regret that I should have to turn to errors, when I have touched on this blessed subject; but your leaf forces me to do so. Further, although persons often mean substantially right in saying so, it is not scriptural to say Christ reconciled God to man: that He made propitiation is, and that is doubtless what preachers mean when they say so: but it is an unhappy expression, because it gives the idea of love being in Christ, and that, by His work, He has turned the mind of God towards us, who did not love us: whereas, though the righteous majesty of God did require the expiation for sin, and that the sin should be put away, still it was His own love that gave Christ for it, and thus brought the renewed and repentant sinner back to Himself, according to the power of the redemption accomplished by Christ-his sins, his conscience, purged to enjoy the love witnessed in that redemption.* Thus far, then, I am content to receive what you say: it is always well to clear our ground of that which is not in question.

{*You say also "Christ was in God's place to do something for God concerning us." The language is obscure; but I will not suspect evil. Christ was God manifest in the flesh, as He was God before all worlds. However, if you merely mean that He did, when man down here, manifest God to man, and shew forth in all His ways what He was in love, I heartily agree with this too.}

But now let us ask, Have you told us all that is said of Christ's death? Is what you have told us correct? Is it true that scripture does not say what you say it does not? Where you have quoted it, have you quoted it according to its intention as shewn by the context? We will examine these questions: I would take the second of your statements first, because it is a negative one.

You say, that no such language as that Christ suffered as a punishment for us occurs anywhere in the Bible. This connects itself with His bearing sin. But as to the fact: did you ever read Isaiah 53? Allow me to quote it: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And again, "For the transgression of my people was he stricken . . . . Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief; when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin," etc. (Isa. 53 5-10). I thought this passage was well known to every one who reads the Bible. Does it not speak of punishment for us? You will remember that the apostle Peter applies it directly to Christ, quoting the words, Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Pet. 2: 24). How could it be expressed more clearly that He suffered punishment for us? Stripes, chastisements, bruises, wounds, inflicted on Him, and that by Jehovah being pleased to bruise Him, surely speak of punishment, and punishment for us; for it was for our iniquities, our transgressions; and it was that which made our peace and healed us, if indeed we are healed. And this is the more distinctly and remarkably brought out, because it is in contrast with the false judgment the Jews had formed of Him-that He was stricken and smitten of God, as suffering under His disapprobation. "We hid as it were our faces from him; we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." Now they found out He had borne their griefs, and carried their sorrows: and, lest the thought might stop short at His only bearing them (for He did so bear them in the sorrow of His heart), the Spirit in them adds, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities," etc. And lest there should be any mistake as to whence this came, we read further, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief" (v. 10). Indeed it would be mere folly to say that the wicked Jews had wounded him for their iniquities; nor could they, nor would they, say they were healed by His stripes.

67 No, the language is as clear as God could make it for poor sinful man, for me, for you, if you do not persevere in rejecting it; and so truly sufficient, that this your sin against this wonderful testimony of divine goodness would itself be forgiven, if you turn to and trust in it. It is so for you, my reader; for, blessed be God! the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin: not because self-seeking men killed Him when He was manifesting God's image; but because "he made his soul an offering for sin," and "God hath set him forth a propitiation through faith in his blood . . . to declare at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3: 25, 26). Why is it said "through faith in his blood," if only suffering a violent death from wicked men, when in God's place, declaring God's love? That has happened to many saints. For the dignity of His Person does not effect this, if He be not a propitiation. You say, it has not this value at all. Was any one ever called to put faith in the blood of the saints? Would it not be monstrous? Why in Jesus', if it was not a propitiation?

Another passage shews how unfounded your assertion is. In Galatians 3: 13, it is written, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Were they man's curses that fell on the blessed Jesus on the cross? No: turn to Deuteronomy 20: 23, and you will find that "he that is hanged is accursed of God," for the believer can say, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53: 6).

68 Further, if you wish to see the connection of bearing sin in Isaiah 53: 12 with the punishment due to it, you have only to compare Leviticus 5: 1, 17; ch. 17: 16; ch. 20: 19; ch. 24: 15; Numbers 5: 31; ch. 9: 13; ch. 14: 34; ch. 30: 15; in all of which you will see it signifies coming under all the consequences of the sin committed, to be answerable for it before God. So it is spoken of particular sins, as idolatry, Numbers 14: 33, Ezekiel 23: 35, and in this case clearly in its consequences on the people (so see Job 34: 31). Scripture does then speak most clearly of punishment for us; unless chastisement, stripes, a curse inflicted by God, be not punishment.

But there are a multitude of texts which shew what is the meaning of Christ's suffering for us; which prove that the way in which Christ's death is carefully, constantly, systematically presented in scripture, is quite different from the way in which you do-that the opposite is true. I have quoted some, I will now adduce others. We have already seen Him spoken of as a propitiation for sin; that we are to have faith in His blood; that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; that the Lord has laid our iniquity upon Him. He has made His soul an offering for sin; He, His own self, bore our sins in His own body on the tree. I proceed: He "gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2: 6). "Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9 . 26). He "hath once suffered for sins" (1 Pet. 3: 18). Now, from the hands of man He suffered for righteousness only; from God He suffered only for sins. "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb. 10: 10). "He offered himself through the eternal Spirit to God" (Heb. 9: 14). God "hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5: 21). That is, His death was not merely the effect of the wickedness of self-seeking men, but He offered Himself as a sacrifice to God. He was made sin there-He bore our sins there-He suffered for sins there-the Lord bruised Him there-and put Him to grief. Wicked men had nothing to do with this, save as ignorant instruments of the outward act.

69 You forget, in stating that Christ presented God's love to man, the numberless passages which shew Him suffering under God's hand on the cross. What was His sorrow in Gethsemane? Sufferings from wicked men in glorifying God were cups He never asked to pass; but God's wrath to the object of His eternal love was another thing. Was it mere dying and going to paradise He so feared as to sweat great drops of blood? Then indeed others have borne a happier testimony. Or was it death as the wages of sin-as the wrath of God? He was then to be made sin. He meets the troop come out against Him in peace, and they fall to the ground. Was their violence there His terror or agony on the cross-was it then all His suffering? Was what He describes of these dogs and bulls of Bashan that surrounded Him its only source? No; He was sensible of it all. But in it He looked away, to say "Be not thou far from me, O Lord": but He was: and the Blessed One had to say in the midst of it all, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Ps. 22). Was this suffering from self-seeking men? In what way did this shew the love of God to men, unless it was His own blessed Son suffering wrath for them? Why was He abandoned of God? He had done no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Why? Had you never any conscience of sin which needed it? Are you too righteous to be willing that God should set Him forth to be a propitiation through His blood? I am sinner enough to be glad that God's love was so great that He should put away the sin, which He could not-ought not-to bear, by the sacrifice of His own blessed Son: are you not? Have I less learnt love by this? "Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us" (1 John 3: 16). The willingness of Christ to do it and suffer was the same divine love which gave Him for us. Then said He, "Lo, I come . . . to do thy will, O my God" (Ps. 40).

70 Let us consider a little the nature of sacrifice. "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (1 Cor. 5: 7). Now, how was this done? Was it by simply shewing love to Israel, in that there was One willing to suffer in this work of love? Nothing of the sort. God was going through in judgment to smite the guilty. Why should not Israel be smitten? They were guilty; they had even fallen, as Ezekiel 20 shews us, into the idolatry of the Egyptians. They were to put the blood on the doorposts, that, when judgment passed, they might be safe. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." That is, the blood of the slain victim-the figure of the true Lamb-secured them from judgment. Do you deny that Christ was our true paschal Lamb?

This circumstance, that the blood was always presented to God, shews the true character of this suffering and death. It was sprinkled on the people, on the leprous man; but it was presented to God, not to the people. It was not something presented to the people, but something presented to God. On the great day of atonement it was sprinkled on the mercy-seat within the veil; on other occasions at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; but always presented to God as the token that expiation had been made for sin. Now if it was merely a testimony from God to the people of love, what was the meaning of all this? If it was an offering for sin, an expiation made, then indeed it was to an offended God the blood was to be presented, that He might righteously bless without passing over sin as nothing-which would be real indifference to it. And this was what was done. In all cases it was presented, offered up to God; and without shedding of blood there was no remission. Certain purifications were made by water (for the Spirit and the word have their place in cleansing too); but there is no remission without blood. Hence Christ is said to have come "not by water only, but by water and blood" (1 John 5: 6)-that is, to expiate as well as to purify.

71 Will you say, these are Old Testament figures? They are so. But figures of what? What is the answer to this universal conscience, that has introduced sacrifices all over the world; and which God has taken up and sanctioned as a great principle of truth in the Old Testament? Is it not Christ? Blessed be God, it is. He has appeared "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9: 26). If self-seeking men were the instruments of this wanton self-destroying wickedness, that their hatred to God and His goodness might fully come out, was it their thoughts and counsels that brought it about? No: "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2: 23). It was not their sin which was so determined; it was Christ's death which was. Why did God predetermine this death of His Son? Had He no intention, no meaning in it? If it was merely to shew a love which would suffer on to the end, why was Christ abandoned on the cross? That abandonment was not the wicked men's act.

The New Testament does not leave a shadow of doubt on the divine purpose of the passing shadows of the Old: the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin; but, instead thereof, Christ came, had a body prepared Him to do God's will: "by the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb. 10: 10). "Christ being come an high-priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance" (Heb. 9: 11-15). Now here the doctrine of the Jewish sacrifices is clearly applied to Christ's death: He offers Himself to God. By means of death there is the redemption of transgressions; conscience is purged by this offering. "Nor yet," adds the apostle, "that he should offer himself often . . . for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself: and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9: 25-28).

72 The apostle explains this largely in the following chapter, of which I have already quoted some principal verses. "This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God" (chap. 10: 12), as it is said in the beginning of the epistle, "When he had by himself purged our sins" (Heb. 1: 3).

Now allow me to ask you, Have you read all this? Do you believe it? Has it nothing to do with Christ's suffering for us? Is it only "His falling a victim to the wickedness of self-seeking men who put Him to a violent death?" Is it not an immensely all-important truth, giving a definite character to Christ's sufferings; on which redemption, the purging of the conscience, putting away sin, purging our sins-in a word, all that reconciles us to God, and gives us peace-is made to depend? which is totally omitted in and set aside by the view you give of Christ's sufferings, and the meaning of them. You may tell me it is suited to Hebrews and their thoughts. It is giving to Christians, who had been Jews, the true value of Christ's. death, and the real end and meaning of all their typical sacrifices.

But do other parts of the scripture not teach the same truth? We have already seen Peter declaring that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and that by His stripes we are healed. So he tells them they were "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet. 1: 19).

Turn to John, one who peculiarly speaks of the manifestation of the love of God in Christ, who makes it, one may say, the very topic of his epistle, and who raises Christian doctrine to its highest tone of spirituality:-what does he say? "And he is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2: 2). Again, in teaching us what this manifestation of love in God is: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 10). Yes, that was love; it was not self-seeking men did that; it was (may I be bold to say it?) a man-seeking God who acted thus, one who gave His Son, and one who gave Himself. "God is love." He proved Himself love, but in that which wrought out righteousness, and put away sin, and purged our consciences, and enabled us to enjoy His love, with the consciousness that sin is put away-being judged in all its heinousness. Does Paul differ from this? No: "in whom [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Eph. 1: 7). "God has set [Him] forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood" (Rom. 3: 25).

73 But it is useless to multiply the number of quotations. It has been abundantly shewn that He "gave himself a ransom." According to the purpose of God, the Son became a man, not only to manifest God amongst men, which He surely did, but to suffer as a victim, to bear our sins, to make propitiation for sin, to put it away, and purge our conscience. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He offered Himself to God, and entered into His presence for us according to the power and efficacy of that blood which He shed upon the cross. The scripture is as plain as plain as can be; it is so, not in an isolated sentence or two, but in multiplied passages in various ways. It is treated as a fundamental doctrine, nay, as vital: no forgiveness of sins without this offering. God from Adam's time had been pointing to it; men's consciences had taken it up everywhere; in the Jewish system it was elaborately developed, that its accomplishment in Christ might be fully understood. And in the New Testament it is explained both as a positive truth that our souls need, and that God is glorified by; and as the meaning of all the remarkable figures of the Old on the subject. Prophets proclaim it; Jesus announces it, saying, the Son of man was come to give His life a ransom for many; and, in instituting that which was to be so sweet and solemn a memorial of Himself, He tells them that the cup was the new covenant in His blood, shed for them and for many for the remission of sins.

What have you done with this maintenance of divine righteousness-this proof, above all else, of divine love-this subject of divine testimony in the willing, yet ordained, death of the Lamb of God? It is gone. There is left us but the act of self-seeking men putting Him to death when accomplishing His service; and thus He suffered for us. I must repeat, Have you ever read the New Testament? Do you believe it? What is your hope of forgiveness? Is it through the blood of Jesus? Do you believe in a propitiation through faith in His blood?

74 And allow me here to make a remark or two on Christ's sufferings. The believer sees in the death of Christ the great and solemn work of expiation for sin; he sees Jesus drinking the cup which the Father gave Him to drink. When Jesus cries, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" he can tell, with his face between his hands, that it was because of our sins which He bore on the tree, to glorify God in putting them away. But this you do not admit; this is not the meaning of Christ's suffering. He fell a victim to man's wickedness, and "and in this way He suffered and died for us." The believer in the atonement can at once understand His cry to God. He was indeed drinking the cup of wrath from God, having been made a curse, made sin for us. But you, who do not attach this meaning to Christ's death, what do you make of this cry? His death, in your way of putting it, would be a far feebler testimony than that of thousands of saints. They, dying naturally or burning in the flames, have poured out their souls in triumph and in joy, assured that God never would, and finding He did not, forsake them, nay, gloriously sustained in the hour of trial. Was Christ in your mind in an inferior state to them? He declared He was forsaken of God. What testimony was this to God's love or to His faith? How many have given a brighter one! If His death was atonement, this cry gives it all its value: it declares He did fully drink that cup, of which not one drop is left for me. He suffered, was forsaken, that I might be full of joy-assured that I never shall be forsaken. But the state of Christ in death, on your shewing, has no sense; nay, it has a contrary sense. It was a declaration that He was not sustained of God in going through the last act of faithfulness in service. No; there is no meaning in scripture if Christ's death be not really His offering Himself, and an offering for sin; and so it was-He bare our sins in His own body on the tree. As the high priest confessed Israel's sin on the scape-goat, so has Jesus confessed ours as His; as the blood of the other was sprinkled on the mercy-seat, so is His a witness before God that sin is put away.

75 I have reserved one or two passages till the close, because you quote them. "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Your comment is, "not I will exact satisfaction." Allow me to give you the apostle's, for he also has commented on this verse; "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us . . . and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," etc. (Heb. 10: 14-19). Here the apostle connects this blessed assurance with the offering of Christ. You tell us that there cannot be this satisfaction for sin, for it would not then be merciful-"He cannot as such receive any compensation for sin." Compensation is an invidious word I should very much object to; but there is an efficacious offering which puts it away, and Christ was offered for sin, peri amartias (that is, an offering for sin), one who stood as the victim laden with the sins of another, of which He bore the judgment, and for which He suffered: "for Christ hath once suffered for sins" (1 Pet. 3: 18). Were He only God's witness put to death by wicked men, He would have suffered for righteousness; but He has suffered for sins. Paul's reasoning on this passage, then, is exactly the opposite of yours. Would it not have been well to have looked to it? You say that that is impossible which he declares to be what gives peace to the conscience, and glory to God.

I turn to your second quotation. You deny the doctrine of satisfaction for sins, which represents Christ as having stood in our place, because it is said, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. 5: 19). "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." We have seen that Isaiah-that is, the Spirit of God-tells us we had all gone astray, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Now this is standing in our place. "The chastisement of our peace was upon him." This is the same truth.

But let us examine the text you produce. Have you quite finished the passage? On what ground did the apostle pray them to be reconciled to God? What ground had he to take which could assure them that, in returning to God, all would be right? Was it that He was so merciful He would not impute sin to them, and therefore could not to Christ? Is that his ground for beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God? It is yours. Far from it; he takes exactly the ground you reject in the passage you quote for so rejecting it. "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

76 Forgive me if I say your quotations of scripture astonish me. Are these the passages you quote for proving that Christ did not make atonement for sin on the cross? On one of which the apostle remarks, that He offered His body once for all, and perfected us for ever by that one offering for sins; and in the other, lays as the ground for his exhortation to come to God, that Christ had been made sin for us.

Is it not plain to you that 2 Corinthians 5: 19-"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them"-depicts Christ's work, when in the world? God was in Christ down here-not in judgment, but reconciling the world, not imputing their trespasses. But how was He received when He so came? Did the world receive His overtures? No; they rejected Him, put Him to a cruel death, proved that they hated both Him and His Father. They were in sin, and shewed their enmity against God. What was to be done? His seeking them was useless. Man cared not for Him. His people did but cumber the ground. How could men be brought to God? Christ is made sin for them. Thus they can be entreated by others, as His messengers, to be reconciled to God. This was done by Christ in Person, while He was here; but when made sin, He had to undergo death. Hence, raised and glorified, He commits to others the ministry of reconciliation; and that ministry is founded on the thing you reject. Those who have received it entreat sinners to be reconciled to God, because Christ has been made sin for us. Without that, how would the sinners who had rejected and crucified Him venture to return to God? But this sin had, through Christ's death, become the occasion of the display of the greatest mercy, linked with perfect righteousness.

You say, in another of your "Leaves," that God was already reconciled. It is hard to know what this means. I have spoken of the term already. God was not already reconciled. What had done it, if it was so? He was acting in love to reconcile man, in His own sovereign goodness in which He gave Christ; but there is such a thing as putting away sin before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold it.

77 Further, you say "Christ's death was to propitiate man." What does this mean? Are you really serious? Has God to propitiate man? Where it is said, He was a propitiation for our sins, was it man was to be propitiated for our sins? No doubt the true love of God in this attracts man by grace, but that is not the meaning of propitiation. I propitiate an offended superior, or render him propitious to me. Does God do that to man? To whom, as the offended person, was the blood always presented and offered? It is revealed to man, that it has been presented to God, and accepted; so that we may come boldly to God through faith in it. But it never was presented to man. Mark that. God says, "When I see the blood, I will pass over." We are justified freely by His blood. If Christ came to reconcile men to God (if that is the whole meaning of propitiation), that was true when His blood was not shed. Why then is it attributed to His blood? Does propitiation mean to beseech man to return to God? You know it does not. Where is propitiation used in this sense? Have you a single passage?

Propitiation is found three times in the New Testament. In one it is ilasterion, that is, mercy-seat, on which we know the blood was sprinkled. before God (it was His throne of judgment, the footstool at least of it, where He sat between the cherubim); to that man might approach, because the satisfaction for iniquity was offered. In the two others, Christ "is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2: 2)-a passage which has no sense whatever if it means to propitiate man. How is he to be propitiated for his sins? It is mere nonsense so to talk. The other is, He "sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4: 10). Here again it is for our sins, shewing the well-known scriptural use of the word, God sending His Son as an ilasmon peri ton amartion emon, can by no possibility be referred to propitiating man. Indeed it is foreign to every thought of scripture-the use made of the blood-Him to whom it was presented-and the whole order of ideas about propitiation. Moreover, the term is borrowed from the Old Testament, which had not the idea of reconciling the people, nor their wanting to be reconciled; but is perfectly familiar with the thought of propitiation-the propitiatory being the very centre of their religious service. It was the name of the covering of the ark, on which the blood was placed before God, as it never was before the people. They offered it through the priests to God.

78 The verb is twice used in Greek, though otherwise translated in English. "God be merciful to me, a sinner"-be propitious: was this propitiating man? (Luke 18: 13). Again, "To make reconciliation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2: 17). Here again the expression "for the sins" precludes such an idea. Besides, it is spoken of here as the work of the priest, "that he might be a merciful high priest . . . to make," etc. What had a priest to do- with propitiating the people? It is an idea, as I have said, foreign to the whole subject. He carried in the blood within the veil, or outside sprinkled it before God-the Israelite (where it was not common to all the people) having himself brought the victim, to offer it to God. The idea in every case is the opposite to what you say, exactly opposite, and proves what you seek to deny.

You say "Atonement always means in the Bible making two or more persons at one or agreed." Does it? It is used once in the New Testament, where it really means "reconciliation." We have received reconciliation with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5: 10, 11), where the apostle speaks of our being justified by His blood, and then saved from wrath, being thus also reconciled by Christ's death, and then saved by His life-hence joying in God through Jesus, by whom we have received the reconciliation (that is, were brought back to God in peace). Here, while founded on justification by blood, and very different indeed from setting two persons at one (for it is bringing back a guilty sinner saved from wrath to God), still, if you had merely said, it ought to have been translated "reconciliation," no one could have complained; but you say, "always means in the Bible." One is tempted to believe (to hope almost) you have scarcely ever read the Bible. Is it indeed so? The word used in Hebrew is caphar-it is used ninety-eight times in the Old Testament. One has no reference to this matter. Of all the rest, perhaps one (though it has there much more the sense of propitiate) might be alleged to have such a sense, and that only by straining the expression: that is, Genesis 32: 20, "I will appease him with the present . . . and afterward I will see his face, peradventure he will accept of me." But making two persons agreed is never its sense; and in a vast number of the passages the attempt to introduce such a meaning would make the grossest nonsense, because it is used of iniquities-purging them away-making atonement for them. You will not produce one text in which caphar means what you say it always does. It is not the meaning of the word-it means "to cover." Hence it is used for pitching the ark, i.e., covering it with pitch.

79 Again I have proved your doctrine by scripture, and I find you have left out that on which the whole relationship of God with Israel was based. Secondly, that which in the New Testament is elaborately applied to Christ, which the Lord applies unto Himself, and one apostle after another applies to Him-I find that your doctrine totally denies this fundamental truth. And, thirdly, in quoting the one or two passages of scripture you do, you again omit the context or some part of the passage, which, if it were admitted, makes the passage mean just the contrary of what you quote it for.

You deny a doctrine which is most certainly one of the most prominent and important in the whole Bible, and perhaps the most insisted on in it; and that both in the Old and New Testaments.

And now, my beloved reader, let me add, that this matter is not a question of the justness of Mr. Ham's reasoning merely, but of your and my salvation. You are a sinner; I am a sinner. We are defiled by sin; we are guilty, for we have sinned against God, and against a God of love. Now sin must be put away, and we must be cleansed, if we are to dwell with a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look at sin.

He may look on us in compassion, sinners as we are; but He cannot allow uncleanness to abide in His presence and you (unless you are already washed in the blood of the Lamb) are unclean-you know you are. You are guilty-you know you are. You would not like to hazard your salvation upon the judgment God ought to form of you. I know well our proud rebellious hearts may rise up against God, and reason against Him; but your conscience knows you have sinned against Him, and that if He be a holy God, He cannot-ought not to allow of sin, and let it into His presence. Yet there alone you can be really happy; and there, whether you will or not, you must come. It is not your reasonings about it which will prevent it. When there, reasonings will cease; your conscience will speak (as Adam's did when he sought to hide himself in the trees of the garden) and louder too; he had broken God's commandment, but he had not yet despised God's goodness and grace to a sinner. May you be kept by grace from doing so!

80 Now I have no desire to weaken (God forbid!) your thought, that God is love. It is my only hope, for I also am a poor sinner; my only hope is in God's free and perfect love. But then, that you may enjoy that love, you must have your sin put away, you must be cleansed. You could not be happy in God's presence, were it not put away; you could not, if your conscience always told you, I am unclean in the presence of this holy God, and He sees it. Would your child be happy with you if he had a bad conscience, be you ever so loving a father? Would it be true love if you were to allow him in the evil, and pass it over as no matter?

Now God tells us this plainly in order to act upon our consciences; He tells us He is light, and that darkness can have no communion with Him; that nothing defiled can enter into the heavenly Jerusalem as it is called. He warns us that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. He says there is oppression and wrong, but encourages the Christian to the patience which Christ Himself shewed. And how? By the solemn word, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. 12: 19). He is a righteous Judge, as well as a God of love. He takes notice of good and evil, and hence necessarily judges. Yet we are sinners, and, as regards such, what can righteousness do? But He is love. Does His love destroy His judgment against sin? does it put an end to His righteousness? No: that would not be grace and love, but indifference to evil; and would lead our hearts alas! to be indifferent to it too. Why should not we be, if God were? But it would be a real curse to us, and He would not be really the true and holy God.

How then, if He be righteous, and judges sin, can He exercise love to us in all its fulness-towards us who are sinners? Now here it is the death and atonement of Christ come in. The blessed Lord willingly undertook this task, to glorify God perfectly, and prove infinite love to us, and yet maintain God's perfect righteousness. He bore our sins-was made sin for us. He drank the bitter cup of death and judgment which our sins had filled. He gave Himself for us, and was bruised for our iniquities, and wounded for our transgressions. Was not this love? Oh! reader, was it not? Yet there God's righteous judgment against sin was fully maintained, so that what I see there was not the least allowance of it. What could shew it like the death of the Son of God when He was made sin for us? Could He not be spared? How then can any, persevering in rejecting mercy through Him? Was it possible this cup could pass unless He drank it? It could not. For whom then shall it, if not drunk by Him?

81 And see how the notion of mere dying under the hands of wicked men destroys all the glory of the cross. I read, Christ gave Himself, offered up Himself. Here I find the holy perfectness of His own soul in a way that nothing else shews. What love! What devotedness! What giving Himself up to the Father's glory! "No man taketh it from me," says He, "but I lay it down of myself" (John 10: 18). "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, even so I do." (John 14: 30, 31). You will say, How could this glorify the Father-to give Himself up to a cruel death and wrath? Because of your sins: they made it necessary. If love was to be shewn to you, it must be in this way; God's holiness must be maintained-the impossibility of allowing sin. You (if indeed through grace you believe) are not to be taken away from before Him, because of your sins and defilement. Instead of that, as they could not be allowed, they were taken away, that you might be in peace before Him and know this God of love. "God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5: 8).

And see how the cross glorifies God in everything, if I look at it as a sacrifice for sin, as Christ giving Himself up, that God may be fully glorified. And how glorious Christ Himself is there, by His doing it! for, remember, if it was indeed a bitter cup, yet Christ never was so glorified as there. Never was His glorious perfection so shewn out; so that, though it may seem a hard task to impose on Him, yet it really was, as to His work, His greatest glory: as He says, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John 13: 31). For it was a glorious thing to Him who accomplished it, that, so to speak, God should be debtor for His glory to Him who thus gave Himself. For indeed it was a common counsel between the Father and the Son. God's will was He should come, and His will was to come. "Lo, I come to do thy will" (Heb. 10: 9).

82 But see how He was glorified in it. Is God righteous in judgment against sin? The cross has fully shewn it forth. Is God perfect love to the poor sinner? The cross has shewn it forth. Did the majesty of God require that it should be vindicated against rebellious sin? The cross has done it; yet the sinner is spared. Is God truth, and has said that death should follow sin, the devil saying, as he yet does, it should not? Where such a witness that it must, as when the blessed Son of God died as man on the cross? yet He has obtained for us life by it, beyond all the power of death and judgment. Were our sins pressing upon us, so that we did not dare look up? They are gone. I can see God in the light without fear: He has nothing to impute to me; He has proved His love, and I can enjoy His love. And just when man shewed his hatred to God in slaying His Son, God has shewn His love to man in giving Him to put away the sin shewn in slaying Him. Where was obedience shewn as on the cross? He was "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2: 8). Where love to us? Where the desire to glorify His Father? Thus the Son of man was glorified, and God, in every part of His nature, glorified in Him: His love, His righteousness, His truth, His majesty, all displayed.

And what is the consequence? The power and fear of death is gone to the believer. It is but the entrance into paradise for him. The sins that he feared as bringing judgment are taken away and blotted out. He knows God loves him-so loves him that He has not spared His own Son to save him; he knows that He has nothing to impute to him, for Christ has borne all. God is righteous and just to forgive him his sins.

And yet, is sin a light thing to one who has this perfect peace with the God of love? It has cost the death of the Son of God. True, it is put away; he is justified; he has perfect peace with God. But how? By that which makes sin the most frightful thing to his soul that possibly could be, and knits his heart to Jesus, who was willing to suffer thus to put it away.

Whether we think of God's glory, or Christ's glory, or the practical effect on our hearts, it is Christ's cross, as being a real sacrifice for sin, that is really efficacious. It glorifies God, infinitely honours Christ, and perfectly blesses man; telling him he is the object of God's infinite love, and yet maintaining righteousness in his heart. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh; and, as to His Person, supremely glorious in dignity. This indeed enabled Him to do such a work; but never, as to His work and service, was He so glorious as He was upon the cross. I speak to you feebly, beloved reader; but is it not the truth? words, as Paul says, of truth and soberness. And this thing was not done in a corner.

83 And now mark too the blessed efficacy of it for me, a poor sinner. There stood sin, death, judgment, just wrath, in my way. My conscience told me it was so, and God's word plainly declares it. Satan's power bound it down, so to speak, upon my soul; while his temptations encouraged me to go on in what led to it. God's law, even, did but make the matter worse for me, if I pretended to meddle with it, for its holiness condemned my transgressions. And now, for him that believes, all is taken out of the way. Sin gone, death gone as the terrible thing I awaited (Christ has turned it into a gain)-I shall be with Christ; judgment, Christ has borne it; wrath, there is none for me: I am assured of perfect love. Christ, in making me partaker of the efficacy of His death, has set me beyond all these things in the light, as God is in the light (having loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood, and made me a king and priest to God and His Father). In rising He has shewn me this new place into which He has brought me, though as yet, of course, I have it only by faith and participation in that life, in the power of which He has risen. Yes, dear reader, the believer is saved, he has eternal life, he is justified; he waits no doubt to be glorified, but he knows Him who has obtained it all for him, and that He is able to keep that which he has committed unto Him until that day.

There is a judgment (terrible it will be to them that have despised mercy and rejected the Saviour); but to those who, as poor sinners, have submitted to God's righteousness, believing in His love, "Christ will appear the second time, without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 28). That is, having quite put sin away from them the first time, He will come the second time without having anything to say to it as to them, for their full possession of the glorious result. As He said Himself; "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14: 2, 3). That is a judgment, if such you will call it, which shall be the everlasting and infinite joy of them that share in it.

84 Weigh that passage I quoted just now. Christ has appeared "once in the end of the world . . . to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; and as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment"-there is the natural portion of the sinner-"so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9: 26-28). The first time He came, He bore the sins; the second, He comes apart from that for the full salvation of them that look for Him.

Reader, are you prepared to give up all this for the notion that He fell a victim to self-seeking men who put Him to a violent death? Did He not offer Himself up as a sacrifice to put away sin? Did not the Lord bruise Him? Did He not say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27: 46). Does not your soul need to have sin put away? Is not the love of God shewn in the way you need it, by Christ's being thus given? Has He not glorified God in it? Has He not been glorified in it and by it, bitter as it was? Is it not peace to know He has done it, and put away sin for us by it? Does not the word so present it to us? The Lord give you to believe it in truth. It has given me peace, perfect yet increasing peace, these five-and-twenty years, while He has all the glory; and I know God is love, who has purged my conscience from sin. May you, dear reader, be enabled so to know it, and with as much joy! If you do, you know what I say is true. May the grace of God make Him, who has wrought it for us, more precious to us both! It is a blessing and a joy to think we shall have an eternity in which to praise Him for it.

Even if I think of the way good and evil were brought out by it, there is nothing like the cross. Everything moral is there brought to a glorious centre, from which it flows down on every poor believing heart, in the proof that evil has been met and put away, and that good has triumphed. Where has death been shewn in its terrible power as in the cross? Where has sin, in all its terrible character and effects? Where do I see man's hatred against goodness itself, and the Son of God bearing sin before God, yet where was eternal life obtained for us, such as death can never touch? Where were goodness and love displayed as there? Where were righteousness and obedience accomplished n spite of all? Where was sin brought so immediately under God's eye and punished, as there? Yet where was it put away, and His perfect delight in absolute obedience at all cost, so drawn out? Where was the bowing in weakness under death shewn as in Him whose soul was melted like wax in the midst of His bowels? yet where the divine strength which carried through all that weakness, death, man's hatred, Satan's power, and God's wrath, could accumulate on His head who drank that bitter cup? All this is told us in scripture. "He was crucified through weakness" (2 Cor. 13: 4). "This is your hour and the power of darkness," said the Lord (Luke 22: 53). "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt. 26: 38). "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27: 46).

85 In a word, would I know what sin is? I look there; righteousness? I look there; hatred without a cause? I look there; love without bounds? I look there; judgment and condemnation of sin? I look there; deliverance and peace? I look there; divine wrath against evil? I look there; perfect divine favour and delight in what infinitely glorified God? I look there. Weakness and death, though willingly bowing under it, it is there; strength, divine strength, which has met and removed evil, it is there; peace and wrath, it is there also: the world under Satan's power rising up, to get finally rid of a God of love; and God, by this very act, delivering the world and making peace by the blood of His own Son. As it is said, "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2: 14, 15). As I have said, good and evil in all their extremes and forms meet there for the triumph of love in once suffering the evil, that good may have its full force.

Do you ask, reader, Why then are we in such a world still? I will tell you. Scripture tells us, God in grace is still leading souls to profit by and enjoy this. It is a world of misery, and sorrow, and oppression. Did God interfere to change it, He must come in judgment and close the time of mercy; and that He does not do, while yet any have ears to hear. He allows, therefore, the evil which He will judge, to go on meanwhile. And we, though we may thus have to suffer awhile in the world, ought in this sense to rejoice that it is yet allowed; because it is still a time of mercy extended to others. The end will be everlasting joy in a much better world. Christ is gone to prepare a place for us, and He will come again and take us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. Thus Peter says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. 3: 9).

86 Finally, my reader, you may not have, in peace of soul, been able to contemplate all the glory of the cross. You have a blessed portion yet before you; but remember, it is presented to you just as you are, for your need in all the grace of it towards a poor sinner. It meets you in your sins, if it infinitely glorifies God. A Jesus dying on the cross for the vilest meets the wants and the burdens of the vilest-comes home through grace to his heart. If his sins are a burden to him, he may see Christ bearing them, that he may be free and have peace. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3: 16). "And by him, all that believe are justified from all things" (Acts 13: 39). Were his "sins as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isa. 1: 18). If you are heavy laden, come to Him who came in love to give you rest, and has died in love for you.

The Lord's peace be with you, dear reader-be with you, whoever you may be. May you be washed in that blood which cleanses from all sin, and the Lord will preserve you for His heavenly kingdom.

Your affectionate servant in Christ,

J. N. D.

On Worship

J. N. Darby.

<07006G> 87

The habits of a vast number of Christians, and the moral atmosphere in which they are placed, have tended to produce very vague notions as to worship. Having turned away from formalism and superstitious views, which left the care of their religion to others, and feeling the need in which they stood of the truth, they have found in the recognition of the truth — in hearing and owning it — the sum total of their ordinary religious exercises. But surely this is not all that should be included in our religion while here below. In heaven, doubtless, the truth will be known in all its perfectness. Truth, now received into the heart, will be actually realized there in the presence of the glory of God, and of the Saviour, about whom the truth treats. There will be no longer any need of hearing the truth — we shall live in it, and the power of it in our hearts will be expressed in adoration. Such is the characteristic of heaven. And, undoubtedly, this should be realized in some measure while on earth, by those who have received the truth, and who by it enjoy the knowledge of God who has communicated it, and of the Saviour who came to accomplish his work of love and of righteousness on our behalf; it should be realized by those who have received, not only the truth, but the very Spirit who gave the truth its place in their hearts, and who gives them the desire of glorifying Him whom it has revealed. When the Holy Spirit communicates heavenly truth to the renewed heart, it always re-ascends in thanksgiving and praise. True worship is but the grateful and joyful response of the heart to God, when filled with the deep sense of the blessings which have been communicated from on high. The Holy Spirit causes the feelings produced by the revelation of God — of His glory — of His love in Jesus, and of all the blessings with which He loadeth us, to re-ascend to God in adoration. And, surely, the heart which is penetrated with the grace of God, will find delight in rendering back to Him the homage of its adoration and gratitude for all these blessings, which are so many proofs of the infinite and eternal love which He has for us.

Let us, then, examine this subject according to the scriptural light which the Spirit has given us.

What, then, is worship?

88 It is the honour and adoration which are rendered to God, by reason of what He is in Himself, and what He is for those who render it.

Worship is the employment of heaven; and a blessed and precious privilege for us upon earth, if the enjoyment of it be vouchsafed to us. One might, indeed, add to the above definition, by describing it as rendered in common.

In so speaking, I would not overlook the possibility of worship from an isolated individual.* But it is not, therefore, the less true that, in point of fact, worship is a homage rendered in common, whether by angels or by men; and hence communion in adoration partakes of the essence of the act! because the blessing is a common blessing; and the joy which one has in the blessing of others is part of one's own. Their blessing forms part of the grace to which my heart responds; and love, which is the source and spring of it all, is defective, if I enjoy not their blessing. If I praise not God for it, I am myself incapable of worship; for to praise God supposes that I am sensible of His love, and that I love Him in return.

{*I doubt, however, whether, in point of fact, it is possible for an adequate worship to be rendered to God by one alone. An innocent man might bless God for His goodness; but God Himself is now revealed in Christ, and for such worship as should rise to the height of this revelation to be rendered by a solitary being would suppose such a capacity in the worshipper as would put him almost upon a level with Him whom he adores. God would not be in the place proper to Him for worship; for who alone could glorify God suitably, if himself the sole object of His favour? Here the intervention of Christ is of great importance for the foundation of worship; because God is so glorified as that worship can be rendered to Him; and those who adore Him do so by virtue of that which He is for them in this intervention of Christ. The worship is based upon the fact that God is fully glorified; and we adore Him in acknowledging Him as thus glorified.}

I do not desire to confine myself to an abstract definition — quite the contrary; but it is well to have a distinct idea of what the subject is of which we are treating.

No work of God towards man is worship; nor any testimony respecting Him and His grace. Preaching the gospel to the unconverted is not worship. It may produce it, as being the means of communicating that knowledge of God in grace which awakens the spirit of adoration in the heart; but the preaching itself, properly speaking (how blessed soever it may be), is not worship.*

{*The more, however, we ourselves enjoy the spirit of worship, the better fitted shall we be to testify to others; for it is only in the intimacy of communion with God that we are fit to render suited testimony as to His love.}

89 The gospel is a testimony rendered on God's part to man. Not recognizing it as worship does not derogate from the value of such preaching; without it, no Christian worship could exist, for the gospel makes known the God who ought to be adored, and, through the power of the Spirit, it leads the soul into the state in which it is able to render true homage to God, even that worship which is in Spirit and truth. But it is not, therefore, the less true, that no sort of testimony addressed to man from God is worship rendered to God by man. A sermon is not worship; though it may be the means of producing it. The ministry of the word is a distinctive characteristic of the Christian economy. The Jewish people were regarded as already in relationship with God; externally they were so. There was no question about bringing them to God. They were already His people; and God dwelt in the midst of this people as those whom He had redeemed. But now the kingdom of heaven and the grace of salvation are proclaimed to sinners; and there is a ministry of the gospel for inviting them to enter into relationship with God, as in Israel there had been a priesthood for the maintenance of the relationship which had been already formed.

Prayers addressed to God, in order to obtain that of which we stand in need, are not worship, properly so called. They more immediately connect themselves with it, because they suppose the existence of the knowledge of God, and of confidence in Him. They suppose also that we draw near to Him, by virtue of that which He is, and which He is for the person who presents his prayers to Him. But supplications addressed to God (although founded upon confidence in Him, and thus intimately allied to adoration) have not the characteristic proper to adoration itself.

Praises and thanksgivings, and the making mention of the attributes of God and of His acts, whether of power or in grace, in the attitude of adoration, constitute that which is, properly speaking, worship. In it we draw near to God, and address ourselves to Him. To make mention of His praises, though not in an address to Himself, is undoubtedly connected with worship, and the heart refers them to Him; but thus doing so has not the form proper to worship, although it may enter into worship in a subordinate way, as also may the prayers which adoration itself suggests. And this distinction must not be treated as of little importance. Sweet is it to rehearse, the one to the other, the excellencies of Him whom we love; but the redeemed delight to have God Himself in their thoughts. They delight to address themselves to Him, to speak to Him, to adore Him personally, to converse with Him, to open the heart to Him, to tell Him that they love Him. To the Redeemer it is a delight that these communings pass between God personally and themselves. They delight to testify to Him the sense they have of His greatness and of His goodness. In this case the communion is between ourselves and God; and God is more precious to us than are even our brethren. Such is the feeling of our brethren also. God is the portion of all in common. In short, in the former case, we speak to ourselves, or to one another, telling each other how worthy God is to be praised; in the latter, we address ourselves to God personally. It is plain — to him at least who knows God it is plain — that the latter is the more excellent employ; that it has a charm, a blissfulness, which the other possesses not. The spiritual affections are evidently of a higher tone; the communion is more complete.

90 Having presented these general thoughts as to the nature of worship — or rather having distinguished that which is properly signified by the word 'worship' from other acts, which are commonly associated with it in the mind — I will now enquire, What is Christian worship according to the word? I remarked, by the way, that there is a ministry in the Christian economy, as there was a priesthood in that of the Jews. I return to this observation, in order to develop my subject, strengthened by the recollection that the Lord connects what He says concerning the worship which the Father seeks with that which formerly existed at Jerusalem.

The worship of Israel supposed, it is true, that the people were in a peculiar relationship with God; it even assumed that God dwelt in the midst of them; but in all the circumstances which characterize that worship God made it plain, that the people themselves could not draw near to Him. Moreover, this was a thought which was essential to all the relationships which existed between God and the people. God had redeemed them out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm — had borne them as upon eagles' wings, and had brought them even to Himself. He had given them, as a token of their deliverance, the promise that they should worship Him upon Mount Sinai, to the foot of which He in truth conducted them with proofs innumerable of His patience and His goodness. There God manifested Himself to them; but it was amid thunders, and fire, and the voice of a trumpet, which made even Moses to tremble, familiar as he had already been with the wondrous manifestations attendant upon the presence of God. In harmony with such a revelation of His glory, the Lord commands that bounds be set around the mountain, and that if even a beast approach unto it, it should be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. He spake, indeed, directly to the people, but in such a way as made the people ask that He should speak unto them no more: and God Himself approved the request.

91 The ordinary worship of the people in the tabernacle and in the temple, while wearing an appearance more gentle and calm, and less terrific towards the worshipper, contained in its basis the same character. If God did not shake the earth with His voice — if His presence did not cast terror amid the people, it was because He was hid behind the veil, which concealed Him from their sight. He made Himself known only by His acts of blessing and of judgment, and did not reveal Himself to the hearts of the people. The consequence of this was natural and evident. The people came to acknowledge His benefits, and to humble themselves in the acknowledgment of His just judgments, while they drew near towards the holy place; but to Himself, within the veil, they never drew near. They did not even enter into His house. Within the veil the high priest alone was wont to enter once every year, in order to carry in the blood of the ram and of the bullock — the propitiatory victims — in order to make reconciliation for the people with a God who could not endure iniquity, and thus to renew their relationships with Him, who demanded that His abode also should be purified from the defilements of the people, among whom He vouchsafed to dwell. Doubtless, if, dwelling between the cherubim, He judged from His throne that which was evil, He also heaped up blessings upon the people whom He had redeemed, with the assurance that, if they were faithful, they should be protected from all their enemies. The people sought His protection, and worshipped Him for the benefits He had conferred. The faith of the individual seized, perhaps, more immediately the glory of the Lord, but it did not go, and could not go, beyond the revelation which He had given of Himself in the government of Israel. The institution of the priesthood was the natural consequence of such a state of things; but the priests themselves fulfilled their service outside the veil, which hid from them the God whom they adored. The way into the holy place, says the apostle, was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing.

92 Here, then, we see the character of Jewish worship, as God established it. But all is changed now. Christian worship is founded upon principles which are in direct contrast* with all that we have been describing. There was, as to Jewish persons and circumstances, a foreshadowing of the facts and truths in connection with which worship is now carried on; but the principles of its exercise at that time were in perfect opposition to those upon which Christian worship is based.

{*It will be found, consequently, on examination, that the Epistle to the Hebrews bears throughout the character of a contrast rather than a comparison.}

The honour and adoration to be rendered to God on the ground of that which He is, and that which He is for us, depend necessarily upon the revelation which He makes of Himself. God changes not: but no one draws near to Him in the light to which no man can approach. It is when He reveals Himself to us, that our relationships to Him begin, whether the revelations be partial or perfect. Now God, under the law, manifested Himself as requiring of man that which man ought to be, and having placed him, by divine power, in a position in which he ought to have brought forth fruit to the glory of Him who had chosen Israel to be His own vine. He blessed man, if he was faithful to his duty, and He judged him if he was not so. Under such circumstances God could not fully reveal Himself. Man was capable of bearing neither the brightness of His majesty nor the light of His holiness. His sovereign love, as Saviour, did not accord with the peremptory demand for services under pain of a curse — a just demand, nevertheless, which served to manifest man's need of that grace which brings salvation. In that dispensation, God might act — bless or punish; but if He fully revealed Himself, it must needs be in order to be known in a relationship which perfectly responds to that which He is in Himself; and this was impossible under the law. If God did not reveal Himself in a manner which reconciles His attributes of holiness and love, He would either tolerate iniquity, or have to banish those involved in it absolutely and eternally from His presence Under the law, God did not reveal Himself, but put Himself in relationship with man as a sinner, though responsible; He acted, but concealed Himself.

93 Now Christianity is based upon an interposition of God altogether new — an interposition arranged in His counsels before the world was. The accomplishment of His purpose waited, not only for the development of sin in man, but for its arrival at its full height of enmity against God, in the most perfect manifestation which was possible of His goodness and of His authority. Christ appeared, and man crucified Him!

What relationship, then, was possible between man and God? All must be judgment, or all must be grace. Judgment which will surely be exercised against all iniquity, and specially against the rejection of grace, is not, I thank God, our present subject. It forms only the dark and solemn background of the picture, and throws into relief the perfection and brilliancy of grace.

It is with grace (blessed be God!) that we are now occupied. Now, if man crowned his iniquity, in rejecting, in the Person of Jesus, not only the authority, but also the goodness of God, the same act, which perfectly manifested the sin which was in the heart of man, and fully developed the positive evil which flowed thence, accomplished at the same time all that the justice of God required with regard to that sin, whilst manifesting also His perfect love to man. The cross has fully manifested what man is. There also has God acted in all the plenitude of His holy justice against sin. In Christ He was perfectly glorified in that respect. The majesty of God has no longer aught to claim from him who comes to God by Jesus Christ. His love is free to bless. The holiness of God is an infinite delight to those who can draw near to Him; for there is no longer any question about guilt between the worshipper and God. Christ has abolished it by the sacrifice of Himself. Entirely cleansed from sin — cleansed according to the efficacy of the work of Christ Himself we draw nigh to that meeting-place between God and the sinner, where there is no guilt, where His love has free course, there to enjoy all that God can heap upon us of blessing. Being reconciled unto God through the work of Christ which has put away sin, and being introduced into His presence in the light, God has brought us into the nearness of a new relationship, that we may enjoy that which He is in Himself.

94 We have a striking expression of the consequence of the death of Christ in the rending of the veil of the temple. The veil which hid the sacred enclosure was a sign that no one could draw nigh to God. It having been rent from the top to the bottom, we have now full liberty of entrance into the most holy place. The stroke which rent the veil, and made manifest the God of holiness, who cannot endure iniquity, but who must needs smite the very Son of His love when He took our sin upon Himself — that same stroke removed the guilt which would have barred our approach to Him, because sin could not appear in His sight. Thus, cleansed from all guilt, the light of that presence shines upon us. The cross, which throws out into prominency all the holiness of His justice, has rendered us able to abide in the presence of that holiness without spot and in joy.

All that God is, has thus been manifested in the cross; and we can now enjoy God Himself as our portion according to His infinite love in Christ. Such is the basis of worship; and no one recognizes as he should the glory of the work of Christ, or of the love of his God, to which he is debtor for everything, who does not recognize this place as his. No one can render worship worthy to God on any other ground. Indeed, no one has rightly recognized himself as a sinner who pretends to offer worship to God otherwise than in this liberty; for who would dare to present himself before God if all guilt had not been removed? Who would dare to place himself in the presence of God without a veil, if his sin be not put away, knowing that God will not, and cannot, endure sin in any manner or degree in His presence? Who out of Christ is free from sin? On whom, of those who are in Christ, does it rest? None. In Christ sin is no longer ours, since He has cleansed us from it — cleansed us by a work which could not possibly be done a second time; the efficacy of which is at once perfect and eternal. And this alone gives freedom to the spiritual affections. For us God is perfect love, and He introduces us into "the light, as he is in the light." But who can fully enjoy that love if there be a bad conscience? Attracted he may be, but find enjoyment he cannot. His affections cannot have free play, if his conscience reproaches him with offences against Him who loves him, if it produces fear in his soul. The heart must be free, if the affections are to be in exercise. But the work of Christ cleanses the conscience, and the heart is set free by the knowledge of that perfect love of God which He has for us, of which Christ is the proof and the fulness. The light of His holiness is thus the joy of our souls. It is in that light that we see all that we love.

95 This relationship of God to the Church, exceeding, as it does, all our thoughts, is presented to us in the most striking manner in the title "God of our Lord Jesus Christ." This title has peculiar significancy. When God is called the God of any one, it indicates that a tie of intimacy is formed between that person, and him who bears His name super-added to his own; it indicates a relationship based upon what God is to the one whose name He has thus assumed, and it implies a purpose to bless and honour according to that relationship. This purpose must stand. God cannot be unfaithful; and hence the relationship becomes the source of enjoyment, by faith, to him whose name is added to the name of God; at least, he has the right to appropriate it as pertaining to himself on the part of God. Thus the title "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," not only indicates that they were specially the objects of distinctive blessing, but it indicates also that which God was for these patriarchs, according to the revelation which He had made to them of Himself — a relationship upon which their faith could count, and which they were called to realize. God placed Himself in relationship to them, according to that which His name expressed. Their spiritual privileges had this name for their character and measure. Thus God in relation to us is that which is expressed in the title "God of our Lord Jesus Christ"; because we, as believers, are one with Him, and are brought into the same relationship to God. It is thus that God reveals Himself to us, in order that we may be in relationship with Him according to the import of this title.

When this truth is understood, we can comprehend what a wondrous and glorious position is ours by virtue of this title — "God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory." For here Christ is viewed as a man, as being the head of a new family, and as having ascended to His God and our God. This God to whom we draw near is for us all that He is for Christ, who, having perfectly glorified Him upon earth, has entered into His presence, His beloved Son, in whom we are accepted, and in whom He is always well-pleased. This truth stands out in full prominency in chapters 1 and 2 of the Epistle to the Ephesians. The apostle in chapter 1 prays that, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, we may know what is the hope of the calling of God, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints (v. 18). He then speaks of us as one with Christ in that which he shews to be the true power and extent of that glory, and tells us that the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe is according to the mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from among the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, etc. And you, says he, who were dead in trespasses and sins, He hath quickened together with Him — raised up together, and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ, in order that He might shew, in the ages to come, what are the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us by Christ Jesus. And what are the relationships which God has with Christ Jesus? What is it that belongs to Him on God's part in justice, in love, even as a man? Who can tell the love of God towards Christ? What are His claims upon the affection of His Father? Now all that is His is ours in Him. What a wondrous place then is ours in the presence of God! The glory even, which God has given unto Him, He has given unto us, in order that the world may know that we are loved, even as He is loved (John 17: 22, 23).

96 These words of the Lord also will be remembered: "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." The two prayers of the apostle in the Epistle to the Ephesians (that of chapter I and that of chapter 3) will be seen to be respectively based upon these two titles. The prayer of chapter I is founded upon the second title, viz., that of "God of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 17); and that of chapter 3 upon the former, viz., that of "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 14). The first title is used in relation to glory, the second to communion in love.

97 The passage just cited from John 17 shews that the communication of the glory, wondrous as it is, is but the proof that we are loved, even as Jesus is loved. What simplicity in this truth, but what love — what divine depth, even in proportion to its very simplicity! I was as the first Adam, I am as the second Adam; I have borne the image of the first, I shall bear the image of the second. Yes, this truth is simple; but who could have conceived it but God? In it we recognize the God of all grace. The names of the tribes of Israel were borne upon the breast of the high priest, as was also their judgment, according to the light and perfection of God; but this was only a shadow, as says the apostle, of such blessings (Heb. 10: 1). Therefore Paul, in speaking of the true circumcision, says, "We worship God in spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3). We are "in Christ." That is our position before God. All that puts us out of this position, and supposes the need of anything as a means of drawing near to God, puts us out of Him and places us in Judaism, which, as a system, has been nailed to the cross, and is no better than any heathen ordinance. (See Gal. 4: 8-10). We are in Christ, or we are out of Christ. We are one with Him, or we are separate from Him. If separate from Him, the distance matters not — we are not in union with the fountain of life. The body separated from the head by anything (even though thinner than the beaten leaf of gold, or by a space more minute than the imagination of man can conceive) is a body without life. In Christ, we are the objects of God's delight in Him, and "we are as he is." Out of Christ, we are but objects of His judgment. Therefore are we "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ"; but to follow out the glorious consequences of our position would lead us away from our subject.

But there is yet another truth connected with the work of Christ, on which worship necessarily hangs. Not only has Christ borne away our sin, cleansed us from all defilement, and made us fit for the presence of God; but, in order that we may enjoy this blessed reality, He has gained for us, at the same time, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Not only do we, when being born again, receive a new nature, which is holy and capable of sentiments suitable to the position in which grace has placed us before God, but we receive the Holy Spirit, who shews, and reveals, and communicates to us divine things, and inspires sentiments such as they should awaken. We are strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, in order that, being rooted and grounded in love, Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God (Eph. 3: 16-19). The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Rom. 5: 5). He takes of the things of Christ and shews them unto us; and all that the Father hath is Christ's (John 16: 15; ch. 17: 10). That which eye hath not seen, which ear hath not heard, which came not into the heart of man — the things which God has prepared for him whom He loves — God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2: 9, 10).

98 The Holy Spirit is "the unction" which we receive of God, by which "we know the things which are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2: 12); by which we "know all things" (1 John 2: 20). He is the seal which God has put upon us unto the day of redemption; God has set His appropriating mark for that day of glory on those who believe. The Holy Spirit is also "the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." He gives us the full assurance of the efficacy of the work of Christ. He imparts to us the knowledge of the position in which we are placed, as cleansed by the blood of the Saviour, and therefore without spot in the sight of God. By the Holy Spirit, the love of God, whence all these accomplished blessings have flowed, is shed abroad in our hearts. He is the originator in us of all the thoughts and all the affections which respond to this love. But He does more — He is more than all this for us. "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6: 17). This is not merely an imagination — a feeling; it is a fact. The same Spirit, whose fulness is in Christ, abides in us, and we are united to Christ as members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. 5: 30). By one Spirit we have all been baptized, that we might be one body (1 Cor. 12: 13). Not only is He the power, the link, of this union, but He gives us the consciousness of it. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14: 20).

The Holy Spirit, then, gives us, first of all, the assurance of our redemption. Where the Spirit is, there is liberty, He reveals to us the glory of Christ as presented in the scriptures, as He once did to Stephen, who, full of the Holy Ghost, beheld the glory of God, and the Son of man at the right hand of God. Moreover, He gives us the consciousness of our union with Christ on high. We know that we are quickened together with Him, raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Besides all this, He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts — the spring and fountain of joy to ourselves, of pity towards this poor world, and of love to all the family of God. But I enter not into this happy consequence, our subject being worship.

99 Another truth of minor importance, but very precious in its place, depends upon this presence of the Holy Spirit: we are of the same body, and thus "members one of another" (Rom. 12: 5). If Christ is the Head of the body, each Christian is a member of it, and consequently united by the Holy Spirit, who forms the bond of the whole in every other member. The same Spirit dwells in each Christian; his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6: 19). And believers being quickened and united together, they, as a whole, are also His temple (1 Cor. 3: 16). God dwells there by His Spirit in a manner less palpable but far more excellent than in the temple of Jerusalem.

Now it is in their position, according to this glorious revelation of God, and by the Spirit which He has given, in order that we might enjoy all the blessed privileges which are ours, that true Christian worship is offered to God.

Knowing what God is, and what He is for us — beholding Him, without a veil, according to the perfection of His love and of His holiness — rendered capable of abiding in the light, as He Himself is in the light — the objects of that love which spared not His well-beloved Son, that we might be made partakers of it; and having received His Spirit, in order that we might comprehend this love, and thus be enabled to adore Him according to the desires and affections of His heart toward us, we render Him worship responsive to the revelation which He has made of Himself in that mystery of love into which the angels desire to look and by which He will make known, in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

100 But there remains yet another element of our intelligent service — the character of "the Father." God must be worshipped in "spirit and in truth," for He is a Spirit: but it is as "the Father" that He "seeketh such to worship him."

To worship "in spirit" is to worship according to the true nature of God, and in the power of that communion which the Spirit of God gives. Spiritual worship is thus in contrast with the forms and ceremonies, and all the religiousness of which the flesh is capable.

To worship God "in truth," is to worship Him according to the revelation which He has given of Himself.

The Samaritans worshipped God neither in spirit nor in truth. The Jews worshipped God in truth, so far as this can be said of a revelation which was imperfect; but they worshipped Him in no respect in spirit. Now to worship God both are needful. He is to be worshipped according to the true revelation of Himself (that is, "in truth"), and according to His nature (that is, "in spirit").

Yet this is not all that is presented to us in this passage: in it is found another precious element of worship. The Father seeks such worshippers. It is grace which makes such now — grace flowing forth from love to themselves. Worship, therefore, is not rendered under a responsibility imposed by the flames of Mount Sinai, which, whilst demanding worship in the name of the holy majesty of the Lord, placed a barrier in the way of access to God, which no one could pass, under penalty of death; and which left the worshipper far off from God, trembling under the sense of responsibility, although encouraged by the benefits received from Him whom he dared not approach. No. Love seeks worshippers, but it seeks them under the gentle name of "Father." It places them in a position of freedom before Him as the children of His love. The Spirit, who acts in them and produces worship, is "the spirit of adoption," which cries, "Abba, Father." It is not that God has lost His majesty, but that He, whose majesty is far better known, is known also under the more tender and loving character of Father. The Spirit, who leads to worship the Father, leads us also into the knowledge and enjoyment of all the love of God, who would have us to worship Him as His children.

The enjoyment of this love and of these privileges, God be thanked, belongs to the most simple and the most ignorant among Christians. The Christian, when once he has understood what the grace of God is, and has received the spirit of adoption, is entitled to enjoy them without any reasoning; as a child knows and loves and enjoys his father before he can give any account of that which he enjoys. "I write these things unto you," says John, addressing himself to the little children in Christ, "because ye have known the Father" (1 John 2: 13). The feeblest Christian is therefore perfectly competent for worship. At the same time, it is sweet to be able to estimate and explain this relationship with God. The more we think of it, the more we examine the word on the subject, the more shall we see the import, the deep blessedness, of it. The simple fact that God is our Father, and that we possess the enjoyment of such a relationship with Him by the Spirit, is in itself an immeasurable privilege for creatures such as we are. Every child of God has this privilege in unquestioned right; but it is in Christ, and with Christ, that we possess it. He is "the first-born among many brethren." He is gone to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God. What a sweet and blessed relationship! what a family is that into which we are introduced! And how are we, who were formerly strangers to these affections and to this love — how are we to learn these things? How are we to learn what the Father is, the knowledge of whom gives birth to these affections in our hearts? It is the only-begotten Son, the firstborn in this new relationship, who reveals Him unto us. Eternal Son of the Father, enjoying the infinite love of Him in whose bosom He dwelt, it is He who reveals Him as He Himself has known Him.

101 Become man upon this earth, Jesus ceased not to be the object of the same affection — affection which, when challenged, could not remain silent. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased." Nor did Christ in anything put Himself at a distance from this love. Upon earth, from the cradle to the cross, He was the object of it in all its fulness, and He revealed Him in whom it was found. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1: 18). Jesus, a man, but also the Son of God, in the enjoyment of the fulness of this affection, dwells, even whilst upon earth, in the bosom of the Father, to originate and make known here below all the beauty — all the force — of that affection. As man, He was the object of this infinite love, in order that we might understand it in its application to men. So He associates us with Himself in the joy of this love, and He reveals it to us as He Himself knows it.

102 What grace in Him! and what a position for us! How does Jesus Himself, who by His death and resurrection has planted us in this blessedness, become to us an object of love, of adoration, of devotedness of heart! The very glory which is given to us is presented to us by the Saviour as a proof of this love. "The glory," said He, in John 17, "which thou hast given unto me, I have given unto them . . . that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." Such is His affection towards us, that He desires that we may enjoy the Father's love. So He renders us capable of this enjoyment by revealing to us the Father's name. "I have declared," says He in the same chapter, "thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world; . . . and I will declare it, in order that the love, wherewith thou lovedst me, may be in them, and I in them." Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus. This fellowship expresses itself in adoration towards Him who is revealed, and towards Him who reveals.

It will be easily seen how the work of Christ is the foundation of all this blessedness, whether in order to introduce us without spot and without fear into the presence of the God whom we adore, or in order to place us in the relationship of children towards the Father. It was after His resurrection that Christ could say," I ascend to my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God." Then it was that He could say, "Go to my brethren." Now the Spirit which He gives from on high answers to this blessing. He is "the Spirit of adoption," as He is the Spirit of liberty; because we are "accepted in the beloved," and we enjoy a redemption which has made us "the righteousness of God in him," and therefore placed us in God's presence without a spot or stain of defilement.

Thus we have reviewed, at least in principle, the great foundation truths of Christian worship. Perfect in Christ, united to Him, brought into the presence of God, whose love and holiness are manifest without a veil; as children beloved of the Father, and objects of the same love with Christ the first-born, we worship together, according to the power and affections which the Spirit, who has been given to us, inspires. We worship the God of glory, whose presence is the stay, instead of being the terror of our souls. We worship the God of love, whose will it is that we should be perfectly happy in Him, that He Himself might enjoy our happiness, Himself finding more joy in it that even we ourselves. We adore our Father with endearing confidence in His kindness, which blesses us with all spiritual blessings, and counts the very hairs of our head, while thoughtful of all our present need. We adore Him for that which He is in Himself. We adore Him for that which He is to us, the children of His house for eternity. We thus present ourselves in sweet communion before the same Father — our common Father — as His beloved children; so that brotherly affections are developed, and, the joy of each being reciprocally the joy of all, multiplied praises ascend to God. Hence we see in the New Testament, that, while indeed the consciousness of this relationship must necessarily be individually realized, in order that we may enjoy it together; yet, at the same time, the Spirit constantly associates us, and uses the words "we" and "us," when speaking of Christian affections and feelings. The Holy Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts, it could not be otherwise.

103 But the effect of the presence of this "one Spirit" goes yet much further. Not only does He give us the consciousness of being in Christ — of being perfect before God, according to the efficacy of the redemption which Christ has accomplished; not only does He witness with our spirits that we are the adopted children of the Father, but He gives us also the consciousness of being but "one body" — the "body of Christ," and "members one of another." The Church, which God has newly-created in Christ — that "one new man" — the redeemed who have been "all baptized into one body," offering worship in "the unity of the Spirit," necessarily offer it as but "one body," and that "with all the saints." They are the "habitation of God through the Spirit"; and, that Spirit uniting them all in the unity of the body of Christ, adoration ascends on high towards God, who formed them to be but "one new man" in Christ. If Israel, as a whole, was represented by the priests who officiated in the tabernacle, the faithful now, who render direct worship to God, do it in the unity in which they are all "one body in Christ." In this worship there is more than brotherhood. There is unity, not of nation, and not only of family, but of the members of one body formed as such, and indwelt by one Spirit. This is the endowment, privilege, and position of the Church, which is baptized into "one body in Christ," the Head being ascended up on high, in order that the members of the body may render worship freely and with joy before God, by that unction which descends from Him.

104 Let us state some of the practical effects which flow from these truths: —

First, it is evident that worship is the privilege only of the children of God. Being offered "in spirit and in truth" and being offered to Him who cannot admit sin into His presence, they, and they alone, who are washed in the blood of the Lamb, and who have received the Spirit, can draw near to God to adore Him. That a man who is not converted should render worship to God is simply impossible; for "without faith it is impossible to please God." Such a one may be blessed in temporal things. He may, perhaps, ask such a blessing, and be heard. God may have tender compassion for him, as a poor sinner; but as yet he knows not God, as yet he has not the Spirit, as yet he is not washed in the blood of Christ; and therefore it is utterly impossible for him to worship God. That he thinks he can draw nigh to God is but the proof that he is ignorant of what he is in himself, and of what the God is whom he thinks to serve. Who can enter into the sanctuary, save he who is sanctified? Who can address himself to a father, as such, save as a child? Worship, moreover, being offered in the unity of the body of Christ, and by the Spirit who has formed this unity, and who dwells in the body as in a temple, he who is not of the body is necessarily excluded. To suppose that a person who has not the Spirit can be a member of this body is to deny its existence, its end, and its nature; for, if a man who is not converted can enter into the presence of God, and worship there, there is no need that there should be either a body in which God dwells as in a temple, nor is there need of redemption, which is the basis of everything. Why should there be a redeemed people, if the worldling can serve God in His presence? Wherefore adore God by the Spirit, if he who has not the Spirit can adore just as well? Worshipping in common supposes persons united in one body by the same Spirit, and that each can say, We, in sincerity, when addressing God. A hypocrite may be present; he will be a hindrance in the worship; but its validity will not be thereby destroyed, when the worshipper says, We, in truth, in the name of all. It is believers who worship God.

105 To render true worship to God supposes that a soul is set at liberty, and is free to draw near to God, in virtue of the efficacy of the work of Christ. If a person who loves God, and who has no other hope than the work of Christ, is timid in drawing near, it is right to encourage him; but if such a one has no real knowledge of the efficacy of the work of Christ, he will be ill at ease even in drawing near to God, because God's presence will communicate to him rather the conscience of sin, than of the joy which that presence inspires, to him who enjoys it in the peace which Christ confers. Nevertheless, in such cases of doubting and trembling, right affections often precede the being set free, and are more true to Christ than the reasoning of the mind; but this state of soul is not the normal state of worship. To be consciously in the presence of God, purified from all sin by the blood of Christ — in the light as He is in the light — such is the position of the true worshipper. This is the standing of the believer in Christ: and, in order to worship truly, this standing must be known and enjoyed. Sometimes bad teaching neutralizes this liberty, although the soul all the while, in its secret communings with God, cries, "Abba Father!" As a principle, however, whatever allowance be made by charity for these cases of ignorance, true worship supposes that we can draw near to God without fear. This freedom of access is a necessary and absolute effect of the complete and triumphant work of Christ, of which every true believer has the benefit; but it is the presence of the Spirit which enables us to realize it.

How delightful to be able thus to adore God! What a source of joy is He whom we adore! How great the blessedness of finding oneself in His presence, no cloud between Him and us, no tinge of fear, because no vestige of sin! Being made "the righteousness of God in Christ," the presence of God becomes but an inexhaustible spring of happiness for that new nature which He has given us, and which finds its enjoyment in Himself. What joy to be able to express one's acknowledgments, to render to Him one's thanksgivings, knowing that they are acceptable to Him! What a blessing to have His very Spirit, the Spirit of liberty and of adoption, as our power of worship, as the inspirer of praise, of confidence, and of adoration! What joy thus to worship in unity, as members of the same family and of the same body, sensible that this joy is a joy common to all; knowing that those whom we love are infinitely precious and acceptable to the Lord, and that they all find their pleasure in praising Him who is worthy — the God who is the source of all our happiness — the Lord who gave Himself for us, in order that He might be our eternal portion!

106 The perfection of all this will be known only in heaven. But Christian worship is the realization here below — in weakness, without doubt — of that which will constitute our eternal blessedness. We have the privilege now of feeling ourselves for a little while separated from the world, withdrawn even from the work of faith, in order to enjoy that state of things, in which Christ will see all the travail of His soul and be satisfied. I repeat, worship is now offered in weakness, but it is in truth through the Spirit, and therefore on the principle of the unity of the whole body. It may be there are but "two or three" present; but, being assembled in the name of Jesus, He who is the centre and bond of all the members is found there; and, being offered through His Spirit, we are neccessarily, and in love, bound up with all the other members of His one body. "We comprehend with all saints" (be the number of those uniting together what it may) "the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." The truth that spiritual life is cultivated in private abides in undiminished force; but it is called into exercise before God in all the common joy of the Church. I believe there will be in heaven itself an individual joy and communion with God, which will be known only to him who is the subject of it. This precious truth, I think, is taught in that which is said to the Church of Pergamos: "To him that overcometh will I give a white stone, and a name written thereon, which no one knoweth saving he that receiveth it." I add, that the ability actually to enjoy worship in communion depends upon the maintenance of the inner life; for how can we enjoy worship if God is not known and enjoyed in the soul? I add these few words, lest any should suppose that the joy of fellowship may lead to a neglect of the individual, secret, hidden walk with God. This is far from my thought; if the latter be not maintained, either the worship will be cold, or the joy will be carnal. The true blessedness of worship depends upon the presence of the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, upon the spiritual condition of those who are present as taking part in it, save so far as the sovereign goodness of God interferes.

107 These observations lead me to refer to a very important principle; namely, that the Holy Spirit is the energy, the sole living source, of all that takes place in worship so far as it is genuine. This principle, indeed, is true universally; it is true of all the exercises of spiritual life. We live by the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit. We worship in spirit and in truth. It is the Spirit who contends against the flesh. It is the affection of the Spirit which is the expression of the whole of the inward Christian life. But in Christian worship, the members of Christ being united together, the Spirit acts in the body. All that which is real and blessed comes from Him. Sovereign in action, but acting according to the spiritual capacity of each, He uses this sovereign power in order to express the feelings which are suitable to the assembly before God, to nourish and strengthen them by His grace. That which takes place ought to be according to the spiritual capacity of the assembly, raising it up, however, in the tone and spirit of worship, and leading it into the sensible enjoyment of the divine presence. It is thus that the Holy Spirit acts, for He acts in man, but according to the energy and grace of God. When Christians are thus met together as members of Christ's body, each acting in his place through the Spirit, the opportunity is presented for the exercise of the gifts of the members, which are for the edification of the body. I say, "of the body," because evangelization is necessarily addressed to the world. That is, an assembly which has worship for its primary object is the occasion, by its very nature, for the exercise of the gifts which tend to the edification of the body, although such exercise be in nowise the object proposed.*

{*Worship is every whit as perfect without the exercise of the gifts of teaching or exhortation, and, indeed, in itself, more so. If these gifts are habitually used in such a way as to falsify the character of the assembly, and to deprive it of its true character of worship, we are always losers thereby. For if the Spirit of God, who acts, finds it meet to exhort and to teach the members of the body on such occasions, it still remains true, that to be able to adore God, without the need of being exhorted, is a more excellent condition of soul. One is, in this case, more simply and entirely engaged in communion with God — in the enjoyment, by grace, of Himself.

This is clearly established by 1 Corinthians 14, which speaks in the most express manner of the exercise of gifts, when the assembly is gathered, and gives directions as to regulating the order of such exercise. This is easily understood. The assembly being formed as the body of Christ, and the Spirit acting by the members of this body, the body edifies itself by that which is furnished by each member, according to the gift which is distributed to each, the Spirit guiding all, in order that it may be for edification. But the principal matter is to draw near to God Himself. The exercise of gifts is but a means: the joy of love in the presence of God in worshipping Him is our eternal aim. Gifts will cease in heaven, as also the ignorance which needs instruction, and the slothfulness which renders exhortation necessary. Worship will, thank God, never cease. Under the law the service of the priest was more excellent than that of the Levite. The Levite served; the priest drew nigh to God according to the anointing which he had received. In the use of gifts we are Levites: in worship we are priests. Moreover, he who, through the Spirit, takes part in the worship itself, does not do so on the ground of having a gift,* which is in general a faculty given of God to act among men. At the same time it is the measure of spirituality which gives the capability of being the organ of the assembly. The Spirit, then, acting in spiritual men in order to express the spiritual affections of the assembly, is the mode in which worship is rendered to God.

{*It seems that the gift of tongues was used in prayer as well as in teaching. This is easily understood, the spiritual man being required to take part in an assembly, the language of which he understood not but by revelation. This only confirms the general idea as stated above.}

108 We have remarked, as every Christian admits, that the sacrifice of Christ is the necessary and fundamental basis of all Christian worship. We know that it is by means of this sacrifice alone that we can draw nigh to God, whose demands could only be met by its divine perfection. But this is not all the relation which exists between worship and the sacrifice of Christ. Christ having opened to us this new and living way through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, we have full liberty to enter, through His blood, into the most holy place. But is that all? Do we forget the precious sacrifice, when once we have entered by virtue of its worthiness? No. It is there that we recognize it; it is there that we learn to appreciate its full value. Before entering, we might measure the value of the work of Christ by the need into which sin had plunged us. But now, happy, brought into communion with God, tasting the sweetness of His love, instructed in His thoughts and affections, we measure — what yet surpasses all measure — this work of Christ, by the grace of God which it unfolds. Instead of seeing in it only that which the sinner sees, all precious as such perception is, we see in it that which God sees in it. In the enjoyment of peace by virtue of this sacrifice — in spirit already in heaven — we contemplate its value with the eye of God, and are nourished with all its perfectness according to God's estimate. For these thoughts and this vision are given to us by the Spirit to sanctify us — to bring our hearts into harmony with the mind of heaven. We see also, in the offering He made of Himself, how great has been the love of Christ for us.

109 The death of Christ has such a value in God's sight, as to constitute, so to speak, a new claim on the affections of His Father. Thus, He who, as only-begotten Son of the Father, was all His delight before the world was, could say, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again." His devotedness to the glory of His Father was in this act seen to be absolute. All that belonged to the moral development of that glory was therein accomplished at the cost of Him who suffered. All that mysterious evil, by means of which Satan had sway in this world, and by which misery, death, and condemnation had entered, was turned to the manifestation of the glory of God. The righteousness, majesty, and love of God, irreconcilable in the midst of sin, were, through the intervention of Him who consented to be "made sin for us," thrown out in relief by sin itself. On the other hand, if we consider the personal perfection of Christ, His devotedness to the will of His Father, His love, obedience, submission, sacrifice of all, even to life itself, in order that the Father might be glorified, and that those whom He loved might be saved, His perfect patience, His confidence in God, which never failed even when He was forsaken, all found united in the cross; and then to think who He was, and that it was for us He did and suffered all — what a value ought His death to have in our sight! Add to all this, the power of Satan overcome; death destroyed — made even a gain for us; the veil removed from before the presence of God; a perfection, beyond the possibility of a taint, introduced into the whole wide universe, which it fills with peace and light, and of which it has made us the heirs; and, more than all, the perfect enjoyment of the love of God! What moral worth, then, has that cross, by which all is consummated, however feeble may be our ability to proclaim it — however feeble our hearts may be, as vessels, to contain the sentiment it inspires! Our adoration necessarily links itself with the cross. There the God whom we adore was glorified; without it His glory could not be fully displayed. There it is that we have learnt what God is.

110 But is the glory of the cross a glory which dazzles us and which forces us to a distance by its very greatness? Quite the contrary. Christ hung upon the cross for us — in our stead — as the very lowest from among the children of men. "His visage was marred more than any man's." His cross is the expression of tender affection towards us, of love stronger than death. He loved us even unto the end. He undertook to render us happy in the presence of the Father. He counted nothing too dear to Him that He might accomplish this end. And His heart, perfect in love, rests on those whose cause He has undertaken. He has associated them with Himself. He, who had need of nothing, has need of us. "I go to prepare a place for you," said He; "and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." "Whom seek ye?" said He, in the garden of Gethsemane; "if ye seek me, let these go their way," that His word might be accomplished — "of those whom thou gavest me, I have lost none." He gave Himself for us. "With desire," said He, "I have desired to eat this passover with you, before I suffer; for I will eat no more thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." As the passover was Israel's memorial of the deliverance out of Egypt, so the supper is the memorial, not only of our deliverance, but, moreover, of the love of Him who has delivered us.

If Jesus attaches value to our remembrance to Him — if He presents Himself to us with so much tenderness in the memorials of His dying love, that love, at the same time, produces in us the very deepest affections — affections which are connected with what is most exalted in the grace of God, and which express themselves in the adoration of the heart. We can understand, then, that although worship is offered in various ways, by hymns, by thanksgivings, in the form of prayers, in praise, etc., we can understand, I say, that the Lord's supper, as representing that which forms the basis of all worship, is the centre of its exercise, around which the other elements that compose it are grouped. The worshipper is thereby reminded of that which is the most precious of all things in the sight of God — the death of His beloved Son. He recalls the act in which the Saviour has testified His love in the most powerful way. Other considerations add their weight to those which we have just presented with regard to the Lord's supper. The worshipper eats in the house of God, as the priests ate of the things with which expiation had been made; he enters with spiritual affection into the perfection of that expiation — of what Christ has been in the accomplishment of it. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." I apply not this exclusively to the Lord's supper, although the most vivid expression of it.

111 The peace-offering presents, with the passover, the most lively images of the true character of the Lord's supper. The former was a feast consequent upon a sacrifice; in the latter, Israel fed upon the sacrifice, the blood of which was their safeguard against judgment. In the former, the partakers were, God, the priest who officiated, the priests, the worshipper, and those who were with him. The fat burnt upon the altar was called "the food of God." This expresses the full satisfaction of God in the sweet odour of the work of Christ. The priest who offered the blood had his part. That is, Christ partakes in the joy of those that are His through the efficacy of His death. The other priests ate another part. They represent Christians in general. Lastly, the guests of him who makes the sacrifice represent united worshippers. Thus God Himself has His part in the joy; so has Christ; so has the Church in general; and lastly, the assembly which participates therein.

This figure of the peace-offering is realized in a manner more precious in the Supper. Through faith, we feed on, and are nourished by, that holy victim already offered, the sweet savour of which ascends to God. Christ has His joy in our joy. We share in it with all the Church. Already in spirit in heaven, our hearts dwell on that which has given us title to enter there — on that which will be precious above all to our souls when we are there. United in one body, we shew forth the death of Jesus, which is the foundation of our salvation, "until he come," and we are for ever with Him on high, where remembrance will be lost in the immediate presence of Himself. The praises and thanksgivings of the worshippers are necessarily associated with the acceptance by our God, in heaven, of the sacrifice of Christ. This is ever true as to the heart; but the Lord's supper is the special definite expression of the fact.

112 In the Old Testament this truth is expressed in figure in a remarkable manner. In the peace-offering, if any one ate the flesh of the victim on a day which was too far removed from that on which the fat was burnt upon the altar as a sacrifice to God, instead of being communion, it was a sin. In the case of thanksgivings, a man might eat of the flesh only on the same day; in the case of a voluntary offering, on the morrow also. The joy of the worshipper, expressed by his eating of the sacrifice, must be in immediate connection with the offering made to God; otherwise, it was profane. In general, therefore, the flesh was to be eaten the same day; and even where greater energy of piety, indicated by presenting a voluntary offering, gave more force to this association, the repast on the morrow was not really separate from the sacrifice.

Reflection upon the truths we have been considering will shew the importance of the Lord's supper in worship, whether we view it in connection with the sacrifice offered to God, as the foundation of all our relationships with Him, or in connection with the affection and the devotedness of Christ for us — the two themes which form the sphere of the spiritual affections that are exercised in worship. But there is another point also connected with it.

We have seen that the Holy Spirit being the source, the power, and inspirer of all true Christian worship, the unity of the body formed by Him, and in which He acts, necessarily holds a prominent place in the worship which He produces in its members so united. Love, which is the soul of it, is defective in one of its most perfect forms, if conscience as to this unity is wanting. The presence of the Holy Spirit produces the consciousness of this unity, of which He is the author and the bond. Now, considered in one aspect, the Lord's supper is the expression of this unity. We are all but "one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread" (or, as in the original, "of that one loaf"). If the bread broken represents, on the one hand, the broken body of Christ, the unity of the bread represents, on the other, the unity of His spiritual body. As the Spirit embraces all saints, so do the hearts of believers. Thus, "When I knew," said the apostle, "your love unto all saints." And again, "That ye may comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."

113 How sweet to find oneself united to "all saints," wherever they may be, in the unity of the body of Christ, as members together of that body, according to all the privileges which attach to it by reason of the love of Him who "nourishes and cherishes" it, as a man does his own flesh. How sweet to feel, through the Spirit, one's union with all that are Christ's, accompanied with the thought, so full of joy, that all those dear to us, as belonging to Him, are cherished by His constant love. Thus it is that intercession connects itself so intimately with worship, properly so-called, being inspired by the affections which are generated by the Holy Spirit. The petitions made by worshippers for grace for themselves are scarcely farther removed from worship, because the consciousness of what we owe to God, which is expressed in worship, necessarily produces the desire of glorifying Him, and of receiving the grace which alone can render us capable of doing so.

With regard to the Supper, we find indeed that not only does it form the prominent feature of the religious exercises of believers, but that, with this end in view, they were wont to unite in the occasional and solemn assemblies. Thus, we read, "they continuing daily with one consent in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house [margin, at home]" — that is, in their private houses, in contrast with the temple. Again, "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."

It appears, then, that the early believers partook of the Supper even daily, and that, being still Jewish in many respects, they diligently frequented the temple; but then they had, in their houses, in remembrance of Christ, this special service, as to which He had said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

In Acts 20 we read, "And upon the first day of the week [the resurrection-day], when the disciples came together to break bread." This passage implies that this act, though others might accompany it, was the object of their meeting.

It has been supposed that "the breaking of bread" might apply to something besides the Supper, since there is proof that they made a meal at the same time. There is no doubt as to the meal. Christ instituted the Supper at the time of His own last evening's repast; and at first the disciples partook of a supper at the same time that they broke bread; but "the breaking of bread" had a character proper and distinctive to itself, even as it had its formal appointment. Not to perceive this, when it is celebrated, is what the apostle calls "not discerning the Lord's body"; and in the Epistle to the Corinthians he corrects this abuse. The passage shews that they came together to eat; but, alas! their feast had at Corinth set aside the spiritual service, and some came to take their surfeit in eating and drinking, and left the poor in want. The Supper was not observed in their private abodes, but in a building common to all, and every one brought "his own supper," and the service had entirely lost its character as the Lord's supper. The passage plainly shews that they came together in order to eat, and that they supped together in the common place of meeting, but that the Supper of the Lord was the avowed object of the meeting. To maintain this last institution in all its importance the apostle ordained that the repast, which previously had accompanied the Lord's supper, should be separated from it, that so they might come together in the spirit of devotion, and not bring down chastisement upon themselves.*

{*The apostle does not suggest the idea of examining themselves whether or not they should partake, but in order that they might partake aright, that is, in a proper spirit. The Supper being the expression of the unity of the body, not to partake of it is to excommunicate oneself. No one had an idea that a Christian would do such a thing with regard to himself.}

114 The two grand elements of Christian worship are the presence of the Holy Spirit and the remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ, which is commemorated in the Supper.

But in this worship the affections which are connected with all our relationships with God are developed. God, in His majesty, is adored. The gifts even of His providence are recognized. He who is a Spirit is worshipped in spirit and in truth. We present to God, as our Father — the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — the expression of the holy affections which He has produced in us; for He sought us when we were afar off, and has brought us near to Himself, as His beloved children, giving us the spirit of adoption, and associating us (wondrous grace!) with His well-beloved Son. We adore our Saviour-God, who has purged us from our sins, and placed us in His presence without spot, His holiness and His righteousness, which have been so marvellously displayed in our redemption, being to us a source of joy which passes not away; for, through the perfect work of Christ, we are in the light as He Himself is in the light. It is the Holy Spirit Himself who reveals to us these heavenly things, and the glory which is to come, and who works in us so as to produce affections suitable to such blessed relationships with God. He it is who is the bond of union between the heart and these things. But in thus drawing out our souls He makes us feel that we are children of the same family, and members of the same body; uniting us in this worship by means of mutual affections and feelings common to all towards Him who is the object of our worship. Jesus Himself is present in our midst, according to His promise. In fine, worship is exercised in connection with the very sweetest recollection of His love, whether we regard His work upon the cross, or whether we recall the thought of His ever fresh and tender affection for us. He desires our remembrance of Him.

115 Sweet and precious thought! Oh! how joyous to our souls, and yet, at the same time, how solemn ought such worship to be! What sort of life should we be careful to lead in order to render it! How watchful over our own spirits! How sensitive as to evil! With what earnestness should we seek the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, in order to render such worship suitably! Yet it should be very simple and truthful; for true affection is always simple, and at the same time devout, for the sense of such interests imparts devoutness. The majesty of Him whom we adore, and the greatness of His love, give solemnity to every act in which we draw near to Him. With what deep affections and thankfulness should we at such times think of the Saviour, when we recall all His love for us — abiding through Him in the presence of God, far removed from all evil, in the foretaste of our eternal blessing!

These two great subjects about which Christian worship is occupied (namely, the love of God our Father, and the love of the Lord Jesus, in His work, and as Head of His body the Church) afford slight changes in the character of worship, according to the state of those who render it. At times the Lord Jesus will be more specially before the mind; at times thoughts of the Father will be more present. The Holy Spirit alone can guide us in this; but the truthfulness and spirituality of worship will depend upon the state of those who compose the assembly. Effort in such things has no place. He who is the channel of worship, let it be observed, should not present that which is proper and peculiar to himself, but that which is truly the exercise through the Spirit of the hearts of those who compose the assembly. This will make us feel our entire dependence upon the Comforter — the Spirit of truth — for truthful service to God in communion. Nothing, however, is more simple or more evident than the truth, that the worship which is rendered should be the worship of all.

116 There is another observation which the consideration of scripture would suggest, namely, how much the worship will be affected by all that grieves the Holy Spirit; every impediment, therefore, even in an individual, will make itself felt, if there be spirituality; for we are there as but "one body." It is of the utmost importance that this delicacy of spiritual feeling should be cultivated and maintained, and that we should not habituate ourselves in worship to but little sense of the presence of God and of the power of the Holy Spirit. If there is true spirituality, if the Holy Spirit fills the assembly with His presence, evil of every kind is quickly discovered. For God is a jealous God, and He is faithful. A single Achan was discovered at the commencement of the history of Israel — a single lie in Ananias in the beginning of the Church's history. Alas! what things afterwards occurred in Israel! And what things afterwards took place in the Church, without anyone having even the consciousness that evil was present! May God make us humble, watchful, and true to Him, and enable us to bear in mind that His Spirit abides with us, in order that we may be able to render spiritual worship! It is by the Spirit's powerful testimony to the efficacy of the work of Christ, that we can abide in the presence of God, without blame and full of joy, and thus present to Him worship which is a witness before the angels of heaven to God's gracious and unfathomable love, and which presents to God Himself the most acceptable proof of the efficacy of that work which takes from us all fear in His presence, and which opens a channel, otherwise eternally closed, for the outflowing of that love in which He finds His delight.

The privilege of being able to render worship to God is granted to two or three gathered together in the name of Jesus. Disciples are so gathered, when it is the power of His name known amongst them as the common tie, which is recognized as the principle of their assembly. Jesus, in accordance with His promise, is there as the joy and strength of their common service.

117 The Lord said to Israel, "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee" (Exod. 20: 24). Again, it is said (Deut. 12) that they should offer their offerings in the place which He would choose to set His name there; which had its definitive accomplishment at Jerusalem (1 Kings 8: 29). But now God is known in the blessedness of His presence, where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus. There Jesus Himself has said He would be in the midst of them. Sweet encouragement for the feebleness of His people! If there were thousands of disciples gathered in one place, how great soever the encouragement given by such a work of the Spirit, the presence of Jesus Himself — the most precious of all things — is vouchsafed even to two or three of the least of those that are His, if it is truly in His name that they are met. Let it be only His name in which it is done. The fleshly pride which loves to make much of a gift, and would claim lordship over God's heritage — human arrangement which would seek to avoid simple dependence upon God — the narrowness which would welcome upon the ground of peculiar views — none of these is in the name of Christ. Those who unite in the name of Christ embrace, in heart and mind, all those who are His — all the members of His body; they embrace them in the principle upon which they are met: otherwise it would not be in His name that they were united; for one cannot exclude from the power of His name those that are His. His heart embraces them; and we are not united according to His heart, if, in principle, our assembly does not embrace them. Clearly His name does not embrace the world, nor sin, nor that which denies the truth which that name reveals.

The name of Jesus unites in one those that are His. He that gathers not with Him scatters abroad.

Christians are bound to maintain holiness and truth, and to make constant progress towards the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. To hinder this, and to seek to fashion souls according to the mould of particular views, tend towards the destruction of practical unity.

Nothing but spirituality subject to the word — and regulated by grace, in a word, the guidance of the Spirit of God — can, in certain cases, discern between that which is a step forward, and that which is the insisting upon some private view. For the spirit of the world, which is opposed to progress in divine things and to that which presents more of Christ, will stamp with the name of "particular views" all that which tends to make our responsibility to Christ deeper and more felt; and a spirit of sectarian narrowness will treat as progress all that makes much of its own notions. Moreover, supposing an assembly of worshippers is truly founded upon the basis of the unity of the Church of God, if the mass of the assembly is not in a state to bear that which would be a true step in advance, it is useless to insist upon it; to do so would tend to division rather than to progress. Such was the case of the Corinthians. The apostle had to nourish them with milk. They were not able to bear stronger food.

118 On the contrary, when it is a return to a judaizing spirit, which would compromise the gospel, the apostle refuses to stop (Heb. 5: 12, 14; ch. 6: 1, 4). The energetic wisdom of the Spirit of God is needed by the Church. It is not the intention of God that she should be able to do without it, or be exempt from dependence upon Him who gives it.*

{*I have said this much concerning things which are but accessory to my subject, because they refer to difficulties which are constantly occurring in the Christian's path. My remarks are applicable only to an assembly based upon the eternal foundation of the unity of the Church of God; if that is compromised, there is no ground for any union at all according to God.}

But I desire to revert to the foundation of the subject of which I treat. What I have said relates to the assembling of the children of God for worship. Sweet and precious privilege to anticipate that which will be our eternal employ in heaven! There our worship will be perfect. There, all the Church, in its completeness, will be assembled to render worship in the midst of the general assembly on high. There, without distraction and without fear, worship will be its eternal joy in the perfect favour of God. What a privilege, even here below, to close the door for a moment upon all the distractions of this nether world, and by the Spirit to satisfy the desires of the heart in rendering to God the thanksgiving which He is worthy to receive, and which in His grace, He has breathed into our souls!

I would notice a few more passages which may help individuals to seize the true idea of worship. The first is Philippians 3: 3: "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." We may remark that the question here is not about sin, or the flesh, but of "confidence in the flesh" — that is, about the religion of the flesh, which is altogether as evil as its lusts; for, after all, religiousness is but one of them, though covered with the veil of works and of holiness. The touchstone of the religion of the flesh is that it does not tend to the glory of Jesus, or that it does not glory only in Jesus. It can be much occupied in good works; it can be without reproach as to conduct; can have much of self-denial, much of piety, plenty of humility; can talk much of the love of God; but while pretending, perhaps, to found its services upon His love, it will be conversant rather with that love of God which is in our heart — with our love to Him, and not with His love to us. It may be asked, "But if all these things can exist in a person, and be nothing but the religion of the flesh, how can we discern the true circumcision?" Scripture tells us: "it rejoices in Christ Jesus." Nothing is easier than to judge as to these things, if Christ is our all. The fact that He is so makes us feel, without hesitancy, that all this religiousness is of the flesh, and yields its help to that which destroys Christianity from its foundations. Is another mark desired, by which one can judge of this religion of the flesh with all its pretensions? It does not hold the Head; that is, he who has confidence in these religious actings of the flesh never has the consciousness of his own union with Christ. He knows not what it is to be raised up together with Him and made to sit together with Him in the heavenly places. He knows not what it is to be a member of His body — bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh — one spirit with the Lord. Such a one will, perhaps, recognize this as true for the Church, in an abstract manner (for the religion of the flesh can be orthodox), but he has not faith to recognize it as true of himself. Faith is an individual thing; and it places him who possesses it in the enjoyment of the object which it regards, or under its effects. Colossians 2, as well as the chapter cited above, judges all the fair but specious appearance of fleshly religiousness. The Lord, in His addresses to the scribes and Pharisees, judged it in its grosser forms.

119 Another thing which marks carnal religion is that, however apparently elevated be its piety, it accords with things which are not of heaven; it seeks not, in every respect, "things above," which is the characteristic of one who is dead and raised up together with Christ (Col. 3: 1, 3). The religion which is of the Spirit serves God in spirit, and has no confidence in the flesh. The religion of its forefathers, even though it may be true, is not held by the true "circumcision" on the ground of having received it from natural progenitors. It confides not in its zeal, nor in any devoutness which it can offer to God, nor in its love to Him. It rejoices not before God, save in Jesus Christ alone. The soul that has truly learnt that it was dead in sins, but that the Saviour has come down and been made sin for us and has died for us and been raised up for us, knows in God's sight but one sole thing; and that one sole thing, which it puts forward, in which it rejoices, in which it glories before God, on which it knows that God has placed all His delight, is Jesus Christ. One cannot fail to observe how this practical description of the true circumcision, that is, of God's people, who are truly set apart for Him, and who are dead as to the flesh, connects itself with the great foundation principles upon which, as we have already seen, the true Christian stands in the service which he renders to God.

120 Let us bear in mind also, that it will profit nothing to mingle carnal religion with that of the Spirit. The flesh of the Christian finds in such a course its aliment. The effort of the adversary, at the commencement of the Church, was, not to substitute the law and circumcision in the flesh, in place of Christ, but to add them. But the apostle saw clearly, by the Spirit, that were this admitted, all was lost. Make anything else an essential, and Christ shall profit you nothing. The Christian is one with the Head — one with Christ; let in the least thing between them, and the body is a corpse. The work of Christ is not sufficient, if anything is to be added. And not only so, but thereby the Christian standing is completely swept away. For then, instead of being in Christ, happy in God's presence by virtue of a work already accomplished by the glorious Saviour alone; instead of being "complete in him," "accepted in the beloved," man has still to seek means of rendering himself acceptable to God; he has still to find a way by which he may present himself before Him. Under such circumstances, the word declares, "ye are fallen from grace." The nature of Christianity is thereby changed. It is virtually denied, though professed in word. The truth of the gospel is lost.

121 May God grant us to have "no confidence in the flesh," but "to rejoice in Christ Jesus."

It may again be asked, "But is it not possible to maintain these truths in all their height and yet still to be carnal?" I answer, Doubtless; but when this is the case, the flesh takes the form of licentiousness, its real character, and not that of religiousness. The flesh is very pious, when it acts the pious, for it always desires to rejoice in itself.

There is another passage, which formally applies to things on earth, but which beautifully exhibits the spirit of worship. I refer to Deuteronomy 26. In type, Canaan represents heaven. Israel, arrived in Canaan, enjoyed the promise. Read the chapter. The worshipper, already come to the good land which God had given him as an heritage, presents himself with "the fruits of the land." This is what we have to offer to God, even the grateful and joyous effusions of hearts filled with heavenly blessedness. For, in spirit, we are in heaven. We are in Christ, who fills it with His glory and His perfections, and we dwell in the love of God Himself, who has introduced us thither. Holiness and love and joy characterize the land. They are the fruits which grow there spontaneously, as are the thanksgivings that arise in the hearts of those who are there through redeeming power.

The worshipper professed aloud that it was God that had accomplished everything for him. It was thus he presented himself. This acknowledgment was due to God, since Israel was indeed there through His faithful sustaining grace, and there would have been failure in recognizing his true position, if he had not come as an unconditional debtor to God's grace. Is it then that he forgot his own wretchedness? No. But he was in it no longer; and it served to exalt the greatness of his deliverance. "And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God." All this applies in spirit to the Christian. He was the slave of Satan, and miserable in himself. God looked with compassion on his affliction. and delivered him with "a mighty hand." He has rescued him from this Egyptian world, and made him an heir of glory in the heavenly places. Already seated there in Christ, has he nothing to offer? Does the heavenly land, which the Lord our God hath given us, produce nothing which we can offer to God, in testimony of the value of His gifts, in token of the sense which we have of His goodness? The Israelite, redeemed by God, was constituted a worshipper. He addressed God directly, rendering to Him the worship which was His due — the fruit of a heart happy in His bounty.

122 Thus the spirit of grace and of love was shed abroad in his heart, and he enjoyed all in simplicity and with gladness. Inviting the desolate and the stranger to partake with him of God's goodness, he made them also happy. "And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled; then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me; I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them." Pure in walk, maintaining the holiness of God, and carefully preserving that which was hallowed for Him from being profaned, he could, from his heart, implore a blessing upon all the people of his God, and ask that it might rest upon the whole state of things in which God placed them. Here was the memorial of a tie between God and His people.

123 In examining also Deuteronomy 16 we shall find, in the directions given for the celebration of the feasts of the Lord, an unfolding of the spirit in which they were to be observed. These directions furnish, in measure, an instructive contrast between the states of soul which the different feasts respectively inspired.

At the Passover, when the Israelites celebrated the fact of their having been spared, the joy of the other feasts was not found. Doubtless, they recognized the deliverance accomplished, but the unleavened bread (type of purity and simplicity of heart) is called "the bread of affliction." They had gone out of the land of Egypt in haste to save themselves. How could they think of tarrying there to perish? Such was their haste that they "took their dough before it was leavened," and made their escape. In commemorating their deliverance after they had reached the land, it was remembered by them as a deliverance — an escape; and thus everyone turned in the morning, and went to his own tent. Thus it is also with the believer. It is grace to be delivered, but so long as there is barely the consciousness of deliverance, and deliverance from such ruin — from slavery, holiness is felt as a requirement, and this is not the joy with which the Holy Ghost afterwards fills the heart. We may see the purity of Christ, demanding that the leaven of sin be entirely put away; we may be thus in a true position of heart. Deliverance was needful for such slaves. Holiness is obligatory: without it no one shall see the Lord. We may have a solemn feeling of the grace which has saved us — of the truth — of the profound reality and need of that sacrifice, the blood of which has stayed, at our threshold, the sword of the holiness of God. But all this, however salutary and however needful, is not joy; it is not communion. Everyone retires apart by himself.

In the feast of Pentecost (prefiguring the gift of the Holy Spirit) there was joy; a voluntary offering was presented to God according to the blessing which the Lord had vouchsafed. There was joy in communion. They raised up the downcast heart of the widow, of the orphan, of the Levite, and of the stranger. They rejoiced before the Lord their God in His presence where He had set His name. They recalled the thought that they had been slaves, but it was while enjoying their freedom before God, who had shed abroad His blessing upon the people whom He had set free. Here again, we find the true spirit of worship. It will be noticed that they offered according to the blessing of the Lord.

124 The feast of Tabernacles went a little farther; they rejoiced in like manner, and the joy diffused itself over others, whose heart God would lift up. The spirit of joy and of peace still characterized the worshippers gathered together in the presence of their God; it marked the communion which is the effect of that presence, and of His people's drawing near to Him. But the feast, the spirit of the feast, was to be kept up during all the seven days; "thou shalt rejoice," it is said, for now they are in the full consciousness of "the rest" of God. The ingathering of the corn-floor and of the wine-press was complete. In full and abundant enjoyment of all the fruits of the land, in the rest of God, they celebrated the bounty of Him who had given them these things, not according to the blessing He had given them, but because the Lord their God had blessed them in all the works of their hands.

This feast is typical of the rest which Israel shall enjoy from all their toils in the age to come; but for us, doubtless, the accomplishment of it will be in heaven. Yet now, in so far as we realize our portion, we anticipate that joy, and we bless God accordingly.

I will next direct the reader's attention to Revelation 4 and 5.

In Revelation 4: 8, we find the four living creatures ascribe to "the Lord God Almighty" the glory of all that which He is in His holy and eternal majesty. This ascription of praise leads those who represent the glorified saints, in their character of kings and priests, to take their crowns from off their heads, to leave their thrones, and to fall down "and worship him that liveth for ever and ever." They are thus more exalted morally in appreciating and recognizing the glory of Him to whom all majesty belongs, than by being clothed with the insignia of their own glory. They are more exalted in employing the measure of glory, which had been conferred on them, only to exalt His, than by bearing it before the armies of heaven or the inhabitants of the earth. That which characterizes us in drawing near to God is more excellent than that which distinguishes us from His creatures. The crowns, by which these elders were distinguished from their fellow-creatures, were the symbols of a real glory, because it had been given them of God; but to esteem this glory as nought save as an offering, because they understood the more excellent glory of Him who had loved them and who was placed far above them, was certainly a position more exalted than highly to appreciate it, and to clothe themselves with it in sight of those who were beneath them. The object was more excellent — the spirit of a higher order; for they thought no longer about themselves. They were really exalted Godward, although He alone was glorified. Their attitude and act exhibit the perfection of the creature's state and position, viewed as such before God.

125 Another element however enters here, in order to make the picture complete — an element, the existence of which is presupposed in what I have just said, and which is plainly presented in this passage. Precious privilege for us that it is so! It is, that these twenty-four elders (representatives, as I have said, of the saints), as kings and priests, possess the understanding of what it is which makes the Lord worthy of praise: "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." The Lord is the source and final end of all that exists. That which He is, and the fact that He is worthy to receive all glory, because of the manifestation which He has made of Himself, is what we see to be the subject of the homage rendered by the saints to God — the Creator.

Chapter 5 has redemption for its subject. The elders worship the Lamb that was slain, as worthy to take the book of the ways of God in government, because He has redeemed them. Here again the recognition of the glory which will result in the official dignities of the redeemed, and in the dominion confided to them, is apparent in the praises addressed to the Lamb by the heavenly saints. Their praises are directly addressed to Him who is the object of them. The prayers of saints accompany them. The praises of angels, not directly addressed to the Lamb, are called forth by the adoration of the saints. Lastly, all that inhabit the universal creation of God together celebrate in chorus the glory of God most high, and of the Lamb, with the "Amen" of the living creatures (direct adoration of the Lord being proper to the twenty-four elders, who are also characterized by intelligence as to the foundation of the glory of God, as manifested in His acts of power and of grace). We may observe here, that these passages do not present God in the character of Father, but as Ruler and Sovereign. This is in accordance with the character of the book.

126 I cite these various passages, not as giving us the precise revelation of what Christian worship is, but as furnishing many precious elements to enable us to seize the thought of worship in general. The Psalms furnish other examples: only we must bear in mind that God is there also presented as Governor of the earth, and not as Father of His beloved children, who participate in His nature of love. In our proper position, we adore "the Father in spirit and in truth," in the sweet confidence of being the children whom He loves, while at the same time we overlook not any feature of His majesty.

Deliverance from under the Law, as stated in the Holy Scriptures.

J. N. Darby.

<07007G> 127

{This paper appeared originally in German. — Ed.}

In our relationship to God, there are two points of primary importance for us to remark: their responsibility as men, and the power of that life in which we live before Him. Both these were set forth to us by God in the garden of Eden, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in the tree of life.

First, as to our responsibility, man has become a sinner; consequently he has in him no spiritual life at all (John 6: 53). Sin brought in death and condemnation. After the fall God gave the law by Moses in order to prove the state of man. The law of God must exact righteousness according to the nature of him to whom it is given; but the law does not give life (Gal. 3: 21). It is the very nature of the law to exact and not to give. Since it is the question of righteousness in man, God cannot lower the requirements of the law; and if we have the divine nature, we shall not desire its requirements to be lowered. The law is the measure of responsibility of the natural man, but it does not give life, and (because man is a sinner) the law, instead of being a resource, becomes the cause of death and condemnation. A mixture of law and grace, in so far as this last is found working in us, does not change this state. Grace does not destroy our responsibility, and that which the law requires is not fulfilled.

Christ came to be our Saviour and our Deliverer. He is the source of life to those who believe. He became subject to the death under which we were, and He bare upon the cross our sins, and the wrath of God which they deserved. But this is not all. In the person of this Saviour, man enters into a new position. He is the man who is risen and glorified before God. The righteousness of God is accomplished in Him, and He has received that glory as a reward. Let us now see how we are made partakers of this amazing position before God.

God cannot endure sin. The responsibility of the creature cannot be destroyed. At the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans the apostle unfolds the condition of sin under which both Jews and Gentiles are. Without law — man is without restraint (ungodly), debased by sin; he has lost every right thought about God, being given up to things not even suitable to man in nature. Under the law, he not only has corrupted himself through his lusts, but he is disobedient by reason of his own will — a transgressor. The law condemns not only sin, but also the sinner. The Saviour appears, born of a woman, and placed under the law; He shed His blood in order to purify us before God — to justify the sinner before God, the just Judge. Grace, rich and deep, is also presented to us in this work. It is the instruction of the Epistle to the Romans down to the end of chapter 3.

128 In chapter 4 he begins to examine another truth — the effect and the result of the resurrection of Christ. In chapters 5, 6, and 7 we have the effects of this truth; and in chapter 8 the result in full.

The history of Abraham is introduced in chapter 4. If the Jew found himself condemned by the law, he could fall back upon the relationship God had established between Himself and Abraham. It was to this end that the apostle set forth what were the foundations of this relationship, and shewed it was built upon faith and the promise. Righteousness was by faith, and it was given to Abraham before he was circumcised — "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." There is yet another principle taught us in this chapter. Abraham was as dead, as also was Sarah his wife. But God had promised to him a seed. Abraham did not doubt His word because of the impossibility to man of the thing, but he believed in the power of God, whose part it was to fulfil His own promise, and that was counted to him for righteousness.

And so it is with us, only with this most remarkable difference: we do not believe that God is able to fulfil His promises, but that He has fulfilled them. "We believe in God who has raised up from the dead our Lord Jesus." Observe, the apostle does not say here, We believe in Him who is raised, but in Him who has raised. It is thus that he teaches us the meaning of this doctrine. In the resurrection, God does not present Himself as the just Judge, satisfied as such by the work of Christ; but He acts according to His own power in the sphere of death's power, in bringing forth His beloved Son from under it, and bringing us now, in Christ, into a new position where death and sin are not. It is God who works for us, to save us perfectly, and to set us before Him in truth and in righteousness. Man being dead as to that which concerns spiritual life, and living in sin as to natural life, it is only in Christ he has died and risen again, and finds his place before God in grace, where sin is taken away and righteousness is accomplished: "He was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification."

129 From chapter 5 to 8 is the application of this truth to our own condition; in chapter 5 to our justification; in chapter 6 to the new life of the believer in Jesus; in chapter 7 to the law; and chapter 8 describes a soul in perfect liberty.

In chapter 5 he shews that the believer enjoys peace with God; that he lives in the sense of God's favour, being heir of His glory, and rejoicing even in tribulations, which work for his spiritual good. Much more, he rejoices in God Himself, who is his source of endless joy. As man, he was under the first Adam, and, as a necessary consequence, an inheritor of the consequences of his disobedience; the believer is in the Second Adam, through whose obedience he is righteous. But because he is righteous through the obedience of another (that is, even Christ's), the flesh says, No matter what I do — I can do what I like. But I say, Thou hast already done enough; all thou hast done has been to destroy thyself; and thou acknowledgest, without being aware of it, that thy will is to sin. But let us go on with our subject.

The apostle is not here speaking of the all-important motive which the believer finds in the blood of Christ to cause him to cease from sin, nor of the power which he finds in the love of God; but he shews that he cannot live in sin to which he is dead. The Christian partakes of the fruits of the obedience of Christ, because He is dead and risen. How can he live in sin, being already dead to sin? A dead man does not live. He is not a partaker of the blessing which is in Christ, if he has not the life of Christ. Though, as to the natural life, he is still living in the world, he ought nevertheless to reckon himself as dead to sin, since he lives by the life of Christ who is dead and risen.

In chapter 7 he considers the consequences of the same truth as to the law. The law, he says, has dominion over a man so long as he lives; he then gives the tie of marriage as an explanation of it. As long as the first husband lives, the wife cannot be to another man without guilt. The first husband then represents the law, the second is Christ raised from the dead (Christ when living on this earth was Himself under the law); and thus we cannot be at the same time under the law and united to Christ raised from the dead. However, it is not the law which dies, but Christ died under the law; for as many as have sinned under the law shall be condemned by the law; and the law is good if a man use it lawfully (Rom. 2: 12; 1 Tim. 1: 8, 9). If it were ourselves who were dead under the law, we should be lost; but Christ died for us. And because He is risen from the dead, our souls are united to Him, the law having no longer a hold over a dead man. Therefore, now, Christ, He who is raised from the dead, is our only husband. Thus the resurrection of Christ has delivered us from the law, as well as from sin and condemnation.

130 Romans 5, then, shews us our position in Christ, the Second Adam, who is risen; chapter 6, our new life in Him, a life of which the strength lies in reckoning ourselves dead to sin; chapter 7 is our complete deliverance from the law, which hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. As to us we are dead and risen in Him. It is the new man in Christ which bears fruit unto God, and not the old man under the law. Yet the fault is not in the law; but, because sin is in the flesh, the effect of the law is to bring home guilt upon the conscience, and to become an occasion for exciting the desire to sin.

But, to return to the leading subject of the chapter, we see that we cannot be at the same time under the law and with Christ risen. This would be to have two husbands at once. In the second half of the chapter we are given the experience of one who wants to fulfil the righteousness of the law, and to bring forth fruit to God as standing under the law — the first husband. Awakened by God, and under the influence of the new life, he understands the spirituality of the law; he understands its requirements; he desires to keep the law, and his conscience cannot be satisfied unless he does so. The new nature loves the righteousness of the law; but by reason of the opposition of the flesh it does not fulfil it (chap. 7: 14, 16, 22). Sad state of a soul which, by reason of grace working in it, desires to do good; but because it is under the law, knows not how to do it! Now, let it be observed, that while in this state the soul is in its relationship with the first husband, and consequently has nothing to do with the Second. We have seen that no one can have two husbands at once: therefore in this passage there is no mention made either of Christ or of the Holy Spirit. It is the ordinary Christian experience of the spirituality of the law which we meet with. The conscience of the individual, being renewed, knows that it cannot fulfil the requirements of that spiritual law. The will renewed makes every possible effort to do so, but it cannot succeed. All the while it loves the spiritual nature of the law; it does not desire that it should be less perfect. It knows that God cannot give up His authority, nor lower His holiness. It tries with all its might to attain the end; but it has no power. The law demands perfect obedience; the conscience and the will assent; but the law gives no power: the end will never be attained. The awakening of the conscience in one who is sincere never produces in him the accomplishment of righteousness, but, on the contrary, despair. It is much more difficult to know and acknowledge that we cannot do a single good thing, than to know and acknowledge that we have sinned. The experience which the soul passes through under the law is a means of convincing it of its powerlessness; but holiness cannot be a subject of indifference, either to God or to the new-born soul; and as we find that we cannot work out righteousness, we are obliged to seek deliverance elsewhere. Yet, though God will convince a soul that is sincere of its powerlessness, He takes no pleasure in leaving it in this wretched state; but as soon as it acknowledges its state, and that it is, and knows itself to be, without any hope in itself, so that it can never attain to the righteousness of the law, then God reveals to it its perfect deliverance in Christ. Then at once the soul gives thanks to God for what He has done for it; it sees where its new place is in Christ risen — its true husband, that it may bring forth fruit unto God (v. 24, 25). Henceforth, it is not only a new position (in Christ risen) which is its position, but also strength and liberty. The flesh is there still, its nature is not changed; but our position before God is in the Spirit and not in the flesh. The power of the Spirit is present livingly in us, so that we walk? not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Christ in heaven is the expression of our true position before God. Christ living upon the earth is the representation and example of the heavenly man upon earth. Walking after the Spirit, we fulfil the law (by loving God and our neighbour) because we are not under the law.

131 The close of verse 25 is brought in by the Holy Spirit in order to shew us that, though we are seen in perfect liberty, the nature of the flesh is not changed; but the law (which means here a principle acting always in the same way) — the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has completely set us free from the law of sin and death which reigns in the old man. In Christ we live in the new man (there the old man has no right), but the Holy Spirit is the power which works in it. As to the question of righteousness, the Christian is in perfect peace, because he knows that God, instead of condemning him, has done what the law could not do — that is, "condemned sin in the flesh," by means of Christ come in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as the atoning sacrifice for sin. A soul who is in earnest will always mourn more over the sin which he finds working in him, than on account of the sins already committed; but he knows that Christ has died in his stead, not only for sins but for sin itself. So, then, in chapter 8 we see Christ as the sacrifice upon the cross, then alive in resurrection, and then the blessed testimony, as the living power, of the Holy Spirit is fully unfolded to us.

132 From verse 5-11 of this chapter the Holy Spirit is declared to be the character and the power of the life. From verse 12-27 He is in us the personal witness of our adoption and of our right of inheritance, and the helper of our infirmity. From verse 28-39 the Holy Spirit is proving that God is not only working in us, but, much more, He is for us, in His own power and faithfulness, so that the happy believer is assured that nothing can separate him from the love of God — a love which he knows by the Holy Spirit which dwells in him.

The height of the glory, the depth of humiliation in death, are in Christ the proof and the means of our being everlastingly blessed in the presence of God Himself — in the blessedness which grace has given us.

But there is still more instruction to be drawn out of chapter 8: 8. Verses 1-3 are a summing up of the three preceding chapters, and three things are taught us in them. First, the position of the guilt of man when considered in the light of responsibility. The answer to this is His being justified by God. This is the subject of chapter 5. Secondly, the nature of the old man and that of the new is the subject of chapter 6. Thirdly, God, in order to put to the proof the ability of man to work out righteousness for himself, brought in the law, and man, through the fall, being a sinner, could not fulfil righteousness. Even before he was a sinner, when his obedience was put to the proof by a law, it became the occasion of his fall. But when, by means of the new birth, he understands the spirituality of the law, then he knows not only that he has committed sins, but that the law of sin is in his members. This is the subject examined by the Holy Spirit in chapter 7.

133 The power and the nature of the new life in Christ, who has died and is risen from the dead, is the answer of God's grace to the wickedness of the flesh. This is taught us in chapter 6. The soul set free, through fully knowing the work of God in Christ, is the answer of grace to the experiences of chapter 7. By considering attentively the first three verses of chapter 8 it will be easily seen that verse 1 corresponds to chapter 5, verse 2, to chapter 6, and verse 3 to chapter 7. Chapters 6 and 7 are closely connected, because the soul that is born again finds out the true character of the old man by means of the law. We have, then, the summing up of these two chapters in verses 2 and 3 of chapter 8. All hope of deliverance is shewn, in chapter 5, to flow out of justification. But this is not man's thought. He would wish to deliver himself actually from the law of sin by his own effort, and thus be without fault before God; but God will not have it so, and it never could be according to His truth, because that, on the one hand, the work of Christ would have been in vain, and, on the other, man would not have known what is the true nature and sinfulness of sin. If by efforts in the conscience we could find deliverance before God, the work of justification, though it might not be by strength of man, would at least be by the work of the Holy Spirit, and not by the work of Christ. But God will not; and for man it is impossible to have it so; because the work of the Spirit of God is to shew him how intolerable sin is to God, and that the nature of man is not changed. Now his very nature is sin. Man must submit himself to the righteousness of God. Convinced of sin, condemned by the law, he must find his righteousness in another — in Christ, who died for him, and is now risen and in the presence of God. This is the reason why chapters 3 and 5 come before chapters 6 and 7, and verse 1 of chapter 8 before verses 2 and 3.

After the Holy Spirit has described the conflicts of the soul that is born again, and shewn its helplessness, then the "there is no condemnation" (chap. 8: 1) is the first want of the soul, and the beginning of God's answer to it in His grace. But, because we have this privilege ("no condemnation") in a risen Christ, this does not separate from life, and cannot be separated from it; so it is not simply a doctrine upon a particular subject expressing the thoughts of God, but it is a change in what passes in the soul within — a change wrought through the knowledge of this subject by means of faith. The soul has learned its own helplessness by means of the law; the law of God has discovered to it the law of sin that is in the members. The man sees the sin that dwells in him; he hates it, but he cannot deliver himself from it.

134 Whilst we are upon this subject of the law, it ought to be remarked, before going farther, that there are some who make a law of Christ Himself. They acknowledge His love; they see in His work on the cross, how great is His love. They find in it a reason why they should love Christ perfectly, with their whole hearts; but they cannot find this love in themselves. They ought to love Christ with their whole heart, but they do not love Him thus. Now it is precisely the law which commands that we should love God with all our heart. We have found in Christ a new motive, we have perhaps given a new form to the law, but we find ourselves still under the law, though we have clothed it with the name of Christ. The power of sin is still there; it prevents us from fulfilling the law, which requires that we should love with the-whole heart. Sin is in the flesh; it harasses me, and gets the better of me. Where can I look for deliverance from this terrible and skilful adversary? Our very helplessness is our resource. We find that God Himself must come in, because we can do nothing. No sooner have I understood the work of God (not the promises), than I find that God Himself has done the whole work. This is what is meant by verse 3: God Himself has met and conquered the evil which was always too much for me. Christ, who knew no sin, having been made sin for us, has taken away, not only the sins which we have actually committed, but also sin in the flesh, in the presence of God, because He died not only for sins, but also for sin.

In this the love of God has been revealed to us, that Christ came into the world when we were nothing but sinners; but this revelation of His love does not purify the conscience. Moreover, so long as the conscience is not purified, the heart cannot rejoice in His love; because doubt in the conscience causes fear, and this prevents the heart from resting with confidence on His love. It is most true that love is in God; but the heart cannot make this love its own, because conscience tells us that God cannot bear sin.

135 The Holy Spirit who speaks of love in the gospel, speaking by the same word is also light to convince of sin, and, this convincing, brings home to the heart not only sins committed but sin as in itself. A child may be convinced of his father's love, but he fears to meet him if his conscience tells him he has done anything wrong. "Fear hath torment." But if we are risen with Christ, not only is it true that God has loved us in our state of sin, but He has also raised us up into quite a new position — into the same position as Christ Himself is in before God, where we ourselves are the result of the mighty power of God, according to the power by which He raised up Christ from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places (Eph. 1: 9-23; 2 Cor. 5: 5).

The manifestation of the love of God in Christ whilst we were yet sinners is recalled to our attention in 1 John 4: 9; but our perfect position in Christ, by being made partakers of His life, is set forth in verse 17 of the same chapter. Now Christ came into this position after having entirely finished His work — a work by which the conscience is purified; and thus love is shed abroad without hindrance in the heart. Because I am united to Christ, who has died and is risen again for me, sin can no more be imputed to me than it can be imputed to Christ; His position before God is quite the same as mine, and (let us remember: it is a solemn thought!) to have any other would be nothing short of damnation. There is no middle place between the first and Second Adam; and we well know that Christ's position now before God is without sin, not only as to the perfection of His Person (which was always perfect), but besides as it regards the imputation of sin. What then? Has God become indifferent to sin? Did Christ do nothing as to it? Did He shrink back on account of the difficulty of the work? Did He claim at His Father's hand twelve legions of angels to deliver Him? or did He follow the counsel of the chief priests by saving Himself as He had so often saved others? No! we know it well; He is the Head, without sin, of those who believe on Him, because, as the One who has stood in their stead, He has made an end of sin upon the cross, and, having finished this work, He has united them to Himself by a new life which flows from Him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit which has made them one with Him. And now what does this truth say as to believers? Not only did Christ bear our sins upon the cross, but He was there personally our substitute before God. For all that which the Holy Ghost now shews us as sin before God, in the light of His countenance — for all that Christ died upon the cross and He has borne it for us. He is Himself in the presence of God, judged of according to the light of His glory; He is there who knew no sin, yet who was made sin for us. Now, thanks be to God, all is over — the work is accomplished.

136 The cloud whence the lightning of God's judgment came forth, the tempest of His wrath, has passed away, taking out of the way our sin; and now the sunshine of God's love rests on us without a cloud — that perfect love which gave Jesus to finish the work. The conscience is purified according to the holiness of God who has Himself judged the sin.

Before this, though God sent the law among men, yet He Himself was hidden from them; but the same stroke which tore the veil, so that God was revealed in His holiness, has at the same moment taken away the sin which forbids our standing before His unveiled face. The full light (for the true light has now shined) which shines around us, and in which we are, shews that we are without sin before the face of God; and that our garments are washed in the blood of the Lamb. The nearer we are to the light, the more clearly will our perfect purity before God be seen.

It is thus, then, that what the law could not do (because it condemned the sinner without being able to change the flesh) God has done, because Christ has not only borne our sins, but has come in the likeness of sinful flesh, and become the sacrifice for sin. Thus God has condemned sin in the flesh. Let this be particularly noticed. It is not said, Sin shall be condemned, as a thing that is yet to be done; neither is it by the power of the Holy Spirit, but it is by the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

Christ has given Himself up as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of which the Holy Spirit has convinced thee, O believer. God has condemned the sin which has been thy constant sorrow; but He has condemned it on the cross of Christ; He has taken it away; and thou art free. Thou hatest it — it cannot be otherwise, if the Holy Spirit is at work in thee. Now it is no more imputed to thee than are the other sad fruits borne by this corrupt tree. Thou art before God in Christ, in whom sin has been condemned on the cross.

137 Now, as regards holiness, what is the effect of this truth? What have we to say of the position of the believer? He is set in the light, even before the face of God. He has a life which rejoices in this light; he has the Holy Spirit to enjoy it. Holiness is measured by this light. Since we are in the presence of God, all things shall be judged according to the perfection of His presence. "We have communion with the Father and with His Son." Therefore, when the apostle speaks of sin in Romans 3: 23, he does not say, "We have sinned, and we come short of what men ought to do," but we "come short of the glory of God." And because we are on the ground of grace, it is not merely that holiness is expected from us, but we are made partakers of His holiness. And not only so, but because God is for us, we find power to realize in our life this setting apart to Him; and because we know He is for us, we have the assurance that He will give us this power when we draw near to Him. Holiness is realized by communion with God; but with the conscience of sin, communion is impossible. Where shall we find strength for practical separation to God, unless in God Himself? How can we ourselves walk in this practical holiness if we have not His strength? How can I seek this strength from God if I have not the assurance that He is for me, and if my conscience prevents me from approaching Him? Efforts made after holiness may be sincere before the soul is set at liberty, because the tendencies of the new life are there; but such efforts are always mixed up with the felt need of justification, and thus the true nature of holiness is overthrown and lost, or, rather, it has never been known.

As to our rule of life, in accordance with our position of being in Christ, it is His life on earth which is our model. "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked." These two things were seen in Him. He was the righteous man before God, and before man He was the revelation of God's character. Such ought also to be our life upon earth; walking in the presence of God, we ought to manifest His character before men. And the reason for this is, because Christ Himself is already our life, as the apostle says, "That the life of Jesus might be manifest in our mortal flesh."

And herein is the important difference between the law and the commands of Christ. The law promises life if we fulfil its commands. The commands of Christ, as with all His words and works, are the expression of the course of that life which we possess already in Him. And what were the principles of this life in Christ Himself? First, He could say, "the Son of man which is in heaven." It was love from which all His service flowed. Even as man, He was born of God; and He could say of Himself, that for the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross and despised the shame. The same thing is true of us, with this necessary difference, which there must be, because of His glorious Person, for He is God Himself. United to Him, our life is hid with Him in God.

138 Then as to our life on earth as believers, it begins with our being born of God. The love of God in our hearts is the spring of our walk; and the glory in Christ which is set before us strengthens us in all the sufferings of our pilgrimage on earth. And, moreover, there is the power of the Holy Spirit, by whose fulness He lived and acted whilst on earth, and which is our strength to follow Him. Thus we have two rules by which to measure good and evil: on the one hand, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us; and, on the other, the life and fulness of Christ Himself glorified. Concerning the Holy Spirit, by which we are sealed unto the day of redemption, we ought not to grieve it; rather ought we to be filled with it, that we may realize our communion with God with perfect joy. From our connection with Christ, we ought to put off the old man and put on the new, created in righteousness and true holiness; and in addition to all this, in sight of the fulness of His glory, we ought to grow up unto Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, unto a perfect man — unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

"A man in Christ"

From "The Girdle of Truth," 1858.

J. N. Darby.

<07009E> 238

There are some chapters in scripture which contain so full and blessed a statement of some great truth of God that they acquire and retain a peculiar hold on the believer's mind. And though all scripture is given by inspiration of God and has the same authority, yet this exceptional effect of peculiar passages cannot be blamed, because it is always found to be produced by some chapter which contains a special revelation of God and His ways, or the love of Christ towards us. The chapter of which I would now speak (2 Cor. 12) can scarcely be said to have this character. But it contains so complete and remarkable a display of the extent and wondrous heights and deplorable depths to which saints may go — of the mighty principles for good or for evil which are at work in those natures which they have (on the one hand, part in the highest associations, and in the lowest degradation on the other), and of the way in which grace acts to give predominance to good in us; it presents such a view of the whole working of divine grace to give the perfect result, in good and in blessing, of the spiritual conflict now going on in us, through the knowledge of good and evil which we acquired in the fall, that I think it may be fruitful to your readers if I unfold it a little practically.

The way in which, in this one chapter, we find the highest state to which a Christian can be elevated, an exceptional one, no doubt, as an experience, and the lowest condition to which he can fall, and all the practical principles on which the divine work is carried on between these two extremes, is very striking. In the beginning of the chapter we find a saint in the third heaven, in paradise, where flesh could have no part in apprehension or in communication. He knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body. There was no consciousness of human existence in flesh; so he could not tell, nor could he utter what he had heard when he returned to the consciousness of flesh again. Such is the saint at the beginning of the chapter. At the end we find one, perhaps many, fallen into fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness, and unrepentant yet of their sins. What a contrast of the highest heavenly elevation and the lowest carnal degradation! And the Christian capable of both! What a lesson for every saint, though he may reach neither extreme, as a warning; and how suited to give the consciousness of what natures are at work and of the elements which are in conflict in him in his spiritual life down here! Another part of this chapter will shew us where power alone is to be found to carry him along his path upon the earth in a way consistently with the heavenly good to which he is called.

239 Paul uses a remarkable expression as to himself when speaking of his elevation to the third heaven: "I know a man in Christ." A few preliminary thoughts as to the law will facilitate our understanding this expression. The law gave to man a perfect and divine rule for his conduct upon the earth. But it never took him up into heaven. Heavenly beings, indeed, such as the angels, act upon the abstract perfection of this divine rule as it is stated by the Lord Himself: they love God with all their heart and their neighbour as themselves. This is creature perfection. But that is their nature in which God has maintained them. To prescribe feelings and conduct by law is another thing. Christians often forget this. The contents of the law are perfect in their place and for their objects. It tells us what the right state of a creature is, and it forbids the wrong that flesh is inclined to. But why prescribe this? No doubt obedience is a part of perfection in a creature. Mere doing right would not suffice for a being subject to God to walk righteously, because God has absolute authority over him. Thus God can, and we know does, prescribe certain particular acts of service to angels; and they obey.

But when a state of soul is prescribed — why is that? Because it is needed. It becomes necessary because of the state of the person to whom the command is addressed. He is otherwise inclined, in danger from other dispositions of doing otherwise. To command a person to do a thing supposes that he is not doing it, nor about to do it if without a command. If we add to this that nine of the ten commandments forbid positive sins and evil dispositions, because men are disposed to them (or there were no need to prohibit them), we shall find that the very nature and existence of a law which prescribes the good on God's authority supposes the evil in man's nature which is opposed to it. This is a deplorable truth, take either aspect of the case. You cannot command love (that is, produce it by commanding it), and you cannot put out lusts by forbidding them to a nature which has them as nature. Yet this is what the law does, and must do if God give one. It proves that what is forbidden is sin, and that it is in man to be forbidden; but law never takes it away. It prescribes good in the creature but does not produce it. It shews what is right on earth in the creature, but how far is it from taking man into heavenly places! Law can have no pretension to it. Man has now by the fall the knowledge of good and evil. The law acts on this amazing faculty, of which God could say, "The man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." But how? Man is under the evil; and it requires good in him which is not, and shews him all the evil which is in him. It presses the evil on him, and its consequences in judgment; and, as to the good it requires in him, it only gives the consciousness that it is not there.

240 Further, it shews no good to him as an object before his soul. I repeat, to make the distinction clear — it requires good in him, loving God and his neighbour for example; but it presents no good to him. There is no revealed object to produce good nor be man's good in him in living power. It works therefore wrath. Where no law is, there is no transgression. Now, grace works quite otherwise; it does not require good where it is not, though it may produce it. It does not condemn the wicked, but forgives and puts away their sin; it presents to us an object, God Himself, but God come near to us in love. It does more, it communicates what is good. It is not a law. It does not require good where it is not, but produces it. It does not condemn the wicked, but it forgives and puts away their wickedness. It does not lead us to carry on the conflict between good and evil by pressing the evil on us, and making us feel it a burden not to be got rid of, and ourselves slaves to it, which the law does, making us feel "this body of death" as that under whose power we are, sold to sin, and, supposing we are regenerate, making us only feel more truly and deeply that even this does not make us meet its requirements, so that we should be righteous by it, however much "to will is present with us," but the contrary. In a word, grace does not, in the knowledge of good and evil with which it deals, lead us to carry on the conflict by the sense of the power and dreadfulness of evil to which we are subject, and its consequences, but by the possession of perfect and divine good through which we judge the evil as raised above it, by the possession of an object perfectly good and which is our delight as well as our life, by the possession of Christ (being in Him and He in us). "I know," says the apostle, "a man in Christ."

241 But this we must a little explain and open out. It is often very vague in many a Christian's heart. In paradise, without law, under the law, and through the presenting of Christ to him, man was responsible for his own conduct as a living man for things done in the body. He was viewed as a child of Adam, or "in the flesh." He stood, that is, before God in the nature in which he had been created, responsible for his conduct in it, for what he was in the flesh. The result was, that in respect of every one of these conditions he had failed: failing in paradise, lawless when without law, a transgressor when under law, and, last and worst of all, the closing ground of judgment, when Christ came, proved to be without a cloak for sin, the hater of Him and His Father. Man was lost. In a state of probation for four thousand years, the tree had been proved bad; and the more the care, the worse the fruit. All flesh was judged. The tree was to bear no fruit for ever. Not only had he been proved to be a sinner in every way, but he had rejected the remedy presented in grace, for Christ came into an already sinful world, and He was despised and rejected of men. It was not all, that man, fallen and guilty was driven out of paradise; but Christ come in grace was, as far as man's will was concerned, driven out of the world which was plunged in the misery to which sin had led, and which He had visited in goodness.

Man's history was morally closed. "Now," says the Lord, when Greeks came up, "is the judgment of this world." Hence it is we have, "He appeared once in the end of the world." But now comes God's work for the sinner. He who knew no sin is made sin for us. He drinks graciously and willingly the cup given Him to drink. He lays down the life in which He bore the sin — gives it up; and all is gone with it. The very life our sin was borne in on the cross was given up, His blood shed. He has put away sin for every believer by the sacrifice of Himself — has perfected them for ever. He that is dead is freed from sin. But Christ died. He then is freed from sin.* But whose? Ours who believe in Him. It is all gone, gone with the life to which it was attached, in which He bore it. The death of Christ has closed for faith the existence of the old man, the flesh, the first Adam life in which we stood as responsible before God, and whose place Christ took for us in grace. What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His only Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. In that He died, He died unto sin once, in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.

{*This, though quite true, cannot be drawn, I think, from the Greek of the passage, though it may from the English. It has nothing to do with the question now raised by my accusers. Dedikaiotai is not freed, but justified. Christ had done with the sin He bore when He died-done with it in putting it away and by dying. He can be said to be personally justified from sin because He had none, and death so far did it, that it proved by obedience even to death, that nothing, no trial, could make it otherwise. He died unto sin. But the statement that "he that has died is justified from sin," I apprehend means rather, "you cannot charge sin, self-will, lust, on a dead man." It becomes true of us when we are dead. Christ's death proved it absolutely true of Him always. The objection made of old to what follows in this passage is a quibble as low and contemptible as it is superficial and false. The words "life to which it was attached" is that in which He was made sin — as it is expressed here, "in which He bore it." As to saying: "Christ took again the same life He laid down," it is all a blunder: because in the true essential life of Christ, and this is true even of our own souls, He nor we never laid down any life at all. He was always alive, and all live to God. But the life which He had in this world as such He laid down, and never took it again as such. And that is what laying down life means. It means the life in which we live here. Hence scripture speaks of "the days of his flesh." Our life as life in our souls never ceases, much less Christ's. But life in its status (living condition) down here we do not take up again, nor did Christ. That which He had here Christ really, truly, laid down — His life; who dares deny it? Laying down His life that He might take it again, merely means really dying and living again, alive body and soul. I never die at all if my soul be spoken of. But as to my life, looked at as living here, I die, and I never take that life again, a life of flesh and blood. And so we rightly speak. I take life again, but not that life in which I was in weakness and sorrow. It is a mere low quibble on the word "life," and false; because the life, in which Christ is the same always, He never laid down and never took again. He took life again, but not the life He lived here in the flesh, to which I still rightly say sin was attached: not as if He had any in Himself but as made sin and bearing it, and that is what is said. I have, perhaps, spent too many words on this miserable and paltry objection. The doctrine taught is of the last importance. No Christian knows his true place without it.}

242 Faith anticipates the judgment, as regards the old man, the flesh, with all its ways. Upon the grounds of its responsibility we are wholly lost. We may learn it experimentally by passing under the law, becoming hopeless of pleasing God as being in the flesh, or we may learn it by finding our opposition and indifference to Christ. But the whole thing is done away with for the believer on the cross. He is crucified with Christ, nevertheless lives, but not he, but Christ lives in him. If the cross has proved that in flesh there is nothing but sin and hatred against God, it has put away the sin it has proved. All that is gone. The life is gone. If a guilty man die in prison, what can the law do more against him? The life in which he had sinned, and to which his guilt attached itself, is gone. With us, too, it is gone; for Christ has died, willingly, no doubt, but by the judicial dealing of God with the sin which He bore for us. If we are alive, we are alive now on a new footing before God — alive in Christ. The old things are passed away; there is a new creation; we are created again in Christ Jesus.

243 Our place, our standing before God, is no longer in flesh. It is in Christ. Christ, as man, has taken quite a new place, that neither Adam innocent, or Adam sinner, had anything to say to. The best robe formed no part of the prodigal's first inheritance at all; it was in the father's possession — quite a new thing. Christ has taken this place consequent on putting away our sins, on having glorified God as to them, and finishing the work. He has taken it in righteousness, and man in Him has got a new place in righteousness with God. When quickened, he is quickened with the life in which Christ lives, the second Adam; and submitting to God's righteousness, knowing that he is totally lost in the first and old man, and having bowed to this solemn truth, as shewn and learned in the cross, he is sealed with the Holy Ghost, livingly united to the Lord, one Spirit: he is a man in Christ, not in the flesh or in the first Adam. All that is closed for him in the cross, where Christ made Himself responsible for him in respect of it and died unto sin once; and he is alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He belongs to a new creation, having the life of the head of it as his life. Where he learnt the utter total condemnation of what he was, he learnt its total and eternal putting away. The cross is for him that impassable Red Sea, that Jordan which he has now gone through, and is his deliverance from Egypt for ever; and now he has realized it, his entrance into Canaan, in Christ. If Jordan and the power of death overflowed all its banks, for him the ark of the covenant passed in. It is just his way into Canaan. That which, if he had himself assayed to go through, as the Egyptians, would have been his destruction, has been a wall on the right hand and the left, and only destroyed all that was against him. He was a man in the flesh, he is a man in Christ.

244 Amazing and total change from the whole condition and standing of the first Adam, responsible for his own sins, into that of Christ, who, having borne the whole consequence of that responsibility in his place, has given him (in the power of that, to us, new life, in which He rose from the dead) a place in and with Himself, as He now is as man before God! It is to this position the apostle refers; only that he was given in a very extraordinary manner to enjoy the full fruit and glory of it during the period of his existence here below. His language as to this truth is remarkably plain, and therefore powerful. "When we were in the flesh," he says. Thus it is we speak, when we refer to a clearly bygone state of things, in which we are no longer — "when we were in the flesh" (that is, we are no longer in that position at all). "But," he says, "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you." We are now alive in Christ. "If ye be dead," says he elsewhere, "to the rudiments of the world, why as though living (i.e. alive) in the world are ye subject to ordinances?" "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

The reader will forgive me, if I have dwelt so long upon the first expression of our chapter. I have done so because of its vast importance. It is the very heart of all Paul's doctrine, the true and holy way of full divine liberty, and the power of holiness. And because many Christians have not seized the force of this truth, nor of the expressions of the apostle, they use Christ's death as a remedy for the old man, or at least only learn forgiveness of past sins by it, instead of learning that they have by it passed out of the old man as to their place before God, and into the new in the power of that life which is in Christ. Ask many a true-hearted saint what is the meaning of "When we were in the flesh," and he could give no clear answer — he has no definite idea of what it can mean. Ask him what it is to be in Christ — all is equally vague.

A regenerate man may be in the flesh, as to the condition and standing of his own soul, though he be not so in God's sight; nay, this is the very case supposed in Romans 7, because he looks at himself as standing before God on the ground of his own responsibility, on which ground he never can (in virtue of being regenerate) meet the requirements of God, attain to His righteousness. Perhaps, finding this out, he has recourse to the blood of Christ to quiet his uneasy conscience, and repeated recurrence to it, as a Jew would to a sacrifice, a superstitious man to absolution. But he has no idea that he has been cleansed and perfected once for all, and that he is taken clean out of that standing to be placed in Christ before God. But if in Christ, the title and privilege of Christ is our title and privilege.

245 Of the full and wondrous fruit of this, Paul, for God's wise and blessed purposes, was made to enjoy in an extraordinary and special manner. In that, flesh and mortal nature has no part, nor ever can, though we as alive in Christ have, while in that nature, whatever be the degree of our realization of it. Paul was allowed to know it, so that while enjoying it in the highest degree in the new man in his life in Christ ("the life hid with Christ in God," the "not I, but Christ living in him"), he had no consciousness of that other mortal part which yet burdens by its very nature (as well as by sin if its will works) the new and heavenly man in us. He could not tell if he was in or out of the body: he knew on re-entering his ordinary state of conscious existence that he had this body; but he could not tell if he was in or out of it when in the third heaven; he was unconscious of it altogether.

The reader will remark, too, how carefully the apostle distinguishes between the man in Christ and himself as he had the practical experience of himself down here, having indeed the life of Christ and the Spirit which united him to the Head, but having also the flesh in him, though he was not in the flesh. Of this Paul, of which he was practically conscious down here, he would not glory; but he had been given to be in the enjoyment of his place as a man in Christ with entire abstraction, as to his consciousness of it, of anything else — of such a one he would glory. And so can we; though we may never have been in the third heaven to realize fully the glory and privileges of the position we are brought into, yet we are men in Christ, and we have known enough — the feeblest saint who knows his place in Christ has known enough — of that blessing to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. He glories in the position of the man in Christ, which is his most surely and fully in Christ; and he may realize it, too, so that at the moment he may not sensibly feel the working of sin in him, though he well knows it is there. We may be filled with the Spirit, so that the Spirit is the only source of actual thought in us. Indeed this is our proper Christian state, not always with the same activity, it is true, of the Spirit giving the sensible apprehension of the glory and the things of Christ, so as to elevate the soul to that which is above; but so that there is no consciousness of anything inconsistent with it in the mind.* There may be indeed even then, when there is no conscious evil, the effect of obscure apprehension, an apprehension obscure perhaps even in a way which implies fault, negligence, want of singleness of eye, spiritual laziness, swerving from the path in which a single eye would lead us (though then uneasiness naturally follows in the soul because the Spirit does dwell in us and is grieved); still there may be no present disturbing element in the conscience.**

{*This is the state described in the Epistle to the Philippians — the true Christian state.}

{*The fact, it is important to remark, of sin being in the flesh does not make the conscience bad. When it becomes the source of thought or action, then the conscience is bad, and communion by the Holy Ghost is interrupted. But our chapter leads us farther into this.}

246 The being, as men speak, in the third heaven, is not always our place and portion. It is a mistake to think it would puff us up. A creature is never puffed up in the presence of God and with Him before the mind. It is when the eye is off Him, when we have been in the third heaven but are no longer there, that the danger begins. We are in danger of being puffed up about having been there when we have lost the present sense of the excellency of what is there, and in which we lose the sense of self. This is what we find in Paul's case. The man in Christ has Christ for his title, and is entitled thus to all that Christ enjoys, to joys and glories which mortal apprehensions cannot receive — the language formed by mortal thoughts and ways cannot express, that are not meet to be communicated in this scene of human capacities. They belong to another sphere of things.

But, wonderful as that is into which we are brought, the question of good and evil, the knowledge of which we have by the fall, and cannot get rid of, nor is it desirable or meant we should, must be thoroughly and experimentally gone through by us. It has been as to acceptance. In respect of that it is finally and for ever settled before God by the death and resurrection of Christ. But we have to learn to judge the evil and to delight in the good. The law, as we have seen, makes us learn the evil as looking to be judged for it. In grace we are first put into the position of perfect blessing in Christ, and then we judge what is contrary to it. This is the difference of bondage and liberty. Still we have to judge it, and grow in our apprehension of good. In the instruction of our chapter this (as in all God's ways with the apostle, who was to be both quickly and fully taught in order constantly and deeply to teach others) was done in the strongest and fullest contrast of the extremes. The third heaven, if it did not set aside the flesh in fact for ever, must shew what a hopeless, unchangeable thing it is. And so it did. Paul had entered into the third heaven with no consciousness of the hindrance of the body, still less with any working of the flesh in any way. But he must return into the practical state of existence in which he had to serve Christ with the consciousness of what he was as Paul. And here the only working of the flesh, the only way it took cognizance of Paul's having been in the third heaven, would have been, if it had been allowed to do so, to have puffed him up at having such wondrous revelations. It was unchanged in evil. Paul must learn this practically, even by a visit to the third heavens, instead of this amazing privilege taking away or changing it. It was not allowed to act, but he must learn truly to judge it in himself.

247 Note this difference. It is not necessary, when we are in Christ, that flesh should act in order that we should learn to judge it in ourselves. Alas! it is often in that way that we do learn it, but it is not necessary that it should act even in thought. By God's ways, and through communion with Him, we can learn to judge evil in the root in us without its bearing fruit. If we do not learn to judge it in communion with God, where there may be very real exercise about it (and a very great conflict of will against God if it has acquired any head), we learn it in its fruits through the giving way to the temptation of Satan. When it is not judged, we learn, no doubt, the evil — not yet indeed the root, but Christ is dishonoured, the Spirit grieved, and but for the coming in of grace, sin will in such case have acquired deceiving power in our hearts.

248 In what has preceded we have found three important points brought before us in this chapter. First, the man in Christ; secondly, the gross evil of the flesh if our members be not mortified; thirdly, that this same flesh is not at all corrected in its tendencies even by a man's being in the third heaven, nor by anything else. Paul needed a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be puffed up. There is another collateral point indeed, which I would here briefly notice; the difference between our abstract position as men in Christ (and we are entitled to consider ourselves as such; it is our true position as Christians according to grace), and our actual condition with the consciousness of the existence of the flesh and all our bodily circumstances and infirmities down here. Into this actual condition we have now to follow Paul in our chapter, and to learn where power is to be found to walk rightly in it. The flesh exists unchangeable in its nature, a pure hindrance.

First, we may remark that no extent of knowledge, even where given of God, is in itself spiritual power in our souls. We cannot doubt that such revelations as Paul received in the third heaven strengthened his own faith, made him understand that it was well worth sacrificing a miserable life, such as this world's life is, for it, and gave him a consciousness of what he was contending for, a sense of the divine things he had to do with, which must have exercised an immense influence upon his career in this world. But it was not immediate power in conflict in the mixed state in which he found himself when he had to speak of "myself Paul." He had, and so have we, to walk by faith, and not by sight. The wickedest man would not sin while his mind had the glory of God Himself before his eyes; but that would no way prove the state of his heart and affections when it was removed. Like Balaam, he would turn to his vomit again. So in point of fact the Christian (however strengthened and refreshed by times on the road by what is almost like sight to him, and by communications of divine love to his soul) has to walk by faith, and not always in these sensible apprehensions of divine results in glory. Not that he is to walk in the flesh or lose communion, but he is not always under the power of especial communications of the glory conferred on him, and divine love to his soul. Paul knew a man fourteen years ago — not every day in that state. He could rejoice in the Lord always. Some Christians are apt to confound these two things — special joy and abiding communion, and to suppose, because the first is not always the case, the discontinuance of the latter is to be taken for granted and acquiesced in. This is a great mistake. Special visitations of joy may be afforded. Constant fellowship with God and with the Lord Jesus is the only right state, the only one recognized in scripture. We are to rejoice in the Lord always. This the flesh would seek to hinder, and Satan by the flesh.

249 Here we find first the privilege of having a title to hold ourselves dead. We are not debtors to the flesh. It has no kind of title over us. We are not in the flesh. We may reckon ourselves dead and alive unto God, and sin shall not have dominion over us. It is all-important to hold this fast. The flesh is unchanged, but there is no necessity of walking in it — not more as to our thoughts than as to our outward conduct. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and of death; sin in the flesh is condemned by the death of Christ; the power it had over us, when under law (if not lawless), it has no longer. When we were in the flesh the motions of sin which were by the law wrought in us all manner of concupiscence. But we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us. We are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held. Our whole condition is changed. What the law could not do just because it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh.

But if the flesh be not changed, how is this realized in practice? It is this which is taught us here. It is first the giving conscious nothingness and weakness in the flesh. This is not power, but it is the practical way to it. We are entitled, as to our standing before God, to reckon ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and in practice to hold ourselves, as in this condition, not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh; and sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are not under law, but under grace. But our chapter goes farther than this: it shews us power so to walk. The flesh is then practically put down. The measure, as stated by the apostle, is this — "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body." His object was not to gain this life. Alive in Christ we have it. But he held every movement, thought, and will of the flesh under the judgment of the cross, and so the life of Jesus was left free.

250 Such is our path. Admitted into the very presence of God, into the holiest, by the blood of Christ, we judge in its roots, in communion with Him according to His infinite grace, everything that is not of Christ in us, and the grace we meet and are made partakers of in this communion carries us along our road in lowliness and grace. Our fleshly tendencies are thus only the occasion of receiving the grace which keeps us safe from their power. I may be humbler than ordinary men if I have dealt with God about my pride, and so of every danger. The present power of Christ keeps the evil out of our thoughts. We have brought God into our life in this respect. It is not merely the absence, comparatively speaking, of a particular character of evil. The flesh — evil — is judged according to God, and I am lowly in spirit, and walk softly and safely. But where there are real dangers, God helps us in this. Not only do I bear about the dying, but we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. God works; some messenger of Satan is sent (not sin, far from it; God cannot send that; but some humbling process which prevents sin and pride working), unpleasant to the human heart, but needed for it. All self-activity of the flesh is sin. The body is dead because of sin if Christ be in me; that is, if alive, it is only sin; and if Christ is my life, the Spirit is life. My body is not counted as alive, or to be so in its will. What is of me in will and nature — me as a conscious living man, a child of Adam in this world — is annulled, or is a hindrance; it has no connection with God: a man in it cannot please God. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

We find in Philippians this confidence in the flesh (not lusts of corruption) judged by the apostle. All that made Paul of undue importance to himself, or to others and so reflectively to himself, was rejected. It would have been confidence in self. Our part is to be in the presence of God, that all which is of self may be judged. But God, as I have said, helps us. Here God had, by the abundance of the revelations given to Pull, given an occasion which the flesh could use. In His mercy He meets the danger for Paul, which he might not, surely would not, have rightly met; for God does not afflict willingly. He lets loose this messenger of Satan at him, but to do His own work, as with Job. And Paul has some infirmity which tends to make him despicable in preaching. "My temptation which was in my flesh, ye despised not," says he to the Galatians — a natural counterpoise to the abundance of revelations.

251 What can the flesh do with this then? Well, it would be spared what seemed a hindrance. To whom? Why, to Paul. Just right. Paul had to be kept down — terrible truth for us! Must we be made weak and inefficient in order to be blessed and used? Yes, if, wretched worms as we are, we are in danger of leaning as man on the flesh's efficiency and strength. The works that are done upon the earth, God doeth them Himself, and above all spiritual work. He gives the increase. If He puts the poor vessel in a certain sense in danger, and in many a case where it puts itself, He meets the danger by striking at its root in self. He makes nothing of self, renders the incapacity of nature to anything not only apparent, but apparent to ourselves, and this is what we want.

That self should feel self nothing, or a hindrance, is a most divine work (though it be a shame to a man who has been in the third heaven to think himself something in respect of it: but flesh is incorrigible), but as to the instrumentality used, a mean and miserable process, such as becomes making nothing of flesh. If death is our deliverance from all sin, we must taste it for our deliverance practically. The bitter water of Marah must be tasted when the salt waters of the Red Sea have delivered us from Egypt for ever and ever. Put the wood of the tree, the cross of Christ, into our cross, and all will be sweet. "Crucified" is terrible work — crucified with Christ, joy and deliverance; reproach is cruel — the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. But there are cases where the will and natural reluctance of the flesh to suffer are in question; there are also those which are characterized by the danger of positive evil working, as pride or vanity in the case of Paul. As to all, death must be tasted. The nothingness and incompetency of all flesh must be felt where it would be disposed to think itself competent. It must find its pretensions arrested and set aside when it has, or would be disposed to have, such; it must find itself consciously weak where it might hope to be strong or capable of something.

252 As to what self would lean on, it must find itself a hindering flesh where it would pretend to be a helping one. It is really nothing in the work and path of God; but when it would be positively something, it must be made to feel itself a positive hindrance. This is not the end, but it is the way. We must be humbled when we are not humble, or even in danger of not being so. This work may come in preventively. But the flesh must be nothing if we are to have blessing; and in order that the new man, which is content that God should be all, and knows its power is in Christ only, may be free and happy, and God, as it desires, may be glorified. The power of Satan and the power of death concur in ministering to our usefulness in Christ, because Satan wields this power to kill practically the flesh, and we have another life which lives in Christ and lives for Him. This question is first settled as regards righteousness, as we have seen: we are dead and risen again; but it has to be practically settled as regards life and power of walk also. So that we may say, whatever our little measure may be, "To me to live is Christ."

But the fact that the flesh is thus practically mortified is not in itself power: we must be positively dependent on another — glad to be so, if our heart is in Christ's service, and that we find His help only can make us to serve Him. To have Him is joy in every way. This is what follows: "I will glory in my infirmities" — not sin, but what broke down the flesh in its will and hindered sin, "that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Here is positive power capable of everything, or rendering us capable of everything in the path of obedience, giving no power at all out of it, but fulfilling in power all the energy of love in obedience. For the Christian path is not mere legal obedience which submits to a will which arrests and stops our will, but an obedience which serves with delight in love, and in which love is positively and energetically active in doing good. This path is regulated by the Lord's will and fulfilled by the Lord's power, but that power can have no adventitious aid. It must be the strength in us of a dependent nature. In this is the right condition of the creature, obedience and conscious dependence (and both delighted in) on One who has title, and alone has title, to all the praise; who loves us, and on whose love we lean.

In the path of service, the energy of Christ's love impels us, Christ's power sustains and enables us: flesh, only a hindrance to that, must be put down, and practically annulled, that Christ may work freely in us according to the blessing of that love. We then say the love of Christ constrains us. I can do all things through Him which strengtheneth me, the only true abiding state of the Christian, be he babe or father in Christ; only the thing he may have to do may be different, and his temptations too. God in all cases is faithful not to suffer him to be tempted above that he is able. When a man is in Christ, then, redeemed, quickened, and united to the Head, accepted in the Beloved, the work of God in order to power is to break down and bring the flesh to conscious nothingness wherever it is needed; not by mending, using, ameliorating, but, if needed because of its will to be something, breaking it down, yea, making it for man's capabilities of acting a sensible hindrance. That is all that God makes of man as to his flesh and competency; but there is a deep lesson of blessing in it besides being the path of power in source. We are emptied of self, and Christ (that is, purity, and love, and blessing — God known to us in grace) becomes everything to us, the more unhindered joy of the soul, made practically like Him.

253 But we become now sensibly dependent, and Christ our power, I do not say sensibly power; for though there may be a consciousness of His strength, the service and work is done indeed, but done without any conscious strength. It may be done with joy, done in communion with Christ, and thus with joy in the service itself. It may be done with fear and trembling, and hence with no joy, though with confidence. That depends much upon how far we have to meet the sensible power of the enemy, always in weakness as to self, always in confidence as to Christ, that it is His work, and He the doer of it, though He may use us as instruments. And this operation is not merely an effect in us, though there be one: it is the positive power of Christ, a real acting and working of His power, for which the sensible putting down of flesh is only preparatory, that it might be evidently not the power of flesh, and that there might be no mixture of the two in our minds. Hence the flesh is turned into positive, sensible weakness. But the power of Christ rests upon us, so that it is joy to the soul because He uses us — connects Himself, so to speak, with us — deigns to make us the instruments and servants, willing and rejoicing servants, of this power. It is His power, but it rests on us. This is not the man in Christ, but Christ with the man — His power resting on him, emptied of self.

254 The path of strength, then, is the being made sensible of our own weakness, so that divine strength, which will never be a supplement to flesh's strength, may come in. Thus there is entire dependence, and the positive coming in of Christ's power to work by us. If Paul's bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible, and there was something which tended to make him despised, by whose power was it that such wondrous blessing for the whole world flowed forth on all sides, from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum?

One or two remarks more, and I will close my imperfect suggestions on this chapter. First, remark, that the humbling process with Paul was no depriving of the abundance of the revelations, or weakening the consciousness that he was a man in Christ. This would have been positive loss. These were fully maintained and gloried in. The use the flesh would make of them when consciously down here in the body, in the world, was met by an accessory humbling process carried on in the flesh itself. Next, remark, that it is not merely power which is gained by this process. The discernment of good and evil, in its more subtle characters, is greatly increased; the judgment and knowledge of flesh is greatly strengthened and deepened. Hence the liberty of the new man with God, confidence in Him, the sense of the careful and gracious interest He takes in us, and intercourse founded on this confidence, are greatly increased.

Further, remark, that dealing with self, our own spiritual condition, is the secret of power, not the quantity of divine revelations we have to communicate, valuable as this may be in its place. For power Paul was dealt with in his own soul, its own dangers and state, and then Christ's power rested on him. Lastly, as to our glorying in our position in Christ; it is all right. "Of such a one I will glory; yet of myself I will not glory but in mine infirmities." When I think of my place in Christ, of the "man in Christ," of such a one we ought to glory. This is no presumption. It cannot be otherwise, whenever we know ourselves in Christ. Do you think I can do anything but glory in being in Christ, and like Christ in glory? Of such a one I will. Let no pretended humility deprive us of this. It is legalism. Of myself, of that of which I have the living consciousness of a man down here, I cannot glory, unless it be in those sufferings for Christ and infirmities of whatever kind they may be, connected with them, which are used to put the flesh down, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

255 I would add to these, one collateral observation. The Lord can unite discipline with positive suffering for Christ, though the two things are quite distinct. When Paul was subjected to contempt in his preaching, it was for Christ's sake he suffered, yet the form of it was, we have seen, a discipline to prevent his being puffed up. This may be seen doctrinally stated in Hebrews 12: 2-11. In verses 2-4, we suffer with Christ, striving against sin, even to martyrdom and death. In verses 5-11, the same process is the discipline of the Lord, that we may be partakers of His holiness. How wise and most gracious of the Lord's ways to turn our needed discipline into the privilege of suffering for Christ's sake, so that we can glory in our infirmities! There is chastening which has not this character, being for positive evil. In this, doubtless, we have to thank God, but it is another thing.

In fine, before God we have the "man in Christ" — blessed position — and which is perfection where we want it; and as to our place before men, besides Christ in us as life, the power of Christ (where we practically want it — in weakness and imperfection down here) resting on the man for walk and service before men. The first is the basis of all our walk, but it does not suffice for power. This is had in daily dependence in which we walk, as humbled in ourselves, that Christ may be glorified, and the flesh practically annulled.

The Word of God and the Priesthood of Christ.

J. N. Darby.

<07010E> 256

There are two things that God employs in carrying us through the desert as spoken of in Hebrews 5. One is the word of God, and the other is the priesthood of the Lord Jesus.

The word of God is used for the detection and discerning of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Whatsoever is flesh it cuts down mercilessly; and, thank God for it, because. it is a hindrance to our blessing. The warning of which the apostle speaks here, alluding to the history of Israel, is that their carcases fell in the wilderness. They had got out of Egypt, and yet their carcases fell in the wilderness. There is, of course, for us, the danger answering to that — a very real danger. No doubt God will keep His own to the end, but there is the principal danger; and if we are kept, it is through faith. Now that which tends to make us fall in the wilderness is the flesh; and the means that God uses that we should not fall in the wilderness, is the word that is sharper than any two-edged sword. Whatever is not a thought that comes from God, and an intent that goes to God, the word of God judges: that is, whatever springs naturally up in the heart of man, whatever comes from the flesh (which, of course, is everything in a mere natural man, in the heart, out of which are the issues of life). The flesh never gets from the wilderness into the land. It may die in the wilderness, but it never can get out of it. The flesh belongs to it, in a sense, and may die in it, but cannot get from it. There is nothing for the flesh but the sword — a figure, of course, of that which judges, detects, and condemns it; and let us thank God for that.

As regards acceptance with God, we can say the flesh is condemned already. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Thus, looked at as a question of righteousness in the cross of Christ, God has condemned sin in the flesh; and then, when we come to journey through the wilderness, the word of God judges whatever is not according to that word. The cross has dealt with the flesh already: whatever did not suit the death of Christ in a thought or act was thereby judged and condemned. The word of God is one means for the practical carrying out of this; and the second means employed is the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

257 The word of God, we saw, judged the thoughts and intents of the heart, while the priesthood applies to all infirmities and failures. The moment it is a question of a thought or intent of the heart, it has to be judged as coming from the flesh; and this is done by the word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. On the other hand, looked at as regards trials and weakness, there you get the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word of God is the eye of God, judging everything in my soul that is not according to Himself. And then we have "a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." Where it is a time of need and difficulty, it is the High Priest full of tenderness and mercy, "that we may find grace to help in time of need." It cannot be, evidently, anything inconsistent with the word of God. It cannot be the one to cut and the other to spare the flesh; and therefore the priest must sustain us, according to the blessing which is given us entirely out of reach of the flesh. And so it is that Christ becomes High Priest. He is gone up where the flesh cannot enter. That is the place in which we have to say to God; and therefore, as our high priest, He has to carry on our affairs in that presence of God where nothing that defiles can enter. He lays the foundation of that in the sacrifice by virtue of which He can go there; so that this very priesthood of Christ is founded on our acceptance.

As a figure, the redemption of Israel out of Egypt, which preceded all their journey in the wilderness, is here used. We have done with Egypt altogether. The Red Sea put death and judgment between the journeyers and Egypt; and so with the saint now. Death and judgment form the starting-point of the saint. There is that which goes before it in exercise of heart; and when a soul sets out to leave this world of ruin and condemnation, it often finds itself, as Israel did, on the banks of the Red Sea, the waters before and their enemies behind them. There they were completely shut in to this judgment, where Satan was driving them. But the moment they had passed over the Red Sea, all that was entirely and finally closed. What had been a barrier when Israel could go no farther, was now left wholly behind, and served as a barrier against Egypt. And to us, death and judgment are a securing barrier between us and all that are against us. It is not that there may be no conflict after — no weariness after; but there is no question of deliverance after that. If Israel were not faithful, they failed in gaining victories; but there was no question of God's being against them. Next comes this journey through the wilderness, the judgment of the flesh by the word, and then the priesthood of Christ which is exercised for us. And when I come to see where Christ is, I find that it is the very One that has gone through the death and judgment that were due to me, and has taken His place in the presence of God, where He is exercising His priesthood. He has settled the point where I belong to, where I worship; and it is in the presence of God that is my place. All that belongs to me, as in the first Adam, is done with in my intercourse with God — not as regards conflict with it, but as regards my place with God. The old nature is there still, and the word comes and judges all the movements of it that would hinder me in my path. But the place where Christ exercises His priesthood is out of the flesh altogether; it is in heaven. "Such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." Israel had a place on earth, and a priest on earth; we have a place in heaven, and a priest in heaven.

258 "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." He must first be made perfect in His place as priest, before He begins to lead and administer to those who were to worship through Him. We shall find that Christ exercises this priesthood because we belong to a place where flesh cannot enter, because He has set aside all that we were connected with in the first Adam. He gives us access into the presence of God, and there He maintains us. The high priest in Israel, taken from among men, was not there. They did not go even in figure within the veil, save once a year, and that was with clouds of incense, to hide the glory of God from them. They were men in the flesh, and therefore could not be connected with the holiest. We are men in the Spirit, and therefore we are in the holiest; but the flesh has no part there in any way. The Jews, as a nation, being in the flesh, they must have a high priest in flesh, compassed with infirmities, because they had infirmities; as it is said here, "who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." He was outside like them; He was on the same ground. Well, in a sense, we are on the same ground with our high priest, and it is on the ground of the new thing that is in heaven. We are associated with God in this new place that He has made for us in Christ. But Jesus, as our high priest, is the very contrast of the Jewish high priest taken from among men. He must be separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, because we are. All the question of our capacity to go on with joy, as being there, depends upon the intercession of Christ.

259 There are three things here, as regards this fitness of Christ for the priesthood. The first is the title of His Person. "No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest." He did not set up to be a person worthy in dignity to take such an office, but God says it of Him, He is My Son. And there He was, having a competency in His own Person. "But he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee." In Psalm 2 we find it said, "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree, the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." When I look at Christ as a man upon earth (for it is not His eternal Sonship that is spoken of here), and say, Who is this man that He can have a priesthood? What is His title? He is the Son of God. He has a competency in His Person to have such an office.

Then we come to the installing of Him in this office. "As he saith, also, in another place, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec." Not like a high priest taken from among men, who dies and gives the office to some one else, but He is a priest for ever, etc. The carrying on of the priesthood of Christ in heaven is founded upon an already completed salvation, as regards both blood-shedding and righteousness. If the righteousness were not already perfect, the failure must bring down judgment instead of intercession. If propitiation had not been made for the sin, the sin must be the cause of judgment. But righteousness having been perfectly made in Christ, and made for us, He sits now in heaven, and intercedes for those for whom propitiation has been made through His blood. The atonement has been perfectly accomplished, sin is put away, and I am made the very righteousness of God in Christ. But the question still remains of our intercourse in this holy place with God in blessing, and in the perfect enjoyment of the position He has brought us into by this death and judgment through which Christ has passed. Here the intercession comes in: "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Thus we have the Lord Jesus Christ in the dignity of His Person, as Son of God, and in the title for office, as priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. If He is to be our priest in the presence of God, we have Him in the dignity in which He can carry it on.

260 But, then, there is another difficulty. If He has this mighty title, if He is the Son, how can He enter into all the sorrows and trials of such poor creatures as we are? If He were a priest like another man, He could understand the infirmities of other men.

But I answer, The priesthood is carried on where there cannot be a thought of infirmity, where the enjoyment is spiritual enjoyment, where, if there were a thought of the flesh or of sin, there could be no communion with God. Therefore the place of Christ, as priest, is necessarily out of reach of all infirmity. Another priest could join with sinners, and feel their infirmities, as being himself a partaker of them. How, then, can the Lord Jesus Christ be fitted, in that sense of the word, to be our high priest? It is not while He has His priesthood that He is thus fitted for the office. It is what He was upon earth, not what He is now as a priest, that has fitted Him for such a work. "Such an high priest became us," etc. He has gone through the difficulties and trials of a godly and perfect man upon earth. He has known every possible difficulty which a godly man can find in his path through this world, and the trials too. He suffered and was "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." Now that is just what I want. I do not want sympathy with my sin; I find the word of God to cut it down, but no sympathy with it. Christ does not intercede for the flesh. What I want Christ's help for is for the new man against my flesh. I want to be helped as a believer going through this world, against myself, so far as the flesh is there.

261 "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." That is what I am to learn; only in His case I hear "Though he were a Son," etc. Christ had to learn obedience. Why? Because He commanded everything through all eternity. I have to learn obedience because I have a wicked heart and will; Christ had to learn it because He was God over all, and therefore obedience was new to Him. It is new to me because I am a disobedient creature; it was new to Him because He was not a creature at all. He was put into all the difficulties and trials that we can possibly go through; and more than that, He was even put under the wrath of God that we might never be there. Into those sufferings we can never enter. In His sufferings as a righteous man on earth, we can, in our little measure, sympathize with Him. Supposing I am seeking to lead a godly life in this world, I must take up my cross and follow Him. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." And if we get too much ease in this world, it is not a safe thing for us. Suffering must be my portion. If I am godly in my ways, I shall find suffering; and if I walk in the power of the love of Christ, there I shall find suffering too. I may suffer for righteousness' sake and for Christ's sake; but whatever it be, we find there, in our path through this world, the Lord Himself going before us, suffering first and most of all.

In the sufferings of Christ about our sin, He was entirely alone; but there is another kind of suffering which Christ went through, of which we cannot say that we suffer with Him, but in which He can sympathize with us, and that is in the close of His life. The special character of that, though not exclusive, was the suffering of the Jewish remnant in the last days. They are under law; they do not know what it is to be reconciled to God; but they come into the most awful conflict with Satan, Antichrist, and all the terrors of that day. They will be under the sufferings which come from the full letting loose of the power of Satan upon them, without the knowledge of God's favour resting upon them. That is anything but suffering with Christ; but still they will have the sympathy of Christ. Christ has gone through that too. When things were entirely changed in His whole position (not yet as drinking the cup from God but) when He comes and has Satan's power let loose upon Him (and there He can look forward to wrath), He was going through all that darkness which the power of Satan could bring upon Him, with the wrath of God staring Him in the face. For that reason He can sympathize with the remnant of Israel in the sufferings that they will pass through. Wherever this character of suffering comes in, judgment against man is what we find called for. Hence the constant appeal to God to arise and avenge them on their adversaries, which we find throughout the Psalms. Whereas when expiation is made, it is mercy that is called for. In the one case, it is calling for judgment upon men, because men, as the instruments of Satan, are making Christ suffer; but the moment He is suffering from God, because of atonement for sin, it is exactly the contrary. You then read, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee." It is all grace, and nothing else.

262 But how does that apply to us? Take souls that are under the law, finding out something of the depth and extent of their sin — not quite in despair, but all the terrors of the law drinking up their spirit. Christ can sympathize with them; having passed through all this terror and distress from the power of Satan, there is a sustaining grace that hinders the soul from being completely overwhelmed. The sufferings of expiation are another thing. Christ only has drunk that cup, because He suffered from God — entirely apart, totally alone; and nothing but grace remains. After He has said, "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn," you will not find one single thing but grace. It is the wrath of God He was bearing for others.

Christ, in going through the first two classes of sufferings, can sympathize with me, where it is the trial and suffering of a godly soul, and can intercede for us and help us on. I have no doubt, too, that the presence of Christ in heaven now sustains Israel as a separate nation.

"And being made perfect," etc. The whole thing has been passed through, and He becomes a qualified high priest, as regards my sorrows and difficulties, because He has gone through all the difficulties of a godly life on the earth; and therefore now, while He gives us this place in heaven, He is competent to sympathize with us as we pass through the world. My place is in heaven, and my path upon earth is that which belongs to, and is consistent with, this place that I have in heaven. My path ought to be the expression of that. What was Christ's path in this world? Even as the Son of man upon earth, He was ever "the Son of man who is in heaven." Every atom of His life was the expression of this blessed One in heaven; and so it is with us, so far as we are consistent. The Christ who is in heaven, and who gives me this place in light, in the presence of God, is the Christ that is in me. So the apostle says, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." The life of the Christian upon earth is the manifestation of that life in Jesus, with whom he is in heaven: he is the expression of that Christ upon earth. Where we fail, where our life is not the expression of that life in Jesus, there comes the word of God, which is the expression of it, and searches us; and thus there is sanctification by the truth. The word brings Christ to me where I am not shewing forth Christ, and judges it.

263 But what if I find difficulties and trials by the way? There I have the intercession of Christ. I have Christ interceding for me, as knowing all the comfort of the grace of God that flows out to this life upon earth. He has known how a soul is comforted in this trial, and He takes it all for me, and pleads for me before God, according to His own knowledge of my need. There I find the supplies of grace I want, through a person who understands the application of grace to a heart that is going through these difficulties. Before He stands in His place of priesthood, He has gone through them all. Thus His walk upon earth was ever that of a dependent man, and now He intercedes for us as dependent ones, and thereby maintains our communion with the blessedness of God, in the place where our title is. You may be conscious of much infirmity, but if you say, I am weak, you are also entitled to say, God is for me in that. Do I want light? God is for me in that. Do I want direction for my path? God is for me in that. I get all that God is for my need; and such is the effect of the intercession of Christ. In all this path of trial below, there is not one of the difficulties to which grace does not apply it. There is not a step of my life that God is not thinking of me. There may be that in me which requires that God should deal with it, as, for instance, was Job's case. He sees that Job is not going on well, and He says, I must take that case up and deal with it. And so He lets Satan loose upon Job, till Job was made nothing of in his own eyes; and that is exactly what was wanted. In Peter's case Satan took the start. The Lord says, "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." He prays there before the sin was ever committed. The Lord was thinking about him, and, when the fitting moment was come, looks at him, and Peter weeps bitterly. It was good for him to be sifted. He was a man true and sincere, but with too much confidence in himself, and in his love for the Lord. Then, in order thoroughly to restore his soul, the Lord applies the word, "Lovest thou me more than these?" And Simon, conscious of how little love he had shewn, is forced to appeal to divine knowledge of it — "Thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." You know that I love you, though nobody else could. The Lord then says to him, "Feed my lambs." There we get the application of it. "When thou art restored," He had before said to him, "strengthen thy brethren."

264 Christ, having "learned obedience by the things which he suffered," associates our hearts with Himself in the perfectness in which God is, by applying that perfectness in grace to all the wants of our souls. Then, when we fail, intercession comes in and restores the soul, and yet it always maintains the soul in the confidence of divine love. The Lord intercedes for us without our even asking. We do not gain Him to intercede for us because of our repentance or prayers. He did not intercede for Peter when he repented, but before he sinned; He interceded for Peter because he needed it. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father." It does not say, If any man repent of his sin, but "If any man sin." That is, he wants it. It is the exercise of grace in His own heart towards us to restore our souls.

"For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." People are apt to talk about "strong meat," as if it meant something very great. But the simple truth taught here is that milk is fitted for babes, and strong meat for grown people, and therefore if you are not able to eat solid meat, you are in a bad state. I do not give milk to a grown man because meat suits him. If we cannot take the solid food, the fact is that we have been content to stay babes, because we have not been growing up into Christ; the thought and intent of the heart is not right. We are called upon to have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil, and that is impossible except as we are walking in reality with God. But the place where Christ keeps our hearts is in the holiest of all. He has sanctified Himself in the presence of God for us, and that is the place where He keeps us. We may forget Him, we may fail in appreciating the position in which He has set us, and in walking according to it; but in the holiest He keeps us, in unmingled untiring enjoyment of what is there — there in perfect love and in the light, as God is in the light, sin put away, and ourselves made the righteousness of God in Him. I have nothing more to think about my competency to be there. I am there, and I cannot get there except as being perfectly cleansed. All sin blotted out, and there, consequently, as thus cleansed, I enjoy the unclouded favour of God. The place into which I am introduced is the unclouded favour of God that has been brought in by the death of Christ, which has cleansed me. And now here, in this earth, I am to manifest Christ. But in the midst of all the trials and difficulties of the way, we find these two means which God uses to carry us on: the word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword, which judges everything that is contrary to God; and the intercession of Christ which meets all our weakness and failure. He has trodden the same path which we have to tread, and has met the same temptations in that path. And now our very weakness, if we are kept in dependence upon Christ, is but the continual exercise of affection to Christ and the drawing out of His affections towards us.

The Righteousness of God

J. N. Darby.

<07011E> 266

Before entering on the solemn and interesting question of our righteousness, the righteousness of God, I will shortly notice what is objected, and dispose of it, so as to be able then to treat the subject unhinderedly for edification, and not controversy. The principle in question it is well to state; it is, I fully admit, a most grave and important one. Not that beloved and truly godly souls have not been, as I judge, cloudy upon what was really of great moment to their true and godly liberty in Christ, which is the power of a Christian walk; not that they have not been violent, as men generally are, in the sustainment of that in which they are wrong. But this does not destroy the importance of being clear. Still, I freely and fully, yea, joyfully, acknowledge (as choice and devoted servants of Christ, whom I respect, and whose devotedness I look up to) persons who have held on this subject doctrines which I believe to be a mistake. I have thus no animosity as regards this point. The point, however, is important, and what saints have held by infirmity of judgment may become a very great hindrance to the progress of souls, and a weapon in the hands of the enemy: witness the Judaism of the early Church at Jerusalem, and the opposition raised to Paul on the very same ground. The principles, indeed, which were then in question are the same which now partially agitate the Church of God, and largely hinder its blessing and testimony, and obscure its faith.

The question is this: Is the righteousness of God legal righteousness? I may state the question in the words of a sermon, which in its main purport and object I can with my whole heart desire a blessing upon, so that I shall avoid an apparent attack upon others, and any supposition of evil will towards him from whom I quote. The statement, too, has the advantage, not always found, of stating that side of the question with peremptory decision. I read in Mr. Molyneux's sermon (preached July 18th, 1858, at the special services at Exeter Hall), in pp. 17, 18, what follows: "Do you know this, my dear brethren, that no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he is garbed in a perfect robe of righteousness?" So far (save that "the kingdom of heaven" is used for "heaven," which to the practised mind — practised I mean in divine truth from scripture — betrays the existence of the system to which these statements belong), all is well. Now follows the definition of the general statement: "In plain words, do you know this, that over the gate of heaven is written up, Do this and live? Do you know that if a man is cleansed from his sin in the blood of Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, He cannot then go to heaven? He wants something more still; he must have a perfect obedience. Heaven is suspended on a perfect obedience, not a negative one. God said to Adam, 'Do this and live.' He failed. You must present a perfect obedience when you come to God. Have you got it? It is the active righteousness of Christ; it is not His sufferings — that blots out sin; it is not His Spirit — that sanctifies the heart; but it is His perfect righteousness. Listen, 'By his obedience shall my righteous servant justify many.' Listen, 'He brings in everlasting righteousness.' Again, it is put upon us; it is the wedding garment: 'Friend, how camest thou in hither not having the wedding garment?' That is the righteousness of Christ." The writer continues on the same point, but this may suffice. "Transgressions are pardoned by blood, the person justified (that is the fruit of Christ's righteousness imputed), the soul sanctified (that is the work of the Holy Ghost dwelling in you)." The reader must not think that the singular mis-quotation of Isaiah 53 is an error of mine. It is a singular fruit of the bias of the author's mind, the result of his doctrine. It is singular that the only direct passage which he quotes for the point he is seeking to prove, is a misquotation. The two others are the point to be explained, and no proof of the author's explanation of the doctrine.

267 Now I believe, and bless God for the truth, that Christ is our righteousness and that by His obedience we are made righteous. It is the settled peace of my soul, as I trust it is of the author's. The important point here is the contrast between the death and sufferings of Christ, as winning our forgiveness, and His obedience as our justifying righteousness — what is sometimes called His active and passive obedience. This doctrine, however, is not fully seen until another point is noticed — the legal character of this righteousness. Mr Molyneux states it in principle as clearly as possible. It is written on the gate of heaven "Do this and live." That is positively and characteristically, as the apostle teaches us, legal righteousness. "To Adam it was so said." To enter into heaven legal righteousness is absolutely required. This alone gives a title.

268 I affirm that the doctrine of scripture is wholly different, and that this doctrine (wholly unintentionally, I admit, so that I do not impute the consequence to those who hold it) denies the extent of sin and the true character of redemption. Law is perfect in its place. The angels accomplish it in its highest character; he who loves does too, as the apostle teaches us. I say this by way of preface, that there may be no mistake. But that a holy nature does with delight what is in the law is a different thing from the way a sinner obtains righteousness and eternal life. Doing with delight, when in possession of life, is a different thing from doing in order to obtain life. Now what I say is, The law was never given that we might obtain righteousness or life by it, nor ever could have been. It was introduced by the by to convince of sin. A sinless being, who had life, did not want a law of righteousness to obtain it; a sinful creature with a law of righteousness could only be condemned. "Do this and live" is not written on the gate of heaven. It was written on Sinai, which is not the gate of heaven. It is the gate of death and condemnation. It was not said to Adam Do this and live. He lost the life he had by disobedience.

The apostle, on the whole matter, contradicts the statement explicitly. "Moses," he says, "describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth these shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise . . . that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." The righteousness of faith is contrasted with that of law, which says, Do this and live. It does not accept its principle and find a means of meeting its requirements by another, but brings in righteousness on another principle. It speaks on another wise. The great evil of the whole scheme is, that it is a righteousness demanded of man as born of Adam, though another may furnish it. The thing furnished is man's righteousness. If Christ has done it for me, still it is what I ought to have done. It is meeting the demand on me — Do this and live. If it is to be a satisfying the demand of righteousness on me, it is the doing what is demanded which makes out the righteousness. If "Do this and live" is written on the gate of heaven, it is doing this that is the righteousness, and doing nothing else and nothing more. It may have been, if such be the truth, very gracious of the Lord to have done it for me, but that was what was to be done. Righteousness, wrought out by meeting the demand of a superior, can only be in doing exactly what is demanded. What is else than this has not the character of righteousness. And if we take the law as the perfect rule of what the creature ought to be, as indeed it was, then there can be nothing more; or else the rule is not a perfect one, and the righteousness not a righteousness according to the law, nor a meeting what I ought to do. It is not the obedience required of me. Besides, the whole principle is a mistake; for the law, when spiritually apprehended, reaches the disposition and condition of the heart. It does not only say, Do, but Be. But then life is there. If I say Love and do not lust (the two aspects of the law), righteousness is taken out of the sphere of doing. Doing becomes evidence of a state and nature. But is the motto of heaven a denial of the spirituality of the law? And so far from "Do this and live" being on the gates of heaven, I know of no scripture which shews that a doer of the law was entitled to heaven, or which promises heaven to a doer of the law, as having thereby such title.

269 And now mark the effect of the discovery of the spirituality of the law. It becomes not a claim to do, but a criterion of the state of a man. Its very nature and effect is changed: by it is the knowledge of sin. A command for qualities in a man, love and no lusts, ceases to be a command to do, and is condemnation and death, and nothing else. The whole ground and principle of my standing is changed. "I through law am dead to law." That is not looking to another to fulfil it for me, because I have failed. What I find in scripture is this, that man, the Adam race, has been as such tried and tested. Failing when innocent, he has been tried without law, and was lawless; under law, and was a law-breaker: I may add, tried by the presentation of divine goodness in Christ, and he hated it. The more we go into detail, the more we shall find that exhibited, as in priesthood in Aaron's sons, in obedient royalty in David's, in supreme power in Nebuchadnezzar's.

But the great moral principles of it, the three stages of sin, suffice here: lust; lawlessness in will, or transgression; and hatred of God Himself as goodness. The first Adam, the flesh, is thoroughly and wholly condemned. Another Adam is set up — the Second man: God looks for nothing from the first. He sows (this is just the truth of the parable of the sower; He brings something by the word of life); He does not look for fruit. The fig-tree in His garden, after all His pains, only cumbers the ground. It is, for faith, cut down, and will be so, in fact. Leaves it had, but no fruit; and the judgment of the Lord is, not only that it had not produced fruit, but "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever."

270 It may be said This was Judaism. True, but Judaism was flesh under law. And this was what judgment was here pronounced upon. Flesh was judged — Adam and all that sprung from him. Not only was evil fruit condemned, but no fruit (which the Lord, in a probationary way, looked for) was ever to be borne by it.

The false principle of all this system is, that it is making out the righteousness of the first Adam under the law, instead of putting us in the Second entirely and absolutely, and treating the first as dead and gone. Had I then no personal responsibility? Not indeed under law, as a Gentile — still I had. Sin reigned over me and death. Hence Christ was, in sovereign grace, made sin for me and died, not to build up the old man again, after death, when it was dead, and confer righteousness on it, but to put me in a wholly new position in the heavenly man, who is my righteousness; to set me in the righteousness of God, seated in heavenly places in Him. Christ was the root and spring in life of the redeemed race; and the first is wholly set aside, judged, condemned, and dead. Christ is of God righteousness to us. All is wholly new, though we are personally brought into it only as quickened with the life of the second Adam, having Him for our life.

This is the special doctrine of Paul: no thought of a righteousness of law acquired by another for us. There is atonement for sin, in which we lay, which we had committed as in the first Adam; but I repeat, no conferring of righteousness on it, but closing its history, and being before God in death, in which He in grace took its place, in respect of the judgment due to it. "I am dead to the law, by the body of Christ, being married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead."

Hence, there was no connection of sinners with Christ under law. A corn of wheat, except it fall into the ground and die, abides alone; if it die, it brings forth much fruit. We are united to Christ in His new position, where He is the righteous man at the right hand of God, when He has died unto sin once, and is alive unto God. But if the corn of wheat die alone, as come amongst the family of the first Adam, death is written on all that is of Adam. It has ceased to exist, so to speak, before God.

271 And when the Spirit of God, in the Ephesians, speaks, in its full extent, of the blessing we are called to, He does not speak of men as having lived in sin, or being condemned under law as having a life in which they had to keep law. Man was dead, wholly dead, in trespasses and sins; the Jew is viewed not as a transgressor, but as by nature a child of wrath, even as others. But what is the first object then presented? Christ dead (i.e., in the place, by grace, where we were), raised far above all principality and power, and then we, "quickened together with him, raised up together, and made to sit in heavenly places in him." In view of the counsels of God there was, so to speak, no living man at all. There was man dead in trespasses and sins, but a Christ dead there too; and as God raised up Him, so us with Him who descended for us there. When God deals with us morally, as responsible beings, He does see us living in sin, breaking law, despising goodness. This last is the way the point is looked at in the Epistle to the Romans. In the Ephesians it is simply a new creation when we are dead.

To make this a little more clear — there are two ways I can deal with the point of the relationship between God and man. I may simply take the counsels of God and begin with them. This is done in the Ephesians. Or I may take the actual state of men as responsible children of Adam, and shew how grace meets this state. The result is blessedly confirmatory of the other, but the point of view different. This last is the view taken in the Romans — the ways of God in His moral government met by grace. In the first, man is found dead in sin. All is God's work from beginning to end. Christ is seen — to bring about this blessed counsel in grace — dead; and we, dead in sin, are brought back up to God, according to these counsels, with and as Him. In the Romans, man is proved to be dead, dying under the effects of sin and his moral condition as a living responsible being, a child of the first Adam; and this responsibility, as a sinner who has ruined himself, met by grace.

But before I unfold the Epistle to the Romans in its bearing on the point which occupies us, under the added light of that to the Ephesians, I would gather the statements of scripture as to righteousness to see how far it has to do with law, in the case of a believer. Of course a man under law could only be righteous by keeping it. But is this the way (i.e., the making good legal righteousness in any way) in which righteousness is obtained by the believer — his title to be in heaven? Turning to Romans 3: 21, I read, "But now the righteousness of God without the law" — not without the man's doing it, and by another doing it for him, but apart from law entirely, choris nomou. It is witnessed by law and prophets, but it is another kind of righteousness, made out independently of it. "To him that worketh not" — well, what instead? — but believeth on him that has wrought it out for him instead? Not at all: "but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly" (chap. 4). It is opposed in kind. So, further on, the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed by law. It was not on this principle. It is not that it is on this principle, but that another had to carry it out: but it was not on the principle, not by law. The law entered by and by (chap. 5: 20). We are not under the law, but under grace (chap. 6). Why, then, must I have it fulfilled in my place? We are become dead to the law by the body of Christ (chap. 7: 4). How held to its fulfilment, if I am dead to it, and consequently it has no more dominion over me? So, further on, we are delivered from the law, being dead in that in which we were held. Then he enters into its power as a means of convicting of sin, which is not my object here, but of which I purpose speaking further on.

272 So in Galatians, as many as are of works of law are under a curse — not as many as have broken it: all under it had; but that is the position of one under it. No man is justified by the law; for the just shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. That is, our justification does not proceed on this principle, whoever may meet it. And how are we redeemed from its only effect — a curse? The curse is taken by another. It is not met by another's fulfilling it; not a hint of it. After faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. I have nothing to do with it as a way of righteousness. How was another to be my righteousness by keeping it? I must have righteousness; but I am not under law, so that righteousness should be claimed in that way. If righteousness came by law, Christ is dead in vain. How could this be said if it does come by law, Christ having livingly fulfilled it to be our righteousness? And mark, His death is appealed to. Christ is dead in vain, if law is the principle on which I have righteousness. For faith, in the death of Christ, the very nature is dead in me from which the righteousness of the law would have been expected. "I am crucified with Him; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Is He under law? If not, I am not. If I am justified, says the apostle, by works of law, why have I cast it all down? If I build law after Christ, I am a transgressor in leaving it to come to Christ. But I through law (says he) am dead to law (i.e., not bound to it), that I might live unto God (which no one under law ever did: it is weak through the flesh); for by works of law shall no flesh be justified, be he Jew, or Christian, or who he may, or whoever may do them. No one is justified by works of law. We are set on a wholly different ground — dead and risen again in the second Adam. We are in the presence of God through the rent vail. Again, Christ is become of none effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law. You are fallen from grace. It is on another principle. It is not Do this and live.

As regards walk, even, it is the same setting aside of law. If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law. If led of the Spirit, they were going right, yet they were not under law. We are not children of the bondwoman. The whole of the system on which I am now commenting, and which places man on the ground of legal obedience, flows from not apprehending the truth of being in Christ. But of this point in examining the Epistle to the Romans.

273 These quotations will give not a particular, difficult, or contested passage, but the well assured view of the Spirit, often expressed. The Epistle to the Romans, to which I now turn, will give the great principle on which this depends, and how the saint passes from the old state to the new.

What I find in the scripture is this: when I read in the Ephesians of the counsels of God, I find nothing of the law at all. All is God's work, and all is in Christ, who is not spoken of as alive down here, but is first viewed as dead, then exalted, and believers exalted in Him. It teaches unity now of all saints in Him, when taken out of death.

If I turn to the Romans, I find the responsible man in flesh proved guilty, not seen dead; but no remedy for his condition by making it in any way good, but death brought in; at which point we arrive at the beginning, so to speak, of the Ephesians, but making thus the state of man uncommonly clear. We do not find even Christ exalted in the Romans (save in one passage which does not apply to this point and confirms the general view I am presenting), nor the counsels of God as to the Church. The result of the union of its members is presented in one practical passage. The Epistle to the Romans places the individual on the ground of righteousness, and thus of true liberty in life, but does not reach the union of the body with Christ. Hence, death and resurrection, which suppose man to have had to say to sin in life, are its theme. After stating that its purport was God's good news, it begins with a divinely powerful display of the wickedness and evil state of man, alike terrible and true; and terrible, because true. Gentile conscience must quail before its plainness, telling things as they were; and Jewish hypocrisy, too, laid bare by the edge of that very word in which it made its boast, seek to hide itself in vain in its anger. All the world is guilty before God.

274 But grace meets this. By deeds of law none are justified; by law is knowledge of sin. But now righteousness of God is manifested. What is this? The first idea, so to speak, which is given us of God's righteousness (Rom. 1: 17), is exceedingly abstract. In other passages we shall see the way it is brought about and made good as to us; but here I do not doubt it is its general nature and character. It is God's, not man's. It is — has its character, quality, and source — from God, not from man. It is what it is that is spoken of, not how it is. It is a righteousness after this fashion, not man's. It comes from God for man, not from man for God. Hence it has the character and qualities of its source, whoever may be given to profit by it.

So wrath of God from heaven: it is not human wrath or justice on earth ending there in its nature and quality, nor even divine wrath exercised in an earthly way by earthly instruments. It is divine, from heaven.

It is not "the" righteousness of God, a fact, an existing thing, which is spoken of, but "righteousness of God" — this quality of righteousness. But hence it must first be found in God Himself; or it would not have that essential quality. Hence we are after God as to the new man created in righteousness and true holiness.

"The righteousness which is valid before God" (which is the sense put by Luther and Calvin on the expression) is utterly astray, because legal righteousness, where it existed, would be valid before God. If accomplished, it would be accepted. Man would live in doing it; but then it would be not God's righteousness, but man's: whereas the whole point on which the apostle insists in this expression is, that it is God's, and not man's.

275 I would also state here, that it is not inherent righteousness — an expression of very questionable character as to any consistent meaning. Indeed, on this subject, it is rather a contradiction in terms. "Righteousness" is indeed used for the quality which is disposed to judge and act righteously; or at least "righteous" is (as we say, a righteous man). But, in general, certainly righteousness is a relative term: that is, it refers to conduct towards another. Hence, inherent righteousness is a very loose expression, as inherent conduct towards another is evidently very little exact. However, to take it as it is meant, as the quality by which man is disposed to be righteous, although this cannot be separated from the righteousness here spoken of (because if Christ is our righteousness, He is our life also; it is a justification of life), yet here we have nothing to do with inherent righteousness. The question of Job, "How can man be just with God?" is that to which the Epistle to the Romans gives an answer. When it is said the Jews were going about to establish their own righteousness, and did not submit to the righteousness of God, it is clear that it is not submitting to inherent righteousness. So when it is said, "Now the righteousness of God is manifest" — "to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness": these words cannot apply to inherent righteousness. It is righteousness before God which the epistle treats of.

But, further, this is viewed, on the other hand, and for the very reason that righteousness before God is treated of, as applied to or judged of in the person who is to be accounted righteous. The man is accounted righteous; righteousness is accounted to him or reckoned to him. Thus, when it is said, Faith was imputed to him for righteousness, it is not the distinct substantive value of his faith which was reckoned as righteousness in itself, and then imputed to him, but that he was accounted righteous, held for righteous before God, because of his faith. The why or how remains. A believer in Christ is justified-through faith; he is reckoned righteous; yet it is not the value or strength of his faith which is accounted as itself equivalent to righteousness, and then imputed; yet it is said for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe (who believe); but that he was accounted, and we are accounted, righteousness on the ground of believing. That is, the meaning of imputed righteousness is not a substantive righteousness, apart from the person, and afterwards reckoned to him, but the condition of the person in God's sight. God views him as righteous, though he be not such as would entitle him to it by reason of anything inherent. It is righteousness reckoned to him, but not thought of apart from him, but his standing before God. They are in righteousness in God's reckoning, though they are not intrinsically so. Hence it is imputed or reckoned. The whole difference lies in this.

276 The meaning of imputed righteousness is, not a quantity of righteousness apart from the person, and afterwards reckoned to him in the present sense of the word, as I impute anything to a person; but the state or condition before God in which He sees the person. I beg the reader to remark that I am examining the force of the scriptural expression "imputed righteousness" — not the scripture doctrine. From all I have said, there may or may not be a quantity of righteousness outside a person put to his account. But the meaning of imputed righteousness is the character or quality in which the person appears in God's sight, not the cause of his so appearing. It proves it is not inherent, for then there could be no more reckoning of it. Why he is reckoned righteous remains to be proved. The not seeing this has produced insurmountable difficulties where such passages as "his faith was imputed to him for righteousness" had to be considered; for then, if a certain thing in its own value was put to the person's account and reckoned to him, faith was the valuable thing for the worth of which he was so accounted, and in truth it was inherent.

So, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sin is covered: Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. It is not merely that He does not impute the sin done, but he does not view him as in sin, but as in righteousness; for innocence there is no question of. Hence it is not dikaioma when imputed righteousness is spoken of, but dikaiosune — not an act or sum of things done, but a state. He is reckoned to be in the state of dikaiosune: dikaiosune is imputed to him. As the Thirty-nine Articles express it, "We are accounted righteous before God"; so in Romans 4: 3, "It was counted to him for righteousness." Here, as we have remarked, it cannot be the value of something reckoned to Abraham, but the state in which he was reckoned or accounted to be: so we read (v. 11), "Righteousness might be imputed to them also." Here nothing is spoken of as that which is there to be imputed, and the passage as clearly as possible shews that the meaning of the phrase, "Righteousness imputed to them," means they were accounted to be righteous. Of verses 21-23 I have spoken. Faith is still here the thing imputed (Gal. 3: 6). It is again faith which is imputed for righteousness.

277 There are eleven passages in scripture which speak of imputing righteousness or for righteousness; in nine of them faith is imputed for righteousness; so that here it does not mean the value of the thing done which is imputed, or our faith would be the merit. They are Romans 4: 3, 5, 9, 10, 22-24; Galatians 3: 6; and James 2: 23. The others, where it is said righteousness is imputed, are Romans 4: 6, 11. In Romans 4: 6, it is, God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Here, clearly no positive external thing is imputed or put to another's account, but a man is reckoned to have dikaiosune. Verse 11 leads us to exactly the same result. The Gentile believers were to be reckoned righteous, because faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness when he was uncircumcised.

These are all the passages. An analogous passage (Rom. 2: 26) gives the same sense — the uncircumcision is counted for circumcision. That is, the man is accounted circumcised when he is not. Thus, though a person is reckoned to be in a state which he is not de facto in, a quantum of righteousness, ready outside himself, reckoned to him, is not the meaning of imputed righteousness. It means the state in God's sight of the person so accounted righteous. Righteousness imputed to a man is the same as the man's being accounted righteous.

Next comes the question, How and why is the man accounted righteous? It is God's righteousness, by faith in Jesus Christ, towards all, Jew or Gentile, and upon all them that believe. We are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness." Here we have a very plain principle: God is righteous in remitting the sins of Old Testament believers, as to which He who foreknew all had exercised forbearance, because of the blood of Jesus. He had forborne and forgiven, and how was this righteous? It was now proved and made manifest by the death of Christ. He declares at this time His righteousness. There is this difference in our's and the patriarchs' position — not in the substance of the matter, but in our status before God — that we stand in a known revealed righteousness, not in hope of forbearance, great as the mercy may be which grants it to us. He is just and the justifier. Who is just? God. Here there is an all-important principle: the righteousness of God means, first of all, His own righteousness — that He is just. It is not man's, or even yet some other's positive righteousness, made up of a quantity of legal merit, put upon him. The righteousness spoken of is God's being righteous ("just" is the same word), and yet so declared that He can justify the most dreadful sinners.

278 But it will be said that there must be a ground for this, which makes it righteous to forgive and justify. Right. Righteousness has a double meaning. I am righteous, say, in rewarding or forgiving; but this supposes an adequate claim which makes it righteous that I should do so — merit of some kind. If I have promised anything, or anything be morally due to righteousness, I am righteous in giving it. Thus, that God should be righteous in forgiving and justifying, there must be an adequate moral motive for His doing so. In the sinner, clearly, there was not; in the blood of Christ there was. And God having set Him forth as a mercy-seat, faith in His blood became the way of justifying. This shewed God's righteousness in forgiving. Thus accepted I stand before God on the footing of His righteousness.

Here we have most important principles — the righteousness of God means, what the words express, God's righteousness. It is not dikaioma here, some act or complete sum of righteousness by an act or thing done, but dikaiosune, the quality or habit. God is just or righteous in this. Next, this righteousness of God is declared or manifested in virtue of the blood of Christ. God is thus righteous in forgiving and justifying; proved so as regards the former saints forborne with before the blood was shed; abidingly and known so now by faith once for all, when all is accomplished, and the perfect ground of the justifying is declared. Further, by this forgiveness (inasmuch as it is through blood, so that God is just in it), the man is justified, accounted righteous. It is redemption, and God's righteousness is upon all them that believe. So afterwards (chap. 5), it is said, "We are justified by his blood." Man is a sinner, without law and under law — and now, entirely apart from law (choris nomou), God's righteousness is displayed in justifying the believer through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, by reason of His propitiating blood and through faith in it. God is righteous and justifies men that believe in Jesus. We have gained an immense point in understanding that God's righteousness is the quality or character that is in God Himself, nor an unimportant one that we are justified by His grace through redemption, and that righteousness is declared in remission.

279 Such is the direct testimony of Romans 3. (Compare chap. 4: 6, 7.) But is this justification by blood all? It is not. A very important part indeed of the epistle remains behind — the doctrine of resurrection. It is thus introduced. Gentiles, and Jews under law, had been disposed of and set aside as sinners, but Abraham had not. God accepted him, called out from Gentiles, and not under law surely. But how? He, too, was justified by faith. But faith in what? This is the second great point in the epistle. But the apostle will not give up the truth, that in justifying the ungodly forgiveness has the full value of reckoning righteous without works; nor that death, redemption by blood, is the ground of this. He will give us David's testimony to this great truth — "To him who worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the ungodly" — mark that: not, who substitutes another legal righteousness instead of the wanting legal righteousness in the sinner, but justifies one who has none — "his faith is counted to him for righteousness." The point is, that it is no debt because of any works that deserved it, but of grace to him who works not. Now, clearly, here the force of the argument is destroyed if it be works which do merit it in another. And what is our David's declaration? He declares the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes or reckons righteousness without works, choris ergon. It has nought to do with works of righteousness which are done or imputed. And what is this declaration? — "Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered." And who is believed in here? God, who justifies the ungodly. He reckons them righteous apart from works.

280 But I have said this is not all, and that Abraham is introduced to bring in an additional principle of truth, but not to weaken this (for indeed it is founded on it): no more than this sets aside the additional one. So far from it, if we do not seize what this epistle now goes on to teach, our knowledge of our position before God will be exceedingly imperfect. But before I pursue this second point, let me remind my reader that the ground of forgiveness or justifying which we have been already considering is no light thing, or acquired for us at little cost on the part of Christ. Perfectly agreeable as all He was, thought, and did, was to the Father, yet His death, of which we are now speaking as justifying us, was of all the rest that which had the deepest character and the highest value. He gave Himself for His Father's glory as for us. "Therefore," He could say, "doth my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again." No living act of obedience under law, perfect as all was, rose to the excellency of a dying surrender of Himself, and that drinking the cup His Father had given Him to drink. Still there was another point connected with this cardinal fact of everlasting history to be brought out. He was raised again for our justification, as He was delivered for our offences. This was, with obscurer light, Abraham's faith too. It is not union with an exalted Christ in heaven. That is Ephesian doctrine, where nothing is said of Abraham. But Abraham believed that God was able to perform what He had promised. We believe that He has raised up our Lord Jesus from the dead, and therefore to us as to him faith is reckoned for righteousness. Thus, as the blood of Christ was that which was presented to us as sinners, as that by which, through faith in Christ, we were forgiven and justified, and the righteousness of God declared, so now resurrection is laid as the ground, and the following chapters are based upon this truth, which yet, of course and evidently, supposes the dying and blood-shedding. This carries us farther than the thought of blood-shedding. That lays the ground on which we are cleared. This puts us in the cleared place and standing before God, which is an entirely new one.

281 I believe on Him who raised up Jesus; that is, that God, perfectly satisfied in righteousness and glorified by the sacrifice of Christ, has raised Him up in witness of it and given Him a place as alive to Him in resurrection, sin being put away, our offences for which He was delivered buried in His grave, and we alive again here below by the power of His life in an entirely new condition in the favour of God (the present grace wherein we stand), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God who has been perfectly glorified by Christ. I say, or rather the apostle says, "we stand," because it is not now simply, as before, the being cleared from sin, but the new place in which we stand as cleared. Having been (for that is the force of the word) justified by faith, we have* peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. We walk thus in newness of life. We are not seen here risen with Christ. He is risen, so that we are justified,~ have a sure ground of confidence, and are alive unto God through Him.

{*Some would read "let us have." It would only strengthen the truth if it be so.}

It is doubted if the doctrine of imputed righteousness be not shaken, looked at (as I do look at it) as contrasted with inherent living righteousness in us. In no wise. True it is that Christ is our life, and that we have received a nature which in itself is sinless, and that, looked at as born of God, we cannot sin because we are born of God. It is a life holy in itself, as born of Him. But, besides that, we have the flesh, though we are not in it; and the practical result in respect of our responsibility as to the deeds done in the body does not, even if we have this new life, meet the just demands of God, if we should pretend to present them as doing so. That is, righteousness is not made out by our being born again. We need, and have, a perfect righteousness apart from our life, though in Him who is our life. Christ is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. No soul can or ought to have solid settled peace in any other way. The whole perfection of Christ is that in which, without any diminution of its value, we are accepted. The delight of God in His obedience is that in which we are received. What we have done as children of Adam, He took on the cross in grace, and entirely put away. And what He did is our acceptance with God. It is needed for us, for otherwise we have no righteousness. It is a joy to us, because we enter, as immediate objects of it, into the delight which God has in His own Son.

282 What scripture does not speak of is a certain quantum of legal righteousness attributed to us, because being under law we have failed in it; because we are not under law. It is an unholy doctrine, because it is not atoning by the Blessed One's bearing the curse for breaches of law by those who were under it, but allowing failure under it by another's accomplishing it. It is one thing to make an atonement for sin, and another to have one's neglected duty accomplished de facto by another. Besides, if done, it is human legal righteousness, by whomsoever done. Hence the apostle says, "Not having mine own righteousness, which is by the law," supposing it ever so perfect (for it could be and would be no more than man's); "but the righteousness which is of God" — another kind and sort of righteousness.

But have I not, or at least has not one under law, neglected duty? Yes, alas! but this has been atoned for (why then, in passing, also to be fulfilled by another? and if fulfilled by another, why to be atoned for? The whole system is false in its nature), and I am put into an entirely new position as wholly dead, the whole being and nature in which I was set aside, since Christ died for me as in it: and thus my whole condition and being as before God in the first Adam is set aside. I AM NOT IN THE FLESH (my first Adam-standing to which the law applied); and I have an entirely new status before God in resurrection, in virtue of this work of Christ. The risen Christ is the pattern and character of my acceptance, as He is the cause of it. As He is, so am I in this world; and this is by a real living possession of His nature, while at the same time by faith in Him: so that my acceptance is inseparable from godliness of life, as in one dead to sin and alive to God, and yet rests for righteousness and peace on the perfectness of what is before God for us. Hence it is called justification of life.

Hence also our responsibility is not now the making good the failures of the old or first Adam: I am wholly out of it, and, as in absolute and perfect acceptance in the second before God, I am called to yield myself to God as one that is alive from the dead. The old thing is gone — atoned for (so that God is glorified in His majesty and righteousness), but done away. To that it was that law applied, and hence was weak through the flesh; but my first husband, law (if I had been under its power, as the Jew was, and many a one practically gets), is gone, not through destruction of its authority, but by Christ's dying under its curse. That authority is thus, on the contrary, fully established by Christ's having met it in death; but then, thus, by the body of Christ, I am delivered from it, having died in that in which I was held, so that I should serve, not in the oldness of letter, but in newness of spirit. Instead of satisfying the requirements of my old condition under law, I am passed out of it (Christ having borne the merited curse, so as to establish its authority), and passed into another — Christ's — before God, as one alive to God through Him, God having been perfectly glorified.

283 This is the doctrine of Romans 5, 6 and 7, founded on chapter 4, and the results fully developed in chapter 8. It will be found that the whole groundwork is laid in the death, not in the life, of Christ on earth. See chapter 5: 6-11. All is attributed in the fullest way to death. Death and blood-shedding is the theme; only it is thence concluded in the blessed reasoning of the Holy Ghost (who always reasons, not from what we are to what God must be, but from what God is and has done to what must be for us, as One that reveals in grace must do), that, a fortiori, we shall be saved by His life as now risen — life, not before death, but in resurrection, saved from coming wrath. With all this, at the close of the chapter, law is contrasted, when righteousness is treated of. To this I will recur specifically in a moment.

I pursue the evidence of the truth of our new position in the chapters quoted: chapter 5 has applied resurrection to justification, founded, as we have seen, on death. Chapter 6 applies it to life. If it be the obedience of one that justifies, we can do as we please, says the opposer of grace. Nay, says the apostle, you are justified because you are dead, and have now to walk in newness of life. How can a man dead to sin (and that is the way you have justification and life) live in it? If he do, he is not dead, he is in the first Adam, he has not part in Christ at all; for we are baptized unto His death, and it is in resurrection we have life. In chapter 7 this death is applied to our state under law. Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives; but we are not alive, we are dead. In a word, Christ is alive for me before God, and I am justified, but as having died; and thus it is I have a place in this blessing. Hence I am dead to sin; and, further, I am no longer alive in the nature to which law applied. Therefore, he says, in Romans 7, "When we were in the flesh." I am married to another, I cannot have two husbands at a time — Christ and law. But it is not by weakening the first: nothing glorified it like Christ's death under its curse. But, if under it, I have died under it in the body of Christ, and thus I am free. Through law, I am dead to law.

284 I do not enter into the blessed and beautiful unfolding of this true liberty before God and from sin, and the heavenly security which accompanies it (God, as with Noah, shutting us in); not because it would not be delight to follow it out, but because I must confine myself to my subject. The character of the deliverance may be seen in Romans 8: 1-11. There the Spirit is life. Thence, to verse 28, He is the Spirit of God personally considered, the spring of joy, the Comforter in the sorrows that spring from that joy itself in such a world as this. It is God in us. From verse 28 to the end, it is the security and sure glorious results afforded by God's being for us: hence sanctifying or life is not spoken of here — that is wrought in us.

What is, then, the righteousness of God, and how is it shewn? How do we have part in it? How is righteousness reckoned to us? We are said to be the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5). The apostle speaks of having the righteousness which is of God (Phil. 3). But it is not said, God's righteousness is imputed to us. Nor is Christ's righteousness a scriptural expression, though no Christian doubts He was perfectly righteous. Still, the Spirit of God is perfect in wisdom, and it would be wonderful if that which was the necessary ground of our acceptance should not be clearly spoken of in scripture. One passage seems to say so (Rom. 5: 18). But the reader may see in the margin of a Bible which has references, that there it is "one righteousness." There cannot be the least doubt that this is the true rendering. When the apostle would say "by the offence of one," he uses a different and correct form, a different one from that which he uses for "one offence." Theology may make it "the righteousness of one," but not Greek. But the expression "the righteousness of God" is used so very often that it is not necessary to quote the passages. Now, it is not in vain that the Holy Ghost on so important a subject never uses one expression (that is, the righteousness of Christ), and constantly the other (that is, God's righteousness). We learn the current of the mind of the Spirit thus. Theology uses always that which the Holy Ghost never does; and cannot tell what to make of that which the Holy Ghost always uses. Surely there must be error in the whole way of thinking of theology here.

285 I am satisfied that the source of it all is their notions about law. Law is for the first Adam, for the unrighteous. The apostle tells us so expressly. Righteousness is in the Second man. Christ was born under law here below, that He might redeem those who were under it out of that condition, bearing the curse they had incurred. We are told that law is the transcript of the divine mind: I deny it wholly and entirely. It is the transcript of what the creature ought to be. Can God, speaking with all reverence, love God with all His heart, or His neighbour as Himself? It is simple nonsense. These teachers of the law know neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. The law is not made for the righteous, but for the unrighteous; and never made anybody in the world righteous. It is righteous, but it was given to sinners when in their sins, and never as a law to anybody else — not speaking here of Christ's coming under it in grace. It entered, pareiselthe, or came in by the by, between promise and its accomplishment in Christ, that the offence might abound. Christ is the image of the invisible God — the transcript of the divine mind, if you please. The law is an imposed rule. "Thou shalt love": is that a transcript of the divine mind? It does love sovereignly. Christ was made under law, and of course was perfect under it; but in that character was and abode alone. But He was God manifest in flesh, and thus was the image of the invisible God. He that had seen Him had seen the Father. He was love, and was perfect in holiness — holy enough in His being to love sinners as above sin, and further — what law does not and cannot and ought not to do, knows nothing of in its nature — gave Himself up for sinners, which law knows nothing of (for it will have no sinners at all unless to curse them). Hence, when Christian practice is spoken of, we are to be "imitators of God as dear children" — "to lay down our lives for the brethren." What has law to do with this? It knows nothing of it. The whole doctrine of Paul, and of the righteousness of God, these law teachers are striving against.

Where, then, and what is the righteousness of God? God's righteousness is His perfect consistency with His own perfect and blessed nature; and that (hence it is said, "if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God"), as it concerns us now, in His dealings with others. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his eyes behold the upright." God beholds the upright. God is a righteous judge, and God is provoked every day. "For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; evil shall not dwell with thee. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness." The first Psalm opens with this great truth. So when He comes He will judge the world in righteousness, and the people with equity. So Psalms 97, 98, 99, and indeed a multitude of others.

286 It will be said, The righteousness here spoken of, however essential the principle to the being of God, yet is applied to the law. I admit it, and hence the instruction contained in it ends in the government of this world; and until order be brought about by power there, the state of things perplexed those who looked for it, when they saw the prosperity of the wicked. We are called to another position — a heavenly one, and even as Christ did, to "do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently." This is acceptable with God. But the keeping of the law is never said to be a title to heaven, still less to sit at the right hand of God: Morally — not personally, of course, I need not say, but — as to the quality of our righteousness we have a title to be there. So, on the other hand, we say as to sin, we "have come short of the glory of God," and "we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." And Christ declares, "The glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." Righteousness is shewn in the punishment of the wicked, and in the world's seeing Christ no more. This is the solemn answer to that vain conceit of love which denies righteousness, and makes of love indifference to sin.

But I do not now dwell on this solemn application of righteousness, namely, that vengeance belongeth to God, as not being our proper subject. How as regards us, in the Christian revelation of it, is righteousness set forth? In the resurrection, no doubt, of Christ. But there is yet more. He shall demonstrate righteousness to the world "because I go to my Father." God has shewn His righteousness in setting Christ as man at His right hand. There, more fully than shall be in His direct government, though of course it is perfect there, the righteousness of God is shewn. Christ had a title to be there, and He is there. Righteousness is in heaven, it is a divine title to glory, and in man. That is what we want — what is ours. But why is Christ's being there righteousness? He has title as Son. He was there before the world was. But that is not our point here.

287 Let us see how He speaks of it. First, He says in John 17, "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." This I leave, because it is His personal title, though a just and blessed claim, and characterizing His position, and thus most interesting to us. But He adds a second ground, "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

And when was this done? John 13: 31 tells us, when Judas went out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." He shall not wait till the public government of the world; and His appearing from heaven will glorify Him, according to Psalm 8; but straightway, when He says, "Sit at my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool" — where He is crowned with glory and honour, when all things are not yet put under Him. But why was it righteousness to do this? Because the Lord had a title to it, to be glorified as Son of man (though He had been in it as Son before the world was); because God Himself in His nature and moral being had been glorified in Him, and He was therefore entitled to be glorified in God. We have seen when this was: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him." Heavenly glory with God was the righteous consequence. As He says, "If God be glorified in him, God shall glorify him in himself."

But how was this? Surely it was a glorious thing for a Son of man to maintain — not merely maintain, but make good — the glory of God. Doubtless, He must have been much more to have enabled him to do it. Still, as He tells us Himself, it was as such He did it. Blessed and infinite grace for us that it is so! The more we weigh what the cross was, the more shall we see how God was righteous in raising and setting Christ at His right hand. Sin was come in, disorder in the universe, the government of God unintelligible, angels occupied in conflict in God's creation, witnesses of the success of evil. Had God judged in righteousness, and destroyed all the wicked, there was no love. Did He spare them, there was no righteousness. It would have been merely undoing the evil if all were restored, or sanctioning it if they had been glorified. Where was His truth which had pronounced death on the offender? where His majesty which had been trodden under foot? The whole character of God was in question by sin. The Lord offers Himself for His Father's glory, according to the counsels of God. His truth is made good. The wages of sin is death. The cross is an absolute proof of it. It was the paid wages of sin by the Son of God Himself. None escaped but by His dying for them, and He the Son of God.

288 The majesty of God was vindicated as nothing else would have done it. Christ spends Himself, and submits to wrath to make it good. God's righteousness was glorified in the full judgment of sin. Yet His love to the sinner was displayed as nought else could have displayed it. What a scene for the moral universe! Nothing next or like it is there in all created history. Things that are have been created, and may be destroyed; but this abides, making good what God is for all eternity. Such was the cross. There the Son of man was glorified, and God was glorified in it. Hence He glorified Christ in Himself — placed Him at His right hand. This was righteousness. No glory amongst men would have been an adequate recompense for glorifying Himself. The true reward for glorifying God was God's glory. Into that the Lord entered, where He was before the world was made.

This is what displays divine righteousness — the setting the Son of man at God's right hand. As I have said, it was God's own righteousness; but as this must meet a title to what is given to make it righteousness, it was such because Christ had done what gave Him the title to be there. But this was done for us, for all that have the faith of Christ — this glorifying God about sin. It was about our sin He did it. Therefore the value of the work is reckoned to us. God righteously receives us into His glory as He has received Christ: for He has received Him in virtue of the work done for us — us therefore in Him. We are made the righteousness of God in Him, for in blessing us in this heavenly and glorious way, in justifying us, He only gives its due effect to Christ's claims upon Him. Towards us it is pure grace, but it is equally the righteousness of God. Thus it appears that all the value of Christ's work is reckoned to us, and reckoned for righteousness. He has been made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

289 Has His living obedience to God nothing to do with this? I do not say this. First of all, "he knew no sin" was absolutely necessary to His being made sin; but the truth is, His obedience is looked at as one whole moral condition or perfection in which He was agreeable to God. He was the obedient one, as Adam was the disobedient. And though His obedience in life was not for sin, it was part of the sweet savour which went up to God, and in which we are accepted. It was finally tried at the cross, and found perfect. This was the perfect man, and in circumstances alone in this nature but perfectly agreeable to God. Once He had undertaken obedience; it was His own duty; but that He accomplished, and glorified God in it, at all cost; but He was alone, and stood alone, that He might take man's sinful condition on Himself, and therein glorify God. He did not, as towards God, make good God's character in it, but a divine perfect man's. He did display God's character when alive — He was it. But that was addressed to man, not a satisfaction to God for man. He took up man's cause as born of a woman. He took up the remnant of Israel's, as born under the law. He was made sin to reconcile the one, and bore the curse of the law to redeem the other from it, and will never bring the lawless under it. As a living man, sinners had no part in or with Him — He abode alone. As a dying man He met their case. There they could come by faith. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." That was when He said, "The hour is come that the Son of man must be glorified: except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

It is an entire setting aside the old man, his whole condition and existence before God, by which we get our place before God: not a keeping the law for the old man. Then you must keep him alive. God forbid! I live by the second Adam only, with whom I have been crucified: nevertheless live not I, but Christ in me. But then, in the new man I am not under law, so there is no question of fulfilling it for me, because I am already accepted and have life. There can be no Do this and live. I am, as even Luther expresses it, Christ before God. If righteousness come by law, then Christ is dead in vain. But if Christ has fulfilled the law for me, it does come by law, and Christ is dead in vain. Law applies to flesh, is weak through it, sets up, if it could, the righteousness of the first man. But I am not in the flesh at all — I am in Christ.

290 But Romans 5 requires some of its details to be referred to. The subject the apostle takes up is, as we have seen, death, in order to have a wholly new place and standing in resurrection. But this goes beyond the limits of law; for man sinned and died when he had none. Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the image who is to come. Theologians have puzzled themselves with this, ignorant that it is simply a quotation from Hosea 6: 7. They (Israel), like Adam (men), have transgressed the covenant. Adam was under a law, not indeed to do this and live, as Mr. Molyneux so unhappily says, but to do this and die when alive; Israel was under law of Do this and live, when he was dead; as indeed the words rightly weighed implied. But between Adam and Moses there was no law — none of either kind, but they sinned and died.

Hence we must go up to the great heads of the two systems — the first and second Adam: not to mend the first by the second, but through death substitute one for the other. I do not speak of the persons to whom it is applied, but the abstract nature of the act. Adam sins, is disobedient, cast out of an earthly paradise, and is the head of a lost, condemned, sinful race. The second Adam obeys, glorifies God in righteousness, is received into heaven, and is the head of a new justified race. In either case, the act causative of the whole condition was accomplished, before the consequences were entailed on those that came under it. It is not a course of action on the ground of the first man, which, accomplished by the second, forms our righteousness as belonging to the first. We pronounce whole and entire condemnation on ourselves, as belonging to the first — children of wrath, Jew or Gentile. Death closes on that in Christ; and, after redemption, we begin before God in Christ, and are accepted in Christ, and Christ in us is our life. We do not go back to seek a legal righteousness in flesh, the other Adam-side of redemption; we may know ourselves only as lost, dead in sin there. It is too late to get a righteousness for our first Adam state: I have fled to Christ because I was already lost by it. By the disobedience of one many were made sinners, by the obedience of One — looked at as one moral whole, perfect in death, His character contrasted with that of Adam's without any thought of law — many are made righteous In death He bore the curse of the law for those under it; but this was not keeping it in life. He was obedient all His life, learnt what it was by suffering. He was obedient in death, in bowing to suffering, when it was His Father's will, where law had no place, though He bore the curse of that too. What law commanded to endure God's wrath when a person was sinless? He learned obedience by the things that He suffered.

291 Not only so, but this obedience is expressly contrasted with law, in order to meet the sin of those also who are not under law. This is the great point argued in the chapter. Personal headship is insisted on in Adam and Christ, and on this ground we stand, the law having come in between, occasionally, though to meet important ends. Adam died by disobedience, and Christ as obedience. The law came in by the by, says the apostle (pareiselthe), that the offence might abound. That is, he states the obedience as an absolute perfect quality of the Christ, available for sons of Adam, while the law had merely a special place, which did not come into this question of obedience. It brought out sin in the way of multiplying transgressions, but where (not transgressions, the apostle takes care not to say that; for so the grace would not have applied to those not under law, the very point he was insisting on being that it did apply to them; but where) sin abounded, there did grace much more abound. There was one offence, paraptoma, towards all for condemnation; one dikaioma, act of accomplished righteousness, towards all to justification of life. It is abstract as possible, but, as the following verse shews, to the exclusion of law — that is brought in with nomos pareiselthe, an accessory which had a peculiar effect, and which did not come under his general argument, yea, to exclude which was the effect of his reasoning, in order to let in the Gentiles.

If the one offence swept wide beyond Jews, the one act of righteousness must do so too. The law came in by the by, to do its own work, to produce transgressions (not sin); but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The purport of the reasoning of the apostle is to get out of the scene of law as to disobedience, obedience, and righteousness — not to bring it in. If it comes in, it is with a special object, by the by, which does not concern the Gentiles, and for the Jew served for increased guilt; but of which Christ has borne the curse for those who believe. I am not under the law but under grace, if I am a believer. I am not in the flesh if I am in Christ: when I was, I was under law, or lawless. In Christ I have entered, be I Jew or Gentile, on a new ground, where I am alike dead to sin and law, and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, made the righteousness of God in Him.

292 It is a very striking fact that Luther should have excluded from the New Testament that on which the apostle everywhere insists as the foundation of his doctrine, the revelation of Christianity (that is, the righteousness of God). Nor does Calvin get a step farther: "I understand," he says, "by the righteousness of God, that which can be approved before the tribunal of God; as, on the contrary, men are accustomed to the righteousness of men, what is held and esteemed righteousness in the opinion of men" (Rom. 1; so 2 Cor. 5). But his whole statement is very poor. To come short of the glory of God means, he says, in the same way, what we can glory of before God. In Romans 10 he makes the righteousness of God that which God gives, and their own that which is sought from man.

1 Peter 2: 24

J. N. Darby.

<07012E> 293

The true force of 1 Peter 2: 24 has been called in question by those who seek not only to make Christ's life vicarious, but His sufferings during the time of His active service penal. The thought that all the sufferings of that Blessed One have infinite value, and that they were all for us, every Christian heart would close in with adoringly. There may be obscurity of mind connected with it; but the heart is right. But when intellectual proofs are attempted to be given to sustain unsound doctrine on this point, so as to undermine the true character and value of atonement, and to cast a cloud on divine righteousness, it is desirable then to maintain the truth. I do not hesitate to say that those who speak of the appropriation of Christ's living righteousness to us for righteousness, and hold the sufferings of His active service to have been penal and vicarious, have, in no case, a full, clear, and scriptural gospel. I am sure many who, from the teaching they have had, hold it, are as far as my own heart could desire from the wish to weaken the truth of atonement and the value of Christ's blood-shedding, without which there is no remission. They have not seen the deep evil lying at the root of a doctrine which speaks of vicarious sufferings, and bearing of sins to which no remission is attached. I am quite ready to believe that the most violent accusers of the doctrine which looks to the sufferings of Christ upon the cross as the alone atonement and propitiation for sin do not wish to enfeeble its value. But we may enquire into the justness of all views which we do not judge to be scriptural, and press too with confidence what we find in scripture.

I do not believe in the penal and vicarious character of Christ's sufferings during His active service, nor do I believe in the appropriation of His legal righteousness to me as failing in legal righteousness myself. I am satisfied that those who hold it have not a full, true, scriptural gospel; by some it is used for the maintenance of what is horribly derogatory to Christ. I have known many valued and beloved saints who hold that Christ, under the law, satisfied, by His active fulfilment of it, for our daily failure under it. I believe it to be a very serious mistake, though I may value them as His beloved people still. I believe in His obedience to the law; I believe that all His moral perfectness, completed in death, was available to me as that in which He was personally agreeable to God, and a Lamb without spot and blemish. But these are not the appropriation to me of legal righteousness. But I am not now purposing to go over all this ground; I merely maintain the ground on which I stand, and the doctrine which I hold as scriptural, and as of immense importance to the Church just now. I would do it meekly, patiently, that souls may be delivered from error and bondage into the liberty of the truth of God, which is the only real power of godliness; but I would do it firmly and constantly.

294 In the attempt to maintain the doctrine of Christ's bearing sins all His life, the translation of the text I refer to has been called in question. I am satisfied that it is perfectly correct. As an element in this question, I would now examine it. The English version is, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." A simple person would, surely in reading Peter, refer to His sufferings in death. Thus, in chapter 3, I read: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." No one denies that Christ suffered, during His life, sufferings which found their perfection in His death, besides the wrath-bearing character of it; for He was obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.

But the question is, "Was there sin-bearing during His active service, or was He kept up as the Lamb to bear sin?" It turns on the word "bear," anenegke. It is alleged that if it meant "bare," it must be upenegke or ebastase or eblae. All this is a mistake. A sacrificial word is, I do not doubt, purposely used; but anaphero means "to bear, or undergo," probably because sacrificial victims, which were offered up, were supposed to bear sins: at any rate, it does mean "to bear, undergo, sustain." The truth is, determining the meaning of a word by etymology, in a cultivated language, is the most absurd thing possible. It is interesting as philological research; but as determining the usus loquendi, it is ridiculous. I might say "hell-fire" must mean "covering sins" (for it is the same word as "to heal," used also provincially for roofing) — for the same reason, hence, that the fire of hell was purgatorial or remissory! It did originally mean a covered place, hades, and hence, gradually, everlasting punishment. Anaphero does mean to offer in sacrifice: it means "to recreate oneself, to remember, to cough up, to return, to cast the sin on another, to weigh or consider, etc. The question is, does it mean to bear, to undergo the pain and burden of? and, when used sacrificially, can it be separated from the altar of sacrifice? I say it does mean "to bear, undergo the pain and burden of anything"; and when used in connection with sacrifice, cannot be separated from actual offering up to God.

295 First, it means "to bear or undergo." I must turn to the dictionaries for this, and the passages in which it is used. They leave no sort of question. It is only systematizing, and not the facts in the Greek language, which can lead any one to deny it. I turn to Stephanus. I find anapherein, ferri, perferre, pati, ut Christus dicitur, anenegkein, peccata nostra (1 Peter 2: 24; Heb. 9: 21). Citatur e Thucydide, anapherein kindunous, quod durum sit reddere, Ferre pericula: potiusque verti debeat, Subire pericula (better "to undergo," that is, than "to bear"). The general sense of "undergoing the burden and pain of" is evident; and that is our point here. There is a reference in the beginning of the article to Aristides (I suppose, Aelius Aristides, the rhetorician), which I cannot verify. So Pape, auf sich nehmen ertragen, "to take on oneself"; "to bear" kindunous, Thucydides; phthonous kai diabolous kai polemon, that is, "envy, calumny, war," Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He adds, New Testament. Liddell and Scott give "to uphold, to take on one," Latin sustinere (quoting Aeschylus (achthos) and Thucydides). It is thus perfectly certain that the word means "to bear the burden of anything, to undergo." The etymological sense of "to bring up or back" is a mere absurdity here.

We have now to examine the scriptural use of it in connection with sacrifice, and in particular the passage in Peter. Anenegke is a sacrificial word. It is used here (if we are to take it as it usually is taken, as referring to Isaiah 53: 12) for nasa, which means "to lift up, to bear, to forgive," and here confessedly "to bear." It is alleged — for I have considered diligently what is alleged against it — that it cannot mean "to bear passively with", as would be the case with anenegke epi to. This is a mistake. Aaron was to bear the names of the children upon his heart (Exod. 28: 29). So with the judgment, in verse 30.

It is said that Isaiah 53: 4, is translated elabe by divine inspiration, and hence it could not be anenegke, in verse 12. But this proves, if anything (for the word may be translated differently in different places according to the sense, but if it be the Spirit's purpose to make the difference here, it proves this), that He would not use a sacrificial vicarious word in verse 4, but would in verse 12 (that is, that the "bearing," in verse 4, was not sacrificial, but is in verse 12); for Hebrews 9: 28, that Christ was once offered eis to pollon anenegkein amartias, are the very words of Isaiah 53: 12. So that, if this is of any value, we have not an inference that it cannot be used in one place because it is not in another; and that Peter, if he had quoted it, would have used another word for "nasa" in verse 12, because Matthew did in verse 4 (an argument, when said to be from inspiration, which I decline characterizing), but a direct proof that inspiration will not use a vicarious sacrificial word as to Christ's living sympathies and sorrows; but that it will and does use it when it speaks of bearing sins when offered up to God.

296 And now, leaving argument, which I am glad to do, what is the scriptural use of anaphero, in connection with sins and sacrifices, with or without epi to? The following instances will shew: Numbers 14: 34, kai anoisousi ten porneian umon. The use of it in this passage is the more noticeable: save in Leviticus 20: 19, the word always used for bearing the consequence of our own or a father's sin (and under the old covenant this is the same thing), is lambano in the Septuagint. In Leviticus 20: 19, it is aphoisousi. In Exodus 28: 29, lepsetai ta onomata epi to logeion; and for the same words in verse 30, it is kai oisei tas kriseis epi ton. Indeed, the argument as to lambano may justly be carried much farther, for lambano is regularly used for bearing the fruit of one's sin, bringing sin on oneself in its consequences. It is not bearing it vicariously, I but as a consequence on oneself. The only apparent exceptions that I am aware of, and they are only apparent, are Leviticus 16: 22, the scapegoat; and Ezekiel 4: 4, 5, 6. But the first is lepsetai eis gen abaton, "He shall carry them in to a land not habited," and in the case of Ezekiel, it was clearly not vicarious, but representative and the same as the ordinary case. In a word, amartian lambanein is not used for vicarious bearing, but bearing the consequence of one's own fault, coming under the effect of it oneself, paenas luere.

But what is important is to see the actual use of anaphero, when used with sacrifice. Numbers 14: 34, and Isaiah 53: 11, are plain proofs that it is used for bearing sins penally. But now, as to sacrifice. The reader must bear in mind that the act of having the sin on the victim is not in itself the expiation. That puts the victim in the answering place. For the other, death and the judicial action of God must come in to put it away. It must be slain and offered on the altar — as it is said, "by means of death." Christ had to take our sins on Him, and therefore die — give His life a ransom for many. Every one, therefore, believes He had taken them on Him before He gave up the ghost. The question is, did He take them on Him in order to suffer on the cross, and suffer the penal judgment of them there, as the victim was brought up to the altar, then the sins confessed on his head, and then the victim itself, thus made sin, slain, and burnt? Or was Christ born into this penal state, suffering it before He actually gave Himself up to be offered on the cross? Was He under the penal consequences of sin in the sufferings of His active service — was that penally from God? or in the sufferings of the cup He took to drink upon the cross from God? I believe the latter — that it was after the victim was presented as an offering to the altar (in Christ's case we must say presented Himself as a spotless victim to the cross) that the penal sufferings for sins were on Him, because our sins were on Him; and that it is to this bearing of sins alone that the passage in Peter applies. Christ offered Himself without spot to God. Jehovah laid, then, the iniquity upon Him. He who knew no sin was then made sin. Did the Lord lay the iniquity upon Him before He offered Himself without spot, a proved spotless lamb? One who knew no sin was made sin when He had bowed to His Father's will to drink that cup.

297 Offering has, in scripture, a double character. It is used for presenting the victim, or indeed any offering, heevi or hikriv, "to cause to come nigh"; but anaphero epi to is not used for this, though in grammar I know not why it should not be. It is for hard causes in judgment in Deuteronomy 1: 17, anoisete auta ep eme, "Ye shall bring them to me," but not for offering that I can find. If the reader takes Leviticus 1 he will find for these words prospherein or prosagein, to bring up. This was the presenting the offering which was to be a victim. But as soon as the victim, or part of it, is spoken of as burnt on the altar (Lev. 3: 5), then it is anoisousin auta epi to thusiasterion. So in verse 9, the general idea of offering is prosoisousi, hikriv, and in verse 11, the burning of it on the altar, anoisousin epi to. And this is the regular use of it in Leviticus, and elsewhere, as Ex. 29: 18, 25; Ex. 30: 20; Lev. 2: 16; Lev. 3: 16; Lev. 4: 10, 20, 26, 31; Lev. 6: 15, 35; Lev. 7: 21; Lev. 8: 16, 19, 20, 27; Lev. 9: 10, 20; Lev. 16: 25; Lev. 17: 6; Num. 5: 26; Num. 18: 17. This last has the same force but there is not epi to thusiasterion. That is, anaphero epi to is the technical expression for consumption or offering up to God by fire, when on the altar, in contrast with bringing up to the altar. When epi to is not used, it has practically the same force when used of offerings — that is, offering to God; but anapherein epi to has the proper peculiar force of bearing them as a victim on the altar, under the consuming fire of God, not of bringing up to. It answers to hiktir, not to hikriv. It is impossible that the use of language can be made plainer by the facts of that use.

298 There is another word for which it is used, which confirms this, hala (Gen. 8: 20; Gen. 22: 2: so Ex. 24: 5; Lev. 14: 19, 20); where the reader will remark, comparing verse 13, that in both cases, of the sin or trespass-offering and the burnt-offering, they are killed before they are offered in this sense of the word. In Christ both went together; He died on the cross. But it is of importance to remark it here, because it shews that hala, as well as hiktir, is not bearing the sins up to the altar, but the being offered, (in consuming fire) on the altar to God. The word is used in some passages generally as a burnt-offering, an offering made by fire, the sense being assumed to be known; but this shews the strict sense is, the ascending up to God as a sweet savour, under the proving and consuming fire, not the bringing up sin to the altar. And this is so true, that as to these burnt-offerings were of a sweet savour, so no offering not made by a fire was a sweet savour. Compare Leviticus 2: 9 and 12, determining the use of this word in the most positive way. They were to bring it up (takrivoo), as an offering, but they were not to offer it (yahaloo) as a sweet savour, very justly as to the sense translated "burnt" in the English. It was not to be made to ascend as a sweet savour — that is, to be burnt and mount up to God as such.

The general use may be seen in Numbers 28: 2 and Deuteronomy 12: 13, 14; chapter 27: 6 is a proof that the notion of epi to, i.e., epi with an accusative (see below), is not so absolute, but proves that anoisei, in any case, does not mean necessarily bringing up to, for here it is used with the genitive. Judges 13: 19, again shews distinctly what anaphero epi to means (here epi ten, because it was a rock); for it is added, "For it came to pass, that when the flame went up," behaaloth, "from off" the altar. The victim was offered on the rock, and in the going up of the flame. That was what hala refers to, not the bringing up to the altar.

299 Additional cases will be found in Kings and Chronicles, David's and Solomon's offerings; but it is only repeating similar cases, which confirm, but are not needed, to prove the point. The words for which anapherein epi to thusiasterion are used (namely, burning or causing to ascend on the altar), and the uniform use of them, prove distinctly that the force of the word is the bearing under consuming fire on the altar, and not bringing sins up to it. I may quote another proof, strongly confirming the use of this word in 2 Chronicles 29: 27. Verse 24, the victim was killed; verse 27, Hezekiah commands it to be offered, anapherein epi to thusiasterion. I add, on this occasion, it is never used for bringing or bearing sins up to the altar, it is used for bringing victims to the house; but this I quote because there it is not epi. The sins were not yet upon them; they were the spotless victims that were to become sin-bearers, and sweet savours of offerings made by fire.

Anapherein epi to thusiasterion is never used for bringing or bearing sins up to the altar; what it is used for has been fully shewn. But the supposition that epi with an accusative means actively bringing up to, and then rest, is a mistake. There may be grammatically the idea by implication that that which is epi to is not always and naturally there; but as a matter of fact, it does mean resting on a place or thing at the time spoken of. Thus, Matthew 13: 2, "All the multitude stood" epi ton aigialon. So Matthew 19: 28, "Ye shall sit on twelve thrones," epi dodeka thronous. Acts 10: 17; Acts 11: 11, epestesan epi ton pulona epi ten oikian. Winer's "Grammatik" (section 583) may be seen for this use and the use of epi with a genitive for motion. See a singular example in Leviticus 3: 5, the pieces of the peace-offering on the burnt-offering, epi ta — on the wood, epi ta — on the fire, epi tou. This may be from the fire being always there belonging to the altar, whereas the wood was brought there: ousin will be understood then before it. In many cases, I have no doubt that the real cause of the accusative is this; when the preposition of the compound verb implies motion, there will be the accusative though the whole sense will be rest. I do not think you would ever have einai epi to. With ephistemi anaphero, you will have the accusative; so eisteke epi to in contrast with Christ's sitting in a boat on the sea; but Mark esan epi ges. But this is grammar, and I pursue it no farther.

300 It remains only to adduce the cases of anapherein, in the sense of bearing or offering. We have first Hebrews 7: 27, "who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice; for this he did once when he offered up himself." Now, here it is perfectly certain that it has nothing to do with the victim bearing sins up to the altar, but with what we have seen to be its usual and uniform sense — the high priest's offering it on the altar, where it was a victim. So, also, we have distinct proof that it is no vicarious life, for He did it once when He offered up Himself, and it was for sins. When, consequently, it may have a more general meaning of giving Himself up to be a victim, we have the word used for that in Leviticus, prosphero, Hebrews 9: 16. Hence we have in verse 28, "once offered [prosenechtheis], to bear [anapherein] the sins of many." Thus He was once offered, and offered to bear sins as thus offered, of which it is said that He had not to offer Himself often, for then He must often have suffered; but now He has appeared once in the consummation of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself — that is, His offering, His suffering, was the sacrifice of Himself. His being born was not His sacrifice. He offered Himself — One who was a man, though by the eternal Spirit, or there could be no offering. That is, He was a man before He offered Himself, His own blessed voluntary act, the perfect act of Christ, though in obedience, and Himself already the spotless Lamb. He was thus the Man, the spotless One, to bear the sins of many. This, there can be no doubt, refers to Isaiah 53: 12.

We have, further, James 2: 21, "When he had offered up Isaac on the altar"; and 1 Peter 2: 5, "Offer up spiritual sacrifices," which give no proof, save that the last shews this, that it was the offering up to God, which is very important in this way, that it shews it was not the bringing up the sins when laid on the victim's head to the altar. The offering of the victim to God is prosphero. The consumption on the altar was its offering up as a sacrifice to God; this is anaphero. The notion of bringing up a living victim to the altar is unknown to scripture; the animal was slain when he had been offered (prosenechtheis), slain by whom it might be, and the blood sprinkled on the altar, and the fat, or the whole victim burnt; the altar had to do with death and the judgment of fire, and there was the sacrifice. A living victim bringing up sins to the altar is a thought foreign and contrary to scripture. When the victim had been presented, and the hands of the offerer had been laid upon it, it was slain at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Death was the way sin was dealt with in the victim (we know Christ's death was on the cross, as well as the full drinking of the cup of wrath); the thought of bringing sins up livingly, as if He offered Himself and His sins, is an impossibility. No; He offered Himself, and bare (anenegke) our sins, when offered (proseneehtheis) as a dying victim. Death was the wages of sin. Thus I return to 1 Peter 2: 24 with the full evidence of scripture and the Greek use of the word. All the scriptural order of sacrifice, and the language of scripture, confirming it, that the simple-hearted reader may rest in all confidence in his English translation, "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree." The word "bear" has a sacrificial character; but that no Christian reader ever doubted in this passage.

301 I do not see, I confess, how any scriptural locution could be made more certain. I doubt that any other could have so ample and absolute a proof of its actual meaning, and refutation of the meaning attempted to be put upon it, and of the desired change in the authorized version.

A Letter on the Righteousness of God

J. N. Darby.

"Bible Treasury," 1862.

<07013E> 302

My dear brother,

The "Record" has pronounced a judgment; yet, as the pope's after all was not final with Luther, but raised a question which his authority was not calculated, as he had supposed, to settle, so I apprehend it will be now. For my part, I am thankful for the article. It has kept alive a question which I believe also to be important to the Church of God. And without burning the bull, I shall profit by it to search the scriptures whether these things be so. I am glad the question is raised. Whether the journal of the evangelical party in the Establishment is wise to volunteer in thus attacking others on the subject of doctrine, I must leave for its friends to judge. However, I am glad the subject is taken up.

The article does not take up particular expressions of C.S. (and that I am glad of too), but the doctrine of the imputation of the legal obedience of Christ to sinners as their righteousness, and as the only title to eternal life, "a title which His death," they say, does not give. This the "Record" calls the gospel. "Where it is not taught, it is another gospel." Now I do not charge with being heretics those who hold the active obedience of Christ under the law as imputed righteousness. I have known many beloved saints holding these views; but I think they are very obscure in their gospel. And, without any animosity or reproach of antichristian doctrine, merely as taking the question fairly and distinctly up, I say, what the "Record" insists on is not the gospel; and so far from it, that what they preach is not the true gospel of God as contained in scripture. For a long time the doctrine was held, and held confusedly, and statements made inconsistent with it by the persons who hold it; or it was partially held, and not strictly. And all I should have said was, they were not clear. In modern times, the doctrine has been insisted on with more precision. Whether ex motu proprio, or provoked by some external influence, I know not; but the "Record" has committed itself to this doctrine as so precisely taught, and I affirm it to be precisely wrong. And that which it calls the gospel is not the gospel at all, nor in the gospel as taught in scripture; so that issue is fairly joined.

303 I hardly ever heard a person (a charge from which I do not pretend to be exempt) who did not in preaching lose his balance a little between human responsibility and sovereign grace. In earnest love to souls he would speak to win, so as to compromise the absolute need of grace; or, in carefulness to shew the work was God's, dim the fulness of love in his presentation of it. This is human infirmity, and we must humble ourselves and have patience. When I went to Plymouth, a vast body of the Christians there were dear old Dr. Hawker's disciples. I did not agree with his statements, though my heart might long after his true and earnest love to his Master. The other great body of Christians were Wesleyans, with whom too I should be very far indeed from agreeing; and each of these would have denounced the other as teaching most awful doctrine. I regret the extremes, but I thank God He blest both. Between these there may be much imperfect teaching, and yet, where Christ is loved, and foundation-truth held, and souls earnestly sought, God, blessed be His name, will bless and does bless in spite of the infirmity. All error is mischievous, for we are sanctified by the truth. Still, we have to do with a patient and gracious God; and, while we never can justify any mistake, where the truth is held He will bless. I say this, that we may discuss peacefully what is an important doctrine, without denouncing one who is not clear.

I do not think that the "Record" is wise in thus committing itself; I do not mean in abusing "Brethren" (that they are used to, and I trust may never answer mere attacks); but in committing itself to a formula of doctrine and a party. I do not think (I may be mistaken) it is quite at ease in what it is about. It puts me in mind of Erasmus' feelings when he attacked Luther, though it may have no Luther to attack. But truth is mightier than Luther. It is obliged to reverse its previous judgment. It is very anxious to have not a word to say as to C.S.'s relationship to God. Still, the case is so strong, if he were an angel from heaven, it must take it up. It is truly sorry to have to reverse its judgment; but it does pronounce a judgment, when they think of sundry members of their church, and how C.S. stands related to their fellow-subjects (!) — and that without much hesitation, for, unfortunately, there is not room for two opinions. I do not know why they should have any hesitation at all, if there is no room for two opinions. However they have reached the needed point of courage, and the bull is gone forth.

304 I suppose the "Brethren" must be making progress, and their doctrines too. At any rate, there is a recrudescence of agitation and uneasiness. Both the Establishment and Dissenters are in movement. I suppose they feel that the ground totters a little under them; and so it does. I say this with no spirit of triumph or satisfaction. It is one of the signs of the last days. No one can shut his eyes to the fact that nothing conventional holds its ground. The Lord may see it needed — does surely see it right, or He would not allow it. He sees that, if the break-up must come (and as to the instrumentality it comes mainly from the side of evil — Rome, and rationalism, and governmental favouring of popery, through indifference to truth), the conventional order or formularies of what is breaking up cannot hold together the moral elements of good, and the souls that delight in them. Christians increasingly feel that Christians and the world cannot go on together. There may be no position taken, but there is a growing sense that Christianity ought to be and must be itself.

Hence the truth becomes of the deepest interest and the deepest importance. It rallies the soul to God, to Christ, the only true stay and centre. Faith recognizes that there is such a thing as truth, and a divine record of it; that there is a divine teaching, that we may know the truth, and that we may reckon upon it. Hence the importance of holding fast foundation truth, and having it as clearly as possible, that the enemy may have no advantage and souls not be scattered by human admixture. Rome, Puseyites, and Papists would have authority; the Evangelical churchman, the formularies of the Reformation, which have already failed in uniting godly people; the rationalist would make his own judgment the measure of enquiry, and deny the inspiration and authority of scripture, or speak of Shakespeare's and Milton's, by which all divine authority in the word is openly denied. In the midst of this, let faith hold the truth, and enquire with the certain standard of the word of God, what the full truth of God is. No new truth can unsettle an old one. None can unsettle the absolute authority on which alone all truth is founded — the word of God. Let the saints do this with patience and grace, and it will be a resting-place, through divine mercy, for many an anxious soul — a haven in the storm.

305 It is in this spirit I would enquire into the doctrine whether Christ's obedience to the law is imputed to us as meeting our failure under it. I will at the close (as my object is in no way to attack the "Record," but to get at the truth) notice some others who have taken up the subject. To be clear, I will begin with the "Record's" doctrine. "C.s. fails to see," we are told, "that though I am pardoned, I am not justified — mere pardon is not justification." Now this is the precision I speak of.

It is not merely that Christ fulfilled the law for us so that we may be said to have fulfilled it; that is a tolerably ancient doctrine. It dates from the close of the Reformation. I am not aware that it was ever heard of before. The Reformers were not clear in everything. The Homilies of the Establishment teach that Christ fulfilled the law for us in His life. Nor, for my part, if thus vaguely and generally stated, should I have anything which would rouse me to combat what was said, though it would be probable the person was not clear. But the writer's notion of justification, its contrast with pardon, never enters into the minds of the authors of these Homilies. Thus speaks the Homily: "Every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness, or justification, to be received at God's own hands; that is to say, the forgiveness of sins and trespasses." So that for them justification was forgiveness. The two were identified with "that is to say." So again, in the second part, "for to have only by him remission of our sins, or justification."

So Calvin: "To justify, therefore, is nothing else than to acquit from the charge of guilt, as if innocency were proved." (On God's justifying the wicked.) Again, he says (Rom. 3: 26), "What can be the sense, unless by the benefit of faith, to free from condemnation which their iniquity merited?" So, in Acts 13, "Thou seest how, after remission of sins, this justification is put as an interpretation (in loco interpretationis), so he absolves by the imputation of righteousness." Further, "But in Romans 4: 6-8 he first calls [it] imputation of righteousness, nor doubts to place that in the remission of sins." And this he does very definitely; he says, after quoting the passage, "There, certainly he does not discuss a part of justification, but the whole of the thing itself; whence it appears that this justice which is spoken of is simply opposed to guilt." So when he speaks of 2 Corinthians 5, "The righteousness of God in him," he says, "In this place nothing else is to be understood than that we stand supported by the expiation of Christ's death before the tribunal of God." Again, "God by pardoning justifies." Again, "Certainly he does not cite the prophet as a witness, as if he taught that the pardon of sins was a part of righteousness, or that it contributed to the justifying a man, but includes the whole righteousness in gratuitous remission." All this he calls Christ's righteousness. And his language (Inst. III, 17: 13) excludes all idea of Christ's making a righteousness for us by the keeping of the law. So in his commentary: "That most beautiful sentence therefore remains to us safe — he is justified by faith who is purged before God by the gratuitous remission of sins." These doctrines are asserted by him over and over again, and proved by scripture. Once he states on Romans 3: 31, "but when we come to Christ first, the exact righteousness of the Lord is found in Him, which, by imputation, also becomes ours." But even this makes no part of his general doctrine; and he uses it only as a proof that the law is confirmed — never as meeting our failures.

306 Now, I do not accept simply the doctrine of the Homilies or Calvin. But this is certain, that both carefully contradict the distinction between the forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness. When Calvin speaks of the words "the obedience of one," he applies it to the satisfaction offered to His Father. Any one can see that what is charged as a grievous error is distinctly affirmed by the Homilies and by Calvin, and that for them remission of sins is justification. The truth is, the Reformers were charged, as Paul was, and as the Brethren are, with setting aside the law. They declare that they establish it; and in one place Calvin, as proving they do, says — Christ fulfilled it, which is reckoned to us; but the law is specially introduced by Calvin as an answer to works of supererogation or satisfaction. It works, you must take law (is the argument); but law does not speak of particular acts, but if you are to have righteousness by it, you must keep it all, and no man has done this It was thus against the merit of partial works he uses the requirement of the law, and in doing this, never hints at Christ's fulfilling it as the answer to our failure. Only in his commentary, when speaking of confirming the law by faith (not in the Institutes), he says, Christ was perfect in it, and that is ours by imputation.

307 If we turn to Luther, the whole thought is entirely foreign to him. He declares the law to have only ceased when Christ came, if you take it literally; and if spiritually, as soon as Christ is known in the soul; that its only use was previously on account of sin, and to convict of it, and that we have nothing more whatever to say to it; that it was given to Israel, not to the heathen at all; only that as to fundamentals, natural conscience supplied its place, and that we have nothing to say to it. His language is the strongest possible. For those who are already righteous (through faith in Christ) are far outside and above all laws (weit ausser und uber all Gesetze). Therefore should the law be laid on those alone who are not yet righteous, and yet would willingly be righteous, yet not for ever, but for a time, until the righteousness which is by faith come; not that such righteousness be obtained by law, for such is not rightly using but misusing the law, but that they may, alarmed and humbled, flee to Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to all those who believe (Gal. 3: 19-23). "The law is a light which makes plain and clear, not grace, also not righteousness whereby man obtains life, but sin, death — God's wrath and judgment. That is the proper and right work of the law, in which it should remain, and not take a step further." So "when the law has accomplished its work or office, that is, given me to recognize my sin, frightened me, and revealed God's anger and judgments . . . it has reached its set time and end, so that it is to cease and leave me unplagued by its tyranny." So, in the first book of Moses, "The law of Moses concerns the Jews, which does not bind us any more. For the law is given to the Jewish people alone, and the heathen are excluded." He then directly refers to the moral law, saying that the heathen have the main points in their conscience. "It is not new what Moses commands here." He says, "Thus I keep the commandments now, not because Moses has commanded them." "But," he says, "it is objected, God spoke to them." His answer is, "This is not all, that God has spoken it: we must know to whom he spoke it." "Therefore answer, Leave Moses and his people together; it is finished with them, it does not concern me. I have the word which regards me — we have the gospel." "Only," he says, "it is to be preached to make men fear, so as to drive them to the gospel."

308 Thus the doctrine that the blood gives pardon and the law righteousness, and that we have one without the other, is denied by the Establishment in its Homilies, diligently by Calvin; and as to Luther, so far is he from thinking of such a doctrine, that though he holds that the law may be used to condemn and burden the soul, he declares the Christian is in no way under it. It has ceased for him. Man may get light from it, but, once applied, it is only death, and only meant to be so, and ceases literally and spiritually when Christ comes. If he keeps it, it is not because Moses has commanded it, but because it agrees with natural conscience. We are to suppose that they had not the gospel, nor taught what all the Church of God held as taught in the word!

Now, I do not agree with much that remained unclear to the Reformers: consubstantiation; Christ completing His work in hell; baptismal regeneration, which they all clearly held — the putting away of original sin by infant baptism. For the Reformers I bless God unfeignedly, but they are in no way a rule of faith for me: "To the law and the testimony." I must have the word of God. But with these statements in the Reformers, to talk as the "Record" does is more than idle.

To clear our way yet a little, the writer's view as to obeying the law is a simple mystification. Be it that the law commands as well as forbids. It does so. But the contrasting between not merely breaking and keeping is absurd. If it is a prohibition, it is clear if I break it, I do not keep it; and if I do not keep it, I break it. But "it commands." It does: but if I do not do what it commands, I break it. God says I must love Him with all my heart. I do not do so. Well, then, I break the law. This foundation of the "Record's" system has no sense in it. There is another point remarkable in all these reasonings; not one passage of scripture is produced. We are told "that it is another gospel than that held by the whole Church of God, as taught in the word of God." I deny it is held by the whole Church of God. None of the Wesleyans hold it at all. Dr. Wardlaw declared there was no scripture for it at all. Mr. Harrison, of Sheffield, in attacking the tracts, declares he held it for fifteen years, and gave it up because he could not find a word of it in scripture. And as to the difference of pardon and justification or righteousness, the doctrine of the "Record" is contrary to the Homilies and to Calvin, contrary to the whole doctrine of the Reformation. But what 1 have to remark is, that when any of them who do speak of it approach any part of this doctrine (and, as I have stated, it was partially and vaguely held, that Christ fulfilled the law for us, by the reformed portion of the work of the sixteenth century, but not by the Lutheran, and not as the "Record" and their friends do, but when they approach it), scripture instantly disappears. The "Record" says, "Held by the whole Church of Christ, as taught in scripture." Taught where? Total silence. I turn to Calvin: he luxuriates in scripture proofs when he condemns the doctrine of the "Record"; when, in a solitary passage, he at all approaches it — not a scripture to be had. He says so.

309 So again here: "The essence of the glorious gospel lies in this — that the Lord Jesus not only bore our penalty but did our work!! . . . And this whole work of His . . . is called in the scriptures, and proclaimed in the gospel, as the righteousness of God." Where? Silence; total silence. Is not this singular? "We have, in our Surety, suffered all the law's penalty, and fully and perfectly obeyed all its precepts. This is the righteousness which is revealed in the gospel, which is brought nigh to us, by which God is just while he is a justifier." Not so Calvin; quite the contrary. I suppose he was not of the Church of God! But let that pass. Where revealed? Not a letter of scripture to be had, but a text alluded to, entirely perverted, which really teaches quite otherwise — quite the opposite. I might add another, which we shall equally see is misapplied. What is attempted to be given from scripture proves this with an unquestionable distinctness. They give, of course, all they can, but the only pretension to use scripture is an illustration from the ark. I will examine that farther on. But why this ominous silence? Why this incapacity to produce one text for what is held by all the Church of Christ?

One text, I have said, is alluded to; I refer to the phrase, "This is the righteousness which is revealed in the gospel, which is brought nigh to us, by which God is just while he is a justifier." Now, I say that that is false and contrary to the scripture referred to. Let any one judge. It is, I must say, unless it be prejudice and carelessness, an audacious contradiction of scripture. It is insisted that, not only "we have in the person of our Surety suffered all the law's penalty, but fully and perfectly obeyed its precepts; and that this is the righteousness by which God is just and a justifier." The curse of the law borne and its precepts fulfilled — that is the righteousness. Now for the passage: "Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified before God." He does not say merely by my doing it, but not by deeds of law; no one is justified in that way. "For by the law is the knowledge of sin." As Luther argues, "That was its use; other use of it was a misuse." (Miszbrauch.) "But now the righteousness of God without the law [choris nomou — wholly apart from law] is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Now here we have the words "just and justifier," but not one word of bearing the curse of the law, nor of keeping its precepts. "Redemption through his blood" is spoken of, and we are justified by that.

310 But this is not all. Not only is the justifying ascribed to the blood only, but we are told negatively that it is not by deeds of law. And further (to make the matter clear, as that which the apostle insisted upon, that it was not law, whoever fulfilled it) it is said, "But now, apart from law." Now, to quote this text, or allude to it, to prove that the righteousness by which God is just and a justifier is righteousness by law, is a monstrous and direct contradiction of scripture — a denial of the apostle's doctrine.

"We are, in Christ," not only pardoned but justified men; we are righteous in Him. All true, but how? is the question. The "Record" tells us that the essence of the gospel lies in this, that the Lord not only bore our penalty, but did our work, and that this is called in the scriptures, and proclaimed in the gospel, as the righteousness of God. Where? I challenge the "Record" to produce a passage. The passages I have already quoted in the "Bible Treasury." But such subjects as these can only be judged of by scripture, and I shall quote all the passages in which the righteousness of God is spoken of besides Romans 3, already commented on, and itself sufficient to prove the contrary. They are the following: Matthew 6: 33; Romans 1: 17; ch. 3: 5; ch. 10: 3; 2 Corinthians 5: 21; Philippians 3: 9. Now, in which of these is the keeping of the law called the righteousness of God? Not such a thought is found in them. The first is, "Seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness." The second is, "The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith: as it is written, "The just shall live by faith" — a passage quoted by the apostle to shew it is not by law. "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith: and the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them" (Gal. 3: 11, 12). Now, remark, it is not here the question who fulfils it, but that it is not by law because it is by faith, and the law is not of faith, "but the man that doeth these things shall live in them": and not then that another does it in order to justify, but that another way of justification is brought in. It is not by doing, let the doer be Christ or another. It is not by law. The principle of keeping law to justify, says the apostle, "is not of faith." If the "Record" added, "Surely the man cannot be justified by his doing them, because he has not done them; but he is justified by doing them, because Christ has done them for him," what would come of the apostle's argument, "A man is not justified by works of law?" But it is added, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" — and kept it for us besides, says the "Record." But the Holy Ghost says not a word of the kind, though it was just the opportunity to bring it in.

311 "If my unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God" (Rom. 3: 5). This has nothing to say to the matter; only we may remark, to exclude all controversy, that here it is God's being justified in His ways and vengeance: hence His own righteousness in Himself.

The next is Romans 10: 3: "They, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Thus far does not help us, but the words following do: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." He is the end of it, not the fulfiller of it for me because I am under it now. If I am, He is not the end of it. This passage Luther uses in the sense I give to it, and insists largely on the truth. But the apostle does go on to say what the righteousness which is of faith is, and never says one word of the law, and could not if Christ was the end of it.

312 "We are the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5: 21). There is the sinless One made sin that we might be the righteousness of God in Him — not keeping the law, that we might be. Being made sin is not keeping the law.

"And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3: 9). There is never the trace of an idea of a righteousness of God by Christ's keeping the law. All these passages refute entirely the assertion and condemn the doctrine of the "Record."

One passage may be attempted to be cited, though the "Record" has not done so — "To them who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." I am quite willing to take it as others desire, through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. But there is not a word of the law. I am perfectly satisfied that righteousness of our God and Saviour does not mean here justifying righteousness, but the faithfulness of God to His promises. They have obtained the precious faith of Christ as God had surely promised to His people — for He writes to Jews. They have obtained it through the righteousness of God. At any rate, law does not enter in any way into the verse.

Such are the passages which speak of the righteousness of God; but I go farther, and take the passages which speak of righteousness, and challenge the "Record" to produce one which speaks of its being by law, or Christ's fulfilling the law for us. I read of "righteousness, because I go to the Father." God was righteous in glorifying Him. Law does not come in question; yet the demonstration of righteousness was here — lay in this — that Christ went to the Father, and men saw Him no more. In Romans 4: 3, faith is counted to Abraham for righteousness. He believed God. Not a word of law; only care taken to exclude works which were under the law. "God imputeth righteousness without works" (v. 6), not imputeth works for righteousness. And, at the close of his argument, the apostle takes care to add, "for the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through law, but through the righteousness of faith." The inheritance of promise is not by law at all, neither for Abraham nor for his seed. Chapter 5: 17-21, afford us in themselves no word upon it, only it is a gift; but it is added afterwards that the law entered by the by, as a distinct thing. Of this more farther on.

313 Christ is made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1: 30). The blessed fact is there, but no word of law; He Himself is it, not His keeping the law.

In Galatians 2: 21, we have an important verse, "For if righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain." Now here Christ's death and righteousness by law are contrasted. We are told pardon comes by death, righteousness by law, Christ fulfilling it. But the apostle declares that it does not come by law; that if it did, Christ is dead in vain. Indeed, why should He die, if I was righteous without it? And note here, the apostle has no thought of a being righteous and unpardoned. Yet if Christ's life was there for us — not His death — a man were righteous and a guilty sinner at the same time. What an unscriptural notion! They do not put it in this way, I know, but they do the converse — pardoned but not righteous. Hence, it is equally certain, he might be righteous, but not pardoned! The whole system is false.

Galatians 3: 21: If a law had been given which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law: but it was not so. And then the apostle pursues the reasoning which Luther so insists upon. The law was our schoolmaster unto Christ; but after that faith came, we are no longer under the schoolmaster; before it came, we were under the law. If I am not under it, Christ clearly has not to fulfil it for me, for I am not under it to call for it. "Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5: 4). It is not Christ must keep it for you to be justified by it, because you have not; but you are fallen from grace if you are justified on this principle. The "Record" says, We are pardoned by Christ's death, but must be justified by law; the scripture, that we are fallen from grace, and Christ of no effect to us if we are. Titus 3: 5 speaks of it — not a word of law. I had omitted one passage where righteousness of God is mentioned, James 1: 20; but it does not touch our present subject.

Again, Abel obtained witness that he was righteous by the offering of Christ (typically), not by his keeping the law. "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly" (Rom. 4: 5). It is not by another's works. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith," etc. No thought of law or Christ's law-fulfilling for it. It is His death and resurrection (v. 9). "Being justified by his blood." "A man is not justified by works of law" (Gal. 2: 16). But he is, if he be justified by Christ's doing them. "That we might be justified by the faith of Christ, not by works of law; for by works of law shall no flesh be justified." It is not merely he has not done them, but it is another way of being justified, not the Christian one. I have already quoted chapter 3: 17-24. Now, what I find here is, the positive assertion of justification in another way than law; the rejection of the principle the "Record" insists on, and the declaration of the incompatibility of the two. If the "Record" has a text or a testimony of scripture which teaches that a man is justified by Christ's keeping the law, let it be produced.

314 There is a text referred to, "By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one, many shall be made righteous." But so far from there being a word of law or obedience to law here, it is in express contrast. "Moreover the law entered," pareiselthe, was no part of this great scheme in the two Adams, only came in by the by that the offence might abound. Mark, no word about keeping it. It had an object; it was to convict — bring in offence — make sin sinful. So Luther, passim. The obedience of Christ is in contrast with law. It is a monstrous idea to make Christ's obedience merely legal. He kept the law, surely; He was born under it, though as Son of man above it in title. But His obedience was absolute. What righteousness of the law called upon Him to give His life for sinners? But that He did as obedience. What, to bear the law's curse for another? All His life was obedience, but far beyond law; He laid down His life so, not according to law. And here it is obedience as a principle contrasted with disobedience, and no thought of law. There was a disobedient man and an obedient one — Adam and Christ. The law came in by the by. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. Did the law make a righteous man suffer? Christ's obedience was perfect and absolute. To reduce it to fulfilling the law is horrible, though He fulfilled the highest requirement of the law. The law was suited to the first man, Christ's obedience to the glory of God, into which He is entered because He finished the work His Father gave Him to do. So in Philippians 2, He was obedient unto death (mechri thanatou). It is the character and extreme possible limit of a principle of obedience — He was obedient even to death. Think of saying, He fulfilled the precepts of the law even to death! What precept commanded a person to die? No; His obedience was the principle of perfect submission to His Father's will, whatever the cost might be.

315 I will now take up the illustration of the ark. It really has nothing to say to the matter; and, as far as the type goes, refutes the doctrine of the "Record." That the perfection of the law was in the heart of Christ, no Christian could for a moment deny. Psalm 40 suffices to declare it. And being born under the law, He could not but be perfect under it in His Person and walk. That is above all enquiry. It is received by the simplicity of faith as the truth. But what is there in the ark which says that was imputed to meet the failure of. Israelites, so that they were viewed as if they had kept the law? Had it been so, why offer sacrifices to make their failures good in another way? That the ark is a symbol of Christ, divine in the gold, human in the wood, and having the law safely kept within, I make no kind of opposition to. No man can make an illustration a matter of faith; but I do not gainsay the figure. But, as far as it goes, it is quite contrary to the "Record"; because it was a figure of Christ — not standing for man towards God and offering what was needed, but as the seat or throne of God, on which sitting in judgment He required what His righteousness demanded; and the high priest represented Christ coming to God there seated in judgment. If the law was laid up there as righteous, they were already righteous, even as regards all their faults; and yet required expiation and atonement! The whole thought of the "Record" is confusion. God did not sit on the throne giving righteousness, but requiring propitiation. Nor was the ark in any way a figure of Christ standing before God for us. The whole idea is confusion and error, a want of discernment as to the nature of the type. At any rate, it is not Christ on man's behalf coming to God, but that throne to which a man (and Christ as man for him) had to come, and on which blood had to be sprinkled. Was it sprinkled on a fulfilled law?

316 I have now gone through scripture, I trust fairly, and as completely as I could, and referred to the illustration by which alone the "Record" seeks to support its doctrine. I have referred to the Reformers, not as any authority (for the word of God alone is that), but in reply to the statement that the whole Church of God teaches this doctrine. I have quoted the Institutes of Calvin and his commentary, the commentary of Luther on the Galatians and first book of Moses, and the Homilies of the Establishment. I will add here two sentences from the "Apology for the Confession of Augsburg," and the "Formula of Concord" (76 of part 2, article 4). The first says: "To obtain remission of sins is to be justified according to that [passage], Psalm 32." And such is the uniform doctrine of the "Apology," which refutes the idea of any fulfilment of law having anything to say to it, contrasting law and promise, referring the last to Christ in contrast with the former. The "Formula of Concord" speaks thus: "We repudiate and condemn all the false doctrine which we will here recite." The third doctrine condemned is: "That in the prophets' and apostles' sayings, where justification by faith is in question, the words 'to justify and to be justified' are not the same as 'to absolve and to be absolved from sins, and to obtain remission of sins."

The conclusion I draw is, that the Homilies contradict, Calvin laboriously controverts, and the Lutheran body openly condemns, that special distinction which is made essential by the "Record" and the party it represents, and declared by it to be the faith of the whole Church of God; that the Reformed or Calvinistic part of Protestantism did speak of the fulfilling of the law by Christ for us — that we may be considered as having fulfilled it in Him, but barely alludes to it as maintaining the law, and not at all as it is now taught; and that the Lutheran part of the Church rejects it altogether. I find, further, that there is no attempt to adduce scripture in proof of what they do state as to the law. The Westminster Confession speaks of Christ's obedience and death as a satisfaction, never of the law in justifying (ch. 8: 5; ch. 11: 1-3). Nor, when speaking of the law, does it speak of Christ's fulfilling it for us. The passages which it quotes are those in Romans, which exclude the law, and Jeremiah 33 and the like; though it says (what is foolish enough) that "God gave a law to Adam as a covenant of works, promising life upon the fulfilling (!), and threatening death upon the breach of it, and that this law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments." I refer to this, because this notion really lies at the bottom of the whole question. I have, in the scriptures I have referred to, brought forward fully the testimony of the word of God on the subject. In these the law is excluded as a way of righteousness and life. Nor is it even hinted that Christ fulfilled it in our stead. It is declared that it was our schoolmaster up to Christ, and that now He is come, we are no longer under it; and, instead of its fulfilment by any one being our righteousness, it is declared that, "if righteousness come by law, Christ is dead in vain." If it be alleged that this referred to persons seeking it by their own works under law, supposing it were (for it is really an absolute principle), it is declared that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness" — that now faith is come, we are not under it — that we are delivered from it, having died in Him, the law having power over a man only as long as he lives. That modern Evangelicals have generally this doctrine I do not deny; but they are no rule of faith. After all, half the Christians in the world, perhaps even at this moment, have no such principle.

317 I hold this doctrine of the Evangelical school on this subject to be false and wrong, because it is not in scripture, but contrary to scripture. Will the "Record" fairly meet the question on the ground of scripture? I do not hold with Lutherans against Calvinists, or with the latter against Lutherans; but I bow to the word of God. The doctrine of the "Record," the modern doctrine, as to pardon and justification, we have seen rejected by the Reformation entirely — rejected by the whole of it. I have quoted their statements only to relieve people's minds from prejudice. And, without concerning myself further about the opinions of any, I shall now endeavour to shew why I think the question is important, and what the scriptural view of it is.

Two systems are in presence. One is, that we are all under the law — Christians and all men; that the fulfilment of the law alone is righteousness; that in vain is propitiation made that we may be forgiven. That is not the means of being justified. In order to this, Christ has kept the law in our stead and then died for our sins; but that His death is the means of pardon, but not of justification.

318 The other is, that we believers are not under law, but under grace; that Christ, while perfect under law in His own Person, did not keep it to make good our defects under it, or give us legal righteousness or justification by it; that He died for our sins, and thus put them away; but that we are viewed as being also dead with Him, and no longer in the flesh at all, to which law applied, but stand as risen in the presence of God, in the position in which He stands, with all the value of His work upon us, and accepted in His Person, according to His acceptance now that He is risen; that this is measured by His having perfectly glorified God in His work, and hence is glorified in and with God in heaven; and that this is our title to be in heaven and glory in due time with Him — conformed to His image — the firstborn among many brethren.

Here is the importance of the matter. The first opinion makes our righteousness to be a righteousness under law, in flesh, connecting us with Christ's position before the cross, and making our righteousness purely legal, and putting us under the law; this being the measure and principle of it, we are justified by its being kept. "Do this and live." The second holds us to be dead to that state of flesh under law altogether; that when Christ was in the body He stood alone, and that our standing in Him is as dead and risen, the old man entirely condemned, but crucified and dead for faith; we, alive to God in Christ, risen, delivered from the law, united to Christ risen, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, because Christ has perfectly glorified God in dying, and that our place is that of having entered into God's presence through the cross, that new and living way (that is, through death, by which it is all left behind, and all that related to flesh in its relationship with God, though in fact, having to contend with it as an enemy to be overcome). They put us behind the cross under law. God has put us by the cross, and as now crucified with Christ, alive in His presence, as risen with Him.

Which is the scriptural truth? That is the question. I affirm the common modern Evangelical statement, maintained by the "Record," to be unscriptural; and that it destroys the true Christian liberty insisted on by Paul, and the claims for holiness presented by scripture, according to the new position into which grace has brought us; that it lowers Christianity and disfigures it, and denies the depth of sin and the power of resurrection; that the gospel as taught specially by Paul in conflict with Judaism, is denied by it. We both admit propitiation by blood. But they put before us a man living in flesh, and righteousness provided for him by Christ under law. Paul, I affirm, puts a believer in resurrection, and wholly dead to the former state, and accepted in Christ when he is no longer under law at all.

319 Now, I will commence by stating that I hold the maintenance of the law, in its true and highest character, to be of the deepest importance, and necessary to a right and full apprehension of divine teaching. It is the abstract perfection of a creature, loving God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves; and this Christ most surely did in all He did. All the moral claims and teaching of law and prophets, as the Lord declares, hang on it. And if angels suggest little the thought of a neighbour where God's presence fills all things, and He only, so to speak, is thought of, still, in a general way, though not under law, we can say that the angels surely do so. Love to God and to others governs them. Still, it is because the others are objects of God's love, God has a more exclusive place with them. For love to one another is not brought out as to them in scripture, as in man. Man's wants develop it; angels can much more think of God only. For us, at any rate, the maintaining this immutable standard abstractedly as our creature perfection is, I believe, of deep moral importance. To say that it was given to Adam with a promise of life, and reproduced at Sinai, is an idle, unscriptural imagination, and utter confusion as to the ways of God. There was no promise of life to Adam innocent; it would have been out of place. It is false, and only confusion. A law to love God does not suit innocence. Loving a neighbour was not suited to Adam's position; had he remained innocent, he never would have had any, but been the head and father of his race without a neighbour. The ten commandments suppose the knowledge of good and evil: to give a law to Adam which supposed it would have falsified his position. What did stealing mean for him? And, what is yet more important, what a prohibition to lust? Sinai does take the two great commandments as basis (that we know), but supposes lust, knowledge of good and evil, and sin, and prohibits it. Law is not made for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. That, Adam was not. He had a command which was a test of obedience, and no more — a test by that which, save by prohibition, would have been as innocent in itself as all else. The acquirement of the knowledge of good and evil changed the whole moral condition of man (coming in by sin, too, as it did); and to that condition the law undoubtedly applied. Of that condition (i.e., of a being having knowledge of good and evil) the two great commandments were perfection in the creature. Adam had a law, that is plain — a simple test of obedience before the knowledge of good and evil. Moses gave from God a law, when man had the knowledge of good and evil, and suited to that state. Both these suppose the express authority of God. They both impose a rule under a penalty. The law under Moses adds "this do and thou shalt live." Man, departed from God, was lawless. This did not alter the abstract perfection of the law; but he had abandoned God in will, had a knowledge of good and evil, but no law save the law of conscience. God gave a law to Israel, and in it set the jewel of man's perfection according to law. Christ took a double character. He was born of a woman, and born under law. He was a perfect man in the midst of evil (but much more), and had the law in all its perfection in His heart; but, besides that, grace and truth came by Him. He, not the law, was the light of the world.

320 But now comes the question. Man being a sinner, utterly departed from God, and if under law a law-breaker — is the law a way of justifying him, or the rule according to which he is justified? Ah, if he has kept it all right, he shall surely have righteousness by it and life.* But we have supposed with scripture that man is a sinner, and under law a law-breaker, so that he has not righteousness by it. How then does scripture bring in righteousness and salvation? Is it by law? Is it founded on its rules and claims? or is it, while surely maintaining the excellency and authority of the law fully, in some other way? Upon the ground of the first Adam in law, it is all over with us — the way to the tree of life shut and all access forbidden. But from the outset what hope is given? It is another Adam, the seed of the woman, not a restoration of the first on any old principle. The seed of the woman is to bruise the serpent's head. The destruction of evil is by Christ's coming in as a deliverer.

{*The scripture takes care never to say eternal life; for this is a gift of God, it is Christ Himself.}

Next (and mark, for this is important and insisted on by the apostle — the special thesis of his epistle to the Galatians, which is really a treatise on this point) a promise without any condition comes, contrary in its nature to law. Promise may be attached to law; it was in Sinai, but then it depends on a condition; there are two parties, and man must be faithful to his or it fails.

321 Simply promise is of one, God, and then is infallible; and this promise was to the seed Christ. The promise is made to Him, simply, absolutely, unconditionally; but we may add, Abraham gives up all the promises as given to Isaac in flesh, sacrifices him, and the promise is confirmed to one risen in figure. This on every ground never can be annulled. The law comes in 430 years after, let man say what he will in dreaming about law, but it cannot touch the unconditional promise. So says the apostle; "it came in by the by," pareiselthe. Was it, then, immaterial that man was a sinner, that there was no righteousness? Was he to be blessed in his sin, and human righteousness or unrighteousness not to be considered? That would not do, and hence human righteousness — righteousness in flesh — of man, as a child of Adam, is proposed and required in the law, with promise of life by it, and a curse attached to its breach, and given with every help and advantage to a chosen people. The result was simple. Flesh was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, and those that are in flesh cannot please Him. The law convinced of sin, but did not touch and could not touch God's unconditional promise. Was it, then, the ground of righteousness so that man should have the promise? If it were, he must fail of the promise, for flesh could not keep it. Now comes the question: Is the law broken, always broken by flesh, the ground on which the promise or eternal life is had, by another's keeping it when man does not? Is the law our righteousness? i.e., do our righteousness and eternal life come by it, through another's keeping it? That is our point. My answer shall be the apostle's: "If righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." It is as absolute and abstract as possible, ouk atheto ten charin tou theou ei gar dia nomou dikaiosune apa Christos dorean apethanen. It is not, if it be by my keeping it; but if righteousness be by law, Christ has died in vain. But God's promise was to be fulfilled. What is the relationship of promise and law? That is the first question. The second is the connection of law, and death and resurrection, though they run into one another in fact; but the first is treated more especially in Galatians, the second in Romans.

322 Is the accomplishment of the promise on which all rests from Adam's fall, yea, from before the worlds, founded on law-fulfilling? I answer, No. Law was the test of the creature as its perfect rule, the test of the first man; the promise is given to and by the Second. He has magnified the law — has not left it to be the ground of righteousness. What says the apostle? As we are arrived here, we cannot do better than follow his order (that is, the guidance of God's Spirit). First, his own and Peter's course — "Knowing that a man is not justified by works of law, but by faith of Jesus Christ." Here I get two points. "Works of law" are not what justify me (it is not I am a sinner and I need pardon): the question is, What justifies? The answer, Not works of law, says the apostle. The "Record" and the Evangelicals tell me it is. Secondly, it is in contrast with the faith of Christ. Works of law are one way of justifying, faith in Christ another. They are inconsistent with one another. He had left one system to have recourse to another, and if he set up the law again, made himself a transgressor, he declares, in leaving it. But we get much more than this: "For I through law am dead to law, that I might live to God." Dead to law! What is that? Why, he has nothing more to say to it as a man in flesh. The law, which is a ministration of death, as well as of condemnation, has killed him; he does not, as in flesh, exist morally before God. If he were alive to the law, sensible to it, or did it find a point of contact in him, he would not live to God. But the law has killed him as alive in flesh, and now he can live to God. But this takes him out of all reach of law. His life is not that which was in connection with law; he is dead to it, because, as to the life with which law had to do, it has killed him. How, then, is he justified by another's keeping it for him? The law has acted, but acted in another way. It has closed his existence as responsible to it. It has done the opposite to justifying him, and can do no more, for the man is dead. We shall see this more fully entered upon in the Romans. The way this is met and becomes real for us is, that we are crucified with Christ. Is the justified man crucified? What we find in scripture is another way of dealing with the flesh, which breaks the law and cannot be subject to it; that is, condemning it and putting the man to death, viewed as in it. Now, crucified with Christ, he yet lives; but not he, but Christ. The man again has ceased to exist for faith and in God's sight, and it is now Christ who is his life, but Christ risen from the dead. Now, that a true heart may not yet understand this, I can conceive; but the "Record" contradicts the doctrine of scripture, and adopts another — justifying by law-works done by Christ, instead of holding the man dead and condemned, but now alive in Christ, in a new position.

323 In the whole of chapter 3 the apostle contrasts the hearing of faith and law. Those who are of works of law are under a curse. How so, if it is fulfilled? The curse has no ground, if the law has been vicariously fulfilled. But the apostle is more precise. "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident; for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith; but the man that doeth them shall live in them." Now, nothing can be simpler than this. The principle on which a man is justified is contrary in its nature to a man's being justified by the law. We are told that man is pardoned through blood-shedding, but justified by law-keeping. The apostle says he is not, in God's sight, because the principles are diametrically opposed to one another.

Now here was the time to explain the "Record's" system. The law brought a curse; Christ redeemed us from the curse — that is, by suffering on the cross. And will he not save the justifying by law-works to shew he did not mean to set aside Christ's vicariously keeping it? Not a word is to be found. Instead of this, he goes on to shew that the law could not have this place at all, because God had given before it a complete, confirmed covenant, which could not be added to. And, hence, though the law did come in after it, what was said to Abraham could not be added to nor disannulled; that law only came in, therefore, by the by — added because of transgressions till the seed should come; and that when faith came, we were no longer under it. It was a temporary ground of dealing with men between the promise and its fulfilment. It was up to Christ, that we might be justified in another way. It will be at once objected, How do you reconcile this with the eternal character of the law and its subsistence? Here is just the point of the whole matter, and the mischievous fallacy of the "Record's" system. The law in its essence is the principle of creature-righteousness, the perfect rule for responsible children of Adam. The "Record" says, "Then it must be made good, that the children of Adam may be justified." Totally, ruinously false! The first Adam, and man, as such, are not justified; the Second is brought in, and we are accepted in Him. The first is condemned, killed, by the moral sentence of the law, and savingly in the death of Christ, that we may live. But we are justified, not by making out a legal righteousness for the first, which ought to have been there, and which would have been his righteousness; but by redeeming us wholly out of that condition which is condemned and set aside, and bringing us livingly into the Second. The first as a condition before God is never set up again. Are we to be both first and second in our standing before God?

324 The law, in itself, is eternally creature-righteousness; but the creature could not make it out. The law was given to man when he was a sinner. How could he have legal righteousness when the flesh was not subject to law? It served to prove that, when the creature is a sinner, he could not. Is then Christ come to set up its legal righteousness and re-establish it? He is not. He is come to write final condemnation t on it, but by His own death, and to redeem us out of it, and bring us nigh in Himself to God. The law became a test of a sinful creature — was applied to man when he was a sinner, as a condition of obtaining life. He was saved, not by setting him up on this ground, but by taking him out of it by redemption, and giving him acceptance in another and in another condition, the old one being put under death and condemnation, only that Christ took that on Himself. He took the condemnation of the first Adam for us, but did not set up the righteousness of the first. Thus, after the promise of the true Saviour, it came in by the by, till the seed came to whom the promise was made; "and then," as Luther says, "it had done its work and ceased" (Aufhorete). "We are no longer under the 6 schoolmaster." It is by the death of the old man (not by justifying it) the Christian is delivered from this charge. "He that is dead is freed [justified] from sin." So Paul in the Philippians gives up, not his sins, but his legal righteousness, viewed as such, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. The promise, then, cannot be annulled or added to. We have, therefore, the inheritance not by law; for if it is by law, it is net by promise: now God gave it to Abraham by promise. You cannot connect law-keeping with promise — you cannot connect law-keeping with faith — you cannot connect law-keeping with justifying: Christ is the seed of promise, the object of faith, and our righteousness. The apostle declares the two incompatible, but that the law could do one thing — kill. This it had done, and his guilty self for faith existed no more. Instead of that, he had Christ, in whom it was he had died.

325 But more. The apostle speaks of Christ's coming under law. Surely now he will tell us of the glorious gospel, the essence of which is said to lie in His keeping it to justify us! Not a word. Quite the contrary: "He was made under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law." Did He redeem by law-keeping or by blood? Did He redeem by leaving them in responsibility to law, and justifying them in it? He redeemed out of it by blood; so that we are no more servants, but sons. Now, servants are those under law. It is no longer our condition at all. Again, supposing we are justified by law, Christ is become of no effect unto us. Ah! will one say that is by our keeping it? No; it is the principle. "Ye are fallen from grace." What are we to do then as to godliness? Walk in the Spirit. Is not that right? Surely our opponents must say, Yes. But if you are led of the Spirit, you are not under law. You will do that against which there is none, and so fulfil it yourself in practice, because you are not under it. But will not the apostle glory in this righteousness which Christ has made good for him by keeping the law? No; only in the cross. In a word, on the point of justifying, the apostle sets Christ, grace, promise, faith, the Spirit, all in opposition to law-works, and declares that they are incompatible in their nature.

Indeed it is a strange system which first keeps the law perfectly in every respect surely, so that we are justified, perfectly righteous before God, and then dies for us. Yet such is the "Record's" system. We are not justified, surely, if Christ has still to die for us. Yet Christ first lived and then died. The whole system is false. It justifies the old man instead of utterly killing and condemning him, that we may live in the new; owning, not rectification of our old position, but one wholly new consequent on Christ's death. As the fruit of Christ's death, we are past the whole settlement of the question of sin with God — that, for faith, was on the cross. He was made sin — went through the utter hatred of compassionless man, all that Satan could bring upon Him in terror and suffering — went through death, drank the cup of wrath — is risen out of it; and we are in Him consequent on His having gone through it all and settled the question of sin, death, wrath, and Satan's power. We are in Him as entered into what is beyond and after it, because He is; and according to the value of all He has done in glorifying God in the work through which He entered into this new position.

326 But let us turn to the Romans, where this subject is more fully discussed in connection with resurrection. Our thesis is this: the law is holy, just, and good; but, its application being to a sinful creature, it becomes simply death and condemnation. Our justification is, not by Christ's vicariously keeping it because we are under it as men born of Adam, so that we should be justified in that position by legal works, but (while He glorified God as a living man) through an entire deliverance from the whole standing of flesh before God, which is wholly judged and condemned by law, but in His death, and our introduction into a new position in Christ risen, according to the value of His work. It is death under law, death by sin without law, in the first Adam, but death in Christ who died for us to the putting off the old man, and we in newness of life in a position which law cannot reach, in Christ risen from the dead, living and called to live according to this new life. Such, I say, is Paul's doctrine in the Romans: death for and to sin as to the old man, and a new place in Christ in resurrection. Let us examine the epistle.

The first passage I may quote as a general principle is, "Therein is the righteousness of God revealed." It is according to the principle of faith; the law, we know, is not of faith.

Next, a passage I hare already quoted, chapter 3, but which is too important to pass over here. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Of the last verse of the chapter hereafter. Here, then, is guilt by law. The Jew's mouth stopped, and thus all the world guilty; for the Gentiles were confessedly so. Now the conclusions: "Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight": none in this way whoever did them — "for by the law is the knowledge of sin." But now the righteousness of God without the law (choris nomou, wholly apart from law) is manifested.

327 I cannot conceive how anything can be plainer. They tell me God's righteousness is by Christ's keeping the law. Paul tells me, that is, the Spirit of God tells me, that it is without the law, that the law has nothing to do with it. I believe the word of God, the teaching of the Holy Ghost in the divine word, and not the Evangelicals. "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ" . . . "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." Is redemption by law, or by keeping law? We are justified freely through this redemption. By faith in His keeping the law? No; by faith in His blood, to declare God's righteousness. The law excluded wholly even for those who had been under it; justification by redemption, Christ a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare God's righteousness. Thus God is just and the justifier.

Thus far we have only His death. But the apostle goes farther, not surely to anything inconsistent. Up to this he had met the sin of the old man by the blood of Christ. Now, from chapter 4, he takes up the new man in resurrection, which presupposes death. Abraham is justified by faith, so are we who believe on Him who raised up Christ. What Christ? A Christ who kept the law for us? Not such a thought. A Christ, blessed be His most gracious name, who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. He died for the ungodly. The apostle then compares Adam and Christ, speaking of the law as come in between, but that sin and death were there without it, and that we must not confine ourselves to those who were under law by Moses, but, taking the Second Adam, go to the first also. That, as by one man's disobedience, a mass of others connected with him were constituted sinners, so, by the obedience of One, the mass connected with Him shall be constituted righteous. That is, he ascends to the two great heads, the obedient and disobedient man. The law, he adds, came in, by the by, that the offence might abound. Have we a thought that Christ therefore kept it for us? No; its object was not righteousness, but to make the offence abound. There where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. No hint of meeting the law, as a fixed rule, by obeying it. There was disobedience and obedience. The law came in by the by, to give a special character to sin; then grace, not legal righteousness, reigns.

328 The apostle then turns to the common confession of Christianity in baptism. What have you come to? To death. You have been baptized to Christ's death. The initiation of a Christian has no hint in it of legal righteousness. Christ's death is the point of contact with him — nothing before — then newness of life according to His resurrection. But, then, is sin to have dominion over us because the prohibitory enactments of the law do not reach us? No; we are dead to it, and alive to God, according to Christ's resurrection. But law, what as to it? Why, sin will not have dominion over us, because we are not under it. Under what, then? Under grace. Are they, then, so diametrically opposite? Diametrically in their nature. Grace would be no more grace, nor works works. Eternal life is God's gift, not earned by law-keeping. Of this farther on.

But this leads the apostle to consider definitely the question of our being under law or not; and he lays down this principle: Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. Now we are not alive in flesh, because Christ has died, and we are in Him risen after death. He puts the case of two husbands: the law, and (not Christ on earth keeping law, but) Christ risen. You cannot have both, says the apostle; it is mere adultery. How, then, are we delivered from law (as from sin)? Is it by blaming the law as bad, or setting it aside as such in its own nature? No: God forbid. How then? By our dying; for it has only power over a man as long as a man lives. We are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we might be to another — to Christ risen from the dead; that we might bring forth fruit to God — no fruit under law, but from Christ risen, fruit to God. Thus we are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held.

329 The Christian is dead to the law, does not exist as to it, because he died in Christ (but that was death to sin too); hence he is delivered from it. Resurrection puts me in a new place, where law, the first husband, never reaches at all. I belong exclusively to Christ, and to Christ risen (for if He takes up my case, He must die and end law and sin, as to Him and me together), not to Christ living on the earth. Hence the apostle says, "Yea, if I have known Christ after the flesh, vet henceforth I know him no more." And now, mark how distinct the apostle is as to what our position is as dead and risen; and, If risen, having to say to the new husband — Christ risen — not to law: "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." "When we were in the flesh" — what a word is that! Then we are not in the flesh at all? Surely not. When we were, the law was that by which the motions of sin got power, and brought in death and condemnation. But, as a child of Adam in flesh, I am not alive at all (compare Col. 2: 20), because Christ has died; and not being alive, the law has no more to do with me; for it has power over a man only so long as he lives. But I am alive, and it is in Christ risen. I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. It is a new creation, not a justifying of the old, which had been put under the schoolmaster, but never obeyed.

The "Record" has quoted also 2 Corinthians 4, "the glorious gospel," as referring to this keeping of the law. It is really "the gospel of the glory," referring to the preceding chapter. The citation is an unhappy one, because it is founded on a contrast of law and Christianity; one was death and condemnation, the other righteousness and the Spirit. Christianity is the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glorious gospel is not the law kept by Christ, but Christ in glory in contrast with the law. If we are to be saved, it is in contrast with a righteousness by law (Rom. 10) That said, Do this and live; this, not believe Christ has done it, but Confess His name and believe God has raised Him.

Are we not saved then, made righteous, by one man's obedience? Surely, as contrasted with Adam's disobedience, but not by the works of law of one man. He was obedient, absolutely, unlimitedly — did not accomplish so much simply, but was intrinsically and absolutely obedient at all cost — characterized as the Obedient Man, learned it, what it was to the uttermost, by the things which He suffered. His obedience was different in nature, and went very far indeed beyond law-fulfilling. "I come to do thy will, O God," be it what it might, and that was to die — give up His life for those the Father had given Him — suffer all things, even to the cup of wrath, to glorify God. Was that law? It is monstrous, and, I must say, wickedness or blindness, to limit Christ's obedience to the keeping of the law. Moreover, in Romans 5 it is in contrast with law. Christ, in offering Himself according to the roll of the book, offered Himself to do whatever God's will might be; the great example the apostle gives is, the offering of Himself once for all. Is that law? It is outrageous, and a deadly wrong to Christ, to make this infinite obedience of devoted love a mere obedience to a prescribed rule of human righteousness, however perfect.

330 I know not that I can add more. The scripture teaches us, not that human righteousness according to the perfect rule of the law is made good, so that we should be justified in our old position; but that flesh is condemned, death passed on it, the old man put off, the new put on, and this through the of Christ and His resurrection. So that we say, "When we were in the flesh." Never once does it speak of a vicarious fulfilling of the law, but of our deliverance from the state in which it applied to us, and our entrance into a new one. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

Did not God then magnify the law and make it honourable in Christ? Undoubtedly. I have already said it was the perfect law of the creature abtsractedly; and Christ came under the law, and God glorified His law thus; and it was most right and just. But we were dead, away from God, without any law at all. It is never said, He kept it for us. He kept it to glorify God, to honour the law of God. But in this character He was alone. Death alone connected Christ really with those who were dead in sin. As to pious life, in the new nature, He is surely, as walking on earth, the companion of those who fear God. But the sinner, looked at as a sinner, as a child of Adam (and we look at him as a sinner when we speak of justification), has no connection with Christ. They were without Christ, without God in the world; and a Jew was really the same by nature. "Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." Christ was absolutely alone in His living state; He was perfect in it, overcame in it, knew no sin in it. But man being dead in sin, Christ never came into his condition properly known till He came into death. Really, truly man, sympathizing with him in everything, He never, as to His real state as to righteousness before God, came into man's position, till the cup of death was there; for death was the condition of man. The keeping of the law was over really with man. As a sinner with a will he was not subject to it at all, nor could be. Christ must be perfect in the place He took in contrast with man. He was the responsible man (through grace) and never failed; and, as law was, never failed under law (and that in the midst of every difficulty, not in Paradise) as Adam had failed; but He became the head of blessing after death, and when He had taken a new position in righteousness, as Adam when he had taken a new position in sin.

331 But is not there the keeping of the law by us? Yes, in principle, in living in the Spirit, and by not being under it; but it is not vicariously, but really. But then it will be said, Yes, but you do not even so keep it perfectly, and how do you make out righteousness then? My friend, I am a Christian. I do not make out righteousness by law. If it were so to be made out, Christ were dead in vain. I am righteous — the righteousness of God in Him — before I begin to do what is in the law practically. I never came under it. A vicarious keeping of the law is unknown to scripture. If it be not, let those who maintain it cite a single passage — shew it from scripture.

A poor soul says, Christ kept the law, and everything He did was precious for us. I delight in his piety, even if ignorance be mixed with it. Christ must have been all that for the glory of God. The merely coming down to die would not have failed in putting away sin, but in glorifying God as a living man. For we have seen God manifested, a perfect man before God, Satan overcome, the law kept and magnified, tender sympathies, perfect patience, and love. We have seen what God delighted in — the Bread come from heaven — the only path through a world of sin — One delighting in the sons of men — far more than I could now here speak of, more than I can think of, but not redemption till His death. And redemption is the first need of a sinner dead in trespasses and sins. And this lies at the root of the question, Is man dead in trespasses and sin? How is he brought out of it? If scripture be taken as authority, I am not afraid of the answer of any one taught of God on this subject.

332 As this paper, from its length (which I regret and attribute to the haste with which it was composed in the midst of many avocations) could not appear in one number of the "Bible Treasury," I will add one or two remarks as to righteousness, and the use of this word in scripture. First, it is quite certain that in Romans 3 righteousness means God's righteousness, as God in contrast with Christ's work, though displayed through and in virtue of it. It is the righteousness of God without law. This is its nature and quality. It is not man's, it is God's apart from law. Such is the constant use of the genitive. Next, it is the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. That is the way it is brought to bear on men in their favour. Then His passing over sins in times past seemed to deny this righteousness; but the death of Christ accounted for that. And so God's righteousness was, at this time, that He might be righteous and Justifier of them who believe in Jesus. Now the person whose righteousness is spoken of is the righteous justifier, that is, God. The way is faith in Jesus. I say, then, in this capital passage it is a character or attribute of God, which is made good by the blood of Christ, when it seemed to be impossible, in respect of sinners, so as to favour them.

The righteousness of God is His consistency with Himself. Hence it shews itself in mercy when it is promised, in judgment on the wicked, in rewarding integrity, not as merit, but as that which pleased Him, and rightly — everything in which God makes good what He has revealed Himself to be. For in a certain sense He owes Himself to that, because withal it is Himself; and on this faith ought to reckon. Hence all the interventions of God in favour of His people, according to His revelation of Himself, or His promises, are called righteousness. Of course, His revelation of Himself is the truth of what He is: but this revelation is our only just way of knowing it. But it is a relative term. A person cannot be intrinsically righteousness (i.e., without reference to someone else). Man's righteousness, if he had any, would be his consistency with the revelation of God and its requirements. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness, his countenance doth behold the upright." But man was not this. Hence, when the law had been given, mercy is always put before righteousness, because the saints felt, as the Spirit taught, that he had forfeited everything. It is from this sense of righteousness (God's consistency with Himself as revealed, His acting on the revelation of Himself) that it has been said to mean goodness, mercy, and the like. The display of it was such; the thing spoken of as displaying it was such. Still, it was God's consistency with Himself, and this is constantly appealed to in the Psalms, and declared to be "near" and to be "for ever" in Isaiah 51, and connected with Israel's salvation when mercy and truth will be met together, righteousness and peace will kiss each other, and truth flourish out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven. So David speaks of bringing in everlasting righteousness amongst men when God manifests His glory, His perfect consistency with Himself, and blesses His people. The heavens will declare His righteousness, for God will be judge Himself; and the fruit of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever. Thus righteousness will reign in the millennium, and peace and bliss be maintained. In the new heavens and the new earth the righteousness will dwell, and nothing can be changed; there is nothing to change.

333 On the other hand, we read, "Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness." Here the godly man looks for enlargement out of distress, according to God's consistency with His revelation of Himself — the thing he looks to as the title to be helped, he walking in fear and faith. And the sacrifices of righteousness have the same force, sacrifices offered according to the true character in which God had revealed Himself (of course, in Israel, according to the law, but with the piety, purpose, and truth of heart which became this approach to God, and the consciousness of what He was). So, in the triumphant deliverance of His people at the end, it is righteousness sustains Him. He saw there was no man, but He was Himself, and He put it on as a breastplate, and made good His character against evil. And it is this which makes the perplexity of the saint in the Psalms who yet owns his sin. How was God's character made good when His people were oppressed, and not a promise fulfilled? Yet there is the confession of sin, and confidence in Him through grace. Integrity wrought in by grace calls on righteousness and expects an answer according to what God has said, and yet confesses sin. This last was uprightness.

334 But how could all this be made good, and God be really consistent with Himself, shew mercy, judge sin, bless faith and hope in Him according to promise? That was based on redemption, on Christ's work as made sin; and though there may be hope, the soul is never clear till this is known. Here God can be, yea, is, here alone is (now sin is come in), consistent with Himself in blessing. Thus He could righteously bless according to promise. "Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers" — and that effectually, only through death and resurrection.

But there was much more than this in Christ's death. God, independently of promise, was perfectly glorified in all He is — righteousness, love, truth, majesty — in all He is. Hence a ground of righteousness is laid for every sinner. God is consistent with — glorifies — Himself in blessing. I do not mean that this was all; for it was not — there was positive substitution for the redeemed; but I confine myself now to the one point. Thus the Gentiles, who had no promise, could glorify God for His mercy. Whoever believed had a part in it. God was righteous in blessing him — just in forgiving. Hence grace reigned, but reigned through righteousness, Jew and Gentile, when the matter was fully looked into, being all alike. God did and will make good His promises, but by nature all were children of wrath. There was no difference. It was, through Christ, God's righteousness unto all; and it is upon all them that believe.

This is Paul's great theme in the Romans: to the end of chapter 3, the death which made it good; from chapter 4 to the end of chapter 8, the position into which we are righteously brought in resurrection, the sure place which this glorifying of God has obtained for us, and which He righteously puts into, and must, so to speak, in Christ; and then (chaps. 9-11) the apostle meets the objection of special promise. He had only discussed law as yet with the Jew; and the Jew could say, Yes; but what about our special promises? And his answer is, God is sovereign; or, else, if you rest it on fleshly descent, you must let in Ishmael and Esau; and God will use this sovereignty to let in Gentiles. You have forfeited all by seeking it by law, and stumbling at the stumbling-stone. And yet (so profound is God's wisdom) He has not cast you off. He will make good His promises. He could not but do it; only now you must come in under mercy like a Gentile. The prophets, too, had foretold it all.

335 Thus, though God did make good His character revealed to the Jew, and His promise, yet that was not a partial thing. The cross must reveal deeper truth, and, displayed in all its perfectness and grace, what God was in Himself; and thus dealt with the sinner as such, with what man was in himself, that is, nothing but sin, and brought him, through faith in Jesus, according to the value of that sacrifice, into the presence of God Himself in heaven. The Jews, as a nation, must wait till the great High Priest comes out to know the sacrifice is accepted. Then they will be blessed. To them that believe the Holy Ghost is come out, while Christ is within; and we know that He is, and are at peace, and that according to righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness.

Of course, in an article or a tract, I can only sketch the scriptural use of this word. The reader has only to take a concordance and see how far it is just. I have no doubt the New Testament, as would naturally be the case, alludes to several of these passages. I rather think Psalm 50 was in the apostle's mind in Romans 3, or that which the Spirit had produced by it in his mind. Thus, too, the remarkable passages in Jeremiah 23 and 33, "the Lord our righteousness" — the first said of Christ, the second of Jerusalem. As Christ is righteousness to us, and we are the righteousness of God in Him, we are accepted, according to God's own character, righteously, in Him. His infinite value, including therein His work, is our title before God.

There is another point it will be well to clear up from scripture. How is eternal life obtained? We are told, by law-keeping. I deny it. A law was not given which could give life; Christ had, or rather was, eternal life before He kept law. Eternal life is not obtained by law-keeping. What says the scripture? The subject is one of deep importance. Justification being one aspect of salvation, the other part of it, so to speak, is eternal life. The direct doctrine of scripture is as plain as possible. That I shall state. The Jews had connected it with the law, as they had righteousness. This connection will require more attention than the simple truth itself. The Lord, while presenting Himself to their responsibility during His lifetime, speaks in a guarded way upon it. Once rejected (and He is so viewed all through the gospel of John), all is distinct and simple. The notion of our getting life by His law-keeping, is not only not found in scripture, but is contrary to every idea the gospel gives of it.

336 Let us first state from scripture the simple truth on the subject. The simplest, fullest, and most direct statements of what eternal life is, are to be found, perhaps, in John's first epistle (the main object of the whole Epistle being to shew what that life is). "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." Here we have eternal life, erst with the Father, but manifested in the Person of Christ. So in the last chapter: "This is the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." "He is the true God, and eternal life." This, then, is most definite and distinct. The life is in the Son. He is eternal life. So the gospel: "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (John 5). He is a life-giving Spirit; He quickens whom He will.

All this is plain. Life is in the Son, or He is life. He has it in His Person; He communicates it. It is given of God, not won. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6: 23). "I," says Christ of His sheep, "am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

We may now see how it is obtained. It is the Spirit working by the word. We are born of the Spirit; and "of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures" (James 1: 18). Hence John 5: 24: "He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." So Paul's witness was "a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death." The form or character of this is resurrection. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col. 3: 1, 3, 4. This and verse 20 depend on chapter 2: 12,13.) So Ephesians 2, "God . . . when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." And this passage shews it is the same power which raised up Christ — not of works, but in resurrection. It has its groundwork as to faith (for, being by the word, it is by faith) in the knowledge of the Father, and Jesus whom He has sent. For that was the revelation of God, as acting in grace, and to give life. So Christ gives eternal life to His sheep (John 10). This life-receiving faith in its present object is unfolded in John 6, "Whoso seeth the Son, and believeth on him, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." First, He is received as incarnate, the bread come down from heaven. But this is particularized: He gives His "flesh for the life of the world," and this in His death; so that if one do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, he has no life in himself at all: whoso does has eternal life. In order to this, therefore, He, as standing for sinful man, must die, and be in death the witness of the Father's love who sent Him: for it was love to sinners. This is John 3: 15, 16. At the close of that chapter it is confirmed: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." The power of it is in the Spirit, Jesus' divine gift. It "is a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4). The Spirit is life if Christ be in us (Rom. 8). He was to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him (John 17).

337 A few accessory passages may be added. Titus 1: 2, "the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began." There is another aspect in which eternal life is viewed, namely, its full accomplishment in glory, according to the full purpose of God. In this view we are, of course, not said to have it, but to follow after it. Thus Romans 6: "Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." So Paul to Timothy: "Lay hold on eternal life." That is present energy, but is the earnest faith of the saint, not simply the gift of God. So of the rich giving freely, that they may lay hold on eternal life. So Romans 5: "Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." So "they that lose their life shall keep it unto life eternal." This is put as a great general principle in Romans 2. "To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, eternal life." This does not throw any obscurity on this great truth; it is simply — what is universal in the New Testament — the energy of faith in the wilderness journey through grace which goes onwards to the full result for which God has redeemed us. We have to go the road in order to arrive, but have sure grace and the keeping of God to go it.

338 This free and perfect gift and maintenance of instructive responsibility, on the footing of His inalienable gift, is ever found in God's ways in grace. "He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

We have yet a particular point to enquire into historically (for the doctrine of eternal life is clear) — how far the Jews thought of this, and how far Christ met their thoughts. The doctrine of eternal life or any life after this world was not necessary to be a good Jew. The priests and high priests were Sadducees, who believed nothing of it. It is said that Sadoc's teaching originally was only urging that rewards after this life ought not to be our motive for goodness, but the blessedness of what was good. However that may be, it ended in his followers denying resurrection, angel, and spirit, and taking this world for their portion. But, while the Pentateuch is silent as to eternal life, saying only, "The man that doeth these things shall live in them," the subsequent teaching of the Jews had brought the nation, with the exception of the Sadducees, to expect eternal life, with the grossest corruption of principles as to merit, balancing accounts of merit and demerit, and even positive superstitions.

That they did expect it we find in John. "In them ye think ye have eternal life." So the young man who comes to Jesus acts on it: "What good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" So the lawyer, tempting Him in Luke. But the Lord, while replying to these persons, and putting His sanction on the witness of Moses ("he that doeth these things shall live in them"), never meets the expectation of eternal life by them. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" — that Moses had taught. When the young man still looks for more, Jesus tests his heart, and calls on him to follow Him. So to the lawyer in Luke, on a similar question, He only says, "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" And when he seeks to excuse himself by the question, "Who is my neighbour?" the Lord shews (not who is my neighbour, but) how in grace I can be neighbour to any one — the divine principle of grace. The testimony of eternal life, given by God in Christ, remains in all its simple fulness. Only in resurrection could it be given in righteousness and in the power which passed man beyond the place and power of sin and death.

339 The reader, taught of God, will see that resurrection is the place where justification and life meet. "He hath quickened you together with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses." Resurrection is the power of a new life which I have in Christ. Having Him as my life, I am risen with Him. But He had died, and I am forgiven all trespasses through a work done before I partake of the life. He is raised for my justification, and I am in the presence of God according to the acceptance which belongs to the position in which He stands, after the putting away of sin and all He has done to the glory of God in doing it. Resurrection is both the witness of the righteous acceptance of Christ's work, and the entrance into the position which is the just result of it. "He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." It is life from the dead according to the power of God. He was raised for our justification; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. I have a living place in righteousness before God. Now, if we consider the value of that which brings us into it, it is infinite. The glory of the Father was all engaged in raising Christ. He had glorified God perfectly — not merely borne our sins and been a sacrifice for sin. That was the means of our righteous forgiveness; but there was more. He glorified God in doing it in the place of, and as to, sin, but in everything in which God's nature and character consisted. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." This is in the place of Son (John 17), and by that which gives us a title — His finishing the work. Now this was more than forgiveness, it was positive It was not (though about sin) sin-ward, but God-ward. How could God be righteous, and shew love too? How make good His word of judgment unto death, and save? How vindicate His majesty, yet bless sinners? Christ offers Himself. There is God's perfect love infinitely glorified; there is His righteousness against sin, as nought else could shew it; there His truth, that the wages of sin is death, there His majesty vindicated. His Son is given up to death because of it; His holiness made good in repudiating sin, when His Son was made sin. Surely it was the glory of the Son of man; but God was glorified in it; and man is entered in righteousness into the glory of God. This, surely, is more than forgiveness, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We expect to be like Christ in His Father's house, perfectly conformed to Him — to bear the image of the heavenly, as we have borne the image of the earthy.

340 But, even now, we have more than forgiveness — we have Christ's own position, not in body, of course, but much more really and importantly, summed up in one word: "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." The choicest blessing to the heart is, that we are not only blessed through, but with, Christ. As to peace — "My peace I give unto you" — "that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves" — "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am . . . that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." And this partaking livingly in His own portion is applied to assurance in respect of future judgment. "Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." Wondrous privilege! and all grace, yet in righteousness. And all confirms this. Is Christ hid in God? Our life is hid with Him in God. Does He appear? We shall appear with Him in glory. Does He live? We shall live also.

Now this is more than forgiveness. He is gone to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God: and does He sit because all is finished, and "that by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified"? They sit, too, in heavenly places in Him. Our reproach bearing is His reproach. We suffer with Him and reign with Him. Such is the scriptural presentation, and much more than this, of our place. Is all this by keeping law, or by grace? Is it by the law, or by His offering, He hath perfected us for ever?

I close. My answer to the "Record" is this: Its declaration, that the theory that pardon and justification are distinct things, and that a man may be pardoned but not justified is the universal doctrine of the Church of God, is ignorance of history. The contrary is stated by the Homilies and Calvin, and the thought is formally condemned by the Lutheran symbolical books as false doctrine. It is not the doctrine taught at the Reformation, but the contrary. The "Record" moves here in the narrow circle of its own associates. Next, I do not accept, more than the "Record" does, that justification is limited by that. A man is justified by blood — that is, by the blood of Christ. Scripture, as Calvin insists, is express upon it. But when the "Record" would correct the absolute limitation of justification to pardon, it goes back instead of forward, and makes us justified before we are pardoned — justified, before Christ dies for us, by Christ's law-keeping before the cross. Here it is all wrong again. Scripture repudiates righteousness by law for man altogether, and declares, if it be on this ground, Christ is dead in vain, and that we are fallen from grace. The "Record" does not see the extent to which we are dead and condemned, and thus puts us under law and leaves us to make out our justification by a completing unfailing law-keeping by Christ's perfect law-keeping; so that it is a work which goes on, the application of this righteousness being progressive and proportioned to my failures. It denies the value of law, which counts the breaker of one commandment guilty of all, and the existence of one lust sufficient to damn. It is an allowance of failure in keeping the law when put under it; for a perfect obedience, not atonement, is provided beforehand. And the apostle's answer to this they have not got. He replies, Yes; but you are dead and risen again. How can you live in flesh when you are dead? But no such argument applies to law. Historically, the "Record" is totally wrong. When it goes beyond the defect it condemns, it goes back to law, instead of forward in the power of resurrection into Christ. Let those who search the scriptures (and I beseech Christians to do it, and not satisfy themselves with my rapid and imperfect sketch of the truth for a periodical) say whether law or resurrection is the ground on which the apostle — on which the Spirit of God — sets us in the word for justification before God, for life and acceptance in Christ.

341 I have not taken up particular expressions in the "Record," but the whole subject itself. I pray the reader to do the same. Of course, all of us are liable to express ourselves in a way which lays us open to attacks; but let the reader's enquiry be, What is the scripture truth on this subject? I think I have fairly taken the issue upon it.

342 A few words of definition (which Cicero might have taught me to put first, but which in divine subjects come, after all, better last) will complete what I have to say.

Pardon and justification are not the same thing. Pardon is the favour and kindness of a person wronged passing over faults against himself, an act of prerogative goodness; so that kindness flows forth unimpeded by the wrong — though in this case it be by the blood of Christ. Justification is the holding not chargeable with guilt. The latter refers to righteous judgment; the former, to kindness. Where one is a sinner against God, they approach one another, and run together in fact, but are not the same, nor in the effect the same in the heart. Justified, I do not fear judgment; pardoned, my heart returns in comfort to Him who has pardoned me; but by His blood we have both. It is another aspect, not another act. So, when we connect our risen position with justifying, it is not logically exact. The justifying is always holding discharged from accusation. The way in which we so stand is not simply holding us to be clear, but by the resurrection of Christ putting us into a new position; for if He be risen, and God has acknowledged therein the satisfaction made in Christ's death, He has therein discharged or justified us. But that which justified us implies, therefore, more than pardon, an introduction into God's presence as Christ stands there. If Christ be not raised, we are yet in our sins; but if He be, we are cleared by a work which brings us into the glory of God in perfect acceptance. This is not properly justification, but it is the justification we have got, seeing how we have obtained the justification; for we are justified by being the righteousness of God in Him, and are warranted practically in taking what Christ is as the measure of our justification, because it is that which will be recognized in the day of judgment. "Herein is love made perfect with us, that we should have boldness in the day of judgment; because, as he is, so are we in this world." The day of judgment pronounces on us. We are as the Judge — clearly justified therefore. But the Lamb is the Judge too: we appear before Him who bore our sins; so that their being put away, covered (in virtue of which work all is pardoned), is our justification too; for "we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."

343 The merits of Christ, though a most justifiable and true expression, has misled, as it is in another order of ideas from justifying. It is not by meriting that we are held free from charge. Christ has merited that we should; and so it is all well. But meriting has respect to reward; and I have no doubt this has led to connect our justifying with His keeping the law. Now, no merits could have cleared us before God without death: that was the wages of sin, and "without shedding of blood there is no remission." And this leads us to see the wisdom of God, because, being thus, there is also a putting away, an end of the old evil, and the introduction in a new life into a wholly new order of things, pure and excellent. Finally, the heart wants pardon, the conscience justifying.

I would add one word in conclusion, without thinking of dwelling on it. The "Record" speaks of its objection to the "Brethren's" dogma of baptism. I do not know what is its object in this; but I must be allowed to say, the "Brethren" have no dogma on baptism. Had they, they would have given up their first principles, and I for one could not be among them: first, because they would be at once sectarian, united on a particular opinion; and, secondly, that I have no such dogma. I know well that many among them have Baptist views on this subject; but many, very many, have not: many are decidedly opposed to it, I for one. I think it an utter mistake, and, from beginning to end, a want of intelligence in scripture — a confusion between the house of God and the body of Christ, and a bar to the true judgment of the state and responsibility of Christendom and of parents. The "Record's" principles have so mixed the Church and the world that the meaning of baptism has been lost. But when the Holy Ghost was in the Church consciously as the house of God, and the devil in the world sensibly, as in a heathen country, it would be monstrous to say that the children of Christians were not to be where the Holy Ghost was, but to remain where the devil ruled outside. And the corruption that has come in, and mixed Church and world together, does not change God's truth. I say this without thinking of proving my views here, because, as I am answering the "Record" on the capital point of its article, did I let this pass, it might seem accepting it as a fact that baptism (that is, Baptist views) was a dogma of "Brethren."

344 A few words as to other assailants. Mr. Harrison, whom I would not doubt to be a good man — though not having the faith of the Church of God nor the gospel according to the "Record"! — has attacked the tracts on the other side. I would just mention that he is mistaken as to Osiander, who was Lutheran professor at Konigsberg, not a papist. He did hold that there was an infusion of the divine nature by which the Christian became righteous. He was resisted by Lutherans and Calvinists. There is morally speaking an infusion of the divine nature, though I do not admire the term! for it is a new life; but certainly righteousness is not by it, though it cannot be without it. Here I think Mr. Harrison is on slippery ground, because he says we cannot be accounted what we are not. It is something like denying imputed righteousness altogether. Now that we must have this divine nature to be accounted righteous is true; yet we are not accounted righteous for this, but for Christ's sake in Himself. I am imperfect in result; but before God, "as he is, so am I in this world." Without being aware of it, Mr. Harrison has slipped into Osiander's doctrine, which I do not hold at all, but reject. Does he mean to say that a man is reckoned just when he is so? His words are, "Reckons them to be what they really are." If so, it is only in the divine nature of which we are made partakers; and it is Osiander's doctrine. I do not think Mr. Harrison at all clear on this head. Next, as to Dr. Crisp, he is quite mistaken. I had never seen the book when I read Mr. Harrison's tract. I lit on it since and looked at it; but Crisp's doctrine is the common one of Christ's law-keeping being imputed to us — His active obedience as our righteousness. Only he holds that, Christ being God, an infinite value is imparted to His human obedience. But Mr. Harrison is quite mistaken as to him, and so he is as to Mr. Stanley's tracts. I hold no communication of essential righteousness. I hold Christ Himself in His own perfection to be, as now risen, our righteousness before God; but I believe that righteousness is the true relative character of God as to good and evil, and that He accepts Christ in virtue of that character, and us in Him; but it would not be righteousness if Christ had not deserved it. To speak exactly, I do not think righteousness an essential quality at all. If I have said so, it was inexact. God is light and God is love: that is essential. But He is not righteousness nor holiness, because these are relative terms; He is righteous and holy. But righteousness is manifested and demonstrated to the world, because Christ is gone to the Father. He had glorified God, and God has glorified Him with Himself, and (leaving aside just final condemnation for the moment) therein righteousness is proved. It is righteousness in God, but would have not been so, had not Christ merited it. Let me venture to recommend Mr. Harrison to read my "extraordinary language" in his page 30 again, and see if he cannot understand it, comparing 1 John 4; for I think it very sound truth indeed.

345 Two other points I would refer to: the Septuagint, and 2 Peter 1: 1. As to the first, though I read and study, it would be wrong in me to pretend to be learned. My life, as I dare say Mr. Harrison's does, lies in other things, and I should be glad of any light on the New Testament, particularly from such a source as the Septuagint. I could not quite apply, however, Septuagint language absolutely to the Greek of the New Testament, however great a help it may be. I believe the Holy Spirit guided the New Testament writers. And while the general tone of language may be drawn from the Septuagint, because they lived in it, habitually on all important subjects they gave what the Holy Spirit meant them to give, and, in point of fact, do not follow the Septuagint when it does not give the divine mind, as may be seen in Randolph's tract. On all subjects they give it; but I mean, in the direct teaching of truth, we must admit no accepted language which may induce imperfectness of thought. I therefore deliberately maintain the sense given to Romans 1. I do not, of course, deny the Hebrew rule, given by Gesenius and other Hebrew grammarians, that a determining noun renders the determining article unnecessary, and that the LXX, who were not famous scholars (some at least of the translators), follow the Hebrew idiom much. In two of the examples, however, given by Mr. Harrison, the verb substantive is a reason why there should be no article, and in the only case in which Jehovah's righteousness is mentioned in scripture (Mr. Harrison gives no case at all), the article is found in the Septuagint. It is in Micah 6: 5. In the other passages where the righteousness of God is mentioned, it is "my righteousness," and, in spite of Hebrew, has necessarily the article. It could hardly be otherwise, so that I do not cite it in proof of anything. The only other cases are "the Lord our righteousness," applied to Israel and to Jerusalem as a name. But the absence of the article in the New Testament I hold to be purposed, and the true mind of the Holy Ghost. Thus, where it is said (perhaps alluding to Jer. 33: 16), "we are made the righteousness of God," there is no article. The article here would say a great deal too much: either that we were it, intrinsically and abstractedly so; or that we were the whole thing, and that there was no other righteousness of God but ourselves. As it stands, it does not say this, but merely that we have this standing and character in Christ. Our place, title, privilege, is not merely mercy, which it is as to us in an infinite degree; but our salvation, looked at in Christ, is the display of God's righteousness. He is consistent with Himself in it. We are the expression and display of this righteousness, not in contradiction with it; and this is a glorious truth wrought out by Christ's work. "The heavens shall declare his righteousness; for God is Judge himself." Thus, though the fact is that the LXX give the article with the righteousness of God, and the New Testament does not, I do not rest merely on this, but on the teaching of the Holy Ghost in the word as perfect in itself.

346 As to 2 Peter 1 I still think also it is nothing to the purpose. It is not imputed righteousness here, nor anything to do with it, nor a righteousness presented to God (Christ's righteousness, as men speak in this sense), but a righteousness exercised by God in virtue of which they got Christianity, or the precious faith. It was not a righteousness accepted, but a righteousness of God, which gave according to promise, and revealed grace. And so the English translators understood it, and, I have no doubt at all, rightly. I do not know that I have any subject of controversy with Mr. Harrison, and I have no wish to have any. I think he runs a little into inherent righteousness, or is in danger of it — i.e., Wesleyanism; and I think he has not yet at all understood our position in Christ risen, as something else than His dying for us, though the fruit of it. I trust he will believe that I say this with no assumption, nor as a reproach, and that he will weigh it in the spirit I say it in; for I am quite ready to believe him more faithful to the light he has than I am. But still I think there is truth in scripture on this subject which he has not received.

347 As I am upon attacks, I notice very briefly two that have been sent me — "Adelphos," and the "Eclectic Review." I was begged to read the first and have run through it, but I do not think it calls for any answer. I agree with the writer in thinking that discussions on the Person of Christ are mischievous, but I do not think the rejection of blasphemy is. I am sorry he cannot find out the difference. Science is not knowledge, in spite of Latin. Science is the deduction of general results and principles from facts and axioms within the certain knowledge of man. But a defence of the pursuit of science, of the desires of the mind, because an experienced pastor thought a Christian ought to do his work thoroughly well, is not worth an answer. As regards the abuse of the followers of Mr. Darby, as they are called, it is a matter of course. I apprehend the writer will find them sufficiently independent in their judgment not to mind his. The tract is hardly the expression of the absence of party spirit which he so strongly recommends. As to his allegations, he ought to be better informed, or say nothing.

The "Eclectic" also has taken up arms in an article which certainly would demand no kind of notice but for the work commented on — the little tract of Mrs. Grattan Guinness. As it is stated in another of these commonplace attacks I have seen, that this is referred to by others, I allow myself to say that I should object altogether to this tract being taken as the "Brethren's" account of themselves, or any brother's account of them. The estimable person who gives it (and I say this very sincerely, believing Mrs. Guinness to be so) was hardly, I apprehend, born, when the "Brethren" began; and hence it cannot be surprising that her account should be inexact historically. It is very inexact indeed. But this too I should leave where it was; as the best thing for Christians to do is to serve God so that He may commend them, and then let people say what they like. But I object to Mrs. Guinness's account, because it is a regular puff of "Brethren," and in this point of view I feel it highly objectionable. It seems to me that in a young female it would have been better taste to have omitted characterizing any Christian, some years older than herself, as Diotrephes. She may be sure he forgives her; nor would it be of any consequence to mention it, were it not a proof that the true motives of opposition, which she so characterizes, have lost their weight in her mind. I may not have any right to expect that, what so many Christians hold to be horrible blasphemies, Mrs. Guinness should hold to be such; but I must conclude that, if she is obliged to consider the opposition to them as the spirit of Diotrephes, she cannot see in these blasphemies anything which affects her mind as such. I am sorry for her that it should be so.

The Pauline Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith

J. N. Darby.

<07014E> 349

{In reply to an article in the "British and Foreign Evangelical Review," copied into the "Christian Examiner," February 7th, 1862.}

My dear brother,

I have read the paper which you gave me, and which I understand is so much thought of by Christians of the Establishment. We are so apt, in getting hold of some truth, to pursue our own reasonings on it (reasonings in which, in divine things, there may be so easily some error or defect, some positive text forgotten that would shew the defect, or with which the conclusion is at variance), that it is important to review all one's assertions and statements, and compare them with God's word; and search that word that we may, in our measure, fully know all its teaching on any point, so as to be guarded against any self-drawn conclusion which may more or less swerve from it. At least, so I find it.

Conclusions are never knowing the truth. I draw a conclusion: this last is only a consequence, an idea which follows from another. The truth is what exists in Christ, or the shewing everything, as it is, by Him. I say as to the truth — it is. I say as to a conclusion — it must be right. It may be so. But in the truth I have what is — in a conclusion, an idea justly deduced: an immense difference, morally speaking. I am subject to the truth. I have proved, if it be so, the justice of my conclusion. I say this not to hinder enquiry, but to insist on testing by the scriptures all conclusions I arrive at — man's conclusions, by a divine testimony.

If we were simply willing to bow to the word, reasoning really would not be necessary. We should need divine teaching to have our understandings opened, but we should learn — not have conclusions to draw. However we are not so simple as this; and there is pleading and reasoning; and if carried on in the spirit of grace, and continually tested by the word, it elicits truth, though it calls for watching one's spirit very closely. God has so ordered it. There is a convincing of gainsayers, as well as teaching the truth. We need the Spirit of God for this as for all else. How bright examples do we see in scripture, as Paul, and Stephen, and others, of this power of confounding the opposers of truth! Discussion and enquiry, if rightly pursued, if there is, through grace, a love of the truth, are a means of enlarging and deepening our own thoughts also, as well as of convincing others; of correcting them too, of course, w here needed, of perfecting them, rendering them, if in the main true, free from such objections as may apply really only to adjuncts to them, but serve to cast doubt on the truth we hold. Thus the truth and all its bearings are better known as they stand in the divine counsels, and it is held as from God (that which is alloy being removed).

350 I have searched thus, I trust sincerely, the scriptures, to learn what they say on righteousness; and I certainly (I hope with increased clearness of apprehension) believe the doctrine I have held to be the doctrine of scripture, while the reading of the article in the "Christian Examiner" has made me feel more deeply than ever that the ground on which my opponents rest in their views of righteousness is false; that the root of it lies deep, and that, when carefully searched, or, as here, elaborately unfolded, it is worse than it at first appears. Many a traditional error is held without seeing all it implies; nor would it be just to charge on those holding it all that it does imply, when they are not aware of it. But we are justified in shewing that the error involves it. The evil and deep and deadly doctrine involved in the common doctrine of Christ's righteousness comes more clearly out in this paper than in anything I have yet seen. I do not in the least charge the editors or patrons of the journal with what is really involved in their article (other truths may guard them from it); but the insertion of such an article is a proof how the error they contend for blinds them to the exceeding evil doctrine whose germ is in it; and in these days this is becoming important.

The conventional landmarks of truth are being removed; confidence in the form truth took 300 years ago is being shaken; and, alas! though not yet so much, thank God, in Ireland, the truth contained in the form often thrown overboard. Then alas! a large class of the ministers of the Establishment cling in consequence more to formal ordinances to have something steady. But this does not keep souls who thirst for the truth itself; it only stunts the growth of those subject to them, and scripture in itself loses its authority. It does not recover those who are wandering. They see these things are not truth. If they return to them, it is to a practically popish form of them, in which truth is sacrificed to anything (that is, God's authority to man's). For God exercises His own authority over the conscience by the truth; man's is jewishly maintained by subjection to ordinances. Nor is it possible to hold godly men in these bonds — at least a vast number of them: the word of God is too much studied. It may some; but it is soon found that, where the word of God has its own power — that is, when God is owned — souls get on into too much real solid sanctifying truth to remain bound to ordinances as the bond of Christianity and Christendom, even when they are divinely given ones. Those who do are more thrown back on mere forms.

351 Truth is needed to keep souls in progress and in holy subjection to God at the same time. In this case, scripture, the word of God, must have its authority. If the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter on earth, as forming the unity of Christ's body on earth, and dwelling in God's assembly as His habitation; if the coming of Jesus to receive the saints to Himself, and then His appearing to judge the world, and the saints with Him, be taught, and these truths work their effect in people's souls, conventional church forms will not hinder persons who bow to scripture (and they ought to bow to scripture) from receiving them. Nor will denying their importance lead people who have known their power to yield to theory. They find them presented in scripture as immense practical truths, and scripture as read — is the divinely declared safeguard in the perilous times.

No man who knows what darkness and light is can do otherwise than bless God with his whole heart for the blessed intervention of God in the Reformation. We cannot too highly prize that astonishing deliverance. But it set up the authority of scripture. That was one great half of the blessing of it when it prevailed. Men have gone into infidelity — in no way (far from it) in Protestant countries more than in Roman Catholic. Everyone acquainted with the latter knows the contrary. Only in Protestant countries, where there is liberty, it declares itself. But the principle of the authority of scripture remains firm wherever God is really owned. But, in all the present movement of mind, it must be its authority as God's word which we appeal to as justifying our statements. I know, alas! man's heart can reject it; but, then, I am authorized and bound to treat him as an unbeliever, for he is one. There is nothing to be believed but the word of God. Thus only can I set to my seal that God is true — thus only exercise true faith.

352 The appeal even to Reformers, or more modern authors, cannot avail. I do not believe in them. They cannot be, ought not to be, a ground of faith. They may instruct me: I may listen to them with personal respect. This is all right. But they cannot be authority for my soul. If I own them as such, the word has lost its authority; for I put man's word and God's word on a level. In receiving scripture I set to my seal that God is true, and hence His authority over my soul, while His love in giving His word is owned. Always a vital truth, this is now of inconceivable importance. On this question hangs that of the subjection of the soul to God, and in His word, or man's wilful departure from it, be it in superstition or infidelity. On the subject we are now occupied with, men have sought to put down what I believe to be the truth by quoting Reformers and Puritan divines. It does not affect my mind in the smallest degree. If they are not in unison with scripture, I reject them at once. I value all their work, but God's word is alone an authority. I may be told, it is only my thought on scripture instead of theirs. My faith must be mine, and must be direct, based on the word itself, or it is not faith. They may have been instruments, and blessed ones — they were, in their day; but they are not authority. Were I to hold them so, I must hold many errors, and many opposite things, and leave unlearned many important truths by which God is acting on the conscience of the Church at this day, which it was not in His wisdom to bring out in their day.

Let us search scripture together. God would, out of the common fund of scripture, lead by His Spirit by the use of certain truths, according to man's need or the Church's need at the time. Out of the same fund He will teach the humble enquirer by His Spirit now. They are momentous times: all is shaking; and the Holy Ghost knows on what truths to fix the attention of the saints now. Free enquiry is abroad — often without the smallest respect for the word of God. I am persuaded that the safe way for a soul to meet it, and all the difficulties that may arise, is perfect subjection to the word of God. Then let him enquire, and search as much as he can, provided it be humbly done in dependence on grace, in true subjection to the authority of the word. The conscience will thus be kept in play, and divine authority will be maintained over the soul; and that is all-important. These ecclesiastical forms cannot keep a soul, unless in darkness; yet, whenever a soul gets from under authority, it goes astray. Where am I to find God's authority? In His word. There, in spirit, not only younger will be subject to elder, but in all grace one to another. Are we not in momentous times? Are we not in times when all is called in question? Does not the Church, and the Christian, need special founding in the truth? Do they not need from the word what is suited to the difficulties of these times, which are not the same as those of the Reformation, nor that of the Puritans either? Let us, then, take the word, and enquire by it of the Lord's mind.

353 Our subject is righteousness, and specially the righteousness of God. Now this is used, as the terms imply, in an abstract and in a special sense. The word speaks of righteousness, and there is the special way revealed in which we can have it in a way worthy of, and suited to, God. When I read, "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness," or, "grace reigns through righteousness," I have the word used abstractedly: when I read, "the righteousness of God," or "the righteousness of faith," I have a special character or way of righteousness. We must keep in mind both. And first, what is righteousness? It is, I believe, the maintenance in my conduct, in my whole conversation, of what I ought to be (i.e., what I owe) towards others, the consistency of one's ways with the duties founded on relative positions. That is being personally righteous. Judgment maintains the same by the authority of another; but this, too, is righteousness. But God owes nothing to others. It is His consistency with Himself. A man is just when he recognizes the claims of others. "Righteous" is the same, only habitually the latter word carries more of the internal character of a man. "Just" refers more exclusively to actual relationship towards others. In Greek, both are dikaios. Dikaiosune is the habit and character required. But scripture necessarily introduces from its object a special use of it. Man has to do with God; and, hence, while righteousness in man's dealings with his neighbour is fully treated of, yet the first part of righteousness is what he ought to be for God — what he owes to Him — I do not mean as a Saviour, but in the relationship in which he stands, so as to meet the requirements of God as revealed. If man does this, he is righteous with God. But this has, in fact, become impossible. For man is a sinner; which means that he is in a state wholly inconsistent with the relationship in which he stands. Hence, God in judging is righteous in taking vengeance. Holy in repelling evil by His very nature, He is righteous in making good His claims in judgment against those who have not made good what they owed under them.

354 Adam was not holy or righteous, but innocent; he did not know good and evil — hence could not be either. He was not called on to conform himself to any standard, but to be what he was — not leave his first estate. To this end his obedience was tested by a law., What the law referred to was not good or evil in itself. It was a test of obedience simply. Had the prohibition not been there, there would have been no harm in his eating. It was not life annexed to obedience of the law, as has been said. This is fatal error. It was death, on the contrary, coming in consequence of disobedience. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." He ate; and estrangement from God and exclusion by God was the just and necessary consequence. Man was by nature a child of wrath. Now, how is peace to be restored, and needed righteousness attained? This is the serious question. How is he to be reconciled to God? The way back was barred — a return to innocence impossible. That relationship with God was for us wholly and irrevocably gone. The knowledge of good and evil had taken its place.

Then comes a second question. Man is a sinner by nature, a child of wrath. He stands in the condition and relationship of the first and fallen Adam. He is in flesh before God. Is he to be restored in that state and position, made righteous by the completion of what he owes according to the responsibilities under which he has stood as born of Adam, and alive in this world? or is he, as in flesh, born of Adam, and under the responsibilities under which he stands as man alive in this world, entirely condemned, and the whole condition to be set aside, death and condemnation being the only result of that responsibility, and an entirely new state introduced as that in which God introduces man into His presence, on a wholly new ground, and on a new footing, of which the life, righteousness, responsibilities, and sphere of development, are entirely new? And even if man be restored to blessing in this world (as in the millennium, I believe, he will be), yet even this upon the security of a glory, and a government, and a life which does not belong to it ("the sure mercies of David" proving a resurrection).

355 This is evidently a deep and serious question. It is really this: What is salvation? Is it making good the old state of man before God, as alive and responsible in this world? or is it transferring him into a new one, of which the second Adam is the pattern and perfection as risen from the dead? I affirm that, according to scripture, it is the latter and not the former. I believe man is wholly condemned and set aside on the ground of his old responsibilities. The first Adam has no more place before God. God is not looking for fruit from the old tree. I believe he is accepted in Christ risen and ascended, and there only has his place before God; that salvation is not making good the defect and completing the status of the first Adam, but the total setting aside of this, and an introduction into the last — the Second man; and that, in the accepted place, there is no mingling them. Conflict down here there is, but no acceptance of both the first and the last man. What is good and accepted is a new creation; all just exercise of conscience as to the state of the first, God glorified as to it in His own way of righteousness and grace. But if in flesh, we cannot please God; and it is not by finding a way to make that up that our condition is met, but by our being taken out of that condition, not our being in flesh at all, but in Spirit in Christ: we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God.

Now to what does law apply? To whom was it applied? It applies to man alive in this world, under the responsibilities of his Adam nature, before God; and it was applied to a peculiar people, brought out apart for the purpose, that man might be fully tested by it. Man ought to love God, he ought to love his neighbour. This was what he owed in these relationships. Had he done so, he would have been righteous as such. This was developed negatively, as to the evils he was prone to, in the ten commandments. His avoiding these evils would have been, under the circumstances, really fulfilling practically the positive requirements of the position he was in. Such was law. It addressed itself to man in flesh and would have been his righteousness had he kept it; that is, he would have been righteous in keeping it. But man was a sinner, and he did not.

Is now his old position under flesh made good, and the defects supplied? or he introduced into a wholly new one, by a new life, as a new man, no part of the old being allowed, and finally, none left, while we reckon ourselves to be dead even during our life here below? Is this last or the former Christianity? The system I combat admits a new life, or at least a moralizing action of the Holy Ghost (for some go very low with the idea of being born again); but they pretend that the defects of the old man are to be made good (whatever the means), so that that is to be set up in righteousness before God. The Christian even fails in walking as he ought, according to the measure of the law, the just rule for a child of Adam. And this is made up for him; so that he has the righteousness which he would have had as a child of Adam, had he kept perfect according to that just rule.

356 Now, I say, that is not Christianity. The life which we receive is Christ as our life. And this is not to make good our place in flesh. It makes me own that there is in me, that is, in my flesh, in me as a child of Adam, no good thing. And, hence, knowing that Christ has died to put away my sin, so that God's glory is maintained and enhanced as to it, I reckon myself dead, and accept my condemnation as such, but find myself (Christ being in me) in Christ. I have put on the new man, and that is all I am before God. I have given up, died to, owned the just condemnation of (only that condemnation borne on the cross) the old man. I am not in the condition, status, responsibilities of a child of Adam at all. As such, I have owned myself as wholly lost. I have, through grace, put it off, am dead and risen with Christ. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God"; but I am not in the flesh, because the Spirit of Christ dwells in me. I do not look for any recapitulation of the old man by any performance of its duties. I have given it up as wholly bad and condemned, and take my place through grace in Christ. For all that I was in the flesh Christ died. He has put it away, and I reckon myself dead. I am in Him, with Him as my life, and accepted in Him my righteousness.

The law, then, is the just measure of human righteousness: to speak of it as the measure of God's as such (that is, as the expression of perfection in His relationships, if He is pleased to have any) is simply absurd, when the law, in its highest expression, is the requirement of loving Him with all our heart, and one's neighbour as oneself. For a human being this is a perfect rule — for a divine, a contradiction in terms. By nature, man was simply lawless (anomos), with a conscience, or the sense of good and evil. But he, being lawless in nature, was expressly put under law. If he had fulfilled it, he was righteous; but the flesh is not subject to it, nor can it be. If Christ had fulfilled and made up the deficiencies (a strange kind of righteousness), those for whom He had fulfilled it would have been legally righteous by His vicarious accomplishment. But it would have placed man on the ground of the fulfilled law, and given him a righteousness on the ground of his standing as a living man, a child of Adam in the flesh. That was the position to which the obligation he was under by the law attaches. It applies to a living man, not a dead and risen one. It was in that obligation that man is supposed to have failed in this world: and when we have failed and are unrighteous, Christ, by keeping the law for us, according to that our obligation, has made the defect good. It is simply setting up the old man according to the divine requirement under the law. That was the debt, this the payment. Whatever our obligations to God for its being done in grace may be, whoever was the author of it, that was the thing done. Man is replaced as righteous on the ground he had lost. He is a child of Adam, righteous according to the law of God. He himself could not do it, because of the flesh — of his sinfulness. Another has done it for him, and he is completely righteous according to law, and is to live in virtue of that. All defects are made good, and perfectly. It is righteousness such as is required from a man, for that is what he failed in, and which is made good. It is that, blessedly done, but only that. But that is complete and perfect, and it is complete and perfect righteousness.

357 And now remark; Christ having accomplished this and set up the living man completely righteous, what place has death? There is no ground for death at all. I mean morally no place for Christ's dying to atone for sin; for all defects are made good. He is not to die and make atonement for a perfectly righteous person. And we shall see, in examining the article you have sent me, how strikingly the death of Christ is left out. And this is what I think serious in this matter. But I must examine this vicarious legal righteousness a little more.

Scripture goes farther than anything I have said. Not only are we under death as a penalty, nor is it alone necessary that the flesh must die, but morally speaking we are dead — dead I mean in trespasses and sins. I admit fully the responsibility of man. Scripture is plain upon it. But when I am experimentally exercised under divine teaching, I find there is not a single living movement of the soul towards God. In me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing. By the application of the law, known in its spirituality if applied to my conscience, this becomes known to me. My righteousness under the law is absolutely null. The contrary is there — sin. There can be no making up deficiencies. There is in God's sight evil and nothing else. The flesh is thus judged. Then Christ dies for me because I am such, and I am born again — receive Him as eternal life. Is Christ now as to righteousness a maker up of defects, or absolutely my righteousness? Defects of what? Is my righteousness — what I am as living after the Spirit — made up as patchwork by Christ's acts, when I have acted after the flesh? Is that the idea of divine righteousness? — of Christ being of God righteousness? The new man has in himself no defects — it is Christ as my life; and the old man has no good in it. Scripture says we have put it off; we are not seen in it. at all — we are not now in the flesh. If I have the life of Christ in me, I stand before God in Christ's present perfectness. He, in all that He is, is my righteousness; and the workings of the old man, while they have been borne as my sins, and God glorified as to them, do not enter into account at all. I am not seen in flesh, but in Christ, in His absolute perfectness, apart from flesh altogether. "I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living [alive] in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" If I am really alive in Christ, I have not a righteousness to be made up at all, since Christ is in the presence of God for me. I have to overcome. If I fail, Jesus Christ the righteous intercedes; God chastens me, if needed; but I am not seen in flesh at all.

358 On the question of righteousness and of the accuser, "He hath not seen iniquity in Jacob, nor beheld perverseness in Israel"; there are no defects to be made up, because I am only Christ before God — only seen in the new man. The old man is dead and gone for faith, because Christ has died for us as to all it is. God has condemned me in the flesh — is not making up my defects in it, for I am not in it: and in Christ there are surely no defects to be made up. But I am nothing else before God. The making out a particular legal righteousness of Christ for my failures is keeping me still in the flesh, and in my responsibilities as to righteousness as in it (and I should really perish on this ground), and making out the righteousness of man in flesh; that is, denying that I am dead and risen with Christ. For if He has thus made good my failures as in flesh, I am in flesh, subject to have them imputed, and having to make out a righteousness in it. To be corrected and disciplined I am, as a new creature, and a great blessing it is; but we are speaking of righteousness. Supposing I have lived half according to the Spirit, so far I am all right; the other half I have walked in the flesh. It is very sad, no doubt; but how am I now viewed of God as to righteousness? Am I still viewed as in flesh before God, and a righteousness to be made good as being so? Why, walking in the Spirit is really being dead as to the flesh! But this other bad half: am I to hold myself half righteous by my sanctified state in the Spirit, and half unrighteous because I have suffered the old man to act? and this half to be made good! But, then, it is the failure of the new man that is to be made good; or I must be considered as still in the old, a responsible man in flesh. But, then, there is no good at all.

359 The truth is, this doctrine leads to an absurdity. It is based on not seeing that the flesh is simply bad, and hopelessly bad, and never anything else. It confounds practical sanctification — an immensely important subject in its place, cannot be held too much so — with righteousness before God. I know it will be said that, by holding man righteous in Christ when we have failed, we are making allowance for sin. Quite the contrary. The truth of scripture is, we are all utterly dead in sin. No one has a place really in this righteousness in his consciousness, and cannot have it, till he is brought experimentally to know it; and then, while conflict will surely remain, he reckons himself dead and alive to God. Then scripture reasons thus: "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Every saint, even if obscure in doctrine, loves holiness; but, as a doctrine, the notion of this supplementary righteousness of Christ, instead of seeing the Christian wholly dead and only alive and righteous in Him, is to keep him quiet in sin, because death is not then its wages — it is made up for by the living acts of another.

Either Christ, in His own present perfectness risen from the dead, is my righteousness, His place my place, and I reckon myself absolutely dead and gone as regards the old man; or I am making Christ a completer of my standing as alive in the old man. For if I hold it to be dead and gone, there is no such living person whose defects are to be made good. I shall be told, You are living as a person, and it is your defects as a man living in the world which are to be made good, and to you as so alive in the world law applies; and you fail, and Christ must make it good. My answer is, Scripture teaches me exactly the contrary. It is this denial of the import of death in sin, and I must add in Christ, that is the great evil. I am not alive as a child of Adam in this world. In saying that I am a living person in flesh, you are depriving me exactly of all my privileges in Christ, of all my sense of what the wages of sin is, of all my sense of what a state of sin is, or what it is to be in the flesh before God. For by faith I am not alive in this world. In my conscience I have wholly died before God. Such is scripture teaching.

360 "Why as though alive in the world," says the apostle. "If ye be dead with Christ," etc., "reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God." Why? Because, in that Christ died, He died unto sin once; in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. "I am crucified with Christ." "Through law I am dead to law." "I am dead to law (looking at man as under it) by the body of Christ." "I am delivered from the law, having died in that in which I was held." The whole doctrine of the apostle Paul is, that, for faith, the Christian is not alive as a child of Adam, that he has been crucified with Christ and yet lives — not he, but Christ in him. In the Ephesians the teaching goes a step farther, and views Christ Himself only as already dead, and us as dead in sin, and the whole thing in us as a new creation, quickened out of that state of death, raised, and sitting in Christ in heavenly places. Only this new creation is recognized associated with Christ; not known till He is already dead. And hence it gives the Church's place.

Scripture, then, teaches, not a making good any defects of the old man (in the new such a thought has no place before God — it is Christ), but its death; and the Christian, holding himself for dead, and not in the flesh at all, consequently knows no making good the responsibilities of the child of Adam by himself or any other, but his death and condemnation. Now Christ, in infinite grace, has taken this on Himself on the cross, so that the guilt under which we were (as so responsible in a nature which in its corruption could do no good, and could never bear fruit) is borne and put away. And now I am in Christ, risen and ascended, and have no righteousness to make out, but to glorify God as His child, being the righteousness of God in Christ already. My defects have nothing to do with my righteousness; they have to my living to God and enjoying communion with Him; they have as to all my actual condition as a child of God.

361 Here then is the question: Is the old man to have a righteousness made out for it as still alive and responsible under law? or is the Christian accounted crucified as to that with Christ, alive only in Him, and having no other standing before God than His abiding perfection, and all his conduct here measured by that? If I am to believe scripture, the answer is plain. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "Ye are not in the flesh." We are created again in Christ, placed on a wholly new footing, have nothing to do with the old man (save as an enemy, which is no longer I), but are alive, and the righteousness of God in Christ. Having laid these general grounds for our enquiry, I turn now more directly to the article you have sent me.

First, as to the term "righteousness of God," I should not call it properly an attribute of God, in the common sense of the word attribute. The word is generally used for what is essential to His being and nature, as power; whereas righteousness is a relative term. But the righteousness of God, like the righteousness of faith, is surely used to characterize the kind of righteousness in contrast with man's towards God, if such were to be had. It must be divine in its character as well as its source. It must not be what man owes to God — that is man's righteousness. Man's righteousness is man's consistency with the relationship in which he stands, or internally the quality which makes him always such. But this cannot be God's righteousness. That, in the Old Testament, the Lord's righteousness means a quality in the character of God, is beyond all question or controversy. It occurs too often to make it necessary to cite proofs. A concordance will suffice. Is it different wholly in the New? I do not believe it. I do not doubt that the righteousness of God is a wider and fuller term. I quite recognize that the application is peculiar in the New, in the full explanation of it, but that is connected with God, instead of Lord or Jehovah, and the full revelation of the way He has been glorified in Christ.

362 But as to the use of righteousness, Jerusalem is called "the Lord our righteousness." Christ is called so too — exactly the same as the double use which is attempted to be insisted on, as making it impossible to use the righteousness of God as that which belongs to His character and nature. Christ is made to us righteousness, as "the Lord our righteousness" is said of the Jew. We are the righteousness of God in Him, as Jerusalem is called "the Lord our righteousness." But why? Because Jehovah's consistency with all His glorious character was displayed both in one and the other — in the latter, in grace and through righteousness: still that consistency was displayed. But that, most assuredly in the Old Testament, does not destroy the proper sense of the word as that which characterized God Himself. It displayed that character, and is the abiding witness of it.

But now I read what to me is the very serious aspect of this paper. "There can in it, indeed, be no allusion to the divine attribute of justice, inasmuch as the act is only of grace. The former acceptation would furnish the idea of an incensed God, which is the purport of the law, not of a reconciling or justifying God, which is the essence of the gospel." This is doubly false. First, justice or righteousness does not in itself imply an incensed person. I may be just in blessing, and certainly, if scripture is to be believed, just in justifying.

Note, therefore, how this doctrine of legal righteousness destroys the thought of righteousness in God — God's being just in justifying. This is important, but a small thing compared with the other error. The gospel does present God as reconciling, not the one to be reconciled. But has justice, as wrath against sin, nothing to do with our justification? Was no sacrifice, no sin-offering, no propitiation offered to His justice? Had Christ to drink no cup, to bear no wrath, that we might be justified? I pray you seriously to note this. I see a deadly tendency in the present day to substitute living obedience (carry it, if you please, into death, for that is true, and it was all one obedience as stated here — I should even urge that) — to substitute, I say, a living obedience for the wages of sin — the drinking the cup of wrath.

363 Justice, we are told, cannot as an attribute of God be in question in our justifying, because it implies wrath, "an incensed God" — a term used to make it offensive in contrast with grace, but which betrays so much the more the mind of the writer. It has been the fancy latterly to designate the "Brethren" Socinians, as the early Christians were called Atheists. But this article in this respect does tread on the heels of Socinianism. Justice, as an attribute of God, had nothing to do with our justifying, for wrath (an incensed God) could not have to do with it. What becomes of the cross here? What of the cup Jesus had to drink? What of the bloody sweat in Gethsemane? It was obedience; to be sure it was but what gave obedience such a character as this? Was it obedience to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That He was perfectly obedient when He said it, I freely admit. But obedient in what? What was the obedience? Was there no bearing of wrath? no drinking of a cup such as none else could ever know the depth and bitterness of? Was He not made sin in that dreadful hour? I say in that dreadful hour. The notion that He was made sin at His birth has no ground in scripture. "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin." Does the apostle speak of a divine Person in heaven simply knowing no sin, or One who in a perfect life had proved His sinlessness on earth? Oh! it is terrible — this blotting out, this merging the sufferings of Christ, the true character of His death in its fulness, the bearing of wrath, His making His soul an offering for sin, the highest, most wonderful, act of love of that blessed One. I avow to you, that I hate with a perfect hatred the doctrine of these men. You will ask How can good men acquiesce in such doctrine (and I have always heard that the Editor of the "Christian Examiner" is an excellent person)? My answer is, Good men often carry with them certain truths and are unsuspicious; they assume them to be held, and suppose they are only getting some clearer view in which this truth is tacitly contained, and then it is undermined. This is going on everywhere in the propagation of rationalist views.

Now, in this article the blood of Christ (save in a casual sentence, which has no force at all, unless to turn aside all thought of Christ's laying down His life atoningly for sin) is never mentioned; but justification, and redemption, and forgiveness are attributed to something else. You will say, Is not Romans 3: 18-26 alluded to? Frequently, but to the exclusion of the blood. "The one" (the righteousness as a substantive reality) is a completed fact as well as "the other" (the world's ruin by sin). Man came short of that revenue of glory which would have resulted from a sinless obedience. In the righteousness of God that revenue or tribute is restored or paid.

364 Now, I am satisfied that almost all the exegesis of this paper is completely false — as to the gar, dikaiosune, and all the rest, utterly false. But I shall not dwell on it: the main point is too serious. Sin is the non-payment of the just revenue or tribute to God. In God's righteousness that is restored (i.e., without propitiation or blood-shedding; and note the use of once for all, and how scripture uses it, Heb. 9 and 10) and paid. Christ's life, even His death, is simply a restoring or paying to God a sinless obedience, in which Adam had failed.

Now read the passage on which this comment is made. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." This is the revenue or tribute restored and paid to God of a pure nature and sinless obedience. Surely there was that in Christ. But what is left out in commenting on this passage, yea, really, denied in the offensive term of an "incensed God"? PROPITIATION. The whole true groundwork of peace and salvation is left out. The value of Christ's blood — the only thing spoken of as that in which the righteousness of God was shewn in forgiving past sins — is left out. It is the "historical manifestation of righteousness," and so there can be retributive justice. And this is fully brought out, and redemption grounded on the same obedience, without an allusion to blood-shedding or propitiation. "The manifestation of this righteousness as an historical fact is noticed by the apostle when he says, Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested (Rom. 3: 21). In that phrase he refers to its coming into existence, or to its manifestation as an historic fact, in the incarnation of Christ. The allusion is not to the preaching of it, or to what he calls the revelation of it in the gospel (Rom. 1: 17); but to the bringing in of this righteousness once for all, when Christ was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3: 16)."

365 "And the language used by the apostle shews that it is coincident with the Person of Christ and found in Him. This is evident from the way in which he speaks of one of those terms which describe the one obedience of Christ in its manifoldness of its effects and benefits. When he says that the redemption is 'in Christ Jesus,' the meaning is, that it is found in His Person; that He is personally the redemption, just as He is called our peace (Eph. 2: 14)." (There, too, note the reconciliation is made (v. 16) solely by the cross having slain the enmity thereby, which is wholly dropped here), and is "furthermore described as made of God unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1: 30). It does not denote that we have it in a state of union to His Person, however true that is in itself but that it is actually IN Him, that He is Himself that manifested righteousness, and will continue to be so while His living Person endures. The Judge, then, sees our righteousness and our eternal redemption whenever He looks upon the Person of Christ. The living Redeemer, in His crucified and risen humanity, is Himself the manifestation of the righteousness of God; and it must not be lost sight of that He is living through death according to the power of an endless life (Heb. 7: 16), and the restoration of life to appear in the presence of God was essentially necessary to the existence, validity, and perpetuity of this righteousness "of God" (not, it seems, His laying it down or being a sacrifice for sin). "It is, therefore, no putative, past, or transitory righteousness that has been manifested; but one actually in the world, and the only great reality in it. Thus, when the righteous Judge beholds His Son, He sees in Him the righteousness of God, the grand re-adjustment of man's relation to his Maker, the re-union of God and man."

Now I could hardly conceive anything which could shew more distinctly the true character of this interpretation of the righteousness of God than the passage I have quoted: — justification without blood-shedding, no wrath — such a sense of justice would imply an incensed God; redemption by incarnation, in the Person of Christ, without blood-shedding; righteousness manifested, brought in once for all as an historic fact in the incarnation, only in the accomplishment of law, as we read (p. 39); peace found in His Person, not through His blood; Christ as righteousness, the re-adjustment of man's relationship to his Maker, the re-union of God and man

In scripture we are, in the passage referred to, justified by His blood for the manifestation of righteousness. In Ephesians 1, "we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins"; in chapter 2, peace is made by the cross; in Colossians, "He has made peace by the blood of his cross." Without it is no remission; though, for our author, redemption (of which the apostle says, "even the forgiveness of sins") is "in him." "He is, personally, the redemption." Scripture says He "entered in by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us"; that it is "by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first testament." Our author declares it was His righteousness in life.

366 And all this (and it might be greatly enlarged upon) is not because he is not speaking of the death of Christ; for he takes care to say it must not be lost sight of, because this righteousness of God was to be manifested in His crucified and risen humanity. His account of this is "His living through death, according to the power of an endless life" (Heb. 7: 16). And "the restoration of life to appear in the presence of God for us was essentially necessary to the existence, validity, and perpetuity of this righteousness of God." My soul, come not thou into their assembly! I cannot conceive a more complete, deliberate, careful setting aside of the necessity, value, and true sufferings of Christ's death, viewed as atonement, as a victim — a propitiation for sins, as bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, as One who drank that dreadful cup of wrath. Death, as death for sin, is wholly gone, not lost sight of, but set aside by language which slights the agonies of the Son of God.

And see how distinctly it is, as I said, the setting up of the old standing of the creature with God, the old creation, the first Adam. It is "the grand re-adjustment of man's relationship to his Maker"; no thought of a new creation, but an idea fit for a Rationalist, and never found in scripture at all — "a re-union of God and man." God's justice demanding satisfaction is referred to. "Righteousness is measured by the standard of justice." (There is no difference in Greek, but let that pass.) There is first a manifestation of justice in demanding the satisfaction, and then a display of it in connection with the preparation of this righteousness of God, when it is added, "that he might be just and the justifier." This righteousness came "into existence as an historic fact" "in the incarnation of Christ." "He who has the righteousness of God with this rectified relation which it brings" is not condemned, not under the curse.

367 This leads me to another remark, which shews how carefully, as I have said, Christ's expiatory sufferings are set aside here. The curse of the law is diligently spoken of. Christ came under the law as violated. "If law is the sphere of this righteousness, it is evident that no knowledge can be acquired respecting it without a clear conception of the law in its relation to sinners, not only in respect to its positive claims, but in the extent of its curse." Here, surely, if anywhere, we should find "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Not a word of it is found. All the unfathomable truth of the Holy One being made sin for us must be set aside. Not only so, but an entirely different view of the curse, or meeting the curse, of the law is given I will give the whole passage, that I may not be charged with misstating it. He continues: "The law to which the surety must needs subject himself was, moreover, the LAW AS VIOLATED,* urging the unalterable demands which it made on man as man, and armed with the curse its violation entailed.** Accordingly, the work of Christ is described in its relation to the law. He was made under the law (Gal. 4: 4); the righteousness on which man's acceptance is based is termed the righteousness of the law (Rom. 8: 4); the work of Christ is the end of the law for (or unto) righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. 10: 4). This latter phrase (telos nomou) can only mean that fulfilment which the law demanded, and could not but demand, till its end or accomplishment was reached; and that additional word, that Christ is the end of it 'unto righteousness' (eis), leaves no doubt that this fulfilment of the law is to be found m Christ, and is received in the reception of Christ." As yet we cannot find a word of the curse, only of fulfilling the law, which, I suppose, did not bring a curse. I continue: "More particularly the obedience of Christ (called upakoe) (Rom. 5: 19) extended over His entire life, and formed one obedience from first to last." . . . [This is perfectly true.] "The element of obedience pervaded His life, and went through all His sufferings. The great commandment laid on Him was to die; and here, amid temptations to recede, the extent of His obedience was displayed. [All right; but where is the curse?] His is no common obedience, but one that passed through superhuman temptations." This is the worst part of all to me, because it seeks to satisfy Christian feeling as to Christ's sorrow, while carefully excluding His being made a curse, or expiatory bearing of wrath, "and it has a dignity and value, from the greatness of His Person, that entitle it to be called infinite." All true; but the curse? The infinite value of obedience is not a curse. Again, "He was the living law, the personal law; and this was an event with a far more important bearing than any other that ever occurred. It is the world's new creation."

{*This has really no sense, because He had not violated it. Subjection to a law is intelligible; but subjection to a violated law has no sense in It. If It means anything, it is that Christ was personally born subject to the curse of sin.}

{**But, note, Christ never violated it. It entailed, therefore, no curse on Him.}

368 Now, I ask any Christian reader whether, as we have seen the expiatory value of Christ's death, and justification, and redemption through blood omitted and denied, so the being made a curse for those under the curse of the law, as hanging on the tree — that unfathomable truth of scripture — is not here wholly set aside? — spoken of, but set aside? If Christ is made a curse at all in this system, it was by birth. He was born under the curse; but if it be that, there is not one word of it. He kept the law, was obedient, and that is righteousness. What scripture speaks of as the curse is set aside. The world's new creation is before His death and resurrection: His keeping the law on earth was this. This I will touch on hereafter.

Now I affirm that scripture speaks of the death of Christ in a way wholly different and the opposite of this. It was a baptism He was looking forward to. It was this hour pressed upon His spirit. It was then, and then only, He was made sin for us. Then He was a victim of propitiation. Then He was delivered for our offences, thereon raised again for our justification. Then He was made a curse to redeem from the curse of the law. Forgiveness the author does not speak of, nor the non-imputing of sin. But "without shedding of blood there is no remission." "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." It is out of the side of the dead Christ that the water and the blood flow, in the power of which Christ came to cleanse and expiate. Of this, of all this, nothing is found in this false gospel! Righteousness is by law. Of forgiveness he does not speak; of cleansing he knows nothing; of justifying by blood (i.e., being made righteous in God's sight) he will not hear. Redemption is by incarnation in the Person of Christ. Is all this the gospel, or the denial of it? If scripture be true, the denial of it.

369 I have now to shew how, as to law, he contradicts himself and the scripture, and then see what he says of righteousness, and how scripture speaks of it.

First, as to law, he contradicts himself. "The fact that it is commonly put in contrast to 'our own righteousness' (Rom. 10: 3); that 'our own' is said to be of the law, as compared with that which is 'of God' (Phil. 3: 9); and that it is furthermore called 'a gift of righteousness' (Rom. 5: 17), determines the significance of the term to be something widely different from the divine attribute on the one hand, or a work of law on the other." . . . "This is, however, abhorrent to the divine rectitude, which insists on a true fulfilment of the divine law? and acquits only on account of an actual obedience." This, as an abstract or absolute statement, is simply nonsense. An actual obedience does not need an acquittal. It is contrary to scripture, for we are justified by blood. But to pursue. It is obvious that, in the government of a righteous God, no one can be justified by a mere connivance at defects, or by being accounted what he is not."

This last, he says, is a legal fiction — the believer must be really righteous when he is declared so. All this is muddy enough. If it means anything, the man must himself be what he is held to be, which denies the whole truth of vicarious work and of believing on Him who justifies the ungodly. And it is quite clear that, if Christ has kept the law, and I am counted righteous, that is a legal fiction. His having borne my sin and put it away is no fiction: my sin has been dealt with.

But I return to the contradiction of the writer. "The standard or measure of this righteousness of God is divine justice and the law." Yet it is not a work of law which is the significance of the term! And a man, if righteous, must be righteous according to the measure of the law, and only on account of actual obedience, yet "it is not a work of law!" Yet, again, it is the accomplishment of law." How true is the apostle, "desiring to be teachers of the law, they know not what they say nor whereof they affirm!"

370 But if I turn to scripture, I find the whole system of its doctrines in direct opposition to our righteousness having anything to do with law. Whatever the contradictions, the doctrine of the paper is, that the accomplishment of the law is righteousness — that fulfilment which the law demanded. Now, I affirm that what is demanded now is, that I should be fit for the presence of God in heaven, fit for the glory of God, fit to see His face: that the only goal is "the resurrection from among the dead," and that we are risen with Christ; and that this, consequent on the death of Christ, is our standing before God. But it is better to answer directly — in vain, almost, to quote the positive declarations of our death and resurrection in Christ. They will have legal righteousness for children of Adam alive in the flesh. I will therefore turn to their own ground. Is righteousness by the law? That is the question.

Now, scripture speaks on this head: let us hear it. If righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain. No matter who kept it, it was not to come by the law. And mark two things: first, Christ's death is what comes in contrast with it; secondly, This one grand foundation of Christianity is all in vain, if righteousness comes by the law. "That no man is justified by the law, is evident: for the just shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith." The nature of the righteousness is different. So, in a remarkable verse, it is said, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." It will be said, But it means, not by our own doing these works, but by Christ doing them; and then we believe in Him, and this is held as our doing them. But this is being justified by the works of the law: Christ has done them and I am thereby justified. Only this is what is rejected by the author as "a legal fiction"; next, it is "putative" righteousness, which he equally rejects. It is not the man's actually being righteous, but accounted what he is not. "They have fulfilled it (we are told) in a Representative, with whom they are one." But the passage allows of nothing of this. It puts not merely my sin and works in contrast with the deeds of the law, but it puts the faith of Christ in contrast with works of law. "Christ received by faith establishes the law," says the writer. "By the faith of Christ," says the apostle, "not by the works of the law." By the law he was dead to the law that he might live to God. It is perfectly impossible for any person to read Galatians 2: 15 to the end, and chapters 3 and 4, without seeing that works of law, in every shape and in every way, are rejected as the means of righteousness; and that a statement that Christ has done them, and that thereby we are righteous, is incompatible with the statements of this part of scripture. The idea of Christ keeping the law for us is never made the object of faith in scripture; nor is it said, that He kept it for our righteousness. Man has said it; scripture does not. If it does, let the text be produced. When He is said to be made under it, it is said that it was that He might redeem those who were under it.

371 On the other hand, where righteousness is said to be imputed it is that "Christ was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification: therefore being justified by faith." Another thing, ay, another thing is presented as the object of justifying faith — "He was delivered for our offences." "The promise . . . was not . . . through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." God "imputes, or reckons, righteousness without works." "We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law" (choris ergon nomou). It is impossible to have a more complete denial that it is by works of the law, keep them who may. "Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law," choris nomou, apart from law. How comes it if Christ's keeping the law is our righteousness, that these statements are not guarded? — that it is never said that it was by His keeping the law? — that it should be said, not that it was not by our keeping it, but not by law at all? — not by Christ's doing it as a representative, but apart from law altogether? Could these teachers of the law say what stronger language could be used, if the object of the apostle had been to shew that it is quite apart from law and on another principle?

I do not see how it is possible that statements could be made stronger to prove that the Christian is not under it. "As many as are of the works of the law (that seek life on this principle) are under the curse." Our justification by faith is rested on what? Christ being delivered for our offences and raised again. In Romans 10 there is a righteousness by law — Do this and live. Well, is not, then, righteousness to be by law only — Christ fulfilling it and I getting the benefit? No; "the righteousness by faith speaks" quite differently. "Say not in thine heart," etc. The two righteousnesses speak quite differently. So the apostle insists. I may leave this point. I do not see how language could make it plainer than the apostle has. Let any unprejudiced person read the Galatians, and say if righteousness be by law or not for the Christian; and whether righteousness by law, get it how you will, is not rejected, and another proclaimed.

372 But we are told more particularly, that wherever the phrase, "righteousness of God," occurs, it "always comes back to this, that it is the accomplishment of law."

First, it is said, "Herein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." How this is the accomplishment of the law, I do not know. There is not the smallest hint that it has anything to do with it, save that it is of God (i.e., not man's keeping it before God), and that it is on the principle of faith. "And the law is not of faith." Indeed, the writer admits that it seems to be in God, as the wrath is. Matthew 6: 33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." Here there is no possible connection with Christ keeping the law vicariously for sinners. It was their own walk which was the question. Men are to seek, not the comforts of this world, but God's kingdom and righteousness, to have a part in the blessing, and glory, and acceptance which He was setting up. "If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God" (Rom. 3: 5). Here, clearly, it is equally far from the thought of Christ fulfilling the law. It is God's consistency with Himself and faithfulness to His promises, even when man is unfaithful; as before — our unbelief, the faithfulness of God: God was true, if every man was a liar. It is expressly "the righteousness of God without law" (chap. 3: 21). "The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ" (chap. 3: 22). "Ignorant of God's righteousness . . . have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God" (chap. 10: 3). But this is so far from being the righteousness of the law, that it is specifically contrasted with it. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness of the law . . . but the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise."

That is, it does not say that the man that does them is righteous, for they are done by Christ, and if I believe in Christ, they are done for me; but it is not now living by doing, but living by believing, and believing that One, Jesus, who was dead, God hath raised from the dead. In this passage the writer has attempted to say, that the end of the law can only mean that fulfilment which the law demanded, and could not but demand, till its end or accomplishment was reached. This is, I must say, impudent. Telos, he says, means fulfilling a demand till the accomplishment is reached. It is too barefaced — the rather, as the apostle says, Christ is the end of the law, because the law says so-and-so, but the righteousness of faith says quite otherwise, and hence the say of the law is at an end, and something else comes in as righteous. Righteousness is on another principle.

373 "That we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5: 31). But this is explicitly Christ not keeping the law, but His being made sin. "Who knew no sin" marks a Christ, who has lived holily through this world. I have not heard that they have been bold enough as yet to say, it means — God has no consciousness of sin, but was made it in incarnation. But if this most painful thought, even to mention, is not their opinion, then it is not keeping the law which is spoken of here, but Christ's being made a sacrifice for sin upon the cross. It is again contrasted with law: "Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3: 9). Titus 3: 5 leads to the same point, but the word "righteousness of God" is not there. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1: 30). This, clearly, can in no possible way refer to Christ keeping the law. The wrath of man cannot produce a righteousness according to God, a righteousness which has its character in His nature.

2 Peter 1: 1 is the only one remaining, where it has nothing to do with the law. We have received, not a personal Messiah present in glory in the body, but the faith, Christianity, the revelation of Messiah to faith, by God's faithfulness to His promise to him that waited on Him. Our God and Saviour has been faithfully righteous in giving it.

These are all the passages: not one hint at accomplishment of law. Several contrast law and the new way of righteousness, which has finished the law for those that believe. I defy any one to trace a single expression which makes it "come back to an accomplishment of law." It carefully does the contrary; it goes forward, leaving law as done with, to a new way of righteousness — faith in Christ, who, having been delivered for our offences, has been raised again for our justification. That God is the author of it is not the sense, unless, perhaps, in Philippians 3 where Paul is speaking of his having it, not of its accomplishment; and so contrasts man and the source of his having it. Its general sense is the character of the righteousness, as in all such genitives, where they are not possessive, as, the peace of God, the righteousness of faith; but it rises up to what it is in God Himself, as giving it this character. In the Old Testament it is constantly so. "If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God." Here it is His own righteousness in Himself. "The righteousness of God without law," is plainly characteristic. The righteousness of God, then, is a far wider term than His being the author of it, which He is of everything that is good, save Himself, who is Author of all. It is that kind of righteousness which is suited to, fitted for, His presence and glory; and that is found only in Himself. Man had been tried, and all was in vain, and he is wholly condemned. Righteousness would be measured by the law, then, if any had existed. Now, if we have to say to God, we must have to say to Him with a rent veil — be fit for His glory. This was always true, once sin had entered; but it is now revealed. Judgment shall flow forth from His glorious presence, but in righteousness.

374 But how can we have it as a saving righteousness, a righteousness for us in the unveiled presence of God? It is now for us a new one — the only true one, by faith, fit for the throne of God, as we have seen it must be. We are called to stand in the presence of God. The righteousness we must have must answer to the absolute perfectness of His character as it is, and perfectly revealed (all His righteousness, His holiness, His truth, His majesty, even His love — nothing must be discordant, or it could not be accepted by what He is — unveiled). To be accepted according to all that God is, it must meet all that God is, and this must be in respect of sin; for indeed all He is, in grace and love and righteousness against evil, could not be displayed if sin were not there. It is this: sin there, and yet with that, in view of that, everything that God is in His own infinite excellency must be satisfied and glorified. This is what Christ has done.

375 Speaking of His dying, He says, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; and if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." He does not wait for the kingdom, but takes a heavenly and divine glory as man sitting at the right hand of God. We are accepted in Him. Our acceptance is according to the perfect glorifying of God by Him on the cross. He has, besides, borne our sins, so that they are wholly removed out of the way. His blood, and His blood only, cleanses from all sin. Christ does not draw all men as a living Christ, but if lifted up. Then the veil was rent. The holiest was shut up till then for us; His death alone could open it for sinners. Hence the Holy Ghost convinces the world of righteousness, because He goes to the Father. Till the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone — is not in the condition to bear fruit. When it dies, it brings forth much fruit. Hence, too, He is raised again for our justification; and, therefore, "being justified by faith, we have peace with God."

The righteousness by the law is that which meets the requirements of God from man. Of course, Christ fulfilled this — that it is important to remember. The righteousness of God is that which He requires to meet the necessary demands of His own glory and nature in His presence. Christ did glorify God as a man under law; but in this there was no drawing of all men. He abode alone; but He glorified God Himself in His own nature, in the place where it all came out, and was made good by Him in spite of all. God's highest love and our perfect sin were both here displayed. Here man stands on a new ground altogether, through the work of and in Him who is risen from the dead. God is glorified in the highest, in all the qualities of His nature, which must be made good. We are reconciled to God. "He suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." No doubt, all He did glorified God in its place; but this glorified Him as to sin, and brought out all His nature so as to glorify it; and so He, and we in Him, are accepted according to that glory. When I say I am righteous before God, I stand before God in the consciousness of acceptance according to the perfectness of His nature perfectly revealed. This was what Christ was, and He glorified it when He was made sin for us. Hence I am made the righteousness of God in Him: because Christ is so before Him, and through a work — in the virtue of which and in the glory He has gained by it I have a part — so as to be the righteousness of God in it; for that is what is made good in it in the place where I am in Christ. All that He was and did met that in God, which was perfection, glorified it, made it good — all that God is; for His glory was made good in Christ's cross, and so in me for whom it was done.

376 Would there have been perfect love displayed without the cross? No. Perfect, unescapable judgment against sin in the highest way? No. Necessary divine majesty? No. In nothing could it have been shewn that it must be glorified like the death of Christ. So His truth, that the wages of sin is death. I repeat, this was the making good of what God is in His perfections, and those perfections are displayed now in glorifying Christ, and then, in making me have a place in virtue of it, in which I enjoy Him righteously and as He is. I thus become in Christ the display and making good of God's righteousness. I am God's righteousness; I live before God according to all the truth of what He is in His glory. Is the law this? Does it display God as Christ on the cross did? The true measure of man's duty it was; but to say that the law was the true measure of God's glory proves man knows neither the law nor that glory. We have come short of that glory, and are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Him; so that the justifying (that is, grace and redemption) is not law, nor any one's keeping it perfectly as Christ kept it.

I turn, then, from the question of the righteousness of God to the application of it, and what we are to understand by righteousness and by imputing it. We have already seen that righteousness is the maintaining what is due to our relationship with others. In this general expression of it, it has its double expression of being it in our conduct, or securing it by judgment, in which, in English, it is more commonly called justice. It is thus always relative, though it is practically employed for the conduct which maintains this consistency with the relationship. It is thus used also for the condition in which I stand towards another who has a claim, in virtue of my conduct. I am righteous in God's sight, righteous before Him.

Now righteousness is constantly used in scripture for conduct suited to our position with man and God. So the law; if kept, it would have maintained man in consistency with his relative place as regards God and as regards man. The two tables contained the twofold obligation. Here, personal conduct is the ground of relative acceptance. I am righteous before God by personal righteousness. This may be spiritually carried on to the state of the heart, and has then been called inherent. Still it is my just acceptance in my relationship in virtue of my being perfectly what it demands. This the sinner is not. True, he receives divine life, so that there will be reality (of this a word hereafter). But this is not his righteousness: first, because He gets it in Christ, who makes Him righteousness before God in another way (God's righteousness and a new divine life going together); and, secondly, because, the flesh being still in him in fact, there is not perfectness according to the relationship into which the new life has put him — perhaps even positive failure. Hence his righteousness must be something else, and though he has divine life he must be accounted righteous beyond the measure of attainment in truth (blessed be God, according to the perfectness of Christ as He now is before God). His righteousness is not his conduct nor his nature, but his being seen and held by God as consistent with the relationship in which he stands before Him, that is, the revelation of His glory. God holds him for perfect according to His own glory in that relationship. What is that? Christ's actual one as risen and in His sight. I am crucified and risen with Christ, and in that standing am seen to meet the glory of God as absolutely there displayed. How this? Because Christ has actually glorified God in what He is, as so displayed, and I am so seen before God — am so placed in Christ.

377 There are two points here. First, abstractedly, I am held to be righteous (that is, to have no failure in the relationship in which I stand, to be perfect in it, that it has been perfectly maintained). I am accounted righteous. When I inquire what and how it is, I say, I am as an ungodly person so accounted; I am, as risen in Christ, in this perfect acceptance of delight. But it is by a work which would never have had its character, if it had not been about sinners, and by Christ being made sin. Here it was all divine perfections were brought out, as they could not be to angels. It is in this I am justified. Hence it is by faith, and according to the perfections of God so revealed and glorified. I have it as a sinner. Bring in any righteousness in me, any law-keeping, so that I am not in every aspect a mere sinner, and it has lost its glorious character of divine perfection displayed where the blessed One was made sin.

378 And see how this gives truth in the inward parts. For I am a mere "sinner" (in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good "thing"), and I come as such. I come in truth when I come to the cross. There Christ is made sin, and, wondrous work and thought! there meets GOD. I come in through grace and say, I am that — I am that sin; and I pass as a quickened soul into that in which He now stands, for it is accomplished in the presence of God. It is grace as well as truth, and righteousness, a mere sinner's righteousness; for it is made about, and in respect of, sin, not a making up human or legal righteousness. It is glorifying God in respect of my actual relationship as a sinner to God.

Was not that which Christ was doing on the cross glorifying God in the place and in respect of sin (where we really were) in His own perfectness, divine perfectness? — death, wrath, all that could be, being gone through by Him who was made sin. Bring in any human righteousness in me or wrought for me, this is destroyed in its very nature. It is a justifying the ungodly, or it is gone in glory, nature, and fact. If the heart says, But I must have reality in myself, as it does and will say, I reply, To be sure; that desire is the reality. But I say more. This risen Christ is your life too. You are as far from gaining life by legal righteousness as from the righteousness itself. Thus it is Christ finished the work His Father gave Him to do. Having done it so that the ground of your acceptance, of your righteousness, is complete, He becomes your life really, and you have part in His righteousness.

Now, imputing righteousness is God's seeing a man in an accepted state before Him, according to the relationship in which he stands. He holds him — accounts him — righteous. We can add, according to His own nature, and the full revelation of Himself. It is God's righteousness: we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. A man is seen in perfectness of relationship towards God, fully revealed in all His perfections, and according to the claim of these perfections on all that is before it, according to the perfectness in which Christ so stands as glorified according to His work. And this is, in result, true in every way — we are sons, we shall be like Him actually in glory. We know this livingly, as it is now by faith. Love is made perfect with us, so that we have boldness in the day of judgment; because, as He is, so are we in this world. We are in the perfectness of the Judge; yet — ay, therefore — it is absolute grace.

379 Now for the words "imputed righteousness."

As the paper you have put into my hands comes from the established clergy, I may appeal to their own documents. Take the Eleventh Article, "Of Justification." "We are accounted righteous before God." It "is more largely expressed in the homily of justification." When I turn to this, then, righteousness and justification are absolutely identified — "justified and made righteous before God." "Constrained to seek for another righteousness or justification, to be received at God's own hands, that is to say, the forgiveness of sins and trespasses." "And this justification or righteousness which we so receive," etc. "This is that justification or righteousness." Now I am not quoting this for any doctrine: I would not in many points; but merely to shew that righteousness and justification are held for one. Now in Romans 4 justifying and accounting for righteousness are identified; but every one knows — at any rate, every one can know, and if he knows Greek can easily ascertain — that accounted for righteousness, or imputed for righteousness, is one and the same; that is, accounting righteousness and imputing righteousness are identical. Imputed righteousness is a person being accounted righteous, and nothing else. All else is false, and throwing dust in the eyes. We may enquire how. Is it by Christ keeping the law, or by His dying and rising again? That enquiry is all right; but the word to impute righteousness to a person is simply and solely holding him, the person, for righteous. If I impute sin to a person, it is holding him guilty of the sin. Why, is another question.

Now it may be that reformers and puritans and divines are not clear about the law; the WORD OF GOD is, and tells me if I am justified by law I am fallen from grace. If Christ has kept the law for me, and that is imputed to me, I am justified by law. By what else in that case am I? He did keep the law — it was part of His perfectness, a needed part. He should have all human as well as divine perfectness; but where is it said He kept it for us, save as everything He did and was, was for us, but I mean for us vicariously to impute it? I ask again and again for scripture for this. I make no cavil as to words. Give me the sense, the thought, in scripture in any words; I will bow to it at once. They cannot. According to the WORD OF GOD their doctrine is FALSE.

380 But to return: let us examine the use of the term, "imputed righteousness" in scripture. Almost all the cases of this use are in Romans 4. The spring is in Genesis 15. Now what I say is this — that imputing righteousness to a man is reckoning him righteous because of something. Even if I impute a work to a man for righteousness (eis dikaiosunen), I esteem him so far thereby righteous. Supposing he has done it, I may say I esteem it a righteous act, but I will not hold him justified or righteous for it. I do not impute it to him for righteousness nor righteousness to him. But if I say I impute righteousness to him because of it, or I impute it to him for righteousness, in both cases it is his standing and relative condition I speak of when I say righteousness; only we know it is not by works.

Let us take the passages. First, Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness (Rom. 4: 3). Was it not that he was accounted righteous because of it? Clearly so. What else does it mean? That he was not counted righteous because of it — only that particular act as a righteous act imputed to him? It could not. He had done or felt it; it could not be itself imputed to him. He was it, morally speaking; but God could esteem him righteous in virtue of it, in His grace (that is, it was imputed to him for righteousness). He was, in God's esteem or account, righteous by this means. This is clear here, but this is the leading cardinal text from which all is drawn, on which all hangs. Nine out of the eleven passages are here (Rom. 4). Galatians 3: 6 is identical. The only one which is not governed by this (and in sense it is) is James 2: 23. But let us see if they give a different sense. It is reckoned of grace, not of debt; that is, the reward or wages to a person who does not work. This says nothing as to it. If he gets the wages without working, it is clearly grace; only, by saying it is not debt, the principles of the paper are set aside. It says, "If the act of justification is conceived of as proceeding on no underlying righteousness, we are lost in the mists of uncertainty. This is, moreover, abhorrent to the divine rectitude, which insists on a true fulfilment of the divine law, and acquits only on account of an actual obedience." I have already said this is nonsense, and assumes, besides, the point to be proved. But it is more; it is asserting that it cannot be by grace to one that works not. It must be, he says, of debt to actual obedience. It only proves total ignorance of what grace and righteousness are.

381 To proceed: "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Here we believe on God, who justifies the ungodly, and our faith, not our law-keeping, is imputed. The man is held for righteous. His relationship to God is according to the estimate of Him who justifies. He is righteous — has righteousness in God's sight. Verse 6 is clear beyond controversy: the man is blessed, and the imputing righteousness is forgiveness of iniquities and covering sin; i.e., the standing of the man faultless before God. Verse 9 rests on the same — "this blessedness"; only the verse carries this sense over all that precedes, by the words "for we say"; and this goes on to the end of verse 11. Abraham had it before the law came in, that it might be valid for those who came not under the law, that they might be held righteous before God. But why insist it was before law, if it is made out by keeping the law? And this is urgently pressed by the apostle. It was not through the law but through the righteousness of faith, which is not of law. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect." Yet these doctors would place us all under law to get it and make Christ fulfil it for us to make it out — the point the apostle reasons so earnestly against, shewing us in conclusion that it is by God's quickening the dead. We were dead in sin, and are then a new creation in that. Christ, as he then goes on to say, has been delivered for our offences, then raised again to put us, cleared from them (comp. Col. 2: 13), into this new position, beyond the river of death, and life under law.

So Galatians: the Spirit is not by works of law, but by the hearing of faith (i.e., the report (akoe) faith takes hold of); and then Genesis 15 is quoted — righteousness is imputed. But this is justifying the heathen. And he declares that "no man is justified by law," and that those who are of its works (on that principle) are under the curse. How so, if I am justified by them — by Christ keeping them? Here, too, imputing righteousness, or justifying, is for the apostle the same thing (i.e., imputing righteousness is accounting righteous), Abraham's case being introduced to distinguish it from, and to contrast it with, the obligation of law.

382 In James it is the same truth. Works, as fruits of faith, are introduced in order to a man's being esteemed righteous; and the notion of imputing Christ's previous law-keeping can have no possible place in his argument. A national faith was of no avail, but one which wrought livingly; and then a man was justified, accounted righteous before God.

I have gone through these texts to have all cleared up. I return to the paper in the "Christian Examiner." I should not, as I have said elsewhere, think of any one's holding Christ's fulfilling the law for us as, in itself, more than want of clearness, the effect being to injure their conscious standing before God, and their faith in the power of the Spirit to make them walk after Christ's steps. But this article has shewn some deadly principles connected with it. I do not, I may beg leave to say, attribute them in the least to the editor, who, I suppose, is a truly excellent man; nor to the journal, which, I dare say, would repudiate them. I am only surprised that the editor and the readers of the journal should not have found out the evil of it. It only shews the blinding process of the enemy, and how he is working. The atonement, as meeting the wrath of God — the death of Christ, as drinking the cup, being made sin for us — is wholly excluded by this paper. A perfect, active obedience, even through superhuman temptations, is taught; but a passive one, a bearing wrath, being made a curse, is excluded. I cannot go into all the details here. I judge it wrong in every material point it refers to. I have spoken of the main points; I now refer to one or two consequences connected with it, proving how a main error leads away from all scriptural truth.

"Righteousness stands in the same causal connection with life." "This second member of the parallel is expressed in the words, 'unto the justification of life,' but with the obvious meaning that, this righteousness having come in the room of sin, there must be life. The thought is, that where sin is, there must be death, and that where righteousness is, there must be life." Horrible poverty and falsehood! This is law. "He that doeth these things shall live in them." It is not by grace, but by justice, we get life. Thus righteousness is the way to life, only Christ has done it. What does the word of God teach us? "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us." "This is the record that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Talk of getting life by righteousness, and calling a man's self a Christian! "As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will."

383 So, in Ephesians, God had raised Christ from the dead. "And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." "We were children of wrath." "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And this is so striking in this epistle, that he does not, in chapter 1: 20, see Christ at all till He is dead; and then God's power comes in and raises Him up, and us with Him, to have His place. He knows of no Christ keeping the law here at all — no righteousness to gain life by.

And the passage which might seem at first sight to one who did not know what divine life as the gift of God was (as it is evident the writer of this article does not) to justify the obtaining of life by righteousness, is the remarkable proof of the falseness of the view I combat here. "As sin has reigned unto death," says the article, "so where righteousness is, there must be life." What says the scripture? "So might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life." It is not that where sin had reigned unto death, so righteousness by law must bring life; but grace reigns. And if God took care that even so this should not be without righteousness, it is carefully taught that it is the Second Adam in contrast with the first — that it could not be shut up to law, but must extend to the case where there was none — that where there was not, still sin reigned unto death, and therefore the blessing must be for those not under law — that the ruin came by one offence, and that the law was to be considered only as a thing that came in by the by to make it abound; and if indeed the many offences under that were borne, yet the thing met, and met too by Christ, was sin reigning by death; and the answer to it, grace reigning by righteousness, not to life under law, nor by life unto law, but to eternal life by Jesus, of whom Adam had been the image.

384 This leads me to another point: "The entrance of a sinless humanity, with the law in his heart, and comprehending all the seed, thus becomes the central point of all time, to which previous ages looked forward, and after ages look back. He was the living law, the personal law; and this was an event with a far more important bearing than any other that ever occurred. It is the world's new creation." I have difficulty in restraining the expression of unlimited indignation that this sentence produces. The use of the precious incarnation of that holy and blessed One to deceive and destroy souls! — But I refrain. There are almost as many errors as words. Could any one rightly look to have any place with God short of Christ's death? Is it not true, that, except He had died, He had remained alone? that, if any are saved, they have part in Christ after and not before His death? that except He wash them, they have no part with Him, but that the water and blood came out of His pierced side? It is horribly, destructively false — exactly the avowed ground of Puseyism, and more recently of the "Essays and Reviews."

What is a living law, a personal law? Nonsense; simply nonsense. A perfect example for a renewed soul Christ was; but grace towards a sinner is not even law in the exemplification of it. A law does not forgive. This I judge (with the very fairest appearance, and that it is arouses my indignation) is the devil's own doctrine to deceive: this exclusion of Christ's death to set up a living law, in which no sinner could have part with Him, instead of seeing we are dead, One dying for all, that we might live, our sin being atoned for by Him.

But this is the world's new creation. Now, where is new creation spoken of? Ephesians 2. We are created again in Christ Jesus when we are raised from the dead, as having been dead in trespasses and sins. The world's new creation is nonsense, unless it be the new heavens and the new earth, which is past death and resurrection. Our new creation, short of death and resurrection, is a lie against our state of original sin, and Christ's death and resurrection to deliver us by redemption. The place where new creation is spoken of, in express terms, is remarkable in this respect. The apostle, in 2 Corinthians, had been shewing how he had the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself, but in God that raiseth the dead. He had then contrasted the law, as a ministration of death and condemnation, with the ministration of righteousness; and the Spirit shews that we belong to and look into another's, an unseen, world; and then declares "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead; and he died for all, that they which live should live not to themselves, but to him who died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh [i.e., as a living Messiah in the world connected with Jewish and legal state, a Christ under law], yet henceforth know we him no more." He had died for sin and risen; that was the way he knew Him. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [kaine ktisis — it is a new creation, the whole scene entered on]: old things are passed away, all things are become new; and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us unto himself." And how is this? God was in Christ reconciling — He was rejected. It was not even then to this end man and sinless humanity keeping the law, but God reconciling; and then, if rejected, making Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That is, the new creation in Ephesians and in 2 Corinthians is in resurrection — is not a connection with Christ in flesh, which was impossible, but our union to Him when He had begun the new state of man as risen from the dead, when redemption was accomplished.

385 This writer, who makes redemption by incarnation without blood, without death, can, of course, make a new creation of the world without the death and resurrection of the Saviour.

There are many other statements I should wholly object to. Many points, distressing to a Christian, maintained in this paper, have occurred to me; but I refrain from noticing them The great principles are before you. I see plainly that a great warfare as to what is the truth has begun (not mistakes — we are all liable to them); but what is Christianity? What is divine righteousness? What is the desert of sin? What is bearing sin? Is Christianity the re-adjustment of the old creation by the law, or a new one of which Christ risen is the first of the first-fruits? Did Christ bear our sins as dying, enduring wrath there for us; or living, so that death is not the wages of sin? These are the weighty questions involved in the present controversy. On these points I hold the paper you have sent me to be nothing less than the denial of the foundations of Christianity.

386 I see, when the scripture speaks of this righteousness of God, not the law sent out from the God who dwelt in the thick darkness, giving the perfect rule of man's righteousness, but God fully revealed in all His perfections, and glorified as to them all on the cross, so that Christ past death takes a new place founded on redemption, the putting away of sin by His blood, and perfectly glorifying God in all His perfections, love, righteousness, majesty; and all, so that we, blessed be His name, are reconciled to God. God as He is, in all that He is, glorified, made known, is that which reconciles us. We have peace with GOD. See what blessing there is in this. I stand before God in the conscious perfectness of that which He is, one with it morally, in Christ who has glorified it in the act done for me, who is now in glory, where righteousness has placed Him because of it, and all the favour of God in love can shine out on me according to this. Not one blessed perfection of God, with which I am not brought into perfect accord, which has not been glorified in my being brought there by Christ. And by faith I stand in the consciousness of it, and I know Him in the full revelation of Himself. I am reconciled to Him as He is.

Now, I admit a man may be a sincere Christian, and not enter into all the privileges of his position, may not see that he is risen with Christ, and sitting in Him in heavenly places. But the simplest Christian recognizes the blood of Christ as that which has reconciled him and made peace, and that he is at peace with God, according to the value of that blood-shedding; and with such we are taught to walk as heartily as if they understood being risen with Christ. They may not know how fully God has revealed Himself and what the extent of reconciliation in our resurrection with Christ is: who does? But they are reconciled, and they know it. They do not think they want something else than Christ's work on the cross. Above all they do not deny the full putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. They do not suppress and annul the value of Christ's blood and work. Their faith is sound and genuine, though it may be enlarged. That one a mighty work of putting away of sin is fully owned by them; it is their hope. The price of Christ's blood is owned, not denied. They may blessedly add to their knowledge, but their faith is sound. The article I have been commenting on is the opposite to sound in the faith. It sets up the law. that is mischievous, but may be borne with. But it annuls the value of the blood-shedding — the cup of wrath; and that is intolerable.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOLUME 2]

Law

J. N. Darby.

<10001E> 1

My dear brother,

I am not sorry to know with some distinctness what the views of those are who maintain the law to be the Christian's rule of life; and what the arguments by which they maintain their opinions.

I desire, but without controversy, to consider the subject, which is really an important one, as calmly as I can. I make allowance, or would endeavour to do so, for theological habits of mind.

Taught myself exclusively by scripture, a multitude of expressions which are never found there appear strange to me, while they are at the base of the habits of thought of those whose views I have here to consider. Thus, "the moral law," "Christ's righteousness," and the like, which lie at the heart of the subject, are never found in scripture. But we must make allowance for these theological habits and expressions, see how far they are scriptural in substance, and hold fast the substance, while preferring, as surely clearer and more excellent, scriptural forms of expression. I have no doubt that unscriptural expressions are the fruit of, and lead to, unscriptural habits of mind; on the other hand it is not good to jeopardize substantial truths by making war on words which express them. The word "Trinity" is not found in scripture; the expression "justified by faith only" is not found in scripture; yet I need not justify them to you as human expressions of essentially fundamental truths. I have no better words, and I use what I find commonly used to express what I believe in my inmost soul; and I would not shake the faith of those who hold fast the truth expressed in these words to quarrel with the words by which thousands of saints have expressed it before me. So with the word "Person" applied to the Godhead. It is not scriptural; but I have no better word for One who sends, is sent, comes, goes away, wills, distributes, and does distinctive acts. The Father sends the Son, the Son does not send the Father. I doubt that any one will give me a better word than that which has clothed the deep divinely given convictions of faith in saints for ages. If a person quarrels with the word always used to express a truth without having a better, I dread a little his quarrelling with the truth it conveys. I say this that you may be assured that I do not seek to unsettle any simple soul by captious difficulties about words, or by resistance to expressions formed in the schools.

2 If a servant of God merely sought to insist on the danger of what is vulgarly called Antinomianism — that is, the wickedness of making liberty a cloak for maliciousness (and we know from scripture that flesh is perfectly capable of doing so), certainly he would not have me for an adversary. If they called this the moral law, in urging godliness as the necessary fruit of a living faith, I might have regretted the vagueness of an unscriptural phraseology — the want of spiritual point and power in not making Christ the substance of moral teaching, as of doctrinal, as the scripture surely and blessedly does; but, in the root of the matter, I think I may say I should have cordially joined with what was intended. Such exhortations have their place and their necessity. That a Christian should walk according to the precepts of the New Testament, and all the divine light he can gather for his walk from the Old, be it the Ten Commandments or anything else, no consistent or right-minded Christian could for a moment deny. I could not own as being on christian ground one who would. I may not be his judge, but I am bound to judge the principles he professes. But I suppose such are rare, if such are to be found. At any rate he would receive no support from me or from you. I need hardly dwell on it otherwise than to reject it as utterly evil and unchristian.

It is one of the distinctive marks between heresy and any advance in true divine knowledge, that the latter always holds the moral foundation fast, the difference of right and wrong immovable and fixed, as it is in the divine nature and revealed in the word; the heretic slights or loses sight of it. This is remarkably shewn in Rom. 2: 6-10, found at the outset of an epistle where justification by faith and by grace is so largely, methodically, and blessedly insisted on. The apostle does not stop to enquire there how the good is to be arrived at, or to weaken fundamental principles by explanations to prove their consistency with other doctrines, so as to enfeeble them. Other scriptures may teach us this, and do, I doubt not, clearly, and these we have to compare; but there is the great truth, in all its immovable and unalterable firmness, founded in the nature of God and responsibility of man. The divine fines bonorum et malorum (if I may use a heathen expression in divine things) are not to be overpassed. I may see that in myself I must, in my state of nature, be condemned on this ground, and flee for refuge to the hope set before me, and find a life which does continue in well-doing, as is here demanded, and find righteousness in Christ, and know I can find these things nowhere else; but immutable righteousness is there to make it necessary I should find them, however unspeakably the grace and glory which I do find may be beyond the measure of the responsibility which has forced me to seek them. These will never destroy nor enfeeble that. My objection to the way in which the moral law is spoken of, where Christians are put under law, is not the maintenance of moral obligations (this is all right); but that, by using the term moral law, and then referring to law as spoken of by the apostle, the teaching of the apostle is subverted and set aside, and that in practically most important points. And as this will lead me to some very vital truths, I desire to take the question up, which for mere controversy's sake I should not.

If I speak of moral law (which scripture does not), I make it, by the very expression, a fatal thing to be delivered from it. Yet Paul says the Christian is delivered from the law. If I make of the law a moral law (including therein the precepts of the New Testament, and all morality in heart and life), to say a Christian is delivered from it is nonsense or utterly monstrous wickedness; certainly it is not Christianity. Conformity to the divine will, and that, as obedience to commandments, is alike the joy and the duty of the renewed mind. I say, "obedience to commandments." Some are afraid of the word, as if it would weaken love and the idea of a new creation; scripture is not. Obedience and keeping the commandments of one we love is the proof of that love, and the delight of the new nature. Did I do all right and not do it in obedience, I should do nothing right, because my true relationship and heart-reference to God would be left out. This is love, that we keep His commandments. We are sanctified to the obedience of Christ. Christ Himself says, "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me; but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so I do." His highest act of love is His highest act of obedience.

3 But this it is that just makes it so mischievous to put the Christian under the law, and change the scripture phraseology to another, and speak of the moral law being given as a rule of life; and having no passage in which "moral law" is used, quoting Paul's statements as to "law," from which he says, and insists on it as one of the chief topics of his teaching, we are delivered. Not merely that we are not justified by its works (yet we should be if the moral law were kept, and so he declares, "the doer of the law shall be justified"); but that we are delivered from it. A Christian is delivered from it, because it is ruinous in its effect, whenever applied to men who are fallen. Not, clearly, the ceremonial law — that he could fulfil, however burdensome it might be. It is the moral law which is ruinous in its effect to every fallen son of Adam. Is it morality that is ruinous, or obedience to Christ's precepts? That were a blasphemy to say, and shocking to every christian mind. But it is of law the apostle declares, what was ordained to life he found to be to death. (Rom. 7.) It is a ministration of death, and ministration of condemnation. (2 Cor. 3: 7-9.) As many as are of its works — on the principle of it — its works are not bad ones — are under a curse. (Gal. 3: 10.) That is, law means, in the apostle's teaching, something else than a rule or measure of conduct. It is a principle of dealing with men which necessarily destroys and condemns them. This is the way the Spirit of God uses law in contrast with Christ, and never in christian teaching puts men under it; but carefully shews how they are delivered from it — are no longer under it.

4 Nor does scripture ever think of saying, You are not under the law in one way, but you are in another; you are not for justification, but you are as a rule of life. It declares you are not under law, but under grace; and if you are under law, you are condemned and under a curse. It must have its own proper force and effect. Remark, it puts it as a principle contrasted with grace. But will a man say, You wrong us in saying we hold that a Christian is under law? I ask, How is that obligatory which a man is not under — from which he is delivered? No; the apostle carefully insists that the law is good, that it is not the fault of the law that we are condemned, if we have to say to it (but he as carefully declares we are if we have); and that, in fact, we are delivered from it; that if led of the Spirit, we are not under law. He uses it to express a principle, a manner of dealing on the part of God, contrasted with grace. That is the way he speaks of law. I repeat it, scripture speaks elaborately of being delivered from the law as ministering death and a curse, declaring that we are not under it. Use the term moral law, and say so, and see where you bring us.

But that this may be before our eyes, I will quote some scriptures, that we may see that this is no light subject nor strained assertion: "As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse." "The law entered that the offence might abound." Mark the word entered (παρεισῆλθε). It was a principle, a system, a way of dealing that came in. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace." "The sting of death is sin; the strength of sin is the law." "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Is the apostle speaking of the ceremonial law? Far from it; he is speaking of the law in its moral nature and essence. He says, "I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet (lust)." And when he had said that sin should not have dominion over us, because we are not under the law, he immediately adds, "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?" shewing that the introduction of the notion of the ceremonial law has no place at all here. Nor is it justification he is speaking of here; but serving sin, or the contrary. No; he treats the whole question of law in a way totally different, and contrary to that in which it is treated in much evangelical teaching. I continue: "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." "Sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." Is this ceremonial law? It is a principle on which God placed man "four hundred and thirty years after the promise," which "was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made." But now the seed is come to whom the promise was made, and "now we are delivered from the law." What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God has done in another way. How we are delivered from the law, so as not to allow sin, I shall speak of presently.

5 I am now shewing that scripture treats the question of law in another way from what I am here examining. Before faith came, we were kept under the law; but after that faith came, we were no longer under the schoolmaster. If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it unto Abraham by promise. The law was added. Further, if there had been a law given which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law. "But the scripture hath concluded all under sin." "I, through law," says the apostle, "am dead to law, that I might live to God." "If I am led of the Spirit, I am not under law." "Ye are become dead to the law, by the body of Christ, that ye might be married to another." It is "the ministration of death written and engraven on stones." How is it possible, if law could be used as the moral law, by which a Christian is bound, that the apostle should say, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ?" It would be, as Paul says, making Christ the minister of sin. Let it not be attempted to be said, Oh, but he is speaking of justification by works of law: he is doing nothing of the kind. His words are, "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that ye might bring forth fruit unto God." Being dead to the law is the way to bring forth fruit. So in Galatians: "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." If I would bring forth fruit and live to God, I must be dead to law. Law is a principle on which we cannot live to God any more than we can be justified. No doubt, we cannot be justified by works of law; but there is much more than that. It condemns us positively if we are under it. It "works wrath." It cannot give life: but that is not all; it is a ministration of death — is found to be unto death. It is "the strength of sin." By it, as an occasion, sin works in us all manner of concupiscence — bringing forth fruit unto death. The motions of sin are by the law. It makes sin exceeding sinful. Is all this scripture, or is it not?

6 Will it be said that this was the effect of law out of and before Christ? Let the reader remember that the apostle is writing to Christians, and reasoning against a tendency and an effort which beset Christians everywhere to bring in the obligation of the law after Christ. And he shews the working of the law for any that took it up to bring its obligations upon them when they were Christians, and declares that he who had been under law was delivered from it, and that it was a schoolmaster up to faith; but that when faith came men were no longer under it. The subject he is everywhere treating is law in its nature,* or specifically an attempt to place men under its obligation after they had received the faith.

{*The reader who understands Greek will see that, in a multitude of instances, where "the" law would seem to refer to Jewish law, the apostle is speaking of law as a principle. In fact, Judaism was the only case where God had tried this principle, so that it comes in the main to the same thing.}

Law has its own proper effect. This leads me to the text constantly quoted: "Yea, we establish the law." And here I would pray you to weigh what I say. I declare, according to scripture, that law must always have its effect as declared in the word of God, always necessarily upon whoever is under it; but that that effect is always, according to scripture, condemnation and death, and nothing else, upon a being who has in him a lust or a fault; that it knows no mercy, but that it pronounces a curse upon every one who does not continue in all things written in it; and that whosoever is of the works of the law is under a curse. Now, in fact, the Christian has sin in him as a human being, and alas! fails; and if law applies to him, he is under the curse; for it brings a curse on every one who sins. Do I enfeeble its authority? I maintain it, and establish it in the fullest way. I ask, Have you to say to the law? Then you are under a curse. No escaping, no exemption. Its authority and claim must be maintained — its righteous exactions made good. Have you failed? Yes, you have. You are under the curse. No, you say, but I am a Christian; the law is still binding upon me, but I am not under a curse. Has not the law pronounced a curse on one who fails? Yes. You are under it. You have failed, and are not cursed after all! Its authority is not maintained; for you are under it; it has cursed you, and you are not cursed. If you had said, I was under it and failed, and Christ died and bore its curse; and now, as redeemed, I am on another footing, and not under law, but under grace, its authority is maintained; but if you are put back again under law, after Christ has died and risen again, and you are in Christ, and you fail and come under no curse, its authority is destroyed; for it pronounces a curse, and you are not cursed at all. The man who puts a Christian under law destroys the authority of the law, or puts a Christian under the curse — "for in many things we all offend." He fancies he establishes law: he destroys its authority. He only establishes the full immutable authority of law who declares that a Christian is not under it at all, and therefore cannot be cursed by its just and holy curse.

7 What the measure of christian conduct is, I shall shew from scripture before I close. I only remark now, that, in point of fact, what we specially need is, not the rule of right and wrong, though that be most useful and necessary and in its place, but motive and power for our new nature. The law gives neither. The scripture declares it is an occasion for sin's working concupiscence in me, that the motions of sin are by it, that it is the strength of sin, and that sin shall not have dominion over me, because I am not under it, but under grace. Let a bowl lie reversed on the table: who thinks of it? Say, "No one is to know what is under it:" who is not wishing to know? The law is the occasion to lust. If we only remember that the apostle is speaking of law — is speaking of its effect on every one that is under it, and particularly on Christians putting themselves under it after they are Christians, and not merely (though he does that fully) of being justified by it, but of its own proper and necessary effect in all cases, and the question, if scripture be an authority, is soon decided.

8 How then is a conscientious man delivered from the law without any allowance of sin? First, they that sin without law shall perish without law, so that he is none the better for setting aside the law in order to sin with impunity. Secondly, the law is no help against sin. Sin has not dominion over us, according to the apostle, because we are not under law but under grace. What then does deliver from sin and law? It is death, and then newness of life in resurrection. We are in Christ, not in Adam.

Let us first see the legitimate effect of law, for it is good if a man use it lawfully. It condemns sins. But known in its spiritual power, it does more — it condemns sin. It first condemns all transgressions of its own commandments. Here, as to outward conduct, a man, as St. Paul, may escape its fangs in the conscience. But known spiritually, it condemns lust. But lusts I have. Yet I see the law is right. I am self-condemned. It judges the working of my nature in lust, but gives no new one. It condemns my will, claiming absolute obedience as due to God; and, if my will be right, I discover that under law I have no power. How to accomplish that which is good I find not. Acts, lusts, will — all I am morally, is judged and condemned to death, and I have no force to accomplish what is good. Such is the effect of the law on one when it does take effect in the conscience. It kills me. I have, as to my conscience, died before God under it. But then law applies to man as a child of Adam living in flesh. It condemns and brings death into me in this way because I am such. As such I have died under it; but, then, that to which it applied is dead under it, and it applies no more. A man is put in gaol for thieving or murder; he dies there; the law can do no more, the life it dealt with is gone. I, through law, am dead to law, that I might live to God. As regards my conscience before God, it has killed me. It can do no more.

But there is more than this, because I got at the intelligence of all this by faith, by being a Christian, and could not else thus see or reason on it. Hence I am dead to the law by the body of Christ. The death it sentenced me to in my conscience has fallen on another. I have died in Him — in Christ. The sin has been thus put away from my conscience. Had this come upon me, it would have been everlasting misery. But Christ having put Himself in this place, it is everlasting love; and I have a right to reckon myself dead, because Christ has died, and I have really received Him into my heart as life; and He is really my life, who died for me and rose again. I am alive by the life of Him who is a life-giving Spirit; and hence have the right, and am bound to account myself dead, since He in whom I live did die. On this the apostle founds all his reasonings and exhortations as to sin and the law. He looks at the Christian as dead and risen again, because his true life, his "I," the life he has got, and in which he lives as a Christian, is Christ, who has died and is alive again. After saying, "I through law am dead to law," he adds, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "If ye have died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living [alive] in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" — "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

9 Let us see how he applies this doctrine to sin and the law. In Romans 5 he had applied the resurrection to justification. Christ (chap. 4: 25) was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. It is justification of life; not merely the putting away of sins, but the putting us in a quite new accepted place before God. This connection of life, the power of life in Christ, and justification in Him that is risen after dying for us, it is (and not the law) which, in the apostle's doctrine, assured also godliness. "How shall-we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" (Chap. 6: 2.) We cannot if we are dead to it. But such is our place in Christ dead and risen, and that a real thing, by having a wholly new life in Christ who is our life. "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin." Then he shews how Christ died and is risen again and lives to God, and adds, "Reckon ye yourselves likewise to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." "Let not sin therefore reign," he continues, "in your mortal body," adding what I have already quoted; "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law but under grace." He then refers to the abuse the flesh would make of this; but, instead of insisting that the moral law was binding, shews them to be freed from sin, and servants to righteousness and to God, yielding their members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Thus, by being dead and alive in the life of Christ, are we freed from sin.

In chapter 7 he applies the same truth more elaborately to the law. You cannot, he insists, have two husbands at the same time. You cannot be under obligation to Christ and the law. Well, how is freedom to be obtained for the man under the law? He dies in that in which he was held. The law could only assert its claim on the man as a living child of Adam. The "law has power over a man as long as he lives;" but I am dead to law by the body of Christ; the bond to the law has absolutely, wholly, and necessarily ceased, for the person is dead; and the law had power over him only as long as he lived. Hence he says, in such strong and simple language, "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law." The law applies to man in the flesh; but we have died, we are not in the flesh: when we were, it applied. It applied to flesh, provoked the sin, and condemned the sinner. But he died under it, when he was under it — died under it in Christ, and lives delivered from it in a new life, which is Christ risen out of the reach and place of law. He is not tied to the old husband; death has severed the bond, his own death and crucifixion in Christ; for he has owned that that was his affair as a sinner. He is married to another — Christ, who is risen from the dead, that he may bring forth fruit to God. He is not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwell in him; if not, he is none of His.

10 You will say, Yes; but the flesh is still there, though he has a right and ought to reckon himself dead; and therefore he needs the law, not to put away sin, but that it may not have dominion. But I read, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law." When I was in the flesh, the law was the occasion of the working of sin in my members. I have died in that, and the law cannot pass death. Godliness is in the new life, which lives by the faith of the Son of God. It is death — conscious death — in Christ, and my being in Him, so that I am no longer in the flesh at all, but have Him for my life, which is the scriptural way of godliness — righteousness, with its fruit unto holiness — not the being under the law.

Living in a risen Christ as one who has been taken out of the reach of law by death — that is christian life. The measure of that walk is Christ, and nothing else. "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk as he walked." Let us consult scripture as to this point — the scripture rule of life. I have given it: we ought so to walk as Christ walked. Again it is written, "He hath left us an example, that we should follow his steps." He is life, motive, and example too, He lives in us, and the life which we live in the flesh we live by the faith of Him. He has trod the path before us. He is all, and in all. It is as beholding in His face unveiled the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3); and thus, He being engraved on the heart by the Spirit of the living God, we become the epistle of Christ. (2 Cor. 3.) And mark, it is there in contrast with the law on the tables of stone. We are to put on Christ, to put on the new man. This goes so far that it is said, "Hereby perceive we love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." (1 John 3.) The law knew no such principle, no such obligation as this. Was it the law which made Christ come and lay down His life for us? Does not this example shew the extreme poverty of the thought, that the law is the rule or measure of our conduct? The truth is this — there were two parts of Christ's life. First, man's obedience to God's will, which itself went much farther than law; for law did not require the path of grace and devotedness to man in which Christ walked. He did, as under the law, magnify and make it honourable. But there was another — the manifestation of God Himself in grace and graciousness. This is not law. It is God in goodness, not man in responsibility. It is mischievous to confound the two.

11 Will any one say, But we are not, and cannot be, called upon to follow Christ in the latter? I reply, We are expressly called upon to do so, and never to follow Him under law. What scripture says on this last point is that, if I love my neighbour as myself, I shall fulfil the law, so that I have no need to be under it; and, again, that in walking after the Spirit, the righteousness of the law will be fulfilled in me, and produce what the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh. The Spirit will produce fruits against which there is no law. It is a new nature, guided by the Spirit and formed by the word, growing up to the Head in all things, which walks worthy of the Lord. The commands of law do not produce this; but looking through grace at Christ does change us into the same image. But in this path of Christ manifesting God, He is expressly set before us as our example. "Be ye followers [imitators] of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ hath loved us, and given himself for us as a sacrifice and an offering to God of a sweet smelling savour." We are called upon to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, not according to law. We are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. See this character described: "Put on, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." If any one desire to have a complete exhibition of christian life, the life of Christ risen in us, let him read Colossians 3: 1-17.

12 I believe I have said enough and quoted enough to shew the mind of scripture on the point that engages us. What its views of law and of its operation and effect are, and what the christian rule of life is too of one who has died and is associated with Christ risen, and who lives through Him. Law is the measure of man's responsibility as such to God. It is perfect as such and no more, and could not have been more than the measure of man's walk. Christ was perfect in this as in everything; but He went farther, and displayed God Himself in His own sovereign grace and goodness, and we ought to follow Him here as in His perfect obedience to God. He and He alone is our pattern and example, and nothing else. He is the object for the heart to rest on, and is to govern it, and to which it is to grow like, and nothing else. He is the motive and spring of conduct in us, as well as its perfect model which the law cannot be; for it is not life, nor gives it, nor feeds it.

But there are other points connected with this subject as to which a great deal of the evangelical teaching seems to me unsustained by scripture, and not according to its teaching on all material practical points. And first, as to the essential oneness of the Church in all ages and under all dispensations. That a sinner, at all times since the fall, is saved in the same way, no Christian can doubt for a moment. But salvation is not the Church, nor the Church salvation. If it be said, Must not a man belong to the Church of God now to be saved? I say, Surely. That is, if he is saved, he does belong to it, because this is God's divine order; but — what saves him is Christ, not the Church. Christ saved a Jew who was saved; but he belonged to Israel as the order of God at that time, not to the Church; and the Jewish church (as men speak) is an utterly unscriptural idea. So far as an individual was saved, he was always saved by Christ; but that did not constitute the assembly.

There never was a Jewish church. There was a Jewish nation, and to that the man, called by grace as a Jew, belonged by birth, and was bound to adhere. Now he is not, because in the Church there is neither Jew nor Greek. A man was a Jew by birth, and a Jew in orderly fellowship when circumcised. The Church, even in its outward profession, stands by faith, is never composed of natural branches. The Jews were natural branches. They did not, in their divinely ordained place as Jews, stand by faith. A Jewish church is an unscriptural fallacy. Christ gave Himself for the nation, but not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad. That formed the Church. The Church or assembly is the gathering together of "such as should be saved." This was never done in Judaism. The unity was a national unity, and no other. They were a holy people in their calling. When Christianity was founded, the Lord added to the Church such as should be saved. He never did this before. That was the Church — God's assembly in the world. If before that a Jew came to believe, he was added to nothing. He was a godly Jew instead of an ungodly one; he belonged to what he belonged before — there was nothing to be added to. "By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body." But the baptism of the Holy Ghost is positively asserted to be after Christ's ascension; in a word, the day of Pentecost. The church invisible is no scriptural nor tangible idea. It is an invention, particularly of St. Augustine, to conciliate the awful iniquity of the professing church with the truth and godliness necessary to the true Christian. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Ye are the light of the world. What is the value of an invisible light? A church under a bushel? There is no community in the invisible church. That the Church is become invisible, I admit fully; but I admit it as the fruit of man's sin. But this has no application to Judaism. There the nation — the children of Jacob — were the public visible body, and meant by God to be so; and individual saints were never otherwise gathered. In Christianity they were. He gave Himself, to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad. If they were gathered before as a church, an assembly, how could He gather what was scattered abroad? Christ gave Himself to gather together the children of God which were scattered. They were children of God, but were not a church, an assembly. They were scattered, and Christ came to introduce another state of things. If they were a church gathered before, how did Christ come to gather the scattered? If it means that He was to save in one body, at the end of time, all the redeemed, they were never scattered.

13 But the nation here is contrasted with the scattered children of God, and Christ came to change this state of things — to gather the scattered children of God; that is, to found the Church or assembly. Therefore He says, "On this rock [the confession that He was the Son of the living God] I will build my church." Had He been doing it before, when it was not, and could not be confessed that Jesus was the Son of the living God? Both Christ and the apostles speak of the Church and the gathering the children of God as a distinct and newly introduced thing.

14 All the reasoning relative to a Jewish church comes from judaizing Christianity, or rests on the utterly fallacious idea that, because men are saved in the same way, they therefore form a visible community, and even the same community. Why so? Men could be saved without forming a community. Individuality is quite as important as community — nay, more so in divine things. Conscience and faith are both individual; sonship is individual. The Jews were a community, but not of saved persons; but a national community of the sons of Jacob. The Church is a community, but not in any way of the same kind, be it profession or reality; it stands by faith. Individual salvation does not affirm the existence of a community, and there may be a religious community which does not imply salvation. The Jewish nation was such.

The whole theory on which the idea of a church in all ages and dispensations rests is utterly false. Facts fail equally. Up to the time of the Jewish nation, there was no community of persons making a credible profession. Abel offers his sacrifice in faith, but there is no community of those who make a credible profession; nor in Enoch, nor in the case of Noah. It is all a dream — the idea of a visible community before the flood. When I turn to the time after it, I find Job alone, and no visible community whatever; and of Abraham it is carefully stated, "I called Abraham alone, and blessed him." (Isaiah 51: 2.) The point there urged is, that he was alone, and that numbers were not necessary for blessing. When I come to the first religious community, I find it founded on a wholly different principle than a credible profession of faith. A man was of it by birth before he could make any profession. He was of it, ipso facto, and could not be anything else: only his parents were bound to circumcise him the eighth day. The principle on which the visible church stands is faith. (Rom. 11.) The principle on which Judaism stood was birthright, though not such as to destroy God's sovereign rights.

If scripture be true, though salvation was always the same, the Church, or community, or unity of the body of believers, never existed till Pentecost. Nor did its Head, in that condition in which He could be its Head, i.e., the exalted Man who had accomplished redemption. When thus exalted, God gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all. (Eph. 1: 20-23.) He has made of twain one new man, builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Chap. 2: 14-22.) God dwelt in the nation of Israel in the temple of old. He does dwell, through the Spirit, in a habitation formed as a new man from Jew and Gentile by faith, and that only is the Church; a mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God. (Chap. 3.) The heavenly powers, at any rate, could not see it, visible or invisible. It was kept secret since the world began (Rom. 16) — was not made known nor revealed to the sons of men before. Men were not builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit; it was a mystery hidden from ages and from generations — did not exist in fact. It is founded on the breaking down the middle wall of partition, and having one new man. The old thing was founded on strictly maintaining the middle wall of partition, and having only the old man. If scripture have any meaning, the Church did not exist till Pentecost, when Christ had been exalted, as Head over all, to the right hand of God, and sent down the Holy Ghost to gather into one body on the ground of faith. All men are saved alike, but all men are not assembled alike. Now "church" means assembly.

15 I now turn to the ground of a common justification giving a common place with Christ. It is alleged from Romans 3: 20, and affirmed, that the righteousness of Christ is the only ground of our justification. This is incorrect. The apostle has proved as a fact, that on their own ground all — Jew and Gentile — are under sin, and that no flesh is justified by deeds of law. But the righteousness of Christ is not spoken of at all, but that "God hath set him forth to be a propitiation [propitiatory] through faith in his blood, to declare his [God's] righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness; that he [God] might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." That it is God's righteousness in justifying is declared positively, and that as distinguished from Christ, in verses 21, 22. The righteousness of God is manifested, the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, towards all and upon all them that believe. God was proved righteous in forgiving Old Testament saints, as to whom He had exercised forbearance, and this righteousness was now manifested for our souls to build on: yea, we are it in Christ. To say that all saints from the fall are righteous in the same way is scriptural; to say that they are all the Church is contrary to scripture. God forbore with them, knowing what He would do; but righteousness was not manifested. Now at this time it is manifested, that God may be just and the justifier of him that believes on Jesus. The difference made by the manifestation of righteousness is a serious one as to our practical state.

16 I now turn to another point, that the same rule of conduct must be given of God at all times. It is a theory founded on a theory. No doubt God's nature is immutable, and certain principles are immutably true in one who is a partaker of the divine nature; but to say that the law is this, or that the rule given to us to follow is the same, is false. This is the effect of an unscriptural use of the term "moral law." God did give another rule to His creatures for their obedience. Did He not give the law of Moses? — the only law, remark, He ever gave (save the prohibition to eat the forbidden fruit). That is, the only law God ever gave to His creatures for their obedience was another from the present rule of walk. It had commandments given, because of the hardness of their hearts, which Christ abrogated. "The law made nothing perfect" (Heb. 7: 19); and therefore "there is a disannulling of the commandment going before." It was said of old, so and so, "but (says the Lord) I say unto you."

To allege that it is impossible that a holy, just, good, and perfect God can give us any rule but one, is contrary to the plain facts and declarations of scripture. God did give another, which He has disannulled because it made nothing perfect; and there is the bringing in of a better hope, by which we draw nigh to God. Christ knew how to draw out from the inner chambers of this law the two great principles on which all hung, and these do present the perfection of the creature — supreme love to God, and loving our neighbour as oneself. But even this is not in any way "the transcript of the divine character;" and it is a mere fallacy to talk in an abstract way of love, as commanded in it. I deny altogether that the law is a transcript of the divine character. It is the absolutely perfect expression of what the creature ought to be; and that is evidently what ought to be given as a law to the creature. I believe the angels in heaven fulfil it, and are blessed and happy in fulfilling it. But because it is the perfection of a creature, it is not the transcript of the divine character. Can God — I would speak with reverence — love His neighbour as Himself, or even (in the sense here used rightly of a creature) Himself with all His heart, and all His mind, and all His strength? These two commandments are the perfection of a creature in blessedness, and not the transcript of the character of God. The idea is fundamentally false.

17 And further, it is not in this that the perfection of divine love is shewn, or the nature of divine love as commended in its own excellency to us. The love required — commanded by the law — is a duty flowing from the relationship in which the objects of love stand to us, and in virtue of which they have a claim upon our love — God supremely and my neighbour as myself. It is the adequate measure of accomplishing a duty which is perfect happiness, from an adequate motive. God's love, as specially known and commended to us, has its excellency therein that there was no motive, no claim, no worthy object, but, on the contrary, an utterly unworthy object.

He loved sinners; He sent His Son when we were dead in sin that we might live through Him. "Herein is love, not that we loved God [that is what law required], but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." In a word, "God commendeth his love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Legal love is based, as law must be, on this — that there is a claim. Divine love, as revealed to us, has its essence in this — that there was none, yea, the very opposite to one. The only possible analogy to such love (and that it becomes us not to introduce in what we are speaking of here) is "the Father loveth the Son," or "therefore doth my Father love me;" but this is infinitely above all our place and thoughts; and if we are in any sense admitted into it, as (blessed be God) we are, it is only by sovereign grace, which has given us a place in Him and with Him.

The law is not the transcript of the divine character. It is the perfect rule for a creature, and cannot therefore, in the nature of things, apply to God Himself, because He is not in the relationship of a creature, and law is the expression of what becomes these relationships. If it is the expression of what we owe to God, it cannot be that of God's character. Adam was put under a law which required no knowledge in his mind of what was good and evil, or right and wrong in itself. There was no evil in eating the forbidden fruit, save as it was prohibited. It was not good or evil in itself: he acquired the knowledge of good and evil by eating it. The introduction of sin and conscience came together. God did not allow man to go out as a sinner from Paradise to commence this world without carrying a conscience with him. It may have been corrupted — hardened; but it is there to be corrupted and hardened. Hence the apostle reasons as to the Gentiles on the ground of conscience, though not on that only; but he speaks of no law written on the Gentiles' heart. If that were so, they would be under the new covenant. It is not the law, but the particular work which their natural conscience approves or reproves, that is written on their hearts, a work found in the law too.

18 It is often said that Adam was created in righteousness and holiness. This is all erroneous. He was created in innocence. It is the new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness, which we are called to put on: Christ, not Adam. (Eph. 4: 24.) It is wholly new (χαινόν), created. We are therein created again in Christ Jesus: at least so scripture says. So in Colossians 3: 10, We "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." The common statements on this subject confound Christ and Adam — the new creation and the old. Adam was innocent — had not the knowledge of good and evil. As to this the testimony of scripture is positive, it is the essence of the history of the fall. Hence he could not have righteousness or holiness, which imply the knowledge of good and evil. If God declares "the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil," he did not know good and evil before. Hence what is commonly stated is equally erroneous, namely, that Adam was righteous and holy, made after the image of God in righteousness and holiness. By the fall man acquired a knowledge of good and evil, which gives him, or rather is, a sense of right and wrong, suited to the state in which he is, the duties of various relationships in which he stands. These, in the main, the Mosaic law maintains, though not all in their details, according, to God's original institution. From Adam to Moses men were not placed under law, but they had the knowledge of good and evil — were a law thus to themselves.

But we must not confound this with a revealed or given law; because in a law revealed or given of God there is the express authority of the Lawgiver; and the disobedient is guilty of express transgression of the Lawgiver's authority. Yet sin was there from Adam to Moses, but not transgression; for where no law is, there is no transgression. Hence it is said (referring to Hosea, where it is said of Israel, "They like men [Adam, in Hebrew] have transgressed the covenant"). "Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Israel had broken the law as Adam had, and had not only sinned — done what their conscience condemned — but violated the authority of God exercised in imposing the law.

19 But it is the great mistake, as to the reasoning of the Apostle Paul, or the Christian's relationship to law, to make the difference which is attempted to be made between moral and ceremonial commandments. There is a difference assuredly. What natural conscience condemns as wrong makes guilt, if done without a law; a ceremony does not, as is evident. But the apostle goes much deeper into the question, and shews the effect of all law as a principle of relationship when a sinner is concerned in it. Hence he mingles up moral and ceremonial all together, not as indifferent to the distinction (for he is not), but as treating another question; using the law to convict of sin and kill the soul when it is looked at morally, and is known spiritually, and delivering from it as so known, by death and resurrection; and shewing that it puts man, if applied after redemption, under a fatal responsibility. It is a system, viewed as a whole, of which circumcision was the initiatory pledge, and man must do all or be cursed; for such were the terms of the law. Law, according to the reasoning of the apostle, was a distinct and definite dispensation of God, according to which life was promised consequent on obedience, and had its whole nature from this — a righteousness characterized by this principle; obedience first, then life therein — righteousness.

The gospel goes on an opposite principle. It does not give life as a consequence of obedience; nor is righteousness obtained in this way, or on this principle. To bring law in after divine righteousness is made ours by faith, is to upset and annul divine righteousness. It is, as we have seen, bringing in the law after Christ that the apostle resists. It is not merely ceremonies he sets aside: doubtless they fell as the shadow of good things to come, of which the body is Christ. But the apostle reasons on the application or use of what is called the moral law, of the use of the ten commandments, or tables of stone, as ruinous to the Christian, its use being to convict and condemn. He sets aside the dispensation of the law, referring specifically to the ten commandments, and yet mixes up the whole system with them as inseparable, as parts of one great whole, to the end of which Israel could not look, and which was to be abolished. It was given to have life by, but was found, from man's sinful state, to be death. To put man under it after redemption is to destroy (not man but) redemption itself, and bring in final ruin.

20 Hear now what he says, "But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? . . . For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. . . . And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished." (2 Cor. 3.)

Besides the contrast of law and gospel, I have two things collaterally here. The separation of the tables of stone, the ten commandments, as a dealing of God, from all the rest that Moses gave, is negatived. The apostle speaks of the tables of stone as a ministration of death, and of the whole system received by Moses, and which the glory on his face accompanied, as one whole. Any distinction made between the first tables broken and the second placed in the ark is futile. It was when Moses came down the second time that his face shone, not the first. The first time Israel never got the tables of stone. That is, what is abolished, because it was deathful, is that which was put in the ark. Let the reader consult 2 Corinthians 3. And the fact here referred to is one of no small importance. For, though the apostle distinctly refers to law, yet the ministration of grace does not help out the case if man be put under law afterwards. God had revealed grace (I do not say redemption) when Moses went up the second time, but put Israel back under law because Moses could not make atonement. (See Exodus 32: 32, 33.) And it is this putting man under law after grace, when the law was in the ark, that the apostle says is condemnation and death. For Israel was only thus definitely put under law (gracious forbearance in sovereign mercy), and life consequent on obedience or blotting out of God's book — this was condemnation and death. Israel never received the tables the first time: they never came into the camp. After God had spoken to them out of the midst of the fire, Israel had made the golden calf; and Moses' face did not shine at all the first time he came down. Law after grace and provisional forgiveness is death and condemnation.

As to gaining life by the law, as put forth by Moses, the apostle says, "For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man that doeth these things shall live by them." (Rom. 10.) That is, Moses proposed righteousness and life by the law; Paul but contrasts it with the righteousness of faith. Hence, in Romans 7, the apostle says, in his experience, "The commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death." The reader may also consult Hebrews 7, already quoted, and chapter 8, where the apostle insists on the disannulling the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and bringing nothing to perfection — "made nothing perfect;" that the first covenant (for covenant it was) of Sinai was not faultless, and hence a new one was to be made with Israel. No Christian supposes he is at liberty to kill or steal. That is not the question. But does he refrain from killing or stealing because it is forbidden in the law? Every true Christian, I am persuaded, will answer, No; though he recognizes the prohibition as quite right. The man who refrained from killing simply because it was forbidden in the law would be no Christian at all. I have only to add, that the apostle does not refer to the law as the great standard, nor do all the duties they enjoin form part or parcel of it; for they enjoin duties which flow from grace. And grace is not law.

21 We must not then confound the law with duties to God and our neighbour, imperfectly given in the law, and perfectly given in Christianity, along with the duties which the knowledge of God's love in Christ added to the others, the duty to be an imitator of God as manifested in grace in Christ. Being under the law gave sin dominion over me. The grace of God (is that law?) has appeared, and teaches me to live soberly and righteously and godly. But that is just the reason why I do not want law, because I am better taught by grace, which gives me power as well as rule. Under grace we are taught of God to love one another in the very nature and spirit we have. Hence, loving my neighbour as myself, I fulfil the law; not by having it, but by having love wrought in me by grace, and not being under law.

That the written word, from one end to the other, guides this new nature, and leads it in obedience, that is blessedly true. That when born of God — which I am not by the law, for a law cannot give life — this life is formed, directed, instructed, yea, commanded, by every word that comes out of the mouth of God, and especially by those of Christ, as the actual expression of that life in its own perfectness in man, I own with my whole heart. But that is not the law. It tells me I am risen with Christ, and that I am to seek those things which are above, where Christ sits; that I am an epistle of Christ, graven in my heart by the Spirit of the living God, in contrast with the law graven on tables of stone.

22 But there is another portion of scripture which is relied on to put Christians under the law, I mean the sermon on the mount, and in particular Matthew 5: 17; but I apprehend the Lord's words are wholly misapprehended here. I do not believe the law or the law's authority is destroyed. I believe those who have sinned under it will be judged by it. I believe it will be written in the heart of Judah and Israel hereafter under the new covenant, the substance of which we have in spirit though not in the letter. It will never pass till it be fulfilled. But Christ is the end of it — the τέλος, the completion and end of it — for every one that believes. We are not under it, because we are dead and risen in Him, and the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives — applies to man in flesh; and we are not in flesh, but in the Spirit in Christ risen: "If ye be dead with Christ . . . why as though living [alive] in the world," &c., says the apostle. In flesh a man must be under law (which is indeed death and the curse, because the flesh is sinful) or lawless, which is surely no better; but in Christ he is neither. He is led by the Spirit in the obedience of Christ.

But we must remember that the kingdom of heaven was not come when the sermon on the mount was given. Redemption is not touched on in it. The kingdom of heaven was at hand. And here the Lord gives the character of those who would get in, in no wise of the revelation giver. to a Christian as in the Church. That this is not merely an idea of mine will be at once evident to the reader, if he continues the verse after those quoted, where the Lord gives the application of what He has been saying, "For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." The kingdom was going to be set up. It was neither for lawless ones nor Pharisees, but for the poor in spirit and such like. But this is not the description of the state and responsibilities of those who are dead and risen in Christ. It is not the language of the gospel to a sinner to say, "Except your righteousness exceed . . . ye shall in no case enter;" though this remains always true in principle. Then it was the humble, godly, converted remnant who would enter; not the lawless nor the proud. When the kingdom is set up, sovereign grace to sinners is preached. Yet it is certain, that he who really enters will have a practical godliness which is of the character here described, because he receives a new nature; and that the precepts here given will suit and guide him, because they suit Christ, and are His mind; but not as putting him under law. Hence, when it is said, "I am not come to destroy but to fulfil," it is a false deduction to say that I am come to call upon Christians to fulfil it. Christians are associated with Christ where He is now. The apostle's statement is, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." The law itself is not abrogated, but we are not under it. "It is good if a man use it lawfully;" but "it is not made for the righteous, but for ungodly and profane." That is not for Christians surely. Useful to convict of sin, to bring in death and condemnation on the sinner, to make the offence abound, and sin exceeding sinful. Christ is all for the believer; while every word of God is good, rightly used.

23 I have spoken of Romans 7. The apostle is contrasting the Christian's state with that of a man under the law. I am carnal, sold under sin; never once doing the thing I would, always the thing I hate. To say, "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not," is not the christian state; or is not the christian state rather described when he says, "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death?" The apostle is comparing the state under two husbands, the law and Christ; and the doctrinal statement is that, being dead by the body of Christ, we are delivered from the law — no longer bound by it. Subjection to the first husband is the experience, practically, of Romans 7, though viewed from a higher point — when a man is out of it; chapter 8, the experience of one who is married to Him who is risen from the dead, to bring forth fruit unto God. Mind, I do not say chapter 7 is not a converted man; but it is one who has yet to say, Who shall deliver me? Chapter 8 is one delivered. In chapter 7, consequently, the Spirit is not named; chapter 8 is full of it.

To quote "under the law to Christ," is mere want of reference to the Greek. It is ἔννομος Χριστῶ, duly subject to Christ. "Fulfil the law of Christ" is a plain appeal against the law. The Galatians would have the law after Christ, and the apostle would not hear of it — hardly knows whether he is to own them as Christians — will not salute one at the end or at the beginning — is severer than with all the abominations at Corinth. They were, it seems, biting and devouring one another about it. And he says, "Bear rather one another's burdens." If you want a law — that is Christ's, that is what He did; that will suit you better. It is exactly the contrary of bringing them back to the law.

24 The same neglect of the original has alone given occasion to making sin the transgression of the law. It is ἀνομία, lawlessness; not παράβασις νόμον, transgression of the law. It is a defective, very defective view of Christ indeed to see only fulfilment of law in His walk. God's grace, and man's obligations, as such, are not the same; nor was even the obedience of Christ limited to fulfilling the law. The law forbad sin, but could not command the Son of God to give Himself for sinners. This whole view of Christ's life is, it seems to me, an exceedingly low one. It is true, that "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." But to say that following Christ, in laying down our lives for the brethren, is fulfilling the moral law, is an unscriptural and unhappy confusion of terms.

It will be alleged that Psalm 119 speaks of the law in a general way (and I desire to weigh all scripture, as far as I am able, for the good of our souls, and not merely reason as a controversialist), as to what may be expressed by the term moral law, and speaks of the saint's delight in it. This seems to me to be the strongest ground which can be taken. Psalm 19 also may be referred to. I apprehend that this is much more than the moral law being a rule of life. The whole power of the word of God is referred to in Psalm 19 as the means of conversion — giving light to the simple. It refers in some passages to the law written in the heart, the true desire of a godly Israelite. The promises are trusted in; the threatenings of God's word, His judgments, looked at and counted on in the world; the word, as furnishing an answer to the reproach of men — it is looked at as quickening the soul. It is the word of God, the confidence and guidance of the saint in Israel, not the rule of life of a saved Christian. What I would insist on is (not that the word of God is not used by God now for every effect in the soul, but) that it is not as law. It is a different thing from the law-being a rule of life. The word of God is called "law" there. This is plain if we look at Psalm 19. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." It is quite evident that this speaks of the word of God, as then known, as the law, in a much wider sense than a mere rule of life. So Christ says, "Is it not written in your law?" whereas the passage quoted was in the Psalms. It was the word of God, known in its capital and characteristic designation.

25 If an objector complain that I speak of the form and character of the word as then given to Israel (while admitting in the fullest way, yea, with the most earnest insistence, the divine inspiration and authority of all), I answer unhesitatingly that I do, looking to be guided by the Spirit, view it as adapted to Israel, because given to Israel. I must rightly divide the word of truth. And I think it very important that we should so view it. Am I to say, "Of thy mercy slay mine enemies" — "Happy he that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones" (Psalm 137: 9) — "That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of enemies, the tongue of thy dogs in the same"? (Psalm 68: 23.) When the earthly government of God is executed, this has its place. I, a Christian, see, as a general truth, the righteousness of it; and, as regards that government, when God's patience has done everything, as it will, I can rejoice in wickedness being removed. Still this language is not, nor is meant to be, the present language of the Christian. Christ is presented in Psalm 69 as demanding the most dreadful vengeance and judgment on His enemies. (Ver. 22-28.) Did He, when revealed in the gospels as a pattern for us according to grace, ever express such a wish? His words were, at the very time the psalm speaks, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Is that, "Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold upon them"? Both will be fulfilled. One is the gracious personal desire of Christ, as we know Him revealed in the gospels; and to this the Holy Ghost answers by Peter, "And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus," &c. And this will surely be accomplished in the end of the days.

The other is the association of Christ by the prophetic spirit with the Jewish remnant connected with the government of God, which will bring a just and righteous vengeance on the nation who rejected Him, and with all who clung and shall cling to the word of His servants. And this shall be accomplished too, fully, as the foretaste of it has already come upon them — wrath to the uttermost, εἰς τέλος. But if we confound the Jewish spirit of the Psalms with the gospel, and take it as the expression of our feelings, we shall falsify Christianity. No doubt I shall find lovely confidence in the Lord in respect of His government of this world, the comfort of forgiveness, the happy confidence of integrity of heart, and remarkable prophecies as to Christ; but where shall I find heavenly hopes, or the union of the Church with a glorified Christ, or even the outflowings of divine grace, as manifested in His person on earth, or the blessed affection which flows from hearts acquainted with these? Where the blessed Spirit of adoption? Every saint knows the touching expressions of piety which the Psalms furnish to us; but no intelligent Christian can turn from the writings of John to the Psalms without finding himself in a different atmosphere.

26 It is monstrous to suppose, if the disciples in seeing Jesus were blessed as no prophet or king had been, and yet that it was expedient for them that He should go away, because otherwise the Comforter could not come; that when He is come He should not have given us in joy, piety, intelligence, motives, knowledge of God, even of the Father and the Son, the Spirit of sonship, consciousness of being in Christ and Christ in us, communion with the Father and the Son, which the Old Testament saints did not possess. "The heir, as long as he was a child, differed nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all." This, the apostle diligently teaches, is the difference of the state of Old Testament saints — "God having reserved some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect," so that the least in the kingdom of heaven should be greater than the greatest of those before born of women. Life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel. I do not see piety or respect for the word in denying or undervaluing the revealed gifts of God unfolded to us in the New Testament. Is it nothing that the Comforter is come? Where in the Old Testament are saints called on to yield themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead? Is this no rule of life? Is it the law? It is a mere abuse of words to say so.

I have only a few words to add in closing. I am quite aware that it will be said, and is said, that it is not just to confound seeking justice and life by the law with making it a rule of life; but the whole theory on which this distinction is based is a delusion. Who has authorized us to take the law for one thing, and leave it for another, when God has presented it specifically for one? The apostle's statement is that, if we have to do with the law, it takes us, it puts us, under a curse, ministers to us death and condemnation. It does not ask us how we take it; it pronounces its own sentence on us. Is it transgressed? It curses. The effect of the law on all under it is the curse. I see no allowance in scripture for saying, I do not put myself under it in that way: Scripture puts you under it in that way, if you are under it. If indeed faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster, and, of course, not under its curse. To be under the law, and not be under its curse when broken, is an unscriptural fancy and pretension of men. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." Such is the language of the word of God.

27 But I have a yet happier aspect of the subject to touch on before I close — the positive side of it. What is the rule of life? I answer, Christ. Christ is our life, rule, pattern, example, and everything; the Spirit our living quickener, and power to follow Him; the word of God, that in which we find Him revealed, and His mind unfolded in detail. But while all scripture, rightly divided, is our light as the inspired word of God, at least to those who have an unction from the Holy One, Christ and the Spirit are set before us as the pattern, life, and guide, in contrast with law; and Christ is exclusively everything. And power accompanies this (see 2 Cor. 3), we are "declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. . . . But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." I ask, Is not Christ here in contrast with law? and if this be not exactly what I am to be, an epistle of Christ? and if there be not power in looking at Christ to produce it, which cannot be in a law? So Galatians 2: 20; 5: 16, where, in contrast with law, he shews the Spirit to be the power of godliness; that if led of it, we are not under law; and that against the fruits it produces there is no law. We are to walk in the Spirit; but this is not law. So Romans 13, "But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil it in the lusts thereof." It is an object governing the heart, which is life, and at the same time the object of life — One to whom we are promised to be conformed, and One to whom we are earnestly desirous of being as conformed as possible now; One who absorbs our attention, fixing it to the exclusion of all else. We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. My delight in Him is the spring of action and motive which governs me. I cannot separate the person who is the example and the motive. My love to the person, and the beauty I see in Him, is the spring of my delight in being like Him. It is not a rule written down, but a living exhibition of One who, being my life, is to be reproduced by me; always bearing about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in my mortal body. No doubt the written word is the means of shewing me what His mind and will is. But it is not a law which is a rule, and Christ only an example how to follow it. It is the word, shewing me what the perfection of this heart-ruling example is. "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." "We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; and he that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

28 Then He is a source to me of all in which I long to be like Him. Beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, I am changed into the same image. No rule of life can do this. Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. A rule of life has no fulness to communicate. Hence He says, "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. . . . And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." It is the Spirit taking the things of Christ which thus forms us into His image. What a blessed truth this is! How is every affection of the heart thus engaged in that which is holiness, when I see it in One who not only has loved me, but who is altogether lovely! Hence I am called to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," to "grow up into him in all things who is the head."

Paul seeks to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Christ is all, and He is in all saints as life to realize the all that is in Him. I am called, moreover, by glory and virtue. The object I am now aiming at is not now on earth; it is Christ risen. This makes my conversation to be in heaven. Hence he says, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." It is by looking at Christ above, that we get to be like Him as He was on earth, and walk worthy of Him, for so He walked. We get above the motives which should tie us to earth. We are to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding to walk worthy of the Lord. No mere rule can give this. The law has no reference to this heavenly life. So we are to discern things that are excellent. Even Abraham did not, in the most excellent part of his life, walk by rule. He looked for a city which hath foundations, and was a stranger and a pilgrim in the land of promise. Reduce me to a mere rule of life, I lose the spring of action.

29 The discernment of a Christian depends on his spiritual and moral state, and God means it to be so. He will not be a mere director, as it is expressed. He makes us dependent on spirituality even to know what His will is. It is not that there are counsels of perfection, for the discernment of the inward life makes what it discerns at once a delight and a duty; and the perfection of Christ we are not very likely to get above. Yet that is set before us as attainment; the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, our measure, our model, our rule, our strength, and our help in grace, the object of our delight, and our motive in walking, and One who has an absolute claim on our hearts.

I see, in reading this over, a thought wanting which may make one point more clear. We must not confound obedience and law. The character of Christ's obedience was different from legal obedience. When a child desires anything, as to go anywhere, and I forbid, and it at once obeys, I speak of its ready obedience. Christ never obeyed in this way; He never had a desire checked by an imposed law. It was never needed to say to Him, Thou shalt not, when He willed to do anything. He acted because His Father willed it. That was His motive, the only cause of His acting. He lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. When there was none, He had nothing to do. Hence the will of God, whatever it was, was His rule; obedience to sovereign will is not a limited law. There may be no revelation to us of particular duties; but such things are recorded in scripture, and the readiness to do whatever God's will may be is right; and spiritual discernment becomes a command.

St. Paul was not to go into Mysia and Bithynia. He used also Isaiah 49, and called it a command when it applied. We may have none of the first as he had it, and much less of the discernment; but the principle of readiness to any will of God is right. Again, there is the active bringing forth of fruit to God which characterizes Christianity in contrast with the law — the fruits of the Spirit, the bringing forth fruits, and much fruit (Gal. 5: 22), which is impossible to ascribe to law. Romans 7; John 15; so Philippians 1: 11, "Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." Surely these are not according to a rule of law.

30 I would just refer with more preciseness to Galatians 2. Its reasoning is this. "If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor in destroying them." Now I have left the law, argues the apostle, to come to Christ. If I set it up again, I was wrong in destroying it; but Christ led me to do it; and thus He has brought me into what is wrong. Thus, in setting up the law again, you make Christ a minister of sin. It is setting up the law again after Christ that the apostle has to combat everywhere. We have seen that it was not only justification which was in question. They had abandoned the law because it could not justify, but they had left it altogether. And they were charged with Antinomianism. Thereupon the apostle answers, not by setting up the law in another shape again, but by declaring that there is a new nature, and walking according to this rule — Christ, looking to Him and walking as He walked, and the Spirit, in following which they were not under law, but produced fruits against which there was no law. Patience with sincere souls who are under law, is all right: God only can deliver them; but clear scriptural truth is all-important for the glorifying of Christ, even for their sakes who are under law.

The "Notes on Leviticus" and the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy."

J. N. Darby.

<10002E> 31

It was, for its own purposes, a well-devised law in France which, to destroy the influence of the press, made the writer of every article sign his name to it. That told its value. We are freer here, and I cannot regret it. But singular effects and discoveries would be made if every one were bound to put his name to his commentaries on his neighbour or on his brethren.

The article in the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy," which has led me to make this remark, is however characterized by its contents without any name at all. Charity calls upon me to suppose it is a brother, though his paper takes, alas! the form of accusing those whom he does not deny to be brethren. He may be assured that, reviled, they are not going to revile again. I should not have noticed at all the article on account of the attack contained in it. On no ground would I do so; and it seems to me that this attack will, for every mind that has a trace of nobleness in it, carry its own answer with it, or will find it in the bosom of one who is morally above the spirit in which it is conceived. I take notice of it because it is one of a series attacking doctrines — doctrines which I, for my part, admit and regard very important points: some reaching even to the personal glory of Christ; others, to the true christian liberty of the disciples of the Lord. The attack on doctrine is not made on the writer of these lines. He treats it as a subject of common interest to all.

I will first venture some short words of counsel to the brother who is the author of the article. I regret that Mr. S —  should have furnished occasion (I cannot doubt that he regrets it now himself), in a moment of excitement, to such a comment on his language; I regret that one, whom I must suppose to be a brother, should have profited by it. I should have thought its character, which is noticed by the writer in the journal, would have been sufficient to lead a mind, which itself was morally above it, not to use it as a weapon of attack, but see sufficient excitement in it to have regretted it himself for its author's sake, and to have left it in the silence which probably he, in cooler moments, would desire. But I must leave my anonymous author to judge of this for himself. It was a good occasion to attack the "Brethren," and he was disposed to profit by it. He has sought out other allies too. I would only add a word of warning as to all this part of the article: that if a person will grabble in the mud to cast dirt at his neighbours, he is sure to dirty his own hands, whatever he does with others. Perhaps those whom he is flinging it at may go peacefully on their way, guarded by an unseen hand from his efforts. With these few words, I can only leave the author in the position and with the allies he has chosen for himself, and turn to what is really important — the doctrines impeached. I may be perhaps allowed to say, as personally interested in them, I am thankful to the "Brethren" for their patience and grace in the trying circumstances alluded to, and to the Lord for them that He enabled them to be so; admitting, as I suppose all would, imperfection and shortcoming.

32 Mr. Mackintosh's accuser shelters himself under the Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster Confession. But these may be signed and appealed to, and all manner of intolerable doctrines held. Those whom the Free Church of Scotland left signed the Westminster Confession. Justification by works is preached under shelter of the Thirty-nine Articles; Puseyite altars are erected, and baptismal regeneration taught, by those who have signed them — is taught in the Westminster Confession itself. The denial of inspiration is largely spread under the safeguard of the Thirty-nine Articles; and in the Free Church the doctrine is securely promulgated, that Christ was viewed as such a leper that God did not allow Him to visit any holy place nor sleep in Jerusalem. They are a poor protection for the faith of God's elect. More error than truth is taught by those who have signed them, and error ruinous to souls.

The writer in the "Journal of Prophecy," who is not under French law, would give more security for sound doctrine by teaching it than by referring to the Anglican and Scottish Confessions, which are elastic enough to admit many novel doctrines and all manner of evil ones.

But I have a more serious charge than the vain shelter by which he seeks to secure confidence in his orthodoxy, and that is, that his accusations are unfounded, and that, in one point at least, he knows them to be unfounded. I will take the second point first, as it will lead into the main object of these lines — the doctrine of the sacrifices.

33 "Of late," says our author, "they have become very zealous for the old Valentinian heresy of the 'heavenly humanity of Christ.' . . . They deny that Christ's body was of the substance of the Virgin. The author of that very unsound and objectionable book, 'Notes on Leviticus,' maintains this." Now, my brother, you must have known that this was not true. I make allowance for excitement and prejudice, but your accusation is a serious one. I shall quote from Mr. Mackintosh's book, which I had not before read, and every one will judge. We are all liable to mistakes, and it is well to correct them; but your charge is a definite one — that Mr. Mackintosh maintains this: i.e., the denial that Christ's body was of the substance of the Virgin. The reader shall judge whether this accusation is well-founded.

Mr. Mackintosh says, "It was a real human body — real flesh and blood." There is no possible foundation here on which Gnosticism (that is, the old Valentinian heresy of which the journal speaks) or mysticism can base its vapid and worthless theories. Again, "None but a real man could accomplish this [the first promise of the woman's seed], one whose nature was as real as it was pure and incorruptible. 'Thou shalt conceive in thy womb,' said the angelic messenger, 'and bring forth a son."' To this passage the following note is appended: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law." (He gives the Greek words, γενομένον, &c.) "This is a most important passage, inasmuch as it sets forth our Lord as Son of God and Son of man: 'God sent forth His Son, made of a woman.' Precious testimony to the 'flesh and blood,' of which the Eternal Son 'took part,' while absolutely real," &c. And so is all the doctrine of this part where he treats of the subject. He speaks of Mary's relation to the blessed One as the mother of Jesus.

Now he does not accept the doctrine of a sin-bearing life shut out from the favour of God; but, because he does not agree as to this with the school of the "Journal of Prophecy," is this a reason for charging him with what he formally condemns, and the contrary of which he diligently teaches? I must leave the reader to compare the extracts I have given with the accusations of the article. I will state from Gieseler and Mosheim what the Valentinian heresy is, and readers will judge how applicable it is.

"From the great original (according to him, depth, first father, first cause) with whom is the consciousness of himself ([inward] thought, silence) emanate in succession male and female Aeons (mind or firstborn and truth, word and life, man and church, &c. So that thirty Aeons together, divided into the octoad, decad, and dodecad, form the pleroma — fulness). From the passionate striving of the last Aeon, Sophia (wisdom), to unite itself with 'depth' itself, arises an untimely being, Achamoth, which, wandering about outside the Pleroma, communicates the germ of life to matter, and forms the Demiurge (creator) of psychical material (matter having the life of a living soul), who immediately creates the world. In the meantime two new Aeons had arisen, Christ and the Holy Ghost. Then there emanated from all the Aeons Jesus the Saviour, who, as the future associate (σύξυγος) of Achamoth, was to lead her and the spiritual nature into the Pleroma. The Saviour united Himself at His baptism with the psychical Messiah (having a living soul) promised by Demiurge." For the Old Testament came from the creator of the world, not from God. Hence Hyle, or matter, being from the bad god, or itself eternal and bad and put in order by him, they held it to be bad. Some or all of them held that when Christ was crucified the Aeon flew away, and indeed the Aeon only to have taken an apparent, or rather an ethereal, body, and hence never to have really suffered.

34 "The misery Achamoth was in, outside the Pleroma, led her to look for Jesus, the Aeon produced by the Aeons to help her, which was granted, and creation went on between her, Demiurge, and Jesus, spiritual, animal life, and matter being separated; only Achamoth put a little spiritual, unknown to Demiurge, into man. This last must go back to God; matter could not (there was no resurrection); and the living soul might or might not. Demiurge was the God of the Jews, and author of the Old Testament. Men becoming corrupt, Christ came to save them. He took human nature, spiritual, animal, and corporeal; but this last (that He might not be leavened, so to speak, with matter) was ethereal, heavenly in its nature, and only passed through the Virgin Mary. At John's baptism, Jesus descended on him as a dove. When he was going to be crucified, the Aeon Jesus and his spiritual soul left, and only his animal soul and ethereal body were crucified."

Now I do not know whether the reader will be edified with this short account of the old Valentinian heresy; but at any rate he will be able to judge whether Mr. Mackintosh maintains it. Our journal selects the part merely as to the ethereal body to prove him guilty: whether he is, any one has only to read Mr. Mackintosh's remarks on the second chapter of Leviticus, and he can easily judge. The one expression, "The conception of Christ's humanity by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary," would suffice to shew the character of the accusation. Indeed the full declaration of the deity of Christ found in Mr. Mackintosh's statements equally sets aside the Valentinian notions, as to the precise nature of which there is some confusion, but the folly of which, to our sober western minds, is almost incomprehensible. In the Valentinian theory Jesus came down only at John's baptism. Now, I ask, how can I think that the writer believes his own accusation? But this is a serious thought.

35 I turn to the sacrifices. Here, again, I must complain of the accusations not being founded on fact. I can understand another not agreeing with Mr. Mackintosh in his explanations of a type, or his views as to Christ's not being a sin-bearer during His ministerial or previous life. But the article charges Mr. M. with declaring the burnt offering not to be propitiatory. He does not use the word propitiatory; it is not used in the chapter. But he does several times declare it to be atonement, and speaks of it as a special and a blessed character of atonement. The difference he refers to is, that atonement in the sin offering is measured by man's sins; in the burnt offering, according to the infinite value to God of Christ's voluntary offering Himself without spot to God. "Atonement, as seen in the burnt offering, is not merely commensurate with the claims of man's conscience, but with the intense desire of the heart of Christ to carry out the will and to establish the counsels of God. It is atonement, not according to the depth and enormity of human guilt, but according to the perfection of Christ's surrender of Himself to God, and the intensity of God's delight in Christ. This gives us the very loftiest idea of atonement." "The burnt offering aspect of atonement is that about which the priestly household may well be occupied in the courts of the Lord's house for ever." Now, Mr. M. does not enter upon the question here at all why this atonement was by death. He is entirely occupied with the different character of the atonement itself, as exhibited in the burnt and in the sin offering, and that the view of the atonement in the burnt offering was (not its sin-bearing character as "made sin," as it was in the sin offering, but) Christ's voluntary offering Himself up to death in order to glorify God. As Mr. Darby's name is set at the head of the article, I may add that, in the "Types of Leviticus," it is said that Christ, as the burnt offering, fully underwent the judgment of God; and that, besides other things, the cry, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" — a cry which remained without answer till the expiation was accomplished — shews to us the Son of God fully put to the test by judgment. And this is enlarged upon, shewing that it only rose in a sweet savour. I quote the following words, "All the manifestations of righteousness in Him were of no avail (i.e., to win man) in themselves. Thus it was needful that He should become a sacrifice; it was necessary that His blood should be shed that we might draw near to God. Now, it is under this character that the burnt offering represents Him to us." Now this part of the subject Mr. Mackintosh does not dwell on, but he does call the burnt offering an atonement.

36 Two points arise here. Is the charge of Socinianism just? And is the view of the article in the "Quarterly Journal" just as to the sacrifices? As to the charge of Socinianism it is simply ridiculous. The author admits that propitiation is taught as to the sin offering. All he can bring himself, however, to say is, "Admitting the sin offering to be propitiatory, which they could hardly deny." But do not the Socinians quite deny it? Is it not their characteristic view? That, and the denial of Christ's deity, both of which Mr. Mackintosh largely and zealously puts forth. I should have to cite all his pages on the sin offering, did I quote passages to prove that he views Christ as the sin-bearer, made sin, so making propitiation. Now the journalist must know that Mr. Mackintosh's views are the direct and absolute opposite of Socinian views. I say he must know it; I will examine his own views on the subject in a moment: but he must know this. The point Mr. Mackintosh is insisting on is thus summed up: "He (the Lord) says on one occasion, The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" And again, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." The first of these passages he refers to as expressing the spirit of the burnt offering; the latter, of the contemplation of His place as the sin offering. The statements, then, of the article are untrue. The motive of them is evident in it too.

"The vicariousness of Christ's life," it says, "is denied: Christ was not our substitute till He came to die." Hinc illae lachrymae. But is it an honourable thing to charge deadly doctrine on a person falsely, because he does not agree with the accuser on another point? The author has heard that some of them speak of imputed righteousness as imputed nonsense. Where did he hear it? If I do not mistake, it was Wesley's saying, though I cannot affirm it. Was he a Socinian? The writer should be calmer; by all this violence he betrays what it is that animates him. He plunges himself too into very unguarded assertions in his haste. He says, "If Christ was not the sin-bearer during His life, the Socinian explanation of His sorrows is the right one." Of what sorrows? His sorrows on the cross? This is foolish language. I do not know what particular views the Socinians have of Christ's sorrows during His life, but every one knows their main principles are the denial of the deity of Christ and of the atonement. Now saying, if Christ was not a sin-bearer during His life, their explanation of His sorrows is the true one, casts the whole truth of the gospel on the particular views of the journalist on the point of Christ bearing sin all His life, and living all His life under wrath; that is, that the Socinian's views as to Christ's sufferings on the cross and all are right, if the writer's views as to Christ's vicarious life are not right: for the writer makes no distinction in sufferings during the life of Christ and sufferings on the cross, none between what He suffered from man, when He had hatred for His love, and what He suffered from the wrath of God. He throws all together; and if this confusion be not right, he says the Socinians are.

37 Now I do not at all charge him with any approach to their views, but I do with rashness, and great carelessness or ignorance in speaking of the sufferings of Christ. For he makes His sufferings and sorrows all one in character (those on the cross and all the rest being undistinguished) and says that the Socinian view of them is right, if his particular thoughts are not. It is to be remembered that, although it went on to death, Christ was alive when bearing our sins on the tree.

And now as to the doctrine of the sacrifices itself. Bishop Patrick is first referred to, to destroy the edge and break the handle of the Socinian axe of C. H. M. and Darbyism. But I am often at a loss to know whether it be the haste of violence and vexation, or real want of honesty, that animates the pen and argument (I am sure, not the heart) of our Scottish adversaries; but I really believe the former. But it is sadly rash and careless, and ought not to be allowed in grave accusations. "Bishop Patrick," we are told, "in his Commentary on Leviticus, remarks, that the burnt offering, the holocaust, was the most ancient sacrifice in the world." I have turned to Bishop Patrick. He does so. That is the beginning of his note; here is the end: "I shall add no more, but that these whole burnt offerings seem to have been simple acknowledgments of God, the Creator of the world, and testifications that they own Him to be their Lord, and continued in covenant with Him, and implored His blessing upon them. And therefore, with respect to the first and last of these considerations (the first was, no man eating of them), the Gentiles were permitted to bring these sacrifices (as the Jews tell us), but no others whatsoever to be offered to God." This is in the same note as what our journalist quotes — a note whose real object is to shew that they were not propitiatory. If C. H. M. had written this! But perhaps Noah's sacrifice, and Abel's, will help us out. They are tacked on to Bishop Patrick by the article.

38 Hear him on Noah's: "Some think these burnt offerings had something in them of the nature of a propitiatory sacrifice, as well as eucharistical, which they certainly were, for their deliverance from the flood. Their reason is taken from what follows, 'The Lord smelled a sweet savour' (ver. 21); that is, as Munster understands it, He ceased from His anger, and was appeased. So the Syriac and Josephus. But it may signify no more, but that his thankfulness was as grateful to God as sweet odours are to us." As to Abel: "What kind of sacrifices these were is a question among learned men. The Talmudists are of opinion they were whole burnt offerings. Abel brought of the fat thereof, that is, of the very best." Cain ate the firstfruits himself, as some allege. He says, "But there is no certainty of this; and the apostle to the Hebrews hath directed us to a better account — Abel offered with a pious mind." And before, "It was a very seasonable time to make their grateful acknowledgments to God who had given them a plentiful year." But worse yet, "He graciously accepted them (Abel's offerings, offered with a pious mind), and his offering was accepted, because he himself was accepted. It is a metaphor from those who, when a present is made to them, look kindly upon the person who brings it, if they like him and his present." What do you think, my reader, of citing Bishop Patrick to prove that burnt offerings are propitiatory? And what do you think of the journal which cites him for it? "Cain offered of the fruit of the ground, but did not devote himself to God." Now I do not agree with Bishop Patrick, though I do not charge him with Socinianism; but he lays the Socinian axe to the parent root and stem in a terrible way.

Now there was, the Jews state, no other sacrifice before the law. I somewhat doubt of this among the heathen, but they are right according to scripture history. Sin-bearing was not brought out distinctly as it was under the law. Yet sin was in the world, and death by sin. And death, as needed atonement, was kept in sight in the divine way of a sinner's approach to God. Under the law this was brought far more clearly out. Sin-bearing was distinctly expressed, and, as the sacrifices were types of Christ, other deeply interesting parts of His sacrificial work, which had to be distinguished from this, were presented in them. The journalist's effort is to confound all these together, so that we should lose the profoundly interesting instruction conveyed in them. Mr. Mackintosh, to bring out the contrast, and while stating it expressly to be atonement (which Bishop Patrick demurs to), does not enter into the question of how it was so.

39 Now in the burnt offering the thought is distinctly kept up that death had come in, and that atonement and a victim were needed for our approach to God. But while this is carefully maintained, and sin, being there, Christ could not have offered Himself for us and as making atonement for sin without bloodshedding ("for without shedding of blood there is no remission"); yet the specific purport of the burnt offering is that which the article seeks, as far as possible, to destroy. Christ is presented in the burnt offering as offering Himself to God for us. This must go on to death most surely for atonement; but it had not the specific character of the sin offering, but another. Job, when there were no other than burnt offerings (unless feasts are offerings, peace offerings, for such I think they were, see Exodus 18: 12), offered them in case his sons should have sinned. The whole idea of an offering, even to death and expiation by it, was embraced in the one kind. In the law, God, while maintaining the grand principle of death and atonement, separated the distinctive parts, that is, the voluntary offering (because Christ was to offer Himself wholly, even unto death), and the actual bearing of sins and drinking the cup of wrath, though both were in one act, death being there for both.

The article states, "It (the burnt offering) is spoken of in almost precisely the same language as the sin offering." Now this is a very great mistake indeed. The blood, the fire, and the altar are used for both, as alleged, though even this statement is very inaccurate. The one general previous sacrifice, the Holocaust, was, under the law, separated into two. One preserved the name of Hola; but the specific character of Chata (to which we may add Ascham, a trespass offering), a sin offering, was set apart as distinct under the law.

40 This was called for when such a one as the Son of God was to be brought near the eye, so to speak, as a sacrifice; and this difference the writer obliterates, and C. H. M. insists on. The differences are these:

The name of the sin offering in Hebrew is the same as sin itself. So Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin. The offerer was to bring his sin. The sin offering was appointed to be offered only when a man had sinned. He was to offer, and was bound to do it, for that sin. He could not rightly offer the burnt offering till this was done. The burnt offering was not offered when a man had sinned, but of his own voluntary will. The sin was forgiven (the word is omitted as to the high priest) when the sin offering was offered. This is never said as to the burnt offering. When the blood of the sin offering was brought into the holy place, the body was not burnt on the altar at all (hence I said the writer was very inexact) — and this was a capital fact referred to by the Epistle to the Hebrews — but burnt outside the camp. It was not called a sweet savour (though the fat was, in the individual ones, to intimate the connection of the two in the one perfect person of Christ). In the burnt offering the sacrifice was wholly burnt on the altar and was always a sweet savour. And this was so distinct that the word burn is not the same. As to the sin offering, "burn" is the common word; as to the burnt offering, the same as burning incense. In the individual sin offering the priests ate a part; in the burnt offering all was consumed on the altar.

Now all this marks out a very different aspect of the work. Sin offering, called sin, supposes a person incapable of worshipping. He must bear sin (or another for him) and be forgiven. The burnt offering does not suppose an actual state of sin before God, which forbids approach, though it shews that no man could approach without blood; and that if Christ gave Himself up for us, it must be to death. When the case called for it, he first offered a sin offering, and, being forgiven, could offer his burnt offering. It was the voluntary act of the worshipper, not the present necessity of sin. Thus it represents Christ who gave Himself up obedient unto death; and then, in a subordinate sense, our coming through Him, worshipping, and devoting ourselves to God.

The law does carefully distinguish between the two aspects of sacrifice, which were, in the previous days of undeveloped truth, left confounded. These the writer confounds. No approach but by Christ's death, by atonement; but transgressions are singled out by the law and imputed somewhere, and this is distinguished from a voluntary offering. I see only ignorance in the objections of the article.

41 Imputed righteousness has been treated of elsewhere. I only add here, that the writer's mistake here arises from his not understanding what imputed righteousness means. It does not mean a quantum of formal righteousness outside us, imputed to us, but our being accounted righteous. Righteousness being imputed to a man simply means the man being accounted righteous. As the writer refers to the Thirty-nine Articles, he may see it so expressed there. Hence the argument of the article about imputing a divine attribute goes for nothing — has no sense in it; it is, like the rest, simply ignorance. God, according to that divine attribute, accounts us righteous, because of the work of Christ. There is nothing "lurks" at all, except in the mind or pen of the writer of the article. I simply, very openly, deny his doctrine of the justifying vicariousness of Christ's life as under the law. But the writer says we evade the passages which speak of His righteousness. We do not evade them; we ask for them. It does not at all follow because Christ is God that, if God's righteousness is spoken of, it means Christ's as a man under the law. What we say is, that Christ's righteousness as a man under law is not spoken of at all. The righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, in 2 Peter, is not spoken of as to justification at all, and has nothing to do with the subject. The promises have been fulfilled in sending Christianity (Christ the object of faith, though not personally present) to the dispersed remnant by a righteous God. (Chap. 1: 1.)

In fine, the sacrifices do incontestably point out the difference of Christ's voluntarily devoting Himself to death to glorify God Himself in the work of atonement when sin was come in, and His specifically charging Himself with the sins of His guilty people to bear and put them away. If the writer cannot understand the difference, he loses a large part of the blessed truths specially exposed in St. John's Gospel, and suffers very great loss to his own soul.

I know not that any further answer is necessary, unless I may recommend my reader to Mr. Mackintosh's "Notes on Leviticus" if he wishes to learn whether the accusations of the article in the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy" have one particle of truth in them. I cannot but think, if the writer of the article be a Christian, as I suppose, that the time may come when he will regret having been the author of such a one; I confess I should much prefer being the object to being the author of it.

Brethren and their Reviewers

J. N. Darby.

<10003E> 43

The Christian has to watch, and closely watch, himself in controversy, particularly if he has any keen sense of the ridiculous, lest, when his adversaries expose themselves to being confounded by the manner of their attacks, he should seek victory, and not the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ — lest he should seek to expose them instead of patiently insisting on the truth. My desire is to do this last, because I feel that important truth is in question.

The "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy" has again attacked the "Brethren," quoting Mr. Ryan and Dr. Carson. Of the former I shall, as heretofore, take no notice whatever; the point referred to by the "Journal" I have fully noticed in reply to other correspondents in the "Bible Treasury." (See Number for July, 1862.) I only recall here, that the use of such expressions as are insisted on by the "Journal" as proof of the divinity of Christ, is denounced by Athanasius as the madness of the Arians. We may estimate the value of the judgment of these modern theologians by this circumstance. The "Journal" quotes Dr. C. I shall notice Dr. C.'s doctrine, because truth is important. I prefer refraining from expressing any judgment on the character of the pamphlet which the "Journal" admires, lest I might even seem to imitate it. I confess I pity those who cannot estimate that character. The reader may judge of the kind of thing it is, by learning that while the first page assures us it is the first five thousand (so that the "Journal" rejoices at six thousand being sold), the last, the very same side of the same sheet, assures us that the first five thousand are all sold! It is painful to have to do with such adversaries, but the truth concerned is my motive. I will give one quotation from the "Journal" to shew the spirit in which "Brethren" are met. "Mr. Darby's bitterness we do not mean to imitate, and his unchristian imperiousness we leave to others to admire; we look in vain for the mind of Christ, or the word of Christ, or the doctrine of Christ, in his writings. He has made shipwreck of his faith, and his adherents, instead of trying to reach the shore on the planks of the broken vessel, are drifting far out to sea, not knowing whither they are floating." Now I admit that this is not an imitation of Mr. D.'s bitterness. What follows as a consequence as to it I will not say. I only seriously add, that I challenge in all grace the Editor to produce an example of the bitterness of Mr. D. — the bitterness he has not imitated. Doctrines which dishonour Christ I shall not cease (according to what is given me) to denounce; but it is ill work to pain and irritate those here below, of whom we may meet the lowest in the scale in heaven.

44 Having said this, perhaps too much (which I do as an excuse for noticing writings which, to my mind, have the character these have), I turn to state first the doctrines which have led me wholly to break with, and, when needed, to denounce, a certain school of doctrine. Casual expressions, in which we may all offend, have not called forth my remarks, but an elaborate system of doctrine which I have denounced and do denounce as characterized by blasphemy against the Lord. I do not speak of the intentions of individuals, but of the doctrine which they intended to promulgate. The reader will judge whether these statements as to Christ, defended by journals and theological names, ought to be denounced or not. I will enquire whether the attack on Mr. Mackintosh is a righteous one or not, and what the ignorance of Dr. C. is (for I do not think more of it) which theologians and reviewers can admire or pass over so that "Brethren" are attacked, and then pursue what is my main object in all this — the question of what is divine righteousness.

Mr. Cox's pamphlet comes in here, which I confess I have hardly read, and do not feel the need of answering, because, as far as I saw, it quotes only modern human authorities, and I recognize none but the word of God.

Mr. Newton taught that Christ had all the experience an unconverted elect man ought to have; that He was farther from God than Israel when that people made the golden calf; that He had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, and that point was death, the death on the cross; that He heard the gospel from John the Baptist, and so passed as from the law under grace; that till He took the place of repentance with the remnant the Holy Ghost could not come upon Him; that He was, as born of Adam and a Jew, subjected to the wrath and terror of God in His soul, from which He was able to extricate Himself by prayer and obedience and piety; that we could not be surprised if a man with a heavy burden going up an ice-mountain should slip. These statements are not casual unguarded expressions, but an elaborate justification of a doctrine when it was objected to, after having been secretly taught for some years and then discovered.

Persons under this teaching, as is usually the case, came out more plainly. Miss Adelaide Newton (who is I trust now in heaven, but the character of whose piety on earth has been, I judge, most falsely estimated) declares, "There were moments when Jesus appears to have had fears for His ultimate deliverance and safety. . . . He entreated, at least, that a way of escape might be left Him, that He might not be shut up in hopeless despair! Oh what depths we may be led into through our own prayer to know the fellowship of His sufferings!" Again, "Jesus knew what it was to be apparently set fast in His onward course, as is strikingly expressed in the image of miry clay: 'I sink in deep mire (margin, mire of the depth), where there is no standing.' 'Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: he brought me up out of the miry clay, out of an horrible pit.' It was no light thing which made Jesus express Himself thus. He knew what it was by painful experience to be in such a position. Thus He says in Psalm 28: 16, 17, 'When my foot slipped (who but knows the difficulty of walking in miry clay without slipping?) they magnify themselves against me, for I am ready to halt.' He would have shrunk back if He could consistently with His Father's will. 'If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' What comfort is this for believers when they are ready to halt (set fast)!" The darkness of unbelief and inability to pray are declared by Miss Newton to be the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. The best traces we have of this fellowship, we are told, are when we doubt of our salvation; for He often did not know how it would end with Him.

45 It will be asked why I bring forward the publication of a female, and of one deceased. I answer, It was not published by a female, but by the Rev. Mr. Baillie, Free Church minister (now, I believe, in the English Establishment). Nor was it only published as Miss A. Newton's Remains, but separately as a tract for edification, in which shape I received and first read it.

Next, Dr. Bonar publishes an article in his journal as Editor, in which he declares that Christ was on earth as the banished One; that, viewed as leprous all His life here and loaded with our leprosy, He must keep at a distance from the holy and clean; that He was not permitted to sleep in Jerusalem. "If permitted to visit Jerusalem, He must retire at night. If allowed to frequent the temple, He can only come as far as the outer court on the common footing of a sinner, just as the publican might do. He might stand on the day of atonement . . . and see the high priest take the basin and carry the blood into the holiest, Himself standing outside, and (though the blessed One) waiting amid the crowd to receive the well-known blessing, but more than this He could not do." My object is not now to answer this: the reader may see it noticed in the "Bible Treasury" for September, 1861. My object is to shew to my reader that it is an elaborate system of doctrine, a system in which Christ is horribly dishonoured, in which He is blasphemed. The terms may be gross and rise up to absurdity, or they may be guarded and calculated to perplex and trouble a simple reader; but, be it Mr. Newton, Mr. Baillie, or Dr. Bonar, the doctrine is the same.

46 Christ, who according to scripture was always in the bosom of His Father, the Son of man who was in heaven, according to this system was banished thence, and not allowed to visit a holy place. "His true place was outside the city of God: outside the dwelling of the Holy One." "He must keep at a distance from the holy and the clean." This has been noticed and commented on: has there been any acknowledgment of its shocking character? None. Has the doctrine been withdrawn? It has not. Dr. Bonar's journal insisted that "bearing our sins in his own body on the tree" meant bearing them to it, not on it. The utter ignorance of this assertion was shewn: was it withdrawn? Never. It has been alleged indeed that Mr. Newton has retracted. I can state from his own words that in his judgment there is no heresy contained in the tracts which contain the statements referred to above, nor anything approaching to it. I may add that Mr. Craik has declared that he knows none in Bethesda who consider him a heretic: it gives him, as others, their moral support.

Now I desire no squabbling, no indulgence in abuse against the persons who, in various forms, are always propagating this system of doctrine. The majority of them I have never seen, and have personally no possible ground of quarrel with; but I do denounce this system of doctrine and language as dishonouring to Christ and blasphemous in its character. It is a system of doctrine elaborated in various shapes, but very distinct and definite in its character, and leading those who hold it to a use of language as to Christ which those who are not on that system of doctrines, not used to this dishonouring way of thinking of Christ, could not for an instant bear to use, which would never enter their minds. Those who hold it may abuse me for noticing it — bringing it to light. They may ingeniously, if not ingenuously, charge me with teaching the same. I shall bear the abuse, not retort it; but the doctrine I will denounce, and call on every godly soul to denounce with me, not to suffer themselves to be contaminated with it, and, while walking in grace, to hold aloof from those who propagate and sanction it. This is all plain sailing. If I have used a bitter expression, let it be produced, and I will retract it, and acknowledge my fault. But there is the doctrine. Is it to be covered up that others may be infected by it, and the piety of its propagators vaunted to make it acceptable? or to be plainly brought forward and without respect of persons?

47 I am the rather induced to do the latter, because the favouring of this system, perhaps the desire to attack "Brethren" also, seems to deprive Christians of spiritual judgment. In Ireland the "Christian Examiner," which represents the waning evangelicalism of the Establishment, borrowed from an English periodical an article full of German views on the subject, written by some one imbued with these Newtonian views. In this article there was an utter setting aside of the atonement. Yet this was not perceived (for I do not believe the Editor would do it willingly and with the knowledge of what he was about), and the article was in great vogue in the Establishment. The true value of the atonement is weakened by the doctrine of propitiatory sufferings without bloodshedding. The writer looks at all Christ's work as a mere completing obedience at all costs, which, though true, is not propitiatory. Christ is dishonoured and thus spiritual discernment lost, and, provided "Brethren" are attacked, any doctrine is welcome. My adversaries may be assured that this is dangerous ground to be upon; and, if we are in the last days, a fearful look out for them. I entreat Christians to pause and see if they are prepared to receive such doctrines as those I have detailed, and to think what are the characters of attacks directed against "Brethren," coming from such a quarter and associated with such doctrines.

I will turn to the question of the attack on Mr. Mackintosh — not to enfeeble the acknowledgment he has sent out, the value of which is in its frankness and integrity. I am glad he has done so. I think he laid himself open to the attack that was made against him by language which, if it might be defended, at any rate gave I occasion to those who sought occasion. The expression might be laid hold of, and it was laid hold of. The charge against him was unfounded and unrighteous. Our writings are not to be compared with scripture, which is perfect. If I were only writing for argument, I might challenge the accusers of Mr. M. to explain, without confounding themselves, the sixth chapter of John. But I am not. John 6 is perfect and infallible truth; Mr. M.'s statement an unguarded one — I say, unguarded. I am not afraid of my adversaries: I know what they have said of "guarded." It is an accusation which recoils only on the accuser, whose mind suggested the imputation. Where no error was meant, it was the way of expressing himself that had to be more guarded. The man who can have any other thought than this of the word is at liberty to have his own thoughts, and he can indulge himself in them: I shall not interrupt him.

48 As I am not defending myself, I feel at liberty to express myself thus freely. But I am bound to prove the charge made against Mr. M. to be unfounded and unrighteous. The charge made against him was denying the true humanity of the Lord Jesus as truly born of the Virgin Mary. Dr. Bonar charged him with the renewal of the Valentinian heresy, which taught that He had only the appearance of flesh, and was really a spiritual Aeon come down from heaven, which might pass through the womb of the Virgin, but no more; there was no being really born of her, so as to have the human nature. Dr. C. says, If (as to His humanity) He was the Lord from heaven, He could not by any possibility in the world be of the substance of the Virgin. "If His humanity be heavenly, it cannot in any sense be of the substance of the Virgin; if it was gent from heaven, it was not formed on earth."

I shall now quote a passage from the work of Mr. M. which gave occasion to these remarks, and from the same part of it just two pages off.

"It was a real human body — real flesh and blood. There is no possible foundation here on which Gnosticism or mysticism can base its vapid and worthless theories. . . . The early promise had declared that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and none but a real man could accomplish this prediction; one whose nature was as real as it was pure and incorruptible. 'Thou shalt conceive in thy womb,' said the angelic messenger, 'and bring forth a son.' And then, lest there should be room for any error in reference to the mode of this conception, he adds such words as prove unanswerably that the flesh and blood of which the eternal Son took part, while absolutely real, was absolutely incapable of receiving, of retaining, or of communicating a single taint." Mr. M. then refers to the words he had quoted, Luke 1: 35. He elsewhere speaks to the same purpose. The whole contents of this part of his book are as plain as possible upon the point of incarnation. I here quote from the first edition; and, strange to say, he specially condemns as vapid and worthless that theory of which Dr. Bonar accuses him. I repeat, therefore, the accusations are unfounded and unrighteous.

49 Had he held the doctrines imputed to him, I for one should have objected to holding communion with him; but his statements on this point are as plain as their plainness makes the injustice of the accusers to be evident. But I think his expression objectionable. "The second man was, as to His manhood, the Lord from heaven." The objectionableness lies in this, that in ascribing the title of the Lord from heaven, it goes beyond ascribing it to His person, being man; and by the expression "as to" separates the nature and ascribes the title to it. Had he said, He was Lord from heaven in His manhood, he would have been perfectly right; and he who denied it would be unquestionably a heretic; but "as to" separates the manhood, and thus the words cannot refer to His person who was there in manhood. Dr. C. does not see the difference, and quotes them as "in His manhood," condemning them alike as the same. That Mr. M. ever asserted that His manhood came down from heaven, is, as far as I can discern, simply a false accusation. The second man was the Lord from heaven: that scripture states. And it goes a great deal farther (in predicating of the nature what belongs to the person) than the ignorance of Dr. C. seems to be aware of. "This," says Jesus, "is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Now I fully admit that this language deals with His human nature, His flesh, having in view the union of the two natures in His person, just as He says "The Son of man which is in heaven." He begins by "I am the living bread," and then passes on to the bread being His flesh. Still this union is so true, that He speaks of Himself as the living bread which came down from heaven, and declares that this bread is His flesh. Hence, as mere human expressions, "the divine man," and "the heavenly man," can be used as expressing what is blessedly true, though they may not have the accuracy of scripture. The true humanity of Jesus is fundamental; but he who would so separate the natures in the person as to touch such expressions as the sixth of John gives is on very slippery ground. The bread came down from heaven, and the bread was His flesh. Yet it would be wrong to say His flesh came down from heaven.

But this is not all I have to say to Dr. C. His statements on the subject, which the "Journal" admires, need no such careful examination as to expressions. What he states is a ruinous and a fatal false doctrine in a great and essential truth as to Christ. I do not charge Dr. C. with heresy in it, because it seems to me sheer ignorance. He says, "To speak of His being Lord as to His manhood seems a strange contradiction in terms." "As Mr. Mackintosh, however, expressly applies the term Lord to the humanity of Christ, he should join the Socinians and Unitarians in denying that the expression 'Lord' is a proof of the divinity of Christ." "Regarding the divinity of Christ, there are plenty of proofs that He is the Lord from heaven; but regarding His manhood, we are plainly told He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh."

50 Now I have not read any Socinian books; but if they were to be met only by such statements as these of Dr. C., they would have an easy victory. "Lord" is often a clear testimony to the deity of Jesus, because it is used of Jehovah; the term χύριος being that used by the LXX for Jehovah, and retained in the New Testament in a multitude of passages. But the word "Lord" in itself is not a proof of the divinity of Christ; and to deny His Lordship as man, and that in a way in which it is impossible to apply it to His Godhead, is to deny the first great truth promulgated as the foundation of Christianity. And this is what Dr. C. does. "Therefore," says Peter, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And he quotes the passage which puts this Lordship in contradistinction with Jehovah. "The Lord (Jehovah) said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand." Christ as man was made Lord by God. That is not Godhead, I suppose.

Now this was the great truth which Peter preached first of all at Pentecost, by which Christianity was founded in the world. And this, which makes the apostle's first announcement of Christianity to be joining Socinians and Unitarians, is (the "Journal" assures us) "most excellent, and only requires to be added to and amplified to bring the subject fully before the Church." "We (the 'Journal') are much indebted to Dr. C. for it." That God had set man over the works of His hands, man whom He (God) has raised from the dead, is one of the great and glorious truths of Christianity, as taught in Psalm 8 and quoted in 1 Corinthians 15; Hebrews 2; Ephesians 1. This place of man, and the true manhood of Christ in connection with it, is set forth specially in Hebrews 2, just as the first chapter had unfolded His Godhead. God has "set him over the works of his hands." The Lordship of Christ, as a conferred Lordship, the New Testament is full of. So it is said, "To us there is but one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ." "Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." That He is Jehovah too the scripture is full of. Nor does the soul of the believer ever lose sight of this, whatever position He takes. But where every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, it is God also who has highly exalted Him, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Does this shut out His being God? That the Socinian perhaps might say. We have only to turn to Romans 14: 10-12 to shew the falseness and folly of this conclusion; just as turning to Acts 2 shews the falseness and folly of Dr. C.'s. But this statement of Dr. C.'s, destructive as it is of the Holy Ghost's first announcement of the truth on which Christianity was founded, may lead us to see what the worth of the criticisms of our adversaries is.

51 The next piece of Dr. C.'s theology that I shall notice is this very wise conclusion: "Again, p. 36 [of Mr. M.], we have the words, 'the conception of Christ's humanity, by the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin.' The doctrine is here again. The scripture says in regard to the Virgin, 'Thou shalt conceive in thy womb,' but Mr. M. says it was the Holy Ghost conceived in her womb, it was not the Virgin herself who conceived. According to this view, the Virgin had no more to do with the conception than, as Valentine said, the conduit has with the water that runs through it." What a mercy it is to have a detecter of heretics! No doubt Dr. C. is not of the Establishment, and has never learned "the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue." I will quote one of these: "And in Jesus Christ our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost." This is the Apostles' Creed, Dr. C., and "the doctrine is here again." The creed the church has been saying these fourteen hundred years, and taken for apostolic, contains this dreadful doctrine, and, "according to this view," the whole church has been Valentinian unto this day, without knowing it! I ask any reader in his senses, what effect criticisms, which make Peter, in the first sermon that founded Christianity in the world, teach such doctrine, that "he had better join the Socinians" — criticisms by persons who have never read the Apostles' Creed, and accuse it of what Valentine said (of being Valentinian) — can produce upon the "Brethren"?

52 But, further, Mr. M. has said, p. 40, "'Such was the humanity of Christ, that He could at any moment, as far as He was personally concerned, have returned to heaven, from whence He had come, and to which He belonged.' What do you think of this, reader? Could this be misunderstood?" Well, I should have thought not. I suppose Christ belonged to heaven, that He came from heaven (at least He says so), nay, was in it ("the Son of man who is in heaven"); and that His humanity was such — so holy, so pure, so undefiled — that He could have returned at any moment; that, as He "came from God," so, unsullied as He was, He could "go to God." And this purity is what Mr. M. is speaking of. He says, "He assumed a body inherently and divinely pure, holy, and without the possibility of taint — absolutely free from any seed or principle of sin or mortality. Such was the humanity of Christ," &c. According to Dr. C., "No words could more plainly assert that the humanity of Christ could return to heaven, from whence it had come, and to which it belonged." The only answer is, that there is not a word of the kind. It is said, not it, but "He had come," "He belonged," and "He could return," and that the humanity was of such a purity that it would not preclude His doing so. And if Dr. C. does not believe that, he is a very great heretic, and not a Christian at all.

Dr. C. complains that it is asserted that there could be no union between humanity as seen in Christ, and humanity as seen in us. "At this side of death there could be no union between Christ and His people." Dr. C. makes no remark on this ("it would be waste of time," he says); I shall, because important truth is concerned in it. I affirm it to be sound and important truth. The union of saints with Christ is with Christ glorified, by the Holy Ghost, and not otherwise. God gave Him to be Head over the Church when He had exalted Him above all principality and power. The union of saints with Christ is consequent upon redemption, not before it, as these false doctors teach. "Except a corn of wheat," our Lord expressly teaches us, "fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; if it die, it brings forth much fruit." A union without atonement and redemption is fundamentally false doctrine. Incarnation is not union. Christ was among men, very man, in the likeness of sinful flesh, in grace and love; but there was no union. I am aware that these teachers say He was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, scripture does not; but that, when He was exalted, "we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." There was no union between Christ's humanity and our sinful humanity. Scripture never speaks of anything of the kind. It is the ruinous doctrine of Irvingism and Puseyism, sanctioned, it seems, by Dr. C. and the "Journal." I say so, not to attack them, but because it is of vital importance that Christians should understand and hold fast, if they would have the truth, and be in safety in these last days, that there is no union by incarnation; that scriptural union with Christ as the Head of the body is of the saints, by the Holy Ghost, with an exalted Christ, consequent on the accomplishment of redemption. It is vital, in these days, to hold this fast. Incarnation is not union. Christ was not united to sinners when He came in the flesh, but saints are united to Christ when exalted to God's right hand. Union without redemption, or, if you please, this side of Christ's death, is the destruction of true Christianity.

53 Having said this much, I would press my reader to do as I do — leave their attacks where they are, without further notice; only I would recommend those who have Dr. C.'s attacks on the "Brethren" upon their table, whether of the first five thousand or of the second, to read the Apostles' Creed and Acts 2, and if they wish to be thought to know something about Christianity, to put the pamphlet on the bookshelf; for this denial of Christianity as taught by Peter is on Dr. C.'s first page. And then it is awkward, if they belong to the Establishment, to have the creed they recite every Sunday accused of Gnosticism. The pleasure of seeing "Brethren" attacked may perhaps outweigh this with some; but what can we think of such a judgment? And now I will beg my reader to turn to more material things.

Yet here excessive ignorance pursues me. We are assured that divine attributes cannot be conferred upon the human race. Here all is triumph. Now the believer is made partaker of the divine nature, and all God's moral attributes are communicated to or conferred upon man. He is created again, and "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him," "in righteousness and true holiness." Is holiness not one of God's attributes? Is it not conferred upon man? Is it some other kind of holiness? It is said, "that we may be partakers of his holiness." I can hardly call "love" an attribute, for it is God's nature; yet practically it is the same, or a stronger case; but "he that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." "Love is of God;" I suppose this is conferred upon us. The very essence of practical Christianity is our partaking of the divine nature, and having God's moral attributes conferred on us, or implanted with His nature in us. And as to "righteousness" as an attribute, this is equally true. But an attribute being imputed to us is simple nonsense, being a contradiction in terms; because an attribute is something which belongs to, or is in, the being spoken of, so as to be a part of himself. But that which was an attribute or was in God may be imputed, taken abstractedly. Nobody has said that the righteousness of God is imputed. It is really difficult to deal with such extreme ignorance as this pamphlet displays. The righteousness of God is an attribute of His nature; I suppose Dr. C. does not deny that. Nobody ever thought of imputing an attribute of God, or any attribute at all.

54 What I have insisted on (in conformity here with the expressions of the Establishment) is, that imputing righteousness to a man is accounting him to be righteous; and that is all. And this the scripture use of the phrase clearly demonstrates to be its sense there: "God imputeth righteousness without works;" i.e., accounts the man to be righteous. "His faith is imputed to him for righteousness." It is not the value of his faith; but, as the Article of the Establishment expresses it, "We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deservings."

I am asked why I do not say inherent; and it is said that this is no imputation at all. I do not say inherent, for the simple reason that it is not inherent. If I am accounted righteous for the sake of the work of Christ, that cannot be inherent. The man is accounted righteous because of it. To talk of its being inherent would be nonsense. Dr. C.'s objection to this makes me doubt whether he is a Christian at all; at any rate, he is totally ignorant of justification by faith. I am not his judge, and I would hope all things; but indeed I do not see (judging only by what is said) how it is possible to own anyone as a Christian who could write what follows: "According to the turn Mr. D. has now taken, the righteousness is not imputed at all, but the man who is not righteous is accounted righteous! Most monstrous! The God of truth and justice is to come forth with a lie in His right hand, and to account the man righteous who is not truly righteous — to call the thief an honest man!! Horrible, most horrible!" Now if a man not truly righteous in himself has righteousness wrought out by another imputed to him, when he has not done it (which is the theory of my adversaries), "is not truly righteous," the case is just the same — the man is held for righteous when he is not truly so. All the horror is thrown away. But although a man must be born again, have Christ as his life, to have a part in the righteousness of God, yet that is not being righteous before God. Were it so, it would be inherent righteousness. But the essence of justification by faith is, that God justifies the ungodly. I suppose "ungodly" does not mean "truly righteous." It is the ungodly whom God justifies; and if we believe on Him who justifies the ungodly, our faith is counted for righteousness. No attribute of God is imputed; but a man who is a sinner is accounted righteous according to that attribute, according to all its perfection and all its exigencies, because of Christ and His work. If only a man who was truly righteous was accounted righteous, there would be no ground for imputed righteousness at all. Imputed righteousness has all its value and meaning in this: that a man who cannot pretend to be righteous in himself is so accounted for another's sake. It is God's justifying the ungodly. I repeat, the work of God in us is needed that we may have a part in divine righteousness; but Dr. C.'s statements are a denial of the whole gospel, and nonsense to boot. For a man who is truly righteous does not want imputed righteousness; and if he is accounted so for another's sake, it is because he is not truly so in himself in God's sight. It is a denial of the gospel; for the essence of this is, that God justifies the ungodly. No one who knew what scripture means by imputed righteousness could for a moment speak of imputing the righteousness of God; not only, as I have said, because imputing an attribute is a contradiction in terms, but because it is denying the proper sense of imputing righteousness. Clamour and abuse are no argument.

55 I affirm that scripture never speaks of imputed righteousness as of a sum of righteousness first existing in itself and then imputed. The truth is, it never speaks of imputed righteousness at all, but of imputing righteousness; and the difference is very great indeed. Imputed righteousness may carry with it in the mind the sense of a substantive quantity of righteousness first existing and then imputed; imputing righteousness cannot. It is an act of the mind accounting the person something at the moment the act of the mind takes place. If it is God's mind, it is perfect, and does not change, no doubt; but when I say God imputed his faith to Abraham for righteousness, it is plain that He held Abraham to be righteous in His sight on account of faith; that is, imputing righteousness means, in scripture, to hold a person to be a righteous man, to reckon or account him such.

56 Theologians may torture themselves, and abuse those who state it, and quote clouds of doctors like themselves. They advance nothing. When scripture says Abraham's faith was imputed to him for righteousness, it means Abraham was accounted righteous on account of his faith. Hence imputing God's righteousness could not be employed or thought of by me, because I deny all such previous sum of righteousness made out and then imputed to be the meaning of righteousness being imputed. Imputing righteousness (for, I repeat, imputed righteousness, as a compound term, is unscriptural) is the estimate of the man's relative state to God. The man is righteous in the sight of Him who judges.

But further (I have explained in a previous tract that righteousness has a double sense), what is inherent, i.e., characterizes the nature of the persons — this is its constant use as to God. He is righteous; His righteousness is as the great deep. It is used as to man — a man is a righteous man; but it is used relatively or judicially. A man is held to be righteous — righteous in God's sight. Here it is the estimate God forms judicially, not the intrinsic statement. If the state be such, He will hold him such; but this is impossible for sinful man. Hence if a man even partakes of the divine nature, loves righteousness, and, as to his new nature, nothing else, yet relatively and judicially, because of the old man he cannot pretend to be — is not in himself — truly righteous in God's sight, because of what he is. Because of Christ, God holds him relatively and judicially to be perfectly righteous, according to His own divine estimate; righteousness is imputed to him. All that God is Christ has glorified; and the man is in Christ before God according to the value of this. He is made thus the righteousness of God in Him. Righteousness first existing as a sum of righteousness, under obligations fulfilled and then imputed, is not in scripture. Imputed righteousness is not a scriptural term; imputing righteousness is what scripture speaks of. But this has nothing to do with inherent righteousness, but is God's accounting a man righteous who could not pretend to that by what was inherent in him.

The real question however lies further; that is, by reason of what is the man accounted righteous, yea, the righteousness of God in Christ? My adversaries say it was Christ's keeping the law for us; but when I ask for scripture, it is impossible to have any. It is a mistake to say "Brethren" deny Christ's righteousness. Of course, personally, He was righteous. They deny the imputation of His law-keeping to the believer, and that the righteousness of God means anything of the kind.

57 What Mr. Haldane says has no foundation in the word of God. The point on which his argument rests is not in scripture at all. "The righteousness of God which is received by faith, denotes something that becomes the property of the believer." But the phrase which he says denotes so and so, and on which he founds consequently his argument, is unfortunately Mr. Haldane's phrase, not that of scripture, so that the whole argument comes simply to — nothing. Scripture never says that the righteousness of God is received by faith, our enemies themselves being judges; if it did, it might be alleged it was a sum of righteousness wrought out before, and subsisting to be received; but scripture does not speak so. The nearest approach to it is where it is said, in Romans 5, "They who receive the abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life." Now here it is in general stated that they receive abundance of the gift of righteousness. They have their righteousness by gift, not by works, as every Christian owns; but not a word of receiving the righteousness of God by faith. I deny all possibility of righteousness becoming a property; there is no idea of it in scripture, nor is there any sense in it. It is not the idea of righteousness in scripture: that is either a quality in God or man, and then it is inherent (but if in man, not his justifying righteousness before God), or it is a relative state, his judicial acceptance in God's sight. Innocence is no longer the lot of man, nor applicable to God. The knowledge of good and evil exists. No keeping of the law makes a man innocent: it makes him righteous if he does so. The blood of Christ does not make him innocent; it cleanses him from sin and justifies him.

Let me sum up distinctly what I affirm. I am not speaking of inherent righteousness at all, not any quality in or actual state of man, but what he is reckoned or accounted; and (as it is on account of another, and not of what he is in himself) of righteousness being imputed to him.

Next, I say imputed righteousness is an unscriptural term and an unscriptural idea; if it be used in scripture let the passage be produced. You have neither διχαιοσύνη λελογισμένη, nor διχαίωμα λελογίσμενον, nor διχαιώματα λελογίσμενα. Imputing righteousness is a scriptural and most important truth; not accounting a man righteous who is truly so, but, according to scripture, "justifying the ungodly."

58 Next, imputing righteousness means in scripture accounting a man to be righteous.

These statements must be answered from scripture; it is of no use talking about their being monstrous. Answer them from scripture, or confess they are true according to scripture. As to the first, that the term "imputed righteousness" is not found in scripture, a concordance will prove.

Imputing righteousness, or righteousness being imputed, is found; the question is what it means. Does it mean a given quantum of righteousness transferred over to a man's account; or holding a man to be righteous — reckoning or accounting him such? I affirm that in scripture it always means the latter. Thus in Romans 4: 11 it is abstract — "that righteousness might be imputed to them also;" that is, that they might be held or accounted righteous though not of the circumcision. There is no question at all of a quantum of righteousness subsisting and then put to their account; but that righteousness itself should be reckoned to them. And this is the more clear, because the sentence on which all the apostle's reasoning on the point and his whole use of the phrase rests is, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness;" "faith was reckoned to him for righteousness," i.e., he was accounted righteous before God because of his faith. The meaning of the phrase is, Abraham was held for righteous on this ground. That is clearly the meaning of the passage; but this passage is the governing passage — that from which the use of the phrase is drawn in every instance.

A sober mind, taught of God, subject to the word of God, has only to read the passages in which imputing righteousness is spoken of in scripture to see at once the force of the expression.

The last question, which lies behind all this is, Why is the believer accounted righteous?

My adversaries say it is because Christ kept the law in his stead, and that this is imputed to him.

I deny this as an utterly anti-scriptural doctrine; I have said it and repeat it. I know many beloved and godly souls have been so taught, and have held it in integrity of heart. But since it is insisted on, and the truth is evil spoken of, I speak more plainly. It is an anti-scriptural doctrine which does great injury to souls.

Our union with Christ is not under law. "We are not under law" at all. We are not justified by works of law, by whomsoever done, but entirely in another way. It was never God's intention to bring in righteousness by law. "If righteousness come by law, Christ is dead in vain." The whole system is mischievous and false. My statements, I think, are plain. I shall now turn to scripture to prove them.

59 My difficulty here is, that I am reproducing the whole argument of Paul. For it is the point he insists on in all his doctrine.

He teaches that Adam was under a law; not a law by which he was to obtain life (for these false doctors are unscriptural on every point), but a law the breach of which was to entail death on him who was alive. That law he broke, and came under death and condemnation; only the promise of the woman's Seed came in. He was not replaced under a law again, but, saved through grace and faith, remained dead and lost under the effect of that he had broken, which none else could come under personally. But he had acquired a conscience, the knowledge of good and evil, which served for law, but was a very different thing; because in its nature it was an intrinsic consciousness, of right and wrong, but was not the imposed authority of the Lawgiver. It was a new quality in himself, which was found also in God; not a law imposed by authority, though the violation of it might make him fear, because he had the consciousness, that he was subject to God. But he was a law to himself, had not God's law over him and the explicit authority of the Lawgiver — a most important point. The Gentiles, we are solemnly assured by scripture, had not the law, have no law (νόμον μὴ ἔχοντες). Afterwards come the promises, the unconditional promises, and four hundred and thirty years after that, and not till then, came the law, and under it promise became conditional. But that could not disannul the previous promise. But it was added, came in by the by, was our schoolmaster to Christ, was added because of transgressions, entered (or came in) by the by that the offence might abound. It was the strength of sin; the motions of sin were by it. Sin has dominion over us if we are under it; such is the testimony of scripture. The Gentile had no commandment. If one went to condemn him because he had transgressed, his answer would be — I never heard the commandment: how could I transgress the authority of Him who gave it? To say that sin became exceeding sinful by the commandment, and yet that men had the law everywhere, is simple nonsense. It cannot be in vigour everywhere, at all times, and yet sin become exceeding sinful by its being given.

The statements made as to the law are unscriptural and false. Only one passage would seem to bear out the doctrines advanced — "Sin is the transgression of the law." But every one acquainted with Greek knows that this is not the word elsewhere used for "transgression of law," and that that is not its true sense. It is ἀνομία, not παράβασις νόμον. But the turning point of the question lies yet farther on.

60 Christ was made under the law, and kept it. But sinners had no connection with Him in this place. It was needed for His personal perfection and God's glory, but there was no union with Christ so alive in the flesh. We are married to another, even to Christ who is risen from the dead. God raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church which is His body. He is exalted, that is consequent on His redemption work, that we may be united to Him there in virtue of redemption, not as unredeemed and under law. If He did not die, He abode alone.

Two systems, then, are in presence. One puts all men, and not only men but Christians, under law, and makes the fulfilment of law to be righteousness; and as men have not kept it, and hence have not righteousness, connects them as thus still in flesh with Christ known after the flesh and under law, and makes His accomplishment of it their righteousness.

The other says, No; all that is of the flesh is finally and hopelessly condemned. Christ, by dying, has closed all possible connection between God and man in the flesh. Man in the flesh has rejected Christ, is condemned, and judgment only remains for him. The law was not given to all men. It was the rule of right for man in the flesh, but given when man was a sinner, whom God knew to be wholly and hopelessly lost, to the Jewish people, to bring out the great truth of man's condition, if righteousness was claimed from him. Sin, death, judgment, were already man's portion, and nothing else. He was lost; he proves it by rejecting Christ. But the law came in to raise the question of righteousness. Christ was perfect here as everywhere, but alone in it. Man in flesh, unless redemption came in, was as alienated from God as ever. But redemption came in by death, and the believer has died with Christ, does not in God's sight exist in the life in which he was in the flesh (and if he were under law, it was in flesh), and he has died away from under it to have his place and portion through redemption in Christ risen, having died as to the life in which he was under the law. He is in Christ, and in Christ accepted according to Christ's own acceptance. The value which Christ has in the sight of God, which is real and meritorious, is the value in which he stands, but as dead and risen. The death of Christ has put away his sin, and all the glorifying of God, in virtue of which Christ as man is at God's right hand in righteousness (he stands in the value of Christ) is his righteousness. He is not under law at all, but under grace. Which of these two schemes is the scriptural one? I affirm the first to be false and anti-scriptural, the latter to be the Christianity taught in the New Testament. The first is not Christianity, but a human unscriptural scheme, putting the Christian back into the flesh; the second is the Christianity of scripture.

61 I challenge my adversaries to meet this question fairly. As yet they have not dared to do it: I can understand this as prudence. I put it plainly and fairly. I declare their whole scheme of putting Christians under law, and then imputing Christ's law-keeping for righteousness to them, to have no foundation in scripture. I dare say they can quote evangelicals and modern theologians by sacks full. It is no use. Allegatio ejusdem rei cujus dissolutio petitur nil valet, say the lawyers. This modern opinion of theologians I denounce as unscriptural and mischievous, as subversive of the true power of Christianity.

Christians are not under the law in any way. So scripture positively states: to allege that this is allowing evil is attacking scripture, not me. Scripture states that walking in the Spirit is our path, but that then we are not under law; it states why even those who were under law ceased to be so before God when they became Christians. They had died, and the law had only power over a man as long as he lived. Their deliverance from sin was not by law — the contrary was the case — but because they had died to sin; they were crucified with Christ, and Christ was their life. He that is dead is freed from sin. Sin shall not have dominion over us because we are not under law. The law is the strength of sin.

That a Christian is under law, or that Christ has kept the law for us, so that it should be imputed to us, I defy all my adversaries to shew from scripture.

I will first take a single chapter (I have elsewhere discussed the different texts) to shew the ground Paul sets the Christian on; and the reader will remark if the Spirit of God does not contrast the christian state with being under law in any way whatever. (Gal. 3.) "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." Here we have precisely the question raised, imputing righteousness, and all believers put on Abraham ground: "So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." There is our thesis — imputing righteousness — not merely forgiving sin, if we are to make the difference, but especially imputing righteousness.

62 Now my adversaries say that this is done by law-keeping, and is only to be done so: only that Christ kept it, which we did not, and that so it was imputed to us (His righteousness by law-keeping), and we are thus righteous. It is by faith, because it is by believing we get a share in Christ's law-keeping.

I say, No; faith is contrasted with law. Promise is distinguished from law. Promise comes first, is confirmed to the Seed — Christ. Law comes in afterwards, by the by — four hundred and thirty years afterwards — and has its application to men on earth until the Seed came. They that were under it were under it till faith came, and then, as redeemed, they take the place of sons with the risen One.

Now what does the chapter say? We have righteousness imputed to Abraham believing, and because of believing the promise. Had this anything to do with law or its fulfilment, or was it the fullest and carefully argued contrast with the law? And we have blessing, note it, the same way. (Ver. 9.) So far from faith having a part in law-fulfilling, it is in the fullest contrast. "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse," for it curses every one that does not keep it, and none have kept it, Christ excepted. "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident." Now we are told that we are justified by the law being kept, and thus righteousness being imputed to us. We are justified (we are told) only by law; forgiven, cleansed, by blood; but justified by law-keeping. The apostle declares that it is evident we are not, that no one is; it is not by law or law-keeping we are justified. Will it be said that means our doing so? The apostle does not say so.* He speaks of the principle upon which it takes place — It is evident that no man is justified by law — and he gives the reason, "It is written, The just shall live by faith." But, then, why cannot the believer have the benefit of law-keeping by faith? Because "the law is not of faith;" the two principles are opposed. The man must keep the law himself to have life by it. Is not this a strange thing to say if we have it by Christ's keeping it? See how it stands. My adversaries say a man can be justified only by law, and he need not do the commandments, but Christ for him, and he get it by faith. The apostle says, that no man is justified by law it is evident, for scripture says the righteous shall live by faith. Well, but we have, says my adversary, the good of law-keeping by faith. You cannot, says the apostle; the law is not of faith. The principle is wholly opposed. "The man that doeth them shall live by them:" he must do them himself to have righteousness by them. It must be his own righteousness. The law is not of faith at all. The law was mighty to curse, but the redemption has come in by Christ's bearing the curse, that the blessing which was by promise — not by law at all — should come upon us, and we receive the Spirit, which does not come by works of law. God gave the blessing to Abraham by promise, and if it be of the law, it is not by promise at all; but by law is not the way in which God has given the inheritance. I pray you, reader, to mark all this distinctly.

{*I fully believe, however, that he had no idea of any law-keeping, except a man's doing it for himself. The ungodly principle of putting a man under law, as a way of obtaining righteousness, and making provision for his not keeping it, never entered his mind.}

63 The apostle then shews it was confirmed to the Seed, that is, Christ; but this was a distinct unconditional promise made (Gen. 12) to Abraham, and confirmed (Gen. 22) to the Seed; depended on no condition of law-keeping at all; was God's simple unconditional promise. The law was a distinct thing which came in afterwards, most useful to raise the question of righteousness in flesh, and shew man could not have it; but it could not affect, disannul, or be added as a condition to the unconditional promise — this must remain untouched, unaffected, unadded to, in all its own force. The law was added because of transgressions till the Seed should come and the promises be made good. To Him they were confirmed, and if we are His, consequent on the work of redemption, we are heirs according to promise; but the inheritance is not of law at all, it is of promise in contrast with law, which cannot affect the unconditional and confirmed promise. But it will be said that, though no formal law was given, the law was always in force. It is false. For a law to be in force, there must be an enactment of it, the authority of the lawgiver intervening. That the contents of the law were holy, and just, and good, is nothing to the purpose; that the natural conscience acquired by the fall saw many things contained in it to be right, is true; but to have a transgression and a law there must be a formally given commandment. Since the law given to Adam, God never gave a law till Sinai came, unless we except the condition of not eating blood to Noah. It was never given to have righteousness by; for man was a lost sinner before it was given, and Christ's death needed. It was given to make the offence abound, to bring in the conviction of the helpless condition of sin man was in more definitely and distinctly. It was never meant to be the means of having righteousness, it came too late for it: if a law had been given which had given life, then man in that life had wrought the righteousness, and righteousness would have been by the law. But such was not God's plan, and He took care to shew it, and gave the promise on which the blessing depended before any law at all, confirming it to the Seed — Christ; and then, when He had established the blessing otherwise than by law, He gave the law.

64 Now if I am to take the use and application of law, I must take it as God used and applied it, and that was not to produce righteousness but to make the offence abound, having previously given the blessing in a way which excluded any bringing in of the law for it. Justification and righteousness then are declared to be in another way than by law, and by a way with which it is impossible to connect the law, because nothing can be added to the promise confirmed to Christ. Adding the law, setting it up again, when we have gone to Christ, the promised Seed, for justification, is frustrating the grace of God; for if righteousness came by law, Christ is dead in vain. But if we are righteous by Christ's keeping the law, it does come by the law, and Christ's death is in vain. The inheritance is not by law, says the apostle; righteousness is not by law: the doctrine which teaches that it is, is a subversion and denial of Christianity as Paul taught it. The apostle's reasoning is careful and reiterated-on this point; it is his great thesis as to justification. That is, his great thesis as to justification is to deny and denounce what my adversaries insist on, and in the chapter which follows the one to which I have alluded the apostle carefully shews that the two principles of promise and law cannot go together, that the scripture declares that the bondwoman and her seed must be cast out.

What does he say in the Romans? "For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith;" that is, the righteousness of faith is not by law at all. "For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of none effect." Yet we are told it must be by law and so only, and Christ's keeping it; that is, righteousness is in a work done according to our responsibility in flesh, and accomplished before any redemption is wrought by blood; whereas we are all called to reckon ourselves wholly dead as regards that life, yea, told we are dead, and so justified or freed from sin, and alive now to God as risen in Christ, taught not even to know Christ after the flesh. And what consequently am I called upon to believe in order to righteousness being imputed to me? On Him who raised up Christ from the dead, who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. I am not called upon, the law being in question, to believe He kept it for me that I might have righteousness imputed to me; I am told the promise does not come in that way, but to believe that He was delivered for my offences and raised again for my justification. It is to a Christ raised from the dead I am called to look. It is not to His keeping the law that God teaches me to look for my justification. I am taught that my righteousness does not come by law or that His death is vain.

65 If I go a step farther, I find not only that Christ died for me and rose again, but I am dead and risen with Him so as to have no existence in relationship to that to which law applied. Law applied to a man alive; but I have died. I am become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that I might be to another, to Him who is raised from the dead. "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members; but now we are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held." The law has power over a man as long as he lives, but our old man is crucified with Christ: the whole footing we are on now, not in the life in which we are born of Adam, to which as long as it lived law could apply, but created again in Him who is raised from the dead, passed out of the region to which law applies, not by enfeebling it, but by dying as to the nature and state to which it applies and to sin at the same time, and being a new creature, accepted in the Beloved and belonging to another, so that we cannot live to the old, nor admit the claim of law over us, and so be to another while we are to Christ.

If we turn to the Ephesians, where the subject of our place in Christ is fully viewed, we find man, Jew or Gentile, viewed as dead in trespasses and sins, and Christ Himself as Head. God's power raises Him up and gives Him to be the Head of the body; we, by the very same power, when dead in trespasses and sins, have been quickened together with Him, and raised up together — Jew or Gentile, under law or without law, near or far off, alike children of wrath — and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. Under law? Surely not; but brought out wholly from the place, state, and condition we were in before, were it under law or lawless, by the power of the new creation, in union with Christ as sitting at God's right hand. It is not a making good the duties of the old state or creation, but holding all as dead and ruined in it, and forming a new, which has its duties — good works which God has afore prepared. We were predestinated, the whole place and glory too, before the world, and the works afore prepared as suited to the new place, even to be "imitators of God as dear children," and not, as Paul says, to build again the old thing out of which we have been delivered.

66 This alone gives a just estimate of what Christianity is. I do not say that every truly converted person has laid hold of this. A man may be a Christian and only just know that he is forgiven — blessed knowledge too. But the doctrine I oppose denies the truth I am speaking of, builds up again that out of which we are delivered, makes Christ a restorer of the old man, not the beginning to us of the new in the state into which He is entered as risen. The making Christ a keeper of the law for us as being under it is destroying the very truth and nature of Christianity as scripture teaches it. Was then the breach of the law by those under it held to be of no account and immaterial? In no wise Christ took its curse so as to maintain all its authority in the highest way, but not to put Jews back, and Gentiles for the first time under it; but, having risen after having died as bearing the curse, to introduce both into a wholly new place founded on the power of divine life in resurrection, where neither Adam innocent nor Adam fallen, nor the Jew under law nor the lawless heathen, ever were, one more than the other, different as their states might be. Taken even in their highest character, the duties of man as man are not the manifestation of God; and this last is what we are called on to follow and imitate. Christ was perfect as come in the flesh, and born under the law; but by redemption He has placed us on a new ground, where we are not in the flesh at all nor put under the law. We are sons in the power of resurrection, not servants. Christ has perfectly glorified God as regards the old position, both in His own walk and in bearing the curse due to our failure in it; but He has not put us into it and met our failures in it as now under law by keeping the law, but delivered us out of it by redemption, and given us a part with Himself in the new place into which He is entered, and no other.

67 People make this great mistake, that because the moral law is in itself good and perfectly holy, therefore man is necessarily and always under it. This is not so. It was not the case at the beginning: men were distinctly placed under promise as contrasted with law, and the law's use and place is distinctly stated in scripture. Man was under a law when innocent, a specific law which only tested obedience, and required no personal knowledge of right and wrong. He failed and became a sinner. To give him a law then as a way of righteousness and life would be only condemnation and death.

But God shewed that He did not mean putting man under law to be the way of righteousness. His order of dealing was this: an absolute unconditional promise, to which the blessing was attached, and which was irrevocable and unchangeable, was given. The question of righteousness was not raised by it. God promised and of course would give the blessing as promised. This promise was confirmed to the Seed — Christ; and, if we look closer into the figure, confirmed to Him after being offered in sacrifice and raised. However, it was confirmed to the Seed, that is, to Christ. After this the law is added, enters, but cannot change the promise. It raised the question of righteousness, and put it on man's accomplishment to shew that he could not make it out, and to make sin transgression and exceeding sinful. But it was only till the Seed came, to whom the promise was made. The administration of law, its use with man, was special and occasional. Christ, the Seed, was to be life and righteousness, and the One through whom the Spirit was to be received, not the law. But He comes in connection with man's position in flesh. Though He knew no sin, He was in the likeness of sinful flesh, "born of the seed of David according to the flesh" — γενόμενος of a woman; γενόμενος under the law. This was man's and Israel's place as a sinner; Christ's place sinless, and in a sinless way. He glorified God in it, as man had dishonoured Him. But He works redemption and takes a new place, taking believers out of the old, so that now we say "when we were in the flesh,""ye are not in the flesh." Promise confirmed to the Seed; law till the Seed came; the Seed come; the time of the law closed, and the redemption of him who was under it valid for every believer, who thereon receives the Spirit: such is the divine order of God's dealings. He who puts us under law, or makes law so universal as to hinder promise being first (when man was a sinner and law only brought in for important purposes by the by), upsets the revealed order and principle of all God's dealings with man.

68 I know not that I can add anything to what is so exceedingly plain, if we follow scripture and are subject to it. I do not pretend to answer all the reasonings of Dr. C. To tell the honest truth, I do not see any sense in them. I meet heaps of such as "I was told, a few days since, that it is impossible for the obedience of Christ to be so imputed that the man who has broken the law becomes entirely innocent." If so, I reply, on the same principle of reasoning, it is impossible for the work of Christ on the cross to be so imputed that the man becomes entirely free from the punishment of his guilt. If the one is impossible, so is the other. With a man who can reason thus it is lost time to reason at all. There is not a particle of sense in the passage. An innocent man is (to go no deeper) a man who has never been guilty. And his ever becoming innocent is simple nonsense. Whereas being free from punishment of guilt, if another bear the punishment in our place, is the simplest thing possible.

A man who has made debts can never become a person who has never made any; but, if his debts are paid by another, he is free from the consequences of his folly. I ask any man of commonsense, if a person who has something else to do can be expected to go through some thirty or forty pages of such reasoning as that? And I can assure my reader that a glance at Dr. C.'s book has shewn me pages of writing of no greater worth. I am told that the book is on the tables of evangelicals on every side; I pity them.

Dr. C. has taken up the question of ministry and pastorship, which I shall not mix up with that which concerns the truth of Christianity itself. I only say that his pages prove that he does not even know what the question which has been agitated is. He says "Existence of the christian ministry or pastoral office." This is one blunder. They are not the same thing, and nobody denies either. Next he makes pastor and bishop the same thing, which is another blunder. Bishops and elders were the same. Scripture is very plain as to christian ministry, it does speak of pastors, and both have their place now. It speaks of elders too. It speaks also of apostles: yet we have none. Why should not they be useful now? why not choose some now? Dr. C. will doubtless think it absurd. So do I. You cannot. It is therefore possible that there may be elders in scripture, and yet that we cannot now have elders according to scripture. If Dr. C. will shew me a direction to the Church to choose elders, or particular instructions sent to a church for it, it would be another matter. Elders were appointed in every city. By whom? is the question; though indeed there is another question — to find the churches themselves first. Dr. C. cannot understand how the Holy Spirit can choose the man, and then make His choice known. He may very easily learn. He said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul." He did not do so with elders, but He did not confide the choice to the Church either. But all I shall say on this head is that Dr. C. knows neither what "Brethren" hold, nor what the scriptures teach on the subject. The former is easily accounted for. What controversy there was on the subject was abroad and not in England. When he can produce to me a scriptural church and apostles, we may be nearer finding scriptural elders; but I do not purpose going farther into the question here or mixing it up with the far more vital question of what Christianity itself really is. I deny all choice or election of elders by the Church, as unscriptural, and pastors are not elders. I should have thought he had lived near enough to Presbyterians to know that, if he had not learnt what is very easily found in scripture.

69 I close by recalling my reader's attention to the main subject. The word of God teaches us that we are not justified by law, nor by any one's keeping it, but carefully assures us we are not — that, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. My adversaries teach it does come by law, Christ having kept it for us. The word of God teaches that the Christian is not under the law, that the law has power over a man so long as he lives, but that we are dead to it by the body of Christ, and that we are not in the flesh, in which a man was subjected to it, according to scripture.

Defending the "Brethren" is not my task, but defending the truth. I hold the doctrine of my adversaries to be unscriptural. When they can produce any scripture to prove it I will bow to it. I promise to answer, with God's help, any sober statement which appeals to scripture, or even any question. I challenge them to produce any scripture — I know they cannot. They should not charge unsound doctrine and then retreat into silence; or, if they speak, indulge in abuse — that I must be excused answering: but here I am for any argument attempted to be based on scripture. I have no doubt it is more convenient to them not to attempt to answer. Their articles, they tell us, are exciting attention. Be it so. I am glad of it too. But they may be well assured that, if scripture be appealed to largely against them, and they do not attempt to answer by scripture, the kind of attention will be such as they will not like. I do not expect every adversary will be convinced, but they may find that many sincere souls will, and that they may be put to silence.

70 I only add that practical sanctification and godliness is as little by law as justification. All that has truly that character comes under the title of the fruits of the Spirit, and the apostle carefully tells us that, if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law. We want life, power, motive, but that is in Christ and the Spirit, not in law.

"If righteousness come by the law, Christ is dead in vain."

"If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise."

"Christ is become of none effect unto you, as many of you as are justified by the law. Ye are fallen from grace."

The very day on which I terminated the above I received a "Record" of August 11 from England, in reply (if it can be called so) to my letter on the Righteousness of God. I do not think there is any superfluous honesty in it, but only one thing which calls for any answer, because it refers to scripture. The rest insists on the question being settled by divines, about which I trouble myself very little.

The "Record" says I have (in quoting it) omitted what was "the substance of three proof texts." Had I quoted the passage in full, it says, it would have been an answer to my demand of scripture. Here is what is stated to be omitted, "That he bore the curse of the broken law, and also at the same time magnified it and made it honourable. He was obedient unto death, His obedience unto death."The "Record" then refers to Galatians 3: 13; Philippians 2: 8; Isaiah 42: 21. Now I am quite ready to admit that the "Record" had these passages in mind, though it did not quote them. Let us look at them. The question is, whether Christ's keeping the law for us during His lifetime is imputed to us for righteousness.

Galatians 3: 13 — "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." The second is Philippians 2: 8, "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." The third is Isaiah 42: 21, "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake. He will magnify the law and make it honourable." The reader must judge for himself how bearing the curse in hanging on the tree, or Christ's being obedient unto death, applies to Christ's keeping the law during His life being imputed to us for righteousness. That Christ magnified the law and made it honourable, both by keeping it in His life and bearing its curse in His death, is assuredly true, but does not touch the question of its being imputed for righteousness.

71 You have now what, after long months' advisement, the "Record" can produce from scripture for its doctrine. There could hardly be a greater proof of what I have alleged — that it has no scripture to produce. It admits that it has not argued the subject. Of course it asserts that all my tendencies are decidedly Socinian. That is the fashion. I beg leave distinctly to deny the statement.

"He denies that Christ had anything to do with law." It is simply false. I say, "He kept the law surely, He was born under it." And again, "Christ, while perfect under the law in His own person, did not keep it to make good our defects under it." Again, "Being born under the law, He could not but be perfect under it in His person and walk. This is above all enquiry. It is received by the simplicity of faith as the truth." It is not true that I hold that justification is simply by death for our sin. It is said in the paper referred to, "Thus far we have only His death. But the apostle goes farther — not surely to anything inconsistent. Up to this he had met the sin of the old man by the blood of Christ. Now from chapter 4 he takes up the new man in resurrection. Abraham is justified by faith. So we are to believe on Him who raised up Christ from the dead. What Christ? A Christ who kept the law for us? Not such a thought. A Christ, blessed be His most gracious name, who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification." I shall quote one passage of mine as a whole, that the reader may judge how far the "Record" is to be trusted. "We believers are not under law but under grace. Christ, while perfect under law in His own person, did not keep it to make good our defects under it, or give us legal righteousness or justification by it. He died for our sins and thus put them away; but we are viewed as being also dead with Him, and no longer in the flesh at all, to which law applied, but stand as risen in the presence of God in the position in which He stands, with all the value of His work upon us, and accepted in His person, according to His acceptance now that He is risen. This is measured by His having perfectly glorified God in His work, and hence He is glorified in and with God in heaven; and this is our title to be in heaven and glory in due time with Him — conformed to His image — the firstborn among many brethren." Again, "As Christ is righteousness to us, and we are the righteousness of God in Him, we are accepted according to God's own character, righteous in Him. His infinite value, including therein His work, is our title before God."

72 After these quotations I can only leave the judgment of the "Record's" statements to my reader, begging him to read my tract, and to take my statements as to scripture, Calvin, Luther, the Homilies, and the "Record" only from my own tract. Let him note too in anything quoted, whether it applies to Christ's keeping the law for us.

But there is one passage in the new article of the "Record" to which I must turn, because it is to me vital in this question, more so than some which relate to the law. Those who hold our justification by Christ's keeping the law are obliged, more or less, to obliterate the true character of His death as propitiation. If His living sufferings and obedience had this character, then the death of Christ loses its peculiar atoning force. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." He gives His flesh for the life of the world. On the cross He stands a victim under the curse — under wrath, forsaken of God, pouring out His soul unto t death. The life, says the "Record," "is the basis of the death, the death the close of the life-work." So before, "We ought to think of Christ's work as a whole. The Bible speaks of it as His obedience unto death." The "Record" states that I do "not believe in the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one man's obedience whereby many were made righteous." This is simply untrue: I do believe it.

But I pray my reader to weigh earnestly the point I am now upon. It is a question of the value and character of the death of the blessed Lord, of His bloodshedding. Was His bloodshedding under the curse the same in character and nature as His living obedience under divine favour? Was the drinking that cup of wrath, which Christ prayed, if it were possible, might pass from Him, the same thing as His life-work when He was not drinking it at all, but found it His meat to do His Father's will, and finish His work? Was Christ forsaken of God all His life? No doubt He was perfectly obedient all His life, and that even unto death, and so I have stated, and insist on His obedience in this respect as being a whole. But was that, to and in which He was obedient on the cross, as there obedient to His Father's will, the same as His life-work? Had it nothing peculiar in it? Could any one who really believed in the propitiatory power of His wrath-bearing death use the language of the "Record," and say "Death was the close of the life-work"? I believe it impossible. No doubt death closed His life-work; but when it says "We ought to think of Christ's work as a whole," it is making it all one like work. Was all His life-work bloodshedding under wrath? Was He made sin all His life long? Was He brought under the curse as being upon the tree all His life long? When John says His hour was not come, was there nothing peculiar in that hour? I repeat it, Was He always drinking the cup, the thought of which, as thus still before Him, made Him sweat as it were great drops of blood? In a word, had the hour of wrath and the cup nothing peculiar in it? Was it only the close of His life-work? Answer it if you can and dare.

73 It is this slighting of propitiation and the dying sorrow of Christ — when it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, when He made His soul an offering for sin, when the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, when He was bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, when He once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, being put to death in the flesh — it is this that I abhor and denounce above all. This indeed the Socinian would own-that He was blessedly obedient unto death, that His death was the close of His life-work, all one whole: why should he not? But substitution on the cross, propitiation, drinking the cup of wrath for us there — this the Socinian would not hear of; and this the language of the "Record" sets aside. Nothing, it seems to me, is a more terrible sign of the state of the professing church than the open slighting of Christ's death which is current in it. With Mr. Newton first it was an incident; with the "Christian Examiner" it was having life to pass through death with; for the "Record" it is the close of His life-work, and to be viewed as a whole.

Is propitiation nothing then? or is there such without death and bloodshedding? Was there no cup of wrath then? Was Christ forsaken of God all His life? Why this agony in Gethsemane? Why speak of the cup as yet to drink? I charge the "Record," and all who hold these doctrines, with the horrible denial of the whole meaning and value of Christ's death. The charge is not a light one — I feel it is not. The question is, Is it a true one? None can answer but he who feels what sin is in the sight of God, and knows that Christ was there made sin for us. Scripture indeed shews the folly of such language as that of the "Record." But I do not believe that any one who is not horrified at the language of the "Record" and the "Christian Examiner" has ever felt in his own soul, what none indeed can fathom, what the dying sufferings and sin-bearing of the blessed One were.

74 Death the close of His life-work! It is an undermining of atonement and propitiatory sacrifice, and all the quotations of John Owen, or countless bishops, will not purge the contempt that is thus put upon the cross.

The subjection of the Christian to law we may firmly discuss. His lordship of Ossory, for whom I have a sincere respect, may assume we are under it, as the quotation taken from his book by the "Record" does,* and I may not agree with him. My recollection of his Sermons on Justification, if that be the same work, leaves me under the impression that, however useful they may have been, there was defect in his idea of faith. He treats it, if I am not mistaken, as trust. Now I apprehend this does not adequately keep in view a preceding, and the fundamental, element of faith, of which trust is only a consequence — the reception of testimony as divine. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." This, the testimony being what it is, inseparably produces trust, but the trust is not faith simply in itself. I avow I speak only from recollection, and may do injustice to the right reverend prelate. At any rate, this I should discuss with all worthy respect both to his rank and person; but with the doctrine of the "Record" and others, on the death of the blessed Lord, I will have no peace. I have caused my Lord to suffer agonies through my sins, and I am told His death was the close of His life-work. Was His life-work atonement and propitiation, the drinking of the cup of God's wrath? Take heed, reader, lest, under this vile pretension to orthodoxy and setting up of the law, you have not lost the value of your Saviour's death, and become a Socinian in good earnest. Let it come from what quarter it will, this point I will not let go.

{*I have not myself read it, nor have any opportunity to do so at this moment, or I would.}

What I think of law the reader may see in the tract the "Record" is commenting on. I will profit by the opportunity to state more distinctly what scripture sets before us as the measure of the Christian's walk, answering to the place grace has set him in, as contrasted with law. I make no modification of the plain statement of truth. We are not under the law for justification-that point I have treated. But though the Christian alone fulfils the law, it is not his rule of life. But then it is important to know what his rule of life is: that I shall now state.

75 His place is not under law but in Christ glorified in the presence of God. "As he is, so are we in this world." "As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy; as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Christ is the rule of walk, and what He is the measure of attainment. What answers to this glory of Christ is the presence of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, and sealing us for the day of redemption, when we shall be like Him and bear His image. Grieving the Spirit thus becomes the other measure of right and wrong for us, not breaking the law. Take Ephesians 4, "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." He is speaking of Christ ascended. The Spirit takes the things of Christ and shews them to us. "We, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Thus we grow up into the Head; all that is in Christ is the means of forming us by the power of the Holy Ghost into the same image. Thus, in Ephesians 4, again, we are to grow up into Him who is the Head (the exalted Christ) in all things, even Christ. Hence the truth as it is in Jesus is the having "put off the old man" altogether, and "put on the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." It is a new creature formed after God and into God's image. We are to forgive as God forgave — surely that is not law. Here also is found the other principle I have referred to, "Grieve not that Holy Spirit of promise by which ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Thus the stature of Christ Himself — the new man created after God in His image, and renewed in knowledge according to it, and not grieving the Holy Spirit, being an imitator of God as Christ displayed Him — this is the rule of life, the only rule of life for one who has been created again in Christ Jesus.

The two systems are undoubtedly at variance. One is law for justification, the flesh, Christ under law before His death, the law the rule of life. The other is the flesh judged, condemned, dead, no union with Christ in flesh, but now redemption accomplished, Christ risen our righteousness, we new creatures risen with Him and in this new place before God, the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. Our measure of attainment is Christ as He is, and now revealed in the heart, thus the image of God practically as revealed in Him here, and all accounted evil which grieves the Spirit of God in us.

76 Even when here, when His walk presents our practical rule, there were two parts in Christ's life: the obedient man under the law, and "God manifest in the flesh." We are called to imitate His walk in the latter character (Eph. 5: 1, 2); we are not in His place in the former.

POSTSCRIPT

I have been furnished, through the kindness of a friend, with a still more recent number of the "Record" than that to which I have referred above. It affords us an opportunity, for which I am very thankful, of judging of the system advocated by the "Record" and others who desire to be teachers of the law. I agree with the "Record" that the question is vital, that it tinges every part of the doctrine of those it attacks, as it does its own; indeed I have insisted on this above. It pervades, it justly says, the whole system of teaching. I am also glad that I have nothing to denounce, as I must when they speak of Christ's death as the "Record" did in the other article I have noticed. We can discuss calmly by scripture the justness of the statements, however shocking some of them may seem to me.

C. H. M., we are told, "holds and teaches the Darby doctrine of a gospel without a law. He denies to the law the place and position given it by all orthodox Christians, and hence his whole system is out of joint. It has no backbone, but goes goggling about like a mollusc." I leave to my reader the good taste of the phraseology; the meaning is very plain. Again, "The law of God cannot be wholly taken away from the gospel of God, and yet leave anything deserving the name of the gospel behind it." The Darby heresy is charged with teaching that "We are under quite a different principle from law, and under quite a different head from the first Adam." I pray the reader to notice this last statement, for it is the whole question: what they call heresy, I call Christianity. We are under quite a different principle from law, and under quite a different head from Adam.

But first I must notice some statements to correct them. It is difficult to do so only from the extreme ignorance and neglect of scripture which the "Record" displays. They accuse us of teaching that "Christ did not obey our law." This is simply false, unless our law is some other law than the law of God. I have stated the contrary in many places. One passage of scripture suffices: "Made of a woman, made under the law." Further, I hold that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully. It is useful to convince of sin, but it is not made for the righteous: at least so scripture says. Using it to convict a sinner of sin is a different thing from a Christian being under it; as different as having a sword with a handle, and running another through the body, from being run through oneself. The law is good, if a man use it lawfully; it is death and condemnation if he is under it. "It is the ministration of death and condemnation," as scripture teaches. Further, the law may be used as all scripture teaching which communicates the mind of God, as in Ephesians 6, where the importance attached to obedience to parents is noticed; God thinks so much of it that it is the first commandment to which a promise is attached. Further, the authority of the law is proved by those who have sinned under it being judged by it; a passage which at the same time disproves positively its universality, because this is contrasted with those who have sinned without law perishing without law. A Christian is not under it, because he has in Christ died and risen again. Of this I have spoken and shall have occasion briefly to refer to it.

77 I will here add a word as to sanctification. Scripture speaks of it, as both absolute and progressive. Where it is connected with justification however, in spite of "the orthodox," it precedes it in scripture. In its ordinary natural sense, it is absolute, and once for all. A vessel sanctified to God is set apart to Him simply and absolutely, and so is a person. We are saints by God's calling. But as a man is a compound being, and the flesh is there as well as the new nature, there may be, and ought to be, practical progress in practically reducing it to subjection, and in the new man's growing up to Him who is the Head, in all things. We are "sanctified in God the Father," "sanctified by the word," that is, set apart to God: so we are "washed, we are sanctified, we are justified," where it precedes justification. So when it is said we are "sanctified unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" — we are sanctified unto the blood of sprinkling That it is not by the law is carefully brought out when it is said; Christ is "of God made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." There, it may be said, it follows righteousness. I do not think it refers to application, but states what we are to hold as sanctification; but I make no resistance, as I think there is an intended order, though not a state described. The Spirit of God seems to me to be speaking of the first necessity as before God, righteousness; and then the actual result, as viewing the end of being actually before Him; and hence sanctification, the setting apart of the whole man according to what is in Christ Himself, is brought out afterwards; and then final delivery from our whole mortal state into glory, which is what I understand here by redemption.

78 In 1 Thessalonians 5: 23, we get what may justly be called progressive sanctification — "May the God of peace sanctify you wholly." Again, Hebrews 12: 14, "Follow after holiness." (See too 2 Cor. 3: 18.) These fully justify speaking of progress in holiness, or practical setting apart of the heart and mind to God by its being filled with Christ, provided that the first truth be held of a primary setting apart, which is absolute and once for all, and that in the way of a new life, being born of God — of water, and of the Spirit. If this be not held, sanctification becomes a mere gradual fitting of man as such for God, leaving out a new life, and denies that in that he is washed (λελουμένος) he needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. And this is a mischievous doctrine; and this, as far as I can see, is the doctrine of the "Record," the rather as it speaks of a peculiar view as to flesh. Does it not believe that the flesh is irreparably bad, and is not subject to the law of God (which is the "Record's" means of sanctifying), neither indeed can be? The "Record" must answer for itself in this. Does it believe in a new nature really imparted, that Christ becomes our life, and that thus we are in Christ sanctified to God, though this may be developed, as a child's life may, but is never in its nature other than it is at the beginning? What does the "Record" say? It does not venture meeting its adversaries on scripture truths.

The "Record" assures us that Romans 6 and 7 fully bring out its doctrine; it forgets to tell us where. But the appeal is a singular one. There we are told we are to reckon ourselves dead and alive to God through Christ; that sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under law but under grace; that we are delivered from the law, having died in that wherein we were held; that we cannot be subject to the law and Christ together — that it is as bad as having two husbands. Further, we get the effects of attempts at sanctification under law; namely, the discovery that there is no power; and that, when to will is present, there is no possibility of finding the means of performing what is good, so that the soul is forced to cry for deliverance — a deliverance which is found in Christ, because in Him we are no longer in the flesh at all. Thus the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made the Christian free from the law of sin and death; which the law could not do, because it was weak through the flesh. This, the "Record" tells us, teaches us the doctrine of progressive sanctification by means of the law! It really is infatuation.

79 I return to the accusation — that we hold that we are on another principle than law. Assuredly we do. I say with Paul, "Be ye as I am; ye have not injured me at all." We are under grace, not under law. We are not justified by the law. And as to the dominion of sin, we believe that sin will not have dominion over us because we are not under law but under grace. The principle we find in scripture is, being dead to the law by the body of Christ. Nothing can exceed the diligence and care with which the apostle — that is, the Spirit of God — teaches us that we are on a different principle from law. We are not under the first husband but the second; and death has wholly severed the bond. We are called upon to reckon ourselves dead to the principle on which the "Record" insists, and married to another to bring forth — and by which alone we can bring forth — fruit to God (namely, to Him that is risen from the dead).

Further, we are under quite a different head from the first Adam. This is the vital point — we are under the Second. We have died in Christ as under the first Adam, and belong to Christ only. We say "when we were in the flesh," because God has taught us so in His word. The truth is, it is difficult to understand how the writer of this article can be a Christian. If he be, he must have wholly neglected scripture. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in us; if not, we are not Christ's at all. We have died in Christ to our whole condition as under Adam headship — died in that which put away sin for us, and we know no head but Christ. The flesh remains, to lust against the Spirit, but we are called upon not to own it — to reckon ourselves dead, knowing there is no good thing in it. We are told we are dead; if dead with Christ, not living (alive) in the world.

The essence of the christian position is what the "Record" accuses us of as evil; and I earnestly entreat my reader to notice and weigh it, and search scripture as to it; namely, that we are not under Adam the sinful head, but, as dead to that entirely, wholly and solely under Christ as head, who is risen from the dead and sits at the right hand of God. We admit no other headship at all, though we have to contend with flesh as an enemy; but we are not in it, but in Christ. A person may know forgiveness by bloodshedding, and not enter into this; but to raise the question, and deny our being as dead and risen solely under Christ the Second man as head, and not under the first, is to deny the power of Christianity. I freely admit — insist upon it, that here, with every one who has learned Christianity from scripture, I am with earnest decision (as believing there is no good in my flesh) on wholly, entirely, eternally separated and opposite ground from the "Record." In fact its doctrine is a denial (through ignorance I doubt not) of Christianity. It does pervade all the system.

80 I merely add, that to say the taking away the law from the gospel leaves nothing deserving the name of the gospel, is a monstrous statement. Forgiveness, justification, eternal life, sovereign love, all, and still more than this, are ignored as of no consequence. The "Record" quotes, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Does the "Record" believe we get life by keeping the law? The statements of this article are incredible. Of course, under the law, to one who said "Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" no answer could have been given than "Keep the commandments." "This do and thou shalt live" is the principle of law. But was a law given which could give life? or is eternal life the gift of God through Jesus? Is not the whole teaching of the epistles, of Christianity itself, that neither life nor righteousness can be had by law? that Moses says, he that doeth shall live by them, but that the righteousness of faith speaks otherwise? Do we get life by the law, or by Christ? No doubt the path towards eternal life in its fulness in glory is the path of patient obedience. But to quote "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" as the way of attaining life, or as a sufficient rule of life, is setting Christ aside.

And this brings me to another question and to statements in the "Record" which again almost throw the Christianity of the critic into doubt. He accuses C. H. M. of writing "of something higher, better, than the law." Let him, he says, "tell us what it is, what specifically is the morality, the heart-holiness, that is higher than the commandments demand? Who exemplified it? for Christ did not. The law contented Him. That and that alone was in His heart. The ark was empty of all besides the two tables of stone. Let C. H. M. put his higher law in writing that we may read it and test it."

81 The simple answer to this is, God was in Christ. Was He (with reverence be it spoken) to love His neighbour as Himself? Was there nothing but this in Christ? Was this the highest standard of His walk? Let us continue the passage: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them." Did all His path not answer to this? Were His relationships to saints and sinners not founded on and characterized by this position? Did not all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him stamp His walk in everything as a man? But it will be said, He was no pattern for us in this. This, too, is a mistake. Let us still continue the passage. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." All are not apostles; but all are called, each in his place, to walk in the spirit and temper of this. See how the apostle speaks in 2 Corinthians 5, "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they that live should live henceforth not to themselves, but to him that died for them and rose again. Therefore if any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new; and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." Nor is the love of Christ in His death excepted from this following of Him. "Hereby," says the apostle John, "know we love, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Again, see the end of Ephesians 4 and beginning of chapter 5, and the parallel passage in Colossians 3, "And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." "Be ye therefore imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour."

I have anticipated this question, happily, already at the close of the article to which this is appended. I only add therefore, that it is quite evident that the actings of God in grace must be something quite different from the subjection of man to law in its highest form; and he who does not understand this understands neither what the grace of God nor what the law is.

I turn to the question of judgment. That we must all appear, or rather be manifested, before the judgment-seat of Christ, and receive the things done in the body, that every one of us must give an account of himself to God, is as plainly stated in the scriptures as possible (nor would any wise Christian seek to enfeeble its force); but that the believer has to look for Jesus in glory, and not for judgment, is equally certain. The passage quoted to the contrary by the "Record" is a most unhappy one for its purpose. Had it quoted the whole of it, it would have proved exactly the opposite of that for which it quotes it. That I shall do now. Let the reader judge. It begins with an "as," and the "so" which gives the answer the "Record" has left out. Let us have the whole: "As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." Thus far the "Record" quotes. But this is only laying the ground of the natural condition of man as the fallen race of Adam. Then follows what Christianity is — the part that the "Record" has left out: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." That is, Christ's second coming for the believer is for final deliverance or salvation, in contrast to judgment. Man was under death and judgment; but, as to believers, Christ bore their sins, and comes again for their salvation. No passage could shew more truly the truth on this subject. The "Record" quotes the first half to shew the believer's portion.

82 Every one who can read the original knows that John 5 is a distinct statement that the believer will not come into judgment. First, both the Father and Christ are spoken of as quickening or giving life. But the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son, thereby securing His glory in the case of the unwilling and the wicked. But the cases are not confounded. "He," says the Saviour, "who heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life." Hence we read at the end, there is a resurrection to life and a resurrection to judgment.

That we wait for Christ in glory, consequently, scripture makes plain: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Are we not to believe that Christ will come and receive believers into glory? Is that taking them up to raise the question, whether they are to be accepted or not? And if we take the saints who have died, it is, if possible, still more absurd; for they have been in blessedness with Him. Are they to be brought afterwards to judgment, to know whether they will be accepted or not?

83 Again, take the resurrection: "it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." We must be judged after we are glorified, if we are thence taken to judgment. I might cite many other passages — Philippians 3, for instance. None is stronger than the one the "Record" has quoted the half of to prove the contrary. The doctrine of a general judgment at the end, in which the acceptance of the believer is to be settled, is not Christianity. It teaches that Christ's first coming was a perfect and saving work for those who, through grace, believe on Him; that they are accepted in the Beloved and loved as He is loved; but that all will be brought out in the presence of God. But believers know that, when Christ shall appear, they shall be like Himself; as it is so beautifully stated in 1 John 4, "Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world." Christ has borne their judgment, their sins; and when they appear before Him, they will meet Him who has done so. Christ's coming is, for them, their final bringing into glory.

We have now to take up the question of what the Church is. On this point I can well suppose beloved saints not seeing clear, but I distinctly maintain the doctrine which the "Record" attacks. The Church, a thing spoken of in the doctrinal part of scripture only by Paul, is composed, according to scripture, only of the saints from Pentecost till the Lord comes to receive it to Himself. We must distinguish between salvation and an assembly. When men speak of the Church, Christians have a general vague idea of all the redeemed. If we say "assembly," we can easily understand that individuals can be saved without forming an assembly. We can easily understand that Israel was an assembly — as it is often called in the Old Testament — without confounding it with an assembly formed of Jew and Gentile, by the breaking down of that middle wall of partition, the maintenance of which alone maintained the Jewish assembly. Even in heaven we find an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly (πανήγυρις), the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven (ἐχχλησία), and the spirits of just men made perfect, all distinguished. Now the christian assembly, properly called the Church, neither was revealed nor existed, nor could have existed, before the death of Christ and the mission of the Holy Ghost. The Jewish assembly was that of the people contrasted with the nations. The christian church is, ostensibly and in its real purpose, the gathering together in one of the children of God scattered abroad. These two, Israel and the assembly, are noticed as distinct objects of Christ's death in that remarkable comment on the prophecy of Caiaphas: He gave Himself "not for that nation only, but that he might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad." This distinction between Israel and the assembly is brought into distinct relief when the Lord, setting aside Israel for a time, added to the Church the remnant of them that escaped by grace. At the end, when the christian saints get their heavenly portion, Israel will be established as a whole.

84 I will now shew that the Christian Church had never been revealed before Christ. "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began." (Rom. 16: 25.) "Whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." (Eph. 3: 4-6.) "And to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things: to the intent that now to the principalities and to the powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." (ver. 9, 10.) "Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints." (Col. 1: 25, 26.) Thus we see that with this manifold wisdom of God, neither man nor principalities and powers in heavenly places could have any acquaintance; it was hid in God.

Next, I say that the Church did not exist, any more than the knowledge of it was given. The first time it is mentioned in scripture is when the confession of Christ's being the Son of the living God is made by Simon, and the Lord declares that on this Rock, now first thus revealed, He will build His Church, a thing yet future. I may add that in the following chapter the glory of the kingdom is revealed, and in chapter 18 the Church is practically substituted for the synagogue.

85 Next, when the Holy Ghost is come down and the disciples have been baptized with it, we find, as we have seen in the beginning of Acts, "The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."

We now turn to divine teaching on the subject, which, as we have said, is found only in Paul: not even the word is found elsewhere, save as applied to a local church. It is distinctly founded, in the end of Ephesians 1, on the exaltation of the man Christ above all principalities and powers (we being quickened together with Him, to be united with Him in this place). In chapter 2, where the effectuating of these truths is unfolded, it is expressly taught that it is by the breaking down of the middle wall of partition by Christ's death, and reconciling both Jew and Gentile in one body by the cross, making in Himself of twain one new man; and then shewing that we are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit — a different kind of dwelling of God from that which formed the centre of the assembly of Israel. All this is enlarged and insisted upon, and applied to our walk in this new condition in chapters 3 and 4 from which I have quoted already, and to which the reader may refer. If we turn to 1 Corinthians we are taught how the unity of the body is formed. We are the body of Christ and members in particular; and it is by one Spirit we have been all baptized into one body; and we are expressly taught in the beginning of Acts that this baptism took place at the day of Pentecost. "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence."

Thus the formation of the body is distinctly revealed to date from the day of Pentecost. The Church according to God did not exist before. I add that it could not have existed before; first, because the head was not yet in heaven, to which the body was to be united; secondly, that consequently the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified; and thirdly, as to its actual formation on earth, because it was founded on the breaking down of the middle wall of partition by Christ's death. Its existence in the mind of God is nothing to the purpose — that it did from all eternity. And the question still remains, What existed in the mind of God to be revealed in due time? And this, if scripture is to be believed, was the gathering together Jew and Gentile in one body, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, consequent upon the exaltation of the Christ to the right hand of God. I would just warn the reader to take notice of the double character of the Church: its being the body of Christ on the one hand, and the habitation of God through the Spirit on the other. The confusion of these two is that which has been the foundation of the abuses of Popery and Puseyism, attributing, sacramentally, the privileges of the one to those who have part in the other. The Lord's Supper alone, even as a sign, is connected with the unity of the body.

86 The "Record" quotes many coming from the east and from the west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, as a proof that they belonged to the Church, the body of Christ. But this is mere blundering: the kingdom of God is not the body of Christ. The reader may see, from the quotation from C. H. M., which immediately follows in the "Record," that it is expressly taught, that they will be in the heavenly glory. No further remark as to this theme is called for.

The subject of the Sabbath I approach with more fear, though perfectly clear in my own mind about what scripture teaches, because it really requires, in order to understand it, a knowledge of God's ways, and because of the abuse likely to be made of it by those who are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. But as the subject has been raised, I will refer to it.

Were I merely arguing against the Sabbath, as people say, I might cite the fact of the entire omission of any reference to it in the "Sermon on the Mount," where the spirituality of the law is insisted on. I might cite the fact, that in every instance in which it is mentioned, the Lord throws a slight upon it, Christ declaring the Son of man to be Lord of it. I might appeal to history, shewing that the primitive church was unaware of its obligation, and treated it as Judaism, and that there were even stringent canons against the observance of it. I might challenge the "Record" (not "stoutly to maintain," which it is easy to do, but) to give some scriptural proof or authority for the change of day it talks of; but all this would misrepresent my feelings on the subject. I hold it to be one of vast and important bearing; because a part in the rest of God seems to me distinctive of the blessing belonging to God's people, whatever the foreshadowing of it may be. A promise is left us of entering into God's rest; and it must be God's rest, and not rest without God, if such were even possible.

The sabbath did begin in Paradise: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Into this rest man never entered, as Hebrews 4 assures us. That it was a law imposed upon man departed from God has no sort of scripture proof; and I flatly deny it. To make one totally departed from God an obliged partaker in God's rest, nothing but unintelligent legalism could have thought of. But I believe, from the Lord's own statement, that "the sabbath was made for man;" that its observation would have been a temporal blessing to man condemned to labour, and a continual remembrancer, in the scene into which sin had brought him, that his hopes and blessings were elsewhere. That men forget all this we know too well. But the moment that God brought man, in a covenant way, into relation to Himself by redemption, He made the sabbath a sign of the covenant. God's rest belongs to God's people. As the form of that covenant was legal, it was given in a legal way. And it is remarkable that in every particular institution, on which in any respect the relationship of God with Israel was based under the old covenant, the sabbath enters for part; and the prophets allude to this as a sign of the covenant. Outside this we only get traces of it in hebdomadal [weekly] divisions of time, as in the cases of Noah and Jacob.

87 But that old covenant, in which the sabbath was made legally obligatory, was to be done away, and the time of Messiah, the true rest of His creation, was to come in. We have here, therefore, to consider how the Lord Jesus deals with the sabbath. We have already seen that He does not introduce it in His spiritual summary of practice in the Sermon on the Mount. Nor can the smallest instance be found in which He sets up or insists upon its authority. But when He goes out of Judaism and reveals Himself as Son of man, He declares that He is Lord of it. Speaking in His divine character, when charged with the breach of it, His language is still more striking — "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Grace might labour in a world of sin; but neither the holiness nor the love of the Father and Son could find their rest in a world of sin and misery. No one can find in the writings of the New Testament a word that insists upon the moral obligation of the sabbath. When the question arose between Jew and Gentile Christians as to what was to be maintained as obligatory, the sabbath was not one of the things insisted upon. Have we then lost the rest of God? or even every trace of it here below? God forbid! And I have no doubt that the last words, "The sabbath was made for man," remain in practice a true blessing now for man; but when we come to spiritual hopes of that rest, it is a different matter. The rest of God in the first creation is over, because sin has entered. It will, I doubt not, have its sabbath; but that will be in the millennium, in a new order of things. It is not a seventh day, but the seventh day — God's rest after finishing His work.

88 But our rest is not in this creation. We have been rejected out of it, as Christ has been too, who (if man had not been a sinner as he was) had power to bring in rest, when He first came. But now He has introduced us by resurrection into a new and heavenly rest of God, a brighter and a better hope; and the seventh day, the sabbath, the sign of the old covenant, the rest of this creation, in no way meets our hopes. For the writer of the "Record," who puts us under Adam headship, this might do, but not for a Christian; and, even so, it is impossible, for how could a sinner have the rest of God under the old covenant? And what introduces us into this new and better hope? It is resurrection — the resurrection of our blessed Lord. In the grave on the sabbath (the only rest He found here), He rises up to begin, as the head of the new creation, brighter and better hopes founded on His sacrifice. Hence, to the Christian Church, the first day of the week, as all the New Testament after His resurrection testifies, not the seventh, becomes the sign and pledge of her rest. It is not a law, but established by the testimony of scripture. It is monstrous, as Christians, to say or think that the neglect of that which is not established by law is not ruinous in its nature. We do not pray by law, nor read scripture by law. And this day is marked out in the New Testament. The day of Christ's resurrection He met His disciples assembled; the next first day He did the same. The first day of the week, we read, "the disciples met together to break bread."* The first day of the week they were to lay by for the poor, as God had prospered them. And in Revelation 1 it is formally called "the Lord's day," with the testimony that John was in the Spirit on it. To make it the seventh day, and a mere change of day, which scripture always positively contradicts, is to confound the old creation (which is under condemnation by sin) with the new, into which we are risen with Christ in resurrection. That corrupt Christianity, which has lost all spirituality, should have lost this altogether, is but too natural; that reformed Christendom could only go back to the law, and make a seventh day of it, is only one of the sad proofs how little its members have known the privileges that God has conferred on us.

{*["When we came together," &c., as the true reading runs, rather strengthens the case as being more distinctively Christian. — ED.]}

89 I add, that as long as Christianity is to be the nominal religion of the world, or of a country, it must live by institutions, although its tone and character will be really expressed by its preaching. Now of all these institutions, though there are others, the institution of the christian sabbath has, though greatly abused, by far the widest and most beneficent influence on the masses. It is the poor man's day, and the family day; two objects to which, in the government of the human race, God attaches peculiar importance. And here I may apply the expression, "The sabbath was made for man." In Popery and in Puseyism, christian institutions, blended with an immense power of Satan over the imagination, have been turned into puerilities and superstitions. Man has been put between man and God. The measure of right and wrong having fallen below that of natural conscience, and sin, what I may call, pried into by man, with occasional individual devotedness, the masses have been universally morally degraded, or, if not, turned infidel. The dissenters (while there are many individuals in their ranks more excellent and devoted than myself) appear to me in the old world to be now in an entirely false position; and the same remark applies to all denominations in the new world, where, as there is no Establishment, there can be no dissent. They profess to build up and form the true church upon its own proper principles, and at the same time grasp energetically at the masses and the world. What the state of Presbyterianism is, where it does not come under the category of dissent in the old world, is sufficiently known not to call for any remark from me. The consequence has been, since the full freedom of dissent, a tendency to adapt Christianity itself to the progress of the age, and hence towards latitudinarianism and rationalism, from which the Establishment itself, though with more fixed formularies, knows perhaps still less how to free itself. In the midst of all this God surely carries on His own work; and I have no doubt the just maintenance of the christian sabbath is, as I have said, a great blessing as regards God's government of the professing world. But this is another thing from the truth of eternal life — another thing from the narrow path in which the Christian has to walk.

I would make one remark here (and they might be multiplied if I were to notice everything), that the ten commandments and Christ's commandments are most unwarrantably confounded. It is in vain to say that Christ was the Jehovah who gave the ten. Christ's commandments in the New Testament and the ten commandments in the Old Testament are clearly defined and distinct one from another. Commandments I insist upon, and not merely on doing right; because obeying command is obedience to Him who commands, and not merely doing right. But under the law the commandments were ordained to life, as in the passage quoted by the "Record" — "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments:" but it was found to be unto death to us. Christ is that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us, and His commandments are the expression of that life and His authority as thus come. When we receive Christ, we possess this life; and His commandments are His guidance and His blessed authority over us at the same time.

90 I return briefly to the great principle already noticed — the "Record's" accusation that we teach that we are under another headship than Adam. Now I entreat the reader to consult Romans 5, 6, and 7, and see if the apostle is not there laboriously teaching that we are not under the first Adam, or in the flesh at all, in our standing before God, but in Christ. Let him take Ephesians 2, let him take Colossians 2 and 3, and see if there be any other head but Christ. Let him take 1 Corinthians 15 and see whether our place is not in the last Adam. What is the meaning of having a second man, and the last Adam, if the first is to remain our head? Are we to have two heads — a fallen one and a risen one? To say that our fallen nature of flesh remains in us now, is quite true, but does not hinder the believer saying, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." I will not go farther; I am almost ashamed to insist upon that which I should have thought would be familiar to every scripturally informed Christian. But this I say, that this passage in the article of the "Record" shews its whole system in the clearest manner to be fatally and fundamentally unscriptural.

Brief notice of the

Record's

comments on "J. N. D.'s" letter.

J. N. Darby.

<10004E> 91

It seems to me that in the four tracts — "The Righteousness of God," "A Letter on the Righteousness of God, in answer to the 'Record,'" "The Law," and "Brethren and their Reviewers" — I have gone sufficiently fully into the question which has been raised as to legal righteousness to make it unnecessary to pursue the subject farther at present. Controversy may instruct but it seldom feeds the soul. It is my comfort to know that in my controversial tracts the great truths of grace have been pretty largely brought out, so that there may be edification as well as conviction. I am more than ever convinced that the question which now occupies us involves the true character of Christianity. Is our connection with Christ association or union with Him risen, consequent on accomplished redemption, or one under law, and Christ living on the earth the One with whom we are united? But as the pamphlet comprising the articles in the "Record" has been published and circulated, and professes to give a fair account of the views set forth in my tracts, and that in my own words, I am obliged to say that its statements, in most essential points, are entirely false; I can hardly avoid saying deliberately false. I could, of course, suppose that the writer had overlooked statements I had made. But statements the opposite of what the "Record" declares to be my doctrine are found on the same page with quotations the "Record" has made from my letter, so that they could hardly have escaped the writer.

I shall here merely give the statements of the "Record" and my statements, and every one will judge how far the "Record" is exact. Its honesty I leave to the reader's own appreciation:

Record, in reply to my Letter.

J.N.D. holds, then, and teaches that when Adam was created he was put under no law. p. 14.

J.N.D.'s Letter, on which the "Record" comments, p. 23.

Adam had a law, that is plain; a simple test of obedience before the knowledge of good and evil. Moses gave from God a law when man had the knowledge of good and evil, and suited to that state. Both these suppose the express authority of God. They both impose a rule under a penalty.

92 Record, p. 41.

The "Record" in stating the leading points of alleged evil in my theology, says,

The fourth step required before the Darby theology can find a resting-place for the sole of its foot, is, that the Lord Jesus Christ did not keep the law. The very utterance of the words we hold to be profanity.

My Letter.

He (Christ) kept the law surely; He was born under it. p. 17.

And being born under law, He could not but be perfect under it — in His person and walk. That is above all enquiry. It is received by the simplicity of faith as truth. p. 18.

Now I will commence by stating that I hold the maintenance of the law, in its true and highest character, to be of the deepest importance, and necessary to a right and full apprehension of divine teaching. It is the abstract perfection of a creature, loving God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves; and this Christ most surely did in all He did. p. 22.

Did not God, then, magnify the law, and make it honourable? Undoubtedly. I have already said it was the perfect law of the creature abstractedly; and Christ came under the law, and God glorified His law thus; and it was most right and just. p. 35.

The merely coming down to die would not have failed in putting away sin, but in glorifying God as a living man. p. 37.

The same doctrine is repeated elsewhere, as in p. 21 of my letter, but this may suffice.

Record, p. 43.

Mr. Darby says a thousand times that grace is contrasted with righteousness; and that, just because it is of grace, it cannot also be of righteousness.

Mr. Darby would have grace without righteousness; the apostle would have grace reigning through righteousness.

Letter.

Grace reigned, but reigned through righteousness, Jew or Gentile, when the matter was looked into, being all alike. p. 40.

As Christ is righteousness to us, and we are the righteousness of God in Him, we are accepted, according to God's character, righteously in Him. His infinite value, including therein His work, is our title before God. p. 41.

Are we not saved, then, made righteous, by one man's obedience? Surely, as contrasted with Adam's disobedience; but not by the works of law of one man. p. 35.

I add from my original tract: "The Righteousness of God:"

93 "We need, and have a perfect righteousness apart from our life, though in Him who is our life. Christ is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. No soul can or ought to have solid settled peace in any other way. The whole perfection of Christ is that in which, without any diminution of its value, we are accepted. The delight of God in His obedience is that in which we are received. What we have done as children of Adam, He took on the cross in grace, and entirely put away; and what He did is our acceptance with God. It is needed for us, for otherwise we have no righteousness."

From this page the "Record" quotes, as from others which I have cited, from my letter. The statement is one in which I am insisting on imputed righteousness as contrasted with inherent, which would be life in us.

Again in the same tract: "Now I believe, and bless God for the truth, that Christ is our righteousness, and that by His obedience we are made righteous. It is the settled peace of my soul."

Record, p. 7.

J. N. D. denies that the Homily contains our doctrine, and maintains that it affirms his own.

Letter.

The Homilies of the Establishment teach that Christ fulfilled the law for us in His life.

Were I answering the statements of the collected articles of the "Record" I should have many things to complain of as unfair, and as suppressions of my statements. I only give cases of positive false statements, by which any one may judge whether what the "Record" says is to be trusted. I have only to request, as I did before, that anyone who pretends to judge my doctrine may learn it from my own publications. The points are serious and important, and I felt it well sincere souls should know the truth, and what they and I have to deal with. The main subject — Is our righteousness effected by Christ's keeping the law? — has been amply discussed. Of the attacks on "Brethren" I of course take no notice. I gladly add that Bethesda openly disclaims having anything to say to "Brethren," as much as Mr. Newton; I understand it professes to be an open communion Baptist church.

Further remarks upon Righteousness and Law:

with answers to different objections.

J. N. Darby.

<10005E> 95

No person with christian feeling will expect that I should bandy abuse with Dr. Carson: it is not my intention. Nor do I complain of any attacks upon me. Of the statements of the "Record," or of Dr. Tregelles, I shall not take any notice whatever. Dr. Tregelles has profited by the present attacks against brethren to seek to bolster up Mr. Newton's doctrine. I shall not be turned aside from the main subject of the law by any such effort. That doctrine should be discussed fully, if such discussion were called for, directly from the statements of the author. That is not my object here. I seek only to take up every argument by which the main point of the present controversy may be assailed; namely, Did Christ keep the law substitutionally for us, so that we have righteousness thereby (that is, Are we justified by the deeds of the law fulfilled by Christ)?

I only refer to one fact in Dr. C.'s statements. His judgment of its motives, I leave between him and his readers. One edition of "Brethren and their Reviewers" was published without a paragraph as to Dr. C.'s tract, another with it in. There is no statement that Dr. C. told an untruth. And I do not know why I should not be at perfect liberty to leave the passage out if I thought proper. Had I done so, courtesy might have expressed regret for putting it in. But the fact is, one edition was published under my eye in Canada, having sold largely to all kinds of people there, while a number were sent to England. English publishers asked permission to republish it in England; which was given. Those of the first edition sent to England having some considerable faults of impression, the publisher of the new English edition employed a person in England to revise it — a friend of mine. He, as I have learned since I returned to England, struck his pen through the passage, judging, I suppose, the point referred to, beneath notice.* He may be right: I have doubts that he was. But I certainly think it undesirable to change a person's tracts without his knowledge. I attach no importance to it; but I think it should not have been done. I was wholly ignorant of it till it was shewn me in Dr. C.'s attack the day I left Canada for the States to come to England. I am quite willing to accept Dr. C.'s explanation of the contradiction on the cover of his tract, namely, that he had orders for the whole five thousand, and so stated it was sold. But I still think it was a glaring contradiction to sell a tract which positively declared that it was one of the first five thousand then and there sold, and to state on the back of the same cover that the first five thousand were all sold already. Dr. C.'s statement may explain it; but the thing to be explained remains a contradiction on the face of it. I know nothing, of course, of what was ordered of Dr. C.; but I know that a tract was bought for me which professed to be itself one of the first five thousand, and which also declared that the first five thousand were all sold.

{*But, he tells me, at the suggestion of the publisher.}

96 I now turn to the weighty subject of righteousness and the law, and shall take up any objection I find without minding who makes it. I write for souls, and heed not where the objection is found. The first serious question is, if all Christ's obedience was mere law-fulfilling. It is said, if He loved God with all His heart, He always kept the law. No doubt; but that does not touch the question. The question is, if that be the whole character and principle of His obedience, whether He did not do more than keep the law. "Every acting of the creature," we are told, "is in accordance with the law laid down by God — or else in opposition to it. The incarnate Son of God formed no exception." Now, this statement assumes that all are under the law, and that the law is the measure and principle of the believer's conduct, and that no action of Christ could go beyond the obligations of the creature under law. It is the whole proposition, and its foundation and principle, which I deny. There are things in which we obey which are not within the scope of law at all; more, truly, none of our obedience is on the principle of law, or its obligation, as its motive or measure; it is that to which neither accordance with law, nor opposition to it, can be applied. I mean the actings of grace; love to sinners; the superiority of the divine nature over evil.

Law may be the perfect rule of man's duty towards God and his neighbour; that, no doubt, Christ fulfilled. But it is not the measure of God's actings in grace toward man, and that Christ displayed too; and yet did so in obedience to His Father. But no law of loving God as the responsibility of the creature to God can measure Christ's self-sacrifice for us, nor, consequently, the path in which we are called upon to follow Him. The will of God is not all made up of law (that is, of the measured rule of creature-duty). No doubt, Christ loved God perfectly; but to make Christ's sacrifice the measure of the creature's duty in accordance with law, or else in opposition to it, is monstrous. Was He not obedient, then? But scripture is very distinct on this point. It contrasts obedience with law as much as anything else.

97 First, as to the passage quoted — Romans 5: 19: we are told, that "His whole life, as the law-fulfiller, constituted the obedience by which many are made righteous." Now, how does the passage speak? It speaks of Adam and Christ as two heads of races subordinated to them, in contrast with law, shewing that we must not confine Christ to those under law, since death and sin had reigned when there was none — between Adam and Moses — over those who had not transgressed any covenant like Adam. (Hos. 6: 7.) And Christ's work could not be limited within bounds short of sin and sinners. It is a contrast between sin and law-breaking; the passage shewing that it was not simply by law-breaking, but by a disobedience which applied to those who were not under law, and an obedience which did the same, that evil and good came; and making, not individual law-keeping, but their state in their respective heads, the true ground of ruin or righteousness, and then adds, in direct explicit contrast with this: "(But) law entered that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Romans 5: 19 is the summary of the argument of the obedient and disobedient man in contrast with law; and not only so, but declares that the law came in by the by as a distinct thing. Verses 12, 13, 14, 20, shew that the apostle diligently argues here against obedience, sin, or righteousness being confined to law-breaking or law-fulfilling. But this is not all. In chapter 6, the apostle raises the question, in practice: whether not being under law is a reason for sinning, as is alleged. "Sin," he assures us, on the contrary, "shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under law, but under grace." And then shews that, though not under law, we yield ourselves up to obedience unto righteousness. He contrasts christian obedience and law. Taking from under law might seem, as with our modern legal divines, to take away from obedience. The answer of the apostle is, "In no wise." We get from under the power of sin, because we are not under law; and we obey as servants to righteousness and to God, being not under law. In a word, the passage quoted to shew that obedience is law-fulfilling is an elaborate argument of the apostle's to shew that, while doubtless Christ kept the law, as to Him and as to us obedience is insisted on outside, and in contrast with, law.

98 But it is said, we confound all laws together. I take it as the word of God does. That law is not the way of righteousness or sanctification, nor of obedience. Paul does not even say the law. Law came in by the by (νόμος παρεισῆλθε), that system and way of dealing on God's part. He carefully distinguishes men under law, and men not under law — without it; he alludes to Adam as under a law, Israel also; whereas people between them are on a different ground: so all Gentiles, having no law (νόμον); so Christians. I know that great pains are taken to undo his words, and shew they must have had some law, though the apostle declares they have none, and perish without it, instead of being judged by the one which was given. I know that it is urged they were a law to themselves where they had none, because they had a conscience; but this is only to prove that actual righteousness by conscience is better than the having a law and breaking it; that working good was better than having a law, if it was broken. Scripture contrasts being under law and being without law, and does not know these speculations on it. What it calls law as absolutely as words can make it, it declares the Gentiles to be without (μὴ ἔχοντες νόμον), having no law at all. It does say every one has a conscience which tells him of right and wrong. They are without law — χωρὶς νόμον. They are inexcusable, from natural proofs of God, and as giving up God when they knew Him. But they are not proved guilty by any law they were under; but it is declared, having sinned without law (ἀνόμως), they will perish without law — while others have sinned under law, and will be judged by it. The sense in which scripture says they were without law and had none, in that sense I believe and say it. Nothing can be more absolute. The reasonings of men as to it are all inventions not found in scripture. What scripture calls law, Gentiles and Christians are not under. I know passages are quoted to shew that they must be, in spite of what scripture says. I shall refer to these. Ignorance of Greek can hardly excuse the use of some of them, where positive scriptures are so plain.

Sin, we are told, is the transgression of the law. Now, no one knowing Greek could cite this theological, but fatally unscriptural, translation. It is simply, Sin is lawlessness, ἀνομία, not παράβασις νόμον. Another passage quoted is, "under the law to Christ;" but neither here is the law spoken of at all; it is, not as lawless in respect of God, but rightly subject to Christ — ἔννομος Χριστῶ. It is in contrast with having to say to the law. But there is another passage which is reckoned on to prove that all men are under law, Romans 3: 19. It is astonishing how any one could so little see the force of the apostle's argument. I am aware that Dr. O'Brien refers to this; but I am only so much the more astonished. The apostle had proved Jews and Greeks all under sin, and then turns back to the many advantages the Jews had. He was not derogating from them. Well, he says, you have the oracles of God. Let us hear them. Are we better than Gentiles? You are as much under sin as the Gentiles. Read your own books, from which he then cites passages, and, relying on the claim of the Jews that the law belonged to them, that the law spoke to those who were under it, applies these denunciations to the Jews who were; thus stopping their mouths by their own oracles, which they claimed as belonging exclusively to them. There you are then, says Paul. You say the scriptures apply to you, and that is what they say; and then every mouth is stopped. That the Gentile was a sinner was admitted; they were not Jews by nature. But their own oracles brought in the Jews too; and every mouth was stopped. How any one could think that the statement that the law spoke to those who were under it, meant that it spoke to all, when the subject is the Jews alone possessing it and its advantages, would be hard to think, but for the prejudices of a system. I do not go on to insist on what follows, that the righteousness of God is manifested (χωρὶς νόμον ) absolutely apart from law, because I have done it elsewhere.

99 But we are told of absolute law, and referred to Hooker. Hooker, as is known, pleaded the cause of the Episcopalian Establishment against Travers, resting it on the nature of law, with a view to justify the obligation of what was not contained in scripture. I have nothing to do with his views; but it is singular enough that what is referred to contains the germ of the two principal infidel doctrines of the present day, and of the Puseyite movement — quite unknown, surely, to himself; but a false principle bears its fruit in its own season. One is the subjecting God to the law He has imposed on Himself in a way which destroys His sovereignty; the other exalting conscience under the name of right reason: quoting Plato, Aristotle, &c., for proof, so as to give conscience a title, enfeebling that of scripture; and on the other hand, insisting (contrary to the Reformers) that scripture does not prove itself, but we must have proof of it from another source; and further, that scripture does not contain full direction for men. I quite admit he did not contemplate the consequences. But the great stand-point of infidels now is that, God acting necessarily by, and having established, uniform law, miracles are impossible; and that conscience or right reason must judge of scripture. That scripture cannot prove itself is the war-horse of Popery, as is its insufficiency.

100 Here are the author's words on the first point (vol. 1: 204 of Keble's edition, book 1, chap 2: 3), "That law, the Author and Observer whereof is one only God to be blessed for ever," &c. "The law whereby He worketh is eternal, and therefore can have no show or colour of mutability," &c. "Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let, or hindered; because the imposition of this law upon Himself is His own free and voluntary act. This law, therefore, we may name eternal, being that order which God, before all ages, hath set down with Himself for Himself to do all things by." Now this (however far it was from Hooker's mind) excludes all miracles. It is the modern ground of denial of them. If Hooker had said, God has established a law for nature and left Himself free, it had been all well. Then nature would go on orderly, as Hooker speaks of it, and God interfere in power, when He pleased, for good. And in this he might have well said, "God could not act inconsistently with His own blessed nature." But farther on we shall see a little the danger in practice of entering on such a ground. Still, in a general way, we can say, "God who cannot lie."

Hooker takes up these forms of law, first, a rule imposed by authority, alone held to be such by some, which he extends to any rule by which actions are framed. I have no objection. The first only is properly law, and the difference is all-important; but the second is often in a secondary sense so called, as the law of faith, the law of the spirit of life; so in natural things, the law of gravity. But scripture, speaking of law as such, uses it in the former sense. The fact of an imposed rule (as contrasted with the voluntary actings of nature, uniform because it is such) is capital. But to return a moment to Hooker. He classes under the general idea of law, nature's laws, what angels observe, the law of reason (he never speaks of conscience, which is by no means immaterial), divine law known but by special revelation, human law, suppose conformed to one of the last two. The first two he calls law eternal. God may overrule, he alleges, the law imposed on the creature — nature's law — according to the law which Himself hath eternally proposed to keep. Still this is eternal and immutable. I quote this to shew that as to this highest law, however overruling power may operate, God is, though by His own act imposing it on Himself, immutably bound. Now this is surely unsound. God will not act contrary to His nature, for then He would not be Himself, which is impossible. But it is not an imposed law; or freedom, grace, miracle, sovereign goodness, are all taken away from God. The reader must not think this metaphysical. I am speaking of what I have been referred to as setting me right. And we shall soon see it is at the root of the whole matter.

101 Law is the rule of just conduct in the relationship in which we stand — its measure. Now I will suppose that conscience perfectly maintains this rule. This is, in fact, impossible, because man got the knowledge of right and wrong when he broke from his relationship with God (hence law can only condemn, as the apostle shews); as if a son have gone off in rebellion, he may not steal, &c., may judge of right and wrong, but he can do nothing right till he repents and goes back home again. But I will suppose conscience does maintain its rule — conscience can only maintain the rule of duty according to the place I am in. This shuts out — not the conferring of greater benefits (Adam innocent, for example, might have gone to heaven), but — dealings of grace and sovereign goodness to evil doers. These cannot be a law in any sense: God is free in His mercy. Part of the law of His nature is to be so. Hence the apostle shews us that grace and law cannot go together. Well, what Christianity teaches is, that God has acted so. In contrast with all that law, man's duties, and all right reason could tell man, He has given His Son for sinners. It may confirm law in the highest way, because it meets its obligation and curse in the death of the blessed Son of God: but there is no law for God's giving Christ to die for us, no right reason to talk of obligation, save as shewing we have been wanting to it. Even to understand this gift, man must be taught of God. It would have been audacious sin for man to have looked for it. God has acted in sovereign grace. When He has, I by grace apprehend it. He is free, infinite in goodness, in doing it. If He is not free in it, I have lost grace. It is according to His blessed nature, for He is love; but its free actings above all that could be imposed on it. It is an act, not a law; though an act according to the perfection of His nature, which is always such. This saves me, not by any law, but by redemption, by power. Along with this, I partake of this nature as born of God.

102 Now, Christ came to accomplish this work in obedience, but not according to any law imposed on man. He did love God perfectly in it, which law required, but He came to fulfil the work out of sovereign love to man a sinner. He became obedient in this special service which was not in itself any "rule or canon by which actions are framed," though He fulfilled the highest formula of law in doing it, but He was not accomplishing any law in what He did, but a special sovereign will of God. There was no uniform rule or canon by which actions are framed in God's giving His Son, none by which the Son offered Himself. God prepared Him a body. No doubt, when a man, He obeyed, and being born under the law, He obeyed the law; but obedience to will, when there is no law, is the highest, truest, and most absolute obedience, personal subjection, absolute and entire, without any law to measure it. This Christ did. And this we have to do. We have, as born of God, a nature which delights to do it, and asks no law or measure, but asks a will — is glad there is a will. It is this which, even in ordinary walk, is contrasted (that is, law and obedience) in Romans 6. It is thus that Christ baffled Satan. He waited for a will to act, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live." A word comes out — I act. None comes — I wait. The delight to do God's will, whatever it is, and to do it because it is, and having no motive when it is not revealed, this is true obedience.

Note, I may fulfil the law by this; but it is not by being under the law, nor in virtue of it, that I do so, but the contrary; and this is what the apostle insists on. Nor was it assuredly because Christ was under law that He died for sinners. He came freely into obedience by His own love, and accomplished the work of obedience to a special sovereign will, though in doing so He proved when man, His perfect love to God, and even before it to His Father. And He did it in obedience. Note, hence this kind of obedience does not exclude commandments; it supposes them. It does exclude taking the requirements of law as the motive and principle of conduct; it alone fulfils it. But it is not obedience of law and under law.

I repeat, it is exactly in this way (Christ, the blessed One, being our life) we are called to obey. Obedience is not the estimate of a measured rule, a canon to which we are bound, but the delight in love which refers to a person whose every command and expression of will governs this nature. Thereupon commands, precepts, perception of His mind, of what is pleasing to Him, all govern us; the written word being that which ministers this to us. I repeat, he who keeps the Lord's commands, loves. He who loves Him, and so his neighbour, has fulfilled the law; but subjection of delight to anything a person wills is absolute obedience, not a canon or measure I refer to, though in doing it I fulfil the canon. I am not ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμον, but ἔννομος Χριστῶ. I prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God, having offered my body a living sacrifice.

103 All I find in Hooker on this point then is, subjecting God to a self-imposed law, destroying the possibility of miracles, or free sovereign grace, and destroying thus along with it the true principle of christian obedience and acting in grace after Christ's example. It is evident, if we speak of a law binding on the conscience of any being, it must be a law suited to his nature according to the measure of it; and so God's law expressly is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." Now this is evidently the measure, and must be so to the conscience. Man may be incapable of it through sin; but that is the normal measure.

Now the love of the Son to the Father (may we ever speak with adoration and reverence of Him!) was infinitely above this in its nature. No doubt, when a man, He fulfilled what the law thus required; but His service to the Father was none the less according to His love to Him. Hence reducing it to law given to man, and saying it must be in accordance or opposition to it, is only a proof that the blessedness of His service is unknown. In its true blessedness — who indeed does know it? But it is by these views reduced in its nature to His dishonour. It may be said, We have nothing to do with this kind of obedience. We have everything to do with it, as far as it is revealed. That in ourselves we never rise up to it, that surely is true; but it is made known to us in Him, and becomes the motive and spring of all our christian thoughts of God, and so of moral life and obedience. "The Father loveth the Son." We read, "That the world may know that I love the Father." "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life and take it again." Yet herein He was also obedient; and the blessed Lord tells us, that the world shall know that the Father has loved us as He loved Himself, and that we are to know it, He dwelling in us. So our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. The Father Himself loves us. God is thus revealed to us, and makes us partakers of His holiness. And when, as He is thus fully revealed, God becomes the test and measure of responsibility either in rejecting Him or in walk, the grace revealed is unfolded in the relationship and revelation of the Father and the Son. This difference of light in and of God, and grace in the Father and the Son, never fails in John's Gospel and Epistle.

104 Now the revelation of these unutterably blessed truths gives the spring and character to our life and obedience. We are not our own; we are bought with a price. We do not love a neighbour as ourselves, but give ourselves up, our bodies a living sacrifice, lay down our lives for the brethren, because thus Christ has shewn us love, because they are His. The law knows nothing of this. No doubt, in thus forgetting ourselves, we love God with all our heart; but the nature and measure of our obedience is infinitely advanced. Some are afraid of this. But God, in leading us on to serve as Christ served, and love as Christ loved (for we are to love one another as Christ loved us), has not taken us away from His fear, but brought us closer into it. God is indeed revealed; but we are manifested to God. And, as the apostle teaches us, if we bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, there is no danger of any law condemning us. We serve the Lord Christ. The Lordship of Christ (not the law), the eye of God (not a rule for one who cannot approach), is the check upon our thoughts. We wait too for His Son from heaven.

Hooker's views as to right reason are spread over a wider space, and more difficult thus to present to my reader. But the lowering of God, so as to bring Him under law, is naturally accompanied by exalting man. One would almost think, that in Hooker's mind philosophy had shut out the fall. I know it had not; but I think it had deeply clouded his view of it. I do not doubt there is a conscience in men; but, let us well remember, he got his knowledge of good and evil (what Hooker boasts of as right reason) by the fall. But, as far as possible, I will let him speak for himself.

He declares, "There is a desire to be perfecter than they now are; and wise men [quoting from a heathen] study to frame themselves according to the pattern of the Father of Spirits." (Book 1: 5.) "To will is to bind our souls to the bearing or doing of that which they see to be good. But we are specially to remark how the will, properly and strictly taken as it is of things which are referred unto the end that man desireth, differeth greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call appetite. The object of appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for. The object of will is that good which reason doth lead us to seek for . . . neither is any other desire termed properly will but where reason and understanding, or the show of reason, prescribeth the thing desired." (Chap. 7: 2.) For this latter cause he admits reason may be misled. Yet he says, "As everything naturally and necessarily doth desire the utmost good and greatest perfection whereof nature hath made it capable, even so man . . . . All particular things which are subject unto action, the will doth so far forth incline unto, as reason judgeth them to be the better for us, and consequently more available to our bliss." (Chap. 7: 3.)

105 "Again, the rule of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence which reason giveth concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do." (Chap. 8: 1.) Certain things, he says, are evidently good. "Notwithstanding such principle there is, it was at the first found out by discourse, and drawn from out of the very bowels of heaven and earth." (Chap. 8: 4.) Now here it is not mere conscience acquired at the fall, but man's moral power and capacity of reason. "The heathens," he says, "shewed this principle by making Themis, which we call 'right,' the daughter of heaven and earth." (Chap. 8: 5.) "So," he says, "by degrees of discourse the minds of men, natural men, have attained to know not only that there is a God, but also what power, force, wisdom, and other properties that God hath, and how all things depend on Him. Hence," he says, "they have learnt to pray to Him, and what amounts to the first great commandment to which Christ refers. So of the second, the like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is their duty no less to love others than themselves. And the law of reason, or human nature, is that which men by discourse of natural reason have rightly found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto in their actions." (Sec. 7.) "As to evil," he says, "if it be demanded why so many thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant of even principal moral duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sin, I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first among a few, afterwards spreading . . . may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding." (Sec. 8.)

He says, too, "Take away the will and all actions are equal." (Chap. 9: 2.) See Romans 7. Yet appetites and lusts, we are told, have nothing to do with will, arise without it, nor choose, but rise at the sight of some things — hence, of course, are no matter; for will is not in them.

106 We see that our sovereign good is desired naturally. "That is the enjoyment of God" (chap. 12: 3), though he admits that man has lost nature's way of attaining it by working. So chapter 11: 4, he seeks a triple perfection, sensual, intellectual. Thirdly, "Nature, even in this life, doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned." Yet this he admits can only be had by salvation. I do not pursue this farther.

I turn to his views of scripture: "It may be, notwithstanding, and oftentimes hath been demanded, how the books of holy scripture contain in them all necessary things, when of things necessary the very chiefest is to know what books we are bound to esteem holy, which point is confessed impossible for the scripture itself to teach." (Chap. 14: 1.) And he continues to insist on this point: saying, "It is only what is necessary, and could not at all or easily be known by natural discourse, which we learn from scripture. It sufficeth, therefore, that nature and scripture do serve each in such full sort that they both jointly, and not severally, either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting felicity, we need not ask the knowledge of anything more than these two may easily furnish our minds with. And as regards the reception of the scripture by the Spirit or natural judgment — wherefore, albeit the Spirit lead us into all truth, and direct us in all goodness, yet, because these workings of the Spirit in us are so privy and secret, we therefore stand on a plainer ground, when we gather by reason from the quality of things believed or done, that the Spirit of God hath directed us in both, than if we settle ourselves to believe or to do any particular thing as being moved thereto by the Spirit." Book 3, 8: 16: "Capable we are of God, both by understanding and will; by understanding, as He is that sovereign truth which comprehendeth the rich treasures of all wisdom; by will, as He is that sea of goodness, whereof whoso tasteth shall thirst no more." (Chap. 11: 3.) "Now, if man had not naturally this desire to be happy," &c. (Chap. 11: 4.) I quote this to shew how he identifies the natural desire of happiness with God as the sovereign good. "Therefore this desire in man is natural, so that our desire being natural is also that degree of earnestness to which nothing can be added. Scripture is not only the law whereby God hath opened His will touching all things that may be done; but there are other kinds of laws which notify the will of God." (Book 2, chap. 2: 2.) Again, he argues that there may be a certain belief grounded upon other assurance than scripture. (Chap. 4: 2.) Again, "It is not the word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think of His word." (Chap. 4: 3.) "The light, therefore, which the star of natural reason and wisdom casteth, is too bright to be obscured by the mist of a word or two uttered to diminish that opinion which justly hath been received concerning the force and virtue thereof, even in matters that touch most nearly the principal duties of men, and the glory of the eternal God."

107 When I compare all this with scripture, such as the beginning of Romans, "There is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God" (whereas, we are told that nature cannot but seek after this sovereign good with "intentive desire," so as to neglect all else); that "the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit, because they are spiritually discerned;" that "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God" (whereas, Hooker declares it is necessary and cannot be avoided, and quite distinct from the will; that sin works the lust in me, where, according to him, will is not, even at all) — in a word, when I weigh Hooker's doctrine with the word of God, I am not at a loss to judge what are the views of law absolute, and others to which I am invited to look, in contrast with the plain declarations of scripture. Hooker uses them to vindicate those things in the English Establishment for which there is no warrant in scripture. But they equally warrant, though he did not intend it, Popery and modern Rationalism; one contending that scripture does not suffice, the other contending that the christian conscience has its light independent of scripture, just as Hooker does, applying it then to the judgment of statements in scripture, and, of course, soon to the rejection of all that reason does not like, Hooker laying full ground for it in insisting that scripture does not prove itself (in which he wholly departs from the first Reformers). As regards Popery, Hooker distinctly asserts, not that scripture suffices — this he denies in terms — but that, as we have reason and scripture, they are sufficient, and tradition therefore is not needed. It is a pity that the national Establishment should be founded on such principles. I recognize, not right reason, but conscience; I recognize all use of gifts of ministry, parental care according to God; but the doctrine of Hooker is low and dangerous.

But I turn to the substance of the objections. Does my reader believe that Christ, in giving Himself for us, offering Himself through the eternal Spirit without spot to God, was simply fulfilling law for us? When we are called to reckon ourselves dead, when we are said to be dead — are called to have the same mind which was in Christ Jesus, who made Himself of no reputation, is that law? Yet I suppose we are to obey in this.

108 And this leads me to another point, on which, as to us, all really hinges. We are not, we Christians, looked at as alive under law, but as dead. Hence not under its empire at all, but on a new footing of obedience as risen. Let it be remembered that no deliverance from law is deliverance from obedience or commandments. I add even commandments, for it is not sufficient to be right, Christ's expressed authority must be obeyed. It is said that, if Christ's whole life had not been law-fulfilling, it must have been law-transgressing. This is simply saying that He was incapable of going beyond the measure to which all as creatures are subject. If there is no alternative but law-keeping and law-transgressing, there could have been no act of sovereign goodness and love to sinners; for that is neither. He could not go beyond man's obligations. Such is the theology and reasoning opposed to us.

The imputation of Adam's guilt is insisted on, and Romans 5: 19 is quoted. But that does not prove imputation of sin or of righteousness. There all are looked at in their head; only, as to sinners, the condition (ἐφ᾽ ὧ) of their own sin is added. All are involved, as one, in the state Adam brought them into by his one act; so all in Christ are in His standing before God. But imputation of the particular act is not spoken of here. Christ is righteousness, and it is imputed to us, for it is not our own doing; but the point which is always avoided is, that imputing righteousness has the sense in scripture of accounting the man righteous (and not seeing this is at the root of the fallacy of all they say), not of something done which is imputed. It might be in that way or not, but it does not say that — it is not in its meaning. It is not somebody else's righteousness imputed to me, but my being accounted righteous. Many being constituted sinners by one man's disobedience is not saying that the individual's sin was imputed to them, but that they by him all entered into and stood in that standing before God into which he got by that one sin. All are looked at as in his loins and as alienated and in sin before God. It is really the opposite of imputation of a particular act, as far as this passage goes.

It is attempted to prop up the opposition by quoting Augustine, alleging the Reformers followed him. Now Augustine, in the passages referred to, teaches (as Milner's "Church History" long ago remarked of him) inherent righteousness, not imputed righteousness in any way. His words are these, in the same passage as is quoted: "But the righteousness of God without law is that which God confers on the believer through grace, without the help of the law." What that is the same section shews: "Not that it is done without our will, but how will is by the law shewn to be infirm, that grace may heal our will and the healed will fulfil the law, not constituted under the law nor wanting the law." (De Sp. et Lit. 9: 15.) It is inherent righteousness without law. And so he continues in chapter 10: 16. And this view of righteousness and grace is a settled one with Augustine, as the other passages quoted shew. But no one fulfils the law save he whom grace has helped (he is speaking of the righteousness of God): "What is this, the righteousness of God and the righteousness of men? The righteousness of God is here spoken of, not as that by which God is just, but which God gives to man that man may be just by God; but what was that justice of theirs? That by which they persevered in their own strength, and, as if they were fulfillers of the law by their own virtue, gave themselves the name of righteous. But no one fulfils the law save he whom grace has helped; that is the bread descended from heaven. For the fulness of the law, says the apostle, is charity . . . . Whence is that charity to man? Let us hear himself. "The charity (love) of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us. The Lord, therefore, being about to give the Holy Spirit, said that He was the bread descended from heaven, exhorting to believe on Him."

109 If the Reformers followed Augustine, their belief in imputed righteousness was a very poor one. Here is Dr. Milner's account: "The precise and accurate nature of the doctrine itself seems not to have been understood by this holy man. He perpetually understands St. Paul's term, to justify, of inherent righteousness, as if it meant sanctification: still he knew what faith in the Redeemer meant." The extracts I have given of the continuation of the passages quoted by my opponents prove pretty clearly how right Milner was. A pretty clear proof that they have no scripture for it is afforded in the following sentence: "We say imputed, because the scripture speaks of imputation; we say imputed righteousness, because that which is imputed is righteousness (Rom. 4: 6). "If this is the authority, faith, not another's righteousness, is imputed, and it is equal to not imputing sin: only it is convenient not to bring this out by quoting the text. But to proceed: "We say the imputed righteousness of Christ, because there is no other righteousness but His which will avail before the tribunal of God." Would it not be well to shew us some scripture for so speaking on so momentous a subject? Well, he will try. "Because the word of God teaches us that our acceptance is through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ."

110 I still say, Where? "Oh, there is 2 Peter 1: 1." But this says nothing about our acceptance, but that we have received like precious faith through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, which makes it perfectly impossible to apply it to imputed righteousness. And also, "The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake [i.e., Messiah's]; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable." (Isaiah 42: 21.) First, Why Messiah's? It is always, in the prophets, Jehovah's righteousness; Messiah is not mentioned. I have no doubt Jehovah is infinitely well pleased with Christ's righteousness. But Jehovah's righteousness is spoken of here, nor is there a question of imputation, good or bad. But to conclude my citation: "Thus, the expression is not merely one which conveniently states a doctrinal truth, but it is one which flows from the use of words by the Holy Ghost Himself in scripture." Could there be a more distinct acknowledgment, that, after every effort, it cannot be shewn that the Holy Ghost has taught it?

Christ is our righteousness; and we have no other one — desire no other. And thus righteousness is imputed to us: we are accounted righteous before God, according to the acceptance of Christ Himself. To that His perfect obedience was needed — an obedience shewn in life as in death. But I reject the unscriptural statement, not to make any an offender for a word. I have used Christ's righteousness often myself as a general term, expressing divine righteousness by Him, and I have no regret about it; but it is employed to put us under law, to make Christ's law-keeping our righteousness; and to make us stand before God in legal righteousness in flesh, wrought for us by Christ, by His law-fulfilling. This is unscriptural. I repeat, as I have said, abuse and charges of heresy are no use. We must have scripture, not theology. When it is alleged that Christ is our righteousness, we are told that the living obedience of our Surety explains what this righteousness is. That is, our opponents so explain it, but this will not do.

111 But I turn to further points as to scripture. We are told, If we are not under law, we may live licentiously. It is singular, how hard it is to get our opponents to scripture or scriptural truths. Paul takes up this question in Romans 6, and asks, Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? — not the question, mark, of justifying, but of practice. The apostle declares there, as to practice or to sinning, we are not under law; but that our being dead to sin, and alive to God through Christ, is the principle of our obedience, not law. I do not know how any could speak plainer. We are obedient to God Himself in a new life, in which we are not under law, having died to sin, and having life in Christ.

And see the consequence. Our being dead to sin is openly denied. St. Paul in this chapter (Rom. 6), tells us we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God. "It must certainly be," we are told, "that we are dead to, or freed from, the guilt and consequences of sin." This is why I am glad of this otherwise wearisome service of controversy — the true character of doctrines is brought out. Here we are told, that being dead to sin is only being dead to the guilt; a most serious statement; for thus the doctrine of a Christian being dead to sin is wholly set aside. He is only dead as regards guilt; and this is to maintain godliness! Now no one can read the chapter with the smallest attention, without seeing that it is sin, practical righteousness, serving God, which is in question. It is the apostle's, the Holy Ghost's answer, to the charge that being righteous by Christ's obedience was giving license to sin. What answer to that was being dead to guilt? It was just the contrary. To be sure, the flesh would say, That is what I am glorying in. I am dead to all the guilt: so I may continue in sin. The apostle's answer is, Ah! but you were baptized to Christ's death — you have been planted in the likeness of Christ's death — to be thus clear: how can you live in a thing you are dead to? Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. We were servants of sin in the flesh — now to righteousness and God, as alive through Christ. Not under law — but this is no reason for sinning; for it is a question, not of law or measured claim, but of yielding ourselves wholly to God as alive from the dead. Death to sin, and life to God through Christ, are contrasted with the sin in the flesh we are dead to, and the law which found it in us and left us under its dominion. Sin would not have dominion (it is no question of guilt) because we were not under law, but under grace; and living in the life we have through Christ, and thus to yield ourselves wholly to God (obedience to a person in full and absolute devotedness to do what His will is), our members as instruments of righteousness to God, and so grow up in holiness itself by living to Him in righteousness.

112 Now the divine way of being able to do this is (not by saying sin is in the flesh, therefore I am not dead; as my opponent does; but) reckoning myself dead, so as to get power under grace; every motion of sin, which is by the law, being thus disallowed. But I beg distinct attention to the point that, to sustain this doctrine of our being under law, my adversaries are obliged wholly to deny the Christian's reckoning himself dead to sin. "I unhesitatingly conclude then, that when scripture says we are dead to sin, and dead to law, it means no more than that we are dead to the guilt and consequences of sin, and dead to the justification or condemnation of the, law, on account of what Christ has done in our room and stead." I only ask my readers to read through Romans 6, 7, which treat these two questions, and see if it is not a total subversion of the whole doctrine of the apostle, and of the power of Christianity, as to godliness. But if so, the whole system falls with it; because, if so, godliness and obedience come not by law, but by a new nature in the power of Christ's resurrection, in virtue of which we count ourselves dead as regards the old, not in the flesh at all. Sin and law are met by our death as to the flesh, and a new nature in which we live to God. Hence the apostle says, "When we were in the flesh;" "Ye are not in the flesh." Flesh, sin, and the law, are correlatives; for the old man lives in a fallen nature, and the law applies to man as responsible in that nature in which he is fallen.

Scripture teaches that the true Christian (whose life Christ, the Second Adam, is) has by faith — has as partaker of that life — died with Christ, and is to reckon himself dead; and, as in the new man, is not to place himself under law, but to live to God as one that is alive from the dead, Christ's authority being that which governs him; His word the guide as well as the seed of life to him — His Father's will his constant delight.

My opponents tell me we are not dead, nor to reckon ourselves dead to sin; but, ignoring our having put on the new man, and Christ being our life, put us back under law, as if sin was our only desire, and that which would break out if law did not hinder it — which it never did. The apostle, on the contrary, assures us that sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under law.

113 I have been referred to Dr. O'Brien's book as a masterpiece on this subject. There is a great deal that is excellent in that book; especially when the faith of the writer himself breaks through, it rises up into real moral eloquence. In its insistence on the plain doctrine of justification by faith, I am thankful for it; but on this point we are treating, I find nothing that can be called argument — indeed, nothing about it (save a mistaken piece of logic) but what the "Record" quoted, which assumes the whole question, and is no argument at all. "It is evident," says the now Right Rev. Prelate, "then, that in the justification with which we have to do — in which man is the party and God is the Judge — we have only to look to the law to which man is answerable, to see what his justification means." Now, what argument is there in — "It is evident?" He says, "The law to which man is answerable."

Now the apostle declares that, when God is the Judge, there are those who have sinned and perished without law; and others who are judged by the law. And he equally assures us that the Christian is not under law at all; but that law has power over a man as long as he lives. But that the Christian is viewed as having died, and risen again in virtue of a new sovereign way of God's dealing in grace.

The teaching of the word tells me, that talking of man's being amenable to law, as if nothing had happened — that this generic way of talking of man — is false altogether. It tells me that man was with God under a covenant; broke it, and was driven out from God's presence; and is wholly lost, sinful, and lawless. And that God took a special people out of the world to shew us clearly what flesh (sinful human nature) was, when subject to law; and to give us the profitable lesson of its convicting of sin. It does shew me that, when man was driven out from God's presence, he got a knowledge of right and wrong — a conscience to carry with him into the world; but that the law was given by Moses.

This whole view of man and law is heathenish and false. If my reader take Hooker's argument, he will find heathens, not scripture, quoted for it, the apostle's judgment of whom is, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest." But I said our preacher added a piece of false logic: it is this. He does not mean to intimate that, when he speaks of acquitting of violating the divine law and acceptance as though he had fulfilled it, these are distinct acts. The nature of the divine law recognizes no intermediate state between the guilt of violating it, and the merit of obeying it. There is, he insists, no separation between the acts of pardon and acceptance; but my reader will remark that the theory is, that Christ died for the violation, and lived for the fulfilment besides. But if that be so, the prohibitions of which Dr. O'Brien speaks could have no fulfilment. When a command was violated, there was satisfaction for the violation, and fulfilment of the command. May our hearts be kept in reverence towards the Blessed One, while we meet such arguments! But if I had acted when something was forbidden, satisfaction may be made; but there is nothing to be fulfilled, so that there cannot be the merit of doing here; and the difference the writer so justly seeks to avoid, his false system drags him into. Our bolder adversaries do not stumble on the difficulties which beset the cautious prelate's path. Do this and live, we are told, is written on heaven's gates; and we want active duties to be added to make up the inadequacy of atonement.

114 But to the substance of the matter: Dr. O'Brien assumes the whole question, and only discusses its form as to negative and positive precepts. I deny the whole ground assumed, and affirm that scripture puts the believer on a wholly new footing in Christ, as dead and alive again in Him, where law does not reach. I may be allowed to quote Hooker here. It may instruct some as to justifying the ungodly, and awaken some who may receive his testimony, and would not mine, to a righteousness beyond law. It shews the power of God's word on a godly mind, in spite of system. "Christ has merited righteousness for as many as are found in Him. In Him God findeth us, if we be faithful; for by faith we are incorporated with Christ. Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous; yea, even the man which is impious in himself — full of iniquity — full of sin; him, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin remitted through repentance — him God beholdeth with a gracious eye; putteth away sin by not imputing it; taketh away the punishment due thereto by pardoning it; and accepteth him in Jesus Christ, as perfectly righteous as if he had himself fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law. Shall I say, more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say. But the apostle saith, 'God made him which knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' Such are we in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself." Now, I am not giving all this as systematically what I hold; but it does shew how the word of God forced on the mind of a godly man the belief that there was a righteousness of God beyond law. There are other objections, too poor to dwell on, as that Christ is an example, not a rule. But that Christ is an example because He rendered perfect obedience to the law, I wholly deny. He does not become a law, but He is a rule or measure of our conduct, and as far beyond the law as the manifestation of God is beyond the perfect measure of man's ways. As to Romans 13: 9, Paul does not quote the commandments to put us under them at all, but to shew that love fulfils them; so that, as Augustine says, we do not want the help of the law for it.

115 I would just refer to two passages said to be obscure in what I have written, because one of them is so on an important subject. It is from the tract "The Righteousness of God," p. 9. The word "it," in "no conferring of righteousness on it," refers to what precedes the passage quoted by Dr. Carson, and is not in the quotation at all. It refers to the old man, our sinful nature in flesh. But that to which the "it" refers, though carried on in my mind as being the main subject treated of, yet is so far from the "it" that the sentence is obscure. The doctrine is all important, and easily apprehended by those who wish to know what is meant; but I do not justify the obscurity.

As regards the second, I have nothing to change or remark, save that he who does not understand it does not understand the true place of a Christian before God, nor the diligent teaching of Paul on the subject; I know many dear saints of God do not. And I take this opportunity of saying, that, for my part, my heart would receive a Christian who believed Christ had kept the law for him, as cordially and freely as any other. I know of no difference on that ground. Only I am sure that such are not clear on the scriptural doctrine as to the place we have in Christ by faith. But clearness as to truth, or progress in it, is not the ground of union in Christ, however precious it may be.

Let me add, as I am speaking of corrections (and it is an important point) that there are other adversaries of the truth than Dr. C. and his friends whom he comprised in the word "we," and who distinctly hold that all Christ's sufferings in life were penal sufferings; he may see it stated in Dr. Tregelles' preface to his letters just published in the "Record" as being the Protestant doctrine. The true question with Dr. C. and his abettors is this: he says Christ's people "are united to Him in life," i.e., in life down here before His death. This is denied. They are united to Him, as risen and gone on high after His accomplished work, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The statement, that except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, is referred to; and it proves that and more, to shew that there was not union before His death, for till then He abode alone. He was not united to man in the flesh; but believers are united to Him by the Spirit when He had accomplished His work and taken His place on high as the glorified man, the head, and thus become members of His body. They were not members of His body as living on earth, but as exalted to heaven. In connection with this, it is objected to as blasphemous, that I have said that Christ "required to keep it for His own personal perfection." Certainly, if Christ was under the law and bound to keep it, He would not have been perfect if He had not kept it. Nothing can be more simple. It was not possible He could fail; but it was necessary He should keep it to be perfect. There is not a word to withdraw in it. If I had said, as Dr. C. in the same sentence practically does, that Christ required to keep the law to become perfect as the sinner's substitute, it might have afforded a handle. But I say freely, I do not suppose Dr. C. meant any harm by it, though I think his doctrine wrong. Righteousness does come by law, if it comes by its being kept. Men before Moses, Gentiles since, and Christians now, are not under law. They are in themselves sinners as children of Adam and of wrath; but, if Christians, redeemed, justified, and risen in Christ. The great point I contend for is that we are not in the flesh; we are crucified with Christ and so dead, for faith, to that life to which law applied, and alive to God by Jesus Christ who is risen.

116 I had got thus far in my comments when a pamphlet, by Mr. Frederick Trench, came to me by post (with a recommendation by the "Record") entitled, "Extreme Views." He advocates common sense. But common sense has its extremes as well as other things. It is sometimes human prudence contrasted with simplicity of faith. I had rather mistake somewhat in the way of energy for Christ — would that I knew more of it! — than prudently refrain from committing myself. The man with one talent acted with extreme prudence, and found himself ill of it. There is often a common sense which, judging by possible results, leaves very little conscience, and less of its kindred faith. It is common sense which Mr. Trench recommends, and it will, of course, find favour with all who seek to avoid being stirred by conscience or earnest zeal. He is of what is called very low doctrine, and this is largely wrought into the structure of his pamphlet. As this may be found discussed in many other places, I shall only take up a few points of it here. For the rest, his pamphlet is made up, as many others are, of scurrilous attacks on "Brethren" which are taken as facts, and expressions in popular preaching and tracts which overstep scripture.

117 Now I have no doubt that, in recent activities, Christians outside and inside "Brethren" so-called have (in their zeal — a zeal I wish in many things I imitated better — for winning souls, and delivering them from the state of death in which they were) stated many things less soberly than was right. They have pressed the love of God and the freeness of the gospel in a way which would not bear critical examination. I have no doubt such defects are to be found in their statements, as I have no doubt they are in Mr. Trench's; only that his are more detrimental to the glory of God a great deal than theirs. Still truth is truth; and it is well that errors should be corrected. But I do not think Mr. Trench's views that which will do it. Of all styles of Christianity, I avow, the calculating one of Mr. Trench I believe to be the least agreeable to God. As to the charges against "Brethren," the simple way is to leave them where they are; they have outlived many others.* "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you." Mr. Trench is little in danger of being so attacked. I would warn him that, in the present breaking up of much that he trusts in, common sense will be found an awfully poor thing to guide a man. In these last days God directs us to the scriptures as a safeguard. Mr. T. would secure us by the Establishment and confessions of faith. Why, they drive a coach and six through them now-a-days. Here is the highest legal authority of his church, acting for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who tells us that unfeignedly believing all canonical scriptures means simply that all necessary to salvation is to be found in them. And the clergy of the system he belongs to are the public active promoters of infidelity in the country; and the same high authority has gone out of his way to declare that, if they do not contravene the letter of the thirty-nine Articles, they may teach all the devil ever hankered after. And they are doing it earnestly enough, and infidelity moves over the country with rapid strides by the means of the clergy. Mr. Trench thinks a person may hear the most unprofitable doctrine in a "Brethren"-meeting. It is of course possible; but he is certain, by Mr. Trench's system, to hear what is confessed to be the contrary of divine truth in the majority of parishes, if he holds to that system. The ministers are not converted, and are teaching what the apostle wished men cut off for teaching. But then it is true it does not violate common sense. On the other side, whence have people passed over to Popery, and who has led them? Clergy of the Establishment.

{*Mr. Trench, indeed, is an undaunted prophet as to their state: he published some twenty or thirty years ago an article entitled "Atoms at Last," predicting from the condition of the Ammonites we should not be two together. He gives us the same prophecy now. This is unhappy. The "Brethren," in spite of many difficulties, are a hundred to one in number, compared to what they then were; and Mr. Trench, if I may judge from his pamphlet, is afraid of their increasing, though numbers are far from the chief point.}

118 The person who sent me Mr. T.'s pamphlet, and with it the "Record's puff" of it, little knew what a precious morsel he was sending with it. I turned the morsel of paper round and found the following: "Law intelligence — The Claydon Church Disturbances. At the Needham Market Petty Sessions, on Wednesday, the Rev. George Drury, Rector of Claydon, was summoned for having, on the 7th inst., assaulted Abraham Watkin, labourer, one of his parishioners. A cross summons had been taken out against Watkin, charging him with having assaulted Mr. Drury, and a second charging him with riotous and indecent conduct in the church. It appeared from the evidence, that on the evening in question, two young men from Ipswich, attracted by the reports of the doings at Claydon Church, paid a visit to the parish. Not knowing the way to the church, the complainant Watkin, at their request, accompanied them thither. They found the principal door fastened; but a boy in the churchyard told them, that if they went to the organ-room door, they would be able to get admittance. They did so, and found this door also fastened, but it was opened by a girl, and all three went into the church. Four monks were then engaged in prayer. There were about twenty lighted candles upon the altar. On entering, Watkin exclaimed in a low tone, addressing Brother Ignatius, 'What do you mean by that, Blazer?' Brother Ignatius, who heard what had been said, at the conclusion of the prayer, walked up to the complainant and the other two young men, and requested them to leave the church, as the ceremony then going on was private prayer. The young men from Ipswich left as desired, but Watkin refused, stating that he meant to remain during evening service, which did not commence till seven o'clock. Brother Ignatius endeavoured to persuade him to go, but in vain; and he then called in the aid of the Rev. Mr. Drury, who, the complainant alleged, took a red-hot iron out of the fire, and, without having previously said a word, struck him with it on the forehead, inflicting a wound from which blood flowed, and also burning him. Having done this, Mr. Drury turned to go away, and the complainant admitted that he followed him to the chancel . . ."

119 I have no more of this morsel; but I hear Brother Ignatius (otherwise Mr. Spencer*) is going about Suffolk in a monk's dress to get the means of establishing the Benedictines. Such is the security creeds give. It was a witty remark of the Pope, and good sense in it too, as to a large class of English clergy: You are like the church bells, gentlemen; you call people into the church (i.e., Roman), but you do not go in yourselves.

{*It may be well to say that there seems to be a mistake here. Mr. S. was distinguished as Father Ignatius; a different and much younger person, nominally an Anglican Clergyman, bearing the name of Brother Ignatius. — ED.]}

But a little more history before I turn to doctrine. Mr. Trench refers to the Irish Home Mission, in which the old Home Mission took its rise. I also had part in setting the former a-going, a little more perhaps in its first organization than I suppose Mr. Trench would like now to allow; but it is of little matter. I admit fully, that Mr. Trench, by his capacity for arrangement and activity, was, as to its establishment and carrying on as a matter of business, the efficient instrument, working in it actively too. But I will refresh his memory, how what grew out of it came to be "old." As he says, clergy worked in it, but very few; a few however did. Many of the "Brethren," perhaps some Dissenters. I do not recollect them; but, in principle, any one who truly preached the gospel; and it went on, and circled pretty much all Ireland round — I hardly know a county I was not in myself. I have no boast to make of it. We all did our best. It had planted itself pretty substantially in many quarters; and the clergy, I suppose, began to think a work thus rooting itself into the country ought not to be left out of the hands of the clergy. However that may be, Mr. Trench went to Dublin and came to an arrangement with the clergy (guided, I suppose, by sound sense), that they should take it up, and what they call the laity be turned out of it. Mr. Trench came down to me at Limerick, and told me of it, saying, I was sure of your largeness of heart, and that you would join in the plan. I replied: "Impossible. I was delighted to have the clergy preach where they would; but when it is the clergy as such to exclude others whom God has sent and blessed, I cannot. It is against my principles, and certainly not my place." And we, laymen if you please, went on as far as we could, on a smaller scale, doubtless, but with a good deal of blessing; and, in a very short time, the various prelates, who could not hinder the laity and a mixed set of preachers, put a stop to the clergy doing so, and it became the "Old Established Church Home Mission." Mr. Trench told me when we met about it, that it was the only thing he regretted doing in his life. It is not the only thing where his common sense has been baffled by his clerical friends.

120 After these little discursions, I turn again to doctrines. There are extreme views, and when one of these is settled, and mischievously settled, the introduction of the balancing part of truth is always one-sided, often held to be new; and, I freely admit, there is danger (in those introducing it) of settling into exclusiveness on that side. That is human nature. Thus the common evangelical doctrine for some hundred and fifty years is put thus: justification, then progressive sanctification; and this connected with perpetual doubting — a human scheme of truth. People have seen that sanctification is spoken of as an absolute accomplished thing also, and, when it is connected with justification, always put first. They have rejected that view, and taken up this. That view has lowered grievously the truth of the gospel, and kept souls in bondage. It is the extreme which Mr. Trench, whose views of truth are very contracted, and, withal, what are called low, adopted. Others, I think, and Plymouth Brethren so-called among them, have fallen into the other extreme.

Now, sanctification is chiefly spoken of as accomplished, and before justification; but it is also spoken of as progressive: "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified." "Sanctified unto obedience and the blood of sprinkling." "Sanctified in God the Father." Such are the expressions of scripture, treating the Christian as sanctified and set apart by grace, and thus brought under the efficacy of the blood of sprinkling and justified. But while thus personally, as born of God, wholly sanctified, scripture does say, "Follow after holiness," "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly." It looks for a practical and increasing realization of this setting apart in thought and affection by a growing knowledge of Christ. The Evangelical school, fancying it knows how to take care of holiness better than divine wisdom does, takes only the latter, rejecting the former. This has led to pressing the former more particularly; it may be to the exclusion of the latter. But those who reject the former press a mere practical change, in contrast with a divine title over us and personal setting apart to God, and use the practical state as a test of justification, and they thus cast true souls into doubt, and lower the nature both of justification and sanctification itself. The gospel is lost. This is the mischievous extreme in which Mr. Trench is. I would recommend him a sentence of Dr. O'Brien's: "God's honour is to be maintained by the right use of the safeguards which He Himself has provided for it, not by our devising new muniments for its protection."

121 The doctrine of self-examination is taken up; but here Mr. Trench does not even know what the question is. I never heard of any one objecting to self-examination. It would be sufficient to quote 1 Corinthians 11: Let a man examine himself. If we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged of the Lord. That is not the question; but whether people should examine themselves, in order to know whether they are justified, whether they are children of God, whether they are in the faith. Cannot Mr. Trench's boasted good sense understand the difference between his children examining whether they are his children, and whether they are acting as his children ought, seeing they are such? One would be a horror in a family, the other a duty. Now I affirm it is unscriptural to examine ourselves if we are in the faith, and absurd too. We all pass through it. It is a useful humbling process till we are forced to submit to God's righteousness, but always a proof that we are not in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free — that we are not clear as to redemption. It is absurd; for if I have not a spiritual mind, I am not competent to do it; if I have, the question is settled — does not exist. I know, "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith" is triumphantly quoted But people leave out "If ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, examine yourselves." The Corinthians were calling in question Paul's ministry; and, as a last appeal to their "common sense," he says, "Why, you were converted by it, you had better doubt about yourselves. Do you not know you are Christians? How did you become so? Who spoke to you?" There is no command for Christians to examine themselves, but an appeal to the certainty the Corinthians had to shew the folly of doubting the ministry by which they themselves had been converted.

John's Epistle has more appearance of confirming this idea; but John treats all he writes to as undoubtedly children of God. "I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake . . . . I write unto you, babes, because you know the Father." Others were trying to seduce them from this full confidence that they had eternal life already; and John writes that they might not be shaken, but know, as he says, that they had, and confirms them by the contrast of their love to the brethren, and the character of the seducers. But there is no call to doubt, no command to examine. If my self-examination were the means of my having peace, I ought to say, Therefore, being justified by experience, &c. But it lowers practical walk also. If I examine myself to know whether I am a Christian, I content myself with finding that out. If, as freely justified by grace, I examine whether I am living up to the example of Christ, I am always at peace, having blessed confidence in divine favour, and never content without growing up to Him who is the Head in all things, having the same mind that was in Him. The whole tone of soul is different in piety and standard of holiness.

122 Next, it is complained that it is held that all our sins are put away. The only meaning of this is, that Mr. Trench is in the evil extreme of a low gospel. His doctrine is akin to Wesleyanism. He believes in a sufficiency for the world, but knows nothing of a substitution for God's people. If Christ has really stood in my place (and I believe through grace He has), it is clear He has borne all my sins. If He has not, He never can: that is equally clear. When I am brought to simple faith in the gospel, I know it. All my sins were future when He bore them. Mr. Trench says, "There may be here a mistake between forgiveness and atonement. I believe an atonement sufficient for the sins, past, present, and to come, of the world was made by the Lamb." Be it so. But does Mr. Trench believe that the blessed Lord bore his sins in His own body on the tree? Some, or all? Without shedding of blood there is no remission. And the apostle's argument is, that if this work — this really putting away of sin — was not done once for all, Christ must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. He draws the conclusion, that the worshippers once purged would have no more conscience of sins, and gives the reason — "that by one offering Christ has perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

Mr. Trench may think all this dangerous. I reply, there is no worse, nor so dangerous, an extreme as denying scripture, and putting your own good sense in its place. If he takes the trouble to read Hebrews 9, 10, he will find that it is a careful contrast of the divine truth of purging the conscience once for all with his repeated clearings and forgivenesses; and he will do better to trust God's care of His own honour, than be devising new muniments for its protection. All his statement means is, that he holds Wesleyan or Arminian doctrine instead of a true view of the gospel; and he is so little informed in truth, that he is not aware of it. If he seeks a guard against abuse of it, he will find it, not in the lowering of truth and grace, but in such a chapter as Romans 6, and the truth that, if we are Christians, we are dead to sin and alive to God; and, I may add, if the power of the word through grace be not sufficient — for that may be the case, and his system will not help it — in that, of which he can know nothing, the just scriptural discipline of the Church of God.

123 I have spoken of the Church; so has Mr. Trench. I would again remind him that, besides common sense, there are such things as conscience and faith, and that the wisdom of men is foolishness with God. Mr. Trench says, "The Church of England (like all other churches) being a human institution, must necessarily have its faults, and partake of human infirmity." Supposing a person, humbly bowing to God's word, found that the Church was a divine institution, had its order and directions from its heavenly Head, "Son over his own house," and felt that it was a monstrous inroad on God's authority, a dreadful denial of His sovereign title, to have substituted a human institution for a divine one — does Mr. Trench deny that the Church was a divine institution? or does he think men may substitute a human one for God's own special institution in the earth with impunity? And if a man does not, what is he to do? If he finds conscience towards God something, and not merely something "better for the present, and likely to be better in the long run;" if he finds solemn warnings in the word of the inroads of this apostate principle of substituting man for God, and directions that whoever names the name of the Lord should depart from iniquity; and that when the Church does become a great house, we are to purge ourselves from vessels of dishonour — is he to judge by what is convenient, or to follow what is conscientious by the light of God's word? Supposing he sees men educated for a profession, for a living, made to declare that they are moved by the Spirit of God to become ministers; and then another man, named by the Prime Minister of the day, professing to give him the Holy Ghost, and then, after leading him into it, laying the guilt, Satan-like, on the same man, because he has made the profession they have put into his mouth; and he feels it is profanation — is he to join with what is profane because it is better for the present, and likely to be so in the long run? I believe it is worse for the present, and likely to meet with God's judgment in the long run.

124 If I find men declaring that all the infants they christen are born again, and regenerate of the Holy Ghost, which they do not believe; teaching these children, without any question of an alleged charitable hope, that they were therein made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, which they do not believe either: if a man has conscience enough not to do and say what he sees is wrong, and does not believe, in the solemn services of religion, what is he to do? If he has faith enough to break many a cherished tie, the path of conscience and of God is clear. If a man cannot say such things as, "Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for ever;" if he do not think it "truly scriptural" to say always and perpetually that God is angry, and may be for ever, with the people whom He has redeemed — not merely doubting a person's own redemption, but affirming God's anger of those whom He has redeemed; if a man cannot settle himself to go always in future, and say, always say, for ever repeat as his worship, that he is "tied and bound with the chain of his sins," when he knows the essence of practical Christianity is, that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made him free from the law of sin and death; if he cannot say that the burden of his sins is intolerable, and then get absolution, because his conscience is already purged; if a person's conscience and faith both call him to depart from this because it is iniquity, and he names the name of the Lord — will Mr. Trench's common sense give him a good conscience? A bad or hardened one it may. If he even sees that the whole principle of the language is Jewish in what Mr. Trench has referred to, "Remember not the offences of our forefathers;" if he has a little knowledge of liturgies (of which, for my own part, I cannot boast much), and knows that a litany is a supplication and common intercession to God when His wrath is upon us; and that our litany was arranged by Pope Gregory, out of previous ones used to this end in processions, and that Rome was thus delivered from a grievous mortality, and that this, so very Jewish in its character, is now made spiritual food Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays, when there is no thought of calamities at all; if one, humble as he may be in spirit and not given to change, cannot force his conscience through such a mass of contradictions to scripture and true spiritual Christianity, what is he to do? Go to other human institutions? Is this what Mr. Trench's human institution has done for us, brought us to fly to common sense, and the best we can, because they have grossly violated scripture, and nothing better is to be had? What shall I think of a minister of Christ's gospel telling us this? I regret these questions being raised.

125 I remember when, though I could not in conscience stay in it, I looked with affection to the Establishment as that which was a barrier against popery and professed infidelity. Alas! (and it is a grievous sorrow, for I see the breaking up of all things, and the inroad of both) it is become "the bell," as the Pope said, to call to one, and the public promulgator of the other. Can any honest man deny it? I am sure, no one, no clergyman, will grieve as I do in saying It. We want something real, and of faith, for those who have faith in these perilous times, and not a plea of common sense to sustain evil, which every exercised conscience is getting dissatisfied with, and active faith breaking the bounds of, while infidelity and popery are rampant all around us.

I will turn to more peaceful subjects.

Mr. Trench leans on Dr. O'Brien for his definition of faith. I can heartily desire that the book in its main objects may be abundantly blessed, and have no desire to weaken, in any way, its effect on the minds of those it may address itself to; but Dr O'Brien was defining, and I take up his definition. Had I heard a mere sermon on faith, urging to trust in Christ, I should have hailed it, and made no comment on the word. Simple minds take the good, and do not define. But all souls are not simple; and many an earnest one may anxiously enquire, "Do I really trust; for I fear it is not for me?" I am sure deliverance is with God; still we must not make difficulties for souls. I do not believe faith means trust, though I believe trust will infallibly be there if faith is. As surely as I am burnt, being a man, pain is there; but burning is not pain. I am sure that the right rev. prelate, as he now is, is humble enough to allow me to speak freely of his writings without thinking it any want of deference.

In the main purport of his book I heartily concur. I rejoice in the testimony, which is its main object. But I do not think him, as Mr. Trench says, an accurate, though he is a careful, writer. To say that trust is an essential and leading constituent of faith, is different from saying faith is trust in Christ. I could almost assent to the first, for it cannot fail to flow from it: to the last I wholly object. But I have a further remark to make here.

126 It is said (Serm. 1: p. 12, 3rd ed.), "It is not belief of the truth of the scripture narrative, or an assent of the understanding to certain propositions; but it is trust in Christ." Now, I admit fully, belief in the truth of scripture may not be saving faith; and it is never the assent of the understanding to propositions. It is not a human thing as Rome makes it; nor mere assent as Sandemanianism would make it. But it is not therefore trust. It is not the fact of the assent to the testimony of scripture, or the contrary, which is real faith, or the contrary; but the nature of the assent which makes the difference of real faith and mere educational or intellectual. The latter is called believing in scripture (John 2: 23-25), and believing on (εἰς) His name; yet, being only an intellectual conviction, Jesus did not trust Himself to them. He knew what was in man. It was an honest conviction — an assent; but it was only from what was in man, and was worthless. True 1 faith is the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul, revealing the object of faith in divine power; so that the heart receives it on divine testimony as divine truth, and a divine fact. "When it pleased God," says the apostle, "to reveal his Son in me." "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." "He that heareth my words, and believeth (on) him that sent me, hath everlasting life." It is really identical with the communication of a new life by the power of the Holy Ghost through the word. Hence we are said to be the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; to be born of the Spirit, and to be begotten by the word of truth.

Faith is the divinely-given perception of things not seen, wrought through the word of God by the Spirit. Hence it is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. The examples in Hebrews 11 are not given to shew all that faith is, but how it works in man in active life or patient endurance, because God's word is believed. If the word reveals a divine person in grace, He becomes the object of trust; if a work, its efficacy becomes the ground of confidence. But the trust and the confidence is not the faith. Indeed, though there will always be attraction, and so far trust in Him as a person worthy of it, and drawing it, in the revelation of God in love, it does not at first always produce confidence, properly speaking, and, speaking of Christ, "a full reliance upon Him and upon His work;" because that revelation, if it attracts the confidence of the heart, awakens the conscience; and, till this is purged by a clear knowledge of redemption, we cannot trust. The element of it is there, but we cannot do so. When Peter preached to the Jews, the effect of the power of the word, convincing them that Jesus was the Messiah — making them believe — was to make them say, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" They had crucified Him. This was not trust; but faith was wrought in their hearts as to who Jesus was. Not that scripture was true — that they believed before; not assent to a proposition — but true faith that Jesus was the Christ. The answer to the need of soul this produced was Peter's shewing them the path of peace. They were to have remission of sins, and receive the Holy Ghost.

127 As regards the words πιστεύω, used simply with a dative, it is to believe a person. There are at the utmost two exceptions, in the Acts. I leave out the cases of both accusative and dative, as not to our purpose. To believe εις τό ὄνομα may be — yet no genuine faith or trust at all. (John 2: 23.) It is recognizing the person to be what he comes as. The divine or human character of this faith is a subsequent question. Nor does ἐν convey trust: "Repent, and believe (ἐν) the gospel." (Mark 1: 15.) I cannot doubt that, as a general rule, believing εἰς Χρίστον means a divinely given recognition of Christ. But it does not necessarily follow that it is divine. It was sincere recognition of Christ as such. But I am not aware of any case where πιστεύω εἰς, is used of dead faith. Πιστεύω εἰς points out more the object faith looks at; ἐπὶ rare, I believe only in the Acts, and with an accusative, that which man has come to as the basis of the faith; ἐπὶ with dative only in quotation from LXX, and once in 1 Timothy 1: 16. These shades of meaning depend on the prepositions and cases. But I do not see any one passage which leads to the conclusion, that πιστεύω is employed for trust or confidence, save where it is trusting another with something, which is another thing. As to πιστις, it is almost always used absolutely — faith; a few cases with a genitive, faith τοῦ Θεοῦ recognizing Him — the faith of Jesus Christ. But I find nothing to build upon to make it trust. Faith, if real, is a divinely-wrought recognition of the object of faith, through the power of the word of God; and, in a few cases, the actual revelation of the object. In connection with this, it is life.

And here, I think, there is a want in the volume of Dr. O'Brien — the recognition of the real power of life in a risen Saviour become our life. Faith, it is said, unites us to Christ — so commonly; but it is never so said in scripture. The Holy Ghost which dwells in us unites us to Christ; and we live in the power of life which is in Christ risen from the dead; and this is the way of holiness, not putting us under law. Hence all the doctrines connected with our being quickened together with Him, raised up together (Jew and Gentile), and sitting together in heavenly places in Him; so that we are before God in Christ, and always thus before Him accepted in the Beloved; this whole character of acceptance and justification is wanting in Dr. O'Brien's work, and Mr. Trench shews himself totally ignorant of it. Yet it is the very glory of Paul's doctrine, and that in which the apostle John shews the perfectness of God's love. "Herein is love made perfect with us [not "our" love, which is a wretched perversion, not a translation], that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world."

128 Whatever Hooker may do, it is because Paul had received this ministry that he used great plainness of speech. Faith is then the real vivid perception of what cannot be known by sight — God, I Christ, anything revealed of God, being the object. If there is merely a mental conclusion, as in the end of John 2, or assent to a proposition, it is worthless. If it is the revelation of the object of faith to the soul by the Holy Ghost, it is real and living; and this only is true faith.

Further, though all rightly preached together, we must not confound faith in the person, and faith in the work of Christ. The latter alone can give peace to the conscience (unless the direct revelation of God, as by Nathan to David, or Christ to the woman that was a sinner); but the former is always held out as the first proper object of faith; while scripture declares, that whoever believes on Him is under the benefit of His work. Faith in Him is quickening and saving. Peace of conscience according to God's declaration belongs to those who do in virtue of His work. This difference connects itself with the question of repentance. Mr. Trench makes it a sin in the "Plymouth Brethren," that they say that faith goes before repentance. He is extremely ignorant, as this pamphlet shews, of all the questions which have moved souls, and not a step beyond the lowest Wesleyan doctrines on these points. This question has been one on which all sticklers for the power of human nature, without grace, or to meet grace, have held with Mr. Trench. But all who know what grace is believe that faith precedes repentance, and everything else that is good and right in man. Otherwise he would have what is good before he believed the truth at all; he would have it without God. And as to repentance, substantially the whole moral change, the essence and substance of his return to God, would have been effected without any truth at all. For if he repents through the truth, he must believe the truth in order to repent. Nothing can be more absurd than putting repentance before faith; for a man then repents believing nothing at all. The word of God has not reached his soul, good or bad; for if it has, he is an infidel, or he believes it, and it has thus wrought repentance. That a man does not understand redemption and salvation before repentance, be it so; certainly, he does not really know it for himself. But that does not say faith does not precede it.

129 Dr. O'Brien leaves all ambiguous here. So much of change of mind, he tells us, as is necessary to make faith real, is essential to it. But what wrought the change? After describing very justly what a convinced soul must feel, as one who knows it for himself, he says, This must be felt by all who can be truly said to trust in Christ, as knowing in whom they trust. Admit it all for a moment, for such trust cannot be without it; but how have they learnt that there is a Christ to trust in? Is it not by faith? Further, what produced these practical elements of repentance? Dr. O'Brien justly refers to the change of mind which the sinner undergoes under the operation of divine grace. Assuredly. But how does this divine grace operate? Is it not by the word; by the presentation of divinely given objects of faith? If faith is not the source of repentance (i.e., in the moral sense, precedes it), then the vital change in the state of a man's soul is without faith, without grace, or grace operates without any revelation of a divine object. The eye must be opened to turn men from darkness to light: is it opened on vanity, or on God's revelation of Himself in Christ? Hence I find that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name. Am I to believe that the repentance was to be brought in unbelief in that name, or by faith in it? So in John 16. He shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not on Me. And Peter, accordingly, having announced Jesus, charges them with having crucified Him; and then they are pricked to the heart. And then he tells them the way of escape. Philip goes down to Samaria to preach Christ to them. Did they repent through faith in it, or not? The goodness of God leads man to repentance. Is there no goodness to be believed in in this work? What led the poor sinful woman in tears to the feet of Jesus? She heard that Jesus was in the house. Satan, to bring in lust and sin, had first undermined confidence in God. God, he insisted, had kept back just what would make man like Himself. God is manifest in flesh, and moves in grace through the wretchedness of man, shewing grace in Himself abounding over sin to win back the confidence of sinful man — in spite of, yea through, the burden and shame of sin — to Himself, while surely warning him of the consequences of abiding in it. The poor woman had felt this; she could go to God thus manifested (not explain it all, I dare say), and shewing her to herself too, in the light, when she dared not to any human heart. She loved much. When she heard that Jesus was in the house, she came. What business had she there? When God and grace were there, for her He filled the place in His beauty and grace. He was alone for her soul. Its brokenness and renewed feeling in life fitted to the grace that was revealed in Him. God was there for it. That was all. The rest was all human vanity. Christ had a claim which made nothing of all the rest. Its glitter had found its truth in her sorrow; but Christ met what she was. She knew what the Pharisee did not, that grace and that God, morally speaking (for she might not know it doctrinally), was there. She did not know forgiveness; but repentance had been produced by the revelation of God in Christ to her soul. And Christ pronounced the forgiveness, and told her to go in peace.

130 Now, here we get faith, repentance, and forgiveness in their divine order — now more clearly preached, no doubt; but not otherwise. Peter preaches Christ. There is faith; this works repentance (for the heart had been enmity to the Christ believed in); and then comes the knowledge of forgiveness through His work.

Faith, then, according to scripture, does go before repentance; peace may not, and surely will not. What was the first thought in the prodigal? His father's house; he had no best robe until he met his father. Mr. Trench has only shewn that he is wholly astray from the truth (I trust neither he nor Dr. O'Brien will count it amiss that I speak plainly; nor any want of courtesy — I should be sorry to be guilty of any), that he charges an error, when it is only his own; and that the passage he quotes from Dr. O'Brien's book, in heart and substance sound, is not either clear or accurate. Such feelings must be before there is solid peace; but that does not touch the question — What produces the feelings? The danger of the obscurity of Dr. O'Brien is seen in Mr. Trench's use of it, who will have repentance without any grace at all; or, if he deny that, without the word of God, or anything it reveals (for, if otherwise, faith goes before repentance). It is an open denial of grace to say it does not. I judge repentance to be a much deeper thing than is thought. It is the judgment of the new man in divine light and grace on all that he who repents has been or done in flesh. Law may be the means of bringing the soul to it; but, though salutary, it is made for the unrighteous. The full knowledge of Christ gives a far deeper hatred of sin. And such is the Holy Ghost's way: all else, if true, is imperfect. "He shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not me." To have hated good, seen no beauty in Christ to desire Him — a nature which could do this is worse even than the lusts which the spirituality of the law so justly condemns. Lawless, law-breaking, and God-hating; such is the flesh's character in scripture, and the order of its manifestation for shewing what sin is. Hence, repentance will, in one sense, deepen all one's life, as the knowledge of God grows. It is not a quantum of sorrow, nor even a perception of separation from God by sin. That leads to it. It is the soul of man judging divinely of sin, and that, in the consciousness, it had been self, when God is known in grace — at any rate in some measure. I shall return to this point in closing, in the way of positive truth.

131 I notice some more objections. A great deal is said about being innocent. Scripture never speaks of any one being innocent in God's sight (I am not speaking, of course, of unfallen Adam). It is unfortunate when the whole argument depends on what is not found in scripture. God never declares a man innocent; nor does it, as we have already seen, ever speak of the righteousness of Christ; yet all the argument of my adversaries is, that man must have the latter in order to be the former. We are guilty of sins of omission and commission. For my sins of commission it is clear there can be no doing, but atonement, because I ought not to have done the things; and here Christ cannot do anything for me. I have stolen: He has put my sin away. What has He to do for me? If the sin is put away, I am guiltless. So that we have one kind of righteousness as to these; another as to sins of omission. Is this scriptural? But as to these — Christ, by His life, has perfectly made them up, they tell us, so that I am absolutely innocent, "as pure as the majesty of heaven." And then Christ dies for what? Here, consequently, I look in vain for scripture. The passage, "Who can say anything to the charge of God's elect?" is none. Why is the question, mark, "lay anything to the charge?" Now, I say, if Christ has died for me, none can lay anything to my charge. Dare any one say they can? If not, I cannot be charged with the slightest stain of guilt. Whatever I was in sin, Christ has died for, and I am cleared from all charge — what they call innocent. This they deny. If not, let them admit it. If they deny it, they destroy the value of Christ's death. If they admit it, all my adversary's reasoning is false. No, they demand an additional quantum of merit, and hold that man is not cleared from charge by Christ's death. I repeat, if he is, the whole reasoning falls through as false. This controversy arose from a preacher stating that besides Christ's blood, and regeneration, it was written on heaven's gates, "This do and live," and meritorious righteousness must be gained by doing. That is the doctrine stated by them.

132 If my adversary will not come to scripture, I will. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died." Not a word of law-fulfilling. Again, "Being justified freely by his blood." Is there anything about law-fulfilling? "The righteousness of God, without the law, is manifested." Well, let us turn to Romans 5. God commends His own love to us, "in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Again, How do I get my conscience purged? for another important epistle speaks of this. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience?" He appeared once to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Again, "by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." And, "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." So "Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by the which he received testimony that he was righteous." "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Let us hear Peter: we are redeemed by "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Christ has suffered for us, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh." Christ, "who knew no sin," has been made sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of God."

Such is the testimony of the word: justifying, cleansing, purging the conscience, perfecting for ever, boldness to enter into the holiest, redemption, bringing to God, are all attributed to the precious blood of Christ and His sacrifice.

Now, I ask my opponents for one text which teaches that the fulfilling of the law is the way of having righteousness. I cite these: "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." "If righteousness come by law, Christ is dead in vain." "The righteousness of God without law is manifested." I know they tell me this is our keeping it. No; it is stated absolutely. But if it be, let them produce a text which teaches us that Christ's keeping the law was a different thing, and that that is the way of righteousness — a passage which refers to the value of His keeping the law for righteousness for us. The curse of a broken law, omission or commission, is spoken of. As many as are of its works are under the curse. Well, we are theologically told that His keeping it is needed. Paul says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Is it not singular we should get righteousness or justifying treated of in various shapes, and never once the thing mentioned which alone can give us righteousness? that it is never mentioned in the word of God? If it is, let us have it. I must have divine testimony for what is to make me righteous in God's sight. It is alleged that pardon and righteousness are distinct. Now, in the way they put it, this (which there is a certain truth in, rightly understood) they are wholly wrong in. David describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Now, as far as it has the character of what they call innocence (that is, for holding a man as without sin) it is the same as pardon. In that sense, justifying and pardon, clearing, no sin being charged, is all the same.

133 There is another truth connected with it, a ground on which they never enter, which does not leave us simply here negatively. He was raised again for our justification. He has perfectly glorified God in His work on the cross, and now, according to the perfection of it, appears in the presence of God for us. There is more than bearing our sins, glorifying God in His holy and glorious nature, and that about sin, and we are before God according to that in Him. I will refer to this when I speak of what I see Christianity to be. I must now turn to objections.

Mr. Trench's respect for Mr. Simeon, as an aged servant of Christ, who was the means of his conversion, every one will respect. But Mr. Simeon's views of truth are not such as would govern my mind. I remember once calling on Mr. Simeon with Mr. Trench. I had been endeavouring to draw Mr. Trench's mind to the person of Christ and failed. It was obscure — a common case for common sense with divine truth. He knew He was God, and knew He was man; but I could get no farther. When we called on Mr. Simeon, I put it to him, thinking he would make it clearer to Mr. Trench than I could, requesting he would do so. His reply I will not repeat, for it seemed to me irreverent; and I would not bring up an aged Christian now long gone to rest; but he treated it with contempt, so that I held my tongue and so left it. Now when Christ's person is not the centre of our religious thoughts and apprehensions, all will be cold and narrow. This has influenced all Mr. Trench's religious habits of thinking. I remember — at a time when I laboured with him, and when, I bear him witness, he laboured with assiduity and devotedness as a clergyman, and I do not doubt was blessed to many, if not in the spirit and way I should delight in — Mr. Trench used to preach from a collection of skeleton sermons prepared by Mr. Simeon. Mr. T. had the habit of coming to me, and asking, for his sermons, what I drew from such and such a text: I told him as well as I could; and how often did I hear, "Oh, but that will not go into the skeleton!" Now that is the history of all Mr. T.'s theological life since — putting the word of God into a skeleton! I do not quote this as idle recollection, but, while recalling with sincerity Mr. T.'s diligent labours, as the true history of the scope of Mr. Trench's views. I turn to his objections.

134 The first is very simple. He was told of "Brethren," that any person in the apparel of a man could speak. Any sensible person can see that this is simply maintaining the scriptural rule, "Let your women keep silence in the churches;" and that it is left free, in meetings which are not preachings nor lectures, but assemblies of saints, according to the clear scriptural rule, to all brethren who can edify, to do so. We glory in this. We have for it the authority of God's word, which is worth a host of objections, and, I am bold to say, have found the good fruits of it, in spite of our infirmities.

The next objection shews an ignorance of facts which makes it an unrighteous thing of Mr. Trench to speak of "Brethren" (for I will not suppose bad faith), as it is notorious that "Brethren" have suffered everything — reproach of divisions and narrowness; that they have broken publicly with Bethesda and all connected with it, because the latter wilfully let those who held this doctrine amongst them, rather than have the smallest connection with those who hold it; while Mr. Trench's friends and colleagues have supported and encouraged those who do hold these abominable blasphemies. Mr. Trench may have borrowed it from others; but borrowing accusations, without even enquiring whether they be true, is poor work. It is notorious, that the "Brethren" have at all cost rejected and refused any connection with those infected with upholding this doctrine. They broke with Bethesda, because Bethesda let in knowingly those who held it.

135 The next accusation requires more detailed reply. It refers to Mr. Mackintosh. I distinctly affirm that the charge against Mr. Mackintosh was an unfounded calumny. The very doctrine he was charged with was distinctly denied and rejected as false and worthless in the immediate part of his book taken as the ground of the calumny. The charge was a false one. And the utter folly of the reasoning by which it was attempted to be fixed on him was evident; for it applied equally to the expression of the Apostles' Creed, which was thus charged with Valentinianism. It has been replied, in reference to my quoting the Creed to shew it, that I do not quote scripture in appealing to the Apostles' Creed. I was not proving any doctrine by it, but the folly of a reasoning which charged the Apostles' Creed with Valentinianism. It shewed the absurdity of the charge. Mr. Mackintosh used the words of the Apostles' Creed. The words were charged with being evident Valentinianism. I denied the folly of the charge by pointing out that the same words were in the Apostles' Creed. And I am told I did not quote scripture! To be sure I did not. But Mr. Mackintosh did overstep the bounds of scripture statement. He used language open to attack, and I have no doubt his mind, in opposing one extreme, had gone into the opposite. To have stated the opposite to what he said would have been equally false. Scripture says nothing on it, in its divine wisdom; and our wisdom is to say nothing. That wisdom Mr. Mackintosh overstepped the bounds of. The part "Brethren" took on it was, long before this attack, to point it out to him; and the passage was left out in the second edition, just then being published. Subsequently he published a declaration that he had made a wrong statement, and that it was to be condemned wherever it might be found. I have no doubt his mind had overstepped the bounds of scripture; but the incriminated language not one in a thousand would have noticed as anything particular. When first it was shewn to myself, before it was publicly in question, it was in MS., with an answer by another person. I replied to an enquiry on it. Both have gone beyond scripture; but I do not believe either meant anything wrong. I did not then know whose either statement was. Still I recognize fully that Mr. Mackintosh did overstep scripture, and, of course, it is his duty to undo it as far as possible. He spoke of Christ as a divine man, a heavenly man, which few Christians would find any harm in, however enemies fasten on them. He also said that Christ was Lord as to His humanity. The answer to this statement on the part of his accuser was fatal heresy and denial of Christ's glory, an open denial of Christ's lordship as man. But that does not excuse, of course, Mr. Mackintosh. The worst of things may pass with those who fall in with the current; where a testimony is, nothing can. So much the better: I do not complain. But I repeat, the charge against Mr. Mackintosh w as a false one. Yet there was a root of unscriptural thought in his mind. I hold it a great mercy that it was brought out to light. The true humanity of Christ is a fundamental truth, and His person and salvation are given up if it be touched. We cannot be too jealous of it, or count it too precious. Attempts to define will plunge any one into heresy and irreverence. For my own part, I have found no truth more blessed for myself and in my labours. If He were not God, His humanity has no value; but with the faith that He is so, it becomes infinite in price, and the very way of blessing in every sense.

136 The two points charged against Mr. Mackintosh were, that Christ's humanity came from heaven, and that it was not formed in, and born of, the Virgin Mary. There was not the smallest foundation for one or the other: neither thought was in his mind, or in his writings, but explicitly the contrary. But in dwelling on the perfection of the "holy thing" born of the Virgin Mary, he went on to define, in a way which produced statements beyond scripture, and which cannot be justified by scripture. The "Brethren" objected to them, and he both withdrew and retracted them, seeing he had done so. They were, for all that, of a nature which, if man had denied them, he would have been equally in error. It was presuming beyond scripture. It ill becomes those who belong to a system where the grossest and most dishonest infidelity and popery reign with impunity to make themselves the sound correctors of the admitted errors of others. But I am glad that Mr. Trench has taken it up; it has afforded me an opportunity, now that it has been much talked of, to state what the facts are. Mr. Mackintosh is, of course, bound in the Lord to do all needed to remove any evil flowing from his words.

137 I do not like the expressions objected to in the next charge — of our faith not justifying, but the work of Christ. Many, outside "Brethren," have so expressed themselves. I do not think it is the soberness of scripture. The work which justifies us was clearly finished before ever we believed, or it would not have been there to be believed in; but, as to the state of justification, scripture does not so separate the work, and that by which we have a part in it.

As to the general resurrection being a Jewish doctrine and not taught by the Holy Ghost to the Church, it must be either a proof of incredible ignorance on the part of Mr. Trench of what has passed in the Church these thirty years, or clap-trap. It is hard to believe he should be unaware that half the pious clergy — the Birks, Bickersteths (some of them guilty of wild speculations about it, which it is well the Brethren did not put forward, but it is allowable, of course, with such), Dean Alford, and hundreds of others — deny a general resurrection. For two hundred years nothing else was held in the Church than a first resurrection, and distinct from the final one. I am bold to add that, apart from fundamental truth, I do not know a more mischievous contradiction of scripture than a general resurrection. It throws back the redeemed into the common mass of men for judgment, and upsets the plain statements and authority of scripture. I defy Mr. Trench, or any one else, to shew me in scripture a general resurrection, meaning by it one common to all. I am very glad he speaks of it. We must come to scripture — traditions are losing their power, or leading to Popery. Infidelity is rampant under the shadow of the Establishment. The word of God, and faith in it, must have its place. There is no such thing in scripture as a resurrection common to just and unjust. All will be raised. But scripture carefully distinguishes the first and the second in its objects, nature, time, effects, and everything, save that the power of the Lord Jesus will be exercised in both.

Mr. Trench's bringing this as an objection only shews his incompetency to say anything about the matter. He may not agree with the view of the mass of godly men who think thus, and whose number increases rapidly, as it must if scripture be believed, instead of taking Simeon and Scott and other men for authority; but to make it an objection in itself is puerile in the present state of the Church of God. Saints are raised by reason of the Spirit's dwelling in them. They are raised in glory to complete the divine work of life in them; the wicked for judgment. These have no part in the resurrection of the just. Scripture is as plain as possible on it.

138 The next objection is to what simply draws attention to an important statement of scripture. It is not our repentance which leads to the intercession of Christ, but Christ's intercession which leads to our repentance. I understand that Mr. Trench believes, as an Arminian, that it is good in us that leads to grace in God; but this he cannot expect those better taught of God to follow him in. It was Christ's intercession that led Peter to repentance; and it is when we sin, not when we repent, according to 1 John 2, that Christ's advocacy is exercised. Grace leads to humiliation and repentance, it is not our repentance without grace that procures the latter. It is Mr. Trench who has to learn here, not those he condemns. There cannot be a more blessed truth, more precious to the humble soul desirous of holiness and feeling its weakness, than what he, through ignorance doubtless, condemns here.

As regards his next objection, prayer for the Spirit by Christians is unscriptural. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." And it is a mischievous denial that we have it, and of our responsibility as having it, to ask for it. To ask to be filled with the Spirit is scriptural, but to ask for it is not for a Christian. It is deplorable the ignorance Mr. Trench exhibits in almost every line; but it is useful its being brought up, because it is a very common ignorance.

The next objection is on the grand point of our whole controversy. The contrast of imputing righteousness and imputed righteousness is presented as absurd. For all that, though I cannot give intelligence to my adversaries, I can assure them that it strikes at the root of the whole question. Mr. Trench ought to be able to comprehend it, because his Thirty-nine Articles have given the true sense of imputing righteousness, as his friend, Dr. O'Brien, has very justly remarked. In defining the true meaning of justifying, it says, "We are accounted righteous before God," &c. Now that is the force of imputing righteousness to a man-accounting a man righteous — no more. That is always its scriptural sense. Thus: "that righteousness may be imputed to us also." "Faith was imputed to him for righteousness." In this last case, if it were not so, it would be the merit or worth of his faith.

Imputing righteousness to a man is accounting a man to be righteous, without by that saying why. When imputed righteousness is said, it means that righteousness has been in some way made out by another, so that it exists; and so, being made out, is then, as a sum worth so much, put to the account of the person. Now imputing righteousness never means this in scripture. It means, simply accounting a man righteous (whatever the reason), as Article II justly states it. One is holding a man in a given state; the other is a quantum made up beforehand which is then put to his credit. In the former case, the reason for accounting a man to be righteous has still to be settled. As a general statement I have no objection to Article II, though I should have liked to see Christ's blood more in the foreground, but as far as it goes it is all well. My opponents may hold Christ's fulfilling the law to be the accomplished righteousness which is put to our account; another the value of His precious blood; others may take a wider view of the whole matter. But in any case imputing righteousness to a man, in scripture, only means holding him for righteous, and does not state why he is held so. This may be stated too, but imputing righteousness does not mean it. One is a person held to be in a certain state; the other, a thing done, a sum of righteousness accredited to a person. A person being accounted righteous may be in a thousand ways, may be by his own keeping the law, but you could not call this imputed righteousness. Imputed righteousness can only be in one way, namely, righteousness in a needed quantity, made out by another and afterwards appropriated. I insist on this, because I affirm, that in scripture imputing righteousness only means what the Thirty-nine Articles give as the force of justifying. And all the errors of my opponents flow from a totally false use of the words of scripture, assigning to them a meaning they never have nor can have there.

139 I believe in imputed righteousness with my whole soul in the true sense of the words, that it is by the perfectness and work of Christ, and not by any desert or state of mine, that I am through grace accounted righteous. I am held by God to stand, as alive in Christ, in all the worth, value, and perfectness of that in which He has glorified God. It is not my doing, but I am accounted righteous according to the value and by reason of what He has done, and what He is. Part of this my opponents could not say, but of that by and by. I object to their imputed righteousness — a thing not found in scripture; because they, in the teeth of scripture, put me under the law, and then make Christ fulfil it for me. I reject inherent righteousness altogether as my standing before God, though practical righteousness be wrought in a Christian; but my adversary's view of imputed righteousness I reject as antiscriptural. I will give my own in a moment. The rest of the objections hardly demand any notice.

140 Mr. Trench's calm and calculating mind does not reach the expressions of a poetical one. There would be really nothing more in it, but that I fear Mr. Trench does not see at all that which is thus vividly portrayed. He may complain of obscurity and exaggeration, or, stronger still, incomprehensible, extravagant, nay, silly interpretations. He will allow me to say that some do understand them. Does he ask me for a proof? His pamphlet — it is a cry of alarm. If things go on as they are going, he warns people they will fall into the hands of the "Brethren." Now I would warn Mr. Trench, as (if he will allow me to call him so) an old friend, that he must not make his comprehension the measure of the truth which is gaining hundreds of minds. I am quite willing to suppose that every one does not put it out soberly, wisely, as a St. Paul would; but what Mr. Trench wants to learn is, that there are truths largely disseminated now, of which he evidently, from his pamphlet, knows nothing — precious truth, which is everywhere arousing and acting on the saints and sinners too. And if he seeks to confine them within the limits of Scott and Simeon, he will find, however justly their names may be respected, that with all his common sense, he has made a great blunder. He will keep some back — those with little conscience and little interest in truth. But multitudes of souls will go on, search the scriptures whether these things are so, and act on others. Some will exaggerate, some be poetical, in spite of him; but souls will learn infinitely precious truth, and go on, and he will be left behind. Those who will not have scripture as the stay of their souls, will be Puseyite or infidel. Paul has given it as the one stay under grace of the last days. The thought that eternity is worth more than time is a most solemn one — one we should do well to take heed to; it may lead us to the gospel by grace, and keep the soul steady; but it is not the richest soil for the faith of God's elect to grow in.

Mr. Trench complains of speaking of clearing the shores of the old world in the resurrection of Christ, and now living and having your happy home in the new. Now I affirm this to be most precious truth, poetically put, so that many more would read it than my dry reasonings on it, but sober, blessed, scriptural truth. Does Mr. Trench know what being risen with Christ is? Does not resurrection clear us of the old world, and introduce us to the new? Does not the scripture say we are risen with Christ, and our life hid with Him in God? Is not our Father's house our home? Where is it? Is it not in the new world, the heavenly one? We are sitting in heavenly places in Christ. Mr. Trench may seek in every way to lower these truths, and thus destroy their power; this is all he can do; but he may be assured he will not do it with all. Scripture is too precious — has too much authority with them. They will search into it — seek to realize these truths — value them for their own sake — value them more than the false teaching that every christened child is regenerate and made a member of Christ. Mr. Trench will tell me he does not believe it; no, he only signs it, or declares his assent to it. This, he may be assured, does not make everybody acquiesce the more in the dictates of what is called good sense.

141 The next thing objected to is, that, as far as life is concerned, we are in the resurrection state already. To be sure we are. Mr. Trench is only shewing his own ignorance of truth, the truth by which God is acting in so many souls now. We are quickened together with Christ, and raised up together. We are risen with Christ, as we have been crucified with Him, nevertheless live, but not we, but Christ lives in us. The whole doctrine of the Ephesians (though it goes farther) and of the Colossians, as indeed of other parts of scripture, is founded on this truth. It lies at the basis of our true christian position. First, that Christ is risen, consequent on His death; and then that we are risen with Him. He is the resurrection and the life. That it would happen to us hereafter, Martha believed. The Lord insists on it as present power; the apostle as our place in Christ.

Is Mr. Trench going to reject St. Paul's doctrines, and run away from the Lord's teaching, like Martha, as that which he cannot bear? We are risen together with Him, through faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead. This is our very profession in baptism, according to scripture. Those who lean on the word of God, will seek its power, not despise its truth. It may be opposed by scurrilous abuse, by gathering up every calumny, by the calculations of good sense, by the traditions of men. It is probable that these influences will keep many from it. There is nothing new in this. It may be coloured by poetry, exaggerated, as truths fresh to the soul often are, untowardly expressed by some, the bounds of scriptural soberness overstepped by others. This is poor human nature too. But there it is in scripture; and souls who feed on truth and love the Lord will go on to learn it.

142 I do not dwell on various interpretations; such, of course, may be sound, sober, or otherwise. But "I regard" will not weigh much with those who learn of God from scripture, and (I pray Mr. Trench to forgive me, and to believe I say it in love) not from one whom they see to be ignorant of fundamental truths of scripture connected with the whole nature of the divine life, and our standing before God — truths which furnish the key to the understanding of a vast body of scripture, and the development of its contents.

Mr. Trench, however excellent a clergyman, lives in his own circle of ideas, transported from Cloughjordan to Newtown, near Kells, but little beyond. He will learn, if he enquires a little farther into what is passing in the Church of God, that many have got, and many are getting, out of that circle. I have no doubt he will hinder them if he can; of course he will some. But there is that work which he will not, and that which is directly of God too. I mean conscience and the truth, the authority of God's word, and the power of God's Spirit; the authority of God Himself over their consciences, which will be too strong in many souls to be restrained by the motives by which Mr. Trench would bind them down to the measure of truth and character of walk, which his common sense would allow.

I close by stating, as briefly as I can, what the real question of all this controversy is, and what I believe to be the truth as to it. My opponents hold that we are all under the law, and that Christ, born under the law, kept it for us, and that this is the way we are justified and obtain righteousness. It is well my readers should recall, that all this controversy arose from the preaching of Mr. Molyneux, in Exeter Hall, who declared that if a man was born again of the Spirit, and washed in Christ's blood, still he could not go to heaven; that there was written on heaven's gates, "Do this and live;" that we were sanctified by the Spirit, cleansed by Christ's blood, but had positive righteousness only by the law's being kept. As to which, remark, it is not merely that the law is a rule of life, which is asserted, but specifically that righteousness comes by the law. All this I reject, founding my opposition on the plain and repeated statements of the word of God. It is making a righteousness in flesh for men in the flesh, by the law to which they are, as in the flesh, subject; and moreover at the same time excusing their fulfilling it actually by another's doing it for them. But, specially, it is a first Adam's righteousness, a righteousness for man in flesh.

143 Now I believe that it is not the mind of God to set up righteousness of man in flesh, or to set up sinful flesh again in any way. He has put the saints in a wholly new position in the second Adam, passing sentence of death and condemnation on the flesh never to be removed. Christ (as come down here in the likeness of sinful flesh, but perfectly sinless, come under the law in the place and circumstances where man was, but having entered into them by a miraculous birth, as every Christian owns) was perfect in this place, glorified God in it. And all that perfectness was needed for God's glory, and for His being our Saviour; but He did not do it to set up man in the flesh again (flesh had proved in His death its hopeless enmity to God), but to bring man into a wholly new state (where even Adam innocent had never been) by resurrection, Himself the firstfruits, the Old Testament saints having to await our entering into it to be made perfect with us. The Lord Jesus gives us a place, not under law, but in resurrection, and finally with Himself risen. This did not take away our responsibility as Adam's children in flesh: not only were we separated from God by it, driven out of the earthly paradise, but sinners and guilty all, and more especially those under law — transgressors of law. Hence the blessed Lord, to glorify His Father, yea, God's own nature in this behalf, not only, as I have said, was perfect, and kept the law in the midst of temptations, glorifying God in every way of life, but through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself with out spot to God, bearing our sins and the wrath due to them, taking the curse of the law on Himself; thus cleared the believer perfectly, having by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified. We believing in Him are clear, justified from all things which attached to us, in our position of men in flesh. But flesh in His death is judged, condemned, and sentenced for ever. But this was not all. He glorified God perfectly in dying. Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. Hence, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, God has glorified Him in Himself, and straightway. This is witnessed in His resurrection, and we may add in His ascension. But He is raised again for our justification, and appears in the presence of God for us. Hence we have justification of life, and from Him risen a wholly new life, standing, and nature, though we have the treasure in an earthen vessel; standing before God as to acceptance, in the acceptance He is in, by His glorifying God in what He stood in for us, on the cross. We are not in the flesh at all; not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and the Spirit of God dwelling in us, we know we are in Him, and He in us. It is a new creation, where what belongs to the old things is passed away. Hence, when in Christ, we reckon ourselves dead to sin, to the old man, and the law; alive to God by Jesus Christ thus risen and gone on high, when He had by Himself purged our sins. Our place in the Spirit is wholly in Him, according to the power of the life of the second Adam, risen from the dead. We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. This it is connects inseparably godliness and justification. Christ is both righteousness and life to us. We are in Him for one. He in us as the other, the Spirit given to us giving us the consciousness of it. (John 14.) This, and not our being under law, is the true way of godliness. It is not the imposition of human righteousness on flesh, which would it not; but the display of the life of Christ in us. Against that (as the apostle says, speaking of the fruits of the Spirit) there is no law. The safeguard of this is, not changing the principle and putting us back under law, which scripture forbids, but the precepts, commandments, example of Christ, the government of God, and the discipline of the Church itself.

144 Our acceptance is in the whole of the work of Christ, and in Himself who has done it, and that according to the value God has, and has manifested for it, in virtue of which Christ sits at His right hand, and we in Him. To return into flesh and law is to ruin and subvert all this. It is not Christianity. The man who only sees that Christ has died for him knows what justifies him from all his sins as a man in flesh, has the ground of peace, and is a Christian; the man who sees that he is risen with Christ, and in Him in God's presence, according to the glorifying of God by the man Christ Jesus, knows his acceptance in the Beloved, and the character of it. Christ is His righteousness. He knows what the righteousness of God is; that he is made it in Christ, who was made sin for us. He who brings us back under law brings us back into flesh, and subverts the whole truth. It may be only a blunder in his mind, and he may sincerely trust in Christ's precious blood, and be a Christian; but all is obscured and muddied by his views: he cannot stand in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. He does not know what it is to be dead with Christ; to reckon himself dead; nor risen with Him; nor sitting in the heavenly places in Him. All this is dark to him, as we have seen in those who have written against this view. Being dead to sin they openly deny, save as dead to their guilt (to which, on the contrary, they ought to be ever alive); and being in resurrection in Christ is a hopeless riddle to them.

145 Practically Christianity is a wholly different thing, and repentance, though it may begin by the acknowledgment of sin, is the judgment the new man passes on the whole condition of the old. So little do I reject imputed righteousness, that, if I were obliged to choose between Christ's keeping the law for my righteousness, and inherent righteousness, I should prefer the former, because, at least, it would be Christ's, and not myself; but I am not. I am reckoned righteous according to the perfection and acceptance of Christ Himself, having glorified God in all He is, when sin was in question before Him. I stand in the value of Christ's own value and worth before God, and that in respect of His work — a work which was wrought in perfect obedience. I reject my opponents' view of imputed righteousness, because it is legal righteousness for the flesh, for a living child of Adam; whereas Christianity treats that as dead, condemned, and set aside, and shews our place in the Second Adam risen. It does not bring in the Second to set up the first again on its own ground; but to substitute the Second for the first, for eternal glory and the blessing of our souls, brought to infinite delight in being brought to God in Him.

Such is the christian place; such is the christian hope, realized through the Holy Ghost which dwells in us, enjoyed in the knowledge of the perfect love of God, according to which we know that as He (Christ) is, so are we in this world, not returning under the law, which, perfect in its claim on tile first man, brought a curse on the flesh. Let the reader remark withal, how, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, death has been fully entered into, and its power broken, Satan who had its power annulled in His, and the true deliverance of the believer in every respect, now in spirit, hereafter in the glorifying of the body in which he now groans. He will find it portrayed in Romans 8: 1-11.

I have not the remotest thought, that the subject of the present paper is distinctive of "Brethren." I know that a great body of the established clergy reject Christ fulfilling the law being our righteousness. What I believe does distinguish "Brethren" is, the believing the forming of the Church of God by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; the unity of that Church, and its union with Christ on high as His body, and that this ought to be manifested on earth. Clearness as to our being risen together with Him accompanies this; the waiting for God's Son from heaven, to see Him as He is, and find then the accomplishment, the full result, of heavenly blessing. Collaterally this deliverance from the law flows in the same channel of grace; but that which characterizes their doctrine, as far as I understand it, is faith in the presence of the Comforter sent down from heaven, uniting the saints to their Head, thus forming them into one body, and acting in the members of that body for its edification in revealing Christ, giving withal enjoyment of the Father's love.

Divine Righteousness

J. N. Darby.

<10006E> 147

The progress of discussion on the question of divine righteousness, and a rapid review of what I have myself written, present the whole matter to me in so serious a light, that I have been led to resume my pen upon it. I do this the rather as I see that more are entangled in the pernicious error which I seek to oppose than I was at first aware of, and that the error is more grave than I had thought when I first rejected it as wrong.

That the "British and Foreign Evangelical Review," and after it, the "Irish Christian Examiner," should have admitted an article so utterly anti-christian in doctrine as they did, proves such utter blindness as to what truth and error is, in the professed leaders of religious opinions, that I feel more than ever the need of having the truth as to the righteousness of God fully and clearly before the mind. I am not unaware of the clamour that has been raised, nor of the warnings against dangerous errors, which have been the natural resource of those who could not answer what was said, and would not admit the truth that was produced. Nor am T ignorant how any error was accepted, provided the divine truth I insisted on from scripture was condemned. All this has only served to shew me the real source of the opposition and the importance of the question raised.

Were it merely a question as to "Brethren" (so-called), I should not feel disposed to stir; but this is in no way the case. What the Church is, and its present state, and the presence of the Holy Ghost, is that which is important, and with that, the coming of the Lord. But the question of what is righteousness before God, and the righteousness of God, is of vital importance for the whole Church of God. I am satisfied that a large number of souls are misled as to it, and that a right apprehension of it is a means of spiritual deliverance for them. Many a simple soul has no distinct thought about it, resting simply in peace before God upon Christ's work. They are happy. They may learn more, no doubt, but I can only hope they may keep their simplicity and their peace. But many are kept back by false teaching on the subject. What has been taught beyond simple redemption and atonement has, I am bold to say, only darkened counsel. I am perfectly aware that I shall have a whole host of evangelical teachers warning and denouncing. Save for their sakes, I am quite indifferent to that, if I have scripture with me and guiding me; as I have no kind of doubt I have. The opposition only shews the need of being decided, and making the matter plain from scripture. My opponents have gone wrong, and the clamours of those I am sure are wrong do not move me, except to be still more decided.

148 Some may blame my confidence as to the possession of the truth, and this apparent braving of others. But scripture is of sacred and sufficient authority, and if the school of doctrine I oppose is misleading the saints, it is worth while to denounce their doctrine as unscriptural and mischievous error. Had I any bitter feeling, I should be blameable; but I do not even know the persons I am opposed to, save one or two by name. I am not conscious of any such feeling. But I do denounce the doctrine of our righteousness being made out by Christ's keeping the law for us, as unscriptural, and subversive of the whole scheme of Christianity, as regards our position before God. Paul (who, as is well known, is the great teacher of the doctrine of justification) laboriously argues against every thought of the kind;* and the doctrine which Paul teaches is wholly set aside, if such a notion be received. It is this which makes me earnest on it. It subverts the doctrine of the New Testament as to the true standing of a Christian before God. My adversaries insist that Christ kept the law for us, and that that constitutes our positive righteousness before God. This I deny: not that He kept the law, but that this is our righteousness. Scripture teaches no such doctrine; but it teaches the contrary. Issue is thus fairly joined. I denounce the doctrine as unscriptural and contrary to christian truth. I affirm that those who teach it are in this respect false teachers. The arguments of my adversaries I have sufficiently met as they have been presented from time to time in the controversy. My object now is different — to treat the subject as a whole from its source as a system of doctrine.

{*My friends are often more frightened than I am. I suppose, from a note in the "Bible Treasury," some Mr. Furlong found some wonderful root of evil in the expression of "the Pauline doctrine of righteousness." It was. as there stated, merely borrowed from the paper I answered; but I would beg to state to Mr. Furlong that, while surely one only divine Spirit indited the whole, no apostle, with the exception of James insisting on its demonstration by works, treats the question, or speaks of justification at all; and there cannot be a more appropriate or apt expression than "the Pauline doctrine of righteousness." It is in the writings of Paul, and there only, that this doctrine is found elaborately treated. That all other scriptures are in accordance with it, I do not for a moment doubt.}

The starting point of these doctors is the law. Righteousness is measured by the law. There must be a law to have righteousness, or sin on the other hand. Sin is the transgression of the law. "It is evident then," says Dr. O'Brien, "that in the justification with which we have to do — in which man is the party and God is the Judge* — we have only to look to the law to which man is answerable, to see what justification means." This is the doctrine of the whole party. Hence, all must be put under the law and the same law. Thus Adam is placed under it; and hence Mr. Molyneux, who does but refer to the common doctrine, says, "It was said to Adam 'Do this and live.'" And this is carried so far, that in the "Marrow of Modern Divinity," it is explained how Adam broke each of the commandments. So the heathen are put under the same law; hence the Christian also; while distinctions of absolute law, and particular formal law, are invented to meet the plain argument which scripture affords against this.

{*Note here, it is only a justification provided for God of which He judges, not His work to justify. But even so, it is not true; Gentiles are judged differently from Jews.}

149 The whole system is false in every part of it; and if, instead of saying, "we have only to look to the law to which man is answerable," I do look to scripture and revelation, I find the apostle there very carefully shewing that this is not the ground on which we stand at all, but another — God's righteousness, which he carefully and diligently contrasts with it. He diligently shews that we are not to do, what Dr. O'Brien says we are to do; and moreover, that we are under the curse if we do it. This evidently is a serious question. These teachers of the law are telling us to do exactly what the apostle is telling us not to do — what he denounces — what he tells us puts men under a curse. But I must answer each portion in detail to clear the ground, before I take up the system as a whole.

Every part and parcel of it is false. In the first place (for it is well to give the first place to what is alleged as scripture) sin is not the transgression of the law. The translation is a false one, brought about, I doubt not, by this system of doctrine. The word is used in contrast with being under law. It is translated differently by the translators themselves elsewhere. They that have "sinned without law shall also perish without law," and they that have "sinned under the law shall be judged by the law." (Rom. 2: 12.) Now, what has been translated "transgression of the law" (1 John 3: 4) is the same (as to the force of the word, only here as an adverb) as what is translated here "without law" (Rom. 2: 12), in contrast to being under it and judged by it. That is, what has been translated "transgression of the law," is by the apostle expressly contrasted with it. It is lawlessness. This is a serious thing. This doctrine as to the law has led to the falsification of the scriptural definition of sin. I do not think any honest man will pretend to say that ἀνομία means transgression of the law, or the same thing as παράβασις νόμου.

150 The principle of the system is, that "Do this and live" was said to Adam. This is equally false. "This do and live" was not said to Adam; nor, as is stated in the "Marrow of Modern Divinity," implied in the threat of death on his eating the forbidden fruit. Adam had nothing to do. He was not put to gain life by doing anything. He was not yet fallen under the power of death at all. As far as security of life was attached to any act at all, it was to the eating of the other tree; but that he was never told to eat and live. It is a striking fact, that responsibility, and a source or sustainment of life, were thus set as distinct things even in Paradise. That which has been the puzzle of heathens and Jews, and school men, and theologians, to reconcile — responsibility, and the free gift of life — stood out there, were represented in these two trees. The creature failed in his responsibility — did, and died. It is to this these teachers seek to bring us back, when the revelation of God is "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." But Adam was never given a promise of life conditioned on his doing anything; was never put on this ground by God; but had a warning of death, he being alive, if he disobeyed. What is said on this subject is a mischievous, fatal, and anti-scriptural statement. Not only is it not found in scripture (for they can never produce scripture for any of their statements) but scripture puts Adam on wholly different ground. There was nothing he was set to do, there is no promise of life in doing it. He was alive and threatened with death. This false doctrine subverts the whole truth of the fall, and of our condition as fallen. Adam fell from what he was in — did not lose a promise, for none was made to him. All the revealed principles of God's dealings are falsified by this system.

We have seen man on the ground of responsibility, and failing; and the tree of life, otherwise free to him without any doing or condition, untouched. Man was now fallen and sinful; separated from God, and sinful in nature. I pass over the great and solemn judgment, executed on earth as the result of this state, because it was a judicial act.

151 The next thing God does is to give a promise, not of life, but of the Seed, of Christ (an unconditional promise that all nations should be blessed in Abraham), and this subsequently is confirmed to the Seed. No promise of life was given to Adam, fallen or unfallen. It was declared in the judgment on Satan, that the Seed of the woman should bruise his head. But the Seed of the woman — the first Adam was not; but the Second. This seed is now promised to Abraham without any condition as to its gift. Up to this, the one only law, and which in its nature (as a covenant on express terms) excludes all other as ground and measure of responsibility, was the prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit. Man's heart and nature had departed from God before even he outwardly broke through the prohibition; but this is another matter. The spiritual man may perceive this, but this has nothing to do with a law or the terms of a covenant.

After this promise, made unconditionally to Abraham (not of life, but of the Seed), came the law. Not that it could touch that promise or the covenant — impossible, as the apostle shews us in the Galatians; but it was added that there might be transgressions till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made. Up to this there had been no promise of life at all. There had been the legal covenant made with Adam, the transgression of which involved death; and the promise of the Seed, without any condition at all — as to its principle, an unconditional promise. Such unquestionably are the scriptural facts as to this, and the statement, in fact, of the Galatians. When the law came, there was a promise of life, a conditional promise: "he that doeth them shall live in them" (Lev. 18), quoted by Paul in Romans 10, as the expression of the law's principle as to the way of righteousness, although it remains still and infallibly true, that life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel: it is not said first given.

But thus far we have found — that the statement as to Adam, that he was put under the terms "Do this and live," is not found in scripture; but that, on the contrary, he was set in a quite different condition, and on other terms. It is a subversion of scripture instruction to place him under the law as subsequently given. He was under a covenant; but, as living, threatened with falling under the power of death. We have found that Abraham, the next remarkable dealing and revelation of God, was not placed under any law at all as the ground of righteousness — he was justified by faith; and that the promise was given to him without any condition whatever, and that that promise was not of life, but of the Seed, Christ. These cases shew that this general putting under law, from Adam onwards, is an effacing of the clear positive instruction of scripture as to the various positions in which men were set. The notion that the law was written in Adam's heart is equally unfounded. He had not yet acquired the knowledge of good and evil necessary to the application of the law, and it is yet more evident, for he had another formal law to test obedience; and, certainly, that was not written on his heart.

152 But we are arrived, in the progress of God's dealings, at the giving of the law. The question of righteousness, which the unconditional promise had not raised, is now raised. Righteousness is required from man. But we must notice this a little more particularly.

We find, again, the two great principles of paradise, responsibility and life; but life dependent on man's satisfying his responsibility, "This do, and thou shalt live." No doubt the literal statement in Leviticus refers to their enjoying life, under God's blessing, in this world; still the great principle is laid down, and hopes beyond this world gleamed through the darkness by the inspired cravings of men's hearts, and the prophetic testimony of the word. If a man kept God's commandments, he would live. But, as the apostle says, "that which was ordained for life, I found to be unto death." "If there had been a law given, which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law." But there was not.

The law was a special system introduced to test man when he was really a sinner under death, yet pretending to power and free will, and to bring to light what he really was. It was found to be a ministration of death and condemnation, the strength of sin, making sin exceeding sinful; and, though not by any fault of the law, provoking the action of sin. But it was only added till the Seed should come, to whom the promise was made. It was the exact rule of what God required from man, but man was a sinner. It did not give life, did not lead into righteousness before God. The keeping of it would make a man find life. But this, Christ excepted, no man ever did. It prohibited, necessarily and rightly, what man did and was and felt; and commanded what was contrary to his state and feelings, according to the nature of the old man. It was a process, a dealing with man, of the weightiest character, because its contents were the perfection of man as such; but it was a testing process, it did not give life. It could not do so in itself, even if it were kept. It resulted in sin's becoming exceeding sinful, not in righteousness.

153 In Christ, God took up the question of the trees again; but not in requiring or forbidding, but in acting. He gives life — life in Christ, and Christ takes the whole consequence of our responsibility on Himself; puts all away; and, having perfectly glorified God therein, places man, according to sovereign goodness, in the glory of God. I speak, of course, of the efficacy of His work for believers. Here only can man find the conciliation of responsibility and the possession of life. But it is grace, the act and work of God. He has given His only begotten Son, that we might live through Him, and to be the propitiation for our sins. Now, as He is, so are we in this world. It is a glorious and blessed solving, by God in sovereign grace, of what never could be solved in any other way. Grace reigns, through righteousness, unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Law never was the means of obtaining righteousness, or giving life, and was never meant to be. It was given to Adam in a way not involving the knowledge of good and evil, but testing obedience under the penalty of death. On failure the Seed of the woman was announced in the judgment on the serpent, but no promise was given to Adam. Promise of the blessing of all nations is given to Abraham, and confirmed to the Seed, Christ. Then the question of acquiring righteousness before God is raised (which, yet in principle, was already settled in Abraham) in the giving of the law, and divine favour on obedience. The result, and necessarily so to a sinful nature, is that law works wrath by transgression. We may add, man's state is then fully tested by God's manifestation in grace on the earth, and judgment pronounced on the world: "Now is the judgment of this world." But thus God is perfectly glorified by the Second Adam's work; and He the author of divine life and eternal salvation.

We may consider the law and Christ, as the two great principles on this question of life and righteousness; the old covenant, and the great foundation of the new; or (which more concerns us now, because both are directly made with Israel) as the two great principles of righteousness — on man's part, under responsibility for God, and life sought for thus (and here God is simply a Judge, as Dr. O'Brien says), or righteousness on God's part for man, and eternal life given, our sins being put away, and God perfectly glorified (and here God is a justifier), this leading into heavenly places by sovereign grace to us, according to the perfect glorifying of God, accomplished by Christ.

154 Now the law, as we have seen, was never the way of getting life — law, either on tables of stone, or on the heart, never the way of obtaining righteousness, though if it could have given life, it might have been so; that is, of obtaining the righteousness of law, not God's, but man's.

The notion of a universal legal righteousness is proved false by God's various ways with man. But if we reject the thought of one general rule — the law, by which righteousness was to be obtained — were there then various ways of obtaining life and righteousness before God, because God dealt in these various ways? By no means. But God's way of giving life alike proves the falseness of their legal system. These were means of testing and instructing man by the dealings and ways of God, that he might know himself in relationship to God. Eternal life was always the gift of God. It was promised before the world began, and was manifested in due time through preaching. Our saving and calling were given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, and is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who "hath abolished death, and hath brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel." No man can give himself natural life; still less, divine: this is in and from Christ for man. The law did not give it, so Paul tells us; no law was given that could, and no better law was possible than what was given. It did declare that "he that doeth these things shall live in them;" but declared it to one who had a nature not subject to the law of God, and which could not be. But righteousness and life cannot really be separated. If we live before God, it must be as accepted and righteous in His sight. If a law had been given which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law. So Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law on this wise, "The man that doeth these things shall live in them." The righteousness of faith is not separated from life, though not by it. Christ is both to us, both to all who ever had life, or ever had righteousness. His death proved the righteousness of God in forgiving the sins of believers before He came. "God hath set him forth for a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his (God's) righteousness." But eternal life was promised before the world was. The question of righteousness was raised by sin coming in.

To turn now to this: Adam, innocent, had never the question of his acceptance raised, nor that of righteousness. He was what God made him. To speak of justifying him were to call in question the workmanship of his Maker. But conscience once come in, the question is there: "how can a man be just with God?" Abraham was not justified by law or by works, but by faith without works; for "to him that worketh is the reward of debt not of grace." Those under the law were not justified by its works, as is manifest from scripture. The whole system of the law as the means of righteousness was left behind by the christian Jew, to have it in another way (Gal. 2: 15, 16), the faith of Christ. Was the law then abrogated for those who were under it? It was not. But they died from under it by the body of Christ, to stand on another footing and in another life altogether — even in Christ, their life and their righteousness. They are not in the flesh, they are not under the law; but they have put off the old man and put on the new man. They are alive unto God through Jesus, according to all the value of what He has done for them, purged from sin, and accepted in the Beloved. The law is always an individual thing. "The man that doeth shall live in them." The very essence of it is that the man himself does it, that he is obedient; not he disobedient, and another obedient for him. The man that does them is justified. But the law had raised the question of righteousness.

155 The knowledge of good and evil was come in, sin and conscience together, and for peace and divine acceptance there must be righteousness. The law had put it on the ground of man's doing, as alive and responsible to God in this world. It could only have done it thus. No doubt faith looked beyond, but man on earth had to be righteous according to his state on earth. That was the way, the only way, on the ground of man's responsibility, and as God, in giving the rule of this in the law (though its highest requirements were, so to speak, hidden in it), gave a perfect rule for man as His creature down here, man has applied it to all times, and as eternal, necessary, and the only ground of righteousness, the only one for all times. So it would be, if man was to have his own righteousness. But is that so? And if eternal life, promised in grace before the world was, is to be conferred, is that to be found by earning it under law? Or, has not God some other way, and man another need? Man's conscience tells him he ought to be what the law requires; his pride tells him he may be; and theologians, feeling they cannot, seek to meet it by making it up some other way, but keep it as the measure.

This, then, is the question: the law being the perfect rule of man's conduct as a creature, is it the one ever true abiding way of life and righteousness to him, or has God another? That which makes it difficult to man to get out of this thought that the law has this eternal place is, that it is the measure of righteousness for man, the true perfect rule of it, and his conscience owns it. My adversaries say it is the one abiding way of righteousness, and that what God has done is to fulfil it for man, maintaining it, not merely as right, and as the rule of righteousness for man, but as that by the fulfilling of which righteousness is to be obtained and life eternal. I affirm that it is the perfect rule of human or creature righteousness; but that it is not, and never has been, the way of obtaining righteousness before God; the way of God's righteousness; that God's ways have shewn it; and that, though it be in itself a perfect, and therefore, immutable rule for creature righteousness, God, who did not mean us to have righteousness that way, brought it in by the by. I go farther, and say, it was never meant to be, and never could be, that by which righteousness was established for us, but that God has shewn the weakness of the creature, and the impossibility of his attaining to righteousness as such, and has condemned and set aside the whole nature and state of things in which the law has its operation, in view of our introduction into heavenly places.*

{*The law will be written in men's hearts for the establishment of government and righteousness on earth under Christ. But even that is founded on the work by which divine righteousness is established.}

156 In the first place, our salvation and calling was given us, not according to any works at all, but in Christ Jesus before the world began. There was the promise of eternal life. It is the sovereign gift of God. The Son quickens whom He will. No law has been given which could give life. As regards righteousness, the law could do nothing in it. Adam, innocent, had no need to acquire any righteousness. As I have said, he was what God had made him; the law, as God has given it, could have no application to him; stealing, lust, and loving his neighbour, had no force for him. In no way could the principle of law, as requiring righteousness, be applied to an innocent person. An imposed rule does not suit such a one; nor a law which supposes evil, one who is ignorant of it. When he had fallen, it is quite clear the law could not justify or give righteousness. It was applicable then, but could only condemn. By it was the knowledge of sin. Neither the purpose nor the ways of God give righteousness by any law. The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. In Him was life, and "he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" — the eternal source of it, He that hath "brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel."

157 The great question then arises as to direct proof: has not God set up another kind of righteousness than that of law? And if so, the fulfilment of the law cannot accomplish that righteousness, a righteousness which is not the adequate fulfilment of man's obligations (and the law can be no more), but the glorifying of God's nature fully, so that He is glorified in blessing according to all that that nature is. Not the setting aside of the authority of the law; for both God's authority and real creature-righteousness were involved in it; but magnifying it, yet putting man on another ground as to his acceptance, the fruit of God's thoughts and God's work, made good in setting Christ at His right hand; setting man on the ground of resurrection by the glory of the Father, and, I may add, heavenly glory; the law knowing nothing of resurrection, but applying to man alive in this world. I affirm that, according to scripture, there is such a new divine justification and righteousness. It has a double bearing or aspect. It meets the failure of men, as under the responsibilities of the first Adam, including the transgression of the law. It places man, accepted of God, in a wholly new position, in which divine life in power is also found: and God is just or righteous in both. It is according to what He is, not what man ought to be merely, though atonement meets that. It is from Him, His doing, and put in force by Him in justifying. He it is that acts in it in grace, so that it is His righteousness. It is in contrast with man's, founded on Christ's work in manhood, but in which God Himself was glorified; and into which man is brought, so that in it, He, God, is just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; otherwise God could only have been just in condemning, for justice had nothing to do with unfallen Adam. He was, I repeat, what God had made him, and should have stayed so. God cannot judge or call in question His own work, so as to apply justice to it.

Now, in scripture, we find man's righteousness, or legal righteousness, always contrasted with God's, in nature, in fact, and in principle; the latter being distinctively introduced by the gospel, while promised of old; the law having in the interval raised the question of man's righteousness and given the true measure of it so that God has confirmed it by His divine sanction. Thus "Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not . . . That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." "That is," as he says, "the word of faith which we preach." Now, here I find expressed that the righteousness which is of the law speaks one language, and the righteousness which is of faith another. This is expressly declared, but it is confirmed by the fact that, when speaking of Christ, it speaks nothing of His life or law-keeping, as connected with the righteousness of faith, but of His death and resurrection. Remark further, that, in this righteousness of faith, man does not do or act, but believe; God acts. He has raised Christ from the dead. I believe in what God has done.

158 Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, because therein the righteousness of God is revealed in the way of faith to faith — a new thing as to its revealed completeness and ground, though prophesied of old. So, in Romans 3, God's righteousness apart from law is manifested. It is "at this time," and "His righteousness," that He might be just and justify him that was of the faith of Jesus. It may be alleged, Yes, but that is by Christ's keeping the law. But it is not. The same passage says, "God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his [God's] righteousness for the remission of sins that are past." God's righteousness is shewn in remission through blood-shedding; and this, the apostle emphatically declares, that God might be just and the justifier of believers. And note, in speaking of the sins of believers in past times, there is not a hint of fulfilling law for them, but of His blood. That made God evidently righteous as regards Old Testament saints. Surely, if the other had been true, it would have come in here as regards these. But no; he is justified freely by His grace through redemption; but keeping law is not redemption.

So, in Galatians, the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. It is not faith in one's fulfilling law; but faith in contrast with law — faith in the Seed to which the promise was made, according to the statements we had already gathered from scripture; and if the inheritance be of law, it is no more of promise. It is a diligent contrast of the two principles. One is Hagar, the other Sarah. But Hagar is cast out with her children. Law can have no place with the promise and faith. And that no man is justified by law is evident, for the just shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith — is another and a contrasted principle. Curse came by the law. Is it then set aside? No. Christ has glorified it, and redeemed us from its curse, having been made a curse for us. Is there anything added to shew that He kept it for us, that we might be justified? Not a word — contrast with it only. It is not of faith. I find, then, an opposite principle to law brought in, and that by which we are justified set in careful contrast with law — God's righteousness by faith, contrasted with man's, our own by law, Christ's keeping it for others being never hinted at nor supposed to be possible (righteousness by law being always considered as our own, and rejected, as in Philippians 3: 9, "Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith"). The law, if kept, would be man's righteousness; what we have through faith is God's.

159 But if the law be not thus a rule of life and way of righteousness, and Christ's own obedience unto death makes us righteous who believe in Him, what principle have we to guard us against sinning and practical ungodliness? Here what answers to the other tree of Paradise comes in — the tree of life. It is not by imposing a law that we are kept in obedience (that failed us, for the same reason that it did in obtaining righteousness), but by giving a life. Christ becomes our life, and our obedience is in this life to God Himself, in contrast still with law. (Romans 6.) But this introduces another point, which applies to law too. The law indeed kills us, as alive in conscience without it; but this could only be ruin and condemnation. Christ has died in grace for us, and this is appropriated to us by faith in Him that is risen. We say we are crucified with Christ. The faults of the old man are not made up by law-keeping, but the old man itself is wholly condemned and set aside. God has condemned sin in the flesh by Christ's death, and set it aside; for we are dead. He only that is dead is really justified from sin. The sins have been put away, for Christ is crucified for us; sin in the flesh condemned by His death, but we are crucified with Him, not in the flesh. We were in the flesh, and then the motions of sin could be excited by the law. We reckon ourselves, being baptized to His death, dead to sin, and alive to God; Christ risen, our life; so that we walk in newness of life. But this is our deliverance from law; because He who was under it has died and satisfied its claims, and come from under them; law having dominion over a man as long as he lives — and we are dead, and alive with a new kind of life, out of the state and place where law reached us. We have died wholly out of that, as truly as Christ has died and risen into another, God's true place for man in Christ. It is a new creation in us, and by which we are placed in the new creation, where the old things are passed away and all things are new.

160 Thus life is new, as well as righteousness. It is divine life, as well as divine righteousness: Christ our life, and Christ our righteousness. Neither is obtained by the law, both in and through Christ. Deliverance from the law is not by abrogating its authority; that could not be, for it was God's, and was the necessary and right rule for living man, alive in this world. But as such, he was wholly guilty, wilful, and condemned. But in Christ we have died to that state of being to which the law applied. We are not alive in the world. Thus the first man has been tested by law as the rule and measure of man's righteousness in the flesh, but he was already a sinner, and faith, looking to that which was in God's counsels before the world existed, but which has been manifested in Christ and by the gospel, knows that while the law was a perfect rule for man in flesh as long as he lived, it was, in God's use of it, only a temporary thing between promise and the Seed, when man was already a sinner; useful to convict, but incapable of giving life or righteousness. Having seen the promised Seed dead and risen again, faith knows our sins to be put away, reckons the flesh dead, and ourselves alive in a new state (where Christ raised is our life, Christ raised our righteousness), out of the nature, scene, life, and condition, to which alone law applied. Hence, we are always said to be as Christ is now, not as He was; while we are to walk as He walked.

And this leads me to the rule of practice, which is, equally with our justifying, in principle and nature above and out of law, divine and not human, though in human forms and circumstances. Law required that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, a perfect rule where all is right, mutual and common blessing; but unsuited to, unequal to meet, a state of sin. We are called to love as Christ loved, and to give ourselves, our lives, if needed, for others. One recognizes self as a measure in a happy state of things; the other, the giving up of ourselves for need, misery, or want of any kind. It looks for the self-sacrificing power of divine love, as manifested in Christ; not mutual kindness measured by self. We are to be imitators of God as dear children.

This then is the christian position. It takes life as it was in Christ before the worlds, but manifested in Him in the flesh, the eternal life which was with the Father, which we have as having the Son. It knows nothing of life by the law. It is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son quickening whom He will. It is man made the righteousness of God in Christ; not by law, though Christ kept it, but through Christ's having perfectly glorified God in His death, obedient even unto death — put away our sins wholly, so that we are justified completely from them — condemned absolutely and set aside the old man (so that we are not in flesh); and brought us into God's presence according to His glory, according to the worth of that sacrifice in which God Himself was perfectly glorified. Man's perfect righteousness is measured by the law, but that law was given to sinners as requirement to obtain it, and served to convict of sin. The law was made, not for a righteous man, but for sinners and profane, "οὐ χεῖται" does not apply to the righteous. But this way of righteousness is not what is ever made good at all and the creature set up before God by it; but a new kind of righteousness is set up, God's righteousness by faith. The law is man's righteousness: we are not justified by that; the gospel reveals God's — the righteousness in which he is just; not just in recognizing that man has, or has not, come up to the measure required of him (that will have its place, as justice, in condemnation in the day of judgment); but just in accepting and glorifying, because He, God Himself, has been perfectly glorified, and glorified where sin was, so that He should be glorified in all He is, love as well as righteousness. Man's righteousness, were there such (in Christ there was), there is no difficulty in measuring and defining; the law gives it us perfectly. Human righteousness, and human life in blessing before God, would be the result of keeping it. God's righteousness is God's, and not man's; and yet man (that is, the believer) stands in it before Him. This is the difficulty which attaches to the expression. It is God's; yet man is in it, yea, said to be it, before God.

161 My adversaries consequently reduce it to the former, and make it to be man's righteousness; only that Christ has fulfilled it. The Reformers, while bursting into light, soar far beyond this, and declare that the Christian was far away out of and beyond law. Yet, pressed by those who accuse them of setting aside law, they slipped back into vague language, or held Christ's fulfilling it, while Luther suppressed the expression in his translation of the New Testament altogether. Since then this has been systematized. But it is a curious fact, that that because of which the apostle says he was not ashamed of the gospel, is not found in Luther's Testament.

162 The reason of all this confusion and error is that men have not seen that the old man is wholly set aside by the gospel, with all its life and standing before God; that we have, as seen in Christ, died out of it altogether, are not alive in the world, and are set on a new footing altogether, founded on death and resurrection in Christ; Christ for us, and we in Christ, namely in Christ risen, and before God, according to that which He has wrought and in the power of a divine and endless life, but in resurrection, sin being put away, death overcome, and we in the place of the second Adam, according to what He has wrought (and wrought as offering Himself, and made sin), and not according to what the first Adam wrought, nor, I may add, according to what he ought to have wrought, nor any more in question as to that, and brought to this state as recognizing ourselves wholly dead in trespasses and sins, guilty and ruined in him, transgressors if under law, enmity against God, but now passed out of that state as quickened together with Christ, consequent upon the blessed work in which He glorified God. And as the first Adam sinned and left God and was turned out of an earthly paradise, and was then the parent of a ruined race in that state, so the Second has perfectly glorified God, making an atonement for our sins; and, having perfectly glorified God in that place of sin when it was now needed (Himself sinless or He could not have done so, yea, His sinlessness in it was His perfection), has entered into a heavenly paradise, and we (as spiritually, so to speak, born of Him) stand in His place before God. But He has entered into this place now, not as filling up the measure of man's righteousness, though when alive He surely did so and much more; but by glorifying God in the place of sin, i.e., made sin for us, all that God is, so that we should stand, not on the footing of man's righteousness measured by man's duty, but God's measured by God's glory, Christ having in that put away all our sins and guilt incurred in our standing as men.

Now I fully admit, that many a beloved child of God only knows this last (that is, the blessed and righteous forgiveness of sins), and such are on a sure ground of grace. May they ever hold it! But these do not know the whole blessing of their position. They go to Romans 5: 11, a blessed journey for the heart too; but they do not with intelligence go through chapter 6 or on to chapter 8. If they get into chapter 7, they stop at it, inconsistently perhaps, but they do.

163 Why then (though man be it before God by grace) is this righteousness God's righteousness, not man's? Man's is simple. That is the fulfilment of his duty to God, of which the law may be taken as the perfect measure: man's work measured by man's duty. This is God's work measured by God's glory. It is His counselling entirely, and no duty of any man to any one. His acting as the fruit of His own love, the Son's undertaking in His own blessed love, but so undertaken for His Father's glory, the divine glory. So Hebrews 10, "A body hast thou prepared me . . . Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me . . . Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." Surely God's law was in His heart, but was man's duty the measure of that work? Was it by keeping that law we were sanctified? Was that the will He did to sanctify us, and to perfect us before God? No: "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all." But perhaps we needed the other to be perfected before God? No: "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." It was not, though obedience, merely that of a creature who had his measure of duty from the place he was in naturally, but a divine surrender of Himself, and undertaking to do God's will, a heavenly undertaking of obedience to do God's will, be it what it might, but completed, not by doing what was the duty of man, but by suffering in obedience and love the whole wrath of God, as offering up Himself. When the blessed Lord became a man, He was, I need not say, a perfect man, and consequently an obedient man; for that was man's place. But the obedience was absolute. All was obedience even to death, to death under wrath, which proved its perfectness. He, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. Of that the law could know nothing. It had its duly prescribed measure, and was perfect because it had. He gave Himself a ransom for many. No doubt He kept the law in this, for He loved God with all His heart, but He did a divine work too.

But there is more. God's love was perfectly glorified, not to holy beings, but in its own supremacy according to its sovereign glory in and through Christ. God commended His love, what is peculiar to Himself, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, and this at the cost of the infinite self-sacrifice of Christ, so that it should be a motive for His Father to love Him: "Therefore doth my Father love me." God's righteousness against sin was glorified; and mark, not in the way simply of judgment against the evil — the day of judgment will do that, but in the way of drinking that cup of wrath for others, in love to others, in love to those His Father loved, and to glorify God's love to man, so that God would be glorified in justifying; not justifying the just, but sinners: "Just, and the justifier of them that believe in Christ Jesus;" "the justifier of the ungodly." This was a glorious glorifying of God, i.e., not merely a doing of man's duty, but of displaying sovereign and otherwise unknown and impossible qualities (after all a very feeble word), and sovereign excellences in God, there only possibly brought out. How was God's sovereign majesty there brought out? "It became him, [what a word!] in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." How was the truth, that the wages of sin was death, here made good! Not a mere human succumbing, though He truly died as man, but a divine testimony to its import!

164 But I stay myself, however much more we might attempt to say, because I feel the thought and pen of man are feeble when they treat such a subject. They may suggest, but the Holy Ghost alone can give divine thoughts on so holy a subject, and we bow better than we explain. Still we have the word of the Lord Himself for this solemn hour: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." It was this that brought man to divine and heavenly glory, not the keeping of the law. Christ had always, as an obedient man, glorified His God and Father; but there was a "now" when all had another character, though it threw the lustre of its perfectness on all His path from the beginning. His life, though truly man, was always a divine life; but this was a divine work to do which He had come. He gave Himself. As then it was God's counsel, God's will, so it was in its nature a divine work (though He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death), and God Himself glorified in it, a display of God's righteousness which could justify through grace; which mere righteousness, dealing with responsible man, could not do. It was redemption in righteousness — grace reigning through righteousness. Man's? No, God's; where man was only sin, but where sin was put away — put away by the sacrifice of Himself.

If any say that Christ did not glorify God by more than mere obedience to the law, they lie against the truth. Say, He fulfilled the law in doing it, I have nothing to say. We are called to do it by walking in the Spirit. But He gave Himself. He was made sin, was obedient to death, drank the cup of wrath. He who was the brightness of God's glory, the express image of His being, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. It is not man's righteousness, which is doing his duty in his place as man; but God's counsels, God's thoughts, God's work, God's love, when the question of man's righteousness was over, and the One righteous man made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. A work carried on by the love of God as man, between Him and God, where we had no part at all but sin, and where He, though sinless, was made sin, and stood only as such; and where, if there were any righteousness, it must be God's, and that was displayed in raising Him up, and that is shewn in justifying us because of it, and hence giving us glory in the Christ according to His title in redemption.

165 It was the voluntary act of God, yea, even in Christ, not the duty of the first Adam fulfilled, though that He surely did, when man was in a state of sin. It is God's righteousness, because God has been displayed in it, glorified in it, as He could not have been by any innocence or any law-keeping, because it is His thought and His work — a thought which would have been blasphemy for any one else, but which is His sovereign glory; a work which no creature could have done, innocent or guilty, which is necessarily divine in its nature and character, and by which God is righteous in justifying sinners, not by their legal righteousness, but by His own.

Man ought now to keep the law — does, so far as heart, in the new creature. Could he have done that work? though, blessed be God, a man did it.* Well then, it is not man's righteousness, in its nature or in fact. Done between God and Christ the Son of God, it is for man, but God's righteousness for him. That righteousness is displayed in setting Christ at His right hand, and bringing us into divine glory because it is Christ's, because it was done for us. Would keeping the law entitle us to be like Christ in glory? In doing more than that, we should only have to say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do. But whom He justified, them He also glorified; predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

{*The Christian is called to imitate Christ fully, in spirit; but it needs no argument to shew he never could have undertaken it as a work for God.}

166 A few remarks as to details remain. The mere falsehoods which my opponents have permitted themselves, I shall not notice; my object has been positive truth, not controversy. The notion has been expressed that God cannot justify without the person's being righteous in fact. This has no sense, if it is a sum of another's righteousness imputed. It is a denial of that grace which justifies the ungodly. But what I would note here is, that the point I insist on is that it is God's righteousness which is revealed, not the claims of God on man satisfied,* so that it is man's measure reached in conduct, but God's work according to His own glory in contrast with what man should be for Him. In virtue of God's own work for man, He justifies him; not in virtue of man's work for Him, by whomsoever accomplished. Hence glory with Christ is the fruit of it. Hence it is not justice sitting to estimate debt (though this be satisfied by atonement), but grace reigning through righteousness. God has acted for Himself in the matter according to His own glory, though for man, and imputing it to him. But the principle is false, as it is stated: for the righteousness of God (Rom. 3) is known in remission. God justifies therein, and that is through faith in Christ's blood. So that it is false that there must be actual righteousness in conduct for God to justify. His righteousness is revealed. He is just, and justifies through blood and faith in it.

{*In atonement they were, but that is a divine work; we speak of positive righteousness.}

I have yet another word to add as regards the difficulties, insisted on with some pretension, of making a difference between "imputed righteousness," and "imputing righteousness." The attempt to confound them may serve to mislead; and souls who trust others, and do not examine, may be misled by it. But as to those who raise the difficulty, it is either wilful, or very great stupidity. Change the word expressive of the thing imputed. He imputes goodness to that man in that matter, but he did not deserve it. Here it is simply accounting the man to be good, reckoning him to be such in the given case. Or, on the other hand, say, it was imputed goodness as to him, though I shewed him favour as such, for the act was his father's doing. Here it is an act of goodness in the father imputed to the son, and he therefore treated as the good person.

Now scripture always uses it in the first sense. God imputes righteousness to man without works (that is, He holds the man for righteous), just as if I impute goodness to a man in some matter, I account him good. That is all it means, and no more. It does not say why. Only in our case, it is because of faith. But imputing righteousness to a person, that is, accounting him righteous, is not a statement that there is a quantity of righteousness accomplished outside him, in virtue of which he is so accounted righteous. The question I am discussing is, why a believer is accounted righteous, beyond that righteousness which is equivalent to remission. My adversaries say, it is making up the legal righteousness in which they have failed. I affirm that it is God's work for them, accomplished in Christ, for His own glory and their good (demonstrated in putting Christ in that glory) according to His own glory, not merely according to the legal claim on man. Hence it is God's righteousness, which the legal righteousness could not be; not man's. And legal righteousness can be no more, for it is not righteousness in respect of a claim, if it goes beyond the claim. In either case, righteousness is imputed in virtue of a work, which the man himself has not done. There we are one; but I affirm that it is that glorious work, the glorifying of God by Christ, in virtue of which He now sits at God's right hand, and we shall be in glory with Him. They say it is Christ's fulfilling the law for them during His life. Thus they put the Christian back now under the law, as if he were alive in the flesh, and Christ's living obedience his righteousness. I say no. His life was blessed, perfect, or He could not have been a spotless Lamb. But our connection is with Christ after He is dead and risen; consequently we are not in the flesh, nor know Him after the flesh — not alive, for faith, in the life to which law applies. We have died and risen with Christ. We belong to the other world, to heaven. We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God.

167 The standard of walk follows. For my adversaries, it is the law. That is their rule of life. I say, Nay; I am dead and not under it, but obedient in a new nature to God, in which His holiness and love are to be developed in my heart. I am called to be a follower, an imitator, of God as His dear child. And the measure is different. My opponents say the fulfilment of the law is my righteousness, the accomplishment of it the aim of our practice. I say, No; Christ is my righteousness, as having glorified God Himself, and so, being in His glory and Christ the standard of my path, His actual glory my point of attainment, and I, changed here from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord, I am to purify myself as He is pure, for I am to be like Him when He appears.

168 By the law my measure is to love my neighbour as myself. In grace I am to give up myself, as Christ offered Himself up a sacrifice and an offering to God. He laid down His life. I am to lay down my life for the brethren. I am become light in the Lord, and I am to arise from among the dead, and He will give me light. But the principle of the contrast is clear. The law requires us to love our neighbours as ourselves. The gospel calls the Christian to act like Christ, and give himself up for others in the path of love. That is the kind of love wanted in a sinful world. But these are consequences. The main point is that I stand in God's righteousness, according to the effectual work of the Lord Jesus, for the glorifying of God; which is so imputed to me, that I shall be with Him in the glory, and meanwhile know the love which has imparted to me the unspeakable gift, the love shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost given to me.

It is God's righteousness by grace, and the work of Christ, not man's righteousness by law, for God — what God has wrought for man, not what man has wrought for God — that of which God's glory, not man's duty, is the measure; though man's failure in that duty has been atoned for in it.

The Rule of Life: what is it?

J. N. Darby.

<10007E> 169

The rule of life — what is it? Of what life? of mere man, or of man partaker of the divine nature? Of man subjectively responsible to meet a claim, or of man displaying the divine character? Are they the same? Was the conduct binding on Adam the same as that which was suitable to the place Christ held in the world? Which is our standard, if they are different? Such are some of the questions which arise when I enquire "What is the rule of life?" It is evident that duties as such flow from the relationship in which I find myself. A child's duties are not a servant's nor a wife's. The duties of each, as of the parent or of the husband, flow from — and if rightly accomplished are the fulfilment of — what belongs to the place each is in. It is not a duty if one is not in the place.

It will be alleged, however, that there are certain immutable principles of right and wrong, an eternal law. But the question presents itself, Do not the duties flow from an ever-subsisting relationship? is not the obligation to love God and our neighbour as ourselves the consequence of our relationship to God and our neighbour? There may be — creation being assumed — necessary and constant relationships, or at least such apprehended by reason of it, which are thus always the rule of our duty. The fact of the character of the relationship involves the duty, the name of the relationship is the name of the duty. Conjugal affection, conjugal submission, parental love, filial obedience, all express this great truth. But the relationship and the duty cease together; if the relationship has never existed, the duty cannot. If it ceases for all, the duty ceases in fact absolutely as to the persons. The idea of God, even of Adam, excludes the idea of a neighbour, and makes the duty of love to his neighbour an impossible one, if I think of God or even of Adam; of God absolutely because He is God, of Adam in fact because he was created alone. These obligations or duties may be of inferior to superior, or between equals, or of superior to inferior, but implying (I think) a superior to whom the relative inferior is subject, a created superiority. They may be thus so far complicated that the duty may be to an equal, or to an inferior, or even to a superior, yet the responsibility in the relationship be to another. This results from created relationships which form duties, and a Creator's authority, to whom we are besides responsible to maintain them. This gives in itself a sanction; or a positive sanction, as it is called, may be attached to the law and obligation of the relationship, but the measure of duty depends on the relationship itself. But it becomes obedience, and legal obedience it may be. From a creator to a creature I cannot draw a duty as a necessary result of the relationship as duty or obligation. God's supremacy is the first of all rights. He is in His nature supreme. He will act, if good, according to the relationship.

170 But another principle as to good and evil presents itself here, the display of a nature or character; and we conclude (not from duty, but) from character to acting in consistency with it. We have no title over any we are in relationship with — save in the measure and limits of that relationship, as a father, a husband. But a Creator has an absolute title and place, and hence we cannot speak of duty, or it is not absolute. But though imperfect judges, we do judge rightly in principle in another way.

There is such a thing as kindness, goodness, which is pleasant to the spirit in itself; and, where this is developed and God has been revealed, we conclude God will be such and consistent with Himself, and this is true, but supposes He is good and righteous. It must be remembered that men never formed for themselves such an idea of God. In extremity of need they might cry out for help and desire it, shewing themselves so far cognizant of God by their wants. The idea of love or care for His creatures formed no part of man's mythology nor result of his reasonings. Those who worshipped Him or behaved right were favoured. Power was recognized as to be propitiated or won. Goodness in man was liked; in God it was not known. Particular cases of intervention or favour to devotees was. Since revelation, man has had the thought. The Christian who does know God can even say, "Committing the keeping of our souls to him as to a faithful Creator." Man may and does make God a debtor to himself — in pride; but then he puts God out of His place and himself into it, and judges God. And even when he speaks of love (a word in this sense unknown in classical Greek), he forgets divine claims on himself, and divine supremacy too. Still, when through revelation I have known God, I have a new principle of good and evil, not duty, but the display of good. God is not under law to man, but, assuming man to have continued in natural goodness, God could not have been inconsistent with Himself, or He would not be Himself.

Another element too has come in. Man has been inconsistent with himself, with the relationship in which he was placed. So that, though the nature of duty cannot change, he is in no place at all with God, unless being an outcast and having thrown off God be a place. Still, when the idea of a good God has been re-awakened, we draw conclusions from it, often leaving out other essential parts of His character, and hence reasoning falsely always, unless under grace, forgetting our true place and state, but rightly judging that God cannot be inconsistent with Himself.

171 Such reasoning in man is, however, necessarily to no purpose, though there be abstractedly a true element in it, because the actual state of things is, on his simple supposition of goodness, a perfect riddle. Man must be insensible to what is, to conclude as to what must be; or he would find out that he was a lost sinner separated from God. For the world is a scene of misery and confusion, though goodness be also manifested in it. We have thus right and wrong, good and evil, brought before us in two quite distinct ways: the obligation connected with relationships which were formed by God — and these relationships, when not with God Himself, yet, in virtue of that with Him and our subjection to Him as creatures, enforced by His authority and it may be with the sanction of reward or threat of the consequences of unfaithfulness to it; secondly, the expression of nature, which may have its display in these relationships when they were formed according to it.

With God the relationship of a creature necessarily took the form of obedience where a will was expressed or even apprehended. When the duties of a relationship are enforced by express command, or any express command is given maintaining or founded on the claim to obedience attached to a relation implying authority, we have a law. If it be accompanied by a threatened or promised consequence, we have a law with a positive sanction. The display of a nature becomes a rule of life, though one of liberty when that nature places in a relationship of which its display is the measure and duty.

But in fact we have to consider other questions. When one has failed in a relationship and is become an outcast, what is the measure or rule of duty, and how is it to be applied? When tendencies quite contrary to the form and duties of that relationship, as self-will and lust and their fruits, have come in, how is the law of that relationship — that is, the authoritative assertion of the duty attached to it — to be applied? A man by his own sin cannot destroy the claim over him which another possesses. He may have lost his own rights or privileges in it, and not even be in a condition to fulfil them, but the claim of him with whom he is in relationship cannot be thus set aside. The duty remains even if the person be incapable of performing it. By my own fault I cannot destroy the title of another. If I owe one thousand pounds, my having by folly ruined myself disables me from paying, but does not destroy the claim of my creditor.

172 Such are the questions and considerations which an enquiry into "the rule of life" suggests. We will now look for the answer; and that the dealing of scripture with our conscience will afford. First of all, I look for the rule of christian life — the rule of the life which the Christian has received from Christ, which Christ is in him. If the christian relationship is that in which I am, the measure and form of my relationship, my rule of life, must be that of Christ in me, of Christ's life here below, and of the relationship in which the possession of that life puts me. But we will consider that which scripture puts before us from the beginning. It may help to clear our minds.

Adam had a double rule of life. He was set in blessing, with a nature suited to it, to dress and keep the garden, and manifest his thankfulness to Him who set him there. The breath of life breathed into his nostrils would naturally have gone up in praise to Him who had breathed it into him. He would have enjoyed with thankfulness the blessings in the midst of which he was placed, and have been the affectionate centre of those placed around him, the kind and good head of a subject world. His nature, though our data be small, would have loved and acted suitably in the place of blessing. We can see, from the circumstances of the discovery of his fall, that intercourse with God according to His good pleasure would have been his portion.

But another principle also appears. The condition of the continued enjoyment of this was attached to obedience, and death threatened. Not only was obedience claimed, besides worship and enjoyment and rule, but the threat of death on disobedience was added. He was placed in Paradise to enjoy and manifest the blessing of Him who had conferred it. He was placed under law; not a law supposing lust or sin, but a test of obedience, and the sanction of the threatened consequence of death on its breach.

He lost confidence in the goodness of which he was the earthly intelligent expression. He fell. Lust came in, transgression was accomplished. He was cast out of Paradise, the place of created goodness, and became subject to death as he had been threatened. Return was impossible. He knew good and evil for himself. It was not now a prohibition as a mere test of obedience — forbidding what there was no moral evil in, the evil being only disobedience. It was the loss of the simple enjoyment of good in relationship with God in a nature suited to and displayed in it. Man obtained the knowledge of good and evil in his own estimate of things; "the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." He knew such and such a thing was right or wrong, without a prohibition or a law. By his own internal conscience he knew right from wrong. We have here a most important truth or principle. A being may rise immensely in moral capacity, and fall infinitely in his relationship with God, and the happiness connected with it. His state as to apprehension of good and evil has nothing to do with a consequent enjoyment of good. It may be the loss of what he had before, and an immense increase of capacity for misery in the measure of his subjective change. Happiness is in the enjoyment of right relationships, not in capacity for them — when the object that forms them is not enjoyed. This is a very solemn truth, were it only "the waste of feelings unemployed." But it is not so — far from it; man's unfaithfulness, however, to his relationship to God could not destroy his duty, the duty which attached to the fact of his being His creature. He ought to have retained God in his knowledge, and, whatever humiliation was called for, owned it with God.

173 As I am occupied with the rule of life, I pass over the blessed intimations of grace which we find in scripture, the judgment of the serpent, the clothing of Adam and Eve, the sacrifice of Abel, the promise to Abraham, and even to Noah, with the too easily forgotten testimony of judgment in the flood.

A formal rule was given when God brought a people to Himself. The law was given by Moses. It put man, externally redeemed (or the idea would have been impossible), into the place of obedience, on the ground of God's claiming the fulfilment by man of the duties of the relationship in which he stood with God and with his neighbour. It was not now one central head of a race in blessing and obedience, tested when in the enjoyment of blessing, but individuals responsible to God and called to act up to that responsibility, and to their duty towards neighbours, or equal companions in a like position, while sanctioning the natural relations in which God had originally placed man, and which He still maintained. As a hidden principle which grace could find there, there was the claim of love to God and our neighbour as ourselves, and an open positive series of commandments maintaining relationships, and positively forbidding the breaches of them to which sin, self-will, independence, and lust, with ignorant subjection to the devil, now disposed man. Except as the redemption of the people displayed goodness, there could be no claim of a conduct according to it. And even as to this, it was not the expression of a new nature in man (though that alone can fulfil it), but the claim of consistency with the relationship they were in as a matter of duty. Thou shalt love.

174 The law, then, supposing Israel's redemption by God, was founded as a system on the duties of the relationship of man as such with God: on Adam's duties modified by the coming in of sin and God's taking up a people for Himself; but taking them up as men on the earth. He could not have taken up the heathen as such — it is not here a question how Enoch, Job, and others may have lived to Him, but He could not have taken up the heathen as such, for man was an outcast judicially and alienated from God. But when He had taken up Israel and externally redeemed him, then came a rule of life. A rule of life, now we are fallen, belongs to a redeemed people; i.e., none other can have it dispensationally from God. It would be owning what He had cast out judicially already. But when He had taken up Israel, God placed him on the footing of his original relationship, of his duties as man, only modified by the fact of the entrance of sin and the knowledge of good and evil. It was not the expression of a nature communicated, but the claim of a relationship where duties were to be fulfilled, assuming lusts and independence and self-will. It was a perfect rule for man in the flesh. Sanctions accompanied — life if obeyed, a curse if disobeyed. It became a perfect expression of claim, relationship, and sin, but not of any nature communicated and displayed in goodness; for man to whom it was addressed had an evil one. In its highest aspects, it was what man ought to be with God and his neighbour, but what responsible man who now knew good and evil ought to be. In the day when God will judge the secrets of men's hearts, He will judge the heathen on their own ground. They that have sinned without law will perish without law,* as they that have sinned under the law will be judged by it. The law then is the rule of life to man in the flesh, alive as a child of Adam; the expression, not of life in him, but of a claim upon him in that natural relationship with God. "I am the Lord thy God — thou shalt." There is no other for heathen if we suppose a rule, but they were not under it, and will be judged, as God has declared, on another ground.

{*This is a striking proof of the unsoundness of the translation in 1 John 3, "Sin is the transgression of the law." The word so translated there is the same, only a noun, here put in express contrast with transgressing the law; they have sinned without law — lawlessly; and that is the sense in 1 John 3. Sin is lawlessness.}

175 The other kind of rule of life, the expression of a nature like God, failed under the law. I do not mean that no individual had this life, but it was not the ground which the law went upon. It required a living man to live up to the relationship he was in. If he did, he would live. But when man was put to the test, it was found that on this ground there was no hope; that his flesh was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So that they that were in the flesh could not please God; so that what was ordained for life, what promised it on obedience, was effectually to death, a ministration of death and condemnation. This life, the expression of God's nature and goodness, it is clear the flesh was NOT. It was enmity against Him; and if the rule of life came as a claim, it found a rebellious will and corrupt lusts. The law thus became death and condemnation, and Christ could not to any purpose be a model for a nature which was enmity against God. He was a model for man, but in a life which in its nature and character was exactly the opposite of the Adam-nature and life. Love is of course right, but love cannot be a rule for enmity. Holiness is right, but cannot be a guide for corruption; it becomes a condemning light, not exactly a law, but practically, as a model, the same thing. It condemns the conscience, and no more, as such. Thus the law works death and condemnation, and all the effort of a man (once its true claims, its spirituality, are known) only results in the discovery of this: — "I found to be unto death," says the apostle; "when the law came, sin revived and I died." But then it produced this: "I by the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." In a word, brought fully into the conscience, it not only condemns actual sins, but the working (in its first displays, namely, lusts) of the nature that is there. And by it thus the renewed soul learns that in it, that is in the flesh, there is no good thing. In result the nature is judged, death written on it in the conscience and for the spiritual judgment and heart. By the law we are dead to the law. But if this were all, it would evidently be condemnation too, for it shews our guilt. By the law is the knowledge of sin (not merely sins), and sin by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful.

176 Well, now comes a totally new life connected with redemption, and death to the sinful nature is immense gain. "I through law am dead to law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live," &c. The soul bows to the just judgment against itself, but through the death of Christ finds its sins blotted out and forgiven, redemption accomplished, and Christ its righteousness before God. It is at peace and accepted in the Beloved. But another truth accompanies this — Christ is its life. We are made partakers of the divine nature, and this has its full force by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us; by Him we know that we are in Christ and Christ in us. It is for this life we want a rule. It will fully recognize our previous obligations and sinfulness in respect of them. It can understand that the law, even if as a heathen it was never personally under it, is the perfect rule given to man in the flesh; a law violated by all his acts, and to which that flesh was not and could not be subject. But it knows that we are not in the flesh; it says, "when we were in the flesh." But we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in us. Hence it does not look for a rule of life in the law, because that was a rule of life for a man in the flesh, a child of Adam. And we have died to the law — are delivered from it, if we have been under it, having died in that in which we were held. He is now a child of God, has the life of Jesus, and looks to the word of God for the rule for that life.

We have seen there is another measure or rule of life — the display of, and consistency with, the life in which we live, and the relationship in which we are placed. Such would have been the abiding rule for created Adam, supposing he had stood the test. Now, though we are yet in the body, Christ risen from the dead is become ours consequent on accomplished redemption; we are reconciled to God, and Christ's relationship is that of Son; was so on earth and ever is. And He has brought us into the same relationship through His work. He is gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God. Here then is our measure and rule of right and wrong: the manifestation of the life of Christ and consistency with the relationship of sons as He was in it and walked in it. The rule of life then is Christ's walk, who manifested God in flesh; not what would be claimed from Adam, but what was displayed in Christ; the manifestation of the divine life and nature, not the mere righteous claim of God on man in the flesh, with a test of obedience whose fitness and immense importance we can easily apprehend.

177 The rule of life for unfallen Adam was consistency with the innocent nature and place of blessing in which God had set him. He should have felt and walked in consistency with this.

To continue man's subsequent history briefly and see what rule of life is before us in scripture — warnings, we know, were given, as by Enoch and Noah, but the scene after the fall ended in the flood. The power of evil in corruption and violence was judged. For them the knowledge of God (brought with them from the beginning), conscience, the testimony of these prophets, with the witness of God in the creation, was the rule by which they would be judged. So others, as the apostles, teach us after them. It is evident when God was revealed — as to Enoch — the true knowledge of God as far as given. in grace would guide. So with Abraham: the revelations God made to him of Himself, realized by faith, would form the guide and rule of his conduct. "I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect." Conscience surely was there, but the original and constant revelations of God impressed their character on his walk by faith. All these are partial revelations. Yet it was thus the elders obtained a good report; they walked by faith.

At length the law was given; and in this was — a comparatively hidden part which the Lord drew out from its recesses, but on which all hung — love to God and one's neighbour; and the public and almost entirely prohibitory part which openly supposed sin and forbad it. It referred to obligation and claimed its fulfilment. It took up relationships, assumed their existence and obligation, and pronounced a curse on failure, promising enjoyment of life on obedience. The mass of mankind were hidden in darkness — the times of ignorance at which God winked. The time was not come for the revelation of the Gentiles (for that is the force of the passage). The law was given to a people placed in relationship by redemption with a God who had revealed Himself to them, and now looked for the maintenance of duty towards God and towards each other. The Gentiles had no place. It supposed and tested whether man was free. Individuals really walked by faith as ever, but of course took the law in obedience as their rule. In fact, as we know, they were by nature children of wrath as others, and the law brought this fully out, in the public judgment of the nation outwardly, and in the conscience when its spirituality was known. But all this went on the ground of man's duties as a living man.

And though from Adam there was new nature in those born of God (and that certainly shewed itself), yet the perfection of that nature in a man had never been displayed. In Christ this was the case. The divine nature and heavenly perfection shewed itself in His walk. He was in His path here (and the cavils of objectors make me the rather use these words) a divine and heavenly man. He was essentially and truly that — the Lord from heaven, and displaying what was divine and heavenly in this world. In Him it flowed from its source; for us it is a perfect example; but it was the display of divine life, of God in man, and the rule of that life for all else. In us this hangs on these points, redemption out of the standing of the old man, and perfect reconciliation with God, our being in Christ, consequent on His having accomplished the work, so that our place is a perfect one before God — is Christ's place. There is no question between us and God. We are in spirit in our Father's house, created again in Christ Jesus. It is not a question of imposing a claim on one in rebellion, or as a test of obedience for the enjoyment of life. The soul has recognized, as a starting point, entire condemnation on this ground, and no good thing in us. Jew or Gentile, we are by nature children of wrath; but not only so, we have been perfectly redeemed out of that place; we are dead (for faith) to the nature in which we once lived — by the cross of Christ, crucified with Him, nevertheless we live; yet not we, but Christ lives in us. Our place being before God, "as He is, so are we in the world." Christ is our life. We are only that, as to what we own, for faith. No doubt we are it in weakness and temptation, the flesh lusting against the Spirit; but that has nothing to do with our rule of life, but with our difficulties in carrying it out. Our rule of life is simple: that life in which Christ as a man displayed the character of God; His love, His holiness, is the rule of life to us, because we have the life which was displayed in it. It takes, of course, and necessarily, the relationships in which Christ stood — a Son and obedience and love to His Father; but while it has love to God and obedience as its secret springs, yet it is not as satisfying a claim, a measured claim — but it is effectual, has its constant measure and rule in the display of the life which we have, which is a divine one. As to divine claim even, it is not a prescribed measure of conduct; we are not our own at all. The claim is ourselves, not a measure of obedience. If this life subsists in and is characterized by love to God and love to our neighbour as it is in its nature, it clearly does not break the law; but its rule is the display of the divine nature in a man, afforded us in Christ. Hence, while we owe everything and ourselves to God, it is the free and thankful outgoing of our new nature, the life of Christ in us (as would have been the case as to Adam in respect of his life of innocence), not an imposed claim of law, but different in principle and nature, and higher in its measure as in its nature; not what the first man ought to be for God, but what the Second was as displaying Him. We have — fruits, the fruit of the light, the fruits of the Spirit, not a necessary and enforced claim — obedience, (for who shewed such as Christ did?) love enjoyed and active, holiness, God's holiness, of which He makes us partakers.

179 Let us see how the scriptures speak of these things. First, Peter tells us we are made partakers of the divine nature; we are born of the Spirit, born through the word which reveals the divine mind and nature. Christ Himself is our life. (Col. 3.) The life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal body. (2 Cor. 4.) We are to produce the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5), of light (Eph. 5);* i.e., of that which is our nature as in the Lord. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given us. (Rom. 5.) Hence we dwell in love, that is, in God, and God in us. So we know we are in Christ and Christ in us. The Father and the Son, as to our enjoyment of it, come and make their abode with us. It is well we should recall these things, that we may cultivate communion and attribute whatever good is wrought in us, or displayed by us, to its true source, and that, not by looking at the good, but at the source of it, so that it should flow forth. And the apostle uses the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost as a motive against common gross sins. What lifts us above saves us from what is below. The divine nature and its manifestation is our model: "Be ye followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ has loved us and given himself for us a sacrifice and an offering to God as a sweet smelling savour." It does not cease to be obedience. It was such in Him. It does not fail of having consecration to God in heart and ways, even to death if needed; that characterized His life. The love that comes down working in man always goes up first of all to God in self-offering; and in that is love to others, offering oneself for them. This is divine perfection as manifested in Christ. We, as faithful to Him, loving Him, ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us, and we shall shew His life and spirit in doing it.

{*This is the true reading.}

The rule of life then is, not a legal claim on man as man, just and right as that was, but the manifestation of divine life and love in the place in which they, and the divine grace which has given us a part in them, have set us (Christ Himself being the pattern and display of this in its own perfection). This will be the relationship in which we are to God in Christ, to a sinful world, and to the brethren, as it was in Him. "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk as he walked." God makes us through His discipline partakers of His holiness. We are light in the Lord, and are to walk as children of light, and Christ gives it to us. Let our light (not our works) so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify the true source of them all. It is a new nature, the divine nature, the life of Christ, the Holy Ghost dwelling in us as its power, in which, knowing we are in Him before God, and perfect love and acceptance resting upon us, we are set in this world the manifestation of the divine character in man and its ways in Christ, the epistle of Christ. Conflict exercises, that our scenes may discern good and evil according to this, always carrying about the dying of the Lord Jesus in our body, that nothing may hinder the manifestation of the life of Jesus; death thus works in us as to self, and so only life in Christ in others with whom we have to do. All this there will or should be; but the rule and measure of life is Christ, the display of His life, walking as He walked, following His steps in the joy in which the consciousness of being in Him before God places us, in the sorrow that filled His heart in passing through a world of evil. No doubt there has to be growth in us, but God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. And a young Christian, a babe in Christ, if devoted in heart and humble, has his place and beauty in Christ as well as the father. It is a wonderful place, but the place in which God has set us.

180 It has been said, Still Christ kept the law. Surely He did; He was "born under the law," of course was perfect in it; and in result so does he who walks in love; but He, besides this, manifested God in a man. And we are connected with Him, united to Him when He is no longer under law, having died to it in Him when He died, and risen up from death wholly out of that place. It is this that Paul refers to (i.e., this whole position of Christ in flesh), when he says that he knows Christ no more after the flesh. It is this, I doubt not, which is the true force of Ephesians 2: 10 — good works which God hath afore prepared. The kind of work was prepared afore, as well as the place and blessing in Christ — works suited to this place were afore prepared too.

On the Humanity of Christ

J. N. Darby.

<10008E> 181

Dear -,

The questions you put make me feel deeply all that there is sorrowful in the walk of one whom nevertheless I love very sincerely, our friend M. G. To enter upon subtle questions as to the person of Jesus tends to wither and trouble the soul, to destroy the spirit of worship and affection, and to substitute thorny enquiries, as if the spirit of man could solve the manner in which the humanity and the divinity of Jesus were united to each other. In this sense it is said, "No one knoweth the Son but the Father." It is needless to say that I have no such pretension. The humanity of Jesus cannot be compared. It was true and real humanity, body, soul, flesh, and blood, such as mine, as far as human nature is concerned. But Jesus appeared in circumstances quite different from those in which Adam was found. He came expressly to bear our griefs and infirmities. Adam had none of them to bear; not that his nature was incapable of them in itself, but he was not in the circumstances which brought them in. God had set him in a position inaccessible to physical evil, until he fell under moral evil.

On the other hand, God was not in Adam. God was in Christ in the midst of all sorts of miseries and afflictions, fatigues, and sufferings, across which Christ passed according to the power of God, and with thoughts of which the Spirit of God was always the source, though they were really human in their sympathies. Adam before his fall had no sorrows: God was not in him, neither was the Holy Ghost the source of his thoughts; after his fall, sin was the source of his thoughts. It was never so in Jesus.

On the other side, Jesus is the Son of man, Adam was not. But at the same time, Jesus was born by divine power, so that that holy thing which was born of Mary was called the Son of God: which is not true of any other. He is Christ born of man, but as man even born of God; so that the state of humanity in Him is neither what Adam was before his fall nor what he became after his fall.

But what was changed in Adam by the fall was not humanity, but the state of humanity. Adam was as much a man before as after, and after as before. Sin entered humanity, which became estranged from God; it is without God in the world. Now Christ is not that. He was always perfectly with God, save that He suffered on the cross the forsaking of God in His soul. Also the Word was made flesh. God was manifest in flesh. Thus acting in this true humanity, His presence was incompatible with sin in the unity of the same person.

182 It is a mistake to suppose that Adam had immortality in himself. No creature possesses it. They are all sustained of God, who "alone has immortality" essentially. When God was no longer pleased to sustain in this world, man becomes mortal and his strength is exhausted: in fact, according to the ways and will of God, he attains to the age of near one thousand years when God so wills, seventy when He finds it good. Only God would have this terminate, that one should die sooner or later when sin enters, save changing those who survive to the coming of Jesus, because He has overcome death.

Now, God was in Christ, which changed all in this respect (not as to the reality of His humanity, with all its affections, its feelings, its natural wants of soul and body; all which were in Jesus, and were consequently affected by all that surrounded Him, only according to the Spirit and without sin). No one takes His life from Him; He gives it up, but at the moment willed of God. He is abandoned in fact to the effect of man's iniquity, because He came to accomplish the will of God; He suffers Himself to be crucified and slain. Only the moment in which He yields up, His spirit is in His hands. He works no miracle to hinder the effect of the cruel means of death which man employed, in order to guard His humanity from their effect; He leaves it to their effect. His divinity is not employed to secure Himself from it, to secure Himself from death; but it is employed to add to it all His moral value, all His perfection to His obedience. He works no miracle not to die, but He works a miracle in dying. He acts according to His divine rights in dying, but not in guarding Himself from death; for He surrenders His soul to His Father as soon as all is finished.

The difference then of His humanity is not in that it was not really and fully that of Mary, but in that it was so by an act of divine power, so as to be such without sin; and, moreover, that in place of being separated from God in His soul, like every sinful man, God was in Him who was of God. He could say "I thirst," "my soul is troubled," "it is melted like wax in the midst of my bowels;" but He could also say "the Son of man who is in heaven," and "before Abraham was, I am." The innocence of Adam was not God manifest in flesh; it was not man subjected, as to the circumstances in which His humanity was found, to all the consequences of sin.

183 On the other hand, the humanity of man fallen was under the power of sin, of a will opposed to God, of lusts which are at enmity with Him. Christ came to do God's will: in Him was no sin. It was humanity in Christ where God was, and not humanity separate from God in itself. It was not humanity in the circumstances where God had set man when he was created, the circumstances where sin had set him, and in these circumstances without sin; not such as sin rendered man in their midst, but such as the divine power rendered Him in all His ways in the midst of those circumstances, such as the Holy Ghost translated Himself in humanity. It was not man where no evil was, like Adam innocent, but man in the midst of evil; it was not man bad in the midst of evil like Adam fallen, but man perfect, perfect according to God, in the midst of evil, God manifest in flesh; real, proper humanity, but His soul always having the thoughts that God produces in man, and in absolute communion with God, save when He suffered on the cross, where He must, as to the suffering of His soul, be forsaken of God; more perfect then, as to the extent of the perfection and the degree of obedience, than anywhere else, because He accomplished the will of God in the face of His wrath, instead of doing it in the joy of His communion; and therefore He asked that this cup should pass, which He never did elsewhere. He could not find His meat in the wrath of God.

Our precious Saviour was quite as really man as I, as regards the simple and abstract idea of humanity, but without sin, born miraculously by divine power; and, moreover, He was God manifest in flesh.

Now, dear -, having said thus much, I recommend you with all my heart to avoid discussing and defining the person of our blessed Saviour. You will lose the savour of Christ in your thoughts, and you will only find in their room the barrenness of man's spirit in the things of God and in the affections which pertain to them. It is a labyrinth for man because he labours there at his own charge. It is as if one dissected the body of his friend, instead of nourishing himself with his affections and character. It is one of the worst signs of all those I have met with for the church (as they call it) to which M. G. belongs, that he has entered thus, and that it presents itself after such a sort before the Church of God and before the world. I may add, that I am so profoundly convinced of man's incapacity in this respect, that it is outside the teaching of the Spirit to wish to define how the divinity and the humanity are united in Jesus, that I am quite ready to suppose that, with every desire to avoid, I may have fallen into it, and in falling into it, said something false in what I have written to you. That He is really man, Son of man, dependent on God as such, and without sin in this state of dependence, really God in His unspeakable perfection — to this I hold, I hope, more than to my life. To define is what I do not pretend. "No man knoweth the Son but the Father." If I find something which enfeebles one or other of these truths, or which dishonours what they have for object, I should oppose it, God calling me to it, with all my might.

184 May God give you to believe all that the word teaches with regard to Jesus! It is our peace and our nourishment to understand all that the Spirit gives us to understand, and not to seek to define what God does not call us to define; but to worship on the one hand, to feed on the other, and to live in every way, according to the grace of the Holy Ghost.

Yours affectionately, J. N. D.

Letter on Free-will

J. N. Darby.

<10009E> 185

Elberfeld, October 23, 1861.

Very dear brother,

I had a little lost sight of an important subject of your last letter but one, solely through the multitude of my occupations. This fresh breaking out of the doctrine of free-will helps on the doctrine of the natural man's pretension not to be entirely lost, for that is really what it amounts to. All men who have never been deeply convinced of sin, all persons with whom this conviction is based upon gross and outward sins, believe more or less in free-will. You know that it is the dogma of the Wesleyans, of all reasoners, of all philosophers. But this idea completely changes all the idea of Christianity and entirely perverts it.

If Christ has come to save that which is lost, free-will has no longer any place. Not that God hinders man from receiving Christ — far from it. But even when God employs all possible motives, everything which is capable of influencing the heart of man, it only serves to demonstrate that man will have none of it, that his heart is so corrupted and his will so decided not to submit to God (whatever may be the truth of the devil's encouraging him in sin), that nothing can induce him to receive the Lord and to abandon sin. If, by liberty of man, it is meant that no one obliges him to reject the Lord, this liberty exists fully. But if it is meant that, because of the dominion of sin to which he is a slave, and willingly a slave, he cannot escape from his state and choose good (while acknowledging that it is good, and approving it), then he has no liberty whatever. He is not subject to the law, neither indeed can be; so that those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

And here is where we touch more closely upon the bottom of the question. Is it the old man that is changed, instructed, and sanctified? or do we receive, in order to be saved, a new nature? The universal character of the unbelief of these times is this — not the formally denying Christianity, as heretofore, or the rejection of Christ openly, but the receiving Him as a person, it will be even said divine, inspired (but as a matter of degree), who re-establishes man in his position of a child of God. Where Wesleyans are taught of God, faith makes them feel that without Christ they are lost, and that it is a question of salvation. Only their fright with regard to pure grace, their desire to gain men, a mixture of charity and of the spirit of man, in a word, their confidence in their own powers, makes them have a confused teaching and not recognize the total fall of man.

186 For myself, I see in the word, and I recognize in myself, the total ruin of man. I see that the cross is the end of all the means that God had employed for gaining the heart of man, and therefore proves that the thing was impossible. God has exhausted all His resources, and man has shewn that he was wicked, without remedy, and the cross of Christ condemns man — sin in the flesh. But this condemnation having been manifested in another's having undergone it, it is the absolute salvation of those who believe; for condemnation, the judgment of sin, is behind us; life was the issue of it in the resurrection. We are dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Redemption, the very word, loses its force when one entertains these ideas of the old man. It becomes an amelioration, a practical deliverance from a moral state, not a redeeming by the accomplished work of another person. Christianity teaches the death of the old man and his just condemnation, then redemption accomplished by Christ, and a new life, eternal life, come down from heaven in His person, and which is communicated to us when Christ enters us by the word. Arminianism, or rather Pelagianism, pretends that man can choose, and that thus the old man is ameliorated by the thing it has accepted. The first step is made without grace, and it is the first step which costs truly in this case.

I believe we ought to hold to the word; but, philosophically and morally speaking, free-will is a false and absurd theory. Freewill is a state of sin. Man ought not to have to choose, as being outside good. Why is he in this state? He ought not to have a will, any choice to make. He ought to obey and enjoy in peace. If he ought to choose good, then he has not got it yet. He is without what is good in himself, any way, since he has not made his decision. But, in fact, man is disposed to follow that which is evil. What cruelty to propose a duty to man who has already turned to evil! Moreover, philosophically speaking, he must be indifferent; otherwise he has already chosen as to his will — he must then be absolutely indifferent. But if he is absolutely indifferent, what is to decide his choice? A creature must have a motive; but he has none, since he is indifferent; if he is not, he has chosen.

Finally, it is not at all thus: man has a conscience; but he has a will and lusts, and they lead him. Man was free in Paradise, but then he enjoyed what was good. He used his free choice, and therefore he is a sinner. To leave him to his free choice, now that he is disposed to do evil, would be a cruelty. God has presented the choice to him, but it was to convince the conscience of the fact, that in no case did man want either good or God.

187 I have been somewhat oppressed with sleep while writing to you, but I think you will understand me. That people should believe that God loves the world — this is very well; but that they should not believe that man is in himself wicked, without remedy (and in spite of the remedy), is very bad. One does not know oneself and one does not know God

. . . The Lord is coming, dear brother; the time for the world is departing. What a blessing! May God find us watching and thinking only of one thing — the One of whom He thinks — Jesus our precious Saviour. Salute the brethren.

Your very affectionate brother, J. N. D.

The new Birth

J. N. Darby.

<10010E> 188

I desire to meditate a little on John 3, and its connection with some other parts of scripture; more particularly in reference to the new birth. I desire to do so for the profitable understanding of what the new man is; and the place in which we are set as made partakers of it, as we now are in Christ. I shall necessarily go over some ground with which Christians are familiar, in speaking of such a subject; but this is necessary, in order to connect with it the further developments and distinctions which lead me to treat of the subject.

Many believed in Christ when they saw the miracles which He did, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them. . . . He knew what was in man. (Chap. 2: 23-25.) Their conclusion about Him was a just one, but it was a conclusion drawn by what was in man. It was perfectly worthless; it left man in his own nature, and under the motives, influences, and passions to which he was subject before; nor did it take him out of the domain of Satan, who had power over the flesh and the world. The conclusion was right; but it was only a conclusion: the man remained what he was — unchanged. Jesus, who knew what flesh was, had — could have — no confidence in it.

But Nicodemus (chap. 3), under God's leading, for our instruction, goes a step farther. The others believed it, and left it there. But where the Spirit of God is at work, it always produces wants in the soul, craving and desire after that which is of God and godly; and so the sense of defect in ourselves. There is at once, instinctively too, the consciousness that the world will be against us; consciousness too of its opposition and scorn. Nicodemus comes by night. There was a want of something better in his soul; but his being a ruler and especially an ecclesiastical ruler, made it more difficult for him to go to Christ. The dignity of one set to teach is not a facility for going to learn. However, conscience urges him to go, and he goes; the fear of man makes him afraid, and he goes by night. How poor is that dignity which tends to hinder one learning of Christ! Nicodemus, though spiritual craving had led him to Christ, goes on the same ground in his enquiry as those who had no such want at all. "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." (Ver. 2.) It was a conclusion drawn from proofs, perfectly lust, but that was all. Still he wanted something from Him who shewed them; but he took for granted that he was, as a Jew, a child of the kingdom, and would have teaching. The Lord meets him (for he was sincere and known of Him) at once, by declaring that the whole ground he was on was wrong. He did not teach flesh, nor had He come to do so. God was setting up a kingdom of His own. To see this, a man must be born again, completely anew. The kingdom was not yet come visibly, not with observation; it was there among them; but to see it a man must have a wholly new nature. Nicodemus, arrested by the language, does not understand how this could be, stops as a human reasoner, though sincere, at the present difficulty, and in truth does not see the kingdom.

189 But two great truths had been brought out here already. First God is not teaching and improving man — as he is. He sets up a kingdom, a sphere of power and blessing of His own; there He acts. And secondly, man must have a new nature or life. He must be born again, in order to have to say to God who so works. Flesh cannot even perceive the kingdom. Both facts are of supreme importance. A new divine system is set up where the blessing is — a new nature is needed in order to have to say to it.

But the Lord does not leave the enquiring Nicodemus here. He shews definitively the way of entering into the kingdom: "a man must be born of water and of the Spirit" (ver. 5) — of the word and Spirit of God. The word of God — the revelation of God's thoughts — must operate in the power of the Spirit, judging all in man — bringing in God's mind instead of his own (supplanting it by God s), and an absolute new life from God, in which these thoughts have their seat and living reality — a new nature and life. It is not that two births are here, but two important aspects and realities in being born again. "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth" (James 2: 18); "that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word" (Eph. 5: 26); "ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." (John 15: 3.) It is — not teaching flesh, which has its own thoughts, but — supplanting all its thoughts by God's. We are born of water. Next, it is a nature coming from the Spirit "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3: 6.) Everything born follows — is of — the nature of that which begets it. So here: the water acts on man as man, his person is not changed; but the Spirit communicates a new life, which is of itself [the Spirit] — just as flesh's nature is flesh — in that which is born of it. We have now, not flesh taught; but the thoughts of God, operative in power, and the partaking of the divine nature which is imparted by the Spirit — the mind and nature of God vitally communicated to us. This is my life, as mere flesh was before.

190 This clearly opens out the blessing to Gentiles. "Marvel not" (said the Lord to Nicodemus), "that I said unto thee, Ye [Jews] must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth . . . so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (Chap. 3: 7-8.) The sovereign communication of a new nature (needed by the Jew, as much as by the Gentile, when we come to his nature), as an entirely new thing, a new nature given — in which the man thenceforth lives with God — is as applicable to a Gentile as to a Jew. For thus a man, as to his life, is neither [Jew nor Gentile]. "He is born of God." This truth is here not unfolded; only the groundwork is laid down for it. The far deeper truth of the fact of the divine life, and that sovereignly imparted, is what is taught: only the other is directly implied.

This again stops Nicodemus. He does not come forward with "We know;" he must be silent to learn. And now some other truths come out which associate us with heaven. But first the Lord shews, what Nicodemus ought to have known, that, as to even earthly promises, the testimony of God was clear, that Israel had to be born again, born of water and of the Spirit. Chapter 36 of Ezekiel is clear as to this:

"But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses: and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel." That is, to enjoy the blessings of God's promises in the land Israel must be born of water and of the Spirit — must be cleansed according to God's thoughts and be renewed by the Spirit of God. The statement of the Lord is more simple, more full and absolute, because He is laying down the truth in itself, how man can enter into the kingdom, and, therefore, brings out the need of the communication of a wholly new life in terms — with the blessed assurance, that it is a being really born of the Spirit, so as to partake of the nature of Him of whom we are born. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (Ver. 5.) But Nicodemus, as the teacher of Israel, ought to have known that such a change was needed for Israel, in order to partake of their earthly blessings with God.

191 But this brings out the difference of the Lord's instructions and their character here from the way in which the prophet had spoken of the matter. He had stated it prophetically, as the practical operation of Jehovah's grace; and that was all right and in its place. But the Lord had another kind of knowledge. The prophecy had perfect divine authority, because the prophet said what he had been inspired to say. But the Lord knew the things themselves, in their very nature. He could tell absolutely what was needful for God, because He was God and came from God. This is indeed divine teaching, teaching of infinite price. We learn from Him, who essentially knew it, what is needful for God. It tells us what the Christian is. He has the knowledge of God from God Himself, according to His own nature, and is partaker of that nature — in order to know it, and to be able to enjoy it — without which he does not know it; and this brought down in man to us. But as the Lord spake that which He knew, so He testified that which He had seen. He could tell of the heavenly glory and what became it, what was needed to have a part in it. Man did not receive this testimony. The human mind understood human things — what was heavenly and spiritual not at all. That which was heavenly and spiritual was darkness and foolishness to it. Those who received this witness were born again. (Chap. 1: 12, 13.)

192 Let our hearts dwell a little on this blessed truth. In Christ we have One fully revealing God Himself. His words told His nature, the nature of God Himself; told it to man, so as to reveal what was needed in man in order that he might have to do with God in blessing, but told it directly, fully. His words were a revelation of the divine nature, which He knew. We are in the full light, with God Himself. We have — not merely messages, however true, and however blessed it be to have them from God, but what leaves nothing behind — the revelation of God Himself, and in His nature; so that what is perfect in blessedness is revealed, and revealed perfectly. Here it is nature first of all, then the fact of what He had seen; but it is the competency of witness specially which is expressed in this verse. But this necessarily leads to the nature of the things. No prophet could say "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." (Ver. 11.) God revealed future things to them, or sent messages to the people; and they announced the one and the other. But if Christ announced what He knew, and testified that which He had seen, these were necessarily heavenly things. Of course He knew what had been foretold of God; but, in speaking of the nature needed in order to have to say to God, and of that which He knew and had seen, He goes beyond that to that which is above. Thither consequently He leads us. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (Ver. 13.) No one had gone up to bring down word of what was there. But He came thence; and He could tell perfectly what was there, and was ever there, for He was God. But this divine knowledge was knowledge for man; for it was the Son of man had it. Heaven and man were connected in the person of Christ. If man out of Christ — as all yet were — had not in any sense entered there, still there was One who was in His person the revealer of that which was heavenly. But how could man — who could not, even if a teacher of Israel, understand the reality of the new nature (even as needed for the known earthly things), for he thought in the old nature — understand heavenly things? But this brought out another truth, the necessary door of what was heavenly; but if so, it is the open door to every one that should believe. Not only was it necessary to be born again, even for earthly blessings, but there were further counsels of God.

193 The Son of man — for Jesus was more than Messiah — must, in the counsels of God and in the need of man, be lifted up, rejected from this earth. But this lifting up was His rejection by the world. Christ could not (for man was a sinner) take His place as Messiah in blessing to Israel. He was to suffer in the character in which He had to say to all men, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness" (ver. 14); so, instead of a living Messiah, they were to have a rejected dying Son of man. The cross was healing saving power for man. Whoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life; for God so loved the world — an immense truth then, which opened the way to the fullest display of God and of grace, if one should not rather say it was such. It was an efficacious work of God (not to fulfil prophetic promises merely, but) to bring to God, "that whosoever believed in him" (this Son of man) "should have everlasting life." It was needed. Atonement must be made — redemption must be accomplished-if sinful man was to have to say to a holy God. If there was a revelation of the divine nature, and man's partaking of it was connected with his having to say to God, there must be atonement as well as a new birth. The Son of man — He who as man was to have in man's nature the inheritance of all things, and who took up man's cause — must be lifted up, like the serpent in the wilderness, made sin for us, that men may look on Him and live.

This met the need of man, but it was only one side of the truth. When men rest here, they see what meets the holy nature and judgment of God, but God stands as a holy Judge; nor does this therefore give full liberty to the soul. It is the propitiatory, the needed side of Christ's death. But how did this come about? It was that God so loved the world, that the Son of man who must be lifted up was the Son of God whom He had given in love. God so loved that He gave. Thus, though propitiation was needed, love was the source of all; the holiness of God's nature, His righteous judgment, maintained as regards sin; but His love manifested. The Son of man was Son of God — both with a view to one wondrous object — that sinful man, whosoever believed in Jesus, should have eternal life. This was the final test of man too. We have thus the nature of God revealed; and a twofold work wrought which, while it fits man to enjoy that nature by his being born of it, glorifies it too in all its character: so that the gift of eternal life maintains and displays the love and holiness and righteousness of God. And this is what is essential and blessed. But the full peculiar dispensed character of this, as wrought out in grace, is not brought out here: and it is this which I would now endeavour to bring out, the gracious Lord helping me.

194 If the Son of man was lifted up, died to bring us to God, where and how is life? It is in resurrection. This too leads us to another important element of truth. If risen, I am risen from the dead. I have died in Christ. This, we shall see, has a double character. I may look at myself as having no spiritual life — hence as dead in trespasses and sins; or I may look at myself as alive in sin and the flesh, and then I speak of having died to it. Christ could speak of a new nature needed in order to enter the kingdom; but He could not then call on any one to reckon himself dead. He could connect that nature with God directly — in the statement of what it was, and what He was; and that was peculiarly suited, as is evident, to His person — a divine revealer of what He knew and of man's partaking of the divine nature. This was indeed the excellent part. But for our deliverance another truth was to be connected with this — the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We receive Christ as our life: when He has died and risen, He is a life-giving Spirit. Because He lives, we live. He is our life — that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. But, for sinners to have part in this righteously, and according to God, Christ must make the propitiation, must die. He died to sin once; and now, alive in resurrection, lives to God. We receive Him through the Spirit in our hearts, and have life. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." (1 John 5: 11, 12.) But He whom we receive is the dead and risen One, our life — the true "I" in which I say of sin, this is no longer I. "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." In us this is the life of Christ as risen from the dead — the power of life in resurrection. We are alive for faith, only in and by Him, though the flesh be in point of fact there; yet I do not own it as alive and part of myself, but only as an enemy which I have to overcome. Thus in Romans 7: 5 we find, "When we were in the flesh;" and in Romans 8: 9, "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." Many other passages illustrative of this point will come before us in pursuing our subject.

195 I have said, that this view of the divine life in resurrection comes before us in two ways in scripture. Man may be viewed either as alive in sin; or as dead in sin. His flesh is alive and active as regards evil; it is utterly dead as regards God — not one movement of soul in the natural man towards Him. The epistle to the Romans presents the former view; that to the Ephesians the latter. They coalesce in presenting the man as risen with Christ; though the epistle to the Romans barely reaches this ground, but just touches on it. Their epistle teaches fully Christ's being raised by God the Father, but only just touches on our being alive to God. The Ephesians saw, as regards the doctrine of their epistle on this point, Christ as dead, and the sinner dead in sin (chap. 2: 1); and both raised up together. This flows from Christ's being seen exalted on high and the Church united to Him. Man is not contemplated doctrinally as wickedly living in sin (although the fact is recognized), but in the full apprehension of his state in relation to God — he is dead in sin. And the whole condition of the Church is the result of the same power being exercised in raising Christ Himself and every believer spiritually. (Chap. 1, 2.)

In the epistle to the Romans, Christ is seen risen from the dead, but not ascended (save an allusion in one verse of chapter 8), because the object is to shew the putting away of the old state, and the introduction in life and justification into the new — not the glorious results, save in hope. Man's guilt is largely proved. Christ has died for us; but Christ has risen also, for our justification; we are justified — dead to sin and alive to God — delivered from the law.

The epistle to the Colossians is between the two in doctrine. It views man as living in sin, but the Christian as having died and as now quickened with Christ. Our new nature there, as born of God, takes, when our condition is fully displayed, the character of our having died and risen again with Christ, and even of our sitting in heavenly places in Him.

But my object now is, our condition in life. Let us recall, that Christ as thus risen is our life. The work of atonement must have been accomplished, or no sinner could have been united with Him. He could have given no life according to God to any. The corn of wheat would have abode alone. Not that life and the power of life was not in Him, but that the righteousness of God would have been in abeyance.

But that work has been accomplished; and now Christ — not the first Adam — is my life as a believer. But then I say, When I was in the flesh. I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The first Adam in his sin and responsibility is not my standing before God at all; but the second, who has become my life. I am in Him as my righteousness: He is in me as my life. Now I say, I have died to sin; I am crucified with Christ; I am alive to God through Jesus Christ. "In that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves." (Rom. 6: 10, 11.) This is what Paul insists on in Romans 6. "We were baptized into his death" (ver. 3); "planted together in the likeness of his death." (Ver. 5.) We are dead to sin. "If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." (Ver. 8.) Hence (for, as I said, the apostle only just touches this ground) we are to reckon ourselves alive to God through Him. (Ver. 11.) So in the epistle to the Galatians, "Christ liveth in me." (Chap. 2: 20.) "The Spirit is life because of righteousness." (Rom. 8: 10.) But we are not said to be risen with Him.

196 And remark in the elements even of this doctrine, necessarily from its very nature we are not called to die to sin. No such thought is in scripture. We are called upon, as alive in Christ, to mortify every movement of sin; but not to die to it. We are alive in Christ who has died, and we are viewed as dead; and called upon to view ourselves as dead, because Christ who is our life has died. "I am crucified with Christ." (Gal. 2: 20.) "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh." (Chap. 5: 24.) "Reckon yourselves to be dead." (Rom. 6: 11.) "Ye have been planted together in the likeness of his death." (Ver. 5.) "Buried with him unto death." (Ver. 4.) "Ye are dead." (Col. 3: 3.) Such is the uniform language of scripture. All the sentimental talk about crucifying being a lingering death is the setting aside the plain and imperative sense of these passages. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal. 2: 20.)

We have died in Christ: this is the doctrine of scripture.

The Epistles to the Galatians, the Romans, and the Colossians, &c., all alike teach this and press it on Christians. I am wholly delivered from the whole system in which I lived as alive in the flesh. So the apostle appeals, "If ye be dead with Christ . . . why, as though alive [living] in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" (Col. 2: 20, 21.) This is life then (being born of God) as possessed by the Christian, now that Christ has died, and become, as risen, his life.

197 The Epistle to the Ephesians goes a step farther. It does not, as I have said, view Christ as alive in blessed love and godliness, and man in sin; but man dead in sin, and Christ is first seen as dead, which was for and to sin. That is, the apostle sees man down in the ditch and grave of death through sin, and Christ has come down into it in grace, where man was by sin. But so He has put away the sin as guilt, and come down to save and redeem out of that condition: God raises up both by the same power. "What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe . . . which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places." (Eph. 1: 19, 20.) Of "His great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." (Chap. 2: 4, 5.) Thus we are God's "workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." (Ver. 10.)

Thus as chapter 3 of John's Gospel taught us the nature of the life which we receive (that as born of the Spirit it is spirit — divine, morally speaking, in its nature), so do the epistles shew to us the position in which the possession of this new life places us, inasmuch as it is the life of Christ risen, after being delivered for our offences and having died to sin once. And what is the consequent effect as to our relationship to sin and to God? The Epistle to the Romans, as indeed that to the Galatians, teaches us that we have died with Christ, and that we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, that our old man has been crucified with Him; but that we are alive to God; that it is not we that live, but Christ that lives in us. The Epistle to the Colossians teaches us that we have died with Christ, and that we are risen with Him; and further that, when dead in sins and the uncircumcision of our flesh, God has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses — brought up from the dead with Christ into newness of life as to ourselves; but, according to the blessed efficacy of His death, entirely forgiven all the sins and state of sin in which we were till thus raised, consequent on the efficacy of His death. This last point the Epistle to the Ephesians takes up fully and exclusively, and shews us quickened with Christ and raised out of the death of sin by the same power which raised Christ Himself. It is not merely the divine nature become our life, but death to sin, life to God; raised up, forgiven, and accepted, as in the state in which He is as risen yea, sitting in heavenly places in Him. The nature is divine. That is supremely excellent; but, by death and resurrection having come in and our being united to Christ, our whole relative condition is changed; we are not, for God and for faith, accounted as alive in the old man; we are not in it at all, we have put it off. It is (for the reckoning of faith, and that according to the possession of and being alive in a new life) dead and gone. We are in Christ, and Christ is our life: alive in Him and alive in what He is alive to — to God. Our standing is not consequently in the first Adam at all. We have died as in the first Adam to all that he is; we are alive in the last Adam, the Lord Jesus, according to all the acceptance in which He now lives before God.

198 Thus chapter 3 of John's Gospel teaches us the intrinsic excellency of the life we receive of God, and shews it in direct connection with what is divine, Christ speaking what He knew and shewing that we must have a nature from God, and fit for God Himself. Christ speaking thus, that which He knew is of the deepest interest — the direct communication of what is divine. This life is there shewn in its nature and origin as contrasted with flesh. Its proper character and excellency is more seen in John. The Epistle to the Ephesians however confirms it in result: "That we should be holy and blameless before him in love." (Chap. 1: 4.) But in its condition and state, the epistles are more full as to this life. There — inasmuch as Christ died — living in the life of Christ we are [looked at as] dead to sin, the life being a new thing wholly distinct from the old man, and we alive in Christ. We are not in the flesh; we have died and are risen again. Being regenerated is being dead and risen again; for we receive Christ as life. It is having left Adam, his nature and fruits, condemnation, death, and judgment behind; and being, as delivered from all these things, in necessary and righteous acceptance, according to Christ's acceptance before God. The natures are distinct. I am not in the flesh; I have died; I am risen again; I am accepted in Christ risen; I am partaker of the divine nature and to enjoy its fulness in God.

Approach to and delight in God

J. N. Darby.

<10011E> 199

Sins and Sin

I am not sure that I have sufficiently distinguished in the following article between the atonement and the sprinkling on the altar of incense. The blood of the bullock was sprinkled on the mercy seat for Aaron and his sons — the heavenly saints; the blood of the goat also. This made an atonement for himself and for the holy place, and for the tabernacle of the congregation. He was alone within in doing it; the congregation of Israel being in view also, for God must have been glorified in order to bless them. Then he went out and sprinkled the altar of incense with the blood both of the bullock and of the goat. After all this was complete, he confessed the sins of Israel on the scape-goat, and it was sent away.

Controversy, where there is research after truth, has this advantage attending it, that it urges the spirit to more attention and diligent research, and, where the subjects are scriptural, to search the scriptures; and these ever afford to the humble and enquiring soul, fresh and blessed inlets into the mind of God. Two points have been before me in consequence of recent controversy on the law and the righteousness of God. I would now bring them before your readers; in part, as presenting questions tending to conduct to more light; in part, as acquired instruction.

If we examine the order of the ceremonies of the great day of atonement, we shall find a more definite character in them than had yet drawn my attention. The blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat, and on the altar of incense, but on nothing else, according to the directions of Leviticus 16; we may specially remark, not on the altar of burnt offering. But atonement is made for the holy place; I presume it is meant, by the sprinkling that did take place, but there was none on the candlestick or the shew bread. These aspersions of blood at once lead to the thought, that what was in view was approach to God in the sanctuary. There was clearly the great general fact, that the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, so that God's nature and character were glorified in Christ's shedding His blood; so that, His blood being thus presented to God, the gospel founded on that could be preached to every creature. It was the Lord's lot. But this I have spoken of elsewhere, as of the other aspect of Christ's sacrifice typified by the scapegoat, that is, bearing the sins of His people. I only note now the specific character of the offering.

200 The blood was sprinkled on the place connected with the drawing near of the priests in the sanctuary, and that as representing the whole people approaching God, coming into God's presence in the highest way, or a daily approaching in the same character. For us there is no veil; but the altar of incense, though without the veil, specially referred to what was within. God in the holy places was seen in His divine righteousness. It is such as He is that He must be approached. It is not merely how He deals with responsible man as such, but His own nature. If we approach Him, we must approach Him as He is in Himself. This is evidently the character of approaching Him in the sanctuary. This connects itself, I have no doubt, with the gold. All was of gold in the sanctuary. In the court of the tabernacle the vessels were of brass, specially the laver and the brazen altar. This refers, as the place also shews, to God's dealing with sin in this world. Not that the court represented this world; but it was not the sanctuary. It referred to God's dealings with sinners in this world. Men came there as unclean, whether for sacrifice for their suns when in them, or for cleansing; that is, to Christ as a sacrifice, or to have the washing of water by the word, which, without the sacrifice, they could not have had. Hence it was priests who washed; but it was washing.

The idea in all these cases was drawing near, whether as a sinner or a saint: only one, a drawing near about sin; the other, drawing near to God as cleansed, the laver being a washing to consecrate at the first, or cleanse for present service. But on the great day of atonement it was only in the holy places that the blood was sprinkled. But this gives it a very full character. A blessed thought it is for us that we draw nigh to God in His own nature and character, what He is in Himself. He is there in His own nature, in righteousness and holiness, and we, absolutely cleansed for that, and, in the new man, created therein after God, draw near to Himself without having any question as to sin, now put away. Our delight is in holiness and righteousness, in God as He is; and we draw near according to the intrinsic value in God's sight of the blood of Jesus. It is the enjoyment of what God is, in righteousness and true holiness; but Christ in His offering has been the glorifying of what He so is. This is very blessed. We approach God, and joy in God. This is divine righteousness as it is in itself, as it is in God, enjoyed by us as admitted through Christ. And, note here, it is in this way we specially know atonement, for peace and drawing near to God. Hence for the atonement for Aaron and his sons this only was done. The bullock was slain, and the blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat and the altar of incense. There was no confession of sins, no scape-bullock. Christ, raised from the dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant, enters in according to the glory of the Father, according to the display of all His perfections brought out in the resurrection of Christ (for He was raised through the blood of the everlasting covenant, and by the glory of the Father); so we, as associated with Him, draw nigh in the full acceptance which that blood has in the necessary righteousness of God as regards it. It is not merely that sins can be forgiven, and therefore I can have to say to God as a moral governor (which is also true — "There is forgiveness with thee that thou mightest be feared"); but I draw near in the positive and perfect acceptance in which God in His own nature receives, in righteousness, that which has glorified it absolutely; that is, according to His own nature. God is active in owning Christ thus in righteousness, in raising Him from the dead and setting Him at His own right hand; and thus we enter.

201 But there is another thing needed. The sacrifice of Christ is available for transgressions. There is not only its intrinsic value as the Lord's lot, but Christ is the bearer of the sins of His people as the scapegoat. God, as a governor that has to do with sins, has to do with us as responsible men, the Jews as a responsible nation, both in flesh. Christ has borne them in His own body on the tree, and they are gone. It is not and cannot be of course another sacrifice. The sacrifice must be suited to God, but it is another aspect of it than the one we have previously spoken of. It is the removing of sins that men may be received judicially in righteousness, not enter into God's presence according to the intrinsic excellence of His nature, and Christ's acceptableness in it, and enjoy that nature. (In the new nature we enter in. The transgressions belong to the old.) This is our proper and only present place, because we are risen, and in Christ, in the place of priests. The bullock fully represents the character of Christ's sacrifice in this aspect for us. Then our sins, when we were alive in the flesh, have been put away, and we are reckoned dead, and he that has died is justified from sin. The whole nature of the flesh and its deeds are viewed as a past existence, the moment Christ rose, which is actually realized when we put off the old man and put on the new.

202 As all my sins were future when He died for them, so when once I am not in the flesh all that belongs to it faith looks on as past as to atonement and righteousness when He died. For so, and so only, could they be put away. But, as risen, I come into the holiest, not only because I am cleared from sins (a process which, in itself, went no farther than judicial acknowledgment of me where I was responsible), but according to all the value of that in which Christ is entered in. This, I repeat, is our only proper present position; because the old man, who was the responsible man in this world, is viewed as dead and buried, so that we are not in the flesh. Hence, though we were responsible, and the sins were borne and atoned for, we are not at all now in the place, and condition, or nature, in which that government and dealing took place; it is over for us. The bullock, the fullest and highest value of Christ's sacrifice, is ours, and represents our present -standing. The two goats clearly shew that the same one sacrifice of course applies to both parts of His work; our being presented to God according to His nature, and the putting away of sin, which was inconsistent with our duty as children of Adam.

But the application is, in a measure, different when Israel comes in question: because they do not enter into the holiest through the rent veil, the new and living way. They know the value of Christ's sacrifice when He comes out, and they look on Him whom they have pierced. They are under the weight of multiplied transgressions as a nation, and stand on that ground, and in flesh — have not to do with Christ within the veil, but when He has come out. I need not say, it is no new sacrifice. Isaiah 53 presents to us their recognition of the One we already own. They are not in heavenly places in Him; but He appears to and is with them, to bless them in the earth. They are accepted according to the righteousness of God as a moral governor. I do not say individuals, and all of them, as spared, are not viewed of God in His sight according to Christ's blood in heavenly places — I cannot doubt indeed they are; but it is not their dispensed place to stand there in their own souls before God. That moral government indeed continues as that under which they are as men in flesh on the earth.

Hence it was, after all the blood-sprinkling was done — "When he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, he shall bring the live goat," &c. — that the live goat was sent off into the wilderness with the sins of Israel on its head. I dare say the godly Israelite, thus at peace with God, may be learning the intrinsic value of the great sacrifice which has cleansed him, so as to get in growing nearness into the knowledge of God; but his dispensational place is, according to sin-bearing, ours according to Christ's presence in heaven, our old man, in which we were connected with earth, having died in that by which our sins were put away.

203 It is this point I feel important — the character of the blood-sprinkling, as confined to the holy place and tabernacle itself. Israel's ordinary sacrifices were on the altar of burnt offering; the blood was sprinkled there; they came as from without there. It was all right; every sinner must do so. It is as blessed as it is needed that we can. The sins must be put away if we are to draw near to God. But it does not take into the sanctuary. And here multitudes of Christians rest, if indeed they know this: they rest in the putting away, or hoped for putting away of their sins. It must be the first approach, but they stay on Jewish ground; and indeed in every way; for they look for a new sprinkling with blood (a new sacrifice they dare not, and nothing else would do, for, as the apostle says, Christ must often have suffered from the foundation of the world) every time they fail. It is not the value of the sacrifice in itself which is different. There is, we know, but one — never to be repeated, which has its own intrinsic, necessary value; but the sacrifice and sprinkling of blood on the brazen altar has a different character from sprinkling it on the mercy seat and on the altar of incense. This, the brazen altar, was judicial righteousness, as dealing with man as responsible to God, and in the exercise of moral government. Here the Israelites came to God. Christ met this claim on the cross, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, dying for the nation of Israel also. This bearing of sins was shewn in the scapegoat, but in a way which not only met our case in principle, but had, in its form, special reference to Israel in the last days after the Church's time was over. But the sprinkling of blood on the day of atonement went further. It entered into that within the veil. It carries us up to God, where Christ is gone. It may be remarked that the offerings of the day of atonement, which gave it its special character, did not include burnt-offerings. The bullock and the goat were both sin-offerings. The burnt-offerings for himself and for the people were not offered till the last special service of the day — the letting loose the live goat into the wilderness — was concluded. All was properly sin-offering. It placed Christ, and those associated with Him, in the sanctuary, and, as far as this world went, outside the camp. A religion of the world in flesh was not recognized in it, but the cross (i.e., Christ rejected on the earth, and His place in heaven). It is available for Israel but as bearing their sins and making a sacrifice of Himself, by which they could be blessed on earth. The burnt-offerings were offered on the brazen altar. These prefigure Christ presenting Himself to God as a sacrifice here on earth, through the eternal Spirit. This was the perfection of Christ here on earth, and that indeed in which, consequent on our admission into the holy place, we have to follow Him here below. I present these things, though some parts of them are to me acquired instruction, more as subjects for meditation, than as teaching your readers. But they will find them, if soberly followed out for profit according to scripture, full of rich edification.

204 I turn to the second subject of which I spoke, introducing it by begging my reader to refer to the well-known chapter (3) of John's Gospel, as shewing the way the Lord connects His life and death with the heavenly place, which He contemplates, but does not then speak of. A man must be born again, He assures Nicodemus, even to have a share in the earthly part of the kingdom of God, as taught by Ezekiel; but it was sovereign grace, and so went out, as the wind, whither it listed. But Christ spoke from His own knowledge, who came from heaven, yea, was in heaven, and it was a nature intrinsically capable — immense blessing! — of enjoying God, and the rejected Messiah was the Son of man lifted up, that whosoever believed in Him should have eternal life; not blessing, as life on earth. He died to all that was here, yea, even to His own Messiahship, as born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and opened the door by His death to those heavenly things of which He was able to speak. The life of the Spirit and the death of Christ, in their proper value, when known as death to this world, as was seen in Christ and glorifying God in His nature, are the entrance, as possessing life in Him risen, into the heavenly sanctuary. Compare Colossians 3 (where life aspiring after those heavenly things is the subject) and Ephesians (where the power of the Holy Ghost, uniting us to Christ, gives us the sitting of the saints in heavenly places in Him). In John 3 it is only opened out to us in vista. Thus, in the resurrection of Christ, as risen with Him, we pass up into the heavenly places, while Christ has died to the whole world, and sin, to everything which is in the world and connected with sin. It is passed and gone as nonexistent. Christ is risen, and is the firstfruits and beginning of a new state of things, of a new creation. Old things being passed away, God has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses. Christ died to sin and for sins. The new covenant does not go beyond forgiveness, remembering sins and iniquities no more. But it never deals with any entrance into the presence of God in the sanctuary. This, as we have seen, is our place by redemption. This leads me to the second point I would refer to — the difference of sins and sin. It is not new; but I do not think that Christians have sufficiently remarked the force of St. Paul's reasonings on the subject.

205 Sins of course are fully recognized, wholly condemned, and atonement made for them. Nay, it is by them that the conscience is first acted on and brought to repentance. The blood of Jesus, the cross, is the blessed answer to them. Not only so, but even where all are brought under the sin of Adam, the actual sins which affect the conscience, are introduced as that which is the added occasion of death. Of course, where the law is alluded to, positive transgression is recognized. But we shall find, besides all this, and where this has been recognized, the great question treated of a state of sin, and being in the flesh. Up to the end of Romans 3 sins are dealt with, but the conclusion drawn that we are all under sin, in that state or condition before God, as in Psalm 32: "Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord doth not impute sin." This question Romans 5 treats. But it goes farther; it shews sin entering into the world — a principle of evil in which man was alienated from God. It has reigned. It is not merely that I have committed sins; but sin has reigned, death being the proof of it. Chapter 6 carries out this thought distinctly, and introduces death as that which closes the evil, that, our state being one of sin, as alive as children of Adam, death closes that state. We are crucified with Christ, do not any longer exist as before God, as alive in the flesh. But what was this death in Christ? Here we have no dying for sins but to sin.

We all are aware that there was in Christ no sin, but ever living in the midst of this scene of sinners, His obedience tried to the utmost, even unto death, and drinking the cup, tempted in all points, like as we are, He died to that scene, died rather than fail in perfect and absolute obedience, in glorifying God. And He did so glorify Him, and, perfect in all things, closed all connection with this world, and with man as in a state of sin. He died to sin once, closed all connection of man with God, as on the ground of living in the flesh.

206 There was not a movement of His life which was not the perfection of the divine nature in man, in the midst of the temptations through which we pass, and having completed and finished that obedience, He died to the whole sphere and scene of existence — really died to it, and in resurrection entered on another, which did not belong to that order or state of things, but which had its starting point, its womb of existence, in death to it. Always morally separate from sinners, His life proved that that divine display could not win man to association with it, or to come to Him to have life, and He died so as to make a final and judicial separation of divine life from the whole first Adam condition, because there was nothing but sin there in will, and transfers, so to speak, the divine life which was in Him to a new and heavenly sphere, where flesh or sin could not come — the resurrection state.

In this life of Christ as risen with Him, our sins all atoned for, we live, He Himself being our righteousness according to His acceptance in the value of His work. Romans 6 therefore speaks no more of sins, save as past fruits of another state, from which we are freed. Christ has died unto sin once; we are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin, and alive unto God through Him. He that is dead is justified from sin; no state of sin can be charged on him, for as to that he is dead. He cannot be accused of being in that state, for he has died. Sin will not have dominion over us.

So, in chapter 7, we have died; when we were in the flesh, there were motions of sins, and the law only provoked them. Hence when by a new nature, as taught of God, we see the spirituality of the law, I discover this active principle of sin, and look to be delivered, and so I am in Christ. I die in the state I was in, and am now alive in Christ risen. The law is seen here — not as working a curse, but — as the means, when we are under it, of detecting the hopelessness of flesh, its sin being only detected and made exceeding sinful by it. It is the body of death. We are delivered from it (not pardoned its fruits) through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin in the flesh is condemned, but in that in which Christ was for sin — a sacrifice for sin. And then the contrast of flesh and Spirit in their nature is dwelt upon and insisted on.

And where is the groundwork of deliverance? Resurrection. I have passed, as dead with Christ, out of flesh ("Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwell in you") into a new scene by resurrection, not as to our bodies (for the redemption of which we wait), but as to our state before God and our souls. It is the Spirit, because this is the power of life; but it is Christ risen, our life, and we alive in Him, and by the Holy Ghost united to Him, as sitting in heavenly places, and so sitting there in Him. If I speak of being at the foot of the cross, I simply say I have not died with Christ. I have not passed through the rent veil into the holiest of all. I am then before the cross in my old nature, with my sins upon me; for if I am dead with Christ and risen with Him, I have passed on through the cross, as the door of faith, without any sins into God's presence in light.

207 So, in Galatians, though not with the same development.

I would draw some practical conclusions from this. I get a double character of divine righteousness, typified by the gold and the brass. One, His own divine nature and delight; the other, judicial requirement from the creature, according to its place. The gold is divine righteousness as in the nature of God. According to this, Christ, having glorified God in all that He is, is received within as man, and sits at God's right hand; we, partakers of the divine nature, being of God in Christ Jesus, created after God in righteousness and true holiness, and renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created us, united to Him whom God has set on high, have our place (not personally of course) at God's right hand — that could not be but in Him — in that heavenly place, according to the delight of God's nature, for that is in Christ. It is fellowship with this, or restoration to it, which is the character of our approach to God, as simply enjoying it in the new nature; it is not in contrast with evil, it is not forgiveness of what is past, sweet as that is in its place. I have, for faith — and shall have, in fact — entirely done with the nature which sinned, and the whole state of existence in which flesh moved. I exist only in the new creation. Hence the apostle says he did not even know Christ after the flesh any more. It is the joy of the new man in the presence and blessedness and glory of God.

The brazen altar is righteousness too, and divine righteousness, but in its claims on man's nature, not in the revelation of its own. Here the blood was sprinkled by which the sinner approaches God, and this will be the standing of Israel. How many of God's children remain here in fact! How little they have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus! They remain outside, and hope, when the time comes, they will pass in judgment, and have a share in glory. They are in Egypt, looking to the blood to keep the holy Judge out; not in the wilderness redeemed out of the bondage they were in and passed the Red Sea. They do look to the blood as that which is the ground of their hope against judgment, but they have no thought of having been crucified with Christ, and risen. They hope in Christ, as in fear of the righteousness of God, instead of in a new nature and life as risen with Christ, enjoying God as in the Spirit, and not in the flesh. One thing we must remember: that even there, where we enter into the full blessedness of God's presence, the Lamb that was slain will be the object in whose perfection we have learnt that blessedness.

Who is a Priest and What is a Priest?

J. N. Darby.

<10012E> 209

In the New Testament the Jewish priests are often spoken of, and their high and chief priests too. The priest of Jupiter is spoken of, who would have offered sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as gods. Melchisedec and his priesthood are spoken of. Christ Himself is spoken of as a priest in general and as high priest. All this is simple enough, and needs no particular comment for our present purpose. But others also, men on earth, are spoken of as priests and a priesthood. (1 Peter 2: 5, 9.) The first passage says, "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;" the latter, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." These words are addressed, beyond all controversy, to the whole of the Christians to whom Peter addresses his epistle, and whom he is instructing and encouraging in their trials. All Christians therefore are a holy and royal priesthood.

Again, in Revelation 1: 5, 6 we find, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests to God and his Father." Here again all Christians are priests. This is in the introduction, before the prophetic part of the book. In chapter 5: 9, we read, "Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us* to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests." In chapter 20: 6, we read, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." These passages tell us that all Christians are priests to God.

{*I am aware that this is read otherwise by critics, but it does not affect the present subject at all, and I give it therefore as usually read.}

Another passage, though the word is not used, alludes to it. "By him [Jesus] therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving praise to his name." (Heb. 13: 15.) This calls on all Christians to exercise their priesthood, and shews how they are to do it. There is not in the New Testament one passage which speaks of or alludes to a priesthood upon earth, save as every Christian is; or supposes the existence of a priesthood on earth save that of all Christians. No one on earth is ever called a priest — except the Jewish priests, and once a heathen one — save when Christians in general as such are called so. A distinct class of priests on earth among Christians is totally unknown to the New Testament. Our great High Priest is gone to heaven. And all Christians are priests in a spiritual and heavenly way for praises and intercessions under Him. The New Testament does not know or own a class of Christians on earth who are priests in a distinct office from other Christians. Such a thought is unscriptural and false in every way.

210 If it be asked then, Who are priests under the christian revelation? I reply (because the word of God replies), Christ is the great High Priest. All Christians are priests, and no other priesthood than this is owned among christian men in the New Testament.

Next we may enquire, What is a priest? and more exactly, What are the principles on which earthly priesthood, where it is established amongst men, is founded? A high priest from among men is thus described in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins." Other priests had the same office when priesthood was established upon earth. Certain functions belonged to the high priest only, but gifts and sacrifices for sins were offered by all the priests. Hence, when priests are officially established now, there is always either the formal institution of a sacrifice, as that of the mass, which is quite consistent; or the hankering after one, and the effort on the part of those called priests to turn the Lord's Supper into one, from the sense of inconsistency and of what they ought to be about, if they are really priests.

But this whole system denies the force and efficacious truth of Christianity altogether. The Epistle to the Hebrews carefully assures us that there remains no more sacrifice for sin, now that Christianity is established, founded on the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, whose value and efficacy are eternal. But let the reader turn his attention to what the system of an earthly priesthood supposes — what it means; and he will readily see that the idea of a priesthood on earth, acting for men in things pertaining to God, is a denial of the whole truth of Christianity. I do not say every one that believes there are consecrated priests, desires to do so, but the system he maintains does so.

211 The establishment of a class of priests to offer gifts or sacrifice or prayers, is the public declaration that other worshippers cannot directly approach God with their gifts, and sacrifices, and prayers. They must stay at a distance, and the more favoured class approach for them. The character which God assumed in such an order of things was distance from men, shutting Himself up in a hidden sanctuary, where none could approach freely. There was in the Jewish system one veil, inside which the priests went to offer incense; then another, inside which even the priests could not go, and where God's glory was enthroned between the cherubim. Into this the high priest alone went, only once a year, with the blood of propitiation to put upon the mercy seat, and even then enveloping himself in a cloud of incense lest he should die. Thus God was hidden within the veil. "The Holy Ghost," the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, "this signifying, that the way into the holiest was not yet manifested, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." Even to the altar, which was outside the two veils, the worshipper could not approach to offer his gifts or sacrifices. The priest received the gifts, or the victim's blood, at his hand, and he offered them.

All this system taught that men could not approach God: He dwelt in the thick darkness, and even those who were nearest to Him, His own priests, could not approach close to Him; they must remain without the veil. Christianity is the opposite of all this, though beautiful figures of truths as to Christ are found in it. By it God has revealed Himself. He does not dwell in the thick darkness. "The darkness is past," says the Apostle John, "and the true light now shineth." And for a blessed and simple reason. The Word has been made flesh and come among us: perfect grace has been manifested to the chief of sinners. Instead of our not being able to approach God, God has approached us. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them." "In him [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men." The record of God is that "God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life." "The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared." The chief of sinners was welcome to the Lord Jesus. On the leper, whose defiled state excluded him from the camp of Israel and every one that touched him (an image of sin), Jesus laid His hands and touched him. Gracious goodness has visited us. God has shewn Himself "the friend of publicans and sinners." But this is far from being all; for, though God visited the sinner thus in grace, the sinner could not approach Him in His holy habitation uncleansed. Hence the blessed Jesus not only lived but died. And now mark the effect of His death.

212 The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. This was the veil behind which God was previously hidden and unapproachable. But that which rent the veil (that is the death of Christ) put away sin perfectly from every one who believes in Him. He has borne their sins: His blood cleanses them from all sin. And not only have they found that God is perfect love — has commended His love to them, in that while they were yet sinners, Christ died for them — but they have found, if they believe in the efficacy of that sacrifice, what has purged their sins, for it was "when he had by himself purged our sins," and not till then, that "he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Hence the blood of Christ purges the conscience, making it perfect (Heb. 9, 10), and God remembers our sins and iniquities no more. Hence also, "there remains no more sacrifice for sins," because they are remitted; and "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

The Epistle to the Hebrews, from which I quote these statements, gives two striking reasons why there could be no repetition of the sacrifice, nor any more sacrifice for sins. First, without shedding of blood there is no remission; therefore, Christ must have suffered often if there were any besides that accomplished on the cross. Further, it is added, the Jewish priests stood offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which could never take away sins, but this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down; for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them who are sanctified. Such is the plain and blessed language of scripture. God would shew His goodness and grace towards us, but He could not bear sin, nor receive what was defiled and guilty into His presence, in His holy habitation, and hence gave His Son to put it away, that we might draw nigh with full assurance of faith. But this work is accomplished once for all. We have therefore (it is the conclusion drawn in Hebrews 10) "boldness to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." There no priest could enter (save the high priest, once a year, as we have said) when there were priests. And now every Christian can enter with boldness under the great High Priest, who is over the house of God. Believers are that house. We are those priests, as I have already shewn. No priest can go farther than entering into the holiest; and there I do not want him, for I can go boldly myself. If I get him to go for me, I am denying my own right and christian character, and the efficacy of Christ's work. He who sets up a priesthood on earth, between the believer and God, is denying the efficacy and truth of the work of Christ. He has "died the just for the unjust to bring us to God." If I am brought to God, I do not want a priest: to go to Him for me. If the veil is rent, and I am told by God to enter into the holiest through that new and living way, I do not want another to go there because I cannot — another who could not go either if I cannot.

213 The essence of Christianity is to reveal God, and to bring us to God, to give us holy, happy liberty as children in His presence, into which we can enter as cleansed by the precious blood of Christ. The essence of a distinct human priesthood is to say we cannot, but must get others to go into God's presence, to offer our gifts and sacrifices for us. It is a denial of the whole efficacy of Christianity and the place in which all Christians are set; who, if Christianity be true, are all God's priests on the earth, to offer up spiritual sacrifices — the fruit of their lips, giving praise to His name.

But, I add more: it is false and useless. The veil is rent, God is manifested in His holiness, the light has gone forth; and you, my reader, must "walk in the light as he [God] is in the light," or you can have nothing to say to Him. You cannot have a hidden God, as in Judaism, for a priest to go to, who yet could not reach Him. The light shines, and you must walk in it yourself. There is no veil over the glory of God now; there may be over your heart, but then you are an unbeliever, and no priest can represent you before God. You have to stand before God in the light yourself. If you have come through the blood of Christ, the light will only shew so much the more that you are perfectly clean through it. But you cannot even be clean and another go into God's presence for you. If you are clean, you are a priest and have to draw nigh yourself.

The work of Christ is a perfect and divine work, but you cannot approach God by a proxy here below. You cannot have another person clean or holy for you on the earth. If Christ has answered for you, all is well. Go boldly to the throne of grace yourself. If not, no one else can do it for you. You must have to do directly with God, now He has been revealed. No doubt that will be in condemnation, if you do not come to Him through Christ; but you must come yourself: the state of your own conscience is in question directly between you and God. If you do come to God by Him, no human priest can interfere, nor do you want any.

214 I repeat, then, the establishment of a human priesthood, as a class distinct from all other Christians, is the denial of the truth and efficacy of Christianity.

All Christians are priests, according to the New Testament: their offerings are spiritual offerings of praise to God's name.

A Fragment on Repentance

J. N. Darby.

<10013E> 215

The setting a certain quantity of repentance first (as some men preach), as a preliminary process to believing, I hold to be utterly mischievous and unscriptural. According to such views, repentance must take place without the word of God; for if it be by the word of God, there must be faith in that word, or else repentance is founded on unbelief, which is absurd. That it should be wrought by the preaching of a full gospel — glad tidings of a free and finished salvation — is the desire of my heart.

In some tracts on this subject of repentance, there has been an unhappy mingling up of the means and the effects. Be it that the true means of working repentance now is a full free gospel; be it too that there is a change of mind as to God in repentance. I believe both; yet neither of these is repentance itself.

According to scripture, I cannot admit that believing the gospel is repentance, nor that a change of mind simply is repentance. I admit that the mind must be changed to have it, but it is not simply a change of mind. When the Lord said, "Repent and believe the gospel," the two things do not mean one and the same thing; nor, here, was the gospel that which we now have consequent upon the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord.

But to turn to a few instances in scripture. First, Acts 2 . . . Peter charged the people distinctly with their sin, and they were pricked to the heart and said, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The gospel was preached, and, being believed, produced godly sorrow. Then he says, "Repent and be baptized every one of you . . . for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Then came fruits and praise. Here it is not merely presenting the blessed and glorious revelation of God in Christ, nor indeed is this finished work spoken of. The contrast is made between what they had done to Christ, and what God had done to Him. They had crucified Him; God had exalted Him, and the Holy Ghost, whose work they saw, was the proof of it; and they, through grace, were pricked to the heart.

Secondly, again, I may notice Acts 3. Here there is not a word of the gospel. It is an earnest pressing upon them of their sin in rejecting Christ, and promising the blotting out of their sins and the return of Christ on their repentance. In this case we have, however, no record of the effects. For the chief priests and captains of the temple came upon them and stopped the discourse.

216 Thirdly, Acts 10. Here there is no call for repentance at all. Cornelius was already a godly man; his prayers and his alms had gone up for a memorial before God. It was a revelation that in every nation those who feared God and wrought righteousness were accepted of Him. It was salvation brought to a godly man, though he was a Gentile.

Fourthly, Acts 13 is more to the purpose. It is an announcement of the fulfilment of promise in Christ, His resurrection, and forgiveness of sins and justification to those that believe. But the question of repentance is not raised, though I cannot doubt it was wrought in them that believed.

Fifthly. In Acts 17 repentance is spoken of, but in view of the judgment of this world, and nothing is said of grace.

But now let us see how repentance itself is spoken of in scripture. And I beg you to note that I do not in the least plead for the call to repentance being founded on what it is founded on in the passages which I shall cite. It ought to be founded now on a full free gospel. It is wrong to set it as a preliminary in man, though it may precede man's enjoyment of peace and solid assurance, and, I believe, must. I quote the texts to shew the ground in scripture for what I said at first about repentance. In scripture it does not mean believing; though man must believe in order to repent. Neither does it mean change of mind as to God, though a man's mind must be changed as to God in order to true repentance.

But I must add that this change of mind does not in itself give peace or assurance.

The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas. Was that belief in the glorious free salvation of the gospel? No; but scripture calls it repentance. I do not say Jonas's sermon to produce it should be ours. But scripture says these men repented; and thus repentance does not mean belief in the gospel.

Again, John the Baptist's ministry was a solemn call to repentance; but it was not the belief of that gospel which we now so rightly preach. The axe, he told them, was laid to the root of the trees. They were to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The effect was, the people feared God, had their hearts broken about their sins, and confessed them; they repented like the Ninevites at the preaching of Jonas.

When the Lord said, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," it was not believing a free gospel, but judging themselves and their sins with a heart turned to God. So when the Lord upbraided the cities where most of His mighty works were done because they repented not. When it is said, If thy brother repent, forgive him, and that seven times a day, it clearly is not believing the gospel, but self-judgment and recognition of his fault in sorrow of heart which is meant.

217 In passages such as Acts 8: 22, we have "repent of this thy wickedness;" a clear proof that repentance does not mean believing, nor a change of mind as to God, for he was to repent of something done. So in Revelation 2: 21, "repent of her fornication." So in 2 Corinthians 12: 21, as to the Corinthians' sins. So, when it is said God by sorrow works repentance never to be regretted, they were already believers; but here the apostle's reproofs had wrought in them repentance, as regards their allowance of disgraceful evil; and what wrought it was godly sorrow, not the joy of the gospel.

Again, when it is said, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we have distinct things: one, a state of mind as regards God; the other, faith and confidence in Christ. And repentance is justly thus applied to God, not ever, I believe, to Christ as the object, as faith is; because it is in the heart and conscience toward God in this our nature and character as such, not faith in the means and power of salvation. So I read in 2 Timothy 2: 25, "If God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth," evidently a breaking down of soul; and will was to bow to God's word. Now these passages shew to me clearly that though a full and free gospel may be the means of leading to repentance, yet repentance is a state of heart produced by it, and not the belief of it in itself. I repent because I believe; I repent of my sins.

Let me now take the rich exhibition of grace in Luke 15. In the first two parables it is sovereign grace, and nothing wrought in the saved one; but the third brings before us the work wrought. The young man comes to himself; and there is the change of mind as to his father, which is always the case when grace works: the hired servants had bread enough there. But the first effect was not joy. "I perish with hunger." "I will arise and go." Nor in going was there yet the knowledge of forgiveness. He proposes to say, Make me as one of thy hired servants. Nor had he yet met his father; he met him in his rags. Then he does not say, Make me as one of thy hired servants. He does then know what his father is — does then get the best robe and entrance into the house. But the effect of this, that there was goodness with God, was to find that he was perishing far from him, was to make him arise and go; to change his mind and to turn his face to his father instead of his back, not merely to change his mind as to God, but by that to produce a judgment of himself, and all his ways and state. In a word, the goodness of God led him to repentance. And this repentance was to be preached as well as remission of sins. Faith must be objective, is only objective, and the way of peace and confidence; the judgment of my own state will never be so, nor ought to be. But the faith in the objects presented — God's free and sovereign love, and the Saviour and His work — produces a subjective state which scripture calls repentance. This is not a preliminary to faith, but its fruit. But there is the subjective fruit. There may have been a faith in Christ's person and words which has wrought a work in the soul before a free gospel may have been even heard; it may have wrought sorrow and self: judgment, made the soul weary and heavy laden. Then a free gospel will produce outward joy. But when a full and free gospel is preached, and is the first thing heard by a careless soul, it is not a good sign that "they anon with joy receive it." So the parable, and so ample experience, shews a deep subjective work is a happy and blessed thing produced by the gospel — not man's work on himself to prepare for it — still produced.

218 And now, having plentifully quoted scripture, I may appeal to experience, whether he who recalls what has passed in his own mind does not know that he was brought to a subjective state of hatred of sin, self-judgment, confession of sins, with humiliation and self-loathing. In a word, whether repentance was not produced in his soul, if it were through the terrors of the law, with fear and dread perhaps, yet, if real, always with some drawing to God as good, some love of holiness, some sense of responsibility in grace whatever the terror, for mere terror of consequences is not repentance at all. If it be produced by a full display of God's love and grace, it will be a softer, deeper, fuller work; the humiliation and hatred of sin so much the deeper. If, as I have said, a previous divine exercise of soul has been already there, a full and free gospel will give liberty and peace. But I appeal to every soul that has believed the gospel, if they are not conscious of a subjective work — the fruit of faith; and I ask them, Which, according to scripture, is repentance? That, or the belief of the gospel, or word of God in any shape, which produced it? I do not ask about the form which the repentance took — that depends on the nature of the testimony that wrought it; but whether there was not such a work in them, wrought by the testimony, distinct from faith in it, and distinct from a change of their mind as to God, though produced by that change. I do not want them to attach importance to that work as something they are to bring to God. It would be a mischievous mistake. But the state of soul is in itself important. There is a question of the authority and claim of God in it, never lightly passed over.

219 But I add here a word more. The forgiveness of sins is something different from the judgment of sin. And I do not believe there is settled peace, in respect of divine righteousness, till the latter work is wrought. A person may be joyous because of the forgiveness of sins, and rightly so, with very little knowledge of self and sin, and yet this has to be learned. If it has been learnt through the law, before forgiveness of sins is known, all the rest is easy; but with a free and clear gospel, specially such as is preached in these days, forgiveness of sins is often known where self is not, and this must be learnt. The Epistle to the Romans treats of sins to the end of chapter 5: 11; it then takes up the question of sin, unfolded in connection with the law in chapter 7, the result being, not that Christ was set forth for a propitiation through His blood, but that we are not in the flesh but in Christ. You will find more than one soul rejoicing in forgiveness that could not think of the judgment-seat with peace. They do not know Christ as righteousness. The blood on the door-post was not one and the same thing as being out of Egypt by crossing the Red Sea. It will be said, But they were secure by the blood. Surely: God was for them; but for all that they did not know it as deliverance from the state they were in, and when assailed by Pharaoh at the Red Sea they were afraid. Once past that they were free. Do I for a moment mean that a full, free, finished salvation should not be preached to sinners? God forbid. Do I wish that a certain quantum of repentance should be insisted on as a preliminary? I reject such a thought altogether. I believe the life of Christ was just to win back confidence to God which Satan had destroyed; that this want of confidence preceded, and was the door of, the entrance of lust into Eve's heart. But all this does not hinder my believing that the faith of that gospel produces in the heart a deep subjective work, in which it is humbled, broken, and subdued; in which it repents towards God; in which God's claim is owned; in which self, past self, is judged. You will tell me, a man has life when he does this. Be it so. But it is not the less true that the work is wrought and must be wrought. It is wrought before the reception of the Holy Ghost, according to Acts 2, consequently before joy and liberty, though the truth, and growing truth, will remain.

220 A gospel which makes light of this is a defective gospel. It opens the door to legalism and false views as to repentance. Men put repentance as a human preliminary. I abhor this, and rightly; but if anyone speaks of repentance in a way not borne out by scripture, hundreds of souls, in finding him wrong, will suppose it as a question between his view and the Arminian doctrine, and take the latter to be right. It is because I reject the view such contend for, that I dread the use of the statements not borne out by scripture which I have referred to, and because I think that so speaking of repentance, as if it was itself only believing the gospel of the grace of God, is calculated to give superficiality and self-confidence to newly-converted souls, even if the conversion be real. I believe many souls have been set free from legal apprehensions of repentance and untrue bondage by such erroneous statements; but we are sanctified by the truth, and an error imbibed with it always bears its subsequent fruit.

The Greek word signifies an afterthought, a change of mind on reflection; but the question is, a change of mind as to what? Not, I distinctly say, as to God, though true knowledge of God gives us, on reflection, a just judgment of self, involving, I believe, a sense of God's claims upon us, and our responsibility, which is a different thing from knowing Him; and thus a true judgment of all our past ways. Godly sorrow is not this, but it works it. In repentance the bent of life is changed by the apprehension of God.

On Repentance

J. N. Darby.

<10014E> 221

Allow me to present to you my thoughts on repentance, as I believe scripture presents it to us. I have already once, I think, sent you a small paper on it, but I think the character of the gospel now commonly preached, calls for a distinct scriptural statement of what it is.

It is not conversion, as even the Lausanne translators of the New Testament have rendered it. That is in no way the meaning of the word. Conversion is the turning of the heart and will to God through grace. It is not faith; that, in its true force, is the divinely given perception of what is seen through the revelation of it to the soul by testimony in the power of the Holy Ghost.

It is literally an after or changed thought, a judgment formed by the mind on reflection, after it has had another or previous one; habitually, in its use in scripture, the judgment I form in God's sight of my own previous conduct and sentiments, consequent on the reception of God's testimony, in contrast with my previous natural course of feeling. Of course this may be more or less deep. It is not the sorrow itself: that works repentance if it is godly sorrow. Not the regret or remorse: that is μεταμέλεια not μετάνοια;" words used sometimes one for another, but not in scripture. Judas had remorse and hanged himself, not repentance. Godly sorrow works repentance never to be regretted. Repentance is the judgment we form, under the effect of God's testimony, of all in ourselves to which that testimony applies. Hence it is always founded on faith: I do not say the faith of the gospel. That may be its source; but we may repent through the testimony of God to the soul, and afterwards receive those glad tidings. Conversion itself may follow repentance; that is, conversion as the full deliberate turning of the heart to God. "Repent," says Peter, "and be converted." (Acts 3: 19.) Conversion is the turning of the will to God. Repentance (μετάνοια) is the changed thought, or judgment, we have of things, bringing in with it often, when it concerns self, the sense of a change of feeling. The use of it in classical writers will shew us the meaning of the word in itself; Scripture, the scriptural use of it.

I select a few cases of the former, and then shall cite scripture, which alone can give its own use of it, and does so amply. Thus as to μετανοέω, "ἐχ τούτου δὴ ἠναγχαζόμεθα μετανοεῖν." ("From this we were obliged to change our mind.") — Xenophon Cyr. "Καὶ αὐτὸν μέντοι φαρὶν ἀνανήψαντα οὔτω μετανοῆσαι ἐφ᾽ οῖς ἐποίησεν." ("And he, indeed, they say, having thus come to his senses, repented of what he had done.") — Lucian. I might cite others. The first is change of mind; the second, repentance or regret. So, μετάνοιαν: "ὁ μὲν ἐλέγχῳ χαὶ ψόλῳ δηγμὸν ἐμποιῶν ξαὶ μετάνοιαν ἐξθρὸς δοχεῖ χαὶ χατήγορος, here coupled with δηγμὸς, a bite or sting, it is evidently pain itself on conviction. In no sense is it conversion, for the convicter is counted an enemy, but the guilty man is forced to see his fault in another light by the reproof. So, μετάνοια δεινὴ τοὺς Ἀθηναίους χαὶ πόθος ἔσχε τοῦ Κίμωνος. Here again we have sorrow and regret as the form of the change of mind. These from Plutarch. Any dictionary with quotations will give others. Thus, with the original meaning of an afterthought and change of mind, it came specifically to mean sorrow and self-condemnation, and regret at what had previously pleased. I quote yet another example from Kypke (2 Pet. 3: 9): Plutarch has "εἰς μετάνοιαν ἐπὶ τοῖς πραχθεῖσι χωρήσας" — "Had recourse to repentance for what was done. So, "γαμεῖν ὂς ἐθέλει εἰς μετάνοιαν ἒχετα '' — "He who has a mind to marry will come to regret [repent] it."

222 I will now turn to scripture, which it is more especially important of course to search into. In the LXX it is, save in the Proverbs, used for God's not changing His mind. In the Proverbs, it is said, "Vow not hastily, for afterwards a man will repent of it." And in another case it is said, "The simple believeth every word, but the prudent uses (μετάνοιαν) reflection, afterthought."

In the New Testament, we have John the Baptist's well-known testimony. He preached the baptism of repentance, for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Christ's first testimony is the same: Matthew 3: 2, 4: 7; 3: 8, 11; Mark 1: 4, 15; Luke 3: 3, 8. The effect was, that they went out confessing their sins. Surely this was a judgment of themselves and of their sins produced through the testimony of the word. There was a change of mind, an afterthought on reflection — the definition given of μετάνοια — light being let into their conscience as to their state: and fruits were looked for suited to this change of mind as evidence of its reality.

Again, this force of the word is clearly seen by contrast, "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine that need no repentance." Luke 15: 7, 10. Where there is nothing to judge, repentance has no place; where sin is, this judgment of one's own state is called for. So the Lord came to call sinners to repentance, Mark 2: 17; Luke 5: 32. Again, the Lord upbraids the cities where most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not. Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen them. Is it not a practical change and self-judgment on the testimony before them? Matthew 11: 20, 21. Again, the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonas. Matthew 12: 41. We cannot say they were converted. Fear caused it, but they believed the testimony, judged themselves, fasted and put on sackcloth. Again, if a brother wrong me, and seven times a day come, saying "I repent," I am to forgive him. Luke 17: 4. Here there is no question of conversion, he is not converted seven times a day. Again, we see by many of these passages it refers to their previous state of sin. So Acts 8: 22, "Repent of this thy wickedness." So Revelation 9: 30, 31; 2: 21, 22. The same principle is contained in Matthew 18: 2, 5: so, in its fruit in 2 Corinthians 7: 9, 10, they sorrowed to repentance; godly sorrow worked repentance. Here they were converted long ago, and had believed long ago. But they had been in a bad state, and had repented. How it shewed itself may be seen in verse 11: "For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge." Now these I admit are the proofs and fruits of repentance, how it shewed itself. Still they teach us what it is. So Hebrews 6: 1, we have repentance from dead works.

223 The only place in the New Testament in which I believe it means simply change of mind, without reference to the judgment of ourselves and our sins, is in Hebrews 12: 17. He found no place for repentance — for going back from his previous way of taking up the matter, though he sought it — the blessing, not the repentance — bitterly with tears. The blessing and taking back his previous act, and unbelieving self-gratification go together; but here it has nothing to do with repenting of sin, but the first ordinary sense, changing his mind. It is not necessary, nor, I believe, just, to refer it to Jacob.

One text remains which gives its character and full force to repentance, "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." (Acts 20: 21.) He looked, not merely that crimes and wickedness should be judged, but that a man should judge all his state in the light of God's own presence, and in reference to His divine character and authority over him, and in the thought of His goodness. This is true repentance; man judged and judging himself in the presence of God, to whom he belongs and to whose nature he has to refer with mercy before him. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ meets this; because there God has judged sin according to His own nature and authority, and His love is perfect, and we are reconciled to God according to that nature and righteous claim. But this requires a word of explanation. It is not that repentance comes first by itself and then in an absolute way faith. But that repentance, the judgment of what we are before God and in God's sight, is one great effect of the truth; it refers to God as God with whom we have to do; whereas faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is faith in that sovereign intervention of God in which in grace He has met our state in the gift of His Son. Repentance is not change of mind as to God, though this may produce it, but self-judgment before Him, the soul referring to Him who is over us, with whom we have to do. It is not that repentance precedes faith. We shall see that it is not so: but it is first the heart returned into divine light, and then faith in the blessed intervention of God that fitted the state it finds itself in.

224 Practical repentance then is the estimate a man forms of sin, of his own ways as a sinner, on reflection, through the light of God penetrating into his soul, with some sense of goodness in Him, and setting up withal divine authority there. This may be through divine warnings as in the case of Jonah, or the lamenting of a John Baptist announcing that the axe is laid to the root of the trees. It is always mercy. He gives repentance to Israel, grants repentance unto life: His goodness leads us to it. That is, instead of visiting sins according to man's desert, He opens the door to return to light and grace through grace. Hence, when grace is fully announced, when the truth is there, repentance is on the footing of God's perfect revelation of Himself in grace, in Christ. I Repentance was to be preached in His name, and remission of sins. In coming to God it is always the first effect in the soul when it is real, and the turning of the will to God, and faith in the redemption and forgiveness the gospel announces comes after. Hence it is said, "Repent and be converted," "Repent and believe the gospel." But this just shews us how faith is the only and necessary source of repentance. It is by the testimony of the word it is wrought. Be it prophets, or Jonas, or John, or the Lord Himself, or the apostles, who taught that men should repent and turn to God, it was wrought by a testimony of God, and a testimony believed. Now, this testimony is the testimony to Christ Himself. Repentance, as well as remission of sins, was to be preached in His name. It is by the revelation of God, whether in judgment or in grace, grace in any case working in the heart, that repentance is wrought. When the prodigal came to himself he repented; he is converted when he said, "I will arise and go to my Father;" the gospel is realized when he meets his Father and gets the best robe. But he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; and there is always in true repentance some sense of goodness. "How many servants of my Father's have bread enough and to spare." There would be no returning if there was not hope, it may be very vague, but still a hope of being received, and goodness trusted to. Even the Ninevites say, "who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" In the gospel the full grace of God is made the very ground of a call to repentance, still in view of judgment. "Now he calls all men everywhere to repent, seeing he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained." Goodness leads to it, the door to flee is open, but to flee from the wrath to come, to flee to God, who assures of forgiveness in coming through the perfect work of Christ.

225 My object was to give a scriptural statement of what repentance is. I add a practical word.

In practice, the true working of the gospel in the heart is to bring first of all to repentance. As we have seen, warnings such as Jonah's may lead men to repent, or a John Baptist ministry. But the fullest gospel does the same. It brings into the light though it tells of love, for God is both, and that love makes us judge ourselves when God is really revealed. It cannot be otherwise. If men have been already exercised, the preaching of a simple and clear redemption will, through grace, give peace. It answers the soul's need, which, having already looked to itself, is now enabled to look to God through Christ, learns that God is for it, and learns divine righteousness. If a man has not been previously exercised, wherever there is a true work, the effect of the fullest grace is to reach the conscience, to lead to repentance. Not to give peace as the first thing, but to bring the soul into that light, in which it discovers that state which makes it need a peacemaking for it. It has lived without God, perhaps openly flown in His face, and it does not merely discover He is holy and good, that is, change its mind as to God and learn to love Him, but it casts its eye on itself, on its past ways, has a reflective afterthought in which it judges itself in the presence of God so known, judging sin by the great work which has put it away. It repents. The soul feels it has to do with God responsibly, has failed, been evil, corrupt, without God, is humbled, has a horror of itself and its state; may fear, will surely hope, and eventually, if simple, very soon find peace. But it will say, "Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." If there is not this — though the degrees of it may be various, as the form it takes in the soul — there is no true work wrought. If revivals (so called) be examined into, it will be found that previously exercised souls have got happy if a plain gospel has been preached. Those who have not and rush into peace are found after all to have no root at all. And if there be a superficial work and hasty peace, the work has to be done afterwards of reaching the springs and foundation of the conscience, and often through much sorrow. We cannot preach the gospel too clearly or too fully, grace abounding where sin has, grace reigning through righteousness; but the effect of this when fully received, the effect we ought to look for in souls, is repentance — I mean the present first effect. It will be a deepening one all through our course.

The Christian Position as to Life and the Spirit.

Galatians 2: 19 - 3: 14.

J. N. Darby.

<10015E> 227

There are two things presented here which distinguish the Christian. The first is an entirely new life in the presence of the Lord Jesus: (Gal. 2: 19, &c.) The second is the possession of the Holy Ghost (chap. 3), in contrast with the law, and also the promises; for the accomplishment is quite distinct from the hope. The difference is immense; for, in order to enjoy the effect of the promise, it is needful that faith come in and that righteousness be accomplished. The perfect righteousness of Christ in God's presence must be put on. One cannot have the accomplishment of the promise save in Christ.

The Galatians had, to a certain point, succeeded in introducing some measure of works of the law in order to salvation. Not that the name of Christ was set aside, but His work was despised. Now God in His grace has set us before Him without questions: they have been all solved in Christ and God. We are not clear till we have recognized ourselves under the efficacy of all that Christ has done for our salvation, and we cannot enjoy it as long as there are questions to be solved.

To enjoy the efficacy of Christ's work is the foundation of all. It is the joy of the full revelation of God. Abraham had precious promises. (Gen. 15; 17.) But it is one thing to have promises like those made to Abraham, precious as this is without doubt, a totally different thing to have a full entire revelation of God in respect of us, such as we have in the epistles. The work which has been fully and clearly revealed has put me where Jesus is in the presence of God, happy and without a cloud. What Christ has done the law could not do, and did not pretend to it; for the law, having a shadow of things to come, shewed, after all, that God could not be revealed therein. Why? Because righteousness was not accomplished: it would have been judgment, for the law demanded its fulfilment. The Holy Ghost tells us that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest. God kept Himself in the thick darkness.

Now they were seeking to add things in order to be saved, when the believer was without questions in the presence of God. Therefore, says the apostle, "If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. I have done wrong then in overthrowing them, I am a transgressor and Christ a minister of sin!" (Gal. 2.) "But," he adds, "I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

228 What then is the effect of the law, and wherefore serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, but it is not a thing which I could accomplish. The apostle has not even the idea of such-a thing, for the law was given to shew man that he was a sinner. The righteousness which is by faith is quite another thing from abiding under the law. I know all the power of the law; it can only condemn me. But now I am dead to the law. How happy to know the thing by grace, for grace is of little moment to me if I am under law! The knowledge of grace makes me understand that, the more God is good, the more guilty am I if I offend Him. The revelation of this grace of God. if the law enters and I must render an account, makes one more culpable in every respect. When Moses came down from the mountain, he brought a ministry of condemnation and death. (Compare Exodus 34 and 2 Cor. 3.) God had proclaimed Himself as the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and sin, and that would by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. This was not a ministry of pure grace, as some suppose; for God had said, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. (Ex. 32: 33.) But under grace he who sins against such a God is more guilty than a sinner under the ministry of condemnation and death. Nor is this a piece of reasoning; for the word says that Moses put a veil on his face, that the children of Israel could not look to the end of that which is abolished. If God impute my sin to me, all this goodness does but aggravate my case.

What is it that I really want? The manifestation of righteousness. For whatever was the goodness of God displayed, it rendered man more blamable, and promise could not take this away. The people were guilty, and the ministry with which Moses was invested was a ministry of condemnation and death. But the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is unto all, and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3: 22, 23.) God, knowing that which should be manifested, bore with sins. The cross has only displayed His righteousness which He has declared at this time. We are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness. (Rom. 3: 24, 25.)

229 The important thing for our souls is that God's righteousness has been fully revealed. It is not that faith denies the authority of the law: "yea, we establish the law." Faith owns that the law demands perfect righteousness; but it also says, "If I seek my salvation by the works of the law, I am condemned and lost." But now faith says, "I, through the law, am dead to the law." This is what Christ has accomplished for us personally. Christ has put Himself under the sentence of the cross, and by His death I am crucified with Him. The life in which I was responsible and I had sinned exists no longer. This it is which makes such a total difference. The life in which God saw me a sinner, the life to which sin is attached and consequently condemnation and death, no more exists. "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." This is not yet all. It is no more a question for me, if I can find the favour of God by keeping the law; for I live no longer according to this life, but in the life of Christ who loved me. My responsibility as to this life is gone: Christ has loved me, and loved me as I am. Such is the sole relation that I know; and I am sure of His love. It is the action of Christ for me which has set me thus, and not mine for Him.

It is true that I have failed; but I am dead. And my responsibility, as a saved person, flows from this that Christ has loved and saved me, and from the relations which exist between Him and me. If my soul has not understood its responsibility before God as saved, I have not understood the gospel; nevertheless, I cannot deny it: God has revealed it to me. It is not any more a question of what I ought to be, but of what Christ has done, and done for me. What I find is, that He has loved me as I was. I find in Jesus the manifestation of the God who loved me. I have the full assurance before God, that I have no longer anything to do with this first life, the life of the first Adam; but that I live now in another life, communicated by the second Adam, even Christ, of whose love to me I am assured.

230 There is a great difference between the enjoyment of a lost child introduced into a family, and that of him who is adopted there. The child may find the father to be kind, but he has not yet the child's heart, nor position, as long as he feels himself a mere foundling. As soon, however, as his position is changed, because he understands that the head of the family is become his father by adoption, he enjoys those intimate relations which exist between a parent and his child.

Everything depends on the relations which exist. One cannot enjoy the affections of God without being His child; all depends on the knowledge and enjoyment of this relationship. Then the heart is happy, and such is the place of the Christian. The effect of Christ's work is to set us thus in the relation in which Jesus stands with the Father.

The apostle presents us with a second position in Galatians 3: 2: "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" To this he replies: "As many [persons] as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." . . . "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

Now we have the contrast, not only with the law, but also with the promises; for Christ is far above the promises, seeing that He is Himself their accomplishment. Those who are of the works of the law — on that ground and principle — are cursed; those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. (Gal. 3: 9.) Impossible to have joy in God's presence without the question of sin's being settled. Can we stand before God without that? No; righteousness is necessary. If I have the least thing upon my conscience, how can I be happy in the light? For one must be there without spot. But Christ has done more than answer to righteousness; and herein we find a glorious manifestation in Christ, for He has accomplished, in perfection, all that was demanded of man, and He is now glorified. We enjoy not merely the righteousness which was required, but this — that God has been glorified; and this is much more. Had God merely shewn Himself just, He would have cut off all men as sinners: without the work of Christ, God's majesty would have been compromised; but Christ gave Himself up to be the vessel for displaying on the cross all that God is for us. God Himself has been so glorified, that Christ could say, "Therefore doth my Father love me." The God-man has not only satisfied the righteousness of God, but, besides, the consequence of His perfect work is that we can rejoice in His presence without questions and without trouble of conscience. We have received not life only but the Holy Ghost as the seal of our justification, and in order that we may understand all the effect of this righteousness to enjoy it without a cloud in the Father's presence.

231 Another thing besides flows thence — the base on which the Church is founded. For this is not on what man was not, but on what he is in Christ; and in this manifestation Christ has unfolded all that was in God for us. The Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Tim. 3: 15.) There is the truth, because God has been manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory. This had not been all promised. For the Church to receive her existence, it was needful that God should be manifested in flesh. Christ having accomplished the work of redemption, God has introduced man in His presence, and set him in glory. Having proved man to be a sinner, He was not contented to take away sin, but He would see him His own, and make him enjoy all His grace in perfect peace, giving him to understand that His righteousness was accomplished in Christ. Such is the Church. Souls convinced of sin enjoy all the fulness of the sovereign grace of God, because there is no more question of sins for them. By the gift of the Holy Ghost this effect is produced; there is the consciousness of the perfect righteousness of God Himself without conscience of sins. Can you say that there is no more question of sins for you? Is this question entirely at rest, and your relation to God founded on that? Have you recognized that your responsibility, your relation with God, is based upon the accomplished righteousness in Christ? If so, you are happy and blessed. Formerly you were sinners, but now you can say, God loves me. I do not speak of your thoughts; but you have made the discovery that you are God's children by faith in Christ Jesus, that your responsibility as sinners is closed. Are your hearts thus at large? to consider before Him that you are crucified with Christ, and that sin is gone for you? I cannot have the feelings of a bride towards one whom I dread as my judge: I need the consciousness of being in the presence of my bridegroom, according to that lovingkindness which is better than life.

232 Is God your daily resource in your faults and sins, even when you have committed them? Do you believe that His love can do that? There is where the apostle regards the Christian as set; and, when the contrary happens, the Jewish position is more or less taken by the heart. If I have not full confidence in God, I must seek something outside, instead of having recourse to God to find strength and to restore my soul. If God is your resource, you will not seek the law. The touchstone for the child of God is, whether his resources are in God or in himself. Perhaps, like the Jews, he seeks to offer sacrifices. If Christians, we are under grace, and it is of moment for us to be clear as to the position Christ has brought us into. There we are blessed in His presence; there also we are in possession of the precious things which are promised us. For, I repeat, it is not the promises which constitute our joy, but Christ, in whom we have them all Yea, and Amen, in virtue of the work which has been wrought and accepted; and we can be strangers and pilgrims.

May God strengthen us more and more in the consciousness of His love, which has saved us, and brings us into His presence to enjoy all that He is for us. Then Christ will be the object of all our thoughts. May we have it simple and settled before us, that it is no more ourselves that live, but Christ that lives in us, that nothing is wanting to the accomplishment of the requirements of God, and that our position is based upon His love.

Is the Comforter come? And is He gone?

J. N. Darby.

<10016E> 233

People must retrograde if they do not advance. I know not whether those who believe with scripture, that the Church, the body of Christ, began at Pentecost, have made progress because they bow to scripture and to Christ, or that those who reject the truth on these points have lost or gone back from what they had; but the distance seems immeasurably enlarged. Whether it be that failure in faithfulness has been the occasion of the latter losing so much precious truth, I will not pretend to judge; but the ignorance of a vast field of scriptural knowledge is very striking. In the writer of the tracts I comment on, I recognize one whom I had long known, and, though entirely and in every way separated from his present course, one whose laboriousness I recognize with thankfulness to God. I am sure, and it is a joy to me, God will recognize all that is of Himself in him. But light on these subjects there is not in his tracts, but simple darkness; and all that his tracts prove is total ignorance of what the Church is, and what the presence of the Holy Ghost the Comforter is, as scripture speaks of each — of the two points, that is, of primary importance for Christians now, and those by which God is working to lead the saints on, out of the state they are systematically in, to go forth to meet the Bridegroom. The same darkness exactly it is which confounds the coming of Christ for the Church, and His appearing — I say the same.

The opposition to these two truths (the Church, and the rapture, so-called) ever and necessarily go together. The denial of these leads Christians back to, or retains them in, that out of which God is calling them.

I admit then the importance of the difference; I insist on it. I do not speak of terms of communion, but of that by which God is acting in His saints and sending even a clear gospel to sinners. That which reduces the Church to the level of Judaism reduces the gospel to the obscurity of the legalism opposed by Paul. It is this that makes me take up these tracts. For it is really tedious to go over the ground so often trodden without one new idea, even an erroneous one, to enliven the journey; for all that is said in these tracts has been completely answered again and again. One would think that the writer must be ignorant of all that has passed in the discussion he introduces with such naive solemnity, objections without the least force to one acquainted with scripture, after the ignorance they testify of has been exposed hundreds of times.

234 The writer has found an obscure passage in the very valuable tract he comments on, and has made the most of it; he has found an incorrect expression used by one of his own friends who holds the truth on these points, and he makes the most of that. The latter is, "when Christ was in incarnation." It is inexact; but every one can understand what is meant, and the speaker was quite right. He means, evidently, the period of Christ's life on earth when incarnate down here. In the former the expressions may lead an ignorant person to confound the state of life into which Christ has entered (and what is necessary to association and union with Himself, in contrast with His state down here, in which there could not possibly be union) with the fact of life in power in the Son. This last is the prerogative of the Son at all times (yet never revealed till He was incarnate). He could and did quicken while on earth (John 5), but there was no union with Him. But this is obscurely expressed, and union with Him in life spoken of, or, as it is there expressed, "be united to Him in the same life that He has," which might lead to suppose union to consist in life — a notion as common as it is unscriptural and false. And, as this is the false doctrine of the commentator, he has naturally taken it in his own sense; as to which one may fairly excuse him. But his whole system of doctrine as to it is mere popular error, a hundred times exposed.

It is exceedingly important to see the doctrine our opponents, with the mass of Evangelicals, hold as to the Holy Ghost — their total denial of what constitutes the essential difference of the christian position; and that, not only as to the Church, but as to the individual. What constitutes the essential difference of the present christian state (not its foundation, but its essential difference) is the presence of the Comforter. This it is the prophets had prophesied of; this it is Christ had promised; this it is He gave as the witness of His being gone on high and set down at God's right hand. T. M. and his companions affirm that this is lost to the Church. There was nothing, they will have it, peculiar at Pentecost, but what are called miraculous gifts, and they are gone. Here are his words: "The scripture is, 'baptized with the Holy Ghost,' or 'in the Holy Ghost.' Acts 1: 5; 2: 15. The obvious meaning is, that they were to be submerged or baptized into the powers of the Holy Ghost, which took place at Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost came down upon them . . . Does our speaker mean to say that we have now the Pentecostal baptism which he connects with 1 Corinthians 12: 12, &c.? If so, we must now be in the enjoyment of Pentecostal gifts, which most certainly we have not." "The fact is, that our being baptized by one Spirit into one body is not subsequent to regeneration, but an integral and necessary part of it." I believe these statements to be the root principle of the apostasy prophesied of, and a denial of the essential characteristic of Christianity, the power and grace consequent on the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God, and the fruit of His finished work. This consisted simply, they say, in the enjoyment of Pentecostal gifts, which most certainly we have not.

235 Let us see how scripture speaks on this point. The fact of miracles clearly does not make the difference. They were wrought of old, and by the Lord, and, through His power, by the disciples. It is true that, in their extent and in their character in certain respects (and these very interesting ones, such as tongues), there was a difference. The apostles were to do greater things than those which Christ had done, because He went to the Father. But the fact of miracles did not make the difference. They were wrought of old. But the outpouring of the Spirit was spoken of by the prophets as distinctive of the great time of Messiah's blessing — the hoped-for promised blessing. It was identified with the blessing of Abraham coming on the Gentiles. The Jews received it then. Galatians 3: 14. This was the glory of the great promise in Joel; this, the blessed promise connected with the Redeemer come to Zion, Isaiah 59; this the promise of full blessing by the same prophet in chapter 32: 15. Messiah did come and was rejected; but this presence of the Holy Ghost (though Christ was not there, and so far in lieu of His presence) became for that very reason the essential, necessary, distinctive, present blessing of Christianity, founded on the perfect accomplishment of His work and His exaltation to the right hand of God. This the Lord carefully teaches us Himself in the Gospel of John: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." This is a most important passage. No Christian in the world thinks that that divine person began to exist after that. I need not dwell on this with any who are in the truth.

236 Scripture shews that that divine Spirit is the direct agent in creation and on creatures from the beginning. The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. By His Spirit He garnished the heavens. I might cite other passages; and even the Lord Himself in His blessed works on earth could say, "If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils." So every believer knows that the Spirit of God wrought on the prophets. I need not multiply quotations.

But that this divine Person should come and take up His abode on earth, consequent on an accomplished redemption, was a wholly new thing; and this was so distinct and prominent a fact, and a fact so characteristic of the earthly condition, of a state of things which was the special object of God's eternal counsels, that it is said, looking at earth, "The Holy Ghost was not yet." That which could be called the Holy Ghost (that is, His personal presence on earth in the redeemed) was not yet; and the reason is given: Jesus was not yet glorified. The Holy Ghost might accomplish every divine operation which was to be wrought; but He could not dwell, and have a temple on earth as come down from heaven, until Christ was in heaven as man having accomplished redemption — till Jesus was glorified. This distinction of the previous operations of the Spirit, and His coming down, is clearly made by Peter: "The prophets searched what and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow; to whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them which have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." The Spirit of Christ was in the prophets. Now the Holy Ghost is sent down from heaven. But the end of John's Gospel treats this subject at large (chap. 14: 16): "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." The Father had been revealed in the Son. That they ought to have known (ver. 9, 10); but now they should know that He was in the Father, and they in Him, and He in them. This was a wholly new thing by the Comforter. The Father was to send Him in Christ's name.

In chapter 15 Christ, on the other hand, sends Him from the Father, and He was to testify of Christ. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father." And so immeasurably important was this, that, great and precious as was the blessing of having Christ there, He told them the truth: "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

237 Now I beg the reader to weigh very earnestly all these testimonies of the Lord to the sending and coming of the Holy Ghost, after, and consequent upon, Christ's going away. They were told accordingly to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high. On the departure of Christ they were assured they were to be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. (Acts 1: 5.) The importance of this we may judge of by its being presented by John Baptist as one of the two great features which distinctively characterized the Christ, the other being that He was the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1: 33; Matt. 3: 11.) But, further, we are assured that it was only on His going up on high that Christ received the Spirit to this end. (Acts. 2: 33.) "Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." So Peter testifies to his auditors, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." So, again, Acts 5: 32: "And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him" — connecting this gift, as spoken of in Acts, with John 15: 26,27. So in John's Epistle we read, "And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him; and hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us."

Now these scriptures make it plain, as plain as God's testimony can make it, that the Holy Ghost — what is called distinctively, "the Holy Ghost" and the Comforter — was not given until after Christ was exalted; that, if Christ had not gone away, He could not have come; and that He never came till Christ had been so exalted: then He was sent, Christ having then received Him according to the promise of the Father. I say the Holy Ghost, as thus come, "was not" till Christ was exalted. If it was merely an integral and necessary part of regeneration, then nobody was regenerate before at all. That the Comforter thus promised was not regeneration or quickening* is quite certain, however, because "the Son quickens whom he will."

{*It may be well to observe that the author does not himself believe that regeneration is identical with quickening, but rather expressive of the new state of things which the Christian now enters in Christ. The word is here employed in its ordinary usage as equivalent to the new birth. — ED.]}

238 And further, during His lifetime the dead did hear His voice, and they that heard lived; yet the Comforter was not yet come. The Father raises up the dead and quickens them, and so the Son quickens whom He will. But the Comforter could not come till Christ went away. The coming of the Comforter is not quickening. But T. M. will surely say, "Of course it is not." The coming of the Comforter was after Christ's exaltation. It was the conferring of "Pentecostal gifts, which most certainly we have not." Now this is just the point. The Comforter is not quickening: as is certain. That took place before Christ was on high; the sending of the Comforter did not. It is then the enjoyment of "Pentecostal gifts which certainly we have not." That is, we have not the Comforter! Do you not see, my reader, what a serious thing this is — where this dreadful system lands us in the total denial of the presence of the Comforter as the portion of Christians? What then comes of the statement, that the promise of the Holy Ghost, to be received after they repented and were baptized, was to all that were afar off, even to as many as the Lord their God should call? What comes of the Lord's promise, that He would give them another Comforter, who could not come till He went away, but that He would abide with them for ever? Whatever the Comforter was, He certainly was not given at all till Christ went away and was glorified — that is, was not what existed before in action of the Holy Ghost in prophets and saints. If it be only Pentecostal gifts, and if we certainly have not the enjoyment of them, then the Comforter is gone. But if it be something else, though displayed in these, if it be the true presence of God by the Spirit on earth in the saints, then my opponents, and alas! many others, are denying the true presence of God on the earth in His saints — that immeasurably important and divine fact, which was to characterize Christianity, and be the source of all our present blessing — what alone makes Christianity what it is. If God dwells in us by His Spirit, this is not merely Pentecostal gifts, nor is it merely the fact that I am spiritually alive through grace.

The doctrine of T. M.'s tract is the denial of the presence of God by the Spirit with the Church or the saint; though Christ has promised He should abide for ever with us, and that all whom God should call should receive Him. Let us now trace what scripture teaches us positively on this point also. These quotations will serve to shew also the deadly error of T. M. in confounding the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the saints receiving Him, with regeneration, or being born again.

239 The scripture is as plain as words can be. First, in the quoted passage: "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." They believed on Him, and must do so, before they received the Spirit thus; but we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That is, they were first children, regenerate, and afterward received the Holy Ghost. And this is distinctly thus followed out in Galatians, "We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" and, having received the adoption of sons by the Son's coming down here for us and redeeming us, "because we are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Note, it is not Pentecostal gifts, but the Spirit crying Abba in our hearts.

Again, Peter says, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Now I suppose T. M. would admit that, when they had repented and were baptized, they were what he calls regenerate. But this, according to Peter, was only the ground of their receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost as a consequence. Indeed, all the eleven were quickened believers, clean through the word spoken to them; but they were to receive and did receive the Holy Ghost afterwards.

In perfect analogy with Peter's sermon, Paul asks the disciples at Ephesus, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" — a question perfectly senseless had that receiving been an integral and necessary part of their regeneration. Their answer was, "We have not so much as heard if the Holy Ghost is" — that is, if what John has taught us has been fulfilled, that Christ would baptize with the Holy Ghost.

Again, we read in Ephesians, "In whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Again, in 2 Corinthians 1, "He that stablisheth us together with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." So in 1 Corinthians 6: 19, "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost . . . which ye have of God?" It is not a regenerate state of the heart; but the body the temple of the Holy Ghost. Again, in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, they lie to the Holy Ghost — lie therefore to God. For the Church was builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

240 We have thus the certainty from scripture of the personal presence of God in the Church, and in the saint, in the person of the Spirit, after and distinct from believing and being children, and the seal of that faith, the fruit of accomplished redemption, and hence after, and only after, the exaltation of Jesus, by whom and in whose name by the Father He was sent down as the other Comforter. And this is simple, when we consider who are regenerated, and who are sealed; for unbelievers only can be regenerated, believers only can be sealed.

There never was any thought of God's dwelling in the midst of His people until redemption was accomplished. He never dwelt with Adam, never with Abraham, but visited both. But so soon as Israel was redeemed out of Egypt, He tells them that it was that He might dwell amongst them. (Ex. 29: 46.) Now He does so by His Spirit, but that is consequent on redemption. Figures taught the same thing: the leper or the priest, first washed-regeneration; then sprinkled with blood, as we with that of Christ; then anointed, that is, with the Holy Ghost — not the washing of regeneration, but the Holy Ghost given to us. So, when we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, the faith comes first. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are sons, and He helps our infirmities, making intercession according to God. I might cite other passages, but let these suffice. Believers are sealed with the Holy Ghost; unbelievers are regenerated by Him, and they must be the latter before they can be sealed by that Holy Spirit of promise.

And is it merely gifts? Our body, remember, is a temple through our receiving Him; it is not a mere action from without, but His dwelling in us. Is that merely Pentecostal gifts? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. He is the earnest of our inheritance. We are led of the Spirit, guided into all truth by Him. Is all this gone, or is it merely regeneration? Is there not a personal presence of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, dwelling in the saint whose body He makes a temple, dwelling in the house of God, the habitation of God through the Spirit?

The distinctive character of Christ, besides being the Lamb of God, was that He could baptize with the Holy Ghost. But this could not be till He was exalted to the right hand of God. He was anointed and sealed, the scripture tells us, but stood alone until He died. And now we are sealed and anointed with the promised Spirit which He has received as exalted of the Father. This constitutes Christianity — the exalting of Christ and the consequent conferring of the Holy Ghost.

241 These teachers come and assure us that it was all the same before: only that Pentecostal gifts were given which have wholly ceased. So that we are reduced, though Christ be exalted, to the old patriarchal or Jehovah condition. It is the denial of Christianity — I do not say of Christ, but it is of Christianity. And now remark how this connects itself with the doctrine of the Church. Christ having been exalted as man to the right hand of God, the Holy Spirit comes down and unites us to Him, the Head, as sitting at God's right hand. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." That is the body of Christ: He the Head on high, we His members on earth. Hence it could not be till Christ was exalted. You must have the Head to have the members. If Pentecost be merely gifts, this is not the case — there is no union. Gifts do not unite. They are exercised in the members of the already one body. But if they be only distinct gifts, we are regenerate individuals and no more.

But it will be said, "Had not the Son quickening power from the beginning?" Undoubtedly. This is not the question at all. We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. This had no application whatever until He was incarnate. It will be said, "It is a figure." Be it so, but it is a figure which applies to Him only when He is become a man. And when He had become a man, we could not then be members of His body, because He had not accomplished redemption, and taken His place as man on high (the place in which He was to be Head as man), and sent down the Holy Ghost to unite us to Himself. And here is the application of the plain words, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." He is not speaking here of divine quickening power (that had nothing to do with being alone), but of Himself, man, the Son who had taken the place as a man, the Christ. As man, He was alone, not united to men, though a true man. If He died, He would, being exalted, associate believers with Himself, yea, unite them to Himself. He might, as Son of God, quicken souls in a divine way: and the essence of everlasting blessing is in that; but we could not be quickened together with Him as one raised from among the dead, raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places, unless He, a man, was raised.

242 And this is the doctrine of scripture, "What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and every name which is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come; and gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Now whomsoever he might divinely quicken, all this is impossible — evidently has no place — till Christ is raised and exalted as man. It is as sent, as raised, and exalted by God, that He is given to be Head to the Church, His body. It is the exalted man that is the Head, who is surely the Word, the eternal Son. But it is not as Word, or Son, that He is given to be the Head of the body, but as a man raised by God from the dead. Such is the doctrine of the word of God.

T. M. and his friends may think it a small thing, if they have life from God, to be united to Christ, the exalted Head on high; I do not; scripture does not. It is the exceeding greatness of God's power to usward who believe. Now it is perfectly clear that Abraham could not be this, because Christ was not incarnate and exalted. He may have been quickened by the Son; he could not be united to the risen exalted man at God's right hand; for none such was there. T. M. and others before him tell us that he will be hereafter, that there is some new work of God to go on in another world, by which what did not and could not take place in this world will in the next.

But we must have some other authority than T. M., or any one else, for this. We must have the word of God. I shall shew, farther on, that scripture speaks otherwise in the rare passages that refer to it. One thing is certain, which is the main point for us, that in this world the distinction exists. Abraham was not united by the Holy Ghost to a glorified man in heaven, for there was no glorified man in heaven; the Holy Ghost consequently was not yet, who unites us. Is it a small thing that there is a man sitting at the right hand of God, and that we are united to Him?

And here, let me remark in passing, is the tendency to confusion in the passage of the tract made use of by T. M., "united to him in life." The words are perfectly true, but there was no distinction previously made between the quickening power of the Son of God, and our being quickened together with Him as a man raised from the dead, and raised up together, and made to sit together. And as T. M. is wholly ignorant of the last, and only knows life-giving power in Christ, which he considers union (as many others whom I cordially own as Christ's saints), he takes "united to him in life" in the only sense he is acquainted with. So far it is, as I have said, an excuse for him; but the excuse is his entire ignorance of this wondrous truth, our quickening together with Christ, and our union with Him, so as to be members of His body, as described in the end of Ephesians 1 and beginning of Ephesians 2. And this is the assembly viewed as the body.

243 It has another character — the house of God. As such, it is the habitation of God through the Spirit, as we see in Ephesians 2. Compare 1 Timothy 3: 15. Hence in 1 Corinthians Christians are told, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" None of this is regeneration, but the personal presence of the Holy Ghost on earth. T. M. may count this a small thing. I need hardly say that such an assembly never existed before Christ's exaltation. He gave Himself to gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.

But, further, T. M. insists that the baptizing into one body is by regeneration, not by the Holy Ghost given, the Pentecostal gifts being the only other blessing by the Spirit. But then he cannot have read the chapter (1 Cor. 12), because it speaks of gifts, not of regeneration at all. See verses 1, 4 — indeed the whole chapter. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." "To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom," and so on. The gifts are the manifestations of the Spirit given to profit withal. "All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." I ask any man in his senses if this can apply to regeneration. And now what follows? "For as the body is one and hath many members . . . so also is Christ; for by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body;" and then he proceeds to consider the diversity in the members. Again, "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the assembly, first apostles," &c. In a word, there is not a word about regeneration in the chapter; but the Holy Ghost distributing gifts to each severally as He will, and that we are baptized by one Spirit into one body, each member having his distinct office; all of which has nothing to do with regeneration. The Church, then, being Christ's body, could not exist before the Head was in heaven, as Ephesians 1 teaches clearly, nor the habitation of God through the Spirit when the Spirit was not sent. But the doctrine of the Church's being only now set up, or revealed, is positively taught in scripture. The apostle says, Ephesians 3, "To make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things, to the intent that now unto principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." So in Colossians 1, "The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints."

244 T. M. and his friends tells us it was and must have been revealed in the Old Testament. I can only say I prefer believing the word of God, which tells me it was hid in God (than which nothing can be more absolute), and is now manifested. T. M. goes so far as to say it was formerly not fully revealed, and not revealed at all to Gentiles (p. 23): a thought there is not a trace of in scripture; while scripture declares it was hid from ages and generations — hid in God. Yet we are told the death of Christ was to produce a formal and visible unity, and that the children of God were scattered abroad in former ages; that is, in plain terms, were not an assembly, but after the death of Christ were.

We are told that Stephen speaks of "the assembly in the wilderness;" no doubt T. M. may find (hundreds of times, and with three distinct words in Hebrew) the assembly or congregation. Was that the gathering together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad? This is trifling, often as it is quoted. I cannot consider the person who deliberately quotes Acts 7 to prove the Church to have existed then, an honest man. Of course it was an assembly: so was the riot at Ephesus, and called by the same name. Is there any honesty in applying it to the body of Christ — these men whose carcases fell in the wilderness? There is only one quotation which is plausible — not for the existence of the Church, it proves the contrary, but — for its being prophesied of. It proves the contrary of its existence before Christ's resurrection; because the Psalm has gone on to the resurrection, and brings this in it as the fruit of it. But it is plausible as alleging it was prophesied of. It is quite sufficient for me to know that the mystery was hid in God; but, like all difficulties in scripture, it gives fresh light if God be patiently waited on. It is quite clear, if we look at the Psalm, it refers to the remnant of Israel, and then to all Israel. And it was literally so fulfilled in John 20. The Psalm then goes on to the millennium. Whereas the mystery hid, the assembly of which the epistles speak, is the uniting Jews and Gentiles into one body (σύσσωμα) in Christ. Psalm 22 does not touch on ascension. It was fulfilled by the Lord before His ascension, necessary, as we have seen, to His sending the Holy Ghost. Psalm 22 passes from the resurrection to the last days, when all Israel will be gathered, and leaves out entirely what Paul calls the assembly.

245 We have spoken and justly spoken of the Church, as Paul speaks of it. The mere word may mean anything, from the tumultuous meeting at Ephesus to the bride and body of Christ. But to apply these uses of them to that bride is an abuse of words, or wicked cavilling. The quotation of the passage in the Hebrews has nothing to do with the matter. The epistle does not ever go on the ground of union with Christ, or of the Church; but on Christ being a mediator between God and the saints, or as One over God's house. The passage is quoted, not to say anything good or bad as to the Church, but to shew that Christ is not ashamed to call the saints brethren. Blessed truth! But it is all on Jewish ground (that is, Christ's connection with the remnant) though we are grafted in. The saints are viewed as partakers of the heavenly calling, not as members of Christ's body. But the passage in the Psalm was not, any more than the type of Eve, and many other such, in the smallest degree a previous revelation of the Church. Now we have the Church, we can apply Eve to it. But Eve was simply Adam's wife and the transgressing woman, as known in the Old Testament, and revealed just nothing at all. And Psalm 22 spoke of the Messiah in the congregation of Israel and revealed nothing more. "The congregation" to a Jew was the congregation of Israel, and the Gentiles are not hinted at in the Psalm till the millennium is spoken of. Now I have the key to it, I can use it for the congregation as begun after Christ's resurrection at Jerusalem. But it revealed beforehand absolutely nothing of the mystery of the one body of Jews and Gentiles.

Let me add a consideration which may facilitate, to persons who, like T. M., believe in Christ's coming before the millennium, the thought of persons being saved and regenerate who form no part of the Church or body of Christ. There will certainly be saints on earth during the millennium. Now before that begins the marriage of the Lamb is come and His bride has made herself ready; so that it is perfectly clear there are saints, regenerate persons, who do not form part of the bride. For the bride is ready, and the marriage come, and these saints are manifested afterwards.

246 I will now examine the statements from which T. M. concludes that the Old Testament saints form part of the body of Christ — concludes, for scripture he has none. I meet constantly, "I believe," "I think," "it is scarcely conceivable that he should have left out," and the like. All this is nothing but proof that proofs were wanting.

The quotation of Heb. 11: 39, 40 is rather impudent however: T. M. says, "Until we of this dispensation were ready to share like blessings with them;" the passage, "God having provided some better thing for us." That is, the scripture declares that we have better things, though perfected in resurrection together; T. M. and his friends, that we have like blessings. Well, I believe scripture — that we have a better thing — and not T. M. But this is the whole question — just what they will not allow. "The mother of us all" may be excused, as the author is not versed in criticism. But every one who is acquainted with the subject knows that the true sentence is, "Who is our mother" so that it is a testimony the other way.

T. M. asks if it can be supposed for a moment that, if the Old Testament saints pass into a real and substantial resurrection condition in glory . . . that they are not united to Christ and to us in this dispensation, and that in the fullest sense, and in the same sense as we are united to Christ, as part of His body. I answer, I suppose nothing, but learn from scripture. But why not? Why are all risen saints necessarily part of the body and bride of Christ? It is clear when on earth they were not; for the Christ we are united to did not exist as head in glory. What scripture has T. M.? where some future act by which they are? The giving life is no proof of union at all. Possession of life is not union. My children receive life from me; they are not my bride.

T. M. asks, "If the Holy Ghost be God, how is it that He has not been always here?" Here you have the key to the whole system: the sending of the Comforter, consequent on Christ's death and exaltation, is wholly ignored. Supposing I were to say, Is the Son God or not? If He be, how can it be said that He was not always here? My question ignores Christianity, as to the Father's sending the Son to be the Saviour of the world. T. M.'s question ignores Christianity as to the sending of the Spirit and His dwelling in us. His spiritual actings are not confined to this dispensation; but His presence as sent and dwelling on earth is, if scripture be true. As regards the assertion that the tract commented on says, that "it is life in Christ which unites to Christ's body," I cannot find it. It says, "united to Him in the same life that He has," which is quite true, though it has misled T. M. But it adds, "It is not, however, life only, but the presence of the Holy Ghost down here, that forms the body." T. M. is quite unwarranted in saying that the tract asserts, that it is life in Christ which unites to Christ's body. I repeat, the communication of life by Christ, or the possession of life from Him, is never union. It may be necessary to it. Both may come in an instant, but life and faith must be there for us to be sealed with the Holy Ghost, by which we are united. On this scripture is clear and positive, as we have seen. God took care at the beginning that there should be an interval. I see no reason, now the Comforter is come, why we should not be sealed the instant we believe; but believing must come first, or there is nothing and no one to seal, for believers only are sealed.

247 T. M. asks, Are we to come to the conclusion that so honoured a servant of Christ (as Enoch) is to have no place in it (the Church)? He then speaks of Noah. My answer is, You must conclude nothing at all, but give me some scripture for it. The Church did not exist: so they could not be in it. Where was the body when there was no head? Where was the assembly of which Noah formed a part? Where was the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven to unite, or the Christ to be united to? All that is said here, is false reasoning without scripture. In the recital of their deeds, the apostle says, "And these all . . . received not the promises: God having provided some better thing for us." That better thing then they had not, in spite of all the claptrap appeal to prejudice. It was expedient that Christ should go away, so excellent was what the apostles got; so far is it from being true that they had nothing better than the patriarchs. "So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." The apostle was contrasting law and faith, and shewing who got the blessing. But what the blessing is is spoken of — the blessing of the nations by Him; not the Church, of which there is no question, good or bad. The Church was no subject of promise at all.

And Paul carefully distinguishes (Col. 1) the ministry of the gospel, and the ministry of the Church to complete the word of God. No doubt, as believing Abraham was blessed, believers will be blessed with Abraham. But this says absolutely nothing of a place in the Church. Whoever believed was blessed, as was witnessed in Abraham; that Abraham had righteousness by faith and we too — all true; that he is the heir of the world — beyond doubt; but how these shew that he was a member of the body of Christ, no one can tell. They do not speak of the matter. Abraham had a heavenly hope; but why does this say he is of the body the Church? The passage is shewing that the law brought a curse and faith a blessing, as the case of Abraham proved, and that hence we, having faith, got blessing with Abraham; but that the blessing involved identity of position, there is not a trace of. That it did not, is proved by the passage — falsified by T. M. in quoting it — that God had provided some better thing for us. The mystery formed no part of revelation, no subject of promise. It was hid in God. I have already remarked that an historical type does not reveal a thing at all till the antitype comes. It is a simple history. Romans 16: 25 does not simply relate to the preaching of the gospel, as is said. It speaks of a mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest.

248 The bringing in of the Gentiles was not an unrevealed mystery. It is referred to in many scriptures; but Romans 16: 25 speaks of a mystery kept secret since the world began, and to say that this is what is plainly taught in the Old Testament scriptures referred to is a bold defiance of scripture, and that is all. To say that "Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people," and "I will set thee for a light to the Gentiles," is a matter kept secret since the world began, is to trifle with the word of God. The only thing it proves is that the writer is ignorant of the mystery, now it is revealed, and knows nothing beyond the passages quoted. The Lord, it is said, expounded after His resurrection the things concerning Himself. It is scarcely conceivable that He should have left out the calling of the Gentiles in His exposition. Concerning Himself is not concerning the Church, but as to His own person. The Spirit was to come to guide them into all the truth. It is expressly stated, that He was shewing them "that Christ must suffer and enter into his glory." (Luke 24: 26, 44-46.) A person must be singularly hard driven up to quote such scripture as this, and in the face of positive scriptures that it is now revealed by the Spirit, and had been kept secret since the world began — hid in God. The calling of the Gentiles is not in itself the formation of the Church. "Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people" is a different thought. It justifies blessing to the Gentiles which the Jews would not hear of, "forbidding to preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved." But it treats the Jews as God's people, whereas in the Church there is neither Jew nor Gentile at all.

249 All this proves merely that T. M. has not the smallest idea of what the Church is, and is really most tedious to have to answer. No one denies that Christ spoke prophetically of the Church, though the Church itself was not yet revealed; but John 10: 16 does not even do this. Gathering individuals into a flock does shew the calling of the Gentiles, which had always been revealed, and approaches the outward state of things here. But the doctrine of the Church is not in it at all (that is, of the body of Christ). All this still only proves (what indeed makes all plain, as to the whole of these teachers), that they have not the scriptural doctrine of the Church at all. John never speaks of the Church — once of a local church — but never of the Church, but of Christ and individuals. None of the apostles speaks of the Church, nor uses the word of Christians as a whole, but Paul. It was a dispensation committed to him, as he tells us. Christ prophesies of it; the Acts relate historically its being founded; but no one speaks of it as a teacher, or doctrinally, but Paul. The nearest approach is an allusion in 1 Peter 2 to the temple: "We are built up a spiritual house." T. M. is forced to admit that this purpose of God in gathering the saints into one was revealed in a manifested form and visible unity, never known or seen before. It is easy to say, never known or seen. When did it exist before? Where was the head to which the body was to be united? or did it subsist without any head at all?

That Ephesians 3: 5, 6 does not mean fellow-heirs with all the Jewish redeemed, if by that is meant they should be one body, is perfectly certain, because chapter 2 shews that Christ made of twain one new man, and that this is the way they are fellow-citizens and fellow-heirs, thus reconciling both in one body. It is very convenient to take only the expression "fellow-heirs" and to leave out the one body, which is expressly revealed to be a new thing. And note here a striking proof that in every sense the Church must be a new thing — as a fact, not merely as a revelation. Judaism was founded on and maintained by the keeping up the middle wall of partition; the Church is founded on its being cast down. To have revealed the Church during the subsisting of Judaism would have been to have destroyed the whole force and value of the revelation by which Judaism subsisted. The Lord. when His death was approaching which was to do it, could prophetically reveal it, in general terms, as a fact, and so He does in Matthew 16. But that was because Judaism was passing away. T. M. is obliged yet again to admit that the Gentile calling, comparatively hidden and unrevealed, is "the subject of a positive and bodily manifestation." "Now that the head has appeared, the truth of the body is no longer kept secret, and the secret purpose of God, hid in other ages from the sons of men, is becoming manifest." Was ever greater confusion? The truth of the body then was kept secret; it was a secret purpose of God hid in other ages from the sons of men. So we say; so scripture says; so T. M. says now. But why in the beginning of the sentence is it "comparatively hidden?" Here it is a "secret purpose" and "kept secret." Which is true? Why alter scripture, and say "comparatively hid in God?" But the calling of the Gentiles was neither comparatively nor in any other way hid, but revealed as clearly as possible in passages already quoted, "Rejoice ye Gentiles, with his people," &c., — not even comparatively hid; but the other, if we are to believe scripture, was kept secret — hid in God. Why will not T. M. believe it, instead of changing scripture to meet his theory and contradict himself in the same page?

250 But Colossians 1 affords another important witness besides verses 25, 26, namely, verse 18. It is as risen from the dead that Christ is the beginning, the Head of the body. It is not merely that as Son He quickens and gives life (this is blessedly true), but that as risen from the dead, He takes a wholly new place Himself, as man, is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and becomes the head of the body, the Church. It is not merely the value of a work, or the operation of divine power, but a place now first taken, and a special place; not a place held in common with others (which, in a certain sense, is true of resurrection), but a place of pre-eminence, in which He is alone: the Head and the assembly united to Him as His body. T. M. is forced to admit the difference now of a manifested form and visible unity never seen before: let me add, a union with Christ impossible before; for we could not be members of Christ until He took His place as Head.

But T. M. assures us "that when they (Jews and Gentiles) pass out of them into an eternal state, these distinctions vanish." The distinction of Jews and Gentiles has vanished now in the assembly, because it is an eternal thing — is what remains. But where does T. M. find that the Church's distinctive position, which he cannot deny here, vanishes in another world? Where is his gospel of a new work in that unseen world, which is to introduce those who were not in the Church here into it there? I read, "To him be glory in the Church throughout all ages." It is an eternal relationship as such, which the Church, formed here, keeps. So I read, "The tabernacle of God is with men." But that is the heavenly Jerusalem, the Bride, the Lamb's wife, still God's dwelling and with men. So in Hebrews 12, I read of the Church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and of the spirits of just men made perfect. Why this distinction, if all are to be swamped in one?

251 Thus, while these teachers are obliged to invent a new gospel as to another world, to make the distinctions, which they cannot deny, vanish there, the few passages which speak of such subjects clearly speak of their continuance. Page 27 of T. M.'s tract is a revelation of his own. But what is important to me is the real present difference of the Church. Now all that T. M. says in this part of the tract proves only that he has not the idea of the Church at all. He knows, he tells us, no redemption apart from the blood of Christ; nor do I. Christ's death and resurrection must be the basis of all union, relationship, and blessing: agreed. No life apart from Christ's eternal life. As far as I understand T. M.'s meaning here, I admit it, though I doubt he apprehends the force of eternal life as used in scripture; but as he uses it, I have already said the same thing. No power to quicken the soul save the power of the Holy Ghost: all right.

But all this does not say one word of union with Christ, the Man exalted to God's right hand, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven and dwelling in us. He adds, "according to this view I am constrained to admit all believers into the Church of God." But in the blessings he has spoken of, he has not mentioned a single thing which, according to scripture, constitutes the Church of God. He tells us, that when immortality sets in, there shall be but one flock and one Shepherd, one body, one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all. This does but add to the confusion and display of ignorance the tract exhibits. All this is true now, and cannot apply as to much of it "when immortality sets in;" there will be no hope and faith then. But farther, while it is true now, it will not be true at all when we are glorified; because when, for us at any rate, "immortality sets in," and that is the proper hope of our calling, there will be saints on earth in quite a different state. Let me remind my good friend, T. M., too, that at that time the marriage of the Lamb will have come, and His wife have made herself ready; that is, the Church will be complete and the marriage will have taken place.

252 T. M. asks the reader's careful consideration of Galatians 4: 1-7. He tells us, they (the Old Testament saints) are called "the heir," "lord of all," "children." "Thus they had all the privilege and calling of the Church." Could I ask a clearer proof of the total ignorance of what the Church is than this tract displays? Not one of these terms gives the proper character and standing of the Church at all. No doubt the individuals who compose it partake of all this. But the Church's place is not spoken of at all in it. There is nothing of union with Christ the Head; nothing of being His body; nothing of being the bride; nothing of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. They were children not differing from servants, whereas we have the Spirit of adoption; but the Church's place is not spoken of. When will these dear friends submit to learn the truth, instead of printing and publishing their own (scripturally) unlearned thoughts!

I do not go into other questions. Errors and false grounds of attack, even on his own friends, abound in this production; as, for example, that as to the gospels and epistles is a most untrue and unfounded accusation on the author's own shewing. But we can expect no right judgment from those who do not submit to the word. But I confine myself to the one question.

We are told that 'building on the rock' is a Jewish prophecy. (Is. 28.) It is nothing of the kind. Jehovah is, no doubt, called a Rock, and Christ is prophesied of in Isaiah 28 as the sure foundation-stone. But the only point we are concerned in is the building of the Church on it, and of that Isaiah does not say a word, nor allude to it. The Lord's statement is not the revelation of the assembly, which is brought out as union with a glorified man, but it does surely teach that the Church was to begin thereafter. If He had said, I build, or, am building, it might be said; but it was a new direct revelation to Peter from the Father, that that humbled man, the rejected Messiah, was the Son of the living God; upon that He declares that He will build, not had been building, His Church.

T. M. quotes John 15 as a proof that the Church was formed on earth. I deny entirely that John 15 applies to the Church. The branches are cut off: members of Christ's body cannot be cut off from it. The vine was Israel, but not the true Vine. Christ on earth — only on earth — was the true Vine. I say on earth, for there is pruning, and bringing forth fruit, and cutting off. All this is on earth, and was true then. The false application of this to the Church has led to a mass of difficulties. There may be an analogy in professors now — the Church in its outward profession; but that is all. The same substitution of Christ to Israel may be seen in Isaiah 49, and Matthew's use of Hosea's prophecy, I have called my son out of Egypt," but all relating to earth. The Church is seated in heavenly places in Christ; there is no pruning and cutting off in heavenly places. These views lead astray on every point.

253 It is a loose way of speaking to say, "fortunate to live a few days longer till Pentecost was come." The thief himself was the first witness, so to speak, that the veil was rent. I do not know whether T. M. thinks it a small thing that "the way into the holiest" was not made manifest till Christ died. One thing is certain, that he counts the gift of the Holy Ghost, the coming of the Comforter, which made it expedient that the blessed One should go away, a very small matter. The thief was not so fortunate as to wait a few days.

I reply to his questions.

First. The Gospels do not contain the widest possible form of instruction. I know no part of scripture so blessed, because they present Christ Himself to me. But they teach me that as to truth there were many things which Christ had to teach, which the disciples could not then bear, and that the Spirit was to guide them into all truth. If T. M. does not believe this, he does not bow to what Christ says in the gospels.

Secondly. We are to believe that the Church was not related to Christ when He was on earth; because Ephesians tells us He was to be exalted in order to be the Head of the body, and that by His death He was to make of twain one new man, and reconcile both in one body by the cross.

Thirdly. No doubt the disciples were children of God while Christ was on earth, but they had not the Spirit of adoption, nor did Christ own them as His brethren. The expression of "brother and sister" has evidently no relation to this. They were as much His mother as His brethren.

Fourthly. It is no part of our faith that the blood of Christ gives an equal standing and relationship to all whom it cleanses — not even as on earth. It gives power to enter into the holiest. It did not on earth to the Old Testament saints; it will not to the millennial saints on earth. It is "a new and living way which is opened to us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." As to any standing and relationship with Christ in the heavenly state, that must be learnt from scripture, not from human inferences. When a scripture is brought which teaches me that all saints are the body and bride of Christ, I shall of course bow. I read that God has reserved some better things for us. Salvation is the same for all; but our special place must be learned from God's revealed purpose. If the result must be the same, why are there those who sit on the right hand and on the left, others who do not? If there is a difference in degree, as T. M. is forced to admit, then the blood of Christ does not involve equality of place; if it did, it must be absolute equality; if this be not so, the inference is false. We must learn from the word what is true.

254 Fifthly. We are to limit Matthew 16 to the formation of the Church at Pentecost and after. It is not an Old Testament prophecy at all. It does not contain a promise to Israel in the millennial days. Were it even so, it could not be true of days preceding Christ's coming.

Sixthly. We are to hold that the Old Testament saints are not united to Him. It is a delusion to hold that men are united to Christ because they are quickened and raised by Him.

The seventh is a mere false accusation against his own friends. No such thing is said in his friend's speech, as quoted by T. M. It is only said they are not so easy to be understood, which is quite true, and for the reason stated.

Eighthly. Romans does not contain the truth of the Church. In practical exhortation, it alludes to it as existing in chapter 12; but it is not at all the subject of its teaching. It speaks of what is even more important, individual justification and peace, forgiveness of sins, and judgment of the law of the old man, and freedom from it in a new life. Nay, more; it does not (save in an allusion, in order to speak of intercession) speak of Christ as ascended. It teaches us the new condition into which Christ's death and resurrection bring us. It is so far a contrast to Ephesians, that Romans begins with man in wickedness and sin, and presents the remedy; Ephesians, with God's purpose, and, looking at Christ dead, and we dead in sins, shews us quickened together with Him, does not teach us justification as responsible men on earth, but a new creation, by which we are associated with, and united to, Christ in heaven.

Ninthly. It is undoubtedly true that we are first regenerated and then sealed and baptized into one body. I speak of no interval of time being necessary; but the consequence of the divine acts is perfectly clear from scripture. It is impossible an unregenerate man can be sealed: T. M. ought to see it is an absurdity; whereas only an unregenerated man can be regenerated. He ought to know that we are children of God by faith, and that it is after we have believed we are sealed. The truth is, he does not believe in any sealing at all, in any gift of the Holy Ghost to us but Pentecostal gifts, which we certainly have not; and hence these questions. It is well this infidelity as to the promise of the Spirit should come out.

255 Tenthly. The operations of the Spirit are not limited to this dispensation; but the sending of the Comforter is, because Christ expressly declares it could not come till He went away, and when it did come, was to abide for ever, not go away like Him. The Holy Ghost is not the same as the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He distributes, when come, to whom He will. All this is but infidelity as to the presence of the Spirit. True, the Church has so grieved Him, it is hard often to discern His operations; but God is calling back the conscience of the Church to its sin in this respect, and what it has lost; and these teachers are denying the evil. It is only repeating what I have said in the body of the tract, but there cannot be a more complete denial or ignoring of the specific sending the Comforter on Christ's going away — that is, of the essential characteristic of Christianity which is the ministration of the Spirit.

Eleventhly. This question betrays the same setting aside of the Church that the former did of the Spirit. Scripture never says, the Church which is in the Father, but "the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father." And the difference is all important, because, though a local church may stand locally in the responsibilities of the body, it is a candlestick which may be removed out of its place. But the body of Christ cannot come to nought. Further, there is no question of sonship or union. The Church, the assembly, is not a son of God, nor can there be union with the Father. The question is a complication of blunders. Individual Christians are sons, the church of the Thessalonians has nothing to do with being a son, and, save Christ in a divine way, no son is in the Father. The whole question is a blunder.

In fine, I see nothing in this tract — save the denial, in ignorance (I fully admit) not of the foundation of a sinner's hope, nor of the work of God in him for salvation, but of the essential and characteristic truth of Christianity, both as to the Spirit and the Church. Other grave errors are in it; but it is only of these that I have any desire to speak. I would add, that a sentence of his friend's, of which T. M. makes a great deal, is wholly unfounded. "Forgiveness of sins," he says, "includes everything." It does nothing of the kind, in any sense. Nor is even "redemption in Christ" a justifiable expression. "In whom we have redemption through his blood," is a very different thing. It states that in Christ we have a certain measured blessing, whatever else we may have besides. And this difference is the whole question here. Is not the purchased possession redeemed? Is that on the same level as is here spoken of — no getting any higher? "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." Is that the same as an inheritance in Him? Clearly not, to every spiritual mind. The inheritance is what is below, as distinct from our calling. In Him we have obtained it; but the inheritance is not in Him. All this is fallacious language; which I notice, because from the fallacy most mischievous conclusions are drawn.

256 It is then ever true, that for every blessed soul there must be regeneration and a holy nature; there must be redemption and cleansing by the precious blood of Christ. Confiding faith in Him is the privilege of the saints at all times. But take the whole dealing of God with us now, and all depends on and is wrought by truth which no prophet could have used at all. Go no farther than Peter's sermon (Acts 2): not a word of that would have been said by a prophet. Take John 16, God's whole present testimony in the world: not one word of it possible but by the coming of the Comforter. I only pray the reader to recall what is lost by T. M.'s doctrine of the Comforter being only Pentecostal gifts — no Spirit of adoption, no love shed abroad in our hearts, no earnest of the inheritance, no taking the things of Christ to shew them to us, no unction of the Holy One by which we know all things, no access into the holiest or to the Father, no knowledge of the things freely given to us of God, no knowledge that Christ is in the Father, we in Him, and He in us. I need go no farther. None of these are Pentecostal gifts, which are gone; none simply regeneration; for they are by the Spirit sent down, and given consequent on Christ's exaltation; whereas regeneration, T. M. insists, was at all times true. Is all this (and I might largely add to the list) lost? or what is the Comforter?

Is the coming of Christ for His saints the proper hope of the Church?

J. N. Darby.

<10017E> 257

I cannot but feel these tracts of T. M. remarkable, not by their intrinsic character (for their contents are merely a repetition of Mr. Newton's views on the subject), but as presenting afresh the views of his party at this moment, when the power of the evil of the last days is becoming so astonishingly manifested; when everything is gradually taking its own place. I have often said, there are three great positions of Christ to which our christian thoughts answer: on the cross; at the right hand of God; and coming again. The first is the foundation of all for us; the last two give, so to speak, its present christian character to the Church. To Christ's sitting at the right hand of God answers the presence of the Holy Ghost down here. The Church's hope, in reference to the second, is, beyond all controversy, Christ's coming and receiving the saints to Himself; whatever glory or reign may follow, being for ever with the Lord in heavenly places is our proper hope. "I will come again," said Christ, "and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."

Both these points Mr. M. has taken up. In one tract, he has denied the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost peculiar to Christianity, consequent on the exaltation of Christ, as man, to the right hand of God; in another, he has denied the proper hope of the saint as to the Lord's coming. The system he belongs to presents itself as the denial of the true power of Christianity in what essentially characterizes it, as given in the scriptures of the New Testament.

I have replied to his tract as to the blessed Spirit; I now reply to his tract on the Coming of the Lord. His object is, that we should not constantly look for the Lord without intervening signs. To this end, he denies the difference between Christ's coming to receive the Church and His appearing. "Not only," he says, "are we to serve the Lord until the appearing, but the appearing itself is our blessed hope." "We have distinct proof that the Church remains on earth until the appearing, and is not, as our author teaches, taken up previously." He refers to the exhortation to Timothy to keep the commandment until "the appearing of Christ." "Otherwise," he tells us, "he would have said, until His coming, not His appearing."

258 Now all this is the hinge of the question. But all this shews the evil consequence of drawing conclusions instead of bowing to the word. It is clearly and distinctly revealed, that, when Christ appears, we shall appear with Him in glory; and therefore it is simply impossible that we should be on earth till His appearing, and "at that time;" because we appear with Him from heaven "at that time." Now that the glorious appearing is the hope of believers, and that we wait for it, I accept fully. But why should that not be the case if we appear with Christ, instead of being on earth when He appears? Much more so, I should think. No doubt, the earth will then be set right, and that is a blessed thought indeed; but not less so if we are the companions of Christ when He comes. And this all scripture fully testifies. "The Lord my God shall come and all the saints with thee." (Zech. 14: 5.) Again, "The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints." (Jude 14.) And again, "The armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean." (Rev. 19: 14.) And again, "They that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful." (Rev. 17: 14.)

Thus the direct positive revelations of the word of God contradict the conclusions of Mr. M., which have not even any foundation in reasonable argument. For I can love His appearing to have the world I live in (which was made for man) set right, without my living in it when He appears; and my appearing with Him does not in the smallest way hinder, but rather increase, this joy. And I beg my reader also to remark, that if Timothy, and those then on earth, were to remain to be able to enjoy it, their hope was vain, for they certainly will not be on earth; whereas if they come and appear with Him, they still will. On Mr. M.'s theory, none but just a few will: the Church at large has nothing to say to it.

But Mr. M. goes farther, and seriously so: "Christ's appearing is the proper hope of the Church," and the distinction of that and His coming, is "an arbitrary distinction." Now, as we have seen, it cannot be the hope of the Church viewed as Mr. M. views it (though scripture does not); for the immense majority of the Church will not and cannot be there: a very small minority indeed have anything to say to it.

Next, Mr. M. should be careful in his way of stating things. He is ill-informed as to these views, and, what is worse, as to scripture. "The coming" and "the appearing" are not put in contrast by those he attacks, though appearing is a definite and distinct thought; so that we have, in 2 Thessalonians 2: 8, "the appearing of his coming:" yet "coming" is a general word and which includes all, and this is expressly stated in the tract he opposes. Here are the words (second edition, p. 33), and the same statement has been made in various shapes by many: "It is the latter (His coming to the world which He has not done before*) which is called His epiphany or manifestation, and which is never applied to the rapture, but always to Christ's appearing in glory with His saints, whilst parousia** is sometimes used in speaking of one, sometimes of the other, as the context, or the persons addressed, or the way in which it is brought forward, determines; for He may come, or be present, in different ways to different persons."

{*That is, at the rapture.}

{**That is, "coming."}

259 I have myself, in the tract "The Rapture of the Saints and the Jewish Remnant," already fully spoken of this point (p. 52): "Do the saints not await His coming to earth and His appearing? Undoubtedly; but not as the time of their joining Him, for I expect they will appear with Him." "Christ's appearing will be the full establishment of divine power in government, and the result of responsibility; the rapture of the Church, and its entrance into the Father's house, the accomplishment of sovereign grace towards the saints," &c. The appearing of Christ is the display of His glory to the world; we shall partake of it with Him. "He comes to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe," for the glory His Father has given Him, He has given us, that we may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that He has sent Him, and has loved us as He has loved Him. So, in the transfiguration, Moses and Elias appear in the glory with Christ; but when they enter into the bright cloud, whence the Father's voice came, the excellent glory, the disciples were afraid. The cloud was known as God's dwelling: that any man should enter there was something new. The kingdom they saw, and its glory: the entrance into the Father's house was a strange thing to them altogether.

What shall we say of those who oppose its distinctive character now? I will quote some passages which give plainly this distinctive hope of the saint: "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14: 2, 3.) So in John 17: 24, after speaking of the glory in a passage which I have quoted, the blessed Lord adds, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory; . . . for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." So Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4: 17; "We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Now all these shew, that the proper hope of the saint is not Christ's appearing — is not even glory as displayed to the world, not to be at the right hand or the left in the kingdom, glorious and undeserved as it may be, — but to be with Christ Himself. That is not the appearing. It is another kind of hope, a hope of another nature altogether. It is being with Himself, for ever, and in the Father's house. Hence the apostle, in 1 Thessalonians 4, adds nothing. But that passage intimates very clearly something more. The Thessalonians thought and expected pretty much as T. M. does: only they appear to have drawn the conclusion (a very natural one, but which T. M. has forgotten), that the saints who had died would not be there to see and meet Him. The apostle meets this. How? By saying, Oh, yes, they will be raised, and then they, and you who will have seen Him without them in unchanged flesh (for, if not, then all T. M.'s system falls to the ground), will go up to meet the already visible Lord? Not at all. He says, "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." When Jesus comes in glory, He will bring His saints with Him, as we have seen. And then the apostle explains how they will be with Him so to come: they will go to meet Him in the air.

260 I would recall another passage, along with this, that the marriage of the Lamb takes place in Revelation 19, before the Lord comes forth with the armies of heaven. The obliterating, as the author does, the distinction of going up thus to be for ever with the Lord falsifies morally the nature of the Church's hope. The presenting to Himself, the receiving to Himself that where He is we may be, the being for ever with the Lord, without adding anything to such a hope, is swamped in the appearing in glory. This, not being with Jesus, is what, according to T. M., we are waiting for. Now what I desire the reader specially to note is that coming and appearing is all one to T. M., and that being with Christ as the result never once appears in any shape in the tract. The proper hope, the special joy, what is the essence of Christ's coming for the saint who knows what the saint's place is, is wholly, totally, absent from the tract. If this were so truly, coming or appearing would be pretty much alike; and hence they are so for T. M. But what does this shew to one who has learnt from scripture what that place is? Simply this, that not a trace of it has ever entered T. M.'s mind. And that is the whole matter.

261 As regards the dealings and ways of God in government, the day, the appearing of Christ, is the great and solemn epoch set before us; and then we shall appear in glory, each in the place assigned him with Him. Hence this is set before us as the great public announcement to all. But God has something for the affections and heart of those who love the Lord, which is (not the display of glory, but) being with Him in the common and individual joy of His presence, with Him in the Father's house. This is not appearing at all; nor can it be.

Now a person may make plausible objections to the truth and the special privileges of the saints, difficulties from obscure passages, or where scripture has to provide for public facts and hopes to be unfolded afterwards. Ignorance of this is not to be despised, but the using these passages which may present obscurity, to hinder the minds of the untaught receiving the truths God is leading them to, is Satan's work. And this, I must say, T. M. is doing. Many minds may be ignorant as to a Jewish remnant and the like; nor is it in itself any reproach; but to use passages which require that knowledge to obscure the highest and best hopes of the soul is the enemy's work. T. M. denies the proper hope of the Church in this tract, as he did the present power and joy of the Church in the other. If he has read the tract he comes forward to oppose, or many others, he must have seen that the being for ever with the Lord is the great blessing of this doctrine, and what is insisted on in the difference, "parousia" used for the whole scene, and "epiphany" used for Christ's manifestation before men. But this blessing disappears wholly in his book, written to say the epiphany is all — is what we are to wait for.

A mere difference of prophetic notions would not have made me take up my pen. I do so because the present power and proper blessed hope of Christianity are denied by these tracts. I hardly know whether it is worth while for me to discuss the details. What I have said shews the falseness and the practically infidel tendency as to the hope of the Church, of the tract I comment on; but as many may not have an answer ready, I take up some of these details.

262 The avowed object of the tract is to hinder a present constant expectation of Christ and to put it off, to shew that it is as good if it be held to be far off as if near, that it is wrong, "a sort of feverish and unhealthy excitement, expecting a daily or hourly return;" that, if the early saints had this feeling, "it was a false one" — "the distance of the object in no way enfeebling the power of the hope." This is plain speaking. What the difference is between this and the evil servant saying in his heart, "my lord delayeth his coming," I confess myself unable to perceive. T. M. tells us that servant "makes use of a fact to his own destruction." Is that all the parable teaches us? The Lord is exhorting to watch because men know not the day nor the hour their lord comes, and then applies it to the saints. But it was the evil servant saying in his heart, "My lord delayeth his coming," which set him free to beat the men-servants and the maid-servants. It was the cause of the horrible iniquity the Church fell into.

It is a fact that the Lord has delayed: every one knows that. The question is, Ought the Church to have expected or have waited constantly for the Lord? I say, "have waited constantly for the Lord" — not have said, "My lord delayeth his coming." What does T. M. say? I will tell him what the Lord says; and may the Lord give him grace to heed it: "Let your loins be girded about and your Lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord when he will return from the wedding, that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants." (Luke 12.) Was this a "feverish and unhealthy excitement?" T. M. will find in what follows the question of service. He says it will give time for service. Let him read, then, what the effect in service is of thinking of possible delay. And such has been the history, alas! of the Church.

And now let me recall to my reader that that delay which T. M. insists on as the fact to be thought of and meant to be thought of* — the protracted history of the Church's progress in evil — has taken place already, and that it is after this that T. M. is afraid of a present hope. God gave such instruction in His own blessed wisdom as left it as a present hope to the saints; and if there was delay and the scene opened out, left room for that scene in the manner of presenting the thought; still the watchfulness, called for at first, being as possible as at the beginning, and more called for.

{*"It is plain on the face of scripture, that an orderly and detailed system of things is placed before the view of the Church which must be gone through ere our Lord returns," &c.}

263 Thus T. M. alleges the inconsistency of the seven churches being treated as the protracted scene, and yet looking for, or supposing the early saints could look for, an immediate coming of Christ. See now the wisdom of God. All these churches were existing contemporary churches. There was nothing to wait for then, when the revelation was made. When the protracted scene was coming to a close, when the protracted scene is over or nearly so, men can look back and see the progress of evil developed in the professing Church. When given, they were scenes before their eyes in existing churches. I hold still, with a multitude of Christians, that it is a portraying of the progressive history of the professing Church — a history now just over, and that it offered no prospect of a protracted history, but the contrary. "Behold I come quickly" was the comfort of the faithful Philadelphians then, as it is of the true saints now. All I see in T. M.'s reasoning is that unbelief has blinded his eyes as to the holy wisdom of God's ways.

The parable of the ten virgins teaches us the Bridegroom tarried. How long? The picture is all the affair of one night and of the same virgins. That is, it tells us there must be patient watching for an unknown moment (in which they failed); but gives no idea of any prolongation; but it does give a principle which is of the deepest instruction to us, where we have by facts learned the long delay. But this it clearly shews, that not to have been always watching was the culpable neglect of the Church. While He tarried, they went to sleep, and had to be not only awakened but called out unto their original position. To say that a sudden awakening of sleepers by a midnight cry is the perception of continuous signs by a wakeful heart capable of appreciating them, is worthy of the system. There has been a protracted scene. That the Church was taught to look for it is deplorably false; and to use the fact so as to lead souls to think that such a constant expectation was false, is the work of the enemy. Ought not the virgins to have been watching? Were they taught that an orderly and detailed system of things was placed before the Church which must be gone through? The conclusion is, "watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour."

264 The same is true of the servants. The man went to receive a kingdom and to return. But the servants are the same, and it is, as a parable, supposed to be in the lifetime of the man and the lifetime of the servants. There is no protracted system. Now it is passed, we can say — so it was; but it is always presented as a present uncertain expectation. They are assured by Peter that God was not slack concerning His promise; that it was the patience of His grace which made the delay; that Christ was ready to judge; yea, that the time had come for judgment to begin at the house of God. The last word of scripture for the hearts of the saints is, "Surely I come quickly." I do not doubt that in the book of Revelation there have been analogies in the protracted period; but it applies, I have no doubt (as I believe the churches give the prolonged existence of the Church), literally to the time when the Church is done with.

The scriptures press, then, the word, "Behold I come quickly," and tell the disciples to be as men that wait for their lord. T. M. asks, Can it be gravely said that the Lord would teach His people nearly two thousand years ago to expect any hour an event which He knew would not take place ere centuries had passed over? Would the God of truth produce such a false impression? This is bold enough. My answer is, that the Lord told His disciples to watch, and be ready to open immediately, whenever He came; for of that day and hour knew no man, neither the angels, no, not the Son. I ask, which am I to receive? the folly of Mr. M.'s presumption, or the solemn testimony of the Lord?

When Mr. M. says the disciples had the false notion that the kingdom of God would immediately appear, which the Lord unqualifiedly repudiated, he forgets himself. It was during Christ's lifetime, and not His disciples' particularly; and He tells them that He must go away first, and that they, the servants, are to occupy till He comes. But there is nothing as to any interval; the Lord has always carefully avoided it. They might expect Him at any time, and were to work till He came.

Paul never spoke of wolves after his decease, till his ministry was closed and he was taking leave expecting to see them no more. People might have reasoned from the Lord's word (if they knew of it) to Peter, then an elderly man (for the Lord says, "when thou wast young"), he was to die first. But as regards the Church in general, Peter was dead some thirty years before this account was given; and both he and Paul, just at their death, then say they know or have a special revelation that they were to die. But why so, if the Church's hope was not a present waiting for Christ? Hence when, on the same occasion, the Lord had said of John "If I will that he tarry till I come," the saying went abroad that that disciple would not die. He did not say this; but it shews what they expected.

265 It is a mistake to say, that "there lay between that time and Peter's death a long time of service; for the apostles were commanded to preach the gospel among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." There is nothing of the kind. He made them understand the scriptures, and that this was to be done. In Matthew, they were to disciple all nations, baptizing them, &c., adding there, "And, lo, I am with you alway to the end of the age." But here there was no ascension; and either He must have meant them to look at it as a present expectation during their lifetime, or the time runs on still, which, according to T. M.'s theory, the Lord must have known could not apply to the apostles. He did not expect them to live two thousand years. The apostles, moreover, never accomplished this mission at all, but gave it up to Paul, who then teaches the distinct doctrine of the Church and the rapture. But Christ's coming to receive the Church made no part of the revelation to Peter. For him the Lord was to come as He had gone; and he never goes beyond His appearing, nor teaches the doctrine of the union of Jews and Gentiles. It was not committed to him.

All this did not hinder Paul saying, "We which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord," not affirming that he would be actually there, but he was then of that class which were justly so expecting Him. And he has not lost by it. There was no revelation that Christ would come immediately, but there was a positive instruction to be always waiting for Him. If the time had been over, Peter might have been taken up and crucified while they were talking about it. If Christ could not come till Peter died, Peter might have died at any moment. This did not affect the general expectation of the saints then. Now it has no application, and is used simply to discredit what Christ most certainly taught — that we should always be waiting. Peter is dead; and to use it now is proof only of the will to destroy the expectation of Christ's coming.

As to John 16: 2, 4, they are told they would be persecuted; but how that should hinder them in the persecutions waiting for Christ to take them out of them, I cannot see. Nobody speaks of a fixed near time, but the contrary — that it was an unknown time, so that men should be always expecting it, never to arrest their service, but to sustain them in it. To say that neither time nor suddenness has anything to do with the genuine hope of the Church, if it mean that the Lord's coming is not sudden and at such time as men think not, is a bold defiance of scripture. I know that the surprise is to the world. But to say that the Lord does not come suddenly is too bold. "At such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." Mr. M.'s assertions are a defiance of scripture. Mr. M. cites 2 Timothy 3. He forgets that this was an instruction just at the very close of his life (chap. 4: 7, 8) to Timothy, himself then living, how to get on. Mr. M. may think it was a false idea of the apostle thus to present these things as a matter of immediate practice, and perhaps that John was wrong in saying "we know that it is the last time," antichrists being there already; that if Christ knew that there were two thousand years of an orderly and detailed system to be gone through, the apostles were blind about it all and mislead the Church, the Timothys, and the saints at large. We believe it is inspired scripture, and that the last days are come, however a thousand years may be with the Lord as one day, and one day as a thousand years. It is all profoundly sad this.

266 As regards the parable of the tares and the wheat, it proves exactly the contrary of what Mr. M. says. "From this parable," he remarks, "then, it is manifest that God's wheat remains on the earth up to Christ's appearing in glory." I have already shewn that Colossians 3 states, in terms, the contrary — that they appear with Him. Is gathering into the garner appearing? They are taken away out of the field and hidden in God's garner — the opposite of appearing. The wheat is not gathered home before the tares are disturbed; it is before they are burned. The righteous shine forth in the kingdom, but they are previously gathered into the garner, which is not shining forth. The shining forth, moreover, is a continuous act. The tares are, first of all, gathered by the angels into bundles ready — not burned then; the wheat gathered into the garner. Afterwards judgment is executed. This is the time of the harvest. The harvest is the end of the age. No man can say that the tares are not being gathered together now; I believe they are. It is not said that Christ's appearing in glory is the end of the age, as Mr. M. says. They synchronize as a general period; and it may be the grand closing act. Yet even then the wicked on the earth have still to be judged. The harvest is the end of the age here in this passage at any rate.

267 I now turn to Matthew 24. I cannot of course expect T. M. to know anything about the Jewish remnant and God's dealings with this world. But I can expect him to understand that the Lord was speaking of Jerusalem and the temple, and that the age has nothing to do with the christian dispensation, so-called, or the Church. The Lord was speaking of the temple. Their house was left unto them desolate, and they, the Jews, would not see Him till they said, Blessed be He that cometh. And the disciples were shewing Him the buildings of the temple. That was what was "interesting" the disciples, whatever T. M. may dream of, and this was their question: "When shall these things be?" They knew nothing of the Church, nor thought anything of it in their questions. They connected the end of the age with the desolations of Jerusalem and the temple. And so the Lord answers them, only telling them that that gospel of the kingdom would be first preached in all nations before the end of the age came. The age was the time of Jewish polity up to Messiah, of which it could be then said (as in Matthew 13) this age. Christianity is not the age, nor an age at all. Hence they are told, when they see the abomination of desolation set up, those in Judaea are to flee to the mountains, and those on the housetop are not to come down. Does Mr. M. think that this is a warning to the Church of God or for those at Jerusalem? There are no signs but the sign of the Son of man in heaven; but there are events which identify those spoken to and of with Jerusalem and an earthly deliverance: the saving of flesh; the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be delivered out of it; the great tribulation of Daniel 12, to which our Lord expressly refers us; snares as to Christ which have no application to Christians, because they do not expect Christ in the desert or the secret chamber, but to be caught up to meet Him in the air. I do not expect Mr. M. to apprehend how it is impossible to apply it to the Church, because he does not believe in the Church. But I have a right to expect that, when the blessed Lord speaks of Jerusalem and Judaea, and fleeing to the mountains, he should apply it to what the Lord applies it to.

I believe the gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all nations before that end comes (though the apostle speaks of it as done in principle in Colossians 1), but the gospel of the kingdom will. But when Mr. M. says these signs were to be their warnings of His approach, What signs? I answer; and a warning to whom? Signs and events which were to happen as a warning to those in Judaea, who could not take more than a sabbath-day's journey. It is a sign of judgment on Jerusalem and the temple, in the place where the carcase will be; not a word about heaven, or being caught up to meet the Lord, but what could not be if that be believed; for the temptation was Christ's being in the desert or secret chamber. It is deplorable the labour those take who reject the doctrine of the Church and its being caught up to meet the Lord in the air — take to reduce the Church to the level of Jews, even when Judaea and Jerusalem are named as the exclusive scene of what is passing and the events which are to take place.

268 I know not that I need add more. I write more as a testimony than as an elaborate discussion; for it is ground which has been often gone over. The question cannot be separated from the doctrine of the Church. Paul alone, as to apostolic doctrine, teaches as to the Church, alone the rapture. The general thought, viewed from earth and as to the order of God's government, is Christ's coming and appearing. Paul has taught a special connection of the Church with Christ, ending in His receiving it to Himself. This these doctors diligently deny, and seek to bring down the Church, as far as they can, to the level of Judaism. They, consequently, deny the special mission of the Comforter, as the fruit of Christ's exaltation. In the Gospel of John we have the same truth of the rapture as to individuals. This, of course, is denied too. The glorious truth of the exalted Man, and all the consequences of that exaltation, present and to come, they seek to depreciate as much as they can. They dare not deny there is some difference; they admit there is a corporation on earth which there was not before; but they do all they can to hinder the saints from knowing the glory of Christ's position, and its consequences for those who believe. I am conscious this may seem hard; but there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. We are come to a crisis in the ways of God, and the world's history. Evil is not ashamed, and truth ought not to be. I believe it is a time to speak.

I cannot but feel that the appearance of these two tracts of Mr. M.'s is providential, and that it is well to say I am satisfied that they are precisely and directly the opposite to the testimony of God which He is giving at this time; that what God is bringing out to His saints and teaching they are laboriously seeking to set aside. I have nothing to do with the intentions of Mr. M., but with the teaching of his tracts. I admit the quickening of all saints, of course. I admit the Son to be the blessed source of life at all times, His blood, to be the forgiveness of the sins past before His coming, as of all time. I admit the general thought of Christ's appearing as the hope of this weary world. But the peculiar glory of the exalted Man, its consequences in the sending the Holy Ghost, the union of the Church with its Head, the indwelling of the Comforter in the individual saints, their being members of His body, of His flesh, and His bones; the taking the bride up and presenting it to Himself, and the rapture of the saints: all that constitutes distinctively Christianity, in distinction from piety and life in general — that by which God is acting on the affections and filling the hopes of the Church of God now — is diligently set aside.

269 Such is my thorough conviction; and if it be so, Mr. M. himself cannot be surprised if I have spoken plainly.

I believe the Church may judge of signs; as the Pharisees ought to have discerned "this time;" I believe she ought of herself to judge what is right. She has all the advantage of them as warnings, but she knows they precede the judgments of the world; and her own heavenly and peaceful character is maintained, and the heavenly character of her hope, by the rapture, which takes her out of the scene in which she has to keep the word of Christ's patience. I cannot think it a privilege to be in a time of trouble which is caused by unfaithfulness and rejection of Christ; yet it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but trouble which he is in through subjection to the Gentiles, through sin.

The Sabbath: or, Is the law dead, or am I?

J. N. Darby.

<10018E> 270

The rest of God seems to me a question of paramount importance. A part in it distinguishes the saint both from the wicked and from the unintelligent creation. Entrance into God's rest is perhaps the highest form in which we can conceive blessing; for the rest of God is not mere relief from labour, as it is with man, but peaceful complacency in what is perfect and good. It is cessation from work, if not from weariness — cessation even from holy labour. But it is more; it is enjoyment in the completeness of that as to which we have laboured, and in the proper perfectness of that in which we are — for us, in God Himself. The nature of God rests in that which is perfectly good. "The promise is left us of entering into his rest;" not merely into rest, though rest it will be, and blessedly so, but His rest — the perfect satisfaction God has in all brought into perfectness before Him. Holy affections have rest in what is good; as also the labourer has gladsome rest from his labour. The rest of God is the portion of God's people. When God had created all (and behold it was very good), He rested. He ceased to create, and He was well pleased in what was created. It answered His mind. Better still the eternal rest of God in perfect good, the effect of redemption, and the work which has brought us into glory, and heaven and earth into holy order, the rest of God in Himself in love, and in the blessing of all around Him answering in its place to what He is.

I have sometimes felt on the Lord's day the utter poverty of the creation, beautiful perhaps in itself, that had no link with God in rest, and pursued its search of food, or its instinct, one day like another, on none the expression of relationship with God. "There remaineth a rest to the people of God." It is distinctive of them, though they have it not yet. It cannot therefore be of small importance to know on what ground, in what way, and how far they have part in it now consequently as Christians. I think we shall find how prominent a place it holds in the thoughts of God, the moment we examine the records He has given us of His ways.

But another question, as we are all aware, connects itself with it — the place the law holds in the ways of God. This connects itself, or rather identifies itself, with the question — Is the purpose, which is inseparable from the grace of God, the first thing in His ways, or the responsibility of man, that is, grace or law; in fact, the first Adam or the Second? Here the old Aristotelian adage becomes true — Ἀρχὴ τῆς θεωρίας τέλος τῆς πράξεως. That law in principle, and ultimately the law as given in fact, identifies itself with, and is the measure of, responsibility in the first Adam, will hardly be questioned. That it is not in itself grace is evident. It requires from man, and does not give to him sovereignly or contrary to what he has deserved. Yet both are divine and true in their place. It is because the relative place of each of these is not seen that the difficulty has, I believe, been insoluble. If both be of God, both must be maintained: His authority in respect of man's responsibility; sovereign grace abounding over all. God's title in both must be maintained. The difficulty lies in this, that while God's title is involved in both, in their nature they contradict one another. To require and to give are necessarily opposed to one another. If a thousand pounds be due, it is very just to require it, but it is not grace. If I pay it so as to free the debtor, when he has no claim on me, it is pure kindness and grace; only righteousness is satisfied by the payment.

271 But we shall find that this is not all. I affirm, then, that purpose and the Second man and eternal life in Him came before the question of responsibility in the first, but that responsibility and law came actually first in the history of man and of this world; that both meet in Christ, and in Him only the difficulty is solved — a difficulty which heathens have reasoned on as well as Christians, because it lies in the nature and state of man. When I have unfolded this from scripture, I will apply it to our question and to the rest of God.

The truth that the purpose and full promise and grace of God was before the world, and in the last Adam, the Second man, not in the first, involves this additional truth — that, whatever its collateral blessings for the world (and they are many), it is not of the world, not directly part of its history and government, though it be developed and find its place in it, and God's secret and overruling government order all things for good to those who are faithful to Him in it. As was true of Christ, so of Christians, "Ye are not of the world, as I am not of the world."

But I will proceed to the scripture proof of my proposition, that the purpose of grace, though revealed after, came before the responsibility of man (I do not say the predestination of persons here, but the purposes of grace); while the bringing in of the accomplishment of that purpose came after the question of responsibility was settled as to the first Adam. Thus 2 Timothy 1: 9, "Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works" — in which clearly our responsibility is engaged, and to which judgment is applied — "but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death" — the fruit of failure in responsibility — "and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel." Works according to which responsibility is judged of are not that according to which God has saved us; death, which failure in responsibility brought in, is abolished, rendered void. That is, the principle on which responsibility is tried, and with which judgment deals (for He will judge every man according to his works), is not that according to which we are saved. The purpose of grace goes on another principle; and, further, positive power is come in, in which Christ has risen above and annulled the effect of failure, and which has besides acted in producing its own effects. But the purpose of grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Nor was it brought to light till He came.

272 So Titus 1: 1-3, "The truth which is after godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; but hath in due times manifested his word by preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour." This is very plain, only we have to remark that it is eternal life which is promised. So our election leads to the same truth. If God were to choose a part of the world now, it would be a., sovereign as doing so before the world: I know in His holy wisdom He does not, but it would be as sovereign as doing it before the world. But He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world; and the effect is, He has chosen us for what is not of the world, but far above the world and all consequences of our responsibility, even if we had fulfilled it; namely, to be before Him as sons, like Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. This was sovereign goodness, giving us a place according to His own counsels.

The whole of that first chapter of Ephesians (be it calling, be it inheritance, and indeed the whole of the epistle) goes on this ground. Our place with the Father, our place with Christ as His body, is not grounded on responsibility in the first Adam, but on purpose accomplished in and through the Second. Romans meets man's responsibility and sin; Ephesians unfolds God's purpose. Hence our part in it is by a new creation. Is the Christian then beyond responsibility? In nowise; but his responsibility is according to his new place, not according to the one he has failed in and been saved out of. I will, with the Lord's help, touch on this before I close.

273 The purpose in the Last Man is before and beyond responsibility in the first.

Let us now examine the development of the two principles of gift and responsibility in the history of the first, for it is full of interest.

The two great principles stood side by side in the garden of Eden. There was the tree of life, of which, as we find afterwards, if a man ate, he would live for ever; and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to which responsibility was attached, and a law, and judgment on failure. Life was there independent of responsibility or works, and a prohibition which involved responsibility. Neither supposed sin in man; for that which was prohibited was perfectly innocent, but that it was prohibited. I do not enter into the details of the fall. It is evident to me that departure from God in distrust of heart, introduced by Satan's wiles, came before lust; and when the heart had departed from God, lust and disobedience came in. The blessed Saviour came to win man's confidence back to God, sinner as man was — no doubt to do a great deal more, but to do that: God was in Christ reconciling, not imputing; and the history of this is of the most affecting grace; but I cannot enter on it here. But the first Adam had taken the path of responsibility, broken through the hedge of the law, was lost; afraid of God, when there, calling him in gracious familiarity, bringing his state home to him; convicted and excluded from God's presence. And the world began. It was so filled with violence and corruption, that it was necessarily judged by a present judgment. On this I do not dwell.

In the new world, after it had been set on foot by the formation of nations, by the judgment of man at the tower of Babel, promises came first without condition,* as the apostle reasons in Galatians. The question of responsibility and righteousness was not raised at all. But still righteousness must be; and the question is raised in the law, and founded entirely on man's responsibility; life is brought in, but made, not the fruit of gift, but of man's satisfying his responsibility. "This do, and thou shalt live." Life was to be had as the consequence of doing what the law required. But man was a sinner, and, if he knew himself, had only to say, "the law, which was ordained for life, I found to be unto death."

{*It is a mistake to suppose that there was any promise to Adam at the fall. In the judgment on the serpent the revelation of the Last Adam, the Seed of the woman, was given, and of His destroying the serpent's power utterly. But the Seed of the woman is just what the first Adam was not. It is the revelation and promise of the Second.}

274 But this responsibility of man had a further trial in the way of grace. Not only God sent His prophets to recall Israel to the paths of peace and obedience, but He of whom they had testified came. This was the activity of God's love when man was already a sinner, when he had already broken the law, when his responsibility had had its full result without law and under law, and every mouth was stopped, and all the world guilty before God. But God was active in goodness. He sent the prophets, and at last He sent His Son, saying, "I have yet one Son: it may be they will reverence my Son." This was voluntary goodness when sin and guilt were complete as to human responsibility. To the Jew this had even a double character: a message to them as responsible, seeking for fruit; and pure grace as such making a marriage for the King's Son. But they refused alike the fruit and the invitation. This (although the patience of God even yet visited them in Christ's intercession, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,") completed the sin of man. "Now," said the Lord John 12), "is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out."

Man's history was complete — the world judged, Satan its prince; the result of responsibility fully brought out. The world was judged. It had, without law, produced intolerable sin; under law, transgression; and when, being such, it was visited in grace, it refused grace that recalled to law, and grace that invited to blessing. It had proved, not only that it naturally produced sin, and could not be subject to law, but that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God, not only as a Judge, but enmity against God when in ineffable grace He visited the world in mercy reconciling it to Himself. For His love He had hatred, hatred without a cause. Satan they had, and could not help it; God, when He was there in the power of divine help and goodness, they would not have. Such was sin; such was man. Self-will that would always have itself, and hence not God nor law, which, both of them, will meet with a claim of subjection; self, which cannot be satisfied with self, and hence turns to unsatisfying lusts of things beneath itself; for it has not God, for whom, and to enjoy whom, man was created. Man has not only sinned, he is a sinner.

275 Neither life nor righteousness was to be had by the law. "If there had been a law which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." Hence the Lord adds in the passage just quoted, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." It is as rejected by the world, not continuing in it (for they had heard out of the law that Christ should abide for ever), that He becomes, as rejected, the attracting centre to draw men to Him, delivering them from this present evil world. Hence it is too that it is said, "but now once in the end of the world (or the consummation of ages) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself;" that is, it was morally the end of the world. All the ages, all the phases of man's probation had been gone through — without law, under law, prophets, and the only-begotten Son having come, and in vain tested by grace presented to his responsibility, shewing not only that he sinned by his will, but that he was irrecoverable if it was to depend on his nature and will, even with all God could bring forward to try to reclaim it. A new creation, being born again, is not reclaiming the old thing; it is substituting a new. Man is not recoverable as such, but he can be redeemed by, and created anew in, Christ Jesus. Such is the testimony of God.

Man is preached to as lost; Christ (when the full truth came out, man having been tested by grace as well as law) came to seek and to save that which was lost. The law may be presented to a man now to prove it. It is made for the unrighteous, as the enlightened saint taught by the word knows. Christ may be presented to the sinner too; but if grace works not, he will none of Him; he will prove in his particular case — what the word has proved of the world in its history — he is a wilful doer of his own lawless (ἄνομος) will, and a hater of God, even if He come in grace. And if God gives every evidence, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." (John 5 .) Thus the principle of man's responsibility was fully tested in every way.

And now comes God's part. Is it mixing up the new thing He brings in with the old, as a principle to recover and rectify it? Is it digging about and dunging and pruning the old tree that He may have good fruit? He has done it, and done it in vain. His word is — "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" and this was the meaning of Christ's cursing the figtree. Israel, even with all the appliances at God's disposal, bore no fruit; it was to bear none for ever. Flesh may remain in us, as the old stock in the grafted tree, as a thing hostile to the Spirit, for exercises and humbling profit, so that we may overcome, and have our senses exercised to discern good and evil; but it is never formed into a new (till glory changes all); it is as a nature hostile and condemned, and only that; not subject to the law of God, nor can be; enmity against God, where it has a mind at all. The second Adam is, morally and spiritually speaking, substituted for the first, does not restore and recover it. Without law it is lawless; with law it transgresses; with Christ it rejects and slays Him, and in him even who has the Spirit as a believer, lusts against it. What is Christ then, if we have followed the effect of responsibility out to "the end of the world," to the full effects of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Can I give up the knowledge of good and evil and go back innocent to the tree of life? Impossible; not meant to be. Christ, the Second man, the Last Adam, meets the case wholly. How? He bears atoningly the effect of our responsibility. It is wholly, fully met, and not only so, but God Himself glorified in that by which He met it. He died, having been made sin. He is the source of life to us, a new life, and life in the power of resurrection, clean out of the whole scene in which the first Adam fell. for He has died in that and is risen. The whole case resting on the two trees in Paradise, in the law founded on satisfying the responsibility so as to have life, is completely met, by Christ being the source and power of a wholly new life, having perfectly met the responsibility we were lying under in guilt; and done more — glorified God so as to enter as man into God's glory. Redemption and eternal life, promised before the world began, the glory of God and conformity to Christ's image in it — such are the terms of divine grace and the condition of the believer in Jesus; but by death, not by the restoration of the first Adam, but by his death and condemnation, and a new creation in Christ Jesus. This is Christianity in its true power.

276 Is responsibility enfeebled or weakened? No; met, wonderfully and gloriously met. Is the law set aside, or law made void? No; both the principle of law and the authority of the law are established. Its principle is the authority of God justly requiring from the creature what he ought to be, and, when man was fallen, the true measure of his conduct as in flesh, and its authority is made good for ever. It will be good in the day of judgment, for they that have sinned under it shall be judged by it. Am I then under it? In no sense. Why? Because I have died, and the law has authority over a man as long as he lives. Israel, who was formally under law, has been set aside, as we know, for the present time, and is (till grace, blessed grace, restore them) without law, without idols, but without God, though loved for the fathers' sake; and the Gentile has his place in Christ after He has died and risen again, and takes his place on this new ground, when his guilt and the result of his responsibility have been borne by another, and that same One the life in which he lives to God, and in which he is responsible on a wholly new ground.

277 It is because men have believed in a recovery of man in flesh — and so a continuance of law, which applies to men alive in flesh, only spiritualized and suffused into a new system of grace — that they have argued for the maintenance of law; while others have sought to prove that the law was dead, and did not bind, Christ having abrogated it and introduced something more suited to man. Both are alike wrong. It may seem presumptuous to say so; but the word of God has authority above all men, as I am sure the great body of those I refer to would cordially acknowledge. I avow, since I have spoken of it, that of the two parties who have discussed the matter in Glasgow I should prefer those who maintain the authority of the Sabbath. I do not agree with them; but they stand up for the authority of God, supposing it to be such for themselves: that I respect. It seems to me that the adverse party stand up for man, alienated as he is from God. This may be wise in these days when man is exalted, and I have no doubt will be; but I have no respect for this.

I love the poor, I have no distrust of them; I live by far the most of my time amongst them, and gladly. When first I began such a life, I as to nature felt a certain satisfaction in the intercourse of educated persons: it was natural. I avow that, if I find a person spiritually minded and full of Christ, from habit as well as principle, I had rather have him than the most elevated or the most educated: the rest is all alike to me. The latter are apt to spare themselves, to screen themselves, to get on in society; they want a fence round them. I would rather, in general, have a poor man's judgment of right and wrong than another's; only I think they are, from being thrown more together and the importance of character, apt to be a little hard on each other as to conduct, and jealous of favours conferred, but often very kind and considerate one towards another.

278 After all, we are all one in Christ Jesus, and the word of God is to guide and lead us withal. I am sure that, while every Christian will readily give honour where honour is due, God loves and cares for the poor. I confess that I have no sympathy with the sentiment that, because the spirit of radicalism is to be feared, we must suit God's authority, if it be such, to man's wishes. This is all morally very low ground. If I had been in Parliament when a proposition was made to shut up the London parks on Sunday (that is, the foot gates, leaving the carriage gates perhaps open for the sick) I should have moved as an amendment (did I meddle with such things) to shut the carriage gates and open the foot ones — the rich could go out every day, and if sick could drive elsewhere. That a poor man, the one day he has with his family, should be able to breathe, I delight in; I rejoice to see the affections of a father cultivated in kindness to his children, and both happy together; and if the Lord's day gives him the opportunity, the Lord's day is a true blessing.

The poor, every one labouring during the week, should insist on the Sabbath: it is essentially his own day. For the same reason I avow, if my vote decided it, and happily for me I have none, and would not have or use one, not a train should run on the Lord's day. As to excursions, they are a thorough curse to all engaged in them. I cannot help them; I leave them there. But as to Sunday trains, I do not believe they are for sober reasons to meet cases of necessity and mercy, as men speak; they are to make money. If it be alleged that the requirements of society oblige it, what are the requirements of society but haste to be rich, and an imperious claiming of the right to have one's own way? I understand very well that railroads, monopolizing the roads, there is a kind of supposed obligation to meet the case of those who could have travelled at any rate. But if obliged, they can hire something to go. No. It is facility, cheapness they want — it is money and will. They are as free to travel as they were before. I have nothing to do with these things, and never intend to have to do with them. The world goes its way; and I am not of it. The allegations of Christians about it I have to say to, and I do not accept them, or the accommodating Christianity to what is called progress; only I think the Christian has to form his own ways, and not to expect to mend the world. I see no moral gain in its progress. I have telegraphs and railways — very convenient, no doubt; but are children more obedient, men happier, servants more faithful and devoted, homes and families happier and more cherished? Is there more trust and genial confidence among men, more honesty in business, more kindly feelings between master and men, employers and employed? Let every one answer in his own heart. You have more facilities in money making, but more anxiety and restlessness in making it; more luxury and show, but not more affection or peace.

279 But I confess I have got away from my subject. I return to it, and produce from Scripture the testimonies which shew that we are not under the law; yet not because the decalogue or law is abolished or buried, but because we are dead, buried, and risen again in Christ; because we are a new creation, redeemed out of the position we were in in flesh. That we are redeemed from its curse no one denies, so that I do not argue that point, all important as it is: that we are not justified by it is admitted in terms, but I think not really known and held, and is closely connected with our argument: still it is admitted in terms, and hence I do not argue it here. The point insisted on is, that it is the rule of life, and this point I shall here take up. And I begin by stating, that on the ground of man's responsibility as a child of Adam, it clearly is so; I believe it to be a — the — perfect rule of life for man as he is. Had Adam not eaten, he would have lived; had man kept the law, he would have lived. Only, it must be remembered, that we know what the mind of the flesh is, that it "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." The law was a test, but never to a sinner meant to be the way of life, which yet are its express terms — Do this and live.

And here I must distinguish between law and the law, not as men do between an essential law and the decalogue, but between its principle and its enactments. Law is practically the principle of requiring from one, subject to the lawgiver, a certain line of conduct which he imposes by authority. So that we have the two principles: requirement, which may take the form of prohibition; and authority. There may be a sanction withal, a motive acting on fears or hopes, as is usual in laws applied to men's conduct. This modifies the character, but hardly enters, I think, into its essence; still it does characterize law as we have to say to it. Adam was under a law: something was prohibited by authority. Men were living without law then till Moses, and Israel was put under law at Sinai — positive requirement by authority. Now this clearly goes on the principle of the responsibility of Adam or his children, men in the flesh. There was no giving of life. Life might be kept or had by fulfilment, it was not given. We have, as to what is required, three cases of law. The law given to Adam was a simple test of obedience. It implied no sin, no lust; but authority and obedience. But if man is put on the ground of responsibility as to right and wrong, I must expect a perfect rule to be given to him, and so there was; but it must not go beyond the duty of the being in the position in which he stood, or it would not be a test of his responsibility. The law given to Adam was perfect in this way. It was a simple test of obedience — perhaps I might add, of confidence.

280 Secondly, the essence of the law, that on which law and prophets hung, as presented by the Lord, was the abstract rule of perfectness in a creature, loving God with all the heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. This, in a creature, would be human perfection. Doubtless the angels do it, if even a commandment be not needed for them. It is folly to talk of a transcript of God's own mind, unless it be His mind as to what the creature ought to be, which, of course, His law must be; but it cannot be the perfection of God's mind in Himself, because it is of what man's ought to be. God cannot love His neighbour as Himself, nor any other being with all His heart, as owing it to him. It is, what it professes to be, a perfect rule for man as such. It condemns him as he is, because it tells what he ought to be; nor, if he were what he ought to be, would he want it. A command to do it, to feel right, supposes the need of it — liability to fail in doing so.* But in itself it is a perfect positive rule for man as a child of Adam.

{*How unsuited we should feel a command to Christ to love us or to love His Father! There were commands which tested the perfectness of His love, but none to love.}

The third form of law is the Decalogue, equally perfect, fourth commandment and all, in its place — perfect for man, but here openly contemplating man as a sinner — a perfect rule till man was fully made known as having no good thing in him; and a means, when spiritually understood, of shewing it; and hence known to be given in result, with a totally different idea on the part of God than that of man's keeping it. No doubt man ought to have done so, but to give to a being who lusted in his nature, a commandment not to lust, could not be with the idea of its being kept, as spiritually known by fallen man, however right it might be to keep it. A man might be blameless as regards his righteousness externally according to it, and the greatest enemy of God in the world. Hence, I say, it served as a rule to be kept till the truth came out, while man was under probation tested as to his state. A rule perfectly right for a being perfectly wrong in will may convict, but cannot actually guide. How guide a wrong will, a being who in his mind is not subject to the rule nor indeed can be? I speak of the law when the law was given as a law. It was a perfect rule, but only applicable when man did not know himself, unless to convict and condemn.

281 But, as thus given to man as an external system, it was clearly (and that is admitted on all hands) set aside. There was an annulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof (for the law made nothing perfect), and the bringing in of a better hope by the which we draw nigh to God. God was not to be tempted by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither the Jewish disciples nor their fathers had been able to bear. The whole system, as a system, was declaredly and unquestionably set aside, and Christianity, the faith, not law, came in. After that faith came, that is, Christianity, the system of faith, we were no longer under the schoolmaster. I make a difference as to the ten words, of which I will speak. God spoke them out of the midst of the fire, and added no more. They were laid up in the ark. All this made a difference, but as terms of a covenant, they are clearly set aside with the rest, supposing them for a moment written on our hearts, and we the objects of the new covenant; if that were so, still, as engraved in stones as legal conditions of blessing in the old covenant, all is done away together. What waxed old was ready to vanish away. The old covenant we are not under, and surely the commandments formed the basis of that.

But it will be said, every one admits that: but you must distinguish between the principle of the old covenant and the contents of that which constitutes its main terms, though there may be other details. Precisely so. There is a principle in law, as well as contents. Now I am not in relationship with God on that principle at all; that is, I am not under law at all before Him. Such is the constant testimony of the apostle: it is not merely that I am not justified by it. If it is the measure of my righteousness, and I am under it as such, I must be justified on that principle in some way. Works of law must be my justification. The apostle tells me it is not so.

282 But I leave this part of the question, because, as I said, in terms, at least, it is admitted, and I do not seek to raise questions; but I am not under law — not in relationship with God on that principle in any respect. I am not under it for sanctification, or anything else whatever. I am not under law, but under grace. I may get great instruction from it: so I do from every part of the Old Testament. I get the deepest and most precious instruction from the sacrifices, as to what Christ's sacrifice is, nothing more precious; I get its various aspects more developed there, than in the New; but I am not under them. Something else has been substituted for them. I am not, as to anything, on the principle of law in relationship with God. I will speak of its contents. They are given on this principle, with a curse attached to them; the principle is really involved, but I confine myself to that now. I am not under law at all in my relationship with God.

We need power for sanctification, but law gives no power. I speak of the principle of relationship. It is requirement, righteous requirement; and I read, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under law but under grace." That is no question of justification, but of the dominion of sin. So "the strength of sin is the law." "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was dead, but when the commandment came in, sin revived, and I died."

Now all this applies, not to justification, but to the power and -working of sin in us. Law (not that it is the fault of law, as the apostle is careful to say) is only an occasion to the power of sin. It is so for us, and that is the case we have to deal with. Now this depends on the principle of law in our case, requiring from a sinner with a perverse will obedience to that which is contrary to his will (as a claim of authority over him) and to his lusts as being in sinful flesh. The principle of law is ruinous to us alike for condemnation and the power of sin. It is in vain to say I am under law with a new motive. I must be not under law not to be under the dominion of sin.

But it is alleged — Yes, but the contents of the law are good. Undoubtedly, they are holy, just, and good. But if I take the contents, I am no better off, if they are a law, because I am in sinful flesh when the contents are brought before me. I cannot take the law to an innocent man. The forbidden tree man has eaten of. There is an end of that law. Well, let us take the commandments. They suppose sin, for they condemn it; they suppose lust, for they forbid it. The commandment even to love would not be addressed to a perfect being. It supposes him, as I have said, unloving or capable of being so. Hence no such precept was addressed to Adam. Besides, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" would not do for Adam. What could stealing mean for him? what lust? The law, the apostle tells us, is not for a righteous man, οὐ χεῖταυ , does not apply to — suit — belong to — such. But if it applies to the unrighteous, what can it do for them? It is clear a prohibition to lust cannot even be understood personally by one who has no lusts — can have, at any rate, no application to him; but if he has lusts in his nature, this nature cannot be subject to it. I am now speaking of the contents of it. The law supposes sin, and rightly so; because, when it was given, sin was there.

283 But we are told that that is true in its present form, but that there is an essential truth in it, which was for Adam and given to Adam, though the shape it took afterwards supposed sin. Well, what is this essential truth? That the law is holy, just, and good, I admit as fully as possible; but how can stealing and lust apply to Adam, or anything but a formed state of proprietary possession and sinful flesh? Perfectly right to condemn them when they were there, but certainly not adapted to an unfallen state. Adam had no such law, and could not in fact or in essence. The best proof is that God did not give him such. Conscience of lust or stealing he certainly had not. God gave him another which perfectly suited his state and supposed no sin. To say he was under this, when God put him formally under another, seems to impugn the wisdom of God for a theory. It is not that the commandments are anything but perfect, when man is in the state and relationships to which they apply. But Adam was not in that state, and those relationships; and God wisely gave him one suited to the state he was in, which maintained His authority and tested his obedience, but supposed no sin nor implied its existence.

I believe the law to be the perfect rule of life for man in the flesh, but it supposes sin, and applies to sinful flesh, to man in the flesh; and, being on the principle of requirement, and rightly so (for it is a very important principle and maintains God's rights), it condemns me as to righteousness, and is no help to me, but the contrary, as to sanctification. If then the law be holy, just, and good in its contents, why not be under it? why not maintain it? Because I am then in a relationship with God which involves condemnation and the power of sin. Law is law, not grace, and the strength of sin is the law. Maintain the law as law and you destroy its authority if it be not law to you; and if it be law to you, it is the strength of sin, and sin will have dominion over you. It must, as law, have external authority, God's authority as such. If you weaken that, you have destroyed it as a law.

284 And here I separate from both parties who have discussed it. They both, in my judgment, really destroy its authority, one unintentionally, the other declaring it is abrogated, buried, and the like. The former are obliged to yield a great deal, desiring to maintain its authority, because they cannot help it; the latter destroy its authority and make it to be abrogated. I do not abate one jot or one tittle. I do not raise the question of Gentiles not being under it, though historically true; because, if not, they are lawless, and I admit the law to be a perfect rule for man in the flesh. I say I am not on Gentile ground, though a Gentile; not ἄνομος Θεῶ lawless in respect to God, but ἔννομος Χριστῶ, I do not say under the law to Christ (that is an utterly false translation), but duly subject to Christ. Yet I do not say the authority of the law is weakened or done away, but that I AM DEAD TO IT. The law has power over a man as long as he lives — and can have it no longer; and I am no longer alive in the flesh.

I reject the altering, modifying, the law. I reject christianizing in it; that is, weakening its legal character by an admixture of grace that is neither law nor gospel. I maintain its whole absolute authority. Those who have sinned under it will be judged by it. It will have its own authority (that is, God's) according to its own terms in the day of judgment; but I am not under it but under grace, not under the schoolmaster but a son, because faith is come, and I have the Spirit of adoption. I am on another footing and in another relationship with God; I am not in the flesh, not in the place of a child of Adam at all, but delivered out of it by redemption. I have died and risen again; I am in Christ.

Let us see what scripture teaches on this point. Positive transgressions are blotted out by the blood of Christ. The law, we are told, as a covenant of works is gone in Christ's death. Now I say that scripture teaches more than that, teaches what applies to the old man as regards our standing before God, and that we have, for faith, died out of the place and nature in which we were under the law. Take the fullest and clearest case — a Jew actually under it: I do not doubt it will be practically realized by a Gentile as a principle. What is the judgment of law on my old man, my being as in flesh? Condemnation only as a covenant? No, death. It is not merely a new motive, a new spring of conduct afforded, by which, law being maintained as law, I keep it. Law is (2 Cor. 3) a ministration of death as well as of condemnation. But what then? "I through the law am dead to the law." It has killed me, "that I might live to God." "Add not to his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." You might say it is abrogated as a covenant of works but not as a rule of life, though scripture does not say so: it is a mere human invention. But you cannot say I am dead to it, but it is to be my rule of life. That is nonsense.

285 I am dead to the law by the law. It has done its work and killed me as regards itself; I do not exist as regards the law, or it has failed in its power. And I am dead to the law that I might live to God. If I have not done with it, I cannot live to Him. And how? "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." That is not law. When faith came, says the apostle, we were no longer under a schoolmaster, that is, under law. Note here: It is not Christ bearing our sins that delivers from law at all. True deliverance is wrought there as regards our sins. But, in freeing me from law, God is not delivering me, a living child of Adam, from the dread consequences of my sins. He is doing another work. It is I who have died with Christ. Nor is it forgiveness of sin which is spoken of in such case, although through this death of Christ it is not imputed. We die to sin — not sins, not for sins, but to sin. "He that is dead is justified from sin."

If the obedience of one has constituted me righteous, why cannot I say then I may live in sin? How can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? The reasoning of the apostle in the end of Romans 6 is fatal to the use of law as a rule of life. We have nothing to do here with a question of a covenant of works. It is a question of life, living in sin, obedience, holiness, — what the principle and rule of it is. Am I going to sin, to be what is called an Antinomian, because I am not under law? No. What principle, what rule of life, have I? Reckon yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God. As alive in Christ, I am to yield my members as instruments of righteousness unto God. I can do it, obey, not a law, but a person, God Himself absolutely. Why? I am not under law but under grace. I yield myself. What an occasion to explain that we were not under it as a covenant of works but that we were as a rule of life! But now living rules of life are treated of; how we arrive, and on what principle, at sin not having dominion over us. It is this (not justification) which is arrived at by not being under the law. Will that lead us to sin? Again what an occasion to tell us, No, you know it is still a rule of life. But no. Silence, ominous silence. They had been the servants of sin, and what now? They had obeyed from the heart — the law from having new motives? No; the form of doctrine which had been delivered to them. They were not under law: if they were, sin would have dominion over them. But they had obeyed the new form of doctrine. They were slaves to righteousness, slaves to God, and had their fruit unto holiness. Sin's wages were death, God's gift eternal life. The law does not come in at all, save to shew that those who get under it would be under the dominion of sin. Nor does the covenant of works come into the question, but life, walking in sin, its dominion, obedience, I holiness — but we are not under the law. But this must be treated of specifically.

286 The fifth (from verse 12) had shewn that all must be traced for righteousness to the two heads, Adam and Christ, and that the law had only come in by the by to make the offence abound. The sixth that we, having died in Christ, are not under the dominion of that sinful nature, nor under law which applied to it. The seventh will now fully treat the question of position under law itself. The apostle declares the absolute incompatibility of being under the law and Christ at the same time. He states it in the strongest way. We cannot be bound to the law any more than a woman can have two husbands at the same time. Husbands — for what? To justify as a covenant of works? No. To obey, to bring forth fruit unto God. You have nothing about works to justify, nor covenant of works, but it is the question of what I am bound to, by what law I am bound.

Is not that it? Read and see. Well, I am become dead to the law by the body of Christ that I may be to Another. And then, mind, I am bound to Another who has authority over me, and I cannot have anything else come in and claim authority. I have seen Moses and Elias disappear, having served God in their generation, and have heard the Father's voice saying, This is my beloved Son, hear Him. I have been prepared by the sixth chapter to see that it is not disobedience and living in sin, because, being dead to sin, I live to God through Christ, and am obedient to Him. I now find, in detail, that, thus dead as I am, the obligation to my first husband is closed, become impossible. I am married to Another; I am bound to Him: the bond and obligation is absolute. I can hear only Him. I cannot even say, I go by my second husband to know what my first means and commands. I have but one: His authority is complete and absolute. We have nothing to do here with justification or covenant of works, but — to whom am I bound? One paper I looked at tells me the chapter means "The death of Christ dissolved our old relation to the law as a covenant of works, and left us at liberty to contract a new relation." Did anybody ever read such an effort to elude scripture? — a new relation with what? With the law over again? What old relation to the law is spoken of in the chapter? We have died, so that there is no more relationship at all, and we are married to another — Christ raised from the dead. Where is a covenant of works spoken of or alluded to in the chapter? Further, what constitutes the whole point of the chapter, our being dead, is not alluded to by the author. "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." If I wanted a proof that I have to do with a writer who had a system which hindered him from daring to look scripture in the face, this sentence would be it. But I do not seek controversy, so I take no further notice of it. I add here it is well known that in verse 6 we should read as in the "having died in that in which" — ajpoqanovnte" not ἀποθανόντος. Else those who say the law was abrogated and buried would have this text to lean upon. If we have then died with Christ, we can also say, we have been quickened together with Him, and raised up together, and made sit together in heavenly places.

287 The Christian is a heavenly person though walking through the wilderness, and he is the epistle of Christ in it. What is his rule? To walk as Christ walked. Every part of scripture, law and all, may furnish him light, and he may use it to convict of sin, for natural conscience owns the righteousness of it. Paul governed his conduct by a prophecy of Isaiah 49. And thank God the New Testament abounds in precepts to guide us. Nor are we to let slip the word commandment. Because if we did everything right, nothing would be right if it were not obedience, and command expresses authority. Still we ought to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. The spiritual man judges all things. I can only speak of the principle and standard here. I may surprise perhaps my readers when I say that the conduct of God is made our standard, as being made partakers of the divine nature. It is not the perfect rule for man in the flesh, but the divine conduct for man in the Spirit. The apostle can say, "When we were in the flesh," and describe in the seventh of Romans the conflicts of a renewed man who is not set free by known redemption, but is still under his first husband — the law, knowing it is spiritual, consenting to it, delighting in it, but never keeping it. But he can, when he has known deliverance, say, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free," knowing that God has not forgiven but condemned sin in the flesh, but in Christ a sacrifice for sin, and that, now a Christian, not in the flesh but in the Spirit, his place and standing are changed — alive thus in Christ, created again in Christ Jesus unto preordained good works that he may walk in them, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. What are these good works? I have said, scripture has said, he, perfect before God in Christ, is to imitate God. Where to find the image of this in a man? Christ is the image of the invisible God. United with Him in heaven, the Christian is to walk like Him on earth, in grace as manifesting God, looking to Him above, and so changed into His image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

288 Let us see the scripture account of this. First, the Father's* name being revealed, not the legal name of Jehovah, we are to be perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. He loves them that do not love Him, He is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil. But more precisely in Ephesians 4, 5, this is fully developed. We have subjectively and objectively the pre-ordained walk of the Christian: subjectively — the putting off the old man, and putting on the new, and, secondly, our bodies being the temple of the Holy Ghost, the not grieving the Spirit of God by which we are sealed to the day of redemption; then the objective rule — Be ye kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ hath forgiven you. We have then the two essential names of God, given as that to be realized, and Christ presents the realization of them in man: "Be ye imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ hath loved us, and given himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering to God for a sweet smelling savour." We are to be imitators of God, His love in Christ being our pattern.

{*This is the name of christian relationship in eternal life, and was revealed by Christ even when here. Jehovah was the name of relationship for Israel, Almighty (El Shaddai) for the Patriarchs. The Most High will be God's millennial name.}

And here we find the superiority of the christian principle to law in its very nature. Law taught me to love my neighbour as myself — made my love to self the measure of my duty to my neighbour. Christianity looks for having no self at all, but giving up ourselves for our neighbour. Two principles form the perfectness of this: He gave Himself for others and to God. This last is needed that the principle may be perfect. The affection must have a perfect object as well as be perfectly, and in order to be perfectly, free from self, and perfect in itself. For affections have their character and value from their object. But the principle of legal perfection is another, and wholly short of this. The rule was not what a man ought to be as such, but to be an imitator of God as a dear child of his Father, Christ being the manifestation of love in this and the measure of it. To compare the mutual love of oneself and another, and make it the same as the absolute self-devotedness of Christ, is a mere abuse of terms, because the word love is used in both. The other name of God is Light. We are light in the Lord: we are to walk as children of light. Again Christ is referred to: "Christ shall give thee light." Thus perfect love in self-sacrifice, imitating God therein, walking as being in Christ, in and of the light which manifests everything, Christ being the model of it. Such is the rule of life of the Christian. He is dead, and his life hid with Christ in God. If he believes, it is Christ lives in him, he is not living (alive) in this world. People may resist such views, but, if they do, they must resist scripture.

289 The great secret of all is, that we are not, as before God, and responsible to Him, alive in the Adam life at all. Christ is our life — Christ who is risen. I am dead, have been crucified with Christ, to sin or the flesh and the lusts thereof, to the law by the body of Christ, to the world, and the world to me. The whole scene of a living man, this world in which the life of Adam develops itself, and of which the law is the moral rule, I do not belong to, before God, more than a man who died ten years ago out of it. I come, having the life of Christ, having the Son and so have life, into the midst of it, to walk in the path which He has traced through it. And now, what is the sabbath the rest of? This creation. I am not of it. It is a new creation I am of, old things are passed away. If I had known Christ after the flesh, as belonging to this world, down here and under the law, I know Him no more. And what is the rest of the new creation to which I belong as having died and risen, Christ being my life? The heavenly rest of which the Lord's-day is the intimation, the day of Christ's resurrection.

290 Let us see what scripture says directly on the subject; and first of all Genesis 2. Here God rested on the seventh day and sanctified it, because He rested on it. I do not think Paley's argument right, or of any value if it be right. In any case the seventh day is recognized by God as consecrated when He did give a law, as sanctified and blessed because He rested on that day. But it was the rest of creation, of the first creation as God made it, very good. Nobody says it was observed all along from that to Israel's departure from Egypt. There may have been traditions of it, clearer or more obscure. It seems there were, both scriptural and heathen, but they are obscure. But that creation fell at once, and the very thing we have heard in Christianity is, that man never did keep it, never could, nor ever can be subject to it, or have rest on that footing. It may be a mercy to his body (I believe it is): his body is part of the old creation. But I speak of relationship with God. Religiously the rest of the old creation is impossible to him.

In the law God took up man in the flesh and the creation, to test the possibility of man's living in relationship with God in them; and it was proved impossible there. But the sabbath was the sign then of relationship with God. It was not a seventh day, but the seventh, not of the six, on those God was working, they were not His rest. It is all very well to talk of a seventh day. A seventh day may be good for man, but shuts out God, leaves His rest aside, and gives man his rest as a physical rest without Him, rests when He was working, and works when He was resting, slights God, if it reposes man. It was the seventh day was blessed because God rested on it. Man did not want rest from toil in Paradise. Was he not to keep the seventh day if he had not fallen? Would he keep a seventh day as the essence of it, or the seventh because God rested on it? No, the seventh day alone is the religious character of it, because man's blessing is in God's rest. He is man all the six days as to his path according to God's will, with God the seventh. But he fell directly, never entered into God's rest.

And here I would note in passing, a very material point noticed in Dr. Cairn's speech at Berwick, that the argument against the sabbath, because man was fallen and could not have part in the original institution, would be valid if man were not recoverable.

Now I affirm, that exactly what scripture teaches is that man is not recoverable. Men are recoverable; but it is by being born again, by dying and rising, putting off the old man and putting on the new. The law, and even Christ's coming, as addressed to man's responsibility, was the proof that man was irrecoverable, that there must be a Second man instead of the first, and that death and resurrection must come in to found a place for man with God, that there must be a putting off the old man and a putting on the new man. The character of infidelity in the present day is, that man can be improved and recovered — does not want a new man to be born again. It will just lead to Antichrist. It is anti-christianity unawares, the denial of the fundamental principles of Christianity — being born again, and the cross. Man is not recoverable as in flesh, he must be born again, ἄνωθεν entirely anew, from the origin of his nature, and redeemed. The sabbath is the rest of man in flesh. Religiously there is no rest for man in the flesh, as there is no recovery for man in the flesh. The law tried it, and set up the sabbath as a sign consequently of the covenant; but the flesh was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.

291 And see the blessed and touching way in which Christ consequently met the stupid accusation of breaking the sabbath, when He made the man carry his bed, proving the life giving God and Lord of the sabbath was there. They charged Him with it. What is His answer? "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Unspeakably blessed! Can the Father and the Son — God in grace (for so in John God is ever spoken of, in grace as contrasted with responsibility to God as God), the God of love, rest where misery and ruin is? Can the holy God of love rest where sin is? God might have destroyed in judgment; but in goodness He cannot rest in sin. He works where sin and misery are. Can there be a more touching, wonderful answer of divine wisdom, making, as every word of that blessed one did, Himself more precious, and giving a proof that the all-wise God of grace was there? God has no sabbath really in a world of sin and misery.

We find this character in Christ. He was subject to the system He was in, while in it; but another truth, which came fully out after His resurrection, continually shines through. Does not your Master pay tribute (to the temple)? Yes, says Peter, He is a good Jew. When he goes in, the Lord prevents* him, and shews that, as a divine person, He knew what was passing, away from His bodily presence. Divine knowledge was there, but He associates Peter with Himself — we are "children" of the temple, and therefore free; but "lest we should offend." Then we have divine power over creation — He makes a fish bring the needed money: but again He associates Peter with Himself — "That take and give for me and thee." Subject to, but above all, around Him, He associates us with Himself in the place He has now taken as Son above, even as man.

{*[That is, He anticipated Peter. ED.]}

292 But as Christ in reply to the Jewish charge declares He was divinely working as Son, not resting, so the apostles treat this subject of the Jewish sabbath. Hebrews 4 does so fully. The objection that we who believe do enter into rest means present rest of conscience as a believer, I reject utterly as entire insensibility to the whole purpose of the argument, which is, that we must labour to enter into that rest, and that there remains a rest (that is, that it is not come). The conscience does enter into rest by faith, and man has ceased from resting in his works as being a sinner. As an accommodation, it may be all very well; but he has not ceased from his works as a Christian as God did from His. The passage merely states who are the enterers. Believers enter, unbelievers do not; as if I should say, There is the door — only peers — only men enter. It is the present of title or habit, not of time. I dismiss this.

But there is important instruction in the chapter. Man has never yet entered into the rest of God; he did not in creation, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world; for God says, "if they shall enter." But, said the Jew, we have entered — Caleb, Joshua, the children — they did not fall through unbelief. No, says our chapter, "if they shall enter" comes after Joshua; and if he had given them rest, He would not so long after in the Psalms have spoken of another day. There remains a rest for God's people. Into God's rest man has not entered. He did not on its first institution in paradise. Well, promises of the Seed came. There was no promise to the first Adam; but in the judgment on the serpent the victory of the Seed of the woman, of the Second Adam (just not the first, who was no seed of the woman), was promised. Then when God called Abraham, the nations having turned to idolatry, came first the promise before legal responsibility, and the law 430 years after, which could neither annul nor add to the unconditional promise, and the law was blessing conditional on man's obedience. After the promise that is, comes the law, with the blessing founded on man's responsibility identified with the first creation, promises referring to it given as the blessing; and the sabbath — the rest of God — is immediately set up, of course on the principle of the institution (that is, legally).

293 I will shew how very much was made of it, but first a few words on moral law and the decalogue. By moral law I understand the duty of maintaining the relationship in which we stand. But they acquire their obligation from their institution by God, and the first relationship of all is relationship with God — hence the first of all moralities — and which casts its light and character on all the rest, because, in whatever God has instituted or commanded, I am bound to obedience; and obedience itself is morality in its highest form. It is maintaining relationship with God. Hence, before sin came in, the test was abstract pure obedience — "thou shalt not eat." Well, man disobeyed and fell — got wholly away from God; but he got a conscience in and by his fall — the knowledge of good and evil, that is, the sense of good and evil in itself without a commandment or law which made it obedience, which would have supposed his being still with God. Such was the wisdom of God. But this natural conscience enforced the obligation of these relationships in which God had placed man. Man's institutions might deface and obscure them: still the internal obligation was there. A wife was owned as a wife, though divorce might come in; parents as parents, though the state might claim rights over that tie; violence and robbery were known to be violence, though they might gloriously plunder enemies, and so on. And the blessed Lord would restore the testimony, "from the beginning it was not so." Thus, though there was no commandment, no law, there was morality, and the Gentile would do by nature the things contained in the law and be a law to himself, an expression which peremptorily excludes the having a law of God which made it obedience, and rests it on conscience acquired in the fall, when man left God and was turned out from Him.

After the promise which shewed that grace and the Seed could alone bring blessing, God's authority was set up in a revealed way, and after an external and typical redemption the law promulgated. This, while based on God's authority, established of course by its sanction all the relationships God had instituted, only chiefly by prohibitions of the breach of them; that is, where those relationships constituted a distinctive right against others, divine or human. The sabbath and parental authority are alone positive, though the former be negative in detailed directions. And here I avow, though it be not properly a relationship properly speaking, nor hence a morality independent of the knowledge of God, a matter of conscience when man was away from God and so a law to himself e.g. without God's authority, yet the moment God was brought in and that first of all relationships set up, a part of that, yea its essence, was the recognition of absolute obedience to Him and His sovereignty in commanding; and the sabbath, like the prohibition in paradise, became, as a positive command, a more absolute test of relationship with God than all the rest. Gentiles might be moral by conscience without God, as men may now; they might see the folly of idols, as Isaiah reasons, find out they had a lie in their right hand; but the sabbath was a sign of relationship with God, as a people known to Him and under His authority (as all men ought to have been). It was wisely so ordered as a sign of the covenant, it was arbitrary: God commanded it, and that was its authority; but with the knowledge Genesis gave, it was not absolutely so. The Jehovah of Israel was the Creator of heaven and earth. It might have been in one sense arbitrary, though I am sure perfectly wise, to create in six days or seven; but, if He created in six, to have the sabbath on the seventh day was to have a part in the rest of God. It was the very essence of blessing; it was having to say to God, and as God's people; it was not arbitrary in this, but it was special; not natural conscience, but eminently blessed association with God. But it was the rest of the first creation, and rest according to law (i.e., conditional blessing, on obedience), and that in fact in a fallen being, who could not have it in that way. That godly Jews found the sabbath a delight, when they were in relationship with God, I cannot doubt. God would be true to His own relationship. But the Maccabees, when Lo-ammi was written on the people, only found it a source of disaster, though their conscience might be good. Now the sabbath will be found to be a distinctive sign, the seventh day. One day in seven destroys the very idea of God's rest.

294 I take up the law. I find every distinct ordinance has the sabbath annexed to it, not merely the ten commandments, but all that expressed any form of man's relationship with God. When they had come out of Egypt and manna is given them for daily food, the sabbath is immediately distinguished (Exodus 16). In Exodus 20 we have the commandments, God's relationship with Israel set up, thereupon the sabbath established. The second commandment gives the terms of Jehovah's relationship with Israel, He is here "Jehovah thy God," and the "sabbath of Jehovah thy God;" and it is expressly the rest of this first creation, "wherefore Jehovah blessed the seventh day." Keeping it holy was the point, though the rest of all was the sign of that. When the tabernacle is to set up (Exodus 31), and Moses is coming down, having received the pattern, the plan and order of relationship, the sabbath is again ordered; it is a sign between Jehovah and the children of Israel for ever, and emphatically, because it was Jehovah's rest. When Moses gets a new covenant on going up the second time (Exodus 34), the sabbath is introduced. So before the offerings for the tabernacle (Exodus 35). In Leviticus 23, the feasts of Jehovah, it is distinctly brought out in the first place by itself. So in Leviticus 19, when the people are to sanctify themselves, because Jehovah their God is holy, they are to be obedient to parents, and keep His sabbaths. He is Jehovah their God. So in Leviticus 26, when the threatenings as to departure are detailed, it begins, "Ye shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am Jehovah." The very land was to keep a sabbath (Leviticus 25: 2, 4, 6), a test whether they trusted a covenant God. And in Numbers 15, when in the midst of judgment the promises of the Lord and His sure faithfulness come in, gathering sticks on the sabbath is punished with death, as a presumptuous sin.

295 I turn to the prophets, and cite only Ezekiel saying why Israel was rejected, (chap. 20: 11, 12), "And I gave them my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah who sanctify them." A concordance will give many other passages, but these give the principal. It is Jehovah, Israel's God (His name with the patriarchs was Almighty; with us, Father through Jesus Christ). It was His sabbath, a sign of relationship with Israel, but founded on the rest of Elohim; but a sign of rest in the first creation, of relationship with God, with Jehovah, in that rest; but given as a law to man in the flesh, and blessing and rest conditional on obedience. Such was the sabbath. The rest of God in the first creation; and then the rest of relationship with God of man in the flesh under condition of obedience.

Now exactly what Christianity teaches us is, that this is impossible. Sin has entered in; the first Adam is lost by disobedience. The flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And hence He who redeems us was in the grave on the sabbath day, as coming amongst men here the sinless and gracious One, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. Death is the only rest from sin for us, and the covenant of flesh having part in God's rest is buried in His grave, and the sabbath, the sign of it, with it; but, I repeat, not by abrogating law as such for those under it, but by dying to it, having perfectly glorified it and borne its curse — the highest possible sanction that could be given to it. But Christ's being in the grave was the final and absolute proof that there could be no relationship with God in the flesh of man; the fig tree was cursed, and never to bear fruit for ever.

296 But, it is said, the sermon on the mount sets up and spiritualizes the law. How long had I accepted the latter as true! But it is not true. It reveals the Father's name as a new title of relationship, as the Lord in John 17 declares He had done; and puts inward truth of heart to God in the place of Pharisaic external observances. It does not contemplate redemption, but personal righteousness, as the ground on which the remnant, poor in spirit, could enter into the kingdom of heaven. Only two commandments are referred to, which raised the question of violence and corruption, the great principles of sin. If it be a spiritualization of the law, the sabbath is left out as having no part in that spiritualization; but I do not admit it is. Whatever rules it gives for our moral walk (for though it does not present the ground of entrance to sinners as given in the gospel, yet it shews us what suits the kingdom in which we are by grace), it does not bring in the sabbath as honouring it as a part of it. The truth is, it refers to inward principle and obedience. As regards the passage, "not a jot or tittle will pass from the law till all be fulfilled;" and "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil," I receive it surely as a divine sentence to be accepted in its whole force. The most distant thought of His setting aside the law does not enter into my mind — it would be setting aside God's authority. Christ sealed its authority in His death, but He died out from under it. It has authority over a man as long as he lives. Much of it has been fulfilled; some even of the types are not yet, as the feast of tabernacles; and I am satisfied every bit of it, as well as of the prophets, has been, or will. Christ fully glorified it in His life too. But if I have died, He does not put me under it as risen with Him. Being under it is the way of not fulfilling it to all save Christ Himself — the way of sin having dominion over us.

In the sermon on the mount Christ was shewing the true character of those amongst the Jews who would enter in the kingdom when it was set up; and I therefore fully admit it shews the character we should walk with; but would any man, as preaching the gospel to sinners, present obedience to law and precepts as the way of entrance into the kingdom? Not one word of the glad tidings of Christ's death and resurrection is in it. I believe if a man is born again, in principle, and according to the principle of the sermon on the mount, his righteousness does exceed that of the Pharisees. But there is no thought of being born again, no thought of the cross; personal obedience is (here) the rock on which we build surely: all well as a guide to a Christian practically; but the terms of the sermon on the mount were addressed not to sinners, but gave the character of Jewish saints who would have part in the kingdom; most instructive to us to shew us what characterizes it, now it is set up, and that he who contradicts it cannot have really a part in the kingdom. I believe Christ came to fulfil the law, I believe it will be all fulfilled; but how can a divine declaration that all will be fulfilled, that it will not pass till all be fulfilled, apply to my fulfilling it? It is not spoken of as an obligation, but as certain of fulfilment. Have I fulfilled it so that it can pass? Have you, reader? Right and mercy never can pass. The Lord does affirm its authority, but He cannot speak in this sentence of people's fulfilling its moral obligations so that it should pass. Did this then leave them at liberty to slight them? Surely not. That would be slighting its authority, which the Lord establishes. Whoever did would be guilty under it; and this was true of every jot and tittle even when it was not moral, because authority was involved in it. These ought ye to have done. The least commandment had in its place God's authority attached to it. But I am not under it for quite another reason; I am dead to the law by the body of Christ, that I might be to another--wholly, entirely dead to it: the bond is dissolved. Is therefore morality gone? No. But it is not maintained in Christianity by the law. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." If I walk after the Spirit, I am not under the law; but the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, meekness, temperance, patience; against such there is no law. I keep the law de facto, by not being under it de jure, because the life and Spirit of Christ make me love my neighbour, and he who does that fulfils the law. It is produced, not imposed. Hence the first table is not alleged, because that was covenant with Jehovah as a people: we are sons of the Father through Christ; our duties are in that relationship.

298 Let us now see what the New Testament directly affords us on the sabbath. Is any hint as to its sacredness to be found? Matthew 12: 1 is evidently of great consequence here. The Pharisees complained of the disciples' plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. The Lord's answer is remarkable. It is not to rebuke the Pharisees as He does elsewhere, but to shew that the sabbath and other ceremonial enactments have been set aside for sufficient cause, and that a greater than any obligation of the sabbath was there. Could God say, I am greater than a moral commandment? Would that be a divine way of putting things if it were a question of hating a brother or coveting another man's wife? Such a thought would revolt at once. But that is the Lord's reasoning as to the sabbath. First a rejected Messiah made all common, for another obligatory commandment, the sabbath, gave way under God's own eye. Christ was greater than the temple; and if they knew God's heart, they would not have condemned His disciples. All this proved the Pharisees wrong and unjustifiable. But, besides, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath. Surely this could not be said of a commandment as to right and wrong! He had a title to dispose of the sabbath, through the dignity of His person and office. Could all this have been said if the Lord were insisting on the maintenance of its authority? He adds that it is lawful to do well on the sabbath. The parallel passage in Mark adds, The sabbath was made for man.

Matthew's gospel gives us dispensational changes, and, on that ground, Christ's person as divine; and the place He took as Son of man laid the ground for dealing with the sabbath as Lord of it. Here Christ is the servant-prophet, and we have another ground laid: the sabbath was made for man. It was in favour of — for — man; and hence He who ordered all for man, as the head of the race according to God, was Lord of it. It was a benefit conferred on man for his advantage, and the Son of man was the competent disposer in the matter. Could this be said of a divinely binding law?

In Mark 3: 2; Luke 6: 7; 14: 1-5; 16: 10-16, all are cases where He purposely heals so as to draw attention to it on the sabbath-day, diligently offending their prejudices (to say the least) making their zeal as to it a proof of hypocrisy, without a word to save any legal force. Is not this singular that the Holy Ghost only signalizes His casting a slur on their rigid observance of it? Can any one find any other testimony as to the sabbath in the New Testament? In the Old I find on every occasion a special insisting on it, as we have seen. In the New only statements which declare His title over it, or upset legal exactness as to it.

299 I return for a moment to John 5, which I have already noticed. The other gospels teach us how Christ in different characters was presented to the Jews and to the world. In John both are seen as having not received Him, and the Jews are treated all through as reprobates and the systems rejected: man must be born again. Christ is substituted for the Jews, not presented to them, and brings in of course infinitely greater blessings. Thus the sabbath has a peculiar place here. Christ is not seen as still holding to the system, though going on towards His rejection. He is not traced down from Abraham and David, Emmanuel according to promises, nor up to Adam, the Son of man in grace. He is God in this world, unknown and rejected, the Word made flesh, the Lamb of God; He must make all things new. In person He is the beginning of what is new, though alone as yet in this character till He had died and risen again. Now the sabbath, as we have seen, had been the rest of the first creation; and when man had been taken up in flesh, the sabbath was made a sign of the covenant. A rejected Christ is on new ground, though, as we have seen, while in flesh, outwardly subject to what God had set up in flesh. It is therefore Paul says, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, a new creation." For us His death and resurrection must come in for this purpose. His divine person was above all dispensations, and this, with His work and the mission of the Comforter, is what we have in John. It is not Christ ascended to bring in the headship, but it is Christ a divine person become man. Purpose and grace therefore come necessarily before us.

The case of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda shews man incapable of using the means afforded in blessings which supposed strength and capacity in him to use them, which was the legal system. If it depends on us, sin has taken away the strength needed to use means given to heal sin, even when the will is there. The man is, so to say, in Romans 7 — to will present — no way of performing what must be done. Christ brings — exercises — power, instead of requiring it. A word heals the man, but it is the sabbath, the rest of flesh. But there can be none, and having drawn the attention of the Jews to the point by making the man carry his bed, He answers by declaring that His Father was working hitherto, and He was working, not keeping sabbath, having rest in the midst of sin. It was power come in the midst of evil in grace, not rest in evil. Judgment might have been, judgment will be; grace was and yet is. Where can rest be found for us? In the new creation, in resurrection; first for conscience and heart, finally altogether and perfect. Christ as risen has put man in a new place, on a new footing, not back where Adam innocent was, clean out of the place of Adam guilty and the world which has grown up from him in sin and rejected Christ. Having accomplished the work of redemption, destroyed the power of death, made peace by the blood of the cross, Christ has taken the new place, wholly a new place as man, which His work gives a title to, and places man in by resurrection power. We are before God as risen in Him, though we have the treasure in earthen vessels, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body. We are in Christ in the new creation. Our sabbath is not the sabbath in flesh (that of the old creation), but of faith by the resurrection of Christ. It is not imposed on us by law, for we are not under law, but dead, out of the place and nature of sin, for faith, and risen in Christ. But the Lord's day, the day of Christ's resurrection, is the happy witness, as far as a day can be, of a better and perfect rest.

300 I do not enter on the detail of scripture ground for the distinction of this day, which I published many years ago, in reply to the taunt of priests who used it to prove the authority of the Church which had changed the day. I have died with Christ to the old creation, the flesh, and the law; my rest as flesh is in the grave with Him. I have true rest in the divine complacency in Him risen, His work finished, so that God rests in righteousness and delight, and so we in both rest from labour to attain one, rest in joy in what is good in the other, rest in God's love unhinderedly resting upon us in Christ: the pledge too by the Holy Ghost of the perfect rest which the resurrection of the body will give. Romans 8: 2. See John 20; Acts 20: 7; 1 Corinthians 16: 2; Revelation 1: 10.

The sabbath is not a seventh day. It is significatively the seventh day, the rest of God, Jehovah's rest. It is not now the seventh day, the rest of the old creation (to an intelligent Christian that is impossible), but, as clearly distinguished by scripture, the first day of the week in contrast with the seventh, Christ having been unquestionably in the grave during the seventh, and rising (the ground of our rest) the first, not the seventh. Talking about the sabbath being originally the first is slighting the facts, and ignorance as to the purpose and meaning of the change of day. It is not a Jewish or legal sabbath either, but the christian Lord's day. The only part flesh can have in it now is mercy to man in flesh, and that is a fresh revelation of Christ's. When originally instituted, toil was not man's portion; God's rest he might have enjoyed in a worshipping way, but never did. Now sin is come in, the Lord can tell us the sabbath was made for man. So far therefore as the Lord's day can be made a day of rest for all, grace will do it. I may not be able to impose it as a religious law on unconverted men. I do not know what that means in christianity, in the Church of God. Could the early Church have imposed it on the heathen? I believe it is a great mercy if civil law secure it, or the habits of society, even for the world; only there is the danger of self-righteousness. It is an external mercy, if the morality of the law, sabbath and all, be observed; for sin and contempt of God degrade, harden, and corrupt. As a Christian I rejoice to have one day, and the Lord's day, rescued from the world and the old creation for me a child of God; and I believe and have found that (not for visions, but for blessing and for joy) we may look to be in the Spirit on the Lord's day. But that is not law. Yet I do not accept at all the taunt of those who bury, as they say, or abrogate the sabbath. I say, If I were on board ship, I should be positively sinning not to take due care of it on the sabbath, and give heed to the safety of all. On the other hand I have not a doubt the Christian ought to think of others, and (unless in cases where mercy does require it) not use cabs and the like on the Lord's day; and an easy rule is to be found: if he takes one in the name of the Lord Jesus, let him; if not, let him not take one.

301 And as to meals, it is not scruple: hot or cold, it is all alike to me as to conscience; but I say, Christians ought to leave full leisure on the Lord's day to those who serve them. On the other hand, instead of law, I would make children as happy as I could on the Lord's day; I would connect it with happiness, but happiness associated with God, not idle pleasure; and so, as far as I had to say to it, to the toiling poor. I believe it is meant to be a rest of happiness, happiness with God, not legal bondage imposed by Him. I do not expect the world to heed me; but I act for myself. I believe serious-minded persons will respect it, and moral restraint, such as godliness always exercises, will operate on all.

I do not go into the history of this question. I have made collections of the kind on it which I have not with me at the moment. But it is certain the early Christians never confounded the Lord's day and the sabbath. Those who were Jews knew both as distinct, and those around them did too. Justin Martyr (in a well known passage of the dialogue with Trypho, who reproaches him with giving up the sabbath) says, How can we keep the sabbath, who rest from sin all the days of the week? If I recollect aright, Clement of Alexandria recommends setting it apart if possible. But I recollect this much, that a council of Orleans, in the sixth century or beginning of the seventh, reproaches Christians with keeping the sabbath, and not carting home their corn, or travelling, and asked them if they had turned Jews. But we must not suppose that this meant Sunday or the Lord's day. Gradually, as Judaism disappeared in the distance, the Lord's day took its place, but never, I believe, as a legal sabbath till the Reformation. But the history of the case may be found elsewhere: I do not pretend to give it, and speak from memory. My object was to examine scripture on the subject, and that in connexion with the law, which is the really important point. The nature of Christianity depends upon it. Local controversy I should have left to those engaged in it. The true nature of Christianity concerns us all.

302 I do not accept by any means all Luther's statements on the subject. I think he did not see complete deliverance. But what he has written shews clearly that he had come right into the principle I have spoken of: "But if thou wilt speak of the abolishment of the law, talk of it as it is in its own proper use and office, and as it is spiritually taken, and comprehend in that the whole law, making no distinction at all between the judicial, ceremonial, and moral;" "now Paul speaketh here especially of the abolishment of the moral law, which is diligently to be considered." "And here Paul speaketh not of the ceremonial law only (as before we have remarked more at large), but of the whole law, whether it be ceremonial or moral, which to a Christian is utterly abrogate, for he is dead unto it: not that the law is utterly taken away; nay, it remaineth, liveth, and reigneth still in the wicked. But a godly man is dead unto the law, like as he is dead unto sin, the devil, death, and hell: which notwithstanding do still remain, and the world with all the wicked shall still abide in them. Wherefore when the Papist understandeth that the ceremonial law only is abolished, understand thou that Paul and every Christian is dead to the law, and yet the whole law remaineth still. As for example: Christ rising from death is free from the grave, and yet the grave remaineth still." And then he enlarges. "Wherefore these words, I am dead to the law, are very effectual. For he saith not: I am free from the law for a time, or I am lord over the law; but simply, I am dead to the law, that is, I have nothing to do with the law . . . Now to die to the law is not to be bound to the law, but to be free from the law, and not to know it. Therefore let him that will live to God endeavour that he may be found without the law, and let him come out of the grave with Christ."

303 Now it is perfectly true that the great object of Luther was justification by faith. But in pursuing this object he arrives at our being wholly dead to the law, nothing bound to it, not knowing it. He thought a man might get back under it, because he did himself; I do not. But this is another question. He takes a man as in Christ, wholly out of the law as much as Christ is now out of his grave, and the man from under law as Christ is now. "With this faith thou shalt mount up above and beyond the law, into that heaven of grace where is no law nor sin. And albeit the law and sin do still remain, yet they pertain nothing to thee; for thou art dead to the law and sin." "Now if we be dead unto the law, then hath the law no power over us, like as it hath no power over Christ, who hath delivered us from the law that we might live unto God." It is not all the truth that justification is continually running in his mind. He takes them wholly out of the law because it was death and condemnation, and they could not be justified if they were under it at all, because of its necessary character. He says the only thing he requires at your hands is this, that ye believe in Christ whom He has sent; and thus we are made perfect. "But if . . . ye will add laws, then assure yourself that all laws are comprehended in this commandment — Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Endeavour yourselves to keep this commandment, which, being kept, ye have fulfilled all law."

I cite from his well known commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.

The Intercession of Christ

J. N. Darby.

<10019E> 304

Some obscurity seems to hang over the doctrine of Christ's intercession in the minds of some saints, which I feel it would be profitable to seek to dispel.

Some (and it is a common case) put it in the wrong place, viz., as the means of obtaining righteousness and peace, and thus enfeeble (and that because they are ignorant of) the true character of redemption; others, seeing that this is perfect and complete, set intercession aside as incompatible with that perfectness, as if it enfeebled or denied it.

Both are wrong, and both mistake the nature of Christ's intercession. Christ's intercession is not the means of obtaining righteousness and peace. It is mischievous to use it to this end; and it does, so used, hinder the apprehension of our being made the righteousness of God in Christ. It is mischievous too to deny its use when we do know Christ as our perfect righteousness. The doing so makes that righteousness to be a cold and heartless security, destroying the deep and softening sense of His constant love to us, and our dependence on the daily exercise of that love.

The former class, not assured of God's perfect love in righteousness, go to Christ to get Him to undertake their cause and go to God for them, and, so to speak, settle matters. They really (though they would not say so) see love in Christ and judgment in God; and go to Christ to move God to compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. It is very natural we should go through this state, particularly with the current teaching; but it is not really christian ground. God's love is the source of all our blessings, and of the hopes of our salvation; and that love is fully exercised in righteousness, because of Christ's work and glorifying of God. Grace reigns through righteousness: we are the righteousness of God in Christ; we have not to seek it. Christ is our righteousness always and constantly. It is as perfect as it is constant and perpetual; and as constant and perpetual as it is perfect. God has been — is — perfectly glorified in this respect; and His love goes forth freely and righteously on the Christian as on Christ Himself. It is a settled position before God, a standing and relationship which does not change. The intercession of Christ is founded upon it. How far the act which completed this ground of our place before God was the act of the priest, I will consider when speaking of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

But then it is equally true that we are poor, feeble, and often failing creatures upon earth; our place, our only place with God, is in the light as He is, through the divine righteousness I have spoken of, and acceptance in it there. Our actual place is in a world of temptation, in an unredeemed body, a feeble and dependent being, failing too, in a world where grace is needed, mercy and grace to help in time of need. And the best affections are drawn out by daily wants, daily confidence, and a daily sense of the Lord's faithfulness; not by the sense that we are safe, though that be the groundwork and basis of the other, needed to it and of itself drawing out thanksgiving and praise. But it is evident dependence, and all connected with it is not drawn out by being perfect, and always infallibly so. If I lose this last, my fears are servile; my looking to Christ is only to be safe, when God is a righteous judge. If I lose the other, I am content with being safe. It is my highest attainment, and I never possess it after all, and the best affections and graces lie dormant.

305 Let us now consider what intercession really is, what place it takes in the christian system. There are two characters which the intercession of our Lord takes — priesthood with God, and advocacy with the Father. In both He appears before God or the Father for us that we may receive needed blessing; but the former is more general. He is before God, so that we draw near and can do so. He makes withal intercession for our need. As Advocate with the Father, it is more restoration of communion.

But here some preliminary difficulties have to be met. There are those who deny the force of the word intercession as implying active intercession or intervention for us; they say that ἐντυγάνω merely means His personal presence or appearance there for us. But this is not so. The word ἐντυγάνω is used for active intervention or intercession. So, in scripture, He ever lives to do it. Surely not He ever lives to be present simply between God and us. So in Romans 8, "Who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." And in the same chapter, what is said of the Holy Ghost clearly shews that this word is used in the plain ordinary sense of intercessory pleading for us. He makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. The Holy Ghost does not appear (ἐντυγάνω) in the presence of God for us at all, but He intercedes, pleads in us, with groans which cannot be uttered. This use of ἐντυγάνω cannot then be controverted.

Nor has the boldness been wanting, strange as it may seem, which takes the Epistle to the Hebrews from Christians and applies it to the Jewish remnant. Now there are statements which may reach out to their profit and blessing, the branches of a fruitful tree reaching over the wall. But the epistle is addressed to Christians. Allow me (an argument in itself sufficient; for it is an address, not a prophecy), to ask, to whom was it then and there addressed — I mean when it was written — to Christians or not? No one can hesitate for a moment. It was to Christians. There was no Jewish remnant then, save Christians, to address it to. This blunder has arisen from the epistle's not taking church ground (that is, the union of the saint with Christ). It does not do that. It looks at the saints as on earth, and Christ as in heaven for them, apart from them, in God's presence individually for them; not as sitting in heavenly places, but as tried, exercised, proved in the desert. But it was addressed to the then holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling then, Christ being the Apostle and High Priest of their profession. This applied only to Christians then, nor indeed ever directly to any others. God was bringing many sons to glory, and Christ is the captain or leader of their salvation. We may see this distinctly all through the epistle.

306 It refers to those who were then made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasted the heavenly gift; they had then ministered to the saints--then taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance. I suppose those of whom this was then true were the Christians. That is, Christians, and they only, were directly addressed. Their hope was within the veil; Christ was entered there, as forerunner of the writer, and of those to whom it was addressed. Was the writer not a Christian? They were then drawing nigh to God, I suppose, as believers, that is, Christians; and a High Priest made higher than the heavens became them because they went there in spirit.

The whole of the ninth chapter supposes a then eternal redemption, an eternal inheritance, heavenly things themselves, and Christ's then appearing in heaven, when the epistle was written, for those to whom it was then addressed. Their consciences were purged; the Jewish remnant's will not be till they see Christ appearing again. Christ is sitting continuously at the right hand of God, and the way into the holiest was open for them then by the new and living way. They were to hold fast the beginning of their profession without wavering. They were believers; that is, those who had access into the holiest of all.

The whole epistle then proceeds on the ground that those addressed in it were believers then--had a known part in heavenly places; that it was their calling. It was not the case of some who might get there, being killed, but heaven is the calling of all addressed. That is, they were Christians, Jewish Christians no doubt, but Christians. And such only are addressed, even if it reaches out in its language to those who are spared on earth; for there remains a rest for them.

307 It is really an incredible thing that any can read the epistle and not see that it is addressed to Christians. I do not mean that they may profit by what was addressed to others, as we may by the Old Testament, but that it was addressed to Christians, and only to Christians; only to persons then called to heaven, and who had it as their profession to be so. I freely admit it is not the Church, as such: we should lose the whole value of it, and of the Church, were it so; because the Church is united to Christ in heaven, and here Christians are not so viewed; and the epistle would have no place, because it teaches what Christ is for us in heaven while we are walking in conflict on the earth. Here our earthly condition becomes the occasion of heavenly grace. It is our heavenly calling, not our being there in union with Christ. But heavenly grace to us in an earthly condition, while called to heaven, leads to the knowledge of the love, tenderness, sympathy, faithfulness, interest in all our state and circumstances, which are found in Christ (which our perfection in Him does not). It leads to dependence, confidence in Him, counting on His faithfulness, apprehension of the interest which He takes in us every moment, and a looking to the time when we shall see Him as He is, which our being in Him in heaven does not.

As regards the passage in John's Epistle, and that in Romans, it is applicable to Christians beyond all cavil or question. Fellowship with the Father and the Son is the part assuredly of Christians; and Romans 8 needs no comment or argument on the subject. If 1 John 2: 2 were applied to any but Christians, it would apply to unbelievers, which is a false view of intercession altogether. Advocacy then is founded on Jesus Christ the righteous being the Advocate, and His being the propitiation for our sins. This, a divine and perfect righteousness, and the perfect propitiation for our sins, have put us in the light as God is, to walk there; and as we fail, if any man sin — that righteousness and propitiation being ever before God, there is — can be — no thought of imputation (it is impossible, the sins have been borne and righteousness subsists); yet sins are not to be suffered in those whom God loves; and hence, in virtue of His work and being our righteousness before God, Christ intercedes for us and the soul is restored.

308 This ground of advocacy leads me to speak of the analogous, or really same, foundation of priesthood. On earth He could not be a priest: but there was one work which the high priest did, not in the exercise of his priesthood, properly speaking, which was in the sanctuary, but which laid the foundation for it, in which he was substitute and representative of the people, the foundation of his priestly service proper during the year. This was the sacrifice of the great day of atonement: the blood put upon the mercyseat; and the sins of the people confessed on the head of the scapegoat. Reconciliation or propitiation was made for the sins of the people. All exercise of priesthood was founded on this, and this the Epistle to the Hebrews refers to, as well as to priesthood. His earthly life fitted Christ for sympathy, though He be now in heaven, and the sacrifice accomplished on earth (in putting away for ever as to guilt the sins He had borne) formed the basis of intercession for daily blessing and access to God by Him. Hence, while clearly stating that if on earth He would not be a priest, we read, Hebrews 2: 17, "It behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation [more exactly, propitiation] for the sins of the people." On this is founded His gracious and constant priesthood and intercession. Imputation of sin to us is become impossible because of Christ's sacrifice; and His suffering and tempted life enables Him in grace, intelligent of sorrow and trial, to succour them that are tempted. Hence in chapter 4 we Christians are called upon to hold fast our profession,* "for we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, sin apart." We have then a Priest with God, and an Advocate with the Father: there in virtue of a sacrifice in which He has once for all borne our sins and appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; there in a perfect acceptance in which we have a part — Jesus Christ the righteous, the propitiation for our sins; able to save to the end those that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them; who is even at the right hand of God, set down when He had purged our sins, a great High Priest set down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.

{*And note here, as the whole epistle shews, this is in contrast with going back into Judaism; so far is it from being directly applicable to the remnant.}

309 Now this leads us to another point. We do not go to the High Priest; we come to God by Him, to a throne of grace. I do not doubt God's gracious goodness may have borne with the infirm faith which in trueness of heart has gone to Christ as priest: but it is not the teaching of the word of God. He appears in the presence of God for us, we go to God by Him. There is no uncertainty or exception in scripture as to this. Nor is it consequently on our return or our repentance that He intercedes, but for our infirmities, our need, and our sins. The activity is that of His grace, having that grace — His love and priestly grace towards us, for its source — His work and position with God in righteousness, as we have seen, as its basis.

Our going to Christ thus is a sign that we have never yet learnt God's love, nor our place and relationship with God in the light as He is in it, to speak according to John; or boldness to enter into the holiest through the rent veil, to speak according to the Hebrews. We have not yet learnt the "no condemnation" for those in Christ, nor separation, of Romans 8.

Priesthood, intercession, and advocacy suppose this. We have our place in heaven; we have been, or are, in danger of being inconsistent with it upon earth. Now God can, on one hand, allow of no sin in those who are in relationship with Him, however accepted they may be. He must have their feet and hearts clean, because they are so; and on the other hand, He exercises them here below. And Christ especially enters into all their sorrows, infirmities, seeking their progress, ministering to their weakness and obtaining mercy, cleansing, and restoration in their faults. This has nothing to do with acceptance, but with consistency with, or restoration to, the actual enjoyment of communion with God in that relationship. Safety is not the end, it is the beginning, of Christianity. Christianity is relationship and communion with God as He is, and our Father, and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Priesthood and advocacy maintain, help into, restore this, when our relationship, according to divine righteousness, subsists already, but when we are in a scene of temptation and trial, which tends, through our weakness and by our exercises, in which we are to grow up into it, to interrupt communion.

But it is not we who get our High Priest to move for us, He it is who does it of His own grace. Thus, in a case anticipative no doubt of His priesthood, but in which it is displayed in its principles — the fall of Peter, we have Christ praying for him before he had even committed the sin, praying exactly according to what Peter needed, not that he might not be sifted, but that his faith might not fail and he fall into despair. At the right moment, by Christ's own grace and action, Peter's heart is touched, and he weeps bitterly over his fault. But this is the effect, not the cause, of Christ's action. Afterwards He fully restores his soul. So in His advocacy in John, it is, "If any man sin" (not if any man repent) "we have an advocate with the Father." So in John 13, where the application is taught (where Christ, already owned Son of God, Son of David, Son of man, now takes His place on high, and shews that He is still our servant to make us clean, to have a part with Him there, as He could not remain with us here), it is His action, not what is sought by the disciples. Clean, as washed by the word, He cleanses their feet (moved by His own grace) from the dirt gathered in the walk.

310 And note, further, His intercession is for them in relationship with Him: "I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me;" so for others who should believe through their word. In the Epistle to the Hebrews it is equally clear that Christ is Priest for those in relationship with God: only that is more based on profession or the people, than in Romans or John; still it speaks of us. As regards Christ's activity for us, there is less as to failure than in John. The great subject is the distinct nature and character of priesthood as contrasted with that with which law was connected, the passing away of that earthly one, and the establishment of the heavenly one. Still there is no thought of going to the priest. We go to God by Him; we come boldly to the throne of grace, in virtue of His being there; but there is no thought of going to Him but of going boldly to God Himself. Nor is there a thought of obtaining righteousness by it, nor any uncertainty as to that. By one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified, and they are sanctified by the offering too. He offered Himself once for all. His priesthood is for tempted ones. He is able to help them, ever living to make intercession for them; He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been tempted like us, sin apart. It is help to the sanctified ones (perfected by the offering of Christ once for all) in passing through the wilderness, and He by whom they draw nigh to God. His priesthood is exercised then that we may find mercy and help at the throne of grace.

311 This need of mercy for individuals is shewn remarkably in the well-known fact that the epistles addressed to individuals speak of it; those addressed to churches do not.

This makes the character of intercession, priesthood, or advocacy very simple for us. They are exercised in favour of those who are in relationship with God, not to put them into it. It is exercised for those who are already the righteousness of God in Christ, sitting in heavenly places in Him. The advocacy is for those whose walk is in the light as God is in the light. Intercession is for those for whom God is — to the charge of whom none can lay anything. It is used for their failure or infirmity in their path here, not to obtain a place in the heavenlies, but when we are there to meet every inconsistency in our walk in the wilderness, help our infirmities there, and enable us, poor and mixed as we are in fact here, to go boldly to a throne of grace to find mercy and grace in time of need. And thus it is that it keeps alive the sense of dependence and entire confidence at the same time. Were Christ not there, we could not have that confidence in going. Were it a question of obtaining righteousness, it would be one of guilt and acceptance, not of help. Were it going to Christ, it would assume we could not go to God — the very contrary of what Christianity teaches. But it is none of these.

We go boldly to God because Christ is there as our high priest. We have no thought of imputation; but our being the righteousness of God in Him does not make us slight our inconsistencies in the path in which we walk. He takes notice of them, and is our Advocate in virtue of being the righteous one and a propitiation for us. Thus the personal sense of fault is maintained, enhancing, not enfeebling, the sense of grace; and yet our acceptance in righteousness is never touched so as to put us back under law or bring divine righteousness ever into question, or cause our conscious relationship to God to be ever at all weakened. All passes on the ground of these. Yet the holiness of God is kept fully up as regards our conduct, and a full spirit of confession maintained when we fail; our inward estimate of good and evil is kept alive and in growth without a particle of servile fear, and blessed confidence maintained in this very respect.

I have already noticed the difference between the advocacy in respect of restoration and communion with the Father, and the approach to God, and help in our infirmities as men. But on the ground and nature of their exercise they are the same, founded on assumed relationship in righteousness and applicable to our walk in weakness here, when in that. If John shews us the Advocate with the Father when we have sinned, the Hebrews presents us with one who can sympathize with all our infirmities, can be touched with the feeling of them, though now all power is His in heaven and on earth. He is constantly occupied with our case and state. Hence not only holy judgment of sin is maintained (yet the sense of grace is intact), but confidence in unwearied love which has made itself like its brethren in all things to be a merciful and faithful high priest. Thus the gracious affections of dependence and confidence are maintained and cultivated; and that, not as if we went to the priest in a difficulty, ran off to get help, but in the free blessed care-taking activity of His own love. It is not that He relents when we turn in due humiliation; right feeling is the fruit of His blessed activity in grace.

312 I know not that I need add more. My object was, not to expatiate on this grace and the fruits of it in us, but to give the scriptural place of priesthood and advocacy, as founded on the establishment of divine righteousness and the accomplishment of propitiation, and the place we have before God by it — not clouding this, but founded on it, and applying itself to reconcile our actual weakness and failure here below with that place; so that neither it should be uncertain in grace, nor any inconsistency with it be borne, though nothing can be imputed; and instead of a cold and heartless certainty of being safe, dependence, confidence, and affection, united to security in Him who is the object of them, till we come where it is no more needed.

How to get Peace

J. N. Darby.

<10020E> 313

{I have had some little difficulty in putting this in the form of a dialogue, as being fictitious, which I dislike in divine things; but it is a real summing up of many conversations, so that I have given it in this form, as presenting more clearly the common difficulties of a soul.}

How can I get peace with God?

He has "made peace by the blood of the cross."

I do not deny that; I believe it; but I have not peace; and how can I have that peace myself?

"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God."

Well, I know it is so written, but I have not peace; that I know: I wish I had, and I sometimes think I do not believe at all. I see you happy; and how is that happiness of soul to be had?

You do not then think it presumptuous to be at peace with God in the assurance of His favour, and thus of our own salvation?

I think it would be in me; but I see it in scripture, and therefore it must be right; and I see a few who enjoy the divine favour, in whom one sees it is real. But I do not know how to get this. It leaves me distressed if I think of it, though I get on from day to day as other Christians do; but when this question is raised, I know I am not at peace, nor assured of divine favour resting upon me, as I see you and others enjoying it. And it is a serious thing, because if "being justified by faith, we have peace with God," as you say, and as I know scripture says, I have not peace with God; and how, then, can I be justified?

You have not the true knowledge of justification by faith. I do not say you are not justified in God's sight, but your conscience has not possession of it. The Reformers, all of them, went further than I do. They all held that if a man had not the assurance of his own salvation he was not justified at all. Now, whoever believes in the Son of God is, in God's sight, justified from all things. But till he sees this as taught of God, till he apprehends the value of Christ's work, he has no consciousness of it in his own soul, and, of course, if in earnest, as you are, he has not peace; nor is his peace solidly established till he knows he is in Christ, as well as that Christ died for him; and the Christian's getting on, as you say, day by day, is a false and hollow thing, which must some time or other be broken up. It is that which often causes distress on death-beds. And the character of Christian activity is sadly deteriorated and made a business of, a kind of means of getting happy, not work in the power of the Spirit, by a soul at peace.

314 If a person is really serious, and walks before God, he cannot rest in spirit till he be at peace with Him, and the deeper all these exercises are the better. But He has made peace by the blood of the cross. All these exercises are merely bringing up the weeds to the surface, as ploughing and harrowing a field. They are useful in this way, and necessary; but they are not the crop which faith in the finished work of Christ produces. His work is finished. He "appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself;" and He "finished the work which his Father gave him to do." That work, which puts away our sin, is complete and accepted of God. If you come to God by Him, if your sins are not all put away by it, completely and for ever, they never can be, for He cannot die again; and all by the "one sacrifice," or else, as the apostle reasons in Hebrews 9, "he must often have suffered."

I see this more clearly, and that it is a perfect, finished work, done once for all.

What do you want, then, still, in order to have peace?

Well, that is what I want to see clearly.

I am anxious, before we speak of your state and hindrances, to have the work itself clearly brought before our minds. Who did this work?

Why, Christ, of course.

What part had you in completing it?

None.

None, surely, unless we say your sins. And to what state of your soul does it apply — a godly or an ungodly state?

Well, must not I be holy?

Surely, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." But do you see how quickly, and with the instinct of self-righteousness, you turn from Christ's work to your own holiness — to what you are? It is curious — the quicksightedness of man to what makes nothing of him and his self-approbation. Your desire of holiness, however, is the desire of the new man. Were you indifferent to it, one's work would be to seek to awaken your conscience, not to talk of peace: rather, perhaps, to break up false peace. But we are now inquiring how an anxious soul can find peace.

Quite so. I am sadly indifferent sometimes, and that is one thing that troubles me; but I have not peace, and I would give anything for it.

I do not doubt such indifference retards, in a certain sense, your finding it, but we have humbly to learn what we are; the gain of a few dollars would give more earnestness to many a soul. But I repeat my question — Does this work of Christ apply simply to your ungodliness or godliness, or to an improved state at least?

315 Why, simply, of course, to my ungodliness.

Undoubtedly. Consequently not to your holiness, if there were any, nor to an improved state. Yet, what are you looking for to get peace? Is it not an improved state of soul?

Why, yes.

Then you are on the wrong road, for that by which Christ "has made peace" applies to your ungodliness. Your desire is right, but you are putting the cart before the horse, as men speak — you are looking for holiness to get Christ, instead of looking to have Christ to get holiness.

But I do hope for His help in order to get it.

That I can believe, but you are looking for His help, not to His work or blood-shedding for peace. You want righteousness not help. We need His help every moment when we are justified. He is the Author of every good thought in us before. But that is not peace, nor His blood-shedding, nor righteousness. Yet this search is not without its fruit for all that, because it leads you to see that you cannot thus find what you seek for. You will neither find holiness thus, nor peace by it. But, finding that you cannot and that when "to will is present" you do not find "how to perform that which is good," will lead you, through grace, knowing that there is no good in you, to that which does give peace — Christ's work — and not your state and the work of grace in you. That work God works; but it is not to lead us to look at it as the way of peace, but through it and out of ourselves, simply and wholly, to Christ's work and His acceptance before God. But come now, where are you before God?

I do not know. That is just what troubles me.

Are you lost?

I hope not. Of course we are lost by nature; but I hope there is a work of grace in me, though I sometimes doubt it.

Suppose you stood before God now, and your case had to be decided, where would you be, had it, as it must in judgment, to be decided by your works? Have you confidence?

I hope it would be right: I cannot help thinking there is a work of grace in me; but I cannot think of judgment without fear.

I trust there is a work of grace in you — do not doubt it; but here is the turning-point of our inquiry: What you want is, to be in God's presence, and know there, if God enters into judgment with you (as it must then be in righteousness and in respect of your state and works), that you are simply lost! Now you are a sinner, and a sinner cannot subsist before God in judgment at all. It is not help you want here; that is, if actually in God's presence, but righteousness, and that you have not got; I mean as to your own faith and conscience, through and in which we possess it. Righteousness can alone suffice before God; and now the righteousness of God, for we have none, and only this is to be found. Nor does the work of grace in us produce this. It is by faith, through the work of Christ, and in Him we possess it; through Him God justifies the ungodly.

316 The case of the prodigal son will illustrate this. There was a work of God in him; he came to himself, found himself perishing, and set out towards his father. When setting out he acknowledges his sins, adding "make me as one of thy hired servants." There was uprightness, a sense of divine goodness, and a sense of sin, and he was drawing conclusions as to what he might hope for when he met his father; and so are you. He had what the world of Christians call humility and a humble hope; was drawing conclusions just as you are, which proved — what? — that he had never met his father. He could not reason as to how he would be received when he did meet him, if he had met him. It is the position of one who had never met God, though God had wrought in him. When he did meet his father, not a word of making him like "the hired servants" is to be found. There was the confession of sin fully, and his previous experience had brought him in his rags to his father, in his sins (not loving them, but in them and confessing them). The effect of the previous process was that he then met God, as to his conscience, in his sins, and that was all; and had his father on his neck — grace reigned — and had the best robe, Christ, the righteousness of God, which no progress had given him, of which he had nothing before. It was a new thing conferred on him.

When in God's presence, we need Christ, not progress; righteousness and justification through Him, not help or improvement. God has helped us, or we should not have been there. There has been progress, but the progress has been to bring us into God's presence, not to judge of the progress and hope because of it, but to judge of sin in His sight and know He can have none of it, and to find Christ our perfect acceptance in His sight instead of ourselves — Christ, who has borne our sins — Christ, who is our righteousness, perfect, absolute, and eternal. It is not in looking at our progress that we find peace. Were it so, we should have to say, "Therefore being justified by experience, we have peace with God;" but that the word of God never says. True progress as to this is our being brought into God's presence as mere and wholly lost sinners, confessing our sins, and that "in us, that is, in our flesh, there is no good thing;" and thus the consciousness that we are lost as a present thing.

317 It is not a question what we shall be, or how we shall be judged to be in the day of judgment, but the discovery of what we are — our actual sins and our sinful nature — which is the real plague of an upright soul, and getting Christ instead of these — "the best robe," instead of our "rags," when in God's presence in them. We have found Christ and believed in Him. He has been the propitiation for our sins, bearing them in His own body on the tree; and, having Christ, He is our righteousness; God condemned sin in the flesh, when He was an offering for it (Rom. 8: 3), and we are not "in the flesh," but "in Christ." Instead of Adam and his sins, that is, ourselves, we have Christ and the value of His work.

This is true of every one that believes in Him, comes to God by Him. Were we as simple as scripture, it would be seen in a moment. But we are not, and we have to be cured of the selfrighteousness of our hearts, and, as mere sinners before God, find that God in love has taken up the question of our sins and our evil nature, has anticipated the day of judgment, and settled the question for every one that comes to God by Him, "once for all," and for ever, on the cross, has dealt with the sins which I should have had to answer for in the day of judgment; and dealt with them in putting them away according to His own righteousness, and that there our fullest form of sin in flesh against God, that is, enmity against God, met with God dealing with sin, in grace to us, but in judgment against it. Sin and God met on the cross, when Christ was made sin for us, and by His death we have died to it, and are the fruit of the travail of His soul before God. He has borne the sins of many, and appeared to put away sin — has glorified God about it in righteousness in that momentous hour. He took what I had earned; I get the fruit of what He has done.

Practically speaking, I come to God like Abel, with that sacrifice in my hand; God must own its value; I have the testimony that I am righteous: the witness is borne to my gifts; my acceptance is according to the value of Christ's sacrifice in God's sight; coming with that is confession of righteous exclusion in myself, not of improvement in state; I come with Christ in my hand, so to speak, my slain Lamb, and the testimony is to my gift. God looks at that when I thus come by it, not at my state, which, so coming, is confessedly that of a sinner, and only a sinner, as to his own title, shut out from God.

318 But must I not accept Christ?

Ah, how "I" gets through the blessedest testimonies of God's ways towards us in grace. I say, here is Christ on God's part for you — God's Lamb. You answer — "But must not I?" I am not surprised. It is no reproach I make; it is human nature, my nature in the flesh; but know that in "I" there is no good thing. But tell me, would you not be glad to have Him?

Surely I should.

Then your real question is, not about accepting Him, but whether God has really presented Him to you, and eternal life in Him. A simple soul would say, "Accept! I am only too thankful to have Him!" but as all are not simple, one word on this also. If you have offended some one grievously, and a friend seeks to offer him satisfaction, who is to accept it?

Why, the offended person, of course.

Surely. And who was offended by your sins?

Why, God, of course.

And who must accept the satisfaction?

Why, God must.

That is it. Do you believe He has accepted it?

Undoubtedly I do.

And is —

Satisfied.

And are not you?

Oh! I see it now. Christ has done the whole work, and God has accepted it, and there can be no more question as to my guilt or righteousness. He is the latter for me before God. It is wonderful! and yet so simple! But why did I not see it? how very stupid!

That is faith in Christ's work, not our accepting it, gladly as we do, not believing God has. You have no need to enquire now whether you believe. The object is before your soul, seen by it: what God has revealed is known in seeing it thus by faith. You are assured of that, not of your own state. As you see the lamp before you and know it, not by knowing the state of your eye; you know the state of your eye by seeing it. But you say, How stupid I was. It is ever so. But allow me to ask you what you were looking for? — Christ, or holiness in yourself and a better state of soul?

319 Well, holiness and a better state of soul.

No wonder you did not see Christ then. Now this is what God calls submitting to God's righteousness, finding a righteousness which is neither of nor in ourselves, but finding Christ before God, and the proud will, through grace, submitting to be saved by that which is not of or in ourselves. It is Christ instead of self, instead of our place in the flesh. Had you obtained peace in the way you sought it, you would have been satisfied with whom?

Myself.

Just so. And what would that have been? Nothing real indeed, and shutting out Christ if it were, save as a help; shutting Him out as righteousness and peace. And as an upright soul taught really of God cannot be satisfied with itself, it remains, though confidingly in love if walking with God, yet without peace for years perhaps, till it does submit to God's righteousness. And now note another point: for the soul at peace with God can now contemplate Christ to learn. He has not only borne our sins, and died to sin, and closed the whole history of the old man in death for those who believe, they having been crucified with Him; but He has glorified God in this work (John 12: 31, 33; 17: 4, 5), and so obtained a place for man in the glory of God, and a place of present positive acceptance, according to the nature and favour of God whom He has glorified; and that is our place before God. It is not only that the old man and his sins are all put out of God's sight, but we are in Christ before God; and this we have the consciousness of by the Holy Ghost given to us (John 14: 20), accepted in the Beloved, divine favour resting on us as on Him. And thus too He dwells in us; and this leads unto true practical holiness. We are sanctified, set apart, to God by His blood; but we are so in possessing His life, or Him as our life, and the Holy Ghost; and these, or, if you please, He Himself becomes the measure of our walk and relationship with God. We are not our own, but bought with a price, and nothing inconsistent with His blood, and the price of it, and its power in our hearts, becomes a Christian.

This was beautifully expressed in the Old Testament in figures. When a leper was cleansed, besides the sacrifice, the blood was put on the tips of his ear, his thumb, and his great toe. Every thought, every act, all in our walk which cannot pass the test of that blood, is excluded from the Christian's thoughts and walk. And how glad he is to be freed from this world and the body of sin practically, and have that precious blood as the motive, measure, and security for it; that whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God, by which we are sealed when thus sprinkled, is unsuited to a Christian, seeing he dwells in Him. And that precious blood and the love Christ shewed in shedding it become the motive, and the Holy Ghost the power of, devotedness and love in walking as Christ walked. If we are in Christ, Christ is in us; and we know it by the Comforter given (John 14); and we are the epistle of Christ in this world: the life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal body.

320 But your standard is very high.

It is simply what scripture gives. "He that saith he abideth in him ought to . . . walk even as he walked." God Himself is set before us as the model, Christ being the expression of what is divine in a man. "Be ye followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour." Nor is there any limit. "Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." "Now are ye light in the Lord, walk as children of light." But you may remark here that there is nothing legal, nothing by which we are seeking to make our case good with God. Many would say that complete grace and assurance leaves liberty to do as we like; that, if we are completely saved, what are the motives or need of any works? It is a dreadful principle. As if we have no motive but "getting saved" to work by, none but legal bondage and obligations; and if we are saved, all motive is gone. Have the angels no motive? It is an utter blundering mistake, such as we could not make in human things. What should we think of the sense of one who told us, that a man's children were exempt from obligation because they were certainly and always his children? I should say that they were always and certainly under obligation, because they were always and certainly his children, and that if they were not, the obligation ceased.

That is clear enough, though I never thought of it. But you do not mean to say that we were under no obligation before we were children of God?

I do not, but we were not under that obligation. You cannot be under the obligation of living as a Christian till you are one. We were under the obligation of living as men ought to live, as men in the flesh before God; and of that the law was the perfect measure. But upon that ground we were wholly lost, as we have seen. Now we are completely saved, who through grace believe, and are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And our duties are the duties of God's children. Duties always flow, and right affections too, from the relationships we are in, and the consciousness of the relationship is the spring and character of the duty; though our forgetting it does not alter the obligation. And so scripture always speaks, "Be ye followers of God as dear children." "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy." Right affections and duties flow from the place we are already in, and are never the means of getting into it. We enjoy it when we walk in it; rather we enjoy the light and favour of God, communion with Him in it. But, note, failure in faithfulness does not lead to doubt the relationship, but, because we are in it, to blame ourselves for inconsistency with it. Here the advocacy of Christ comes in and other truths, which I cannot enter into now, though most precious in their place. Only remark that that advocacy is not the means of our obtaining righteousness, but is founded on it and Christ's having made the propitiation for our sins. Nor do we go to Him that He may advocate, but He goes for us because we have sinned. Christ had prayed for Peter before he had even committed the sin, and just for what was needed; not that he might not be sifted; he wanted that; but that his faith might not fail when he was sifted. Ah, if we knew how to trust Him! See how, in the midst of His enemies, He looked at Peter at the very right moment to break his heart!

321 How simple things are when we take the word; and how it changes all your thoughts of God. One is altogether in a new state!

True indeed, and this leads to two other points I wished to advert to. We have looked at Christ's work as satisfying, yea, glorifying God, because we had to see how righteousness was to be had. But we must remember it was God's sovereign love which gave Christ, and the same love in which He offered Himself for us. It is not for us righteousness reigns; that will indeed be true hereafter, when judgment returns to righteousness, when God will come and judge the earth. But for us grace reigns, sovereign goodness, God Himself, through righteousness, a divine righteousness, as we have seen, which gives us a place in glory in God's presence according to the acceptance of Christ, and like Him. It is sovereign grace which gives a sinner a place with the Son of God, conformed to His image. Yet it is righteous; for His blood and work fully and necessarily claim such a place, as we have seen in John 13 and 17. And now "we joy in God himself through our Lord Jesus Christ." We know Him as love (and this love as the sum of all our joy and blessing), yet in righteousness in Christ, for we are made the righteousness of God in Him. We know God in love, and are reconciled to Him. It is a blessed place, a place of holy affections and peaceful rest. We have communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. What is communion?

322 Why, common thoughts and joys and feelings.

Think of that — with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ!

That is wonderful. I hardly get into that.

Well, we have to seek that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, being rooted and grounded in love, that we may comprehend. Yet if the Holy Ghost who dwells in us is the source of our thoughts and joys and feelings, they cannot be discordant, though we may be poor feeble creatures, with those of the Father and the Son. Does not the Christian's heart delight in Christ, in His words, His obedience, His holiness, His sacrifice of Himself to the Father's will? and does not the Father delight in it? we indeed most poorly and feebly, He infinitely; but the object is one. He is chosen of God and precious, and to them that believe He is precious. I go no farther than to cite this as an illustration. This is a matter of your daily life and diligence of heart; but you can understand that what comes from the Holy Ghost must conform to the mind of the Father and the Son.

That is evident, but it is so new to me; I am brought into such a different world! If this be true, where are we all?

I leave you to ponder over this, and to search the word whether these things are so; whether scripture, which fully recognizes our passing through exercises of soul as coming to it, ever looks at the Christian otherwise than as forgiven, and accepted in the Beloved, and knowing it as one who has "not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

But if I receive this, there is a passage which I don't understand. We are told to "examine ourselves whether we are in the faith," and what you have said, it seems to me, sets this aside.

We are told no such thing. Many a sincere soul is honestly doing it, and we all pass naturally through it.

But it is there in scripture.

323 The words are part of a sentence in 2 Corinthians 13: 3, 5. But the beginning of the sentence is this: "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me," . . . then a parenthesis . . . "examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." It is a taunt. The Corinthians had called in question Christ's speaking in Paul, and the reality of his apostleship, as you may see all through both epistles. And he says, as a final argument, "You had better examine yourselves; how came you to be Christians?" for he had been the means of their conversion. Hence he adds, "Know ye not your own selves that Christ dwells in you, except ye be reprobates?" How came He there? He appeals to their certainty to prove his apostleship to their shame: but this is no direction to examine whether one is in the faith. It is all well to examine whether we are walking up to it; but that is a very different thing. A child does right to do that as to his conduct as such; it would be sad work for him to do the other and examine if he were a child. The consciousness, and the never failing consciousness of a relationship, is a different thing from consistency with it; and we must not confound the two. The loss of the consciousness of the relationship (which, however, I do not think takes place when once really possessed, unless in cases of divine discipline for sins) destroys the grounds of duty and the possibility of affections according to it. Look at the passage.

I see it plain enough. There is nothing to complete the passage, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me," if we do not connect this with it. And, in any case, the force of the apostle's reasoning is clear, and he appeals to their certainty — "Know ye not?" This last would have no sense, if they were to examine as a duty if it was so. But where had we got to with scripture?

Rather, where had we got to without it? You don't read and search as you ought. Do so, and the truth will be clear to you: only, surely, we need God's grace and looking to Him, that we may receive the "sincere milk of the word as new born babes."

I have yet one point I wish very briefly to notice, to dear up our minds on the subject we are enquiring into. In receiving Christ we receive life. "This is the record," says John, "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life." Between this life and the flesh there is no common thought. If we do not realize redemption, our being quickened (not taking us from under the law and the sense of our own responsibility) puts us in misery of heart at finding sin in us, as in Romans 7. If we do know redemption, and have been sealed by the Spirit, still "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh;" they are contrary as ever one to the other. But if led of the Spirit, we are not under the law. Now you have been trying to draw hopeful conclusions from finding signs of life in yourself; having only a general apprehension, which always accompanies true conversion, of the goodness of God, strengthened by the knowledge that Christ died. But all this reasoning about yourself was in no way faith in redemption. It left you still, though with better hope, in view of judgment; or, at least, if when looking at the cross you saw that there was there what you needed as a sinner, you still looked for something better in yourself, you could not say you possessed what you needed in the cross — yea, were the fruit of it, as to your state before God; and when you turned to the judgment, your state would stand you in no good stead there. Life is not redemption. Both belong to the believer, but they are different things. You were looking for proofs of life, concluding that, if they were there, you could pass in the judgment; and then perhaps in a vague way you brought in Christ to boot!

324 I think you have described my case pretty nearly.

Now when persons live close with God in simplicity of heart, the sense of goodness in God predominates, and there is the savour of piety; but when they do not, there is uneasiness and restlessness; the accusing conscience predominates, and they are unhappy, if not dismally afraid. But in neither case is redemption really known; it is not known that Christ has taken our place in judgment, and given us His in glory: only we must wait for the adoption itself, the redemption of the body. The way in which scripture unites these two truths is in the resurrection of Christ. This is the power of life, and the seal of the acceptance of His work — His coming fully up out of the consequences of our sin into another state. So we in Him. We were dead in sin, exposed to judgment, and under death; Christ comes down from heaven, accomplishing in dying the work of putting our sins away; and we are dead with Him; and then He and we with Him are raised, consequent on the completed work, and God's acceptance of it. He has quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses. It is life, whose full divine power is shewn in resurrection; it is not only eternal life communicated, but deliverance out of the state we were in, and our entrance into another; not outwardly of course yet, but really by the possession of this life. Redemption means, though by price, a deliverance out of the state I was in, and bringing me into another and a free one. Hence we talk of the redemption of the body, which we have not yet. Life does not by itself give this: through it we feel the burden of the old state we are in; but when we find that we are redeemed also, we know that we have been brought, at the cost of Christ's death, out of the old Adam state we were in, into Christ. Hence we have "boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world."

325 I cannot follow quite the course of scripture thoughts you give. I must learn these things; but I see the difference between redemption and life, though we have both in Christ now. He has died and is risen. I suppose I had life before; but I have, in a measure, now understood redemption too.

Yes, you were of course redeemed. And surely God had wrought in you in grace, as you said; but, as already said, you were looking at this in view of a God of judgment, with glimpses of divine love, but had not faith in accomplished redemption. See how the reasoning of the apostle applies to this in Romans 5: 19: "By one man's obedience many shall be made (constituted) righteous." "Then," says the flesh, "I may live in sin." What is the answer? No, you ought not! This would be to put you back under the claims of law, and so destroy again what is taught of Christ's obedience. In no wise: "How can we that are dead to sin live in it?" You have been baptized to Christ's death, and are a Christian by having part in His death. How, if you have died with Him to sin, can you live in it? We are now free to give ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead.

Well, while the old foundations remain, it makes a new thing of the whole matter. It is not the same way of putting Christianity at all. I have to realize it, though I am quite different as to my ground of peace already; or, rather, I have one, and had not before. But I see it is in scripture, and I must search that out.

The truth is, the great body of true sincere Christians are as those without, hoping it will be all right when they get in; instead of being within and shewing what is there to the world, as the epistle of Christ.

But you would make us all out-and-out Christians, dead, as you say, to the world and everything.

Surely. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." It is the single eye which causes the whole body to be full of light. We are not our own. The new man cannot have his objects here; his service he has: so had Christ; in nothing did He have His objects. We are crucified to the world, and the world to us; and so we have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Only remember, that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and that this needs vigilance, "working out," as to the passage of the wilderness, "your salvation with fear and trembling:" not because your place is uncertain, but because God does "work in you to will and to do:" and it is a serious thing to maintain God's cause when the flesh is in us, and Satan disposes of the world to hinder and deceive us. But do not be discouraged, for God works in you; greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. You cannot be in wilderness difficulties unless you have been redeemed out of Egypt. "My grace is sufficient for thee," says Christ. "My strength is made perfect in weakness." "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The secret is lowliness of heart and the sense of dependence and looking to Christ with confidence, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. You cannot mistrust yourself, nor trust God, too much. By redemption you are brought to God, and are in the place of His people, and now (we can say of His children and church, as such) set to make good His glory there. The true knowledge of redemption brings one into perfect peace, into true and constant dependence on the Redeemer. But if you have not the first, you cannot have the second; nor can you walk with God, if you are not reconciled to Him.

326 It is true. Do not suppose I want to make difficulties: but there is still a question I have to ask; I wish to get clear on these points. We have been taught to rely on God's promises and trust them for our salvation; it is the language we constantly hear, and I do not see, if your view be right, how exactly to connect it with trusting in the promises for salvation; and surely we should do that.

The answer is very simple, and I am glad you put the question. It is just these points we have to inquire into. Trusting God's promises is clearly right: that is certain; and there are most precious promises too. But tell me, is it a promise that Christ shall come and die and rise again?

No: He is come, and has died, and is risen, and is at God's right hand.

This then cannot be a promise, because it is an accomplished fact. For Abraham it was a promise, and he did right to believe it as such. To us it is an accomplished fact, and we must believe it as such. And so scripture speaks. He believed that that which God had promised He was able also to perform. But we believe that what by its efficacy saves us He has performed. It would be unbelief to treat it yet as a promise; and so it is written — "You to whom it shall be imputed, believing on him who hath raised up Jesus Christ from the dead." You will find both passages together, speaking of this very point, at the end of Romans 4. As to help on our journey onward, there are many and cherished promises. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." "God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear." "No man shall pluck his sheep out of his hand." "Who will also confirm you to the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." I might cite many others of the greatest comfort and value to us in our difficulties on the way. But the work in which I have to believe as justifying me and reconciling me to God, as alone and perfectly putting away my sins and redeeming me to God, is not a promise; nor can it be looked at as such. It is an accomplished fact, a work already accepted of God.

327 I see it clearly; indeed, nothing can be simpler and plainer the moment it is before you. What justifies before God is not a promise at all, but an accomplished fact. I had never noticed that passage in Romans 4. It is very plain. How carelessly one reads scripture. But indeed, the truth of what you say is evident on the face of it.

Allow me, as we have touched this point, to draw your attention to another thing in the form in which the work and testimony of grace is put. You may remark that in the passage in Romans 4 it is said, not "believe on Christ," however true that remains, but "on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead." So Peter, "who by him do believe in God who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory." So the Lord Himself as to His coming into the world, "He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me." We know God Himself only really, by knowing Him through Christ. If I know Him thus, I know Him as God our Saviour; as one who has not spared His Son for me: as one who, when Christ was dead as having taken our sins, raised Him from the dead. In a word, I not only believe in Christ, but in Him who has given Christ and owned His work; who has given glory to man in Him; as a God who has come to save, not as one who is waiting to judge me. I believe in Him by Christ. When Israel had passed the Red Sea, they believed in a God who had delivered them and brought them to Himself; and so do I. I know no other God but that. If I believe in Him by Christ, I do wait for a promise, for the redemption of the body, for the full results of His work. Thus Christianity gives us present affections, in peace, in a known relationship, and the energizing power of hope; the two things that give blessing and energy to man as to his position; for love is the spring of all. Love, because He first loved us; and finding our joy in Him; love to others, as partaking of His nature, and Christ's dwelling in our hearts, so that love constrains us.

328 You make a Christian a wonderful person in the world; but we are very weak for such a place.

I could never make him in my words what God has made him in His. As to weakness, the more we feel it, the better. Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness.

The Immortality of the Soul;

an enquiry into the meaning of words, the true force of which is denied by such as reject the immortality of the soul.

J. N. Darby.

<10021E> 329

There is nothing new under the sun. The Jewish Mystics and Cabalists and the Gnostics of the second and third centuries (against which last Paul warns us, and who, though beginning earlier, were then fully developed) held the doctrine of the non-immortality of the soul and its end, just as heretics on these points do now. They were divided even into the same two classes as now; that is, some held that the soul died with the body, others that it would be cast into the fire afterwards on being judged, and then consumed. Not only so, but they founded their teaching on the same reasonings as to nephesh, psuche, chaia, and ruach, &c. It may be well therefore, after shewing the facts to be so, to examine the various words and ascertain their use in scripture, as well as that of some others sought to be employed to the same end.

The doctrine of Jewish Rabbis was not, as is evident, that of Jesus Christ being eternal life, or they would not have been Jewish Rabbis. But wherever they found it, basing it on the merit of works and keeping the law, as we may suppose, they taught that the higher spiritual life was a distinct thing from the animal life, and received at a distinct time. Their system is not uniform; more scriptural, but in many parts the same as our modern doctors, and the Gnostics completely so. The records of Jewish mysticism are comparatively of late date, but they record early opinions, many of which are found in early christian fathers, such as Origen, Jerome, and others, and in Philo and even Josephus. The Gnostics formed their systems in the same countries, Syria, and particularly Alexandria the great seat of all these opinions. My impression is that all these views came from the East. But I have not used research enough to verify this, nor is it necessary for the reader. My object is to meet from scripture the assertions of ancient and modern error in the present case by enquiry into the use of words.

The Jewish doctors distinguished three souls: the nephesh, the ruach, and the neshama. The nephesh they held, as our moderns also tell us, to be the animal soul, the soul by which the body lives; ruach is the spirit suited to the middle world; neshama that suited to the upper, and in which was the image of and union with God. Thus in the book Sohar* we have: "Let a man sanctify himself and they shall sanctify him more, and when a man is sanctified with the holiness of his Lord, he is then clothed with a holy mind, which is the inheritance of the holy one, and then he becomes heir of all things, and such are called the sons of the holy blessed God, as is written in Deuteronomy 14: 1, 'Ye are the sons of Jehovah your God.'" This doctrine of the three souls or parts of man pervades the Sohar. Nephesh, the animal soul, is annexed to the body; the spirit to the soul, ruach to nephesh; and mind, the neshama or superior spirit, to the ruach. Some of them held that, if the child at least behaved well, having only the nephesh, he got the ruach at thirteen years and a day old, and the neshama at twenty or twenty-one: otherwise not. Some held there are those who never had any soul but the nephesh; others, that and the ruach; and others, again, the neshama also — and these would be with God. If they had only the nephesh, it remained in the grave with the body — ended with it.

{*I make use of Gfrörer in all the Jewish part of my subject, the only one I can at this moment refer to.}

330 There was another system, which Origen applied even to Christ, that the higher soul could not come into this world without taking a secondary soul, and so, consequently, the body.* Indeed, according to him, they are born here according to their conduct in a previous existence. Josephus says the Pharisees held the metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. It would seem that this trinity of the soul was someway connected with their speculations about the Godhead, the Memra, Shekinah, and a tissue of irreverent absurdities, which I need not enter into here.

{*He held this, which the Alexandrian fathers considered to be the fall (not, of course, in the case of Christ), from Philo and the Alexandrian Jews. It was also Platonism.}

In all ancient mythology and tradition, heathen and Jewish, will be found the craving of the human mind after truths which revelation gives as in their perfection. Infidels have consequently alleged that these truths were borrowed from the traditions, than which nothing can be more false. They were the source of Arianism and Gnosticism, Universalism and Annihilationism. Thus Rationalists tell us that the doctrine of the λόγος, or Word, was derived from the Alexandrian or even Palestinian Jews. These had their Memra, those their λόγος; and Philo speaks largely of it, and makes the visible world itself an expression, so to speak, of the λόγος, a living expression of it. But mark the real bearing of this. The reason was, that the supreme God could not by any possibility be in connection with matter. The mystic Rabbins held God for a kind of non-existence, because there was no such connection with what we hold to exist.* Hence there was a secondary God, the λόγος, or Word, which partook of His nature but was not the Supreme, and He then revealed Himself and was in communication with the creature. Yet in general, matter (ὔλη) was a thing evil in itself, a bond to the soul, and eternal too.

{*All this is wonderfully like Brahminism, modified by going West, and was connected with theories of male and female being, the moment anything was to exist; which was equally Brahminical. But this is not the place to pursue this. The Brahmins were really more philosophical. But they and the Buddhists held nirvana, entering into non-existence, as supreme bliss, or, as some would say, into the abstract Deity, who never feels nor thinks; which, to me, is tantamount. All the rest is maia, or illusion.}

331 Now Christianity teaches the exact contrary of this doctrine of the λόγος (word). The λόγος is God — created everything; and the very essence of Christianity is the immediate personal connection, in incarnation, between God and the creature — God and man in one person. All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," that Word which, in the beginning, was, when all began. In eternity He was God, and personally too with God. By Him was everything made, and the Father dwelt in Him and He was in the Father. "We know him that is true, and are in him that is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." One of the striking facts of the First Epistle of John is that it is impossible to separate Christ and God. It is one Person, one Being. Thus, "And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming." (Chap. 2: 28.) Whose coming? Clearly, Christ's. Continue: "If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him." Of whom? Of God; and so it follows, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God . . . Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Here, clearly, the person or being of whom he speaks is God. But continue: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him." Here it is again Christ; for it is, "Christ our life shall appear." And "He was manifested to take away our sins," continues John himself. That is, the apostle, the Spirit of God, does take up, and in a great measure anticipatively, the question of the λόγος, and gives us the exact opposite to the Platonic and Alexandrian doctrines — the full divine truth, in answer to all the wanderings and speculations which the cravings of need and the glimmerings of tradition had led men's hearts to suggest to themselves and systematize.

332 The other form these speculations took was wilder, if not worse. There was a πλήρωμα, a fulness, of Godhead, which, in spiritual abstractions, of which depth, man, church, wisdom, and other scriptural subjects, formed part in male and female characters: an idea which entered into all Brahminical, Rabbinical, Egyptian, and Gnostic theology, the Egyptian being nearest to the Rabbinical. The πλήρωμα was limited by ὄρος (boundary). The πλήρωμα was within; outside was ὔλη, or matter. The male and female of each pair were called συζύγεις, or yoked pairs. Σοφία (wisdom), one of the lower members of the πλήρωμα, wanted to unite herself with, penetrate into by research, βάθος, or depth, the first origin of the whole πλήρωμα. She got outside the limit (ὄρος), and hence this world, a mixture of matter and spirit. Christ, a new member of the πλήρωμα, came out to disengage what was spiritual from what was material, and bring it back within the limit or ὄρος. This branched out into a thousand forms and speculations useless to follow here. It connected itself with Manicheism in Persia, and reached on to the Bulgarians and Albigenses in France and Italy. But for a long time it was a great plague for the Church. They forbade to marry; commanded to abstain from meats. Christ had no real body (there was no atonement — could not be, if He was not a man). Abstinence and disengaging spirit from matter — that was really saving. This also the Spirit anticipated. The apostle John carefully tells us that confessing Jesus Christ come in flesh was essential to Christianity; that the Word was made flesh, that they had touched Him with their hands; and Paul, that all the fulness (πλήρωμα) was pleased to dwell in Him; and He was not an aijwvn, as they were called, but that all the fulness (πλήρωμα) of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily; that every creature of God is good and to be used with thanksgiving — marriage honourable in all.

333 It may be asked why I refer to all this. First, the divine perfection of scripture is interesting. It anticipated and met all the wandering speculations of the human mind. But there is another reason. The doctrines of the soul's mortality and of annihilation have their origin in these speculations — were the doctrines of the Rabbis and Gnostics, of whom we have been speaking, and are met by the scriptures also. Some of the Rabbis, holding a little more to scripture, were not so far gone in their speculations as their fellow doctors and modern Annihilationists. They held that it was by the communication of the neshama, the highest kind of life, that man became a living soul; but that if he was not faithful, denied this life, he lost it.

I shall now give the passages from Rabbis and Gnostics which confirm what I have just said. First, the general idea from the Rabbins. Rabbi Abr. Seba says, "God has created three parts [souls] of men, the nephesh, the ruach, the neshama." In another mystic book, "Three forms of souls are in men: the first, the neshama, the intelligent soul; the second, the ruach, the speaking soul; the third, the nephesh, the animal soul, which always lusts." There are other passages to which I have already alluded, but these will suffice to give the idea. The doctrine was, as I have already remarked, largely developed in the mystic Jewish writers. There were rewards suited to each. The Gnostics added their notions as to the evil of matter. The fleshly (σαρχιχος) connected itself with the soul life ψυχιχός); translated "natural man" in scripture, and "flesh." For scripture, as I have said, meets all these questions, and gives the divine answer to them. Truth is one, but it meets consequently all error — all that is not truth. The simple soul has only need of the truth itself — thank God. But there is in it what meets gainsayers. So we read in Jude, "sensual [ψυχιχοί], not having the spirit." The Gnostics treated the question according to their views of matter, using scripture of course. Man was ὑλιχός, material (ὑλιχ  - from ὔλη, matter), χοι>ός, from χόος. (1 Cor. 15: 47.) "The first man," translated "earthly," literally "of dust," from Genesis 2: 7; 3: 19. Then ψυχιχός "having a soul," and πνευματιχός, "spiritual." But all this with them was man as man; for they held, as Origen and Grecian philosophers, that the spirit, or neshama, being from the upper world, could not be connected with matter without taking the cover or embodiment of a soul — a ruach, to speak with the Rabbins. This took then a nephesh, or animal soul and body. If this last soul (here was their religion) was not spiritually married to that above it, it remained a mere beast's or animal life, and died. The mystic Rabbis and Gnostics were exactly on the same ground here as modern deniers of immortality.

334 My reader will now see why I have referred to all these views. We are now exactly on the ground of modern Annihilationists, and, as will be seen, of both classes of them; for they differed then as now. The mystic Rabbis say men who have only nephesh die simply. The nephesh goes down and remains in the grave: if it got united to the ruach, then it did not. "There is a garment," they said, "which subsists and which does not subsist, is seen and is not seen; with this the psuche [animal soul, or nephesh] is clothed." But the nephesh was not for them immortal, and where this only was there, the life of the soul was in the blood, and, as an infidel would draw from Ecclesiastes, "That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them. As the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all have one breath. So that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." That is, indeed, all that is seen "under the sun," as to "the life of our vanity." The Positivists, as one class of infidels are called, go no farther. They have not the sense to add with the Preacher, "Who knoweth the spirit of man? it goeth up on high; and the spirit of the beast? it goeth downward to the earth." So one modern class believe death is simple death — ceasing to exist. If a man has not received the divine life, the neshama, his nephesh dies with his body like a beast. They have answered the "Who knoweth?" of the Preacher — have taken, as the Positivists, the ignorance they are in as a proof that there is nothing beyond it. The beast ceases to exist, and so does the man; nephesh is all one has, nephesh is all the other has, both go to dust alike. They lie in the hell like sheep: death gnaws upon them. The mystic Rabbis are found again and the ancient Gnostics. The nephesh has not put on the ἔνδυμα ἀφθαρσίας, the garment of incorruptibility and immortality. It has gone down under death, and there it lies. So in the Clementinae, 3: 20 (early Gnostic writings pretending to be Clement's), on Genesis 2: 7, he attributes to the breath of God, Θεοῦ πνοή, as an indescribable clothing of the psuche, its being able to be immortal.

But I shall be told that all do not hold this. They believe in resurrection, judgment, punishment, and then destruction, or, if preferred, as one of their teachers once put it, "the soul will lose its personality and individuality and pass off into its elements; for nothing is ever annihilated." It is true there are the two classes, and so there were then. Hear the Clementinae, 3: 6: "Those who have not repented will come to an end (τὸ τέλος ἔξουσι by the punishment (χολάσεως, the word in Matt. 25) of fire. They will be put out (extinguished), becoming extinct by eternal fire: πυρὶ αἰωνίῳ σβέσθεντες ἀποσβεσθήσονται." Here is exactly the other class of modern Annihilationists, the intellectual and theological children of the mystic Rabbis, and the Gnostics of the early ages, the object of special warning on the part of the Spirit of God in the apostles Paul and John, as the special power of evil in these days.

335 If we examine scripture, we shall see it furnishes the simple truth, and, at the same time, by its statement of it, meets all these human wanderings. It speaks of nephesh, and ruach, and neshama, but it speaks in a way which, in a few sentences, sets aside all the speculations of men. In the leading text on the subject, the revelation of God on the subject, we read, God formed man (as a potter, vayizar) from the dust of the ground, and blew into his nostrils a breath of life (a nishmath chaia), and man became a living soul (nephesh chaia). Here we find that it was by God's breathing this highest power of life from Himself that man became a living soul. He had formed his body before, as he saw good, and it was by the communication of life from Himself that He animated the form He had made. The animals had issued by His will from the earth. He had said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind [a nephesh chaia came forth (yozu)], and it was so." Not so with man. God consults solemnly as to his creation, and resolves to make man in His image, after His likeness. So God created man in His image, and gave him dominion, and God blessed him, and God said to him and gave him to know his place, his food, the beasts' food. He was the vessel of divine communications, as of the divine breath of life, and the object of divine counsels. He was to have a help meet for him, as an intelligent and affectionate and devout creature. God made a paradise, a dwelling for him, and for none else, gave him his easy and pleasant service, putting him into the garden.

But more than this, He put him into conscious relationship with Himself, as son of God, and put him under responsibility, giving him a law not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That would bring death in. The sea monsters were made to multiply themselves, beasts created after their kind; and we know they multiply; and it is enough. But not only God formed the human form, and animated it from Himself, of which there is no hint as to beasts, but He formed (builded) the woman too, by a mysterious process, which gave her a simple and the closest tie to the man — builded her, as the word is, Himself, and when He had, presented her Himself to Adam.

336 Man is said to be of the race — the offspring — of God (Acts 17: 28); and Adam is called son of God. (Luke 3: 38.) "In him we live, and move, and have our being," and, though fallen, are still recognized as made after the image of God. (James 3: 9.) So God, though He found him lost, could come down and walk in paradise and have intercourse with Adam. And it is the more important to recognize that he was fallen, because it gives the distinct and definite witness, that, though death had come in, man was still the responsible being he was before, having to say to God in a double way — the exercise of present government in the earth, and exclusion from God's place of blessing and His presence.

The case of Cain shews us the same thing, the responsibility and its results being distinctly stated: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? if ill, sin (or a sin-offering, which I doubt not is the sense) lieth at the door." Man's relationship, and responsible relationship, with God is thus clearly placed before us. The whole history of scripture up to his rejection of Christ is the development of it. Sin, from the entrance of lust up to hatred of God, is as fully as sadly brought out. He had a soul capable of affections towards God; for it was found that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God. This, mark, was the unregenerate man, the man with only a psuche, a nephesh chaia, if they will have it so. He, God's offspring, had a soul capable of feelings towards God in this relationship. Alas! enmity was his state.

But I am told that Hebrew will tell us wonders, and I have only to make some square Chaldaic letters and immortality disappears. Let us follow the scripture use of these Hebrew words. Now I think it will be found that neshama is the act of respiration, or breathing — if from God, in the power of the life in Him — but breathing. Ruach, spirit (but used for the Spirit of God, a wind, or other spirit, the spirit of man, or even of beast, in Ecclesiastes), is that by which man or beast breathes, the life which expresses itself in breathing. Hence, in the flood, all wherein was the nishmath ruach chaiim, the breath of the spirit of life, died, man or beast, all whose present life was sustained by breathing. Nephesh chaia is the actual result in a living individual. The man or beast doing this is a nephesh chaia, a living soul, any living animal, man or beast. And nephesh so fully gives the idea of what is individual (seen and known, moving about, represented to us by bodily presence) that it is used for a dead body, because the same once living form is there. An Israelite was not to profane himself by a dead body (nephesh), rightly so translated, but there is no neshama or ruach. So we should call dead relatives by their names and shew their corpses as themselves, though we well know there is no life in them. It is called nephesh meeth, a dead body, or simply nephesh. Priests were not to profane themselves by it unless for their nearest of kin.

337 But the scripture rejects the thought of the soul's not living distinct from the body, where it uses nephesh properly for the soul of a man, as it does (see 1 Kings 17: 21, 22), where Elijah prays that the child's soul may return to him again, and the Lord heard him and it returned. On the contrary, but proving the same point, Paul says of Eutychus, "his soul is in him." (Acts 20.) What the creation, therefore, affords us is the most careful elaborate distinction between man and other animals: they, by God's will, springing up out of the earth to live by breathing, and being nephesh chaia, a living individual being with a body having breath, neshama, and a ruach, a life which lived by breathing; man having all this too, as every one on the face of the earth knows, without knowing Hebrew at all. But it teaches us that man got to be such on the earth in a totally different way from other living animals, namely, by God's breathing from Himself into him, when He had formed his body of the dust, a breath of life, and thus he became a living soul. Hence he was the offspring γένος, offspring, race, kind, generation, is the only true meaning of this word, and it is so used in Acts 17) of God, lived and moved and had his being in Him, and was in responsible relationship with Him, intelligently subject to a law, and alas! not only disobedient, but capable of hating God, of such an apprehension of Him as ought to have drawn out love, but from his moral state brought out hatred; capable of receiving communications from God as in nature and place in relationship with Him; and that he has, in fact, received these communications, and God has dealt with him as acceptable, if good, or, if sinful, the object of a provided sinoffering when in that natural state, no question of the gift of eternal life having been raised. The whole scripture proceeds on this ground exactly, where the gift of eternal life is not spoken of. That is a new thing given, but man is dealt with all through as a responsible being where it is not given, and this, whether (to use the first grand statement of it) you say, sin, or as I should a sin-offering, lies at the door. The death of Christ (though surely means, and in fact a needed means of it) applies not to the gift of eternal life in the first instance, but to a responsible sinner, a child of Adam.

338 The Old Testament saints, however obscurely, did gather the truth of the subsistence of the soul after death, and the resurrection too: I admit obscurely; but they gathered it. Abraham looked for the city which hath foundations. The Preacher speaks of the spirit's returning to God who gave it. The Psalms told of the King's soul not being left in hades, nor His body seeing corruption; and in God's presence fulness of joy (Ps. 16); and being satisfied when one awoke after God's likeness. (Ps. 17.) Many suffered, looking for a better resurrection, to say nothing of Job's hope shining through his wasting disease. And the Lord's judgment is pronounced on the Sadducees, that they greatly erred, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God; and we read in Luke, not only there was a resurrection, but "all live unto God." They are dead for man, they are not for God.

But eternal life, we are told, is "God's gift in Christ," and so only. Admitted fully. But first, then, let it be admitted that "eternal" emphatically means eternal; for otherwise, after the reception of eternal life, a man may as little have immortality as before; and after its reception even, in the scripture use of immortality, that is true; for mortal applies to his body, and it is only in resurrection that the saint ever puts on immortality. But that (the gift of eternal life in Christ alone) has nothing to do with the question of the immortality of the soul. It neither proves it nor disproves it, save only that, in a very vague way, it suggests immortality; because the gift of eternal life to a beast would make him a wholly new kind of being. Eternal life, though above and out of the reach of man's responsibility, yet is connected with it. It is grace to a being capable of it, while remaining the same being, and dealt with on the footing of his previous responsibility. Were it given to a beast, it would have no connection at all with it as a being, nor have anything to say to its previous existence. It would be itself simply a new being. But while eternal life is a new gift to man, in Christ, and comes in Christ become man, yet it is fully connected with, and refers to, man as previously existing, is, by the word acting on his mind, heart, conscience, and, while a new thing, in itself, wholly acts in and connects itself with him to whom it is given, so that he remains the same person, and by it recognizes and takes notice of all that he was before, as a responsible and the same person. The "I" remains the same. The nature is acted on, and by it judged and condemned, and the "I" for so acting in it.

339 The gift of eternal life proves, as far as it goes, an immortal soul that has relationship to God, not a beast's estate — "made to be taken and destroyed" — "the beasts that perish." Indeed, why should such language as I here quote be used if man were just the same? But scripture does not so speak. It does express the darkness of man, who sees his present life disappearing and knows nothing beyond; but even then it carries him onward in thought and hope — cravings, not knowledge — that the spirit returns to God who gave it. It does not know, but asks "who knoweth the spirit of man? It goeth up above." There is not knowledge here; there is the heaving desire of what was breathed from God — not the answer to it. Man had plunged himself in darkness. Death was there — what beyond? Hope, saintly confidence in God, a deliverer and a deliverance to come which would not leave believers without hope. But life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel; they were not brought to light before (mind, he does not say, did not exist). The poor and shallow sophistry that would use this to say they began to be then must deny that saints had life from God, were born of God, or that Enoch and Elijah were other than fables, or exceptions to the truth as to others even in their souls, and say Abraham's faith was vain, and that God was the God of the dead, not of the living. They were brought to light then in the gospel revelation, because they were there to be brought to light, though the incorruption had only been wondrously exhibited, the life dimly apprehended, though certainly there, and not the subject of the immediate government and revelation of God. In Christ life has become the light of men; and we have the light of life, we do not walk in darkness.

But I am told, God only has immortality. Undoubtedly. But if this use be made of it, the saint has not it. The angels are mortal too. But both statements are clearly unscriptural: see Luke 20: 36, not to cite other passages. It is not therefore what the passage means. It is a false use of it. God only has, possesses, immortality in Himself independently. But we — all men, live, move, and have their being, in Him who is so. None of us have it independently in ourselves. All things subsist in Him. But whether a being is perishable or not by His creation is a question of fact. The angels do not die. God only possesses in Himself immortality. On the other hand, θνητός (mortal) is never applied to the soul, always to the body, as Romans 6: 12; 8: 11; 2 Corinthians 4: 11; 5: 4; 1 Corinthians 15: 53, 54, and (which is the important point here) man is mortal when he certainly has eternal life and his soul will never die. Mortality applies to his body. He is only called mortal in the New Testament, when, by the confession of all, he has a life which can never die. That is, mortality does not apply to his soul at all, as used in the New Testament, where the truth is brought to light. So as to death: in the Old Testament it is applied to the fact of dying, and generally darkness lies beyond.

340 It is sought to use "The soul that sinneth it shall die" as meaning that the soul shall die after death, or, as the out-and-out Annihilationists would say, in death itself. These last fly in the face of scripture, because, to say no more of it, after death comes judgment. But if it is not in death, then death does not mean ceasing to exist — as, in fact, it never does — but ceasing to exist in the way and relationship men were living in. Of the second death we will speak farther on. Man ceases by death to be a nephesh chaia — a living soul and body in this world, and becomes, as to this world, a nephesh meeth — a dead body, or body of death.

But, if we turn to the passage in Ezekiel where the expression is found and whence it is taken, we shall see that it has nothing to do with the death of the soul as apart from the body, but a man's death as living in this world. Such a use of soul for person is common now. I say, It is a town of fifteen thousand souls. Who misunderstands me? Israel complained that they were in trouble and cut off for their fathers' sins, that the fathers had eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth were set on edge (Ezekiel 18: 2), and, such was the law, the son bore the iniquity of the father — the iniquity of the father was brought upon the children. This should no longer be done. As the soul of the father, so the soul of the son was Jehovah's. The soul that sinned, it should die. A devout father had a wicked son: "Should he live? (ver. 13) he shall not live; he hath done all these things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him." So when the righteous turned away from his righteousness and committed sins, he should die in them. As the Lord said, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." "Our father" (says the daughters of Zelophehad, Numb. 27) "died in the wilderness; he died in his own sin." But with a wicked father, "if the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father." "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live?" So if the righteous turn from righteousness, in his sins that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.

341 What light may be thrown on the final result by the New Testament is another question. But in Ezekiel what is spoken of is a man belonging to this world dying in his sins. Death never means ceasing to exist. It is used for other things than physical death. The woman that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. The believer has passed from death unto life. He who loves the brethren has passed from death unto life. That is, when applied to the soul, it has nothing to do with ceasing to exist, but separation of the soul from God, as a state of a soul which was alive as to existence, not possessing divine life, but as much alive as a being as when he had. So Romans 7 (10, and verse 24) teaches us the same truth. Paul found the commandment to be to death; but he was just as much alive, as to existence, as ever. The sin unto death is physical death. In a word, death means either simple physical death as we see it, or separation from God — not having divine life — when a man is alive.

We have now to see if physical death is the extinction, or even the sleep, of the soul. And, further, we must search the New Testament, where these things are brought to light. First, it is stated that all live to God. This is given as a general principle, when the living state of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is declared to the Sadducees, who held annihilation doctrine. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Thus far it may be reasoned that it only applies to the saints, whose God God is. The Lord therefore adds "For all live unto him." It is a general truth, not merely applicable to Abraham and those that had his faith. It is true of all: πάντες γὰρ αὐτῶ ζῶσιν. And this, the more important because the Lord is speaking of saints. For, though they were born of God, He does not rest the truth of even their being alive on that, but says "God is not the God of νεχρῶν, but of ζώντων" — not of dead men or bodies, but of living persons. What is the great principle on which it is founded? — "For all live unto him." No one is really dead as regards God. Accordingly, the Lord charges His disciples not to fear them that can kill the body and have no more that they can do, but Him who, after He has killed, can cast into hell. That is, death is positively declared not to be the end or cessation of existence. Death means "men killing the body," and no more. Killing (ἀποχτείνω. Θανατόω is more to have a person put to death, as in a persecution, or judicially) and death are fully correlative, as may be seen in Romans 7. Further, the parable of Dives and Lazarus plainly pictures the same truth. Death is no ending of existence for wicked more than for just. Hades was known to the Jews, and hades was owned of the Lord as true.

342 And this leads me to the question: Is the state after death, for just or unjust, a state of unconsciousness? Is the soul asleep? The reader has the answer from Luke 16 already. But a word more. It is never said nor hinted that the soul sleeps after death. That is all a fable. Death is called sleep, or falling asleep, as to the just. But there is not the most distant suggestion that the soul sleeps. When Christ told His disciples "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," He explained the word: Lazarus ἀπέθανε, has died. "He spake," we are told, "of his death," not of his state after death. Falling asleep is a man living in this world's dying, not his state after dying. Stephen fell asleep, not Stephen's spirit, which surely was received up by Christ, as Christ's had been by the Father. Did He cease to exist, or was He unconscious?

Again, the Lord said to the thief, replying exactly to the point in question, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Did that mean he should go to sleep and know nothing? Paul thought it far better to depart and be with Christ. Did that mean, go fast asleep and know nothing? To be absent from the body and present with the Lord — which meant, that he should be fast asleep and not know whether the Lord was there or not! I have said the thief's case applies directly to the point. The thief, in his bright faith owning Christ to be King when all had forsaken Him, asked, thinking only of this, that the Lord would remember him when He came in (not into) His kingdom. The Lord's answer is "You shall not wait for that happiness. I have a heavenly place for my people's souls meanwhile: to-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." Which means, I promise you, you shall be fast asleep and know nothing till the kingdom comes! Are we to be mocked with such interpretations?

343 Finally, the rich man in hades and the poor man in Abraham's bosom were very far from being asleep. We are told it is only a picture on Jewish principles. No doubt; but it is the Lord's picture, who meant to teach us by it, and certainly not that the dead are fast asleep, but just the contrary.

But we are told it is in the second death they are extinct. But this destroys itself, for then death does not mean ceasing to exist; for if death meant ceasing to exist, there could be no second death, for the being would have ceased to exist in the first. It is all a fable, so using death. Christ has died. The saints have died, just as truly as the wicked. They may have a life the wicked have not, but they have as truly died, and they have not become extinct nor ceased to exist. And if the wicked undergo a second death, death does not mean ceasing to exist; for they died the first death, and did not cease to exist, for they have to undergo the second. But then, we are told, the second will be — not because it is death, we have seen. And we must look to scripture to see if that is meant by the second death (i.e., if ceasing to exist is what is meant). It teaches the contrary. Men at the final judgment are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. The second death is the punishment of the lake of fire — not that punishment's ceasing by the punished ones ceasing to exist. The punishment destroys them, we are told, as the Clementine Gnostics had told us before. But then, the lake of fire, the punishment, is the second death, not their ceasing to exist so that the punishment ceases. "They have their part in the lake of fire, which is the second death," existing there in it, having their part in it, is the time they are in the second death. Their part is not said to be punishment's ending by death, but the actual punishment of the lake of fire. So the devil that deceived the nations was cast into the lake of fire, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. There is no word of the close of their existence and of torment being the second death. It is the punishment itself, of the lake of fire, which is so called — the outer darkness, where are weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This naturally leads me to the word eternal (αἰώνιος). We are told it does not mean eternal. If I go out of scripture, I find the fullest proof that it means eternal.* Aristotle defines it, αἰὲν ὤν, always existing. I have found several others, but I quote only one passage from Philo, because it is so directly to the point, and is the Greek used at the time of our Lord: ἐν αἰῶνι δὲ οὔτε παρελήλυθεν οὐδὲν οὔτε μέλλει ἀλλὰ μόνον ὑφέστηχε — in eternity nothing is either past or to come, but only subsists — it is proper eternity. What we have then to look to is how αἰώνιος the adjective, is used in scripture.

{*In Homer αἰών is used for a man's life often. It is used by Herodotus and the Attic poets so far as to say, ἀνέπνε υσεν αἰῶνα "he breathed out his life," when eternity was not known. It is used for the whole time a thing subsists — for ever, as I give a child something for ever.}

344 Now I say that the word regularly means in scripture "eternal," in the sense of contrast with any period of time. "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. 5: 1.) "To whom be honour and power everlasting." (1 Tim. 6: 16.) "The God of all grace, who hath called us to his eternal glory." (1 Peter 5: 10.) "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." (Heb. 5: 9.) "Having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9: 12.) "They which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." (Heb. 9: 15.) "Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God." (Heb. 9: 14.) "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4: 18; Rom. 16: 26), which is conclusive. Now these suffice to shew that the regular meaning of αἰώνιος , in its own plain and absolute sense, is eternal. Where it is used of punishment, in Matthew 25, it is in purposed and expressed contrast used of life: the one have eternal life, the others eternal punishment. The duration of the punishment of the wicked, and of the life of the just, are expressed by the same identical term — I may add, that of the existence of God Himself; and this term, put in contrast elsewhere with all that has a temporary duration, so that I do not see how it could be stated more plainly.

But we do not escape these efforts to elude what is plain, even by this. Punishment, we are told, does not mean punishment. It means pruning, or I know not what, cutting off a branch — χόλασις is the word. It is used in one other place in scripture: "Fear hath torment." Its scriptural sense is torment. So in a passage I have quoted from the Clementinae, it is used as torment. And that is its meaning — punishment or torment. This, according to this verse, is eternal, not temporal. But the verb χολάζω (punish) is found elsewhere in the New Testament. "Finding nothing how they might punish them." (Acts 4: 21.) "Reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished." (2 Peter 2: 9.) This is the plain sense of the word.

345 But the word "destroy" also is referred to, to shew that, though the punishment is everlasting, the punished are not — a thing hard for a simple mind to understand. For if there remain none to be punished, it is hard to conceive how punishment remains. Hard to suppose that where the Lord uses the figure "their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched," they die, or cease to exist, though the worm and the fire remain, though it be their worm that does not die. Still we will see if destroy means what is said. It is very hard to understand "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" to mean that nothing exists. What is out of the presence of the Lord? What is everlasting destruction? If a thing ceases to exist, and destruction means that, it cannot be everlasting. But the truth is, on their own shewing, the passage has not this sense at all. For this happens at Christ's appearing, at the beginning of the millennium, when there is no destruction in their sense of it at all. They are punished with destruction, but in that destruction they still subsist, as is admitted. It is the time of weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness. (Matt. 13.) That destruction is everlasting in which the punished ones subsist.

But the word does not mean the ceasing to exist. The angel of the bottomless pit is called Apollyon, or Abaddon, the destroyer, in Greek and Hebrew words. But he can destroy nothing. It is written, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help." "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." "Destroy not thy brother with thy meat, for whom Christ died." "And through thy knowledge shall thy weak brother perish?" "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." "Zacharias perished between the temple and the altar." "Carest thou not that we perish?" "The scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him." "Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." "Art thou come to destroy us?" (Mark 1: 24.) In Matthew is an analogous case. They say, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" This was in the bottomless pit. But Satan, we read, is tormented in the lake of fire "for ever and ever" — the term used for the existence of God. In Matthew 10: 39, "He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." "For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction shall come upon them" — confessedly here no ceasing to exist. 1 Timothy 6: 9, "Foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." "They perish in the gainsaying of Core." "So the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."

346 The word then is used for ruin, moral or physical. It is false to say it means simply a ceasing to exist. It may mean a ruin of the state in which a thing existed. Hence the driving a human being from the Lord's presence, or his present state of alienation from it; and it is so used. I doubt if a single passage could be found which proves it means causing to cease to exist.* I have known Annihilationists object to the name, because nothing can be annihilated. But if so, their whole theory falls to the ground. It is merely making a physical thing of the soul, dispersed then into its elements, instead of moral ruin, for which, as to the soul, the word is certainly used, as we have seen. I have cited passages where ἀπόλλυμι, ἀπώλεια, and ὄλεθρον are used. The root is all the same. The statements made on these subjects set aside one another. If death be ceasing to exist, there can be no judgment after. It is in vain to say they are raised; for if they have ceased to exist, there is no one to raise. Nor can punishing or destruction, in the sense of ceasing to exist, come afterwards.

{*I had thought, from memory, there was a passage "I create and I destroy;" but I cannot find it in the Concordance. I am told it is from Handel's.}

My object has been, to go through the words by which, or as to which, Annihilationists seek to puzzle simple minded Christians — not to reason out the subject. I add only two or three words to shew why their fair words and smooth speeches do not attract me, where they seem fairest. We have seen that the morally dead and the lost may be alive, and that scripture so speaks. But if the soul be simply mortal with the body, and there is no life out of Christ; beyond this, where do sinners get the life they are punished in till burned out? It must be from Christ, for creation has not given it to them. That is, they get (not their wicked life in which they are fallen and enemies to God, but) a new life of Christ in which to be punished in another world! I do not see the moral sense or attractiveness of this doctrine.

Further, I understand an immortal soul that is at enmity with God and excluded from Him, though once formed to own Him, being for ever miserable. But why God, out of pure pleasure, should keep alive a soul to torment it for a time, only to burn it out at the end, for no possible effect, I cannot conceive. It does not alarm men now. For to tell them that they will simply perish in the end, and it is "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die " — the infidel finds it a very comfortable and reasonable doctrine. It is in vain to say, it is not honest to say, that men fear total destruction and perishing more than anything; for its advocates resist eternal punishment because it is dreadful to think of. They know it is not the same thing. No doubt man does not like dying or perishing in itself as to this world, where he is alive, but to end in a future one, where there is only torment, he likes very well.

347 My horror of this doctrine is its weakening our sense of the nature of sin, of our responsibility, and of the atonement. If sin means eternal exclusion from God's presence, it is dreadful enmity against God now, exclusion from God then. If death is the only wages of sin, Christ had no more to suffer for me. Nay, if I am a Christian, He had nothing to suffer, if I die before the Lord comes. I have paid the wages myself. If it be only some temporary punishment I had incurred, He had only that to bear. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" has lost its force. It is in vain to say, He gives us life. He can, in itself, quicken without dying. If He died, He died for my sins, and bore them. If death be the wages, millions of saints have paid them. And if a partial punishment be all I had to bear, it is all Christ had to bear. The sense I have of sin and its desert is not, being forsaken of God, shut out from Him when I can know what it is, but a temporary punishment, a quantum of offence, which is all I have to think of, and all Christ had to bear, if anything.

It is alleged, I have been told since I wrote this, that there is another view held, namely, that the soul, having its life in Christ, is in Christ when a man dies, and is, so to speak, lost in Him, and then at the resurrection becomes a conscious person again. This is a mere notion and a foolish one too. It destroys, not consciousness nor has anything to do with sleeping, but personality. It applies only to saints, and as to them is in direct violation of the testimony of scripture, which attributes personality to the saints when gone hence. "To-day shalt thou be with me." There are the distinct persons present with the Lord. There must be a distinct person to be present with the Lord. And so with other texts. That our life is hid with Christ in God (the only allusion to an idea approaching it in scripture) proves, as far as it goes, the contrary; because it is spoken of saints living on the earth, where their personality is unquestionable. But the best answer to it is, it is a mere human invention. In the hiding in God we are associated with Christ. He also now is hid in God — I suppose a conscious person; and it is in contrast with our appearing to others when He appears, not to any living personality in which we enjoy His presence. It is, we have seen, spoken of our present state, when living personality is unquestionable.

348 There is another word I have omitted to notice, Βασανίζω and Βασανισμός, torment. This, we are told, comes from a Lydian stone used to test gold. Very likely; but the conclusion that therefore the words, when passed into common use, meant "to prove," and not "to torment," is simply false. Thus Matthew 8: 6: "My servant lieth sick, grievously tormented." What has that to do with the lapis Lydius? 2 Peter 2: 8: "He [Lot] vexed his righteous soul." In Revelation 9: 5 the verb and the noun are used for the torment of a scorpion's sting. Matthew 14: 24: "tormented by the waves." So of the men — Mark 6: 49 — shewing how the etymological meaning was wholly forgotten for the fact of torment. Revelation 14: 11: those who worship the beast are tormented for ever — have no rest. Revelation 18: 15: we read of Babylon's torment; chapter 20: 10, the devil is tormented day and night. Is he put to the proof as gold by the lapis Lydius? Matthew 18: 24: the unforgiving servant delivered to the tormentors. The attempt to deny that Βασανισμός, (because that in its etymology it is borrowed from the lapis Lydius) means torment, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a mere fraudulent effort to pervert the plain fact.

There are a number of Hebrew words out of which something has been attempted to be made, in one tract I have seen, as acharith tikvah, opher, etzem and otzem, tzelem, and others; but what is said of them does not really deserve any notice. It astounds somewhat a person who has the smallest acquaintance with Hebrew, or can use a dictionary and concordance. But I recall the reader's attention to the fact, that "this mortal" is said distinctly of the body, not of the soul: "this mortal shall put on immortality," "our mortal bodies," and the like; that consequently we read of killing the body, and having no more that they can do. We read of God as the "Father of spirits," "the God of the spirits of all flesh," and that formeth the spirit of man within him. The fact that the angels do not die and are not mortal is the plain proof that it is a false use of God only having immortality, using it to prove men have not immortal souls; for the same argument would prove angels were also mortal — which is false. But of this I have spoken. It is immortality in and of Himself.

349 It has been attempted to say, there is no appeasement of wrath with God. The words ἱλάσχεσθαι, ἱλασμός, ἱλαστήριον, all have exactly this sense. They meet the qualities or attributes in God which are necessary and must be maintained or He is not God as He is (or not God at all), to maintain what He is, His holiness and righteousness. But He is supreme in love.

I press too on my reader, that when a man receives eternal life, he takes notice of all his past evil and sin as that for which he is responsible. If a beast received eternal life — and the theory makes animal life the same in all — could a beast hold himself responsible for all his previous conduct as a guilty, responsible soul? Are they to be judged as in their nature capable of guiltily rejecting Christ? If not, the whole theory is a disgraceful fraud on our minds. If a~avaaia was literally, as to the fact, to be applied only to God when Paul wrote it, then the saints who had got eternal life had no immortality even then, or else mortality applied only to their bodies, which is the fact in scripture; for, as I have said, the saints are spoken of as mortal, like the rest. Thus it is evident that "mortal," "corruptible," "death" applies to the state in which we are down here as men living on the earth, where death is entered by sin, and to the separation of soul and body. It is, as scripture speaks, killing the body, and has nothing to do with the soul. A person who in his soul has eternal life has not a~avaaia more than another — has still to put it on. That is, it has nothing to do with the dying nature of the soul, or the contrary. It means that it cannot cease to exist in the state in which it exists at present; not that it has it in itself as God, but that it is its condition by His will. What puts on immortality is what was liable to death — this body, which could be killed in a saint as in a sinner, for the saint lives because Christ lives; his soul cannot die more than Christ now; yet he is as mortal as the sinner; and so, in fact, did Christ die. Did He cease to exist, or did He not truly die? Does it cease to be true that God "only hath immortality" when we are raised, for then we certainly have ἀθανασία?

When I find all these efforts to falsify the use of words, I know the source of this doctrine, and that no lie is of the truth.

On Reconciliation

J. N. Darby.

<10022E> 350

Reconciliation is, to use familiar language, making all straight; and even primarily, I believe, used in money-changing as that which makes the sum even, so that there is satisfaction of the parties in the matter; and thence passing into the more ordinary sense of making all smooth between alienated parties, and reconciling one who is alienated or at enmity. But it is not simply the change of mind from the enmity, though that be included; nor is it justification. It is the bringing back to unity, peace, and fellowship what was divided and alienated. We must not confound in scripture "making reconciliation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2: 17), with "reconciliation" in 2 Corinthians 5; Colossians 1; Romans 5: 10, 11. The former is making propitiation, atonement, ἱλάσχεσθαι and ἱλάσμός, propitiation (1 John 2: 2); while on the contrary "atonement" in Romans 5: 11 should be reconciliation, χαταλλαγή. Compare 1 Corinthians 7: 11, "Let her be reconciled to her husband;" where it is not merely her mind being restored to affection and good feeling, but matters made straight between them — the relationship made good. So it is between us and God; but the alienation was on our part. It was not alienation on God's part, but righteous judgment against sin in His creature, and that righteousness must be met in order to bring back the alienated creature into relationship with God. Only now it is much more than bringing back, because of the purposes of God in Christ, and the infinite value of the work by which we are brought back to God. Still it is an establishing a blessed and peaceful relationship with God, and us in it.

Reconciling God to us is quite unscriptural in expression and thought. No act of dealing could change God's mind, either in nature or in purpose; but He acts freely in what is before Him according to that nature, and in bringing about that purpose; and though His mind be not changed, yet the meeting, satisfying, and glorifying His righteousness, is according to that mind and the imperious claim of His nature and authority — is necessary in the highest sense, that is, according to that nature. His holiness too is involved in reconciliation. Reconciliation is the full establishment in relationship with God according to His nature and according to the nature of that which is reconciled. It now acts in redemption and a new nature, and, as regards all around us, a new state of things, so that it is more than reestablishment. It is re-established inasmuch as the old relationship was broken and forfeited, but it is not the returning to that but the establishing a new one which has the stability of redemption and is the accomplishment of the purpose of God. Still it is a bringing back into the enjoyment of divine favour that which had lost it. This reconciliation is twofold in scripture — of the state of things, and of sinners. Thus in Colossians 1 all the fulness was pleased to dwell in Him, "and, having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven; and you, that were sometime enemies and alienated in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight." The force of the word is evident from the first case. Then there is no question of changing the disposition of the reconciled things, because the purposed reconciliation spoken of in verse 20 refers to all created things as to the vast majority of which no such change can take place. It is the bringing of the whole created scene of heaven and earth into its true order and right relationship with God, and to its right standing and condition in that relationship.

351 The first passage which suggests itself, when we come to enquire into the use of the word in scripture, is 2 Corinthians 5: 18-20, particularly verse 19: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." It is not God is in Christ reconciling. The passage states that the apostolic ministry had taken the place of Christ's personal ministry, founded on the blessed Lord having been made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. It is the aspect of Christ's ministry down here. God was in Him reconciling the world. Man would not have Him, but this was the service and aspect of His ministry. He was proposing to the world a return to God in order and blessing, not imputing their trespasses to them. If man had received Him, it would have proved that man in the flesh was recoverable, though he had sinned; though such indeed was not God's thought, the result proved he was not, and the Lord had to be made sin for us. Man had to be redeemed out of the state he was in, and justified on a new footing, not recovered from his ruin as man in the flesh still. Lawlessness and ease had both proved men sinners in fact. God was in Christ saying, I am not come to judge: return, and I will forgive; return to order and to God and nothing will be imputed. But the mind of the flesh was enmity against God, and the true state of man was brought out. The sin of the world was demonstrated by their not believing in Christ; righteousness, in their seeing Him no more and His going to His Father. No doubt a change in us is needed to our being in order and peace before God; but reconciling is more than a state of feeling, it is a being brought back to the condition of right relationship with God.

352 In Colossians 1 already quoted, we find it the purpose of God to bring all things in heaven and earth into this order and condition. All things were created by the Son and for Him, and all the fulness of the Godhead which dwelt in Him will bring all created by and for Him into its due condition and order, into a normal state of relationship with itself. But we, the apostle adds, are reconciled, Christ being our righteousness, and we the righteousness of God in Him. We are, as regards the very nature of God, in our normal place with God, according to the efficacy of Christ's work. Being moral beings, a new mind was needed for this, and Christ is our life, perfect according to what He was for God, that we may have it. The believer is reconciled in the body of Christ's flesh through death. We are before God with the entire putting away in His sight of our old rebellious nature, and by a work and obedience which has perfectly glorified God Himself, so that we are the righteousness of God in Him. Nothing is wanting to our place and standing in Christ: our old state being gone, quickened together with Him; dead, and the old man put off; risen, and the new man put on, we are in Christ before God, according to the efficacy of His propitiation and work. We are so consciously by faith and the presence of the Holy Ghost by which we are sealed, for our being presented "holy, unblamable, and unreprovable in his sight."

Hence, in Romans 5: 10, reconciliation is attributed to Christ's death; not to a change of mind in us. "If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." And, "We have received the reconciliation." (Ver. 11.) Remark here that the Christian is spoken of as being reconciled. Now it is quite true this does not and cannot take place without a work in man by which the peace Christ has made is appropriated, it cannot take place without faith. The Spirit of Christ works in quickening power in us, makes us know our state, gives new desires, makes us judge our old state, and finally shews us the value of Christ's death and our standing in Him; but peace was made, God glorified perfectly when Christ was made sin, so that His love can seek us and grace reign through righteousness. It is not that God is changed, but He can freely work in love according to righteousness for His own glory in virtue of that which has been presented to Him. Propitiation has been made, and hence, according to righteousness and abounding in love, He can bring back the sinner to Himself according to these, and, faith being there, has brought back — has reconciled. That which is the foundation of reconciliation has been offered to God, but it is not God who is reconciled or brought back into a normal place with man, but who reconciles in virtue of that which has been wrought by Christ and presented to Him. Propitiation is the foundation of reconciliation, the reconciliation of the sinner; and in due time that of the universe. Thereupon the gospel beseeches men* to be reconciled to God, to return to Him, in true relationship in Christ who has been made sin for us. It is not then propitiation, it is not at all reconciling God, nor is it merely a change in man or his feelings; but it is the standing of man (when applied to him) in peace with God according to the truth of God's character in virtue of redemption, man being brought morally back in a new nature which by the Holy Ghost appreciates that redemption and enjoys the peace, yea, joys in God, as well as has peace with Him.

{*The "you" and "ye" should be left out of 2 Corinthians 5: 20.}

353 There is one passage which remains of these wherein the word is used, which has to be considered; but rightly apprehended, it confirms and clears the sense given. "If the casting them away be the reconciling of the world." (Rom. 11: 15.) Now the sense is more vague here, it is true, but it confirms what we have said. The Jews had been in ordered relationship with God though unfaithful to it, the world out of all relationship, men were utterly without God in the world, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope, without God in the world. On the fall of Israel this state of things ceased. God now called all persons everywhere to repent. God took up the world again, no longer winking at the ignorance. The world was again put in relationship with God, so that His grace and gospel went out to deal with it as that which thus far stood in relationship with Him, not as it did when Judaism was owned. These are all the passages where the word is used.

It is important to note that the Christian is always treated as being reconciled. It is more than being justified — this is being authoritatively pronounced righteous by God, whether from sins or now actually in Christ. It is more than the restoring of the heart to God, though both have place in order to reconciliation; for to be with God fully revealed in joyful and settled relationship with Himself, all in order between us, it must be as justified according to His righteousness and the objects of His love as those who have tasted it. We have been brought into both by Christ's work, but with hearts livingly renewed and tasting that love, or we should not as moral beings be in it. It is thus a word of great power and blessing. Nor is there an expression more full or more complete, connected with our restoration, than that of our reconciliation with God. It supposes God revealed in all that He is, and man in a perfect place and standing with Him according to this revelation — reconciled to God.

The Two Resurrections

J. N. Darby.

<10023E> 355

The doctrine of two resurrections — a first and a second — has been treated of occasionally, in connection with the coming of the Lord, in more than one of the papers on that subject. But its importance, and the way in which unscriptural views on it mislead the mind as to the gospel itself, seem to me to call for a distinct paper on the point. The doctrine of a first resurrection does connect itself with the truth of our complete salvation in Christ, the part we have with Himself in glory and blessing, and with His coming again; and this will appear in the following lines; but my object now is to give the scriptural view of this particular subject.

Are there two resurrections? and what is their true character? There are two resurrections, entirely distinct in character and in epoch. The whole character of the resurrection of the saints is totally distinct from that of the resurrection of the wicked.

We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. This is the full result of God's purpose as to us. This is evidently in our resurrection state. Hence we are raised in glory. Upon the face of it this shews that our resurrection is in its nature wholly distinct from that of the wicked, who are yet to be judged. It is, as to our present state, the full result of redemption, in which the wicked have no part whatever, but quite the contrary. It is not what leads to the decision of the state we are to be in by a judgment to be pronounced, but our being, by the power of God, in the state which the unspeakable grace of redemption has made ours. This single point at once shews the great importance of this question.

The resurrection of the saint is not a preliminary to a judgment which is to decide the state he is to be in, but the putting him into the state in which he is like Christ and in which he is to be for ever in the Father's house with Him; power introducing him into that condition which redemption has obtained for him. Let my reader weigh for a moment the vast importance of this truth, incontrovertible if we acknowledge the authority of scripture. We are raised in glory. Let him see what a seal it sets on the efficacy of redemption and on the nature of our association with Christ in life. We have life in Christ, life from Him risen. So complete is our redemption and the efficacy of Christ's work, that the power which calls us out of the grave is used only to put us into actual glorious conformity to Christ glorified, who is our life. It is evident that this can have no application to, but is in the completest contrast with, the resurrection of the wicked.

356 A common resurrection, of which the result is afterwards to be proved by judgment, is entirely contrary to scripture — a tradition, deep-rooted in the Church's habits of thinking perhaps, but which has no foundation in scripture. And this will soon be found to affect the whole character of the gospel and the present condition of the soul under its influence. The resurrection of the saint is not a resurrection to an uncertain or even an unascertained result in judgment, but is itself the result of redemption, a resurrection in glory.

If we look at another aspect of the resurrection of the saints, we shall find this amply confirmed. We read in Romans 8, "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." The resurrection of the saint is the effect and consequence of the Holy Spirit's dwelling in him. As Jesus was raised from the dead by Him whose Spirit dwells in us, and in the power of that Spirit (as we read in Peter), we also shall be raised by (or, as some read, on account of) that Spirit which dwells in us. It is equally clear that this can have no reference to the wicked. The nature of our resurrection is different. It is the result of that Spirit's being in us, which is the witness already that there is no condemnation for us, that we are in Christ and Christ in us. That which has saved us, that which has made us walk in holiness, in newness of life as sons of God, has its result in what demonstrates fully whose and what we are. Just as Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead, so we, through Him in blessing walking in that Spirit here, are by His power manifested in resurrection in full result as sons of God. The children of God being the children of the resurrection.

I will now shew from scripture that while the resurrection of the wicked is distinctly taught, the resurrection of the just is always distinguished and never confounded with it. It would be confounding a state which is the result of redemption and the act of grace in power which brings that result about, with a state in which the result of man's sin is to be carried out by judgment; because in each case divine power works to call the dead out of their graves. It is this confusion which has the effect of throwing such obscurity on the gospel itself by which we have a part, and through faith by the Holy Ghost know we have a part in the effect of that redemption. There shall be a resurrection both of the just and of the unjust. That is clearly laid down. They that have done evil will come forth out of their graves to the resurrection of judgment.* This itself marks a peculiar character of resurrection for the wicked, but I do not pursue their case any farther: my special object is the resurrection of the saints. Suffice it to say the wicked will be raised and raised for judgment. I will now first of all take 1 Corinthians 15 as the fullest scriptural expression of the subject, and then 1 Thessalonians 4 as giving some very precise details.

{*In John 5 in the English version it is "damnation." This surely it will be, but the word is judgment. Much as we have to be thankful for, in general, in the English version, it is well it should be remembered that their avowed practice was, when the same word occurred often in a sentence, to translate it by different ones. Thus in John 5: 22, 24, 27, 29, we have "judgment," "condemnation," "judgment," "damnation." In all it is the same word, κρίσις "judgment;" a special way of shewing Christ's authority. Every one will feel the importance of this on only reading the passage.}

357 The tenor of 1 Corinthians 15 applies only to believers, and more than that distinctly states that they only will rise when Christ comes. The resurrection described is the resurrection of the saints. "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." This clearly applies only to believers. The resurrection he is speaking of applies to believers only. So it is said, "Death is swallowed up in victory." It is that act of power which causes us to bear the image of the heavenly (vers. 42, 43, 49, 54). Nothing can be clearer than that it is a description of the resurrection of the saints. But more than this, the order of the resurrection is formally spoken of, and the wicked left out; and more than that (verses 20 and onward), "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." Christ is not the firstfruits of the wicked adjudged to condemnation. But further, "Every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then they that are Christ's at his coming." That is, when the order of resurrection is specifically declared, those only who are Christ's are declared to rise at His coming, those of whom He is the firstfruits. The end comes afterwards, "when he shall have delivered up the kingdom." That is, we have a distinct revelation of the order of the resurrection, in which we are taught that those that are Christ's will rise when He comes, those of whom He is the firstfruits, who are to bear His image.

358 This is fully confirmed in the book of Revelation (chap. 20), where we learn that at the end, when the wicked dead, who had not part in the first resurrection, are to stand before the throne, and the books are opened, and they are judged out of the things written in them, Christ does not come at all. One sits on the great white throne, and heaven and earth flee away from before His face. That is, He does not come at all.

Turn now to 1 Thessalonians 4 where, again, we have direct instruction on the point. "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." The changed saints are associated with the raised to go and meet the Lord and be for ever with Him, as in 1 Corinthians 15: 51, 52; but it is only the dead in Christ, or living saints changed. Grace and faith had made the separation and make it, not judgment. Jesus comes to fetch them to be with Him for ever; and when He does that, He changes the body of their humiliation and fashions it like the body of His glory. (Phil. 3.) It is quite certain all this applies to the saints only, the wicked have no part in this resurrection.

Such then is the formal doctrine of the word; namely, that grace makes the separation here between the wicked and believers, and that Christ at His coming raises the just to have a part with Him.

Remark how (in 1 Cor. 15) the saints are associated with Christ. If we are not raised, Christ is not, says the apostle and insists on it. We are so connected that you cannot separate the two cases. If He is not raised, we are in our sins; clearly shewing that if He is, we are not. In the Adam all die; in the Christ all are made alive. Those connected with each of the two heads and the heads themselves have respectively the same portion. Christ is the firstfruits of those that are fallen asleep. As is the heavenly, such are the heavenly; and we shall bear the image of the heavenly. All this teaches, not a mixing up saints and unjust for judgment to distinguish, but the blessed truth of the association of the saints with Christ, and apart from the wicked.

Do the other passages which speak of this subject confirm this, or do they shew that some fallacies have entered into our minds, and that these passages do not teach this, however plain they may seem? All other passages fully confirm the doctrine, that there is a distinct resurrection of the just. "Thou shalt be recompensed," says the Lord, "at the resurrection of the just." There is such a thing as a distinctive resurrection of the just (Luke 14: 14). Again (Luke 20: 35), "but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Here some are counted worthy to obtain a resurrection from the dead, in which they are as angels, and proved to be the children of God because they belong to it and it to them. If all were raised together, this could not be true. There is a resurrection which belongs to the children of God only, and proves they are such.

359 John 5 is equally clear. Two great means are there set before us of the glory of the Son: quickening with the Father, and judging alone. The two are not confounded. The judgment is to compel all to honour Him. But in which am I to be? They that have heard His word and believed on Him that sent Him are quickened; they have everlasting life; they shall not come into judgment,* but are passed from death unto life. Christ already quickened souls as Son of God. They were not to marvel at this, for the time was coming when all in their graves should hear His voice, they that have done good coming forth to the resurrection of life, they that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment:* resurrections thus distinct in their character and nature, one being for judgment, the other for life, completing as to the body what had been already done for the soul. The word hour is alleged here to shew it is at the same time. This is comparatively of little moment compared with the saints being raised apart as already accepted, and now glorified, the wicked being raised for judgment by themselves.

{*κρίσις "judgment," "condemnation," "damnation" (see previous note) are all the same word here in Greek: it means judgment, and not condemnation, nor damnation; that is κατάκριμα.}

But there is no ground for the remark that αὤρα merely means an epoch. There is one of quickening to have a part with Christ, another in which judgment will be executed. The former has certainly lasted 1800 years and more, and comprises two distinct states, Christ on earth, and Christ in heaven. An argument has a poor foundation which rests upon a word in verse 28 meaning a single and same moment, which in verse 25 certainly means 1800 years and more. A Concordance will shew there is no force in it at all. In chapter 6: 39, 40, 44, 54, all confirms this; it is a promise of that which is the completing the blessing of eternal life. It would be of little import to insist on raising a person up at the last day as a sure proof of favour and eternal life, if the wickedest man going was raised just in the same way, both having their case to be settled by judgment.

360 It is well here to notice in passing, that the notion of Christ's coming at the end of the world is an unscriptural idea. At the judgment of the dead, which is at the end of the world (the last enemy who is to be destroyed then meeting his end also), Christ does not come at all; He sits on the great white throne, and heaven and earth flee away from before His face, and the dead stand before God, and the books are opened. This is not coming back to earth.

In the same way the end of this world (in Matthew 13 and other places) is not of this globe when it is consumed, but of this age or dispensation; a perfectly well-known phrase among the Jews who spoke of the olam-hazeh, this world or age, and the olam-havo, the age to come, the latter being the time of Messiah's reign. Now "the last day" alludes to this; he will be raised up when Christ comes and puts an end to this age — αἰών (aion). It certainly is not the end of the world; Christ could not give the glory then, when He spoke; but when He takes His kingdom, He will raise them up, and they will reign with Him. 1 Corinthian 15 I have already considered.

In Philippians we find the same truth confirmed: "If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead:" a very useless effort again, if the wickedest unbeliever would be equally there; there was nothing to attain to. If the saints were to be raised separately in glory, then indeed it was worthy of his earnest desire. And in the Greek this passage has a force which the English does not give it. The apostle has invented a Greek word to express this distinct resurrection —  ἐξανάστασις (exanastasis) — a rising out from among others. That is what he sought to attain to. Christ, the object of perfect divine favour, had arisen out from among others, the firstfruits; and Paul, he looked to have part in the blessed harvest when Christ will come from heaven, as he expresses it at the end of the chapter, "from whence we expect the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be conformed to his glorious body." How evident it is that the mind of the Spirit dwells on a resurrection which belongs to the saints, in which the wicked have no part. In the commonest truths this appears: we are "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The deliverance of the body from the power of death could have no such expression if a common resurrection to judgment was in the apostle's mind — was a christian thought. How would it then be "the adoption?" Death indeed then for us will be swallowed up in victory.

361 1 Thessalonians we have already examined. The dead in Christ rise, the living are changed, and both together go up to meet the Lord in the air, and so are ever with the Lord: a statement which needs no comment as to the exclusion of the wicked.

I would only add that as this and 1 Corinthians 15 speak very distinctly of the resurrection of the saints as taking place at the coming of the Lord, those passages which speak of His coming for the saints confirm in the distinctest way the same truth. Thus, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Christ comes and takes His own up to Himself. That this excludes the wicked from such a process, there is no need to say.

So, in the end of Hebrews 9, "as it is appointed to men once to die (χεῖται, it is their lot), and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Here again salvation and looking for Him exclude the unbeliever. And remark, that this is in contrast with (the natural portion of fallen man) death and judgment. The more familiar we are with the New Testament, the more we shall see how Christ and the believer are associated by the Holy Ghost. So that life and resurrection belong to both, they have a like part in it: only that it is in Him divinely, and by right of course; in us through grace. Their trust was in God that raises the dead; they knew that He which raised up Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and present us with all saints; that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be destroyed, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. They looked that mortality might be swallowed up of life. God had wrought them for that, and given them the earnest of the Spirit, so that they were always confident.

362 The cold doctrine of a resurrection common to all, to go and to be judged, furnishes no such thoughts. When Christ comes to judge even the living on this earth, when He finds them eating, drinking, buying, selling, &c. (which is clearly not the great white throne,* and seems to have been almost forgotten), all scripture declares that the saints shall appear with Him. "Jehovah thy God shall come, and all the saints with thee." "The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints." "When he shall appear, we also shall appear with him in glory." "The armies which were in heaven followed him, clothed in white linen," and "they which are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful." The angels will surely come, but some of these passages do not and cannot apply to angels. We shall appear with Him in glory. Hence, before any judgment of Christ whatever, even of the living, the saints have been raised and are with Him. Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him, as we have seen in 1 Thessalonians 4, where there follows the account of how they get there so as so to come. It is this complete association with Christ which gives such blessedness to the doctrine of a distinct resurrection of saints.

{*Then only the dead appear.}

We are not only saved through Christ, but blessed and glorified with Him — like Him the firstborn among many brethren. Hence the resurrection was the testimony as well as the hope of the apostles and of saints, as we find them in scripture. It is plainly taught we are happy meanwhile: the thief on the cross, 2 Corinthians 5, Philippians 1, Stephen, all testify plainly in fact and doctrine to this; but full conformity to Jesus (and that is our hope) is not when we are dead and our spirits with Him, but when we are raised and glorified as He is, like Him and seeing Him as He is.

It will be seen that I have treated the subject on the general ground of the universal teaching of scripture, what it makes of the resurrection of the saints, how it associates them with Christ in it. The resurrection of the wicked (though distinctly revealed, and that it is for judgment) is simply stated and never expatiated on; whereas the resurrection of the saints is largely treated, and as one exclusively theirs, distinct in nature, principle, object, and time.

I am not aware of the resurrection of the wicked being spoken of directly (though constantly assumed elsewhere), save in Paul's address to Felix, and in John 5, until we come to the Revelation, to which I now turn. There thrones of judgment are seen, and those that sat on them, among whom we find those that have been beheaded for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, and those* who had not worshipped the beast; judgment is given to them, and they lived and reigned with Christ. These compose the first resurrection. And remark, Christ is now come; heaven being opened, the marriage of the Lamb is come, His bride made ready, the beast judged. I am not now speaking of the exact moment of resurrection in the order of these events among themselves, which is not spoken of here at all, but of the epoch at which all this takes place. Babylon is judged of God, the marriage of the Lamb come, so that His whole bride is there, and the beast destroyed by Christ, King of kings, Lord of lords, the armies which accompany Him being clearly the saints; for they are in their white robes, and (as expressed in chapter 17) "they that are with Him are called and chosen, and faithful," the first epithet being wholly inapplicable to the angels. When the whole Church then is complete, the saints will be raised and sit on thrones, those who have been beheaded for the word of God amongst them; so that a resurrection of principles is really nonsense. It is those who were beheaded for their principles; nor does Christ marry principles, but (according to the scripture figure) the Church. It is a statement which regards persons: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." Is that principles? "On such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ." Who ever heard of principles being priests? Something may be made figuratively of principles reigning, but being priests! And note who are kings and priests; and in this very same book we read, "He hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests to God and his Father." Has Christ washed His own principles from their sins? Those whom He has washed He has made kings and priests, and here they live and are priests, and reign with Him. As promised, if we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him.

{*It is a second distinct class — καὶ οἲτινεσ.}

363 Further, we read "the rest of the dead," &c. Were there some other principles which did not live again? When had they died? There is no real resurrection of the dead here at all, if the first be not one; for the others are the rest of people alike dead. It is really absurd to apply "the rest of the dead" to principles, and consequently equally absurd to apply it to those of whom they were the rest. Consequently they were in each case dead men, and in each case the resurrection of such is spoken of. In a word, the promised reign of blessing and peace on the earth will be accompanied by a resurrection of the saints, and the judgment of the wicked on the earth.

364 And to this the testimony of Isaiah bears striking witness. In Isaiah 25 we read, "The branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low; and he will destroy in this mountain (Zion, Jerusalem) the face of the covering cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory." Here you have judgment — the blessing in Jerusalem reaching out to taking the darkness from all nations — and, with both, that which the apostle expressly declares to be accomplished in the resurrection of the saints. "Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." To a mind subject to scripture, and not trusting to tradition or its own reasonings, the point, it seems to me, must be as clear as scripture can make it. Indeed, if that were of any value, for two hundred years the Church believed it. Worldliness and heresies grew in exact proportion to, and by the means of, the decline of this truth, as the Lord had said it would in the case of the evil servants.

I shall refer to another passage — not because it has anything to say to it, but because it is generally considered to refer to this subject — the parable of the sheep and the goats. Are not (we are asked) all put on the right hand or on the left? The plain answer is, There is nothing about resurrection at all in the passage, nor does it refer to the dead or the raised; but, as is stated in the passage itself, to all the Gentiles or nations. It is the judgment of the quick or living, not of the dead; of the nations on earth, when Christ comes in His glory and sits on the throne of it, and shall gather (as the prophets have declared) all nations together to be judged. Next there are three classes, goats, sheep, and brethren, and not merely two but a third which does not come into judgment, but whom Christ designates as "these my brethren," in speaking to the sheep as well as to the goats. And this leads to another very definite point, which demonstrates that it is not a general judgment. Goats and sheep are judged according as they have treated these brethren who represented Christ. What was done to them was done to Him. Now that is not the ground of a general judgment, and cannot be. As we see in Romans 2, men perished without law; are judged by the law. In fact the vast majority of the heathen (nine-tenths, we may pretty safely say, of all that come into the general judgment) will never have had those who represent Christ before them to raise the question. In a word, the passage does not apply to a general judgment at all, not to those who are raised, but (as it says) to the judgment of the nations.

365 The careful reader will see that all that concerns the testimony among the Jews is unfolded to the end of verse 31 of chapter 24. Then come warnings for Christians in three parables — the good and bad servant, the virgins, and the talents. And then, taking up chapter 24: 31, in 25: 31, the Lord pursues the judgment of the third class, the Gentiles: all referring to the testimony come in through Him, not to a general judgment on general grounds. People have almost forgotten that there is a judgment of the living as well as of the dead, that God "hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world (the habitable earth) in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained."

The immense importance of the truth we are insisting on, the way it changes the whole tone of our Christianity, will not have escaped the christian reader. Instead of leaving the believer among unbelievers — mixed up with the mass of those who have not Christ, to await together the decision of the day of judgment, as if the saints were not redeemed, saved, and had no special connection with Christ — which changes their position altogether — it brings out distinctly and clearly their connection with Christ, and their disconnection from unbelievers: Christ the firstfruits, they the lump. They have the same kind of resurrection He had, raised out from among the dead, because of their perfect acceptance and the divine favour.

Let me add here that resurrection "from the dead" and "of the dead" are not confounded in scripture. Resurrection of the dead is a great general doctrine that the dead will rise, not be left in the grave. Resurrection from the dead (or, as it might be more clearly expressed, resurrection from among the dead) is taking some out from among others who are left behind, because of the perfect divine favour resting on the first, which does not on the others; so that the former are raised in glory to be with and like Christ for ever. It is evident that this is quite a different thought and truth from a supposed general resurrection to judgment. We are dissociated from the wicked and completely associated with Christ. At the same time it leaves all the great foundation truths of the gospel where they were; and this too is important (heresies do not) — nay, it adds force to them.

366 The value of the atonement, the complete efficacy of redemption, Christ being our life, our having received the Holy Ghost — the value of these things comes out into much fuller relief. That we are risen with Christ, associated and identified with Him, stands out in its full and simple and scriptural force, instead of being practically set aside by mixing us up with the unbelieving mass who have rejected Him and come into judgment. The connection of Christ with His people is clearer, while His divine oneness with the Father, and similar foundation truths, remain at the foundation of all as ever. His humanity shines out clearer than ever through our connection with Him. The immortality of the soul retains all its vital importance, and the happy intermediate state of departed souls of believers is brought out more distinctly. For if the saints are to be subject to a judgment at the end to decide their state, how can they have been in heaven with Christ meanwhile? How take Paul, who has been 1800 years with Christ, to have it decided whether he is to be with Him? Whereas, if the resurrection of the saints is not that, but is the adding a glorified body by Christ's power to a blessed spirit, that is simple enough. The spirit departs and is with Christ, as scripture abundantly and clearly teaches; in due time the body will be raised glorious, and we shall be conformed to the image of the Son, bear His image, and be like Him in glory. To depart and be with Christ is far better; but we await His coming to have a glorious body. The first resurrection from among the dead (the only one which scripture recognizes of saints) associates the affections, the faith, the hope of the Christian, with Christ — the greatest blessing we can have in this world.

As the sincere Christian may very naturally and justly enquire, If this be so, what comes of standing before the judgment seat of Christ? I add a few words on this subject. We have already seen that in John 5 it is positively stated that the believer will not come into judgment (χρίσις), but it remains to enquire what the passages referred to do mean, and to give them their full force. This then is clear from 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 13, namely, that every one of us shall give an account of himself to God. The result for the wicked is surely the execution of the sentence of condemnation, not the condemnation itself (for he that believeth not is condemned already); but they will receive the things done in the body, cast from before the great white throne into the lake of fire. On this I do not further dwell, solemn and all important as the truth may be, because it is not the subject of our present enquiry. The living (as in Matt. 25, 2 Thess. 1, and Rev. 19), and the dead (Rev. 20) will go into everlasting punishment. But as to the saved also the scripture is plain. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we shall all give an account of ourselves to God. God forbid that one tittle of scripture should be weakened in any way! We are to receive and, through grace, apply it in all its force. We enquire what is the mind of the Spirit in it. It is striking to remark how scripture avoids the word judgment, even when we might expect it, when the saints are included.

367 Now there are two parts of our position as Christians which clear up this question. We stand before God to enjoy Himself in whose presence there is fulness of joy. And besides that God has given to us to have a blessed part in the activities of His love towards others, the full exercise of which clearly connects itself with our own spiritual state. If He is to go out with us, there must be no Achans in the camp. Now as regards our standing before God, we are perfect in Christ: He is my life, my righteousness, as much as Paul's; we are all to be conformed to the image of God's Son; as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly. But if we come to spiritual activities, how large the difference! We are all like Christ, all made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, all enter into the joy of our Lord: but, besides this, every man will receive his own reward according to his own labour. What has been obtained by Christ for us is the same, being conformed to His own glory in the Father's house with Him. What the Spirit has wrought by us, each man has his own reward for, though all be of grace. The Thessalonians will not be our crown and rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus, as they will be Paul's. If we have built hay and wood and stubble, we may be saved but suffer loss. That is one part of the truth. Our acceptance is perfect, and alike for all. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, and God has wrought us all for the glory.

Each will receive distinctively the things done. For the wicked of course that will be punishment and condemnation; for the saints, reward — they are already glorified before they get there, raised in glory, fashioned like Christ's glorious body. But, as it is expressed, "Be thou over ten cities," "Be thou over five," &c. But there is more than this: we shall know as we are known, give an account of ourselves to God, and if so, of everything. There is nothing secret but that it should be made manifest, nor hid but that it should come to light. We shall not have a trace of the nature we sinned in; but if we give an account of ourselves to God, it is clear it must be of everything, or it would not be a true account as to anything. If we know we are in Christ, and all is honestly out before God, this produces no alarm. If my reader feels uneasy about it, he is not dear before God. If he had all fully open before God now, he would not be afraid of having it so then. If he has the best robe on, he will not be ashamed to say what horrid rags he had on before. Ah! if he has not, I understand he must try and palliate and hide them, and his nakedness into the bargain. But we shall give an account of ourselves to God — not be judged. We shall be, as we have seen, in glory already; some will have been for ages with Christ already. But it is a great gain.

368 I look back now and see how the high and holy God has spared and kept and led and hindered me from falling, and lifted me up when I fell; has not withdrawn His eyes from me — not merely wrought a great salvation, but never ceased leading and watching over me, making everything to work for my good — followed my character, circumstances, dangers, difficulties, and ministered needed grace and correction through the intercession of Christ. Am I unwilling to know all this? I believe it now. I can trace it in a thousand cases when I look back; I believe it in every case. Then I shall see it all perfectly. What a scene of grace it will be! Why, I shall delight and adore when I see it all, as I adore and am thankful — oh, how thankful! — for it now. Were it judgment, it must be judgment of all Christ's work set aside, and my condemnation certain. But it is not, and that cannot be. But it is knowing as I am known, and seeing God in all His ways with me. But it has another and a present effect. We are manifested to God. "We shall all appear" should be "We shall all be manifested." Now faith anticipates this, and it has thus a practical sanctifying effect — it keeps us under God's eye. We are, says the apostle, manifested to God (not merely we shall be).

Now this is most important, we all need it; however holy affections may be our highest portion (and they are), we all need our consciences to be in God's sight in passing through this world, according to the judgment He has of things. We are manifested to God. It also stimulates us to persuading men still exposed to the judgment of that day; it makes us careful not to judge others nor put a stumbling-block in their way. These are the consequences the apostle draws from even the terror of the Lord, never the fear of judgment for ourselves who in that day (blessed be God!) shall be perfectly like the Lord Himself. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."

What do the Scriptures teach concerning judgment to come?

J. N. Darby.

<10024E> 370

First, that definitive and final judgment is entirely committed to the Son.

"The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son; that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." (John 5: 22, 23.) The Father "hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is Son of man." (Ver. 27.)

As regards our sojourning in this world, the Father does judge (1 Pet. 1: 17): "If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear; forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed . . . but with the precious blood of Christ." This judgment is carried into effect in the holiness of His nature against evil, and in His fatherly care of us in holiness: as it is written, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name," &c. (John 17: 11.) And so we have to judge ourselves; and if we do not, we are judged of the Lord. There is His government in this respect. (1 Cor 10: 31, 32.) It is chastening. Compare Job 33 and 36.

Christ judges the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. Now is not the time of Christ's judgment, save as Lord over His people for their good, as we have seen. It is the time of grace to the world. That the Jews as a nation are rejected is, as to God's dealings, the reconciling of the world, the accepted time, the day of salvation. Of course God can interfere in judgment, supremely if He pleases, as He once did in the flood, not a sparrow falling to the ground without Him. But this time is the time of grace to the world. When He appears and establishes the kingdom, it will be the time of judgment. As it is expressed in the Psalms; "judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright in heart shall follow it." (Ps. 94: 15.) In the cross, though infinitely deeper things were wrought by it, and divine righteousness established through it, yet righteousness was not made good in this world, but the contrary. Righteousness was found in the person of Christ; judgment in the hands of Pilate, or the chiefs of the Jews. When Christ appears for His kingdom, judgment and righteousness will go together in the earth. As it is written (Ps. 94), "Jehovah, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth. Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth; render a reward to the proud. Jehovah! how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?" Christ comes to judge the quick: "He cometh, he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness." (Ps. 96: 13.) "He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world [habitable earth] in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained." (Acts 17: 31.)

371 When the Lord judges the dead, He does not come at all. "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened." (Rev. 20: 11, 12.) Here there is no coming to the earth or coming again in any way. One sits on a great white throne, and heaven and earth flee away. At the judgment of the dead there is no coming of Christ. His kingdom is given up after it is executed, but not till then. (Compare 1 Cor. 15: 24.) . . . But there is another judgment, that of the quick or living (a judgment of this world), for which Christ comes; which will be like the days of Noah and Lot: there will be eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building, marrying, and giving in marriage, and the day will come upon them like a thief in the night. It is clear this is a different scene from the great white throne. There is no buying and selling there, in the midst of which they are caught.

Yet, when Christ comes to judgment, there will then be those who are "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe." (2 Thess. 1: 9, 10.) At this judgment of the quick, Christ comes, He appears. The holy angels come with Him, as in the passage just quoted from verse 7, "The Son of man . . . shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." (Luke 9: 26.) I might cite other passages, but these are clear.

But He brings His saints with Him too: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Col. 3: 4.) "Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." (1 Thess. 4: 14.*) Chapter 5 shews that this is the time of the judgment of the careless on the earth. And this truth of the saints coming with Christ, when He appears to judge the quick, is largely and fully taught in scripture. Even in the Old Testament we read (in Zech. 14: 5), "And Jehovah my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." That is the day when "Jehovah shall be king over all the earth." (Ver. 9.) So in Jude: "The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all." (Ver. 14, 15.) Nor is it the angels alone who are spoken of, as in some of these passages it might be alleged, though groundlessly. They will come; but Colossians 3: 4 cannot apply to them: nor 1 Thessalonians 4; nor Revelation 17: 14, "They that are with him are called, and chosen and faithful:" nor again, in the chapter where it is fully brought out — Revelation 19, where the clean linen is the righteousness of the saints; when the Lord comes "as King of kings" to judge and destroy the beast and his armies, and Satan is bound, and the saints are seated on thrones, and judgment is given unto them; for the saints shall judge the world and even angels. (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3.) In Isaiah 66: 15, 16, we find this judgment also of the quick, with the solemn declaration: "It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations," &c., where we see that in this judgment of the quick some will escape. This will be seen, as to the Jews in Zechariah 13; as to the ten tribes, in Ezekiel 20; as to Gog, in Ezekiel 39. It may not be amiss to quote another passage relating to this judgment of the living: "Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe; come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. Jehovah also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Jehovah will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel." And the abiding blessing of Jerusalem is then spoken of (Joel 3: 11, and following).

{*If carefully examined, verses 15-18 (of 1 Thess. 4) will be found to be a parenthesis, in which a special revelation is given, in which the apostle shews how the saints will be with Him, in order to being so brought.}

372 Were I to enter into details I should multiply passages too much, and perhaps distract the reader from the main point. An earthly judgment was familiar to the Jews; a judgment of the dead little so. To us, one of the dead is familiar; one of the quick far less so. Hence it was needful to quote a greater number of passages. The last passage refers to the time (as indeed all do that speak of the judgment of the quick) when Jehovah shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem; when God will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat;* and will plead with them there for His people. (Joel 3: 1, 2.) Psalms 93 to 100 describe this scene in general, including the precious call to all who have ears to hear — it is reproduced in Revelation 14: 6, 7: judgments on the earth following also there. The parable of the sheep, goats, and brethren (Matt. 25) describes the judgment of the nations — not exactly the destruction of the beast and his armies and the false prophet. That is executed by Christ as coming from heaven, and as a warlike judgment. "And in righteousness doth he judge and make war" (Rev. 19: 11): it is the destruction of those who, animated by Satan, rise up against Him.

{*Jehoshaphat means, the rod or judgment of Jehovah.}

373 But, besides the warrior-judgment, there is a sessional judgment, when, by the destruction of the beast and Antichrist, Christ has taken the throne of Jehovah on the earth at Jerusalem; for Jerusalem is to be called the throne of Jehovah. (Jer. 3: 17.)

Let us now examine the passage in Matthew. I do it with more detail because it is the passage which stands in the way of many, and is appealed to as a description of a general judgment (a thing unknown to scripture); whereas it is simply and exclusively (as is stated in the passage itself) the judgment of the Gentiles or nations, not of any dead persons at all. In the end of Matthew 23, the Lord, addressing Jerusalem, declares her house is left desolate to them, and He declares they would not see Him thenceforth till they said, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The Lord then (in chap. 24: 31) gives an account of all that was connected with the testimony among the Jews till He came — when "they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." He then exhorts His disciples, and in three parables presents the responsibility of Christians in His absence, shewing that the putting off of His own return would lead the public ministry of the Church to hierarchical oppression and worldliness, as has happened; and that the actual delay would lead even true saints to forget His return and go to sleep as to thus waiting for Him; but what would awaken them was the midnight cry that He was coming; and, lastly, the service of the saints in His absence (namely, the use of the gifts which He had left to them on His going away to receive the kingdom) is judged of in the parable of the talents.

374 Thus, what concerns the Jewish people having been fully gone into in Matthew 24: 1-31; and then, in the parenthetical exhortations and parables, the conduct of Christians and their motives in reference to His return set forth, after that the historical part is resumed in chapter 25: 31. "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him." This will not be a transient act like a flash of lightning, but "He shall sit on the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all the nations [the Gentiles]." Israel and Christians have been already spoken of. Now the gospel of the kingdom had gone out (chap. 24: 14) as a testimony to all nations (all the Gentiles), and then the end was to come. And now the end was come; and the nations were judged — the quick — according as they had received these messengers of the kingdom. It is a mistake to say that there are two classes here. There are three; the sheep, the goats, and the brethren. The goats had despised this final message of the kingdom and were condemned. The sheep had received the messengers and were blessed; their treating the brethren so, was as if they had treated Christ in the same way. There is not a word about the resurrection.* Those judged are the nations (or Gentiles) upon the earth when Christ comes. Christ as King will sit and judge the Gentiles. That is the express statement, and it is an event often spoken of by the prophets.

{*Note also that the sole ground of judgment is the way the messengers of Christ have been treated, so that it cannot apply to the mass of the heathen world, in a word, to the vast majority of mankind.}

I have dwelt more fully on this passage because it is that which, from old traditional teaching, hinders people receiving the plain and positive testimonies of the word of God. It is simply and expressly the judgment of the Gentiles upon the earth: for when Christ comes and appears in glory, He comes to earth; and He must judge the quick as well as the dead; and as regards the quick (as the very word itself means, those living on the earth), when they will be eating and drinking, buying and selling, saying Peace and safety, "as a snare shall it come upon them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth."

Many details might be gone into; the judgment of the Jewish people and Jerusalem, the judgment of the beast, of Gog in Idumea, which vary in details and character so as to distinguish even the Jews (who having rejected Christ receive Antichrist) and the ten tribes (who do neither); but this would lead me too far from my object. Suffice it to say that Matthew 25 describes the sessional judgment of the nations by the Son of man when He is come. It has nothing to do with the dead.

375 Let us now enquire how far, and how, does judgment apply to us — to the [heavenly] saints? First, from the judgment of the quick and the dead (which is to take place at His appearing and His kingdom) they are clearly wholly exempt: for when He appears, they shall appear with Him in glory; they come with Him when He comes to execute judgment. (Col. 3: 4; 1 Thess. 4; Rev. 19.) This is confirmed by the striking scene in Revelation 4, where the throne (not of grace, but) of judgment, of thunderings, lightnings, and voices, is set in heaven. There are twenty-four elders, the kings and priests, are sitting on twenty-four thrones around. I need not recall the many passages already cited which speak of their coming with Him. But there are other scriptures which refer to the subject.

But first let us recognize that we are all subject to condemnation, and liable in ourselves to judgment as responsible to God. That is a great foundation truth which is at the basis of salvation as well as of wrath. Nothing must be allowed to weaken that, and further, that "every one of us shall give an account of himself to God." (Rom. 14: 12.) We shall all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in the body. (2 Cor. 5: 10.) "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." (Rom. 14: 10.) But the Christian has, through grace, anticipated this. He has recognized by divine teaching that condemnation is his own portion; he knows that in him, that is in the flesh, dwells no good thing; he has said in spirit, "enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified."

In a word, the sentence of the day of judgment has passed upon his soul by faith. He knows that he that believes not is condemned already; and he has applied to himself the sentence: "there is none righteous, no not one;" he has gone farther — if really clear as to his state — and learned that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." In a word, he has recognized, by a divine work in his own soul, what sin is before God as the judgment-seat will shew it. The feeling may have been deeper or less deep, but if one is a Christian at all, it has been truthful in this respect. But then he has recognized that He who is to judge the quick and the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, has also (anticipating that day) stepped in, in grace, as a Saviour before He becomes a judge, and has borne his sins in His own body on the tree, and, in blessed obedience and love, drunk the cup of wrath. The sins, for which himself would have had to be judged, and certainly and justly condemned, have been borne already by another, and that other the One who is to judge; and that, if this were not so, he is condemned. He owns it to be a perfect work; perfect in every respect, perfect to glorify God, and perfect as regards all his sins; and he owns that if Christ has not completed that work in dying once for all, it never can be completed, nor God glorified about sin; and that, if all his sins were not put away then, they never can be, because Christ cannot die over again; but that indeed, having by Himself purged our sins, He has sat down for ever on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, having by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified; so that there is now no more offering for sin. He may feel them, though gone, more deeply (it is most right he should); he may see more deeply what they are (and the nearer he draws to God, the more deeply will he see the horror and baseness of them); but the work which has put them away is done and cannot be repeated. And when he is manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, he is before Him who Himself put them all away. Christ must deny Himself if He imputes them to him.

376 But, further, in what state does the Christian appear before the Lord? He is raised in glory. No judgment can apply to him which can affect his being in glory, for he is in it already when he appears there. And to what extent does this go? Judgment begins when Christ appears. "He shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;" but, "when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3: 2.) We are "conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren." (Rom. 8: 29.) We have borne the image of the earthy, and we shall bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Cor. 15: 49.) What is judgment, if we are completely like the judge, and He Himself our righteousness? And the knowledge of this is applied to our present happiness in this world. "Herein is love made perfect* with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17.) The truth is, though we may all pass through it as an experience, hope for the day of judgment is an imperfect and ill-founded feeling which cannot be justified. If I am judged, I shall certainly be condemned; if justified, there is no judgment for me. Hope, though very natural, is here the result of human reasoning, not the simplicity of divinely wrought faith. But the more we reflect on what scripture teaches, the more shall we see the truth on which I am dwelling.

{*See margin of English Bible. This alone is the true translation. You have love towards us as sinners (1 John 4: 9, 10) for life and propitiation; love in us (ver. 12) for joy and communion; and love perfect with us for the day of judgment. (Ver. 17.)}

377 When we depart or are absent from the body, we are with Christ, present with the Lord (as we speak) in heaven. Could Paul or Stephen be taken out of heaven to be judged as to whether he should have a place there? This is not what scripture teaches. It teaches an accomplished salvation, in virtue of which being justified we have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God; in which we say, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?" But, further, how is it that we believers arrive before the judgment seat of Christ? "Let not your heart be troubled" (says the Lord, John 14: 1) . . . "I go to prepare a place for you: and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." That is, the way I come up before Christ is that He so loves me that He comes Himself to fetch me, that I may be with Himself. And so the apostle teaches us (1 Thess. 4: 16, 17): "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout . . . and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain [to the coming of the Lord] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." That is a blessed way of going before the judgment seat. And so in Philippians 3: 20, "Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body."

In a word, we go up before the judgment-seat of Christ, in that Christ (who has loved us, and given Himself for us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood; who comes Himself to fetch us, and changes our vile body into the likeness of His glorious body) raises us, or changes us into glory, and takes us, made like Himself, to be with Himself for ever, who in His own resurrection was the firstfruits of the saints that slept. Such is the scriptural account of the way we go up before, and the state in which we are manifested before, the judgment-seat of Christ.

378 And scripture is yet more precise as to the question of our being judged. In John 5 this question is directly treated of. Two means are stated by which the glory of the Son is secured. In one He works in common with the Father; in the other, alone. The two are life-giving and executing judgment: one, that by which we are brought to enjoy communion with the Father and the Son; the other, that by which the Son's glory is secured in the case of the wicked who reject Him. These two are not confounded. He does not bring into question the truth of the life He has communicated by calling the quickened into judgment. In which (the question naturally arises) is my part? The Lord answers (in ver. 24), "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life" (he is quickened), "and shall not come into judgment,* but is passed from death unto life." He is not to be tried, as on the footing of his own conduct, to know if he can be received. He was dead in sins, but has been brought out of that totally lost state into a new one by the quickening power of the Sop of God. So in the resurrection; there is a resurrection of the just to life, and a resurrection of the wicked to judgment. Those who have everlasting life do not come into judgment. (Ver. 29.)

{*I am of course aware, that it is condemnation in the English text, but it is in the original the same word as in verse 22 and 27, and so it is in verse 29. Condemnation is a different word in Greek. Here the change destroys the whole force of the passage, though condemned they would be. The translators tell us in their original preface that, where the same word occurred several times in a passage, they give a different one if they can. Much as we have to be thankful for the English translation, this was a very false principle. They have done so here.}

This contrast of the natural portion of man in judgment, and the value of the cross of Christ — as come to deliver and redeem — is strikingly shewn in the end of Hebrews 9. "As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation." He appeared the first time to be made sin for sin, but to put it away by the sacrifice of Himself. This He accomplished for us, and He who was ever sinless Himself, having put it away for us the first time He came, appears unto those who look for Him the second time, not having to say to it at all, to take us into the full salvation of glory. Man's portion as such is death and judgment. The believer's portion is Christ's bearing and putting away his sins; and then coming to bring him to glory. Hence, when the throne of judgment is set, the kings and priests are seen sitting on four and twenty thrones around it, and come back in glory with Christ when He executes it on the earth.

379 A striking instance of the effect of the thought of judgment according to scripture will be found in 2 Corinthians 5. The apostle first looks at the proper portion of the saint, not as death and judgment, or even death and happiness. It is mortality being swallowed up of life, the mortal body being changed into glory, without death's necessarily intervening at all. But death and judgment are fallen man's portion; and if death did thus intervene, confidence remained unmoved, for he had divine life, and, if he were absent from the body, he would be present with the Lord. Then he considers judgment, calls it the terror of the Lord, looks it fully in the face, knows it, states we shall all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ; and then, what-trembles or thinks of himself? In no wise; he persuades men. Its terror produces no effect of terror at all on his own mind. It was a judgment which, as such, affected others. It had however a powerful influence on his heart and conscience. Others were not free as he was. And the thought of that day stirs up the love of Christ constrainingly, and he persuades men who were not ready for it; but then, secondly, it brings him into God's judgment as a present thing in a sanctifying way. We are, says he (not shall be), manifested to God. And this is a most important effect; nothing more, practically, than bringing us into the presence of God to judge ourselves, and to do so as to good and evil, as it will be judged of in that day. Such then was the effect on Paul: no terror for him in that day of terror, but a stimulus to his seeking unconverted sinners, and keeping his soul in the presence and fear of God.

Another expression in this passage calls for remark — "to receive the things done in the body." The expression, "judgment," is carefully avoided, even when in a certain sense there is such. Man would soon turn it into a question of the acceptance of the person. As regards the wicked, I need not dwell on it. They will receive the things done in the body, it will be their condemnation; but as regards the saints, they will also. As regards acceptance, we are in Christ, all accepted alike — all to be conformed to the image of the Son — all having Christ for our righteousness. Paul cannot have one more perfect or a higher glory. But, besides this, saints have the privilege of service, of being the vessels of God's love to others. In the work of the Holy Ghost by us there is a difference. And while all is pre-ordered of God, and to sit on Christ's right hand and on His left is for those for whom it is prepared of the Father, yet we do receive through grace the reward of labour, and every man his own reward according to his own labour. Scripture speaks of receiving a full reward. The Thessalonians will be Paul's joy and crown of rejoicing, not ours, as the fruit of our labours. If we have built with wood, hay, and stubble, all will be lost, though we are saved. In a word righteousness is in Christ, the same for all; service is rewarded.

380 Another point remains. We shall be in glory, we shall not even have the nature, the flesh in which we sinned; but we shall know as we are known, and give an account of ourselves to God, re-pass our whole life and all God's blessed ways with us, see it all as God sees it, and wonder at the all-perfect grace which has led us onward from our birth. Now when I look back, I adore God's grace. Then I shall know as I am known, and see the thousand instances of how His eye has watched over me to bless me. We are manifested thus now, even in thinking of it. We shall give an account then, in fact; but it is when we are glorified, and brought to be with Christ by Himself for ever. As to judgment there is no such thing for the saint, understood as pronouncing on his state. He is already in glory when he stands before Christ. On that scripture leaves no doubt, no ambiguity.

There is then a judgment of the quick when Christ comes; a judgment of the dead afterwards before the great white throne. There is a continuing judgment when Christ returns, in a more general sense, of power associated with righteousness governing the earth, of which prophecy specially treats: — a subject full of interest, but too long to be entered on here. For the saints is no judgment at all: Christ comes to receive them to Himself, and raises them in glory to have them with Him. But they do give an account of themselves to God when in glory, and receive the reward of service, though it be grace that has wrought it in them. Such is the scriptural instruction on this subject.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOL. 3.]

Remarks on a tract circulated by the Irvingites entitled, "A Word of Instruction."

J. N. Darby.

<15001E> 1

The tract on which the following remarks have been made was actually circulated by the Irvingite teachers amongst those for whose sakes they have been written. Although therefore they would elude the responsibility flowing from it by saying that it is not put out by authority, they may justly be held answerable for its contents. It is perhaps right it should be known, that the only thing which has such authority among them, which they call the record, is kept carefully from the knowledge and hearing of any but themselves. If their individual teachers say anything, they are not answerable for it, for they are not the Holy Ghost. If the Spirit said plain things early in their course, it was before the ordinances were set up; though one of their angels has asserted, that, if he taught palpable error, no one was to call it in question, for the sin it might occasion would rest upon him; yet, when any one might shew the unscripturalness of the statement, then an individual was not the Church nor the Holy Ghost. And if the Spirit spoke things which actually failed, then it was said no one had a right to interpret what was said, for no prophecy was of private interpretation. This, connected with the denial of the competency of individuals to use scripture with profit alone, or any way but through their ordinances, gives a character to this matter with which we are but too familiar in this country.

This has gone so far as for their teachers to assert, in their stating what has been mentioned and being questioned, that if they taught that God was not manifest in the flesh at all, a Christian ought not to look to the scriptures to see if it was right, and that if he did, he would get no good out of it, for he had not the Spirit so as to be able, and none had but they. And, in another instance of a person in illness, they were reproved on being found reading the bible, and saying it was their only comfort there alone, for that the Church was between their soul and God; and they have gone so far as to desire some poor disciples not to pray for anything they were not taught by the angel to pray for, for it was making God a familiar spirit. They would commend the bible perhaps highly; but take it as the rule of faith which a believer is capable of using for himself, however he may benefit by others, and by which he is always bound to judge others when the occasion arises; and they will — perhaps I should not say they will — but they have constantly denied such competency, and reproved such use. The authority of the Church and the voice with them is the paramount thing.

2 It is a painful thing to be mingled up with evil, even in contention against it; but it is sometimes the duty of, because needful for, the saints.

The people called Irvingites have been plainly convicted elsewhere of so much false doctrine, false practice, and false prophecy, and that by many of the Church of God, as to make it, when known, a question only of preserving God's children against the deceits and crafts of Satan. Here they are as strangers less known. It is not my intention to go over at length in this what has been already often taken notice of. They have here circulated one of their most plausible tracts; and therefore there is a plain ground to take up with them — and I do this the rather for this reason — they have been often charged with holding the sinful humanity of Christ, and many of their teachers and disciples have, to the writer of this and to other persons, avowed it — that He had the carnal mind, but kept it down or dead. Mr. Irving, bold and fearless in the statement of what he held, declared that his nature bristled with sin like quills upon a porcupine; and that the nature with which the Son of man was clothed poured forth from the centre of its inmost will streams as black as hell; and that the Augean stable of this nature was given Him to cleanse; and, what was most material, the spirit which they profess to be the Holy Ghost, though it might not sanction the language, expressly sanctioned the doctrine, the doctrine to which it gave its sanction being, that the law of sin was there all-present.

Now this was so plainly wicked and evil, and contrary to God's word and Spirit, that they have, since they have been pressed with it, taken great pains, at least the subtler ones amongst them, to disclaim and deny this. I say the subtler ones; because it has been not long since avowed by some of their teachers to the writer of this. The way they have got over the Spirit's having sanctioned it is, that they were not answerable for what was said, that is, in utterance by the Spirit, before the ordinances were set up. One of these very ordinances said to the writer of this, that the Spirit might have said it through prejudice to please Mr. Irving. I only mention this to shew the unhappy degradation to which men may be reduced by giving way to the leadings of an evil spirit. Another of their teachers confessed that damnable errors and blasphemous heresies had been taught by them at Cork and elsewhere. But few are aware of these, and many other, wretched inconsistencies which pass among them, and often tear the mind of those who are sincere among them: but who, having once given credit to the voice amongst them as the Holy Ghost, and submitted implicitly to the ordinances among them as the Church, are powerless in their hands, unless and until God, in His sovereign mercy, break the bands. And derangement and heart-breaking more than once have I known the fruit, while the testimony of those freed has been at once most sad and humbling as to what was there, though at first there may have been great form of joy and holiness. I say form; for, while there was that, it has never been heavenly or holy in its character or effects, where I have met with it, but the contrary: though I believe some holy persons have fallen into it. Deceit, worldliness, the sanction of evil tempers in those whose persons are held in admiration among them, along with the pretence of infallibility and the evil connected with that, are what I have met amongst them; nor, I may say, have I ever in any body of persons found such an entire want of truth, and so much subtlety and deceivableness. These may seem hard sayings, but I say them soberly, after painful and sorrowful discovery of it; for there are individuals among them whom I feel bound to believe are, and to love, and whom I do love clearly as, Christ's sheep.

3 Now the tract which I have here noticed is one which most anxiously denies, and guards itself against, the evil doctrine noticed above; and having been actually circulated by them, there can be no charge of aggravation or prejudice, if subtlety, deceit, and real dishonour to our blessed Lord, be found to characterize it. But the real value of their attempt to screen themselves from the charge of this unholy and wicked doctrine may be seen, and what the value of their most direct and plausible denial of it is. To those who are acquainted with their teaching, as one of the pillars of their angels (such is his title) said to the writer — "a totally different gospel," which it surely is, and another foundation. There are many passages in the tract whose evil and subtlety would be most plain, but I can notice only such here as would be plain to a stranger on the face of it; and I say that those who really know Christ must at once reject them altogether. The Lord keep others from the subtlety and power of Satan in them, or working by them.

4 I will state their own words, to give them the full value of their denial of the doctrine. For though several have confessed it to me and others, they do often openly deny it when charged with

"In His [Christ's] human nature there was no inclination to sin, no stirring, no motion towards it, for He was dead to sin, being in humanity, as entirely and absolutely holy as Godhead is holy, and pure as Godhead is pure, so that, in the fullest sense in which the words can be taken, He could not sin." "But," the tract justly adds, "in knowing this we are not knowing all."

Who would not say to this, What can be more satisfactory? So it might seem at first sight to the unwary, and those who knew not with whom they had to deal.

But first you must remark the terms, "He was dead to sin." It is not in that He died, He died to sin once; therefore reckon yourselves, who have it in your nature, to be dead indeed unto sin. But while alive in the flesh He was so. Where was the sin He was dead to? They will tell you, at least they have told and written, in the nature He took, but not in His person.

Again, who would say that being holy in humanity did not mean His humanity being holy — or think in so plain a statement of so subtle a distinction? Hear their own words in this very tract. "All holiness since the fall has been a thing not according to,* but against, nature . . . . Now this is what I mean, by regeneration holiness — not a holiness of humanity, but a holiness in humanity by the Holy Ghost. Such has been the holiness of all the saints of God — of Abel, Enoch, Noah, &c., Samuel, and the prophets. And such was the holiness of Him who is not ashamed to call those saints His brethren. I know that our beloved Lord was holy from the beginning, but this by no means alters the matter." It was then a holiness not according to, but against nature. We can now understand what His being dead to sin means, and in humanity holy.

{*The italics are not mine, but the tract's.}

This might be sufficient to shew their exceeding subtlety; and how little those not acquainted with their teaching can trust apparently satisfactory statements; but as it is wrought out through all the tract I will follow it through some of the passages it contains. And I only ask, whether this subtlety is the least like the guilelessness of the Spirit of Christ.

5 The consequences they draw in this very tract are most plain. It is a difference in degree merely, that of Christ's holiness and ours, not in kind. It can be realized in the members as in the head. The difference between the head and members existed between the members, but not to the same degree. Dwelling in the Father and the Father in Him meant abiding ever in the Father by faith, and having the Father abiding in Him by the Holy Ghost, and that He had not the fulness of the Spirit without a correspondent waiting on the Father, and we are to do likewise: and consequently, as the prince of this world came and found nothing in our head, he would find nothing in us either, if we only were, as our head desires to see us, filled with all the fulness of God.

Now all this really sets aside the person of Christ, and states sin to be in Christ in the flesh, or asserts that it may be out of ours, and both these latter points have been expressly taught to the writer, and Mr. Irving's printed doctrine was that Christ's work was not reconciling individuals, but human nature.

"If His human nature," says Mr. Irving in another place, "differed by however so little from ours in its alienation and guiltiness, then the reducing it into eternal harmony with God hath no bearing whatever upon our nature, with which it is not the same."

And that it was "of the substance and essence of the orthodox faith that Christ could say, till the resurrection, Not I but sin that tempteth me in my flesh."

He said also, that Christ suffered because He was in the condition of a sinner: and that if He were not, and God treated Him as if He had been so, God was a make-believe God.

And again, that Christ was made by His human nature inclined to all those things which the law interdicted.

One other passage of Mr. Irving's writings I will advert to. He says, "I hold it to be the surrender of the whole question to say that He was not conscious of, engaged with, and troubled by, every evil disposition which inheriteth in the fallen manhood."

Accordingly, their teachers still teach, that the life of the flesh may be put out of the flesh, and the life of Christ put into it; so that we may be perfect as Christ Himself. And some of their tracts state, that this is the only ground on which we stand in the judgment. Such is, in fact, the doctrine of this tract, which in page 23 states that the fallen nature, which, if left to follow its own propensities, could do nothing good, was in Christ proved capable of perfect goodness; and that the prince of this world would find nothing in us either if we were what our head desires to see us. Accordingly, though they speak of the blood, and justification by the blood, on examination they are found to hold that all the world are justified in it, and righteousness (as was stated to the writer by one of their chief teachers) imputed to the vilest unbeliever as much as to himself or any believer. The Christian will know how contrary to scripture all this is.

6 As regards likeness to Christ, the diligent reader of scripture will see that our likeness to Christ, when applied to this life, is always of walk, not of nature, or in Himself; and likeness to Himself is stated to take place when He appears, and, we being risen, sin is no more a part of our state at all.

I shall now follow each material page of the tract, and notice enough of its subtleties to shew its character.

Page 2. "In all things it behoved Jesus to be made like unto his brethren."

"His brethren." There is concealment here, and of a point on which the whole hangs.

"We His brethren."

Who are we? The Church or men? Here again the point is like His brethren, and it is said "of the same Spirit of which we are born again was He born in humanity holy."

What likeness is here? Were we born in humanity holy or sinful? Likeness to His brethren in His being born holy, and they being born again because they were born in sin? Or is our old nature born again? If we His brethren are the Church, this likeness does not affect the character of our old nature which was not born of the Spirit.

In setting forth Jesus as a man, how excluded is God manifest in the flesh! Surely this had something to do with setting forth Jesus as a man. How excluded that the Word was made flesh!

"Jesus abides in His Almighty Father by faith."

Where does the scripture make such a statement as that? and "having the Father abiding in him by the Holy Ghost?"

Where is this in scripture? or where is divine union here? I read the Lord saying, "the Father is in me, and I in the Father." The Holy Ghost is not the Father.

Page 3. The scripture makes no such statement as this; but I reserve any remark till we come to the place where it is made use of. I will only remark, that to avoid the consequence that (to use the expression of this tract) "He inherited the poison" of the stock, their teachers have stated that Christ had not the life of a man in Him at all, and at least one of them, in terms, that God died.

7 He was by His mother surely in a certain sense sprung of man's race; but He was conceived sinless of the Holy Ghost in human nature, and we clearly opposite. When scripture speaks in this wise, Adam is represented as one head and the second Adam another.

Though a branch of Jesse, and sprung of Judah, as to purpose and dispensation, He did not spring of it naturally, as every Christian knows.

Page 4. "We are all branches," &c.

"His lovely holiness." "Of this holiness we may be made partakers."

Now the question is as to His humanity.

How can we be partakers of the holiness of His humanity? Is our manhood born of the Holy Ghost? What treachery of doctrine is it, under the plea of urging our being like Him in holiness, to conceal the difference that we are as branches born in sin? Our human nature is not born of the Holy Ghost; His was. His was "that holy thing which shall be born of thee;" ours is not. And we are to observe, that this is the whole point on such a subject as being a branch, and our being a branch, so that of this holiness we may be partakers. Can we, in the sinlessness of our human nature in its conception and birth? Is ours born a holy thing?

Page 5. Second proposition: "He sprang sinless, &c., by the Holy Ghost."

Do we do so in our humanity?

"In His human nature," &c.

Is that our case?

"Whence came this lovely holiness?"

This is the point.

"We are called to be like Him."

In nature as to manhood? How so, when we are born in sin; He not?

"Unless we can tell how Christ was holy, we cannot tell how His holiness may be found in us."

In flesh, in nature, or else it is quite different; or else it is the denial of the holiness of His nature.

"Do you ask me what it is to assign a false cause for the holiness of Jesus? I answer, to trace it to something which, in the very nature of things, can never be true of us."

8 It never can be true of us that our human nature was born of the Holy Ghost; and that that which is born of our mother is sinless. This is the whole question.

"The holiness of Jesus a holiness to be realized in us."

Is it in nature, in the flesh, not victory? or else, was His victory over sin in Himself? For ours is.

Page 6. "For when we are taught to believe," &c.

"Holiness which God commands to be realized in us the members, in the same way as it was realized in Him the head."

Had it not its source in something which never can be true of us? Was not the manhood born through the Holy Ghost? Are we God-men? It was realized in the head by sin's never existing: is that the way it is realized in us?

"Common to say Jesus was holy because He was born of a virgin?"

No; but because He was born through the power of the Holy Ghost, which is left out here. What wickedness this is!

Again I say, it never can be true that they were born through the operation of the Holy Ghost. How is the great truth of the incarnation merged here!

These two pages, while they apparently deny in terms, most fully teach this most unholy doctrine in fact.

Page 7. "It behoved our Lord not to descend from Adam by ordinary generation."

Do not we? Is not this a distinct source of holiness?

"The lovely holiness of the man Christ Jesus came from His birth in humanity of the Holy Ghost."

Is not this a different source from us?

How is likeness to us first insisted on, and the truth kept back; and here the truth stated, and the necessary difference kept back! This is the subtlety and deceit of Satan.

"Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee."

Could this be said of us? Is not the manner and source of holiness different? The Holy Ghost is not the source of our human nature as to birth; He was of Christ's. This is all the difference. He was a man born of God as to His human nature. I am not: and this, I say, is all the difference. See the consequence, pages 11, 19.

"Because conceived and born of the Holy Ghost."

Is not again this a different cause from us? Are we so? Could this "therefore" be used of us?

"The human nature of our beloved Lord was impeccable."

9 Is this "to be realized in us as it was realized in Him the head?"

Page 8. "Cannot sin, because He is born of God."

"These words have a partial fulfilment in every child of God."

How as to His manhood?

"Evil resulting from the doctrine which leads us to trace the holiness of Jesus in humanity, either to His birth of a virgin, or to His having been in His other nature more than man."

Again is left out His birth in human nature of the Holy Ghost. Then, as if this point was brought in, it "traces that holiness to His birth of the Holy Ghost."

"This inspires us with the blessed hope of realizing conformity to Jesus. Because birth of the Holy Ghost is common to the members with the head, and so if the holiness of the head can be traced to this source, it is a holiness in which the members may hope to share." Is birth of the Holy Ghost common to the members with the head in their human nature? Is there any community really of the members with the head as to their birth of the Holy Ghost, as to the question of their human nature, or of holiness in humanity?

"Because they have no miraculous birth, it by no means follows they have no birth."

They have no birth as to their flesh, but death by the Holy Ghost; and there is just the opposition, "if Christ be in you, the body is dead."

"There was a real work of the Holy Ghost upon Him conceiving Him holy."

"Now the very same work is done upon the members!"

As to the body, is this true? "When we know that the lovely holiness of our head came from something which is also true of us." Is it?

Page 9. "Be found holy branches."

As to flesh is the question.

"The Father abiding in Him by the Holy Ghost."

Where is this in scripture, or such a thought?

"In like manner, as we His members live by Him."

"AS" — "SO."

There is no emphasis in this. These words are not in the original.

"The life which we, whom Jesus hath sent, receive of Him; He whom the Father had sent received also of the Father."

Where is this in scripture? It is not receiving but sustaining is spoken of.

10 "Oneness also in the manner of receiving it, as, so."

There is no such thing really meant in the words. — Christ was speaking of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. How was this manner like, or one with the manner He received it of the Father?

Page 10. "Jesus abiding ever in the Father by faith, and having the Father abiding in Him by the Holy Ghost."

But there was much more than this (the latter part is not in scripture), even eternal union, which is not in us at all. This is the point of christian faith, which is here set aside. This tract is a denial of Christianity in my mind altogether. Is "I am in the Father" merely abiding by faith? If not, why say it is the same, yea, one thing? Is it alike true?

Page 11. "He hath promised to us the same."

Nay. He leaned on the living Father, we on the flesh and blood, that is, on death for us. The blood being shed out of the body and therefore spoken of as drunk. This is shocking perversion.

"This was the staff on which Jesus leant," &c.

Is John 15 and John 6 the same thing? Did He live by eating the flesh and drinking the blood? Is it not the contrast that we lean as sinners. He in the same life in holiness?

"Nothing should be too hard for us that was not too hard for Him."

Can we raise ourselves from the dead? What a comparison with Christ is this!

"Shut your doors, bow your knees to the Lamb."

Why not to the Father in the Son's name? The contrary of this is just what He means by "In that day ye shall ask me nothing; whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will do it."

"Leaning on the same strength," &c.

This is not the passage. Eating flesh and drinking blood is not the same as living by the Father.

Page 12. "For He had proved them all."

Has He proved my sorrows under sin as to conflict? He did on the- cross, where I wanted it. Had He sin dwelling in Him? I have. Had He sin dwelling in Him? Did birth by the Holy Ghost make no difference?

"Found in this estate."

What estate? Sin in the flesh?

"Its weakness."

But its sin, its sin, that is the question. His leaning on God in trial was perfection, and not sin.

11 Page 13. "Holy human nature, which God had prepared for Him."

Is that true of us? Or, on the other side, being God-man?

"He had gotten pure from the Father's hands."

Is this true of us? Neither indeed is it scriptural in itself.

What follows is all shirking the point.

Page 14. Who questions all these testimonies of the word?

Page 15 I cannot acquiesce in, but it is immaterial.

Page 16. "It was a prayer for wisdom."

Where is this in scripture?

It is common to say Jesus prayed as a man, but this is exceedingly incorrect language, and much calculated to mislead. "You do not imagine that the humanity of Jesus ever prayed of itself?" No, but it was not God prayed.

"The God-man prayed."

Where is this in scripture?

How do men darken counsel by words without knowledge! If it were the God-man, it was all from a source of which I am devoid, for I am not a God-man. Perhaps we should remember, in setting forth Jesus as a man, pages 2, 3, we have merely the Father dwelling in Him by the Spirit, and thus He did the Father's will. There is no part of the glory of Christ's person which is not confused and set aside here.

The difference as to Arianism is much simpler and plainer. Arianism says, that Jesus our Lord was not the true God: and Christianity or the scripture says He was. The question in Arianism was not about trusting at all.

Page 17. As to justification and example, this is not the point at all: but raising, not the true objection, but a quite distinct question, and answering it, this is mere Jesuitry.

Page 18. "Having put away our sins in His blood; and as our representative, fulfilled all righteousness."

Whose sins? Whose representative?

Page 19. "He was conceived and born holy, whereas we are conceived and born in sin."

Is this a difference only in degree?

"He hath the pre-eminence."

Was He in sin? Is that only in degree?

"A difference not in kind, but only in degree."

Here is the point.

"For of the same Spirit of which He was sanctified in humanity" "His members are sanctified."

12 What subtlety! Sanctified in humanity — was He born in sin?

"In this respect, there is no difference between Jesus and us, who are children of the Spirit."

There is the difference of the flesh lusting against it in us, which was not in Him. This is not in degree, but in kind.

"But He was sanctified from the beginning, &c.; but it is only a difference in degree," &c.

How is the question of sin in the flesh dropped here! Could it have been said to Christ, "mortify therefore your members which are on the earth?" Was it not said to them to whom it was said, "ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God"?

Page 20. "If we cannot be expected to be like Christ, it makes useless all example together. I say this, because I am prepared to shew that the same difference, which we have now seen to exist between the head and the members, exists among the members themselves, though not to the same extent."

Was not sin in the nature of all the members? Is it in the head? What abominable perversion and wickedness of Satan is this!

Were any of the members conceived in human nature of the Holy Ghost? What comes of the assertion, "that in His human nature there was no inclination to sin," if difference be only in degree, and that there is the same difference between the members?

"It is said of John, that he was filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb," &c.

What has being filled with the Holy Ghost officially, and as to prophetic calling, to do with having his human nature conceived of the Holy Ghost?

"Any example will fall to the ground if the principle be admitted, that if He whom we are called to follow had more of the Spirit than we have, we cannot be expected to be like Him."

Is that all the difference in Christ? The tract says it is difference only in extent. Is not this denying the sinlessness of Christ in nature?

Page 21. "'Go thou and do likewise.' But if the principle we are thus exposing be unsound when applied to holy men, it is equally unsound when applied to the holiest of men, the Lord Jesus Christ."

Is not this making sin in Christ or none in us?

"In Jesus of Nazareth you see the bright example of what manhood can be, and can do, by the grace of God anointing it, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in it."

13 Is this sinful manhood as ours? if not, to what purpose is this evil subtlety? And what comes of Christ's person? Was Christ an exhibition of what sinful manhood governed and mortified by the Holy Ghost is?

"If you say that He had a fulness of the Spirit which you have not, remember that He had not that fulness without a corresponding instant waiting on the Father."

"When, therefore, at any time you are disposed to complain that God does not fill you with the Spirit whereas Jesus was always filled with Him, look on the Lamb spending nights in prayer; look on it, I say, and when you have looked on it, go you and do you likewise."

Is any comment needed to shew the wickedness of this? Before Jesus entered on service at all, and was publicly anointed with the Holy Ghost, was there no difference between us and Him; not only as to the fulness of the Godhead in Him, but the sinlessness of His human nature?

Page 22. "The tree having become corrupt, every branch springing from it inherits the poison, and, left alone, bears nothing but evil fruit."

Every branch inherits the poison. Page 4 says, Jesus, His holy one, was a branch of Adam's withered tree; and again, page 22, "for of this withered tree He sprang a branch. Nothing can be simpler, if men desire to know."

Nothing, indeed. Every branch inherits the poison, and He sprang a branch — but was not left alone, and therefore did not bear nought but evil fruit.

"Holiness, since the fall, has been a thing not according to, but against, nature."

Is that true of Christ?

"Such was the holiness of Him who is not ashamed to call these saints His brethren."

What plainer?

"The holiness that was found in Him, He borrowed not from nature."

What Jesuitry! Had He not it in nature? Have we? Was it not the native character of His humanity? Is it of ours?

"He sprang out of our common fallen stock."

As we do?

We get now the worth of the earlier statements. The sting is in the tail; so ever with Satan's deceit.

Page 23. "Last, but chief of all" "He sprang a branch."

14 Did He inherit the poison? The rest did, though by the Holy Ghost they kept the power down.

"A fallen nature is one, which, left to follow its own propensities, will never do any good."

Is that true of Christ's nature? That is just the point.

"That it is capable of much goodness, Enoch and Elijah, Abraham and Moses, testify; that it is capable of perfect goodness, our beloved Lord testifies."

Does He? St. Paul did not, but the clear contrary. He says, No good was in it, and it could not be subject to the law of God. No! What was in the saints was a new nature, not born of the flesh. Their fallen nature was born of the flesh, and was flesh; this was a new nature from God, through Christ, contrary to the old as scripture teaches. It lusted against the Spirit in them: could that be said of Christ? What Christ was in principle and character, the new nature is of itself, for it is Christ our life. There is the old besides in us.

Page 24. "Jesus, the branch, sprang of it sinless by the Spirit."

Do we? If not, what folly do they mean?

"The Son of God could not have taken humanity save by the Holy Ghost."

Do we?

"No humanity that was not conceived by the Spirit holy . . . . . . could ever have been the humanity of the Father's Holy One."

Is that our humanity? Is there no difference in kind?

"You will be taught to look upon the purity of the Lamb, and the holiness which ever adorned Him, as a purity to which you might be conscious."

That is, absolutely in nature without sin. It is not then distinctively true of Him that He knew no sin. We do not deceive ourselves if we say we have none!

"For, surely, as the prince of this world came and found nothing in your head, He would find nothing in you either, if you only were as your head desires to see you, 'filled with all the fulness of God.'"

This is a worthy finishing to set aside the whole work and person of Christ; for we should be accepted on the same ground as He was, each in ourselves, according to this being what He was; and why not then?

For my own part, I do not see a single truth of Christianity connected with the person of Christ, our acceptance, and the character of our sanctification, which this tract does not deny. Though circulated to screen them from the charge of calling Christ's humanity sinful, they cannot, without setting aside their whole system, set aside this, though they may deny it. It is (as one of their chief authorized teachers said) the hinge of the whole matter; and if we do not believe that, we believe nothing of their system — that is, that the carnal mind was in Christ, but that He kept it dead. That is the character of our holiness; and, as this tract states, it is realized the same way in the head and in the members.

A Letter to a Clergyman on the claims and doctrines of Newman Street.

J. N. Darby.

<15002E> 16

My dear F-,

I comply with your request, in writing down some of the principles and statements which deter my mind from at all receiving or acknowledging the teaching of the missionaries who have lately come from Newman Street to this place. It requires me to set aside all the teaching which I have received from God, before I can recognize their teaching to be true. This I cannot do. I have invariably found it to be the effect of receiving their teaching; but, if this be the case, it is clear I have no ground to judge of them or of anything else. If I have learned nothing from the word of God, how can I know of the Church, be interested in the Church, hope or fear anything for the Church? If I am to I try them, it must be by the word: if I receive them without trying them, I set out in disobedience, and am a necessary and helpless prey to whatever they state, having given up the only means of judging whether they are of God or not.

The relinquishment of previous knowledge of scripture I have found to be the invariable effect of receiving their teaching and mission. Now I cannot deny the grace of God given to me in order to assume that all spiritual teaching is in them. I am well aware that they talk of reading scripture in the flesh; that previous knowledge of it has been in the flesh; and that we must not come critically to hear them, but willing to receive their doctrine. I cannot be willing to receive it, till I know what it is. Now do they mean by critical judging everything they say by the word? They themselves assume that I cannot do this, as knowing nothing except in the flesh. But if they do mean this, then I confess at once that it is precisely the spirit in which I do come to hear persons professing such an authoritative mission as they do: and I confess that it makes a very strong prima facie argument against their claims, that they do not like people so to come. If I am spiritual, it is clearly my part; if not so, still I must search the scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. Surely the Bereans knowledge of the scriptures was just what they call fleshly knowledge; but it is a remarkable thing, that precisely what they call knowing the scriptures in the flesh is made the guard against delusion in the perilous times of the last days. "Continue thou," says the blessed apostle to his son Timothy, "in the things which thou hast learned, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus."

17 Now we have here precisely what they call fleshly knowledge of the scriptures, the guard against the delusions of the last perilous times; which guard they throw down; it is wrested out of the hand of those that give heed to them. They say, the guard against the dangers of the last days is the possession of the Spirit which they bring or are sent by. I find that the fleshly knowledge as they call it of the scriptures, which they reject and discard, is the guard given by the apostle, that is, by the Spirit of God, against the delusions and deceptions of the latter day. The word is the stability and security of the Church of God. It is quite true, we cannot use it really but by the Spirit; but that which the Spirit uses, for the comfort and keeping of the children of God, is His word.

And now I will mention some of the interpretations which they have produced as being the authentic interpretations of the mind of God in the scriptures. In the first place, Isaiah 40. The former chapter had left the church in Babylon; this chapter speaks of them as actually brought out, no information being given of their state while staying there: this, according to these teachers, is the restoration of the church! "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," means the restoration of apostles. "The voice of one crying in the wilderness" is the restoration of prophets to the church. "O Zion, which bringest glad tidings," is the restoration of evangelists; and "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd," is the restoration of pastors. "Keep silence before me, O islands," (chap. 41) is a command addressed here by the Spirit to the little isolated bodies of Christians. Then, after referring to previous deliverance, the words "I will give thee a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth, and with it thou shalt thresh the mountains," mean that the poor despised people that have the Lord among them in the gifts shall thresh and break down all the systems of churches and religion. "I will open rivers in high places:" these are the gifts and presence of the Spirit restored in Newman Street and elsewhere.

18 I give this merely as a specimen of their interpretation; I leave the judgment of it to others. The two latter interpretations are important, because the threshing of systems, or Babylon which they avow these systems to be, seems directly contrary to the statement concerning Babylon given in the Revelation, and in the latter they directly contradict themselves. It is stated, on the one hand, that the rivers opened in the restoration of the Comforter to the church, known in these gifts, were not flowing in the intermediate time from their exercise in the early days of the church; that heaven had been shut; that they did not exist, but are now restored; so that now, if the poor and needy seek water, then it is in unexpected places thus restored, but, till now so restored, not existing in all the interval. Now it is also stated by them that the energizings of the Father, the ministries of the Lord, and the operations of the Spirit, are as identified as their persons, and one cannot be without the other, that, if one fail in any measure, the other proportionately fails; and they also state that it is the energizing of the Father which quickens souls, even as Christ was raised from the dead, which last, doubtless, they are quite right in. Now they conclude, and justly, from this ground, that if the gifts and operations of the Spirit in them ceased, then the energizing of the Father must have ceased also; but this, coupled with the other part of their doctrine, that these gifts did cease, and that there were no rivers but that they are now restored, would simply prove that there never was a soul born to God until these gifts arose and were restored in the Church.

Thus the very principles of their system do not hang together. They boast of the restoration of the gifts for themselves. The thing that they announce is, that they are evangelists of the restoration of them; so that if we do not join them we shall, to say the least, not escape the coming judgments; for they do not venture to say we shall be lost, and yet we are told, if they did not continue, the energizing of the Father did not, so that no soul was born to God at all; and they press the necessary continuance of the gifts in the Church all through.

Again, though they would now admit that the Spirit dwelt in every believer, at least in some sort or sometimes, but not that the Comforter was in them, their language varies. They sometimes compare it to the difference of dwelling with them as in Jesus, and being in them as subsequently after the day of Pentecost. In this latter sense of the Comforter thus being in them, they say we have not the Spirit; and so much so that, if we do not join them as having this in whatever measure, we are in danger of the judgments coming. If we have it, all their pretensions and warnings are but idle bombast and terror. But I read that the Comforter, so promised as taking the place of Christ, should abide with them for ever. Which am I to believe? Let God be true. I admit our unfaithfulness; but while God's faithfulness cannot justify my unfaithfulness, my unfaithfulness cannot make that word of none effect: "He shall abide with you for ever." I do not find the consistency with themselves or with scripture, which the Spirit of God would give and manifest. The word condemns them: they deny themselves.

19 Again, one point they are very fond of is this, that they are the hundred and forty four-thousand in Revelation 14, and that afterwards the harvest will be: but that those in it will not be able to sing the song which the hundred and forty four thousand do. But, again, they will take the parable in Mark, and teach us that first there is corn sown, then the long stalk of apostasy, producing nothing, and then the full ear like the grain sown. These are themselves, not indeed in their present state, but when fully ripened, baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, and thus perfected to meet the Lord: and then, when they are ripened, immediately He will put in His sickle, because the harvest is come. Now, it is clear, they change the whole structure and statement of the parable; but both cannot be true: for one identifies them and the harvest, the other makes the very point of their importance, that they are quite distinct from the harvest, and that the harvest is not then come at all, but many most important things between it and them. I do not agree with their interpretations; but the Spirit of God clearly cannot teach opposite and discordant things.

Thus far upon the face of their teaching. Many things I am well aware they would answer, as, that they may err, but they are not the Spirit. But what then is their teaching, and why receive their extraordinary mission? They may state the gospel, for aught I know, and state it clearly: others state that they have done so. I am ready to believe them: one of those who are here ought at least to have known it. But we are here only where we were before. The question is, Do they, besides the gospel, state things inconsistent with the truth and Spirit of God? Besides, do they privily bring in (whether deceived themselves, or doing it wilfully, is not the question, though concerning one at least I am satisfied he is doing it without wilfulness) — do they privily bring in heresy? When I have heard them, they preached what I judged very contrary to the gospel. They taught, as to forgiveness of sins, on Psalm 32, that the love of God led us to judge sin He did, and to confess it to Him and to man, searching it out till we found none, and so we had peace; and Christ and His blood-shedding were not mentioned in connection with it, nor Christ's name, save requiring in one sentence conformity to Him.

20 I confess, to me this was not preaching the gospel, nor the forgiveness of sins in Christ's name, and therefore I heard what I believe not to be the gospel. But be it that they have at other times preached the gospel: what else have they taught? Certainly, they preach themselves; and the joining them as the way of security, not Christ. They say they were sent by a spirit, the presence of which among them is the only security in the evil day. And I must therefore judge them by that which the Spirit has done and said, if this is offered as any security in the evil. They preach the gospel; they explain many things; and I must say that the multiplied variety of the way in which they state things, the very great difference of their statements to different people, their extreme guardedness in the presence of those informed so as to know the contradictoriness of their statements, their refusal to reason the matter when opposed, or unless received as teachers, which is their habit, all to my mind, and specially the want of openness as to what they do hold, contradict that character of the Spirit's truth — "We use great plainness of speech."

I have observed even that, where evil is brought in, it is brought in privily — when truth, the house-top is the suitable place for its announcement. "Ask them which heard me" (when a nation had been taught), was the righteous appeal. Ask them, Do they hold that the humanity of our blessed Lord was sinful humanity? — a principle originally boasted of by the great instrument and leader in all this work, Mr. Irving, as the very ground of the introduction of the gifts, that these could not be given till this truth was brought in; and to one they will deny it, to another explain it, to another modify it, and fall back upon scripture words, but saving the point really by something; to another they will acknowledge it to be there, but dead; but that it is really the hinge of the matter, which it really is. If charged with Mr. Irving's views on the subject, they disclaim him and his doctrines, and say that they are not bound by them although sent by the church over which he presided as angel, the teacher and expounder of truth or doctrine in it. Let any one able to see the bearing of an answer, or capable of insisting on a direct one, ask them the question, Do they hold the sinful humanity of the Redeemer? and judge of this. Now I confess all this want of openness I hold to be one of the strongest marks that the teaching is not the known truth of God; and in connection with this, the secrecy of their own meetings (not for discipline or correction, in which it might be fit, but in which the initiated take a part) does speak most loudly against the spirit which guides them.

21 But I would press upon your mind that, while I have stated here as to teaching merely what has passed in this country, coming as they do we cannot confine ourselves to their own account of themselves. They are sent by a spirit which has already expressed itself elsewhere: this spirit is their authority for coming; the gifts connected with it are the very subjects brought before us by their mission. The gospel we have had, feebly perhaps, before. The Spirit, or, as they would say, the restored Comforter, is the great point they present — its presence the security they propose — its sending them the authority with which they come. That spirit pronounced young Napoleon to be the man of sin: it stated that an American Indian Chief, then in London, would be converted there, and receive the work and return to America, and lead back his countrymen, who were the ten tribes, to Palestine; but he went back unconverted. And there are many other things not verified as declared; but I pass by all this. Signs and wonders may be wrought; things that happen may have been spoken of beforehand; this we know is quite possible, though it is impossible that the Spirit of God could give an untruth.

They have attempted to explain these failures in many ways, which a little attention shews to be utterly futile. Such is the prophecy of conferring apostolic gifts on Mr. Baxter, and the then promised baptism by fire. They have attempted to explain it, which is the admission of its failure, by the case of Nineveh. But the Lord has expressly declared that a pronounced judgment He will turn from, if they against whom it is pronounced repent. They have attempted to explain it by saying, that Satan had used the person as his instrument, and that what was true was of God-what failed of the enemy, though the utterances had declared this should never be. They have, in the support of one utterance given to another by acknowledged prophets, really subverted what was given by a former. They have sometimes got over this by declaring that no individual had any right to interpret the prophecies at all (they were not of private interpretation): the Church only could do it. Thus the whole tenor of the matter strongly bears against it in my mind.

22 But the fact is, which to me is determining, they do clearly hold the sinful humanity of the Lord Jesus. Mr. Irving was honest enough to own it openly; they are more guarded in their statements — their present manner is to reject him; they say that the Spirit declared he had said unguarded things, and declare that they will merely use scripture statements; as, that "Christ was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" and that the latter clause does not qualify the former. To me that is quite sufficient; for the latter clause not qualifying the former just means, that sin is not excepted as to temptation. This is the whole point in question; but the fact is, they do hold the sinful humanity, and have acknowledged that it is the hinge of their whole scheme of doctrine. Nay, more; the spirit which has sent them has borne witness to it in its worst form; and this is the whole question. Let them deny, or modify, or perplex any as they will: the spirit on whose authority they act has expressly sanctioned Mr. Irving's doctrine on the subject — what this is I shall state to you.

Mr. Irving says, "It is an heretical doctrine that Christ's generation was something more than the implantation of that Holy-Ghost-life in the members of His human nature which is implanted in us by regeneration.

"If Christ was made under the law, He must have been made by His human nature liable to, yea, and inclined to all those things which the law interdicted.

"If His human nature differed, by however little, from ours in its alienation and guiltiness, then the work of reducing it into eternal harmony with God hath no bearing whatever upon our nature with which it is not the same.

"Was He conscious then to the motions of the flesh and of the fleshly mind? In so far as any regenerate man, when under the operation of the Holy Ghost, is conscious of them.

"I hold it to be the surrender of the whole question to say, that he was not conscious of, engaged with, and troubled by, every evil disposition which inheriteth in the fallen manhood, which overpowereth every man that is not born of God, which overpowereth not Christ only because He was born or generated of God."

Many passages more openly revolting could be added — none I think more distinct in their meaning. I add but one more: "I believe it to be most orthodox, and of the substance and essence of the orthodox faith, to hold that Christ could say until His resurrection, Not I, but sin that tempteth me in my flesh."

23 What is the answer attempted to this? First, it is said, that Mr. Irving wrote this before the spirit came amongst them; just as it is said, when some of the obvious weaknesses and mistakes of one of the evangelists now here are quoted, and the term "the fiction of imputed righteousness" is quoted from his pamphlet, he had not joined them then. The answer at once is, they are the principles which made him join them. But Mr. Irving has stated subsequently, and on the point in question, equally decided things; for, on being condemned for these things by the General Assembly, he desires the Scotch to go to the ministers of their parishes, and ask them to their face if they believe that Christ came in the flesh, and had the law of the flesh and the temptations of flesh to struggle with and overcome; and, if they confess not to this doctrine, to denounce them as denying the Lord that bought them, "as wolves in sheep's clothing;" so that he held the doctrine after the spirit was amongst them, as well and as strongly as before. But, as the matter stands, his holding it before was the more important, because the spirit came as the seal to it. And, not only so, but on the question being raised, the spirit which sent these two missionaries gave its express sanction to the doctrine. I am well aware that they allege that the spirit said that Mr. Irving had used unguarded expressions. This may be so; and they may be consequently much more guarded in their expressions, more careful not to alarm people, which he honestly did; but the spirit which sent them confirmed the doctrine as taught by him.

Mr. Baxter, once designated as their apostle, wrote to Mr. Irving, stating fully his error in conceiving the law of sin to be in Christ's flesh, &c. Mr. Irving warmly supported his own views, and tells him the spirit came upon Miss E. C. and (after speaking in a very grieved tone and spirit in a tongue) she was made to declare that Mr. Baxter had been snared by departing from the word and the testimony; that Mr. Irving had maintained the truth, and the Lord was well pleased with him for it; which was followed by a similar utterance from Mrs. C. and a renewed utterance to the same effect from Miss E. C. Thus Mr. Irving's previous statements just give occasion to our knowing the express sanction of them by the spirit which has sent the missionaries here; and they believe it. It is (and they know it to be so) the hinge of the whole question; or, as Mr. Irving stated it of old, "The way for the promise of the Comforter had to be prepared by the preaching of the full coming of Christ in our flesh, and His coming again in glory, the two great divisions of christian doctrine which had gone down into the earth, out of sight and out of mind, and which must be revived by preaching before the Holy Spirit could have anything to witness unto."

24 That Christ came in the flesh, in the ordinary sense of the word, has ever been held save by the Docetae. The doctrine which Mr. I. alludes to, therefore, is coming in our (that is, in sinful) flesh. This it was which, as we have afterwards seen, the spirit amongst them explicitly witnessed to. It is then a shame for any to come here from the Newman Street church, sent by the spirit which has so expressly borne witness to it, and cloak, or hide, or garble the doctrine. Let them deny the spirit that sent them, if they deny the doctrine; or own the doctrine honestly, if they claim and terrify people with the authority of the spirit. I say, terrify; for while they do not state openly their doctrine in intercourse with strangers, they use the most imposing and frightening terms of responsibility to make people come and hear them where they teach; then for a long time perhaps, unless of spiritual discernment, they hear nothing to shock them of open avowal of their doctrines, and they are gradually prepared for the full reception of them and denial of others. The "fiction of imputed righteousness"* is too hard, too unguarded an expression to state; when this was used, they had not the spirit: at least, if they had not, they had honesty; and where they have opportunity of boldness, they mock at it and the idea of substitution.

{*Hardman's Tract on 1 Cor. 12-14.}

Let us read the simple effect of the doctrine of the sinful nature, as stated by Mr. Irving. "The man who will put a fiction, whether legal or theological — a make-believe, into his idea of God, I have done with. He who will make God consider a person that which he is not, and act towards him as that which he is not, I have done with. Either Christ was in the condition of the sinner — was in that form of being towards which it is God's eternal law to act as He acted towards Christ, or He was not. If He was, then the point at issue is ceded, for that is what I am contending for. If He was not, and God treated Him as if He had been so; if that is the meaning of their imputation and substitution, or, by whatever name they call it, away with it from my theology for ever."

25 These are Mr. Irving's words, and shew the identity of the doctrine of the sinful humanity with the denial of the doctrine of substitution, and therefore with the denial of any reality in the blessed truth of scripture — "he suffered, the just for the unjust." "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

If Christ had a sinful nature, that is the thing that must be reconciled, not we. He is not, as knowing no sin, to be made sin for us, but, as conscious of every evil disposition, to reconcile this nature to God; or as Mr. Irving expresses it, "It is no reconciliation of individuals, but a reconciliation of human nature. It is not thine, it is not mine, it is not Christ's, but it is the common unity of our being." It is ridiculous to talk of unguarded expressions. Either sin was in Christ's nature or it was not: if it was, then it had to be reconciled; if not, then we had, by a sinless, spotless offering. I have not quoted the revolting language in which it is often conveyed: the doctrine is the thing in question.

I shall merely here give one statement to shew its effect upon the view of the atonement, and how distinctly contrasted it is. "The atonement," says Mr. Irving, "upon this popular scheme, is made to consist in suffering; and the amount of the suffering is cried up to infinity. Well, let these preachers — for I will not call them divines or theologians — broker-like, cry up their article; it will not do; it is but the suffering of a perfectly holy man treated by God and by men as if He were a transgressor." Would any person taught by God in the matter, or under the influence of the Spirit of God, so speak of the death of Christ? The language may be rash, but it is explicit. It shuts out the value of the person of Christ in His sufferings most explicitly.

The system is consistent with neither scripture nor itself; but so it ever is with error. It is consistent only in affirming sin to have been in the nature of Christ; and, consequently, in denying the value of the atonement in its common popular sense. Christ was treated as He was, because of the condition He was actually and really in Himself, not because of the sins of others — that would have made a make-believe God. And, now, what does it come to? If this sinful nature was in Christ, this carnal mind, the φρόνημα σαρχὸς this nature that needed to be reconciled, what do I find concerning it in scripture? "It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." So that the moral reconciliation of the nature was impossible; nor could Christ fulfil the law in its intrinsic requisitions. And, according to Mr. Irving himself, instead of being reconciled, God had to deal with Him according to the eternal law, by which He must act towards one in that condition — the condition of a sinner, and dealt with Him because in it. When was the reconciliation? That He was treated as a transgressor by God, Mr. Irving himself tells us, and it was no "make-believe."

26 Is this the gospel of the grace of God? It all hangs together on the foundation of the whole system to which the spirit had to witness, that Christ took and had a sinful nature. If so, it is clear it must be reconciled; not He make reconciliation [or, rather propitiation] for the sins of others; and to this doctrine, the spirit which the teachers here profess to be sent by, has borne explicit witness, is the seal of it, identified with it — first, teaching it, then sanctioning it; and these persons come here under the special character of being sent by that spirit, after it has sanctioned this very doctrine. They may guard their expressions, but they have not guarded them so as not to be quite clear to those aware of the difference. But they are the servants of that spirit; and my inquiry in judging of them is, what is that spirit the sanction of? It is the sanction of this doctrine (and in their case of the promulgators of it), therefore, that Christ took sinful human nature.

And now, one word as to "temptation." The poor tried soul is easily, when undiscerningly, led to desire the sympathy of Christ in its temptations and trials. Who that knows himself, as a poor, weak, sinful creature (but observe, renewed to love and holiness), does not feel this?

But a moment's reflection on one's self will shew one the fallacy of their use of this. Does the renewed soul want sympathy of Christ in its sinful feelings? No, it has learnt to hate them itself — to say, "Not I." It wants the sympathy of Christ's strength with its new man to judge them, to put them down. It does not desire sympathy in the sin: that is not what we mean or want by sympathy; we want strength against that. It is in our new man, in mind, we are one with Christ; it is by Christ risen we are quickened. His sympathy is with us in our new man, and what is that in us? Hating sin, condemning sin, saying, "Not I," &c., and bearing trials of opposition from without, which press upon us as holy persons and in proportion as we are holy persons.

27 The sufferings of Christ in us are the sufferings of a holy loving nature in the midst of evil: our giving way to sin in us is not the sufferings of Christ in us. Our remedy for sin is the atonement of Christ, in what He suffered for us; the entire absence of sin in Him who represents us is the comfort and remedy for this, and, sins being known to be forgiven, having our feet washed, we seek to walk in the strength of that new life, in the conflicts of which we have His full sympathy; and, as has been justly remarked, we should want sympathy in the sorrow of actual transgression, if He were to sympathise with us as to sin. And, I say, we have this sympathy; but how? where? In His having borne the penalty for them — "bruised for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions." It is precisely in the discovery that He did bear our transgressions, and so has justified us — in knowing that He hath "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" — that we have comfort under all sense of sin — not by His having been conscious of the evil disposition; or He could not, as "knowing no sin," be made sin for me. And this then I take in its full, unlimited sense, according to my whole need, as believing in Him.

It is not partial subdued sin — a mind kept always dead — a consciousness of what a regenerate man is conscious of. This would not do for me; for I am and have been much more. This would be no real adequate sympathy for me, or for any sinner. He must be atoned for in all his sins. He is atoned for in them by Jesus, made sin for him. And here is the sympathy of Christ as to this; that is, here it is he gets comfort, either originally, as by the work typified in the day of atonement, or by the Spirit's witness (as in the type of the red heifer) that Christ had entirely put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself — access to God by the blood upon the mercy-seat, — knowledge of all our transgressions being laid upon Christ in the scape-goat; and in the kept ashes of the red heifer, sprinkled by the running water, the continual witness that sin is put away by the sacrifice. To these the apostle refers in Hebrews 9 and refers as purging the conscience: and this is what we want as to sin — not sympathy* (save this great, immense, invaluable sympathy, that Christ has put it away, having borne our transgressions).

{*I cannot want sympathy as to sin, till I am conscious of it. If I have sympathy in this, by similar trial, then was Christ conscious of it too; and this would destroy every ground of hope.}

28 But we do want actual sympathy in a godly life; for we are living under effects and trials of evil and sin in the world, though belonging to a higher scene spiritually. I suffer pain for Christ — reproach and shame enough to break my heart; it is no sin to feel this, but quite the contrary — contradiction, desertion, want of sympathy, and like-mindedness. For my love I have hatred, misrepresentation, my words daily mistaken, snares laid for me, efforts to entrap me and dishonour the name of God in my person. Supposing even I do not fall into them, they are utter pain to me — the insensibility of those around me to the love of God, the evil estate of the church of God's planting, the little fruits of grace in those who receive the Lord, the insensibility to the hopes He sets before us, the blindness to His testimony on many important points, the prevailing of Satan's power over so many. The more I am like God, the more grace I have, the more holy I am, the greater sense I have of His love, the greater love I have to men and the Church, the more and greater will be my sufferings: and if drawn into the activity of love, the more endurance of the contradiction of sinners against myself. But these are not sin in me, but just the contrary. Christ was quite perfect in spirit and thought; and therefore He perfectly felt the evil. Had there been any one evil in His nature, He could not have felt as He did the perfect evil of all that was around Him; nor, therefore, have any perfect sympathy with the trials of the godly; for, when we read of being "tempted like as we are," the apostle is speaking for the comfort of saints in trials — calling them to consider Him who endured the contradiction, lest they be weary and faint in their minds. This is the sympathy the saint wants, not sympathy in sin. That Christ met in atonement and sacrifice; and now, in the judging power of His Spirit, revealing in that the power of His sacrifice.

And now as to the word "temptation," to be tempted is another thing from having a lust to sin, the carnal mind. Temptation is used in scripture, not for internal sin at all, nor in connection with it, save where it is the actual giving way to the temptation by reason of the sin — "drawn away of our own lusts, and enticed." This will not be affirmed (I suppose) of Christ; if it be, then let it be said so, and the name of Christian given up; for then He was a sinner indeed. Tempted, there, is the giving way to the trial. But temptation otherwise is just the trial of what is in the person so tried; and this may be very various. God in this sense may be tempted; yet, we know from His very nature and from the word, He cannot be tempted of evil. But "they tempted God in the desert." They tempted and were destroyed of the destroyer. God was put to trial — what He was, which was just their sin. In Him, it need not be said, absolute essential perfection was found. Neither can God tempt any man in the way of evil or lust. Yet God did tempt Abraham; He put Abraham to trial, and proved the grace which He had given him, saying, thereon, "Now I know:" exhibition of grace was the result of the trial of the temptation here. So we pray, "Lead us not into temptation" — clearly not into lust or evil, but into a place of trial of what is in us — we knowing our weakness, and therefore adding, "But deliver us from evil," or the evil one.

29 But the Spirit of God did lead Christ into temptation (we are expressly told in Matt. 4 and Luke 4), not surely into any exercise of a sinful nature, but into Satan's trial of what He was. So the first Adam, confessedly innocent and having no sin (that we may turn to man), yet was tempted, and so tempted that he fell into sin. So that clearly here temptation does not imply existing evil, or a sinful nature; for there may be temptation, so as to fall into sin, where there was no evil nature at all. He was tried and fell; weakness and fallibility being there, though not sin. We are tempted — what is in us is tried; and in our case evil continually is found. The old sinful nature is found. there may be cases where, through divine grace, we get the victory, "are more than conquerors," glorying in tribulations, happy as enduring. The sinful nature is distinct from the temptation, though discovered by it. So Christ was tempted, tried in all points, according to the likeness of His brethren; but the result was, that nothing was found in Him but perfectness. Adam was tried and fell; we are tried, and often evil is found in us, and we are led away and enticed. Christ was tried, and neither fell nor was led away, nor evil found in Him.

If sin was needful to temptation, then would sin be justified in every temptation we were in, for we could not, they say, be tempted without it. Now temptation coming from an enemy without, and sin being needful to this, it is justified if we are so tempted. This is exactly what it is not. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man" — a human temptation — and God is faithful, who "will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

30 Thus, though we often do give way, it is shewn to be sin when we do, and unjustifiable; and this, as to its source, is what is meant by condemning sin in the flesh. Christ, having placed Himself in our circumstances (which as to trial He fully did), and having never, in any sort or sense, given way, has proved that what does give way (the lusts that entice us, and make us yield to the temptation) is sin; for perfect human nature, and thorough temptation was in Him, χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας  - everything except sin; and so has condemned sin, not in His flesh but in the flesh, being without sin, and passing through all the temptations, and so made a sacrifice for sin. Thus, concerning it, He has proved it all to be sin in us; He has condemned sin in the flesh, though He gives us peace concerning and in spite of it, because He is a sacrifice for sin, περὶ ἁμαρτίας.

Thus His being tempted in all points apart from sin is precisely the way in which He condemned it; not in its acts but in its source — the very difference of a believer taught by the Spirit and having the Spirit of Christ. He knows not only transgression, but sin as an evil, sin dwelling in him. More correctly, God condemned sin in the flesh, by the exhibition of a tempted man, in every point without it. It was not actual sin that He thus condemned (that had been done, and would be done in due time), but "sin in the flesh." The law could not do this (it only called it out into knowledge, and even action); but God has effectually done it, sending His own Son, free from every spot, stain, or motion of it — from it in His nature; so that it is all condemned as mere sin in me, not in its effects, but "in the flesh." Had it been in Christ, I could not condemn it as sin, or I must have charged Christ with it as sin; so that the absence of it from Him is the very means of my condemning it as such. The thing wanted was to shew this as judged, condemned sin by God. The law could not do this, but found sin everywhere; it was weak through the flesh. Law connected itself with men as they were, leaving it; and though therefore it might prove they had sin, it only therefore condemned them. But God, sending His own Son in the likeness of this sinful flesh and for sin, has condemned (in propitiation withal) this in the flesh: and the life which we have of Him, strengthened in His might by His Spirit in the inner man, judges and condemns it in us, as not according to the power of the inner life in Christ. This is the force of the passage, hanging upon the absence of sin from Christ's nature: the sinlessness of His nature, and consequent perfectness through temptation, proves that what yields in us is sin. It is that in us which was not in Christ, and yields to the trials of Satan, which He, not having, never did; it is sin, it is condemned.

31 And this as to the fact is the express doctrine of scripture. He was in all points tempted like as we are, according to the likeness He was in, except sin. The English passage does not convey the meaning properly, specially the latter clause; for "yet" might imply that it might mean actual sin resulting; though, I admit, a simple scripture-taught mind would take the sense aright. The statement of the teachers from Newman Street is, that the latter clause is not meant to qualify the former. What then is it for? this is just the difference — He was tempted in all points, according to the likeness [He took], except (or, apart from) sin; that is, that which is connected, or continually so in us, with temptation, was not so in Him. It is the revelation of that difference precisely: He was tempted apart from sin — we are tempted in connection with that which has been condemned as sin, not being in Him. It is sin which is in our nature, which makes us give way.

The "yet without sin," which I translated "apart from sin," is the same word as in the passage, "He shall appear the second time without sin." As free as He then will be from it, so free was He in the temptations He went through. Thus, we have the express testimony of scripture on the point. Every trial, every sorrow, every circumstance, in which the enemy of our souls could try Him, He was tempted with χαθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα. Everything which sin had caused as an effect He bore; in His nature He was sinless. He sympathizes with us in every trial of ours as new creatures. He judges — God has judged — and strengthens us against the suggestions of our old man, with which He can have no sympathy, but which is all condemned, we being received because He has willingly died for us as to it all, which was the sympathy we wanted for it, and which He could not have given if He had been in any way or sort sinful Himself. He could not then have been made sin.

But while scripture is thus express on the point, the contrary doctrine, their doctrine, really destroys the incarnation. Christ's generation, to use Mr. Irving's words, is no more than the implantation of that Holy Ghost life in the members of His human nature, which is implanted in us by regeneration. This is denial of the incarnation; for we must not take what they merely allege, but what the spirit which authorizes their mission sanctions. Now, God the Son being manifest in the flesh — flesh not conceived in sin (that which was of His mother being a holy thing), maintained it a holy thing; and there never was anything which defiled the incarnate Son in suggestion, act, or otherwise, through everything that tried and wearied Him without; and this having been proved through years of trial, the prince of this world came at the end; and, though He shewed His love to His Father, and therein also obeyed His commandment in laying down His life, the enemy found nothing. He offered Himself without spot to God. If the human nature which was born of His mother was a holy thing — if the person of the Lord was sinless in its generation — then, when did sin enter? If ever there was failure — if in that which was born of His mother there was sin — then, as born, it was not a holy thing. Consequently, when speaking of the nature of our Lord, Mr. Irving speaks not of "the Word made flesh," or the like, but the human nature He was clothed with, thus destroying the incarnation.

32 I cannot see, therefore, a single doctrine of the gospel left untouched by this destruction of the person of our blessed Lord. The incarnation, the substitution of a sinless offering, the fact and condemnation of the sin that dwells in us, and that it is sin — our judgment of it as such — all are struck at by this doctrine.

It appears to me that the real truth of the Comforter's presence is also denied, saying that it is restored, when God said it should abide for ever, and consequently the power of judging them taken out of the Christian's hands; for if He has not the Spirit, it is clear He is incapable of it. The word is rendered of no avail; because, as they speak, we have read it in the flesh, and therefore can use no previous knowledge of it against them. All this is the crafty subversion of the great truth on which the soul rests. God is for me, is already with me, and by His help and word I must judge of all that is presented to me; and this, with fundamentally false doctrine and no sign of authority about them, we are called upon to believe what they say, under pain of being in awful, perhaps fatal, judgments. Their great instrument is terror. If a man knows his peace with God, knows he is taught of God, and that he has the Spirit of God; and if he is not unsound on the sinfulness of the Lord's nature, and holds to the word of God, their persuasions — however subtle, and full of gorgeous promises when listened to, promises often falsified by facts — are without effect. Thus, if false prophecies, and false doctrine as to the foundations of Christianity, and the spirit of concealment, and the slighting of the word, and the terrifying with false fears those to whom the Lord has given peace, be not the way of the Spirit of our blessed God, their way we safely reject, and are bound to reject, however we may pity the immense pretensions of those who assume to be sent by divine authority, without sign or scripture to warrant them.

Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus: A Letter addressed to certain brethren and sisters in Christ by, by B. W. Newton."

J. N. Darby.

<15003E> 34 {file section a.}

Introduction

The more the question treated in the following tract is weighed, the more important it will be found; and the doctrine taught in Mr. Newton's "Remarks" to be the destruction of the gospel of truth, and to subvert the foundations of Christianity. The denial that it is meant so to do is nothing to the purpose. Mr. Irving denied it just as stoutly; but a man's teaching is to be judged by what he teaches, not by his own opinion about it. What Mr. Newton teaches subverts the truth as to Christ. If he says it does not, it only proves that he does not know the truth which it clearly does subvert. The largest expressions of piety and holiness prove nothing. They were found in Mr. Irving's writings, and much most blessed and precious truth too: few writings could be named where there is so much. It is well known how widely Mr. Prince's books were circulated, how highly they were appreciated, and how many were supposed to be converted by him. Now all acquainted with the circumstances know the horrible blasphemies in which it all has ended. And now persons who examine the books judge that they find all through them the germ of the present horrors.

Now, as to the doctrine of the writer of the "Remarks," he states that Christ, associating Himself with man in the flesh at a distance from God, had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, and which point was death under the wrath of God. Now if Christ was "obnoxious" to this wrath ("exposed" to it) from the place He was in, He could not bear it besides in a vicarious way for us. A man that has not himself incurred debts, but, being partner with one who has, is liable to them, cannot as surety in the way of kindness take them upon him. That is, vicarious suffering is set aside. If it be said that death under the wrath of God consequent on the distance man was at from God was wrath of chastisement, not vengeance, it is clear the whole truth of God as to man is set aside altogether. Was wrath of chastisement man's place in his distance from God? Was not condemnation, utter condemnation, his place? And what was death under the wrath of God as needful because in man's place? Is that only chastisement? But if Christ had this due to Him from His position, He could not also bear it for others.*

{*Irvingism taught that there was no personal sin in Christ, but that there was in the nature He took, so that He was exposed and liable to death.

Mr. N. teaches that there was no personal sin in Christ; and not that there was in His nature, but that He was liable to the consequences of it from His position in relation to God from the time He was born into the world. Both alike set aside the atonement.}

35 As to the nature of Christ's sufferings, there is another passage I would refer to.

The apostle desires that he might know the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death. Now we have here the nature of the sufferings of Christ even to death, not in the sense of vicarious sufferings. The apostle clearly could not desire to be obnoxious and exposed to wrath because of the position he was in at a distance from God. But in the devotedness of service in which, in denial of all will of his own, he found himself as acting for God, and manifesting Him in life and in word in opposition to the whole wickedness of man and power and malice of Satan, and in the suffering of that devotedness in love to them that were God's, he did desire to be made conformable to Christ by His grace. Now this came upon him from without, but it was weighed and realized in the Spirit of Christ beforehand within, so that all this suffering without was understood, and took its place in his mind from what was already spiritually there. Thus he was "pressed out of measure, above strength, so that he despaired even of life; but he had the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself but in God which raiseth the dead;" so, "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in his mortal body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal body." Here Christ's sufferings were not vicarious,* and such as we can seek fellowship with in the power of the Spirit of God according to our measure. That is not exposure to wrath from which a man by faith preserves himself. We get a clear view of what the sufferings of Christ are as in the world other than what was vicarious, and this even unto death itself.

{*So he speaks of filling up that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ for His body's sake, which is the church; the fruit of devoted love which brought him into them, not the effect of his relation to God inflicted by God upon him.}

36 As regards the statement from Mr. Bonar, it is obscure enough, as is also that on the application of the same type to the church, and in some respects certainly inaccurate. Such as it is, Mr. Newton's tract is much borrowed from it, and it is sufficiently obscure to furnish a handle to his doctrine. What the nature of it was, Mr. B. does not explain. But he does subsequently guard his statements, so as to secure himself from meaning what Mr. N. means. He says, "Chastisement* supposes sin; suffering does not, for Jesus suffered — nay, learned obedience by the things which he suffered." But chastisement does. "Some have, indeed, applied the word chastisement to Jesus also, for He was made perfect through suffering, and in the sense of passing through discipline, that He might know by experience our condition here, and be seen as the doer of the Father's will — the man that pleased not Himself, in this sense His sorrows might be called by that name; yet in no other." Now it is altogether another, to say that He was obnoxious and exposed to wrath in His relation to God as associated with us in the position we were in. That He experienced our condition here, every true Christian believes. But this is what Mr. N. says it was not; and that we never are in the position He was in under Israel's curse. Our discipline is in love; His under wrath and the curse.

The quotations from the "Words of Truth" are exactly the opposite of Mr. N.'s doctrine. Christ's being obnoxious to wrath along with the people, and so being glad at John's message, is precisely the opposite to His identifying Himself entirely with the condition of His people: His being baptized was taking their place. So in His really entering into the circumstances of man's condition. Blessed be God, He did. But Mr. N. distinguishes this from what he means, namely, inflictions by reason of the relation of God to Him who did so enter. Mr. Bonar, speaking of his knowing by experience our condition here, says, "in no other;" though he does speak so obscurely that Mr. N. himself says he could not use his expressions without defining them his own way. So defined, I have discussed their value in this tract. That is what we have to do with here. As to Mr. Bonar, I avow I do not understand, and therefore I do not condemn, him; I much doubt whether he understands himself, or ever defined to his own mind the sentiment he is expressing, and expressing in a way which is certainly not scriptural in its form; but he has entirely guarded himself against Mr. Newton's view. I may add, that other teachers of the school of the writer of the "Remarks," in borrowing also the expressions and sentiments of Mr. Bonar, have applied it to Christ Himself in a way that Mr. Bonar declares to be impossible. I refer to the chapter on purifying. The way in which statements of truth are made to sanction the teaching of error is shewn in page 25: — "If He was made to realize the distance into which man had wandered out of the presence of God," is sought to be sanctioned by "He must really enter into the circumstances of man's condition, into the misery and desolation in which man is, as wandering, yea, as departed from God" — two things as different as can well be.

{*This is the word chosen by Mr. N. to apply to Christ — wrath of chastisement, not of vengeance.}

37 It is important that the saints should well notice that the writer of the "Remarks" is speaking of actual inflictions from God due to man's sin but not vicarious; not of suffering, into the depths of which Christ surely entered. But these were "superadded inflictions from the hand of God." He shared "the fearful inflictions of God's broken law" — "inflictions in displeasure" — "inflictions because He was a man." These are often confounded, as in the last case, with the outward condition of man, as labouring in the sweat of his brow. But this is not all. "They depended upon His (God's) appointment." If He came under the special inflictions that had come on His own peculiar nation, He saw Israel's standing with all the terrors of that mountain arrayed against it. "God pressed these things on the apprehensions of his soul according to His own power and holiness." He is "speaking of the exercises of his heart from God; . . . . not the spontaneous actings of His soul, but of the manner in which He was directly exercised of God." Thus, "in the Psalms . . . . we find . . . . not only the sufferings and reproach that pertained to Him as the appointed servant of God; but sufferings also which pertained to Him because He was a man, and because He was an Israelite;" and these, inflicted of God. He was "chastened by the hand of God," but not vicariously. That it is not vicarious, he says, "is very evident." Sufferings and direct infliction are often entirely confounded; but the reader must remember, while noticing the confusion, that that which the writer teaches is inflictions in wrath (as the curse of a broken law) directly from the hand of God — which are not vicarious but arising from His own relation to God — not by personal sin indeed, but by personal position.

38 How very remarkably is this contradicted by the word of God! This is the language of the godly remnant when they look on Him whom they pierced, as the truth of it is believed by the saint now. "Surely he hath borne our griefs [here He is associated with the people] and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." How very plain and how very sure is the word of God, God be praised for it!

The writer's notion is the notion of Jewish unbelief. It did please Jehovah to bruise Him. There were sufferings by His appointment. He hath put Him to grief — "when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin." The whole chapter is an instructive commentary on, and reply to, the doctrine of the tract. He subverts the work of Christ.

I have yet another remark to make.

Mr. Newton has been sought to be justified by some of his friends, by citing a paper of his in the "Christian Witness." From having been so much abroad, I do not know who are the authors of several papers; but I take for granted this is his as stated. I have in consequence looked into it. It is a paper written against Irvingism. I judge that the germ of his present doctrine is clearly to be found there, and escaped the eye or the judgment of the editor.

The germ of the doctrine is clearly found in volume 2 page 113. But I can quite understand its being overlooked,* as it was a paper exposing a more evident and glaring heresy, and the subtlety of a new one was not expected to be found there; and it is stated in the form of insisting on Christ's personal holiness, and expressed in a general way so as easily to escape observation and be construed in a good sense, as being in the form of urging Christ's excellency against the horrible doctrine of Irvingism; and thus value for Christ carried the editor along with the statement, the evil being merely introduced in general terms by the by. Now that we have the heresy full blown, it is quite evident that the germ of it was there, and the writer unsound in the faith from the outset, though undetected. Often, indeed, strange and painful expressions were heard, but what is called charity told us not to make a man an offender for a word. They were rash.

{*Alas! I have discovered, since sending this to the press, that the true account of this is quite different. The matter containing this doctrine was not at all in the first edition, superintended by Mr. Harris. It was introduced into the second edition issued from the tract shop under the control of Mr. N., so that the "Witness" was made to accredit the doctrine unknown to the person originally responsible. The fact of the long time Mr. N. has held the doctrine remains unaffected, proving its systematised character.}

And oft while Wisdom wakes, Suspicion sleeps

At Wisdom's gate, and to Simplicity

Resigns her charge, while Goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

39 But the citation of this paper in the "Christian Witness" is the proof that it is no rash expression which ought to be forgotten, or which is distorted by want of charity. Those who cite it avow that it was taught as a principle when none suspected, and none opposed, nearly ten years ago. And so it was. No one can doubt it who reads the paper in question; and we can understand now the value of all the private teaching meetings at which other brethren who laboured in the word were not allowed to be present. It was at one of these, when, from peculiar circumstances visiting the house where it was held, I heard it taught that Christ had to be judged after His death like another man: a teaching which has been again recently propagated among the poor elsewhere. But no remarks questioning what was taught were allowed at these meetings; and hence other brethren of independent spiritual judgment were excluded.

But there is another very important point which results from this paper of the "Christian Witness," and shews the subtle and guarded way in which heresy and the work of Satan grow up. The doctrines of Mr. Newton were then checked by the presence of men sound in the faith, and he was obliged, therefore, to ally his doctrine with that sound faith. And in saying this, I dare say that the heresy which he has now put forth had not ripened in his mind; for Satan is behind all this, and does not alarm those he deceives and uses. In doctrine as in practice a man might say "Am I a dog that I should do this?" Deceivers are deceived by one cleverer than they. They are but tools in the enemy's hand.

Now, while the germ of the doctrine is very clearly in the paper in the "Christian Witness," the possibility of such an error as Mr. N. now holds is denied, and the doctrine which he repudiates now is stated to guard what he had said, so that suspicion would be further lulled; just as he had sought in the second tract, since his views have been exposed, to lull suspicion by expatiating on the cross. But he does not here in the least return to the statements of the "Christian Witness," but maintains the substance of his heresy in worse and stronger terms than before. Further, remark that, by quoting this paper, Mr. N.'s friends confirm and establish very distinctly and positively, that there is a special doctrine deliberately taught by Mr. N., and what that doctrine is, being already discoverable in his writings ten years ago.

40 I now quote from the "Christian Witness" to shew the way in which he then identified the sufferings in question with vicarious sufferings.

"All that the soul of a saint recognizes as true in the writings of Mr. Irving, respecting Christ being in 'that condition of being and region of existence which is proper to a sinner,' will be found to be altogether comprised in the fact of His being born under the curse of the exiled family vicariously incurred. But He rose out of this 'region' through the power of His own inherent holiness; and, therefore never would have come 'into that experience into [read, of] God's action which is proper for a sinner,' unless He had chosen to abide it* for the sake of others; and when He had chosen this, then it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, and to lay upon Him iniquity; a burden which He felt just as if it had been His own iniquity. Without having any sin, He was made to feel the consequences of sin, even so as to say, 'Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me.' But this was not because 'He was in our region of existence,' but because He was pleased, whilst being there, to become the sin-bearer for others."

{*Note particularly here, that it is expressly stated that what Christ incurred as born was the curse of the exiled family, which He had to abide, as making atonement, when He was Himself risen out of it.}

Now this might well lead an unsuspecting mind to suppose that he was opposing the truth of Christ's vicarious suffering to Mr. Irving's heresy of sin in Christ's nature. Now, however, Mr. Newton declares positively that this was not vicarious. Not that He never would have come into that experience into God's action which is proper for a sinner, unless He had chosen to abide in it for the sake of others; and that when He had chosen this, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, and to lay iniquity upon Him, applying the passages in the Psalms to this. It is not this that he teaches now; but that He did come, was exposed to it all, that is, to experience God's action proper to a sinner without being one, not vicariously; and that He preserved Himself from it by faith, prayer, and obedience.

41 The doctrine of the vicariousness of these sufferings was taught in the "Christian Witness," is denied in the recent tract. What he, still ten years ago, said never would have come, he now says He was exposed to.

The doctrine in the "Christian Witness" is absurd: born under a curse vicariously incurred is itself nonsense. Rising out of this region, that is, vicarious suffering, through the powers of His own inherent holiness, is far worse than nonsense, nonsense though it be; and then choosing to abide there for others, and then having iniquity laid upon Him. But the writer has relieved himself from the contradiction of His being born subject to the penalties of Adam's guilt, as a member of the family and yet vicariously incurring them; not by holding fast the truth he had associated with this, but by denying it, and leaving the pure unmingled heresy of wrath on Christ, which was not vicarious. But nothing can make clearer what the heresy is than this reference to the "Christian Witness" — guarded there by truth so as to make nonsense — now taught in its naked evil. It may be seen by this how accurately I have stated it, in comparing it in a note with Irvingism, page 53. The doctrine of the "Christian Witness" ought to have been detected perhaps by a discerning eye. For it is this: that Christ was obnoxious to wrath, "penalties to which He had become subject on account of Adam's guilt" — "born under the curse of the exiled family" — "God's action proper to a sinner" — "but He rose out of this region through the power of His own inherent holiness;" "He might have entered into life by Himself alone;" "He was able to enter into life by keeping the commandments" — "able to fulfil the law, and so rise above the penalties to which He had become subject on account of Adam's guilt." This is, we know, death under guilt and wrath, though He rose out of it,* the law being strong unto him — it was "unto him life" — as it is written, "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by the law." But He "preferred to lay down His life that He might take it again" — "He had chosen to abide it [God's action which is proper to a sinner] for the sake of others. When He had chosen this, then it pleased the Lord to bruise Him." He was then there, rose out of it, but chose to abide it. Now this ought to have been seen; it was covered by the word vicariously. This last is now denied. But the doctrine that Christ was obnoxious to the wrath due to Adam's guilt is most plain; the curse of the exiled family vicariously incurred is not earning His bread in the sweat of His brow, nor are sinless penalties vicariously incurred.

{*This teaches that He saved Himself from the curse of the broken law, to which He was subject, by keeping it Himself.}

42 Further, the article distinguishes three particulars which mark our condition as sinners: —

"First, Original or vicarious guilt imputed (or reckoned) tous on account of the transgression of our first parent.

"Secondly, Original sin or indwelling corruption.

"Thirdly, Actual transgression."

"The Lord Jesus was as free from indwelling sin as from actual transgression; yet, nevertheless, He was a member (so to speak) of the exiled family, and therefore was born subject to their penalties" — called lower down "the curse of the exiled family vicariously incurred." Under this "He was born," but He was able to rise above these penalties — He rose out of it. Now He was not, and did not, as regards labour and toil, and hunger and thirst, and weariness, which are called the sinless penalties. I repeat, the doctrine taught is perfectly clear. The recent tract only takes away the vicariousness.

I believe that what has been the instrument of ripening this terrible doctrine as to Christ, subversive as it is of the truth, is really the prophetic system of the writer. And in this way: he does not admit the existence of a Jewish remnant which has life, and which is consequently within the reach, and the immediate object, of the sympathies of Christ. Hence he is obliged to associate Christ in His condition with the sinful and rebellious nation, (and the consequence follows immediately,) instead of His being the gracious vessel of feeling, thought, and faith, for the believing remnant, in the position of which He did put Himself, and sympathy with which He perfectly has; though it must indeed, in its application, be based upon that in which He was alone — the atoning work which He wrought for them as for us. Psalm 16 shews this association. All their sorrow was His, and He enters into and associates Himself with it. He had that which was His own, whether bearing or feeling and anticipating the curse and the sin of others. But the means of falling into the error, though important as a guard to the saints, are nothing to the error itself, because the person, relation with God, and condition and work of Christ Himself, are concerned in it, and have been lightly sacrificed to these notions. The paper in the "Witness" shews that the principle has long been adopted by the writer of the tract.

44

Observations

I have now to turn to the publications on the sufferings of Christ; and first, of notes of a lecture by one of the teachers of Ebrington Street. Indignation at the destruction of everything that is precious in the truth and the glory of Christ Himself, and poignant sorrow that those I once knew well should be agents in it, contend in one's heart. But the very essence of the glory of the Lord and the foundation-truth of God, and mischief and ruin to souls, claim imperiously the warning that this teaching is the worst deceit and craft of Satan. The second publication, by Mr. Newton himself, only seriously aggravates the matter. It is not that there are not many truths, and precious truths, long taught by others; and, no doubt, he has corrected the gross outrage on truth found in the expressions of the first part. But precious truths put forward carefully for the purpose of introducing what undermines foundation-truth for the soul, without being suspected, is one of the surest marks of Satan's direct work Such is the case here. Mr. N. declares he cares for the cross, that it is the sacrifice for sin; but he refers in doing so directly to the matter of the tract Mr. Harris has printed. So that he does not, as he knows he cannot, deny that tract as to the doctrine taught in it (which came, indeed, from his own family, and was circulated by his friends) in Exeter, London, &c. The person from whom it came, residing in the house with him, was apprised that it would be kept, and stated that it was the substance of Mr. N.'s lecture correctly given. One can understand that he could not disown it, and that he dared not own it.

And now, one word as to the general principle of publishing such documents. I can understand that an honourable mind may shrink from the detection and exposure of evil and dishonourable means employed by evil men for propagating error. It is hard to touch pitch and not be defiled: I am glad to be spared it. But, for my part, I judge that the courage which is bold enough to do it is more to be respected than silence. A man manufactures poison and distributes it without avowing his name, and disseminates it assiduously in secret to destroy and ruin. It comes to the very house and family of those able to detect it. Is it evil, if the proof is clear of its character and origin, to shew what it is, and whence it comes? Is it not to be labelled because the poisoner, in order to facilitate his mischief, will not do it? Is not the character of what he produces to be made known, that people may be on their guard? Because he acts secretly and subtilly, am I to keep his secret, if, without any art or even seeking it, I have discovered it by the providence of God? No; I publish plainly what it is, and who it is.

45 I trust no one will seek to get at it by any art, but that every one will publish, or communicate to those capable of dealing with it, what falls into their hands by the providence of God, inculcated (as their doctrines are) in a way which itself demonstrates that the light is hated because the deeds are evil.

Let all be brought into the light. That which is upright will not fear it.

And now, to take up the doctrine. Any of us may err. Any of us much occupied by one side of a question may exaggerate it, and so fail in just truth. But there are certain things — a certain knowledge of Christ, which is a part of our life, our salvation, the glory of Him we love touch it, the whole soul is up in arms. If it be not, life is not there. The soul cannot, would not, dare not, bear that certain points should be touched. The soul is livingly roused, as if itself were touched and more. A surgeon may dissect and pull to pieces a dead body, but if a living one he may make mistakes — turn his knife wrong; but if he be a surgeon and knows what vital parts are, he dares not approach the danger of touching them, let his plans of operation be what they may. If he do, it is a proof he does not know what the vital parts are, or else that he means to kill. The ignorance of some things proves there is no knowledge of God. The woman that could quietly acquiesce in the division of the infant was plainly, to the eye of one taught of divine wisdom, not its mother: the tie of a mother's heart was not there. The first tract shews this in the things of God; the second still more (in the effort to save the writer's credit) — entire indifference to the truth and glory of Christ. He declares his value for things which not to value would discredit him; but fatal error is slurred and glossed over without a regard for the Christ it denies, and fatal ignorance of essential truth displayed. This I shall now shew, as a solemn warning to brethren, not to give heed to this seducing spirit. Had the second not been published, I might have left it simply to Mr. Harris's notes. But God has taken care that the second should come out, and that I should know nothing till it did, so as to be free to comment on what is authorized by the writer himself.

46 The system of the tract published by Mr. Harris is an elaborate and complete system, and undoubtedly, for the substance and system of it, Mr. Newton's.

This has been acknowledged by those to whom the notes belonged, when apprised that they would be kept.

Now, the system and principle of this is to present a third kind of suffering of Christ not vicarious — not His soul's entering into the condition of those amongst whom He was, and whose cause He had taken up, but suffering arising from God's relation to Him, and His relation to God, as being one of them: — "For it was not merely the sufferings He had because His soul entered into the condition of things around Him, but there was quite another question, the relation of God to Him while thus suffering. For a person to be suffering here because He serves God is one thing, but the relation of that person to God is another." "We there see [in the Psalms] what His relations to God were during those thirty years which passed before His baptism." "So Jesus became a part of an accursed people; a people who had earned God's wrath by transgression . . . . so Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath of God the moment He came into the world. Accordingly we find many of the Psalms speaking of this."

Note here, it is not taking wrath nor being made sin: that the writer distinguishes: but God's relation to Him and His to God, not for personal sin, but as part of an accursed people. He was, in relative position, a child of wrath even as others. Mr. N. to clear himself may cite Hawker, and Hervey, and Witsius, as speaking of Christ being always vicariously subject to wrath. They may be wrong in this notion, but it is nothing to the purpose; they never dreamt of His being obnoxious to it otherwise than vicariously. Error as to the period of vicariousness has nothing to do with fundamental error as to the position of Christ Himself — His relation to God. They had no such thought as the writer whatever. Their names are a mere blind. "I do not refer," says the writer, "to what were called His vicarious sufferings." "He came to be baptized because He was one with Israel, was in their condition, one of wrath from God" — not, mark, His soul entering into the condition of things around Him, but His relation to God, and God's to Him. This was so much so, that "consequently, when He was baptized, He took new ground;" and "the moment He took that ground the Holy Spirit was sent down — God's seal was set upon Him. 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.'" "He found a new character of affliction as the servant of God."

47 "Observe, this is chastening in displeasure, not that which comes now on a child of God, which is never in wrath, but this rebuking in wrath to which He was amenable, because He was part of an accursed people: so the hand of God was continually stretched out against Him in various ways." "He felt the hand of the Lord rebuking Him in hot displeasure." "We do not read of such chastening after He began His ministry." "He was able to cure sicknesses and heal diseases, so that the last three and a half years were by far the happiest in His life, for He was not afflicted by the hand of God as before." All this is very distinct as a system; it is not a casual expression liable to be misconceived, but a well-matured system. In the new tract, the whole of which refers directly to the one published by Mr. Harris (p. 26), we find these two periods noticed among five into which the writer divides Christ's life, and he says, "It is the second and third of these divisions that I have been seeking to contrast."*

{*"He stood in a new position;" second tract (p. 23). "His (p. 22) baptism may be considered the great turning point in the life of the Lord Jesus . . . His life of service here . . . It was the introduction into the earth of the new economy of grace . . . . If the soul of Jesus had realized, experimentally realized, and that too under the hand of God and to a degree that we little think, the fearful condition of Israel; if He had seen It, as it were, girt about by fiery indignation, and threatened by the full devouring power of that mountain of fire, blackness and tempest, under which they had been abiding." What kind of wrath was this — chastisement or vengeance? that which was supplanted by the new economy of grace at Jesus' baptism — "how joyful to His soul the sense of the introduction of new things!"}

All this is very clear: that He suffered during thirty years as part of a cursed people, and changed this position at John's baptism.

The next point is Gethsemane: "What gives the character to Gethsemane is weak humanity, and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon Him."

"I should regard this as the most terrible hour He ever passed through; we shrink from this more than from any other part of His history . . . . He dreaded not the cross as He did Gethsemane!" What, I ask in passing, made Gethsemane terrible? What was the cup He had to drink? "When it was over, so conscious was He that the difficulty was surmounted, that He said to them, 'Sleep on now, and take your rest.' That is His word to the Church now: we may rest; the difficulties are over, and we may sleep on undisturbed in blessed and happy security and rest, for all is over now." What! before the atonement and the cross? "He dreaded not the cross as He did Gethsemane. The cross was the place where He was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin." The reader will see the contrast here between Gethsemane and the cross. They were two distinct objects of dread — Gethsemane the worst. They are distinguished as periods in the division into five (p. 26 of the second tract). Now, that Mr. Newton really owns this paragraph, is evident (p. 37 of the second tract). He there says, "But because I say that the end was virtually reached when Jesus delivered Himself up and was led unresistingly away, I do not on that account depreciate or undervalue that which remained actually to be done."

48 I shall just now consider why that, namely, humanity in weakness on the cross, was, in the garden, "firmness inconceivable to us, because perfect, such as can be found only* in God." But the question of the value of the passage I have quoted from the first tract, glossed over in the second, is discussed in the second, as that which Mr. N. recognizes as his. As again in (p. 33), the second tract, "It was the most terrible hour through which He had ever yet passed." Can any one doubt to what this alludes, adding the word "yet" to do away the effect? Now I say that no person taught of God in the foundation-principles of God's truth could say, that though the cross was the place where He was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin, Christ dreaded not the cross as He dreaded Gethsemane; for, though he may be forced to say the cross was a sacrifice for sin, such a statement makes it clear that the idea of the wrath of God does not exist in his mind, and that, having suffered what was not a sacrifice for sin, but a distinct character of suffering not vicarious, but weak humanity under the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon Him; that "Sleep on, take your rest" was His word to the Church now: "we may rest, the difficulties are over; and we may sleep on undisturbed in blessed and happy security and rest, for all is over now" — I say it is impossible one taught of God could say so, because it is not a question of difficulties but of atonement. The forsaking of God was not come; the subject of dread according to the writer was a distinct and more terrible one. The sacrifice for sin was not yet in accomplishment. Nothing vicarious was touched as yet. It was not anticipation of the cup according to the writer, but a distinct thing which Jesus dreaded, and which was over when Gethsemane was finished; and yet all was over, so that the Church was secure and at rest when the vicarious work of atonement was not begun! I say, no person to whom the faith of God's elect is precious, to whom the atonement of Christ is a reality and the centre of hope, could possibly have had such a thought, or (unless blinded of Satan) not have recognized that it was of Satan.

{*The principles of the two tracts are precisely the same. I have given the statements of the first tract, as shewing that the whole is a well-ordered system; but this quotation is from the second. The second says also, "the felt weakness of His humanity." I add here this monstrous statement as to Gethsemane from the second: "The danger that had approached so nigh the sleeping disciples, and which Jesus alone had appreciated, was driven away. A gulf unseen by them had yawned around them — but it was gone." What was gone? "His conflict just passed had given them deliverance from the danger that threatened them in Gethsemane . . . . It [Jesus' will] had not wavered. And, therefore, was not Jesus justified in speaking [saying, Sleep on now] as if the end had been perfectly and fully reached? . . . If therefore, the danger that had just threatened was removed, and if that which He was then doing was to give them sure, unchangeable, peaceful security from all the power of Satan and of sin for evermore, why should He not regard them as those who had passed through their last dangerous storm, and who had virtually reached the haven. 'Sleep on and take your rest.'" What has their last dangerous storm to do with atonement? They could aid here, it is said? "'Sleep on and take your rest.' They are words not of upbraiding, but of comfort, or if anything like sorrow mingles with them, it is in the thought that the occasion was lost of aiding in a conflict such as that in Gethsemane had been . . . . They might have prayed with Him in Gethsemane." So His seeking for sympathy and prayer from His disciples (tract 1, p. 18). He never sought their prayers. "Tarry ye here while I go and pray yonder." He certainly never sought their aid in a conflict where He found "the terrors of the Almighty set in array against him."}

49 Further, that Christ was obnoxious to wrath from His coming into the world as part of a cursed people, and changed His relationship to God at John's baptism, because he preached repentance and remission of sins, and the new economy of grace was introduced, and that He found relief in his message, so that, from the moment He took that ground, God's seal was set upon Him, "This is my beloved Son," and He ceased to afflict Him as obnoxious to wrath — is doctrine so destructive of the real human relationship of the blessed Jesus to God, so ruinous to His person, motives, and the path of Him who grew in favour with God, that no one who knows Christ could receive it for a moment.

That the writer means the relation Jesus was in is clear, for he speaks of His escaping much of it by prayer, faith, and obedience (p. 8, second tract), and extricated Himself out of it by His own* perfect obedience (p. 12); and, moreover, contrasts it in the first with His soul entering into the condition of others.

{*The statements of the writer are inconsistent and absurd enough. It was by the appointment of God and measured by that, and a positive infliction of God; yet, being from His birth obnoxious to it, He escaped a great deal by faith, prayer, and obedience. But it was His privilege and glory to have a great deal, and be chief in it. We, however, are never under Israel's curse, which this was. He extricated Himself out of this privilege by His perfect obedience, elsewhere by accepting John's message by a wise heart; and though measured by the appointment of God, and a dealing of the hand of God, yet there were "continual interferences of God in His behalf" to deliver Him from them. How truly those who depart from the faith and exercise their own mind in order to have a great appearance of knowledge, know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm! Nothing more strikes me, than the total absence of all divine teaching in all these statements. That total absence in the writer's teaching I have been fully convinced of now for several years.}

50 The writer talks of the privilege of suffering. There is no privilege in suffering under a curse not vicarious.

These statements, of which I can only give the briefest outline, would be impossible to any one to whom the reality of atonement was known, or the essence of truth clear. Being put out with pretension to entering deeply into the sufferings of Christ, and the literal acknowledgment of many truths which they undermine, they are evidently the work of Satan himself to destroy the truth, and to deny the Lord in His special work. The aim is evident; to set up service and sorrow in conflict in man above the great fact of atonement, in which we can have no part whatever (save our sins and the fruit in salvation).

But I shall now take up the second tract more directly, though briefly. For while glossing over many of the grosser statements* of the first, they save them for those who have received them, while they seek to save the writer's credit with those who have not. This is always the way with a seducing spirit. The first tract had gone too fast, had been seen and detected, and then, not withdrawn, but, while it worked, the credit of the system was to be saved, and confidence (ruined by the first) sought to be regained. But it could not be attempted to deny directly the first, nor has it been done in the second: some things it must be sought to back out of.

{*The reckless upsetting of truth as to the person of Christ by other teachers of this school, may be guessed by a lecture on John 15, where it was taught, that there were things in Christ which needed to be removed, and that, therefore, the Father used the pruning knife as to Him. Happily the hearers were guarded enough of God for it to strike and alarm them: the lecturer was spoken to, and it was of course explained away. The way in which the doctrine of the tracts used to be taught at Plymouth (for it is nothing new), was that Christ was a constituted sinner subject to death, and worked His way up to life. But not being in writing, it was hard, as regards others, to verify it. See Introduction, as to the "Christian Witness," however.}

51 Whereas in the former the periods were doctrinally distinguished in the nature of their sufferings, now His sufferings, because He was an Israelite, cannot be restricted to the years of His public service. Thus the grosser form of the error is obviated, for he does not, in this expression, get on to a new ground and position by John's baptism of repentance and remission, so as to be sealed; but the substance of the error rests, and though thus apparently set aside by the word "restricted," it is fully set up again (p. 23), where it is declared, that the difference of Christ's dispensational relation is illustrated by that of Sinai and Zion (the place of the Church of the firstborn). I have not attempted to go through the tortuous contradictions of error. They abound in the tract. They are convenient for partisans; because, while error is propagated by one statement, if detected, it can be denied by the other. (See the quotation also from p. 22, in a previous note.) He is obnoxious to wrath which is not vicarious, by reason of His own relation to God, such as He was, born part of an accursed people. Now how did being obnoxious to wrath in His own relation to God shew His perfectness? His conduct under it we may suppose did — were such a thing possible. It is the obnoxiousness to wrath in Him as soon as He was born into the world, a position out of which He had to extricate Himself, that is the point pressed by the writer of the tract.

And here let me notice what is believed by all.

Not only are the vicarious sufferings of Christ owned by every true Christian, but that He suffered also as the righteous One on the earth. The reproaches of those that reproached Jehovah fell on Him. He suffered being tempted, having come in grace, the sinless One, into our position. His holy nature, sinless and untouched by Satan; still as a man, suffered being tempted. His soul entered in the fullest way into the condition of sorrow and distress in which sin had plunged man, and Israel too, especially. In all their affliction, in this sense also, He was afflicted. His heart, fully feeling, entered into the fullest depths of it, so that under the sense of it He could groan deeply in spirit. Not only so: it is evident that He anticipated the trial and suffering of death to which He was to be subject. By the grace of God He tasted death, and we know that He felt it beforehand, not only from the Psalms and the solemn sufferings of Gethsemane, but from His own words, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And here note, Christ, because it was His soul entering into it, could go to the full depths of all this, unspared, and unsparing Himself. It was sinless grace and perfectness of love, which, having brought Him into this condition, made Him enter into it in all its fulness, and shrink from none of it. It became the divine majesty, seeing He had placed Himself there, to lead Him through the sufferings suited to this position; that is, it was fitting He should suffer.

52 Hence our souls, though unable to estimate it, can understand its perfectness, and in spirit pass adoringly with Jesus into the midst of His sorrow: nay, it is our privilege to enter into that part of His sorrow — His holy sorrow — which flowed from sinlessness and love, from service in spirit and knowledge of the mind of God in the midst of sin, to have the fellowship of His sufferings. His death itself can and is to be viewed in this light also, looked at as coming from man, and even Satan, however far this may be from being all that is found there, as indeed it is.

But the writer takes entirely different ground — ground which bases the sufferings of Christ on an entirely different principle. He speaks of sufferings. not into the depths of which He entered as the holy One, but of wrath, to which He was obnoxious by reason of the position He was in, from which God interfered to deliver Him, from which He extricated Himself by perfect obedience, so that He never felt the whole of it. It was the curse of a broken law He was under by position, not vicariously, without conflict with wicked men, not by the contradiction of sinners endured in grief by a holy soul, which it is our privilege to endure too for His and righteousness' sake, but what it was no privilege to endure, and no profit either; for if it was to be endured for the profit of others, how could He extricate Himself from it, and be preserved from suffering it all by the interference of God in comforting Him? It lay upon Him, and not vicariously, as that which it was well for Him to get out of as a curse not vicarious. Is it not sufficient to present this to the soul of a saint, for him to see that it subverts the faith of God's elect? It is not the true Christ of God, the Holy Thing born of Mary, that we have here, but one who participates, not by grace but by birth, in the curse, the fruitless curse which is fallen on man by reason of sin — not One who has taken the place in grace, for He extricates Himself from it, but one who is in it under the curse of the law by dire necessity of position. The substance of the truth of Christ's holy person is set aside, and His taking the curse on Himself is set aside, the two cardinal truths of the gospel of grace; and hence we shall find that all is confusion on these subjects, as it must be where the substance of the truth is lost, and the use of the Psalms as untrue and unfounded as possible. Under pretence of presenting the sufferings of Christ in a new and important point of view, the whole grace of them is lost; and, instead of in grace entering into the depths of the sorrows and suffering, whether of man or of Israel in their position before God — His soul entering into all the full depth of it in full purpose of soul without the least sparing, that, His soul knowing all, our souls might know His love had entered into all, and find its power there — it is a condition He is in necessarily by position as under a curse which He prays against, extricates Himself from, and is saved from enduring the full extent of, God interfering to deliver Him. I have already given the quotations which expressly teach this.*

{*The reader may see page 8 of the "Remarks," pages 12, 16, &c.}

53 It is in vain to present other truths to make good the writer's orthodoxy. It is a mere blind. They are not the truths in question. On the point which the tracts teach, the truth of God is subverted. It is not a true Christ which is taught there. Nor does Christ enter fully into our sorrow, for He is spared it, and extricates Himself from it.

I now refer to some points in the second tract, shewing the entire confusion on the subject of suffering and wrath, whether from intention or ignorance I do not pretend to say, but which, at any rate shew, if it be ignorance, fatal ignorance as to Christ Himself. (pp. 3, 4.) "Had He been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, having drunk of that cup which Job and Jeremiah had tasted before." What cup was Jeremiah (though suffering, as Christ Himself did, under the outward consequences of Israel's evil), as a prophet in his Lamentations by the Spirit of Christ drinking? The cup of sorrow in sympathy. His soul entered into Israel's sorrow in love by the Spirit of Christ. But this the writer of the tract says is quite another question from Christ's sufferings from God's relation to Him. But what were Job's sorrows? Were they not personal discipline — Satan let loose at himself? It was no suffering on account of others: he was the occasion of his own sorrow (I do not speak of any type now), and confessed himself, when he saw God, a sinner, and repented in dust and ashes. Was "the interpreter, one among a thousand," shewing to man his uprightness, so that God restored him, saying, "I have found a ransom," to be applied to Christ as one who needed a ransom? or could Elihu speak to Christ in any sense as he did to Job? and did not Elihu much more represent Christ than Job? That Christ voluntarily took Job's case, looked at as a typical sufferer, may be also admitted, His soul entering into it; but this is distinguished as another thing by the writer — it is His own relation to God.

54 Again, what was the nature of the wrath? In the first tract it is left as but displeasure and terror, quoting Psalms which evidently do go as far as possible in the wrath of God, as Psalm 88. Here it is attempted to be distinguished as wrath, as chastisement from wrath in vengeance. It is not chastisement in love* as we have it; it is not vicarious suffering; it is wrath on Israel, the consequence of sin. Now what is it the writer refers to as that which had-fallen upon Israel? Not the process of government which accompanied the law, and formed terms under which Israel held certain blessings. They were already Lo-ammi indeed under that. Messiah could be presented to them according to the promise of Deuteronomy in grace, if indeed their hearts, under whatever affliction, turned back to the Lord and to obedience; but in this respect Christ presented Himself to them as a witness and a prophet, and their heart was as the nether millstone. But what is the position of Israel to which the writer refers? "They had earned, by their disobedience, the fearful inflictions of God's broken law."** Mark that. Did Christ take that not vicariously? And what is meant is clearly stated enough: "for it had been said, Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them (Gal. 3: 10)"!! I repeat: Did Christ take this place otherwise than vicariously?

{*This, after all, is confusion, for, as a nation, the iniquity of Israel is declared to be purged by the chastisement which she has received at the hand of the Lord, "double for all her sins."}

{**So page 23: "The difference between Sinai the mountain of blackness, and Zion the mountain of light, and grace and blessing, the place of the Church of the firstborn, might be used to illustrate the difference between the two dispensational positions held by the Lord Jesus in the midst of Israel previous to His baptism, and that which He dispensationally and ministerially took when anointed by the Holy Ghost." That Christ was born under the law, and, being sinless under it, was not obnoxious to wrath, and that He took its curse on the tree: that scripture teaches. But that He was obnoxious to wrath under it by identification with Israel, and the relation He was in to God thereby, is unknown to scripture. That relation is vengeance, certain inevitable vengeance: as many as are of its works, as mere men, are under its curse, which is vengeance. Christ, exempt from that, took it on Himself. That there were curses written in the law which were come on the people, as recited by Daniel, is unquestionable, and that Christ's soul entered into the sorrow of them. But that is not the question; and, to reduce the curse of a broken law to the level of this, and cite Galatians 3: 10 as referring to it, only shews that the bearing of the apostle's teaching, the light which the rent veil has cast on the true extent of the curse of the broken law, does not enter at all into the mind of the writer. What is Sinai's mountain of blackness in the eye of the apostle, if it be not condemnation and death, even in spite of the grace in government introduced by the mediation of Moses? For it is the law after, and in spite of this, which is spoken of in 2 Corinthians 3. As if to heap inconsistency on inconsistency, though it is useless to point all of them out, especially when far more solemn things are in question. the place of the Church of the firstborn, used, in page 23, to illustrate Christ's place after John's baptism and the anointing which followed, is declared, in page 31, not to have been His place during His ministry. "Man was yet in his distance from God. There was as yet no glorified humanity on the right hand of the throne of God," &c. "The mighty power of God [in resurrection] not yet put forth; the Spirit, not yet become the unfolder and seal [of things to come], &c.; and Jesus, as man, was associated with this place of distance, in which man in the flesh was, and He had, through obedience, to find His way," &c. And note here, this goes on to the cross. Where, then, is all the grand difference on John's baptism, illustrated by a change from Sinai to the place of the Church of the firstborn? Is it not pitiable to see souls bewildered and misled by such things, under the pretence of deep knowledge? In page 16 of the first tract it is said, that Christ's place, during the time of His ministry is granted to us, and that we never come under the curse of Israel, which was His first place; in page 31 of the second — during His ministry on earth, He came into a place dispensationally lower than that into which He has now brought His Church. If we are not in the first condition, and not in the second, it is hard to tell how Christ is an example If it be said: As man (here, page 31, referred to the place He took in ministry after all), He is associated with man at a distance from God, which is said not to be our place at all. On the last paragraph I have referred to, I shall comment on its own account. But how, in this confusion, is Christ lost to those under this instruction? Thus at sea, with Jesus not really known, they are a prey to any thoughts imposed upon them. But my object is not to shew the confusion, and leave souls in it to fly in despair they know not where, but to shew the very distinct, positive, deadly error insisted on in the midst of this confusion into which the soul, lost in it, falls, having no true knowledge of Christ to keep them.}

55 In Galatians 3 there is not a semblance of security, not an appearance of reference to Christ's life or identification as obnoxious to God's wrath with Israel from the moment of His birth, a position changed by His taking the place Israel ought to have taken under John's repentance and remission. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Nothing can be simpler, or more blessed for us in grace, perfect grace. It is the simplicity that is in Christ. But what becomes of the distinction of vengeance and chastisement, or what the meaning of the inflictions of God's broken law according to Galatians 3: 10? Was what they had earned by disobedience under the curse of God's broken law inflictions of chastisement? The writer adds: "Inflictions consequent upon this [this follows immediately the citation of Gal. 3: 10] had long begun to operate both on individuals in Israel, and upon the nation as a whole." "Consider the sufferings of the prophets: the chastenings and sorrow of Ezekiel." It is then added, "One thing at least in this list of woe — He must be allowed to have experienced in no ordinary degree — toil unrecompensed by results." Was this — the curse of the broken law according to Galatians 3: 10? It is sorrow in service, which the writer has distinguished, as he has the soul entering into the condition of the people, from Christ's relation to God as identified with them. Sinless penalties have nothing to do here: no one questions Christ underwent them; but that is not the sense of Galatians 3: 10.

56 I will now refer to some of the Psalms which are quoted to shew Christ's sufferings in them, and we shall see if they are not connected with the contradiction of sinners, that is, with His service in respect of them and suffering from them; not His relation to God as being in the same place with them; ending (after faithfulness through it all) with their outwardly getting the mastery over Him, and therein (because making atonement) being left to them and forsaken of God. Whereas, the remnant of Israel in the latter days, to which much refers in the sympathy of Christ, will for the most part be delivered as others had before. They had trusted in God and been delivered; whilst the enemy could taunt Him with trusting in God, and not being delivered.

In Psalm 6 itself, we find the contradiction of sinners, and reaching onward in spirit to death, not a common relationship along with them to God, of wrath to which He was obnoxious, and inward visitations of God in common with wicked Israel:* only there is no present deliverance.

{*See Remarks, pages 14, 22, and many other passages. This sixth Psalm, as I shall shew, entirely contradicts the writer's theory, for its appeal is "for thy mercies' sake."}

57 "Mine eye is consumed because of grief, it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity, for Jehovah has heard the voice of my weeping. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed." Here the Lord, looked at in His connection with Israel, is oppressed by wicked enemies, and cries to Jehovah against them. Death staring Him in face, He prays, entering as He does in spirit into the deserts of Israel as identified with the saints in the earth, the excellent, not to be rebuked in anger; as elsewhere not to shut up His soul with the blood-thirsty; the providing,* having entered into it, for the comfort of the faithful of Israel in the latter day. So in Psalm 7 ** this contradiction of sinners is fully brought out. For thus it was. The Lord ordered*** that certain persons should be in trial and oppressed, that they might be fit vessels of Christ's Spirit, who alone could enter into all sorrow. The expression of what was true perhaps of them as to sin became suited to Christ as entering in spirit, in grace, into the condition of Israel in the remnant — fully and entirely entering into it, not escaping or extricating Himself from it as naturally under it by position — and thus providing most blessed instruction as to Him for us, and what shall instruct and sustain the remnant of Israel as of His spirit prophetically, when really in the circumstances and state and guilt which He entered into in spirit.

{*Not extricated Himself out of it.}

{**The same thing is found in Psalm 26 very distinctly.}

{***Not as the only reason, but He so ordered it.}

And here remark, that if it be not Christ entering into it in spirit, or vicariously, these Psalms go a great deal too far; for they do not merely speak of relationship to God, but of actual guilt and sin.

See one of the very psalms quoted by the writer of the tract as being Christ's condition — His relation to God: "There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger [this would be taken as a proof by the writer of His position, but it is added], neither is there rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over my head: as an heavy burden, they are too heavy for me." Now this is not relationship, nor position, nor sinless penalties. Either Christ is speaking as charging Himself with the iniquities, or His soul is entering into their condition, both of which the writer says it is not; or in some way Christ must be responsible for iniquities otherwise than vicariously. According to the writer Christ was not in this condition after His baptism, but often before, referring to this very Psalm. And mark, it is not what is earned in the way of punishment which is spoken of here (that may be understood); nor merely of the anger and hot displeasure (the same terms as in the sixth), but He speaks of Himself as involved in what earned it. That He can thus take it on Himself for the remnant, the full consequence of which was the cross, is readily accepted and understood; but that it was a position out of which He extricated Himself, and God interfered to spare and relieve Him, is nonsense indeed, but nonsense which destroys the whole truth as to Christ. And note here further, that He is in the presence of active enemies seeking His life.

58 Many psalms answer to this. And as further explanation of this we have Psalm 40, where the testimony of Christ in the great congregation is declared to have been delivered in faithfulness on God's behalf; and after that He declares Himself in the very condition out of which He is said to have emerged on entering into this ministry, His whole state being changed from Sinai to Zion: "For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my heart faileth me." So also we find Him in presence of His enemies.

Cry there was — but it was well seen here, that it was a longer patience and a better deliverance than John's baptism — and a testimony which only made the clouds gather darker and darker around Him, till the forsaking of God upon the cross closed the scene that the Lord speaks of in this Psalm. Yet we have the very same elements as before and His heart failing Him.

In Psalm 18 the reader will find the way in which Christ, as in this trial, takes up the whole history of Israel from Egypt to their final deliverance, as based on this cry and suffering of His, just shewing Him in all their affliction afflicted — not under curse of law (for it begins before law); but as interested in the people who derive their deliverance from enemies, evil, and oppression, from the cry of Him who was pleased in grace to identify Himself with them and undertake their cause — afflicted in all their affliction. That His perfect obedience was available to this — and this integrity He pleads often — that He went to the full depths of the consequences and cause in the sorrow of His heart (not escaping it, I repeat, for His own sake, as the writer states), is most true, and most blessed; but this is not what is allowed.

59 It is for the writer a personal suffering, though not personally deserved, to which He was obnoxious from position, which He was partly spared through obedience and from which He emerged by John's baptism. And note, this as a system, is fully confirmed by the second tract, though the expressions are modified, and the writer hardly knows what to say: for, in the second tract, it is illustrated by the change from Sinai to Zion. And yet he speaks to get rid of the abominableness of the system of its not being restricted to His ministry. How is a Sinai-state not restricted to a Zion-state illustrated by that of the Church of the firstborn? But it is the thing itself, restricted or not, which is the grand evil. Whatever Christ took of the curse of Sinai He neither escaped in part by prayer, obedience, and faith, nor extricated Himself from.

I turn now to the difference of Gethsemane and the cross, not to repeat any of the remarks of Mr. Harris, but to notice what is in the second tract. The first was too bad, too grossly offensive to every christian mind, too plain a proof that the idea of the curse and wrath Christ endured there was wholly wanting. To say that Christ was a sacrifice for sin, but that Gethsemane was more terrible though there He was not, was too open a denial of the reality of the atonement to be allowed to pass, or not to discredit any one that wrote or even circulated it. Hence in the second tract all this is carefully modified and explained. To say, as some advocates of Mr. Newton do, that the second tract, does not refer to the first is too flagrant an imposition on common sense, and the direct and positive evidence of the tracts themselves, to do anything more than excite pity. But it is a part of the same system. The sorrows of Gethsemane are dwelt upon in the terms for the most part in which Christians sound in the faith have spoken of them, as if that was the full force of the statement of the first tract; and, instead of "the most terrible hour He ever passed through," we have "the most terrible hour through which He had ever yet passed;" and then we are told "that the unequalled hour of pressure was indeed still to come; for that was on the cross. Yet on the cross He seems to have manifested no feelings such as these. There was no such bloody sweat — no such development of agonized human sensibilities. Observe, I say, development. I know well that the hour of the cross was an unequalled hour," &c. Why then were there no such feelings? "And yet how peculiarly calmness and strength mark the whole period of the crucifixion. His care for His mother; His reply to the supplication of the thief; . . . . all these . . . . mark also the incarnate God . . . . In Himself alone power of sustainment was — for He was God, and therefore He endured . . . . The divine character of the human sufferer is thus made very prominent on the cross; just as the human character of the same Sufferer is made, I think, prominent in Gethsemane. Even that Psalm, which is so peculiarly the Psalm of the cross, and commences with the cry of His most bitter anguish, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' concludes with thanksgiving," &c.

60 Such is the attempt to undo the effect of the horrible statements of the first tract. It contradicts the statements of the first tract clearly enough, while referring plainly to them, and adopting the substance of the principle. But how low must that soul be fallen which can give garbled statements as to the cross itself, and the infinite and sacred sufferings of the Holy One there, when He made His soul an offering for sin, in order to save its own credit and character! Was there no shame, no pang in the writer's heart, when penning all this? Alas! alas! and alas! for those, that for the credit of a man, amiable as the feeling may be, can sacrifice, ay, one sorrow, or one feeling of the blessed and holy Jesus. I pity the man that is not revolted and indignant at these tracts.

The writer has changed "weak humanity and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon Him" into "the felt weakness of His humanity, with the terrors of the Almighty set in array against them." But in this even he is in error; for He was praying to His Father in full communion with Him, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death. The hour was that of wicked man and the power of darkness. He anticipated death. The power of it was on His spirit in prospect, but the cup was not then drinking; it was His Father's ascertained will that He should drink it. In this sense it was not the time in which the terrors of the Almighty were in array against Him, that is, as from the Almighty Himself.

And hence it was, according to the system of the tract, what He had often suffered before, instead of being a distinct position (see pp. 10, 19), when through "many years of sorrowful experience" before the mission of John Baptist, He could feel and say, "I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up; while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water; they encompassed me about altogether." So that the terrors of the Almighty set in array were not, according to the writer, peculiar to Gethsemane. Here, however, we are told that the experiences of Gethsemane were not assigned to Him by God till the great appointed time (p. 33).

61 But as to the cross, it was a time of calmness and strength, because the incarnate God was there. That Divine power and nature sustained Him everywhere, and there especially, yet so as to enable Him to endure not to screen Him, had been said, by those from whom the writer has borrowed it, long before him. But here it is used to put the cross as a place of "strength," in contrast with Gethsemane as a place of weakness.

Frightful, really, is it to read their efforts — frightful almost thus to discuss the cross, instead of its awakening the adoring feelings of a heart that bows at the thought of the blessedness of Him who endured it. But let us turn to scripture. Blessed be God, it meets every error, let it be ever so guarded or subtilly put, or shrouded in beautiful forms of thought. Is the cross a place of strength according to scripture? "He was crucified through weakness, but he liveth by the power of God." What is the statement of the first tract as to this very event? "For example the veil was rent." — We know that was His flesh in death. "It was of purple, and scarlet, and fine linen; but nothing that could not be rent was intertwined in it, and this is strictly preserved through all the types, that we may never mingle the thought of Divinity with the humanity of the Lord Jesus."

Now, He is so sustained by the Divinity, that there are no such agonized human sensibilities — sustained by the divine nature in Himself. It is the divine character of the human sufferer which is prominent, so that strength marks the whole period of the crucifixion. And when the thought, which would instantly suggest itself as the reply to every holy soul, comes into the mind, on recalling "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — is that the divine character of the human sufferer, His saying that God has forsaken Him? — it is sought to elude it (I am ashamed to write the word) with, it "concludes with thanksgiving." This is really worse than error. What can one think of one who can reason thus?

Brethren, it is the cross, the atonement, the foundation of our faith — the sufferings of Jesus we are speaking of. Can you rest under or endure for a moment the work of Christ being thus trifled with? Did the thanksgivings come before the atonement and work of expiation was over? Could Christ declare God His Father's name to His brethren before the offering was accomplished which made it a declaration of righteous love? You know He could not. Was this declaration a testimony to Christ's being calm and full of strength on the cross as a divine character while enduring the wrath, so that there was no development of agonized human sensibilities similar to Gethsemane?

62 But I turn to the psalms which speak of His death — the psalm and psalms of the cross. First, Psalm 22 — I shall copy a large part of it; and it is well to refresh one's spirit with the truth, instead of contending against error.

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on Jehovah that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me out of the womb . . . . Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Jehovah: O my strength, haste thee to help me."

Is this the self-sustaining and divine character of the human Sufferer, giving calmness and strength, marking the whole period of the crucifixion: this which is indeed so peculiarly the psalm of the cross? Is it not evident that the forsaking of God, as to the condition of His soul, crowned the sorrow and accomplished the holy dread of One whose soul was poured out already like water, His heart melted like wax in the midst of His bowels?

63 Take again Psalm 69, also a psalm of the cross.

When they gave Him gall for His meat, and in His thirst vinegar to drink: — "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty." The Lord then refers to His zeal and faithfulness for God, and righteous and gracious dealings towards men, and continues, "Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink . . . . Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." And afterwards, "But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high."

The Lord, as a man, did never indeed go out of the perfect position of dependence, not even on the cross. What distinguished that was, as we have seen, not only that men, His enemies, were lively, but that that dependence, while His soul was an offering for sin, was not, and could not be, answered. This was infinite sorrow as well as expiation.

Psalm 102 may also be referred to: "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days." But these amply suffice. Ought they to be needed?

There is another statement here also which really sets aside all the previous efforts to save the doctrine taught in these tracts from the charge of falsifying the very relationship of God with Christ, by distinguishing His being under the wrath of chastisement and the wrath of vengeance. The whole career of the Lord is thus described, page 31 (all being put together, the dispensational position of Christ and the wrath and curse of God in vengeance): "Man was yet in his distance from God . . . . Jesus, as man, was associated with this place of distance in which man in the flesh was; and He had through obedience to find His way to that point where God could meet Him as having finished His appointed work — glorify Him, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places: and that point was death — death on the cross — death under the wrath of God."

Now that Jesus as captain of our salvation, a place He had taken in voluntary grace, was exposed to suffering and trial, arising from the place He had taken amongst us, every Christian recognizes; but that is not the point here. The writer's doctrine is, that from the moment He came into the world He was obnoxious to a wrath which He escaped in part by prayer, faith, and obedience.

64 Now here "man was yet in his distance from God," and "Jesus, as man, was associated with this place of distance in which man in the flesh was." Now His having personal sin is not the question here. The writer is not charged with saying that; and hence his clearing himself of that is clearing himself of nothing at all.

What was the place of distance in which man in the flesh was? What was due to it? Was it not condemnation? Christ was there by association. He was in this place; not as made an offering for sin, not vicariously, but by association.

The doctrine of truth is, that, perfectly acceptable and accepted in His person and sinless under the law, He was made sin, and by one offering, offered without the gate, perfected for ever those that are sanctified — a sin-offering once for all. The doctrine of the writer of the second tract is, that Christ was personally sinless indeed, but was associated as man with the place of distance in which man in the flesh was. Not as earning His bread in the sweat of His brow: that is not the meaning of the distance from God of man in the flesh." "He had through obedience to find His way to that point where God could meet Him as having finished His appointed work — glorify Him, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places: and that point was death — death on the cross — death under the wrath of God." Can anything be plainer than this? Is this wrath of chastisement? Is death on the cross — death under the wrath of God — the meeting-point obtained for man at a distance from God, because the appointed work was finished — is that chastisement, or wrath due, in the full sense, to man as in the flesh and at a distance from God?

This, then, according to the writer, was Christ's place. Not He who knew no sin made sin, but from the beginning of His life finding His way through obedience out of a place of wrath naturally due to man as at a distance from God, and which was not reached till it arrived at death under wrath. But there He was from the beginning. It is idle, then, to speak of appointment of God as to the extent of His sufferings, not merely because it contradicts God's alleged interference to deliver Him from them; but because His position was the position of man at a distance from God. What had God appointed? What, by the very nature of God Himself, was the necessary result of that? Hence it is not merely terrors as an occasional thing which might reach His Spirit: He was associated with man's place of distance, and therefore under wrath for sin. When He said, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, it was the place He was in (for man was there), not vicariously: He had to extricate Himself out of it,* to escape what He could by faith, and obedience, and prayer, "to find His way to that point where God could meet Him as having finished His appointed work" — that is, "death under the wrath of God."** He was under this wrath then all the time in His relation to God in the position He had taken — not vicariously, but by association. It is another gospel, which is not another; for death under the wrath of God is not here itself vicarious — not the bearing of the sins of His redeemed — but finding His way, by reason of the position He was in Himself, to that point where God could meet Him as having finished the work which death on the cross, due to the position He was Himself in, closed. It is not (as Irvingism) that He partook of sinful nature, so that He was obnoxious to wrath as such; but it is that He was from His birth, by the position which He took as man, Himself at a distance from God. Not that He bore sins and took wrath on the cross: it was His own position; out of which He had to find His way to that point where God could meet Him, which point was death under wrath, which is what indeed is due to man in the flesh at a distance from God — the place where Christ always was.

{*Page 12, Second Tract.}

{**Page 31, Second Tract.}

65 If any man has a respect for Christ, or the fear of God; if any man values the essential truth of the gospel, he will flee from such teaching as from a serpent, and much more earnestly. "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction which causeth thee to err from the words of knowledge."

I warn every saint, that it is destroying Christ in what is most essential — subverting the gospel — the error of the enemy himself. Souls may be foolish enough to go and ask him who teaches such things, does he mean to do this? Of course he will say, No The answer is: I have no need to ask him; I know he does it. I have read his own authentic publication — a publication professedly put forth to clear up his views, because of circumstances which have arisen. This proves, in the fullest way, that he does subvert it. I know well that this is the doctrine that has been habitually taught: that Christ was a constituted sinner, and under death, and worked His way up to life. But it would have been hard to catch flying words.* God has taken care that the doctrine should be printed and published. Every one now who countenances them is answerable to God for the doctrine and for the souls that may be ensnared by it; and therefore it is that I speak plainly of it, as the teaching of a seducing spirit contrary to God. With the motives of those who teach it I have nothing to do — there may be seducers and seduced. The point is to guard souls against the teaching itself, and to warn them against those who teach it.

{*Very recently, a brother under the teaching of this system stated that Christ had to be judged, after His death, like another man. This alarmed a brother who heard it, and he spoke of it. The circumstance struck me much, because I had myself heard Mr. N. teaching this from Hebrews 9 at least five years ago, or more, at a private teaching meeting at which I happened, as just arrived at the house where it was held, to be present. I spoke about it, on going out, to Mr. Harris, who was present, with astonishment; but said nothing about it at the meeting, as Mr. Newton never could bear anything to be called in question. I supposed it was some rash view or statement; and as I did not (though unsatisfied by his teaching, and already miserable at the state of things) suspect any design or system of doctrine, I went no farther than to speak of it anxiously to Mr. Harris. There is daily more of this extraordinary teaching coming out since attention has been drawn to it, but I advert no farther to the particulars here. The ground of this was, that, as it was appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment, Christ being a man, these things were for Him too. The same ground was stated in the recent case referred to.}

Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus: A Letter addressed to certain brethren and sisters in Christ by, by B. W. Newton."

J. N. Darby.

<15003E> 66 {file section b.}

I shall add a few words directly on the Psalms. It is the custom of heresy, in all ages, to take difficult passages, not generally, or not at all understood, and found on them its doctrines as something more deep and excellent than others possess. Because it is evidently more difficult to reply when the passages are not understood — more difficult to wrest them out of the hands of those who use them thus perversely according to Satan. The thing taught can be disproved by scripture, but the passage rests beclouded. It is thus with the writer. Certain passages, if you introduce Christ as speaking in the Psalms, are difficult; as, speaking of sins, of foolishness, of sin. To understand the bearing of them all supposes an acquaintance with the meaning of the prophetic Spirit, and capacity to apply them exactly to the right object of the prophecy. On these the writer seizes to pervert souls. Confessing that the Gospels afford him nothing, he seeks to introduce his hearers here, to prove to them that Christ suffered wrath by reason of His own position and relation to God. I have replied to this from scripture and plain scriptural truth. It may assist some souls to dwell a little more on the Psalms themselves, which, while blessedly feeding the affections in many parts (indeed in all, as far as understood), and specially when Christ is fully seen in them, are perhaps the most difficult of interpretation in their prophetic application.

67 But I beg the reader's attention to this point: that the writer, instead of increasing our apprehensions of the entering of Christ into our sorrow, or Israel's sorrow, does exactly the contrary. The truth teaches that His soul entered into the full depth of them, avoiding nothing — that, as Captain of our salvation, and as the good Shepherd, He led the way in sorrow. The writer teaches, that He was obnoxious to wrath in virtue of His position as man and amongst Israel, and was preserved from much of what He would have suffered as in that position by prayer, faith, and obedience; so that the sympathies of Christ are largely curtailed. It would be hard to say, why He was not spared all, or why He had to bear some. He was there by reason of others, as in the position they had brought themselves into; but not for others, for He extricated Himself out of it as far as possible. Moreover, it was God's appointment to Him of a certain quantity. I am not here returning to the inconsistency of this statement, but shewing that it was a limited suffering, arising from the position He was in in His relation to God — a position we have seen to be positive wrath, for this was man's — not His soul entering into that of others.

Now, I say that the Psalms, whether taken as to man or Israel, teach us that He entered into the full depths of suffering, which made Him the vessel of sympathizing grace with those who had to pass through them; and that, as seeing and pleading with God in respect of them. They were sinners, could claim no exemption, count on no favour which could deliver and restore. They must have taken the actual sufferings in connection with the guilt which left them in them without favour. But this was not God's thought — He was minded to deliver them; and Christ in grace steps in. He takes the guilt of those that should be delivered — this was vicarious suffering as a substitute — and, in the path of perfect obedience, puts Himself in the sorrow through which they had to pass; enters into it so as to draw down the efficacy of God's delivering favour on those who should be in it, and be the pledge, in virtue of all this, of their deliverance out of it as standing thus for them, the sustainer of their hope in it, so that they should not fail. Not that they should not pass through it. Because they were so to pass through it according to the righteous ways of God in respect of their folly and wickedness, and to purify them inwardly from it all, that Christ entered into it, to be a spring of life and sustainer of faith to them in it, when the hand of oppression should be heavy from without, the sense of guilt terrible from within, and hence no hope of favour but that One, who had assured and could convey this favour, had taken up their cause with God, and passed through it for them. And hence Christ did not escape where they would,* because He must suffer the full penalty of the guilt and evil, or He could not deliver them. Thus Christ must pass personally fully through the sorrow, as He did in spirit; and, besides that, have no deliverance, but, on the contrary, make atonement for the guilt.

{*It is in this the sufferings and the atonement meet; He suffered onwards up to death, then He also made atonement. Some of the remnant may suffer on to death; but then, like Christ, they will obtain a better resurrection.}

68 But it was as being near to God, save as in atonement, that He passed through it all. And though, in entering into it in spirit, He might see all the terrors of death and judgment before Him, and feel it anticipatively, yet He, as perfectly near to God and in favour, could at once turn to Him in perfectness, and hence make available all the grace and favour of God towards Him, as regarded that case, in behalf of those who should come to be in it (this we see continually in the Psalms and in the Gospels too), and have all the mind of God for them in that case, which they could use when they found themselves in it, even though in darkness. And how many in darkness, even in these christian times, have so availed themselves of them! And this, because He was in the perfect favour, and could count on the perfect favour of God, while passing through these depths, and thus, through the atonement, make it available as to all the circumstances for others in its suitable application — for others ruined else in their guilt. It was favour, and sustaining, and blessing, during the whole course of and in the circumstances, not the deliverance of One who was at a distance as in the position of those who were so, Himself obnoxious to wrath.

And hence we find that, while all the most exquisite sympathies of the Lord's sufferings are precious in Him and for us, inasmuch as in general the saint is always a sufferer among sinners, and the circumstances are analogous, and we have to walk as He walked, and the grace precious in His walk by which He lived is precious for us, yet the prophetic application is, properly speaking, to Israel, not to the Church, save in a particular way in some very peculiar passages, where the remnant of Israel is considered after His resurrection, which formed the first nucleus of the Church; and where the heavens are vaguely alluded to — where we now know the Church will be, when the judgments come on the earth. There is one point which particularly refers to this — the constant claim for vengeance and deliverance by destruction of the psalmist's enemies. This is not the Church's cry, because her deliverance is by being taken out of the scene. That is the certain character of the deliverance. But in the Psalms it is destruction of enemies. The resurrection is clearly put forward as the confidence of those whom the enemy may slay — a principle ever true, and, in fact, accomplished in Christ. How fully this applies to the remnant of Jews, in the latter day oppressed by the enemy, every one will see. But this by the bye.

69 Let us examine the Psalms in their connection with Christ Himself, who was, as in Israel, the faithful One in the midst of a rebellious and apostate race; but yet put to the test by this last visit in goodness. But as regards His path and trials, Christ was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He called all as such, doubtless; but it was a separative mission. His sheep were to hear His voice. His fan was in His hand — the axe at the root of the trees. The meek were to inherit the land — the poor in spirit to have the kingdom. His preaching righteousness and truth was in the great congregation; but the effect was to gather a little flock, with whom all His associations were, and to whom it was His Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom. This was His position in Israel. From such, and the thoughts of One perfect before God in such a position, the testimony of the Spirit of prophecy in the Psalms flowed, and flowed for those who shall be in such a position in the latter day; while, as the revelation of the perfection of Christ, they are the blessed portion of the Church in all ages. From all this it flows that some psalms speak of Christ Himself as alone making atonement; others of His sorrows in life as taking up the cause of the godly and being perfectly so Himself; others the prophetic provision of the expression of right feelings by the remnant in the latter day, into whose condition He thus enters in spirit.

70 We will examine the Psalms a little to bring this out. The first psalm presents the blessedness, natural in God's ways, to the perfect man under the law; distinguishing him from the wicked. The second presents the title of Christ, in the decree of Jehovah, to the headship over the heathen, as set King in Zion. The third at once turns to the actual position: the righteous man is surrounded with enemies — suffers instead of reigning. The rest shew out all the thoughts of God, as to this, in sorrow, or in purpose and final glory. "How are they increased," says the righteous man, "that trouble me! There is no help for him in his God. But thou, O Jehovah, art a shield;" closing with the great testimony in Israel — ever true — "Salvation belongeth unto Jehovah. His blessing is upon his people." The fourth: they turn His glory into shame. But they would know that Jehovah had set apart the godly man for Himself. Many could say there was no good, but for him the light of Jehovah's countenance satisfied him. The Lord only was his refuge. Here we have the position of the righteous remnant fully provided for, and the Spirit of Christ entering fully into it; putting real strength into it, for the name of Jehovah is a strong tower. The fifth: He finds Himself surrounded by confident wickedness; but God does not take pleasure in it. He knows God's name. There were bloody and deceitful men. He calls on God to destroy them. He will come into His temple. The Lord would bless the righteous. The sixth: in the midst of these workers of iniquity the righteous soul sees death before it. His soul is vexed. He sees the righteous indignation of God upon the people. The Spirit of Christ enters into that which was due to, and ought to be felt by, the righteous remnant in the day of trouble as really due to it.* The righteous soul felt it as the chastening hand of God, saw the rod, and who had appointed it, and bowed down as in the presence of death (the simple pass on and are punished), but looked perfectly to the Lord in that condition, saying, "Thou, O Jehovah, how long?" The Spirit of Christ, entering into this, does not "preserve" from seeing the rod and feeling the burden, but quite the contrary, and enables the soul to look constantly to the Lord.

{*Hence a claim in the psalm founded on mercy, entirely incompatible with the writer's doctrine as to Christ.}

Christ, then, does enter in spirit into this sorrow of the remnant fully: but it is not His relation to God as due to Him as associated with the people. It is because He is near God through it all, that He can hold the soul of the remnant in the place of sustaining grace by faith in the position where they were to receive the chastisement. It is not Himself "at a distance," as the place of the sinful man under wrath (save in atonement) in His relation to God; but the link with the remnant in spirit, when in the circumstances where they would feel all pressing upon them, and could not have been near God, being sinners and guilty as a nation, but that He who had drawn them to seek righteousness maintained them in spirit, brought them into the sustaining value of His place by entering into theirs in grace. The position is the position of the remnant; the link with God in it, Christ. Sometimes it rises up therefore to where He alone could individually stand, and becomes a direct prophecy of Him; and then we find His interest in, and application of, all this to the remnant as a distinct body from Him. In general, to understand the Psalms, we must see the Jewish remnant faithful in trial, and the Spirit of Christ taking up this position to link them with the strength of Jehovah, as well as, in some psalms, bearing sin alone in the way of atonement that He might be able to do so. Sometimes it is the deliverance and glory which this strength will accomplish as the answer.

71 So (Psalm 7) Christ pleads in the midst of the people in His righteousness, and calls to Jehovah to awake to the judgment which He has commanded, lifting up Himself in anger against the rage of His enemies. Christ, as He was, did not do this, and could not, but the contrary, for higher and more glorious reasons; nor can the Church now. It is His Spirit speaking in and for the remnant. Yet the Spirit of Christ knew perfectly His title to this righteous vengeance: but He had a higher work to accomplish. He could have asked His Father, and have had twelve legions of angels; but the scriptures were to be fulfilled. The disciples were not even to tell that He was the Christ: the Son of man was to suffer, and hold a higher and more glorious place. He had come to save men's lives, not to destroy them; and He prayed for His ignorant enemies.

Hence, from the accomplishment of the effect of Christ's taking up the cause and entering thus into the circumstances of the earthly people, in Psalm 8 Jehovah, the God of Israel, has His name excellent in all the earth, as the God of the Jews, in the exaltation of the Son of man. In Psalm 9 we have the judgment executed against the enemies so often complained of, and an enlarged account of it. So in Psalm 10 the wicked thus domineering in the latter day are fully described, and the result for the humble remnant, whose heart God prepared and caused his ear to hear.

72 In the psalms which follow on this, this is fully entered into; that is, the Spirit of Christ draws out the whole scene, becoming the spring and portrayer of all the varied exercises of feeling in that day, in the fullest sympathy with the humble, whose heart God had prepared. And it is exceedingly lovely to see all the weaknesses, sorrows, thoughts, feelings, exercises, spoken of by the Spirit of Christ Himself. All this supposes weakness: "I had said almost as they," says the poor oppressed upright one in that day; that, when all the circumstances by which they shall be occasioned in that day are there, they may have, by the word, the vehicle to their hearts of this sympathy, and the certainty of it in the very thoughts presented by it for and in the circumstances. It is not an excellency out of the reach of their condition; it is the entering of the Spirit of Christ into it.

This is partially true of us; but it is not quite the same, because there Christ descends in sympathy into the circumstances as there with them, whereas for us He is on high; and we having received the Holy Ghost, consequent on the knowledge of full redemption, to join Christ in heaven, and so be ever with Him — we have Him as our High Priest on high to bring us in spirit there, out of where we are, and having suffered being tempted, maintaining the communion of the weak with the perfectness of the light we belong to, and the fulness of glory and perfection which we see by faith, and in which we walk. The Holy Ghost in us presents those groanings which cannot be uttered, because, being already associated with the joy and glory of that new creation, we groan, being burdened with our connection with the old. Our enemies are spiritual. We do not look for deliverance by the execution of judgment on earthly foes, though we see and can desire the deliverance of earth by it in due time. But here the blessed Jesus provides His sympathies for a people who are not in this position, but in trials from which, for the most part, unless killed, the execution of judgment can alone deliver them; and they wait for the Lord, saying, "How long?" and find in the words of Jesus that He has not forgotten them, knows their sorrows, and furnishes them through His Spirit with the expression of them — an expression of them of which God takes notice as being of the Spirit of Christ Himself who has made the atonement for the nation, though it be but the cry of weakness, but divinely suited to their state. They, too, vent their sorrow in what they know outwardly and inwardly, for it cannot be otherwise, for the words of God are sweet and known by His own to be the words their God has given them.

73 Often, as in Psalm 14, we have the Lord's view of all this. He rises above the circumstances and takes a view of them. How encouraging to the poor tried remnant! yet, putting them in their place as sinners, for they are not by known redemption out of that, though they wait and hope for it. Hence it is, too, that these psalms often suit souls awakened and in that state. Thus in Psalm 15 we have just a description of the character of those who shall find a place in God's tabernacle. In Psalm 16 we find one of those psalms which shews us, as the apostle quotes their general principle as illustrating the position of Christ, that He did not merely depict and express, or sympathize, in a way of provision for or in divine intelligence, the sorrows of the remnant, but that He came Himself into their place, and suffered, being tempted, and tasted all the sorrow, so as to be able to succour them that were tempted. He was in the place, not of distance, but of dependence. It is saints who want sympathy, however weak, and however their feelings are the expressions of infirmity — not man at a distance and disobedient. He was in the position of dependence in the place of sorrow, but perfection, in the dependence of a saint. Here Christ looks to be preserved by God, for, as a man, He puts His trust in Him. He said to Jehovah, "He was his Adon (his Lord): to the saints and the excellent on earth, all his delight was in them" — not with man at a distance, as Himself obnoxious to wrath because He was there (though saints may feel their sins when called into the place of trial and repentance and chastening — feel them according to grace), nor with the mass of disobedient Israel, but with the saints and excellent of the earth. This is Christ's place in the Psalms, unless alone in the atonement. Still it is in Israel. He will not go after another god: Jehovah was the portion of His inheritance; and He sees, in this confidence in Jehovah, the resurrection as His path of life and joy.

I think I see in these Psalms, which are the expression of the thoughts of Christ Himself, in a certain sense a higher tone, more perfectness, in that He is in the absolute completeness and perfectness of feeling which belongs to perfectness in the place in which He is. He may be in the very depths, but He is perfectly and perfect. there. He has exactly that feeling which suits a perfect apprehension of the place He is in. He enters perfectly into the tossings to and fro of the hearts of His poor saints who through grace feel rightly, but hardly know how, and do not know how to estimate absolutely (it would be impossible and contradict their place as exercised because of imperfection, and always feeble, never divine), the place they are in in relation to God. He enters, I say, perfectly into their feelings; but His feelings are perfect; and hence there is an exact perfect setting of each thing in its place, which leaves no broken or vague impression. We see One who has scanned in the light the whole extent of His position, though that position be the depth of darkness itself, giving God perfectly His place in relation thereto. Hence these psalms become as centres of thought for the whole book (as stakes in the hedge which sustain and keep it all in place, though others form it), as they will be in fact for the remnant, as a pledge of blessing for all in similar circumstances of trial, though Christ were alone in the expiatory part of them; and this they habitually express also.

74 Thus this Psalm 16. So Psalm 22 — forsaken of God, no uncertainty, no hope He may not be. He is yet (O wondrous thought, and blessed one that it should have been so!) equally perfect in His estimate of God: "Thou continuest holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." All the powers of evil were then against Him: He is at the same time forsaken of His God, for whom to be near Him He cried in the hour of distress: but perfect in owning the perfection of God in it notwithstanding all. Weakness, hostility, and abandonment did not give an imperfect thought of all that God was. He was heard.

So, in my judgment, Psalm 23 where He walks the path of the blessing and trial of faith. and presents the confidence of it (putting forth His sheep, He goes before them), and shews it to them whatever He had to suffer in it, assured to them what Jehovah was — He who He was proved Himself to be in Psalm 24.

But one word as to Psalms 20, 21, in their connection with 22. In the two preceding psalms the Spirit presents Messiah the object of the contemplation of the saint in spirit prophetically; for we must remember they are prophecies. Psalm 19 gives the testimony of creation and the law, such as they really are. But in Psalm 20 Messiah is seen in the day of trouble. Strange sight! but one that the saint must enter into, and he knows now that the Lord saves His anointed, and none is to be trusted but Jehovah. Here it is the day of trouble, and the saints can enter into it — Jewish saints and expressed in Jewish circumstances. It closes with their hosanna. In Psalm 21 they contemplate the answer, seeing Messiah not only delivered but exalted; glory and great majesty set upon Him. What they had looked for, as interested in His desires, Psalm 20: 4, they see answered, Psalm 21: 2; and much more, too, as the answer opens out upon their view in the blessing and exaltation of the Messiah, with whom they had identified themselves in heart in the day of His trouble prophetically; but all this in Jewish association, and hence they see His power in judgment. "Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies."

75 But in Psalm 22 it was not sufferings in a day of trouble which could be contemplated and entered into by others, and the psalm is, and must be, in the mouth of Jesus Himself. He alone could enter, and in entering understand, that depth. And hence, being of expiatory power as bearing the forsaking of God, which was not the portion of His believing people, He, as now heard* in resurrection, can declare Jehovah's name on a new ground to His brethren; and, assembling the remnant round Himself, sing in the midst of the congregation, the gathered remnant of Israel redeemed into fuller blessings, and which became the nucleus of the Church — the Church, in fact, itself in its commencement. But thereon He calls on all Israel also, in virtue of this His being heard. And His praise is in the great congregation — all Israel, when fully gathered hereafter; and then all the ends of the world, "for the kingdom is Jehovah's." This gives a very peculiar force to this psalm — in its own proper depth, beyond all our feelings, and the foundation of all our hopes.

{*I believe Jesus's soul passed into peace, that He might give up His own Spirit — which no one took from Him — to God His Father. He delivered it up, as it is stated in John 19: 30; He commended it into His Father's hands. (Luke 23: 46.) His soul, while living, had gone morally through all the full depth of the — to us — unfathomable suffering of the atoning work, and gave up His spirit Himself to God His Father. But it is evident that the full answer to His prayer was in resurrection. "He asked life of thee, and thou gavest him long life, even length of days for ever and ever. His glory is great in thy salvation." Full glory, indeed, at God's right hand, and the redemption of the Church; and, indeed, power over all flesh, and headship over all things, are the only full answer to His work as to result; but we speak here of life. So Psalm 16 — "Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand pleasures for evermore."}

In Psalm 69 we have another of the character I have just now mentioned, which will afford us much instruction, and where the Lord fully expresses the well known and well defined position He is in before God, and really in His ways as well as His sorrows. The waters had come into His soul. He cried to God — His throat was dry while waiting for Him — His eyes failed — there was no standing in the depth He was in — His enemies were there, and mighty. But even here, in speaking of foolishness and sins, which we know to have been of others, not His own, He speaks as fully in the presence of God, all being in the light. "Thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee." His whole case is before God, He knowing it. It is not merely the sorrows and effects of sin down here. Hence, as I have said, He pleads for other godly ones (what touching grace in such a case!), that He, having to suffer the full depths of rejection, having taken all on Him, may not be an occasion of stumbling to the godly, the remnant who waited upon God. How likely in hearts prompt to say on His apparent rejection, because man had rejected Him, and His own word ill-believed, "We thought that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel;" as in the latter day, in Psalm 73, when the godly man felt, "therefore his people return thither, and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them;" and they were ready to say, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." "Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed for my sake, let not them that seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for thy sake I have borne reproach;" and the Lord shews the real ground on which, on man's part, trouble had come upon Him — His grace in sorrow towards them. But still in all the trouble also He is fully and consciously before God. "Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour," though as a man reproach had broken His heart, and He cried for deliverance. Here also we find judgment claimed from the God of Israel against the enemies; and, in verse 26, Christ brings together Himself and the remnant. In the end, seeing all the result, "their heart should live that seek God; for God will save Zion."

76 Again, in another Psalm (51), we have, though inspired for them by the Spirit of Christ, the confession of the remnant, the blood-guiltiness being indeed of all from Abel to Zacharias, but surely above all of Christ Himself. Then the confession of the remnant in Israel by the Spirit of Christ clearly applies to them, and not to Christ, save so far as Christ has taken it all on Himself indeed in grace. "In sin did my mother conceive me" cannot in any sense be applied to Christ; for it was not only the absence of personal sin, but an entirely different manner of introduction into manhood, which distinguished the position of Christ. It was a holy thing which was born, so born as to be called the Son of God, so that there was a necessary and special relation between Him and God His Father, even as a man born into the world, whatever He took on Himself, or into whatever He perfectly entered.

77 In Psalm 40, where we have Christ personally again, we find Him pleading His entire and unfaltering faithfulness, but having come to do God's will, and that through the offering of His body once for all (for we have the apostle's application of it here) His iniquities take such hold upon Him, that He is not able to look up: they are more in number than the hairs on His head. It is not His being sorry for them, or remission, as deliverance or relief, but the weight of them on Him. Again, He asks judgment on the enemy, and that the remnant may rejoice.

In Psalm 102 we have again one which applies personally to Christ, rises up to the height, that is, of His person, though never separated from the interests of His people. He had been lifted up, as One chosen out of the people, as Messiah, and cast down to the lowest place. His days were like a shadow, but, as ever, the full recognition, as standing in the light, of the glory of Jehovah in relation to Him: "Thou, O Jehovah, shalt endure forever." Let Him suffer and be cut off as He might, Jehovah and His glory, His remembrance (and that was to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God revealed to Moses) should endure. He should arise and have mercy on Zion, and the Spirit of Christ goes on to the time of the remnant in the latter day. The set time was come, for the servants of God (for such these were: see Isa. 65 and 66) took pleasure in her stones. Also, when the Lord built up Zion, He would appear, and His glory among the heathen be established; for He would look down and hear the cry of the poor remnant appointed to death. But what should Christ do? His strength had been weakened in the way, His days had been shortened, yet had He cried to God. "He asked life" of Him. But what a glorious answer to bring out the full person of Christ, in contrast, yet in full recognition and connection in unity of person, with His suffering dying humanity, and with the sparing of those appointed to death, on whom the Lord shall look down on that day! "Of old" — is the glorious answer — "thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; the heavens are the work of thy hands;" they would perish, but He was the same, His years should have no end. The sufferer was Jehovah, the Creator Himself. And then the remnant of Israel are brought in in millennial blessing. "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee." He, all glorious as He was, could not do without them; nor could they fail who had waited on such as He, though suffering as listening to His word in the midst of the enemies of His name, and appointed to death.

78 In Psalm 25 we have Christ entering as the head of the godly remnant into the sorrows and consequences of the sin of Israel which that remnant cannot repudiate, but, on the contrary, are known by the confession of, as we see in Daniel. The wicked say, as in Malachi, Wherein have we offended? It is a weariness to serve, the remnant confess. And note here, Daniel is reserved, and makes his confession amongst the Gentiles, now recognized as beasts after the restoration: shewing that for the full and best intelligence of the mind of God there was no restoration yet really of the people. Loved infallibly of God as His people, they were still in condition Lo-Ammi, not God's people. Hence the post-captivity prophets never call them so, though prophesying that they will be in a future day. Daniel, taking fully their position in prophetic sympathy by the Spirit of Christ, can address God according to His mind, and, confessing their sin, consider Jerusalem as the holy mountain, and all in the full light of God's unchangeable thoughts of love* (see Dan. 9); and their condition, as driven out, is the curse he speaks of in which they were. But he speaks also in the certainty of divine love, and of the people as God's people, called by His name.

{*Daniel, as among the Gentiles, or any answer of God to him, never goes beyond the point of closure, and introduction of the full blessing: never enters on it prophetically; for Israel was among the Gentiles, and he represents the remnant amongst them, but predicts the close of this and the bringing-in all prophesied of, sealing it, but there ends.}

In Psalm 25, then, Christ speaks as the head of the remnant, so to speak. "O my God, I trust in thee; let me not be ashamed; let not mine enemies triumph over me;" for in the presence of ungodly enemies we ever find Him, never associated with them. And, therefore suffering, He prays that He may not be shut up with them.* "Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed; let them be ashamed that transgress without cause. Lead me. Remember thy tender mercies. Remember not the sins of my youth [here Israel is personified — Christ entering into their case; for sins of His youth are clearly not His relation to God], but according to thy mercy remember me." He enters into the spirit of that word, God's real and only possible way of dealing with Israel, "that he might have mercy upon all." Christ had come for the truth of God to confirm the promises, but He had been refused of Israel, and now Israel must come in under mercy. This the remnant understand. The meek are those the Lord will accept and guide. The Lord's ways are owned; and so conscious are they of no excuse on Israel's part for their sin, that their forgiveness is based on the name of the Lord, the only sure ground, as it is necessarily perfect in its power. The man that fears the Lord will be taught in this way; and, finally, Israel will be redeemed (so is the desire) out of all his troubles.

{*So see Psalm 28: 2.}

79 I have noticed this psalm, because it shews the spirit in (in which association in grace with the remnant, with those that wait on Jehovah) Christ takes up in spirit, as in the condition of the people, looked at not as bearing the sin Himself, but in the feelings of the remnant about the sin of Israel (right though sorrowful feelings), in which, I say, He takes up the sins and the cause of this remnant: for if He did not take up the question of their sins, He could not take up their cause, nor His spirit be the inspirer and expresser by the word of right feelings in them. For, have they these feelings, they must feel, own, recognize, and even groan under the sins which have brought them to that low estate, as is true of every saint, whose sorrow under the consciousness of sin is the fruit of the working of the Spirit of Christ, not His relation to God as at man's distance from Him.

I will now turn, therefore, to some other psalms, referred to as expressing the greatest positive anguish in respect of these sins.

In Psalm 38 Israel is evidently viewed in the anguish of the bitter consequences of sin; but then, mark, of sin confessed as the true source of the anguish, unrighteous as was the oppressing enemy. Seeing it as the hand of the Lord, and bowing under it, and hoping in the Lord who would hear, and saying (as Job at the close, when the testimony of Elihu and Jehovah had reached his spirit, and made the suffering spiritually available), he would declare his iniquity, and be sorry for his sin. In a word, he no longer keeps silence, and guile is not now in his heart, so that we recognise the working of the Spirit of Christ in the remnant; and, consequently, here expressed according to the perfect workings of that Spirit.* All my desire is before thee. The condition is the condition of Israel under the heavy hand of God's chastening — the sentiments are the sentiments of the elect remnant (and so in spirit morally true of any soul in such case), in faith confessing the sin, and sure that God will hear — a certainty expressed for them by the Spirit of Christ, who fully enters into their case, and produces the sentiments, as having made the atonement which enables Him thus to lead them to God, though as yet they know not its value, and are crying out of the depths.

{*Historically there may be imperfection in the remnant, as there is in us, but these feelings are expressed in the word, according to the perfectness of the spirit which inspires them, and this is the blessedness of having Christ's Spirit entering into them, furnishing withal the expression to them when He does inspire them, and for His sake accepted of God, though mixed and imperfect in us, according to that perfectness.}

80 They are the remnant that, in the midst of trial, "follow the thing that good is." Now that was Christ's place. He sorrowed in the sorrow of Israel, and suffered the suffering of Israel; but His soul was with God about it, though the effect of His righteous path was to bring trial and forsaking upon Him, and the Lord left Him there till all was complete: but, however groaning deeply in spirit, knowing that the Father heard Him always. As in His previous life, one doubtless of deep thoughts about Israel unknown to man, He knew well, though subject to the path of ordinary duty as of God till God called Him, that He must be about His Father's business, thus shewing, not merely an unchangeable and eternal relationship as Son in the bosom of the Father, but a known relationship down here (and that in service), according to that which He was as a man born of God, who was His God from His mother's belly, who made Him hope when He was on His mother's breasts; and as such He grew in wisdom and stature, in favour with God and man.

Nor can it be doubted that He entered into the sufferings and sense of Israel's guilt in a more peculiar way, when sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost, and with power for official service, though I doubt not His heart felt it all along. But He waited in private upon God. Look at the sense of the presence and working of His enemies, and the pressure of the ungodly, the contradiction of sinners, which are invariably spoken of in these psalms. And when was that the case? Was it the blameless carpenter who had grown in favour with God and man, whatever His inward thoughts (and I doubt not at all they were deep and full of the glory of God, the glory of God in Israel, of God dishonoured in Israel, and deep and earnest love to His people, and His glory in them)? Or was it the anointed servant of Jehovah declaring His righteousness in the great congregation, and following His ways so as to confound the hypocrites, and asserting His glory in the temple itself, when the zeal of His house ate Him up, that found that the reproaches of those that reproached God fell on Him, that felt the desolation of a people sold for their iniquities to the Gentiles, and the enmity of a cruel nation, and whose lovers and friends stood aloof? But in all these psalms this pressure and sense of enemies are found.

81 In such a Psalm as 38, then, Christ enters into the sorrow of the godly remnant where He had been, but in the confession, and inspiring the confession of their sin, taking guile out of their heart, and as One who could do it, as He who had come into all its bitterness, and had borne all its weight as known in the light of God.

So in Psalm 6 it is not the iniquities, but the grief and prostration of spirit, and that in the presence of these same enemies, which bring the weeping souls of the remnant to the gates of death. But this, according to the perfectness of the Spirit of Christ (in man in effect and previously to reading such a word, often mixed with unbelief and the sorrows likely to produce disheartening and turning to the world); here encouraged by the comforting testimony for their hearts in that day — "Jehovah hath heard." But it is here because of "all mine enemies," but the hand of God looked to in it — not chastening on man at a distance, but a cry acceptable, and heard because the Spirit of Christ is in it, and heard in the judgment of their enemies: which note.

In Psalm 88 we get deeper into this scene of trial, and as we know that Christ was heard in that He feared, that His soul dreaded death and the cup that His Father gave Him to drink, though perfect in obedience, so He expresses this all here. His perfectness before God was seen: that no sin, no evil, no distance had clouded His sense of how terrible separation from God and His wrath was in that which His soul here expresses. He looks at it as under it. He had seen and apprehended it, we learn here, from His youth up. But it was His nearness to God,* and sense of what He was, made Him feel what the sorrow and horror was of the contrary. He was Jehovah God of His salvation; His loving-kindness as to man (hence not declared in the grave as to man in the flesh) well known; that is, the relation of God with His people, the godly ones before Him according to His faithful love to Israel; but, on the other hand, the full depth of judgment, sorrow, and wrath, entirely entered into, often anticipated, and now measured and known; for He could measure and know it, and He alone, for He has passed under it.

{*His soul entering in a perfectly righteous feeling into what the condemnation of the law was, and its curse, and the terror of God's majesty in respect of it, is entirely different from, and indeed the very opposite to, God's inflictions of wrath on Him, according to the position of distance in which He was from God. Piety and suffering vengeance are surely distinct things; but deep as these sufferings of Christ were, they were the depth of piety: "He was heard in that he feared."}

82 "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance from me; I am shut up, I cannot come forth. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, thy terrors have cut me off." This is no escape nor extrication from a state of distance from God. He is afflicted with all God's waves: He is in the lowest pit. His soul is cast off. God's fierce wrath went over Him. His terrors cut Him off. That Christ anticipated this we know. That He anticipated it in all its extent during the time of His service in the intelligent power of the Spirit (doubtless His righteous soul entered into it before) we know. But with what result? To escape it partially, or extricate Himself from it? No. Or was it merely after His service was closed, that He entered into another position? No. Jesus, knowing all things that should come upon Him, steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. That the hour of the power of Satan's darkness, and the hour of the dreadful wrath of God, were different from all before, from the holy anticipation of it, and from that service during which Satan departed from Him for a season (having first tried to seduce, and now, having been unable to succeed, oppressing Him with terror, sorrow, and death) — all this is quite true.

But the thing weighed by the Spirit of Christ in this psalm is the terror, and the wrath, and the waves in their full extent. Till it was accomplished, He had a baptism to be baptized with; and He was straitened till it was accomplished. That Christ's feelings varied, though the foundation of them all was the same, is undoubted. He could speak of our partaking of His joy, and of the fellowship of His sufferings. He had meat to eat in accomplishing His Father's work, and a cup to drink so bitter, that it, and it alone, He prayed might pass. But it did not, and He had to drink it, but at His Father's hand. He might be in the joy of communion with Him who heard Him always, in the service of love to men, or grieved, infinitely grieved, with the unbelief and contradiction of sinners; in glory, speaking of His decease with the saints in glory, or suffering it under the wrath of God. He could be led in the Spirit to be tempted, and return in the power of the Spirit to cast out demons, having bound the strong man; and Satan return as the prince of this world, to whom Jesus would not be subject, nor own: and He was perfect in each position, I mean perfect in His feelings relative to that position. So He might enter prophetically into the sorrows of others, and by His prophetic spirit so record His own that the word became His word when He was in them. But in all this His perfectness never changed in His own relation to God, nor His nearness to Him as man, as Son of God down here born of the Virgin.

83 The time of atonement had another character, and this we know He anticipated in spirit. And here I would remark, that, instead of escaping wrath to which He was relatively obnoxious, whether by position or appointment, we do find Him, when that one cup had to be drunk, seeing that it should pass, though perfectly submissive; but it could not. For nothing else was like that.

For before, the reproaches of them that reproached God fell on Him, and, though He suffered in every way, in the midst of it all He looked constantly to God. Every groan in spirit, as in the case of Lazarus, was heard, and reproaches because of unbelief turned in the same hour into thanking God in spirit, who hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes. The sense of unbelief, even in His disciples, which disabled them from using the power of His name against the demon that tormented the world, which made Him feel, on descending from the momentary vision or rather realization of glory, that that generation was not long to be supported, nor He to be with them, yet turns without an interval into the exercise of love and display of power against the enemy, while He was with His poor unhappy people — with unhappy man.

But now, when this cup (not reproaches for God, not contradiction from sinners, but wrath from God because man was at a distance, was proved to be so, proved incapable of being won back by anything such as He was) was to be drunk — now, He prays it may pass — that from this hour He may be saved. But no, it could not be. We well know why: our hearts know it well. That cup could not pass; not that one. It was drunk for us; and He drinks it in love to His Father, in obedience, and in accomplishment of His blessed and precious love to us. And our souls adore Him, and Him who gave Him for us — Him who came to do the will which sanctifies and perfects us by one offering. Associated with us in wrath, from which He extricates Himself, and escapes, in part, by prayer, faith, and obedience! — does not the soul revolt from such a thought, and leave it with disgust to the friends or dupes of Satan to entertain or adopt it? But let us turn rather to the Lord.

84 In this Psalm (88) the Lord enters prophetically into the depth of this; not as in it historically, but as reflecting on it, if I may so speak, so that, in verse 16, He can speak of it as entering into it in spirit at all times. This He has done, no doubt, for every saved soul; but, I do not doubt, also in contemplation of the condition of Israel ruined under the law, the curse of which He fully bore. For, note, it is not a question if Christ enters into this place — He did fully. It is His being associated in it as coming into the world, and escaping part, and extricating Himself from it, and applying His sense of the terror of it to this, that is so evil. Verses 17 and 18 refer, I do not doubt, to that, which however is a minor part here — His enemies and the removal of His friends. But here it is from the hand of God. In Psalm 38, when looked at in another point of view, they stand aloof. It is the misery there — here the wrath.

In Psalm 35 we have Christ again in spirit entering into the sorrow of the remnant, and claiming judgment on the enemy; but giving the remnant credit, as it were, for being identified with Him and His cause, as the righteous one in spirit, and praying that they may shout for joy that favour His righteous cause.

In Psalm 34. He takes up the song of praise for the faithfulness of the Lord. Not a bone of Him had been broken. His soul makes its boast in the Lord — the humble should hear thereof and be glad: "heard in that he feared;" and, whatever the glory that resulted, as seen in Psalm 21, and yet better known by us, He applies it to the comfort of the tried remnant in that day, so that they may bless the Lord at all times, even in trial and seeming desertion. They were to magnify the Lord with Him, and exalt His name together. He sought the Lord, and He heard Him and delivered Him from all His fears. They looked unto Him and were lightened. So they can say, "This poor man cried, and Jehovah heard him and saved him out of all his troubles." In verses 21 and 22 the grand conclusion, as to the wicked and the remnant, is drawn.

85 I have, I think, gone through a sufficient number of psalms,* and those the most difficult, I believe, to give the principle on which I judge we can understand them and their application, so as to facilitate the interpretation and application of the others, and, in having the true sense, the avoiding of a false one. If the Lord permit, and give leisure, most joyous and profitable would it be, not only to search into them all, but I would trust for others, to unfold the application of them; but this, as deeply interesting, would require a long time and much application. I have only rapidly given great principles, but most precious, as rendering us more familiar with the spirit and mind of the Lord Jesus, which is everything to us, and makes the Psalms so precious. Exhortations, prophetic history, psalms of praise, all are found flowing from His Spirit, easier in general of application, specially if we have the latter days in view. I will, before closing, just notice Psalm 91 as one used by the enemy we know to Christ, and affording a key to the position of Christ before Jehovah in Israel.

{*The reader may turn to Psalm 70, where he will again find this desire that the godly in Israel may not be stumbled at Jesus's sufferings, desiring that they may ever have praise in their mouth; and to Psalm 71, where we evidently find circumstances in the condition of the writer alluded to, "old and grey-headed:" but still used by the Spirit of Christ prophetically; not to speak of Christ merely personally, but of His taking up the condition of the remnant in Israel, feeble in the old age, as it were, of their history, in the presence of their enemies, whose hope God had always been, marking the faith of the believing remnant, and who should shew His righteousness to that generation — His power to every one that was to come. And so it shall be according to the spirit and title of Christ in that day.}

The first verse gives the two names of the trust and blessing of Abraham, looked at as heir of the world. As the Almighty He was made known to Abraham we know (see Ex. 6: 3). The Most High was His name of blessing by Melchisedek. He who knew the secret place of this last should enjoy the protection of that other first-mentioned name. Messiah (ver. 2) takes the name of the God of Israel, as the secret place of the Most High, Jehovah — by which name He was known to them. (Ex. 6: 3.) Down to verse 8 the consequence is stated. He is, indeed, the Almighty Protector who should shield Him. As thus in Israel, only with His eyes should He see the reward of the wicked. This was His relationship, and the ground of it with the God of Israel. In verse 9 the Spirit in the remnant of Israel takes up the song: "Because thou hast made Jehovah which is my refuge, even the Most High," whose secret place He had thus known, His dwelling, He should give His angels charge over Him; He should be borne up and trample on the power of evil. In verse 14, the Fear of Israel, Jehovah, speaks: "Because he has set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name." The exaltation of the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, is constant in the Psalms; and the refusal to look to any but Him, or accept deliverance, or honour, or exaltation but from His hands, and consequently in His time; and this characterizes the faithful remnant in the latter day, though smitten into the place of dragons. But it brings trial and sorrow on them; and into this Christ, therefore, entered in spirit, in its fullest and highest sense — it was His place. And, indeed, when we seek relief elsewhere, we must act on principles below His, for He acts on His own in His own blessed and perfect time; and hence suffering. Satan sought to make the Lord count on this out of the way of obedience, and as putting it to the test to exalt Himself, which would have been really unbelief, saying, "Is the Lord indeed among us?"

86 This psalm, then, gives the key to the relationship of Christ with Jehovah in Israel. But He awaited therein His perfect pleasure, and suffered for and in spirit with His people, and, blessed be God, not for that nation only.

The division into five books is generally known, and will give a diversity of bearings in this relation, prophetic relation, of the Lord in spirit with the remnant; but I cannot enter into this now, as it would carry me too far, and leads properly to or indeed is rather founded on, the interpretation of the whole book. Peace be with my reader. May he be enabled, indeed, to enter into the spirit of the Psalms as of the Spirit of Christ, and enjoy it as much as my poor and feeble soul has done. And, if only so, he will know Christ the better, and not lose much pains if he bestow it on them. Though, indeed, it is not pains, but the gift of teaching of the Spirit of God, that makes us know Christ, and understand the Psalms as speaking of Him, as of every other good gift.

We may do well to consider what the New Testament does say as to the sufferings of Christ. Mr. Newton's theory is based on the principle that this kind of sufferings of Christ is not found in the history of the New Testament, but only in the Psalms. But surely a doctrine of such immense importance as the subjection of Christ to the wrath of God previous to the cross, and not vicariously, whether up to John's baptism, as he sometimes states it, or up to His death, as at others — from which He was delivered by His obedience, or by John's baptism, or not at all, till He had endured it all (for all these are taught too in the tract, as well as the direct opposite to the last) — a doctrine, I say, of such importance as Christ's being under wrath would be found in the epistles, in the way of comment on the history. But not a word of any such doctrine is found, but quite the contrary. Sufferings in righteousness from the contradiction of sinners are indeed spoken of, and bearing sin also, but so as to exclude the thought of any other kind. Thus, 1 Peter 3: 18, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God [not find His way to a point where God could meet Him], being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." So, chapter 2: 21, "For even hereunto were ye called [that is, to do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently]: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye are healed. For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."

87 Now here we have the whole course of Christ's sufferings for righteousness' sake and for sins in contrast moreover with the wandering* condition of Israel. So, 1 Peter 4: 1, "For as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." Now here we have Christ's sufferings in the flesh given as a whole when they were not vicarious sin-bearing. And we are called upon to arm ourselves with the same mind, not most certainly with inflictions from God in wrath. So, verses 12-19, of the fiery trial: — "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial . . . . but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings . . . If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God . . . Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God . . . ."

{*It is well to remark, that the word in Psalm 119, "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost," which Mr. N. applies to Christ, is the same that is used in Isaiah 53: 6 — "All we, like sheep, have gone astray;" and in a moral way it is ever used of moral error — indeed, is always used in the sense of evil, either moral, or, in a few passages, of misery. This application of Psalm 119 to Christ by Mr. N., well known to all who have heard him, and confirmed in his own tract on the sufferings of Christ (note to p. 16), is to be remarked by Christians. It is a part of that utter and revolting disrespect for Christ which characterizes all their teaching; because it is not only verse 176 in which going astray is attributed to him who speaks, but in verse 67: — "Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now have I kept thy word." What does "go astray" mean here? And here I shall mention some circumstances connected with this word. In the notes which are so abundantly circulated, one, amongst others, was furnished to persons in communion where all this evil is not received, in which sins of ignorance were directly in terms attributed to Christ; and here I shall give a brief statement of what these notes are. They are not the communication of casual notes taken by anybody, for which it would be hard to render any one responsible: they are taken by a clever and assiduous disciple of Mr. N.'s, a very good and correct note-taker, copied out fair, and given to other disciples to be copied and circulated; some being paid for doing it. Now I will not here attribute to Mr. N. the ascribing sins of ignorance to Christ in the lecture referred to — I shall just now say why. But this is certain, that his most efficient and ardent disciples so take it, copy it, read, recommend, and circulate it. These notes having been read by another whose faith was not yet ruined by this teaching — this person was naturally shocked at the blasphemous doctrines contained in them, and the thing became known and spoken of at Plymouth; and a friend of Mr. N.'s, one, though his disciple, too much taught of old in the faith to bear this, got the notes and had them interlined so as that the words "sins of ignorance" should be disconnected from Christ, and taken as a comparison of what in others was like what was spoken of as being in Him. But how must feeling about Christ have been lost and destroyed by the teaching, that the disciples of Mr. N. should not have been at once stopped by finding sins attributed to Christ! Nor is it surprising; for, though I do not pretend to attribute to Mr. N. what some of his friends say cannot be, though others have diligently circulated as his, it is quite certain that Mr. N.'s teaching does so. Psalm 119 he applies directly to Christ. See page 15 of his tract, where, verse 9, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way," is applied to Him; and the psalm in general, note to page 16.

But, as to attributing sins of ignorance to Christ, which Mr. N.'s poor deluded victims are circulating as such blessed teaching, this is certain, that there is nothing more in it than what Mr. N. does teach. He attributes Psalm 119 to Christ; explaining away, indeed, one of the passages which says, that he who speaks went astray. But verse 67, which also states that before he was afflicted he went astray, employs the word which is used all through Leviticus and Numbers for sinning or sins through ignorance.

And I beg also the reader to remark the comparison he makes to justify the application of this and other psalms to Christ. "If I were to send a faithful servant heavily burdened to scale the sides of an icy mountain, and were to see his foot slide, should I marvel? But what, if I should see him stumble or slip in some easy path, because of carelessness, &c., how different my judgment of his conduct!" Did the faithful servant heavily burdened (and whom that represents I can leave the reader to judge of) — did His foot slide on the icy mountain? What does Mr. N. mean about Christ in saying this? He would not marvel at His foot sliding! Is indignation to be restrained at such language? Woe be to the man that hears, encourages, or sanctions such blasphemies.

Either Mr. N. is deliberately seeking to degrade and dishonour Christ, or he is a blind instrument of Satan in doing it.}

89 Here, then, we have sufferings by appointment, and that by judgment on the house of God; and true saints suffering as Christians, partaking of Christ's sufferings in it: in which they were to rejoice; so that the nature of such sufferings, as known in and by Christ, is entirely contrary to what the writer has taught concerning them. It was no strange thing, but a thing understood and known; and the very contrary of the writer's doctrine on the points he treats of. For such sufferings by appointment, and inflictions of God in judgment on the house of God, we, according to him, have nothing to say to. Christ extricated Himself out of, and preserved Himself from, them; whereas I find we are to rejoice in partaking of them with Him.

So in Hebrews 12, after many partial though blessed exhibitions of faith held up to lead us to run with patience, it is added, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith," One who has begun and finished the whole course of faith, in which faith is exercised; so that we have here everything in which He trod the path — ἀρχηγὸν χαὶ τελειωτὴν — who has led in and completed the course: "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners* against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." And then taking, as to us, another view of it. "And ye have forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Now that Christ had no need to be rebuked is certain; but so far as this can have any application to Him, as a trial and exercise of perfectness in circumstances, it is clear it relates to His enduring from the wickedness of men, as we in following Him have to endure — giving another character to those sufferings of Christ than that which the writer gives — namely, that one in which the godly man has to follow Him in the path of faith.

{*We have seen this principle all through in examining the Psalms.}

90 So, in the doing of God's will, which was His whole career in life and death, in Hebrews 10, the apostle sees no such thing as inflictions of God on Him as associated with those who had not done it. It was to do God's will that His body was prepared: but there is no connection with sins in relation to God in wrath but the offering of His body once.

Indeed, Hebrews 7: 27, I doubt not, contradicts directly the statement of the writer; for though, as High Priest, Christ exercises His office as made higher than the heavens, yet His qualifications must have existed previously in order to be in that place: holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. He is made (γενόμενος) higher than the heavens, but He was constantly separate from sinners, distinguished in position from them.

And Christ perfect through sufferings, as has been observed by others, is connected with His tasting death. So, if He partook, and in as far as He partook of the children's, not the wicked's, place — flesh and blood, it was that through death, &c.; and it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren. But how so? "For in that he hath suffered being tempted, he might be able to succour them that are tempted," "for he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." It was not extricating Himself out of something He was in, because sinners were there; but entering into all, that the children were in, of trial and difficulty, that He might succour them there. So in the "strong crying and tears in the days of his flesh," giving thus the whole constant character to them as such, it was "unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." It was not inflictions on the position of the ungodly. It was piety met God's eye in His cry and reached His ear; and thus, "though he were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect," &c. There is no thought of another kind and class of sufferings; yet the sufferings are fully spoken of and considered, and so as to leave no room for, but entirely exclude, the blasphemous doctrine of the author as to the position Christ was in.

Indeed, other considerations shew the antiscriptural nature of his doctrine on this all-vital point. For Christ was to get out of this place of being exposed to what was due to man's sin and Israel's disobedience. If He was then answerable for it, how without blood? "For without shedding of blood, there is no remission." Hence, when Christ did put Himself there, He did shed His blood, and was brought again from the dead according to the power of the blood of the everlasting covenant. But how, when He was under it the first time, as born into it? Was His obedient life sufficient to put away the consequences of sin? That He was never under it, by reason of that life, a Christian understands; but that He redeemed Himself out of it by good living is an unscriptural principle.

91 Further, remark, the position He was in was for sins of others; so that, if this redemption by living righteously under the law was accomplished and effectual, it was accomplished effectually for them, for it was the position they were in He took. But, indeed, it is hard to say it was; for, according to the author, though He extricated Himself from this position by His own righteousness, He preserved Himself only from a part of it. For some eighteen years He had to bear as much as God thought proper during that period. Of what avail, then, was His perfect obedience to bring Him out of it, since He suffered under it a good while? or, why so suffer, if He was perfect enough in obedience to merit getting out of it? For it was not for others in effect then, for He alone got out; nor for us, for we were never in it, says the author. Or why was John's baptism for the remission of sins so blessed to Him to get out of this position, if He was getting out of it solely by His own righteousness? It is no answer to say that He chose to abide there with Israel, for it was a different way of getting out; nor, if He was relieving Himself by remission, was He fulfilling righteousness. He falsified His place, for, then, to work effectually for Israel, He ought to have separated Himself from them, as now able to take up their cause; nor can it be said that He chose then to enter into their condition, because getting remission of sins by repentance, as joy and deliverance to His own soul and new ground, was not associating Himself with their sins.

He got from Sinai to Zion then; but how was that taking Sinai-place with them? And it is all confusion moreover to say, that He did what Israel would not, because, without any previous title of righteousness at all, multitudes were baptized by John, confessing their sins; nor was John's ministry to Israel such as the writer presents it, namely, the new economy of grace. It was the representing of an axe at the root of the tree, and Messiah with the fan in His hand about to cleanse His floor, and judge, and execute vengeance against all that did not bear good fruit, gather up the grain into His garner, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire; so that it was not, in any real or true sense in its address to Israel, the introduction into the earth of the new economy of grace. John did, indeed, prophetically point out something more; but this he identified entirely with the death of Christ and the baptizing with the Holy Ghost. "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." "He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." And, rising above the circumstances in which Jesus placed Himself, he bears testimony to Him, "and I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God." "I knew him not."

92 Again, shewing the entire misapplication in principle of the Psalms, the doctrine of the writer is, that Christ wrought His way by righteousness up to the point of meeting God, learned obedience, proved His perfectness, &c. It was not a need of, nor had He a claim on, mercy. He must make His way by obedience and righteousness; He extricated Himself by His own perfect obedience. Now what is remarkable in the Psalms is, that they constantly appeal to the mercy of God, putting it ever before His righteousness, as it will be with Israel in that day. It is this that distinguishes them: "God prepares their heart;" for they must come in under mercy, according to Romans 11. And this is the case in Psalm 6 itself, on which the writer comments, and where it is said, "Save me for thy mercies' sake." It sets aside his whole principle of application to Christ.

I will add also a few words on Jeremiah, which is also used to puzzle the minds of the saints. Recalling the fact, that the question is not, if Christ in spirit entered into the sorrows of Israel: I believe, that, as being always near to God, He could. The doctrine taught is that He was under wrath in a way we never can be, and did not suffer all its consequences but saved Himself from it.

Jeremiah then, in spirit, by the Spirit of Christ, entered in his measure into the sorrows of Israel: not as subject to the wrath, though as a man he was of course; but as having the mind of Christ's love, and His word about them.

"I have set thee," says God, "for a tower and a fortress among my people, that thou mayest know and try their way." (Jer. 6: 27.) God had sanctified him for this (chap. 1: 5), and the nation would fight against him. (ver. 19.) This is not sufferings as associated with them, but as separated from them, though divinely interested in them, that is, as a prophet. (Chap. 15: 15.) We have his trials under it; and what was the ground it went upon? Just so far as he was there in the Spirit of Christ. "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart . . . . I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation." Now, here he is filled with it. How? Is it by being naturally exposed and obnoxious to it, and extricating himself out of it? No, but as sanctified to it by God, and called by His name; it is as partaking of the word of God that he suffered, and suffered as far as that was the case, as Christ did. And this was the identification with Israel which made him suffer, according to the grace of God, and in spiritual understanding according to His mind; his heart and spirit being associated with them, according to God's love to them, and feeling their sorrow and their sins; the grace of God identifying itself in the prophet with the people as loved of Him — suffering in their sorrows, and calling for judgment on them who wilfully opposed the testimony, despised the sorrower, and helped on the evil.

93 But this was the opposite of suffering the inflictions of God's wrath from him as due to the people. Jeremiah 10: 24, 25, shews plainly the impossibility of such an idea of wrath, so due and escaped from: "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing." Now, no such desire could be expressed as to inflictions of God's wrath, to which a man was naturally obnoxious. It looks for correction, but not in anger. No one could look for nor acquiesce in this way in the infliction of the curse of the law. And as to the Lamentations: that Jeremiah and the Lord Jesus entered into the sorrow of the actual wrath and evil that had fallen on Israel, who doubts? But this was not exposure to it from which the prophet preserved himself. His heart entered into it all, as sorrowing over what was loved of God but guilty, and with which he identified himself, being in such a case. Here also the enmity of ungodly Jews is not lost sight of. (Lam. 3: 14.) Besides, here also mercy is what is referred to and expected, not wrath due and avoided in a measure, but suffering felt from wrath executed, and looking to mercy out of it, because of God's goodness and His love to the people. He had seen affliction. (See verses, 22, 31, 32, 48, 52 to the end.)

94 I shall add some of the doctrines taught which may put brethren on their guard against the whole system. It was taught in London that Christ had no human feelings — that the weakness of man was an evil as well as sin, and hence it was not in Christ.

This was taken notice of, and the cases of Christ's loving the young man, and His reference to His mother on the cross, were referred to, as proving that He had those feelings: but the first was declared to be the love of election; and the second the divine nature suggesting what was right; but neither human feeling. The fire consuming the wood upon the altar was expounded, as shewing that God did consume nature, not sin merely as a thing hateful to Himself.

It was assiduously taught in more than one place, that Abel's sacrifice was more abundant than Cain's, and that this, not its nature, was its superiority,* the word πλείονα being relied on to prove it. Lecturing on Leviticus 1, it was taught that the preciousness of it was, that if our devotedness, though acceptable, was inadequate in quantity, the deficiency was made up by Christ's; and the peculiar preciousness of this was, that it was made up for by a thing of the like kind.

{*This piece of false criticism I do not comment on; but I do warn the reader, who may be imposed on by an appearance of exact learning, that the Greek criticisms of the writer are oftener wrong than right. This is the case with some found in the papers which have given occasion to these remarks.}

I feel bound to add, that the doctrine of the tract involves really, though more obscurely, the person of the Lord; because, it is stated that, as the Eternal Son, He had an unchangeable relation of favour; but, that as man, not vicariously, He was obnoxious to wrath. Now this divides the person entirely. That He took it vicariously, though in perfect favour Himself, is true; but that He was in favour as Eternal Son, and under wrath Himself as man, not vicariously, subverts the doctrine of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is near as Eternal Son, and as man at a distance, not as a substitute.

The horrible and frightful doctrine of this tract then is — it makes one shudder to state it — that Christ was exposed to damnation Himself from the position He had taken; being that of man's distance* from God, and the curse of a broken law, according to Galatians 3: 10 — that He extricated Himself from it, and again entered into it for others. The same doctrine is, not only in the notes published by Mr. Harris, but in the paper of the author in the second edition of the "Christian Witness." There Christ is said to be not guilty of actual transgression, nor having original sin, but to be under the third part of the consequences of Adam's guilt, the imputed or reckoned penalty of it as being a man. Nor can there be any doubt what the doctrine is; for it is stated** that He chose to abide what He had delivered Himself from, by the law being strong for Him; and so the iniquity was laid upon Him, and the wrath came. So that what He was liable to, was the wrath judicially due to sin, for that is what He did abide. Many of the most inconceivable things are in MS. notes, which are in the hands of others, but those I leave to the persons who possess them. But I do say, Woe be to those who pervert the truth and ruin souls by it; or, who are not faithful in their denunciation of it where it is really before them; or, who seek to palliate it so as to enfeeble the security of simple souls against it. It is not for me here to discuss what are the motives, nor what system of doctrine has led to it — of this I may feel pretty well assured. But the business of a faithful man is with the evil itself as the work of Satan, and to warn in the most solemn manner, every saint against those who teach it.

{*See page 31, of "Remarks," by Mr. N.}

{**Only, as we have seen it said, there to be vicariously incurred; but this does not affect, unless in the way of confirmation, the evidence of what He had "incurred."}

95 I repeat here, to facilitate the use of the Psalms, three things found in them: — 1, The Spirit of Christ entering into the sorrows of the godly remnant of Israel, especially in the latter day; 2, His own grief and sorrow as in life down here (and oh! what sorrow, reproach, desertion, and treachery, for his tender and perfect spirit!), as well as going through this very place of the remnant in principle; 3, The atonement and sin-bearing, which enabled Him to use effectually for others His nearness to God, so that He could bring their sorrows as occasions of mercy, and give to them right feelings in the sense of sins as their drawing near to God. Of course, this develops itself largely in many ways as to suffering and feeling, while other psalms largely introduce the consequences in blessing — Christ's coming in glory, who He is, and the circumstances and thoughts in the godly among the people connected with these things.

96 Since the publication of this, an answer to Mr. Harris's remarks on the notes has been published; but, while labouring to get rid of the effect, it fully confirms the blasphemous doctrine taught. I have examined it elsewhere. It has been doubted whether one passage in this tract made sufficiently clear that the atonement was the ground on which alone blessing could come on the remnant. I judged it clear enough, but, if there be any obscurity, I add this to take it away.

A Plain Statement of the Doctrine on the Sufferings of our blessed Lord propounded in some recent tracts, in extracts taken from the Author's writings.

J. N. Darby.

<15004E> 97

Introduction

I had purposed giving a brief recapitulation of the statements and doctrines propounded in Ebrington Street, that every one might see clearly what they are by extracts drawn from printed documents; having already discussed the merits of the system at some length in a tract. Since entertaining the thought of giving this brief summary, Mr. Newton has answered Mr. Harris's tract, so that we have the fullest opportunity of ascertaining what his views are. The author, as is his known custom, after making statements which subvert the faith, seeks by modifying, by making statements which are entirely different appear to be the same, or substituting one for the other, smothering up what was said by expatiating on recognized truths, to confound the minds of the simple, and escape the discrediting detection of the doctrines he has taught. Happier would it be to let it all alone; but it is due to souls that it should be known. I leave to others to express their feeling as to the hopeless dishonesty of the author. To one who knows the facts, this last tract does carry it to an extent inconceivable were it not there in print. I shall merely state the doctrines of the author clearly, and state one or two facts connected with his attempt to evade the effect of it.

There can be no doubt that this last tract is intended to confirm the substance of the doctrine already taught.

The author says, "I increasingly feel, after writing the present tract, that the doctrine intended to be conveyed will bear, as a whole, most rigid examination by the word of God."

98

A Plain Statement

, &c.

The author's doctrine is that Christ came by birth into man's relative condition as a sinner, and into Israel's under a broken law, making part thus of an accursed people; that He was exposed to, and threatened by, obnoxious to, the consequences of this position — not vicariously, but as being one of them, but preserved Himself in a measure from those consequences, and extricated Himself out of that condition, by His life under the law, which was strong to Him though weak to us, and subsequently underwent what was due to it vicariously on the cross; that is, that Christ was subject, not vicariously but as associated with us, to damnation and wrath, but freed Himself from it by keeping the law; that what He suffered when in this position during the first thirty years of His life was the infliction of God upon His soul; not entering into the condition of man in spirit, though this might be true too; and that He got out of this condition, this relation to God, at John's baptism (though in this he contradicts himself).

And here I press on the reader always to bear in mind that Christ is stated to have been exposed or obnoxious to this from His birth — not perhaps to have endured it all, which shews that it is not His spirit entering into it, but exposed and obnoxious to it; that it is distinguished as inflictions by God, even when felt, from exercises of His own soul; that these inflictions were under law, not under love. Let him remark also that sinless penalties, though freely spoken of to confound the reader, have nothing to say to the matter. Christ did not extricate Himself from them; hunger and thirst and weariness were His portion all through; nor is that the meaning of the curse of the law. Saint and sinner are alike subject to them. Jesus might have felt their true character as, though more deeply than, the saints will; but this is not an infliction from God on His soul. All this is an attempt to throw dust in the eyes.

I shall now state the doctrines from Mr. N.'s own writings, and first from No. 6 of the second* edition of the "Christian Witness," vol. 2, 111, 113. "In order to form a scriptural judgment on these things, it is needful to consider attentively the state in which we, as the descendants of Adam, are placed before God. There are three particulars which mark our condition as sinners before Him: first, original, or vicarious guilt, imputed (or reckoned) to us on account of the transgression of our first parent,** of which Romans 5 treats; secondly, Original sin, or indwelling corruption; and thirdly, Actual transgression.

{*It is not in the first.}

{**Hence Christ, though personally able to rise out of it, was really an heir of wrath naturally as man. For this, as we shall see, was of the three particulars that which applied to Him. Mr. N. has sought to distinguish wrath from wrath. But what is due to man's distance from God, by imputation of Adam's guilt, and the curse of a broken law, or, as we shall see, the future condition of lost man, if it be not wrath in the full sense?}

99 "The distinction between imputed transgression, and indwelling corruption is often neglected. It may be thus illustrated. The children of an exile in Siberia, though innocent of rebellion themselves, might yet be involved in all the penalties of their parent and be punished for and on account of him. Even so the one transgression of Adam in the garden exposes all his posterity to be treated by God as transgressors on account of him. The penalty of death would still have impended over them, even though they could have been born pure as angels in themselves." "The Lord Jesus was as free from indwelling sin as from actual transgression: yet nevertheless He was a member, so to speak, of the exiled family, and was therefore born subject to their penalties. But He was made under the law; and, being essentially holy, He was able to fulfil the law, and so to rise above the* penalties to which He had become subject on account of Adam's guilt. He was able to enter into life, by keeping the commandments; and the very same law, which had been death to every other, was unto Him life, even as it is written, 'If there could have been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.' On account of our sinful flesh, to us the law was weak, but strong unto Him, because He had no sinful flesh, but was essentially the holy One. He learned obedience in the midst of suffering, and was proved to be the righteous One, who might have entered into life by Himself alone, but who preferred to lay down His life that He might take it again, that so, through the knowledge of Him, many might be justified. All that the soul of a saint recognizes as true in the writings of Mr. Irving, respecting Christ being in 'that condition of being and region of existence which is proper to a sinner,' will be found to be altogether comprised in the fact of His being born under the curse of the exiled family,** vicariously incurred. But He rose out of this region through the power of His own inherent holiness; and therefore never would have come into 'that experience into [read, of] God's action which is proper for a sinner,' unless He had chosen to abide it for the sake of others. And when He had chosen this, then it pleased the Lord to bruise Him."

{*It is clear enough here that it is not "sinless penalties," such as hunger and the sweat of His brow, which are in question. He never rose above them. Note here sinless penalties is an expression conveniently borrowed to confuse people. All penalties are sinless. The expression has been used to express that Christ partook of the sorrows incident to human nature in consequence of the Fall, but had not the taint of sin which came by it. But this leaves untouched the question: was He under the guilt imputed to Adam's children and exposed by His birth amongst them to the penalties due to it, without taking them vicariously, according to Romans 5? Mr. N. says He was, and got out of it by keeping the law. Note the word "But He was made under the law." That is, without this there was no hope for Him to be delivered from the guilt He was under. And if we remember that He was the true God, think what it was to be born liable to the penalty of Adam's guilt; not to bear it in grace!}

{**It is equally clear here that Christ was born under the curse due to man, but did not endure it because He rose out of it by keeping the law. Mr. N. in both the subsequent tracts says that "vicariously" is wrong here; and declares that the condition of suffering spoken of was not vicarious; as indeed is evident, for He did not rise out of vicarious suffering, save in quite another sense, but underwent in Note, He was born under the curse, not took it on Him therefore vicariously. Afterwards He abode it for others. This shews plainly what He was under by birth. For, what did He abide?}

100 Nor is there any ambiguity as to the extent of this.

"Now it is fully allowed, as has been stated in the preface, that He was born into our 'condition of being' in the sense of being born out of paradise. And also that He exposed Himself to the danger of receiving all the punishment which followed upon the imputation of Adam's offence: but, though exposed to it, He rose above it all, because He was by birth the holy One, made under the law; who did not, as we, find it weak through the flesh, but effectually ordained unto life, because His flesh was holy. 'This do and thou shalt live,' was to Him a word of delivering power. So far, therefore, from His having been punished on account of the condition of being into which He had come, He would not have been punished at all, unless He had freely chosen whilst standing as the 'justified one,' to offer atonement to the Father, and to become the substitute and sin-bearer of all who believe in His name." (Page 126.)

It is impossible anything can be clearer than this. Exposed to judgment as inheriting the whole guilt of Adam, He by keeping the law becomes the justified One, and then offers Himself as a substitute. Had He not been made under the law, He must have been condemned as every child of Adam. Nor could He from the beginning have been so offered as the guiltless Lamb, for He was under guilt and exposed to judgment. It was only when by keeping the law He was the "justified one" that He could offer atonement to the Father.

101 The author now seeks to confound all this in the mind of the reader, by speaking of Christ's suffering, entering into these sorrows, appropriating the sins, and His and our privilege in suffering. I shall proceed to quote passages from his two late tracts, shewing, with all this garbling and changing for others the statements made, that the doctrine is still contained therein: what that is, we have plainly seen from the extracts from the "Christian Witness." I do not quote from the notes Mr. Harris published; though they are worth perusing, because, after the corrections of Mr. Newton in his last, they afford the clearest evidence of what is really taught. Those corrections leave the substance unchanged. Many of the grosser forms which are corrected are to a reflecting mind comparatively immaterial. It will be seen, moreover, that to read "the Lamb made perfect through suffering," or "the One made perfect through suffering," makes no difference whatever; because it is stated that He was made perfect through suffering in order to be a sacrifice;* and that is the whole point of the objection. This Mr. N. leaves as it is. And this is quite consistent with the doctrine in the "Christian Witness," since there He was exposed by birth to the judgment due to Adam's guilt, and rose by keeping the law out of that region and then offered Himself — and so in the "Remarks," page 31, "He had to find His way to a point where God would meet Him."The "Remarks" justify the form, "had to be found," as the sum of the notes, whatever its force. For there (p. 3), it is said, "The appointment of God required that He should be proved," "and He must . . . . be proved a righteous servant." But to proceed.

{*The passage in Hebrews 2 refers to Christ being perfect on high by passing through suffering unto death, not being made perfect in order to be a sacrifice.}

And first to shew that the two tracts confirm the doctrine that Jesus was by birth associated with Israel in its condition before God, that is, the curse of a broken law; not that He took the sin vicariously, but that He was exposed by birth to the consequences of it.

102 "The fact of Jesus being by birth an Israelite would have been alone sufficient to link Him in direct association with that people in the estimate of God." ("Observations," page 23.) His baptism by John "was the acknowledgment of the condition of His people and of His association with them in that condition." (Page 24.) As to birth (see also "Remarks," pp. 4, 5. So "Observations," p. 20, 21), "It must not be thought that the fact of Israel's being under wrath and the curse at the time when the Lord Jesus was born amongst them is of trivial importance in the present controversy." "And if it can be shewn (as it has been shewn) . . . . that Jesus became by birth one of that family."

And now, as to the extent of this: though we ought not to have to shew it, for Christians ought to know what is due to a broken law, it will be found to embrace man's position, as such. "He was born, not in paradise, but into the midst of the fallen family of man." "But He had not merely become connected with the sorrows and sufferings of man. There was a part of the human family, &c. This was Israel." "They had fallen from that ground of professed obedience, and like Adam, had earned, by their disobedience, the fearful inflictions of God's broken law, for it had been said, 'Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.'" Galatians 3: 10.* ("Remarks," pp. 4, 5.)

{*We see here what the colour given to it by the term, sinless penalties, is worth. It was a condition expressed by Galatians 3: to, into which Jesus came: and it will be remembered that in Galatians 3 this is expressly referred to what was borne on the cross.}

"And observe ["Remarks," p. 21], what full identification with Israel's position, and Israel's sin, is implied in this act of the Lord Jesus, in submitting to baptism by the hand of John; not indeed identification in the same sense as that in which He is made one with His elect people, for that is identification in substitution and in union — identification therefore that cannot fail. But although not that identification, how beautiful the grace, and how perfect the development of character shewn in owning, though innocent and spotless, the shame and guilt of others, as if it were His own."

Now, fair as these words are, to elude the doctrine taught, it must be remembered that it was not associating Himself with the people in grace in that baptism: He was by birth in this condition. And it must be remembered that He is said to have emerged out of this Sinai condition at John's baptism. (See "Remarks," p. 23. So page 25.)

103 "If He was made to realize the distance into which man had wandered out of the presence of God, and if He realized also the distance of Israel . . . . I believe it to have been chiefly, if not exclusively before His baptism. Observe, I am speaking of the exercises of His heart from God. That His own soul did not cease to enter into the condition of things around Him; and that the poignancy of His sorrow increased rather than lessened, in proportion as the blind wilfulness of Israel in rejecting Him became more and more developed, I most assuredly believe. But I am not now speaking of the spontaneous actings of His soul, but of the manner in which He was directly exercised* by God." ("Remarks," p. 25.) The doctrine that Christ was born, subject to condemnation, according to Galatians 3: 10, is confirmed by page 15, "Observations." "It is said by the apostle, 'as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.' Law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression. Israel had formally taken their stand before God, under a covenant of law, and therefore the very first moment disobedience was found amongst them, they were brought 'under curse.'** The fire of Sinai began instantly to burn against them, and therefore, even if every deserved infliction had been withheld from that moment to the time when Jesus was born, yet still He would have been one of a nation that was exposed*** to all the terrors of Sinai. They were all set in array against Israel."

{*It will be remarked here that, to whatever extent these inflictions from God came upon Him, they are positively distinguished from His own soul entering into the condition of things. So that all that may be said attractively about that has nothing to say to the doctrine we are discussing. When confounded with it, or presented as what is meant, it is but an attempt to deceive.}

{**Let the reader remember, from Galatians 3, what curse.}

{***It must be remembered, that this is not vicarious, nor His soul entering into it. The exceeding and outrageous folly of putting Christ in such an identification with Israel is seen, page 18, where it is shewn they were declared not My people, and page 20, where the passage, "Therefore they would not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts," &c., is quoted as part of this curse and affliction, adding, "are these words obscure?" But think of a system that puts Christ under that!}

Again, page 29. "As an Israelite, He was under that holy covenant which was made at Sinai . . . . He was standing in closest association with those whose dispensational relation to God was marked by the darkness and lightnings and voices of Sinai — a sight so terrible that even Moses said, 'I exceedingly fear and quake.' Sinai marked the relation of God to Israel when Jesus came — and the worship of the golden calf (though that would not fully represent the ripened evil) may be taken as marking their relation to God. And since God, in exercising the souls of His servants, must exercise them according to truth — and the application of truth by God varies according to the nature of the dispensation under which His servants live — we might be very sure, even if the evidence of scripture were less direct than it is, that the Lord Jesus was caused to appreciate to the full the relation in which Israel (and* Himself because of Israel) was standing before God. We may hear of Sinai, or think of Sinai, but Jesus realized it, as the power of an actual subsisting relation betwixt His people and God. He had to live in the midst of Israel, at a time when God's only declared relation to it was that of Sinai. Years passed over His head thus. And unless we say that through the whole of that period He remained unexercised before God, according to the circumstances around Him, we shall not find it difficult to say what the nature of His experiences must have been. Every experience in which He realized the condition either of man or Israel must have caused Him to long for that hour when the appointed messenger should go forth to prepare His way before Him."**

{*Mark this, for it is not vicarious nor entering into sorrow. Christ's own relation to God (because of Israel), before He took sin on Him vicariously, was that of being under the curse of a broken law, and guilty of ripened evil. Note all the italics in the quotations are the author's. All Christians believe that Christ was made under the law; but they believe, that as the sinless spotless Son of God, He was perfectly acceptable under it, and took its curse only vicariously, and as a substitute for others; though He suffered many outward consequences in sorrow of Israel's condition, and entered in spirit, into their afflictions.}

{**Note here too, that John's baptism and message were for the relief of Christ Himself from the relation in which He stood to God. It is the more out of the way, because the message goes before the face of the Lord to prepare His way. And, note, sinless penalties have nothing to say here: John's message did not relieve Christ from them.}

104 But (p. 31) "The moment that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost as a dove, God stood in a new relation to Israel. The dove belongs not to Sinai."

How far this goes in the author's mind may be seen (p. 11) when, speaking of John Baptist's ministry, he says, "Indeed unless grace be the same as law, and destruction the same as salvation, the infinite importance of that era cannot be denied."

105 So that Christ's position, previous to that era, is beyond all question, though it was not His own sin that brought Him there.

And it was not, as we have seen, substitution.

"So different," we read ("Remarks," p. 11), "is the place of a substitute for sinners, from the place of suffering amongst sinners." And see quotation given from "Remarks," page 21, and, "Observations," page 33, "It was indeed a different character of suffering."

"And what was the world, what more especially was Israel to Him, but as the oven's heat? God's holy hand in stern controversy with transgressing flesh was there. The Lord Jesus was not unconscious of the presence of that hand, nor of the nature of that* controversy. He felt it the more, because He was the holy One. It was not the presence of God as in paradise . . . It was His holiness present** in a fallen world, in the midst of sinful flesh and of 3 transgressing people. (Page 33.)

{*Remember, that, though not because of His personal sin, it was His own relation to God, according to the author.}

{**It must not be supposed that this means that Christ was God's holiness present in a fallen world. Christ was subject to the presence of God's hand in judgment as one of the fallen world, though not Himself fallen. See next quotation, page 35.}

"How should we feel ["Observations," p. 35], imperfect as our sensibilities are, if God, according to the power of His own holiness, were to press upon the apprehension of our souls a truthful sense of the present and future* condition of ruined man? And what relations were there, either of Israel or of man, that Jesus was not caused to estimate thus?"

{*This can leave no mistake as to where Christ is said to have been; for every Christian knows that the future condition of ruined man is damnation. And remember that is Christ's relation to God; and not on the cross. Nor is there any confusion of mind with the cross, nor with the soul of Christ entering into the sense of it. The passage is introduced (p. 34) by the following statements: "But we should form a very inadequate conception of the living experiences of the Lord Jesus, if, in addition to the sufferings which flowed spontaneously, as it were from the condition of man and of Israel, we did not recognize a more close and searching dealing of God with His servant." What is the good of talking about sinless penalties? Is hell a sinless penalty? Well, so it is, perhaps; but is that what people mean? And, remember, Christ was obnoxious, exposed, to this, at any rate up to John's baptism.}

So, "I cannot well conceive how anyone should suppose that He whose distinctive allotment was 'to learn,' should be a man without being caused to feel what man was, or an Israelite without being taught to feel what Israel had become before God." ("Observations," p. 56.*)

{*The entire forgetfulness of all scripture truth by the author, is remarkable here, for he adds, "And did not Jesus appreciate and long after this instruction? Did He shrink from it, because He who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow? No! He longed for it as hid treasure." That is, He longed to know what damnation was, and what man was in his distance from God, and what Israel was, as under the curse of a broken law, according to Galatians 3: 10, and this as His own relation to God. We know, that when He had to suffer it for others, He desired, both at the time, and before, and He prayed, that the cup might pass. And it is singular, that all the author's remarks are founded on his comment on a psalm, which prays that He may not so suffer. But once on such ground intellectually, without any guidance from God, and there is no end to the folly.}

106 And that this was what He was exposed to in relation to God, not merely what He was made to learn as of an understanding heart, is clear, not only from passages already quoted, but from others where He is said to have been so exposed, but to have escaped a part, or otherwise got out of it or through it.

Thus "Remarks," page 8: "Was then the Lord Jesus subjected during His life to all the inflictions that were due to man as man, and to Israel as Israel? I answer, No! To be obnoxious, that is, exposed to certain things, is a different thing from actually enduring them. His faith, His prayer, His obedience, all contributed to preserve Him from many things to which He was by His relative position exposed, and by which He was threatened." "And since He was not until the cross punished substitutionally, why was it that He was chastened at all? How could it be but because He was made experimentally to prove the reality of that condition into which others,* but more especially Israel, had sunk themselves, by their disobedience to God's holy law, a condition out of which He was able to extricate Himself, and from which He proved that He could extricate Himself by His own perfect obedience?" (Page 12.)

{*Note here that it is not the sorrows of Israel under divine government, for this does not apply to "others." Nor sinless penalties, nor entering into sorrows, nor appropriating them, for "extricating" Himself from them admits of no such application.}

And we have always the same reason for the infliction. "But observe I do not say that Jesus was personally accursed, because He formed part of a people on whom curses were resting." (Page 13.) And curses here were no partial thing; "and secondly, when we remember that Jesus had no feeble or imperfect estimate of the place in which Israel stood; that He indeed truly saw it standing with all the terrors of that mountain arrayed against it, where there were fire and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, and that His soul appreciated the meaning of these things; and lastly (which is indeed the thing more than any else distinctive of those sufferings of Jesus of which I speak), that God pressed these things on the apprehensions of His soul according to His own power and holiness, and caused Him to feel as a part of that which was exposed to the judgments of His heavy hand." ("Remarks," p. 14.)

107 Again, "Remarks," page 31: "Man was yet in his distance from God." "And Jesus, as man, was associated with this place of distance in which man in the flesh was, and He had through obedience to find His way to that point where God could meet Him as having finished His appointed work — glorify Him and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, and that point was death — death on the cross — death under the wrath of God."*

{*This passage is plain enough. There was no point where God could meet Jesus as a man, till He had worked His way up to the wrath of God which was due to man. This is neither entering into sorrows nor appropriation of anything. Jesus as man was there. To reconcile this with His deliverance from Sinai to Zion, and change of relationship with God, by John's baptism, is not for me to undertake. In either case the doctrine is substantially the same. Jesus was, not as a substitute but as a man and as an Israelite, under that wrath which was measured, if infinite can be said to be measured, in His sufferings in death on the cross; and He worked His way up out of it — "rose out of that region" — "emerged" out of it — "extricated" Himself from it. Only here no room is left for His afterwards undergoing it vicariously; for He suffered death as part of the obedience necessary to get at the point of meeting. Save this very important point, it is the doctrine of the author in his article in the "Christian Witness," in the second edition.}

I shall now quote some passages less consecutively, collaterally bearing upon the subject. First shewing what the place is Christ so took according to the author. "The being so united to another as to be necessarily involved in the consequences of that other's actings suggests an idea which is very near akin to that of vicariousness. But a distinction is to be made. We were in Adam when he sinned; we are accounted before God as sinners because he sinned," &c. ("Observations," pp. 46, 47.)

"The poor defiled sinner, who has nothing in which to stand before the holiness of God — but has resting on Him all the condemnation which He inherits from Adam.

108 "Neither do we say that Adam disobeyed in our stead, although by his one act of disobedience we are all constituted sinners in the sight of God." I give these extracts as shewing the view the author takes of the position into which Christ entered by birth, as distinguished from vicariously. The following is given as characterizing the days of Christ's manhood, as affording "certain and extended knowledge respecting all the years of the Lord's sojourn here." ("Observations," p. 40.) "Therefore I will look unto the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation, my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise, when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. Passages like this supply an abundance of principles which must have, more or less, characterized all the days of the manhood of the Lord Jesus." So page 39, Psalm 119 is quoted as affording it also; in which we read, "before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy law."

Speaking ("Observations," p. 9) of the analogy of a Son, who had banished Himself, it is said, "we should regard Him not only as one of the banished, but as one suffering also under the penalties which the law of His Father had imposed on the banished ones, with whom He had thus placed Himself in association." "He was exposed for example, because of His relation to Adam, to that sentence of death, that had been pronounced on the whole family of man; personally He evinced His title to freedom from it, and His title to life by keeping that law of which it had been said, This do, and thou shalt live. And if He was exposed to the doom of man," &c. (Page 9.) Now all this is given as explaining His being by birth exposed to sinless penalties.

The very extraordinary statements of the author, and how truly, in another tract, their source has been judged of, as it has been indeed by others, and what state of mind one led by this system may be in, will appear from another quotation, "Observations," page 26: "Moreover, the exercises of soul which His elect, in their unconverted state, ought to have,* and which they would have, if it were possible for them to know and feel everything rightly according to God — such exercises, yet without sin, Jesus had." This very clearly brings out the position he places the blessed One in.

{*Note, an unconverted man in such a case must know himself to be lost. This clearly confirms the statement of what the doctrine is. Did Jesus know and feel this?}

109 And here is the source in his prophetic system, "At an hour not yet come, one portion of His elect will have to pass through a furnace of affliction, the like to which has never been, since there was a nation upon earth. They will live when every jot and tittle of the desolation described in Jeremiah, and the prophets will, in full accomplishment, have fallen upon Israel. They will live when the last grasp of Satan, through his great instrument, Antichrist, shall have laid hold upon Israel. They will live even through the day of the Lord's visitation — will pass through its fires, and be refined like silver in the furnace. Here is a peculiar experience indeed of some of the elect of God. Into this also Jesus entered. Hence His bitter cries in the Lamentations. The remnant of Israel will not taste of a cup of sorrow of which He will not have drunk; but the difference is this — they will feel partially, incompletely, wrongly, not unfrequently self-righteously, in the midst of the desolations, which their eyes cannot but recognize and their hearts cannot but feel. They will see the ruin, but their hearts will not be in communion with the thoughts of God, whereas Jesus beheld it with and according to God." All this is connected with the system* of the author of the unconverted state of the saved remnant of the Jews in the latter-day, and many of the Psalms being expressions of their self-righteous feelings. Hence I doubt not the way he has associated Christ with unconverted sinful Israel, not with the saints and excellent of the earth, in whom is all His delight, and to whom the Psalms will supply the blessed expression of thought and feeling.

{*I have not the least doubt (from circumstances I have heard lately of the authenticity of which I have not the smallest question) that Mr. Newton received his prophetic system by direct inspiration from Satan, analogous to the Irvingite delusion.}

"Observations," page 81. The writer says of the law, "No blessings were ever proposed to Israel save in the form of a testament, and a testament implies death, even the death of a testator. God could not even have given the law to a sinful people, much less have given blessings consequent upon its being kept (had such a thing been possible), except on the ground of the precious efficacy of the blood of Jesus." So that the law not in the heart, but written and engraven on stones, as a ministration of condemnation and death, and which entered that the offence might abound, as given under the old covenant, gendering to bondage, was founded necessarily on the blood of the new.

110 I shall now quote a passage which, while confirming the statements as to Christ being relatively by birth at man's distance from God, shews that all attempt to attract the affections of the saint by the notion of Christ's soul entering into our sorrow, and our fellowship in His sufferings by the Spirit, is really the merest deceit.

"His servants ["Observations," p. 35], such for example as St Paul, may follow their Master in drinking in their more feeble measure of the cup of others' woe; they may suffer much with others, and for the sake of others; they may also have exercises of spirit; but none excepting Jesus ever had His soul exercised in the same manner (for the dispensation was one of law), nor with the same intensity — the intensity of truth. The Lord Jesus was as much alone, in His living estimate under God's hand of the circumstances of human life here, as in enduring wrath upon the cross. He who, before He was made flesh, had known all the heights of uncreated and eternal glory; was also, when here, made to estimate according to the sensibilities of that nature, which He had taken, the (to us) inconceivable* distance of humanity from God. And when thus exercised, though personally holy and beloved, He was made to feel that His association with them, thus standing in the fearfulness of their distance from God, was a real thing, and that it was so regarded by God. His was no mere pretended imaginary association."

{*Mark that this was His own relation by birth. It is not the cross.}

Hence all such language as that, "To know the fellowship of His sufferings, as well as the power of His resurrection, was the desire of one who was wise in Christ, wise in seeking the true riches — one who has told us to imitate him as he imitated Christ" (p. 62) — such words, I say, are merely seeking to delude, because he has told us (pp. 35, 36) that this very Paul, to whom he alludes, could not possibly have anything to say to the sufferings of which he is treating in these tracts, any more than he could to those of the cross. So also he says (note to p. 58), "though our experiences are very unlike to His" (Christ's). And hence, also, all that is said (p. 57), "when believers now are exercised in spirit, when they are caused to feel — to feel perhaps keenly the present ruin of the Church, &c., are such exercises esteemed contrary to blessing — are they inconsistent with the closest abiding in love?" All this is merely seeking to delude, because there is, according to pages 35, 36, no analogy whatever in these sufferings. It is added, "So far from being tokens of divine displeasure towards the individual, they may be, and in the case of Jesus always were, tokens of highest honour." This goes farther than seeking to delude; it is, after what is said in pages 35, 36, positive deceit. And what is the curse of the law, and man's distance from God, and that under law, in the intensity of truth, and that as exposed to it by birth — if it be not divine displeasure, as to the exercise of the soul? It is, moreover, a singular remark in a tract, vindicating the application of Psalm 6 to Christ, which says, Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure, affirming that Christ did pass through this.

111 Mark the note too to page 57, where it is sought to be said, that it is not "implied that such exercises, whether in our Lord or in ourselves [we have seen that we cannot be in those in which Christ was], had anything to do with atoning for sin" — then it would not be mysticism merely, but direct heresy and sin. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." Now if Christ came under "man's doom," under the reckoned or imputed guilt of Adam, though not a sinner, how did He get out of it? By keeping the law. He rose out of that region, that is, through these very sufferings, "for the dispensation [p. 36] was one of law, in which He exposed Himself to the danger of receiving all the punishment which followed upon the imputation of Adam's offence. But though exposed to it, yet He rose above it all, because He was by birth the holy One made under the law." "'This do and thou shall live,' was unto Him a word of delivering power." "He would not have been punished at all, unless He had freely chosen, whilst standing as the 'justified one,' to offer atonement to the Father." So that the imputation of sin was got rid of by another means than by shedding of blood. Where the imputation was to be altered nothing. Christ's being exposed to it (as we well know by the cross) could not set aside God's eternal principles.

The whole system of doctrine is, according to the author, heresy and sin, and in my judgment of a worse character than that he attaches to it.

It is needless to quote many other passages which confirm the doctrine taught, or which speak of Christ's sufferings, to attract the heart, in a way denied to be true, by the writer himself. There is another passage I would quote, as remarkable collaterally: "The anointing of the Spirit would never have come on Him at Jordan unless He had been fore-ordained, and certainly known as the victim to be slain on Calvary." (Page 32.) Now that all was fore-ordained, and known and linked together in the purposes of God, is most sure. But that Christ could not have been anointed without blood is most false and heretical: the writer has not said, could not; what he means by "would not," I must leave the reader to judge. One other class of reasoning may be noticed — suffering from association with others. ("Observations," p. 23.) "Did not Caleb and Joshua suffer under the infliction that had fallen upon Israel, when," &c. What has that to do with man's distance from God and exposure to the whole of the punishment of Adam's guilt? the sufferings in which Christ is as much alone as on the cross? All saints suffer sorrows consequent on common failure. This is not wrath on their souls. Did Caleb and Joshua suffer that? All this is merely misleading.

112 Next a few words as to the shelter sought under others' names, and the diversion attempted to be made by discrediting others.

Dr. Hawker's doctrine has no analogy or connection with that of Mr. N. The statement is that, Christ having become the surety and representative of His people, He suffered in this world the sorrows and infirmities incident to their state, its calamities, and participated in every groan He heard; and even through life as well as in death was a man of sorrows. No one questions that this was the case, but it has nothing whatever to do with the doctrine of Mr. Newton; as he admits, having contrasted what Dr. Hawker speaks of with what he means (p. 21, of "Remarks"), while he declares that he does not agree with the doctrine of Dr. Hawker. Dr. Hawker states that all His life the blessed Jesus was a man of sorrows; and who is there that does not believe it? Mr. N. tell us that He was by birth liable to the condemnation man was in. With this Dr. Hawker's statement has nothing to do. The use of His name is merely an attempt to cover, by one that all respect, what it has no connection with at all.

Nor has Witsius. He, like Hawker, holds Christ's sufferings through His life to be a part of His vicarious work; but he merely speaks of "vicissitudes of human misery," and has no such thought as that of Mr. N. at all. Nor is there a word that leads to the idea of what Mr. N. says he must have found in the Psalms — direct inflictions from God. He speaks of "misery which has followed upon sin, and to which the sinner man is obnoxious all His life."

113 I will next say some few words on the subject of the Rock.

The reference ("Observations," page 34) to the Reply to the "Wreck and the Rock" is a dishonest statement. The language used in the Reply is not an argument to shew that Peter was not individually gathered to safety on that Rock.

That paragraph begins thus: "And here let me state a point of greater importance; namely, that what the Lord meant by building His Church upon the rock is a totally different thing from the representation made in this tract." It is a discussion on the import of Christ's words in Matthew 16: 18. The reader will judge how far Mr. Newton's statements are honest from the following facts. Mr. Newton declares that, the Hagar vessel in which the Jews were being wrecked, John Baptist was on the sand, and Peter gathered by Christ on the Rock. The author of the Reply says, If you mean really safety, or being saved by having an interest in Christ, Abel, Abraham, and John Baptist, were all on the Rock as well as Peter himself. If you speak of being really gathered to safety, how can you speak of John Baptist being on the sand? If you speak of the ground of safety as to actual accomplishment then you must bring in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ: without which safety cannot be, or you make incarnation sufficient to save without blood-shedding and resurrection. Hence Christ says, I will build my Church. If you mean in God's mind, every saved one in all times was on the Rock as much as Peter. And in truth a more absurd, and unsound, contradictory statement could not well be than the Wreck and the Rock. For, as a system of argument, it put John Baptist expressly and in fact all the saints previously, out of safety and off the Rock of salvation. In reasoning on this, the author of the Reply says, that when in Matthew 16: 18 the Lord speaks of building on the rock, He speaks of a thing future, I will build, and not of what He was then doing. And as to the point in question he says, "But, first of all, the disciples of Jesus were not gathered on the Rock in His lifetime in the sense of Matthew 16." Because to begin the building actually He must be dead and risen, the firstborn of the dead, the Head of the body of the Church.

114 I add that this expression, rock-man, given as if of inspired authority, is without sense. Because, in the author's meaning of it, there is nothing peculiar to Peter at all, for all were rock-men one as another; for they were all gathered in safety to Him on the rock. Whereas it is evident that there is something special as to Peter in the passage.

The author's argument in the Reply is, that when Mr. N. speaks of Christ's presence being a new ground of safety, he is in error. Because if he speaks of real fundamental safety, it was not new ground, but the only one in all ages. If he speaks of actual accomplishment, then he makes incarnation, and not death and resurrection, the ground of safety, which is false doctrine; and that Christ therefore, in Matthew 16: 13, speaks in the future, I will build. To say therefore that it is attempted to shew that Peter was not individually gathered to safety on that rock is a dishonest statement. Nobody says Peter was not placed on that rock as to personal safety, but so was John Baptist too, whom Mr. N. places on the sand. And so was Abel and Abraham and all else. They were rock-men in that sense. I proceed to the attacks in page 35.

"I read that union with the Son of God* is a thing which the scripture knows nothing of." Mr. N. would lead the reader to suppose, that the person he alludes to and others deny the well-known doctrine of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the fact? The term union with the Son of God, had been used in a general sense by all, and innocently enough, because the term was taken as a title of the person of Christ. Mr. N., however, declared that the saints in glory would be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, declaring it in terms. It then became necessary to distinguish and shew that union with the person of the Son of God was not a scriptural expression** — necessary, because Mr. N. used it in the sense of partaking in the attributes of Godhead. And in this way taken, as a divine title, scripture does know nothing of union with the person of the Son of God.

{*There are no references which enable me to verify the statements. This point is treated in page 69 of the Examination of the Thoughts on the Apocalypse, where it is stated that union with the person of the Son of God is an unscriptural statement, on the ground here referred to, and union with Christ, as the head of the body, is fully spoken of.}

{**All this may be seen in the "Answer to the second Letter," &c.}

As to the seed of Abraham, it is very certain to me that this title of God's children does not amount to the full statement of a church position, because it does not express unity in one body by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven.

115 Of the next statement, what shall I say? I am ashamed really to allude to it. There are some things almost too bad to talk of.

Mr. N. had taught for a length of time, that the Old Testament saints had not life at all. He subsequently charged me with it in print, at which I was amazed, as I had brought him out of it, and we had had a long discussion just before, before thirteen people, as to what he had taught. However, many knew he had taught this, as Lord Congleton, Sir A. Campbell, Mr. Deck, and others, and he at last confessed it was himself who had taught it, but said he had never charged me with it, which, as it was in print, was no use either.*

{*The doctrine of the author on the communication of the divine life is fundamentally unsound now, as it was subversive of fundamental truth to deny life to the Old Testament saints. But all this has been already discussed. He confounds Deity with communicated life, and hence expressly in terms attributes omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience to the saints. See "Answer to the Second Letter to the Brethren and Sisters," &c. As to having life from the Son of man, I can find nothing about it in anything I have written on the subject. The writer gives no references.}

To the rest of the reasoning no answer is required. "In Him as the Son of Abraham" is, I apprehend, as new as many others of the author's expressions. I prefer the truth of scripture and the language of scripture. The honesty of declaiming on two modes of union may be judged of by the following quotation from a tract of the author's. (Second Letter, p. 54.) "Observe, I do not say there was the same character of union as afterwards in resurrection. But I hold that it would be an equal error, to say that there was no union previous to the resurrection, and to say that it existed after the same sort as in resurrection." What "forms of salvation" mean, I really do not know. Of modes of union I am not aware that I have said anything.

I have adverted, thus far, to the attempt to direct attention from the views of the author, by attacking others. I leave it without further comment, because my object here is to place Mr. N.'s doctrine plainly before the saints by extracts from his own elaborate writings, so that all may judge of it.

I append the following as another form in which the doctrine was stated in public teaching, affording further distinct evidence of what it was.

116 Christ was in the place of man's distance from God, and had to work His way home to God, and we begin where He finished. I would just refer too to page 13 of "Observations," and ask, if that was meant to depict Israel's position as Christ identified Himself with it, what was originally due to it, remembering that all through his statements, Mr. N. declares that he was under law, not under our discipline in love?

Another expression, noticed elsewhere, used to express this doctrine was, that Christ as coming into the world was a constituted sinner, and worked His way up to life. This is important as being the application of Romans 5: 19 to Christ according to the doctrine of the article in the "Christian Witness:" the word "constituted" being habitually, and not wrongly, employed for "made," there used. See page 14, last paragraph.

Notice of the Statement and Acknowledgment of Error circulated by Mr. Newton.

J. N. Darby.

<15005E> 117

Mr. Newton having addressed "A Statement and Acknowledgment" respecting certain doctrinal errors to very many brethren (so, indeed, as to have reached, directly or indirectly, almost all), I desire to make some remarks upon it. I do not doubt many are quite able to judge of its value. Still, as there are very many ignorant of the real point and bearing of the error, and on whom the idea of an acknowledgment would act so as to set their mind at ease, and that from a disposition (which every one would hail) to receive in grace the confession of error or fault, I feel it right, for the sake of the beloved church of God, to weigh its value. I am aware that I shall be considered relentless; but I think of the interest of the church of God in it, and even of Mr. Newton's own. If the Spirit of God be really working in his mind, the pointing out the deficiency of this will not hinder his going farther; and as the evil is confessedly very great, and specially as it is sought to be excused by the fact, that many brethren did not find it out, it is worth while, for the sake of simple and unsuspecting minds, to enquire seriously if it is really abandoned, and to what extent.

I proceed then at once to say (for I am satisfied that the plainest way is the most charitable here), that it is impossible that anything can be more unsatisfactory in every way; and I shall now say why. Mr. Newton has taught that Christ was, from the position He was in by birth as a man and an Israelite, under the curse of the exiled family, not vicariously on the cross, but in His own relation to God; that He was under the doom of death, under the curse of the law, and had to work His way up to a point where God could meet Him; that He had the experiences which an unconverted elect man, if he felt rightly, would have. These are not deductions, but the statements of Mr. Newton himself.

Besides this the "Christian Witness" furnished the evidence that this view of Christ's position has been originally based on an application of Romans 5, which subjected Christ to the imputation of Adam's guilt. This last, which gave so horrible a character to the doctrine itself as to shock everybody, is withdrawn, but the doctrine of the tracts is not withdrawn at all. The imputation of Adam's guilt was not the point taught in the tracts — was not presented as the basis of the doctrine taught in them. They were an attempt to maintain all that Mr. Newton taught as to Christ, the basis formerly laid in the "Christian Witness" being withdrawn.

118 The "Statement and Acknowledgment" now gives up professedly what was already given up silently in the tracts, the doctrine itself, as to what Christ was, being now based in the "Statement" on another and a new ground: but it does not give up the doctrine itself at all, but quite the contrary; it maintains it distinctly on a new ground, more subtle and less apparently offensive in its character, and most carefully limits the confession of error to what was made the ground of the doctrine in the "Christian Witness." Pages 3, 4, Mr. N. says, "It was this that first introduced Romans 5 into the controversy, as shewing that death of the body resulted from that which one man had done;* and if due care had been taken to discriminate between the mode in which the consequences of Adam's transgression reached mankind through federal headship, and the manner in which the Lord Jesus took certain of these consequences upon Himself, but not through federal headship — the error which I now have to confess would have been avoided. If I had watched this, I should have carefully avoided referring that part of Romans 5 to the Lord Jesus, and I should have stated, that His connection with these consequences was in virtue of His being made of a woman, and thus having brought Himself into association with a race on whom these penalties were resting." Now, here, Christ's connection with the consequences before attributed to the imputation of Adam's guilt is reaffirmed, and based on another ground. It is true, "certain consequences" leaves room enough to bring in anything, or leave out anything; but lower down we have "in virtue of such association He partook of these consequences, even all the consequences in which He could share unconnected with personal sin." Now, this is not retracting the doctrine as to the position Christ was in, but affirming it anew, and putting it on a new ground.

{*Every one owns that it resulted from what one man had done; but Mr. N.'s interpretation of Romans 5 is entirely wrong and unfounded. He reads, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin," as being by one man's sin exclusively that death entered into the world, which is quite another thing; and the passage continues, "and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned."}

119 Further on Mr. N. says. "I have been led, as I have above stated, to see that I was distinctly in error, in holding that the Lord Jesus came by birth under any imputation of Adam's guilt, or the consequences of such imputation . . . . . And I hereby withdraw all statements of mine, whether in print, or in any other form, in which this error, or any of its fruits,* may be found." Now, mark here, that positive and necessary subjection to death is one of the consequences directly lying on Christ, according to the "Statement and Acknowledgment;" a necessity not arising, according to Mr. N., from one's own sin (for that, indeed, would make Christ a sinner), but solely from Adam's. So that Christ was born under the consequences of Adam's sin, as to the penalties pronounced by God, not merely the circumstances He was in, but the penalties judicially pronounced on man because of sin, though it was not by imputation of His guilt but by association of nature. In a word, though the tracts are withdrawn from circulation for reconsideration, the doctrine contained in them is carefully maintained.

{*The italics are Mr. Newton's.}

And here I beg, too, to draw attention to another point. Mr. Newton grounds his statement and new views on the distinction between the imputation of Adam's guilt and association with his penal condition by birth (a wonderfully narrow distinction, more fitted to save the credit of the doctrine than the glory of the person of the blessed Jesus): but there is another ground on which Christ's liability to condemnation — the horrible and frightful doctrine of His being Himself a condemned and lost man — exists in the tracts (not one atom of which is recalled), and that is, that He was born an Israelite under the curse of a broken law. This is the doctrine of the tracts. Now this, so far from being recalled, is really still maintained by confining retractations as to the law to the point of imputation of Adam's guilt. It is said, page 6, "Nor yet that He had by keeping the law, or by anything else, to deliver Himself from such* imputation or from its consequences." Now Mr. Newton declares in the tracts, that Christ was born under the curse of the broken law, according to Galatians 3, and that He found His way to a point where God could meet Him; all this remaining in its full force unretracted.

{*The imputation of Adam's guilt, with which in fact the law had nothing to do.}

120 In a word, I repeat, the "Christian Witness" is given up; the tracts are maintained, unless so far as the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's guilt may be found in them. The whole of the statements, so justly frightful to every one that honours the Lord Jesus Christ, remain untouched and unrecalled, though the ground laid for them in the "Christian Witness" in the application of Romans 5 is acknowledged to be error. And it is very well known that, when these things were first brought before Mr. N. a few weeks before the "Statement and Acknowledgment" appeared, he took this very ground: and that further retractations were proposed to him and refused. And here, I feel bound to add, that the way Christ is spoken of is to me really as frightful as the doctrine. Think of referring to the blessed Lord in such language as that, "if a faithful servant heavily burthened be set to walk up an ice mountain, if he slip I do not marvel," and such-like statements!

The only advance made is, that the tracts are withdrawn from circulation to reconsider. To reconsider what? Whether Christ was by birth in such association with Israel as to be under the curse of a broken law? All this, let it be noted, is connected, not with Romans 5, but with the interpretation of the Psalms and the Lamentations, and with the whole system of Mr. N.'s interpretation. But if Christ's honour be the thing in question, if that is what we have at heart, would not that be the very first point, and easily settled? But as to all this there is total silence. The doctrine is removed from an evidently assailable ground to a more abstruse one, as to Christ's connection with Adam, and the worst part of the evil is by the "Statement" endeavoured to be made more free from possibility of attack, while the second ground of it — connection with Israel, so as to be under the curse of the broken law not vicariously — is carefully reserved. It is not a confession of the evil of the doctrine in the tracts, but a direct maintaining of it. In the meanwhile, the tracts are withdrawn from circulation, which, while the doctrine is not, does more harm than good, because the plain evidences of the abominable evil are concealed from sight, and it seems to be unjust to appeal to them. But let the reader remember that the doctrine is maintained as to Christ's position, for in setting it on a new ground it is maintained, and as regards His connection with Israel all remains unretracted, as is all as to the effect of John's baptism in putting Jesus for the first time under grace.

And now mark the facts. Mr. N. for ten or twelve long years has been teaching, in his own circle, doctrines which, it is now confessed, subvert the person and work of the Lord Jesus altogether — make Him a guilty lost man. This has been spread farther by private communications. He has spread it, through the ignorance of the clergy of the establishment, in India: his defence is, that brethren themselves have propagated it; though I affirm them to have never thought of such a thing, save his own immediate disciples and helps.

121 The horrible dishonour done to Christ is brought to the notice of unsuspecting brethren, and is denounced; his own friends declare that they can have nothing more to say to such teaching, and acknowledgment becomes necessary. Now if Christ had been thought of, what would have been the effect if the soul had been touched with the sense of the subversion of His person and glory and work, and the harm done to souls? Even if some difficulties remained, would not there have been (is there not always when sin is judged by the person convinced of it?) the strongest sense of it, the greatest horror of it, the self-condemning reprobation of it, in the person who has been thus dishonouring Christ?

If Mr. N. had said, "Well, whatever I can understand of the Psalms, the devil has been deceiving me, and I have been deceiving others: what can I do enough to condemn and undo what I have been doing?" Would it have been a translating of the dishonour to safer ground — a statement that he had guarded and limited the teaching on it? How guarded and limited the teaching that Christ was a lost and condemned man by birth; that he was right in this, and right in that: only he overstepped the mark in seeking to do the wisest thing to meet another error twelve years ago! Would it be the practical claim to be still the person to make it clear, and to state the right extent to which, and guards under which, it is to be adopted? Is all this safely guarded reserve of the error humiliating or anything like it? He says he does not wish to extenuate the error by it. What does he wish, then? He desires this to be considered as an expression of deep and unfeigned grief and sorrow, especially by those who may have been grieved or injured. What is to be considered so? The placing the worst part of the error on new grounds as to one half, so as to re-establish it; and reserving the other, which was quite as bad?

I cannot see the deep sorrow in the tract. I write on christian grounds — for the sake of the church of God. The present statement is calculated to do more injury than the tracts withdrawn from circulation. They were too plain, though less so in terms than the "Christian Witness." If Christ was under the doom of death from His birth, by association with man as made of woman, coming under the penalty of God's judgment against sin not vicariously — under all its consequences, in which He could share unconnected with personal sin — and this is the doctrine of the "Statement" — the question of the imputation of Adam's guilt is only a nice distinction. If Christ was under the curse of the law, He could not be made a curse for others.

122 And now one word as to what is said as to the deductions I have drawn. Were I seeking myself, I might be content with the statement of their being legitimate; but I am not. Mr. N., and any of those who have erred, will find that, when the Spirit of God is to be seen working in them, I shall be the first to hail it with unfeigned joy. But I am perfectly satisfied that all this work is a work of Satan. This doctrine has proved it. T hat it is so is my hope as to the personal integrity of many; nay, it is now confessed even by themselves; for what is the preaching of error so gross and horrible, without finding it out for some ten years, but a delusion of Satan? Now that work I resist openly and everywhere for Christ and the brethren's sake, and shall expose, heeding very little the comments made, and looking for the Lord's approbation, and not man's. I say, then, that what was charged on Mr. N. was no deduction, legitimate or not. He stated, that the Lord Jesus was by birth, as a man and an Israelite, under the curse of the broken law; that He was under the imputation of Adam's guilt; that He was under the doom of death; that He had to work His own way up to life; that He was exposed to the danger of all the punishment due to Adam's guilt, and other like statements. Now there was no need of deductions from this. The meaning of the statements themselves is plain to all who know what guilt and a curse mean. It is not a doctrine deductions from which can be guarded against. The things complained of are the statements themselves. There is no guarding them. Nor are they retracted save one.

And here I beg leave to remark, that there are others who have to answer to the church of God as to these errors. Messrs. —  and  -  and  - * have all been fully involved in this doctrine, and committed themselves to it. Nor is a sudden casting it all over on Mr. N. any satisfaction to others, or likely to produce confidence in them. I am aware that Mr. —  has stated, at East Coker, that he repudiated it all; but I know that, but few days before it was detected and exposed, he had declared that for eight years back the doctrine had been fully canvassed in Ebrington Street, and that all were thoroughly made up in it. Mr. —  has declared, not that Adam's guilt was imputed indeed, but that the doctrine in general was necessarily true from the constitution of Christ's nature. I do not pretend to give the words, nor those in which Mr. Walker stated his judgment; but it is very well known that they held and taught these views (possibly without knowing what they were about), and that they approved and admired the tracts. They must explain themselves. If they do not, it is clear they are seeking something else than the glory of the Lord Jesus. Even if Mr. N. be the originator of the doctrine, it will not do to make him a scape-goat for their errors. With this I have no kind of sympathy. If Mr. N. were restored, it would be the joy of my heart. They have set up for teachers and guarders of sound doctrine, for holding "the truth." They have boasted of uniformity of doctrine and of its importance, gladly driving away others who would not submit to their yoke. Is this the doctrine, uniformity in which was essential?

{*It is rumoured that there is another retractation to be published by them, they not being satisfied with Mr. N.'s. If there be, my present remark is justified, and remains, of course, harmless to any.}

123 Do they hold the doctrine in the tracts or not? Is it wholly and definitely rejected by them? Are the souls they have been aiding to seduce into error delivered from it? Have they been humbled enough to call in question their path in other things and doctrines, while under this awful delusion of Satan? Their disciples were brought to believe and recommend as precious truth, that Christ was guilty of sins of ignorance in these very terms. Mr. N.'s constant teaching on the Psalms confirmed this. Are they restored? And are those who have been their leaders during this time, still professing to guide them?*

{*Are evils of this character to be made mere matters of human regard and a personal question?}

Further, the way in which the matter has been more than once put to me and others obliges me to refer to another point. I have been asked, "Well, now, if there has been a retractation of the errors, cannot there be a re-association?" Now I have opposed it as a work of Satan. It has been found to be so. I look for this being set aside. My answer then has been, I look for a work of God's Spirit, where this work of evil has been. It seems to me that when persons claiming to have been not only teachers but guardians of the truth have been teaching really that Christ was a lost man, and discover that they have been thus deluded for years, they would be in the dust, and, instead of pretending to teach or guide, hide themselves as dishonourers of the Lord, supposing even it were done ignorantly. It would lead them to distrust themselves. Were this so, it would go farther, and grace would surely soon settle all. Were the Holy Ghost beginning to work even, one would hope, surely, that He would go farther; yea, be certain of it. If He be working, it will do so — and I should with joy forget all, as I hope to be forgiven myself by Him who remembereth no more our sins and iniquities. Every part of the sorrow would be more than effaced: but the church and poor of the flock cannot be sacrificed meanwhile to the power of error and evil.

124 But a mere retractation of error cannot set aside the charges of untruth, which have forced so many to disown these persons before the heresy came out. Intercourse with those who have been recently delivered, and who, by various questions, brought my mind back to this part of the subject, many of the details of which I had forgotten, has recalled me to these details; and I can only say, not speaking now of Mr. Newton, but of Messrs. — ,  - , and  - , that I have never met with such wretched trickery, or such bold untruth, as in the printed documents they have circulated. I dare say Satan's delusion may be the cause; and that there may be various qualities in the evil, as misled and misleading, so that once delivered I might hail some as Christians as much as ever. But there the evil is: the proof that they were delivered from the delusion would be the confession of the sin.

I would further remark, that, as to this, there has been no question of investigation at all. It was proposed to them to meet brethren at the last London meeting, but they did not come; and, further, even as regards Mr. Newton, the alleged investigation did not apply to the great body of the charges. They had never been made when the investigation took place. The great bulk of them were made long after the alleged investigation at Plymouth; since then no investigation or pretence of one has taken place, save that many, forced to examine for themselves, have found out the truth of the matter. No retractation of subsequently discovered error can set aside this ground of action, which subsisted before and is unremoved. Men who set up to be teachers have been guilty of acts, which have led some to say they could not sit down in the same room with them. That remains where it was.

125 As to what Mr. —  has added, it does not call for a reply. If it does anything, it is to destroy the little hope we might have had of a commencement of breaking down. Supposing unsuspecting brethren circulated the tract, having very likely read it in its original form, free from error, or taking it on trust; how does that excuse the deliberate insisting on it when objected to, as the fact was as to Mr. N. three years since? If the error escaped the clergy of Madras, what then? As to Dublin, Mr. N. stated at Langport,* that it was a letter of Mr. — 's. Mr. —  is perfectly certain he never wrote any such letter, and had never read the tract. As to the work at Dublin, I was occupied in every detail of it. I remember the paper (in which the doctrines were not) serving me, as giving the extracts from Mr. Irving's works, as did Mr. — 's book; but I never heard of any reference to the article in the Dublin controversy. That some one may have written a letter as to the original article in the "Christian Witness" is possible: but what then? What paper was found useful then, supposing it were so? The paper in which not one particle of the statements objected to is found. Because this was found useful, the tract was then published, and the errors added. What has the Dublin recommendation to do with the matter? The only remark suggested by Mr. — 's note is, that it is a very poor sign of humiliation, seeking to prove that others did not detect the error, and that others were as bad, because they were deceived by it, if that were true, which it is not.

{*I have been also told Mr. —  did. It is possible, as both were present.}

There is one point of doctrine which I would desire to advert to in explanation. "Mortal" is a word used in two senses — being capable of dying, and being actually subject to death as a necessity. Now of course Christ was capable of dying, or He could not die. But the doctrine taught here is that He was mortal as we are. Now Mr. N. insists on everything being God and man unitedly. Now, if He gave Himself, this can be understood; but how, if it was the penal condition to which He was subjected necessarily as man made of a woman?

Note too here, in passing, that there is, in many minds, the same confusion as to 'immortal.' God only has immortality essentially; but other beings are in the condition of immortality actually. I do not discuss the doctrine further here, as it is not my object.

Observations on "A Statement from Christians in Ebrington Street."

J. N. Darby.

<15006E> 126

I trust, that, in — to me at any rate — the remarkable work which the Lord is now doing in the deliverance of valued brethren from the recognized snare of the enemy into the blessed liberty of grace and truth, I may be enabled to wait as patiently on that grace, through unfeigned faith in it, as I have felt it right to be active when I was satisfied the power of the enemy was at work. Where our blessed God deigns graciously to be at work, we may surely trust Him to bring it to a good and happy end. But where the enemy is still at work, there I feel the same cause for activity as ever.

Now the "Statement from Christians in Ebrington Street, Plymouth," is, I am satisfied, distinctly marked by the power of the same evil spirit which so many now recognize to have been at work — disingenuousness, subtlety, reserving all the error possible, while the credit of those concerned is sought to be maintained, a Christ, or that which bears His name, which is no real living Christ of faith, accompanied by professions calculated to blind the simple and unwary. By whom drawn up I know not, or what Christians profess it, or how far to be taken as a profession of the assembly, or for the assembly by those who now assume to guide them, I know not, nor can anyone; nor know what authority to attach to an unsigned document. I can deal only with the document itself. It is said, "We can and do say that we have no wish to cloke or defend error;" but as to who can and do say it, we are left entirely in the dark. Still, in the Lord's hands, I believe this mysterious way of presenting it a mercy. I turn to the document.

A system of doctrine has been denounced, as is well known, by those who have recently left the assembly and others. "This system," the "Statement" tell us, "it is said, involves these errors," &c. I need not repeat them here. "With regard to these errors, we desire to state, that the great majority amongst us were wholly ignorant of their existence, so that the assertions made touching 'our having lost Christ,' or having had presented to us a 'false Christ' for years past, were assertions perfectly strange and appalling to our ears and hearts; and they appeared to us to be not only untrue, but also of a most painful character and tendency."

127 Now that damnable heresies are brought in privily there cannot be a doubt, and that many children of God escape many of the real and legitimate consequences of error because of positive truth already in their hearts I thankfully admit, and I dare say it has been the case with many of the poor of the flock in this case, and I bless God for it. But what are the facts here? First, more than two hundred persons had left the assembly, of whom a vast body felt that practically they had lost Christ; many had more definite reasons, no doubt, but with some that was practically the whole matter. Spiritual sense made them feel Christ was gone though they might not have been able to explain what had taken Him away. And they were right. God constantly thus guides His flock. "A stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of a stranger." They cannot tell who the stranger is, but it is not the Shepherd's voice. Many taunted them with this being no reason. It was a divine Spirit-taught reason, and God has justified them. But to proceed.

For years the chief teachers of Ebrington Street have all of them held what they now avow destroys the gospel. Do they not know what Christ they presented? This doctrine was taught, diligently taught; notes of lectures assiduously inculcating it were taken and diligently circulated all over England; tracts, with this doctrine contained in it, written and revised by the teachers, and sold and circulated; tracts, since its being charged as heresy by others, put forth by Mr. Newton, and read and approved by others in MS. and in print, and the doctrine justified and applauded: and now the whole assembly, or those who speak for them, tell us they were wholly ignorant of their existence. If their teachers really held this doctrine, their hearers had lost Christ, or had a false Christ presented to them. And whatever we may judge of the notes of lectures or their accuracy, they prove that the doctrine was assiduously and constantly taught. What that doctrine was we have the declaration of all the teachers to let us know. And will anyone believe that this, even when it was not the express subject, did not affect all the teaching and the action of the Holy Ghost in the assembly.

The declaration merely shews that the effect had been so complete that they had lost Christ without knowing it, had a false Christ presented to them without knowing it. And what does this speak for the state of the assembly? And when it was fully discussed and brought forward, what did they do? Was there confession and humiliation in the assembly? Was the matter judged? Or how came their teachers to have left? And now mark the excuse of the Statement: "This system, it is said, involves." Do not they yet then know whether it does or not? Is this the way men speak who care for Christ's glory, when His glory is concerned? Of two things one: either they are yet so blinded by the enemy that they do not yet see what has been printed and reprinted, and discussed and confessed, or they do see it and decline to acknowledge its heinousness. In either case the power of Satan is evident. Could any straightforward person say, "it is said this system involves" so and so, when the doctrines have been elaborately brought out in terms in Mr. N.'s tracts, and a good while defended amongst those who say so, and at last confessed openly by most of those who taught them? Does a thing involve itself? Are not these things stated in Mr. N.'s writings? Have they not in part been retracted by himself? I do not speak of consequences but of the plain statements themselves. And when it is said, page 2, "an error held by some of us," is that honest? Was it not taught by some? Did not the teachers hold it? Who are the "some" who held it?

128 And note further here, there is subtlety as well as dishonesty. In page 3, the imputation of guilt to Christ, taught and circulated all over the kingdom, and far beyond its limits, by those who learned it in Ebrington Street, is declared to have been seen erroneous, and to have been confessed by those who once held it. But as to the law and its curse, it is said, we believe that this was not held by any amongst us. Indeed! And what are Mr. N.'s tracts and lectures? Will the assembly say that he is not amongst them? Or what mean the confessions of their teachers? "Indefinite thoughts which individuals may have entertained, or do entertain," are spoken of. And what of the "Remarks and Observations?" And if individuals amongst them (and clearly teachers, for the mass were totally ignorant of the doctrines) do hold indefinite thoughts about Christ's being under the curse of the law, Christ is lost, or a false Christ proclaimed. For a Christ born under the curse of the law in His own position is a false Christ; and indefinite thoughts in that prove that a man has no Christ at all; and to talk about it in such a way proves something very like indifference to it in those who drew up the paper. And mark, retraction or confession, or anything explicit as rejection, stated as to the imputation of Adam's guilt, page 2, is not pretended to have been made on this second point. Now the teaching was not indefinite, but explicit enough; and whatever it was, some, perhaps, do maintain it. Who?

129 But I go farther, and I say, the true Christ, a known Christ, is lost in this very paper. I read, from page 9, "He voluntarily subjected Himself to all these things which were involved in such connections, so far as it pleased God His Father for Him to be placed in them." Now in this diplomatic sentence, this shameful sentence to have written about the blessed Lord, what was Christ's place? There is not one positive word of faith about Christ in it. It is declared that "this voluntary position could in no way affect the dignity of His person or perfectness of His work, nor yet could it indicate that something was laid on Him which He had to remove before He could become our substitute and sin-bearer." That is what I will tell you when you tell me what the position was which He did take. But you have left me without any Christ at all, but a possible one, who was "subjected to all things which were involved in such connections" — connections with sinful man and cursed Israel, mark, "so far as it pleased God His Father for Him to be placed in them." But how far was He in them? Have you nothing positive? Is it an unknown possibility of the Father's will, the measure of Christ's connections with sin and the curse? Was the connection — positively held as a doctrine by some amongst you, and taught, and printed, and applied to the interpretation of the whole book of Psalms — was that possible to be the Father's pleasure, or the Son of God's place! Is there no revelation of what were the connections with man and Israel, in which the blessed Lord was placed?

And now, you, who have drawn up this, who say that a position in a moral distance from God is perfectly abhorrent to every christian mind and heart, what position was given to Christ in the tracts printed, and the doctrine taught and defended amongst you? Did you ever read the "Remarks" and "Observations?" And is man's distance from God, and working his way up to a point where God could meet him, not a moral distance from God? If not, what is? For the sake of individuals over whom I yet sorrow, for your own sakes, you ought to hide your faces for having written such a sentence as this. If this, and many like passages, are not a moral distance from God, what is?

Further, it would have been happy, if, instead of speaking vaguely of what Christ could have experienced, you had stated a little what you thought of what it has been stated amongst you He did experience; or what you think now. But in all this there is an ominous silence. You tell us, indeed, that whatever it was, "whatever he might have felt," it would not affect, and it would not involve. Now I do not at all agree with you. I say, if He felt certain things in consequence of His position by birth (and that is the question), it would affect His person and it would involve the curse. Doctrines recently taught among yourselves did affect His person, and involve His work. You told us when these doctrines, now confessed to be abominable heresies, were taught and held among you, that you did not see that it affected His person or involved the curse. Now you see it does.

130 But you come and tell us that whatever Christ experienced, or in whatever way it pleased God His Father for Him to be placed in connection with man and Israel, it could in no possible way affect His person or work. How came it to do so, in what has been retracted? and how can I trust you in the dark for this vague unknown Christ, whose position, you tell me, cannot, and will not affect His person and work? You must let me know what your Christ is first. And so carefully do you guard this vague open door, that you tell us you cannot "know any further than God has been pleased to reveal by His Spirit in the word, and what it was proper for Christ to feel or not to feel" — the italics are yours. But do you know of nothing in the word which is revealed as to what He did not feel? The experience of an unconverted elect man, for instance? Is this the way you speak of Christ still? You are discussing what it was proper for Him to feel, instead of learning and believing in what the living Christ was.

And now let me ask you, here, what you mean by "experiences which it may have pleased the Father that He should pass through," and what it was proper for Christ to feel? Besides sympathy with others, which is not now the question, nor His death on the cross — "but living feelings and experiences of the Lord Jesus?" could He have had any but what were real, resulting from the position He was in "as a man and an Israelite?" Were His feelings and experiences fictitious? You are speaking of Him as born into the nation of Israel, and as sharer of man's nature. Could He then have experienced, as a man and as an Israelite, what was not according to the truth of the position He was in? Were His own experiences not true ones, according to the relation He was in? and is it not evident, if they were, that they involve the relationship? What do you mean by experiences it pleased the Father He should pass through, or that it was proper for Christ to feel? Circumstances I understand. He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; but experiences from the Father's pleasure, and proper to feel, were they the real ones of the position He was in, or inflicted ones? Were they experiences belonging to His position, or not belonging to it? Were they founded on His relation to God and man, or arbitrary and not founded on it?

131 It is the more necessary you should explain this, not only because my questions apply to doctrines which have been diligently taught among you, as to which your statements have an alarming vagueness, but because in this very passage you speak of "experiences which it may have pleased the Father that He should pass through," which could not involve "the rejection of His true experiences as the Son." Now I avow to you such an expression, instead of clearing up your views, looks largely tainted with the abominable and frightful doctrine long taught among you. And this accompanied by a very anxious effort to shew that nothing you may hold could or would involve anything that affected the doctrine of Christ, and the absence of stating what you do hold, and of the refutation of what has been taught on the experiences of Christ, and on the contrary leaving the most open door possible for holding anything, only assuring us that whatever it may be it cannot affect Christ, only tends to confirm the conviction that you are still, as an assembly, under the power of Satan.

The entire want of candour and honesty as to what has been taught, printed, circulated, put in tracts, and confessed by your teachers, only painfully confirms this sad conviction. And, as undoubtedly convinced of it, I warn all who are among you solemnly of it, and exhort and call upon all who value Christ and their own souls to come out and partake no longer of the sins of the assembly, that they may have nothing to do with the judgments which belong to such evil. You, who are Christians, do you not yet see the hand of the Lord is out against all the system, though in love surely to His own? I do not charge all in the assembly as intentionally involved in their errors. Nor do I with the subtlety of this paper, which is an additional reason for having done with those who drew it up. You were ignorant perhaps of the errors, as those misled usually are; but if those who taught among you were full of these doctrines, you had lost the true Christ, for the Christ they had in their minds, which was the one you heard of from them, was not the true Christ. Besides I am bold to say, from my own knowledge, that the grace of God in the work of Christ and His person too were undermined and set aside in the public and private teaching in Ebrington Street; and it was clearly felt by the poor, though they might not be able to reason about and account for their judgment. Will any of you, moreover, stand up and deny that it was systematically taught that Christ was a constituted sinner and worked His way up to life? You cannot. That simple poor ones may, by God's grace, have escaped it all, I can well believe. Is that a reason for their being subjected to such a system? or remaining in it?

132 I feel bound to add that the positive doctrine stated is unsatisfactory on two material points, particularly important to notice from the doctrines which have been taught, as they tend to confirm my conviction that those who have drawn up this paper are not free from the evil or from the influence of Satan. That Christ was truly a man, born of a woman, born under the law, is of the very essence of our faith — tempted in all points like as we are, yet without (apart from) sin; all this is the revealed comfort to the soul. But the statements of page 5, as to it, will be found to have, very many of them, no scripture to base them on. Hebrews 2: 14 does not make the statement here made but a very definite one — not the one found here. The statement as to Christ's death, on its only ground, I judge to shew equally defective views, though meant to guard against the charge of holding error. He could only die as bearing the sins of others seems to guard Christ's death, but it makes it an imposed and necessary consequence. Now, though "if He took the sins, He could only expiate them by death," it was not the whole character of His death or taken by itself a true one. They have ventured too far in mental dealing with the blessed Saviour, and we always lose Christ, the true Christ, when we do. It is an unsound exposition of Christ's nature and death. But further, the second point is this: "while He, in living obedience, was working out that one righteousness in which we stand as believers in His name." This last, too, specially connects itself with the errors which have been taught.

And now I close, only adding this one reflection. We have all known the ground taken by teachers and guides (precious gifts I fully recognize to the flock of God), and the separate authority attributed to them, and the security afforded by them as God's ordinance. What has become of them? Where are they? Some of them, at any rate, I must thankfully believe under the unquestionably gracious operation of God's Spirit, but I speak now of the security afforded by such a system, of its comfort to the saints, and the glory rendered to God by it. I pray for the peace of you all.

Yours, affectionately in Christ, J. N. D.

Remarks on "A Letter on Subjects connected with the Lord's Humanity."

J. N. Darby.

<15007E> 134

The reader will meet with some remarks in a part of this tract which — if not accustomed to abstract reasoning — he will probably have difficulty in understanding. I add these few lines to say, he need not be the least uneasy at it; probably it is so much the better for himself. Abstract discussions on the nature of the Lord Jesus are, I believe, very unhealthful things for the soul; and if, in the form of a positive attempt to define incarnate Godhead — always erroneous in some expression or other — what may be found difficult of apprehension in these pages (and it is chiefly in a note) is introduced with no such object, but merely to shew the fallacious ground of reasoning taken, in order to introduce error. When there were minds exercised on it, it was right to notice this; when this is not the case, the reader will be only so much the happier to rest in his simplicity, and believe, with confiding faith, in the testimony of the word, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, full of grace and truth; — and that, as the children whom He was bringing to glory partook of flesh and blood, He partook of it too: and, while knowing that the blessed One was absolutely, and in every sense, without sin, be assured that He knows how to speak a word in season to him that is weary — to sympathise with every sorrow — and to relieve and lift up in every infirmity — having suffered, being tempted, and thus able to succour them that are tempted.

__________

I shall say nothing as to the moral character of this letter: in itself it would excite indignation; but, alas! indignation refuses itself to often-repeated evil, and gives place to another and more silent feeling.

The principles of the previous tracts are fully maintained; and the retractation, once published, is reduced to an acknowledgment of carelessness in theological expressions. At the same time the terms used to represent the principles have descended so far below the hardihood of those of the tracts, that they might, to many, seem almost harmless. I should not have noticed the letter but that individual souls, untaught by all that has passed, may be seduced into the thought of its harmlessness by the concealment of the evil.

135 The letter keeps most carefully out of sight what is the whole matter in question — Christ's relationship to God. The writer says, in substance, that Christ was, as to His person, sinless and acceptable. His doctrine really involves the contrary; but, admitting the statement, that is not the question: Irving even would have said as much. It is also true that he does not hold the doctrine of sin in Christ's human nature, which Irving did. That which he is charged with is false doctrine as to the relationship in which, as a man, Christ stood to God. But it may be said, he does not conceal his views on this; he does speak of relative position. Yes: but he always puts it before the mind in the letter as referring to relationship to man and to Israel. The question is, What was His relationship to God? This is carefully avoided — carefully concealed; and words so twisted, that a simple mind is unaware of what is conveyed. On this point it is that his doctrine is from the enemy himself.*

{*It is a great mistake to suppose, that, because people have not intelligently received an evil doctrine, they have not suffered by it. The plain simple notion of Christ is undermined; and power against evil and for good destroyed, though the soul is unaware of it. The sense of the evil is utterly enfeebled, and Christ practically lost.}

Mr. N. maintains the principles of his tracts (Letter, page 15), and does not shrink from the explanation or defence of more minute statements in them. (Page 17.)

The statements of these tracts I shall now reproduce, because, while their principles are re-affirmed, their circulation is suspended, and a false account given of their contents in the letter.

But first a few preliminary observations.

The writer states many common truths, and gives a long string of texts to shew that Christ became a man by means of birth. As to the truths Irving would have put his hand to every one of them. The question does not lie there: the writer's heresy is on another point. I never heard of anyone who doubted that Christ was born — in these days at any rate. Nobody doubts He was a man and an Israelite,* nor that He became so by means of birth. These statements then we may leave entirely aside. They are held by both sides — by Mr. Irving himself, equally by orthodox and heretics — on the point in question. Our search lies beyond this.

{*The unsuspecting pupil supposes that he has got, with unusual simplicity and clearness, at Christ's real humanity and association with Israel by birth; but in page 40 we read, "It is true that He was an Israelite, but it is also true, that He was an Israelite distinct, separate and alone, and that He was so regarded by God." The consistency of this with the tracts I do not touch on here.}

136 Mr. Newton states, "My sentiments on these subjects are so well known; it is so well known that I have never held or taught anything that is new or peculiar touching the person or natures of our blessed Lord," &c. (p. 2); and (p. 18), in referring to certain extracts, he asks, "Do they teach that Jesus was born under the curse of the broken law?"

Now these are the facts: — Mr. N., some ten years ago or more, put into a second edition of the "Christian Witness," which did not pass through the Editor's hand, an addition to an article on the doctrines of Newman Street containing the following statement: "All that the soul of a saint recognizes as true in the writings of Mr. Irving, respecting Christ being in 'that condition of being and region of existence which is proper to a sinner,' will be found to be altogether comprised in the fact of His being born under the curse of the exiled family, vicariously incurred.* But He rose out of this 'region' — [not merely, mark, was able] — through the power of His own inherent holiness;" only He chose "to abide it for the sake of others;" and the result was the cross. And "He might have entered into life by Himself alone," "He was able to enter into life by keeping the commandments." The law was "strong unto Him," it was "unto Him life" — as it is written, "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Further, subsequently Mr. N. taught that Jesus was a constituted sinner, born such, and based this on Romans 5: 19, as is publicly and universally known.

{*Vicariousness is now denied in the sense of substitution, but maintained in the sense of being for others; but this is immaterial. He was born under the curse of the exiled family, and abode it, though He had risen by obedience out of that region. That is, He was born under the curse He abode on the cross.}

Having broached this doctrine some four years ago at a reading meeting, the doctrine was subsequently objected to by one present, and Mr. N. justified it in a long letter, but told the person to keep it secret, as the saints were not prepared to receive it yet. It was then taught privately, and, circulated under the strictest guard against its enunciation to those not "prepared to receive it," was, through God's mercy, detected, and was then, on some of Mr. N.'s own friends declaring that they could have nothing more to say to him if he did not retract it, retracted as a sin. When he left Plymouth to go to Cornwall, consequent upon the convictions which flashed on the minds of many, he declared that he wished it to be clearly understood that he went voluntarily away as a humiliation, because God, having entrusted him with a new and special truth, which was also said to be a truth which was to save the church, he had failed by bringing it out before the church was ready to receive it.

137 Now, he declares, it is well known that he never held or taught anything new or peculiar.

His retractation now amounts to a confession of carelessness. He "used wrong theological terms [in accounting for the fact of Christ being brought under certain results of Adam's sin], and a wrong application to Romans 5." (Page 32.) A wrong application to Romans 5!!! And what did that amount to? Carelessness in theological terms! In accounting for the fact of Christ being brought under certain results of Adam's sin, "confused between transmitted consequences and imputation?" Is not Romans 5 plain? You applied, unhappy man! Romans 5: 19 to Christ. "By the disobedience of one many were made sinners." "Certain results!" The verse states the result itself plainly enough; it states no circumstances, but relationship to God. You have stated (pages 30, 31, 32, of this letter) the results of it clearly enough: you taught it where you could — it was circulated secretly, you desired it to be concealed because saints were not prepared for it. Confounded at its exposure, you retracted this gross expression of it; and now it amounts to — a confusion of theological terms, and a wrong application of Romans 5: 19! And what was the doctrine of Romans 5: 19 applied to Christ? What does it mean to be constituted a sinner under Adam's federal headship? That is what you applied to Christ. It was not "certain results." The results flowed from this according to your system. And now you say, "it is so well known that I have never held or taught anything that is new or peculiar."*

{*I am not unaware of what would be attempted to be said: that this did not refer to the person or natures of Christ; but if being a constituted sinner by descent from Adam does not relate to the person or natures of Christ, what does it relate to?}

138 I shall now quote various extracts from your two tracts, which you avow are still your principles; and I beg my reader to recall the question of relationship to God.

"Remarks," page 1, 2. In the psalms "we find not only the sufferings of those hours of public ministry — not only the sufferings and reproach that pertained to Him as the appointed servant of God, but sufferings also which pertained to Him because He was a man,* and because He was an Israelite." "He was made sensible, under the hand** of God, of the condition into which man had sunk, and yet more into which Israel had sunk in His sight."

{*Note here, His being a man did not make Him suffer. Adam, before his fall, was as much a man as after. If Christ suffered, because He was a man, it only means a man under the same necessity and relationship to God as Adam in sin. The reader will do well to bear in mind this. Sin did not make Adam a man, but placed man in a certain position before God. The question is, Did Christ take in His life the position of the sinner, as such, before God? Mr. N. held that He did, and worked His way out of it; sometimes stating He got out of it at John's baptism, at other times at the cross. Here, moreover, it is not merely that Christ suffered as in the service of God, but because He was a man. No one doubts He suffered, and must have been a man to suffer. But was He by necessity of condition, because He was a man, involved in all the consequences of sin? If it was because He was a man, He was — and so indeed Mr. N. states in his tracts — "exposed to" them, though He did not suffer all. Do not let the reader be misled by the word sinless. Damnation is not a sinful thing, it is very righteous. No penalty, as such, is sinful.}

{**This is repeated so often, in far stronger terms, that it is useless to quote the passages. See "Remarks," 14, 22; "Observations," 21, 23, 29, 36, 42.}

"Remarks," page 4. "Personally indeed, He was one who, as to His essential relation to God, could know no change . . . . The Son that is (ὁ ὤν) in the bosom of the Father. This was an essential condition of being which neither earth nor the grave could alter." Be it so: but what were the new relations assumed when He was made flesh, made under the law? were they relations that necessarily brought sufferings with them?

"Remarks," pages 4, 5. "He was born . . . . into the midst of the fallen family of man . . . . But He had not merely become connected with the sorrows and sufferings of man." There was Israel; "they had fallen from that ground of professed obedience, and, like Adam, earned by their disobedience the fearful inflictions of God's broken law; for it had been said, 'Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.'" Did this depend on His position and relationship to God?

139 "Remarks," page 8. "His faith, His prayer, His obedience, all contributed to preserve Him from many things to which He was by His relative position exposed, and by which He was threatened." So that it was not certain results of actual sufferings. He was exposed to them by His relative position even when He did not suffer them. It was a position He was in.

"Remarks," page 12. "He was made experimentally to prove the reality of that condition into which others, but more especially Israel, had sunk themselves, by their disobedience to God's holy law; a condition out of which He was able to extricate Himself [He was in it therefore: compare quotations from "Christian Witness"], and from which He proved that He could extricate Himself by His own perfect obedience." . . . And, "then to see Him emerging out of them" — the hindrances and miseries attached to this condition.

"Remarks," page 13. "In consequence of His position He would be obnoxious, that is, exposed to all the inflictions that the hand of God might be directing against that evil generation."

"Remarks," page 14. "God pressed these things on the apprehensions of His soul according to His own power and holiness; and caused Him to feel as a part of that which was exposed to the judgments of His heavy hand."

"Remarks," page 15. "He had to realize the condition into which man and Israel had fallen."

But was it a reality flowing from relationship, or only His Spirit entering into them? First, it was, as we have seen, as a part, and He was exposed, consequently, to what He did not suffer.

"Remarks," page 23. But "the difference between Sinai the mountain of blackness, and Zion, the mountain of light and grace and blessing . . . might be used to illustrate the difference between the two dispensational positions held by the Lord Jesus in the midst of Israel previous to His baptism; and that which He dispensationally and ministerially took when anointed by the Holy Ghost." . . . "And if, as in token of this great change in His dispensational relations (for I anxiously repeat there was no change in Him personally), heaven, which had not before been opened over Him, was opened over His head." Now this is, beyond all controversy, His relationship with God, with heaven; and I pray the reader to note it.

140 And what was this relationship to God? "If He was made to realize the distance into which man had wandered out of the presence of God; and if He realized also the distance of Israel . . . I believe it to have been chiefly, if not exclusively, before His baptism. Observe, I am speaking of the exercises of His heart from God . . . . The manner in which He was directly exercised by God." ("Remarks," p. 25.) So "Observations" page 29, "The Lord Jesus was caused to appreciate to the full the relation in which Israel (and Himself because of Israel) was standing before God. We may hear of Sinai, or think of Sinai; but Jesus realized it as the power of an actual subsisting relation between His people and God . . . . Years passed over His head thus." And here I may add the quotation made in the "Letter" (p. 6) from the "Observations," to shew that "His birth-relation to the law could have brought to Him only blessing." It is this, "His dispensational place, therefore, if He had stood alone in dissociation from others, would not have interfered* with any of the blessings that personally pertained to Him." ("Observations," p. 29.) Thus far is quoted to prove his point.

{*Mark the word "interfered" here. It is important as shewing the way in which Mr. N. rests on the eternal personal place of Christ, so as to put His relative place, as incarnate, on the very questionable ground of not interfering with His acceptability. Was it not positively acceptable in itself?}

This is what follows, "But He was not found in dissociation from others. He was standing in closest association with those whose dispensational relation to God was marked by the darkness, and lightnings, and voices of Sinai . . . . Sinai marked the relation of God to Israel when Jesus came; and the worship of the golden calf (though that would but feebly represent their ripened evil) may be taken as marking their relation to God. And since God, in exercising the souls of His servants, must exercise them according to truth . . . . we might be very sure, even if the evidence of scripture were less direct than it is, that the Lord Jesus was caused to appreciate to the full the relation in which Israel (and Himself because of Israel) was standing before God." Hence, though He escaped much of what He was exposed to by it, through prayer, faith and obedience (so that it was not what He entered into in spirit for others), the relation in which He was standing before God was but feebly represented by the worship of the golden calf. Such then was Christ's own relation to God in flesh.

141 The "Letter" tells us (p. 45), "He lived under, not above, the governmental arrangements of God in this world, and endured multitudes of the sufferings which these governmental arrangements had brought, or were then bringing on those with whose present condition of suffering He had connected Himself, and made as much as possible His own. And, seeing that these arrangements were the arrangements of God in government, the sufferings which followed from them are to be regarded as in a special sense coming from God. By which fact [?] we are able to refute that strange and novel doctrine, . . . that Christ never suffered anything under the hand of God until . . . the cross." "These arrangements* were God's — and if the Lord Jesus was not above them all, He must have suffered under them."

{*Was it an "arrangement" that His "relation to God" was fully represented by that of Israel after making the golden calf?}

In the tracts, the writer insists that they were not spontaneous consequences, but direct inflictions — the direct exercise of His heart from God, such as none else could have, because He was under the law. See quotation which follows in text, and "Observations," page 36.

In the "Observations," on the contrary, we read (p. 34), "But we should form a very inadequate conception of the living experiences of the Lord Jesus, if, in addition to the sufferings which flowed spontaneously as it were from the condition of man and of Israel, we did not also recognize a yet more close and searching dealing of God with His servant . . . . How should we feel, imperfect as our sensibilities are, if God, according to the power of His own holiness, were to press upon the apprehension of our souls a truthful sense of the present and future condition of ruined man?" (Page 35.) Was this merely circumstances or sufferings which followed from the arrangements of God in government?

Again, ("Observations" p. 36) "The Lord Jesus was as much alone in His living estimate under God's hand of the circumstances of human life here, as in enduring wrath upon the cross . . . . He was also, when here, made to estimate, according to the sensibilities of that nature which He had taken, the (to us) inconceivable distance of humanity from God. And when thus exercised, though personally holy and beloved, He was made to feel that His association with those thus standing in the fearfulness of their distance from God, was a real thing, and that it was so regarded by God. His was no mere pretended imaginary association." You may see, reader, what is meant by the circumstances of humanity.

142 Of the reality of this we may judge from a passage in the "Remarks," page 31: "But before I quit this part of the subject, there is one thing only I would further observe: how needful it is to distinguish between the person and the dispensational or relative positions of our blessed Lord. As to His person, we know Him to be the only begotten Son of God . . . . But yet, during His ministry on earth, He stood in a place dispensationally lower than that into which He has now brought us, His church." Now does this mean, that officially in service He had a saintly place on earth, whereas now the church is one with Himself in heaven? No. "For man was yet in His distance from God. There was as yet no glorified humanity on the right hand of the throne of God. The mighty power whereby God raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places was not yet put forth . . . . And Jesus, as man, was associated with this place of distance, in which man in the flesh was; and He had, through obedience, to find His way to that point where God could meet Him as having finished His appointed work, and glorify Him, and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places; and that point was death — death on the cross — death under the wrath of God." (Pages 31, 32.)

We may now enquire whether the "Letter" puts the blessed Jesus on any really different ground. This is the character of suffering spoken of. ("Observations," p. 35.) "Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked* that forsake thy law. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me, yet thy commandments are my delight. I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted." Let us remember that this is not viewed as Christ's entering in spirit into things, but "the close and searching dealing of God with His servant." (Page 35.) "It is the thought of Jesus being caused by God to estimate the terror of His holiness, in relation to the circumstances of humanity pressed in vivid realization on His soul, that alone enables me to understand such words as these" (p. 35): "the exercises," as it is stated elsewhere "of His heart from God." ("Remarks," 25.) "But I am not ("Remarks," 25) now speaking of the spontaneous actings of His soul, but of the manner in which He was directly exercised by God." We have seen (Obs. 29) that God "must exercise them (the souls of His servants) according to truth" — hence, according to "the relation in which Israel (and Himself because of Israel) was standing before God." Hence it was changed for Jesus at John's baptism. (Obs. 31.) "Remarks," 23: "His dispensational relations in them, how great the change," clearly relations with God: for He was not less a man or an Israelite. We learn in the quotation from "Observations," 35, what the circumstances of humanity mean. It amounts to no less than "the present and future condition of ruined man."

{*Note here, whether it was His own relation He was thinking about.}

143 Now these clearly are the great principles of the tracts, the "great leading principles which pervade them throughout." (Letter, p. 16.) These are sanctioned, therefore, in the Letter. The doctrine of His personal acceptance, as Son of God, is stated; but it is not the question: Irving held it just as much. Mr. N. may deprecate judgment as to what he holds, and claim "to define the limit beyond which no authoritative sentence must be allowed to go." (Letter, p. 17.) It is a very comfortable thing for an accused person to do; but the saints are bound for their own souls, and for the saints' sake, to preserve themselves from deadly error. These principles, then, the Letter re-affirms. (Page 15.)

We may also see if the Letter's own statements alter the matter. First, the question of relationship to God is, as to terms, studiously avoided, save that the doctrine of the tract is re-affirmed. But, in other words, we shall see it in all its force fully adopted. (See p. 23, 24.)

And first, note particularly, that what is brought before the mind as to Jesus' acceptance is not at once His relationship to God on earth — not His human acceptance. His personal position in acceptance is His eternal Sonship with the Father. What was due to His personal position is judged of by that, and based on it — His relation to the Father before the world was. "In heaven the circumstances or position of the Son had been in accordance with that which was due to Him." (Letter, 24.) (Note in passing, we have the sense of position already changed. At first we were to judge of what was due to His position; now circumstances are equivalent to position, and position is due to Him — then they are mixed.) "He was there seen standing in all the excellency of His personal position, and until He took flesh He was receiving all that was due to that position." [MARK THAT!] "But when it pleased Him to assume flesh, instead of assuming it under circumstances* which would have been in accordance with that which was due** to His personal position, He assumed it in a condition of weakness, &c." ("&c.!" Is Christ's state to be disposed of with an "&c.?") "which was not in accordance with the blessedness due to His personal*** position. This, therefore, may be said to be the assumption of a relative**** position." Relative to whom? What was His relation to God? His personal position of God and eternal Son of the Father, having "an unalterable title to blessing, which neither incarnation nor the cross could change." But what relation to God had He as incarnate? Incarnation did not change His being God and eternal Son of the Father, or His title to blessing as such.

{*Circumstances on earth were not the same as in heaven, of course; but in what way did God regard Him on earth?}

{**What would have been so? And note here: His place on earth is not in itself a definite position; but His position is the eternal One, and His earthly state a question of accordance with that. Mr. N. is perfectly aware of this, and in referring to earth uses terms which seem to be all right but which only affirm integrity in conduct, or original personal position. The title to the latter He had foregone. His conduct is not in question. His relation in this world to God is carefully avoided.}

{***Here position is no longer equivalent to circumstances These changes in the sense of words bewilder the mind as to what position and relation mean, because, if personal position mean His Sonship, this is a relative position. Is that changed? If not, where is another relative position assumed. What is it? Is it one of perfect acceptance? If we take it as Godhead, then it has nothing to do with position, or circumstances, or relationship. Godhead place does not touch or mingle with relative position. Our question is, "His relation to God as a man and an Israelite." Godhead place cannot be brought in here. Mr. N. did at first apply Romans 5: 19. That was wrong. What is right? The principles of the tracts, which made Him learn to find His way by obedience to a place where God could meet Him? His own relation (on whatever reason) to God being feebly expressed by the state of Israel after worshipping the golden calf? What was Israel's relation then?}

{**** But if He forewent what was due to His personal position, what was His relation to God?}

144 Further (Letter p. 24), "To a personal position (as much after as before He had assumed flesh) nothing but blessing would have been due." What is a personal position here — Godhead and eternal Sonship? That was what personal position meant a while back, and could not be changed. "Even as an Israelite under the law He had a title to all blessing." Now this was heretofore specifically and distinctively His relative position. Thus in this same 24th page, "He assumed it [flesh] in a condition of weakness, &c., which was not in accordance with the blessedness due to His personal position. This, therefore, may be said to be the assumption of a relative position." Now this was just being an Israelite under the law. Now, "To a personal position . . . nothing but blessing would have been due." "If . . . He had been pleased to claim that which was due to a personal position." Why a personal position? Was it His, or was it not? Was it the eternal, unchangeable position of eternal Son of God? If so, it leaves out His actual relative position as a man down here. As an Israelite under the law He had a title to all blessing — not in His relative position; for He was in this, Mr. N. tells us, exposed to all the consequences of Israel's state. Was being an Israelite a personal position? Is not all confusion here, because the plain truth of His own relation to God, as man, is put aside?

145 But (Letter, p. 25), "He forewent the title of His personal position* the moment He took flesh." Here we have the point. Though He might have had a claim if He had been pleased to assert it, He forewent it. He then "assumed a relative position." That, then, was His standing before God. This is confirmed by its application to the cross. He took there the position of substitute. His sufferings "flowed from a relative position, namely, that of substitution. So also in life." (Page 26.) Now, His place on the cross was under wrath, that is, He was regarded of God according to His position; so in life, having foregone the title of His own position,** He was to be regarded of God in His relative one; that is, dealt with in the world as a sinful man, "according to truth." That was His relation to God — His relative position. (Letter, p. 26.) "Sufferings that flow from a personal position prove personal unworthiness; sufferings that flow from a relative position prove no personal unworthiness." No, nor is it charged as a doctrine. But for the same reason they prove relative unworthiness: just as, on the cross, God dealt with Christ according to His relative position — that is, in wrath due to sin. That was God's relation to Christ, personally worthy as He was, "so also in life." That is, according to Mr. N., God's relation to Christ was that He bore to sinful fallen man, the relative position He had taken. Now that is the point. The title of His personal position He had foregone — He had taken His relative position before God, that is, fallen man's and fallen Israel's. That was Christ's relation to God. That is all the writer tells us concerning Him — His relation to God, whatever the reason; and this is confirmed by the statement, that it was pressed on His soul. He was exposed to it: that "His faith, His prayer, His obedience all contributed to preserve Him from many things to which He was, by His relative position, exposed, and by which He was threatened." ("Remarks," p. 8.) God might bring it home or relieve Him from it, but that was His relation to God. Of course the only meeting-point was death under wrath for such a position. "His baptism . . . was the acknowledgment of the condition of His people, and of His association with them in that condition." (Obs. p. 24.) An association, note, by birth. Hence He was obnoxious to all — that is, it was due to His relative position. For, as He was not subjected to all, 'obnoxious' must mean, it was what was due. Hence, heaven was not opened to Him till after His baptism, as we have seen. "He was made to feel that His association with those thus standing in the fearfulness of their distance from God was a real thing, and that it was so regarded by God. His was no mere imaginary association." (Obs. p. 36.)

{*Note the careful confusion here. "He forwent the title of His personal position the moment He took flesh." What personal position had He then on taking flesh? Any or none? That is, in flesh. Was his personal position solely what He was in Godhead and eternal Sonship? or had He, or did He take, any personal acceptable position on taking flesh to fulfil His Father's will? did He forego that in taking it, or was there none? This is the point.}

{**That is, He never stood before God on earth according to the title of a relative position down here, in personal acceptance. It is said indeed, "as an Israelite under law He had a title to all blessing." (Page 24.) But this was acquired by holiness, not (as we have seen) in His relation as such before God. Another ground is stated (p. 6) in the letter to get out of this difficulty, namely, "the son shall not be punished for the iniquity of the father." But if not, and it was merely under governmental arrangements, by which He inherited a certain position from His mother as Daniel might, how so? This plain question still recurs: What was His relation to God?}

146 I would now add a little which I hope may clear up some minds as to Christ's sympathy with us. First, I assume that my reader holds, as myself, the true and real humanity of the Lord, both in body and soul — that He was a true living man in flesh and blood. Mr. N. says, that some say He had no human soul; I never heard of any since Eutyches and the Apollinarians — people whom the most of my readers, I suppose, know nothing about.

147 Christ was a man in the truest sense of the word, body and soul. The question is as to His relation to God as man. We are all agreed that He was sinless. He had true humanity, but united to Godhead. He was God manifest in the flesh. Scripture speaks simply, saying, He partook of flesh and blood. That is what the Christian has simply, and as taught of God, to believe.

Mr. N. goes beyond scripture in saying (p. 35) that "To say that there was in His humanity a divine spring of thought and feeling, is to deny His real humanity." Was His humanity then without a divine spring of thought and feeling? Had he said it was not of or from His humanity, I should have nothing to say; but to say there was none in it unsettles the doctrine of Christ's person. There was the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and the divine nature was a spring of many thoughts and feelings in Him. This is not the whole truth; but to deny it is not truth. If it merely means that humanity has not in itself a divine spring, that is plain enough; it would not be humanity. I am equally aware that it will be said that it was in His person; but to separate wholly the humanity and divinity in springs of thought and feeling is dangerously overstepping scripture. Is it meant that the love and holiness of the divine nature did not produce, was not a spring of, thought and feeling in His human soul? This would be to lower Christ below a Christian. Perhaps this is what Mr. N. means in saying He was dispensationally lower than the church. If so, it is merely a roundabout road to Socinianism.

His humanity, it is said, was not sui generis. This too is confusion. The abstract word humanity means humanity and no more: and, being abstract, must be taken absolutely, according to its own meaning. But, if the writer means that in fact the state of Christ's humanity was not sui generis, it is quite wrong; for it was united to Godhead, which no one else's humanity ever was; which, as to fact, alters its whole condition. For instance, it was not only sinless, but in that condition incapable of sinning; and to take it out of that condition is to take it out of Christ's person. What conclusion do I draw from all this? — That the wise soul will avoid the wretched attempt to settle in such a manner questions as to Him whom no one knoweth but the Father. The whole process of the reasoning is false.*

{*I must here just remark, in passing, that throughout this Letter we find objections, said to have been raised, quoted from nowhere and nobody, and answers given demolishing them: the objections not being the real ones at all.}

148 To turn, then, to scripture, we are told of the sinless infirmities of human nature, and that Christ partook of them. Now, I have no doubt this has been said most innocently; but, not being scripture, we must learn in what sense it is used. Now, that Christ was truly man, in thought, feeling, and sympathy, is a truth of cardinal blessing and fundamental importance to our souls. But I have learnt, thereby, not that humanity is not real humanity, if there is a divine spring of thought and feeling in it; but that God can be the spring of thought and feeling in it, without its ceasing to be truly and really man. This is the very truth of infinite and unspeakable blessedness that I have learnt. This, in its little feeble measure, and in another and derivative way, is true of us now by grace. He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. This is true in Jesus in a yet far more important and blessed way. There was once an innocent man left to himself; the spring of thought and feeling being simply man, however called on by every blessing and natural testimony of God without: we know what came of it. Then there was man whose heart alas! was the spring, "from within," of evil thoughts and the dark train of acts that followed. What I see in Christ is man, where God has become the spring of thought and feeling.* And, through this wonderful mystery, in the new creation in us, all things are of God. That, if we speak of His and our humanity, is what distinguishes it. Metaphysically to say "His and our humanity" is nonsense; because humanity is an abstraction which means nothing but itself, and always itself, and nothing else (just as if I said Godhead); and if I introduce any idea of its actual state I am destroying the idea and notion the word conveys. But the moment I do associate other ideas, I must introduce the whole effect and power of these ideas to modify the abstract one according to the actual fact. Thus humanity is always simply humanity. The moment I call it His, it is sui generis, because it is His; and in fact humanity sustained by Godhead is not humanity in the same state as humanity unsustained by Godhead.** Sinless humanity, sustained in that state by Godhead, is not the same as sinful humanity left to itself. If it be said it was in the same circumstances, this is a question of fact, and to what extent? And here we have to guard against confounding relationships and circumstances. Thus deprivation of paradise is stated by Mr. N. as one thing which the blessed Lord had in common with ourselves. As to circumstances, it is quite clear it was so; but as to relationship to God — was Christ deprived of paradise as we are as guilty outcasts from it? Clearly not. And here let me remark on moral distance. Mr. N. says He could not be in moral distance (p. 11), for moral distance is hatred to God. Hence (p. 13), "The Lord Jesus never knew, and never could know, moral distance or distance of affection from God His Father:" and then speaks of the change of circumstances from paradise and his future glory. Now, all this is merely avoiding the real question. What was meant by moral distance was this, that by His own relation to God, because of others perhaps, but in which He Himself was, He had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, rising out of the region of man's distance from God, a distance inconceivable to us.

{*Did He hereby cease to be man? not at all. It is, though "according to God," in man and as man these thoughts and feelings are to be found. And this extends itself to all the sorrows and the pressure of death itself upon his soul in thought. He had human feelings as to what lay upon Him and before Him, but God was the spring of His estimate of it all. Besides, the manifestation of God was in His ways. We had known man innocent in suitable circumstances; and guilt, subject to misery; but in Christ we have perfectness in relation to God in every way, in infallibly maintained communion in the midst of all the circumstances of sorrow, temptation, and death, by which He was beset, the spring of divine life in the midst of evil, so that His every thought as man was perfection before God, and perfect in that position. This was what marked His state as being down here this new thing.}

{**Hunger, thirst, uneasiness, are not a kind of humanity, but a state of circumstances in which it is placed. That Christ came into these circumstances is undoubted. I have not different humanity when I am hungry and when I am full. But I am placed in a condition in which hunger and starvation may fall upon me if God so permits. Who will say if Adam had not had food he would not have been hungry? But God had not set him in that condition. Further, even as to death, there is much misapprehension. No creature is, in itself, in a state which cannot perish. That is the condition of existence of God alone, "who only hath immortality." If Adam was not mortal before he sinned, it was by God's continual sustaining power — we may say, by Christ's. By God's appointment, when man sinned, he passed out of that state of continually sustained existence, and was not to continue beyond a limited period in his actual condition of existence. This was not humanity, but man's state, as such, when Christ came. Now, Christ came expressly to die, and took all this sorrow in its full weight upon His soul; He was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death. But His doing this in obedience, "Lo I come to do thy will," to glorify God and manifest and accomplish His love, exalt His righteousness and be the suffering vessel of witness to the claims of this necessity, was infinitely acceptable to God, so that His relationship to God as being in flesh, and by being in it, was one of infinite acceptability to God. But, though He came on purpose to die, because of the ruined condition in which man was, to raise His people, and so was in a capacity of dying, as made lower than the angels, yet it was in such sort that it should be a matter of pure grace in Him to give up His life. He laid it down of Himself. He had authority to lay it down and authority to take it again, still in obedience. "This commandment have I received of my Father." That was the real condition of Christ's death. He came to die, but He came to give His life. He had life in Himself. The condition of His existence here was to lay down by grace, obediently, but of Himself, His life. He was not, as of God, in a condition of losing it. He was not in Adam's condition. For Adam could not lay down as Christ, or take again his life, nor had he life in himself. To speak of Him as liable to death, if something had happened, is mere irreverence — He was in a position of commanding His own death and life, but could do this, because of His perfection, only in obedience to His Father's will — it is nonsense; because in the supposition is denied the condition of His existence, which was to lay it down; and, as I have said, if Adam had so lived under violence, and been hewed in pieces, would He have survived as a living man? The answer was, That was not His condition of existence. When Christ gave Himself up to the appointed consequences of sin, He took the wrath and the consequences. He came with that purpose, so that it was always before Him. His relationship to God in this (yea, because of this) was of infinite acceptance; not only because He was eternal Son of God, the title of which He did not forego, as towards God, in assuming flesh, but was in His acceptance all through. But the position itself that He assumed was a cause of infinite acceptance, and in that He stood as man even in what He suffered. "Therefore doth my Father love me."}

150 Now, that is not mere circumstances. He felt, Mr. N. tells us, in His soul, according to truth, the present and future condition of ruined man. Now the circumstances of exclusion from paradise, hunger, thirst, uneasiness — in a word, the effects or results, death itself — are not inconceivable by us. The question is, not what were His affections, but in what light God regarded Him. What was His relation to God? And let me add here, this enquiry is only puzzled by talking about personal position and relative position. If by the former is meant merely His person, it does not touch the question. We all own the Father's delight in Him personally. If anything more is meant, relative position is a personal one. If I am a child, it is my personal position, and it is a relative one.

Further, then, if infirmities mean being in the circumstances of sorrow in which man was, and not screening Himself from them, no one, of course, questions it or the truest reality of it. As to death: if it be meant He was capable of dying, the fact is evident — He died, and that death was pressed upon His soul even before; if, that He was under the necessity of death in respect of His relationship to God, then it is false. And you cannot, in His person, separate the sustaining power of Godhead nor having life in Himself so as to make a necessity without His will in grace. He laid it down of Himself. "The Lord's own words seem purposely intended to set aside such a doctrine." I quote from Mr. N. when he had not yet lost the influence of truth, though he had introduced the worst of his errors: and further reasoning about it is vain. If Herod, we are told, had beheaded Him, He would have died. I see no reverence in this — He was not liable to it till He let Herod do it. Nor is it sense. What would have become of Adam, innocent, if he had been beheaded?

151 But scripture never uses the term that Christ was subject to infirmities. Nor is being in infirmities necessary to sympathy with those in them; but being out of them, though having a nature capable of apprehending in itself the suffering it brings into. The mother sympathizes with the babe in the pain she does not feel. Further, Christ is contrasted in His priestly sympathies with men having infirmity. The law makes men priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, the Son consecrated for evermore. (Hebrews 7: 28.) The high priest taken from among men had compassion, for that (while priest, note) he was compassed with infirmity. That was mere man's way of sympathy; for he had to offer for his own sins. Instead of this, Christ in the days of His flesh, when He was not a priest, cried to Him who was able to save Him from death, took the place of lowly, subject, sorrowful man, and received the weight of it in His soul, and then being made perfect acts as priest. It is not said that He was infirm like us, but in all points tempted like as we are: and that He suffered, being tempted, and therefore is able to succour them that are tempted.

Another important passage connected with this is in Matthew. Christ took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now how was this? "And he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet: saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." I do not doubt His whole soul entered into them in the whole sorrow and burden of them before God, in the full sense of what they were, so viewed, in order to set them aside and bar Satan's power as to them. But was He sick and infirm because Himself took our infirmities? Clearly not. In a word, it is not being Himself in the state with which He sympathizes which gives the sympathy.

152 This connects itself with another point Mr. N. charges on others, that is, saying that Christ took the nature of the regenerate. This seems to me nonsense. I have just the same nature now as to my body, as I had when unregenerate; though the Holy Ghost may have a title to my body, exercised in resurrection, in virtue of Christ's redemption. Christ partook of flesh and blood; that is what scripture states, and that is the whole matter. He was a true real man in flesh and blood. But there is a very important point connected with this which has been spoken of, and in which Mr. N.'s fearful error lies. It is this: according to Mr. N., when Christ did take flesh and blood, He was associated with man and Israel so as to be in their distance from God. That He was truly a man and an Israelite in true flesh and blood, born such, no one questions. But His associations in relationship with God were with the saints in Israel. They no doubt had the thoughts and feelings of an Israelitish saint; that is Israel's responsibility, failure, hopes and promises formed the basis, or structure, or character of their feelings as saints; but Christ's relationship was with them. And this is the distinctive character of the book of Psalms. It takes up Israelitish hopes, and circumstances and conditions, no doubt, but as held by the saints only; and excludes the ungodly as an adverse party. Now that was Christ's place. It was association with the holy remnant in their Israelitish condition. Their relationship to God was a holy relationship; and though they might go through every test and trial of the new nature and faith on which it was founded, and acknowledge all the failure and the sin under which they were suffering, the relationship was a holy one with God. Into that Christ enters;* and therefore, though He may enter into their sorrows and bear their guilt, He has no need to be in any other relationship to God than a holy one. In that He may feel the effects of another, just as a renewed soul, because it is near God and feels accordingly, feels its former state of sin and guilt; but it is not in it, save where guilt is not yet removed from the conscience, in which position of feeling clearly Christ was solely as a substitute. He is not associated with man's or Israel's distance (save as bearing sin), but with the children's relationship to God. Because the children partake of flesh and blood, He partook** of them. The taking flesh and blood is stated as the consequence of His relationship with the children. Let us quote the passages.

{*This was His relative position as regards even Israel. Any other would have been morally incompatible with His being and proper relationship to God. A saint may feel the guilt: into that Christ could enter, but He could not be in it in His relationship to God save vicariously.}

{**Mr. N.'s criticism on this is quite unfounded: παραπλησίως, if in any other than an entirely general sense, would have the contrary sense to that which he gives it. In scripture itself it is only used once more, "He was sick nigh unto death." (Phil. 2: 27.)}

153 "Both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified, are all of one."

"Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren."

"I and the children which God has given me." Compare Isaiah 8.

"I will put my trust in Him."

That is, the proof of His being in human nature is godly relationship in man.

It was not, then, that by taking flesh and blood He placed Himself in the distance of man; but that because He associated Himself with the children He partook of flesh and blood, and this is all that is said. The sanctifier and the sanctified being all of one, He was not ashamed to call them brethren. But His relationship was with the sanctified. His spirit entered into every sorrow, His soul passed through every distress, and He suffered under every temptation: but His relationship with God was never man's or Israel's as it then was, unless the cross be spoken of, because His was sinless, theirs sinful. It was His own. His relative position, that is, His relation to God, was according to what He was, whatever He might take upon Him or enter into in spirit, which included every sorrow and every difficulty felt, according to the full force of truth, and that before God.

This distinctive relationship with the remnant before God the Psalms specifically shew. The Spirit of Christ does not accept the position of Israel as it then stood: but distinguishes (see Psalm 1) the godly man as alone owned or approved of God, and Christ, born in the world, owned as Son, and decreed King in Zion in spite of adversaries. (Psalm 2.) He identifies Himself with the excellent on the earth. (Psalm 16.) God is good to Israel, even to them that are of a clean heart. He is God of Jacob, but a refuge to the remnant alone. With them Christ in spirit identifies Himself, and abhors the rest, looking for help — judicial help — against an ungodly nation.

154 The circumstances of His baptism were a remarkable illustration of this. Did the Lord take His place with the Pharisees and Scribes who were not baptized? Clearly not. When does He associate Himself with Israel? In the first movement of the answer of faith to the testimony of God: when the people went to be baptized, Jesus also went. Now that was the answer of grace to God's testimony in John, in the remnant in whose hearts He was acting — the first and lowest beginning of it; still it was the movement of the heart under God's grace, in answer to the testimony. It was really the gracious part of Israel: it was really the excellent, the godly remnant, with whom Christ identified Himself in their godliness. He was fulfilling righteousness.

I will notice (without entering largely into any refutation) what may guard the reader against trusting the arguments of this pamphlet. Page 4: "Seeing that it is admitted that in the case of the Lord there could be no imputation of Adam's sin, and yet that He did suffer under certain consequences of that sin because of voluntary association; . . . and that this voluntary association was reached by birth, as a means — it follows that there may be association attended by all these circumstances, and yet no imputation." Now, His suffering some of the consequences of Adam's sin could not, by reason of birth being the means, involve Him in all, unless birth placed Him absolutely by necessity under every possible consequence of sin in which the being a man by birth involved Him. That is the whole force of the argument from some to all, because it was by means of birth. I pray the reader to note this: it really involves the whole question.

Christ, according to Mr. N., was involved in all the consequences of Adam's sin by necessity of birth. And mark here, that "circumstances" is used as equivalent to "consequences." Then remark as to law and Israel. In the tracts the Sinai relationship to God is ascribed to the Lord: a worse state even than that at Sinai after worshipping the golden calf. Galatians 3: 10 is quoted as expressing the state of Israel under the law. What means "Israelites became amenable to the things I have mentioned because they were men, not because they were Israelites?" (Page 4.)

155 Further, it is stated that the law was based on foreseen redemption. "God was too holy to propose any grounds of life to a sinful people except through mediation and atoning blood." (Page 5.) This subverts every principle both of law and redemption. The blood of the old covenant dedicated and sealed its authority and power. It was not, as to the law, a type of foreseen redemption. Redemption was the basis of the new, this the seal of the old: and mark here the force of "foreseen redemption." Redemption set them on the ground of getting life by keeping the law! Is that redemption — or its value? The redemption too, mark, of Christ! Is it the old covenant or the new? Man was not treated as a sinful people when put to the test of the law, but a being under trial; and redemption is here wholly and absolutely out of place. The question was, Could righteousness be by law as a means of title to life? It was shewn it could not. God does not put man on his trial by redemption, but saves him because he has failed in it, which is just the opposite of law. This passage upsets every truth as to law, redemption, life, and the whole ground and truth of the gospel, and confounds the two covenants together, making the solemn sanction and seal of the old the cause, as the redemptive power, of the new. And think of Christ earning life by the law in virtue of His own redemption — of Himself, therefore! because people are redeemed, Mr. N. says, He enjoyed the fruits of the earth by virtue of it. Mark here the total ruin of all moral truth in this tract. This reasoning makes the temporal mercies which the raven enjoys the same thing as the terms of moral relationship to God. Supposing the circumstances of the world as to creation, through which Christ passed, were founded in mercy on His work, does that shew the ground of His own personal moral relation to God — His standing and way of life before God? Does the food of a sparrow and the relationship of Christ to God, as to having life, depend on the same efficacy of redemption? In this again you see how circumstances are equivalent to our whole standing before God. Is it not a doctrine which ought to astound and revolt everyone as an inconceivable perversion, that Christ was set to earn* life under the law, in virtue of His own foreseen redemption? And I pray the reader to recollect, that redemption applies to persons.

{*Mr. N. says, this expression is applied to Christ by one of the principal objectors to the doctrine, in a paper in the "Words of Truth;" but, as usual, omits saying where. What may be in the "Words of Truth" I know not, for I have not read them; but be it where it may, it is a horrible and inexcusable statement. Mr. N. says it may be in a good meaning. It cannot possibly be so; because Christ, having life in Himself, could never be said to earn it, though what He did may have been such as merited it; but to speak of His earning life upsets His person in a way which no one who knows that person ought to pass as allowable. Mr. N., however, does not tell us where in the "Words of Truth;" and the reader had better reserve his judgment till he finds the passage.}

156 Law added another trial to man — man found it to be unto death. That Christ could not do, because He had life and was holy, and, being born under it, did love God with all His heart; and surely we can say, His neighbour more than Himself. Redemption as an effectual thing comes in when sin and transgression too have made all else unavailable to man. Law as a means of life, founded on the redemption wrought by Christ, is a thing unknown to the New Testament. The sentence I have quoted, "God was too holy to propose any grounds of life to a sinful people except through mediation and atoning blood," subverts every part of the apostle's reasoning,* and confounds law and grace, responsibility and gospel, in hopeless confusion; and the putting Christ under it is that reckless irreverence for Christ which is as painful in these papers as the false doctrine itself, and even more so.

{*No one can be familiar with St. Paul's Epistles but must see that all his reasonings on the nature and dispensation of law, as contrasted with redemption, are absolutely incompatible with this monstrous statement.}

"The law was in this adverse to imputation." If so, the redemption was not needed to put them under it. If redemption had taken imputation away, then it was not in question in the law.

But if (p. 6) "every individual was placed . . . upon his own basis" by the law, on a principle that "superseded . . . the effects of imputation," so that God promised to recognize the individual condition of each Israelite, according to that which it actually was, how was it "quite open to Him to punish the nation, and to cause righteous individuals to share in the calamities which fell upon those with whom they were nationally associated"? That in grace and by the Spirit they should enter into it, that I understand. So Christ did. But that it should be quite open to God to do the contrary of what He promised, I do not understand. Further, though the law was not a principle of federal imputation, the terms on which Israel were with God were so as regards the government of the nation to the third and fourth generation. He could not forget the innocent blood shed by Manasseh for all the piety of Josiah.

157 And here I will remark on the objections referred to. Some "have implied that the Son took not the nature of man, but the nature of the brethren." (p. 9.) What is the difference? I always thought we had the nature of man till now; and what is more, that I had it after regeneration as well as before. I was a man, and I am a man, I should think. Mr. N. adds "meaning apparently the new nature of the regenerate." What has that to do with their humanity? Besides, it is nonsense. Christ was the spring and source of that; He could not take it. I have already shewn that it was the relationship and position of the children and brethren he did take, and that the contrary is the form of Mr. N.'s error. I ask only where have they used this language? As to this, as in every other case, we are left in the dark. Christ's humanity was not superhuman; but it was humanity in superhuman association.

In page 27 Mr. N. says, "It has also been said, that the tracts teach, that it was necessary for the Lord Jesus to extricate Himself from its circumstances, before He was fit to be the Lamb slain. But the tracts teach no such thing."

Again, where has it been said?

Mr. N. then admits, they state that "He was able to extricate Himself." Now Mr. N.'s paper in the "Christian Witness" declares He rose out of the region (not He was able to do so) by His own inherent holiness. The tracts say, He was able, and proved He could; and that He did change from Sinai condition (the state in question) to Zion condition, and that He had to find His way by obedience to a point where God could meet Him; so that the tracts do distinctly teach it in the worst way. I must leave everyone to judge of pleading the word "able to do it, and proving He could" along with the other passages, to shew that it was not said He did.

Further, the tracts, it is said, did not teach He had to do so "before He was fit to be the Lamb slain." Where has it been said they did? The notes published by Mr. Harris teach that He had to go through the suffering process, in order to be fit to be a sacrifice. Mr. N. printed corrections of this, by which the reader was to know what he did, and did not hold, of these notes; and he corrected the word "Lamb," changing it into "the One" made perfect; but did not correct, "in order to be a sacrifice," which was the whole point. That was left untouched by his corrections. And he is very precise in the correction and source of the error (see "Observations," p. 6); only the real weighty point is passed over with an "&c."

158 Page 29. — "It has been said that the doctrine of sin imputed to the Lord Jesus, under the federal headship of Adam, is taught in these tracts." Where has it been said? Mr. Newton did teach it, and was obliged to retract it, and published the tracts as the careful clearing of the doctrines; and he was charged with holding horrible error still, and extracts given to prove it. The words "federal headship" were withdrawn, and his evil doctrine set on what was considered safe ground.

Everyone owns there was relation to Adam; but does not r own, that it was such that He had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, because He realized a place, Adam's place, of distance from God inconceivable to us, and Israel's when worse than the golden calf, as His own relation because of Israel, not vicariously.

Page 37. — "Experiences proper to the unconverted." Mr. N. does not merely speak of Israel; he declares that Jesus had "the exercises of soul which His elect in their unconverted state ought to have, and which they would have, if it were possible for them to know and feel every thing rightly according to God." ("Observations," p. 26.) Now whatever nonsense this may be (for it is a contradiction in terms, because, if they had such, they would not be unconverted), yet, taking it as it is, what feelings does it give to Jesus? What ought an unconverted man to think of himself, if he thought rightly according to God? Only think of applying this to Jesus, and excusing it! As to the Psalms, the note is inconsistent enough. Christ, according to it, had (only they were perfect) the experiences of the stricken remnant of the unconverted elect. But then we are told that to place in His mouth the Psalms which expressed it, as if they were His experience (which Mr. N. does), is most serious error. Now I say the Psalms in general express the feelings of the godly remnant, into which Christ in spirit enters and gives a perfect expression to. Mr. N. has not told us where these, and some other imaginary objections, are any of them to be found. It would have been better to have referred to and answered the plain printed statements, which everybody could have verified. These are all passed over.

Page 19. — "How, then, could such sufferings unfit Him for His last great act of atonement?" It was not the sufferings, but the position and relationship to God in which Mr. N. placed the blessed Lord, which would have unfitted Him. This "relative position" cannot be imputed; that, as we have seen, is the question.

159 Page 27. — "He proved He was suffering because of relative position on the cross." But there He suffered instead of others, to whom it was due. In life it was not instead of others. To what was it due?

Page 28, 29. — The tracts do distinctly state that He emerged from the circumstances by changing His dispensational relationship to God, as Israel did at John's baptism.

As to federal imputation and the law being adverse to it, and Christ not being under it, Mr. N.'s corrected statement is ("Observations," p. 7), "They state that He was obnoxious, that is, exposed to the inflictions which, in consequence of the curse of the broken law, had gone forth against Israel."

He had not quoted Galatians 3: 13, referred to in the tract ("Observations," p. 7): that he can safely deny; but he had quoted Galatians 3: 10, as may be easily seen. ("Remarks," p. 5.) They "had earned by their disobedience the fearful inflictions of God's broken law; for it had been said, 'Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them,' Galatians 3: 10." With this it was that Jesus associated Himself. It was His relation because of Israel. In the "Observations" the remark on this is, "Who would deny that Elijah was obnoxious to, and that Elijah suffered under, the drought and the famine?" &c. (Page 7.) And let the reader remember that it is stated in the "Letter," that suffering under certain results of Adam's sin, inasmuch as it was by birth, may be attended by all the consequences of that sin.

The reader may also remark (p. 36) the way in which while Christ is made like all in physical suffering, in moral experience He is said to be peculiar and not like us. Where was the sympathy with us then?

I do not enlarge further on the note (p. 37), but only remark, before they are received and acknowledged by the Lord as His; before, therefore, they convert." Now they cannot before they are received. This is merely the root of all this grievous error, and connects Mr. N.'s prophetic system inseparably with his horrible views as to Christ; because he makes the sympathies, associations, and experiences of the Lord to be those of the unconverted Jews, His prophetic system requiring Him to treat them as such; and if He does, the book of Psalms obliges him to put Jesus in that position and relationship to God. But all this is unsound. If this note be well weighed, the real bearing of the whole will be found out, though the contradictions, as in all error, are without end. Let him weigh this word (p. 38), "whatsoever shall be according to truth in their view must be included in the perfect view of the Lord Jesus." Because the whole statement rests on this, that, though He felt perfectly rightly, and they imperfectly, they were in the same relationship as giving rise to the feelings. Hence Mr. N. thinks it dreadful, and accuses his opponents as putting the Lord Jesus in the same condition as that of the stricken remnant of Israel. On his ground of identification with the unconverted it would be so. But why stricken remnant? Israel was stricken. But with the converted remnant Jesus had blessed sympathy. Instead of that, what does Mr. N. give us in the Psalms? The Holy Ghost consecrating the self-righteous ungodly feelings of an unconverted remnant, and inspiring men to utter them, and then giving Christ's own experiences which were not these, and in which He had sympathy with nobody at all. And yet so truly identified was He with this unconverted elect remnant in His relationship with God, that He had (though they had not) the experiences which such an unconverted elect man ought to have. They were His feelings of sorrow in the place, as Himself there. And that is the book of Psalms.

160 So in page 40: "He was an Israelite; but . . . distinct, separate, alone, and ever . . . so regarded by God," and "exercised according to truth." "But no one . . . could suppose that I meant by this, that He felt as a mere Israelite, or as other Israelites did. It was not sympathy nor entering into their feelings. It was the expression of His own; and according to the truth of the place He was in, His own relation to God. But in truth it needs no reasoning: 'Because of thine indignation and thy wrath,' are plain and unambiguous words; and if we could not comprehend the reason for such a relation of God to His holy and perfect servant, it would be our place to submit our understandings and bow." "Observations;" and see page 20, 21. See also "Observations," page 15, where, after quoting Galatians 3: 10, and "law worketh wrath," &c., it is formally stated, that, under a covenant of law, "they were brought under curse;" and that Jesus was "one of a nation that was exposed to all the terrors of Sinai." See too "Observations," page 29. "Still," says the Letter, "the aspect, and the expressed aspect, of God's mind towards . . . Israel was one of love."

161 I pass over many other points, only remarking on the words, "taking upon Himself the necessity of dying." He did take that; but that is not being by necessity under death. No two things can be more different and opposite. Had He been by necessity under death, He could not have taken upon Himself the necessity of dying.

Addition to Observations on a tract entitled "Remarks on the Sufferings of the Lord Jesus."

J. N. Darby.

<15008E> 162

These remarks were added to the second edition of the author's tract ("Observations," &c.) and are inserted here, as the reprint was from the first. — Ed.

In closing, I desire too the reader to ponder seriously the way this affects the person and divine nature of our Lord. Was God manifest in the flesh, "as man," born subject to wrath; under the guilt of Adam, and hence, liable to damnation; associated with man in the flesh, at a distance where God could not meet Him? The writer says, He was. He adds, that as a Son, He was always in the bosom of the Father. But if He were in the bosom of the Father, as Son, and born under wrath, as man — not vicariously — where is the unity of His person? Some one will say, What do you say then to the cross? I reply, His whole person and work were always, and then, as to His work, above all, infinitely acceptable to God. He had to suffer in His soul the wrath and bitterness; the doing of which was an additional title to the love of God His Father. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life." His soul had to drink the whole cup of wrath: He was infinitely acceptable, and so was His work. Its vicariousness makes all the difference. But how could God's manifestation in the flesh associate Him in the mystery of His birth as man, with man's distance from God? I have treated, mainly, the positive statements of the tract, compared with scripture, but it is well to compare its statements with the scripture doctrine of the divine person of Christ — God incarnate.

Another tract — "Observations," on that published by Mr. Harris — has been put forth by Mr. N. It clearly confirms the doctrine taught already, while expatiating on other points. Christ is said to have had all the feelings which God's unconverted elect ought to have had! Now, incredible nonsense as this is, it is clear that the only meaning it can have is that Christ ought to have felt Himself deserving of damnation. Further, though concealing it to the inattentive reader by quoting only half the sentence, he has confirmed the very worst passage in the notes, and the whole poison of the doctrine, in the fullest way. He says, the passage, "Lamb made perfect through suffering," ought to be "one made perfect through suffering." But he does not quote the rest of the phrase, which is this, "in order to be a sacrifice." So that Christ was the One made 'perfect' through suffering, in order to be a sacrifice. I do not insist on the entire perversion of scripture, where 'perfect' refers to His present state. But it is clear that the doctrine is, that He was not perfect for sacrifice till after going through the process. How could He be, if exposed to wrath? if born in such a condition that He had to extricate Himself out of it, and work His way up to life, to a point where God could meet Him?

163 And note, the writer declares that by these corrections given in the "Observations," we are to know what he does own, and what he does not, in the notes published by Mr. Harris

The Bethesda Circular

J. N. Darby.

<15009E> 164

Beloved brethren,

I feel bound to present to you the case of Bethesda. It involves to my mind the whole question of association with brethren, and for this very simple reason, that if there is incapacity to keep out that which has been recognized as the work and power of Satan, and to guard the beloved sheep of Christ against it — if brethren are incapable of this service to Christ, then they ought not to be in any way owned as a body to whom such service is confided: their gatherings would be really a trap laid to ensnare the sheep. But I will not suppose this, my heart would not; nor will I suppose that the influence or reputation of individuals will induce them to do in one case what they would not do in another. I press therefore the position of Bethesda on brethren. It is at this moment acting in the fullest and most decided way as the supporter of Mr. Newton, and the evil associated with him, and in the way in which the enemy of souls most desires it should be done. The object of Mr. Newton and his friends is not now openly to propagate his doctrine in the offensive form in which it has roused the resistance of every godly conscience that cared for the glory and person of the blessed Lord, but to palliate and extenuate the evil of the doctrine, and get a footing as Christians for those who hold it, so as to be able to spread it and put sincere souls off their guard. In this way precisely Bethesda is helping them in the most effectual way they can: I shall now state how. They have received the members of Ebrington Street with a positive refusal to investigate the Plymouth errors. And at this moment the most active agents of Mr. Newton are assiduously occupied amongst the members of Bethesda, in denying that Mr. Newton holds errors, and explaining and palliating his doctrines, and removing any apprehension of them from the minds of saints, and successfully occupied in it. Mr. Müller has declared openly that Mr. James Harris was doing a work of darkness, the steps he took in exposing Mr. Newton's error, though he had not given himself the trouble to enquire, from those acquainted with them, the circumstances under which it took place. Mr. Müller stated to the saints that Mr. Newton had retracted publicly before God and the world, with the fullest confession, the error he had held; which every one acquainted with the facts knows to be as contrary to those facts as any statement can possibly be. And I must add that Mr. Müller, in justifying Mr. Newton in this way, without informing himself by either studying the tracts or reading the answer to, or enquiring of those who were dissatisfied with, Mr. Newton's retractation, was evidently acting with the utmost prejudice, and misleading the saints by it. It is remarkable to shew the practical working of it that as Mr. Muller was stating this in the assembly, a member of it present said to one sitting by them, That is not so, for Mr. Newton was diligently persuading me of the truth of his doctrine, as I was sitting by his side at tea the other evening.

165 A paper was read, signed by Messrs. Craik and Müller, and eight others, to the body at Bethesda, in which they diligently extenuate and palliate Mr. Newton's doctrine, though refusing investigation of it, and blame as far as they can those who have opposed it. I do not charge Mr. Müller with himself holding Mr. Newton's errors. He was pressed to say in public what he had said in private of Mr. Newton's tracts, and at first refused. Afterwards he declared that he had said there were very bad errors, and that he did not know to what they would lead. Upon what grounds persons holding them are admitted and the errors refused to be investigated, if such be his judgment, I must leave every one to determine for themselves. I only ask, Is it faithfulness to Christ's sheep? Further, while it is true that Mr. Craik may be by no means prepared to assert that Mr. Newton's doctrines are an according to the truth of God, and that I have no reason to say that he is not sound in the faith, yet it is certain that he is so far favourably disposed to Mr. Newton's views, and in some points a partaker of them, as to render it impossible that he could guard with any energy against them. The result is, that members of Ebrington Street, active and unceasing agents of Mr. Newton, holding and justifying his views, are received at Bethesda; and the system which so many of us have known as denying the glory of the Lord Jesus (and that, when fully stated, in the most offensive way) and corrupting the moral rectitude of every one that fell under its power — that this system, though not professed, is fully admitted and at work at Bethesda. This has taken place in spite of its driving out a considerable number of undeniably godly brethren, whose urgent remonstrance was slighted; in spite of the known confessions of the brethren once involved and teachers of Mr. Newton's doctrine, and now through the Lord's mercy delivered from it; in spite of the strong and urgent statements of Mr. Chapman, of Barnstaple, who above all enjoyed the confidence of the brethren at Bethesda; and in spite of all that has passed in the way of discovery of moral dishonesty connected with it. I had nothing whatever to say to the original movement of the brethren who objected at Bristol, and was long wholly ignorant of it, but having stated to Mr. Müller that I should gladly go to Bethesda, I was, on learning the facts, obliged to write and say I could not. This led to a correspondence, and at last to my seeing the brethren, Müller and Craik, so that all this has been, as far as I am concerned, fully before them. There has a great deal taken place and passed very painful and unsatisfactory; but I go on the broad ground of faithfulness to the whole church of God, and each individual sheep beloved of Christ, that (as far as we are concerned) they may be guarded against what so many of us know to be horribly subversive of His glory, and all moral rectitude in His saints. Now, beloved brethren, I see in scripture that one effect of faith is (whatever difficulties it may produce, or however it may seem to obstruct the removal of them, thereby forcing us to wait on God) to make us respect what God respects; I do not therefore desire in the smallest degree to diminish the respect and value which any may feel personally for the brethren Craik and Müller, on the grounds of that in which they have honoured God by faith. Let this be maintained as I desire to maintain it, and have maintained in my intercourse with them; but I do call upon brethren by their faithfulness to Christ, and love to the souls of those dear to Him in faithfulness, to set a barrier against this evil. Woe be to them if they love the brethren Müller and Craik or their own ease more than the souls of saints dear to Christ! And I plainly urge upon them that to receive anyone from Bethesda (unless in any exceptional case of ignorance of what has passed) is opening the door now to the infection of the abominable evil from which at so much painful cost we have been delivered. It has been formally and deliberately admitted at Bethesda under the plea of not investigating it (itself a principle which refuses to watch against roots of bitterness), and really palliated. And if this be admitted by receiving persons from Bethesda, those doing so are morally identified with the evil, for the body so acting is corporately responsible for the evil they admit. If brethren think they can admit those who subvert the person and glory of Christ, and principles which have led to so much untruth and dishonesty, it is well they should say so, that those who cannot may know what to do. I only lay the matter before the consciences of brethren, urging it upon them by their fidelity to Christ. And I am clear in my conscience towards them. For my own part I should neither go to Bethesda in its present state, nor while in that state go where persons from it were knowingly admitted. I do not wish to reason on it here, but lay it before brethren, and press it on their fidelity to Christ and their care of His beloved saints.

Ever yours in His grace, J.N.D.

167 P. S. While I go upon and press the plain broad ground of the bounden duty of guarding the sheep of Christ from the secret bringing in of that which horribly denies His glory and corrupts and demoralizes His saints, I ask if it is not a monstrous thing that the brethren at Bethesda, on the ground of refusing to investigate, should force hundreds of brethren and numerous gatherings of them, to receive those from whom they have separated after the most painful and trying enquiry, as holding doctrines subversive of Christ, and guilty of conduct unrepented of, and which Christians could not associate with? And they have gone farther than not investigating it — they have allowed the most elaborate eulogies of Mr. Newton before the assembly, and refused permission to touch upon the doctrine or shew its evil.

The Christ of God, the true centre of union.

J. N. Darby.

<15010E> 168

The cross may gather all, both Jew and Gentile; but they are gathered to Christ, not to the cross; and the difference is a most important and essential one, because it is of all importance that the person of the Son of God should have its place. Christ Himself, not the cross of Christ, is the centre of union. The two or three are gathered to His name, not to the cross. Scripture is uniform in its testimony as to this.

But further, where saints are gathered in unity, without any questionings, they have the truth and holiness to guard. It never was, nor I trust ever will be, the notion of brethren, that the truth of Christ's person, or godliness of walk, was to be sacrificed to outward unity. It is making brethren of more importance than Christ. And even so, love to the brethren is false; for if true, it is, John assures us, "love in the truth, for the truth's sake." Supposing a person denied the divinity of Christ, or the resurrection of His body, still declaring his belief in the cross — supposing he declared his belief in the cross and resurrection, but declared it was only a testimony of God's love, and no substitution or expiatory value in it, as many clergymen of high reputation now do — is all this to be immaterial? I shall be told that no true believer could do this. In the first place, a true believer may be seduced into error; and further, the test offered becomes thus the opinion formed that a man is a true believer, and not the plain fundamental truth of God and His holiness.

If it be granted that the gathering is round the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is quite true; but what person? Would it be equal if He were owned to be God, or if it were denied? If He were the Son, the object of the Father's delight at all times, or if He were a man or really risen from the dead? If it be said, All this is supposed, then neutrality is a delusion and denies itself. For what I insist on is, that I must have a true Christ, and that I am bound to maintain the truth of Christ in my communion. I am aware that it is stated we can deal with conduct (with morality), but not with these questions. But this is just what appears to me so excessively evil. Decency of conduct is necessary to communion; but a man may blaspheme Christ — that is no matter: it is a matter, not of conduct, but of conscience. It is hinted, that perhaps, if it be a teacher, he may be dealt with. In truth, the apostle desires even a woman not to let such a person into her house. It is not therefore so difficult to deal with. Just think of a system which makes blasphemous views of Christ, which may amount to a denial of Him, to be a matter of private conscience, having nothing to do with communion! And here is the very root of the question.

169 I affirm that that is not a communion of believers at all which is not founded on the acknowledgment of a true Christ. Where the truth as to this is commonly held and taught, I may have no need for particular enquiry. But that is not the case here. If I find a person even in such a case denying the truth as to Christ, communion is impossible, because we have not a common Christ to have communion in. But here all faithfulness is thrown overboard. No call to confess a true Christ is admitted: it is a new test or term of communion!

We are to meet as Christians; but a man is not a Christian in profession who professes a false Christ. I cannot judge the state of a person's heart while his profession is false. I may hope he is only misled, but cannot accept his profession. If wholly or not willingly ignorant, it is another matter: but we have to do with the case where, heretical views being held, they are declared to be matter of private conscience; that a false Christ is as good as a true one, if a person's conduct is good — we can judge only of the last! Now this principle is worse than false doctrine; because it knows the falseness and blasphemy of it, and then says it is no matter. I do not own such meetings as meetings of believers; for fundamental error as to Christ is immaterial for communion — a matter, not of conduct, but of conscience.

"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Suppose a person held Christ was a mere man, and quoted the passages to prove it that God raised Him, and made Him Lord and Christ, would he be received? If not, you do try whether a man has the faith of God's elect: otherwise a Socinian is admissible as a believer; or you make your opinion of his being a believer the test, entirely independent of the faith of Christ. It is said, You can only require a person to say he receives all in the scriptures. The supposed Socinian would accept such a test at once. They do so. Why should you ask even that? A man may be a believer, and a rationalist in theory (sad as such a thought is), and not accept all the word of God, and say, I am a believer in the cross: you have no right to make a difficulty. If after this you object to any doctrine, or insist on any truth, you have not even scripture to lean on against his denial of it. Scripture says "whom I love in the truth," and "for the truth's sake." The other principle says, That is no matter. You think the person spiritual, a believer; the truth of Christ is no matter — a false one is just as good.

170 I add no human document to the divine; I make no term of communion besides Christ. God requires that those who have blasphemed Christ should not be admitted. I am told that it is a matter of conscience, &c., and people cannot read doctrines to know whether He is blasphemed or not. These blasphemers have been received deliberately and avowedly, upon the ground that no enquiry is to be made; and therefore the plea of additional bonds or terms of communion is all dust thrown in the eyes. Is it a new term of communion to affirm that faith, faith in a true Christ (not a false one), is required for communion, and that blasphemers of Christ are not to be received? That is the true question. If persons think they are not safe in reading the publications, how are they safe in fellowship and intimacy with those who have written or refuse to disown them? I confess I do not admire this argument. Simple believers do not hesitate, reasoning minds do. Ask a true-hearted believer if Christ had the experience of an unconverted man? He would soon say, I will have nothing to do with one who says that. A reasoning mind might make it a mere matter of personal conscience. Is the truth of Christ's person and of His relationship to God a variety of judgment on a particular doctrine? Here is the whole question — value for Christ, and the truth as to Himself.

Definitions are not required, but that when blasphemous definitions have been made, the blasphemers should be refused. Is it the Shibboleth of a party to reject such doctrines, as that Christ was relatively farther from God than man when they made the golden calf; and that He heard with an attentive heart the gospel from John Baptist, and so passed from law under grace? Or is it faithfulness to Christ to extenuate them by saying, that in such deep doctrines we shall not express ourselves alike?

It is not real love to the members, nor love for Christ's sake, to despise Christ so as to bear blasphemies against Him. The truth of His person and glory is a test for those who are faithful to Him. I cannot talk of liberty of conscience to blaspheme Christ, or have communion with it. Christ, not opinion, is the centre of union; but I never meant, nor do I mean, that a true Christ and a false one were equally good as a centre, provided people are amiable one with another; for this means that union is man's amiability and the denial of Christ. What do I want of union, if it be not union in Christ, according to the power of life, through the Holy Ghost?

171 The business of those united is Christ's glory. If Christians ever unite on a condition of that not being essential, their union is not christian union at all. I have no reason for union but Christ, the living Saviour. I do not want any union but that which makes Him the centre, and the all and the hope of it. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren;" but to make this a plea for indifference to Christ's personal glory, in order to be one with him who, calling himself a brother, denies and undermines it, is, in my mind, wickedness.

J.N.D.

Letter to the Rev. Mr. Guers on the subject of his note on the errors of Mr. B. W. Newton.

J. N. Darby.

<15011E> 172

Vevey, printed by E. Buvelot, 1853.

I have just read the note inserted in "Irvingism and Mormonism," page 120:-

"Mr. Benjamin Newton combated the Irvingite error in England; but in combating, he was unhappy enough perhaps to yield to it a little in expression more than fundamentally. He owned it afterwards and even humbled himself for it in a paper which he entitled: 'A Statement and Acknowledgment respecting certain doctrinal errors.' In this document, dated November 26, 1847, he declares that what drew him into the error was a false view of Romans 5, but that a deeper study of this passage was afterwards used to rectify his misapprehension. He understood and taught from that time that, Jesus not being in a federal relation (in a relation of alliance) with Adam, Romans 5: was not at all applicable to Him; that the sin of our first father could not be imputed to Him, and that if the Lord participated in certain consequences of the fall, such as hunger, thirst, pain, death, it is that, having voluntarily taken human nature in the womb of the woman, He had personally associated Himself with a race condemned of God. Such is the idea that Mr. Benjamin Newton develops at length in the above-mentioned paper. (Some persons none the less persist in attributing to him until this day an error which he publicly disavowed already five years ago.)"

Your animosity must have been very great, my brother, against "some persons," to engage yourself, in the desire of blaming them, in becoming guarantee for the orthodoxy of Mr. Newton, and in compromising your own by making yourself thus at one with his views on the point to which you allude. The displeasure with which you regard those brethren has made you bold, even, it seems to me, a little rash. There is hardly any longer a person in England who justifies the doctrine of Mr. Newton. Those who take pleasure as much as you in blaming "some persons" do so while declaring that they are much more faithful than themselves in rejecting the errors of Mr. Newton and in abstaining from all fellowship with him. There is a long time that he hides his doctrine; it is even said (may God grant that it may be so!) that he begins to own that he has been in error. There remains to him only a little surrounding of personal friends, and a great number who would hail with joy and thanksgiving his return to the truth by the grace of the Holy Spirit! For my part, much as I have loved him, spite of faults, and who never knew, as a man, how to suppress an old affection (you ought to be a witness of it, my brother), for me, his restoration would be a subject of profound joy.

173 But where it is a question of souls and of Christ, there are other considerations than the pains of an affection shut up in the heart, the circumstances of which render the expression impossible. The truth by which souls live, the Christ that they are called to adore, are of more importance than personal affection. Yet, my brother, if you had preserved more in your heart those affections, you would have said, Ought I to condemn, designating them as "some persons," brethren without hearing them? You might have had useful references on this subject; you should not have despised the help that more complete information would have afforded you. You have not read, I hope, all that has been published on this subject. I will not believe that you could have sought to justify, as you do as much as you can, the doctrine of Mr. Newton, apart from a mistake frankly owned on his part on the subject of Romans 5: 19, if you had known what was taught on this point for some years and what was published to justify and explain his views. But if you have not read it, you have pretended to judge the merits of a serious controversy with regard to the person of Jesus without even taking knowledge of what he whom you justify has written on it, or of what has been said in reply to him.

You might have had the confessions of the three associates of Mr. Newton in the dissemination of this doctrine for a very long time — of Christians who have been brought with grief and pain of heart to own that, seduced by Mr. Newton, they had taught errors which overthrew Christianity. You might have known that these friends of Mr. Newton and others who had had their eyes opened had said that he should retract, not his application of Romans 5: 19, but the groundwork of these doctrines; and that he had formally and positively refused it. You might have possessed the notes of his teaching carefully circulated by his disciples wherever this could be done with assurance — disciples who, having been brought out of the error, communicated those pieces to others, for the purpose of warning Christians and putting them on their guard. You might have had the publications of Mr. Newton himself.

174 I am about to give you, my brother, some quotations from these writings. First, I will translate some extracts from notes of teachings spread by his disciples and received by these persons as the truths that he has taught; and afterwards some extracts of tracts by Mr. Newton himself — tracts that he published, when he was accused of teaching errors, for explaining and justifying himself. In the first we shall find the doctrines of Mr. Newton such as they are in fact disseminated; in the second we shall possess his views, such as he published them when he wished to set himself right with Christians on this point.

With regard to the first extracts, we have them confirmed at bottom by the fellow-labourers of Mr. Newton as being their doctrine; and one of them has said that there were things more evil still.

As to those that come in the second place, Mr. Newton himself — is responsible for them. At the same time it will be well to add some details with regard to those two tracts. Mr. Newton withdrew them for the purpose of considering them anew. He never retracted their doctrine: quite the contrary, he published a third tract, in which he declares the principles of the two first justified, though he might have removed some ambiguity in certain expressions or modified them. However Mr. Newton does not flinch from explaining or defending the most minute statements of the tracts. He declares that the great truths which relate to the person and to the expiatory work of the Lord Jesus are preserved intact in these tracts.

I will present you now with the extracts: first, extracts from notes of the teachings of Mr. Newton. They are taken from "Observations on the Doctrines of Notes of Lectures on Psalms 23, 31, 38, concerning the sufferings of Christ, &c., by J. G. Deck." "He had continually to be exercised as one put in the distance and cast off, sorely tried by Satan. The result depended upon His own exertions, for redemption was not yet accomplished. He had to cry for everything He had to receive — for things that came to Him from God in consequence of His conduct in them. Ours is a very different condition; to us all blessings come in virtue of Him, but every blessing He received was made to depend upon Himself; and without His faithfulness His blessing would not have come — so entirely was His place that of a man finding His way from the distance back to God; for nearness to God was not given to Him as it is to us now. He stood merely on His righteousness, receiving the reward of His integrity. He had to wait and cry for it, so that there was an exercise of spirit that cannot be in us. He had to find His way from this distance to God; but we are born into the place in which Jesus now is, and from whence He pours out blessings to us. Accordingly, in Psalm 119 (which gives the earliest of His experience, during all the time of His growing up, until He came out in His public character), He was waiting on God for His shepherd care. 'Unless thy law had been my delights, I should have perished in my affliction.' His place was that of one who desired the shepherd care, as of a lamb distant from the fold, perishing for want of care. He was made to wait for it; the answer to His cry was not immediate, to be reminded as it were of the place in which He had cast His lot, in becoming connected with the family of Israel, on whom the curse had fallen. To such a man there could be no acknowledged claim, but it became a mercy that He should be allowed to find out a way by which He could please God." (On Psalm 23, p. 12.)

175 "Hear Him saying, 'My soul cleaveth to the dust.' The soul naturally could never rise higher."

"The baptism of John was the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins past; that afforded an opportunity for Israel to be forgiven, and a new account opened, so as for fresh ground to be taken, so that any who repented of the sins of Israel might have all past sins blotted out; that is the way that many preach the Gospel, as though it were only the remission of past sins, not present or future: That was John's baptism: and if any person in Israel were able to take and maintain new ground; to get rid of past sins, and keep himself clear of future ones; it would have been of great advantage to him. Until that time Jesus had been under the weight of all the sins of Israel, and because He belonged to that nation. He could never have taken new ground, except that it could have been said that past sins might be forgiven; but He did take and maintain it afterwards, so it was of great use to Him. The baptism of John afforded means by which Jesus was able to take new ground on the earth."

I lay aside many other things.

On Psalm 38: "He was not allowed to suffer only once, or for a few years at the end of His course, but through the greater part of His sojourn here, He was exposed to suffering as described in this psalm, much more I believe than after. This psalm belongs to the period in the history of our Lord, when He was living in retirement, before He came publicly forth to serve: the requirements and interests of His service were, I doubt not, a relief to Him after having gone through many a long year's experience, such as this psalm contains. 'There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head, . . . I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly. I go mourning all the day long.' All these things He was made to pass through before He became like the ground flour, or like the ear of corn roasted before the fire: that made Him fit to be owned, as He was when the Holy Ghost descended from heaven, a voice was heard from thence, which said, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

176 "But the exercises of the soul of Jesus were of a most peculiar character, for He was always allowed to meet them in His weakness, and to find wrath in them: there was ever upon Him and against Him the wrathful countenance of God, and He was allowed to meet the sense of this; strong in His own integrity, but in the weakness of humanity, always able to say to God, 'In innocency I have washed my hands. I follow the thing that good is.' This was His struggle," &c.

"In such circumstances there are two things we would naturally desire — to find support and consolation in those whom we desire to love for the Lord's sake; to find comfort and solace from them; and moreover, we should find much consolation by being helped and distinctly sustained by God Himself: then we may say, if I am sustained by the comfort of those dear to me, and if more than all the Lord sustains me, I do not much mind opposition; I will leave it in the hands of the Lord; but if instead of this it pleased God to confront us with His terrors as He did Jesus with His wrath, how different would it be! He placed Himself against the Lord Jesus, rebuked Him in His wrath, and chastened Him in hot displeasure, so that His arrows stuck fast in Him, and His hand pressed Him sore. 'There is no soundness in my flesh,' He says, 'because of thine anger,' &c. So here we find indeed a peculiar relation of God to Him; here was affliction and disease sent to Him, so that His beauty was made to consume away like a moth; and that under the chastisement and rebuke of God. Whenever suffering comes it is painful, but if as rebuke and chastisement from God to whom we were looking for help, it is bitter indeed: this was the case with the Lord Jesus, not because of any iniquity or sin in Himself, but because He had identified Himself with others, connected Himself with humanity in a fallen world, and God was against it: and more than that, He had become identified not only with man but with Israel, the chosen part of mankind, blessed with instruction and light which they had sinned against and despised, so heavy wrath from God had gone out against them. Jesus became connected both with man and Israel, and their sins and iniquities were like a garment put upon Him: so all the rebukes of God against the world and Israel were as arrows made to enter into His soul! this was the reason why God set His face against Him. He had connected Himself with others; and if the cup of bitterness belonged to them, He must share it with them. This was the real and true experience of the Lord Jesus; and it became manifest to the eyes of all around, so that lover and friend forsook Him. They did not understand why He who once increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man, should be brought to a condition from which men would naturally shrink. Therefore every tongue moved against Him, they reviled, mocked, and despised Him, but He 'as a deaf man heard not, and as a dumb man opened not His mouth;' that is, He felt so crushed that He did not mind what they said; it could not be more bitter than what He was enduring. He knew it was of no use to vindicate Himself or reprove them for their ignorance and cruelty, so He tried not to hear what was passing around Him; all He said was, 'In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust!' Here was His faith: this was the object of the Lord's dealing with Him, to bring out this faith. When there was no success in His ministry, no lover or friend with Him: God Himself against Him, and His hand so displayed in vexing Him; as for the eye of the world to see its results; when those who had loved, forsook and stood aloof from Him, and all who hated Him, rejoiced and mocked, and there was not one thing to relieve Him; no conscious strength in His own soul, none of that sustainment which the saints of God know; in the absence of all that He could say, 'In thee, O Lord, do I hope,' and in conclusion, 'O Lord, my salvation:' so His faith never gave way; if it had, His perfectness would have been over."

177 On Psalm 31.

"He was emphatically God's righteous servant. But there was also another in which He stood, as one who felt He was laden with sin before God. He could say, 'Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up.' It was most needful that He should be in this place to have the true experience which fallen man has, our experience. For what is the great characteristic of our condition? Is it not that we are placed at a distance from God on account of sin? This was one great element in the experience of the Lord Jesus. Therefore we find such words as these: 'My strength faileth me.' Instead of being treated as the righteous servant, He was pressed upon and hated by those around; He felt as if His bones were out of joint, through the chastening of the hand of God upon Him, and that because of iniquity. He was able to say, 'Mine eye is consumed with grief; yea, my soul and my belly.' All that indicates the intensity and depth of His feelings, and the inward consuming of that terrible power which comes from God against sin, which withers man's strength, and causes his 'beauty to consume away like a moth' — this was the kind of discipline He had to receive from God Himself, these were the real feelings and sufferings of His soul, the effects of which were manifested. His eye really 'waxed dim,' and from what persons saw, they felt He was accursed from God; and the consequence was, they fled from Him; so He who was admired in youth and wondered at, and who grew in favour with God and man, who was thought to be something great in the world, was in process of time forgotten by those who once knew Him; as He says, 'I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind, I am like a broken vessel.' He became like an earthen vessel perishing under some rude blow; and all this while was being consumed under the heavy hand of God. In such circumstances, still to trust in God, and cry to Him, was most difficult; but this was a part of the perfectness of the Lord Jesus. Two things are necessary to perfectness of spirit, and were connected with Him: — First, that perfect brokenness of spirit which is proper for fallen man in this world, as He says, 'I have trusted in thy mercies.' This was different from saying, 'O God of my righteousness!' So He was made to feel entirely as if He had been a sinner, much more acutely than we ever can, for we know not what distance in wrath is. He felt this and remembered God's mercies. This was the reason why He was represented by the finest ground flour; that is, something ground as fine as possible under the millstone, by the pressure of the instrument."

178 Such are some extracts from doctrines gathered, or from notes taken with much care at His teachings, and which were dispersed among all those who were under his influence or whom they sought to reach. The fellow-labourers who have renounced it own it to have been what they had taught. Their confessions are published.

179 It will be remarked that it was principally before the baptism of John that all this took place: after that event Jesus was able to put Himself on a new ground by the pardon which was found there offered to Israel. Before, He was at a distance from God. He was not a sinner, but His relation with God, as a man and an Israelite, was that of a sinner in distance and under the curse. Of this He made experience and in a manner more painful than we, so that in proportion as years elapsed, His strength was exhausted under the influence of the distress of His soul, and sickness consumed Him. This was not the expiatory work of the cross; it was the grinding the flour for the offering that was to be made of it. It was the experience He made of His relationship as born in this world, a man and an Israelite.

I will now cite the words of Mr. Newton himself, with the remark that I insist, like the author himself, not on words but on the matter of the thought which runs through all his teachings.

In the retractation of Mr. Newton he declares positively that it was not by imputation of Adam's sin that Christ suffered during His life; and that he ought not to have said anything which would attribute any of His sufferings to what was imputed to Him. You will understand, my brother, that it is no question here of the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, of His expiatory death. There is no question of them here, though in appearance the words of Mr. Newton go up to that. I do not cite them the least in the world to draw this consequence from them. It would be unjust, because they are His sufferings during His life which alone are in question. I apply that which he says purely and simply to His sufferings during His life. Those sufferings did not spring from imputation.

Having made this preliminary remark, I will cite the words of Mr. Newton. The tract of Mr. Newton himself against Irvingism had attributed those sufferings to imputation, while saying that He was there since His birth. He was born under the curse of the exiled family, a curse He endured by imputation (vicariously incurred). Imputation is now retracted. Alas! the other part of the doctrine is not at all so. Mr. Newton had applied Romans 5: 19 ("by the disobedience of one many were made sinners") to Christ — that is to say, that Christ, being born man, was constituted sinner by the sin of Adam, though He had none in His own person. He has retracted the doctrine that this had place in virtue of the imputation of the sin of Adam, and he no longer applies the passage to the Lord Jesus. I will say a word on this retractation lower down; now having shewn that it is no question of imputation, I will cite what is said in the tracts of Mr. Newton, of which he has affirmed the great principles in a tract published since the retractation. There he declares that the doctrine of imputation is in opposition to the radical principle of the (two) tracts, namely, that of sufferings by voluntary association.

180 Now then see what is, according to this doctrine of Mr. Newton, the position of Christ by voluntary association; for I believe that in fact he has laid down his doctrine much more distinctly by excluding from it the application of Romans 5 and the idea of imputation — doctrine which does not agree well with the doctrine of the tract, namely, voluntary association. He had made confusion between transmitted consequences and imputation! Let us take the transmitted consequences, leaving aside the doctrine of imputation.

In the Psalms we find not only the sufferings of those hours of public service, not only the sufferings and the reproach which belonged to Him as servant ordained of God, but sufferings which pertained to Him because He was a man and because He was an Israelite. He was made sensible under the hand of God of the condition into which man had sunk and yet more into which Israel had sunk in His sight.

"He was born into the midst of the fallen family of man . . . . But He had not merely become connected with the sorrows and sufferings of man. There was Israel . . . . They had fallen from that ground of professed obedience, and, like Adam, had earned by their disobedience fearful inflictions of God's broken law, for if it had been said, Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them . . . . His faith, His prayer, His obedience, all contributed to preserve Him from many things to which He was by His relative position exposed, and by which He was threatened . . . . He was made experimentally to prove the reality of that condition into which others, but more especially Israel, had sunk themselves by their disobedience to God's holy law, a condition out of which He was able to extricate Himself, and from which He proved that He could extricate Himself by His own perfect obedience . . . . and then to see Him emerging out of all the miseries and hindrances of Israel's condition . . . . In consequence of His position, He would be obnoxious, that is, exposed to all the inflictions that the hand of God might be directing against that evil generation . . . . God pressed these things on the apprehension of His soul according to His own power and holiness, and caused Him to feel as a part of that which was exposed to the judgments of His heavy hand. . . . He had to realize the condition into which man and Israel had fallen . . . . The difference between Sinai, the mountain of blackness, and Zion, the mountain of light, and grace and blessing, the place of the church of the firstborn, might be used to illustrate the difference between the two dispensational positions held by the Lord Jesus in the midst of Israel previous to His baptism, and that which He dispensationally and ministerially took when anointed by the Holy Ghost . . . and as if in token of this great change in His dispensational relations, for I anxiously repeat, that there was no change in Him personally, heaven, which had not before been opened over Him, was opened over His head . . . . If He was made to realize the distance into which man had wandered out of the presence of God; and if He realized also the distance of Israel . . . I believe it to have been chiefly, if not exclusively before His baptism. Observe, that I am speaking of the exercises of His heart from God . . . the manner in which He was directly exercised by God."

181 "The Lord Jesus was caused to appreciate to the full the relation in which Israel (and Himself because of Israel) was standing before God. We may hear of Sinai or think of Sinai, but Jesus realized it as the power of an actual subsisting relation betwixt His people and God . . . years passed over His head thus. . . . He was not found in dissociation from others. He was standing in closest association with those dispensational relations to God, was marked by the darkness and lightnings and voices of Sinai. . . . Sinai marked the relation of God to Israel when Jesus came — and the worship of the golden calf (though that would but feebly represent their ripened evil) may be taken as marking their relation to God. And since God in exercising the soul of His servants must exercise them according to truth . . . we might be very sure even if the evidence of scripture were less direct than it is that the Lord Jesus was caused to appreciate to the full the relation in which Israel (and Himself because of Israel) was standing before God." ("Observations," p. 29.)

"But we should form a very inadequate conception of the living experiences of the Lord Jesus if in addition to the sufferings which flowed spontaneously, as it were, from the condition of man and of Israel, we did not also recognize a yet more close and searching dealing of God with His servant, whereby His sensitive and perfect soul was made to feel, in a manner inconceivable to us, the reality of the circumstances around Him . . . . How should we feel, imperfect as our sensibilities are, if God, according to the power of His own holiness, were to press upon the apprehensions of our souls a truthful sense of the present and future condition of ruined man? The Lord Jesus was as much alone in His living estimate under God's hand, of the circumstances of human life here, as in enduring wrath upon the cross . . . . He . . . was also when here made to estimate according to the sensibilities of that nature which He had taken the (to us) inconceivable distance of humanity from God, and when thus exercised, though personally holy and beloved, He was made to feel that His association with those thus standing in the fearfulness of their distance from God was a real thing, and that it was so regarded by God." (" Observations," pp. 34-36.)

182 "Man was as yet in his distance from God. There was as yet no glorified humanity on the right hand of the throne of God. The mighty power whereby God raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, was not yet put forth . . . and Jesus as man was associated with this place of distance, in which man in the flesh was, and He had through obedience to find His way to that point where God could meet Him, as having finished His appointed work — glorify Him, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places: and that point was death — death on the cross — death under the wrath of God." ("Remarks," &c., pp. 31, 32.)

Do you believe, my brother, that Christ being associated with man was, not by imputation but by transmitted consequences, in the distance from God in which man was found in the flesh, and that He had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him? What place is left here for expiation, if He could not Himself meet God save on the cross, under wrath?

Holy in His person, He was, according to Mr. Newton, associated by His birth with man and with Israel; and He was treated as being Himself in this relationship, not by imputation, but as associated with those who were found there. "His," says Mr. Newton, "was no mere pretended, imaginary association." ("Observations," p. 36.)

What do you think of it? It is no question of expressions that one can modify, or from which one can remove the ambiguity. It is a doctrine carefully stated, clearly expounded in detail; the same in the notes of pupils and in the careful exposition of Mr. Newton when he justified himself in three successive tracts against the accusation laid against him. A letter which affirms the principles of the two tracts, while denying at the same time the doctrine of imputation, was subsequent to the retractation and taking up the point. Christ according to Mr. Newton was in this position by His birth, as a man and as an Israelite. God made Him feel this position as being Himself a part of what was under His judgment. It was His own relationship with God, not for His own sins, but as associated with Israel by His birth. He escaped many of the consequences by His piety. Do you believe that? But He was exposed to all. He had to, and did, extricate Himself from this position by His obedience; nevertheless He passed under grace at the same time of His baptism by John; notwithstanding He had to find a way by obedience to the point where God could meet Him, but, besides, this point was wrath on the cross. What do you say of this?

183 The last extracts that I have just given are from tracts of Mr. Newton himself, tracts that he wrote with care when his doctrines had been attacked and to screen his doctrines from those attacks, and at the time when the retractation appeared. The third tract, in which he confirms the great principles of the two preceding tracts, was written after his retractation. Now I am going to add some extracts from notes of one of his lectures, where his doctrine appears in the form in which it was assiduously put in circulation by his adepts, wherever they believed themselves sheltered from an indiscretion. The doctrine is no other; the only thing that is of any value in the extracts I am going to give is that they give the doctrine in a manner more explicit and thus help to make understood the force of expressions more carefully arranged in their forms. They are notes from the teaching of Mr. Newton on Psalm 6.

"For a person to be suffering here because he serves God, is one thing, but the relation of that person to God and what he is immediately receiving from His hand, while serving Him, is another, and it is this which Psalm 6 and many others open to us. They describe the hand of God stretched out, as rebuking in anger and chastening in hot displeasure, and remember this is not the scene on the cross . . . but in this Psalm Christ is not at all standing in the place of sacrifice for sin . . . . This was only one incident* in the life of Christ . . . so that to fix our eyes simply on that would be to know little of what the character of His real sufferings were. Now before He came to the cross, there was one great dividing point in His history, and that was, when we first read of Him in the Gospels coming to John to be baptized, when He came publicly forward in the sphere of things, as the servant of God, in the sight of Israel and the world; that was the great dividing point in the life of Christ — only three and a half years of His life passed after that . . . . In the Gospels we have His outward history during those three and a half years, but nothing scarcely respecting the preceding years of His life; they were almost passed over in silence; so we should gain little acquaintance with the character of the Lord's experience, sufferings, or history by considering simply what is told us in the Gospels . . . . Supposing we belonged to a family which was banished to a distant land and there subject to every hardship and sorrow, and we were to go and form part of that family, we must of course drink of the same cup and partake of their sufferings. This was what Christ did. I do not refer to what were called His vicarious sufferings, but to His partaking of the circumstances of the woe and sorrow of the human family, and not only of the human family generally, but of a particular part of it, of Israel." "But now the curse had fallen on them. 'Cursed shalt thou be in the city,' &c . . . . These were the character of the curses which had fallen on Israel, because they had transgressed the law and broken the everlasting covenant; so Jesus became part of an accursed people, a people who had earned God's wrath, by transgression after transgression . . . . so Jesus became obnoxious to the wrath the moment He came into the world. Accordingly we find many of the Psalms speaking of this . . . . Psalms which do not apply to the cross or to the period of His manifested service, but which speak of Him as a man living amongst other men, with the terrors of God compassing Him about. I regard this Psalm as one of the earliest experiences of the Lord Jesus . . . . Observe this chastening in displeasure, not that which comes now on the child of God, which is never in wrath, but this rebuking in wrath, to which He was amenable because He was a part of an accursed people, so the hand of God was continually stretched out against Him in various ways. He was chastened every morning. 'My loins,' He says, 'are filled with a loathsome disease.' Now we do not read of such chastening after He began His public ministry, but before that, I doubt not, He was often so afflicted . . . . So it must have been a great relief to Him to hear the voice of John the Baptist saying, 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Here was a door open to Israel at once. They might come and be forgiven. So He was glad to hear that word. He heard it with a wise and attentive ear and came to be baptized because He was one with Israel, was in their condition — one of wrath from God. Consequently when He was baptized He took new ground, but Israel would not take it. He stood alone nearly, and the moment He took that ground, the Spirit was sent down. God's seal was set upon Him: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' . . . . He was able to cure sickness and heal diseases, so that the last three and a half years were by far the happiest in His life, for He was not afflicted by the hand of God as before . . . . What gives the character to Gethsemane is weak humanity and all the power of Satan allowed to be brought upon Him . . . . I should regard this as the most terrible hour He ever passed through . . . . He dreaded not the cross as He did Gethsemane; the cross was the place where He was made distinctly the sacrifice for sin."**

{*Mr. Newton has explained later that he was accustomed to use this word as having the force "of event." This was to own at best that he had said what I quote.}

{**Mr. Newton has modified his expressions since then. I cite them here to shew that it is not a question of the cross.}

185 You see well, my brother, that the point is not imputation: the kind of suffering was well distinguished before the retractation even. They are already transmitted consequences. Such are the doctrines, assiduously taught, orally and by manuscripts, long without the knowledge of the Brethren — doctrines which have given occasion to attacks on "certain persons." What think you of it?

Now you make it a reproach against these persons for not taking account of the retractation. It was proposed to Mr. Newton by his own friends, several of whom had got their eyes opened, to sign a retractation of the substance of his doctrine. This he peremptorily refused, but he published the retractation of which you speak, which I have before me. I am about to make some extracts from it which will shew, that, while retracting the application of Romans 5 and the doctrine that Christ was under the wrath of God by the imputation of Adam's sin, he affirms positively the substance of his doctrine, and will have it that Christ inherited the consequences of sin by His birth doctrine, in which lies precisely all the evil. However that be, he says it is only the manner with regard to which he was wrong. "If due care had been taken to discriminate between the mode in which the consequences of Adam's transgression reached mankind through federal headship, and the manner in which the Lord Jesus took several of those consequences upon Himself, but not through federal headship, the error which I now have to confess would have been avoided."

186 "If I had watched this, I should have carefully avoided the referring that part of Romans 5 to the Lord Jesus, and should have stated that His connection with these consequences was in virtue of His having been made of a woman and thus brought Himself into association with a race on whom these penalties were resting."

In a letter of 51 pages published since his retractation, Mr. Newton disavows formally the doctrine that the position in which Christ was found here below was the effect of the imputation of the sin of Adam. He declares that the true doctrine of imputation is entirely opposed to the radical principle of the tracts (those from which I have made extracts), namely, that of voluntary association . . . . "If I had held this doctrine, almost all that I have said in these tracts would have been upset in place of being what it is now. I have explained elsewhere how I have held it, in giving account of the fact that Christ had been associated with certain results of the sin of Adam, in consequence of His relation with Adam by Mary. I have ill-explained the thing and have used theological terms wrongly and have made a false application of Romans 5; in other words, I have confounded between transmitted consequences and imputation. I have owned elsewhere the sin of this negligence, &c . . . . with regard to the tracts, it is a question of facts and each will judge for himself, up to what point the relations of the Lord are, or are not, rightly stated."

Thus, my brother, we no longer accuse Mr. Newton of applying to Jesus Romans 5, which says that by the sin of one many were made sinners. That was making a bad use of theological terms, that was the sin of negligence. But what as to the doctrine of the tract? You are in a position, according to Mr. Newton, to judge of it? In speaking of Romans 5 he has wrongly presented the manner in which the anger of God rested upon Jesus. He had attributed it to the imputation of Adam's sin. Now it is a transmitted consequence on account of His relation with Adam as born of Mary, a consequence which caused Him to hear with joy the proclamation of pardon by John the Baptist. Is it a retractation of the doctrine of the tracts to let everyone judge it and to explain that the position of Jesus is not by imputation but a transmitted consequence? He declares that, whilst confounding from negligence his doctrine with that of Romans 5: 19, he never really held the doctrine of imputation with regard to Jesus according to Romans 5: 19. I believe it, but the doctrine of the tracts, disentangled from that conclusion, remains fully confirmed. To my mind, the doctrine of imputation to Jesus during His life is an error, but an error that one can fall into and yet be sound in the faith; but to say that He was under the wrath of God, as a member of the family of Adam, through His birth from Mary, and that grace and pardon were a relief to Him, are doctrines which deny the truth with regard to the Saviour.

187 You ought to know that many Christians do not believe in the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to other men as forming part of original sin, and only believe in transmitted consequences through their birth of Adam's race.

You will understand then that it is not a question here of saying that the divinity of the Saviour and His humanity are believed in, and His expiation on the cross (although this latter truth is entirely destroyed by the doctrine that we are exposing; for if Jesus found a way to God, and if it is only upon the cross, under wrath, that God could meet with Him because He was man, however innocent He might be, He could not make expiation). It is a question of the relation of Jesus with God outside substitution. Neither is it a question of denying the consequences, while holding the doctrine which leads to them; it is a question of what is taught.

Now you can understand, my brother, why "certain persons" have attacked this doctrine, and why they have not been contented with the retractation. You have put your seal to the teaching in question (in supposing the retractation of the application of Romans 5 and of imputation). You have justified Mr. Newton; you have made yourself responsible, in the eyes of the church, for having given credit to his doctrine. I am grieved to have been obliged to put, before any Christians whatsoever, that this is the fact. Simplicity which is in Jesus is a precious thing. You have this doctrine at least submitted to your consideration; you have accredited it, you went out of your way to do so. This then is what you approve of; or must I believe that, carried away by your animosity against "certain persons," you accredited it unwittingly in order to have the satisfaction of throwing the blame upon them? If the church is preserved from it, I am content, however it may be. I remain, ever, your affectionate brother,

J. N. D.

188 I think that I shall do well, in order to complete the evidence I have to present to you on this subject, to add the summary that one of Mr. Newton's fellow-workers in the teaching of this doctrine made of it in the retractation which he has published.

The doctrines of this system of teaching may be summed up thus: —

1. That the Lord Jesus at His birth, and because born of a woman, partook of certain consequences of the fall, mortality being one, and, because of this association by nature, He became an heir of death, born under death as a penalty.

2. That the Lord Jesus at His birth stood in such relation to Adam as federal head, that guilt was imputed to Him, and that He was exposed to certain consequences of such imputation — as stated in Romans 5.

3. That the Lord Jesus was also born as a Jew under the broken law, and was regarded by God as standing in that relation to Him; and that God pressed upon His soul the terrors of Sinai, as due to one in that relation.

4. That the Lord Jesus took the place of distance from God, which such a person so born and so related must take, and that He had to find His way back to God by some path in which God might at last own and meet Him.

5. That so fearful was the distance, and so real were these relationships by birth, and so actual were their attendant penalties of death, wrath, and the curse, that until His deliverance God is said to have rebuked Him, to have chastened Him, and this in anger and hot displeasure.

6. That because of these dealings from God, and Christ's sufferings under them, the language of Lamentations 3 and Psalms 6, 38, and 88, &c., has been stated to be the utterance of the Lord Jesus while under this heavy pressure from God's hand.

7. That the Lord Jesus extricated Himself from these inflictions by keeping the law; and that at John's baptism the consequent difference in Christ's feelings and experience was so great as to have been illustrated by a comparison of the difference between Mount Sinai and Mount Sion, or between law and grace.

189 8. That, beside all these relations which Christ took by birth, and their attendant penalties and inflictions, and His sufferings under the heavy hand of God, it has been further stated that He had the experience of an unconverted though elect Jew.

Here you have a summary of this doctrine given us by one of those who has taught it himself, in conjunction with Mr. Newton. Everyone can see that it is a carefully matured system, and the different testimonies we possess leave no obscurity as to the foundation of the doctrine, whatever modification may have been applied to the expressions.

Two other brethren who taught these doctrines with Mr. Newton have published their retractation; but, at this moment, I am not in possession of their writings; they admit the same things.

The second article is the one, and the only one, to which Mr. Newton's retractation of 1847 applies.

This is the testimony of one strongly opposed to me, respecting the tracts, the retractation, and the letter published by Mr. Newton since the retractation: —

"The third tract of Mr. Newton had been published, his two preceding tracts had been sanctioned after having been considered anew; his retractation, or confession of November, 1847, was thus, save in words, annulled, and worse than annulled. The errors, whatever be otherwise their bearing, without any doubt touch the foundations of our faith, and by this means overthrow, not only the unity of the church, but its very existence."

On Aitkenism

J. N. Darby.

<15012E> 190

Mr. Aitken's system may be briefly stated:-

"Spiritual life and forgiveness, or salvation, are communicated by faith, or in accordance with faith; where a man has repented fully, and, crying to God for salvation, goes out of self for it and believes in the atonement. But divine life or regeneration is quite another thing, possessed by few, communicated and sustained by the sacraments, but which is possessed only in the degree in which, by personal efforts, we die to self. This is the portion of an elect few who form the bride of Christ (not His spouse), the Church of the firstborn, who will reign with Him. We get the Spirit of adoption on receiving salvation; but we are born of God only by baptism, and thus, if it be developed by our own will or efforts, we are united to God and become God-men, not in the same degree but in the same manner as Christ."

All this is pursued out as a system with various adjuncts needless to mention, with a neglect of scripture or indeed proof of any kind, which ignorant assumption or uncommon self-confidence alone could account for. Those are in a nearer relationship to Christ, he says, who are in the Church (the Establishment), though dead in trespasses and sins, than a saved person who has spiritual life outside it. The baptized child receives life and is in a state of grace provisionally by special favour, though he has not faith; but in point of fact he always loses it, though he need not, and then is saved by faith, but is not regenerate. How this is afterwards procured does not clearly appear, and is not stated in the volume already out. Self-denial and sacraments are his general idea; but as baptism is the one for giving life and he cannot be baptized over again, we are left in the dark. You may ask but never expect proof of the difference between spiritual and divine life. Evangelicals are complained of who treat salvation as the end, and it is affirmed that we cannot have spiritual life and forgiveness, which are by faith alone, without being sure of it. Again, a separatist cannot have divine life or be of the bride of Christ, though he is of the body by baptism in spite of himself, for that tie is indissoluble. A man may lose spiritual life and salvation, but he cannot cease to be a member of Christ's body, and he is lost all the same. He reads "Ye are they who have followed me in the regeneration."

The real energy which Mr. A. has to press salvation, from what he had before he had adopted all this, while pandering to the prejudices of the priestly caste, takes effect on others. In Nehushtan he taught that the idol — justification by faith — must be destroyed. Now he writes this and "Tractarianism:" only, he says, Tractarians themselves are evidently in a state of nature and lost. The theory of persons possessing the Spirit of adoption and not yet born of God is as unscriptural as can be. "We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" . . . "and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." "We have received not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father." "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God," &c. These passages (Gal. 3 and Rom. 8) upset the whole system at once and altogether, based as it is on our being saved and having the Spirit of adoption, but not being really born of God, or sons, this coming sacramentally, that by faith. His notion is that we receive sacramentally divine life from Christ. But John says, "To as many as received him, to them gave he power (or privilege) to become sons of God, even to as many as believed in his name, which were born . . . . of God." . . . . "Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace," that is, of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

191 If we take the figure of baptism, the statement that it is regeneration, while salvation is by faith, is overthrown by scripture. "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins," &c. "According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration." "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us." Nor can it be alleged that this is the provisional salvation tacked to it in the case of infants, for adults are in question. It is the merest bubble of his own mind for one acquainted with scripture. His own prayer-book denies such distinctions. The prayer is that the infant may obtain remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration. Nor will the allegation that salvation is provisionally attached to it for infants hold good, for it is asked equally in baptism for riper years. It is prayed that they also may receive "remission of their sins by spiritual regeneration." And to this John 3 is applied, which speaks of being born of the Spirit, and just as Peter who tells the repentant Jews to be baptized for the remission of their sins.

That we are made God-men is neither more nor less than an abominable blasphemy; and as to being made partakers of the divine nature, the apostle does not say a word of baptism but of exceeding great and precious promises whereby we are so made. The whole work is full of unscriptural inventions.

192 On the other hand, I agree that it is terrible to make salvation, in the sense of being safe, the end of all. I agree that fasting and self-denial are excellent in their place; but all these distinctions of divine life and spiritual life, and subjection to ordinances as if the means of life come from the vagaries of the human mind or worse, not from God.

The rest of the passage in Titus 3 shews that the distinction of eternal life and regeneration is unknown to scripture. "He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that, being justified by faith, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Here eternal life, justification by faith, regeneration, salvation, are all brought together in a way that makes Mr. A.'s reasoning hopelessly untenable. There might be conversions; because, while adding all his nonsense about sacraments, he preaches (though in an Arminian way) repentance toward God and salvation by faith in Christ — indeed as to the last with much more positive reality than the evangelicals.

Christ, the banished One.

J. N. Darby.

<15013E> 193

To the Editor of the Bible Treasury.

Dear brother,

I do not at all desire to make your periodical the vehicle of controversial papers; but allow me to draw your attention to a paper in a magazine* supposed to be exclusively occupied with edification, or what was intended for it. It is so utterly without basis, or attempt to found its assertions on scripture (the only two or three it quotes it quotes falsely on the point in question), that I should not have thought it worth an answer, but for the bold presenting of the doctrine which it is its object to circulate. In this way it may be useful.

{*The Christian Treasury, part 7, July 1, 1861. "The Banished One bearing our banishment." By the editor (Dr. Horatius Bonar, Kelso).}

"Not merely was He," it is said, "the rejected of men, . . . . but He was the outcast, the condemned One . . . . As such, His true place was outside the city of God; outside the dwelling of the Holy One. If permitted to resort to Jerusalem, He can only do so as a stranger or wayfaring man, who comes in with the crowd during the day, but retires at night. If allowed to frequent the temple, He can only come as far as the outer court, on the common footing of a sinner — just as the publican might do. He might stand and see the daily sacrifice offered." (Page 314.) For whom? let me ask in passing. Was it with a consciousness that it was not for Him — that is, that, as to His relationship to God, He could go into the holiest, or ignorant as to this, and in His relationship supposing He needed one Himself? The writer has brought the point pretty much to the test by this way of putting it. What was the blessed Lord's sentiment when He saw the sacrifice offered?

I continue: "He might watch the shedding of the blood, and the consuming of the victim; but only as one of the crowd. He might stand, on the day of atonement, and see the two goats chosen by the high priest; He might listen to the confession of sin over the head of the one, and mark the pouring out of the other's blood; He might see the high priest take the basin, and carry the blood into the holiest, Himself standing on the outside; and, though the Blessed One, waiting amid the crowd to receive the well-known blessing. But more than this He might not do. Were He to go beyond the circle thus marking off the limits within which He was to walk, He would not have been acting as the sin-bearer, nor submitting to be dealt with as an outcast and a curse for us." (Ib.) I shall notice this: but I continue my quotations. "He is so completely identified with the sinner, the outcast, the banished one, that He is not only deemed unworthy to live within Jerusalem, but unworthy even to die within its walls. As the great sin-offering, He goes without the camp, there to complete His sin-bearing work, and to sum up the testimony which His whole life had given, namely, that He was standing in the sinner's place, enduring the banishment of the banished one, bearing the curse of the cursed one, submitting to the condemnation of the condemned one, and never for one moment contradicting or modifying the testimony intended to be given by His life to His sin-bearing character and work." (Ib.) Is that all the cross was? The writer must be singularly absorbed with his doctrine to speak of it in this way.

194 "The one hindrance to His exercise of this, His divine right of entrance into the holiest of all, was our iniquity, which was lying on Him. That kept Him out. Until that was fully borne, He could not enter either the sanctuary below or the presence chamber above. In taking our sin upon Him, as He did from the moment of His incarnation, He had consented to forego for a time His right of entrance into the Father's presence, and into that place where the glorious symbol of that presence dwelt." "It was as such (the outcast) that we find Him walking in Solomon's porch; thus proclaiming to all who truly understood His character and work that He was acting as the sinner's substitute." (Page 325.)

One sentence that I have omitted I will quote here. "He was Himself the true sacrifice, the bearer of sin. As such He lived and died. In all that He did, and in all that He abstained from doing; in the places which He visited, and in the places which He abstained from visiting, He kept this in view. He was loaded with our sin, our curse, our condemnation, our leprosy; and, as such, He must keep at a distance from the holy and the clean." (Page 314.) "Let us then look at Christ in these two different conditions . . . . 1. As walking in Solomon's porch — He walks there as our substitute; our substitute as truly as when He groaned in Gethsemane or died on Golgotha. 2. As one consenting for a season to be shut out from the presence of God, that we might enter and dwell in that presence for ever, He stands, or walks, or sits outside the sanctuary. Thus it is that He bears our banishment; He takes upon Him not merely the penalty of suffering and death, but the penalty of exclusion from the house and home of God. That penalty He has endured; that exile He has under-gone; that substance He has experienced; and all this, as the substitute, bearing what we should have borne." (Page 325.)

195 The difficulty of answering the paper, from which I have here given extracts, is, that it is such a mass of absurdity, that it is hard to know at which end to begin. I refer to it, as I have said, only as an audacious attempt at circulating the doctrine it contains.

In the beginning, it is said, there were several reasons why Christ could only have access to the outer court, and had to keep outside the holy and most holy place; Dr. Bonar then gives three: Personal, He was of the tribe of Judah; Ceremonial, He had no blood to offer;* Typical, He was loaded with our leprosy. This is found in pages 313, 314. When in the full flow of his subject, he says, "the one hindrance to His exercise of this, His divine right of entrance into the holiest of all, was our iniquity." Then in page 325, the two others are forgotten. It may be alleged he was only speaking in the latter place of Him as God. But, then, if the holiest of all was really then the dwelling place of God, and God there so that He could not approach, as Jehovah He was there. But this is not true: the house was empty, swept, and garnished. His own body was the temple where Jehovah dwelt. There was no shechinah in the second temple.

{*It is hard to tell why. It was a typical high place and typical blood shedding sufficed, and that He could have offered. There was only one reason, He could not have the blood of a suited sacrifice to offer. He was not the typical high priest, nor a priest at all judicially; nor did any one go into the most holy place save the high priest, nor with blood into the holy place, save for the sin of the high priest or the whole people; but that shews the gross absurdity of the whole reasoning from beginning to end. To think that Christ should need His blood to enter the earthly sanctuary is worthy of this school alone.}

It is alleged that He never went to the holy places of Israel. Who says He did not? But let that pass. Did He come here to turn Israel back to old shadows, and typical service, and places counted holy by them? But among others He did not go to Bethlehem. What profound sense there is in this! If this was because it was already a holy place, He became the leprous and unclean thing in the holy place. Because it was so — and all the imperial world was set in movement to have Him made leprous there — I suppose to desecrate it! If it was His birth that had sanctified it, then He could not go to a holy place because of what He was when He had consecrated it by being that! Is it possible to conceive greater nonsense than all this?

196 He did not go into the temple, because it was impossible, and out of God's then order, and inconsistent with every Jewish and every Christian thought. If spoken of as God, He was there as far as God was there; but, as I have said, His body in this sense was the true temple: He calls it so. If as man, He was not a priest: there were other priests to do it, as the epistle to the Hebrews tells us. As come, He was not there to set up Judaism, but to submit to its order; as born under the law, His entering into the holy place would have been a gross violation of it. Was He there to establish the earthly system as a divine thing, to have His place and title as Son in an earthly sanctuary?

We are specially referred to Solomon's porch. It was the common place of assembly in the temple. Was His being there a proof He was a substitute under a curse? All the apostles were afterwards with one accord in Solomon's porch. Were they all substitutes under a curse? I will speak of the doctrine. I speak now of the ridiculous absurdity of such reasoning.

But further, it is still more absurd; because, if He were a leprous man, and keeping this always in view as to holy places, other holy places lepers might have gone to as much as anyone else; but the really holy place, in a Jewish sense, which a leper could not go to, was the temple, and there He came, and was in the crowd of the clean, for none else could go there. It is painful to have to meet all this folly, used to make a leprous man of the Lord. Leprosy was defilement, not merely a type of guilt; our Lord, therefore, took a defiled place. Clean persons could not have gone into the holy of holies: there we are told He could not go because He was leprous. Leprous persons could not go into the temple, or be amongst the crowd of clean Israel; but there He was, and that is a proof that He is leprous! and, strange to say, He drove the defilers out, because it was a holy place.

But the true answer is simple. He came not to build up the holiness of Hebrons or Bethels: He went into the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, Galilee of the Gentiles, because it had been prophesied of Him, that the poor of the flock, who sat in darkness, might see that great light, and light spring up on those in the shadow of death. He was there because He was light, not because He was leprous. He left Judea because the Pharisees had heard that He made and baptized more disciples than John: was that as a leper, or did His disciples baptize, not Himself, because they were not leprous and He was? It is asserted, without the remotest foundation, that He did not sleep in Jerusalem. He visited Jerusalem only during the day, retiring from it at night to Bethany, as one cast out! That was only the last week, when He had judged Jerusalem (but that was the time He rode into the holy city as its king: was this as a substitute and leper?) and when He cleansed the temple, because it was defiled.

197 If the reader ask what scripture is alleged for His being a substitute, or avoiding holy places on this ground — which there was no ground for doing — the only scripture is the one emanating from Dr. Bonar's private assertion. In God's word there is not a single trace of it. Dr. Bonar does not attempt to allege a symptom of scripture — for the simplest reason: there is none to allege. It is simply an unholy fancy of Dr. Bonar's. But he does quote some scriptures as to Christ's state during His life: I will examine them.

"He was made sin for us:" this is referred to His life. But it is He who knew no sin whom God made sin for us. Hence, through the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself without spot to God. He was not made sin when "that holy thing" was born of the Virgin Mary. When it could be said of Him, as a man "who knew no sin," then He was made sin, "a curse for us." "As such, His true place was outside the city of God;" but He went into it, and into the temple, and did not stay outside; that is, according to Dr. Bonar, He went out of His true place. But He was made a curse for us. But scripture says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as it is written, Cursed in every one that hangs upon a tree. That is, He was a curse as crucified, not in His life.

"The most holy place was, we may say, the type of that very bosom of the Father out of which the only-begotten Son came forth." It was nothing of the kind. Dr. Bonar confounds God in His throne in government and the Father's bosom; but let that pass. Dr. Bonar's doctrine hangs on this — that He came forth out of the Father's bosom, and could not go into it. Now, the only passage which speaks of the Father's bosom, is a careful statement that He did not come out of it. "The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." He was competent to reveal God, because He had not come out of it at all. His going into the empty earthly place of God's throne is fit only for Dr. Bonar and his school. Not only so, but scripture is careful to connect this presence in heaven with His manhood, and shew that as such, though bodily on earth, He was personally in heaven. "No man hath ascended up to heaven but he who came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven." So that He was in heaven at the time Dr. Bonar says He was taking the sinner's place of exile outside the blessed heaven where He had dwelt from everlasting.

198 One scripture more Dr. Bonar quotes, if quoting it can be called. "Such," he says, "is the efficacy of our Substitute's life and death, that we have boldness to enter into the holiest." This is not quoting scripture, not ignorance, but falsifying scripture.

Hebrews 10 is solely occupied with the sacrifice of Christ. The point on which chapter 9 had insisted was that there was no forgiveness without blood-shedding, and that Christ must have suffered often if He had offered Himself — "often" excluding all idea of forgiveness but by death. Chapter 10 then sets aside Jewish offerings, and substitutes a Christ come to do God's will, but speaks only and exclusively of His offering; by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all: thereupon declaring that we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. That is, Dr. Bonar leaves out the one point on which the word of God insists; and introduces what it does not introduce but excludes. I can only say the word of God is pure. "Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." All this I must call wickedness.

And now the main point — Christ — is the "banished One bearing our banishment." Banished by whom? Banished whence? Is that, Christian, your thought of Christ, that He was banished from heaven? Is that the way — is it in that spirit scripture speaks? or, that He came in His own love, and was the blessed and holy One given in love, sent of the Father? Is it not the infinite preciousness of that gift that exalts the love of the giver? Was He given as a precious one, or banished? Forsaken He might be when He was made sin, as to the anguish of His soul; but banished, never! Did He cry, Why hast thou forsaken me? at that moment, having been forsaken all His life? yet hardly to be said forsaken at any time, for He was never near God — had to keep at a distance from what was holy — experience distance and the penalty of exclusion from the home and house of God — "outside the blessed heaven where He had dwelt from everlasting!" Was that the Son of man who is in heaven? He could tell of heaven, which no one else could (He declares to Nicodemus), inasmuch as He was still in it though come down. This, Dr. Bonar interprets, by His being banished and excluded from it.

199 And, mark the result: He could look on in the crowd at the offerings, coming as the publican might do, on the common footing of a sinner; He might listen to the confession of sin over the head of the scape-goat, waiting amid the crowd to receive the well-known blessing. This, because He was excluded, because He was loaded with our leprosy! But, if He was their sin-bearer, why in the crowd looking at another sacrifice, and waiting for the well-known blessing? Blessed for whom? For the crowd, of which He was one in virtue of the sin-offering. Is this Dr. Bonar's view of Christ, standing as the Substitute for the crowd, for He died for that nation — and yet one of the crowd looking on, in respect of His own state, on another sacrifice, founded on which blessing was to come on Him as one of the crowd? If He carried the sin there, if it was already laid on His head, why was He with the crowd looking to another sacrifice and seeing the sins confessed on it? and why Himself waiting to receive the blessing? I suppose, because He needed it; or, at least, that it was real. Did He need the blessing flowing from atonement? How could it be real for Him, when He knew the very sin it professed to put away had not been there at all? It was resting, in all its weight, on His own head. Think of the Son of God waiting in the crowd, as a Substitute, to receive the blessing flowing from the atonement, Himself really bearing the sins all the time, which were not put away; and, to complete the confusion, excluded as a leper, because they were on Him, from the holy place in which He nevertheless was!

But the confusion is too horribly mischievous to do anything else than to point it out in its naked character. This article may do good. It will shew the true bearing of that which clothes itself in pious forms, though here, if one has any sense at all, it can hardly be said to do so. I do not attempt an elaborate article: these one or two hints are enough to shew its character. I do not see the smallest trace of divine teaching, but a man left to himself in a special way to expose the folly and evil of his own inventions.

Brief analysis of the Epistle to the Hebrews in connection with the Priesthood of Christ: with reply to some tracts on the latter subject.

J. N. Darby.

<15014E> 200

When the will is engaged in any doctrine, it leaves one but a faint hope of its being given up by him who holds it. Still I would not abandon that hope altogether, as regards the author of the "Remarks on the Intercession of Christ," and at any rate the enquiry into the truth on the subject may be useful to many souls. I confess I have been surprised at the statements in the tract. If anything had been needed to convince me of the totally unscriptural and unfounded character of the doctrine, this tract would have supplied it. Scarcely a single principle or statement is scriptural or sound. But God's grace is almighty, and I can only heartily desire and pray for the clearing up of the mind of one whose Christianity I should not bear to doubt.

The theory is, that the Epistle to the Hebrews is for the remnant after the Church is gone, not for us Christians; and that Christ's intercession is simply His presence before God for us in the worth of His work — nothing active; that there is no exercise of any priesthood after the pattern of Aaron's on the part of Christ. I could hardly have thought any one could have made such statements. But they are made. "The only priesthood of Christ is Melchisedec, and that is for blessing, not intercession. The intercession, as I have before said, is His maintaining us before God in all the value of His own person and work." "Israel will be in the land in unbelief, keeping the commandments of Moses — this epistle takes them up on that ground and tells them Christ is the end of the law," &c. "Christ is indeed on the right hand of God — He is there by right and title; but He is there also for us, and so He is there presenting Himself as the Head and the representative of the redeemed. It is His presence intercedes or avails for us." "Some who would not say quite so much [that Christ had a double priesthood], yet say that though Christ is a priest after the order of Melchisedec only, yet He exercises it at present after the character of Aaron. . . . Thus they make the word of God of none effect by their tradition." Referring to Christ's work and the Spirit's, the writer says, "Still, one is a finished work abiding before God in all its finished perfectness, the other is that which is carried on from age to age in the world; and from day to day in the heart of the believer; and the two works, for they are two, are effected by different persons and differ greatly in character; one is completed, the other not; and it is because one is completed and not to be added to and is ever in its completeness before God, that the other is being carried on by that other person." "And certainly, if we take the testimony of the book itself, it is clear that it is the world (or, habitable earth) to come whereof we speak, and that is assuredly connected with Israel, not the Church being gathered." Again, "Melchisedec priesthood is prominently presented, and from Psalm 110 we know that to be coincident with the rod of strength out of Zion." And, quoting from me as to this priesthood, he says, "it is blessing and refreshment after and consequent upon the destruction of all enemies; it is not that which Christ the Lord now exercises." "And the way in which they [these matters] are here treated . . . . shews that it is not the Church as being gathered that is contemplated, but that which follows after the Church is caught up to meet the Lord in the air."

201 My purpose is to go through the Epistle to the Hebrews sufficiently to see what its true aim and bearing is, and then I will take up particular statements to shew how utterly groundless they are. But before I do this I have one remark to make, and that is, that the notion that our church position as such is the whole, or even the highest we have, is quite unfounded. Mistakes connected with this I will note in their place. I only notice the principle now. Our union with Christ casts its preciousness on every part of our blessings, and the last thing I should be inclined to do is to compare these where all is sovereign grace. But in itself this is not a relationship with the Father. With Him we are individuals, we are sons. Christ owns us as brethren, is the Firstborn among many brethren. Our union with Christ, though divine, is with Him as man, as made Head over all things. See Ephesians 1: 22, 23, and so Ephesians 2. And all our relationship with God and the Father is developed before that, and this in the epistle where church privileges are peculiarly taught, and many of the most precious exhortations to practice are on this ground: see chapter 5: 1 for example.

202 We speak of what belongs to the Church, according to the common use of language, when we really mean what belongs to those who compose it. And this has no great practical harm when it is not used to make the idea, exclusively as such, our only blessing. I might say, The corporation are very good men, when I mean the men that compose it. But when an idea newly acquired gets hold of the soul, men are apt to be exclusively full of it. It shuts out other important truths. If any one has been filled with the sense of the importance of the doctrine of the Church, I think I may say I have. But conscience is individual; justification is individual; sonship is individual; communion, in perhaps its most important and certainly necessary part, is individual. Take all the writings of the apostle John, and, unless one allusion to a local body, you would never know that a church existed. I never lose, or at any rate never should lose, the consciousness of being a member of Christ; as I have said, it throws, when I have it, its light on all. I add the idea of unity in the body to union in the family. I am one with all those who are my brethren. But surely there is a vast flood of unspeakable blessing in John, in whose writings the thought or name of the Church never comes. I speak of the Gospel and Epistles. All is individual there. Those who enjoy it being to the Church, and do not put themselves out of the Church mentally in enjoying it; but it is not, for all that, the less individual.

This principle will be found to be of large application. Thus justification is not found in Ephesians. It speaks of the new creation according to God's counsels. The sinner has to be justified, not God's new creation. Yet every word blessedly confirms the doctrine of Romans — Galatians also; but the subject is taken up differently. Romans deals with man's responsibility, and the Ephesians with God's counsels. They meet in Christ and in the cross, and nothing can be more deeply instructive to heart and soul, but they are distinct.

But I turn to Hebrews. Now I fully admit, and have often stated, that the Epistle has the Jews as a people in view, Christ having died for the nation; and it is interesting to enquire in its place as to the bearing of this on the remnant, after the Church is gone. I will try and touch on it briefly; but our present enquiry is, Does the Epistle apply to Christians?

The Epistle to the Hebrews at the time it was written was written to somebody. To whom? Either to Christians who at the same time were Jews,* or to unbelieving Jews who rejected the Saviour. The answer to this question is an answer to the whole theory. No doubt there are interesting and important details to consider after it is answered. But if it was written to Christians the whole theory is proved false. I have not to enquire as to my use of it and to whom it may apply. I have learned to whom it did apply — to Christians, and though specially addressed to Jewish Christians (for such there were, Christians jealous of the law and frequenting the temple, and offering sacrifices) and adapted to their case; yet available for all Christians, in the doctrines by which it acts on these Jewish Christians, though not as to the circumstances in which they were found, for we are not in them; though we may be in very similar ones, when the professing church has judaized.

{*See Acts 21: 20.}

203 I repeat then my question: To whom was it addressed when written? Were the unbelieving Jews then "partakers of the heavenly calling?" If not, it applies to Christians. Had the unbelieving Jews taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and enduring substance? Had they to consider the end of the conversation of their departed rulers whose faith they were to follow? Who had an altar which they had no right to eat of, who served the tabernacle? The unbelieving Jews? Why, they are in express contrast. Christians, christian Jews, were therefore to leave the system which they up to that time had been walking with. I ask any sober person to read chapter 13 through and say, Was the epistle addressed then to Christians or not? If it was addressed to Christians, as Christians, and because they were such, the question is answered and set at rest: most interesting for Christians to enquire its import and value for themselves, but as belonging to themselves and addressed to themselves.*

{*I am aware that the author says, "Were there not at that time a Jewish remnant, some of whom might listen to these last words of exhortation, own Jesus, and be brought into church position?" But this alters nothing. However God might dispose their hearts to hear, they were still unbelievers — had no part in Christ — and belonged to that part of the nation which had refused Messiah. The question is, Is the Epistle addressed to believers or to unbelievers? I do not even admit that the remnant in the last day will be in the state of those here spoken of. These were yet unbelieving, with a full present Christianity; those, though not a freed people knowing salvation, will be a repentant and expectant people, otherwise prepared to say, "Blessed is he that cometh," &c. But, though confirmatory of what I say, this is not the question. These were unbelievers: is the Epistle addressed to such?}

204 But I anticipate a little the details, and will enquire now regularly what proofs the Epistle gives of being addressed to Christians, though not speaking of church privileges as such. The writer places himself amongst those he writes to. This is not denied, and is clear from the beginning of the second chapter. Was the writer among the unbelieving Jews? For it was addressed to some one then. Those addressed had received the teachings of the apostles. There was danger of letting them slip; but they had heard and received them. He speaks of the world to come, but was not in it, for Jesus was sitting at the right hand of God, all things being not yet under His feet. But he speaks for himself and those he writes to: "We see Jesus . . . crowned with glory and honour." This last is an important point. Besides His divinity — it is that which the first chapter insists on — it is characteristic, specifically characteristic of the whole Epistle. I mean that Jesus was sitting at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens: not, after the destruction of His enemies, a priesthood of blessing on His own throne. Thus, in the wonderful statement in chapter 1: 3, the groundwork of the epistle, the place Christ is found in, is, having "by himself purged our* sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high."

The position which makes the basis of the whole Epistle is Christ's present position, not his Melchisedec position, but a heavenly Christ sitting at the right hand of God on high. So when the writer has gone through his doctrine on this subject, he gives the summing up of it: — "We have such an high priest who is set at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens." When His position is considered in reference to His manhood, as we have seen, all things are not put under His feet; He sits at the right hand of God till they are. We see Him crowned with glory and honour. He suffered being tempted here, that He may be able to succour those that are tempted. Neither the position nor the service has any possible application to a Melchisedec priesthood on earth. Temptation and conflict will not exist then. The Melchisedec priesthood, the writer agrees and insists on, is, in its exercise, after the destruction of all enemies; Satan will then be bound. Antichrist's time is not the time of Melchisedec's priesthood; and the exercise of Melchisedec's priesthood is not the time of temptation. Further, the object in view is bringing many sons to glory. The remnant are not the object of this purpose. The place of Christ, the service of Christ, and the object of God all refer to the saints at this present time, not, as such, to a Jewish remnant to be blessed on earth, or to a Melchisedec priesthood in its acknowledged exercise as such.

{*I do not insist on our sins, as the reading is questionable. It would otherwise be — having made the purification of sins, He sat down I insist on the position, which is the basis of the Epistle.}

205 Does chapter 3 teach us any other doctrine, or the same founded on the same truth of Christ's heavenly present glory? Christ is as Son over God's house. That is the position in which the Epistle views Him, not in a Melchisedec one. And note here, He is the high priest of our profession, compared to Moses and Aaron; that is according to the doctrine of chapters 1 and 2. Whose profession? The unbelieving Jews'? An unbelieving remnant when the heavenly saints are gone? A Christian, more than a Christian, we are told, writes the Epistle, and says, "our profession," — and this means unbelieving Jews, or an expectant remnant!

But I prefer at present to follow out the direct teaching of this Epistle, which makes all clear, if anything can, if there is spiritual intelligence. Further, then, in this chapter it is said, "Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." To whom does this apply? For whom is it written? Are unbelieving Jews, however inclined to listen, the house of Christ as the exalted Son of God? Are they to hold fast their profession, the beginning of their confidence and rejoicing of hope, firm to the end? The Jewish remnant is not, further, a partaker of the heavenly calling, but of the earthly. In a word, thus far we have Christ, not as Melchisedec priest, but as sitting at the right hand of God, the high priest of our profession; and those addressed are "partakers of the heavenly calling," and are to hold fast their first confidence. We, says the writer, are His house if we do. "Made partakers of Christ," which in English might embarrass a soul, offers no difficulty, but the contrary. It is final partaking with Him in glory, according to chapter 1: 9, where "fellows" is the same word. Some remarks on how far this chapter may subsequently suit the remnant in its use of the wilderness history I will make when I refer to that point.

In chapter 4 it is said, "For we which have believed do enter into rest." Does "we which have believed" (πιστεύσαντες) apply to unbelievers? and this of the rest of sons whom God was bringing to glory? Again I read, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." Whose? Whose then? The unbelievers willing to listen, or even the Jewish remnant after the Church is gone, have no profession to hold fast which a Christian could call "ours," when he referred to having a high priest in the heavens. This priesthood moreover, a present priesthood which "we have," has nothing to do with a Melchisedec priesthood; it is a priesthood for the time of need, a priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points like as we are, except sin; so that we can come boldly to the throne of grace for mercy and help in time of need. This is priesthood, and not Melchisedec priesthood, after enemies are destroyed; but what enables us to come boldly to a throne of grace for mercy and help.

206 In chapter 5 the "for" of this first verse shews that the Aaronic priesthood was founded on this very principle. It is not Christ's priesthood itself, as the fifth verse very clearly and positively shews; but it takes the Aaronic priesthood as a sample of the thoughts of God in priesthood, clearly not Melchisedec priesthood. It was different from Christ's, inasmuch as the Aaronic priesthood had sympathy while in, and because they were in, the same weakness as the others who drew nigh to God; whereas Christ's priesthood is exercised in the heavens. The partaking of the sorrows, when here, fitted Him for it, as chapters 2: 18; 4: 15, 16 shew, and chapter 5: 7. But THESE took place in the days of His flesh before He became a priest. He became that when perfected on high, for "we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens." This makes the place and nature of His priesthood as clear as possible. He was tempted and suffered here below, as we suffer, to be fitted for it, touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but He exercises it on high. These two points are the fundamental and essential ones of the doctrine of the Epistle, while it clearly states that it is for us. He is the high priest of our profession. He is the author of eternal salvation to all those who obey Him. That those whom the apostle thus addresses were Christians will appear in the strongest light from what is here and afterwards said of them — Christians in danger of being led away by judaism and of apostatizing.

"For the time ye ought to be teachers." (Ver. 12.) What had time to do if they were unbelievers or Jews? or how could the writer say to the Jewish remnant after the Church was gone, that they for the time ought to be teachers? Ye ought to be teachers. Who? The unbelieving remnant?

207 And now let the reader remark here what lies at the root of all this question.

We have seen, as clearly as scripture could make it, a priesthood based on Christ's being exalted at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens on the one hand, and on His having been tempted and having suffered and having learned obedience here below in the days of His flesh on the other; the priest of our profession who has the heavenly calling; a priest, as we shall see, who is entered into the heavens as our forerunner; and able, as having suffered, to help those who are tempted; and this priest is the priest according to the order of Melchisedec. (See chap. 5: 7-10.) We have the whole process of His perfecting for priesthood; and then He is saluted of God a high priest after the order of Melchisedec.

Is it not perfectly clear that, though personally the priesthood be not after the order of Aaron, but a new one, the exercise of the priesthood is not after the similitude of Melchisedec? Save what belongs to the person, not one element of Melchisedec priesthood is here found. The priest is in heaven, and profits by sufferings experienced here below to succour a tempted and suffering people. So that we come boldly to the throne of grace.

I add to this, that it is after He has perfected the work of propitiation, chapter 1: 3 to chapter 2: 17, where reconciliation should be propitiation (ἱλάσχεσθαι); but His priesthood is wholly and expressly on high, and He is on no Melchisedec throne, no throne of His own at all, but on the Father's throne, on the right hand of the throne of God; not after His enemies are all subdued, but expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. His priesthood is this; not Melchisedec priesthood in its place or exercise.

I remark, further, that though the application of every blessing — all the work of God in good from creation on — is by the Spirit, yet that this truth is not taught here. The person who feels for us has had experience, so as to be able to feel for us. "Who is able to succour the tempted" is not the Spirit here, but Christ, and Christ as priest. And this is a most important thing. For the heart of the Christian Christ is an object of affection, which the Spirit — though we are indebted to His working for every blessing — cannot be.

I pursue my enquiry into the contents of the Epistle. They for the time ought to be teachers; and (chap. 6) the writer will not go back to Jewish elements. How does he speak of the responsibility of those he addresses? He will go on to perfection (that is, the estate of full age: it is the same word as in chapter 5: 14, "full age") with those he addresses. "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God." Is this the state of Jews disposed to listen then, or of the Jewish remnant in the last days? Falling away from having enjoyed their privileges is the thing contemplated. But these two categories of persons had never enjoyed them at all. And this is the aim of the whole epistle — to guard against falling away. The nation had crucified Christ — they might be forgiven it as an act of ignorance. But these, after the enjoyment of christian privileges, did it for themselves; then there was no help. But in spite of this so solemn warning, he hoped better things of those he addressed, for they had brought forth fruits of grace. He could not think they could fall away from their privileges; for fruits of life had been shewn. Only he desired that every one of them might shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end. Is that addressed to a then unbelieving remnant, or to Christians who had received all fulness of privileges, and whose fruits made their teacher fully hope they would not abandon them? What was falling away from unbelief? The best thing they could do was to give it up. What was the same diligence to be shewn to the end in unbelievers? And what was the hope that belonged to them? It entered in within the veil whither the Forerunner was entered for them, even Jesus. That is not the hope of the remnant, any more than the beginning of the chapter was the state of the remnant. Their hope is deliverance. The forerunner is for us entered within the veil. We hope to be with Him in heaven. Jesus is gone in: we are to follow Him there. Yet this is He who is made a high priest after the order of Melchisedec.

208 The inspired writer then unfolds this priesthood of Melchisedec; but of the exercise of the priesthood not a word. All relates to His person, and the setting aside of the law by the setting up of another priest. There is large allusion to the history, or to His person and personal dignity; but not a word as to what He did. But we have the bringing in of a better hope, by the which we draw nigh to God. Who? the unbelieving Jews ready to listen? Of whom does the writer say, "We draw nigh unto God;" and "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them?" Here we have an ever living priest, by whom we draw nigh to God, able to save through and through to the end (not because He has perfected us by His offering, infinitely precious, unspeakably precious, as that is; not because He has died for us, though that be the ground of all, a ground even for the Father's love to Him; but) because He ever lives to make intercession for us. It is what He is active in, as life, that is here before us.

209 Appearing in the presence of God for us is another thing, and otherwise expressed in this epistle. (Chap. 9: 24.) And really "ever living to appear," has very little sense. That He is able, since He ever lives, to do something which requires activity, is plain enough; but "ever living to appear" is not a sentence which could commend itself to any sober mind taught of God. But ἑντυγχάνειν does not mean that; it means "to intercede." If he who has given occasion to this paper likes to take the dictionary sense given by his correspondent as a general idea, I have no objection: — "talking with, or getting to the spirit of another." This is, activity; not appearing before another, but talking with that other, getting to his spirit, if we are so to express it. And I insist distinctly, that the use of it in Romans 8 is a very distinct and plain proof of its meaning. The Holy Ghost in us does not appear before God for us. He is active in us, and makes us groan, and God recognizes it as His activity in us — finds the mind of the Spirit in us; for He makes intercession for the saints. This is activity. It is talking to another, even to God, in a groan; and, if I am reverently to use such an expression, "it gets to His spirit." God apprehends His mind when even we cannot, and recognizes it as His, accepts it. He talks to another, and it gets as far as we may venture to use the words, it gets to His spirit — it reaches God's mind and heart.* Christ ever lives to intercede for us on high. I say "for us," not as sitting in heavenly places, but as coming to God by Him. I say "us," "for such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens" — "became us" because we belong to heaven — go in spirit into heaven in our coming to God. We have not to do with a priest on a throne on earth, or on His own throne anywhere; but with One who is now made higher than the heavens.

{* ἐντυγχάνω never means anything else in scripture than active intervention. It is used five times: Acts 25: 24; Romans 8: 27, 34; 11: 2; Hebrews 7: 25. The reader can easily see if these are active interventions or not.}

210 Such is the priesthood of Christ always in this Epistle, a present priesthood, a priesthood in heaven, a priesthood on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, exercised there; a priesthood, not after the order of Aaron as to person or descent, but our Lord, priest on high after the power of an endless life, personally similar to, and after the order of, Melchisedec, but never introduced as exercising His priesthood after the pattern, or in the place, of Melchisedec; always, from chapters 2 and 3 as compared and contrasted with Aaron's, to lift Jewish Christians (for they were Jewish Christians specifically) then from Jewish habits of association with that which was on earth, in shewing a present priesthood exercised above the heavens, and to preserve them by grace from falling away from the heavenly things to what they were used to; and, I may add, to bring them out from, what they had hitherto stayed in, the camp — outward association with Israel and a judged system, and by teaching, which, for us, is based on the truth, in its continual exercise, that He ever lives to do it, now as then. It is the exercise of a continual priesthood after He had offered up Himself once for all.

It is well that the reader should remark, that though the sacrifice has been stated (it is spoken of in the very first chapter, so in the second, as it is again here), we have not one word as yet of being made perfect in fact or in conscience, but the priest's fitness for tempted exercised souls down here — a priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He is gone on high, but we have no perfecting by sacrifice, no appearing as yet in the presence of God for us. Though the value of His priesthood for tried ones, and its fitness, are fully stated, as yet it is not our perfectness, before God, but help for the feeble and tried, who need help and mercy. It is to this last that priesthood is applied, and priesthood at the right hand of God, on the right hand of the throne of majesty on high, not at all on any Melchisedec throne. And this application of the priesthood of Christ to our infirmities and help in time of need is the more remarkable, because, when the author of the epistle comes to speak of perfectness through His offering and His appearing in the presence of God for us, he does not speak of Him as priest at all; the reference to His priesthood is wholly dropped. Though contrasted with the Jewish priesthood, infirmities, help, intercession, ever living to make it, and these alone are identified with His priesthood — save the fact of propitiation in chapter 2, which is admitted to be an exceptional case, in which the high priest represented the people (not a proper act of priesthood, though of the high priest on the day of atonement); and, on the other hand, when our perfecting by His offering of Himself, and His appearing in the presence of God for us, are spoken of, priesthood is wholly dropped. There is distinct and marked contrast. That is not priesthood, intercession is, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews.

211 In chapter 8 we have the whole doctrine of the priesthood summed up before the unfolding of the worth of the sacrifice, and His appearing in the presence of God for us, are gone into. We have an high priest set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, a purely heavenly one. None of this belongs to Melchisedec. The priesthood spoken of is solely while Christ is on high. It is in the sanctuary — that is, in heaven itself — exercised in that of which the tabernacle man pitched was the shadow, made according to the pattern of things in the heavens, a heavenly priesthood in a heavenly sanctuary. This is so distinctly the case, that if He were on earth He would not be a priest. (Of Melchisedec's exercise of priesthood on His throne no trace or hint is found.) There were priests who served to the example and pattern of heavenly things; we have to do with the heavenly things themselves. And Christ has obtained a more excellent ministry. When and where according to this chapter? What is — "But now hath he obtained?" What, as to the priesthood and ministry of Christ, "replaces here?" — the heavenly things and a heavenly service and a heavenly sanctuary as a present thing, or a Melchisedec priesthood after all enemies are put down on earth? Is that shadow and pattern, according to which it is exercised, the sanctuary set up by Moses, or the Melchisedec service? For a calm and straightforward mind there can be but one answer. It may be said he speaks of the covenants. He does. But to what end? Solely HERE to shew that the old is passing away and ready to vanish, that the Jewish Christians might not hang on to it. The new covenant is surely not made with us at all. The basis of it is laid in Christ's blood, as the institution of the Lord's Supper shews, and we have all the advantages of it (but a great deal more), and Paul was a minister of it.

212 But this allusion to the pattern of heavenly things has led the inspired writer to the whole order of the sanctuary, to unfold the worth of Christ's work and sacrifice. And here let me make a remark not without its importance in the study of the Hebrews. The mention of the temple is carefully excluded. That was connected with royalty, with the establishment on earth of what was practically Melchisedec rule and priesthood, the rule of the Son of David. The tabernacle only is mentioned; this was the pattern of heavenly things. The temple is never given as such, whatever analogies there may be; the tabernacle is. Even when he speaks of the system as having still its standing (chap. 9: 8), it is the tabernacle, not the temple. It is the camp they were to leave, and come outside. The analogy of Christ's service is distinctly, definitely, and declaredly after the similitude of the Aaronic service in the tabernacle, not after any Melchisedec service. The pattern is what Moses gave, but it is in heaven, and in heaven only and specifically. It is a present thing, specifically a present thing, as He is in heaven now; not a future thing as Melchisedec is. He is entered in, not come out. (Chap. 9: 12.) The veil is rent, the way into the holiest is open, and the blood of Christ purges the conscience. And the apostle speaks to those to whom the epistle is addressed, who are partakers of the heavenly calling, and can say, He is the high priest of our profession. The heavenly things themselves are in question. Christ is entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

In this, as we have seen, though compared with what Aaron did, there is no mention of priesthood. It is another matter. In chapter 4: 14 we have the analogy strikingly stated: "a great high priest that is passed through [not into] the heavens," as Aaron through the court and holy place into the sanctuary. But here we have no priest but Christ appearing in the presence of God for us. He has appeared, not to restore Israel and the world, but to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He has been once offered, not to redeem Israel, but — in contrast with death and judgment, man's portion as a child of Adam — to bear the sins (not of Israel, but) of many. Does this mean that He did not die for the nation, or that the remnant will not be restored on the ground of this sacrifice? Surely not. But the passage speaks of other things.

In chapter 10, still in express comparison and contrast with the law, the application of Christ's sacrifice is gone into; but it is fact and efficacy — no priesthood now. It is application; we are sanctified. It is taught as that which is known by him who teaches it, a present thing. The position of Christ is still the opposite of that of Melchisedec. He is expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. It is not a reign and kingly priesthood after they are destroyed. It is only heavenly; He sits at the right hand of God. The sanctified ones, already spoken of, are perfected for ever. He is not, as Aaronic priests were, standing ever renewing inefficacious sacrifices; but sitting at the right hand of God, because His is complete, and those having a part in it perfected for ever; that is, not merely for eternity, but in uninterrupted and unbroken continuity, just as He sits there. It is those who have part in it while He is sitting there. And the Holy Ghost is a witness of it, to the writer and those he writes to, as a present possession of peace. And mark the consequence. We brethren, "have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." When and where? Jews under Melchisedec? And now we come back to the high priest. Where? In the holiest in heaven, or in the house of God, whose house (we have read) are we if we hold fast, I suppose, what we have got.

It will be remarked, that with chapter 10: 18 the doctrine of these two chapters ends, and exhortation begins. We are to draw near with full assurance of faith into the holiest, having a high priest over the house of God. I will suppose for the moment, what clearly could not possibly be, that this exhortation was addressed to unbelievers disposed to listen, which is the theory of the deniers of priesthood as to any present application. I ask, Was not that into which they were brought the christian position? Those living men could not be brought into the residue position in the last days; they could be brought, if anywhere, among Christians. That, then, to which they were called, was where Christians were: a rent veil; access into the holiest by it; a purged conscience; full assurance of faith; and a great High Priest over the house of God. I do not believe that this is the position of the remnant in the latter day at all, but I leave that aside. It is the position of Christians now, for it is what the then listeners, according to the theory, were called into.

213 When we go on with the chapter it becomes evident, beyond all possible question, that it is the christian position. "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith." Does the writer of the epistle identify himself with unbelieving Jews in the profession of a common faith? What were the unbelieving Jews to hold fast? "The profession of our faith" in the mouth of a Christian must be christian faith; and if it be "our," he must write to Christians. We (who?) are to "provoke one another to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together" — who is that? Was it a Jewish assembly, or Christians and unbelieving Jews together? Besides, it supposes that the knowledge of the truth had been received; and, as in chapter 6, if the Spirit, whose presence distinctively characterized Christians, and Christianity was received in vain, so here, if the one sacrifice which characterized it was departed from, there was no remedy, no room for repentance. Only judgment remained. They were christian professors, and enjoyed the advantages of Christianity, and if they cast them away, there was nothing else to come but judgment. What distinguished the remnant is that there is deliverance to come, because they have not had these privileges, and had not cast them away. What characterized any Jews disposed to listen then was the same fact, they had not had them. What characterized those to whom the writer addressed himself is that they had. They, if they departed from the faith — drew back, had trodden under foot the Son of God, counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of grace — there was no remedy left. Are unbelieving Jews, however disposed, as to their position, sanctified by the blood of the covenant? What does verse 32 mean? "After ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;" and "knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance?" What is the confidence they were not to cast away? In a word, they were not of those — the writer hoped — who drew back to perdition, but of those who believed to the saving of the soul, and certainly had the privileges from which they could draw back.

214 I resume the proof from these exhortations. The Epistle — the practical exhortations were addressed in fact to some one. Those to whom they are addressed are illuminated, had received the knowledge of the truth, are exhorted not to forsake the assembling of themselves together (they had taken joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing they had in heaven a better and enduring substance), and even not to cast away their confidence; were not to be of those who drew back, but believing to the saving of their souls; in a word, were believers, or at least professed believers, and believers then were Christians. Profession left them in danger of drawing back to Judaism, and gave occasion to warning in this respect; but, if Christians, Christians had and therefore have a great high priest over the house of God — a priest gone into heaven, and who exercised his priesthood there, and, as here described, there only — a priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and who ever lives to make intercession for us: our perfection by His offering, and His appearing in the presence of God for us, not being connected with His priestly service.

215 What remains of the Epistle, after such evidence, needs not very enlarged reference. In chapter 11 I notice one passage — "God having provided [or foreseen] some better thing for us, that they [Abraham, &c.] without us should not be made perfect." Is it for Christians or for the Jewish remnant that some better thing than Abraham's heavenly portion is provided? Is not the perfection resurrection glory, not blessing under Melchisedec?

All the exhortations in the beginning of chapter 12, if they mean anything, are addressed to Christians. They were not come to Sinai, but to the full heavenly and earthly blessing, in which the Church of the firstborn and the Old Testament saints are included. Here alone we have the Church in the Hebrews. They were come to Jesus. It will be said, To Jesus, mediator of the new covenant. Quite true: and I do not doubt that this refers in accomplishment to the millennial earth. But they were come to Jesus, and this is the essential point; and it is a Jesus not coming back from heaven, but speaking from heaven while He is there. Chapter 13: 8, 9, clearly shews with whom they were in connection. The Christ they had been taught to know, by those whose faith they were to follow, was the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. I do not connect the verses as in the English Bible; but it is quite clear that the faith a Christian exhorts to follow is christian faith, and here suggests Christ as the One whose unchangeableness should guard them from strange doctrines: grace, not Jewish meats, was to be their portion.

But further, "We," says the writer, "have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle." Who had an altar in contrast with the Jews? the unbeliever willing to listen? Of a future remnant there is no idea or question. The writer declares that he and those with whom he was associated had (had then) an altar, a place of worship, where the food of and communion with God was, at which those who held to (now bypast and soon to be judged) Judaism had no right to partake. Who had, who could then or now have, this but Christians? Judaism as a system is then rejected as being a religion for this earth, a camp of God (now left of Him) here. Such a religion was now rejected. When the blood was carried within the sanctuary, the body of the victim was carried without the camp. The true sanctuary, heaven (as is expressly taught in chapter 9: 11, 12, 24), is one essential element of the position spoken of; abiding rejection of and by worldly religion, made for or suited to the flesh, "outside the camp," or the earthly holy city, is the other. This is distinctly Christianity. The remnant at the end look for and will have the restoration of an earthly system, and the Lord's presence and throne in Jerusalem. The system into which men are called in this epistle (and, if Christians, are, and warned not to fall away from) is exclusively and uncompromisingly christian and heavenly, in contrast with what the remnant could have at the end, founded on this same work, but established in a restored throne on earth and a holy city here, not a rejected Saviour and a heavenly throne. Verses 20, 21, are most clearly addressed to Christians, and outside all old and new covenants; and the rest, as the whole chapter, suppose that in faith, joy, hopes, interest, and warnings, the writer and those addressed are alike Christians, though the latter Christians in danger of slipping back into Judaism, from which they are called finally to separate themselves.

216 The result of this survey of the Epistle to the Hebrews is, that our being perfected by the offering of Jesus Christ, and His appearing in the presence of God for us, is not referred to priesthood, but that there is a priesthood of intercession available for us because the priest can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and, having suffered, being tempted, is competent to succour those that are tempted. That this priesthood is exercised in heaven specifically, in its whole character and nature, and only there, is here brought forward as that which became us; that the comparison and contrast of this priesthood in its exercise is wholly with the ordering and service of the tabernacle. The priest is according to the order of Melchisedec, but of the exercise of a Melchisedec priesthood there is no mention, hint, or trace. It is a priesthood exercised in heaven only, into which Christ is entered as Aaron into the holiest made with hands. It is addressed to Christians formally and expressly in all its parts; if it reach over — as a groundwork of Israel's future hopes, as what is taught in it surely does — it has no direct application to them, save as Christ's present position and His accomplished work secure these hopes; and as it does not take proper church ground (that is, our sitting in heavenly places in Christ), it can reach over in certain parts to their hopes and blessings as an accessory. But the hopes given in the Epistle are not theirs, but heaven and glory. Further, it is written to christian Jews, that is, to Christians from among the Jews, and who in fact clung to their old thoughts, and feelings, and system, and were in danger, if not kept of God, of falling back into Judaism, which was ready to be judged, and are warned moreover to come out and leave their connection with it — warned that the faith of Christ, which they had, and Judaism could no longer be connected as it had been, many thousand Jews, as we know, holding fast to their ancient law.

217 I now take up some of the remarks which have given occasion to this paper.

The first goes to the root of the whole matter. I have touched upon it, but it is too important to pass over, namely, that church position is our only position. That we are never out of the position of those who belong to the Church is quite true, but that is not church position. Church position is the unity of the body which thus sits in heavenly places in its Head, inseparable from it and so perfect. Now, this position belongs to all true Christians, but they are not always viewed in this position. Were it so, all individual relationship with the Father would cease. Christ would have nothing to do with calling us brethren; could not be the Firstborn among many brethren; has ceased to be the good Shepherd; as, on the other hand, individual responsibility has ceased; we cry no more, Abba, Father. None of these things have to do with the body, though they belong to those who are in the body.

But, further, the Epistle to the Romans, save chapter 12, does not apply to this position, but to individual responsibility, and individual death to sin, and individual position and privilege. The Colossians, though the doctrine is once referred to, does not set us on this ground. In that epistle we are dead and risen with Christ, but not sitting in heavenly places, but taught to look up there. The Philippians never takes this ground at all, yet the whole of it is individual christian experience, of one down here, but, as down here, of the highest practical kind. Sin is not mentioned. He did not know whether to desire life or death; decides his case when, thus, self has no place at all, by that which is useful for the Church; never does but one thing, has but one object; and as Christ had always been magnified in him, so he hopes He ever will be. Yet church position is never thought of. In church position I am always perfect. The moment I am an individual, my responsibility comes in and liability to failure. The author of the tract speaks of "nation," "family," "brethren," as belonging to Israel, but, though to be used as principles, not the right way of dealing with souls. ("Remarks," p. 16.) "Nation" of course is Israel. The word "family" is not used that I remember, though οῖχος is; but children continually. And as to "brethren," it is, every one knows, the common term for Christians in the Acts and Epistles: "all the holy brethren," "our brother Timothy," "the brethren," "I beseech you, therefore, brethren." This is so true that it is only after His resurrection that Christ so addresses them. "Quartus, a brother." I should be wasting my reader's time in quoting passages — let him take a Concordance and see if it be not the habitual name given to the saints. The remark I refer to is only a proof how an absorbing idea has led away this brother from scripture.

218 Another very serious mistake which I refer to as a general principle is, that God owns no kind of relationship with God out of Israel on the ground of profession. The words are these in page 9: "I repeat, Israel and Israel only, ever had any link with God upon the ground of profession without the reality of internal life." "It is not now Jew or Gentile, but Christ's or the world's." Link is a vague word: real link of course there cannot be. But if it be meant that men are not dealt with as in a recognized relationship with Christ, it is a very dangerous and mischievous mistake. The house of God may certainly be built with wood, and hay, and stubble here on the earth. The apostle warns the Corinthians that Israel were baptized to Moses and partook of the same spiritual meat and drink, referring to baptism and the Lord's Supper, yet fell in the wilderness, and they were to take heed by their example. In John, we read that he who hates his brother is a murderer and has not eternal life. The seven churches are all treated by the Lord as on the footing of churches, though judged, and the last spued out of His mouth. Peter tells us that judgment begins at the house of God. But more, in Matthew 24 the servant who says, My lord delays his coming, is treated as a servant. The lord of that servant comes; and he has his portion with hypocrites. The servant who had one talent is treated as a wicked and slothful servant, and is judged as a servant, cast out as an unprofitable servant. The scripture is full of relationships, bringing judgments according to those relationships, where no internal life is. It is the whole history of Christianity in this world, going on to judgment as such. Involved in it is the weightiest and most solemn thought which can affect the Christian on the side of evil and its consequences, when himself at peace with God.

219 Another important principle is, our personal standing before God and the Father as regards Christ's work. Nothing is thought of in the tract but perfection of standing, and with this is connected the total exclusion of Christ from all loving service for the saint. His presence in heaven secures us, the Holy Ghost works in us; but Christ has nothing to do for us at all: no care, no love in exercise, no advocacy. His presence secures us, but He does nothing up there, and the Holy Ghost does all down here. So that He does nothing anywhere. This is a serious statement. Such is the doctrine of page 19 of "Remarks," &c., which allows no intercession or advocacy unless to propitiate God. "The intercession or advocacy needful and consequent upon failure in the walk, as it is put in the tract, must be to propitiate God, because Christ is up there and we down here. If imputation of sin is impossible (which is true, for Christ is there for us as having put away our sin), it is something in the heart of the saint that is needed: and one down here to do that needed thing. Now that is just the place and work of the Holy Ghost, and nowhere do we read that it is the work of Christ for us in heaven. The Holy Ghost tells us — witnesseth within us — of the permanent, perfected work of Him who is our 'Guardian' in heaven, and so maintains us there before God in all the virtue of His own person and work, notwithstanding our failure down here; and the practical result of this — the Spirit's witness to this — is to lead the soul, not only away from the failure, but back to communion with God."

"Again, I ask, in what way can Christ's intercession or advocacy restore the soul, as the tract says, unless the Holy Ghost work in the soul, giving it an apprehension of what has been done afresh before God for its failure? I say 'afresh' because it says 'there can be no thought of imputation' of sin which is put away for ever, and therefore it must be some fresh thing done (even if connected with atonement), something with respect to the special act of failure, and done after its commission."

"I apprehend the intercession of Christ before God for us is continued and uninterrupted; and in virtue of this, the Holy Ghost continues His work in the world, and in the saint, however the world may reject, and the flesh in the saint may lust against Him and His work. The repeated intercession of Christ, on each and every occasion of failure, involves the remembrance of sin before God, and so touches the perfection of His work which has put away sin, as well as overlooks also the present work of the Holy Ghost in the saint. Three points of solemn moment."

220 Now this is all a mistake. It is not to propitiate; it is not continued and uninterrupted. The last phrase I allude to may mislead the reader. The author believes no intercession in the ordinary sense of the word; he says "The only priesthood of Christ is Melchisedec, and that is for blessing, not intercession. The intercession, as I have before said, is His maintaining us before God in all the virtue of His own person and work." (Page 21.) And "He is there also 'for us,' and so He is there presenting Himself as the head and representative of the redeemed: it is His presence intercedes or avails for us." The repeated intercession of Christ on each failure is denied — is a fresh work. I have only to quote 1 John 2 to shew the falseness of all this. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins."

I do not see how we could have a more complete answer to the author's statement on every point. The righteousness is there in the person of Christ, the propitiation is accomplished in all its perfectness. Both are supposed to be complete and perfect, and then if any man sin, that is "in each and every failure," we have an advocate with the Father. The παράχλησις or advocacy of Christ is set in activity when there is failure; "if any man sin, we have." The presence of the righteous One is perpetual; the propitiation, a finished work. If further were needed, it is Christ, not the Holy Ghost, whose work is referred to when any man sins; it is not our looking to some fresh work, but something which avails us when we sin. God forbid that it should be thought I do not recognize the Spirit's work graciously dealing with, and in, and bringing back, the soul, or right thoughts in it. I believe every good thing in us is wrought by the Holy Ghost, but I say that this passage refers us, when a man has sinned, as an occasional evil thing, to Christ's advocacy as restoring, not to the Spirit's work.

And let my reader here note the subject in question in John, and he will at once see the bearing of it, and the difference of John and Hebrews. The subject in John is communion or fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Not access to God, but communion when grace is known in the full revelation of the Father and the Son; the names of grace and eternal life in John. Our fellowship is with them; common thoughts, joys, feelings, however weak and feeble we may be. It must be so. The Holy Ghost cannot give us different ones from the Father and the Son's. We delight in Christ; we know the Father does. We delight in the Father's love, so does the Son, a holy, blessed, wondrous thought, and which will only keep us humble when it is real. But God in His nature is light; and if we say we have communion with Him, and we walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.

221 I cannot say I have no sin, I cannot say I have not sinned. But I need not go on sinning, I may walk in the Spirit. But suppose I do not: the righteousness and propitiation remain in all their value or the link would be wholly broken, my acceptance gone. That is not so, but my communion is wholly gone, at least for the time. It were a blasphemy to talk of communion with God when I have sinful thoughts or acts. What is now to be done? Christ is above, as advocate for the occasional failure, not to win righteousness — He is the righteous one there: not to propitiate (His propitiation for our sins is all complete) but as advocate with the Father. It is not the Holy Spirit's work I am referred to, however surely He thereon works in us, as I all-thankfully acknowledge.

In every point the author is wholly wrong. The repeated intercession on each and every occasion of failure does not touch the perfection of His work, it is founded on it. It does not involve the remembrance of sins before God in the sense here spoken of and as scripture speaks of it. It refers to the loss of communion by allowance of sin, which is most certain. Restoring and chastening both suppose God's taking notice of sin in us when such there is. His not remembering sins does not, thank God, refer to that as if He would allow sin in us, but to His imputing or bearing them in His mind against us.

Even as to intercession in connection with priesthood the writer is all wrong. He tells us that (p. 21) "the only priesthood of Christ is Melchisedec, and that is for blessing, not intercession." But I read in Hebrews — He "hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." That is, priesthood is connected with intercession, and intercession the work of priesthood, such as Christ has it now.

222 I have already spoken of what intercession means in scripture. The reader has only to look out the passages and see, Acts 25: 24; Romans 8: 27-31; 11: 2; Hebrews 7: 25.

The difference between Hebrews and John is not without importance. Hebrews speaks of access to God, coming to God; John, of communion. Hebrews shews that, being perfected for ever, we have boldness to enter into the holiest, Jesus appearing in the presence of God for us. Now this is always so. We have always access. When we have sinned it is there we have to go — go to confess and humble ourselves in the dust; but to go there because there is our place with God. There alone sin is fully judged. But that is never in question, and that is the subject of Hebrews: the veil is rent, and we are perfected for ever. Hence priesthood in Hebrews applies to infirmities, help, mercy on the road; blessed thing too! Whereas communion is interrupted, and in respect of this sin does come in question: hence the advocacy of Christ does apply to this, and this is the subject in John.

I enter now into some more details of the "Remarks." I read, page 6, "He is there presenting Himself as the head and representative of the redeemed. It is His presence intercedes or avails for us." Which? — Head or representative? The two ideas are wholly distinct. As Head we are one with Him, members of His body, of His flesh, of His bones — part of Himself. There is no representation — we are part of Himself. If He represents us, He is there instead of us, for us. Thus in the Hebrews, which the writer tells us is not properly for us, He appears in the presence of God for us, because union and headship are not contemplated. And this is confusion as to the whole point in question. I believe we are united by one Spirit to Christ in heaven: that is the eternal counsel of God. I believe He represents me as a responsible being here on earth; first, for everlasting righteousness secured in Him, so that nothing is imputed to me, and I have a place before God according to His title in righteousness; and, secondly, to secure help and assure me of living sympathy in my responsibility, and for communion; and if I fail, as an advocate with the Father to restore my soul, the good Shepherd who knows His sheep and is known of them.

The use of Hebrews 5: 1, 2 is a great mistake. It is the description of what high priests taken from among men are, as Aaron, in contrast with Christ. They had the same infirmities, and at the time of their priesthood. And as regards the sacrifices for sin spoken of, the careful doctrine of the epistle is, that this He did once when He offered up Himself, and that it is accomplished before He enters into the regular exercise of His priesthood. It is a mistake as to the whole teaching of the epistle. It is asked, "What is that which subsisted de facto, not by divine authority, not yet actually set aside, which Christians were called to come out of?" (Page 10.) It was Judaism at Jerusalem. It did subsist de facto till the destruction of Jerusalem; had no real divine authority after the cross, but was left by the patience of God, not yet set aside; and Christians, that is, Jewish Christians, had remained in it by thousands, nay, wanted to subject Gentile Christians to it, though God did not allow that; and the Jewish Christians were now called to come out of it. A great many of the priests even, it is said, were obedient to the faith. This was now to close.

223 I have already spoken of the contents of page 11. It is wholly contrary to scripture. Though the same truth may be found scattered about and referred to as known, no epistle takes Ephesian ground but the Epistle to the Ephesians itself — not even Paul's. As to John, he never alludes at all to church truth. All is individual, though he teaches that "as he is, so are we in this world." Let the Christian read Philippians, the most experimental of all epistles, in the third chapter running on to win Christ in glory; the second, looking for his mind on earth; the Church or church truth is never found in it — could not be; surely it is blessedly consistent with it. But this is what I contend for: that he who is in the Church can be contemplated in the exercises of his soul on other ground, though not on ground inconsistent with it. If we know what it is to be in Christ and united with Him, we all know that there is another ground I am on. There I am perfect always; in fact, down here, a feeble creature, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. I have eternal life, for I have Christ; yet "the end" is "everlasting life," and I am to lay hold upon it. I am sanctified, yet look to be sanctified, body, soul, and spirit, and follow after holiness: God chastises me to be made partaker of His. I am saved and called with a holy calling; yet things turn to my salvation, and I work it out, or should do so, with fear and trembling, though knowing God works in me for it.

The pre-occupation of page 14 is singular. I do not again go over the ground that the Christian can be contemplated individually, and even in his imperfections, and his actual state here below, none of which are the Church as such; but I refer to what is said: "If we take the testimony of the book itself, it is clear that it is the world or habitable earth to come whereof we speak, and that is assuredly connected with Israel, not the Church now being gathered." Is it not strange to see this passage quoted when its object is to shew that this was not the object of faith for those to whom the epistle is addressed, but what came before that time? — Christ in a position the opposite of that of Melchisedec. "Howbeit," the writer continues, "we see not all things put under him." That is, this habitable earth to come is not the present subject of your faith and attention; "but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." Christ is to be viewed in a place where He cannot have that of Melchisedec. So far from all enemies being subdued — a phrase which the author quotes with approbation very often — they are not yet put under His feet. Can anyone find a single passage in which the world to come, or the Melchisedec priesthood in its only exercise, is spoken of in the epistle? I know of none. I affirm, that its uniform object is to make those addressed see that the Aaronic priesthood is set aside, and that they must look up to where Christ is now, having a heavenly calling, and see Jesus where He must wait till the time comes when all things will be put under His feet, when He will have the Melchisedec throne and exercise the Melchisedec priesthood, which He cannot do now — the time when the world to come will be there. The author makes that priesthood to be, "most definitely" . . . one of "blessing and refreshment after and consequent upon the destruction of all enemies." That is clearly not the priesthood spoken of in Hebrews, for He is a priest at the right hand of God; and such a high priest became us who is made higher than the heavens, and ever lives to make intercession for us, whatever it means, as priest. But what the author admits Melchisedec priesthood to be is clearly not the present condition of things, declared not to be so in the Hebrews. Yet Christ ever lives to occupy a priesthood now! We have a high priest, sitting at the right hand of God, a high priest over the house of God, a priest who makes intercession for us, where it is admitted the exercise of Melchisedec priesthood is impossible. Nor is this view of Melchisedec priesthood a casual admission of the author's.

224 In a second tract, which I had not seen when I began this, I find what follows. In pages 20, 21 of that tract he quotes a series of passages, nine in number, closing with, "it [the Melchisedec priesthood] is not that which Christ the Lord now exercises;" and adds, "with all this I fully agree." So page 23. It is admitted there that Christ does not exercise Melchisedec priesthood now. Is there none exercised in Hebrews? Let the reader now read chapter 2: 17, 18; 3: 1, "of our profession," "whose house are we;" chapter 4: 14-16, "let us hold fast our profession;" chapter 5: 5-10; 3: 19, 20; 7: 14, 24-27; 8: 1, 2, 4 (this is now, and not Melchisedec, for if on earth He would not be a priest; but He is a priest now, set down on the right hand of God: the Lord as Melchisedec will be on earth and a priest upon His throne); 10: 19-22, and what follows. Let my reader, I say, now go through these passages and say if a priesthood is not now in exercise, when the Melchisedec, it is admitted, cannot be. It is in vain to say, that if the priest is after the order of Melchisedec, the present exercise of the priesthood must be. That is just the question which is to be answered by the Hebrews, not by "must be." The writer says that scripture speaks of two priesthoods — Aaronic and Melchisedec. As regards the Hebrews, at any rate, it is a mistake, it is more exact than the author is aware. It never speaks of Melchisedec priesthood, and on our present question this is of all importance. At least I have found no passage, and I have searched too in the "Englishman's Greek Concordance." It speaks of a priest after the order of Melchisedec, that is, of Christ personally, as after the order of Melchisedec, but never of a Melchisedec priesthood. That would bring the idea of its exercise as such — has brought it to our brother. The priest is after his order, but there is absolutely no Melchisedec priesthood in the Hebrews. Whether priestly service is spoken of, every one must judge after looking at the passages I have referred to, which treat of our profession, of holding it fast, of our Lord, of not drawing back to perdition, of a heavenly calling, of which those addressed were partakers.

225 Our heavenly calling, let me add, is not, as the author would have it, in itself our union with Christ at all. And it is very important, as I have learnt some twenty-five years, to make the difference. Those who have the heavenly calling may be united. But union with Christ is not a calling but a state, an acquired place and position. Through the calling we may, in God's counsels and by His power, be come into this union; but I believe there are those who are saints of the high places, at least there will be, but who never will be in union. At any rate, a calling is that to which we are called by faith, and is never in itself union, though those called may be united. We are called to something, and our spirit and our walk are to be conformed to it. I may be actually, in a certain sense, in it in Christ, but this is not my calling. My calling is that which God has set before my soul, as that which is to form my soul, by my heart being set upon it as given to me by grace, and by grace called to it; and scripture constantly deals with the soul on this ground.

226 I do not desire, God forbid, that any one for an instant should forget or lose the consciousness of his church standing. I doubt a good deal whether the author has ever got fully hold of it; it ends in perfectness of standing in his tracts in general, at any rate. The Lord grant that all that have it, and he too, may hold the consciousness of it always fast in their mind; but we know in part, and we prophesy in part, and we have to learn various parts of truth, and to learn them separately, and to learn ourselves and our dependence, what the flesh is, and what the Lord is. Now, I desire to learn this as united to Him, that is, when standing in grace, never losing sight of my union.

But the scripture teaches me these things, and many things I have to learn; never as denying the fulness of grace in union, never inconsistently with it, never taking me off that ground; nay, I believe other truths can only be rightly learned on this ground, I mean as consciously on it. But scripture has other truths to teach me. It teaches me of the blessed person of Christ, of what He was on earth when I was not united to Him; and it teaches me these truths separately, in part, as it is the only way a poor creature like me can learn them; and I bless God for that patient grace with such as we are who so teaches us. The question is not at all, then, whether I get out of the consciousness of union, but of what Christ is for me in every respect while I am in union, as I have said before. I am justified individually from my sins. It must be individually. When I see the blessedness of that, do I give up the consciousness of union? God forbid. But justification from my sins is not union. It is a part of the blessing which belongs to me, who by grace am united to Christ, necessary for it but reserved too — if not in the same fulness that the light of union casts on everything — for those who are not united. Jehovah tsidkenu will be said by others; but it concerns my conscience, and conscience is always and must be individual. Responsibility to God is distinct from God's counsels, though when united we have a new responsibility according to our new position. The title of Christ as Lord, as Son of man, is not union. I do not go out of union to learn it, nor of the consciousness of union; but the truths I have are learned, as truths, apart from union, as before my mind. All is learned by us ἐν μέρει: so scripture teaches me one truth in one epistle, another in another. In Philippians, as I have said, the saint is running a race, is down here, not sitting in heavenly places — is otherwise looked at; in Colossians, risen but not sitting in heavenly places, but having his hope there. None of these take the saint out of union, or faith in it, or consciousness of it; but they teach him different truths, and these truths do not contemplate him in his union with Christ.

227 I pass over the remarks in John 13 and 17, because it is a question of spiritual discernment. I only ask the reader to look into the passages and say whether the Lord does not contemplate His ascension on high; as is said, "These are in the world, and I am no more in the world, and I come to thee."

But another question must occupy me a while. That subject is the Holy Spirit's work and place in this respect. I have said, and I repeat it because of its importance, nothing good is in us but by the work of the blessed Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit characteristically distinguishes Christianity, and is the main truth revived among "Brethren" in the present day. The counsels of God, of the Father, are the source; the work of Christ, the sure ground; the coming of the Lord, the bright and blessed hope of our blessings and state; but present realization is all by the Spirit. So in restoring, as to communion, the good thoughts, I doubt not, are wrought by Him.

The author of the tracts complains that those who have written on the priesthood of Christ have not spoken of the Spirit. They have not perhaps, I know not, spoken of it there; though, as to my own teaching on it, I know I have always referred to it in connection with 1 John 1, 2. But so far as it is the case, the reason is simple — they were treating another subject. But the author of the tracts is wholly wrong in his statements on the subject, and very seriously wrong. He shuts out Christ wholly from the care of our weakness as priest and from the restoring of our souls. Christ in heaven secures our position by His work and the fact of His presence, he tells us; and having obtained the Holy Ghost for us, the Holy Ghost, he says, works this restoration in us. Now, I repeat, as a general truth, the Holy Ghost works all good in us. The author thus states it: "Now that is just the place and work of the Holy Ghost, and nowhere do we read that it is the work of Christ for us in heaven." (Page 19.) This restoring is solely by the Holy Ghost witnessing to the perfectness of Christ's work and the accomplishment of reconciliation. ("Four Letters," p. 31.) "The Spirit's witness to this is to lead the soul, not only away from the failure, but back to communion with God." "As to Christ, it cannot be that having perfected for ever those that are sanctified He has aught more to do." ("Four Letters," p. 17; see pages 6, 7 of the same.) All work and activity of Christ is excluded. "If the Holy Ghost has to make good in the soul some fresh or additional service, what are we to say about the finished work?" "Has not the Father given all things into His hands, what more then can He ask for?"

228 Now Christ's finished work, and our being perfected by His one offering, has made us perfect before God; I add, our being dead with Him has set us free, and we are in a new position and a new responsibility consequent on and in this new position. God has been pleased, not only to make us perfect in Him in His sight, but to leave us here to manifest the life of Christ, to have our senses exercised to discern good and evil, to learn and unlearn too. He has started us by redemption in a life of exercise in the wilderness, and in conflict in Canaan. We need constant help, not merely the knowledge of our position by the Holy Ghost, but a strength that is made perfect in weakness; we need restoring of soul if we have failed, perhaps messengers of Satan, thorns in the flesh, to buffet us. That is not the Holy Ghost. To whom did Paul go that he might get rid of it? Who answered him? Whose strength was made perfect in his weakness?

Our perfectness is just the ground and starting-point of an exercised life here, which, when that perfectness is known, is never meant to raise the smallest doubt or question as to it; but in which, because we are perfect, we are wholly free to learn good and evil — what God is, the fulness of Christ, and be conformed to Him by His word. The Lord stands by us and strengthens us. The grace of Christ is sufficient for us. His grace is with us; He Himself is with us; He does not leave us comfortless. Is all this, and much more than this, having nothing more to do? Paul had obtained mercy of the Lord to be found faithful. It is, I trust, unnecessary to quote the passages in which grace is attributed to or sought for others from Christ. Can the author produce one passage where the Spirit is so spoken of? This destruction of the living solicitude of Christ because we are perfect, and in that which is our place because we are perfect, is, I confess (I trust I have not used a hard word in all this paper), terrible to my spirit. Does the Lord Jesus Christ Himself not comfort our hearts and make us perfect in every good word and work?

229 But I go further and I ask, Is there a single passage* where restoration is ascribed to the Spirit, or His work referred to in restoration? There may be some, but I cannot recall any. Joy, love, peace, power, liberty, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, the earnest of the inheritance, changing into Christ's image from glory to glory, intercession, in the sense of evil around, according to God, are ascribed to Him; witness with our spirit that we are sons of God; fellowship: but I cannot remember any passage which refers to our restoration in which He is spoken of. And the reason is simple. He is the power of God in us, and the power of good. Sympathy and solicitude, however divine, are attributed to Him who has been tempted in all points like as we are; who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; who, while His love is divine, is a man, not ashamed to call us brethren. Hence it is attributed to Christ. Christ washed the feet, and it was not what He was doing then that He referred to. When He speaks of Lord and Master, it is the lowliness of love and service to others in which we are to imitate Him. But it was only afterwards they were to know the import of what He did. They were washed, and needed only to have their feet washed, which might pick up dirt in their path.

{*I will not go into Acts 9. It might be said it is miraculous. But let the reader read it through and say if Christ has nothing to do. We may have lost much of this blessed familiarity. But is the love of it lost?}

In the Hebrews the operation of the Spirit is never spoken of; sympathy, grace, and help are, when Christ's priesthood is spoken of, His priesthood at the right hand of God; for there it is explicitly that He is priest; there only in the Hebrews; there as diligently taught as the main subject of the Epistle. In 1 John 1: 2, when the blood-cleansing is spoken of, our failure is not. The author says, and he is right, We may be and walk in the light; and, alas! not walk according to it. And the difference is important in its place. But this last is not spoken of at all in the passage. What is said in the passage is: "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light . . . . the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." When failure is spoken of (chap. 2: 1, 2), the Spirit is not at all spoken of, but the advocacy of Christ is.

230 It is strange how scripture is neglected to follow a system in this tract. Thus we are told, "But now of them as a nation [the italics are the author's] it may be said 'by one offering he hath perfected for ever' even them. They are perfected in Him . . . . But as a nation they are not yet sanctified." But the passage says, "He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Pages 24, 25 are the simplest contradiction. If "when it [our walk] is in the light, it is perfect." The case supposed in John has no room according to the author's statement. The passage says, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light . . . . the blood cleanses." The author says, "our standing is in the light; our walk should be, but is not always; — in that case, the Holy Ghost, we see, uses the blood to cleanse." The statement is wholly without foundation in the passage. The author's, if our walk is not in the light, the Holy Ghost uses the blood to cleanse. What is said is the contrary. It says, If we walk in the light, it cleanses.

The attempt to separate the work of Christ and the Spirit, as the author does, is quite unscriptural. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," and "if Christ be in you, the Spirit is life;" but then Christ also is our life. Their work in many respects may surely be considered apart. But we have seen how much the work of Christ, and the Lord by His grace, is spoken of in scripture. To say it is either He or His Spirit absolutely, is unsound. Even when on earth Christ could say, "the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works," and yet He wrought, and yet He by the Spirit cast out devils.

We meet in page 29 with the same totally unscriptural denial of the work of Christ in us in grace, of which the scripture is quite full. Is the good Shepherd's voice dumb and unheard for ever? A priest's office was not merely to offer sacrifice. This is another unscriptural mistake, from following a system, and necessary for the author's. He offered incense within, as well as sacrifice without; indeed it was not as priest, the author admits, properly speaking, he offered the sacrifice.

Again we meet this terrible phrase, "He [Christ] has emphatically sat down as having nothing more to do." I appeal to every page, so to speak, of the New Testament, referring to what took place after He went up on high, whether He is not presented as active in grace. The statement in page 31 as to the quotation from "The Three Appearings" in page 30 of "Remarks," is unfounded. It is not said in the passage quoted "forgiveness asked." The Holy Ghost, it is said, brings back the soul in the sweet sense that the sin is forgiven. The author's own words are, "the Holy Ghost, we see, uses the blood to cleanse." ("Remarks," page 25.) Does he not, in his view of the matter, give the sense of it? "Cleansing it" is much more than "the sweet sense of it." The statements of pages 25 and 31 do clash completely.

231 Many things I might notice, but I feel that my object is sufficiently attained in considering the great principles in question. The contradiction in page 14 of "Four Letters" is no contradiction at all. Christ is not a priest according to the order of Aaron; His priesthood is not according to that order; but the exercise of priesthood in Hebrews is wholly according to that type. He enters into the holiest not without blood, only here His own; that was what Aaron did. Aaron did not make himself a priest, nor did He. Aaron passed through the tabernacle into the holiest, so did He into a better, made without hands. Aaron was consecrated to offer to God, so must He have something. Aaron was a minister of the sanctuary, so is He. They served to the example and pattern of heavenly things, He in the heavenly things themselves. The tabernacle and its service were the pattern and type of the heavenly things in which Christ now ministers. The epistle compares Him to Moses and Aaron. He is the high priest of our profession. Now take the Melchisedec priesthood in its exercise as presented. It is, after all enemies are subdued; that in Hebrews is expressly not so; they are not under His feet. Melchisedec offers no sacrifice; Christ has: Melchisedec goes into no sanctuary; Christ does here: Melchisedec is a priest upon his throne; Christ here is not, but on the right hand of the majesty on high: Melchisedec brings out blessing on earth; Christ here does not: with Melchisedec, the rod of God's strength goes out of Sion; here it does not. Though every way superior the priesthood of Christ in Hebrews has every element of the Aaronic priesthood as a type, which is stated to be a pattern of these heavenly things in which Christ is exercised; not one of the Melchisedec. As far as any analogy or change of law goes, the analogy is much greater when an earthly Jerusalem is restored, the change much greater when all is in heaven.

APPENDIX

I have no doubt that as, we know, the blessed Lord died for that nation, so His present abode in heaven as priest preserves the title and hopes of Israel as a nation till He comes and confers upon them the promised blessings by His presence, when His enemies here below will be put down. We have not seen and have believed, and have a higher and far higher blessing, a heavenly one in God's rest above. Connected with Christ by the Holy Ghost while He is hid in God, and made heavenly in our place and character, we shall, besides far higher blessings, reign with Him; but they — with indeed all the earth, but they especially — will be reigned over, and enjoy in the highest way the privileges which flow from His immediate government, and the place nearest Himself on earth. They have not the heavenly portion, surely not the Church's; but Christ is to gather all things in one, in heaven and on earth, and they will have the highest on earth. Those who have suffered like Him somewhat, the remnant, will learn at least one heavenly song, and be His companions wherever He goes, connected with His royalty in Sion, while those born in peace, it appears, will not learn it. (See Rev. 14.) Hebrews 12: 22-24 gives a summing up of the whole in heaven and in earth.

232 Now, as the Epistle to the Hebrews reveals Jesus to us as He is now in heaven for us on earth, and has the Jewish people as connected with Messiah specially in view, it is quite natural that — though it reveals Christ's present place in heaven and His intercession there, inasmuch as their future blessing as well as the security of every blessing depends on His presence in heaven — it should leave open and give room for the application of the efficacy of the place He holds to that people in the latter-day. It is not an accommodation, not the proper subject of the apostle; but it is an accessory thought and extension of its application, for which room is purposely left in certain passages; and the omission of the relationship of sons with the Father, and of the Church as such with Christ, adapts it to this end. And it is this view of Christ's present position in heaven, which is meant by all this period being foreshadowed by the great day of atonement. Till the high priest came out, Israel could not know that the sacrifice had been accepted, and waited as a people who could not draw, in any way, nigh to God till the sacrifice was accepted. But for us who believe, while He is yet hidden within, the Holy Ghost is come out, so that we know His work is accepted, and that He sits at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool; and hence we have assurance. But His work is accepted for them as a nation, and in virtue of it they will enjoy all their promises, only they will believe when they see. Then He will be king and priest upon His throne. So Moses and Aaron went in and came out (Lev. 9), and fire came down and the people worshipped. The blessing from the priesthood alone was a distinct thing.

233 This leaving of room for blessing to the Jewish people, through the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ, is referred to, I may say fully, already in the "Synopsis." Christ is on high, securing the blessing for the people, and the people for blessing; but He is not yet revealed, and by the Holy Ghost we know and are connected with Him there. I do not say united: this, thank God, is true too. But we are associated with Him there in hope, desire, communion; have heaven open, as Stephen, and see Him there; and by the Holy Ghost are changed into His image from glory to glory. The Christianity preached, unfolded, and enjoyed before Paul's commission was not done away by it, though the doctrine of the Church was committed specially to him to complete the word of God. The turning point of the revelation made at Jerusalem was in the death of Stephen. Then that part culminated, and the then present Jewish hope finally closed, and the full doctrine of the Church and new creation shone out in Paul's conversion, at least in principle and in its elements. But the church and Christianity were already there upon earth, and the admission of Cornelius by Peter, after Paul's conversion, was the proof that in its earthly administration God would not allow a disowning of, or separation from, what He had begun to build, as it is impossible and out of question in its heavenly completeness. But the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. It was no mistake, no work to be undone, any more than the admission of Cornelius after Paul was called, though the doctrine of the Church was not yet revealed.

This position of Christ exalted on high we have in the first two chapters of Hebrews, and though directly applied, as we have seen, to Christians, yet, as never entering on distinct church ground, it can go back to Jewish Christians on the ground they had been upon, to call them out of it as to its connection with Judaism which they had insisted upon, make them recognize in a heavenly Christ the reality of the shadows of the law, which were only patterns of things in the heavens, of which the heavenly things themselves to which they were called were the reality, and look at Christ's position as that which was available for the future blessing of the people through faith. It is not that blessing, nor their state in the blessing. That is under Melchisedec, while this is Christ on high, but it is Christ in the position that secures it for them. Thus, in chapter 2, it is certain that it is for Christians. He is bringing sons to glory, and those referred to are the separated remnant of Isaiah 8 (we know historically now, the Church); but in what position do the passages quoted view them? Signs and wonders to both houses of Israel. It is the blessing of Israel as such? No; it is while God hides His face from them. It is now, but with a testimony that the Lord Jesus, as interested in them, waits for Him who does hide His face. He took up the cause of the seed of Abraham. This applies to us, we know, but in language which leaves application open to others too, who are such according to flesh and faith.

234 The third chapter is distinctly addressed to Christians. They were to exhort one another, which no unbeliever could. But "while it is called to-day" it will continue till the great tomorrow, when the Lord appears for His people. So in chapter 4: there remains a rest for God's people. God forbid that this should not apply to us, a heavenly rest — God's rest. Still a rest for God's people can go over to the tried and exercised Jew. Compare Psalm 15, which refers to Jews.

The priesthood as now exercised could not apply to the unbelieving, save in the fact stated of securing them by His presence in heaven. Its exercise is only for believers, applies to them only, but as it does secure Israel's promises, it holds the matter open, so to speak, so that the blessing will come. The fact of Christ's presence in heaven, which is made our part of the matter, is theirs too: only that for us it is present perfectness, because we are sanctified; for them, it is holding the matter sure, while God hides His face from them. But the exercise of priesthood applies to us only. The word and promise may be applied by us in hope for them, and be available to them when the time comes. A rest remains to them as a people, as well as to us, and in such cases heaven and glory are not spoken of; and the rest is spoken of in language blessedly applicable to us, but which can be used as to them; for rest in itself is not glory.

Chapter 8 gives a striking example of thus leaving room for future blessing, while not going beyond the ground of present dealings in grace. We have the two covenants, both made with Israel and Judah; Christ the mediator of the new, a minister of the heavenly things themselves, as Paul was a minister of it (in spirit, not in letter, and the Lord founded it in principle, as to God's part of it, in instituting the Lord's Supper); but no new covenant made, only the old ready to vanish away; preparation for blessing fully made, but no blessing there yet; that is, no Melchisedec, but Christ in the heavenly places, according to the pattern of the tabernacle into which Aaron entered. This is developed in chapter 9. Christ is come an high priest of good things to come, of the whole blessing reserved for heaven and earth in millennial times, spoken of in chapter 12. The blood of the covenant is shed; Christ is entered into the heavenly places, into God's presence for us; not yet come out to bless. But then, no church privileges as such are touched upon, the rapture is not spoken of, and consequently the teaching has such a shape as that, while full blessing for us, and the deliverance of heaven and earth by power, (though not our entrance into the cloud, Luke 9, nor the Father's house, John 14) are before us, yet it is such as the redeemed people when brought in by God can wait for; not confined to them, could not be when the blood was spoken of, but which when called and wrought in by God they will enjoy. In contrast with judgment, not in the sovereign counsels of privilege, He will appear to them that look for Him without sin to salvation.

235 The hortatory part of the Epistle affords and can afford no reference to future hopes; it must address itself to those who were in the present circumstances to which the exhortations could apply. But the motives given afford a remarkable and complete summary of the whole blessing of heaven and earth, to which I have already alluded. I refer to chapter 12: 22-25. The first point is only a general principle: Sion in contrast with Sinai; not itself Melchisedec, the Son of David, but grace triumphant by power; not the temple, not the tabernacle (this last was at Shiloh where Solomon went), but, when Ichabod was written on the people under the old covenant, God coming on in grace to deliver — a principle which applies alike to us and to the remnant, which is the ground those who stand on Mount Sion with the Lamb will stand upon, but which is the principle to which every Christian can say "we are come," as is said here.

Nor is this all; it is in fact accompanied here by the full introduction of both parts of the fruits of grace, the heavenly, and the earthly. All is ours, and blessing secured to the remnant by blood, but nothing in actual possession — characteristic of the whole epistle and of our position. After Sion we have, the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem, an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly, the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. Thus far we have our proper place, but unfulfilled: only the church of the firstborn named, as soon as heaven is looked to. That is purpose according to grace. Now another side of truth is referred to: "God the judge of all." This leads us to the Old Testament, where responsibility was developed, and even to Christ's earthly history. Thus the spirits of just men made perfect is our next element, but as yet no resurrection. Old Testament saints entered into perfection personally, but no glory in the resurrection of the body.

236 Further, and here we descend to the earth and coming blessing, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, but no new covenant yet, only the Mediator there; then lastly the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel. Abel's blood cried from the ground for vengeance, but in Christ, the blood of that better Abel (whom Israel had slain, yea, called His blood, in their unbelief, to rest on their own and their children's heads) called in God's sight in grace for mercy and blessing, and that for the Cain who had rejected and slain Him with wicked hands — to call them (blessed time!) from their vagabond estate to the blessings that grace had given them so rich a part in, though on the earth.

Thus this passage, while it puts all de facto in the present state, looks out — inasmuch as the Mediator and the blood of the new covenant are there — beyond present things: the branches reach over the wall; and, while for us what is heavenly will be fulfilled, being come to grace, we can look on to what will belong to Israel when the time is come. I have only touched on the great principle here, as helpful to clear up the Epistle. More indeed will be found in the "Synopsis of the Books of the Bible." But I am not aware of any connection of the priesthood in exercise with Israel's hopes at all. The word, and the place Christ is in, do refer to them; and the fact that He is mediator of the new covenant, and that the blood of sprinkling has been shed, does. The exercise of priesthood is for those who are in relationship.

I add two cautions. The Epistle to the Ephesians tells us what we should always be, our true and holy standard. Let us surely dwell upon and keep ourselves there. That to the Hebrews gives us what we need, the comfort called for in the midst of weakness and trial. Let us thank God that it is there, not as the measure of our relationships with God, but our comfort when we feel our weakness in them. I would urge, as much as any could, the keeping of the faith of the soul and the thoughts of the heart on Ephesian ground. Another important point is, that priesthood has nothing to do with obtaining righteousness. It is exercised by One who is our everlasting righteousness in heaven, and on that ground.

237 Further, we do not go to the priest: he goes to God for us, and we to God. On this point scripture is clear, however God may bear with weakness. Priesthood is, in its present exercise, for those who are reconciled.

Superstition is not Faith; or, The True Character of Romanism.

J. N. Darby.

<15015E> 238

Superstition is the subjection of the mind of man — in the things of God — to that, for subjection to which there is no warrant in divine testimony.

The objects of this superstitious reverence or fear may be (1) such as (being mere creatures) were themselves subject to man's power, or at least to his mind; or (2) they may be the creatures of his own imagination; or (3) such as exercise a real and evil malignant influence over him, as Satan and the evil demons; or (4) they may be creatures good and excellent in themselves, and even such as are in a position superior to man, and instruments of divine power or testimony. But for subjection to these, or for any kind of worship rendered to them, or for employing them in religious service on our behalf, there is no warrant in divine testimony.

Of the first class of superstitious reverence, the worship of animals — as among the Egyptians — or of the sun, moon, and stars — one of the earliest forms of idolatry — are examples.

Of the second, a vast mass of the religion of the Greeks is an example — as fauns, satyrs, Pan, &c.; whence even it is called mythology, or the doctrine of myths or fables.

Of the third class is serpent-worship, and the worship of the powers of evil, found in many countries of Africa; and, in a general way, the whole of heathen idolatry, as the apostle testifies (1 Cor. 10: 20), alluding to Deuteronomy 32: 17, "The things which the Gentiles offer, they offer to devils or demons, and not to God."

In the last class we have that of which the apostle speaks in Colossians 2: "a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels." So the apostle John was himself tempted to fall down and worship before the feet of the angel, who had been God's servant in the communication of the apocalyptic visions: the angel replying, "See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant." Also setting the saints above in heaven, in the place of mediation, in which God has not set them; or even men on the earth, in virtue of their office, as if they were priests (that is, really, mediators, having another kind of prevailing power with God than other men).

239 All these, though differing in character, have this in common: — they are the subjection of the mind of man, in the things of God, to that for subjection to which there is no warrant from divine testimony. This is superstition. Faith, on the contrary, is the reception of a divine testimony into the soul, so that God Himself is believed.*

{*In speaking of religious subjects, I have not thought it necessary to speak of the belief of mere human testimony. No one, of course, denies that there is such a thing as the belief of human testimony. The only thing important to remark here is, that really to believe the testimony of a person, I must receive what he says because he has said it; if I require something to confirm it, I so far discredit his testimony.}

The consequence of either of these (consequences as opposite as the nature of that from which they respectively flow) is sufficiently evident. The object of our superstitious reverence gets between our souls and God, and in practice supplants Him, and takes His place. God is, indeed, never entirely forgotten. Even among the idolatrous heathen there was a vague idea of one supreme God, shewn, as Tertullian has remarked, by their habitual exclamations; and some of the philosophers insisted and enlarged on this, though without any true knowledge of Him.

Still, the whole practical condition of men depended on the character of the superstition with which their hearts were immediately in connection. The Athenians might rear an altar to the unknown God, but they did not rise morally by this ignorance. Their state was what the state of those must have been who worshipped a Jupiter, a Minerva, and a Venus, or who were in daily association with their altars.

The introduction of the one true God may be in a greater or lesser degree; but it remains true, that in general, where any object intervenes between us and God, He is so far hidden; and the effect upon men is, that they are lowered to the standard of what they reverence. God's presence (whatever their fears) does not act immediately upon their consciences as light, or elevate their hearts to Himself as love.

Now, though this power over the imagination of things which divine testimony does not authorize our reverence of is often called faith (though it be merely connecting the religious element of man's nature with what is not God, and is no real revelation of God), it is really the opposite of faith. Faith brings God present to the soul. Faith is, as we have seen, the reception into the soul of a divine testimony. Now, the grand object of this, especially in Christianity, is the revelation of God Himself. In every case a divine testimony carries direct divine authority, and is, so far, a revelation of God. The consequence is, faith brings the soul into God's own presence; and hence everything is judged in the light itself, for God is light. All a man's works, all that is in man, is brought into the light, the man's conscience having His perfect light for a measure by which to judge himself. But as God has in Christ revealed Himself in love, faith, which embraces His revelation, produces a sweet and blessed confidence in God Himself, known as love; as a Saviour who has given His own Son, who has by Himself purged our sins. Thus, while all is judged by the believer's conscience in the light of God's own presence, it is all put away according to the demand of that holiness; and we are at peace with God, and can walk with Him in newness of life.

240 So that faith puts into immediate connection with God; a connection founded on His own testimony, which is received by the operation of divine power in the soul; and hence also has its practical existence in real confidence of God Himself. The soul is reconciled with Him; and God becomes, by the revelation of Himself in the testimony He has given, the moral measure of right and wrong to the soul which is elevated to connection with Himself through Jesus. Hence it is exactly opposite to superstition, though this latter assumes its name and forms, and may be connected, as it ever is, more or less, with the idea of the true God.

This last circumstance leads us to another important remark: that, while superstition hides the true God, and wholly falsifies our notions of Him, this connection in the mind of the superstitious object of reverence with the idea of the true God attaches the authority of His name and supreme power to the object of our superstition, and sanctions, by that authority, all the moral degradation involved in our connection with it; save in so far as natural conscience revolts, and tells a truer tale of God than the superstition. But then alas! the tendency of this last is to exalt man above what he has made religion, and to produce infidelity and even atheism, if atheism were possible to man's mind, which I do not believe. But it tends at least to make men reason as atheists against the superstition which revolts their conscience, and which they know is contrary to what even conscience would know of God. Human will is always atheistical, for it is not subject to God's will, and will seek to reason against the existence of what it does not like; but God has a testimony in conscience, which, after all, the will can never get over. Where men have reduced what bears the name of God below the standard of natural conscience and feeling, the mind will use this, if it dare, to throw off the authority of the God it dislikes.

241 An objection may present itself before going farther — that what I say of immediate association with God by the reception of divine testimony sets aside ministry. I answer, Not in the least. Ministry of the word is a divine ordinance, for the purpose of bringing the testimony of God to the soul of man; and, if in real divine power, the effect is to bring, by the living word, God Himself in Christ present to the soul, so as to place it in the light and bring it to have immediately to say to God. Priesthood places itself between the soul and God; real ministry brings God, by the word, present to the soul. This is the essential difference between the true character of each.

It is evident that faith must be founded on the testimony of God, otherwise it is not God who is believed. Further, it must be founded on His testimony alone. I must believe, because God Himself has spoken, or I do not believe God. "Whoso," says John Baptist, of the blessed Lord, "he that received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true." So "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." God graciously added in the former case miracles to confirm the word, as it is written, "Confirming the word by signs following." But faith was in the testimony of God. Indeed, if only founded on the miracles, it was without value. "Many believed in him when they saw the miracles which he did; but Jesus did not commit himself to them, for he knew what was in man."

Such then, practically, is faith. It is the soul's reception, by divine power, of the testimony of God; who is thus known by it, as He has revealed Himself, and in whose presence consequently it walks, God having graciously revealed Himself as a Saviour, so that it is in peace in the presence of the Holy One, and in communion with Him. I do not enter here into the way in which He has revealed Himself, blessed as this subject is above all, because it is not my subject now — the knowledge of, and communication with, the Father, through the Son, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, as the portion of a soul which has found peace through the blood of the cross. Such is the Christian's portion; but I turn to a now needed and less happy subject.

I do not farther pursue the subject of superstition or attack the forms in which it more particularly shews itself; but I shall shew that the Romanist system is not founded on faith, but the contrary. I have introduced what I have said of superstition to shew that things may be received as true, connected with the worship of God, or our religious habits, which are the opposite of faith; and, as far as they go, destructive of it.

242 A person may be sincere in his convictions, may fancy God has taught them to others; but if he does not believe them himself on God's testimony, it is not faith; it is not believing God. Now I shall shew, in the following brief remarks, that Romanism is really, in its main doctrines and practices, infidel (not avowedly perhaps, but really) in all that concerns the ground of our soul's fellowship with God. I pray my reader's quiet and attentive consideration of my remarks, before he rejects this judgment of it. Christianity is the revelation, not merely of God's law or God's will, but of God Himself; and God is love. Hence, we find in it the perfect revelation of His love in the gift of His blessed Son; so that the believing soul, however poor and guilty, should know God as such, and as such toward itself (sin being perfectly and for ever put away for the believer, that he may approach God without fear; for such fear has torment, and love would take away torment for what it loves). Yet God cannot bear sin in His presence, nor indeed can the renewed and repentant soul bear it either; hence the God of love has put it away through Christ, in order to admit us to His presence. Thus God has reconciled us to Himself, to enjoy His perfect and gracious love; the same love supplying all the grace needed for us to maintain our fellowship with God in our weakness here, so that even this weakness itself should become the means of our mercifully knowing all His goodness, and the interest He shews in blessing us. Hence the apostle John thus speaks of the Christian, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." Christian faith, then, believes in this love. And everything that is put in between us and God, who exercises it immediately towards us; or tends to shew that it is not so free and perfect; or to militate against that entire, perfect putting away of sin by the blessed Saviour, which makes God's perfect love consistent with His absolute holiness: all such inventions are denials so far of the revelation of Christianity — of what God really is towards us. They are so far infidelity. There is one between us sinners and God; that is, Christ. But He is the revelation of this love; and the Accomplisher of that which, by putting away sin, would enable us to enjoy it; and the Intercessor through whom we obtain daily needed grace to do so. It is in Him, who, while the lowliest, most gracious, most accessible man, was God manifest in the flesh, God blessed for evermore — it is in Him, I say, we know God.

243 All that obscures God's love, or the perfect efficacy of Christ's work, is infidel as to God's only full display of Himself.

Between the Romanist and the Christian who believes that the system which the Romanist maintains is not the truth of God but a vast system of apostate error, two questions are at issue. One of these questions is, Are the doctrines which the Romanist system teaches true? The other is, What is the authority in which man can confide in order to know that he possesses the truth? In both, the Romanist system is really infidel. I say the system, because I do not deny that some poor ignorant soul may believe in spite of the system, though its faith be all but overwhelmed by its errors. A man's constitution may, through mercy, resist poison; but this does not say that the drug, from whose effect he has escaped with that constitution ruined, is not poison.

If the scriptures be taken, as having the authority of God's word, as being inspired by Him, as every true Christian acknowledges, the Romanist system of doctrine cannot be maintained for a moment; but my object now is to notice not the errors only, but the infidelity found in it.

I proceed to the proofs of this. The scriptures teach that, Christ having by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified, there is now no more offering for sin. (Heb. 10: 14.) The whole Romanist system is based on, and identical with, the doctrine that there is in the Mass an offering for the sins of the living and the dead. The scripture teaches us that the only ground on which we can stand in the presence of God is that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. The Romanist believes that there is a purgatory needed to complete this cleansing, unless for some rare soul in an unusual state of sanctity. Now these two Romanist doctrines are really infidel as to what God has taught for our peace.

God has said that Christ's offering of Himself was a work so perfect and so efficacious, that it needed not to be repeated, and indeed that it could not be repeated, because, in order to such efficacy, Christ must suffer. He has declared that without shedding of blood there is no remission, and hence, that if the offering of Christ had to be repeated, Christ must needs have suffered often; but that the efficacy of His one offering of Himself was such, that it needed not to be repeated. Now, if I pretend to offer this sacrifice again, and declare that such offering is necessary and right, I deny the efficacy of Christ's one offering of Himself on the cross; that is, I am infidel or unbelieving as to the efficacy of the one offering accomplished by Christ on the cross once for all. And this is the more clear and decisive, because the apostle, in the passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews to which I refer, is contrasting the repetition of the Jewish sacrifices, because of their inefficacy to make the conscience perfect, with Christ being offered once — and once for all — because His sacrifice made perfect for ever those that were sanctified. (See Heb. 10: 11-18.)

244 And further, in accepting the Romanist doctrine as to the sacrifice of the mass, I am infidel as regards the authority of God's word, which declares that there is consequently no more offering for sin. For the Romanist pretends that there is still an offering for sin; for he pretends to have one in the sacrifice of the mass. That is, he is an infidel as to that which is the foundation of Christianity, namely, the offering of Christ on the cross. I am well aware that he teaches that the mass is an unbloody sacrifice. But this excuse is of no avail, for the declaration of scripture is, that there is no more offering for sin. Yea, it is not only of no avail, but it makes the matter worse; for the Romanist doctrine declares that this unbloody sacrifice is efficacious for the remission of sins; and the scripture declares that without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb. 9: 22); so that the Romanist doctrine contradicts scripture expressly. And note, that this doctrine of an unbloody sacrifice is infidel as to the nature of sin. God declares the nature of sin to be such, that nothing less than the sufferings of Christ could expiate it; they pretend that an unbloody sacrifice, in which Christ does not suffer can put it away.

Again, the word of God teaches that "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin." Blessed truth! just what our conscience needs, in order to have boldness to go before God, and enter into His presence, as knowing Him to be a gracious and loving Father. Now the doctrine of purgatory teaches me that the blood of Jesus does not thus purge me; that I must go and suffer in some fire, of which they themselves can give very little account, in order to be purged before I can appear in God's presence; and remark here, this purging fire is for the faithful, for those who have profited by all that which what they call the church has at its disposal for the good of souls. A good catholic, as they call him (who has confessed to a priest, received absolution and the viaticum, and extreme unction, everything that can be done for him by what they declare to be the church), goes to purgatory after all, and will (in every case he can) have masses said for the repose of his soul, though the church has done its best for him while living.

245 This is the more strange, because their authentic doctrine declares that extreme unction wipes away the remains of sin, "abstergit peccati reliquias." It is strange that, after absolution, and the viaticum, and extreme unction, each of which is alleged to be efficacious to clear a man from sin, he should go into the torment of purgatory after all. Is this all the efficacy which belongs to the church's acts — that, after she has done all she can in order to their being cleansed, she lets the souls go into a place of fire, whose efficacy does not flow from her at all? And remark here, that she then offers the mass to get the soul out of the purgatory which God, they say, has sent it into, out of which she was not able to keep it by all she did for it when in the body! Are these the Lord's ways, or like the Lord's power? But this only in passing. I can understand that a conscience troubled by sin and fearing wrath, will fly to anything to get relief, where the true efficacy of Christ's precious blood to cleanse it and give it peace, is not known.

But why all these efforts and means to relieve and quiet the uneasy soul, why the doctrine of purgatorial fire to cleanse and fit the soul for God's presence? Because the great and precious truth, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, is not believed. If it does so, why go to purgatory (that is, a place of cleansing, for such is the meaning of the word) to get it cleansed? That is, the Romish system is infidelity as to this great and precious truth also of God's word.

But there is infidelity too in it, as to something more than the truth; there is infidelity as to God's love. What is the text constantly quoted to lay a ground for purgatory? — "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison; verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not come out thence till thou hast paid the last farthing." Is it thus God has met us in the gospel? That the unrepenting sinner will meet with the just wrath due to his sins every true Christian owns; but such a use of this text is really denying the efficacy of Christ's work. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And that we might be forgiven, Christ has died upon the cross. But this doctrine of purgatory teaches that we must pay to the very last farthing — that God will exact it of us. It is infidelity as to that grace which has given Jesus to bear our sins in His own body on the tree; so that every repentant sinner should know that God loved him, so as not to spare His own Son, but gave Him as a propitiation for his sins; and that Christ has, by the sacrifice of Himself, put away the sin that justly alarmed his conscience; or, as the scripture expresses it, "He has by HIMSELF purged our sins." (Heb. 1: 3.) The doctrine of purgatory is really infidelity as to the efficacy of Christ's blood; for, if this has cleansed the true Christian from all sin, he does not want purgatory to effect his cleansing. It is infidelity as to the authority of God's word, which declares that His blood does cleanse us from all sin, and that Christ, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; and it is infidelity as to the precious love of God, who gave His Son to do it, that we might have peace in our souls through His name.

246 Again, the doctrine of the mediation of the Virgin Mary and the saints is also really infidelity. The scripture declares there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus; and what does it teach us as to this doctrine of Christ's intercession? It teaches us that that divine and gracious person, the Son — who is one with the Father, who is God over all, blessed for evermore — came down so low and in such grace, that the poorest and vilest sinner, whose heart grace drew to Him, found free access to Him, was never cast out. If it was a woman in the city who was a sinner, if Jesus was in the house, she was emboldened to go in, and count upon that tender goodness which inspired confidence to the heart, while it awakened the conscience in the deepest way and gave a horror of sin. That is, we are taught that such grace, such tenderness, was in Jesus, in that holy One, who had become like unto His brethren in all things, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest, that He condescends to all our infirmities, and sympathizes with all our sorrows, entering into them as none other could, with a heart such as none other had. We are taught that He suffered, being tempted, that He might be able to succour them that are tempted; that He was tempted in all things like unto us, without sin; so that we have a merciful and faithful high priest, who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and hence we can come boldly to a throne of grace; that He ever liveth to make intercession for us. This is what my heart learns of the blessed Jesus in the scriptures, that He who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities now lives to make intercession for us.

247 But what does the Romanist doctrine teach me? That I cannot thus go to Him; that I cannot count upon His tenderness; that He is too high, too far off; that Mary has a tenderer heart as being a woman; and that I must go to Him through her, as I should in the case of some king or great man, who would be too much above me to allow me to approach him; or that I must go to the saints. Have they then tenderer, more condescending hearts than He who came to this earth on purpose to assure us of His love? Did Mary, however blessed, come down from heaven to seek me in my sorrow and in my misery? Or is Christ changed, and become hard-hearted, since He ascended up on high? No; the doctrine of many mediators, and of the Virgin Mary, as the one through whose heart I am to approach Jesus's, is infidelity as to the grace of Christ; it denies His glory as a compassionate high priest. He came down and suffered in this world, that we might know we could go to God by Him; inasmuch as He could feel for all our infirmities Himself, and would be touched with them. The Romanist doctrine tells me, I cannot dare to do it, that I must get nearer tenderer hearts to go to Him for me. Ah! I prefer His own; I have seen and learnt what it was in His life down here; I can count upon it more than on any, be they what they may. It is the only heart that has shed its life-blood for me. I trust its kindness more than that of all the Marys and of all the saints that ever were, blessed as they may be in their place. This again, while seeming only to add, is infidelity as to another precious doctrine of the word of God — of Christianity itself.

I refer to these as examples of the way in which the doctrines of Romanism, while seeming only to add various doctrines, on the authority of what is called the church, is really undermining the truth, taking away all the value of what is true. It is really infidelity as to the most precious truths of the gospel. It calls you to believe other things not in scripture; but, in doing so, it makes you disbelieve what is the truth of God herein revealed. And here, note, it is not open infidelity as to the historical facts of Christianity, nor as to the doctrines which embrace the great truths on which Christianity is founded.

248 There are two things with which faith is concerned, in order to the peace of a soul: first, The great doctrinal facts revealed; and secondly, The value of these facts for the soul, and the application of this value to it.

If these last be taken away, the soul has no more benefit from them than if they were not true at all.

If the riches of the world were heaped up before me, and I could not have them — if they were not available to me for my debts — there might as well be none as far as I am concerned.

Now Romanism does not deny facts, but their availableness to my peace; it does not deny the expiation for sin made at the cross — it does not deny the Trinity — it does not deny the incarnation — nor the divinity of Christ. These truths it holds, so that it would not be suspected at first sight of infidelity. It is in the actual value and application of them to the sinner that it has destroyed the truth, and taken away the way of peace to the soul thereby.

God says, that by one offering Christ has perfected for ever those that are sanctified. (Heb. 10: 14.)

Romanism says, He is to be offered often, and that the believer is not perfected by that one offering of Christ on the cross. It denies, not the offering, but its value and sufficiency for the believer's peace.

God says, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin; that He has by Himself purified our sins. (1 John 1: 7; Heb. 1: 3.)

Romanism says, He has not; that people have to be purified in purgatory.

God says, that Christ is a merciful high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. (Heb. 4: 15.)

Romanism says, that we shall find more suitable persons to go to, more accessible, more tender-hearted, in the saints and the Virgin Mary.

It denies, not the fact of Christ's priesthood, but its real value for me. In vain then is it orthodox as to the facts of Christianity. It makes them useless to the soul and substitutes others in their place, for the soul's use and greater advantage.

These are examples of the real infidelity of Romanism as to those truths of the gospel which are most precious for the peace of the soul.

But as regards the second point I referred to in commencing (that is, the authority on which our souls can rest in order to be assured that we possess the truth), the infidelity is still more glaring. I have supposed in what precedes, that the authority of the inspired word of God is admitted, as every true believer does admit it.

249 But the Romanist will not consent to this. Now mark well: not to consent to it is infidelity. He who does not admit the authority of God's inspired word is an infidel.

It will be said that many souls have been saved without knowing of the existence of the Bible. I admit it fully. If the truth has been preached to them or brought to their knowledge in any other way, the Spirit of God may have brought it savingly home to their souls. In the first ages thousands were brought to salvation by the preaching of the apostles and others, before the New Testament existed. So, since it has been written, many were converted before they were informed of its existence, as heathens, into whose language it was not yet translated. But this is not our case. We do know it exists; and then to deny or question its authority, is infidelity as to it. Now this is the ground the Romanist always takes. He tells me, I cannot know it is the Bible, or the word of God, without the authority of the church. Now mark that. For, if God has written a book, and addressed it to men in general or to those called Christians, His doing so puts them under the responsibility of receiving and submitting to what He has so addressed. What God has so addressed to them obliges their conscience. If not, He has failed in the object He proposed! He was not able to put those He addressed under the responsibility of receiving what He had said, if, as the Romanist says, the ordinary Christian cannot know that it is the word of God, and that he is not able to receive it as such! Of two things one is true — either he who says so denies it himself to be the revealed word, or he asserts that God's word is not by itself binding on those to whom it is sent; that God has failed in so writing it as to render it obligatory on the conscience of the reader to receive it as such.

Now either of these is infidelity, and the common ground taken by infidels; and the latter is really a blasphemous kind of infidelity. Yet this is the ground always taken by the Romanist, and is clearly infidel ground. If the authority of the church is requisite in order to a man's believing the scripture and receiving it as God's word, then God has not so spoken as to bind the conscience and to make faith obligatory, without some one adding to His authority so as to make it to be received. What kind of church it can be, which can give to God's word an authority over the conscience, and oblige men to believe it, which that word had not, though God spoke it, I leave a man who reverences God to consider. It must be more competent, its authority more obligatory, than that of God Himself; for it says such a book is God's word, and you must receive it as such; and yet, though it be God's word, it could not have that authority over the conscience before!

250 I am not speaking of a greater competency to instruct, of a greater knowledge of its meaning where all own it as divine, but of what gives it a divine authority over the soul. It has not this (though it be God's word), according to the Romanist, without receiving it from the testimony of the church.

The church — that is, certain men (supposing even they were inspired) — have told me certain things, and I am bound to believe them; Peter, Paul, John, Matthew, and others, that is, the apostles and other writers of the New Testament, have told me certain things as inspired men, and I cannot tell whether I am to believe them or not! If so, then these apostles have not the same claim over my conscience and faith as the former. It is in vain to tell me the former compose the church, and that it has God's authority: had not the inspired apostles God's authority? Did not what they say bind the saints' conscience? It is not a question of interpreting. The question is, Has what they say authority over my conscience, so that I am bound to receive it as God's word and believe it? St. Paul writes an epistle to the church — say at Corinth: — were they bound to receive it as God's word? If so, am I? If I am not, they were not; and note, they were the church; that is, the church has to receive the work of the apostle, not to pronounce on it. Woe be to them if they did not; woe be to me if I do not.

This, then, is the simple yet solemn assertion of the believer in the truth and wisdom and glory of God — that, if God gives a testimony of Himself, man is bound to believe it. If not, he is guilty of despising the testimony of God; and the day of judgment will surely shew that it is not God who has failed in giving the testimony, so as to bind the conscience and oblige to faith, but that the man's sinful heart has deceived him.

Look at the creation. There is a testimony God has given of Himself. Man is guilty, if he does not see God in it. There are many difficulties, many things he cannot explain; but the testimony is sufficient to condemn those who do not believe in God the Creator.

251 When the blessed Lord appeared, many cavils might be, and were, raised by infidel hearts; but He could say, If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

So St. John, as to the testimony of God of the gospel in general, "he that believeth not God hath made him a liar;" because he has not believed the testimony that God gave concerning His Son: such an one was guilty — guilty of infidelity. So in the word God has given a testimony, and man is bound to believe it. Doubts and cavils and difficulties may be raised by infidel minds; but God's testimony of Himself is in every case adequate to bind man to believe it, and to bring his conscience under it.

If he does not believe it, he has, to use the apostle's solemn expression, made God a liar, because he has not believed His testimony concerning His Son. He is really an infidel (at least his principles are), whatever system of religious rites he may have bowed to.

Now what does the Romanist say? He says, You cannot believe in the scriptures, without the authority of the church to accredit them; that is, that God's testimony does not bind the conscience — does not oblige to faith, without something else to accredit. Now this is infidelity, and a horrible dishonour done to God. It is declaring that God's testimony is not sufficient, not competent in itself, to bind man — to oblige man to believe and bow to it.

God has given an inefficient thing as a testimony; so that if I do not bow to it, that is, if I remain an infidel, I am justified in so remaining! This is high treason against God and His truth. They dare not say that it is not God's word, for then they would be avowed infidels themselves. But they do dare to say, consequently, that though it be God's word, it does not bind the conscience of a man; and that something else is necessary to give it authority to his conscience. No matter what it is; they may call it the church, or the pope, or a general council which represents the church. It is something besides the word, without which God's own word is not binding on the conscience.

That is, their principles are infidel before God. Their cleverness in puzzling the mind as to the word, their demanding proofs, their shewing how impossible it is for man to know it is God's word — though the object be to throw them into the arms of what they call the church — is merely infidel reasoning, and reasoning which is found employed in fact by infidels. They will tell you that laws require a judge. But laws bind every one, whether he be a judge or no. And, further, we are not to judge God's word: it will judge us. "The words that I have spoken unto you," says the Lord, "the same shall judge you in that day."

252 The word of God is a testimony to man's conscience, which bears God's authority itself.

If a man do not bow to it when sent in grace as a testimony to save, he will be obliged to bow to it, when it will be executed in judgment. In a word, Romanism declares that, without what it calls the church's authority, God's word is not such as obliges me to believe it.

This doctrine is infidelity, as to the proper authority of God's word. And mark further: if I do not believe what God's word says without the authority of the church, I do not believe God at all. It is not faith in God; there may be faith in the church, but there is not faith in God. For when I had only what God said, I did not believe it; when the church tells me to believe it, I do. But this is faith in the church; and I do not believe God: I decline doing it, unless I have something else to accredit His word.

Now the only true faith is believing God, believing God Himself. This is the real return of the soul to God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; he had no church to accredit what God had said. He believed, because God had Himself said the thing. It was believing God. He who does not, until the church adds its authority, does not believe God at all. There is no true faith at all where a man believes because the church has accredited anything. I have refused or failed to believe when God has spoken, when there was only His authority.

Now believing when there is only God's authority, is believing God: nothing else is.

To require the church's testimony to accredit God's, is dishonouring Him and disbelieving Him. The Romanist, as such, has no true faith at all, for he does not believe God on his own authority, but on the church's. As the word is sometimes read by them, or heard, God may give individuals among them faith, in spite of the infidel doctrine of their church.

Remember that true faith is, faith in what God has said, because God has said it. If you require the church's sanction of it, you have not faith in God. You do not bow to His word, unless it is sanctioned by some one else. Credulity as to superstitions taught by men is not faith in God. Faith in God believes in His word without any other authority than His word itself.

253 If you say, How am I to know it is? This is merely saying His word is not in itself sufficient to bind your conscience. That is just what an infidel says. It is infidelity. Your belief depends on the church's authority — not on God's word.

That is, Romanism is infidelity as to the most precious and fundamental truths of Christianity; and it is infidelity as to the authority of God's own word itself.

Remarks on Puseyism

J. N. Darby.

<15016E> 254

I am satisfied that the great business of the Christian, the great utility of such a work as "The Present Testimony," is to bring before the saints, and the world, if they will read it, the great principles of Christianity, and more particularly when they have been buried under the rubbish of man's mind, plentifully heaped up in the early ages, and built up by schoolmen in the middle ages by Aristotle's help; and to bring forth from the revelations of the word the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the thoughts and ways of God. This is the true preservative against the errors and seductions of the time; and indeed nothing else will preserve from them. Still I suppose it may not be wholly useless, though an inferior part of christian service, to point out anything peculiar in the forms of evil, the notice of which may help to clear the minds of God's children from them; or to bring before the watchful eye of the saint the bearing of facts and events in the current of evil which Providence allows to go on, or of which, in order to bring about blessing, it may hasten the development upon earth.

Governed by this feeling I send you a few words on Puseyism; and, first, a remark or two on the census of religious denominations. There is one effect of the late census in this respect, which probably has not struck all who have read it. The number of sittings afforded by bodies not belonging to the Establishment is, to those it provides for the population, as 93 to 100; but owing, as it appears, to the greater number of evening services, the attendance on places outside the Establishment is in point of numbers some half million more than that of those who frequent the opportunities it offers to the population. The relative proportion of town accommodation to country is greater also, in the case of dissenters, than in that of the Establishment.

Now it seems to me, that this report will have a very dissolving tendency in the country. The plea that the Establishment meets the wants of the masses is gone. Its public claim, as inwoven into the constitution of the country, is immensely weakened. It is clear that no particular body can take this place. Could any one do so in point of numbers, it could not in its associations — it could not by its antiquity — it could not by its principles. The aggressive action which is the vital principle of all dissenting energy, be it for good or for evil, its professed disconnection with the State, debars it from this place. They are too religious in their profession, and too little ecclesiastical, too little founded on successional consistence, too little bound up with the social and successional ties of family (and, if you embrace popery, the same thing is true for other reasons), to become, in the common use of the word, the church of England. The people may be very religious, but the country has not a church (a term I use now in its familiar sense).

255 Now no one can doubt that the religious institutions of a country are one of the strongest bonds by which it is united. If it can do without them when beginning its career, it cannot break them up when it has long had them, without its being the signal of the dissolution of the whole edifice. Be it for good or for bad, such surely is the case. A religion may have become incapable of holding its influence and exercising its cementing power over a corporate population; but it will be found that when it does, and an active religious energy of any kind undermines and subverts it, the corporate condition of the whole is endangered. I say this without any reference to the truth or error of a religion. See Egypt, see Greece; see Rome, where, on the inward decay of paganism, Christianity, in its early energies, made its way among the population, saving it from utter moral anarchy, yet Rome could not subsist. Other energies may come in and concentrate elsewhere a predominant influence over the population, or it may be handed over to some other subsisting power which the dissolution does not reach; as in the case of Napoleon, or papal influence, or even Mohammedanism in the Eastern empire, but the dissolution of the corporate system takes place. God's mercy may accomplish it gently, or spare its worst features for other reasons of His grace or wisdom: the coming of the Lord may be the common term of all that is dissolving and dissolved, of inroads and resistance; but the principle, I am persuaded, will be found to be true. The divine truth of Christianity, the portion of the church of God, is entirely independent of all this. It is heavenly, and has its resources in God, who cannot fail.

Two things may be alleged in reply to what I have said — that the Establishment has shewn unwonted energy in enlarging its borders, and that the religious energies of the evangelical world were never so great. I think this will be found not in any way to alter the case. For the moment I will only speak of the latter; I think every observant mind will recognize that what is called the evangelical clergy have, as a body, lost their moral weight in the country. As an energy, the influx of truth had power; as a party, the evangelical body have not that; nor can they, when that does not characterize them, have the dead weight of mere respect for institutions. They may insist, in defending themselves, on this respect for institutions, and guard against accusations of failure on this point, but this is not the weight and power of their cause. This, as an influence, is evidently on the other side. I think it will hardly be said that the vigour and power of the influx and onset of truth subsists. General evangelical activity is outside the institutions we speak of. Many persons belonging to these engage in that activity, but these are not the channel of it. Exeter Hall is independent of the Establishment, though the members of the established church may form the most numerous portion of those who take part there. An energy which acts outside, and independent, of an established system tends to throw this into oblivion, and to supplant it. And it is evident that the energies which are active in Exeter Hall supply nothing which can make an established institution for the country. It is not its intention. It could not have this effect. God may in His grace spare the institutions because the energy is such as He approves of in the main character of its purpose and intention, as being that of the grace of the gospel, the truest exhibition therefore of Himself. But the energy does not move within the channel of local institutions, nor form in itself a stay to them.

256 I will touch on the extension of churches in a moment. I now turn to the effect of the discovery that the majority of the Sunday-service-going population do not go to the services of the Establishment. It is evident that this, as a body, cannot lean upon its value as the poor man's religion, as embracing the masses, as the resource of the great body of the population. It is not their resource. The greater part go elsewhere, from finding services more suited to their habits. Will the clergy of the Establishment give up the conflict for this reason? Surely not. But they will be thrown on what is their more distinctive pretension, that which the others cannot have in such a shape. They will insist on being the church. They have succession, bishops as in early ages, sacraments with priestly competency to consecrate and administer them, a clergy which bears the stamp of apostolic order. Here there is but one body in the country which can pretend to stand on common ground with them. Driven back from the ground of being national, on which evangelicals and high church and no church principles had a common field, the Establishment is by the census forced upon what is commonly called Puseyite ground. It has no other left. The true Puseyite will take it up in its energy; and it is a very powerful one, and has the largest hold on human nature.* The old high churchman, though occasionally murmuring against Rome, will necessarily follow in the wake of what constitutes the energy of his own system, and the evangelical, though crying out against Puseyism, when there is any energy, will, while guarding against false conclusions, and warning against abuses, fall into the path of sustaining the influence of that which distinguishes him from the dissenter; his system is the "Church," the rest is dissent. At Exeter Hall he will go with dissenters (and a few will hold up the "Evangelical Alliance"); but in his parish he will be what is called a churchman, he will minister de facto to the strength of that party, the energies of which are elsewhere. In a word, the census will, I cannot for a moment doubt, throw the Establishment into the hands of the Puseyites.

{*Mr. Bennett has already re-married a couple married legally out of the Establishment.}

257 What was the Establishment? It was a body by which general protestant truths and protestant feelings were linked with everything that nature clung to religiously; or rather, one by which every natural tie was linked with respectable protestantism. A man was married there, his wife churched there, he said his prayers, if he said any, there, he had been christened there; his family, his children, gone before him, were all buried there. All his religious associations, and the common respect for moral order were linked up with the parish church and the protestant Establishment. That was moral and protestant; I am not speaking of saving souls, but of religious habits. The country was thus characterized. This, except in country places, has been outgrown; other religious energies have grown up; the mass of the population has escaped from this influence. It has, in a national point of view, ceased to exist. This is a momentous fact. As regards the Establishment, the clergy, as such, take its place. They characterize the system now. The validity of apostolical ordinances, the true and only channel of grace dependent on them, is the link which binds now what remains of the once national Establishment together: for they have these, while none of the others, except Romanists, possess them in this manner.

What is the import of church extension, the second objection I referred to, when this state of things is considered? Take the general spirit which animates it — of course there may be exceptions — is it evangelical or ecclesiastical? No one could hesitate a moment. It is done in a mediaeval spirit. It flows partly from, and ministers still more to, the spirit which I have spoken of as tending more and more to characterize the Establishment.

258 I turn to another point which you will be surprised, perhaps, to see connected with this — the Russian war. I have the clearest conviction that the real and sole effect of this war — besides exalting France, which represents the principles of the latter days now at work in their three aspects — will be to increase Romish papal, and French influence in the east, and to give both — for in this respect they are co-ordinate — a greater hold upon it. Everyone knows that the quarrel began about the privileges of the Greek and Roman systems in what are called holy places. Some of your readers may perhaps not know that in the East, France has the right of protection over catholics as French subjects. Europeans are called "Franks." Already the French ambassador, when the Greeks were expelled Constantinople, insisted that united Greeks (that is, united to the Roman See) should remain. He has been recalled for the violence he displayed, but I refer to it as shewing the principle which is at work. The exclusion of Russian influence is the consolidating of Romish. The Romish party are not at all unaware of this, though they hesitated on account of the usefulness of the Russian Emperor politically. But, without committing itself, as usual, the See of Rome profits by it. Louis Napoleon was the instrument of this; and Satan fully at work in it.

And now what is Puseyism? I mean not in its grosser forms of wax candles, fald-stools, and surplice-preachings; or the darker shades of confessionals and floor-lickings to please the God of grace with, but in the substance of its doctrines as it sets itself forth in its most favourable light. I say nothing here of its overweening confidence and pretensions, nor of its want of straightforwardness, nor of the doctrine (worthy of Rome) of mental reservation. I repeat, I would take the essential principles of its doctrinal foundation; if, indeed, we can justly speak of the essence of error which has no real or substantial existence, but is the mere falsification of something else.

The doctrine of Puseyism, as put forward by its best (and, as it appears from the sale of his books, its most acceptable) advocate, is this — that the sacraments are a continuation or prolongation of the incarnation. The assumption of manhood into God made, they say, that manhood the medium of communicating life to the souls of sinners; that that which Christ did personally when present, He now does by the sacraments; that, in the Eucharist, Christ's body is really present in all this vital power, and communicates life to the receiver; that all receive Christ Himself, not carnally but really: only that He does not profit those in whom that reception is not made effectual by faith; that whoever denies this denies mediation. These are, evidently, very material statements.

259 I pass over, for the present, what the writer I have alluded to, though seeming to explain, really passes over too, namely, that the first sacrament, baptism, is, as to its elements, confessedly no part of Christ. Yet, according to his theory, sinners or infants get life by this sacrament, which is not the life-giving humanity of the Mediator at all! I have a more serious account to settle with the system than its folly and its inconsistency. It denies the whole substantive truth of Christianity as a system of reconciliation of man to God; even supposing it orthodox as to the truths connected with Christ's person, which, in its exclusively rash and bold meddling, it can hardly be allowed to be. That meddling rashness is most reprehensible and dangerous; but I believe that the writer to whom I allude does not mean to be unsound. It is mere heady confidence, so that I do not here take up this part of the subject. But he intends to teach what denies Christianity, viewed as a means of reconciling the sinner. I do not say he intends to deny it, for he seems to be profoundly and totally ignorant of the truth; but he intends to teach what does deny it.

The scripture, while teaching that the Son had life in Himself, and maintaining the glory of Christ's person as God manifest in the flesh, in all its blessed fulness, teaches that "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit;" that no link could be formed between man in his natural state and a living Christ, looked at as come in the flesh. He might act divinely in men's hearts, but Christianity is not His becoming a new stock and root of humanity while living here. Not because the power of life was not in Him, but because the union of the church with Him could not be formed till redemption was accomplished and Christ gone up on high. He dies, and accomplishes redemption, and sits down in righteousness at the right hand of God, and there as risen becomes the head of a living race, standing in Him in righteousness before God. The first Adam becomes the head of a sinful race when he had accomplished sin; Christ, of a saved and righteous and holy race, quickened with Him, when righteousness is accomplished. Being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him. Therefore we are described as quickened together with Him; raised up together, and sitting together in Him in heavenly places.

260 And hence the very first instituted sign of being a Christian, which, whatever else it does, certainly, as a sign, gives the character of the place a Christian takes as such, has for its sense and meaning, death and resurrection. We are baptized into His death, wherein also we are raised again. "If I had known Christ after the flesh," says the apostle, "yet henceforth know I him no more." Hence the Saviour's positive declaration that, looked at as man, He abode alone till death. The apostolic teaching as to the sense of the introductory rite, and all the instruction he gives on the christian state, concur to prove that our position as Christians is founded on an accomplished redemption; that our union with Christ is with a risen and glorified Christ (the head being set in heaven that we might be united to Him there); and that only so is He the head of the church; that so only can man be really associated with Him; that thus, as having received life from Him, and being sealed with the Holy Spirit, we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; and finally that it is not His partaking of our flesh (that was a step towards it, as to His person), by which union takes place. He is not united to sinful man; but redeemed quickened men are united to Him, as the exalted man in heaven by the power of the Holy Ghost. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," "for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."

In a word, believers are united to Christ in heaven risen and glorified; not Christ living on the earth to any sinful man whatever. In the theory I comment on Christ takes whole humanity into His person, and purifies it, communicates it, while living, thus purified to sinners, and then by the sacraments communicates it and purifies ours; the sacraments being said to be an extension of the incarnation. Where is the place of redemption? Where of a risen Christ? a glorious man, to whom the church is united, the source of life as man through faith, through a divine source of a divine life?

But that I may do the system I condemn no injustice, I will quote the words of the book I have alluded to. In the beginning of the "Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist" it is said, "The present work is the sequel of a treatise on the doctrine of the incarnation." It was then asserted that "Sacraments are the extension of the incarnation." Having this general principle thus laid down, I shall now cite some passages in another work, in which there are some truths set forth in opposition to rationalism, but which will afford us large insight into the system.

261 In this work the same author, after speaking of man as one family, as a "co-ordinate whole," continues: — "Now, into this family it was that Christ our Lord was pleased to enter. When He took man's nature, He vouchsafed to ally Himself to all members of this extended series, by the actual adoption of that transmitted being which related Him to the rest."

Now, it is impossible to appreciate too highly the truth and preciousness of the reality of the humanity of the Lord Jesus. All that Archdeacon Wilberforce could say to exalt the importance of this, and its essential connection with the mediatorship of Christ, as the one way of blessing, would be ever below the importance of the subject — I think I may say, the importance I would attach to it. Without His Godhead, it is nothing; but, that once owned, it is His manhood which is above all truths the blessed spring of all our hopes and joys. In it we have the realization of the condescension in which He is with us and near us, the needed basis of all He has done to make us one with Himself. I know God thus in love. But He is not in that state the head of the new race. That is the point I urge. He accomplishes righteousness and atones for sin before He becomes so. He must have done so — He Himself declares He must, and otherwise abode alone. Now, the author makes His manhood a communicative source of life while He was down here, so as to connect men with Himself as a head; and indeed makes Him the pattern, and model, and head of restored humanity in His living condition as united to all men by incarnation; however, according to their own will they might or might not profit by it. Scripture does not. It is to bring this point out that I cite many passages which attach a great importance to the humanity of Christ, but teach what is utterly unsound as to the connection of men with Him in His incarnation.

It is necessary that I should make, and that my reader should clearly seize, this distinction between incarnation and the manhood of Christ being a uniting source of life while He lived, or the reason for quoting passages which bring both out would not be understood. This confusion is the essence of the dark apostasy which passes by the name of Puseyism.* "It implies," I continue to quote, "the reality of a common humanity, and His perfect and entire entrance into its ranks. Thus did He assume a common relation to all mankind. This is why the existence of human nature is a thing too precious to be surrendered to the subtleties of logic; because upon its existence depends that real manhood of Christ which renders Him a co-partner with ourselves. And upon the reality of this fact is built that peculiar connection** between God and man which is expressed by the term mediation. It looks to an actual alteration in the condition of mankind, through the admission of a member into its ranks, in whom and through whom it attained an unprecedented elevation. Unless we discern this real impulse which was bestowed upon humanity, the doctrines of atonement and sanctification, though confessed in words, become a mere empty phraseology. That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself implies an actual acceptance of the children of men on account of the merits of one of their race, as well as an actual change in the race itself, through the entrance of its nobler associate."

{*What precedes is this: — "He [God] had really entitled Himself to a share in the hereditary characteristics of this lower being, and qualified Himself for co-partnership with His brethren." "Incarnation," page 52. Remark that, save in the vague expression of brother, sister, mother, the Lord never calls His disciples brethren till after His resurrection, when He went to His Father and their Father, His God and their God.}

{**This is a singular phrase, and implies a good deal of what is peculiar to the system. Mediator is some one between two parties — between God and man. Here it is headship of a race — a connection between the two — by taking manhood into God. The reader will do well to notice this. It is the use and application of this doctrine we are occupied about, not the doctrine of the taking of manhood into God.}

262 Now, that the incarnation was necessary to the atonement is self-evident; but the apostle's words, "that through death," &c. find no place in the Archdeacon's mind. He speaks of atonement, but it is only, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." But this was in His life. The apostle adds, "not imputing their trespasses to them," and then goes on to say that he and the rest were ambassadors for Christ, because God had made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, &c. This the Archdeacon entirely leaves out, and declares that God being in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, implies an actual acceptance of the children of men, on account of the merits of one of their race, not a personal substitute made sin for others, but the merits of one who is one of their race by incarnation. "What Christ associated to Himself, therefore, was no individual man, but that common nature of which Adam was the first example." He could not associate an individual man. It would be sheer nonsense; and no doubt He took our nature, but surely He became an individual man in taking it. But this the Archdeacon strives against. "It was not any human person in particular," says Bishop Beveridge, "but the human nature which He assumed unto His sacred person." "'The Word,' saith St. John, 'was made flesh and dwelt in us.' The evangelist useth the plural number men for manhood, us for the nature whereof we consist."* Such are the grounds of the Archdeacon for what he calls Christ's co-partnership with us.

{*This is a quotation from Hooker.}

263 Again, "He who was personally God, took His place in this series by incarnation, and thus assumed a common relationship to all its possessors." "What was there in Christ's manner of adopting our being which marked Him out from others, so that, when He was pleased to introduce Himself into the family of human beings, He became at once the first-born of every creature — the beginning of the creation of God?" He then refers to the title, last Adam; and afterwards. "And if His relation to His brethren is to be as perfect as that of the first Adam, it must rest on the same conditions. He must be the stock from whom all are descended, and the new type after which they are to be formed. Now, the first* of these grounds of connection shall be touched upon hereafter, when we speak of the sacramental union whereby men are united to Christ . . . . But what is asserted in this chapter is, that the new Adam was as truly the type and pattern of the renewed, as the old Adam of the first creation. Thus did He occupy a place corresponding to our original father, and became, though in a different manner, the representative of the race."

{*The two are these: — "The grounds of this relationship to mankind at large are twofold [that is, of Adam as head or representative of humanity]. First, the tie of common parentage, on account of which 'the man' called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living; and secondly, that He was the type who represented the race in its perfection."}

Now, I affirm that scripture always teaches that the risen Jesus is the head and representative of the new race. And note the importance of this, that it leaves place for redemption, death, and atonement for sin, to come in as the ground on which men could belong to the second Adam, and be formed into His image, which the making Him as such in incarnation leaves entirely out. We are told to walk as He walked. But sinful man here in the body cannot be what Christ was down here, who knew no sin. He was perfect and walked perfectly, He had life in Himself; but the corn of wheat necessarily abode alone; and in that character of man, alive down here, He was neither the head of the new race nor the type and pattern of it according to the counsels of God. We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. (Rom. 8.) We have borne the image of the earthly, we shall bear the image of the heavenly. (1 Cor. 15.) Our point of attainment is the resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3), when Christ shall change these vile bodies, and fashion them like His glorious body. We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The practical effects are fully stated in Philippians 3 and 1 John 3; but the time of likeness is resurrection and glory, and atonement and redemption by death is the ground and basis of it. Incarnation was needed to His being the head and type of the new race; but it was not in incarnation that He was that head and type, but when risen after He had accomplished the redemption needed to give man a share with Him in glory before the Father. If Christ does not wash us as so gone on high, we have no part with Him. The water itself as well as the blood flowed out of the wounded side of a dead Christ.

264 I must confine myself to my proper subject, or there is a mass of statements of the Archdeacon as to the first Adam wholly unfounded and unscriptural. But I pursue my subject. "Christ became the head of man's race, that in Him we might recover the likeness of God, which in Adam we had lost." "This presence of a superior being was what gave perfection to that likeness of God in which man was created." He then quotes Romans 8: 29, and 1 Corinthians 15: 49 (confounding them with Colossians 3: 10); Ephesians 4: 22, 23; 1 John 3: 2; 2 Corinthians 4: 4. Whereas the whole argument of Romans 8, from verse 18 onward, is the contrast of the saint's future state with his present; as to 1 Corinthians 15, every child knows that it refers to resurrection; Colossians 3: 10 being with equal certainty applicable to the saint now, as also Ephesians 4; whereas 1 John 3: 2 is with the same certainty only applicable to a future state. It is said, "When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he

Indeed, in these citations the Archdeacon is trifling either with his reader or with scripture. To say the truth, his use of it in general is such as must astonish any one who has any serious respect for it, shewing a carelessness and ignorance of the passages he quotes from, which may be very patristic but is certainly anything but respect for God or for His word. A few more quotations will suffice. "When the Eternal Word created the first man in God's image, He bestowed the beginning of this gift; its fulness was vouchsafed when He gave Himself to be the second Man in the flesh." I have noticed, farther on, another inconceivably monstrous principle contained in this phrase. Thus the glorious state of man consequent on redemption is wholly excluded and left out of what is "designed for the family of man." "All these passages [those to which we have just referred] shew that the gift of the gospel is that 'knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,' which had originally, though as the apostle implies in inferior measure, been designed for the family of man." Now, it is remarkable, that the apostle here quoted had never seen Christ living here amongst men — had never seen Him as incarnate upon earth — knew Him only in the glory, and here speaks in the most emphatic manner of the ministration of the Spirit, revealing that glory of an ascended Christ as He had promised. His gospel was the gospel of the glory of Christ.

265 The Archdeacon's doctrine as to original sin, in this part of his book, is as unsound, I apprehend, as the rest; but I cannot here enter on this point. It is a transmitted disorganization of the lower appetites and powers resulting from a withdrawal of divine light. "One circumstance, which must of course greatly affect this whole question, is the perfect parallel which exists between the first man and the second — between the type and the antitype; him in whom humanity fell, and Him in whom it rose again; between Adam, in whom a divine Spirit was united only for a season to our mortal being, and Christ, in whom the same Spirit dwelt permanently and without measure." This is really rationalism in its worst features, what is called on the continent the Christ as found in humanity in all manner of shapes. Adam was a kind of partial temporary incarnation, and Christ merely a more fully inspired man. "Its fulness," says the Archdeacon, "was vouchsafed when He gave Himself to be the second Man in the flesh." "Thus as Adam was a type of humanity in his constitution, so also is Christ. True it is that men are not united to the second Man by that actual paternity by which they are all bound to the first. But the pattern form is perfectly developed; it remains only to find some no less real means of union, whereby they may enjoy the blessing of this higher descent." He is speaking of Christ as come into this world — of the incarnation. "For the Word was made flesh. He clothed himself in man's whole nature," &c. The means of union he refers to are the sacraments. The author concludes by saying, "Thus is that object attained for which man's heart had always longed — the union of our inferior with that superior nature, by which its weakness might be redressed and its ignorance enlightened."

266 Again, after largely speaking of Christ as on earth as having no form nor comeliness, &c., as "coming to His own" — in a word, of what He was on earth, he says, "Thus was then exhibited a true pattern for the children of men, in whom was set forth that gift of which all may have participation. For here is restored that true constitution of our being, and man renewed takes the place of man fallen."

The force of all this is evident: man lost a supernatural union with God by the fall; and it is restored in incarnation in Christ in a better way, and Christ, incarnate, living in the world, is the pattern-man, after whom all are livingly remodelled. Men received life of Him through His body,* and now His is gone, the sacraments, which are "an extension of the incarnation," supply the place of His living bodily presence, and by them we are united to this divine source of life. Before quoting some passages as to the "means of union," I would remark, that, as in the case of the spiritual rationalism of the continent, the Spirit's personal presence is wholly overlooked. With the Archdeacon, it is either man's mind or a sacrament. He alleges, I am aware, that Christ is set aside by those who look to the Spirit's work. It is possible it may be so by some; I cannot tell. But the thought of union with the glorified Head in heaven, the incarnate glorified Man who had accomplished redemption before He went up on high, does not seem to enter into his mind. According to the word, "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit;" but with the author, it is man's mind or a sacrament by the flesh having life in it. Now, as I have already said, all blessing is in and through the incarnate Word: it is impossible to hold this too distinctly or too fully. All is treasured up in Him; all flows through Him. If the Father's love (He with whom He is one) is the eternal source, the incarnate Word, the Son of God, is personally He in whom we have all the blessing that flows from this source, the power of the Holy Ghost being that through which we are put in communion with it. And, further, for my own part, I can say, I know no place in which, as to means, I find so peculiar and especial a blessing as in the Lord's supper, and this in special connection with the suffering and now glorified Jesus, He who if He is ascended first descended into the lower parts of the earth, that, now ascended up far above all heavens, He might fill all things, not only as seen as a creating God, but in redemption glory as a redeeming Man, and yet have the church united to Himself in a special way, as "his body, the fulness [completing] of him who filleth all in all."

{*"That the earthly body of our Lord was the medium through which life and health were conveyed to other bodies, is expressly recorded in holy writ. It is not our purpose to speak of the acts of healing which were thus wrought, because His divine mind and will must not be excluded from participation in the miracles of which His body was the medium. Yet when we consider the nature of His body in itself, when we inquire whether the conditions of its existence answer to the character of Him who assumed it, we see peculiar reasons why virtue should flow, as we are assured it did, out of His body into the bodies of others." No doubt: but was this the eternal life of the soul? "Now since Christ as the second Adam is that seed of life, through whom the spiritual body is to be quickened at the last day, that virtue should go out of Him when He was upon earth is nowise inconsistent with what scripture leads us to expect." "Whether the influence exerted when He were [was] upon earth were material or immaterial, it is needless to ask." . . . "He [our Lord] set it [His, man's body] forth as possessed of an instrumental efficacy in that work of renovating the race of man, which extends to the restoration of their bodies, as well as the renewal of their souls." If that is not convenient logic, surely I know not what is. But the looseness of the author's reasoning — the utter inconclusiveness of his statements — is beyond all I ever read. The soul is slipped in here without the smallest ray of connection with the argument, as if touching the body renewed that. Yet this is the whole point as to spiritual benefit by sacraments as an extension of the incarnation. But you may have Cyril, his great authority, to vouch for it, soul and all: "since the life-giving Word of God dwelt in the flesh, He transformed it into that excellence which belongs to Himself, that is, into life, and by His intimate and unspeakable union with it, He rendered it life-giving, as He is — Himself." Cyril. Alex. 4, 354; who, however, declares it equally true of the wicked, so that little serves our author's object or indeed his own.}

267 All this I adore the grace of God in. But our question is not here whether all fulness is in the person of Christ. "In him dwelleth" (and surely was it so when on earth) "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." But it was not in the state in which He was on earth that it was God's mind to unite the church to Him; and the rather, as then that union would have been independent of redemption, and made man's sinful unredeemed state immaterial as to that union, and the Holy Ghost in man the seal of his actual sinful, and not of his redeemed, condition. And hence, though all the fulness was personally in Christ, yet He could say, "I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" Was He straitened in His own bowels of love? Every believing heart will well know He was not. He was straitened, because the love in Him was infinite (for "God is love") and could not flow forth in its own proper fulness and full display, till the death due to man as a sinner was come in, till the flood-gates were opened by redemption, and the whole tide of divine grace flowed forth justly and unhindered on a lost and ruined world.

268 Yes, that blessed One was straitened; and death and bearing wrath though it were, He could look to His own suffering as opening the way for the full manifestation that God was love, and for the exercise of it in the salvation of the lost. The blessed perfection of Jesus, the witness of sweet and precious love in Jesus, to which every heart surely ought to have bowed, was, on the contrary, putting man's heart to the test, in one sense the final test, so as to prove that no union of Adam's seed unredeemed with a living Christ was possible. "He was in the world, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not." "The life was the light of men, but the light shone in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." Had He not come and spoken unto them, the most favoured of the race in whom all was tested, they had not had sin; now there was no cloke: — "If he had not done the works none other man did, they had not had sin. But now they had seen and hated both him and his Father."

Christ's incarnation was His sinless entrance into the old creation, though in a way entirely exceptional, so as to be, even as man, wholly out of all the evil of it and manifest God in it. As risen, He is the head and beginning of the new, the presenting of man to God, according to His own counsels; and He is then the pattern-man, the Man as God brings Him to Himself, "The first-born among many brethren." For "he suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." The fulness of Christianity is not merely that God was manifested in man; but that man was brought to God so as that God should see man in His own image, "holy and without blame before him in love" — should see him in the Son too, so that He should be a Father to him in the relationship in which He was to His beloved and Only-begotten. It is, that man should be brought to Him also in a nature in which God could delight, because it was His own (His own, I mean in its moral character, holy, blameless, and love), and which, from being such, should have infinite delight in its effects, because the fulness of this very nature was there to delight in, in God Himself.

269 The "mystery of godliness" was not merely, then, that "God was manifest in the flesh," blessed source of it all! but that "he was justified in the [power of the] Spirit, seen of angels, preached to Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Thus all God's ways unfolded themselves. The veil which had hid Him till then was rent, His holiness was become a delight and not a fear to the believer, for love was known in the putting away of sin, and the middle wall of partition broken down. The accomplishment of promise, and the mighty goodness of God to man had been presented in the setting aside of Satan's power over him in every way, "healing all that were oppressed of the devil;" and by its rejection the title to promise lost to the Jew, so that he must come in through mercy; and the intrinsic enmity of man's heart against God revealed, the carnal mind shewn to be enmity against God, but in its highest act in this wondrous scene, in the crucifying Jesus, the triumph of God's love over it displayed; for that which was the uttermost act of man's hatred to God was the accomplishment of the work of God's redemption and the sovereign act of His love. The undisturbed holiness which sin could not reach acted in the divine perfectness of love to accomplish its own purposes above and beyond the reach of sin when sin had done its worst. The spear that expressed the despising hatred of man was answered by the water and the blood which washes away the sin which was shewn in shedding it.

"God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;" but He was wholly rejected, "despised and rejected of men." When He came, there was no man; when He called, there was none to answer. "He spake that he knew, and testified that he had seen; and no man received his testimony." But God has reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son. The condition of man as a sinner is not merely now his fall in Adam, so that he fled from God, and that God had driven him out; but that when in the person of Christ God came into this world, ruined and fallen as it was, into which man had sunk when driven out, and was embellishing under Satan's power as well as he could, far from God; — when He came as man, overcoming Satan's wiles, delivering from Satan's power, having bound the strong man in the temptation, and then spoiling his goods, bearing man's sorrows and carrying their infirmities; — when God was in this world of woe, man, as far as he could, turned Him out, only, blessed be His name! to destroy the power of Satan in death itself, "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," and reveal the perfect love of God, and enter as a redeemer and as a new risen man into the presence of God, not back into an earthly paradise, as a man ignorant of good and evil, but into a heavenly one in glory, into His Father's house itself, where He is gone to prepare a place for us; that there, in the sweetest and best of nearnesses, He may be the first-born among many brethren, for He is gone to "his Father and our Father, his God and our God," to have us as His bride and His body with Himself — His brethren, as personally before the Father, His bride, yea His body, in our nearness to Himself.

270 The scriptural development of this must be sought in Ephesians. But I will cite from the Philippians the elaborate statement of the apostle, to shew that it was a risen glorified Christ who for him was the pattern-man. "If, by any means," he says (chap. 3: 11), "I might attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." Again, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" — the calling ἄνω. "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." That for which Christ had apprehended him, that to which God had called him, that which Christ would accomplish by His power, that in which Christ was the pattern-man, was a heavenly state, a glorious body, not what He was as incarnate. So, in 2 Corinthians 5 "We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now, he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God." Paul had only known Him in glory; His gospel is the gospel of the glory. So it is not after the image of the first Adam that we are created anew at all; nor is it any infusion of divine principles into a partly fallen man, restoring him, which is contemplated by grace. All this is false. The cherubim and a flaming sword kept from the first the way of the tree of life. Death is pronounced, and maintained on all that is of the first Adam.

271 The second is a new life. "That ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth" — not after the first Adam, but after God. Shall we be insensible to this immense privilege? Christ is the true image of the invisible God, God manifest in the flesh — He in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Is He a mere restoration of the first Adam, or just, as indeed the Archdeacon horridly makes Him, a degree of progress upon him? And, mark, it is not to innocence we are ever restored, nor to the ignorance of good and evil which was Adam's unfallen state. When God had said, "the man is become as one of us," return to that was impossible. The condition of man is now involved in the knowledge of good and evil; and he is created anew after the image of Him, who, in righteousness and holiness, knows evil perfectly, and, in the righteousness and holiness of His nature, judges and perfectly rejects it all. This is that of which we are made partakers, "of the divine nature:" not of restored Adam's. And this, indeed, we have only in and through Christ, who is this perfection in man, our life, and the blessed and perfect object of it. We are crucified with Christ. There is no lingering, as men vainly say of crucifying. The apostle speaks of being dead; for he says, "nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Hence we are to reckon ourselves dead, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ — as He died unto sin once; and in that He lives, He lives unto God. "We are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God." Nothing can be clearer than the doctrine of scripture on the subject: not the amelioration of man as he is, but death in it and to it, and a new man who is Christ.

Let me add here, that the notion of conscience in Adam is an unfounded one. Conscience has a double meaning: sense of responsibility, and knowledge of the difference of good and evil in things themselves. In this latter sense, people speak, as does the Archdeacon, of its not being lost by the fall. It was acquired in it. The first (that is, a sense of responsibility) he had; the prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit put it to the test, but commandment only made this wrong. There was in it no knowledge of good and evil in things themselves, as in murder, theft, corruption, and the like. Man was there to enjoy, in innocence, the blessings which God had showered around him, and the Blesser who had given them. He was ignorant of evil in itself; happy state! but gone for ever. Who would think of saying, "God is innocent?" The phrase offends and shocks at once. He knows, is above, and judges, all, distinguishing perfectly evil from good.

272 There is another immensely important principle connected with this, in the difference between our state and Adam's. Adam's moral position was happy — thankfulness and praise in the enjoyment of the position he was in. Indeed, the desire to get out of it was the entrance of sin. Ours is in no way such. We are called by glory and virtue. We seek to attain. This is a total change in our whole moral condition. We live by an object to be attained; he did not. His wish to be like God, in any sort, was his sin. It is what is presented to us as the spring of life and virtue, that for which we are apprehended, that to which God calls us, our only deliverance from the evil we do know. The more this is weighed, the more important it will seem to be. It alters fundamentally the whole moral condition. Contentedness, morally, is sin, self-righteousness, and ignorance of God and good. Nor is our condition one of law, neither a rule of life, to a people called and put as such in relationship with God upon the earth. We are called by glory (it is a point to be attained), and by the virtue which measures the difficulties and leaves behind what attracts the flesh. And, mark here, it is by glory — our calling above. To be like Christ in walk (for in sinlessness of nature we cannot, which shews that His state here cannot be our pattern, though His walk is), to be like Him in walk, is the effect of the heavenly calling, for He was the heavenly Man. A word on this point.

I am quite aware it will be said, "but you are lowering the idea of the image of God from a moral to a kind of physical glory." I would recall that. It is strongly and justly urged, that it is in the manhood of Christ that the blessing is present, though, of course, not separating it from His Godhead. The only question is, in what condition of His manhood is He the pattern-man? Now, the foolishness of God is wiser than man; and He teaches us that it is by the revelation of a heavenly glory in the pattern-man, that His image is formed in us — whatever the means; that it is in making us heavenly that we cease to be earthly and carnal. The life of Christ here is the pattern of our walk; but it is by abiding in Him on high, that we are like Him below. He was what He was by always abiding on high. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and no man receiveth our testimony. And no man has ascended up to heaven but he who came down from heaven, even the Son of man, who is in heaven." It was the life of a heavenly man. He could say so, as a divine person; we, by being united to Him, and knowing Him there. For the Spirit takes the things of Christ and shews them to us; and we, "beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory." Hence of that eternal life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us, and which, so to speak with the apostle, "we have seen, heard, looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life," but which abode alone while here, it can now be said, "which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." But this is when He was on high; for He is spoken of as our advocate with the Father, as the propitiation for our sins; though it was the same, even eternal, life in Him (and hence an old commandment had from the beginning), manifested in all its perfectness in that blessed One. Blessed be God! it is so; for in Him, as living down here, I can see that heavenly life, which is mine, in all its proper perfectness, and yet say, That is my life, for Christ is my life. But yet it is a new commandment, as true in Him and in us, because He had ascended up on high when He had made propitiation for our sins, that He might be the head and source of life to a new family, to be formed after the pattern of the heavenly man: a life to be manifested in the mortal body, by always bearing about in it the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in these earthen vessels. It is the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God; as another apostle says, as we have seen, "We are called by glory and virtue."

273 The humiliation of Christ in love draws our affections by grace.

The knowledge of and union with Him in heaven forms us into the walk and spirit in which that heavenly Man, that blessed One, walked upon the earth; of Him to whom our souls are knit in love, to whom we are united by the Spirit. One is the practical reflex down here of the other.

274 It is living union that we have with a living Christ by the Holy Ghost, through whom we are one with Him (for by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit, in contrast, note, with one flesh) — a union which will result in our fully bearing the image of the heavenly, who is the image of God — not union with a Christ in lonely love on earth, when perfectness was shewn in that He was alone, yet not alone for the Father was with Him, but of man none to reverence, none to see beauty in Him. For we speak not of what grace can do, but of what man was, and in himself is. Surely that divine love pierced through; and helpless sinners, through grace, found their resource in it; and, however straitened, the power that could say, "Go, and he goeth; and come, and he cometh," could recognize faith in a Gentile; and the love that found no answer could prove it was there to answer that faith of a once accursed Canaanite that overstepped the bounds of dispensed barriers, and maintained that God was good enough to look upon the worthless, to help and meet their need. The love that had its just sphere where there was nothing to attract it, so as to shew it was perfect and divine, could attract and win the heart, and draw the shameful sinner where no shame would be cast upon them, but with the dignity of divine excellence, upon him who saw no beauty in that love so as to desire it; upon that wisdom of human righteousness which could discern that he was no prophet, in whom the poor lost one could find the absorbing renewing refuge of divine love, and return from it in peace, forgiven and saved, knowing God and a Saviour in the love that had drawn the heart and answered to the need of conscience, knowing from His own lips that it was saved.

Yes, the divine love of a Redeemer pierced through the veil. The fulness of Godhead was there, and God is love. It could not be hid, even if it were straitened; but the time was not come for union with that blessed source of all blessedness. The Head must be exalted before the body could be united to it. He was alone; His loneliness was the essence of the beauty and perfectness of that place of love. He could be as a sparrow upon the housetop, and as a pelican in the wilderness, in His sorrow look for some one to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but He found none. He could eat ashes like bread, and mingle His drink with weeping. This is a different thing from union. That blessed truth, so blessed for us, has its own place; the lonely (lonely as far as man was concerned) perfectness of Christ and the infinite divine fulness of His person is another. The sources were all there; the communications which united the members of His body to Him were not. Man was a lost sinner, in enmity against God. He must be redeemed, as well as attracted and quickened, to accomplish the purposes of grace in Him: and heavenly glory and blessedness were what alone met as recompense the work of redemption in which Christ glorified God, and because of which He was glorified with the Father Himself; God glorifying Him in Himself, not merely in the future royal dominion. If He was obedient to the cross, He was highly exalted; and, even, He, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God, sat down when He had by Himself purged our sins.

275 It is not, I repeat, the true humanity in the divine fulness of Christ that is the question, or whether that is the only means of blessing. It is not whether rationalism or the adorers of human powers are right. For the Christian there can be no question there. The question is in what condition of the person of the blessed Lord is our union with Him? In what is He the pattern-man? Is it antecedent to redemption, and in incarnation as alive down here, or consequent on our redemption and resurrection? Scripture leaves no doubt upon the subject.

But I will clear up the other view of the subject by some more quotations referring to another part of it — the means of union. I abhor rationalism; I adore the person of the Lord; but I do not believe a lifeless sacrament to be that person, most precious as it surely is in its due place. I must have a person to love, however His lifeless body may recall that person. The blessed Lord would respect and honour the affection of a Mary Magdalene, but correct an erring spirit by revealing Himself living. To say, "I will carry Him away," was touching affection, but it was unbelief too.

But I must continue: —

"The question at issue in the present day is the reality of our Lord's mediation — the truth of that system of spiritual influences which was bestowed by the re-creation of man's race in the person of the Son of God, and that whole doctrine of grace which is characteristic of the gospel. If it should be true, as was always believed in ancient times, and as will be stated in these pages, that 'sacraments are the extension of the incarnation,' that through their agency the Son of God effects that great work which He took our nature to perform, it will not seem surprising," &c.

276 Nothing can be plainer than this.

In answer to the question of what regeneration is, we have the views of the author brought out more in detail. The question is, now that Christ is glorified, and absent as to His bodily presence in the world, How can grace be communicated — how regeneration wrought, and what is it? Its connection with Christ, no Christian will deny. The question is, What is it? how communicated?

The answer of the Archdeacon to this question is this: — "It has always been understood to refer to some gift of grace bestowed by God, the result whereof is the renewal of man's nature." Thus, "In what way does God bestow grace? In what way is man its receiver?" As to the first, "they are expressly stated to be bestowed through the mediation of our Lord's humanity." I pray the reader to remark this. It is not the mediation of Christ, but of our Lord's humanity, giving a most exclusive and very peculiar sense to mediation; because it is not a personal action but the intervention of a nature. He quotes, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," not the humanity, note. "This," the writer adds, "is the manner in which divine gifts flow into the world." "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." For "this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."

I am not here going to comment on the loose way scriptures are quoted. I am not engaged in criticising the Archdeacon's books, or I should have most serious questions to advert to. I use them as the means of getting at a particular system, as represented by its moderate and esteemed advocates. Now that Christ is the only way of grace, I need not say I admit; and that eternal life is found in the Son only for man. Our question here is as to the means of union; and the quotations are to shew, that, while in the world, union was to be found. "In the manhood of Christ was a new door open to mankind. This is that new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." I remark here, that there is no suggestion of death or sacrifice. Still the author must pass on to Christ's glorified state, for He is no longer on earth. But in treating of this, we shall find sacrifice really passed by. I do not mean that he denies it so as to be heterodox, but it forms no part of his system of truth in connection with our renewed intercourse with God.

277 Thus he presents it: —

"The Gospels then speak of grace, not as bestowed on humanity at large, but in the humanity of Christ. For it was the appointment of infinite wisdom that this gift was not bestowed from Him to others, till humanity had first been perfected in Himself." This is not consistent with other statements, but I do not enter on that here. "'It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.' Though the humanity of the second Adam had been by nature pure from spot, yet it was suffering the appointed course through which it was perfected for the work of mediation. 'For their sakes I sanctify myself,* that they also may be sanctified through the truth.' Thus did that manhood, which was taken in the virgin's womb, become a meet instrument for leavening the whole mass of corrupted nature. And this work [What work? His own sanctifying of Himself though without spot?] being perfected, we see the new Adam who, like His earthly predecessor, has been made a little lower than the angels, crowned, through the suffering of death, with glory and honour; and then did He ascend up on high, and having led captivity captive, gave gifts unto men. That which He had received because He was human, He had power to give because He was divine. Thus did He bestow on all His members that gift of grace which had hitherto centred in Himself. The love of God had flowed forth into the manhood of His incarnate Son, that thence it might diffuse itself through His brethren."

{*This, the Archdeacon's favourite author, Cyril, interprets quite differently; he applies it to the offering of Christ as on an altar in sacrifice, which he says, is by the Jews held as sanctifying, though the victim be previously holy. Τόδε ἁγιάζω ἐν τούτοις, ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀνατίθημι καὶ προσἀγω καθάπερ ἄμωμον ἱερεῖον εἰσ ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, κ.τ.λ. Com. in Ev. Johan., lib. 4 (vol. 4, p. 354, ed. Aubert). Both, I judge, interpret wrongly.}

He came, then, "to reconstruct the very foundations of humanity in Himself." "Thus did He become the second Adam, in whom the deep foundations of humanity were again constructed, so that through Him and in Him do men receive that gift, which by Him God bestowed upon His creatures;" that is, it is a renewal of that which the first Adam had received by Him, once bestowed, lost in a measure* (for he teaches that the loss is but partial) and now renewed in Him. So elsewhere the restoration of the ancient pattern of man is not attained through the natural perfection of individuals, but because in Christ, our Lord, was the personal presence of that divine Word which was above nature.

{*Not only does our author urge its being only partial, but his views are somewhat those of Quakers. He holds that "the life was the light of men" applies to what Christ was as the word. The law of conscience is one "which has its origin in God's image reflected in the creature's mind. St. Paul speaks of it as the work of the law written in men's hearts." He slurs over here the fact that it is not the law which is written at all. "And St. John tells us, that it was not a law the perpetual maintenance whereof had been entrusted only to human powers: it was preserved by the abiding influence of that all-pervading Word, who never totally forsook the beings whom He had created. . . . 'In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.' The second result of this partial perpetuation of his Maker's image was the preservation of a measure of that intercourse with God, which in the first instance had doubtless been full and unrestricted. . . . What was secret prayer, as a rite of heathen religion, but the intuitional reaching forth of the mind after its invisible Creator? . . . This intercourse is built upon that all-pervading action of the eternal Word, which was the original light of our being. . . . This, then, is the old road of nature; this the channel through which light was originally transmitted from God to man. Now, the law of mediation is the substitution of a new channel of intercourse instead of this old one. The law of grace is given in place of the law of nature. The old door of access had been shut or obstructed by sin; therefore, in the manhood of Christ was a new door opened to mankind." Now it is not that there was not a conscience in every man, "a certain inherent judgment respecting right and wrong." Surely there was. Man ACQUIRED IT IN THE FALL, by which he was separated from God. Nor do I say that God left Himself without witness, if haply men might feel after Him and find Him. We know He did not; so that men were without excuse. But this is not the statement of the Archdeacon. With him this is a nature which was the power of holding intercourse with God: that in man which was preserved by the abiding influence of the all-pervading Word. "The guiding light, then, of original humanity was . . . a special and supernatural in-dwelling of the great Author of all knowledge. . . . For even the heathen must have derived their remaining light of conscience, however darkened and confused, from Him who is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" that is, it is His influence within and not His witness without to a conscience acquired in the fall, which, after all, drove him from God (Gen. 3: 8-10), and a heart which, alas! was enmity against Him.

Christ removes the obstruction to this preserved image being in intercourse with God, and gives fuller objects. It is not death come on the first Adam and utter condemnation, and in us, that is in our flesh, no good thing, and Christ, a sacrifice to put away sin, and, as second Adam, an entirely new life in which, in the power which is in Him, we live to God. It is a renewal of the old intercourse, improving it perhaps, but Christ adopting our humanity in its disordered state and reconstructing it in His own person as alive here, and then, according to infinite wisdom passing through sufferings and glorified so as to communicate it there. "Our ancient intercourse with God has been given back only through that new Founder of man's race, through whom alone we can approach the Father." And again, "This He did, not by the creation of materials which did not before exist; the materials were drawn from that stock for which the benefit was designed. 'He was made of a woman.' (It is merely γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικὸς, γενόμενον ὑπὸ νόμου.) The materials, therefore, which were employed, were weak and disorganised, because they were taken out of one who naturally was heir to Adam's defects. But then He who took them was the Word of God. Into these weak and poor elements of our nature there flowed the very might, wisdom, and purity of Deity itself. Thus was their weakness from the first corrected; from the first moment that His nature existed its disorder was counteracted by the perfect order and harmony of God's Spirit, and though made of a woman, He was made without sin."

I do not expatiate on the excessive looseness of the Archdeacon's statement (and he is the most inaccurate, loosest writer, with the pretensions he has to philosophical theology, that one might easily find: take the statement, for example, that the disorder of His nature was counteracted by the perfect order and harmony of God's Spirit, which may be said of us, but certainly not of Christ) — I do not expatiate on it, because I hope and suppose he means no harm; or on the doctrine, which is really, as it stands, practically Apollinarianism, because I believe he does not mean it, but is merely loose in his statements, from extreme inaccuracy and carelessness in mind and habits of thought, associated with exceeding boldness and even irreverence as to the subjects he treats.

But what miserable materialism there is in all this! They were materials whose disorder He corrected. But I especially refer to the passage here in connection with regeneration. It was a divine person taking the old materials and counteracting their disorder. Is that all? The might, wisdom, and purity of Deity itself, flowing into the weak and poor elements of our nature? I repeat, it is Apollinarianism really, but is there no really new life which Adam had not? Is it merely Deity correcting, or, as the Archdeacon heretically expresses it, counteracting the disorder of fallen Adam's elements? Let the reader note this. The doctrine is elaborately wrought out in the system; it is sacramental materialism, a correction by a kind of divine physical process. The very words I use offend me; but what can I do, when men speak of materials and of taking the same composition of parts? I do not doubt He did, so as to be as really man as we are; but is this eternal life in Christ? Is this what Christ is as a new life to those united to Him by grace? Life is in Him and He is our life. Is this merely a counteraction of disorder in the weak and poor elements of our nature?

But I must close this note: only I recall here the Archdeacon's account of the first and second Adam, that we may see the utter and fundamental unsoundness of the whole system as to what Christ's person is — what sin is — what the fall is — and what our recovery is. "One circumstance, which must of course greatly affect the whole question, is the perfect parallel which exists between the first man and the Second — between the type and the Antitype — him in whom humanity fell, and Him in whom it rose again — between Adam in whom a divine Spirit was united only for a season to our mortal being, and Christ, in whom the same Spirit dwelt permanently and without measure." Again, "For in His [Christ's] constitution there were the elements of Adam's being, together with the perfect presence of that wisdom of God, which had vouchsafed its influence as an indwelling gift to our first parent." And, as regards the pattern-man and the exclusion of resurrection — "In Adam was humanity, and the presence of the Word superadded as a guiding light. In Christ was God the Word by personal presence, who for our sakes had added to Himself human flesh. Thus it attained that perfection of man's nature, which, in the case of our first parent, was only transiently set forth. For that perfection lay in the intercourse with God, which Adam so soon renounced. But in Christ is this intercourse restored permanently and in its completeness." Is this a just account of incarnation, to say nothing of resurrection?}

280 "It is plain, therefore, that the whole of man not only needs reconstruction in Christ, but is susceptible of it." The new creation extends to it all. All the parts of that common nature which is borne by every child of Adam, were re-fashioned in the head and model of the christian family, that the renewal of our nature in Christ might extend likewise to them all. Christ's humanity is further declared to be the means of having life. "To partake of His sacred flesh is the method by which men enter into relation with Him, just as by birth men partake of that old nature which has been transmitted to us by Adam." It is not that the incarnate Lord is "the mediator through whom all divine gifts were bestowed upon men. He adds a further truth in John 6: 51-58, and declares that the eating of His flesh and of His blood is the method by which these gifts are to be received."

Quoting St. Cyril, his great authority in these matters, he says, "The sacred body of Christ gives life to those in whom it is, and preserves them for immortality by being mixed with our bodies" — "that eucharist* which lies in the reception of His sacred flesh and blood, whereby man obtains the gift of immortality." "He is life by nature, inasmuch as He has been born from the living Father, and His sacred body is not less life-giving."

{* Εὐλογία is Cyril's word.}

And the Archdeacon himself, "As His Godhead flows into Him by necessary derivation from His eternal Father, so does He assure us that He communicates His manhood by merciful gift to His earthly brethren. Thus there are three stages in this great work. The Godhead imparts itself to the coequal Son. This is His eternal generation. The Son unites Himself to man's nature. This is His incarnation. He communicates His manhood to His brethren. This is His real presence in the eucharist. As the first, then, is the communication of that substance which is common to the three persons in the blessed Godhead, so is the last the substantial communication of that manhood which has been hallowed by taking it into God." Nothing can be more definite than that it is distinctively and properly thus. "There are two main systems according to which it is supposed that spiritual gifts are communicated; the one implies that blessings are bestowed upon men by individual gift as a consequence indeed of Christ's death, but through that separate process whereby the Almighty holds communion with each man's spirit." I do not take His account of the matter here, nor own to be just the separation of this work from the person of Christ. I quote to give distinctively what follows. "The other supposes all blessings to be embodied in the humanity of the Word, and from Him to be extended to His members." And note, "This communication takes place through His coming down upon earth and manifesting Himself among men, and then it is added in verse 51-58, that to partake of His sacred flesh is the method by which men enter into relation with Him, just as by birth men partake of that old nature which has been transmitted to us by Adam." That is, incarnation and the eucharist, as partaking of His sacred flesh, that humanity in which all is embodied, is the means, the one means, of having life, just as we are naturally born to have natural life. Remark, he says nothing of drinking the blood or of death. Popery has gone a step farther in this system; but of this hereafter. It is consistent.

281 "There must be some means, then, by which we must be put into relation with the new man, even as we have a natural relation to the flesh of the old one; we must be united by grace to Christ, as we were united to Adam by nature. Neither should it surprise us that the processes should present some analogy; that if the poison of the sin is transmitted through his flesh, so His flesh should be the medium through which is transmitted the virtue of the other." "This (our common) nature is transmitted according to the most mysterious of earthly laws through the continuing of the flesh. It was not inconsistent, therefore, with the order of the divine economy, that our Lord's flesh and blood, mysteriously and supernaturally communicated, should be the principle of a higher life to His brethren."

282 "The holy eucharist, therefore, is the carrying out of that act which took effect in the incarnation of the Son of God. It was by the incarnation that God and man, the finite and the infinite, were brought into relation, and that the graces which were inherent in the one were communicated as a gift to the other. Now, the medium through which these gifts are extended, is not the Deity, but the manhood of Christ." And he quotes Cyril: "For being life, as God, He has made it life and life-giving." This doctrine, with all manner of monstrous statements, original and quoted, is over and over again insisted on. Thus, "Now it must be remembered that He speaks of two things in this chapter (John 6): first, of the general fact of His mediation, and that His humanity was the medium through which divine graces found their way to mankind; secondly, that the eating His body, and the drinking His blood, was the method in which this gift was to be participated [sic always] by individuals." I cite this passage to shew, in the clearest way, that it is not mediation nor the humanity of Jesus as the one sure full way of grace found in and by and through Him. It is, further, that eating His flesh (and here he adds, "drinking His blood," though not shewing what it has to do with incarnation,) is the way of having share in what He was (as incarnate). "His body," he says, quoting from St. Cyril, "was sanctified by the power of the Word, and it is thus rendered effective for us for the purpose of the mystical eucharist, so as to be able to implant in us its own sanctification." St. Ignatius and St. Irenaeus "dwell on the truth that our Lord's body, as communicated in the holy eucharist, is the renewing principle by which His people are to be quickened both in body and soul." "St. Irenaeus speaks of it as the cause of resurrection."

And the manhood of Christ is so truly in the sensible creatures of bread and wine that "all who receive one receive the other." I leave to others to judge of the Archdeacon's deliberate contradiction of the twenty-ninth article, of which the title is, "Of the wicked which eat not the body of Christ in the use of the Lord's supper." The Archdeacon might cavil at the absence of the negative of the res sacramenti, which the article does not speak of in any way; but the title leaves no loophole for this artifice. But my business is with the doctrine itself. Now, the consideration of the sacraments themselves is fatal to the whole theory, and at the same time demonstrates the fact, that it is in resurrection, not in incarnation, that Christ is a source of life to others. According to their own theory, it is in baptism that a man is regenerate and receives life. But they admit that in the elements used in baptism, in the matter, as they speak technically, there is nothing really or spiritually of the flesh or humanity of Christ. I would here recall the statement, that it is not merely the doctrine that His humanity is the medium through which divine graces find their way to mankind, on which the Archdeacon insists; but that the eating of His body and drinking of His blood was the method in which this gift was to be participated in by individuals. The flesh and blood thus communicated are the principle of a higher life to His brethren — that to partake of His sacred flesh is the method by which men enter into relation with Him. This is put in contrast with the system that implies that blessings are bestowed upon man by individual gift as a consequence, indeed, of Christ's death, but through that separate process by which the Almighty holds communion with each man's spirit.

283 Now this in baptism, according to their own theory, that men enter into relation with Christ, and God by Him, and receive the principle of life; but here all such communication of His humanity as really present is out of the question. The element is water. They do not deny this. "In baptism, therefore, the outward sign has no permanent relation to the inward grace." . . . . "Our Lord used no words which imply that any particular portion of the element employed is invested with a specific character." "The inward grace is associated with the act, not with the element." "And for the same reason, the intervention of the minister, however desirable, is not essential;" "because baptism depends upon an act which all Christians may perform and not upon any consecration which requires a special commission." That is, the whole system is overthrown, its foundation subverted. For the communication of the humanity of Christ, through a direct sacramental participation in it as present, whereby we enter into relationship with Him, as by birth we are so with the first Adam, is here impossible; for there is confessedly no such sacramental presence. And this in the sacrament in which this relationship, and in which alone according to their theory this relationship is properly entered into! The whole system and theory is false upon the face of it — false in its own sacramental way. It is apostasy if compared with the scriptures of truth.

284 But, farther, if we examine both the sacraments, the greater truth for which I contend will be clearly established. That is, that death comes in before the possibility of being blessed in Christ as a living Head; and that it is the life of a risen Christ, who has wrought atonement for us (so that we can be livingly blessed, consistently with God's righteousness), that we are made partakers of, and that it is not with a merely incarnate Christ that we are united. Being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all those that obey Him. Both sacraments present death in Christ, not life, save as we enter into resurrection as emerging out of death. But they are expressions not of the power of life in Christ, but of the power and efficacy of death in grace; so that in having life from Christ risen, we have the knowledge of the perfect love in which He gave Himself for us as sinners, and of the entire putting away of sin which He wrought by His death, so that we are not in the nature or person at all, before God, in which sin subsisted. He that is dead is freed from sin.

Were I united to Christ as a living man in the first Adam, and He incarnate, the body of sin were not destroyed; death would not be adjudged to it; I could not reckon myself dead; I were yet living in the power of the flesh of the first Adam departed from God. But I am baptized into the death of Christ (buried with Him by baptism into death); for I, morally dead in trespasses and sins, find Him by grace judicially dead for them, and I know my sins, and sin in nature, all gone, the very life to which they attach gone by faith. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and in a life in which He dies no more, or I therefore, for because He lives I live also: death hath no more dominion over Him.

Of this participation in Christ's death, baptism is the expression, and to use the words of men, the sacrament. I live, for therein also I am risen again through faith in the operation of God which raised Him from the dead. But I have part in the death and resurrection of Christ; and as a sinner cannot have part with Him till then. His death is the uniting point, but it is in death. As living by Him risen, I can reckon myself dead. The old life was all sin; but it is dead, crucified with Christ. The sacrament is not the medium of union with an incarnate Christ, not dead; it is the expression of exactly the contrary, that we can have no part with Him upon this ground. It is the absolute sentence of death upon man in connection with the first Adam, a sentence judicially suffered in grace by Christ, and into the confession of which I come alone admitted to have a part with Him. If I enter into life, I do so in the admission, that death is my only ground of hope, and that I cannot turn to God in the life of the first Adam.*

285 The other sacrament, that of the Lord's supper, is equally significative. It represents definitely and specifically the death of Christ. "Ye do shew forth the Lord's death till he come." Nothing can be more emphatically death. "This is my body which was broken for you. This is my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins." It is not, then, participating in incarnate living humanity, but in the death of Christ. Is the breaking of the body in death, the flowing of the very might, wisdom, and purity of Deity itself into the weak and poor elements of our nature? That all the perfections of Godhead were displayed there, so that God has been glorified in the work wrought about our sin is most true: His love, His righteousness, His truth, His majesty; but to say that death is the communication of the fulness of the gift of grace to humanity, and by humanity to us as life, is nonsense. It is death we celebrate in the eucharist: neither a Christ alive as man through the incarnation; nor a Christ alive again in resurrection; but a body broken,* and the blood shed out, the sure emblems of death, and given as such; and therefore the Lord, when speaking of this glorious mystery itself, of His taking manhood and dying, says, "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give," not will take or have taken, though this were a necessary step towards it; but "which I will give for the life of the world:" that divine life in man, and in which God was truly manifested in flesh and amongst men, was shewn to be the object of flesh's hatred, and the new man took His place as head of the new race, when atonement had been made for fatal and otherwise irremediable sin; and on both the ordinances which the Lord instituted for our blessing as Christians, He stamped this truth of the death of the old man, and death to it; but that death became ours in a saving way, through Him who by the grace of God tasted death for us. Quickened together with Him, and raised up together, we own His death as our necessary door of entrance into life, and do not think of uniting two incompatible lives with one another. We were dead by, we are now dead to, sin through Jesus, and, alive in Him, feed on that precious sacrifice which He has wrought for us, making death our life and security for ever, where the power of Satan, where sin and all that belongs to it end with the life they attached to, and where a new life in righteousness has its origin, all trespasses being forgiven us, righteousness in Christ Himself before God, and righteousness by Christ in us before men.

{*The Archdeacon speaks of reducing man to the state of the brute' as indeed do others, and refers to the common sense of human nature as to the ingratitude and the like, and certain affections which subsist. Far be it from me to liken one who has an immortal responsible soul to a brute. But the use of such arguments to prove man not wholly lost, and that some good remains, in spite of the apostle's assertion, "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing," is absurd; because, as to the knowledge of right and wrong in se, it was acquired by the fall, and was no part of man's unfallen nature, and proves no inclination to good whatever, but is a conscience which the inclination to evil constantly violates — "video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor;" secondly, because, as to mere amiable qualities, they are found in the brute, parental fondness, devotedness to a benefactor, even to the laying down life rather than allow injury to a beloved master, patient endurance of even injustice from him, and of everything for him, and every other natural quality which can adorn human nature as a nature, but which prove nothing as to his moral condition in relationship to God. There is this difference, that the poor brute does not boast of it, nor pretend to be an heir of heaven by it.}

{[*It is known that the Greek corresponding to "broken" is omitted in the best copies. I his may impair slightly the reasoning here, but the substantial truth abides. — Ed.]}

286 Such is the doctrine of scripture. To make the blessed glorious truth of incarnation, the source, indeed, of all our blessings, to be not the display of divine life as of God Himself in a man, but the medium in that state of communication to others as imparted to humanity, as a reconstructing of it in that form,* declaring that rationalism, or the power of the human spirit, is the only alternative, is under the plea of denying rationalism, apostasy from the true foundations of Christian truth, and a denial of the real effect of the fall, of the condition of the sinner under it, and of the true need of the death of Christ in order to our participation in life. "Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man you have no life in yourselves:" that is, you cannot be associated with Him living. It is a Saviour by means of death that will introduce you to God.

{*"And by reason hereof there was conferred as a gift upon the man Jesus Christ, that quickening power which pertained to His Godhead by nature. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself. And so did He declare when addressing the Father as Mediator for His brethren, 'Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." I add another passage to one already quoted, to shew that Christ is presented as the source of life as incarnate. "Thus was there bestowed upon what was human in Him such living energy, as was evidenced while He was upon earth, when there went virtue out of Him and healed them all. So that it became that 'quickening spirit,' which is able to bestow a new life on the progeny of Adam, and that bread of life which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." Remark how he leaves out the giving of it to which I have referred. The Archdeacon adds, moreover, in a subsequent passage — "It was because Christ, therefore, was the Head and Father of man's race, that He bore, in like manner, not part, but all its punishment."

St. Cyril, from whom the substance of his doctrine is drawn, is more consistent. The Archdeacon will declare as to Christ's mediation, "that its proper reference is in those who are united to Him." Cyril, after stating as an objection to our being raised because united to Christ that all are raised, adds, "for all shall rise again according to the similitude of Him who has been raised for our sakes, and has all in Himself," πάντας ἔχοντας ἐν ἑαυτῶ. Only, he says, it will be for judgment. This is founded on the following statement: — "Christ, therefore, gave for the life of men His own body, and causes again life to dwell in us; and I will say now as well as I can, for since the life-giving Word of God dwelt in flesh, He transformed it (μετεσκεύασεν) into His own good, that is, into life, and, being joined to it in an ineffable way of union, made it life-giving, according to what He is Himself by nature. Therefore the body of Christ vivifies those who partake of it." The objection is then made, that unbelievers will rise. The undaunted theologian then adds, "Through the resurrection of Christ, the mystery extends (διήκειν) to all humanity, that is, all men, for all rise, being contained in Him, so that all are raised in virtue of union with Christ being contained in Him. His incarnation has made Him the Head of the race." It will be remarked, that He is said to have borne the punishment of all as such. For what they are to be in the resurrection of judgment, I must leave to others to explain. Cyril equally applies his death, as bearing their sins, to all, saying, δικὰς ὑφέζων, and then quoting 1 Peter 2: 24.}

287 I am aware that it is urged, as regards baptism, that it is said by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body. Now, in the first place, the one body, into which they are baptised here, is the unity of the church; but the truth is, the passage does not speak of baptism by water, but does, very definitely, speak of something else. Baptism with the Spirit is a well-known scripture doctrine. "I, indeed," says John Baptist, "baptize you with water, but . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." This we know was accomplished at Pentecost. When Cornelius is called by grace, he receives the Holy Ghost as they did at the first, called baptism of the Holy Ghost (Acts 11: 16), and thereupon is baptized or received into the visible church on earth. In the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where the passage we are speaking of occurs, the subject expressly treated of is the Holy Ghost or spiritual power, πνευμοτιχά: the sense of this is, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which, the Head being exalted on high, all are brought into the unity of the same body, and exercise the gifts given of the Spirit, as members of the body. Baptism by water is nowhere spoken of as engrafting into the unity of the body. The Lord's supper is the expression of that truth (though not that alone). We are all one body, inasmuch as we are partakers of that one bread (loaf).

288 But no such thought is connected in scripture with baptism. It is simply death and resurrection, terms applicable of individuals. We are baptized into His death, buried with Him by baptism into death. It may be the natural consequence of putting on Christ; but the act is individual; the individual puts on Christ. It is the sign of his regeneration in the death and resurrection of Christ, whereby he is received into the visible church of God on earth. We learn, in the case of Samaria, that those thus received had not yet received the Holy Ghost, and Simon Magus never did, though baptized; as Cornelius' receiving the Spirit as the seal of faith was the warrant for his being publicly received by baptism.

Besides, then, its connection with the fundamental doctrine of the necessity of redemption and our total ruin by sin, the truth that death must come in, in order to our union with Christ, is clearly established by the characteristic ordinances of the christian religion; and it is shewn, that it is not by a rectifying of the old man, in connection with the filling of humanity with divine power and grace by the incarnation when Jesus was in the likeness of sinful flesh, by which we are regenerate in union with the Lord Christ; but by the establishment of a new man, of which the pattern in power of life is in Christ risen and glorified, to whose image we are to be conformed, and that consequent not only on His living in the likeness of sinful flesh (though sinless) but in His being (a sacrifice) for sin, so that by His death sin in the flesh has been condemned (Rom. 8: 4); and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, thus risen from the dead, has made us free from the law of sin and death. Hence, having Christ for our life, we reckon ourselves dead and do this one thing, press towards the mark of our calling on high. The effect is the walk of a heavenly man, such as Christ was on earth, because we are in Him who is in heaven. It is when He was raised from the dead and set in heavenly places, far above all heavens, and filling all things that He was given to be Head over all things to the church, His body the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

289 This is the question with Puseyism then. Is redemption the necessary ground of our living association with the Lord Jesus Christ? Puseyism is merely the old effort of Judaism against the doctrine of Paul — the doctrine of a full salvation through a dead and exalted Saviour. The not thus holding the Head, as risen with Christ, is the cause of insisting on ordinances, as though we were alive in the world in connection with the old man, as if we were "in the flesh," and not in a risen Christ before God in the Spirit. The true Head is not held. We are not known to be risen with Christ, and hence we have voluntary humility and subjection to ordinances, and all the train of fleshly observances, and not sparing of the body, which the Apostle denounces as the consequences of departure from Christ as He is risen and exalted on high. And hence I called it apostasy, for so the Apostle does. It is not a nominal denial of Christ, nor did the then Judaisers so deny Him. It is not a question of mere orthodoxy as to His person, though the orthodoxy of Archdeacon Wilberforce's books is to me most doubtful, and his statements most hazardous, and his contradiction of the thirty-nine articles flagrant.

There are two great points, as I have stated elsewhere, in christian truth: first, the fundamental doctrines as to the Trinity, the person of Christ, the atonement; and then, secondly, the way in which sinners receive the value of these great facts. The question with the Romanist and the Puseyite is on the second of these points. So was it in Paul's time. No doubt the full development of apostasy will be in the rejection of the fundamental truths; but he who denies the true way of their application to the sinner is, the Apostle declares, fallen from grace, and Christ profits him nothing. That sovereign grace may pierce through the cloud, and attach the heart by living faith to Christ is, blessed be God! true; and hence men may be saved, though they are Romanists and Puseyites. But this does not hinder their system being cloud, and not light at all.

I have not thought, as I have stated, of giving a review of the Archdeacon's books, but merely used them as a means of having the system before us fairly and in its best shape. Our dispute is not as to an incarnate Lord being the one only and blessed medium of grace. It is impossible we can hold this too firmly or estimate it too highly. It is our all. He is the second Adam, Lord of all, Head of His church, sole spring (drawn from, and communicating, the Father's love) of blessing, and life, and joy, through the power of the Holy Ghost. I am willing, most rash and hazardous as I think them, to take the intentions of the archdeacon and Puseyites in general to be orthodox. The question is, Is the communication of living blessing to sinful men, and the setting up of a new race in Christ as a pattern-man in incarnation? or, consequent on accomplished redemption and divine righteousness in man in resurrection? The scripture teaches us it is in resurrection, and that the incarnate man was rejected, and remained alone, bearing fruit after falling into the ground and dying.

290 All the truths of Christianity as applied to men are engaged in this question, what sin is — what regeneration is — how man is renewed — what the extent of the fall — what original sin — what death as the wages of sin — what practical restoration and sanctification — what eternal life. Every essential practical doctrine has a totally different character in the two systems. It is not, as the Archdeacon would allege, whether the mediation of the incarnate Word be the only way of blessing. There we are wholly agreed; wholly agreed, that rationalism is a return to direct communication between God and man, only forgetting that sin has made it impossible, actually and judicially. Our question is, how this mediation is effectual. Is it by the transfusion of the grace of the incarnate Word, communicated to Him from the Father into disorganised man, so as to ameliorate and reconstruct him; a process carried on now by ordinances? Or is the sentence of death and utter condemnation passed on the old man, and the proof given in Jesus's death that there can be no connexion between them (though man be responsible-though conscience be there by the fall, and famine awaken desires in the Spirit); but that in that death redemption has been wrought by grace, and sin put away, and a risen Christ, who has triumphed over death, because, as so risen, a new source of life, a new life rather, to the sinner by faith, through the quickening power of the Word and Spirit, giving Him the title to reckon Himself wholly dead as regards sin, the world, and the law too, and alive unto God through Jesus, risen with Him, to mortify his members which are on earth, but made the righteousness of God in Him; the sacraments being an abiding sensible witness of these truths, that is, of entrance by death, as regards the old man, into blessing, and in no other way but by death in Christ, so that that entrance is salvation, and the complete deliverance from the whole state of sin in which we were (though the body still hinder us as yet unredeemed by power), while they are, I doubt not, also special means of blessing. For I speak here only of the character these sacraments give to Christianity by their nature.

291 Such is the vital question involved in what is now called Puseyism. It is a denial of scriptural Christianity. It takes up one blessed truth, incarnation — most miserably treated, I judge, but still a blessed truth — under the plea of using it against rationalism, that is, miserable infidelity; but really overthrowing the doctrine of the total sinfulness and loss of man, lying in death and condemnation; the need of redemption and accomplishment of righteousness by another; and a new resurrection state of man in Christ in order to our union with Him, and our participation in the heavenly blessings of this new manhood: a union of which the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven is the power, while the sacraments are, both of them, the witnesses of the death through which we have this place, and one of them, of the unity of the body in which we all enjoy it.

I have not cited the Fathers, nor gone into their doctrines. While I do not doubt that the truly pious among them were guarded in the faith; yet, as doctors, nothing can be more uncertain; as moralists, scarce anything more objectionable. God has preserved truth in and for His church, blessed be His name! but the Fathers are the expression, not of orthodox truth, but of a mass of mental efforts on divine subjects, of heavings to and fro on subjects which escaped their grasp; of the efforts, too, of minds, for the most part, seriously corrupted by Platonic philosophy, and shrinking from the attacks of Pagans on the point of the unity of the Godhead, which they feared to compromise by the doctrine of the eternal Sonship and divinity of Christ. Save Jerome and Origen, they did riot understand Hebrew, and could only use the Septuagint version; valuable, no doubt, as testimony, but most imperfect as representing the meaning of scripture, and sometimes any meaning at all.

I believe the Trinity and the incarnation, along with the atonement, and, I might add, the resurrection, as already accomplished in Christ, to be the great foundation and distinctive truths of Christianity; but it is not in the Fathers of the first four centuries, that I should seek for the proof of, or any certain faith in, them. I certainly judge the Ante-Nicene Fathers to have failed (as doctors) in the assertion of the true and full divinity of the Lord. You may find it stated, perhaps, but you will find it undermined and contradicted. Every one in the least acquainted with them knows that they read with the LXX not "the Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways;" but "the Lord created me," ἔχτισέ με;* and that the doctrine that the wisdom, or λόγος, which had subsisted in an unseparated state in the divine mind, took person subsistence, only immediately preceding and for the purpose of creation. You may find what maintained the truth, I freely admit it; but their having nothing in this passage but "created me," and constantly using it in connection with their philosophy about the λόγος, embarrassed all their teaching, producing the doctrine of the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and iloyos λόγος προφοριχός. On the doctrine that Christ "is the true God," God over all, blessed for evermore, all were infirm, to say the least, some undoubtedly orthodox.**

{*Archdeacon Wilberforce sanctions this translation, quoting Athanasius, who uses it in a different way from the preceding fathers — no wonder. He founds it on a use of qanah, which the rationalists have eagerly adopted, which is given in dictionaries. I admit, but questioned by first-rate Hebrew scholars, there being no passage in the Bible to which the word "possess" does not fully answer.}

{**The Archdeacon, audaciously enough, has quoted Origen for the eternal generation. Horsley has shewn his want of veracity in argument; but Origen's absolute heterodoxy on these points cannot be questioned, whatever his heart and intentions may have been. I do not mean that Origen does not hold eternal generation; he does, but he holds the Son to be wholly inferior to the Father, the Father being as much superior to the Son and Spirit as or more than, the Son and Spirit are to others. His language is as bad as possible on these subjects. Indeed, one of the honestest, a rare quality in those days, he was one of the wildest of imaginatives — pre-existence of souls who are placed here according to their conduct there; recovery here; and all purged by fire; perhaps their fall again; and every other wild notion imaginable. It was rather nearer Mormonism than anything else, mixed with universalism. But he was a "Father" only, though he suffered for Christ; rather too independent in his wildness to be made a saint of.}

292 The doctrine of the Trinity suffered in proportion; although when Arius would have defiled these expressions in a way which affirmed that Christ was a creature, the instinctive faith of Christians resisted and repelled the abomination. Yet the famous ὁμοούσιος, by which the Arians were formally set aside, in spite of their subtleties, had been as formally condemned as Sabellianism by a previous council, so that the Emperor Constantine, who had given the character of generality to the Nicene one, being impressed with the danger of using a word thus condemned, restored Arius; and Athanasius was deposed by the council of Tyre. Marcellus, one of his opponents, is generally judged to have fallen into Sabellianism; and Arius, received as orthodox, died in the communion of the Catholic church. I have a perfect horror of his doctrine.

293 I only say that I cannot lean on the Fathers for securing the truth. The history of Cyril, indeed of Alexander himself, is not much more satisfactory. He was the Corypheus of the Fathers as to the incarnation, and the turbulent condemner of Nestorius, the rival patriarch of Constantinople. He got his adversary condemned before the arrival of John of Antioch and the eastern bishops, who favoured him (so that this was a singular general council); but the same John having assembled a council of the Eastern bishops and condemned Cyril, Cyril withdrew his twelve famous anathemas which, as Archdeacon Wilberforce states, had been adopted as the faith of the church in the council [of Ephesus], and accepted the creed proposed by John. Indeed, the language of Cyril is very equivocal, adopted, he says, from the fathers (Gieseler says, from Athanasius): μἰαν φύσιν τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρχωμένηυ, that though there were two natures united, and not confounded as he states just before, yet, when united, it was one nature of God, the word made flesh.* But this may suffice.

{*If I ask Tertullian, he tells me Christ took corruption (corruptela) and that, if not, He was not a perfect man; but adds, "for what was death but corruption?" Cyril declares He did not, and that it was impossible; Clement of Alexandria, according to Bishop Kaye's account, that "it would be ridiculous to suppose that the body of the Saviour, as a body, required necessary sustenance for its preservation; He ate, but not for the body, which was held together by a holy power; but lest His companions should be induced to think otherwise of Him" (than as a man). Are these to be trusted, or which?}

I have only one remark to make, which is important as to the principles on which the Fathers are referred to, for there are two. One is development, that christian truth, of which the power is all in full perfection in the word, was developed and fully formed by the Spirit residing in the church, so that we learn more perfectly developed and defined truth* as we proceed, say, not to go too far, for of course Romanists would go farther, during the first four or five centuries, embracing the four first general councils. That is one principle. The other is, that the early Fathers, as nearest the sources, must best know what the apostolic teaching was. But on this principle, when there was the least development, there was the surest knowledge. Yet, an awkward circumstance, as a fact, we find that the earliest (I do not speak here of what are called the Apostolical Fathers, who are a class apart, and in general the poorest and worst of all, with the exception of Platonic speculations) Fathers are the most vague, loose, uncertain, and, if it must be said, heretical.

{*The very learned Jesuit Petau, in commenting on the exceeding looseness of the Ante-Nicene Fathers as to the divinity of the Lord, says, after speaking of heretics, "Others were truly Christian, and Catholic, and holy; but as the times were, that mystery not being yet sufficiently clearly known, have thrown out some things dangerously said." (De Trin. lib. 1, c. 3, # 1.). Indeed, he charges most of the Ante-Nicene Fathers with Arianism, chiefly however in the form of the existence of the word as ἐνδιάθετος, and only προφορικὸς, for the purpose of creation, but some of them in a grosser shape.}

294 I must except from this the pious and faithful Irenaeus, though feebleness and some superstition may be found in him. It is a refreshment to read him after looking at the rest: what a difference from the wild imagination of a speculative, but (I believe) true-hearted, Origen; the loose and loosely expressed doctrine of a Justin Martyr, willing after all to die for Christ; or the turbulent orthodoxy and doubtful Christianity of an ambitious Cyril! What a difference, I say, in all this from that piety which flows from the personal knowledge of Christ by the scriptures, and respect for the word as the word of God! We find a clear recognition of fundamental truths, such as Christ's being the true God, and a true and heartfelt refusal to go on beyond what is written, in the prying impotency of the human mind; and this, with whatever defects, we do find in the good Irenaeus. The reader, who has the opportunity, may read chapters 27-28 of his second book (46, 47 in Feuardentii). Yet, and for this very reason of his humble submission to scripture, he is simple and firm in what scripture does teach; though perhaps, like all, the full divinity of the Lord Jesus has not an adequate place in his mind, for he occasionally owns it unequivocally. But one sees he has "the truth itself as a rule," hoping still to receive something more, and learn from God, because He is good and has unlimited riches. And thus he adds, "if, according to the measure we have spoken of, we commit some questions to God, we shall both keep our faith perfect and shall persevere without danger; and all scripture given to us of God will be found by us harmonious [consonant with itself], and parables will agree with what is said plainly, and what is said plainly will explain the parables." I may add, as to the fathers and scripture, "But we ought to refer such things as these to God" (what we cannot solve of things which are sought out in the scriptures) "who has made us, also knowing most surely that the scriptures, indeed, are perfect, as uttered by the word of God and by His Spirit, but we, inasmuch as we are inferior and the meanest (novissima) compared with (or the farthest from) the word of God and His Spirit, by so much are we wanting the knowledge of His mysteries."

295 I desire to bring briefly before the reader, in conclusion, the scriptural testimony to the great truth of the utter and irremediable evil of the old man in its principle of life; and that death and judgment are its only portion. "Except a man be born again" (entirely anew), says St. John, "he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is not from above, nor merely again, but from the outset of life; as in the beginning of Luke it is said, certain knowledge "from the very first." Hence Nicodemus refers to re-entering into his mother's womb. It is a positively new nature. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Again, death and not amelioration is always pronounced upon the old man, those who have the new life having the title to reckon themselves dead. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God," "buried with Him by baptism unto death;" and as regards practice, when thus alive, "mortify [put to death] therefore your members which are on the earth." "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me;" we are baptized into His death. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature (χαινὴ χτίσις)," it is a new creation; old things are passed away, all things are become new, and all things are of God." We are created again in Christ Jesus. We are created again, not after Adam's image renewed, but after God.*

{*I have already stated, and would recall it again: conscience, considered as knowing good and evil, was not a good in man surviving the fall. It was acquired in the fall, and drives away in itself from God through fear. There was no righteousness, no holiness, in the first Adam. There was innocence. We are purified in being called out, in heart and conscience, after the second Man, the Lord Jesus. The knowledge of good and evil belongs to God; and we are not to lose it to return to innocence, but to be conformed by grace in living power to Him who having it is perfect in respect of both.}

Further, it is in and with Christ, we being really dead in sins, that is, having no moral movement of life in ourselves towards God, "none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God," whatever man may say. The same power has wrought in us, which raised Him from the dead. "According to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places; and God, rich in mercy, of his great love wherewith he loved us, when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ." Being by the word of God, it is by faith; "of his own will begat he us by the word of truth" but this revelation of the glory of God is not the amelioration of the old, but the revelation of the new or second Adam, which judges the old and sets it wholly aside and condemns it, and draws it out after the new Adam, even after Christ; so that we are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us; who has manifested Himself in love to sinners, the spirit of forgiveness, grace (to go no further), which in the first Adam had no place.

296 For Christ was not only a perfect man in righteousness and true holiness, but the manifestation of God in grace; and we are called on to follow Him in this, which neither innocence, nor law, have anything to do with. Being by the word, it is by faith, and so renewed in knowledge, according to God's revelation of Himself as a man. Hence, though it be a real communication of life, of a nature, as it is said, "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "Having loved the church, and given himself for it." Yet it is of water. He sanctifies and cleanses it by the washing of water by the word, it is the cleansing of a man who remains the same person still, but cleanses by the judgment of the old, according to the revelation of the new, and the renewal of desires, according to the blessed object thus presented, who is also our life. He is come not by water only, but by water and blood, cleanses as well as expiates; but it is out of His pierced side, out of a dead Christ, this water flows. This cleansing is a real thing, by spiritual power; and of this John 3 speaks. Hence baptism, which is the sign of this regeneration, is baptism into His death. So John 6 is the reality of what Christ has been, and done, come down and made flesh, the true bread from heaven, and given in death for the life of the world, on which we feed by faith, eating His flesh and drinking His blood: a Christ in death, of which the second sacrament is the expression.*

{*These chapters present the thing itself, the two sacraments present the truths of which the chapters speak. These do not speak of the sacraments; but chapters and sacraments speak of the same things.}

297 And here I will notice what I have referred to, the consistent but awful character of Romanism in this respect. It is well known that the cup is refused to the laity. They are consoled under this privation by the authoritative doctrinal assurance — what is called the doctrine of concomitancy — that in what is no longer bread there is the whole body, soul, blood, and divinity of the Lord Jesus, a whole [that is, the whole of] Christ. Now, the very essence of the Lord's teaching is, that the body is broken and the blood shed, not a living Christ, but a Christ who has given Himself effectually in redemption. We drink the blood, therefore, apart as dead. If it be in the body, redemption is not wrought. The Eucharist in the church of Rome is a sacrament of non-redemption; of the absence of forgiveness, for without shedding of blood there is no remission; but if it be in the body, the blood is not shed. Thus has Satan mocked poor souls, pardonable objects of pity, no doubt, in their ignorance, but blinded by what are called theologians, by what is really his theology, which has given (instead of the blessed sacrament of redemption, though not permitted openly to deny it) a sacrament, as far as they receive it, of non-redemption and of non-forgiveness. Up to this point, whatever the aspirations of Puseyism, divine goodness has not permitted it yet to reach. It does its best doctrinally in making an incarnate, in contrast with a risen, Christ, the source of life and blessing, the head of a new race. Furthermore, I deny entirely that Christ incarnate is the pattern-man to a renewed race. He is the man who is a pattern in His walk; but sinlessness in flesh is not the pattern-state for man in the flesh, in whom "this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerate. For Christ, in the birth of our nature, was made like unto us in all things (sin only excepted), from which He was clearly void, both in His flesh and in His spirit. . . . but all we, the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; 'and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'" If it be replied, "But it is only asserted that we have the principle of it in us in this life, and it will be perfect in another," that is precisely to assert that a risen and glorified Christ is the pattern-man, and not an incarnate one here below. We are to be conformed to the image of God's Son, risen and glorified, and, as we have borne the image of the earthly, then bear the image of the heavenly in its full display and development.

Remarks on the Church and the World.

J. N. Darby.

<15017E> 298 {file section a.}

1866. Third Edition. London: Longman and Co.

J. N. Darby.

No. 1.

And is it really come to this? All the boasted attractions of the English Liturgy, its adaptation to all wants, the ease with which it can be followed (as contrasted with extempore prayer), is found to be an unintelligible farrago for the masses, impossible for an uneducated mind to follow!

The Roman Catholics (where the writer of this paper has known them well) manage the matter better. The service is histrionic, no doubt. But it is in Latin, and the worshipper has nothing to follow. But he is furnished with prayers for himself in his own tongue, which he can say while the priest is saying his, and which are not what the priest is saying at all;* a curious form of public worship indeed, but the priestly distinction is fully carried out. But, taking the English Liturgy as it is, what is the remedy? A worship in spirit and in truth, such as the Lord God requires from spiritual worshippers, such as the Father seeks? Nothing of the kind. That must be sought for, if we believe the tractarians, neither at Rome nor Canterbury, neither at this mountain nor at Jerusalem. Spiritual worship is not sought, nor the object desired. In that they would have to do with God. This is not their object. They seek influence over the masses for themselves, to regain numbers, the many who have slipped away from their influence; and if the end do not justify the means, the means betray the end. Worship is to be histrionic, they tell us; that is, the acting of a play so as to attract the imagination by theatrical spectacles, and secure an unintelligent crowd, pleased with what is acted before them. Let it not be for a moment supposed that this is a harsh accusation. It is their own statement. (Page 37.)

{*In some places, where there are many protestants, there is a translation of what the priest says.}

"Hence a lesson may be learnt, by all who are not too proud to learn from the stage. For it is an axiom in liturgiology, that no public worship is really deserving of its name, unless it be histrionic."

299 Can Christians who know what spiritual worship is believe this?

"To adopt another principle, whether it be that of sermon-hearing or meditation, may be salutary enough in its proper time and place, but it is not worship, with which alone ritualism has to do."

Surely neither sermons nor meditation is worship; but neither is histrionic ritualism. The writer only proves that what is worship has never entered into his mind; but to proceed. The writer then speaks of gin palaces (p. 39), "so widely and so universally popular amongst the London poor;" these, he urges, are lighted, ornamented, &c., but —

"Many landlords have found even all this insufficient, without the additional attraction of music; and the low singing-hall is sure to indicate the most thriving drinking-shops in the worst quarters of the metropolis. If, then, painting, light, and music are found necessary adjuncts to a trade which has already enlisted on its side one of the strongest of human passions, it is the merest besotted folly to reject their assistance, when endeavouring to persuade men to accept and voluntarily seek an article for which they have never learnt to care, even if they are not actively hostile to it — to wit, religion."

"The fact is seized on by secular bodies, whose aim is to gather as many members as possible from the lower orders. Societies like the Odd Fellows and the Foresters" . . . . have found this, "and consequently elaborate processions, with badges, music, and banners, are found needful appliances for attracting numbers, and keeping them together," &c.

"The tractarians alone, of all the schools in the Church of England, have recognized this truth, and appraised this truth, and appraised it at its true value," p. 40.

Is it possible? Is it possible to conceive anything more degraded, or more degrading, or more contrary to Christianity? In true Christianity we see the power of the divine word, through the Holy Ghost, bringing light and grace into the soul, revealing God to the heart and conscience, and so leading men through redemption to worship God in spirit and in truth, knowing the grace of the Father which has sought such to worship Him. Instead of this unutterably blessed and holy worship, fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, the aim of the tractarian is to substitute (what one is ashamed to mention in the same sentence) the attractions of a gin palace, and the singing-halls of the worst parts of London, the processions and banners of the Odd Fellows and Foresters, to win the masses by pleasing their tastes as they are. They have told their own tale. The persons they attract to worship, mark it well, not to Christ as a Saviour or to salvation, are persons who do not care for, or who hate, religion, and they are to be won, not to God or to eternal life, but to outward worship, by that which attracts the fleshly nature, as it would to a gin palace or a society of Odd Fellows! It is not the degradation of the thought in connection with such a subject which (offensive as it is) most strikes one here, but the evidence of the total absence of divine life, spirituality, or thought of spirituality, in those who can take such views. The masses are to be drawn by attractions like those of a gin palace, to see a histrionic spectacle; and that is worship!

300 But we must not therefore suppose that there is not a diligent and, for its own purposes, efficient system at work. By all human means — means calculated to act on men's wants and natural feelings, and the influences of priestcraft, which are very great — they would exercise universal influence. They would have their agents nurses at all hospitals; guilds of females, made respectable and religious by the patronage of "Sisters," to keep them from mischief in manufacturing towns; confraternities in parishes to get amongst men whom the parochial ministers cannot reach, deferring to influential classes, who might resist such as physicians, but getting their ear so as to be their instruments and carry on their own purposes, and carefully excluding only one thing from getting access as to all they can — the truth of God. The clergy and upper classes need some means to hold the poor under their influence. But the clergy must have the lead, as is natural if of God, yet by service to the poor, by which they may be gained, but the effect is priestly power. If it be a work of Satan (and likening worship to a gin palace and to the processions of the Odd Fellows is certainly not of God), we must not fancy that Satan does not know what suits and acts on human nature; he knows it well. He cannot stem the power of God, nor love the truth, nor give true spirituality or holiness; but he can, where these safeguards are not, gain human nature and take the form of godliness, and change himself into an angel of light, and thus gain masses of men, and in this form still more women; and that is what they want. Of the truth, or the power of the truth, they know nothing, and care nothing.

Priestly influence is the object. Take a statement from another paper in the same volume, in which there are many truths, as to the effect of various practices, and whose tone is not so offensive as the one I have quoted above as that from which my first quotation was taken. There I read: —

301 "And it must not be forgotten, that the godless in a parish have to be brought to a consciousness of the existence of a God, a heaven, a hell, and the value of their immortal souls, before they come to church. Their consciences must first be roused, and then they may be brought to the parish church to learn the details of their duty to God and their duty to man." (Page 96.)

Now it is a very striking thing that in the case of a godless man, who has to learn the existence* of a God, a heaven, a hell, and the value of his immortal soul, it never occurs to the writer to think of salvation, or a Saviour, of Christ, or the truth. Yet so it is. Let it not be said, "But it is assumed he will hear of it at church." No; there he is to learn the details of his duty to God and his duty to man. He will find histrionic spectacles to engage his imagination, but he is not to learn salvation or a Saviour; and in truth, with such teachers, he never will. But is not such a statement a striking display of the system? "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." One paper brings him to a theatrical display, the other to learn his duty; neither to God. What a contrast is apostolic simplicity! "Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But let it be noted, this display is not to win to hear the truth, no catching with guile, as people have falsely applied the text, nor even what dissenters and presbyterians do or are anxious to do, namely, have organs and good singing to attract, and then present Christ (itself an unholy and evil practice, and savouring of priestcraft), but they are to he attracted thus to worship. It is the worship which is histrionic — to the worship they are to be brought.

{*The truth is, though they may not think of the value of their immortal souls, such ignorance does not exist. You may find plenty of infidels who deny it, but in the darkest places these subjects have been heard of.}

Now I will speak seriously of worship, and tractarian worship by-and-by. There are a great many points in which, as to form, though not as to substance, the tractarians are right, just as Romanists have kept up the name of the unity of the church. Worship is that for which Christians should meet, and, I add, the Lord's supper is the centre of worship. But to bring persons who do not care for religion or are hostile to it, to worship by histrionic displays, could never have entered into the mind of any but a tractarian; nor have been invented but by priestcraft and the seekers of priestly power. It is not Christianity. This (and we have the authority of the divine founder of it for saying so) looks for worship in spirit and in truth, and reveals the grace in which the Father seeks such to worship Him. IT IS NOT CHRISTIANITY. Christianity is the activity of God's love towards sinners, and the joying in and worship of God by those who have been reconciled to Him, with all the fruits which flow from it through the presence of the Spirit, and the display of the life of Christ which is imparted by it, wrought, all of it, by the Spirit of God, and the fruit of the accomplishment of redemption, eternal redemption, by Christ. If it is not Christianity, what is it?

302 Nor is this insensibility to divine truth or divine objects shewn in a casual passage, treating of some collateral subjects, or in view of some particular difficulty. There is no other thought presented to us. It is generally known that clergy and laity of all classes hired several of the lower classes of theatres to preach in, with the hope of reaching the masses who never go anywhere, and they were successful. The means may have been desirable or not: it is not needful to decide that question here. Speaking of the Liturgy, our tractarians say (p. 41): — "There is nothing to impress the eye, nothing to quicken the attention, nothing to make the breath come short, or the pulse beat quicker." . . . "It is all very sedate, very decorous, very good, no doubt, for those who like it; but it is not in the very least degree missionary."

One hardly is aware how worship in itself can be properly so; but (p. 42) —

"The evangelical school has practically admitted this truth by its adoption of theatre-preachings, thereby confessing, on the one hand, that it is hopeless of making the church service attractive to outsiders, and on the other that some fillip of excitement in the way of novelty is needful as a lure." A lure! Is that the object of worship, that which the Spirit of God can propose to itself in prayer and adoration? and a lure to what? That the zeal which sought the outcasts of London in their own haunts, and found a response because these outcasts were cared for, may have been mixed with excitement and the attraction of novelty, is possible. But they were allured to God, at least, to salvation, not to "our church," even if it were Anglican or catholic. A vast number of preachers, even not ordained by man, and, if they were, nobody knew to what denomination they belonged; and a service in a theatre was not, and could not be to win them to go there or to belong to any body of Christians. This is evident, be it an evil or a good. It was to win their souls to God, but of that, while declaring that people do not know the existence of a God, nor the value of a soul, a genuine tractarian has no idea. It does not enter his mind. He can only see a plan to win partisans by novelty and excitement. Again: —

303 "The Prayer Book, with its somewhat antique phraseology and high spiritual level, is, to the mass of uneducated worshippers, like the score of a piece of music, simply unintelligible. . . . Put the score into the hands of a band of musicians for execution, and all will benefit from the harmony. So too, let the dramatic aspect of common prayer be manifested, and every one can join, however uninstructed." (Page 42.) Join in what?

I close this part of my remarks with one more quotation, leaving the historical part for further consideration. "Take two street arabs, perfectly ignorant of Christianity. Read to one of them the Gospel narrative of the Passion, and comment on it as fully as may be. Shew the other a crucifix, and tell him simply what it means. Question each a week afterwards, and see which has the clearest notions about the history of Calvary." (Page 50.) Now to say nothing of the utter pelagianism of this, the total leaving out of preventive grace, as is the case indeed in the whole of the statements furnished by this article, and, to speak only of means used, I ask what is declared by the Lord and His apostles to be the means of quickening, saving, edifying? Is it the word of truth, or pictures and crucifixes? Let not the objector talk to me of sacraments; they are not in question here. In the alternative put by the writer, he has chosen what God has not chosen; and God has chosen (what he condemns) the word written and the word ministered by men. But still, though this article be low and degraded, the same fundamental principles characterize it which are insisted on in others.

"The constant appeal to antiquity, the tenets of the dignity of the human body, and of the superiority of prayer over preaching, the appreciation of symbolism, the magnifying the sacraments as spiritual agents, could not otherwise be practically brought within the observation of the mass of Christians, which has neither taste nor leisure for abstruse research, and this is one of the reasons why, as has been said before in this paper, simplicity, that is, bareness and poverty in the externals of worship, is unsuited for a national, much less for a universal, religion." (Page 36.)

304 Gathering for worship by a dramatic display which magnifies the sacraments (and is carried even to the adoration of the eucharist), so as to gather the whole nation or be even universal in its effect, such is the system. But it must be added: — all are not supposed to be communicants; there are to be "non-communicating attendance," or better "non-communicants," to be put indeed out of the choir, but stay in the nave and look on (p. 500-503); so that in this centre of christian worship (for such the Lord's supper is, as far as rites go), which ought to be accompanied with the holiest christian affections, we are to find a drama enacted within the rails, to win by stage effects; and spectators without, kept there by what is now intelligible to all, but not taking any part in it.

Such is tractarianism — not worship by saints, but religion for the nation, to keep them together! How totally contrary this is to antiquity, it is not needful for one who is the least acquainted with it to say. The word "mass" is simply the corruption of the words "Ite, missa est," by which all who did not communicate were sent away. Primitive antiquity had not such a thought as missionary dramas in worship. It did magnify the holy mysteries, as they were called, but it did so by removing all who were not about to communicate. To insist on the word "mass," as is done by these tractarians, and provide for a non-communicating attendance, is imposing on the ignorance or inattention of the reader.

No. 2.

In my present review I have to do with a more serious paper, written in a more earnest and serious tone, treating upon subjects of the deepest interest, detecting the false points in current evangelical views, and opposing to them forms of truth drawn from the word, but appropriating the value of these truths to that which is wholly unscriptural and even antichristian in its nature, so as to give, if received, the force of these truths to that which is itself such. Now when truth is used to detect error, and the defects of the erroneous scheme are seen by it, the human mind is apt to believe that what is associated by the detector of the error with these truths is part of the truth, and thus dangerous error is often introduced by the force of the truth.

It was thus with Irvingism. The church had lost the doctrines of the coming of the Lord and the presence of the Holy Ghost in the church, and the enemy used these truths to introduce deadly error. So it is with the tractarians. On nearly every point on which they attack the dissenters and evangelicals they can produce scripture to prove their defects; but they use this only to accredit more deadly error still, and to sanction views and practices which subvert Christianity. I will quote their statements as to dissenters and evangelicals:

305 "The theory of the latter requires a disbelief in the doctrine of the visible church; that is, in a divinely instituted body and an equally divinely appointed government of the visible body; it requires a denial of the fact that our Lord appointed a priesthood in His church, whose office is to celebrate those 'mysteries' which are the means and channels of grace and communion between CHRIST and His body. Nay it denies that the body itself is a visible community or kingdom, separated from the rest of mankind by the partaking of, or communicating in, these sacraments. On the contrary, the notion seems to be that the church is not strictly a body, but an aggregation of individuals who hold a certain theological or philosophical system, gathered out of the holy scriptures; that certain truths are revealed in the scriptures, which truths were systematized by certain learned men in the sixteenth century; and that a belief in these truths constitutes the membership of CHRIST, irrespective of the visible body of the sacraments. This is the objective aspect.

"Besides this, there is the subjective aspect: a certain consciousness of personal interest in these truths, and a sense of general unworthiness, and a further sense of the removal of that unworthiness, in the belief and apprehension of these truths — the whole matter of salvation being a personal one between the individual and CHRIST the SAVIOUR; and that, for purposes of mutual edification and advantage, it is expedient that individuals should unite into distinct bodies or communities, appoint their own teachers, frame their own terms of communion, and administer their own ordinances. Admitting for the most part — not universally — the divine authority of the two greater sacraments, a form of baptism is used, and a form of communion in bread and wine; but these are not really sacramental in the sense that the church holds them, as means of grace to the recipients; but rather as seals and pledges of grace already given, outward signs of GOD'S SPIRIT already bestowed on the part of GOD; and signs of faith in His promises, or rather the fulfilment of His promises, on the part of the recipient." (Pages 183, 184.)

306 The writer avows he is "not speaking of the formularies of the different protestant sects" (p. 184), but "of the views of protestants at the present time." He is wise; he would have to speak of himself and his own church; nor would it be true in some important statements. And further he takes no notice of national churches formed by the magistrate, of which his is one, although he may urge its having in a great measure escaped the hand of the spoiler: "the least deformed because reformed the least." Still, as describing the present state of protestants (dissenters and those associated with them in their general views), it is in the main just as to the principal charges. I continue my citation that we may fully have the views of the essayist:

"We repeat, then, that the idea held by protestants of the present day really amounts to this — That there is no such thing as a visible church; but there is in the world a body of elect members, known to God only, who shall finally be saved; and that these, and these only, form the church of Christ; that the union with CHRIST consists chiefly, if not wholly, in holding certain doctrines of justification by faith alone in the atonement of CHRIST, together with a belief in God's promises as set forth in scripture: and that, consequently, the whole matter is a private and personal one between each individual and CHRIST, quite independent of the belonging to the visible church, or any sect. In accordance with this, we hear everywhere proclaimed the doctrine of a universal priesthood — every man is his own priest, and, in some sects, every woman her own priestess — but that it tends to good order and mutual advantage that individuals thinking alike should unite in some one community or another, choose their own teachers, and frame rules for general government and conduct; that the gifts of grace are not attached to any outward form or ordinance, excepting perhaps that of preaching, but that they are a private concern between GOD and the individual; that the highest form in which grace manifests itself is in the knowledge of scripture and of protestant doctrine, and especially in the power of preaching.

"In direct opposition to this is the idea of the catholic church, the leading features of which may be stated in the following propositions: — First, that it is a spiritual system, not an intellectual one; a system whose purpose is a re-union of man with GOD, through the incarnation of the Second Person of the HOLY TRINITY. That this union is not effected by merely believing in a certain system of theology, or in the revelation of GOD in the Bible; but, being essentially spiritual, only effected through those means by which spiritual gifts are conveyed to man. That those means are the sacraments, which may be termed "extensions of the incarnation," or means whereby the benefits of the incarnation are applied to man. That such a union is, in most cases, and at first, independent and irrespective of any exercise of the intellect on the part of the person brought into union, but is by means of the gift of GOD in CHRIST'S own appointed way — Holy baptism. That that sacrament is the means of conferring on the recipient a new and spiritual life, similar and parallel to the natural life into which every infant enters at birth: so that it is called regeneration, or the new birth: and that one great effect of the Church is to feed, support, educate, this spiritual life till it comes to the 'measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ.' That the church is the body of persons possessing this life, and consequently wholly distinct from the 'world' without; it is, therefore, a visible body with an invisible life, and that the means of support for this invisible life is invisible grace conveyed through visible forms or signs, instituted and appointed of Christ for that purpose. That the whole being of the church rests on the incarnation, or rather, to speak properly, on the SON of GOD become man. CHRIST is 'the head of the body, the church.' (Col. 1: 18.) That, in order to the extension and communication of this spiritual life and grace, our divine Lord appointed a ministry in His church, whose office is to administer the means of grace to its members; so that it is His work, though done by the hands of His ministers and ambassadors: consequently, no one can take this office on himself without a direct commission from CHRIST. That He appointed His disciples, in the first place, to be apostles, with a power to transmit their commission to others, as the need of the body required; and that without this commission no acts are valid, and no ordinances have any assurance of grace attached to them. That the episcopate and priesthood is not only a form of church government most nearly after the model of scripture; but it is the one only of divine appointment in the body, the one only which has the promise of grace attached to it, the one only which has the stamp of the divine commission." (Pages 184-186.)

308 "The protestant assertion that ministers are mere delegates of, and therefore are elected and commissioned by, the congregation, at once completely overturns the whole constitution of the church, reverses the divine order, and substitutes human authority for that of CHRIST." . . . "The body is dependent on the ministry, and the ministry is ordained for the body, mutual fellowship and communion being requisite for growth in grace. Thus the catholic idea is, that union and communion with the church is absolutely necessary for union and communion with CHRIST; and that persons are received into communion with the church in order to union with CHRIST; and, further, that this communion is effected by a communication of a spiritual gift, an actual bestowal of the grace of GOD to the person through this ministration of the church's ordinances; that thus communion with the Church implies and connotes union with CHRIST, as well as supplies the means of such union." (Page 187.)

"On the other hand, the protestant theory reverses this: making an intellectual process called faith, and a mental conviction, called apprehension of CHRIST by faith, to be the means — not the condition, but the means — of effecting this union with CHRIST; it puts out of sight the fact that a special gift of the Spirit is necessary to create a union; or, perhaps, we shall describe the theory more correctly if we say, that it supposes grace to be an intellectual process going on in the mind, whereby a certain effect called faith is produced; and that the production of this mental effect accomplishes the union between the individual and CHRIST; that any communion with fellow Christians is subsequent to this, not necessary in itself, but productive of good to the individual in a secondary and inferior way. Thus, according to this theory, the existence of the church is in no way necessary. It may be believed in as an abstract proposition, but its existence, and communion with it, are quite immaterial." (Page 187.)

The writer refers to Ephesians 4: 4, 5, 6, and adds (p. 187):

"A unity of faith and a unity of constitution are predicated here, both of which are essential to the idea of the oneness of the body.* The former is defined in the creeds and the decrees of the six general councils; the latter is found in the universal practice of the one body. We shall not attempt to prove either of these from holy scripture; for we must bear in mind, that both the faith of the church and her visible constitution were complete and in full force before a single word of the New Testament scriptures was written."

{*This is wholly without foundation; no constitution is predicated, but the unity of the body itself, not something else essential to it.}

309 Now there are very grave questions here. The assumptions are without end, and I shall notice them before I close, but the questions meantime are to be met seriously; but I beg my reader to mark the confession that the system is not found in scripture. There are, they say, allusions to it. But such a confession, when the word of God assures us that in the last days perilous times shall come, in which there will be a form of godliness with the denial of its power, referring to the scriptures as the safeguard in them and to nothing else; but those from who n Timothy had learned (had personally learned) the truths he held, that is, Paul himself, to which we may add the other inspired witnesses whose teaching, so as to know from whom we have learned them, we have now only in the scriptures — such a confession is of all importance. But, further, the scripture, if it does not teach these doctrines, may contradict and condemn them. All this must be seen into.

But they tell us the creeds and the six general councils have defined the faith. With what authority? Why the six? Are there no more than six? Why am I to believe six? Anglican authority speaks of four — why six? Romanists, though it be a sore subject with them for many reasons, and they declare some are to be said "to be and not to be" a council, as Pisa and Basel, yet make some nineteen. The Anglican articles say they are not infallible and have erred. How can I trust to them as defining faith?

And as to the creeds, the Nicene creed which we have now, contains an article — and an article which has divided the Greek, or most ancient, church system and the Roman — which was not in the ancient creed, and which was inserted contrary to the express decree of one of these councils and the decision of a very illustrious pope, who put up the creed without it on silver plates in a church at Rome that it might not be added. It was introduced by a small Spanish council, insisted on by Charlemagne; sanctioned by a council of three hundred prelates at Frankfort, who also condemned image-worship which had been sanctioned by what the Romanists hold for the seventh general council at Nice; and (if we are to believe modern Anglican catholics) an article forced upon the pope against his better judgment, and authority, and certainly in spite of the prohibition of a general council and the pope of the day. And this article is not on some immaterial point, but nothing less than the procession of the Holy Ghost, the third person in the Trinity, and the nature of His relationship with the Father and the Son. The Greeks hold procession from the Son to be error (nor do they nor the Anglicans believe in purgatory with the Romanists); the Anglicans and Romanists believe it to be truth, and recite it in the creed as essential truth. One of these general councils forbad any addition to the creed which did not contain it, and the pope forbad insertion of this particular clause. What can we say of the certainly defined faith?

310 But, further, "the universal practice of the one body" is the authority for the unity of the constitution. To say that one Spirit and one body proves the unity of the constitution of the body and its form on earth, is rather violent; but this we may take up on its own merits farther on. Only if this be a strict definition of the unity, it certainly defines nothing as to any constitution on earth, nor even alludes to it. They did well not to attempt to prove it from holy scripture; but then why say it defines it strictly? If it did, being scripture, it would prove it clearly; but it says nothing about any constitution, about the only point to be proved — a visibly constituted form on earth displayed in an episcopate and priesthood. But, in point of fact, about one-third of the universal professing church has not this form, say a quarter of it; universal practice does not prove it now. It will be said, "But they have separated from the unity as they have not the episcopate and priesthood;" but this is begging the question. Universal practice, they say, proves the unity of the constitution of the one body. I shew the practice is not universal, and I am told that they are therefore not of the body. This is a mere vicious circle.

I shall be told that this is a mere modern thing. Now in the dark ages it was universal, or nearly so; but so, with rare exceptions, was the grossest and most horrible corruption. Our Anglican catholic essayist will not receive the councils held in these days. Why not? Nor do the Greeks. Why not? But in earlier days it was not universal. We may inquire from scripture whether it existed anywhere in the earliest days. This is certain, that in the patriarchate next to Rome in dignity, till the council of Nice set up Constantinople, this constitution did not prevail, but what contradicts formally the whole theory of our Anglican of the necessity of episcopal ordination to the communication of grace. For this we have no less authority than Jerome, or, if they please, St. Jerome,* who declares moreover that there was no difference originally between bishops and presbyters, and that it was introduced as a matter of order to prevent disputes. A singular thing if it was a necessary channel of grace, and equally singular that he should not have known it if it was universal practice, he who was a correspondent of popes, translator of the Bible, and equally conversant with the East and West. He tells us there were not originally bishops, that it was only introduced to keep peace among the presbyters. But all this is by the bye.

{*The curious reader may see the proof and character of Jerome's sanctity in Tillemont.}

311 But before I treat the main subject I have a few not unimportant remarks to make. In the first place the statement that faith is a mere intellectual process, and alleging this to be the theory of Protestants is an unfounded one — and savours of infidelity in the objector. At least it is the view taken of faith by modern infidels, or at least of belief, for they make faith a sentiment, a feeling of the heart. But the soul may be acted on by the Spirit of God so as to produce a divine conviction of unseen things revealed by the word. When Paul says, "when it pleased God . . . to reveal his Son in me," it was not an intellectual process, and it was not a sacrament. It would seem that the essayist ignores this altogether — a very serious lack indeed in his religious system. The direct operation of the Spirit of God in bringing truth home to the soul is wholly ignored. His doctrine is practical Pelagianism. All he owns is a sacrament or an intellectual process. What then of the grace of the Spirit of God, as the Lord opened the heart of Lydia? I would further draw my reader's attention to the total absence of all reference to the truth, except to depreciate it and faith in it, in order to exalt the sacraments. "Grace is communicated, life is communicated, by sacraments, is only effected through these means," "irrespective of any exercise of the intellect on the part of the person brought into union."

But, according to our essayist, the truth has no place as an instrument in God's hands for quickening and converting souls. In the same way and for the same reason the action of the Holy Ghost is ignored. We have His gifts conferred in baptism, but no action of the Spirit of God Himself on the soul. Hence preaching is depreciated, and the truth so little material, that in the case of those who have, according to the essayist, been in heresy for centuries, and out of the pale of the Catholic church, denying the true faith, yet, because the episcopal form is there, their orders are all valid, effectual grace has been communicated, and they have only to return to a sound confession, and they are part of the Catholic visible church. Grace, union, life were all there. They denied the faith, left the visible church through this; but they have all that is essential. But in the case of presbyterians or Lutherans, who are not charged with any heresy but may hold the truth as such, all must be begun over again.

312 "They have cut themselves off from participation in the one Spirit as living in the church and flowing through the sacraments, which are the arteries and veins of the body."*

{*The way high-churchmen avoid and slip over the great facts of church history is very peculiar. Jerome's statement as to the episcopacy being a human arrangement for quiet is conveniently ignored, and here in a note our essayist tells us, "We do not intend to enter into the question as to how far the individual members of these communities receive grace. . . . For this reason we purposely avoid hazarding conjecture on the efficacy of schismatical and lay baptism." (Page 189.) But if people "have cut themselves off from the participation of the one Spirit as living in the church and flowing through the sacraments which are the arteries and veins of the body," what is the effect of the schismatical and lay baptizing? Yet by baptism alone life and the special gift of the Spirit is given, they tell us. They have not the gift which brings them into union. But it is very natural they should shirk it and leave it as a vague dread because the question was raised in the early church. The famous Cyprian in Africa, and Firmilian in Asia Minor, and by their influence Africa, and at any rate a large part of the East, denounced Pope Stephen, because he did not rebaptize heretics; inasmuch as, not being in the church where the Holy Ghost was, they could give nothing, and they remained firm and refused to give way. However mighty as the consent of the fathers, if to be found, may be, the contrary doctrine prevailed, and lay baptism is commonly practised in the Latin church (that is now the right word), and heretical baptism held to be valid — for the absence of the truth and the Spirit is immaterial where the form is; I suppose I should add the matter also in the case of a sacrament. It is really ludicrous to see the torture in which the truly excellent Augustine in his controversy with the Donatists is through the prevalence of this doctrine. It was held as by our essayist — which is a most fatal error — that the Spirit was given in baptism. Yet the Donatists had not the Spirit, he alleged, because this was only in the Catholic church. Yet, said the Donatist, you declare we have given and received it in baptism, and you condemn the contrary doctrine. Poor Augustine fumes, taken in the toils of his adversary.

Do you understand, reader, why our essayist avoids the question? Schismatical and lay baptism confers the Spirit, and the new life — I suppose, according to them, therefore union with Christ — but they have not the Spirit and cannot have union but by the church; for the catholic idea is, that union and communion with the church are absolutely necessary to union and communion with Christ; and that persons are received into communion with the church in order to union with Christ, and further, that this communion is effected by a communication of a spiritual gift, an actual bestowal of the grace of God to the person through this ministration of the church's ordinances. And such a union is — by the means of the gifts of God in Christ's own appointed way — holy baptism. So they come into the church in order to come into union with Christ; "that sacrament is the means of conferring on the recipient a new and spiritual life" and communication of a spiritual gift, and of the grace of God; and yet schismatics and laymen who cannot minister these holy mysteries confer all these things outside the church, and, instead of coming into the communion of the church to get union with Christ, they receive it all out of the communion of the church, and receive union with Christ without communion with the church at all. I must leave it to Anglicans to say if they are brought thus into the communion of the church by having union with Christ outside it. That they have the latter is, at any rate, the orthodox doctrine. No wonder they purposely avoided hazarding conjecture; but I can hardly suppose such learned men to be ignorant of the Donatist controversy or of the discussion of the question between Cyprian and Stephen and Firmilian, or of the every-day fact of lay baptism in the Roman system, or of the decision of the Arches' Court (to come nearer home), that a child baptized by dissenters had consequently a right to burial in consecrated ground.}

313 In a word, the truth as the instrument of God in the soul is wholly ignored by the essayist, the action of the Holy Ghost also, and hence also preaching, which surely is not worship, of the importance of which I shall speak. Further, individual salvation, and hence individual responsibility is slighted as much as possible. It is inconsistent with church authority. Hence we find, too, the Spirit in the church insisted on; but the Spirit in the individual, mocked at among Romanists as fanaticism, by Anglicans ignored. Now conscience must be individual, responsibility must be individual: no man can answer for another at the judgment-seat of Christ. He may pretend to secure him here, he must leave him to answer for himself if he gets there. The priest will be on the same ground or worse. Hence salvation must be individual, and responsibility. Everyone of us shall give an account of himself to God, and if he is saved, he is saved individually; if purged, purged individually. The saint does also become a member of Christ, of His body the church; but it is a second and distinct thing, though both are true of those who have now believed through grace. But this individual salvation and responsibility does not chime in with the asserted authority of the church; and they carefully set aside what they cannot secure anyone against, direct individual responsibility to God, and, what goes necessarily with it, individual salvation. If I have an individual soul, I must have individual salvation. They reproach protestants with their saying, "This is a private and personal matter between Christ and the individual." I answer, "It will surely be so for all in the day of judgment."

314 Even a Romish priest would admit that in the day of judgment each one must answer for himself, just as his conscience is individual now, his soul individual, his sin individual. Scripture is as plain as can be on the point. It teaches plainly the unity of the body and its union with Christ the head, most true and precious; but the Lord dealt always with individuals as such; and further our individual relationship as Christians takes the first place, because it is with His Father. We are individually His children, the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty; El Shaddai is our Father. We cry individually, Abba, Father, and Christ's relationship with us in this respect is of the first-born among many brethren. The reader will find in Ephesians 1, the Epistle where the unity of the body is most fully brought out, that the children's or individual's place with God and the Father is first brought out, and then the relationship to Christ, as the body to the head; but only at the end of the chapter. All John's writings speak exclusively of the individual and of divine life in him. He never refers to the church at all,* but to individual life from and in Christ, adding our individual perfection in Him before God. The truth is, the church is never mentioned in the Epistles but by Paul, nor the word even used, save in the case referred to in the note, and, similarly, in James. Paul declares he was a minister of the church (as well as of the gospel) to fulfil, or complete, the word of God'.

{*Once to a local church, where Diotrephes was; but this has nothing to do with our subject.}

This system, then, is characterized by leaving out the truth's action in testimony on the soul. The presence and action of the Holy Ghost, and individual responsibility and salvation, all are passed by or slighted. The church is trusted, God is not. Man gets union with Christ, life, and every blessing, unconsciously, without the smallest actual effect in conscience, heart, or anything, in any way in which he is brought to God with the sense of what he is, and of God's grace. The parable of the prodigal is all nothing to the purpose, the weeping lost one of the city, or the believing thief, the invitation of the labouring and heavy laden, is all, according to this horrible teaching, misleading instruction, for this was individual. This was (not an exercise of intellect indeed, but) individual consciousness of their own state, wrought by God, individual faith in the Son of God, individual salvation taught, if the Saviour is to be believed; divine action on the heart, the soul, the conscience, the affections; the eyes opened spiritually to see the Son and believe on Him: men brought to God and the state of their souls manifested, and a divine work wrought in them by the word of the Lord reaching them. I may ask my reader, Does the Saviour teach this on the bringing of a person unconsciously into union by holy baptism? Read the Gospels, and see if this unholy rejection of the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ, and the divine operation on souls around Him by it, producing faith in His person, in order to substitute unconscious union in baptism, is to be found in them.

315 But if these great principles and truths be ignored by the Anglican catholic system, there are important truths on which it pronounces, and in which, while it can justly object to protestant evangelicism, it is far more deeply and fatally in error. It sets aside all that is vital in individual salvation, leading to carelessness of conscience and insensibility to personal responsibility. It makes the world not what scripture does, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," but simply the unbaptized heathen, so as to allow worldliness in Christians. It sets aside scripture authority; it ignores the Holy Ghost in individuals, on which the word of God insists; and it passes over or falsifies history, when it meddles with it; and, as I shall now shew, it is wholly false on the points as to which it has laid hold of certain truths which evangelical Christians have, by inefficient teaching, left in its hands.

It is not true that protestants or evangelicals make faith a mere intellectual process: no Christian does, unless it be the party of the essayist. But the unity of a visible body on earth has been ignored or denied by them. They have not generally held the real communication of a new, spiritual life. And they have (at least dissenters) held the meeting together of voluntary associations which they call churches, and which frame regulations and choose or dismiss their ministers. In all this scripture condemns them. On the last point the "Catholic," indeed, has not much to say; for it is held by them that everyone is at liberty to choose his own director or confessor, the most important of all their ministers in practice.

316 As regards the true body of Christ, it is become invisible, and scripture contemplates this without sanctioning it. "The Lord knoweth them that are his," though of course always true, is a state of things contemplated in the last days; but it was not the original state of things. On this, "the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." There is in scripture, as I shall fully shew, the doctrine of a visible body. But the object of the Anglican is, not to prove that the word of God teaches the doctrine of a visible body on earth, but to set up a human priesthood in the clergy, and shew that grace is communicated by their means only, that grace comes by sacraments, divine life and union with Christ by baptism; and that the visible body is to be found only where the priesthood or clergy is. The reformers taught the being born of God in baptism, and (at any rate, the Anglican body) becoming members of Christ by it. Evangelicals hold neither now, but they speak of union with Christ by faith, which scripture never does. When they speak of regeneration, they do not, generally speaking, mean a new life really communicated, but the effect produced by the operation of the Spirit of God on man as he is, not a really new life communicated. Now scripture does speak of the church as one body on the earth, and of only one, with particular churches in each locality, which in that place held that of the body so far, though not separated from other members of Christ. It has no idea of distinct churches in one place or of a national church.

It does speak of the church in the purpose of God, as finally one with Christ in glory; but it also speaks of a church and body of Christ on earth, responsible here below. It also speaks of the church as the dwelling-place of the Spirit on earth, as the house of God as well as the body of Christ. Scripture does speak of a life really communicated to man; it does speak of a ministry received directly from Christ so as to exclude man's choice and nomination. It speaks of union with Christ. I will take up these points in order, and the setting forth scriptural truth will, in a great measure, answer the erroneous statements on the subject, both of Evangelicals and Anglicans; but I will also take up, afterwards, the positive errors taught by the latter, which are very grave indeed.

As regards the general truth of a body on earth, the scriptures are plain. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 12: 12, 13, "For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one Spirit; and verse 27, "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular; and God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers; after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." From this it is evident that there is a body, the church, and that that body, the church, is on earth. There are no healings in heaven. "So if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." (Ver. 26.) So in Romans 12: 4, 5, "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another;" and then they are exhorted to the present exercise of their gifts accordingly. So Ephesians 1: 22, 23; only here it is looked at in its completeness and perfection in the counsels of God as a whole, not yet attained, for "we see not yet all things put under him," though we own Jesus' title as exalted to the right hand of God. So Ephesians 3: 10, 25, 32: all which shew the church set up on the earth as the body of Christ, though letting us understand that it will be presented to Christ a glorious church.

317 We have the church also in the character of a building, and, as we shall see, which is of great moment, in a two-fold way. First, Christ Himself says, Matthew 16: 18, "And on this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Whom Peter follows, "Unto whom coming, as unto a living stone . . . . ye, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2: 4, 5); and so Paul (1 Tim. 3: 15), "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." Here it is on earth too, for the question is of Timothy's conduct in it. So Ephesians 2: 21, "In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." Here, as also in 1 Peter, it is only growing up to a future temple, not yet finished; but, in Ephesians 2: 22, it is added, "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Here it is a present thing; God's habitation in the person of the Spirit come down from heaven.

318 Now it is to be remarked that in the temple, as forming for its final perfectness and glory, in the Gospels the workman is Christ only. "I will build." In the Epistles there is no workman at all who builds. The building, see Ephesians 2: 21, "fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple:" in 1 Peter the saints come "as living stones." Here it is growing to a house, and Christ carries on the work — against which the gates of hell cannot prevail — on earth but for glory. But when we come down to a present house or building on earth, the case is different: "as a wise master-builder," says the apostle (1 Corinthians 3: 10), "I have laid the foundation. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon;" men may build with wood, hay, and stubble, and their work come to nothing; or with gold and silver, and their work abide. Nay more, a man may defile the temple of God and be destroyed himself. Here men are responsible for the way they build in this building of God on earth. So in the passage in 1 Timothy he was to learn how to behave himself in the house of God.

The doctrine therefore of the body of Christ, a body to be perfected in glory, and also that of a body existing on earth — of a house to become a perfect and holy temple in the Lord, and that of a present habitation of God through the Spirit, that which Christ builds infallibly and perfectly for the final result, and that in which, as a present thing, man is responsible by the way — are all clearly taught in scripture. One the Evangelicals and Dissenters admit, though obscurely, what Christ is building for final glory; but the body now formed on earth, by the Spirit, and the house now the habitation of the Spirit, they have wholly lost sight of; and of these scripture speaks.

I turn to the doctrine of communicating life. The common evangelical teaching is, that the operation of the Spirit changes a man's heart, takes the stony heart out of us, subdues the will, renews the affections, &c. Now this is practically true, but is in no way the whole truth. There is the reception of a new life. God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Christ is that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us, and He through grace becomes our life, as it is written, "when Christ, who is our life." We are really born of God, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, as that which is born of the flesh is flesh; as everything born partakes of the nature of that it is born of. He that is born of God sinneth not, the seed of God remains in him, he cannot sin because he is born of God. Hence the apostle sought that the life of Jesus might be manifested in his body. It is a new creation in Christ Jesus, a new man. And further, living in Christ risen, we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, crucified with Christ, yet alive, but not we but Christ living in us. The flesh still lusts against the Spirit; but we have the life of the last Adam as we had the life of the first. On this scripture is clear. Christ is become the life of the Christian, but it is Christ who has died and who is risen, so that the Christian is accounted quickened together with Him and all trespasses forgiven — can reckon himself dead, is dead for faith, crucified with Christ, but Christ risen, His life. There is no condemnation thus for him. The word of God does speak of a new life communicated, a new man.

319 Lastly, the choice of a minister by man is not scriptural. Ministry is directly received from Christ. He, when He ascended up on high, gave gifts to men; apostles, prophets — who were, we are told, the foundation — pastors, teachers, evangelists. The Spirit distributed to every man severally as He would; and as every man has received the gift, he is to minister the same as a good steward of the manifold grace of Christ. He that teacheth is to wait on his teaching, and the various gifts are so many various members of the body, to be exercised in their place; as Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12: 1, Peter 4: 10, and all the history of the Acts shew us: only women are not to speak in the assembly. The received talent is to be traded with, or woe be to him who possesses it. In the assembly, order was to be kept; not more than two or three speak, and in succession. These are a summary of the statements as to gifts of ministry in scripture.

As regards offices, elders and deacons, the only ones spoken of, the elders were chosen by the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, among the Gentiles at least, or by Paul's delegate Titus. Those who served tables were chosen by the multitude, the apostles laying their hands on them when chosen. Choosing a minister or a pastor by the people is wholly unknown to scripture. Christ chose and endowed them. They were bound to serve; they were again members in the body, and what they were at Ephesus they were at Corinth, those specific members of the body, whose ministry was for the edification of the body everywhere. Elders, on the contrary, were chosen for each city by the apostles. But gifts were specific members of the body: men could not choose them. They were directly from Christ by the distribution of the Holy Ghost, and the possessors of them Christ's servants in them; diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; differences of administrations, but the same Lord. Men cannot choose when Christ has chosen the vessel and conferred the gift, and when he is Christ's servant in it, wherever he is, that member in His body — its exercise being withal ordered, and that for edification, by scriptural rules. They are not ministers or pastors of a church, but in the church according to scripture. Nor would such an idea as a pastor and his flock have been tolerated in the apostles' days or have entered into anyone's mind; they had higher thoughts of service, lowlier of themselves; they were to shepherd the flock OF GOD. The truth is, a set of churches in a place is foreign to the whole teaching of scripture. If Paul or John were to write now an epistle to the church of God which is at  - , no one would get it. There is no such one recognized body to be found, not in the boasting Anglican, more than in the narrow Baptist; the Romanist would mock at the Anglican, and raise up his pretensions above all; and the rest would not in general dare to ascribe it to themselves. There is no church for the letter to reach; the church has ceased to be what it was — one, known, visible, and united body manifested in different places, but only one in all. Anglicans have pretensions enough; but Rome would not own them, if they own Rome; and no man's commendation of himself will do to give him a title: I know not whose commendation else the Anglican catholic has got; of his own he has plenty.

320 I admit, then, according to scripture, a new life is communicated. We have now to consider what communicates life. "Holy baptism," says the Anglican. I recognize that the church was, and ought to be, one visible body on the earth; but we have to consider what constitutes the body. I own a ministry direct from the Lord, but what makes the minister? This is the real question. If we bow to scripture we have no ground, and, if taught of God, can have no wish, to deny the manifestations and blessing of the unity of the body on earth, the communication of divine life, the direct gift of ministry from Christ, not of man. But the Anglican uses these truths to set up a humanly ordained priesthood and deny grace out of it; he attributes the communication of life and union with Christ to baptism. Priesthood and sacraments are the only divine means of grace and unity. The Evangelicals have foolishly denied or neglected the truths, which they have thus thrown into the hands of Anglicans to use as a weapon against themselves; but the Anglicans have taken these truths to set up a wholly anti-christian system of priesthood and sacraments of which these truths say nothing. They are wrong, even on their own ground, as to the sacraments, as I shall shew; but the main point is, they teach falsely as to the whole way and application of grace to the soul, and set up, not Christianity, but the deceit of Satan clothed with the form of neglected christian truths.

321 And first as to life. We have seen how they slight truth and faith, and drop the action of the Spirit of God. Now I shall shew from scripture that to these the communication of divine life is attributed by God. They slight preaching (and preaching, I repeat, is not worship); but to it scripture attributes salvation. Let us remember that in the beginning Christians had to deal with Jews or the heathen world, and this will much simplify the matter; for unquestionably preaching — it may be private communications as well as public ones, for publicly, says Paul, and from house to house, but the ministry of the word — was that which acted on souls, and that by which they were brought to baptism. As many as received the word gladly, we read, were baptized. So Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. But when they believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. They believed and were baptized. The time was not come for winning kings by processions, so delighted in by Anglicans, and those christianizing their subjects en masse; nor for driving the Saxons, by arms, into the Elbe to baptize and make Christians of them as, the famous Charlemagne. Faith came by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Let us see the positive teaching of the apostles on this subject. Whoever called on the name of the Lord was to be saved. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed; and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things . . . . So then faith cometh by hearing [the report], and hearing by the word of God." Salvation is for faith, according to the apostle, and faith by hearing the word. And this is a moral dealing with souls. "Wherefore when I came was there no man; when I called was there none to answer," is the appeal of God to Israel.

322 No person can read the Gospels or Acts without seeing that the testimony of the word was the great means of divine dealing with souls. Whatever the miracles of goodness and the ineffable excellency of His person, the service of Christ was preaching, and so He declares, "And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also; for therefore am I sent." (Luke 4: 43.) Accordingly, in describing His service in Matthew 4: 23, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching." "The poor have the gospel preached unto them" was one of the signs of His divine and blessed presence; — when He sent out His disciples, it was (Matt. 10: 7), "And as ye go, preach, saying," &c. And after His ascension (Mark 16: 20), "They went forth, and preached everywhere." They were to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believed and was baptized would be saved, and he that believed not would be damned. So in Luke 24: 47, repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in his name, beginning at Jerusalem. In carrying it out, Peter's preaching in Acts 2 reaches the hearts of some three thousand and brings them, as gladly receiving the word, to baptism. They could not but speak the things they had seen and heard, and sought grace to speak God's word with boldness. If there were miracles, it was the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by signs following. (Mark 16: 20.) So Hebrews 2: 14. Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. It is needless to go through the whole history of the Acts, which, with abundant confirmatory signs, is the history of the preaching of Peter and Paul: indeed, while giving prayer the first place, it is to this Peter declares that, leaving the care of the poor, the apostles would give themselves. Peter to Cornelius calls the whole testimony of Christianity: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all): that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached." (Acts 10: 36, 37.)

Salvation, then, is for everyone that believes; faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. What, then, shall we say of a system which depreciates preaching, calls faith an intellectual process, and puts a ceremony, be it a divinely instituted ceremony performed on an unconscious person, in the place of living faith and the power of the Spirit and the word? I shall now shew, as to the means of receiving life, the application of this grace of the gospel, that it is by the word through faith, faith as a means, not as a condition, but as a work wrought by God in the soul. James declares: "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." (Chap. 1: 18.) Peter tells us: "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Pet. 1: 22, 23.) And to shew that it is by the testimony of the gospel, it is added (ver. 25), "But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." Thus the word of God, and the word preached, is that by which we are born of God.

323 But faith, which receives that word as of God (for he that receives this testimony has set to his seal that God is true), is that by which we are thus born. We are all, says the apostle, the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3: 26.) So 1 Thessalonians 2: 13, 16: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe" . . . . "Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved," &c. So 2 Thessalonians 2: 10-14: "Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved . . . . that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel." So the Lord: "Sanctify them by thy truth; thy word is truth." (John 17.) I might multiply quotations to the same purpose shewing that the saving quickening work of God is by the word, and hence by faith, and by faith as a means, not as a condition.

That we are justified by faith (the doctrine wickedly called Lutheran, and so hateful to Anglicans) is affirmed so repeatedly by the apostle, that is, by the word of God, that it is hardly needful to cite passages. It is the main subject of the whole Epistle to the Romans and of that to the Galatians. The whole christian system is designated by it in contrast with law, "after that faith came" (Gal. 3: 25); but our present subject is eternal life and salvation rather than justification. Paul preached the faith, he tells us, which once he destroyed. But the Lord Himself tells us, "He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live," and again, after stating that the Son quickeneth whom He will, He adds, as to knowing that we have it, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment], but is passed from death unto life." Thus, through hearing Christ's word and believing on Him that sent Him, a man has everlasting life. It is by the word, it is by faith.

324 The other element of the new birth and the power by which it is wrought is, according to scripture, the Holy Spirit. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," as that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And "so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." That new nature or life given to us, which is contrasted with the flesh, is attributed to the Spirit, divinely and essentially so. Every life has its nature from that of which it is born. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. You cannot thus speak of water: it is not the communication of a nature, but cleansing power. As far as it represents anything, it represents unequivocally death, not life, for we are baptized into Christ's death. "That which is born of water is water" would be nonsense. It is not presented as the communicator of a nature; the Spirit is. It is a divine life-giving Spirit. So of Christ, who acts as well as the Father in it, He is a quickening Spirit. As the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, so the Son quickens whom He will. Christ becomes our life.

I do not doubt that John 3 refers to what baptism refers to, as John 6 refers to what the Lord's supper refers to; but John 3 does nor refer to baptism, nor John 6 to the Lord's supper. The passages speak of what baptism and the Lord's supper also figure. Christ incarnate was the true bread come down from heaven, and, having been crucified, His flesh and blood become the way of life and the food of the believer's soul. But as the bread was Christ incarnate, so the flesh and blood are Christ sacrificed on the cross. And hence the chapter speaks of His going up where He was before, shewing that it speaks of Christ personally, not of the Lord's supper. The chapter speaks, that is, of Christ, not of the Lord's supper, in the bread come down from heaven and the flesh and blood. And this is evident and certain upon the face of it, because the Lord's supper is for the church only; the bread He gives is His flesh, which He gives for the life of the world. If any man eats of it, he lives for ever; but this is not true of the sacrament. Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life. This is not true of the sacrament; and this partaking of eternal life is effectual and eternal: Christ "will raise him up at the last day." This cannot be said of everyone that partakes of the sacrament. Every one of the passages proves the utter falseness of applying it to the sacrament.

325 The truth is, there is no such Christ now as is figured in the sacrament in existence. It is Christ's body broken in death, and His blood shed; but there is no such Christ now, any more than there is a self-humbled Christ come down from heaven. He is gone up glorified, and there is no dead Christ or shed blood to be found. Those united to a living glorified Christ celebrate, till He come, the blessed memorial of what is no longer, and which has given them a part in Him now, and with Him and like Him hereafter.*

{*It is curious how far the enemy has gone in deceiving those who are under his power. That by which the laity, so-called, are comforted under the privation of the cup is what is called the doctrine of concomitancy, that a whole Christ, body, soul, blood and divinity are in each of the species of bread and wine; but, if the blood be not shed, there is no redemption; the sign given to the flock of God is a sign that no redemption is completed! It is with a broken body and shed blood we have to do, that which, as I have said in the text, does not exist now; and the drinking of the cup as a distinct thing is essential to the nature and meaning of the sacrament. It declares, too, that death has come in, and necessarily, that there can be no participation in the blessing of incarnation, without the death of Christ also. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink of his blood, ye have no life in you." Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone! The bread which He gives is His flesh, which He gives for the life of the world, which He gives in the shedding of His blood; and this must be drunk as a separate thing. All this, on which John especially insists, and which is of the essence of Christianity, Romanism and Ritualism deny.}

And it is equally false of John 3. The Lord speaks of the reality in the operation of divine power, the communication of a new life, of a spiritual life, by the Spirit — that which is analogous to the wind, which is seen in its effects, not in itself. Baptism is seen in itself, on the contrary, not in its effects, as every one knows. What, then, does water refer to? Scripture teaches us fully. It typifies the word. Christ sanctifies and cleanses the church, for which He gave Himself, by the washing of water by the word; as James tells us we are begotten by the word. Again John 15, "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." It is an allusion more particularly to Ezekiel, where Israel's blessings are promised to be restored to them: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you," &c. (Ezek. 36: 25, 26.) It is real cleansing within by the word. With this comes, in Ezekiel, the earthly promises to Israel. Hence the Lord says to Nicodemus, "Art thou a teacher of Israel and knowest not these things?" He ought to have known them, from His own prophets. "If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" And the "ye" and the "every one" of John 3: 7, 8, refer, the first to Jews, the latter embracing the heathen.

326 The birth of the Spirit, or new life, the new man, is attributed to the Spirit. Cleansed in mind by the word we are, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Baptism, we are expressly told, signifies our dying, our dying to sin, which is true inward cleansing, and in Colossians our resurrection is added, but communication of life never. The passage in Titus may be alleged, where the apostle uses the expression, "the washing of regeneration;" but regeneration is not used in scripture for the communication of life but for a change of state and condition. It is only used once elsewhere in scripture, for the new millennial world; where Christ shall sit on the throne of His glory: "In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory." (Matt. 19: 28.) Here it is evidently a change of state and condition, not communication of life. Hence, in Titus 3: 5, we have the washing of regeneration. One, before a heathen or Jew, or at least born in sin, and outside the place of grace and God's dwelling, was admitted within it. His state was changed. He had been a heathen, a Jew, a sinner, away from promises and God and hope. He passed into that condition where all these were, translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Where being born of God is spoken of, it is another word, not παλιγγενεσία, but γεννηθῆ ἄνωθεν, or ἀαγεννάω, never παλιγγεννάω. And with the laver of παλιγγενεσίας we have, "and the renewing of the Holy Ghost" as a distinct thing. New life is attributed to Him who can give it — the Spirit of God, the Father, and the Son.

327 In result, quickening or communicating life is expressly attributed to the word, to faith, to the Spirit. It is never attributed to baptism. On the contrary, this signifies or figures death; it may be said resurrection, as coming up into a new state. For Christ being our life, this is in the power and status before God of His resurrection. Baptism signifies in fact the quitting an old state by death, that of the first Adam, and an entrance into a new, that of the second Adam risen from the dead. It does signify washing or cleansing, but in no place giving life. We read of being born of water, but it is not said of baptism; and where the possession of a new nature is spoken of in this very passage, it is referred exclusively to the Spirit: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We have too the expression the washing of regeneration; but regeneration is a change of state and condition, as Matthew 19 shews, not the communication of life. Baptism is of real importance and deep signification in its true place, but it is not in pretending that water can give spiritual life. This the Spirit, direct divine agency, alone can do; and we know, when manifested in this world, it is by the word through faith. But as an entrance into a new state, as death to the old, and, figuratively, washing and cleansing from what belonged to the old by death to it, it has its full scriptural signification. Hence we read: "Arise and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord;" not, Arise and receive life. Communication of life it was not. For, in the case of adult heathen and Jews, they believed and were baptized;* that is, they had life first, for he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. In a certain aspect, baptism signified more than giving life that is, the deliverance and salvation of those who had life. The centurion Cornelius had life, was devout, and we see evidently that he was renewed in heart. He was to send for Peter, and hear words whereby he would be saved.

{*I do not enter on the question of infant baptism here (which, for my own part, from other scriptures, I hold to be right), but discuss the place baptism holds. The Anglican church teaches, in the most express way possible, that faith is necessary to baptism: only it is faith in the promise of God made to them in that sacrament. Infants, they say, promise this by their sureties; but I suppose, if they believe the promises made there, they must believe in Him who made them, and in whose name they are baptized; they must believe, or others for them, that Jesus is the Son of God. That is, according to this system, faith goes before baptism. It is not my business to reconcile this with the doctrine of being born by baptism, for we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. What is required of those of riper years is to be examined whether they be sufficiently instructed in the principles of the christian religion, and they are to prepare themselves with prayer and fasting. I suppose they are really to believe these principles, they are to have faith for it — must, unless they are hypocrites. Indeed without faith it is impossible to please God. It would be curious research, but too tedious, to examine the utter confusion in which the Anglican catholic is by his blunders as to baptism and false ideas of its place. Men are born of God in it, yet have faith in order to receive it. Indeed under the form of the Apostles' creed, the person to be baptized is called upon to profess his faith in all Christian doctrine, in Christ Himself. He is to be baptized in this faith. That is his desire, I suppose accounted genuine and sincere. Now it is certain we are the children of God by faith; and the catechism is not quite honest where it says "The promises of God made to them in this sacrament," because they are called on to be instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, and to profess their faith as set forth in the formula of the Apostles' creed, and they are baptized in that faith, not faith in the promises made to them in the sacrament. Nay, these promises are rehearsed, and they are required to believe in something else — "God's holy word." But I feel it better to inquire into the substance of the truth in scripture as contrasted with ritualistic doctrine, than to spell out the confusion introduced by the breaking of light into the popish system, and the mixture of doctrinal light and ancient traditions and forms, increased by the partial return to catholic sentiments in the time of Charles II.}

328 The doctrine of a real deliverance and actual salvation has been so lost that many a true Christian, knowing he must be born again, looks for the fruit of it to ascertain his state. But there is an actual deliverance and translation into the kingdom of God's dear Son, which belongs to every renewed soul, but has been acquired by the death and resurrection of Jesus, of which baptism is the sign, death as we have seen to the old (Rom. 6), and rising into the new condition, all trespasses being forgiven. (Col. 2.) So in external things: Israel, brought to God in heart and will in Egypt, was delivered out of Egypt at the Red Sea, by the "salvation of Jehovah," and baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Hence, Peter says, the antitype whereto now saves us, even baptism . . . by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disposition of Noah through grace gave him a part by faith in deliverance, but he had his deliverance through the flood into a new world. By faith Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house. This baptism figures, scripture declares; not the communication of life. We may be said, in a certain sense, to be figuratively born there, as coming out of the womb of death to the old Adam state into a new world (παλιγγενεσία), but not to have life communicated.

329 I admit baptism is not a sign of what we have already, as is commonly taught; but of getting, through death, into a new position, where we have what entitles us to it. With union it has nothing to do, good or bad. It is not by receiving the Holy Ghost we are born again, nor do we receive the Holy Ghost in baptism. It is not in any way a sign of union. On this scripture is as clear as can be. Baptism is baptism into Christ's death, at the utmost rising in coming up from it, when having figuratively passed under death. Union is with a Christ exalted at God's right hand, and only so, and by the Holy Ghost the Comforter, who could not come till Christ was exalted.* That is, baptism does not go beyond death, or, at the utmost, resurrection. Union is with an exalted Christ by the Spirit, where He is on high. The first proposition, I have already shewn from Romans 6 and Colossians 2. The reader has only to refer to these chapters. As many as have been baptized unto Christ have been baptized to His death. As a figure we are not baptized as a sign or seal that we are already dead and risen again; we are baptized to death, buried there wash away our sins there. As a figure it saves us, because we therein pass, by death, out of the old scene and Adam state, and so into the new or risen Christ state. But secondly, in no sense has baptism anything to do with union. We have seen, and scripture is express, that it is by one Spirit we are baptized into one body, and this is always distinguished from baptism; and the Lord's supper, not baptism, is the symbol of the unity of the body, though it may figure what implies it as a consequence.

{*The apostle Paul alone speaks of the church as Christ's body. He alone refers to this doctrine. He was not only a minister of the gospel, but a minister of the church, to fulfil (complete) the word of God. But he tells us he was not sent to baptize. Is not this strange, if baptism is that by which we are made members of that body, the means of union?}

But it does not itself even figure, in any way, introduction into Christ's body. In this Baptists are as wrong as Anglicans. We have seen that baptism signifies death, but having a part in Christ's death, and, hence, death that delivered from an old state and all transgressions connected with it. As Noah was freed by the flood entirely from the old world, which was now gone and had perished in the flood, and emerged out of the ark into a new world; yet that flood was judgment through which he was saved in the ark, so we are delivered by Christ through death and judgment, which He underwent for us, for it would have been our everlasting ruin — out of the old state and brought into a new condition, into which He is risen, if indeed we have a part in Him. Of this, baptism is the figure. We are baptized to* Christ's death, and we are to reckon ourselves dead; the judgment having been borne by Christ, it is death to sin, the world, and all that belongs to the old man. We have put off the old man and put on the new, and this is the profession by baptism of every Christian. Where it is said, "few, that is eight souls were saved by water," it is not simply saved, not ἐσώθησαν, but διεσώθησαν saved through danger or catastrophe, they were saved through the flood — not by it, though it was salvation as deliverance from an old and introduction into a new world; but it is saved, through a destroying judgment, through what would have been, but for the ark, and was, for others, destruction. Baptism is the antitype (such is the word figure) to this; it passes us through death, not literally of course, as is evident. But inasmuch as Christ, into whose death we are baptized, is risen, it is deliverance from an old and introduction into a new, even Christ's risen, state: really if we take outward standing here, figuratively if we speak of the condition of the soul before God. But it is death, not communication of life, which it figures in itself. It is the flood of which it is the antitype, death into which we are brought by it. But even, were it the communication of life, this is not union. By the reception of life we become children of God. Christ is, in this aspect, the firstborn among many brethren, not Head of the body, and the saints members of His body, that body of which He, exalted above every name, is the Head. It is by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and of this the Lord's supper is the symbol, not baptism. Baptism is death, and leads to resurrection figuratively through grace, but does not go beyond the latter, does not point farther than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But in order to form the t body, Christ must be exalted as the Head. This is, in every way, evident from scripture. The Head, that is Christ exalted, must have been there to unite the body to.

{*It is not really into, it is the same word as to Moses, to John's baptism.}

330 But in detail, in the first place as the body is formed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 12), it could not be till Pentecost, for this was, we are expressly told, that baptism (Acts 1: 5); but the Comforter could not come till Christ went away: then He would send Him, and we may add that Christ had not received the Holy Ghost to confer on His members as sent down from heaven until He went up. (Acts 2.) Further, there was no head to unite the body to, till He went up on high. We are members of His body, we are of His flesh and of His bones; but that it is of Christ exalted the end of Ephesians 1 makes as plain as language can make it. To make the incarnation the ground of it is a gross and heretical blunder. Without the incarnation, of course it could not have been, for it is to Christ as the glorified Man we are united. But there was no union with Christ incarnate. I will say more of this further on, for it is a very vital point and a capital and fatal false doctrine of Anglican catholics and even Irvingites.

331 For the present, I confine myself to the fact of union. Till redemption were accomplished, there could be none. A union of the Son of God with sinful corrupt man is an utter and mischievous error. We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. It is not said He of ours. His real humanity, flesh and blood, is a fundamental doctrine, but this is not union. Union is by the Holy Ghost. He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit. But, further, as to the outward dispensation of unity, union before the cross was impossible, because it was by that the middle wall of partition was broken down, in order to make of twain (Jew and Gentile) one new man, making peace, and present both in one body to the Father. (Eph. 2.) Thus, whether we consider the position of Christ as Head of the body, or the power that forms us into one body, or the time and order of its administration on earth, it is clear that Christ's death and Christ's ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost, were all essential to union, to the existence of the church His body. With the last two, baptism has even figuratively nothing to do.

Another very grievous error connected with this, is the notion that the giving of the Holy Ghost is the same as being born again, or necessary to it. This error is common to Evangelicals and Anglicans. In the first place, as to prescribed order, it was received after baptism. (Acts 2.) But as to doctrine, no person receives the Holy Ghost till after he has been born again, and has even yet further grace given to him. In John 7 we read, "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him should receive." Now, if they believed, they were born again. "In whom after ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." (Eph. 1.) "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" (Acts 19.) "He that establisheth us together with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who also hath sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." (2 Cor. 1.) And Galatians 4 is very express: "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts."

332 The disciples were believers and clean through the word when the Holy Ghost came upon them. I might add proofs if needed. But it is evident that God cannot seal an unbeliever. He quickens or gives life to the unbeliever through faith by the word; He seals the believer. That, as to prescribed order, it is after baptism, is evident. "Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts 2.) So Paul, "Whereunto then were ye baptized?" and then after they were baptized, Paul laid his hands on them, and they received the gift of the Holy Ghost. So in Samaria the Holy Ghost was fallen on none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The exceptional case of Cornelius is an additional proof of the distinction. The Jew demurred to receiving the Gentile. God shewed He would, and the apostle could not forbid water, the outward reception here below, since God had put His seal upon him. This is the apostle's own account. But the- seal of the Spirit even here was by itself, though first, and was not at or by baptism. The forming of the body, and its union with the Head, even with a glorified Christ, is by the Holy Ghost, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven consequent upon that exaltation. It is in no sense or case by baptism, nor is baptism even a figure of it. The bread in the Lord's supper is used as a figure of the unity produced down here by it. (1 Cor. 10: 17.)

Next, as to ministry, scripture does not own man's choice of ministers, any more than voluntary associations called churches. The Anglican catholic holds it to be a constituted order derived successionally from the apostles by ordination. Christians in general have gone more or less decidedly into the same system modified after their own thoughts; only the Anglican holds it to be an exclusive channel of grace in the episcopate and priesthood. He says it must be directly from Christ. How a successional system is directly from Christ it would be hard to tell. I understand a person saying God endows a person appointed by man, or even by the Lord, or endows him indirectly through a man. Both are found in scripture. Christ appointed apostles; they were endowed on the day of Pentecost. And the apostles conferred the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands, on (not the ministry, though the Holy Ghost might operate by them in ministry, but on) the whole company of the faithful, as at Samaria Peter and John did. But ministry was free to all and special gift directly from the Holy Ghost, and under the authority and, I may add, gift of Christ. This I shall now shew. This directness characterized the ministry of Paul, here, I admit, in its highest or apostolic character; "not of man," he says, "nor BY man." Those who called themselves Jews then insisted on derivation of ministry from the apostles. Paul gloried in its not being so; but it was not confined to him.

333 Let us see historically. All that were scattered abroad on the occasion of Stephen's death (that is, all except the apostles) went everywhere preaching the word. (Acts 8: 4.) I suppose the whole church was not ordained; and in chapter 11: 21, in Antioch, we read of them, "and the hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Stephen, using the office of a deacon well, purchases to himself a good degree, and great boldness in Christ Jesus; so Philip. So, in 2 John and 3 John, Gaius is commended for receiving those who went out, and a lady is directed to inquire, not for letters of orders, but what doctrine they brought. Diotrephes refused them: according to our modern Anglicans he did well. As to doctrine, the Lord in the parable of the talents makes the question of faithfulness in ministry turn on trading with a gift,* small or great, without other authorization than receiving it. This was faithfulness. Peter tells us: "as every one has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" (1 Pet. 4: 10, 11); that is, as those who speak on God's behalf, that God may be glorified, as in ministry (service), of the ability which God giveth. The apostle, teaching how to discern what was of the Holy Ghost in 1 Corinthians 12, tells us, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit . . . and then goes through a long list, wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, &c. "All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will." These are different members in the body which have need one of another, and these various gifts are not local or an office in a particular church; but God has set in the church apostles, prophets, teachers. All have not these different gifts, but all who have are responsible for their exercise, for trading with their talent; and they are in the church, (not in office, I repeat, in a church).

{*The talents were received on the Lord's departure to take the kingdom and return. They have nothing to do with wealth or natural gift however responsible we may be (as we are) for the use of these.}

334 Hence Apollos, if he taught at Ephesus, taught at Corinth if he went there. They were gifts in the church, members in the body. Hence the apostle, resisting the first beginning of sects, says, "all things are yours. Paul, Apollos, Cephas," &c., all are yours; the gifts belong to the church at large. So we read, there were in the church which was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers. We have limits and order set to their exercise, surely. But these shew and confirm the general principle. Not more than two, or at the most three, are allowed to speak in the assembly when come together, and women are to keep silence: a strange direction, if only an ordained priest or deacon, ay, or dissenting minister, could open his mouth, and they were the only channels of grace. Such a limit in that case could have no sense at all.

But again, in more ordinary and regular ministrations, as may be thought, is their conferring less direct? Christ ascended (we read in Eph. 4.) up on high, and gave gifts unto men, and He gave some apostles and prophets, and some pastors and teachers, and some evangelists for (πρός) the perfecting of the saints, for (εἰς) the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till all are come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. We read "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets," so that we may leave them aside; but pastors, and teachers, and evangelists, are directly given as gifts (talents) by Christ ascended on high. This is direct giving according to scripture, not of man, nor by man. And it is added, "from whom," the Head, Christ, "the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body for the edifying of itself in love." Our essayist was wise not to seek to prove his thesis from scripture.

In 1 Corinthians 14: 29-31 we read, "let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge" . . . "for ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted." James, indeed, warns the saints "not to be many masters [teachers] knowing that we shall receive greater condemnation." But why so, if they could not unless regularly ordained to it? Such a warning could have no place according to the system which knows only an ordained clergy. I shall be told there were extraordinary gifts. Some of them were, not all. Pastors, teachers, evangelists, are not, nor that which every joint supplies; nor does James's direction apply to such, nor 1 Peter 4, nor 2 and 3 John. But in any case this is nothing to the purpose. The theory I combat is that God originally instituted a system of episcopate and priesthood, the only channels of blessing and grace, a direct ministry which man could not choose.

335 I am told, indeed, that scripture is not to be referred to in order to prove it, as it was established before the scriptures were written, but that they allude to it often. But I find they speak very fully, not by allusion but historically and doctrinally, of another system which God did institute and appoint, and which proves, as to the original constitution of God, the Anglican system to be false; false historically, false doctrinally. If he tells me that his system supplanted what God originally instituted, I admit it. That is the truth, it did supplant it. The system they teach is incompatible with that taught in scripture, either for the world or the church. Do they mean to allege that, for some wise reason, God set aside His original system, and order, and power? For it was God, we are told, who worked all in all; Christ, who gave from on high pastors, teachers, evangelists; and every one who had received the gift was so to minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Did God and Christ withdraw all their gifts, ordinary and extraordinary, from the church, and substitute the clerical system insisted on by Anglicans? When did He do it? Not in times taught of in scripture. Or was it man, who, as power died down, so to speak, substituted his order for God's?

But the external order will be alleged; bishops and priests. Let us see what positive testimony the word furnishes. It does more than allude to these also. Nor does it recognize the church's choice even of these church officers, save as regards money and table serving. Then it is insisted on. In Acts 6 the apostles withdraw from table-serving, establishing needed order in the church, to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word, not to baptizing or administering the Lord's supper. One was generally entrusted to others, it is not said to whom — strange case of the exclusive character of grace! and the breaking of bread was daily from house to house (or at home in contrast with the temple). Where were the ordained ministers who communicated the grace? I know not; but the apostles withdrew from tables to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word, a matter so deplorable in the eyes of our modern catholics. And they have the table-carers, chosen by the people; and on these they lay hands, the only expressly ordained persons in scripture; and, we read, faithfulness in this is a way to higher service. So Paul would not take the money of the saints for Jerusalem unless the churches chose some to travel with him, providing things honest in the sight of men. The word used is χειροτονέω, election being made by stretching out the hand; but it has nothing to do with ordination. 2 Corinthians 8: 19 shews it beyond controversy, and so indeed does Acts 10: 41.

336 But there were elders chosen, and they were never chosen by the church, but by Paul and Barnabas; or Titus was sent to establish them.* There were overseers; that is, bishops, expressly so-called in Acts 20, nor is anyone else so called. And there were several in each locality, they chose (not "ordained:" the translation is ecclesiastical but false) elders in every city; some laboured in the word and doctrine; some, it appears from 1 Timothy 5: 17, did not, but the same Epistle shews us it was desirable. But the difference between their office and gift is evident.

{*No appointment is found in the Jewish church. They rather seem to slip into the office by a natural order. "The apostles and elders came together to consider of this matter."}

The gifts were set in the church and exercised everywhere; the elders, though they might have gifts too, were local officers, city by city, or in every church. (Titus 1: 5; Acts 14: 23.) And these were not gifts, but offices appointed. They were bishops, I repeat, the only bishops spoken of in the scriptures, and Christ Himself directly and alone over them. These elders were to shepherd, not their flock, but the flock of God; and were responsible to the Chief Shepherd, who, when He should appear, would recompense them. (1 Peter 5. 1-4.) As we have seen in Acts 20., they are expressly called bishops. Nor has the apostle an idea of anyone over them here below, or of a successor to himself. He calls them solemnly together, declares the Holy Ghost had appointed them bishops, tells them he is going away, and they were to watch. Where is the room for the modern bishop here, now he forgot to remind them of Timothy, and their due subjection to his admonitions? He commends them to God, and the word of His grace which is able to build them up. They were to take heed to themselves and all the flock. Where was the bishop?

337 But, farther, the apostle was going away and expected never to see them again. Here, indeed, was the place to "allude" to the episcopate, and the successors of the apostles; but not a hint of such a thing escapes him. It has a strange and ominous silence about it, and, more than that, though he declares that things will go on badly as soon as he was gone, he has not an idea of appointing a vigilant successor to take his place; on the contrary, there will be none; grievous wolves would break in, and even among themselves perverse men would arise. Was there no bishop to consult, no successor in the see to watch? None. They, the elders, Paul's bishops, the only ones he knows, were to watch; and he commends them to God and the word of His grace. He treated his successor very slightingly, if he had one. But I shall be told Timothy was the first bishop of the church of the Ephesians. Not Paul's successor then, for Paul was alive. And the apostles as such (and even Bellarmine admits it) had no successors properly, for their charge was universal, not local. The notion of their having successors is indeed absurd. Paul, we have seen, knew nothing of it in Acts 20 — the very occasion to speak of it; and so Peter takes pains, that after his decease all the Jewish Christians should have his teaching in remembrance, having no idea of a successor.

Where is the "allusion" to this constitution of God? There is none. (I reserve the question of priesthood as a graver question.) But what then was Timothy? This alleged episcopate must have been either successors to the apostles, as if (which is false) the apostles had a local see, or persons whom the apostles appointed in places they had evangelized and established Christianity in. But Timothy and Titus were not the successors, for the history we have of them relates to the apostle's lifetime, and the apostles had no local see as such. And we have the account of what they established in the places they had laboured in successfully. They established elders in every city, that is, not a bishop but several elders or bishops. That is a certain fact, whether in the Acts or in the Epistles to Titus and Timothy, confirmed as it is in that to the Philippians also. Titus and Timothy were especial delegates of the apostle, who were certainly not located in sees, but accompanied the apostle or were sent on special missions by him, his confidential agents. He left Timothy for a time at Ephesus specially about doctrine; but he, after that, desires him to come to him speedily. Titus did not stay at Crete either: in 2 Timothy 4: 10 we read of his being gone to Dalmatia.

338 The apostle, or his delegates by his direction, did establish bishops or elders in each city; that is, they did not establish an episcopate in the modern sense of the word, but something else which contradicts it: and if episcopacy is a necessary and exclusive channel of grace, the true primitive church had no channels of grace at all, and those who followed had no grace to communicate. There were officers, but they were of another kind. Nor is there a hint of communicating grace in the matter.

That the church fell early into a system of episcopacy is perfectly true; and Jerome tells us how and why, as we have seen: namely, to prevent the jealous ambition and disputes of the elders. But the church's decay was contemporaneous. All sought their own already, the apostle tells us, not the things of Jesus Christ; they were in the last times already, John assures us, in his day; and Peter, that the time was come for judgment to begin at the house of God. Episcopacy accompanied this, a human arrangement to meet decaying spirituality. Then some began to say, My Lord delayeth His coming, and began to beat the men-servants and maid-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, so that, in some 140 years from the apostles' days, Cyprian assures us that one of the most terrible persecutions was only too light as a chastisement from God. The bishops, so-called, were running about as commercial travellers to make money. In a little more than another century the emperors had to make laws to prevent the avarice of priests around dying beds, who were not called for (as Jerome complains), with buffoons or actors, or any heathen priests.

For ministry there was no ordination by man. It was direct. The apostles laid their hands on those who served tables; laymen, so-called, laid their hands on an apostle. But no one can shew, in scripture, ordination for ministry. Whoever had a gift, for the world, or for the church, was bound to exercise it, order being maintained in the church by scriptural rules. I defy anyone to point out ordination for ministry in scripture, or to sustain it by scriptural authority. Elders and deacons, or servants, there were. I dare say hands were laid on them, as it was the universal custom; but it is only said of the table-servers in Acts 6. Timothy is told not to lay hands suddenly on anyone; and I dare say he did on elders or bishops; but God has taken care it never should be stated in scripture. As to conferring a gift, it was by the laying on of the apostles' hands exclusively.

Remarks on the Church and the World.

J. N. Darby.

<15017E> 339 {file section b.}

1866. Third Edition. London: Longman and Co.

The question of priesthood and another important one remain. The setting up of a distinct priesthood is the denial of Christianity. A distinct priesthood is a body which can go to God for me, because I cannot so approach God myself. To say there is such a body in Christianity is to deny it. The essence of Christianity is, that we can directly approach God, even the Father, ourselves. We are (1 Pet. 2) a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ. He has made us kings and priests to God and His Father. (Rev. 1.) That is our christian place; to say that others are priests to approach for us is to deny our place. We cannot hold this too fast that whoever sets up a priesthood other than that of all saints, entering in spirit into heaven, denies (it may be ignorantly, no doubt) Christianity itself.

What does scripture tell us of priesthood now? First, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read that if Christ Himself were on earth He could not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things. Now this is exactly what is urged for christian priesthood by the ritualists. They say indeed that they are not merely (ὑποδείγματα) copies, shadows, figures (p. 308) of the worship in heaven, but the priest is the "present vicarious representative of the one true, real, and ever-living priest" (now for a time corporeally absent), acting "in his name." Or, —

"It is the one Mediator, acting in heaven directly, as we may say, and immediately by Himself; acting on earth indirectly and mediately by His minister as His visible instrument, who, forasmuch as in that most solemn of all His duties, He represents the priestly functions of His heavenly Master, is Himself, for that reason, and for that reason only, called a 'priest."' (Page 309.)

And so "the christian Eucharist . . . is called 'a sacrifice,'" and "that whereon it is celebrated an 'altar.'" (Page 310.)

Now it is clear, Christ on earth, at the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, could not have been a priest. There were priests who ministered to the example and shadows. But if Christ could not be a priest on earth, His ministers were. Is it not strange that this whole service is left out where the subject is treated of? Does any honest man (yes, I repeat, honest man) believe that when this was written, and it was said Christ could not be a priest on earth, there was a christian priesthood who served as the mediate and indirect instrument, offering sacrifices on earth, a vicarious representative of the great High Priest in heaven? The apostle tells us that such a High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens; that on earth He could not be a priest, seeing there were those that served in the example* and shadow of heavenly things. Yet at this very time, we are to believe, there was on earth what was expressly constituted of God to carry the priesthood on on earth, not as a copy but as "gloriously real." (Page 308.) Further, can an honest man believe what the Epistle teaches, that repetition of sacrifices was a proof that sin was not taken away but remembered, but that, Christ having by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified, there was no more sacrifice for sin nor remembrance of sins, and that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins, left it equally true that there was a sacrifice, a memorial sacrifice, gloriously real? And note, it is not merely intercession in virtue of the sacrifice as alleged: that would be scriptural enough. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. It is breaking His body, it is His blood shed; it is offering a sacrifice, which is not intercession. That is founded on a sacrifice, and appeals to its efficacy, but this is the memorial sacrifice itself. I shall enter more fully and directly into this in another paper, I now refer to it in connection with priesthood.

{* ὑπόδειγμα is not, as stated, a mere copy. Christ has left us (John 13) an example: so 2 Peter 2: 6. It is what sets a thing forth in the way of model or example: so in Hebrews.}

340 The declaration that priesthood is in heaven, and Christ could not be a priest on earth, and that there was no more sacrifice for sin — means that there is a priesthood on earth, who are priests only because they offer a sacrifice! Strange that the New Testament writers should never say a word of this priesthood! But they do speak of priesthood, and in a way which excludes this ordained distinctive one. We are all a holy priesthood, all made a kingdom of priests, and to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Peter too, it seems, had forgotten or never heard of this "gloriously real" priesthood, and puts us together as priests.

But it affects, as I have said, our place as Christians. Where there was a distinctive priesthood on earth, the veil was not rent, the people could not come beyond the altar, nor were the priests to go within the veil, the Holy Ghost this signifying (Heb. 9: 8) that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest. In contrast with this (the one offering which has perfected for ever them that are sanctified having been offered), the veil is rent, and we all have our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, boldness to enter into the holiest by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and we are to draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith. Where is the place for a mediating priest here, when I draw near myself into the holiest in full assurance of heart? I am a priest and enter myself, where the great High Priest is over the house of God, the family of God upon earth. There is a great High Priest and a whole body of priests under Him. That is, the whole notion of any other priests between me and God is thus sedulously excluded. I enter into the holiest where the great High Priest is; and this is founded on the sedulously elaborated declaration that there is, and can be, no more offering for sin, that a memorial offering is a memorial or remembrance of sins, and there is a diligent application of this to the conscience, that once purged we have no more conscience of sins, that Christ has sat down, is not standing, because there is no more offering, neither by Him nor by any, and with the so urgent and so just reason given by the Spirit, that it must be real, and that if there was, Christ must have often suffered from the foundation of the world, that the reality of suffering was necessary to the reality of His sacrifice; without it there was none accomplished.

341 Christ is not offering Himself now, and on this, that He is not doing so now, the apostle insists. Those high priests were standing, "offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." What a picture of ritualistic priests! But this Man, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool, for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Offering for His friends He has finished once for all; He is seated, and that expecting till His enemies are made His footstool. That Christ is offering Himself now is a heinous anti-christian falsehood. He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him He shall appear the second time without sin (χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, apart from sin) to salvation. He is in the presence of God according to the efficacy of that sacrifice, and intercedes for us; but it was when He had by Himself purged our sins that He sat down on the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. But, save to deceive souls, there is not as much value in any pretended sacrifice now, as in the letters I am forming here. As a lie of the enemy's, it may be a snare for those who have no knowledge of the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice, and that by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified — for those who have not received that word, "who needeth not daily, as these high priests, to offer first for his own sins, and then for the people's, for this he did once, when he offered up himself."

342 Christianity, then, teaches us that in virtue of that one sacrifice we, all believers, enter in through the rent veil into the holiest of all having a great High Priest over the house of God, in full assurance of faith. We are the priests; and to set up a priesthood to do it is to deny the efficacy of Christ's work, the believer's place, and the rending of the veil — that access of every believer to God which is the essential distinction of Christianity. A christian priesthood, save as all saints are priests, is an antichristian lie. Christ offering Himself now is unscriptural and false; a repetition of His sacrifice in any shape or form, or under any semblance, is a denial of the perfect efficacy of His one offering once for all, in which He offered up Himself. Both, the pretended priesthood and the pretended sacrifice, are a subversion of Christianity; one of the believer's place, the other of Christ's one offering. An offering of Himself implies the cross, implies suffering; He cannot suffer and die now.

Another point, calling for notice, as subversive of Christianity in ritualistic doctrine, is the church being founded on incarnation, of which the sacraments are an extension. It is false upon the face of it, even on the ground they put themselves upon, that of the sacrament. Baptism and the supper of the Lord both signify death, have no sense or meaning without it. If these form and nourish the church, the church begins by the death of Christ, not by His previous life, and feeds on Him also as having died. All of us that are baptized unto Christ are baptized to His death. Nothing can be more distinct than this. It is not to a living Christ that we are brought by baptism, which they allege forms the church and unites to Christ; it is to His death we are baptized. The very profession of a Christian can have no place, no existence, till Christ be dead. And, indeed, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; if it die, it brings forth much fruit. A living Christ remained alone; lifted up, He drew all men to Him; He died to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad. "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." And Paul, who alone teaches the doctrine of the church, declares, if he had known Christ after the flesh, he knew Him no more. One of these passages is only stronger than the other. And when the incarnate Saviour is so blessedly spoken of as the bread that came down from heaven to give life unto the world, then He especially presses on them — "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you;" and to this, as we are aware, the second sacrament refers. Of course for that He must be incarnate; nor is there for the accepted soul a more blessed subject than God manifest in the flesh, the divine person and path of Jesus; but it is not the less true, that in order to our having that life we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, He must die, and we must so know Him, by living faith, to have life, to know Him really at all.

343 But in truth union with Christ has no place at all till He is ascended also. God "set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places . . . . and gave him to be head over all things to the church." Till He ascended as man on high, consequent upon accomplished redemption, He could not send, had not to that effect received the Holy Ghost by which His members are united to Him. They are united to the Head in heaven by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The Epistle to the Ephesians is clear as to this, as indeed is all scripture. We are to be the church, quickened together with Him, and raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. That He had not received the Holy Ghost for this purpose previously is clear from Acts 2. "He, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear." Union before redemption is apostasy from the truth, and the denial of the need of redemption as the basis of the church's place. It is an unredeemed man united to one who has not yet accomplished redemption, a sinner in his sins, and in flesh, with the holy Son of God. And what Christ shed forth after redemption was accomplished was what formed the church, nor did any church exist till then, for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12), and that this was the baptism of the Holy Ghost the Lord shews us, saying, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence" (Acts 1: 5), for which consequently they were told to wait at Jerusalem. Hence too in the distinctive offices given to Christ in John 1, we have first: "The Lamb of God who taketh away [not the sins, as our ritualists, with so many, falsely quote it] the sin of the world," and then, "He it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." Now that the Holy Ghost could not come until Jesus was glorified is beyond all controversy. The Holy Ghost was not yet [given], we read, John 7, because Jesus was not yet glorified. "If I go not away," says Christ, "the Comforter will not come; but if I go away I will send him unto you." The whole distinctiveness of the Christian, the church and Christianity itself, is the presence of that Comforter. It constitutes the living power by which the Christian is what he is, and the church is what she is. Unity, ministry, individual consciousness of sonship, everything that constitutes the Christian and the church lies in the presence of the Holy Ghost.

344 Christianity is, the apostle tells us, as he ministered it, the ministration of righteousness and the ministration of the Spirit. Christ's death was needed for both; and of this the Old Testament types and the New Testament history give us a most interesting testimony. The high priest was anointed by himself without blood; the priests (after being, as well as the high priest, washed with water) were sprinkled with blood and then anointed with oil. So, on the Man Christ, perfect in himself and perfectly acceptable to God, the Holy Ghost descended as a dove: no blood-shedding, we all know, was needed for Him. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. But for us the blood of sprinkling was needed. Christ's precious death came in, redemption, and cleansing, and then the Holy Ghost came down, sent from Him on high, and not till then. Our union is with a Christ whom God has raised from the dead, and given in that state and place to be head over all things to the church, and that union is by the Holy Ghost who never came till then. Christians ought not to need to have it proved that redemption is necessary in order to our having a part in Christ. Christ's person is the blessed object of our faith — surely — "The Son quickeneth whom he will;" but sinners cannot have a part with Him but through redemption. Even the water of cleansing comes out of His pierced side, but He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. The notion of His being bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, as if that were union, is an Irvingite heresy. We are, as I said before, members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.

345 The union of a sinner with the incarnate Lord before He has died is a denial of the need of redemption in order to have a part with Him; it is a denial of the need of blood-shedding for cleansing (or else Christ and Belial can be in concord); it is a denial of the need of the Holy Ghost for the forming the unity of the body, and He alone forms it, for the Holy Ghost could not come till Jesus had died and was glorified. It is a denial of all upon which Christianity is based, as regards the position of sinners.

I understand perfectly well what they allege as to communicating life by baptism from Christ incarnate; but this (besides being false, for it is the Spirit that quickens) is adding another error, for true baptism is baptism unto His death. But the doctrine I combat here is the essence of the system, I mean extension of the incarnation by sacraments. And where we hear Christ speaking, He has no thought of forming tie church during his lifetime. It is upon the title of Son of the living God He founds it; and where was this demonstrated for sinful man in this world? He was declared (determined) Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead. He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and He was rejected by them; but resurrection publicly proved Him the Son of God with power. A man is not justified by incarnation, but by the death and resurrection of the Incarnate One, and being found in Him when risen.

Sin is put away only by the sacrifice of Himself; without shedding of blood is no remission. If union is formed by the sacraments, as an extension of the incarnation, then it is formed without sin being put away, without remission, without that in which the blessed Lord glorified God, and redeemed sinners. It is formed without the Holy Ghost, without our having access to God, for we have access by one Spirit to the Father, and we are builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit, and it is certain the Spirit could not be given till Christ were glorified.

And it is in vain to say it was by sacraments afterwards; for they are only an extension, or, as some have called them, a continuation of the incarnation, Christ's body having been a source of healing and life. But an extension of the incarnation cannot do more than the incarnation itself; a figurative instrument, exalt it as you please, cannot go beyond the personal living power of Christ. But the incarnation did not and could not put away sin, the incarnation could not bring the gift of the Holy Ghost. Christ declares solemnly, the Comforter could not come unless He went away. Remission of sins could not be obtained by incarnation, or redemption, for it is by His own blood (in the power of it) He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. Incarnation or any continuation or extension of it, could not give an eternal inheritance, for it is by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that they which are called might have the promise of eternal inheritance. Incarnation cannot purge the conscience, for it is the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, which purges our conscience.

346 The whole system — I do not use these as hard words but in the full scriptural force of them — is a lying fable subversive of Christianity. It may deceive one who does not know what sin is (which Christ could not put away but by dying), because the person of the incarnate Son is the blessed object of faith, the attractive object of our spiritual affections, the sufficing delight of the Father Himself, and given to us to be ours. But redemption and remission, with all their consequences in the church by the presence of the Holy Ghost, are the fruit of Christ's death. If there be anything which possesses the soul of the believer, it is the person of the Son of God. Hence what seems to exalt will naturally affect the mind. But used, to set aside, or to dim the necessity of the cross, of redemption, it is Satan transforming himself into an angel of light. If Christ's incarnation and the communication of the benefits of it by sacraments are the whole substance of the truth, that on which the church is founded, and by which man is saved, then the cross loses its value, the sinful state of man is denied, redemption is unnecessary, or an immaterial addition to the main truth. It loses its place in the economy of God. "Therefore doth my Father love me," says the blessed Lord, "because I lay down my life that I might take it again." It was because He was obedient unto death, the death of the cross, that God also has highly exalted Him. It was then He could say, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him, and if God be glorified in Him, God shall glorify Him in Himself and shall straightway glorify Him. There is no remission, no putting away sin, but by shedding of blood, by Christ's sacrifice of Himself. The peace and security this gives to the conscience, leads us back to contemplate from within, from, if I may so speak, the divine side, the perfection of the living Son of God, and His perfectness in obedience unto death. The eye is opened on the divine beauty of that human walk, and the unutterable perfection of that death which was, not that the prince of this world had anything in Him, but that the world might know that He loved the Father, and as the Father had given Him commandment, so He did. But a sinner cannot gaze thus on this but through the efficacy of a redemption which has reconciled him to God and given him a part and a place in and with the now glorified Saviour who is gone to His Father and our Father, His God and our God; words never used, and which never could be used till He was risen from the dead, and could tell to His redeemed ones, calling them then first "brethren," what He had obtained for them, declare His Father's name to them, as One into the full light of whose countenance He was re-entered after drinking the cup of wrath for them, and thus, as He declares, and not before, in the midst of the church sing praise to Him. Oh, what a difference between the position of those that, through redemption, have a part with Him gone up as a man into glory, and the vanity of empty ceremonies! for in such case they are so, though most precious when scripturally used, a pretended extension of incarnation, without any redemption at all.

347 But the very object proposed to us by ritualists is false and unscriptural in this salvation by incarnation and its extension by sacraments. They say that the object proposed is reunion with God by incarnation. Reunion with God is simple nonsense. Save in the person of the blessed Lord there is no union of God and man, or ever was, still less a reunion. Adam was not united to God when innocent. He was His offspring, [the son] of God, living by a life breathed into his nostrils by his divine Creator, but there was no union. The union of man and God is the sole prerogative of the Word made flesh. It is incarnation, and that is true of none but Him. And when the Word was made flesh, it was in a divinely ordered and miraculous way, He was conceived by the Holy Ghost so that that born of the virgin was a holy thing, true flesh and blood surely, but untainted by sin. And this is true now of no other humanity. All are born in sin, and there is no question of any union or reunion with God, or is the idea in any way scriptural, nor is there union with the Lord in incarnation. He was among them "the holy thing;" but He was alone, God and man in one person, but not united to men, to sinful corrupt man; but, having miraculously-formed sinless manhood in His own person. The union with Godhead was now, for the first time, and only here. Reunion there was none; it was not re-establishing an incarnation which had place in the first Adam, for there was none. Incarnation, or union of man with God, was found in Christ alone. We are united to a glorified Christ by the Holy Ghost. It is the man whom God has raised from the dead, whom, as we have seen, God has given to be head over all things to the church. The avowed foundation or ritualism is deadly error and heresy.

348 Another point may require more development — the visible and invisible church. We have already seen that Christ declared He would build His church, and that both Peter and Paul speak of that progressive work, by which the building is carried on, to be completed only in glory; set up, no doubt, perfect at first, but carried on by the Lord by the addition of living stones, and this without recognizing any human hand in it; nay, speaking so as to exclude man's work, whatever wood, hay, and stubble might be put by man into the manifested building on earth. But there was also, as we have seen, an external visible building, called withal "God's building," into the formation of which, day by day, the responsibility of man entered, built with gold and silver, and with wood and hay or stubble, yea defiled, corrupted by man.

The great principle of popery and (of its poor imitation) Anglicanism, is to appropriate all the intrinsic principles of the body formed by the Holy Ghost — such as being members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven — to those who have been admitted by man into the outward and visible manifestation of the body, or the building upon earth (for these they, with equal ignorance, confound together) and, in order to this, they have attributed to baptism (which is the ordinance by which men are received into the christian company) what it is not even the figure of — namely, communication of life, and union with Christ. We have seen that scripture is express as to it, that baptism is a figure of death, and that the Spirit is the giver of life. Baptism receives a man outwardly, publicly, and actually amongst Christians, where the privileges conferred on these people in this world are found. But it is responsible man's building, not the Lord and His grace adding only living stones, forming members of His body.

349 No doubt, at first, the ostensible body and the real members of Christ were identical, because the Lord added daily to the church such as should be saved; but, as to the earthly building, the insertion of wood, hay, and stubble are doctrinally contemplated, and false brethren, coming in unawares, historically recorded. The sacramental church was not identical in principle with the body formed by the Holy Ghost,* and, in fact, soon ceased to be so, as to its limits. This the apostle intimates with warning, when he declares that all Israel were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink; . . . . but with many of them God was not well pleased. So a Christian may belong sacramentally lo the church, as Simon did, and have neither part nor lot in the matter, have nothing to do with life in salvation, be still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity; not "sinned away baptismal grace,"** as they say, but not have any part in grace at all; false brethren, spots in the feasts of charity, while they feast with Christians, yet baptized members of the ostensible, visible body.

{*Indeed it never was coincident in its limits, for the apostles evidently, if we take the divine records, never were baptized at all as Christians, I suppose, or the 120 either. A singular thing if baptism were life and union with Christ. But that is an utter fable.}

{**In the confusion which a false principle brings in, it is curious and sometimes useful to trace it in its results. Thus, in the Romish and Anglican principle, if we fall from baptismal grace, restoration is by the sacrament of penance, but it is not pretended this confers life. Life must remain in the soul; so if a man die in mortal sin, and consequently go to hell, out of which there is no redemption, he goes there with the holy life of Christ.}

If I turn from the statement of actual circumstances to the prophetic statements of scripture, I read that in the last days perilous times will come . . . . there will be a form of godliness denying the power; from such, turn away. That is, the ostensible body is wholly corrupt, so that the obedient Christian is to turn away. And in Romans 11 this responsibility of the professing body is definitely pressed on the conscience, comparison is made with the cutting off of the Jews, and, it is added, Upon thee goodness, if thou continue in His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. To say that the body of Christ will be cut off from Christ, would be simply monstrous; but the external system which supplanted Judaism will. That is, scripture contemplates an external thing connected with the responsibility of man, as well as the true body of Christ, and the house which the Lord builds; and to appropriate the conferring the possession of the privileges of the one to the forms of the other is to falsify all the teaching of scripture, as to the body of Christ, and the substance of these privileges, the true force of being born of God and partaking of the divine nature, and union with Christ the head, and to falsify the true character and import of the forms themselves. None are more ignorant of what the church is than the Anglicans who talk so much about it.

350 The body is always real; there can be no false members of it. It is formed by the Holy Ghost and not by sacraments at all, though the Lord's supper symbolizes its unity. The house is building by Christ, and in this there is no bad building, but it is only growing into a temple. But there is a building in which man builds, in which wood and hay and stubble have been built in, and which will be cut off, where apostasy sets in, which is become as a great house, in which are vessels to dishonour as well as to honour — vessels from which the obedient Christian has to purge himself. We must not confound what Christ builds and what man has built. Against the former the gates of hell shall not prevail; in the latter we may expect wood, hay, and stubble. We may expect to find a great house in which are vessels to dishonour, from which we have to purge ourselves — a form of godliness in the last days, denying the power, from which we have to turn away — and, having found it, know that the Gentile branches have not continued in God's goodness, and that it will be cut off. Solemn testimony to Christians. Is there anything which we ought more to lay to heart, anything more deeply affecting, than the ruin of that which was planted in grace, in glory, and in beauty?

I have done with the substance of these important questions.

I add some remarks on the fallacies which prejudice or ignorance has introduced into the statement of the questions to be treated of. And the ignorance of these essayists is very great. Now, only note what is assumed or slipped in without any proof. "The visible church," it is said, "that is, a divinely instituted body, and an equally divinely instituted appointed government of the visible body." Now we have seen that, in speaking of the body, scripture is clear; but connection of a divinely appointed government of the body there is none. Gifts there are, members of the body, and manifested in the visible body; but it is to be remarked that the government of the church, save as gifts in power — "helps, governments" — is never in any way connected with the body, visible or invisible. Elders were appointed, as we have seen, in each church; but their office was local, not like the gifts set in the church. I notice this, because it is the secret of the whole papal edifice, confounding gifts and offices. This made the clergy gradually come in, for open ministry continued a good while in some parts, but the confusion went on till office became the exclusive guarantee for gift. But a divinely appointed government had nothing to do with the body as such. Now, unity is made to depend on it, yea, to consist in it.

351 Of priesthood I have spoken. Of mysteries and means and channels of grace we may speak elsewhere; but a divinely appointed priesthood, other than that of all Christians, is a mere lie of the enemy. If not, let it be shewn. And here I beg to insert Tertullian's, and, still better, the Apostle John's, rule, that what was at the first is right. The scriptures are the earliest historical testimony we have, and divinely given. They tell us what was divinely appointed at the beginning. It is in vain to talk of interpretation here. I believe everyone taught of God can use them. It is wicked Satanic fraud to deprive the church of the scriptures. They were written, save three epistles, to the flock — not to ministers but by them. But certainly, as a history, they are worth the corrupt and interpolated trash* which is palmed on the unlearned as the fathers. But Luke, Peter, John, Jude, Paul, James, know no such priesthood. If they do, let it be shewn. I say their history of the church denies it. One taught of the Holy Ghost by the word abhors it, as of the enemy.

{*It is pretty well ascertained that what has long been insisted on as proof of the episcopate (Ignatius's epistles) is on this very point a forgery. Cureton's Syriac edition leads to this conclusion as to five out of eight, and as to all but about one sentence on it in the three genuine ones. Forgery, on a large scale, was the habit of the primitive church, and as early as the second or third century, and corrections and interpolations since. Except a mass of heretical matter, it is hard to say what is genuine in this class of writing, so very busy were these forgers. Since then the Roman index has corrected what did not suit. No honest person can deny what I here state.}

Again, I find in one essay, "the body itself is a visible community — a kingdom." This is very mischievous confusion. The body of Christ is not His kingdom. It is very convenient to assume it, but there is no ground for it whatever. His body is Himself; His kingdom is what He rules over, apart from Himself, He being King over it. King of the church is a thing unknown to scripture*. When He takes to Him His power and reigns, it will be over all the world. The field is the world now. The devil's work [the tares] is in the scene of His kingdom now. They are not members of His body. We are His body, His bride — of His flesh and of His bones; His kingdom is not that. He does not nourish and cherish His kingdom, He governs it, not His bride and His body. There is not a more mischievous error on these points than what is assumed here as a thing to be taken for granted. The kingdom may be realized within certain limits, and so far as to limits coincide as Christendom with the professing church; but the field is the whole world, and the form that the kingdom takes in fact is the work of the enemy as much as of the Lord. That is not true of the body, and shews the profound evil of the false doctrine which makes baptism the means of communicating life and introduction by union into the body, for a large part of what is in the kingdom is introduced by Satan — namely, the tares, which are to be burned. Have they had life and union with Christ communicated to them by the sacrament of baptism? And let it not be said here, "Yes; but, being the seed of the wicked one, they have lost it again." In the parable they are introduced by Satan, and the theory of the Anglican catholic is that they are introduced by baptism and union thereby. Can there be a greater or more deplorable confusion?

{*Even "King of saints" is recognized to be a false reading. It should be "King of nations".}

352 There are a few general remarks I would make in conclusion to clear up the whole question. It is not the existence of a visible church which is denied by the evangelical world. Everyone knows there is such a thing; that there is a Christendom, which, as a religion in the world, can be contrasted with heathens, Jews, and Mohammedans. But evangelicals do not see the responsibility of the visible church, and that there ought to be, as there was, a maintenance of corporate unity as a testimony* for the glory of Christ. They do not see that Christians were bound to maintain unity and godliness. They do, consequently, content themselves with individual salvation, the individuals being members of the invisible body of Christ.

{*I say as a testimony, because the unity of the body is of God in itself, and cannot be destroyed. Christ's body is in itself one. Against His building the gates of hell shall not prevail. The responsibility lies in the manifestation of this on earth by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the unity of the members down here.}

353 But the Anglican catholics do worse; they attribute all the privileges of the true body of Christ to the outward, baptized professors, and the truth of divine operation in the soul, all moral power, all reality in the religion of Christ, is lost. The soul has nothing to say to God in being saved. Christianity becomes a mummery of ordinances, making righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost — the true moral reconciliation with God in a new nature, by the Holy Ghost, in a conscience purged by the blood of Christ — immaterial to the possession of the privileges of Christianity. It is really gross antinomianism with all its legality. Eternal life and union with Christ are acquired without any consciousness of real change in the person: this is simply of Satan. For the kingdom of God is in power; it is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The true Christian is really reconciled to God; there is a renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is shed on us abundantly.

But further, as regards the visible church itself, the Anglican catholics, too, have lost the sense of the church's responsibility. For the outward visible church is divided; it is more: the parts most esteemed by the Anglican catholic, are grossly corrupted, full of superstition, idolatry, vice and error. Its history has been the history of the worst vices, the worst corruption in the world; not sought out by secret search, but in the open day. We have a Greek church, a Nestorian church, a Jacobite church, a Latin church, an Anglican church, which have no communion one with another, and those of the most pretentious are the most corrupt. Has the church, then, met its responsibility? Has it continued in God's goodness? Has it waited for its Lord from heaven? Or has it beat the men-servants and maid-servants and eaten and drunk with the drunken? If it has done the latter, its portion is to be cut asunder and to have its portion with the unbelievers, to be cut off. And the attributing the privileges of the body of Christ to this corrupt external system, slighting its responsibility and insensible to its failure, is the most fatal delusion, hurrying those seduced by it to their final destruction. It is the worst proudest denial of the responsibility of the visible church, a seared conscience, which can pretend to security in privileges, as the Jews of old, where God has announced judgment because of the state they are in.

354 If the universal church is in a normal state, why so much pains to make out its case, to re-unite it, to heal its open public divisions? If it be in a fallen state, are we not to think of its responsibility and see what is the result according to the word of God? What is the effect of a doctrine which leads the visible church to claim the possession and power to communicate, by ordinances, its highest privileges, without the slightest reference to its fallen state, with a conscience perfectly dead to the evil, which, if God's word be true, is surely bringing on its judgment? Our essayists, on this very ground of communication of life and union with Christ by ordinances, slight and blame individual earnestness about salvation, individual sorrow for sin, individual peace obtained by grace through faith, Christ having made peace. These are thus described: "A certain consciousness of personal interest in these truths, and a sense of general unworthiness, and a further sense of the removal of that unworthiness in the belief and apprehension of these truths, the whole matter of salvation being a personal one . . . ." Now this is a very feeble statement of personal conviction of sin and faith; but scripture does deal with the individual and with conscience. It teaches the doctrine of the church — we have spoken of it — and of a church which ought to be visible, holy and one. I have no wish to avoid or enfeeble this part of truth; on the contrary, I desire to press it, as I have done according to my ability, on Christians; but that withal they should have the deep sense of how we have failed and it is ruined. But it is ignorance, or worse, which would put this in opposition to personal individual salvation; and the Anglican catholic system is guilty of this.

Save in the exhortations of chapter 12, all the Epistle to the Romans is individual. In all the Epistle of John everything is individual. In Galatians the teaching is individual, and I might add a great deal more. But, besides this, the ruin of the visible church itself is contemplated, the perilous times of the last days are spoken of, and the judgment of God on its departure and its apostasy. Not only is salvation individual, but the individual Christian is called upon, at his peril, to judge the state of the church, to purge himself from vessels to dishonour; to turn away from such and such, from forms of godliness without the power; to depart from all iniquity, where the foundation of God stands sure; but having this seal (not a recognized visible church, but) the Lord knoweth them that are His. And when the Lord judges the state of the church, whoever has ears is called upon to hear what is said to him. The state is one to be judged, not trusted in; the individual's duty is to give heed to what the Lord pronounced upon it. Not only is salvation necessarily individual, but, when the responsible church is judged, and the Lord, by His testimony, declares that state, the individual Christian is solemnly, and, by divine authority, called upon individually to give heed to that testimony, and act according to it. It is at his peril if he neglect the warning injunction; and, if that be the call of God, what shall we say of a system which sets up the authority of that which is to be judged, and closes the ear of the pious against the warning and summons of God to look at the state the church is in?

355 And let not anyone speak of interpreting scripture, and its being for the church — that is, for the clergy to interpret. It was written by the inspired clergy, if people are pleased to call them so, to the christian people, and for the christian people. Only three short epistles can be pretended to be written for ministers, and these are now, even so, a part of the common heritage of the church of God; and as regards the warning of Christ's judging in the midst of the churches, whoever has ears to hear is called upon peremptorily to give heed to them. The voice of the Lord claims his attention, his individual heed, to His judgment of the state which surrounds the saint in the church. It is disobedience to the voice of the Lord, addressed distinctively to the individual Christian; and attention to it marks one who has ears to hear; and the judgment of Christ on the state of the church is that to which he is to give heed. What is judged cannot be a rule and a guide, when we are called to give heed to the judgment, and to guide ourselves by it in our position, in that which is judged. And to make (when thus judged) the judged church a conclusive and binding rule is open contempt of the authority of Christ. We are bound to hear Christ, and to act on what we hear, Christ singling out the individual and making him responsible for what is communicated to him, as to Christ's judgment of the church. I repeat, not to give heed and obey is to slight Christ Himself. And what is substituted for this giving heed to the testimony of God which claims our attention? What has been justly called ecclesiastical millinery.* But, if the matter be looked at as beneath the surface, it is subjection to ordinances, the denial of being dead and risen with Christ, in which is the force and power of Christianity (Col. 2); a return to the religiousness of the flesh, as if we were alive before God as unredeemed children of Adam; a keeping of days and months and years which, though from Jewish influence, is, the apostle declares, a return to heathenism (Gal. 4: 9, 10), because as shadows they were instructive before Christ came who was the substance, but, taken up now, they are the rudiments of the world to which we are crucified with Christ, declaring that we have not died to it with Christ, that we are living in the world as children of Adam, subject to its rudiments, not holding the head, certainly not Jews with instructive shadows, but heathens in the flesh, following its religion and abrogated ceremonies. Such are the beggarly and condemned elements which are given to us instead of living union with the head, Christ, by the presence and power of the Spirit of God, and a conscience perfected towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

{*It is curious that, in the seventh century, when the clergy began to put on distinctive garments, white ones, Pope Gregory the Great sharply reproved them, telling them their white robe ought to be personal innocence.}

356 No. 3

EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP

I admit the Lord's supper to be the centre of true worship. I admit, and I adore such ineffable goodness, that Christ leads the praises of gathered spiritual worshippers: "In the midst of the church," we read, "will I sing praise unto thee." But as these essayists have used neglected truths in other cases to pervert the minds of the simple, of those not guarded by the word, so they have done here.

But we are speaking of worship, and to know what worship is, one must be a true worshipper; and in this case they have, from the very outset of their pretentious teaching, made statements which prove them wholly ignorant of what true worship is; and I must add that throughout the article there is that ignorance of scripture and scriptural truth which characterizes the school. I am not disposed to deny the existence of piety in many of those brought under the influence of these views.

Where redemption is not known and imagination is strong, piety naturally runs into ordinances and what are called mysteries, for ordinances are the religion of the flesh, and where redemption is not known, man, as to the state of his mind, must religiously be in the flesh.

357 There is, and can be, no walking in the light as God is in the light, for redemption must be experimentally known for that; nor the happy childlike, yet adoring confidence and liberty which cries for itself, "Abba, Father;" and as the soul cannot be in liberty with God (a liberty which is exercised in adoration, for the nearer we are to God the more we adore His greatness, and have done with ourselves), it brings God by imagination not faith, in an awful way near to us in our actual state, and we adore the image formed by our own minds, and are subject to ordinances, have a morbid delight in mysteries, "tremendous mysteries," "transcendent mysteries."* I do not say there is no piety in the article we are occupied with, but there is great pretension to spirituality:

{*All this is a mere abuse of the word mystery. Mystery means in scripture, and indeed it is the original sense of the word, what would be known only by special revelation, but to those taught by it (the initiated) is clearly known.}

"We speak of truths profoundly spiritual, and needing to be spiritually discerned, though liable, alas! like other high spiritual truths, to be unbelievingly rejected by unspiritual minds, or, if unspiritually embraced, to be perverted." (Page 316.)

Our essayist of course discerns spiritually these profoundly spiritual truths, neither rejects them as having an unspiritual mind, nor perverts them by embracing them unspiritually. His is a spiritual mind embracing spiritually high spiritual truths, truths profoundly spiritual. Christ's acts are "embraced in all simplicity of devout affection." This good opinion of self is accompanied by slight and sarcasm cast on the authorities who are over them, the Anglican prelates.

"These would-be iron rulers, whose lightest word would now be obeyed with alacrity, did they know how to shew themselves true ' Fathers in God,' would then (that is, if they cause a schism by 'a mere cold, unsympathetic repression') (p. 319), have time to reflect in the dull peace of the solitude they had made,* and might haply come at last to the conviction that, after all, they had 'fought against God,' and with the usual result — 'their own confusion."' (Page 319.)

{*This alludes to a phrase of Tacitus on Tyrants — "solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."}

So previously, "Little do some of our fathers in God seem to reck of the anguish, not unmixed with indignation, caused to faithful souls by the shallow denials of unpopular truths into which they allow themselves to be drawn." This incessant threatening of ecclesiastical authorities, if they do not acquiesce in and further the movement, is characteristic of the party. Mr. Newman used the same unholy means, and it is now the common weapon to overawe those whom these high-worded men profess to obey, and force them to silence, at least while they carry on their schemes. Do not resist us, they say, or we will make a split in the church.

358 The utterly unchristian character of such a course is too evident to need comment. But let us see what these, if we are to believe their own account of themselves, profoundly spiritual men, these discoverers of high spiritual truths, have to say for themselves and their doctrine when soberly weighed in the light of God's word to which they themselves appeal.

Let us do them justice. They declare that there is no repetition or reiteration of the sacrifice of Christ, but that Christ is always offering on high His one sacrifice, and that the ordained priest on earth is doing the same thing on earth, presenting the one unrepeated sacrifice constantly on the altar to God.

"And what does Christ now offer as our ever-living Priest in the heavenly temple? What but His own most precious body and blood, the one saving victim to make reconciliation for our sins and unite heaven and earth in one?" (Page 306.)

"The continued offering of a sacrifice, made once for all, does not necessarily imply any repetition." (Page 307.) "And this continual offering and presentation of a sacrifice once made, is itself a sacrificial act, and constitutes him who does it a priest." (Page 307.) "It is a propitiatory sacrifice, as pleading before God for all the successive generations," &c. (Page 307.)

"Thus, what the christian priest does at the altar is as it were the earthly form and visible expression of our LORD'S continual action as our High Priest in heaven." (Page 308.) "The earthly priest . . . does on earth that which Jesus does in heaven. Rather we should say, according to that great principle which is the true key to the whole theory of the christian ministry, it is Jesus who is Himself the Priest, the offerer of His own great sacrifice, in both cases." (Page 309.)

This is connected with perpetual intercession.

"But though He repeats not the sacrifice, nor can again offer Himself as a victim unto death, yet in His perpetual intercession for us He perpetually, as it were, appealeth to it." (Page 307.)

359 "Christian worship is really the earthly exhibition of Christ's perpetual intercession as the sole High Priest of His church." (Page 299.)

Thus intercession is, according to our essayist, the highest act of worship, Christ Himself carrying it on in heaven. Now, to say nothing else, the statement that Christ is worshipping in heaven is itself a strange proposition. He is worshipped there, of which more anon; but where shall we find the blessed Lord worshipping in heaven? Not in scripture, and not in any divinely taught mind, I believe. When He is brought into the world again, all the angels are called on to worship Him, and when the Lamb takes the book to open it in the Revelation, all fall down before Him and declare His worthiness. But who ever heard of Christ's worshipping in heaven? This, while pretending to be profound spirituality and high spiritual truth, flows from what shews total ignorance of what worship is, mistaking intercession for worship.

Intercession is not worship at all. Christ surely intercedes for us, and His intercession is based on His perfect work, and carried on as the perfect One in heaven, whether we speak of a high priest with God, or an advocate with the Father; but intercession applies to infirmity or failure. We have a great High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been tempted in all points like as we are; "and having suffered, being tempted, is able to succour those that are tempted." "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

I will touch in a moment upon the offering and sacrifice in which He is alleged to worship on high, but intercession never is worship. It is done for others, for their actual failures, or infirmities which make them liable to fail; its only connection with worship that can be alleged is the analogy of the golden plate on the high priest's forehead, and his bearing the iniquity of Israel's holy things; but this only confirms what I have said, that the priestly service of intercession applies to failure. It is the same as regards the analogous case of advocate with the Father. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins."

The abiding efficacy of this propitiation no divinely-taught soul denies. We cannot be too thankful for it; but the abiding unchangeable efficacy of Christ's propitiation for us, is not His worshipping, nor is intercession worshipping, but pleading for others in respect of infirmities and failures.

360 Worship is altogether another thing. It is the heart rising up through the power and operation of the Spirit of God in praise, thanksgiving, and adoration, for what God has done and does, and for what He is, as we know Him in Christ. The returning up by the Spirit from our hearts in adoration and praise of what has been revealed and descended in grace through Christ to us, expressed in our present relationship to God, the going up of the heart in spirit and in truth to our God and Father in the full knowledge of Him.

Worship is the expression of what is in our own heart to God according to the holy claim He has upon us, and the full revelation He has made of Himself to us. Intercession is intervention with God for another. Christ may be present in spirit to lead the praises of His saints, and offer also their praises on high that they may be accepted.

It may be in the eternal state that He may lead our praises in glory, but to present Him as carrying on real worship Himself in heaven, and us as entering into it or doing the like sacramentally on earth, is nearer blasphemy and heresy than profound spirituality, though I may acquit the writer of being intentionally guilty of it, and is the result of the egregious blunder of making intercession to be worship. I will now consider what is said of the continual offering of the sacrifice. I will not retort the charge of scandalous carelessness or scandalous dishonesty, bandied against the opponent of the writer for his manner of quoting Tertullian.

It certainly is a more serious thing to deal so with scripture than with that honest and able but heady and unsubdued writer, who, after proving by necessarily legal prescription that it was a sin to leave the great professing body of the church, left it himself (because it was so worldly and corrupt), to throw himself under the power of the fanatical reveries of Montanus, and was as ardent in condemning as once in maintaining the authority of what was held to be catholic unity.

Let us see rather how our essayist quotes scripture to prove his point. I recall to the reader that they say there is no repetition of the sacrifice, only He is ever offering* it to God.

{*There was no offering to God of a sacrifice, but the burning it, or a part of it, on the altar. The truth is the προσφορά is the bringing the victim to be an offering, Korban. Then ἀναφέρεται it is offered upon the altar. After that, however long its efficacy lasts, there can be neither προσφορά nor ἀναφέρειν. Christ προσνηγκε Himself to be a sacrifice, was offered up on the cross.

361 The passage quoted is, "For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer." After quoting the latter part of this, the writer adds, "And what does Christ now offer, as our ever-living priest in the heavenly temple? What but His own most precious body and blood, the one saving victim to make reconciliation for our sins, and unite heaven and earth in one?" I omit noticing the latter part of this, which, by its obscurity, defies analysis or answer.

Is Christ then a victim now? Is He now making reconciliation for our sins? If not, the sentence has nothing to do with the matter, it is not applicable now. If it means that He is, it is a denial of the plain, positive, christian doctrine that believers are reconciled.

"You hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death." (Col. 1: 21, 22, and 2 Cor. 5: 18.) "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself." Probably it is ignorance of the Gospel and scripture, and I leave it to pursue the question of sacrifice.

Why did the writer omit what goes a few verses before, "Who needeth not daily as these high priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once [ἐφάπαξ once for all], when he offered up himself." The passage speaks of the actual offering, as a sacrifice to God (ἀναφέρει). He did this (ἐφάπαξ) once for all.* And on this the apostle insists as contrasted with the Jewish sacrifices, that the work was effectually, finally done by one single act of sacrifice, done only once and completely; once and once for all, excluding constant, subsequent, as well as repeated offering. Thus Hebrews 10. By His own blood He entered in once (ἐφάπαξ) into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption. And again (and note here the passage refers to His entering into the holy place where it is pretended He still offers His sacrifice): "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us." Now here is the very place to lead us to that truth of profound spirituality, the constant offering of His sacrifice to God. Alas! — rather, thank God — it is just the contrary. "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." That is, when His appearing personally in heaven is the subject, not only has the Holy Ghost not a word to say of this profoundly spiritual truth, but He negatives any such thought. It was once, in the end of the world, the sacrifice of Himself was made, and as it was appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.

{*The offering of Himself to be a sacrifice was impossible when once ἀνήνεγκε ἑαυτόν and offering Himself to be a sacrifice is the force of προσφέρειν. Once consumed on the altar there could be no further offering to God. It will he well to notice what the divine order of offerings was. If a person would bring an offering to Jehovah, he was to bring it near . This was the technical term for bringing it up as an offering, was the mere physical act of making it come. He or some one slew the victim if of cattle. The priest took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar of burnt offering, or on that before the mercy seat, as the case might be. Then he laid on the altar (after washing when needed) the part that was to be burned there, the whole carcase or the fat, as the case might be, in order, and ) burned it as sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire, when such was its character, on the altar. Προσφέρειν is the Greek word used for the bringing it as an offering to God: ἀναφέρειν for its being actually offered up to God and burned upon the altar. The offerer did the first, the priest and the fire from God did the last. The priest's office did not begin till after the offerer had brought his offering. When the victim, or its fat, or even the Mincha or meat offering, had been consumed on the altar, the essence of the act was that that was absolutely and completely done, gone up to God (hola), consumed as here, and mounted up to God as a sweet savour, an offering made by fire (Ishshee). The thought of any new offering, προσφορά presenting it to God, was impossible. It would have been the setting aside of the burning on the altar, the completeness of the sacrifice to God by fire, as having all gone up to Him as a sweet savour. The value of the blood of Christ, is eternal with God, assuredly; the sweet savour of His sacrifice ever before Him, but an offering of Himself by Christ after He had been sacrificed on the divine altar to God, could not enter into the mind of one who knew what sacrifice was. Christ προσήνεγκεν ἑαυτὸν ἄμωμον τῳ Θεῶ (Heb. 9); so ἑαυτὸν ἀνήεγκε was an actual offering (offered himself) up to God upon the cross. (Heb. 7.) (Compare James 2: 21). (If the LXX be consulted, the distinctive use of ἀναφέρω, as the actual offering on the altar, becomes quite clear.) The victim is said to bear the sins when he has been presented by the offerer, but only after he has become an offered victim. So Christ (Heb. 9: 28) was once offered to bear the sins of many, προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ ἀνενεγκεῖν. Here He is viewed as a sin-offering: but an offering or presenting the slain victim after it had been on the altar, and the fire of God had consumed the sacrifice as taught by scripture.}

362 It is not, He does not suffer as once, but He offers Himself continually; but He does not offer Himself, for if He did, He must suffer.

363 The doctrine of a perpetual sacrifice in any and every shape, is a simple denial of christian truth on the subject and of the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice. The once, once for all, is the especial theme of the teaching of the Holy Ghost on the subject when it is elaborately treated of, excluding continuation, as well as repetition. The Epistle adds: "But this man, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down (εἰς τὸ διηνεχές) on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool; for by one offering he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified." He was not standing offering oftentimes, as the Jewish priests, but when He had offered one, for ever* sat down (εἰς τὸ διηνεχές), that is, He had not to get up and offer any thing any more, and the reason was, by that one He had perfected for ever the sanctified.

{*I am perfectly aware of the foolish effort to change the sense by putting the comma after "ever," instead of "sins." But this is not changing the sense, but making nonsense. "When He had offered" is necessarily a past thing. "This man (οὗτος) having offered one sacrifice for sins" is a thing done; and the whole argument requires this, for it is in contrast with the High Priest standing and offering. His work was never done, but Christ sits εἰς τὸ διηνεκές because by one offering He has perfected εἰς τὸ διηνεκές. Nothing can be clearer.}

When He rises up it will be to deal with His enemies as His footstool. As to His friends, the sanctified ones, God remembers their sins no more, and "where remission of these is there is no more offering for sins." Is there, or is there not? It is unconscious infidelity in the efficacy of Christ's one sacrifice to think there is; — there is no such thing as a προσφορά περί ἁμαρτίας now; no bringing anything to God about sin. It has been done once (ἐφάπαξ), once for all.

I repeat, it is a simple denial of the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice which purges the conscience and has obtained eternal redemption, the proof given by the Holy Ghost that it had been offered once for all, that it was eternally efficacious, and that there could be no more.

No doubt His intercession is founded on the efficacy of His sacrifice, but that is not the question. The question is, does He in any sense offer it now? The words of my author are, "the continual offering of a sacrifice made once for all," and, "it is a propitiatory sacrifice." Now this the Epistle in every shape and form denies.

He is speaking of offering sacrifice when he says "this he did once (ἐφάπαξ, once for all)." He is speaking of it when he says, "there is no more offering for sin," where he declares that it cannot be, because "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." We have its being once for all, as προσφορά, that is, the presenting to God to be a sacrifice before Him; and with the word ἀνήεγχε, the technical word for actually offering up. We are told by the essayist, He might offer it without being a suffering victim; the word says, "He must often have suffered if it was not once for all." It is a vital point, and handled consequently in every shape in which the devices of the enemy could undermine its efficacy. It is the keystone of Christianity as to acceptance with God and eternal redemption.

364 We are referred to the Apocalypse as introducing us to these scenes. Well, and what does it shew us? The Lamb presenting His sacrifice and worshipping? Far from it. The Lamb in the midst of the throne, and beasts and elders falling down before Him. You may find angelical figures of priesthood it may be; but Christ presenting His offering, or worshipping, never. Did the writer ever read what he is referring to? But all is blundering in these statements. We have, by way of accurate Greek, This is my body which is being given, This is my blood which is being shed. That from John 13 the Lord is contemplating His going away, and speaking in view of His heavenly position, is perfectly true; but the pretending that it means "is now being given," "now being poured out" (p. 305), that is, in the last supper, save in the general sense that it was not yet, but was going to be accomplished, or that it was "a sacrificial act," is all a delusion; the very passage (p. 305) in which it is stated proves the absurdity of it. "The declaration of Himself as the Lamb of God, the very Paschal Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world . . . then and there offered by Himself," &c. Now "that taketh away the sin* of the world" was spoken by John the Baptist at the very commencement of the blessed Lord's ministerial life, yet it is the ὁ αἴρων, the present time. The fact is, such present tenses are characteristic, and do not refer to time. It is a broken body and a shed blood we feed on, not a living Messiah simply. Thus ὁ σπείρων is the sower, he that sows. He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd, and he that entereth not in by the door, where it is evidently characteristic. So in John 6, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood."

{*Let my reader remark "that taketh away the sins," however habitual, is an utterly false citation of the passage. Christ does not take away the sins of the whole world at all. Such a thought is nowhere to be found in scripture. If it were so there would be no sins to be answered for by any. But it is not said. The new heavens and the new earth will be the full effect of this truth.

365 But it is useless to multiply examples. It is the commonest thing possible; and the rather that the case referred to by the essayist proves the fallacy of it, because "He that taketh away the sin of the world" is, upon his own shewing, not the sacrificial period, yet it is the present tense.

We are told that the church triumphant and the church on earth are all one, we being "the outer court;" both worship Christ presenting His offering in heaven actually, and on earth in the Eucharist. Of this last we have spoken. But all is error. There is no church triumphant. That all departed Christians, whose spirits are now with Christ, will finally make one body is quite true; and that when absent from the body they are present with the Lord, so that to depart and be with Christ is far better, this too it is most blessed to know. It has made death to be a gain. But there is no church triumphant. For this we must wait till the resurrection. The saints in their complete state, that is, conformed to the image of Christ, bearing the image of the heavenly, are not yet ascended or glorified. Their spirits, happy with the Lord, await the day of glory which Christ Himself, though glorified, is awaiting. For, as we read, David is not yet ascended into heaven. And however confused and contradictory the ideas of the early doctors may have been, (and on this point they were confusion itself,) still early liturgies and all early teaching recognized this; for they prayed for the departed — what afterwards, under Jewish traditions, became purgatory.

What subsequently was turned into the saints praying for us was at first the church on earth praying for the saints; and this was so distinctly the case, that Epiphanius makes it the proper difference of the person of Christ, that, whereas even the Virgin Mary was prayed for, Christ was not. That all sorts of contradictions may be found in the fathers as to it, I freely admit; but what I state is notoriously true, and known to everyone who has a very slight knowledge of church history. You may find, even as a distinct privilege of saints, that they had at once the beatific vision; but a triumphant church was contradicted by the early doctrine of prayers for the dead: that is certain. Nor is the notion of a triumphant church scriptural, nor is Christ on His own throne now, but on the Father's throne, sitting at the right hand of God till His enemies be made His footstool. The distinction I have referred to of saints who do see God on high is wholly unscriptural. The whole church is composed of saints, and none are glorified. The praying for them may be a superstition, but it proves that the early church held what contradicts a triumphant one, worshipping in heaven, while we do on point of sacrifice contradictory to the Epistle to the earth.

366 But not only is the especial teaching on the Hebrews (saying that there is a continual sacrifice, the Epistle declaring that there is none; saying that the Lord need not go through what He once went through, the Epistle that He must suffer often if His sacrifice, once for all, was not complete and final; saying that there is a continual offering now, and even that it is propitiatory, the Epistle that it was done once for all) — not only is the teaching of the article exactly the opposite of the especial point of the reasoning of the Epistle, but it betrays a total absence of the knowledge of what sin is, what redemption, what reconciliation; so that the whole form and substance of thought is false.

The notions as to Adam and angels, are unfounded. That the angels worship may be freely admitted; that Adam would have done so, we do not doubt; but to attribute surrender of self to them, as if that too was worship, has no ground whatever; there is nothing to surrender; their duty is to stay in the place where they are, such as they are, and just as they are. The delight to serve according to their nature, they have nothing to give up, no selfish will to surrender. Christ could give up His place as to manifested glory, and take upon Himself the form of a servant as man, for He was God.

We have to yield ourselves to God as those alive from the dead (and it is a blessed privilege of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free), because we have had a selfish will. But in neither case has it anything to do with worship. It may be sovereign grace, it may be duty, through sovereign grace towards us, never worship. Holy and innocent creatures have nothing to do with it. There may be in us a common source of both self-sacrifice and worship, God recovering His rights in the heart; but, save that, one has nothing to do with the other. But the writer's notion of sacrifice betrays his total ignorance of divine truth on these points, that conscience is wholly dead, and that darkness reigns in the mind. Gin, he tells us, did right in offering the fruits of the ground, only something else should be also offered. "This was right." . . . . "But this was not enough." (Page 304.)

367 God says to Cain, "If thou doest well shalt not thou be accepted?" but he was not accepted here, so that he did not do well. It is really monstrous, when it is written, "to Cain and to his offering God had not respect," to say, "this was right." Offering, worship, drawing near to God, is supposed not only possible, but right, only insufficient without redemption. It is a denial of all christian truth. There was no faith in it, as we know from Hebrews; no sense that they were excluded from paradise for sin, and could not, without redemption, draw near to God, and it slighted the appointed and needed sacrifice, instituted, our writer tells us, by God Himself; which I in no way dispute. He was bringing, so blinded in heart and conscience was he, the marks of the curse as an offering to God, and pretending to approach God in the very state in which God had driven out the man because he was in that state. In a word, an offering which proved that there was no faith, no sense of sin, no conscience of God's judgment executed against man, an entire passing by God's instituted and only way of coming back to Him — a state so really hardened as to bring the sign of the curse to God as an offering "was right."

Nothing can betray more completely the state of mind of the writer, his incompetency to speak on such a subject, than his declaring to be right what God had no respect to; what, if we examine its true character, was the demonstration of a hardened conscience and an utterly blinded heart, breaking out in open rebellion thereupon, and ultimate exclusion from the presence of the Lord, and a mark set upon him of perpetual memorial. We may reverently say, If his path was right, what was God's? But this is the expression of the great general principle of ritualism — incarnation, reuniting man to God, and sacraments an extension of that, leaving out the place redemption has in the truth of God according to the necessity of His nature and character. So sacrifice, we are told, means the act of offering or presenting an oblation before almighty God.

Now this very vague statement leaves all the truth untold. We can offer ourselves, everything, to God: our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God — not that this is worship; but must not Christ come first? That is the question. Can sinful man return to God without redemption? If not, if the nature and will and righteousness and holiness of God require this, so that if the Son took up our cause He must suffer and die, what makes sacrifice thus vague: an act of offering without bringing in redemption is high treason against Christ, apostasy from the only truth. Besides, after all, it is beguiling the English reader.

368 The word specifically rendered sacrifice (Zebach) comes from "to slay," and is in contrast with meat-offerings and burnt-offerings. When the sacrifices are instituted representing Christ, the burnt-offering comes first. Christ's offering Himself to death and the ἀναφέρειν, or offering up to God, was on the altar; there was the sweet savour, an offering made by fire. The testing, consuming judgment of God brought out only what was the delight of God.

The προσφορά was the presenting an oblation before God, and this though a first preliminary was not the sacrifice in the true sense of the word, nor could any offering of a sacrifice come after the sacrifice was made. The altar and fire were needed, or there was no sweet savour, no offering made by fire, and this was true of the Mincha or unbloody sacrifice, it was burnt on the altar and so became a sacrifice. It was presented to be one, but it was not one before that. There was no sweet savour till then.

It was not an Ishah, an offering made by fire, a sweet savour to the Lord, and this is always kept up. The two leavened cakes of Pentecost* were presented, but they could not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour. And these Minchas or meal-offerings, were offered with the other offerings; and as the burnt-offering shewed Christ's perfectness in death as an absolute offering to God, ever sinless, but now offered up, so the meal-offering shewed His perfectness unto death, the pure Man, born of the Spirit, anointed with the Spirit, all the frankincense of His grace going up to the Lord, finally burnt on the altar to God, but the food withal of the priests. In its own way death, the altar, the fire was as much brought in here as for the burnt-offering. No Christian doubts the perfectness, and perfect obedience of Christ all the way along, but here it became a sweet savour perfected on the altar of God. And the peace-offerings which witness communion, not simply the acting of Christ towards God, confirm this fully. The fat was burned to God, was the food of God, as expressed in Leviticus 3, before the flesh became the food of the offerer and his guests, and if this feeding on the flesh was too far removed from God's part in it, from the burning of the fat on the altar, it was iniquity not communion, the sacrifice on the altar, the work of redemption. The fire of God consuming the sacrifice or its fat, must be, for any sweet savour or any communion. It is this that ritualism is directed against. "The word 'sacrifice' means 'a presenting an oblation before almighty God."' This is, whose ever the sentence is, dishonesty or ignorance of divine things. There was no sweet savour but in offerings made by fire. Presenting it to God, was not the true sacrificial act, the sweet savour to God. There must for that be the hiktar as well as the hikriv, the ἀναφέρειν as well as the προσφέρειν; and in the only case where there was not this because of leaven, it was not a sweet savour to God. Further, when application of sacrifice to man was made, it always began with the sin-offering.

{*They surely represent us, not Christ. A sin-offering was offered with them.}

369 When it presents Christ abstractedly, the burnt-offering is first, then the Mincha, then the peace-offering, then the sin-offering. Christ was made this, made sin for us, but having become a man, all that He was for God as sacrifice, began with blood-shedding, and in every case its being burnt on the altar made it to be a sweet savour as an offering made by fire; but where there is application, that is, where man profits by it, the sin-offering comes first; till this is done there cannot be any other, no enjoyment of Christ as a perfect offering of sweet savour to God, for the sin-offering was not an offering for a sweet savour, though as a general rule the fat was burnt on the altar, for Christ was thus Himself perfect for God in that wherein He was made sin. Still for the sinner there must be the perfect putting away of sin by the work of the cross before he can enter into God's presence in the sweet savour of Christ's work. Redemption in the work,, redemption in application, must come first, before there can be any approach of a sinner to God, though God be love, yea, because He is so.

To say therefore that a sacrifice is the act of offering or presenting an oblation before almighty God is utterly false; for the presenting of the victim, the προσφορά did not make it a sacrifice at all, nor the presenting of the fine flour or cakes even. It was when ἀνήεγχε, when it had been offered up on the altar, that it became a sweet savour to God, a true sacrifice. It was not always a living creature, for there was a meal-offering added, Christ's perfect human nature and offering as born and anointed of the Spirit, but it was made by fire on the altar of God, or was no sacrifice. The whole paragraph (p. 302) ignores the true nature of sacrifice, though necessary for the system of the continual presenting of Christ on no altar at all. We are told Melchisedek offered bread and wine. This, however often repeated, is a mere fable. He brought forth bread and wine. There is no hint of a sacrifice, no sacrificial word. People may have repeated it till they believed it; but there is not a hint of it in the passage, but the contrary.

370 And so entirely excluded is redemption and the efficacious work of Christ by which it is wrought, in order to introduce this idle notion of Christ's sacrificial worship in heaven, so entirely is the value of His person as of the essence of true sacrifice ignored, that we are told that "the essence of sacrifice as such, that which has made it, and we can hardly doubt, by God's original primeval appointment, to be the chiefest and most important act of worship in every religion, whether patriarchal, Jewish, Gentile, or christian, is not the material thing offered, but the inward disposition of devout adoring homage, and perfect surrender and dedication of ourselves and our whole will and being to God, of which the outward sacrifice of the most precious of our material possessions is but the visible symbol and embodiment." (Page 302.) Now, could Christ made sin for us, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, the bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, be more completely ignored? That Christ through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, that He did blessedly give Himself up, surrender Himself and His will to God, is most true; but God made Him to be sin for us. The writer is speaking of devout and adoring homage, of an act of worship, so that Christ's sin-bearing sacrifice is wholly excluded; for however perfect His love to His Father, and giving Himself up to His glory, sin-bearing is not an act of worship, nor is enduring wrath. And could we speak of the material thing offered being comparatively immaterial where Christ offered Himself without spot to God? That His inward disposition was perfect no one doubts; but is it not evident that Christ was not in the thoughts of the writer when he wrote this passage? Yet he is treating of what is important in sacrifice and its true nature.

Now Christ's sacrifice is the only true key to all sacrifice developed in the law in figures, in all its parts and in its application; and here God's original, primeval appointment is referred to. This surely points to Christ. The certain difference of this was that it was the fat of lambs and not the fruit of the ground, on which, without redemption, the curse rested (compare too Gen. 8: 21), and if the covering the nakedness of Adam with skins was the occasion on which the divine appointment of sacrifice took place, as is very naturally thought by many thoughtful and learned Christians, the nature of sacrifice is plain. One thing is sure, the meat-offering, or Mincha, was an adjunct to other sacrifices and in itself is never called a sacrifice. And on such a subject scripture alone can be allowed to have any weight. If God appointed sacrifice, it is there it must be learned.

371 But though the connection of all true worship with sacrifice is evident from what I have said, and that it is founded on it, yet sacrifice is not worship. It is as a gift that it approaches the nearest to it, as bringing such a gift is a homage done to the majesty of God; but as a sacrifice it is not worship. There death, as meeting the righteous claims of God, comes in, and the fire of His judgment which tests the worthiness, or judges the guilt laid upon the victim; and this, in which God has the principal and essential part, is not worship. The προσφορά, or oblation for free-will offering, alone has at all this character. The moment it gets into the place of sacrifice, the altar of God, the testing fire of God is applied, His claims on that which is offered. And such an offering comes, so to speak, from without. It may be perfect. I need not say in Christ it was so, but as coming on the part of a rebellious race it must be tested by the majesty of God. "It became Him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." Coming for man, in behalf of man, He must be dealt with as the majesty and truth of God claimed. The result was to prove His absolute perfectness, but He was tested and tried. And He presents Himself as so coming, and this was true of the meat-offering, the Mincha, though not called a sacrifice.

Worship is the free adoration, and for us in the holiest, of those who have been brought nigh by sacrifice, who know God as love, who know Him as a Father who has sought in grace worshippers in spirit and in truth, and brought them in cleansed to do so. The worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. By one offering Christ had perfected them for ever, such is scripture truth (see Heb. 10.); and then they worship, adore, praise in the sense of perfect divine favour and a Father's love. They have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way He has consecrated for them through the veil. It is not that Christ is doing it in heaven actually in the triumphant church, and they on earth in the militant. They enter in spirit into the holiest, in heaven itself, to worship there; and hence a high priest made higher than the heavens was needed for them, because their worship is there. They do not offer the sacrifice in order to come in, they are within in virtue of the sacrifice.

372 And this is the place the symbols, of Christ's broken body and blood, have in worship. The worshippers are in spirit in heavenly places, Christ in spirit in their midst, as it is written, "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee," and they own and remember that blessed and perfect sacrifice by which they can so worship, by which they have entered in. Doubtless they feed on Christ in spirit; but that is not the point we are on now. The Christ that is represented in the Eucharist is a Christ with a broken body, and the cup is His shed blood, not a glorified Christ in heaven. It is His death, a broken body and the blood separated from it, life given up in this world, that is before us. We may in spirit eat also the old corn of the land — be occupied with a heavenly Christ, assuredly we may, and blessedly so; but that is not the Christ that is here. We eat His flesh and drink His blood, that is, separate from His body — not only the manna which is for the desert and ceased in Canaan, the bread that came down from heaven, but the additional and necessary truth of His death. Hence His going up is only spoken of in John 6 as an additional subsequent truth. We worship as belonging to heaven and own that by which we got there, that perfect blessed work which He, who could speak what He knew there, and testify what He had seen, could tell was needed that we might have the heavenly things, and not only tell but in infinite love, accomplished. But no such Christ as the one whose symbols lie before us in the Lord's supper exists now. It is specifically, solely, and emphatically, as a dead Christ that He is remembered there. They were to do that, that is, to use the emphatic symbols of His death, in remembrance of Him. Hence it is the centre of worship because hereby know I love, because He laid down His life for us. Here He glorified the Father for me, so that I can enter into the holiest. Then the veil was rent and the way opened; but here was the perfect work accomplished, by which I, as risen together with Him, can say I am not in the flesh. In the heavenly Christ I say, by the Holy Ghost, I am in Him and He in me. It is being of Him, being united to Him, He in our midst in grace. A dead Christ I remember. I do not, in the joy and glory in which I have a part through and with Him, forget that lonely work in which He bore the sorrow and drank the cup of wrath. I remember with touched affections the lowly rejected Christ, now that I am in heavenly places through His solitary humiliation. The offering Him up now is a presumptuous denial of Christianity. The remembering Him, that divine Person, in His solitary suffering and perfect love to His Father, is the most touching of christian affections, the basis and centre of all true worship, as the efficacy of the work wrought there alone admits us to worship at all. The drinking of the blood apart points it out as shed. We shew forth the Lord's death, emphatically, not a glorified Christ, but we do so as associated with Him the glorified Man, who Himself purged our sins, remembering with thankful hearts how we got there, and, above all, Him who gave Himself up that we might.

373 It is a singular instance of Satan's power which Romish superstition has occasioned among those who have carried the eucharistic sacrifice to its full extent: the cup is denied to the laity. To comfort them under this, they are assured that the body, blood, soul and divinity, a whole Christ, is contained under both species, that is, in the bread and in the wine. But if the blood be still in the body, there is no redemption. It is a Christ as living on earth which is celebrated, when He had shed no blood to redeem us. It is a sacrament of non-redemption.

I understand these ritualists being angry with Archdeacon Freeman for having presented this view, though he be as ritualist as they could wish; but it is as evident as truth can make it, to anyone who respects the truth, that it is a Christ sacrificed, a Christ who has died, a body broken and blood shed, which is celebrated in the Eucharist, and (false as the essayist's Greek may be in it) his testimony confirms it, for he makes it, My body now being given (or broken), My blood now being shed. If so, it is not a living glorified Christ, but a dying and in real truth a dead Christ, for the blood is clearly presented as shed, and to be drunk apart. But they also see clearly that in this case it can be no carrying on an offering now, as Christ does in heaven, for there is no dead Christ there, no body broken or being broken, and they see clearly enough that this view of Archdeacon Freeman upsets the real presence, for there is no such Christ to be present nor can we think of a dead Christ present thus perpetually in the Eucharist.

374 Finally, the Christian's giving up what he has is not worship, nor is it what an intelligent Christian does. He yields himself to God as alive from the dead, and his members as instruments of righteousness. It is giving himself up to God for service, not worship. Nor is it giving up self, self-surrender. That is surely our part, but that is departing from the wickedness of selfwill, from possessing ourselves in will, in spite of God. That is given up when conversion arrives. The Christian has the privilege, when freed by grace, of yielding himself to God, to be the instrument of His will. That is another thing; but, though a just homage to God, neither is it worship. This is adoration and praise to God for what He has done, and what he is, as standing in His perfect favour in Christ, and in the consciousness of it by the Holy Ghost owning Christ's work as that through the perfect efficacy of which we are brought there; and hence the place of the Eucharist in worship, as we have seen, the memorial of His death, of His having died for us, and the truth it refers to, whether actually celebrating it or not, awakening withal every affection which refers to His love and perfect work.

Our essayist admits Christ to be the one only great High Priest, and all Christians to be priests. And the special priesthood which offers Christ as a sacrifice on the eucharistic altar, we are told, belongs to that "view of christian worship. And that without trenching in the least, when rightly understood, on either of those two cognate truths, the sole and unique priesthood of the one true Priest, Jesus Christ, or the common priesthood of all christian people." (Page 301.) But I can find no explanation of why it does not, nor proof of this third kind of priesthood. Not one word is condescended on the subject. He enlarges with a strange jumble of truth and error on the two first kinds of priesthood, and then says (p. 302), "the special functions of the ordained priest, which distinguish him alike from the deacon and layman." But how we get this priesthood, or what is its authority, whence derived, by whom instituted, where found in scripture, not a word is uttered.

Everyone knows that priest is a corruption of presbyter, or elder; but as to what made elder into a priest, in the modern sense, we are left wholly in the dark. There are three priesthoods — Christ's, all Christians, and ordained priests. Where is this found? These poor christian priests, of whom scripture speaks, are quite incompetent to perform the "functions of the ordained priests." (Page 302.) But where are the three found? If Christ has given to all of us His own titles of kings and priests to God and His Father, how comes it that we cannot do what God's priests have to do? and that another kind of priest, never hinted at in scripture, is to represent Christ in what is alleged to be the solemn act of priesthood, but that those, whom God has made kings and priests — given Christ's titles, cannot? How comes it that He has named the sacrifices which His priests are to offer (that they are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ), but that He never mentions that as a sacrifice which the priests He never names are to offer? That He is perfectly silent as to both; yet we are to believe that God's priests are laymen, and those that He has not named are, after all, exclusively priests who have supplanted them? Is all this not very strange? Is it not very like an invention? Is it not an invention of man, or Satan? The result being an offering of Jesus Christ now, denying the value of His one offering of Himself once for all, and the solemn declaration founded on it, that there is no more offering for sin; yet there is, according to these men, and a sacrifice and a propitiatory sacrifice.

375 If a propitiation is needed now, Christianity is not true. The allegation that it is said He is, not was, the propitiation for our sins, is but poor sophistry. That the value of the propitiation is constant and eternally so is quite true; but for that very reason He is not offering a propitiatory sacrifice now, because He did it once on the cross.

But sacrifice, we are told, is the central and important word; and it is alleged that 1 Corinthians 10 is a proof that the Eucharist must be one, for it is compared to the idol sacrifices. But it is no such thing; the passage proves just the contrary. It is eating of the sacrifice which it is compared with, and the writer of the article is drawing our attention from that to its being itself a sacrifice. Every true Christian admits, of course, Christ to have been the true sacrifice; and the passage insists that the priests, who eat of the altar (ver. 18), were partakers with the altar; but it was their eating, not their sacrificing, which did this. It was the same with the Gentiles: they eat of the sacrifices; so of Christians: they eat at the Lord's table. But in no case was it the sacrifice itself which is spoken of, but of feeding on what had been sacrificed. In a word, the passage shews that the Spirit and word of God look at it as a feeding on what had been sacrificed, and not as a sacrifice. It teaches the contrary of that which the writer insists on, in a way than which nothing can be plainer.

376 It is not very material to our present subject, but the vulgar error of Christ's being the ladder on which angels descend, uniting heaven and earth, being repeated here, I notice it. Christ has Jacob's place, not the ladder's. Jacob was at the foot of the ladder, and these messengers were coming down and going up from God to him, and from him to God. Now the Son of man was to be the object. God's angels would have the Son of man for the object of their service from an open heaven. There is no ladder thought of. Christ, the Son of man, is the object. Nathaniel had recognized Him as Son of God, King of Israel, according to Psalm 2. Christ carries him on to His title in Psalm 8 (being rejected), and says he would see greater things than that, even heaven open, and the Son of man the object of the service of the angels, of God Himself.

I have pretty much examined the material points of this article, though I have passed over many objectionable passages; but the great principle is what is in question — the continuous offering of a propitiatory sacrifice, and that in heaven by Christ, and on earth by the priest in the Eucharist; and, further, what is involved in it, the nature of worship. Sacrifice is that by which we approach to God as coming from without; worship, adoration, and praise, when we have got within. The Jewish temple-service had the character of sacrifice in general, because they could not go within, the Holy Ghost signifying by the unrent veil that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest. But we pass through the rent veil into the holiest, and worship there as in the holiest. Knowing withal God as our Father, we recognize — remember with adoring thankfulness — that sacrifice, that rending of the veil, that breaking of the body, that shedding of the blood, through which we can so enter, purged from all our sins and reconciled to God. Christ is in the midst of two or three gathered in His name, but it is a living Christ in spirit, not His body broken and shed blood. Having Him in our midst in spirit, we celebrate His precious death; we do this in remembrance of Him. We cannot have a dead Christ in our midst; and, above all, we cannot have both a dead and a living One.

377 Let it fully be remarked that expiatory sacrifice (p. 304) is only added to the precious unbloody sacrifice and worship. Hence, we have seen, it is stated that Cain was right, only wrong in neglecting the other. "This was not enough." Christianity teaches that the sinner cannot come at all but by a true atoning sacrifice; the offering of Cain was the neglect, was the denial, of that. It is said God accepted Abel's repentance and faith. Scripture does not say so. He accepted Abel, bore witness that he was righteous on the ground of his gift (Heb. 11); and (whatever the homage paid) acceptance and the enjoyment of divine favour is the fruit of sacrifice, not worship. And so we see in Leviticus: our High Priest must be one higher than the heavens. As Priest He is separated from us, acting for us, not amongst us. This is certain in all priesthood. The statement that all He did from the moment when He said, "This is my body," to the moment when He said, "It is finished," was one long, continuous, sacrificial, action (p. 305), is necessarily false. First, His surrender of all to God, so far as true was always perfect, the sacrifice was always "made in purpose and in intention." So far as it was a special act, it was in Gethsemane, as the Lord's agonizing prayer demonstrates, and the discourses in John 14, 15, 16 are in no sense sacrificial. The priest had, in ordinary sacrifices, nothing to do with the offering till the blood was shed; he received that, and sprinkled it on the altar. The προσφορά was not a priestly act at all, and this προσφορά (oblation) is what we have, even on the writer's own shewing, before us here.

In the great day of atonement the priest confessed the people's sins on the head of the scape-goat, as representing a guilty people, not as between them and God as priest, but as high priest standing in the place of them all to make their confession. He stood as the guilty person, inasmuch as he represented the people. So did Christ on the cross. He offered Himself, through the Eternal Spirit, without spot to God, to be the victim. God made the spotless One to be sin for us. Except as thus representing the guilty people, the priest did not slay the victim; and the offering a victim or himself to God was quite another thing. In no case was the offering of a victim, or surrender of self to God, a priestly act. The statement (p. 307), that "the act of offering or presenting a victim is a sacrifice," is simply a blunder; this was done by the one who offered the victim, not by the priest. I notice these things to clear the ground by scripture statements; the confusion of the author, by his ignorance of the whole subject, making the analysis of all his statements an unprofitable labour. I have already said a προσφορά, after the victim had been offered (ἀναφέρεσθαι) on the altar, is a thing unknown in sacrifice. We read again: "As the most holy body and blood of Christ, the alone acceptable victim to make our peace with God, are offered . . . ." (p. 308.) Now He has made peace by the blood of His cross. All this subverts Christianity.

378 In result, the propositions of the author are that Christ is to be adored with the profoundest homage in the Eucharist. Secondly, there is "the solemn pleading . . . . of that once-sacrificed body and blood for ourselves . . . . as our only hope of pardon, reconciliation, and grace." (Page 315.) As to the last, I have spoken of it. We are pardoned, we are reconciled, we stand in grace, if Christianity be true. This theory is not Christianity but denies it. The former proposition requires a little attention.

That Christ is to be adored, every true Christian cordially accepts; but the sting is in the tail, "wherever he is." His body and blood, it is alleged, are in the Eucharist. He is where His body and blood are (p. 315), and, consequently, He is to be adored in the Eucharist. It is the common argument for idols; the divinity is present there. In death, though Godhead may hold its title over the body, nor suffer it to see corruption, yet the soul was separate from the body, or it was not death.

The Eucharist, let them say what they will, is a symbol and sign of the dead Christ — a broken body and shed blood. Christ is personally in heaven. He is present in spirit in the congregation; as He expresses it, "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." Do they mean to say that He, though in our midst, leads us to worship the signs of what He was when dead? That His body is now to come down from heaven to be broken (for that is what is done in the Eucharist)? and that He returns into life before death to be broken and His blood shed (for that they avow is what was doing when He instituted the Eucharist)? Christ's place, if we speak of "where" as to Him, is in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, nowhere else. God has said, "Sit at my right hand till," and there accordingly He sits, nor will He leave it till the time appointed of the Father. Is He present alive in the bread before it is broken, and then does He go through death, there symbolized by the broken bread and the wine to be drunk? If so, then His soul is separated from His body. Or is He not present then, that is, before breaking the bread, but only after His body is broken and His blood shed? Then it is not He in any sense who is given and His blood shed. I can understand well that such inquiries offend them, as they talk of the devout and simple affections of faith. Reverence is our place, the right spirit to be in when one thinks of the blessed One given for us. But if they invent false and erroneous views, which pervert the truth, which pretend to bring Christ down from heaven, when God has said to Him, as to His person and glorified body, "Sit at my right hand," it is right to put questions which have no irreverence for Christ, but expose the fallacy of their views, which shew that it is a false pretended Christ of their own imagination — that there can be no such Christ, for He is glorified in heaven, and not now broken and shedding His blood on earth, nor ever will again. If death is symbolized, and partaking of Him in that character — and it certainly and evidently is so — there is no such Christ now. He is alive for evermore. In death His soul was separated from His body. It is not so separated now. It is of faith (the moment you use a circumscribed 'where') to say He is in heaven, and nowhere else, till He rise up from the throne of God — "whom the heavens must receive till the time of the restitution of all things of which the prophets have spoken."

[END OF DOCTRINAL VOL. 4]

Address to his Roman Catholic brethren by a minister of the Gospel.

J. N. Darby.

<18001E> 1

Brethren — The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ would ever make to whom it was given anxious to declare it to others. I have been deeply anxious concerning you from the day I came amongst you; and as I did not know how to leave the labour I was engaged in to turn to you, I cannot but see the hand of God in thus taking me from it for a while. I shall be glad to discharge in some measure my conscience towards you; but I desire to do much more, making known to you the riches and power of God's redeeming love.

You all know how carefully you have been kept and warned from intercourse with those who have been anxious to bring the word of God amongst you, and to shew you what the Spirit of God has taught us concerning the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are taught to look upon them as heretics, as if we were not in the right faith at all. I shall make no observation on these things, for the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has taught us in His word, and teaches the heart of every real disciple, that the true and only answer to these charges, and this prejudice which they put into your hearts against us is the exercise of unwearied patience and love towards you; and this is our duty, brethren; and I pray God to enable His servants ever thus to walk, that you may see the sincerity of our hearts towards you in love.

I shall now proceed to set before you those blessed truths of the gospel, which we hold as the refuge and salvation of our souls. If you refuse altogether to inquire into them, I beg of you only to consider on what ground you will justify yourself, if God shall call you in question for having despised His truth. Brethren, my heart's desire to God for you is, that you might know the peace and power of the gospel of Christ which is kept from you. No other enmity have I against those who keep you in darkness but this, that they deprive you of the gospel. Would to God they would hear it, and not be heaping up judgment for themselves against the day of wrath! Would to God they would! Gladly and thankfully would every zealous Christian see their work ended by those who exercise authority over you themselves ministering the gospel, joined in one mind with us in furthering the glory of the Saviour, and our common hopes; but while they will not, it is the bounden duty of every one to whom the grace of the gospel has been committed, so far as he is afforded opportunity, nay, to seek opportunity, to warn you earnestly that you are kept in darkness, and to hold up the gospel before you, that you may see the light. It is a work of unfeigned love, and I beseech you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to receive it so.

2 I join with my whole heart those who urge the reading of the scriptures; and I do not conceal from you, that I judge it the manifest work of Satan to keep them from you, and the proof of the power of Antichrist; and all the history of the church shews me this. But I shall not enter on this now. I shall first plainly state the blessed gospel, in the hope that, by the blessing of God, its glory and its grace may reach some soul; and that, if any amongst you be mourning over their sin, they may find the perfect comfort it was meant to give; and I shall then shew you, that that in which the priests make their boast over us is an invention only tending to rob Christ of His glory, and you of your comfort, and, I must add, to keep you in sin and impenitence. Forgive me this, brethren. Would to God I had opportunity of simply stating the gospel to you, and you had ears to hear it with desire. Little need I then trouble you or myself with opposing what is contrary to it. But if your souls are endangered by it, is it anything but kindness to shew you your danger?

I say then, brethren, that the Lord Jesus, by the one sacrifice of Himself once offered, has totally and eternally put away sin, so that it shall never be imputed at all to those that believe on Him, and that every repentant sinner who comes to Him is justified from all things, is accepted of God in Christ, with all the love He bears towards the Lord Jesus, for whose sake He does so accept us; that the glorious love of Almighty God has provided this deliverance for sinners who could not help themselves. You can understand, my friends, what comfort it would give to a soul really burthened and distressed with sin, who would earnestly desire favour and acceptance with God, against whom he had offended, to find that God Himself had freely put it all away and blotted it out. And He has, if you will believe the Son of God and His Spirit speaking by the apostles — He has so loved us while we were sinners, as to give "his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"; so that, being justified by faith in Him, we should have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of His glory. And it is Satan's own work to deny this — to say that God did not so love us — that Christ's sacrifice was not sufficient to put away sin — that His blood, through faith in it, does not cleanse from all sin. Brethren, what you want for your peace is to have your conscience cleansed from sin against God; and this the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, once slain for us, alone can do — and can do altogether. How much more, says the apostle, shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered Himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God, Heb. 9: 14.

3 Brethren, I beseech you to lay this to heart. Has the Son of God left the glory of His Father, and given His life for you, and will you say, I will not accept your freely offered love, I will not believe that you have wrought a full and perfect salvation for me? And if you do not believe that Christ has altogether and perfectly justified you from your sin by His death, you deprive yourself of all the hope of the gospel. For if you are not at peace with God, you can never have the hope of His glory; and if you are not perfectly justified from sin, it is impossible you can be at peace with God; nay, more, you can never serve God here with a free and willing mind, which is the only acceptable service. For if you do not know but that God is still angry with you, if you are still afraid of Him, your service will be no real service, you will go on working in misery, in hope of gaining His favour. And this is what every sincere Roman Catholic is doing, adding work to work, in hope of turning away the anger of God, and gaining His favour; but this is all in vain, and really a great dishonour to God. God is love, and He has proved it by sending His Son to die for you, while you were in your sins. How freely, how devotedly, would you be able to serve God if you knew that He loved you, and had done such wonderful things for you, and that you were fully accepted! And He has, my friends, or we should all have perished eternally.

Oh! that you knew this; oh! that you would believe this, that you might know the comfort and the joy that there is in believing. And how is all this? By the sacrifice of Christ, the one great atonement for sin, the one glorious shewing forth of the love of God to sinners, so that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, as Paul says, or as our Lord Himself says, "He who heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath life everlasting, and cometh not into judgment, but is passed from death to life," John 5: 24.

4 "By one oblation," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, "he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb. 10: 14.

And what, on the denial of this, is promised instead, in which you boast yourselves? The pretended absolution of your priests and the sacrifice of the mass.

The effect of these is not to bring the conscience to God, that it might feel the depth of heart sin against Him, and seek for cleansing pardon and renewal of soul through the blood of the cross, and the power of the Spirit of God — but by relieving your conscience at the moment from the fear it was under, to leave you at liberty to go on sinning again. But, my friends, need I solemnly warn you, do not your own consciences tell you, that this is an impious delusion? It takes away the fears of the wicked man, so as to let him go on in his sins, and leaves the poor humbled penitent with his conscience as burthened as ever; and because they are sincere in their sorrow for sin, some additional burthen of penance put upon them. Oh! is this like the grace of God, or the truth of His love? Brethren, if anything would rouse Christian indignation to what is called religion amongst you, it is to see the wicked thus let go free, and still more, the heaping sorrow upon a contrite heart, putting them off with penances, which in their sincerity they will rigidly fulfil, without one ray of that comfort which the blessed God delights to give the humble. "For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." But I tell the unrepenting sinners, they miserably deceive themselves, and they, and those that deceive them, shall find judgment for. their iniquity; and I tell the humbled and contrite in the Lord's name, Fear not, Christ has died for you, God Himself has justified you: there is free and perfect remission by the death of Him who was delivered for your offences. Nay, more, the same Jesus who died for you is now at the right hand of God, making intercession for you; able, as the apostle says, "to save them for ever that come to God by him, always living to make intercession for us."

5 And this is another point where the great and tender love of God has been hid from you, I mean the mediation of Christ. You are led to look at Christ as a severe judge, or an unapproachable Lord, as if we had need of a mediator to come to Him by; but let the humble soul remember that He is, through the infinite grace of God and His own love, man as well as God. Did He not prove to us, that He was ready, nay, desirous to receive all that come to Him, by becoming one of ourselves, though without sin? For what did He pass through suffering and trial in the flesh, but to enter into all our sufferings with us, to understand them all, that they who believe might feel they had a friend who knew thoroughly all our wants and trials? or will they say He has left off to feel for those for whom He suffered so much, nay, whom He purchased at so costly a price? Brethren, I beseech your attention to this. The very glory of the gospel, the way in which it has pleased the Father to glorify Himself and His Son Jesus Christ, is by the Son's becoming mediator between God and man; and for this purpose, as the apostle speaks, He became man. He acquainted Himself with all the trials of those whom He redeemed to be His brethren, and whom He ever looks at as such, that He might succour them in all their difficulties; Heb. 2: 11. The words of the apostle are these: "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren"; and again, "Behold I and my children whom God hath given me." "Therefore, because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself also in like manner hath been partaker of the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil. Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that wherein he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted."

And it is not merely argument we have for these things: I quoted to you above, He was declared to be "always living to make intercession for us"; but the apostle is plainer still.

"Having therefore a great high priest, that hath passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession; for we have not a high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid." In short, brethren, what could our hearts desire more, than that One who so loved us as to give His life for us — one who has a perfect sense and tender feeling for all our wants, by having felt them Himself — should be now exercising that love for us at the right hand of the Father? And so John — "But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just, and he is the propitiation for our sins." Acquaint yourselves with the love and gracious tenderness of our glorified Lord. Taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Dishonour Him not in denying His willingness to receive you, as though He were a consuming fire; He is not except to those who deny Him.* The Lord, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, has not changed in love since He said, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Open your hearts before Him, ye that seek for mercy; if He redeemed you when you were enemies by sin, how much more will He receive you now that He has reconciled you! But having gone on to say so much for the humble soul, I return to the sacrifice and priesthood.

{*[This the author would no doubt put differently now; for "our God," it is written, "is a consuming fire." Still the truth intended abides untouched. The believer stands in His grace and shall never perish, though all his inventions perish under the consuming judgment of God, just because He who is holy and righteous loves him perfectly. — Ed.]}

6 Some, I know, totally to their. own confusion, deny that Christ has thus perfectly delivered the conscience of believers, by putting away sin for them by the sacrifice of Himself. But, perhaps, some of you will say, who denies it? I answer as to the comfort of your consciences, as to the faith of the soul in it, it is utterly denied to you; and your consciences in consequence kept in bondage.

Christ, the Spirit of God has declared, has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself: if He has, what need of any other sacrifices? He hath made an end of sin, says Daniel, and brought in everlasting righteousness. But in your sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sin as not put away; for if Christ has reconciled us to God, and expiated sin for us, what is the repeated sacrifice for? Does it not directly and expressly take away from the glory of His sacrifice, and say it was not enough, that it was insufficient? And while it robs Christ of His glory, as if He had not reconciled us to God, it deprives us of our comfort by declaring His sacrifice insufficient to clear our consciences. And mark the utter folly of such a thought. As if the sacrifice which the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself in the shedding of His blood by the eternal Spirit was insufficient to put away sin, or to cleanse our consciences by faith in it, but the sacrifice which men offer without blood does that which the former did not do!

7 Ah! brethren, why will you be kept from the faith of the Son of God once dying for us?

I further shew you, that it is contrary to express testimony of the Spirit of God: not merely as to the sacrifice, but as to their claim of being priests, and that both one and the other are in fact a denial of Christianity. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (chap. 7: 22) the Spirit of God thus testifies, "By so much is Jesus Christ made a surety of a better testament; and the others [referring to the Jewish priests] indeed were made many priests, because by reason of death they were not suffered to continue; but this [that is, Christ as a priest], for that he continueth for ever, hath an everlasting priesthood, whereby he is able also to save for ever them that come to God by Him, always living to make intercession for us, for it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the people's; for this he did once in offering himself." Now, brethren, if you feel any interest in how you may rightly come to God, if this be the express teaching of the Spirit of God, is not the claim of priesthood, and the offering of sacrifice, which is the proper office of a priest (Heb. 5: 1), directly opposed to the truth of the gospel, and the mind of the Holy Ghost?

It is fitting, that we Christians should have a High Priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily to offer sacrifices, for this He did once in offering Himself. What room does this leave to one who believes in it, that accepts the mercies of God in His Son, set forth by the Holy Ghost, to look for constantly repeated sacrifices, and a multitude of priests on earth? For if that which the Holy Ghost declares to be fitting has been done, as it certainly has, there can be no truth in that which is contrary to it; and supporting the earthly priesthood and sacrifice is not only against the honour, but is really a denial, of the sacrifice and priesthood of the Lord Jesus our Saviour; which is the hope, the support, the comfort of every believer in Him, and the blessed earnest of their being with Him in glory, seeing, as the apostle speaks, Jesus, in entering into the heavens, has entered for us as a forerunner.

8 In a word, Jesus Christ is the Priest of the Christian church and its sacrifice; nor is there the least ground whatever given by God, for any man to assume the character of a priest, that is a sacrificer; and whoever does it, does it on his own authority and in opposition to God and His Christ.

The repetition of the sacrifice shews its total inefficiency to cleanse the conscience from sin. By this the apostle shews the inefficacy of the Jewish sacrifices, and afterwards asserts that to which I would earnestly entreat your attention, as the great centre of truth in this matter; I mean, the perfect remission of sins wrought for believers by the death of Christ. Speaking of the sacrifices under the law, he says (Heb. 10: 1), "the law by the self-same sacrifice which they offer continually every year can never make the comers thereunto perfect, for then they would have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers once purged would have no conscience of sin any longer; but in them there is made a commemoration of sins every year"; and then v. 10, "In the which will" (that is, of God) "we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once." And again, v. 12, "But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God." And again vv. 14-18, "For by one oblation He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified; and the Holy Ghost doth also testify this to us; for after that He said, And this is the testament which I make unto them after those days, saith the Lord, I will give my laws in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now, where there is remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin."

So that, my friends, either there is not remission of sins by Jesus Christ, or there is no more oblation for sin; and if the Holy Ghost hath testified truly that there is remission of sins by Jesus Christ, and that the sins and iniquities of those within His testament are remembered no more, then the sacrifice which you pretend to offer for sin is false, and not merely a harmless error, but one amounting to a denial of the remission of sins by Jesus Christ, the preaching of which in His name was the great commission given to the apostles; Luke 24: 47.

9 I shall copy another passage without any observation. I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what is said. The apostle had said (Heb. 9: 22), "Without shedding of blood is no remission of sins," and then (v. 24), "For Jesus is not entered into the holiest made with hands, the patterns of the true, but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies every year with the blood of others, for then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world; but now once at the end of ages he hath appeared for the destruction of sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment; so also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many, the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation."

In a word my friends (Rom. 5: 19), "as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one man many shall be made just." And I solemnly warn you, in the name of Him who shall judge the quick and the dead, that if you are not partakers in the righteousness of Christ, you have no hope in you: all your works are vain delusions, unacceptable, nay, an abomination to God; they can give you no peace, nor have they any fruit unto life eternal, while you despise the work which God has Himself wrought in the gift of His own Son.

Brethren, brethren, my heart's desire would be to preach the gospel simply to you, and not touch — why should I desire it? — upon those things in which you are kept in error: my own hope and comfort, and, through the mercy of God, my joy too (blessed for ever be His holy name, who hath called me in His mercy to the faith of His Son), is in the knowledge of the perfect and gracious salvation wrought by Jesus Christ, so that all fear is taken from him that believes; and in the knowledge we are given of the glory of the Lord, of God our Saviour in it. Of this I earnestly desire that you may be partakers: we are all equally unworthy of it. It is free grace to all. The prayer of my soul is offered up to God for you, that through that grace you may be brought to the knowledge of salvation by faith in Christ Jesus. But, brethren, it is an awful time for you. Your errors in ignorance would be freely forgiven and put out of remembrance, if you repent and believe the gospel: but judgment comes upon those, who, when "light is come into the world, love darkness rather than light," John 3: 19. Read the whole chapter down to this. The fear of men will be no excuse in that day; for if you had thought rightly of God, you would rather have feared Him. I have anxiously, according to the grace given me, thought of the state you are in, and the testimony of the Spirit of God in His word concerning you, and I earnestly and solemnly entreat you to consider it in your own souls, to examine what real ground you have for hope of acceptance, which you know God sanctions; you will see you have none, and that the rejection of the gospel now declared to you is the rejection of your salvation.

10 You are in the extremity of danger, where you are, of being involved in the judgment which shall fall upon those who, from wilful corruption of the truth, will have their portion appointed with unbelievers. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

May God Almighty, by the power of the Spirit of truth, deliver you from the power of darkness, and lead you into all truth, that you may know the glory of His grace, whereby He has made us accepted in the Beloved, and give you a place in the fold of the great Shepherd, who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and liveth for evermore, our great and merciful High Priest.

Your affectionate friend and servant in Christ Jesus.

* * *

I have purposely refrained from controverting errors, but you will find all those things which are peculiar to your system tend to the robbing Christ of His glory, and the denial of the completeness of His work; and this, if any wish, can be shewn them. Where I have made any direct quotations, I have quoted from the Douay version to satisfy you. In your translation and ours the sense was the same.

Second Address to his Roman Catholic brethren

by a minister of the Gospel.

J. N. Darby.

<18002E> 11

Men and brethren,

I consider often within myself, when I write these things to you, what motive have I for doing it? And if you can find any but love to Christ and your souls, that, by the truth, coming to Christ, you may find the holy liberty of Christian obedience, then blame me. I consider further — Is the way in which I do it according to the will of God and the Spirit of Jesus Christ? If you can shew me that in any thing it is not, I will acknowledge it with sorrow.

In my intercourse with you I am conscious of no fault, unless it be not having spoken the truth to you in love sooner: I pray you to forgive me this. I will endeavour to repair it towards you.

Yet is it in no righteousness of my own, brethren, I am, or seek to be justified, but in the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ. I know that some of you count me to have turned your enemy, because I tell you the truth — shew me wherein. It is because I love you and would have you to know the blessings of Christ's grace, that I am willing to sacrifice my good name amongst you, that I may win your souls for Christ. That is my whole and sole desire: my allegiance is to Christ; the rule of my faith, the word of the living God. My object is in no way to gain proselytes to any outward human system, but to bring you (if God will please to accept and bless my humble endeavour), in the acknowledgment of sin, to the truth of God, and the pure faith of the gospel, your souls to a hearty confession of it unto salvation, and your lives unto the way of His will, and the rejection of every thing that is contrary to it.

Here, brethren, I find the rest of my own soul, which was once as far from God and consequently without hope as any of you, till I found the good Shepherd, Christ Jesus, who gave His life for the sheep, and has gathered me, as I trust undoubtingly, into His fold, and whose best and proper mercy and grace I count it, till He gather me to Himself, or rather while we wait for His appearing, to be the humble instrument of gathering others into the same place of security and blessing.

12 I am led to some of these remarks by the little book called "Reasons which Roman Catholics offer why they cannot conform to the Protestant religion." I shall make some observations on these, in the hope that they may lead you to inquire diligently on what ground the hope of your souls rests. One reason given is the impossibility of the church of Christ erring from the true faith; and I know this weighs much with many sincere persons amongst you. Now brethren, I freely admit this; for rightly understood as to the true church, it is a self-evident truth; for this reason, that where there is no true faith, there could be no church, for the church thus understood is properly an assembly of believers, that is, of people that have a true faith. And I further freely admit, as the promise on which my souls rests, that from Christ's first coming in the flesh, till His second coming in His glory, there undoubtedly has been and will be such a company of believers; and this company of believers are all witnesses to the faith, and maintain in and to the world the profession of faith, and thus the honour of the Redeemer's name. And this is what Paul means by the church of God being the pillar and ground of the faith. And my assurance of this, which makes me full of joy and gratitude, is rested on the promise of God in His word (and its actual fulfilment at this day), and, amongst others, on the very texts given in the little book I have mentioned: so that they are proving what I joyfully confess and praise God for. And more, brethren, I say that it is the church of Christ who have the only hope of salvation; so that this is not the question between us at all. The question is, who is able to say that he is in that church, and keeping the sayings of the great Head of it? So that they should shew, which they do not, and it is absolutely impossible that they should do, that the church of Rome, and none else, is the church of Christ. On the contrary, brethren, I affirm, and I call upon you to search the scriptures whether it be so or not, that every true believer is a member of Christ, that is, one of His true church; as the Lord Christ says Himself, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman."*

{*John 15: 1. [This use of the text the author would no doubt correct now; as the branches in the vine do not mean members of Christ's body however truly most of these branches became so. — Ed.]}

And here I think I am bound to notice an argument which is given publicly amongst you, and which I heard also from one of yourselves, and that is this — "If you say that every one that is a true believer in Christ will be saved, why may I not stay in the church of Rome and still be saved by being a true believer; especially as your divines say that a man can be saved as a Roman Catholic, and we say that he cannot be safe as a Protestant?"

13 Now I must say, that this is not the objection of one that fears God, for such an one seeks with a willing heart what the whole will of God is; and does not say, if I am safe here, why should I not stay? And, brethren, I should have awful fears for the safety of a soul that should wilfully use this argument at all, instead of seeking to follow Christ with all his heart, in whatever He shewed him to do. It is the spirit of a true believer to say, "Lo, we have left all and followed thee";* so that a person cannot be safe wilfully continuing in that which is contrary to the truth and will of God, for every true believer takes the will of God as the rule of all he does. Hence if a man continues in what he sees to be contrary to it, he is not a true believer. And I honestly confess to you, that this seems to me not only an unsound but a very wicked argument.

{*Luke 18: 28.}

The reason then, why it does behove men to separate themselves from the communion of the church of Rome, is this one, given by our Lord Himself, that they make the word of God void, and that their worship is vain, because they teach for doctrines the commandments of men.* You say you hold the fundamentals; if you do, this proves nothing, for, as James says, "The devils believe and tremble."** The question in which your souls are concerned is — Have you believed the gospel of the Son of God with the heart unto righteousness?***

{*Matthew 15: 6.}

{**James 2: 19.}

{***A true believer is a person who, by the power of God's Spirit, has been brought to accept the offer of divine grace in Christ Jesus, and to rest the hope of his soul in His death and mediation, in the sense of his own sin and of Christ's all-sufficiency; and a person cannot rest the hope of his soul on this, and at the same time trust in other things, as the Virgin Mary, Penance, Absolution, the Mass, being of the Roman Catholic Church, and the like, resting the hope of his soul in them.}

But our Lord declares that there is such a thing as making void the commandments of God by traditions: it was this very thing that our Lord charged upon the Jewish teachers. You boast in traditions: should not this sentence of our Lord's teach you to reflect on such a boast? And accordingly, what is looked for from a Roman Catholic who desires to become a Protestant is to renounce those doctrines and commandments which have no warrant in the word of God, avowing his faith in that which is found there, and to receive the word of God as the warrant of his faith, and Christ Himself as the only hope of his soul. And the name of "Protestant" was received from protesting against practices contrary to His will and goodness — against laying on men's consciences the burthen of things which God had not laid, and thereby keeping them from the knowledge of the exceeding riches of God's grace in His kindness towards us by Christ Jesus, and thus making Him seem to men a hard Master, instead of a tender Father to those that believe in Him. As the scripture says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you."* Again, "Every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."**

{*Deuteronomy 4: 2.}

{**Proverbs 30: 5, 6.}

14 They teach things, brethren, which have no warrant in the word of God, and (by offering remedies for sin which God has not offered, and therefore will not accept) prevent men from being led to true repentance and faith in Christ Jesus for remission of sins and salvation, which is expressly offered by God as the remedy for sin, and the only one. There is therefore in the present doctrines of the church of Rome no real remission of sins at all; and not only so, but it is expressly denied. And they say that the doctrine which God has set forth in His word about it tends — dreadful thought — to sin! The doctrines they teach, and the character they assume — I speak it, brethren, with deep sorrow — directly dishonour the Lord that bought us with the price of His own most precious blood, by assuming to themselves the honour and authority which belong to Him alone, whose glory is the believer's satisfaction.

They teach and command things which have not only no warrant, but are in truth contrary to the word of God.

You who have ears to hear are called upon by the voice of the Lord's love to separate yourselves from them, that you may find the true grace and truth of the gospel for your soul, and lest the judgment and plagues which will come upon them for these things should find you amongst them, and fall upon you also.

15 Brethren, I presume not to say when that hour of judgment will come. It will come suddenly and with terror upon those who have lived carelessly and at ease, saying, We shall see no sorrow, we are safe. But I could, brethren, earnestly desire to see you, having believed the testimony of God, watching as men prepared for your Lord, as those that are of the day, so that it should not come upon you unawares, but "when these things begin to come to pass," you may be among those who shall "lift up their heads, because their redemption draweth nigh"; who have put their trust in Christ, and the promises of God in Him, so that, when He appears, ye may rejoice before Him with exceeding joy. Oh! how differently will that man feel, who has trusted in His word and promise and acted upon faith in Him alone, when He shall appear, from one, who not relying upon His word that He would save all that trust in Him, has trusted n his own works, has put his hope in man and man's word and man's work.

Look unto Him, I beseech you, that cares for your souls, while He calls, "Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found, and call upon him while he is nigh. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."* And if it bring reproach upon you, and trouble, dearest brethren, and they cast out your name as evil, is not this very thing rather a mark of truth? "For all," says the apostle, "that will live godly in Christ Jesus, will suffer persecution":** nay, as our Lord Himself said, "Rejoice and be exceeding glad [that is if ye suffer as witnesses of God's truth], for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."*** And when Paul went round the churches he had planted among the Gentiles, he went "confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."****

{*Isaiah 55: 6, 7.}

{**2 Timothy 3: 12.}

{***Matthew 5: 12.}

{****Acts 14: 22.}

I say, then, that the whole hope of the gospel is denied by the doctrines of the Church of Rome — I mean the free, full, entire redemption purchased for us by the blood-shedding of Christ, and laid hold on by faith; that consequently there is no saving faith amongst you at all; and this is why I am in earnest in speaking to you on the subject. I own to you, brethren, that though I was firmly convinced that you were utterly in the wrong in every point in which I was acquainted with the differences between us, I never felt the deep necessity that now lay upon you of coming to Christ out of the system of popery, as I do now. I entreat every one, with my whole soul, who loves our Lord Jesus Christ and His honour, to come out from among them and be separate. I would lead you to the discovery that you have not Christ amongst you, and that you are given "another gospel" than that which the Lord and the apostles preached, "which is not another, but there are some that trouble you, subverting your souls"; but the Lord will judge them in His own time, when He hath gathered His own sheep. I know not, brethren, the hour when the Lord will call me, and I solemnly assure you, that you will find in Christ, and in Christ alone, by faith in Him, that which your priests falsely pretend to give you, and yet which none of you have — the solid comfort of Christ's gospel. I ask you if you have, yourselves; and I tell you it is expressly promised in God's word, and the power of it is brought to a believer's soul by the Spirit promised to them that believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Why will they not even let you read it?

16 Brethren, they keep you in bondage, because you know not the glorious promises of the Father of mercies; and they are enemies, and try to make you enemies, of all that have them. But the voice of the gospel is gone abroad, and His sheep will hear it; yes, brethren, salvation by the blood of the Lamb of God, free, undeserved — reconciliation to God by the death of His own Son, come amongst us in the flesh to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, is proclaimed, and He will see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. His own word shall not fail: "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." Will you count yourselves unworthy of eternal life? Hear, I beseech you, brethren, and save yourselves from this untoward generation, who hate and oppose the knowledge of Christ by the gospel. Ask any real believer, of any denomination, of the Established Church, of the Presbyterians, of the Independents, or by whatever name they may be called; and see if they do not agree in the faith, that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin"; but why do I say, ask a real believer? — Ask the word of God, in which they find the promises on which their faith is founded. What infatuation is it of your priests, under the name of Christianity, to deny all the efficacy of God's promises in the gospel! — the cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ, and the renewing, enlightening power of the Holy Ghost, and to lead you — to what? To that which is not to be found in His word, and has no warrant but the word of men like yourselves. If they can shew any authority for it, it were all well; but they shew none but of men like themselves, or perhaps none at all; and they will not suffer you to have God's word to see if it be there or not. Oh! they are heaping up wrath against the day of wrath in a way they little know. They say you cannot understand it, and yet the Lord says, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."* And He declares that He Himself was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor; and who were His disciples? Were they rich or poor? They were fishermen; and I tell you why they understood it — they were taught of God: as it is written, "They shall be all taught of God: whosoever, therefore, hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."** The Jews of that day said they were the only children of God, and yet those only who left them and came to Jesus were saved from the judgment that came on their nation.

{*Luke 10: 21}

{**John 6: 45.}

17 Brethren, the Lord Jesus is not now amongst us in the flesh, but the scriptures of God declare the truth and power of His coming in the flesh; and they keep these from you. They hide the glory of His free and glorious salvation to the utmost of their power; and when those actuated by the Spirit of truth would declare it to you in love, and appeal to these scriptures, they do all they can to prevent your hearing the one or searching the other. Why could not you understand when you read it by the teaching of God, as well as the poor of that day, when they heard it by the teaching of God? Is God less powerful, or less near us than He was? and so far from saying that the Jews could not understand the scriptures, He says the greatest of all wonders would fail of convincing them if the scriptures did. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets" — that is, the scriptures of the Old Testament, which was what the Jews had — "neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."*

{*Luke 16: 31.}

18 Hear too what Paul says — "it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For the Jews require a sign" — as your teachers ask for miracles — "and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God"* — them which are called, brethren, when the power of Christ's voice reaches the heart so that it feels the call. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is proclaimed to you. Some are daily hearing the voice of the good Shepherd: who among you will follow Him, and who will count Himself unworthy of eternal life? "By me [He says] if any man enter in, he shall go in and out and find pasture; and I will give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no man shall be able to pluck them out of his hand."** Mark "by Me," as He says, "Come unto me."*** We preach to you Christ, brethren — Christ crucified, the good Shepherd laying down His life for the sheep — we preach Christ all in all, as Paul preached Him. What will they add to Him? Can the offerings of men, or the works of men, add to Christ? Or has He laid down His life in vain, and done half His work? You say you believe in Christ; yet those that lead you deny His work, the power and efficacy of His blood to cleanse from all sin! What! I repeat it, brethren, the blood of the only-begotten Son of God, come in the flesh for our sakes, be insufficient, and your priests can do what He cannot! Oh! here is the iniquity of these men keeping the sheep of the great Shepherd from the comfort of His love.

{*1 Corinthians 1: 19, 20, 22, 24.}

{**John 10: 1-15, 27-30.}

{***Matthew 11: 28.}

I will copy for you a passage in the scripture, which declares His saving love in His own words — "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep: to him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out; and when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice; and a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers." "Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep: all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine: as the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." Again, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

19 Oh! brethren, dearly beloved, I pour out my heart to God for you, and I know that He hears my prayer; and herein I find comfort in the thought of declaring these things to you, that you should be gathered unto Him. Brethren, there is not one doctrine of those which are peculiar to yourselves, on which you are taught to depend for your souls for present grace or future glory, that has the least warrant of God's word; and, moreover, there is not one of them which is not the invention of Satan, to hinder your souls from coming to Christ. Ask those who have had their eyes opened by reading the scriptures, whether they found them there, or free salvation by Christ? Nay, read rather yourselves, dear brethren, and see: and oh! when you see, confess Him with your mouth unto salvation, for His own love's sake, for the sake of your brethren who may be still in darkness, and as you would find mercy yourselves in that day.

20 I shall go on to mention some things, not for their own sake, but because they use them to keep you in darkness.

They tell you Luther was a bad man. How does that change the truth of the gospel? I firmly believe I shall meet Luther in heaven through the free grace of God: but, brethren, did he tell the great truths of the gospel, which had been hidden or corrupted? But though I have not the least doubt that his name was written in heaven, our faith is in no way founded in him but in scripture, where his was in all its main points founded; and the reading of which made him, by the teaching of God, wise unto salvation, as they will every one partaker of the same grace, and that by leading him to that entire and unmixed dependence upon Christ, which can alone give peace to the soul. "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you"; even the full treasure of the unsearchable riches of Christ, freely, "without money and without price," as says the word of the Lord: "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why spend ye your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?"*

{*Isaiah 55: 1, 2.}

Brethren, I had thought of some arguments as to this matter, but I will not lead your souls from the word of the living God the Saviour to human arguments. I pledge myself to satisfy, out of the word of God, every one who in sincerity of heart will take the word of God for his authority: and, brethren, will you dare to deny the authority of the word of God? Your teachers wickedly say, that Luther held communion with Satan. Tempted by Satan, no doubt, he was; but you know, brethren, this is the lot of every man, as it was, for our sakes, of the sinless Son of man Himself. For the rest neither you nor I are his judge: and more, if they loved the truth, they would not, if there were faults in the teachers of it, seek to overthrow the truth by means of those faults: if they loved God's word, they would not defame the instruments by which God has made it known. And, I must add, brethren, that denouncing the enemies of God's truth and righteousness where they shew themselves such, in a spirit of zealous faith, is not contrary to Christian faith.

Luther honoured the truth and loved it, and we love him because he loved it and the Author and Giver of it — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and we are thankful to God on his account.* He was a man, and we accordingly reject everything he held which we do not find according to the truth of God: acting according to the direction of the apostle, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."** And so far from asking you to believe Luther, we entreat you to trust in no man implicitly. And it was to the scriptures Luther and his companions appealed, and to which we appeal, and by which God will judge all at the last day. If you accept grace, He will deal with you accordingly; you will be freely forgiven; your sins blotted out and remembered no more; and you will find, what you have trusted in, that God is love. If you will persist in seeking to be saved by your works, God will judge you accordingly, and you will be found wanting in that day; for "in his sight shall no man living be justified."* But it was not flesh and blood, much less the enemy of all truth, that made Luther cleave to and preach the scriptures of truth. And if you read them, you will find so, to your soul's everlasting comfort. Or if the gospel of eternal love and the truth in them be hid, when they are brought before you, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the hearts of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them.

{*It is evident from the life and writings of Luther, that he was a man of God — a man who studied the word of God deeply, and a man of much prayer, and the honoured instrument of breaking the chains of darkness over a great part of Europe and the world — chains in which his enemies would, if possible, still keep men. And the more I inquire into this point, the more I see the malignancy and wicked-heartedness of what they say of Luther.}

{**1 Thessalonians 5: 21.

{***Romans 3: 20.}

21 Moreover, brethren, Luther was not alone, but it pleased the God of all grace to raise up, in order to give to the world the fullest testimony that it was His own work, at the very same time, at a distant place, the monastery of Einsiedeln, a member of that monastery, named Zwingle, to preach the truths of the gospel, and protest against the wickedness of the pope and practices of Rome. And God was pleased so to order it, that these two men, Zwingle and Luther, were never united in sentiment to the day of their death. And so far was Luther from agreeing with Zwingle in his opinion on one point, that he was so angry with him about it that he would never join churches with him. And the truth is, that it rather seems that Zwingle began to preach the gospel before Luther. The cause of the Reformation was God's mercy and grace, the time for which was now fully come. The occasion of it, under God's providence was this: Pope Leo the tenth wanted to finish a very splendid church in Rome, commonly called St. Peter's; and in order to raise money for it, he set indulgences for sin to sale without limit. And this it was which made Luther and Zwingle both at the same time begin to protest against the conduct of the church: though Luther at first did not charge the pope with it, but only preached against the indulgences. When they tried to silence him, he went on to search the scriptures in order to defend himself, and find out where the truth of the matter lay; and there he found that the papacy of Rome had no foundation for its assumed authority, and afterwards he was persuaded that it was indeed that Babylon which it is expressly foretold should rise in the Christian church, and corrupt everything herself, and persecute all faithful witnesses to God's truth. Would to God, brethren, and it is my earnest prayer and trust, that many amongst you may be led by the same means of searching the scriptures to discover the same truths; and above all, that your souls may find their way by the teaching of God's Spirit, by the means of God's word, to the full power of eternal life and unfeigned holiness of heart and life through the knowledge of Jesus Christ therein revealed; that you may enter with unmixed joy into the presence of your God.

22 I have added, brethren, a few distinct texts, which shew in direct terms the falseness of the doctrines on which you have been taught to depend. They do not deny that the scriptures are the word of God. And then judge you, whether those men are to be trusted who teach those things, and keep the scriptures from you, which they must own to be true.

They say that men who are forgiven their sins must nevertheless pass through the fire of purgatory, in order to be cleansed from them.

The scripture says, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin."*

{*1 John 1: 7.}

They say that men ought to address she Virgin Mary and the saints as mediators.

23 The scripture says, "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."*

{*1 Timothy 2: 5.}

They say that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, an offering or oblation for the sins of the quick and the dead.

The scriptures say, that "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" — that remission of sins is obtained by the new covenant in His blood; and that "where remission of these is, there is no more an offering [or oblation] for sin."*

{*Hebrews 10: 14, 18.}

They say that salvation is obtained by men's works.

The scriptures say, "By grace ye are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."*

{*Ephesians 2: 8, 9.}

I take notice of these here (not to enter further upon them as points of controversy; and indeed where the scripture has plainly spoken on a subject, I do not see what room there is for controversy), but to lead you to this point: the priests would have you trust blindly in them; at the same time they cannot deny that the scriptures — take your own Douay, I am content — are the word of the living God. Now I ask you, Do they not teach you the things I have mentioned? and are not the scriptures, your own scriptures, flat contrary? How can you give the salvation of your souls into the hands of men who acknowledge the scriptures to be the word of God, and yet teach things flatly against them?

But not to shew you error merely, and what you have reason to distrust, but to set before you truths upon which your souls may rest, if God shall give mercy to you that this may reach you, and open your hearts to the acknowledging the truth, I add —

24 Christ, and Christ alone, is the true sacrifice.

Christ, and Christ alone, is the great High Priest.

Christ, and Christ alone, is the mediator between God and man.

Christ, and Christ alone, is our righteousness in the sight of God.

Christ, and Christ alone, is our perfect pattern.

Christ, and Christ alone, is the great Head of the church, and the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.

Christ, and Christ alone, is the true vine, in which every branch finds life; while every believer incorporated into His mystical body by faith* and baptism thus by the communion of His Spirit becomes one with Him, and, partaking of His fulness according to the measure of the gift of God, fulfils in his sphere the same offices which He fills as the first-born amongst many brethren, ministering to the completeness and perfection of His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.

{*[The author would now say, no doubt, by the baptism of the Spirit. — Ed.]}

Brethren, the scriptures contain all things necessary to your salvation, because they reveal the fulness of Christ Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh."

The Apostle Paul says, "By grace ye are saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast; for we are God's workmanship, created again in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."*

{*Ephesians 2: 8-10.}

What we want then is to know the way of salvation, and how to be perfected in good works, in which believers walk.

Both are found in Christ by faith: He is our Saviour and our pattern.

Both are revealed in the scriptures, as to which Paul says to Timothy, "From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."*

{*2 Timothy 3: 15-17.}

Further, brethren, that the minds of any of you who love the truth may be undeceived, I add some further points.

First — You rely upon being catholic. Catholic means (as your catechism, I believe, tells you) universal, and that it is universal in different ways.

Brethren, the fact is, the Church of Rome is universal in none, except by the antichristian assumption by the pope of what belongs to Christ alone. A large portion of professing Christians have no communion with the Church of Rome, and have never, at any period, admitted its supremacy. Its faith is not universal; it totally differs from, and is opposed to, "the faith once delivered to the saints"; and for this we appeal to the scriptures, which they cannot deny contain that faith.

25 Not only, brethren, are they opposed to the scriptures, but the articles which we renounce have been added to the creed, in express defiance of the authority of the primitive church itself. In the year 449 the third General Council, which sat at Ephesus to maintain the truth against heresies, expressly decreed that no innovation should be made on the creed then settled. In the eighth century after Christ, Pope Leo the third wrote to his Legate (who was attending assemblies of German and French bishops), in answer to an enquiry from him, stating, that no addition should be permitted to be made in the creed, which the French and German bishops were thinking of making; and he set up, out of the archives at Rome, silver tablets in St. Peter's and St. Paul's, with the creed engraved on them, as a memorial of what it was then, for the very purpose that nothing should be changed or added. This happened a thousand years ago. Now the great difference between the Greek Church (which denies the supremacy of Rome, and is separated from it) and the Roman (which calls itself catholic) is the addition which this tablet was put up to prevent, and which the Greeks have not agreed to the insertion of. And most of the great points in which we, who deny both the catholicity and the supremacy of the church of Rome, differ from you, are, twelve new points added at the time of the Reformation to the creed by Pope Pius the fourth and the Council of Trent. So that, far from their being catholic in point of faith, we are sanctioned in our separation from them, not only by the scriptures, which these new doctrines of theirs are quite contrary to, but they are, in adding them to the creed and attempting to impose them on us, expressly condemned by a General Council, which they receive and declare to be of divine authority, which sat fourteen hundred years ago. And the Greek Church, which they also condemn as schismatic is, to say the least, justified in its separation by the authority of one of their own popes who took the pains of fixing up a silver tablet to prevent that which after popes did or acquiesced in. So utterly unfounded are they in the pretensions which they set up in order to keep you in bondage.

And this fact is as strong against their pretence of infallibility as catholicity; for we have the church four or five hundred years after Christ, expressly decreeing that no article shall be added; and we have those who call themselves the church, fifteen or sixteen hundred years after Christ, adding twelve articles as matters of faith, and rejecting all who deny them. Was the church in the first ages, or the church of Rome at the Reformation in the right? or how can that be infallible which contradicts itself? But the true catholic church, brethren, that seed of God, which shall indeed never fail, the body of Christ, the real communion of saints, the one holy catholic and apostolic church, subsists in the company of true believers, in every age united to the great Head, Christ Jesus, by His Spirit dwelling in them, and incorporating them into His mystical body. And while the power of the Lord lasts, even to the end of the world, while the influences of the divine Spirit shew to souls His glory in hope, so long will there be a church upon earth. But to say that this is any particular communion or body of professing Christians (and that too without inquiring whether they hold the faith once delivered to the saints) is nothing else but the spirit of Antichrist.

26 And now, brethren, see what sort of arguments they use to keep you still in bondage.

Luther did not give scriptural advice in some instances; therefore do not you read the scriptures, which would have hindered him giving the advice if he had read them properly. Is that sound reason?

Again, King Henry the Eighth was a bad man, and acted contrary to good morals: therefore do not read those scriptures which condemn his immorality. What reason is there in such an argument as that? Do we say that all Protestants are good men, or under the vital influence of the Spirit of God? Alas! no, brethren; but we do say, that they have the truth and faith and kingdom of God amongst them. But the fact is, Henry the Eighth, though he was an instrument in the hand of God to overthrow popery in England, never, I believe even to the time of his death, cordially submitted to protestant truth,* and during some part of his life burnt people for believing it, even after he had thrown off popery. For Henry the Eighth, although we leave him to God's final judgment, was corrupted by power and wealth and pleasure, so as to love his own will rather than popery or Protestantism; and the fact is, we have nothing to do with him, nor will his crimes be any answer for your souls in the day of judgment.

{*In proof of this, he left £600 a year to Windsor church to have masses said for his soul, principally, among other religious services.}

27 The point, brethren, is this — there are certain doctrines in which the faith and hopes of a professor of the Christian religion are deeply concerned. You are told you ought to believe these doctrines. We say there is no foundation for them, and not only so, but that the belief in them precludes the faith by which we find the power and comfort of the gospel of the Son of God come in the flesh; and we appeal to the scriptures, confessed by all to be inspired, and given to us by God for our edification in the truth, written by apostles and evangelists commissioned by God, so that they might say, and none could deny, "he that is of God heareth us." And we declare to you as honest men, that a person reading them with the assistance of God's grace will find none of these doctrines in them, but what is entirely inconsistent with them, and your teachers, while they dare not deny that the scriptures do contain the truth of God, will not let you read them to see whether these things be so, as we say: while we know that the Bereans are expressly commended for so doing: "they were more noble, searching the scriptures daily whether those things were so."*

{*Acts 17: 11.}

Another common difficulty in the mind of a person beginning to see the truth of God, amongst you, is — this Protestant faith is a new faith; or, as they are accustomed to say, it came fifteen hundred years too late. I mention these arguments as things which might hinder a sincere soul from receiving the truth. They will tell you, the first religion must be the right one. Undoubtedly, brethren, it must. The first religion must be the right one, and the only one, not because it is the first, but as coming from the Lord. And that is exactly the ground we go upon. And it must be so for this reason, that that is the true religion which came from God Himself. In a word, the only true religion is that which was "once delivered to the saints," which came from the lips of Christ and His apostles — so much so indeed that Paul is bold to say, that he wished they were cut off that troubled the Galatians, perverting the gospel of Christ. "But," says he, "though we, or an angel from God, should preach to you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel than that ye have received, let him be accursed."*

{*Galatians 1: 8, 9.}

28 And now brethren, where will you find the first religion? Hear Paul — "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son":* and then, after declaring the glory of the Son of God, he goes on, "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?" Heb. 2: 1-4.

{*Hebrews 1: 1, 2.}

So that we may put the case thus: we agree that the first doctrines are the true ones, as coming from Christ and the inspired apostles: the question is, how we are to find what they are? You take it at the priest's word, who comes eighteen hundred years after them. We appeal to the scriptures, which record Christ's sayings, as none of you deny, and contain the apostles' writings, as none of you deny: is not this a good way of finding out what that first religion was which they taught? And not only do we shew that we use the right way to follow the first religion, which I agree we are bound to do; but we shew you as a matter of direct history, that they have added twelve articles to the creed which was in use in the primitive or old church, and which is commonly called the Nicene creed. I take for granted you know the creed. Now will you tell me what there is in that about the Virgin Mary, or that the saints are mediators? Ought not this to make you doubt whether you are not misled in being made to believe things which are not in the creed, when they refuse you the scriptures to see if they are there; and when, too, a General Council prohibited any new creed to be made, beside what is called the Nicene creed?

There is one thing more, brethren (which I should never mention; I should in truth be ashamed to mention it, but that it is commonly said amongst you) that is, that Peter stands at the gate of heaven with the keys, and lets in the Romanists as belonging to the true church, and keeps out other people. Now, brethren, you will not deny that, as Paul says, "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."* Keep this in mind: good and bad, we are all to stand at the judgment-seat of Christ. Now this is quite out of the question if that be true about Peter; for, according to that, they will never get to the judgment-seat of Christ, or perhaps you will say it is after they have been judged. But then Peter need not be there at all, for those that the Lord rejects He sends away to hell: as it is written, "Depart ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. **

{*2 Corinthians 5: 10.}

{**Matthew 25: 41.}

29 Brethren, I have spoken of these things for your soul's sake, With sorrow of heart. We are all sinners, and under just judgment in the sight of a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; nor Can there be any sound real hope to see His face, unless We are cleansed from all sin. It is the very truth and purpose of the gospel to assure us, that there is perfect and entire remission of them in Christ Jesus, for those that believe in Him, and that His blood cleanses from all sin; and also this further blessing to those who by the work of His grace have been brought to desire holiness, that He "Will put his law into our hearts, and write it in our minds." Instead of saying to us, "If you do not do so and so, to keep my law, you will be condemned"; He says, "I have mercy upon you; I will put the love of my law in your hearts; I will give you a new heart; and your sins and iniquities I will remember no more."*: This is what God has said, brethren, and why should you not believe Him? Oh! comfort to a soul weary in itself, to a heavy burdened conscience, to hear the Lord from heaven saying, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And again, "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Think of this.

Yours with many prayers,

J. N. DARBY.

{*Hebrews 10: 16, 17.}

Christianity not Christendom

J. N. Darby.

<18005E> 249

The times in which we are — the question in every serious man's mind, "Are we to go back to popery or not?" the fears of surprised Protestants; and the insolent pretensions of Papists and Puseyites (while the only thing that has courage by their side is infidelity, and indifference to truth, which rather favours error than truth, because truth is truth, and insists on itself) the heart-sickening imbecility of those who govern, or rather who are afraid to govern; the solemn sight that courage is found only on the side of evil, so that it looks like the judgment of God — lead one to ask, What is this church so vaunted by dishonest Puseyites, and honest Roman Catholics, or those who, from its prestige and influence, whatever that prestige and influence may be, cling to it, while they do not believe one word about it, for such is the case very widely in Roman Catholic countries. What is this church, this great system, which carries such weight with men?

We must not suppose that anglicans, or evangelicals, or dissenters, have escaped its influence; they may be anxious to avoid its being quite popish, or to lower its condition to open infidelity. Men may be high church or broad church, Roman or Greek; but they are all church of some kind, or would be. They may have altars instead of tables, or cry establishments down; but if they do, they will dignify the once modest chapel with the name of church. What is this church? that word which has such charm in it; is it something from God, and of God, as it stands?

That it has some charm in it is evident from the well-known fact, that whereas in the popular English Bible of the day there was "congregation," where now we have "church," king James insisted that church, and only church, should be there. It has a successional character, and however small the rivulet in which some think to have pure water, still it is to be derived from larger ones into channels which, they pretend, make the water pure. The grosser corruptions were purged away three centuries ago; what resulted has largely turned to infidelity, and many are going back to the superstitions as that which is in the old channel.

What is this great system, this potent idea? Is a successional church, corrupt or purified or infidelized (if I may coin a new word for a new state of things), a church of the past, on a pattern some centuries ago, or a church of the future, with no pattern at all but man's fancied competency in this age to do better and be wiser than all before him — is any church as now understood, coming down from ages past, however reformed and arranged, a thing of God? Is it to pass in some shape on this descendible principle? Is there that which, calling itself a church, exercises authority over the mind of man according to the mind of God? We are forced to look the whole question in the face: is the existing professing church, whatever shape it may assume, a thing which God owns? Is a successional body, in any shape, true or right according to God? I repeat, this question is forced upon us, the whole question; not, Is this or that church right?

250 The universal confusion, Greek rejecting Rome, Puseyites coyly flirting with it, Protestants abhorring it, dissenters seeking to pull down what exists, because it stands in their way, joining Rome for this purpose, episcopalians trying to keep it together, truth or no truth, Rome itself divided through idolatry of the Virgin, and infallibility of the pope, which notoriously contradicts all history, yet increasing her sway in the world; all in confusion, as all admit, from the pope to dissenters, all wanting to have the church right, though all for very different reasons thinking its state wrong; making the inquiry as to which is right hopeless. They have raised the question: what is it they are fighting about? Each party, no doubt, trust themselves; but every man's hand is against his neighbour, and how is the sober looker-on to trust them?

I am well aware that the good churchman will tell me that this is the effect of schism, and that people have what calls itself the church to look to; but how am I to know which is the church? I am told there are marks of it, yet who is to assign the true ones? But be it so, catholicity is one of them, that is, universality; but more than half professing Christendom is outside what pretends to be it, and hundreds of thousands of its most respectable members leaving it as corrupt. Sanctity? But history shews it to have been the most unholy thing that ever existed. Apostolic succession? A man must be a learned man to know if it exist, and if he is, he will know it did not; that nothing is more uncertain, if not certain that it is broken. Besides, to make my salvation depend on the right succession of a set of wicked men, who put down one another in the dark ages, is rather too strong. Then, unity? The oldest church, the Greek, counting by millions, reject and denounce it. Unity, holiness, catholicity, are a fable as regards the church; excellent blessed things, only not to be found nowadays.

251 The conscience of half Europe rose against the open, flagrant, impious iniquity of what they call the church. Nay, take it altogether, the change of system shews, at the rate it has gone on, that the boasted church could not take care of its children — was incompetent to prevent the mischief. All we simple people know is, that Quicquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi. The church cannot be trusted, it has not been able somehow to take care of itself. In Roman Catholic countries, and now also in Protestant ones, not only scientific men, but masses of the uneducated are turned, or turning, infidels; and the remedy is superstitious ceremonies and a going back to what was so notoriously corrupt that natural conscience would stand it no longer; when to be a clergyman, or of religion, was universally to be esteemed worthless, submitted to for the necessities of sacramental grace, and despised for licensed and unlicensed immorality.

And this was the church! Is this what we are reduced to? or to turn infidel and deny the Saviour that loved us and gave Himself for us? Assuredly not. The truth is as true as ever, divine love as full, above all our evil, the Lord as sure in His faithfulness, His arm unshortened. But the church, so called, cannot help us; it cannot help itself. Which church am I to trust to? Who will tell me? The church, I am told. Where is it? In Rome? No, cry loudly both the most ancient church, the Greek, and all the Protestants, who have more or less purified themselves from it, unless in despair of themselves they are going back to it, and now many of the most respectable of themselves who have broken with it. From Rome to which am I to go? Who will tell me that? I have a din of voices claiming to be right. We want Christianity, not Christendom; we have had enough of this.

Now I look all this in the face, and take the question up, not on the disputed claims of churches, who mutually disprove their respective claims, but on the question of the church, as man looks at it now, as we see it in every time as the subject of ecclesiastical history; and I say it never was, as a system, the institution of God, or what God established; but at all times, from its first appearance in ecclesiastical history, the departure, as a system, from what God established, and nothing else; primitive church and all; and the more it was formally established, the more it was corrupt. Saints, beloved of God I do not doubt were and are in it; but it was a corruption offensive to God from the beginning of its history. Take a history, any history, of the church, it is a history, not of God's institution, but of man's corruption. History and scripture both testify of this, and no man can speak of the church of ecclesiastical history, if he be an honest man, without admitting that it was man's corruption, not God's institution, or denying history and scripture alike; I say, from its outset as the subject of ecclesiastical records, or scripture statements.

252 That Christ has a church which He loved and gave Himself for, and will present to Himself a glorious church, no true Christian denies; nor that the work which gathered it was to be carried on on earth, nor that, in a scriptural sense, the foundation was laid on earth. All that is true; but my proposition is simple: the church as the subject of history never was anything but man's corruption; the people who composed it went on, but the moment it was left to man's responsibility it departed from God's principles.

Let not my reader be surprised. Let us speak of man. What is man before our eyes and the subject of history and of God's dealings? Is he, was he ever, in his actual history God's creature as He set him up? Never! He is the corruption of what God set up, and nothing else, save the one blessed One who came to save. Let me draw attention to a great principle running through scripture, that surprise may be less at my assertion, which may naturally astound many — so much do we cling to tradition; and here even an infidel may recognize, not the truth of God of course, but the principle that runs through what the believer owns, what I own, as a divine revelation. That principle is that in every case God set up that which was good positively or relatively, and the first thing man did was to corrupt and ruin it; and then history is the history of man's corrupt condition, though no doubt so much the more of God's patience and goodness.

Man was set up good. The first thing he did was to fall into sin and corrupt himself. His history is the history of a fallen race: God judged that world. I am putting the scripture account of what has always happened; not discussing its truth, but giving its view of what has taken place.

Noah was spared from a ruined world and government set up as restraint to man's passions. The first thing he does after his burnt-offering that is stated in scripture — mind, I am giving its view of things — is to get drunk, and we hear no more of him, and the world goes on to Babel and confusion.

253 The law was given when God called out a people for Himself, the world being gone into idolatry, worshipping stocks and stones, and given up to a reprobate mind. Before Moses comes down from the mount with the two tables of the law, the people have made a golden calf, and have cast off God altogether.

The priesthood was set up, consecrated of God: the first day after the consecration was complete, two of them offer strange fire, and Aaron never entered into the holy of holies in his robes of glory and beauty — was excluded from all ordinary access to God.

Royalty was set up; the son of David was to be God's king, build his temple, and be every way blessed. He loves many strange women, turns to idolatry, and the kingdom is ruined.

God afterwards transfers power to the Gentiles, sets up the head of gold, leaving Jerusalem, casting down David's throne; and men often think, if despotic, they would do all manner of wise and good things. But Nebuchadnezzar casts the faithful into the fire, and gets in every sense a beast's heart. Gentile power is corrupt, ambitious, and violent — cannot, as scripture speaks, stay at home, what it describes by likening them to ravening beasts.

Such is the uniform account given me in scripture of what has gone on — God's ways, and man's ways when God has set up anything. I am not saying anything of grace on His part which is exalted, but of His public dealings, and man's conduct when God had instituted anything on earth — of man's history. Is it very surprising if the same thing has happened in Christianity? No doubt vastly increased light and an altogether fuller revelation of grace are found in Christianity. It was the revelation of God, not the government of man as he was, or law suited to him. But this is not the question, but, what has man been when this was committed to him? when he was placed under responsibility in respect of this revelation? Nor could I, nor could any, thank God, deny that there were saints when the general standing was one of total failure, and, in principle, apostasy from the first estate. There was Abel, and Noah, and Enoch, after the fall, and even fuller testimony as evil closed in, and Elijah's when Israel, in one sense because Israel, had made the golden calves, and gone after Baal; but that is not the question, but, what was the state of things?

254 Now I shall first present the historical fact before I quote the instructions of scripture on the subject; but scripture must itself tell us both the basis from which men fell away, and some of the facts too. Now Galatians, without going into the higher doctrines of Ephesians and Colossians, will afford us the great foundational basis, and in a measure what departure from it is. Two great principles lie at the base of Christianity, God's righteousness, Christ sitting at the right hand of God, and the presence of the Holy Ghost. Paul tells us (2 Cor. 3) that Christianity (or the gospel) was the ministration of righteousness and the ministration of the Spirit: these are the two great essential elements. So again, "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested"; and again, "to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness"; and "the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ." So Philippians 3, "not having mine own righteousness which is by the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross, and left peace to His disciples. Peace was what was preached, and remission of sins: "being justified by faith," says the apostle, "we have peace with God," Christ having borne our sins in His own body on the tree.

The cross had told what man was. He had there rejected God's Son, His last messenger to seek fruit from men as such; and God's work of redemption and peace-making was wholly finished here, so that believers are reconciled to God, have no more conscience of sins. In Him we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace; redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. They that are sanctified are perfected for ever by one offering, and the Holy Ghost is a witness that our sins and iniquities are remembered no more; yea, we have boldness for the day of judgment, because as He (Christ) is, so are we in this world. It is on the work of grace in Christ that the apostle rests, and assures us of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes no sin, our being justified by faith; Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.

Now in the Galatian assemblies the Judaizing teachers had introduced the doctrine of righteousness by the law; and this the apostle earnestly combats. In no epistle do we find the anxiety that is in this, not a salutation at the end, not a kind word at the beginning; but, absorbed by the fatal subversion of Christianity that had got in amongst them, he plunges at once into his subject — "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ: but though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which ye have received, let him be accursed."

255He then goes on laboriously to deny any succession from the apostles; he had received neither the truth nor office from them; he was not of man nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. His adversaries insisted on succession in the ministry and ordination, but he indignantly repudiated it; but the main point which he declared to be the subversion of Christianity was the introduction of righteousness by works of law, or law in any shape. It was frustrating, setting aside, and making void (ouk atheto) the grace of God, for if righteousness came by law, Christ was dead in vain. And as many as were of the works of the law were under the curse. This was the great thesis of the apostle: Christ is become of no effect unto you; as many of you as are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. And what he especially appeals to in testimony of this is, that they had received the Holy Ghost as the seal of this doctrine of being justified by faith, and not by works of law; the presence of the Holy Ghost, and the way it came, decided the question.

I do not question that fruits of a new nature would follow, demonstrating the faith to be real, and that the Christian has to shew his faith by his works, but never by works of law. The works which God delights in are alone those which are the fruit of faith. The Christian is bound, and disposed, if he is one, to do good works: you do right to claim them from him, but why? Because he is a Christian first. People have forgotten the simple principle that duties flow from the relationships we are already in, and cannot exist for us till we are in those relationships. I say this much to avoid mistakes, but it is not my subject. Man had duties as man, but he has failed in them; he is a sinner, and is lost, according to Christianity. The full exposition given in the Romans on this great point is, that Gentiles were lawless, the Jews law-breakers; that there was none righteous, no not one; that every mouth was stopped, and all the world guilty before God; all had sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that was in Christ Jesus. And Christianity teaches us that the blessed Son of God finished the work which His Father gave Him to do; and we read that by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses: that, when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand of God; that, if this whole work of making peace and perfecting the believers for ever were not accomplished by His one offering, He must have suffered often.

256 We have seen that it is by faith that we are justified; redemption is through His blood; and hence the believer's being justified through faith, reconciled to God, having peace with God, is one great pillar of Christianity, Christianity itself as a foundation including the blessed revelation of the Father in the Son: for it is not as slighting His blessed Person that I speak of His work, but when grace has drawn the heart to own His Person, the gospel is the answer to the need the revelation of His Person has created. So the poor woman in the city that was a sinner, drawn in deep humiliation to His Person, receives the answer, "Thy sins are forgiven thee, thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace." The thief who owned Him Lord and the Man who had done nothing amiss, and looked for the kingdom, received the blessed answer, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

The other great truth which constitutes Christianity is the presence of the Holy Ghost; that the believer receives it, so that he is sealed thereby, and that the Spirit dwells in him. We have a kind of picture of the connection of both in John 20, when the Lord first says to Mary Magdalene to tell His brethren, "I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God"; and then, when they gather, He is there, and says to them, "Peace be unto you," and "as my Father hath sent me, so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." I merely take the general thought that we get the disciples, the brethren, put into the same relationship to God and the Father as Christ Himself, peace proclaimed to them, and the Holy Ghost communicated to them.

257 I return to the Galatians, to which I first referred. We have seen how the apostle makes justification by faith a question of Christianity, or the contrary; and this we have seen confirmed by a crowd of passages, and divine righteousness put as the answer to there being none righteous, no, not one, amongst men, and this by the work of Christ effectual to us by faith, so that we are perfected for ever by one offering, and no sin imputed to us. The apostle shews how this is no allowance of sin, but the way of power against it, in Romans 6; only here I confine myself to the point in hand.

Now let us see what is said as to the Holy Spirit. This is directly everywhere connected with the exaltation of Christ as man to the right hand of God; that when man in the Person of the Lord Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God, in virtue of His perfectly glorifying God on the cross, the Holy Ghost was sent down here to dwell in them that believe; and that this made the distinctive difference of Christians and Christianity, divine righteousness having placed man on high; as the result of a work done for man's salvation and blessing, the Holy Ghost was given to those that believed. Let us proceed to cite the proofs; they may be multiplied, but the principal ones are so clear and definite that I need not go through them, though the distinctive character of the presence of the Holy Ghost marking out the essential difference of Christianity will be clearer the more we are acquainted with the Old and New Testaments.

The promise of the Holy Ghost in the Old Testament, as characterizing Christianity, is sufficiently demonstrated by Peter's quotation of Joel: "It shall come to pass in the last days I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaids will I pour out in those days of my Spirit." It is only needful to remark that it was upon all, young and old, servants and handmaids, no trace of a clergy or body to whom it was limited, but formally the contrary: nor was it then only the apostles, there were a hundred and twenty there, and women among them. The Lord Himself had promised it: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given, oupo en], because Jesus was not yet glorified"; what was known as the Holy Ghost thus present among them was not yet.

258 And this is what the twelve disciples at Ephesus say; we have not so much as heard, not whether there be any Holy Ghost, but whether the Holy Ghost is (come). They were John's disciples, and he had spoken of baptizing with the Holy Ghost as one of the things which Jesus would do, presenting the work of Jesus as comprehended in the two things I have spoken of — the Lamb of God that takes away sin, and He that baptizes with the Holy Ghost. So the Lord Himself, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I go away, I will send him unto you." So again, "whom the Father will send in my name." When He is come, He will reprove (convict) the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, guide the disciples into all truth, and shew them things to come. So Peter (when He was come according to promise), "being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost [note this reception of it for others on His exaltation], he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear": and when pricked in their hearts, they asked, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" he replies, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." So, before the priests, "We are witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost which is given to them that obey him." So to Cornelius God gives the proof that He will have the Gentiles by giving him the Holy Ghost, so that Peter could not forbid water. So at Samaria, they all receive the Holy Ghost by means of Peter and John, having been baptized by Philip. In the case referred to in Acts 19 Paul says, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?"

Peter, in his first Epistle, describing the order of dispensations, speaks of the prophets finding that the things they prophesied were not for them; neither have we got them: they are reported unto you, he says, "by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; wherefore be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

259 These are ample to shew that the presence of the Holy Ghost, founded on the work of Christ and His exaltation, was the distinctive character of Christianity; the blessings connected with it run through the New Testament; the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, the knowledge that we are in Christ and Christ in us, the knowing that we are sons, so that we cry, Abba, Father — nay, dwelling in God, and God in us. True holy liberty, true divine knowledge, all and every enjoyment of blessings, and abounding in hope, and help in our infirmities, are attributed to the Holy Ghost; our good fruits are the fruits of the Spirit; our joy is joy in the Holy Ghost; our love, love in the Spirit; it is by one Spirit through Christ we have access to the Father: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; and this is Christ being in us.

All this shews to an attentive mind that it is distinctive of the Christian, but though it be the bright and blessed side, I must not dwell on this further, but cite what FORMALLY shews it to be distinctive of the Christian; it is, "If we are led of the Spirit, we are not under law": our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost which we have of God: we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by which we are sealed for the day of redemption. What is the appeal of the apostle to the Galatians connected with justification by faith? "This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" They were slipping away through Judaizing teachers, teachers of the law, who were subverting (we read) whole houses from justification by faith; and his appeal, as that which they all knew, is to their having received the Holy Ghost — not that they all walked well, but that the Holy Ghost was come, and that they had received it.

It may be said, But they who ministered the Spirit to them (an expression much to be noted) worked miracles. But an knew they had the Holy Ghost: if the flesh lusted in them, it lusted against the Spirit. In Romans a Christian is described as he that is after the Spirit: they were not in the flesh, their old Adam standing, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwelt in them. If any man had not the Spirit of Christ, he was none of His: and this is not mere temper, for he continues, "and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness": the Christian state was the effect of Christ being in them. It is by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body: we are also builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

260 But it is not my object to draw all the consequences of the presence of the Holy Ghost, but merely to shew that Christianity was characterized by it: even if they walked badly, they grieved the Holy Spirit of Gad by which they were sealed unto the day of redemption. It is not surprising. The Father sending the Son was the grand and mighty basis of Christianity, and the sending of the Spirit by both the Father and a glorified Christ was a witness of His Lordship and exaltation, and the great testimony in the world, and that by which we know the value of the work and exaltation of One, and our relationship with the other, as sons by grace with Him — that by which all was received here. Such was Christianity essentially in its basis. There were other collateral truths of course, and important ones too, but these formed its base, not only for our blessing, but for the full revelation of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

There were directions for order, and simple ordinances clearly referred to, as two, baptism and the Lord's supper; both telling of Christ's death (one initiatory, the other continual), of man judged, for Christ had been rejected, and of redemption accomplished in His death. I refer to them now simply to shew that I acknowledge them fully and their value.

As a rule, elders and deacons were appointed in the various assemblies; ministry consisted in the exercise of gift (the gifts of the Spirit, who distributed to every man severally as He would), and each gifted person was a member of Christ's body, and exercised it according to scriptural order under the authority of Christ. The directions are found in 1 Corinthians, where there is no appearance of the existence of any elders at all. But such was Christianity as presented to us in scripture in its essential features. Has it preserved them? Is what is now called the church that Christianity, the system I find there?

The Christianity we find in scripture is: saints justified, no sin imputed to them, perfected for ever, knowing they were forgiven and were sons, having personal consciousness of their relationship with God, accepted in the beloved, having full assurance of faith and hope, a confidence they were warned to hold fast; and, as to service, gifts from on high, through the power of the Holy Ghost, imposed on each one the duty of service, according to the gift he had received and the order prescribed in the word. If he had two talents or five talents, he was to trade with them — a wicked and slothful servant if he did not; as every man had received the gift, he was so to minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Women were to keep silence in the assemblies; men were to exercise their gifts according to prescribed order: these gifts were set in the whole church at large, and exercised according to God's will, as a distinct member of the one whole body. Some were signs of power (as to which there is no promise of continuance), others, the fruit of Christ's faithful care of His body — two of these being the foundation — to continue till we all come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: besides this, the edifying and growth of the body was carried on by that which every joint supplied, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.

261 Such was the Christian state scripturally, known personal relationship with God, according to the efficacy of Christ's redemption, and the Holy Ghost given to each, and working in each, as seemed good to Him, Christ giving from on high assuredly what was needed for the accomplishment of the assembly as His body, and these gifts operating in those that had them as members of the one body, and set in the assembly as a whole, in no way local. Besides this, and baptism and the Lord's supper, by one of which they were received into God's house, and by the other both the unity of the body and Christ's death were symbolized, there were local officers, elders appointed in every city. They were local offices, not gifts, though gifts they might have, and one was desirable to make their service in their office more effectual; but these were local, the gifts were not.

The church, as understood in modern times in all its compartments, is constituted, has its existence by, and is based on, the clergy and its sacraments, not on an accomplished redemption and the presence and power of the Holy Ghost-a clergy which is called the ministry, and even the church. I take, as a plain popular proof of the truth of this, the Evangelical Alliance. It abhors the corruption that has entered into the church, but it would not admit Quakers and Plymouth Brethren: the former reject clergy and sacraments, the latter clergy only, holding baptism and the Lord's supper, both insisting on ministry by the Spirit. I am not insisting now on their being right or wrong; I merely take it as a popular proof of the basis of the universal system, even where gross corruptions are resisted. It results in this, that the recognition of a clergy is the basis of the church, the sine qua non, the essential condition.

262 I am not, remark here, speaking of the corruption of the church. This was so great, that Nicholas Clemangis, the greatest man of his age in the middle ages, declares that putting a girl into a convent was making her a prostitute. Unnatural crimes were usual with the clergy; and Baronius declares that for a hundred years he cannot recognize the popes as legitimate popes at all, save for dates. They were not elected by the clergy, nor approved even by their vote, but put in by the mistresses of the marquises of Tuscany, sometimes those who were sons of a previous pope by their mothers after his death. And it came to fightings even at the moment of consecration, and, as whichever got the upper hand broke all the ordinations of the one whom he had driven out, a book was written to reassure people as to having any sacraments at all.

But this was the corruption of the church, and I do not enter into it. It is no wonder that the Holy Ghost, as scripture testifies of it, was utterly turned away from. My thesis is, not that the church as now held historically was corrupted, but that the church so held was itself the total departure in principle from scripture, from what Christ set up by the Holy Ghost. The doctrine of full justification by faith, founded on accomplished redemption, and the recognition of the Holy Ghost as present and a directing power, were lost, and the clergy and sacraments substituted for them. The Reformation removed many corruptions which had grown intolerable, and many false principles; but the notion of the church was still based on the clergy and the sacraments. It is hard to prove a negative; but it is quite certain that neither a full redemption, nor, though the words be used once or twice, a complete possessed justification by faith, as Paul teaches it, a perfecting for ever by its one offering, a known personal acceptance in Christ, is ever found in any ecclesiastical writings after the canonical scriptures for long centuries. We have Barnabas saying they had forgiveness of sins by baptism (chap. 11): this, note, was only previous sins, administrating a great blessing surely, but not the definite acceptance in Christ of a person to whom the Lord imputes no sin, so that there was no condemnation.* There was no trace of any full justification by faith, though of course Christ is owned as having come and having died as the Saviour, along with a mass of strange allegorical interpretations. He calls Christianity a new law. We have a very meagre reference to His dying for the forgiveness of our sins (chap. 5). But he insists on the cross and water going together (chap. 11), that is, baptism, putting their trust in the cross, descending into the water. We go down into the water, full of sins and pollutions, but come up again bringing forth fruit. He refers to the serpent of brass, but it is looking to Christ as able to give life. He says too, as regards God's dwelling in us, having received remission of our sins, and trusting in the name of the Lord, we are become renewed, being again created, as it were, from the beginning, wherefore God truly dwells in our house, that is, in us. But how does He dwell in us? The word of faith, the calling of His promise, the wisdom of His righteous judgments, etc., etc.

{*An expression which distinctly marks the difference between forgiveness by a sacrament and personal acceptance in Christ. The question arose, and was regularly debated, if sins could be forgiven afterwards; and already in Hermas, remission, and repentance afterwards, are distinguished; and in Tertullian, when Montanists contended against forgiving an adulterer, forgiveness by baptism was administrative and for the past. The acceptance of the person is wholly a different thing, and never thought of.}

263 Now I have quoted all this because, while the epistle is so full of absurdities, that people have denied that it is of Barnabas, and one sees how one falls down a precipice after we leave inspiration, yet it has by far the most truth of any of these old writings. His attributing forgiveness of sins to baptism is very natural; for when a heathen or a Jew became professedly a Christian by baptism, he did administratively enter into the privileges belonging to Christianity, though this became soon the doctrine of the efficiency of the sacrament. But I cannot doubt that the writer was a Christian, and though despised by many ancient and modern writers, and the departure from the true Christian standing, from a gospel such as Paul's who was not sent to baptize, is flagrantly evident, still it contains by far the most truths of any of these ancient writers. I have quoted all that is of worth: the rest is really nonsense in general.

264 Besides this, he makes us hasten to our appointed place by our works, and then gives a string of commandments to follow, among which he tells them to labour with their hands to give to the poor, that their sins might be forgiven them, and these commandments were the way of light. We get here some very faint trace of the first elements of the gospel, but the application of the blessing of it is by baptism and works, but he is pretty much on the ground of the historic church. Be ye taught, he says, of God, seeking what it is the Lord requires of you, and doing it, that ye may be saved in the day of judgment. We have nothing of the clergy. The epistle is found attached to the New Testament in the MSS. (as in Sinaiticus) along with Hermas. He distinctly substitutes (2) men's offering themselves for the burnt-offerings, and quotes the prophets as putting man's conduct in the place of sacrifices. It is an utter departure from the gospel as found in scripture, with happy signs that he did not intend to deny it.

In Polycarp we have one of the best of these epistles, and he quotes Paul to the Ephesians: "Knowing that by grace ye are saved, not by works, but by the faith of God, through Jesus Christ," again making it vague. We have no recognition of the Holy Ghost: I do not mean that he denies it. It is forgotten; but the clergy (though he has not a notion of episcopacy in an individual, nor writes as such, but the contrary) are fully recognized, "being subject to the priests and deacons as unto God and Christ." In fine, there is no harm in the epistle, not a trace of the gospel, save the quotation of Paul, Christ's death being used as an example, no recognition of the Holy Ghost, or any gift of the Spirit, but a full recognition of the clergy.

As to Clement, we have a long exhortation to peace: the blood of Christ is owned (it is precious to God, and has obtained the grace of repentance for the whole world) as given for us (21, 49). If we walk aright, obey the commands of God, we shall get the blessing, as all the ancient worthies (7, 9). Faith he refers to, but only acting by faith to get the blessing. "For what (32) was our father Abraham blessed? was it not because that through faith he wrought righteousness?" He says we are not justified by our own wisdom, or by the works which we have done in the holiness of our hearts, but by that faith by which God Almighty justified all men from the beginning (32). As to the clergy, he owns no bishop at Corinth — this is very marked in the letter; like Polycarp, he owns presbyters only; his letter would have been a flagrant disrespect if there had been one, and he states that the apostles appointed presbyters, but he knew no prelacy. But he is the first to introduce what soon corrupted the church. In insisting on order he refers to the chief-priest, priests, Levites, and laymen. This he speaks of as Jewish, and only by way of illustration; still it gave the direction to thought. So he speaks of offerings at the appointed seasons and the appointed place: God has ordained by His supreme will and authority both where and by what persons they are to be performed (40). In a word, the full doctrine of redemption and peace is dropped, the Holy Ghost, as a present thing, unknown (he refers to the Corinthians having had a great effusion of the Holy Ghost), and the clergy set up distinctly, and that on the pattern of Judaism. Two things are objected to in him, and that even as long ago as Photius, that he was unsound as to the divinity of Christ, and the Phoenix. We easily see that the power of the Holy Ghost as inspiration was gone, so that the mere reference to the Phoenix is nothing extraordinary; what is to me in the matter is, that he refers to heathen priests and their inquiries as true knowledge and, so to speak, divine matters, and the miracle of the Phoenix appears as a plain sanction of heathenism.

265 As to the divinity of Christ, he is, to say the least, cloudy. It has been answered that he calls Him the sceptre of the divine Majesty. This does not prove much, rather worse than nothing. Christ is throughout a man, a priest prescribing our offerings, and, what is strange, quoting Hebrews 1, he says, "But unto the Son, saith the Lord, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee, ask of me," etc. It cannot, perhaps, be said that he denied the Deity of the Lord, but it certainly is not in his mind; he is insensible to it, he thinks of the blessed Lord in another way; a full known salvation by grace he most assuredly knows not. There is no present Holy Ghost in his mind; and he sets up the clergy on the pattern of Judaism. His epistle is a distinct revelation of where Christians had got to. It is relied on for justifying the present state of the church. Prelacy it does not justify, it has no trace of such a thing, or of any individual episcopacy, but it does picture the general state, in its germinal principles. But it does not speak of a full redemption and peace; not a word of what Paul teaches of our standing as Christians, nothing; nor of the presence of the Holy Ghost. The clergy, and offerings at an appointed place, he insists on, quoting Judaism and the order of an army as a pattern and authority.

266 Further, Paul's doctrine as to the Holy Ghost and ministry are so completely ignored as to place these points on ground which obliterates and denies all Paul's teaching (42). He says, "The apostles brought us the good news of the gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ from God." Now this ignores the Holy Ghost, and the whole of that form of Christianity which resulted from Christ's exaltation. The blessed Lord says, "I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now; but when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth." This Clement wholly ignores. But Paul flatly contradicts Clement's statement: I neither received it — speaking of the gospel he preached — of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ; and this in Galatians 1: 2, when he is carefully setting aside any connection with a derivation of office or truth from the apostles. He was sent forth from Antioch, it is expressly said, by the Holy Ghost, and this is so true, that he does not recognize the apostles as sent forth by Christ on earth, but only as gifts from Christ when ascended (Eph. 4: 10, 11). "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things; and he gave some apostles," etc. The apostles, during the lifetime of Christ, were forbidden to go to the Gentiles (Matt. 10), and the mission they received (Matt. 28) after Christ's resurrection, not after His ascension, they relinquished to Paul (Gal. 2: 8, 9). However, I do not dwell on this; but the assertion of Clement denies the whole ministry and power of the Holy Ghost, as sent down from on high, after Christ's exaltation, and the truths into which He led the apostles, even the twelve themselves, and which Christ declares they could not bear when He was with them, and into which the Holy Ghost would lead them. So, as to power, too (Luke 24: 49).

As to Ignatius little need be said. In the Syriac epistles there is no allusion to any gospel truth at all; in the shorter Greek ones, generally received till the Syriac were found, we find an allusion to salvation by the fruits of the cross in that to the Smyrnaeans (1, 2). But still, as in that to the Ephesians, it is sacramental forgiveness. Christ was born and baptized, that through His passion He might sanctify water to the washing away of sin. He suffered for us that we might be saved. He is sound in the faith, denounces the Gnostics and teachers of the Jewish law; but of the doctrine of redemption and peace there is not a trace, nor of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the believer. As to the clergy, the Greek epistles are a tissue of bombastical laudations, declaring that, apart from the bishop, they were without God and away from every blessing. In the Syriac of the epistle to Polycarp we have, "Look to the bishop, that God also may look upon you. I will be instead of the souls of those who are subject to the bishop, and the presbyters, and the deacons; with them may I have a portion with God."

267 As to sacraments, I am not aware that he speaks of baptism; a passage in the Epistle to the Romans may refer to the Lord's supper, or not. In Syriac, "I do not desire the food of corruption, neither the desires of this world; the bread of God I seek, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and His blood I seek, which is love incorruptible"; in Greek, "I delight not in the food of corruption, nor in the pleasures of this life; I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born in these last days of the seed of David and Abraham; and the drink of God which I desire is His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life." He had said, "my love is crucified." It is hard to say exactly what he means, his language is so outrageously mystical and exaggerated. Thus he talks of being fervent in the blood of God. One thing is clear, that in about fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and Clement and Barnabas, episcopacy had got strong hold of some minds. Ignatius seems to have been inflamed by some divisions or difficulties, if the Greek epistles are genuine; but, while quite orthodox, the small dying remains of the sense of salvation to be found fifty years before were pretty much lost altogether, and the doctrine of the clergy ripened as constituting the church.

Hermas remains. Here all thought of divine truth is gone, and baptism and nonsensical heresy reign triumphant, with the proof that the system of immoral asceticism was grown up in the professing church, to say nothing of lying visions. He sees a tower, which is the church; but this tower is made up of the apostles, bishops, and doctors, and ministers. Then there were those who had suffered for the Lord's name, and are fallen asleep; then young ones are built in, but some who had sinned were cast out, and would be put into the tower if they repented. But there were those which fell by the water, and could not get in — they had doubted; these may repent, and be in a lower rank, but not in this tower. The water is clearly baptism; the builders are angels. Faith is one of seven virtues, only the first; and those that hold fast to their works shall have a place in the tower. In the fourth command (3) we are forgiven by baptism; then he has one repentance granted him; if he sins more, he shall hardly live: man has two angels, one suggests evil, the other good. If a man is sad in an evil sort, this vexes the Holy Spirit who dwells in him, and the Spirit entreats God, and leaves him. All this part is wholly of works and man's will, listening to the good Spirit in him.

268 In the fifth similitude he represents the work of Christ thus: A man had a farm, set his servant to stake the vineyard. This he did, but of his own good will dug it, and pulled up the weeds. The master, finding this, then takes counsel with his son and the angels what he should do, as the servant had done more than was required; so he makes the servant heir with the son. The master is the Creator, and the son is the Holy Ghost; the stakes, those set over His people to support them; the friends called to counsel are the angels; the servant is Christ, who was set to have their messengers to support the people, but of His own mind suffered to blot out their offences. God placed in a chosen body, in which God should dwell, the Holy Spirit, which was created first of all. This body therefore into which the Holy Spirit was brought served that Spirit, walking rightly and purely in modesty, nor ever defiled that Spirit; and as He had served this Holy Spirit without blame, and done more than He was set to do, He was made heir with the master's son.

He seems to have had some scruple about his statements, for he answers the objection as to putting the Son of God there, that He was put in a place of authority to set His messengers over those the Father had delivered to Him. His instructor adds, he must keep his body clean and pure. Hermas then asks, what if, through ignorance, he had already defiled his Holy Spirit? His instructor replies, as for men's former actions which through ignorance they have committed, God only can afford a remedy unto them, for all power belongeth unto Him; but now guard thyself; and seeing God is Almighty and merciful, He will grant a remedy to what thou hast formerly done amiss, if for the time to come thou shalt not defile thy body and spirit.

269 In the ninth similitude (16) we find, if indeed I understand it, the dead of the Old Testament, though already dead, were sealed with baptism, or they could not be built into the tower, the church: how is somewhat obscure, but it seems the apostles and teachers, when they died, went down to the dead, and put the seal of baptism on them, so they came up alive with them (8: 3).

The great tree . . . is the law of God published throughout the whole earth. Now this law is the Son of God, who is preached to all the ends of the earth . . . . The great and venerable angel was Michael, who has power over this people, and governs them; for he has planted the law in the hearts of those who have believed; and therefore visits those to whom he has given the law, to see if they have kept it.

The immoral asceticism, to which I have alluded, I have, on the whole, decided to leave out. It is a fact well known by readers of ecclesiastical history, under the title of pareisaktai, or subintroductae. The only importance of introducing it here was the public sanction given to a most vile and abominable practice; for Hermas was read in the churches. This Hermas was brother to Pope Pius I (of old he was thought to be he of whom Paul speaks), and he lived about forty to sixty years after the death of the apostle John.

Now, I have already given the very best things that are said in Barnabas, Clement, and Polycarp, and the other two, if good can be spoken of in Ignatius and Hermas. Some of old rejected Barnabas; the others have hardly been called into question as to genuineness. Some call Hermas inspired, as Origen; Irenaeus quotes it as scripture. Now, genuine or not, Hermas and Clement were read in the churches, not in result put in the canon, still were added at the end of the manuscripts of the New Testament, as Barnabas and Hermas in the Sinaitic, Clement in the Alexandrian, and so on. I do not know that Ignatius' epistles ever were; he was a martyr, and eager for martyrdom. Nor do I know that Polycarp's was; but in the early church it was a question as to most of them whether they were scripture or not. They were of the next highest authority, and some unquestionably constantly read in the churches. If Ignatius' Latin or Greek ones are spurious, the Syriac are there, and quite enough: nobody doubts that he wrote epistles — seven, it is said; nobody doubts that the primitive church teemed with forgeries and falsifications to prop up the system I refer to, and other foolish or evil things.

270 But we have enough to shew that, immediately after the apostles (beginning with Clement, Paul's companion, whose epistles no one questions, Barnabas, of the same date, whoever wrote it, soon after 70; Ignatius, some say 106, others 116; Polycarp at the same date; Hermas some 50 years later) we have a collection of writings which express the then current thoughts and views, and which were more or less publicly read. Now in these writings we do not find a trace of the gospel, and redemption, and salvation, and blessings, which are found in Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, John, or even Peter, who does not go so far as Paul and John; nor do we find the practical recognition of the Holy Ghost. I speak of their teachings. Polycarp and Ignatius were, no doubt, saints; Barnabas and Clement, it may be too, though in the last less appears; yet I would not call it in question. On the other hand the clergy and sacraments, particularly baptism (Paul was not sent to baptize), are the constituent elements of the church they are conversant with. They own Christ's death of course, but its effect or application, and the Christian's place, as Paul and other apostles put it, are nowhere found.

It is not, of course, the fact that there are elders that makes the sudden departure from scriptural truth and standing evident (Paul chose such), but that they and sacraments are everything — constitute the church; and what constituted Christianity as God gave it is gone.

All this led the way to hierarchical power, and finally to popery in the West; and, as to practice, the deliberate adoption of heathenism, days, and months, and years, formally judged in Galatians as a return to heathenism, and the deliberate substitution of saints' memories, as they were called, for those of demigods — places of memorial, where they feasted and got drunk in honour of saints instead of demi-gods, that at least, as Augustine expresses it, their drunkenness might be consecrated to saints, not to demons. And this was deliberately done everywhere, formally allowed in England, where temples were changed into churches; and these festivals were the origin of our village wakes, Christmas being the dissolute feast of the Lupercalia.

271 But all these things were the fruits of this departure from Christianity. I speak of the departure itself. It had not come to this in Clement's and Barnabas' time; but the church, such as it is historically known and thought of to-day, had been substituted for Christianity.

I may sum up the system in the words of a writer long subsequent, as briefly stating the system, using another's translation: "Whereas the human race, by the demerit derived to it from the fault of the first sinner, had become pierced with the darts of eternal punishment . . . . Christ granted to it certain remedial sacraments, to the end that it might acknowledge the difference between what is merited by nature and what it received by grace; and that, as nature could bring punishment only, grace, not called grace if granted to merit, might furnish whatever appertains to salvation." This is its ripe formulary. The system began as soon as the apostles were gone.

There were two departures from truth: heresy, particularly at first Gnosticism — this ends in Antichrist; and a human view of the church, with the practical denial of the Christian's place by the Spirit; the last ends in Babylon. This takes essentially the character of the clergy, and the Spirit being with them; and so of the sacramental system as the channels of special grace. We may now see what light the New Testament throws on the subject; but history and the writings of the apostolic fathers, so called, from Clement to Hermas, shew us plainly that the doctrine of the Christian's place in Christ, and of the Holy Ghost present and active in all saints, as also freely distributing His gifts as He will, was totally lost at once by Christians after the apostles were gone. I am not denying that there was a set of people gathered, which gathering, in fact, continued, and was corrupted gradually (this is clear), but that from the outset this gathered body of men lost the place, position, and power of that in which they had been established, and that the principles on which the gathering stood and was held to exist were, as soon as placed on their own responsibility, the contrary of what God had set them on. That it was not a body of persons knowing themselves to be in Christ, exalted as man at the right hand of God, consequent upon His having redeemed them, and perfected them for ever, for whom there was no condemnation, every one of whom was anointed and sealed by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, the earnest of the inheritance which they had not yet, which Holy Ghost, uniting them into one body, and distributing to every man severally as He would, made each a servant of Christ in his place and gift, and responsible to trade with the talent confided to him; and, as every man had received the gift, so to minister the same; but a body of persons who were viewed as connected with a clergy, who might or might not be gifted, but their connection with whom formed them into one corporation, of which the administration of the sacraments formed the bond and link, and who by their works were to obtain salvation at the end.

272 Now this was really the Judaism against which the apostle so earnestly contended, and which met and harassed him in his service in every place, which would have a derived ordained ministry, disowning the power and title of the Spirit, and the true Lordship of Christ, and teaching justification by works, apostolic succession, and the observing of days and months and years.

Was this departure from Christ to be expected at once? or was the successional continuance of the outward body that which was secured by the Lord's promise? What does the word declare? Heresy fully contributed its part; but whatever was the cause, was the continuance of the body under God's approbation contemplated or not?

Let us see what was the state of things even before the apostle's death. "All they which be in Asia have turned away from me; all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ; the mystery of iniquity doth already work." So Paul. Peter says, "The time is come that judgment shall begin at the house of God." Jude says, "False brethren have crept in unawares." Was this to be remedied? "These are they," he says, "of whom Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, The Lord cometh, with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment." So John, "Ye have heard that antichrist cometh, and already there are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time." All this before the apostles were gone — Peter expecting no proper successional care and writing that "they might have these things always in remembrance", Jude having to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints"; James telling them "to be patient to the coming of the Lord," that "the judge was at the door" Peter, that delay was not "slackness concerning promise, but the long-suffering of God, not willing that any should perish"; the Lord Himself, hanging all in suspense over them, saying words already then misinterpreted, "If I will that he tarry till I come"; but all marking the decay and ruin, and teaching to look forward to the coming of the Lord.

273 But Paul, especially the apostle of the church, and who alone indeed formally speaks of it, gives us more precise and definite statements. "I know that after my decease grievous wolves shall enter in, not sparing the flock, yea, even of your own selves shall perverse men arise to draw away the disciples after them; wherefore watch, and remember," etc., etc. Thought of a successor, in these days called bishop, he had none; the existence of such, then or after his departure, is a thing unknown to him. He commends them to God and the word of His grace (compare the language of Ignatius in similar circumstances) which was able to build them up and give them an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. The time, he tells us, would come when they would not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables. This, mark, is a general character of the state of things. There were many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses. The result he fully states in 2 Timothy 3, "that in the last days perilous times should come," and then, giving a description answering to that in which he shews the state of heathenism, he closes by saying, "having the form of godliness, but denying the power of it"; but at the close of the chapter he says, "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived," and then refers to Timothy's having learnt the truth from himself, and the power and authority of the scriptures as a safeguard.

The tares which the devil sowed in the field were to remain till harvest; the mystery of iniquity already working in the apostles' days would go on and ripen into the man of sin, and end in judgment. When the message comes from Christ through John to the churches, they have no authority but are judged, and the Christian is called upon to hear what the Spirit says to them; they were not competent to speak or guide, but he that had ears to hear was to listen to the judgment pronounced on them, to what was said. No voice of any universal church was to guide, but the individual to listen to the voice of testimony as to what was found in the church. The church did not judge or guide or teach, but the word revealed Christ's judgment of this church, and to that he who had ears was to listen.

274 The Gentiles have not continued in God's goodness and are to be cut off. But the origin of all this was that they, having begun in the Spirit, ended in the flesh. The clergy replaced the power and gifts of the Spirit, the sacraments His grace; and, the clergy being the ministry, the free distribution of the Holy Ghost, and the exercise of gift, where gift was, was set aside. The apostolic order was set aside, and the Christian position before God was lost, both connected with the presence of the Holy Ghost, as the expectation of God's Son from heaven was soon dropped out, men ceasing to watch for Him.

All the principles which constituted Christianity under apostolic teaching were lost in the body left behind them: the place of Christians in Christ, known by the Holy Ghost, His free presence and power working in living streams in individual Christians, under the authority of Christ, regulated by the word, and constant expectation of Christ from heaven. These were the principles of the church on earth, as established by God: what is called the church is the denial of all these, only the last was lost later than the others. But the church system was founded on an ordained clergy, with whom rested all ministry, and the sacraments as that which incorporated the laity under them, and thereby the establishment of the church on earth, not waiting for God's Son from heaven.

I am not denying the existence of elders, or of baptism and the Lord's supper: what I insist on is, that what has taken place is the substitution of these for the principles on which God founded His assembly in the world, and that this was immediate. The historical church is man's system, from the beginning, in contrast with God's: that system has been corrupted, but what has been corrupted is man's system, not God's. No doubt God had gathered the first materials into unity, but the principles on the which He founded His assembly resisted, specially by Judaism, during the life of the apostles, were given up when they were gone; and the system they had resisted became that which stood before men's eyes as the church. The free power of the Spirit, and known acceptance in an exalted Christ, ceased to be the constituent principles of those gathered; the clerical principle denying the Spirit, making elders the ministry as a clergy, that is, ordained teachers, not the gift and power of the Holy Ghost. This was first developed in local episcopacy, then in diocesan episcopacy and the hierarchy, and then in popery.

275 We are called on by God to go to the scriptures, which are abiding truth, knowing the Holy Ghost was to abide with us for ever. Our choice is between, on one side, the authority of the word and the Holy Ghost, connected with what is called the universal priesthood of Christians (an incorrect application of an important truth); on the other, the infallible pope, or infidelity? the crown of the system of the clergy i or the no longer disguised enmity of the human heart against God and His word. Only remark, the word of God and the Spirit of God, as acting in all saints, is alike set aside by both. The abominations, In which the departure I signalize (abominations worthy of, yea, worse than heathenism), in the professing church resulted, are known to those acquainted with ecclesiastical history; but that is not my object now. But it is well that he who is not familiar with that history should know that the very vilest and most degraded evil of which history has preserved the record is found in the history of what is called the church of God.

The Testimony of God;

or the trial of man, the grace and the government of God.

J. N. Darby.

<22005E> 335

Nothing, unless it be personal salvation and the communion of the soul with our God, can be of greater importance, or of higher interest for the Christian, than the testimony which God has given to Himself in this world of darkness. After all, salvation and communion depend on this testimony. What would the state of man be without this testimony? What is his state where this testimony has not penetrated? What an immense privilege to possess the thoughts of God Himself, above all with regard to that which concerns us morally, to be in relationship with God through means of the communication of His thoughts, to be called His friends and to enjoy this privilege as a matter of fact by the possession of the truest, the most intimate, testimonies of His thoughts and His affections! And observe that, man being the great object of His affections, these develop themselves in the ways of God with regard to man — ways which even the angels desire to look into.

In fact man, according to the wisdom of God, is the being with regard to whom the character of God and all His moral ways unfold themselves most completely and in the most perfect and admirable way. It is not, by any means, the intellectual capacity of man, nor his moral power which renders him so fit for this, because it is not the judgment which he can form of what God is that is capable of revealing God-without even taking into account the fall of man. This judgment would always, by the fact that man is an imperfect and feeble creature, be below the truth with regard to God, in the proportion in which man is below God.

Moreover innocent man would have neither the need, nor the desire, to pass a judgment about God. He would enjoy His goodness with thanksgiving. Man who is a sinner is in no way capable of judging rightly, either of his state, or of his position before God; he has not even the wish for it. No, God reveals Himself in His own ways with regard to man. An angel does not furnish Him the occasion for it as man does; an angel has no need of mercy, of grace, of forgiveness, of divine righteousness, of a sacrificing priest, of power which, while sustaining him in weakness, raises him up from the dead. An angel is not, following upon all these things, made like to Christ, the glorious man, identified with His interests by the incarnation. Angels are a witness rendered to the creative and preserving power of God. They excel in strength. We see in them creatures kept by God, so that they have not lost their first estate. Now, grace and redemption, patience, mercy, divine righteousness, do not apply to such a state, but to fallen man they do.

336 Here the angels desire to fathom the wonderful ways of God with regard to man. It is from the heart of man, descended to the lowest step in the scale of intelligent beings, resembling alas! the beasts in his desires. Satan in his pride, a weak slave in his passions; strong, or at least proud, in his spirit and in his pretensions; having the knowledge of good and evil, but in a conscience which condemns him; by reason of sufferings, sighing after something better but incapable of attaining it; having the want of some other world than this material one, but fearful of getting to it; having the feeling that we ought to be in relationship with God, the only object worthy of an immortal soul, but at an infinite distance from God in his lusts, and animated by such a desire for independence that he is unwilling to admit God to the only place which becomes Him if He is God, and seeks consequently to prove that there is no God; it is from the heart of man, capable of the highest aspirations, with which his pride feeds itself, and of the most degrading lusts with which however his conscience becomes disgusted; it is from the heart of man, that God forms the divine harp on which all the harmony of His praises can resound and will resound for evermore.

By the bringing in of grace and the divine power which unfolds itself in a new life communicated to man, and by the manifestation of the Son of God in human nature, fallen man is brought to judge all evil, according to divine affections formed in him by faith, and to enjoy good according to the perfect revelation of good in God Himself manifested in Christ; while man gives God His place with joy, because He is known as a God of love. Man also takes again the place of dependence — the only one which is suitable for a creature; but of a dependence which is exercised in the intelligence of all the perfections of God, on which he depends, and depends with joy, as a child on his father, like Christ Himself who has taken this place in order that we may enter into it.

337 But in order that the character of God, that which He is, may be unfolded in the state of man, and that our hearts and consciences may take knowledge of it, man must pass through the different phases which furnish occasion for God to unfold Himself thus in grace. He must be, on God's part, an innocent and happy creature, by his own will fallen and guilty, and in a state in which all the grace of God displays itself, and in which God unfolds all its riches and righteousness, while His sovereign good-pleasure raises man to a height which depends wholly on this good-pleasure and glorifies God Himself in the result which is produced but glorifies a God of love. In result, His sovereign goodness is displayed towards the most perfect misery, and causes to enter into its communion the most perfect excellence.

We are about to examine briefly these ways of God toward man.

God created man innocent, that is to say, having neither malice nor corruption nor lust, and without the discernment of good and evil — a discernment he had no need of, for he had only to enjoy with gratitude the good with which he was surrounded. At the same time he was bound to obey, and his obedience was put to the proof by his being forbidden to eat one tree alone which was found in the midst of the garden.

It has been supposed that he had the knowledge of good and that he acquired the knowledge of evil. To say so is to misunderstand the force of the expression. He acquired the knowledge of the distinction of good and evil in himself. He began to judge concerning that which is good and that which is evil. Eating of the forbidden fruit was only evil because it was forbidden to be eaten, it was not evil in itself. God has taken care that, in a state of sin, conscience should accompany man.

Man would have had opportunity, while in a state of innocence, to enjoy the visits of God, and to hold intercourse with God; but God did not dwell with him, nor he with God.

Man did not fall without being tempted. The enemy suggested to his mind distrust with regard to God; and this distrust, separating his heart from God, gave place to his own will and his lust, as well as to the pride which would be equal with God. Now self-will, lust, and pride are what mark the actual condition of the natural man. Thus man separated himself from God in making himself, as far as his will was concerned, independent of Him, that is to say, as much as sin can make independent, and as moral degradation does make us independent of sovereign good. In this state man could not endure the presence of God. On the contrary, that presence, which cast the divine light on the state of man and made him feel what he had become — that presence which recalled his fault to him and what he had lost, must have been to him of all things the most intolerable. Man might cover himself to his own eyes from the shame of sin, but before God he knew that he was naked, as if not a fig-leaf had been found in the garden.

338 The question of God, "Adam, where art thou?" was equally touching and overwhelming. Why, when he heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, with the divine familiarity of a goodness which could enter into communication with an innocent nature, did not man run to meet Him? Where was he? In sin and in nakedness.

Now the word of God lays man bare. Terrible truth when the conscience is bad! — truth before which all pretence to independence vanishes like falsehood before the truth, only leaving the shameful guilt of the pretence itself, as well as of the folly and ingratitude which have sought after this independence, and in which we have sought to be independent of supreme good.

Observe here that the promise was made to the last Adam, to the Seed of the woman, and that it goes before the expulsion of fallen Adam from the earthly paradise. Thus man fled from the presence of God before God drove him from the peaceful abode in which He had placed him. But the authority of God must be maintained. It was not becoming that sin should remain unpunished. Judgment must needs be put in exercise. The holiness of God abhors sin and repels it. The righteousness of God maintains His authority according to His holiness in executing a just judgment on him who does evil.

Man was banished from paradise, and the world began. Sin against one's neighbour was consummated in the world, as sin against God in paradise, and the death of the righteous one presented a striking image of that of the Lord Himself. Driven from the presence of God, man in despair sought to put in order and to embellish the world: this was all that remained to him; and civilization, the arts, and the delights of a life of luxury occupied and developed the intelligence of a being, who, having no longer any relation with holiness and the divine perfections, lost himself in that which was below him, while boasting himself of the fruits of his perverted intellect.

339 But, without the repression of the will of man by a superior power, civilization, although it may deceive for a moment the judgment of man as to the state of his heart in occupying the mind, cannot arrest the vehemence of lusts, nor the violence of the will which seeks to satisfy them and to make a way for its passions through all obstacles. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence."

But the grace of God did not leave itself without witness. The judgment of God on the serpent announced the Seed of the woman. Abel, who "being dead yet speaketh," testified of the power of evil and of Satan in the world; but he also testified of the acceptance on God's part of the righteous one who comes to God through a sacrifice which recognizes sin and atones for it, and lays the foundation of a hope outside the world in which the one who was accepted of God had been rejected and sacrificed to the hatred of the wicked. The departure of Enoch, who walked with God, confirmed this hope, and tended to assure faith (which believes that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him) that there is a happiness for the righteous in the presence of Him whom he loves — a happiness which the world does not give, neither does it take away. This, although obscure, nourished and sustained the faith of those who sought to walk with God, whilst evil went on always increasing.

When the evil was approaching its height, another testimony was raised up in the person of him who was to pass through the judgment which put an end to the frightful development of evil that prevailed in spite of the testimony already given.

This was a testimony, not for the affections of the saints, fitted to carry them outside the world, but a testimony of the judgment of the world itself — a judgment necessary according to the principles of divine government, but through which a small righteous remnant should be preserved in an ark of safety which God revealed to them.

Such was the condition of man, such his history, when, in consequence of the violation of a law, he had been driven from the earthly paradise in which God had placed him, and left, without law, to his own will, though not without a testimony. It needed that the deluge should put an end to a state of things in which corruption and violence had covered the face of the earth and left only eight persons disposed to listen to the testimony that God granted to them of the judgment which awaited them.

340 During the period which transpired between the expulsion of Adam from the terrestrial paradise and the deluge, man was one family, one race. There was no idolatry. Man was left to his own ways (not without witness, but without restraint from without), and the evil became insupportable: the deluge put an end to it. After this event — this judgment of God, a new world began, and the principle of government was introduced. He who should kill a man should himself be put to death: a curb was put upon violence, a bridle on outward sin. The corruption of the heart in a world at a distance from God remained just as it was. But although there were as yet no nations, the destiny of various races, such as it has been to the present day, began to dawn at least prophetically. Noah failed in the position in which he had been placed after the deluge, as Adam had failed in paradise, as man has always done; as every creature has done which has not been directly sustained of God.

The reader may, in passing, remark Adam as an image of Him who was to come, of the last Adam; and Noah as also a figure of Christ, inasmuch as the government of the world and the repression of evil were now entrusted to man.

Two great principles, which subsist to the present day, characterize the world which is developed after Noah: they are connected with the tower of Babel. Up to this time, whether before or after the deluge, there had been only the human race, one family only. Now, in consequence of the judgment of man, who seeks to exalt himself on the earth and to make himself a name or centre which may give him strength, God scatters those who were building the tower, and there are nations, languages, and peoples. The actual form of the world was established in reference to its division into different tribes and different nations. Moreover individual energy forms an empire which has Babel for its centre and point of departure. Now that the world is constituted, we arrive at the testimony and ways of God. In the midst of this system of nations, there were languages, peoples, and nations.

The judgment of God had thus ordered the world, but an immense fact appears in the history of the world. The sin of man is no longer only sin against God, manifested in corruption and in the activity of an independent will. Demons take the place of God Himself in the eyes and for the imagination of men. Idolatry reigns among the nations, and even in the race brought the nearest to God, the race of Shem. Although, at bottom, this idolatry was everywhere the same, each nation had its gods. The system established by God Himself, at the time of the judgment of the race at the tower of Babel, acknowledged demons as its gods. This gives occasion to the call of Abraham. The God of glory appears to him and calls him to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house. He must break completely with the system established by God; and that in its most intimate relationships. He must be for God, and for God alone. He is chosen by sovereign grace; being called, he walks by faith, and the promises are made to him.

341 But this call introduces another principle of great importance. There had already been many faithful ones who had walked with God — Abels, Enochs, Noahs; but none was like Adam, who was head of evil, the stock of a race. Now Abraham, being called, became the stock of a race which was to inherit the promises outside the world. Of course this may be developed in a spiritual manner in Christians, or in a carnal manner in the people of Israel; but the heir of the promise (and this applies to Christ Himself) enjoys it as the seed of Abraham. If the nations, the peoples, the families, and the languages took demons for their gods, God took a man by His grace to be the head of a family, the stock of a people, who may belong to Him for His own. The fatness of God's olive-tree is found in those who grow on the root of Abraham, whether it be in a people, the seed according to the flesh, or in a seed which shares in the promised blessings, inasmuch as belonging to Christ the true Seed of the promise. This call and this vocation, whatever the phases may be which the objects to which they apply pass through, always remain firm. Christ Himself came to accomplish the promises made to the fathers, as a witness of the unchangeable truth of God.

The state of the first heirs, however, changes; and in a little while we find a people who care little for the promises, but who, far removed from the faith of Abraham, groan under the yoke of a merciless tyranny.

342 This state of the people of God brings in an event in which a principle of immense importance is brought into view, namely, that of redemption, or of the deliverance of the people of God from the consequences of sin and from the slavery in which they were held. We shall see also, in the fruits of redemption, facts of the highest interest for us. The cry of the people went up to the ears of Jehovah of Hosts, and He comes down to deliver them. But the Saviour is the just Judge, and it is needful that He should reconcile these two characters. In order to be able to deliver, His own righteousness must be satisfied. A God who is not righteous cannot, morally speaking, be a Saviour. It is in this character that God definitely appears, when He intends to deliver the people. He had manifested His power in calling on Pharaoh to let the people go, in declaring the rights he had over Israel; but the deliverance must needs be accomplished without the goodwill of man and by the judgment of God, by the full manifestation of what He is with regard to evil, and in love also, so that He may be known. Now the people themselves were, in certain respects, more guilty than the Egyptians; and God comes in as a judge. But the blood of the paschal lamb is put upon the door, and Israel escapes the judgment that was due to them, according to the value which that blood had in the eyes of God. God judges, and, by reason of the blood recognized by faith, passes over His guilty people. But Israel was still in Egypt; their deliverance was not yet effected, although the price of redemption was paid in figure. Israel sets forth. On arriving at the Red Sea, the question of their deliverance or their ruin must be decided. Pharaoh had pursued them, sure of his victory. The wilderness in which Israel was, in appearance, lost, offered them no outlet; and the Red Sea (figure of death and judgment) was straight before them. On the morrow Israel only saw the corpses of their enemies who had perished in the sea — the road of salvation for the people of God. The death and judgment of Christ make us pass on dry land, far away from the place where we were captives.

Redemption is more than the fact of our being secured from the judgment of God. It is a deliverance wrought by God. He Himself acts for us, and places us in an altogether new position, by the exercise of the power of God Himself.

We have, in this important history, the figures of the great facts on which our eternal blessing is founded. It prefigures propitiation, redemption, and justification under a double aspect; on the one hand, propitiation by the blood which sets us free from all imputation of sin in presence of the righteousness of God; and on the other, our introduction, in virtue of the value of that blood, into an altogether new position by the resurrection. Christ was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.

343 Some very important principles come before our eyes, consequent upon deliverance by redemption. God dwells with the redeemed — if you will, in their midst.

He did not dwell with innocent Adam, nor with Abraham called by His grace and heir of the promises. But, as soon as Israel is redeemed and delivered by redemption, God dwells in the midst of the people. Compare Exodus 15: 2, and chap. 29: 45, 46.

The holiness of God and of the relations of His people with Him then appear for the first time. Never in Genesis was the holiness of anything whatever set before us (except in the alone case of the sanctification of the sabbath in paradise), nor the holiness of God's character. But Exodus 15 and 19; Leviticus 19: 26, and other passages shew us that, once redemption is accomplished, God takes this character, and establishes it as necessary for everything that is in relation with Himself. Compare Exodus 6: 5.

In immediate connection with this truth another is found, which, moreover, flows necessarily from redemption, namely, that the ransomed ones no longer belong to themselves; they are taken for God, consecrated to God, set apart for Him. Afterwards they are brought to God Himself; Exod. 19: 4.

Israel enter into the wilderness, the character of this world for the people of God who have the consciousness of their redemption, and the faithfulness of God takes care of His people there. Next, they enter into Canaan, where it is a question of the victories which we must win in order to enjoy in this world the heavenly privileges which belong to us. As to the title, we enjoy these privileges before gaining a single victory; but, in order to realize these privileges, we must conquer. The wilderness and Canaan prefigure the two parts of Christian life: patience in the world under the hand of God who is leading us; and victory in our combats with Satan, in order to enjoy and to cause others to enjoy spiritual privileges.

344 But another very important privilege comes to light during the sojourn of Israel in the wilderness. If the reader examines Exodus 15 to 18, he will find that all is grace. But in chapter 19 the people put themselves under the law, and accept the enjoyment of the promises under the condition of their own obedience to all that Jehovah would say. Obedience was a duty; but to place themselves under this condition was to forget their own weakness and to ensure their being lost, a consequence which did not fail. Before Moses came down from the mountain, Israel had made the calf of gold. The patience of God continued His relations with the people by the means of the intercession of Moses, until, as Jeremiah says, there was no longer any remedy. But our aim now is to point out the ways of God, and not to enter into details.

The promises of God had been made to Abraham without condition, and in consequence the question of righteousness had not been raised. Now this question was raised, and first, as was reasonable, righteousness in man demanded on God's part. It was the duty of the creature. The question must needs have been raised, but the result was — and with sinners it could be no other — that man, having violated the law, aggravated his sin, instead of attaining to righteousness. With a rule which would have made his happiness if he had kept it, he is only a transgressor and by so much the more guilty before God. Moreover, it was in order to convince him of his state of sin that the law, which brought in positive transgressions, was given to him. God never had the thought of saving by a law; and man needs to be saved. The law of God must propose a rule which expresses the perfection of a man, nay, of every intelligent creature. But that could do nothing else than make sin evident, when man was already a sinner. This last truth is forgotten, when people speak of the law. However the law of God must be the perfect expression of what man ought to be, that is to say, must condemn man, a sinner. An exact measure does not add anything to a too short piece of cloth which has been sold to me, but it manifests the fraud. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." The question of human righteousness has been resolved by the law. Ordained with promise of life for obedience, it has been in fact a ministry of death and condemnation for those who have borne its yoke.

This is an immense fact and principle. Human righteousness does not exist. The guilt of man is made manifest.

345 We have seen that God manifested all patience with regard to man under the law, the while preparing him for a better hope. He sent His prophets to warn, to seek for fruits in His vineyard. All were rejected. At last He sent His Son. All was useless. He was cast out of the vineyard and put to death. But this exposes to view another character of sin: men rejected the mercy of God, as they failed to meet the just requirements of the law. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." But man had no desire for this reconciliation, and did not wish for God at any price. For His love Christ found hatred. When He appeared, they saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him.

Thus the sin of man was completely demonstrated. Innocent, he abandoned God; but afterwards left to himself, except as to the testimony of God, he made of the world a scene of corruption and of violence, such that God must needs bring in the flood. Placed under the law, he violated it, and sought other gods of dung which he had invented. God Himself arrives in mercy in this world of sin, with the manifestation of the most perfect love and of a power capable of re-establishing man in blessing on the earth; but the carnal mind is enmity against God, and man manifested this enmity in rejecting Jesus and putting Him to death. The cross of Jesus served as a proof that man hated God and expressed this hatred in the rejection of the Saviour. Morally speaking, it is the end of the history of man. Completely put to the proof, he is corrupt and violent, a transgressor, guilty; but, more than that, he hates the God of goodness.

What we have gone through is the history of man put to the proof. There remains the history of the grace of God toward man, and the government of the world on the part of God.

There can exist no more serious question for the soul than this: where shall I find righteousness before God? We have said that the law raised this question. It is of importance to see the position it takes when the law is given.

From the first existence of man on the earth the question between responsibility and grace was placed at issue. In the earthly paradise there was the tree of life which only communicated life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to which the responsibility of man was attached. As to the tree of life, man did not eat of it; and (once become a sinner) the mercy of God, as well as His righteousness and the moral order of His government, closed against him the way of this tree. An immortal sinner on the earth would have been an insupportable anomaly in the government of God. Besides, man had deserved to be shut out of the garden. On the other hand man failed in his responsibility. Before his fall he did not know sin, but he was in the relation of a creature towards God. There was no sin in eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, except inasmuch as this had been forbidden.

346 When man fell, the Seed of the woman, the last Adam, was immediately announced: the hopes of the human race are thenceforth placed upon a new ground. The deliverance presented does not consist in something which would have been but a means of raising up again founded on the moral activity of man already in a fallen condition; but another person is announced, who, while of the human race, should be a source of life independent of Adam, and who should destroy the power of the enemy; a person who should not represent Adam, but replace him before God, should be the seed of the woman, which Adam was not, and should at the same time be an object of faith for Adam and for his children — an object which, being received into the heart, should be the life and salvation of whoever should receive it. The first Adam was made a living soul; he was lost: the last Adam, the second Man, is a quickening spirit. Until the coming of Christ the promise only was the source of hope; it alone, through grace, begat and sustained faith. We believe in its accomplishment. When God called Abraham, He gave him (Gen. 12) the promise that in him all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Afterwards (chap. 22) this promise was confirmed to his Seed. The one who was to be the seed of the woman was also to be the seed of Abraham. Thus the ways of God towards man were established on an indefectible promise. It was without condition, a simple promise, and consequently it did not raise the question of righteousness nor of the responsibility of man.

Four hundred and thirty years afterwards the law comes, and, as we have said, raises the question of righteousness, and that, on the footing of the responsibility of man, by giving him a perfect rule of what man, the child of Adam, ought to be. Now, observe it well, he was a sinner. This law had a twofold aspect, a kernel of absolute truth, which the Lord Jesus was able to draw from its obscurity — supreme love to God and love to one's neighbour. It is the perfect rule of the blessedness of the creature as a creature. The angels realize it in heaven. Man is as far as possible from having accomplished the law on earth. But this rule is developed in the details of relative duties, which flow from the relation in which man finds himself, as a fact, before God, and from the relation in which he finds himself placed as towards others in this lower world.

347 Now, in the circumstances in which man found himself these details necessarily had reference to the moral state in which he was, supposed sin and lusts, and forbad them. As the law of God applying itself to the actual state of man, it necessarily condemns sin on the one hand, and necessarily proves it on the other. What can a law do in such a case, but condemn — be, as the apostle says (2 Cor. 3), a ministry of death and condemnation? It demanded righteousness according to a rule which the conscience of man could not but approve, and which at the same time proved his guiltiness. It is in this, in fact, that the usefulness of the law consists; it gives the knowledge of sin. God never gave it to produce righteousness. In order to this, an inward moral power is absolutely necessary. But the law on the tables of stone is not the power. The law requires righteousness of man, and pronounces the last judgment of God, makes sin exceeding sinful, and brings the just anger of God. No law produces a nature. Now the nature of man was sinful. The commandment demonstrates that he will seek to satisfy that nature, in spite of God's forbidding it. The law is thus, and because it is just and good, the strength of sin. It entered that the offence might abound. Those who are of the works of the law (these are not bad works: the apostle speaks of all who walk on this principle) are under the curse it has pronounced on such as disobey it. The flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The promise of God remains sure. Man is put to the proof so that it may be made manifest whether he can produce a human righteousness.

The law was presented to man under a twofold aspect — the law pure and simple, and the law mingled with grace, that is to say, given to man after the intervention of grace, but leaving man to his own responsibility after a forgiveness accorded by grace. The history of the first point of view is very short. Before Moses came down from Mount Sinai, Israel had made the golden calf. The tables of the law never entered the camp. They never were able to form the basis of the relations of man with God. How reconcile the commandments with the worship of the calf of gold? Subsequent to this sin Moses intercedes for the people, and they receive the law anew, God acting in mercy according to His sovereignty and proclaiming Himself merciful and gracious. The relationship of the people with God is founded on the pardon which God grants, and established no longer as an immediate relationship with God, but on the ground of Moses' mediation. The people however are put under the law, and everyone is to be blotted out of God's book through his own sin, if he render himself guilty. At the same time the law is hidden under an ark, and God Himself is hidden behind a veil, within which the sprinkling of blood was to be made on the mercy-seat which formed, together with the cherubim, the throne of God.

348 But this mixture of grace and law could not, any more than the unmingled law, serve to establish between God and man relations capable of being maintained. It could serve to demonstrate that, whatever might be the patience of God, man, responsible for his conduct, could not obtain life by a righteousness which he himself should accomplish. Also, the impossibility in which man finds himself of subsisting in presence of the exigencies of the glory of God, however feebly it may be revealed, is presented to us in a remarkable figure, which the apostle makes use of in 2 Corinthians. The people prayed Moses to cover his face, which still shone with the reflection of the glory of Jehovah, with whom he had been in communication on the top of Mount Sinai. Man cannot endure the revelation of God when God demands of man that he should be what he ought to be before Him. The veil disclosed, at bottom, the same truth. God must hide Himself. The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest. A law was given on God's part to direct man's life, a priesthood established to maintain the relations of the people with God, notwithstanding the faults of which they became guilty; but man could not come nigh to God. Sad state, in which the revelation of the presence of God, the only thing which can really give blessing, necessarily repelled the one who needed the blessing! We shall see that, in Christianity, exactly the contrary takes place: the veil is rent.

349 But let us pursue the ways of God with man under the law.

We have already seen that, in the system we are considering, life was proposed to man as the result of his faithfulness. Whatever may be the patience and grace of God, all depends on this faithfulness; and not only is the responsibility of man completely at stake, but all depends on the way in which he meets this responsibility. God, no doubt, had patience, and manifested His grace. He bore with Israel in the desert and introduced them into the land of Canaan, in spite of all sorts of unfaithfulness on the part of the people. He put the people in possession of the country, giving them victories over their enemies. He raised up judges to deliver them, when their unfaithfulness had subjected them to their powerful neighbours. He sent them prophets to recall them to the observance of the law. At length, with a goodness which would not judge them without using every means to gain their hearts, He sent His Son to receive the fruit of His vine, on which He had expended all His care, and on which He had lavished so many proofs of love. But His vine yielded only wild grapes; and those who cultivated it, those to whom He had entrusted it, rejected His servants the prophets, and cast His Son out of the vineyard and killed Him. Such was the end of the proof to which man was put under the law: all the grace and all the patience of God having been employed to induce them to obey and maintain them in obedience — all was useless.

There is the history of man under the law. If we examine the bearing of the law on the conscience, we shall find that it brings condemnation and death as soon as it is spiritually understood; but the aim of this article is to consider the ways of God. Nevertheless I cannot leave this subject without entreating my reader to weigh well what is the bearing of the law, if it be applied to his conscience and his life before God, if he be responsible — and he surely is — if all he can do is to recognize the justice and excellence of that which the law demands. If he sees that he ought to avoid that which the law condemns, and that the two commandments which form the positive part of the law are the two pillars of the blessedness of the creature; if he finds that he has constantly done and loved that which the law and his own conscience condemn, and that he has entirely failed in that which his conscience must acknowledge as being the perfection of the creature: if all that be true, where is the life which is promised to obedience? How escape the condemnation pronounced on the violation of the law, if he places himself on the ground of his own responsibility and has to be judged according to a rule which he himself acknowledges as perfect? Another law could not be found. If he is without law, good and evil are indifferent; that is as much as to say that man is more than wicked; even natural conscience is ruined, good does not exist, and man is unbridled in evil, save by the violence of his neighbour or the just judgment of God displayed in an event like the deluge. No; the law is just and good, and man knows it, his conscience tells him so. But if the law is good and just, man on the ground of his own responsibility is lost. The life which it promises to obedience man has not obtained; the judgment which will make good the authority and justice of the law awaits the one who has disobeyed it, and will at the same time be pronounced against all the shamelessness of an unbridled will. All the guilty will be reached. As to the law, as the apostle expresses it — happily for the awakened conscience — that which was ordained to life, man finds it to be unto death.

350 The presence however of the Son of God in this world had not alone for its object the seeking, on the part of Jehovah, fruit from His vine. This task was even the smallest part of the object of His coming; necessary, no doubt, in order to make evident the state in which man was, as a child of Adam, responsible before God; but not at all the object of God's counsels in His coming, nor even the principal thing which was revealed by His manifestation in flesh. Moreover neither did the fact that man did not render the fruit which God had the right to expect bring to its full height the sin of man. God has been manifested in the flesh; He has appeared, He is love: love then has been manifested. He has been manifested in relation with the wants, the weakness, the misery, the sins of man. He was divine in His perfection, but He shewed this perfection while adapting Himself perfectly to the state in which man was found. It was a love which was above all our miseries, but which adapted itself to all our miseries and did not weary itself of any of them. The Lord Jesus has manifested in His life here below a power which destroyed entirely the power of Satan over men. He healed all the sick, cast out devils, raised the dead, gave to eat to those who were hungry. He had, as man, bound the strong man and spoiled his goods. And not only that, but what was still more important, the human being who was the most abandoned to sin found in Him a way by which he could return to God. God Himself was come to seek him, God who was shewing that no sin was too great for His love, no defilement too repulsive for His heart. Satan had ruined man by destroying his confidence in God: God neglected nothing to re-establish it, but with a perfect condescension; perfect, because His love could not do otherwise; perfect, because it was the true expression of His heart, which found in the miseries, the faults, the weakness of man, the occasion of assuring them that there was a love on which they could always count.

351 We see, in effect, in the cases of the woman of bad life and of the one whom the Lord met at Jacob's well, how the Saviour's love attracted the heart, when once the awakening of the conscience had created in the heart the want of His goodness. There was then produced a confidence which revived the heart, turned it aside from evil, a confidence which no human being knows how to inspire and which delivers the soul from the evil influence which surrounds and possesses it, as well as from the fear of man, to turn it towards God with a sincerity which demonstrates that it is in the light with God, but which demonstrates also that the goodness of God has found its way to the heart, in such sort that it has no desire to get out of a position in which all the evil that is found there is manifested, but manifested where all is love, and where one can rest because all is known. It is a love which inspires confidence, because, when all is known, God remains always love. Here is the divine character of Christ, to be the light which makes all manifest, the love which loves when all is made manifest, which knows all beforehand, which produces perfect uprightness in the heart, because it is a comfort that such a heart should know all.

Such was Christ on earth: one was with God. The sinner who would have been ashamed to shew himself to man could hide his face in the bosom of Jesus, sure of not finding a reproach there. Not a sin allowed (if there had been, confidence would not have been established, because He would not have revealed the holy God), but a heart which, through the midst of the sin, received the sinner in His arms; and it was the heart of God. Christ was all that in this world, and He was much more than my poor pen could tell; yet man rejected Him. He was all that through opposition, hatred, outrages, and death; but all was in vain as regards man. It is this which has definitively demonstrated the state of man. It is not only that he is a sinner, that he has violated the law and refused to hear the appeals of the prophets; but when God Himself appeared as goodness, man would not have Him; his heart was entirely hostile to God fully manifested, not in His glory which will crush all that shall rise against Him, but with the attraction of a perfect goodness.

352 All the gravity of man's condition consists not in that God has driven man out of paradise, but rather in that man, so far as it depended on him, has driven from the earth God come in grace into a world such as the sin of man had made it. "Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer?" "The carnal mind is enmity against God." At the commencement of His ministry, we remarked, Christ had bound the strong man, and had spoiled his goods. But the result of the exercise of this ministry was that man did not want even a deliverer-God, did not want God at any price. Man, the child of Adam, was entirely condemned in the death of Jesus. There no longer remained anything; there no longer remained any resource to God Himself, any means to employ in the hope of awakening the desire for good in the heart of man. Not only was he a sinner, but nothing could bring him back to God. Everything had been tried, save the exceptional mode founded on the intercession of Jesus on the cross (intercession which the Holy Spirit answers by the mouth of Peter in saying that, if even now Israel repented, Jesus would return). But Israel refused this appeal also. God exhausted all the resources of sovereign grace; He exhausted them, and the heart of man repelled them all.

A new nature was needed, and redemption; a justification available for a sinner before the throne of a righteous God, a righteousness which should render man acceptable, without there remaining on some other side any sin which God must occupy Himself with in judgment, and which should do more still — which should make man perfectly acceptable in the eyes of God, fit for the glory which God had prepared for him. There needed an altogether new state, which should leave to man before God no trace of his previous state of sin. There needed a state which should satisfy the glory of God, and render man perfectly capable of enjoying it.

353 According to the doctrine of Christianity the question of man's responsibility is entirely disposed of. The doctrine fully recognizes this responsibility, but declares that man is lost. It is a message of pure love, but of a love which finds the basis of its exercise in the fact that man has been already put to the proof and that he is lost. Christianity announces that "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

The day of judgment, which will execute the just judgment of God, has been for faith anticipated by the clear and distinct declaration of the gospel. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness"; but also "the righteousness of God is revealed on the principle of faith for faith."

It is the death and resurrection of Jesus which reveal to us these things. His death terminates the history of responsible man; His resurrection begins anew the history of man according to God. His death is the point at which evil and good meet in their full strength for the triumph of the latter. His resurrection is the exercise and the manifestation of the power which places man in the Person of Christ who has triumphed, and, by virtue of that triumph, in a new position, worthy of the work by which Christ has gained the victory, worthy of the presence of God. In this new state man is clear of sin, and outside its empire and the reach of Satan.

In the position in which the resurrection of Christ has placed us we see man living in the life of God, where redemption, purification, and justification have placed him, and fit for the state in which the counsels of God intend to place him, that is, for the glory which is attached to this resurrection. Man is also pleasing to God as the new creation of His hands, the fruit of the work in which God has perfectly glorified Himself. Let us examine this a little more closely.

I have said that good and evil met in all their force in the cross. It is well to seize this fact in order to understand the moral importance of the cross in the eternal ways of God. The cross is the expression of the hatred, without cause, of man against God manifested in goodness. Christ, the perfect expression of the love of God in the midst of the wretchedness that sin had brought into the world, had brought in the remedy for this wretchedness wherever He met it. In Him this love was in constant exercise, notwithstanding the evil; He was never wearied, never thrown back, by the excess of evil or by the ingratitude of those who had profited by His goodness. Sin, disgusting as it was, never arrested the course of Christ's love: it was but the occasion of the exercise of this divine love. God was manifested in flesh, attracting the confidence of man by seeking him, sinner as he was; by shewing that there was something superior to evil, to misery and defilement. This was God Himself. Christ, perfectly holy, of a holiness that remained always unfailingly intact, could carry His love into the midst of evil, so as to inspire the wretched with confidence. If a man touched a leper, he was himself defiled: Christ stretches forth His hand and touches him, saying, "I will, be thou clean."

354 Man, who might fear to approach God on account of his own sin, found in grace (which was seeking the sinner in perfect goodness, which made of sin an occasion for the testimony of God's love towards man) that which was fitted to inspire confidence in his heart. It could relieve itself by unburdening the load of a guilty conscience into the heart of God who knew all. All was of no avail. The cross was the recompense of this love. Man would have none of God.

But there are other sides of this power of evil, which are shewn in the cross. The effect of evil — death — reigns in it. I say "reigns in it." It is true that this is shewn more in Gethsemane than in the cross, but it is only another part of the same solemn scene, and the anticipation of the cross itself in the soul of Jesus. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Death, as the power of evil, was pressing with all its force on the entire being of Jesus. Death is the present judgment of man in the flesh, wielded by the power of him who thus has the power of it; but it implies the sin of man, and the wrath of God against sin. This is what Jesus met. It is true that, in yielding himself entirely to the will of His Father, He accepted the cup at His hand in a perfect obedience which left Satan no place. But that was His perfection. He was fully put to the proof. Death was the power of Satan over man on account of sin, but at the same time it was the judgment of Gad. It was also the weakness of man even to nought as regards his existence in this world.

355 If we enter into details, we find evil develop itself under the power of Satan in this hour of his power. If a man is a judge, he condemns the innocent, washing his hands as to it. If he is a priest, whose duty is to plead for those who are out of the way, he pleads against the innocent and just person. If it be a question of friends, one betrays, another denies, the rest forsake, Him who had shewn unceasingly the abundance of His affection. In men no fear of God, no compassion for man. The Saviour went low enough for a wretched thief, suffering the punishment of his crimes, to insult Him in death.

In a word, good had been fully manifested in Jesus, and evil attained its moral highest pitch in the rejection of the Saviour. Jesus dies, but He is dead to sin. He never admitted it into His nature, but now He has left the life in which He had sustained the combat. He leaves all relation with the order of things in which sin is found, breaking it by death which destroys this relation. There is no longer for Christ any link with man in flesh. That is what Paul means in 2 Corinthians 5, not even an outward link, or the likeness of sinful flesh. Man has severed every link between himself and God; and Christ has done with those relations in which He never suffered sin to enter His holy nature, but in which He had to do with sin and man. There was an end of man and sin. Man is left in sin so far as in flesh; and there is a risen man, a man completely outside the condition of the children of Adam, dead, not existing in relation with the state in which man was found, but to live to God outside sin.

Immense truth! Christ (who had a perfect life, who was life, and who, tempted in all things like unto us, passed through this present life in obedience and faithfulness, who manifested nought but the power of the Holy Ghost in His walk and looking only to God, and who passed through all the power that the enemy had over man in soul and body by death) has closed the history of man in ceasing to exist in relation with him, man led by Satan having consummated his wickedness by putting Him to death. Nevertheless it was Christ who offered Himself. Moreover for Him it is the path of life, and He rises beyond the scene of the power of Satan, whether as tempter or as having the power of death.

Let us now see good manifesting itself in all its perfection, and as superior to evil. First, the life of Jesus has shewn the obedience of man by the Spirit through a world of sin, and in spite of all the temptation by which the enemy can try a soul. His life was according to the Spirit of holiness — His death perfect obedience. All we have spoken of, as the power of evil, only heightened the character and value of the obedience. But there is more than this. Man is now by death absolutely set free from evil. He dies to sin. Death breaks his relation with evil, because the nature which can be in relation with evil no longer exists, at least if there is life. We have seen that Christ, although in the likeness of sinful flesh, never for a moment admitted sin into His being; but death ended, and ended for us, all relation with the scene where sin exists, with all this sphere of existence, and ends it in Christ in a life which is holy. Christ dies, and we die in Him by the power of a life which is divine.

356 Besides this, perfect love has been manifested, and when man rejected it, it did not weaken, but it accomplished, the work necessary for the reconciliation of those who were enemies. Good, love, God shewed Himself superior to evil, in such sort that, in the act in which the hatred of man against God was fully manifested, in which the iniquity of man's heart came to its height, the love of God in Christ triumphs in the act which sin, come to-its height, accomplishes. It is the death of Christ. The greatest sin of the world is (on the part of God and of Christ, who offers Himself as a sacrifice for sin) the propitiation made for sin.

Thus, for the one who is in Christ, for the believer, the sin of the old nature is entirely blotted out, and he lives as raised in Jesus — in a new life in relationship with God. What wisdom of God! We are dead to sin by the act which manifested this sin in the highest degree; and the love of God is declared in that which is the expression of man's hatred. And observe, is it in permitting evil? No; the just judgment of God is also manifested. If His Son takes sin upon Himself, if He is made sin for us, He must suffer. The justice of God is executed against sin in His Person, and grace reigns through righteousness magnified in Christ. If evil has ripened and borne all its fruits, good has triumphed with a divine perfection. All blessing and all glory are but the effect of this work, the moral centre of all the relations of God with man in judgment and in grace.

357 It remains for us to trace its fruit in the ways of God.

The death of Christ had fully glorified God and shewn His love. It had glorified Him in the obedience of man, had glorified Him in respect of His righteousness, and in the judgment pronounced against sin, in respect of His holy wrath against sin. And at the same time the perfect love of God had been shewn in it by the gift of His Son, His only-begotten, for poor sinners, given to bear the sins of all those who shall believe on Him to the end.

What then are the effects of this work and of this love, free now to exercise itself, because what glorified love exalts righteousness?

In the first place, Christ raised by the glory of the Father, all that is in the glory of the Father (that is, the revelation of His nature, love, righteousness, the relation of the Father with Christ as Son, His good pleasure in the life of the Saviour down here, His satisfaction in that He had glorified Him, and rendered the accomplishment of His counsels morally possible, and in particular the glory of His own among the children of men), all that was in the heart of the Father, answered to the excellence of the One who lay in the tomb — was engaged in the resurrection of the Son of man. The first-fruits of the power of God in answer to this work, in which good triumphed at the expense of Christ, is the resurrection of Christ. Here, as we have already seen, an entirely new position is taken by man; yes, entirely new. Death is left behind. Sin, so far as separating us from God, exists no longer. The divine life is the life of man. Righteousness is manifested in the acceptance of man, not in his condemnation. And man subsists, not in the weakness of his own responsibility and mortal, but as the fruit of the power of God who has been already glorified in respect of His righteousness.

We are speaking in an abstract manner of the position. In applying some of these expressions to Christ, it would naturally be necessary to modify them. Christ has acquired this position for us: we enjoy it as a new position. He is in it Himself; the divine life was always in Him. When in responsibility He was not weak. He was, even in the flesh, born of God. At the same time His own position was very different from what it now is. He was, before His death, in the likeness of sinful flesh; He was not in it after His resurrection. He lived in flesh and blood before His death, He did not live in them after His resurrection. He has been really dead, although it was impossible that death should hold Him; now He dieth no more. He is the first who entered into the position He has gained for His own. Now that the Holy Spirit has been given to us, this position, and even the glory, are already the portion of those who believe in Him by faith, and by the possession of divine life and of the Spirit. As to the actual fact, we are still in our mortal bodies.

358 But although the resurrection placed the Saviour, and us in Him, in a position which is the fruit of the power of God, not of the responsibility of man, and which at the same time, by virtue of the work of Christ, is the result of the exercise of the righteousness of God; and although Christ was thus declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, this did not constitute the whole result, even as to His Person. He must needs be glorified to immediate nearness to God, and glorified with the glory of God. Wonderful fact! transcendent divine righteousness! a man is in the glory of God — is seated at the right hand of God on His throne.

In placing Himself there Christ takes personally the place which was due to Him according to the value of His work on earth. "Now is the Son of man glorified" (morally in accomplishing the work on the cross), "and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." That which Christ demanded He received. The words, "Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool," place the Lord at the right hand of God to execute the judgment that will put an end to evil. Looked at as entered into the glory of the Father, Christ makes sure to those who know Him there all the fulness of blessing which is connected with it.

But here we have an immense fact: a man, the Son of man, is seated at the right hand of God in the divine glory.

We may, before pursuing the consideration of the consequences, verify the bearing of this fact. On the one hand we see the first Adam, responsible, fallen, and in sin; afterwards the law and judgment; on the other we see the Son of God, the supreme God, come down from heaven and become man in grace, and, after having manifested the perfect grace of God toward man (grace much more abounding where sin abounded), and, after having accomplished the work of propitiation for sin and glorified God with regard to the position in which man was found, ascend, according to the righteousness of God by virtue of this accomplished work, to the right hand of God, so that man is placed in the glory of God. On the one hand it is the responsibility of man and judgment; on the other the grace of God, the work of God, salvation and glory, the righteousness of God for us as well as His love, and this righteousness of God ours also, by virtue of the work of Christ.

359 Hereupon the door is opened to every sinner, and God (by virtue of the blood of Christ, which has glorified His love,* His righteousness, His truth, His majesty, all that He is) can receive him to Himself.

{*If God had forgiven all without propitiation, it would have been to shew Himself indifferent to sin. If He had simply condemned all sinners, He would not have manifested His love. By the death of Christ righteousness is glorified, perfect love exercised, the immutable truth of God proved. The wages of sin were there; and the divine majesty was maintained in the highest degree.}

Man has entered into His place in glory according to the counsels of God, to be the head of everything that exists. (Psa. 8: 3-7; 1 Cor. 15: 25-27; Eph. 1: 20-23; Heb. 2: 5-9.) Compare Colossians 1: 15, etc. There is the truth in its full largeness. Christ, as man, is established head of all things in heaven and earth. In this respect the first Adam was only a figure of the last. At the same time, as for the first Adam there was a help who was like himself; it is the same with Christ. Eve did not form part of the inferior creation of which Adam was lord. Neither was she lord; she was the spouse and companion of Adam in the same nature and the same glory. It will be thus with the church when Christ shall take the dominion over all things into His hands. Compare Ephesians 5: 25-27, and the passages already cited. But at the present time He is seated at the right hand of God, and His enemies are not yet subjected to Him. But it remains to point out the various parts of the dominion He will exercise. The angels (1 Pet. 3: 22) are made subject to Him. (Compare Eph. 1: 10.) But His dominion must also be extended over the earth.

Now this dominion over the earth is subdivided with respect to the human race. The Jews are to be subjected to Him, and the Gentiles also. King of the Jews is His indefectible title; He must also reign over the nations, and in Him shall the Gentiles trust. Every creature is also subjected to Him (see the passages referred to); they sigh after His reign; Rom. 8: 21. At the same time all judgment is committed to the Son, because He is the Son of man; John 5: 27. He has power over all flesh (John 17: 2), and judgment is committed to Him, that all men may honour the Son even as they honour the Father. In this judgment there is the judgment of the living and the judgment of the dead. The first connects itself with the government of God on the earth, while at the same time it is final as far as individuals are concerned. The other is the boundary of all the revealed ways of God, when the secrets of heart of all the wicked, when their hidden motives, shall be brought into light.

360 Then the man Christ, when He shall have subjected all things, and set all in order, will yield up (1 Cor. 15) the kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all in all. The yielding up the kingdom makes no change in His divinity, be it carefully observed. Man up to that time had possessed the kingdom according to the counsels of God. This mediatorial kingdom comes to an end. Christ is neither more nor less God. He was God on the earth and in His humiliation. He will be so in the glory of the kingdom which He will hold as man. He will be so when, as man, He shall be subject unto God, the firstborn eternally among many brethren, in the joy of the family of men eternally blest before God.

Some remarks remain to be made concerning the ways of God, which are destined to bring in this blessed result and to establish the mediatorial glory of the Christ.

During the time that the Saviour is seated at the right hand of God, God gathers the church by the action of the Holy Ghost on earth. The glad tidings of grace are announced in the world in order to convince the world of sin, and in particular of sin in that it has rejected the Son of God; John 16: 7-9. It is not the tidings that sin is forgiven, and that this has to be believed; but that the world lies in wickedness, the grand proof of which is that it has rejected the Son of God, and at the same time that the blood is on the mercy-seat, and that all men are invited to come to God who will receive them according to the value that blood has in His eyes. (1 Pet. 1: 12; 2 Cor. 5: 20; Col. 1: 23; Mark 16: 15; Luke 24: 47; 1 Cor. 15: 3, and a host of passages.) But other precious truths proceed from this descent of the Holy Ghost from heaven. Observe that He comes in virtue of the fact that Christ has gone up to heaven; John 16: 7. Divine righteousness is exercised and manifested in that man (Christ), who is at the right hand of God because of His having glorified God and of a perfect propitiation having been made for sin; John 13: 31, 32; ch. 17: 4, 5; Phil. 2: 8, 9.

361 Now He glorified God by His work, accomplished for those who believe in Him. The Holy Ghost then descends on those who already believed in Him (John 7: 39; Luke 24: 49; Acts 1 and 2), and announces through their means this glorious salvation; announces to all men that the blood is on the mercy-seat, and invites them to draw near. But, besides that, He gives, as dwelling in the believer, the assurance that all his sins have been borne by Christ (1 Pet. 2: 24), and are blotted out for ever (Rev. 1: 5; Heb. 1: 3, and other passages); that he, the believer, is made the righteousness of God in Christ; 2 Cor. 5: 21. For the righteousness of God must accept and glorify the believer: otherwise the work of Christ has been done in vain, and God's righteousness is not put in exercise with respect to it; God does not recognize the value of this work, does not render to Christ that which He in every way deserved, which is absolutely impossible. Next, the Holy Ghost is in the believer, the seal for the day of redemption (Eph. 4: 30), that is to say, for his entering actually into the glory of Christ; then He gives to the one in whom He dwells the consciousness that he is with Christ, in Christ, and Christ in him (John 14: 16-20); that he is the child of God, and His heir, joint-heir with Christ (Rom. 8: 16, 17; Gal. 4: 5-9); finally, He takes of the things of Christ, and shews them to him, while leading him through the wilderness by the path that leads to the glory; Rom. 8: 14.

All that is for the individual. But there is only one Spirit in all believers, and He unites them all to Christ, and consequently all together as one body (Rom. 12: 4, 5; 1 Cor. 12: 13, etc.), the body of Christ, head (as we have seen) over all things. It is the church united to Christ, His body, and Christians members of Christ and one of another, the bride of the Lamb; Eph. 5: 25, etc. The Holy Spirit thus causes her to wait for her Bridegroom, for the marriage of the Lamb; Rev. 22: 17; ch. 19. But this can only be in heaven. Believers, by the Spirit, are there already (Eph. 2: 6; Phil. 3: 21, 22) united by Him to the One who is there, having a heavenly calling, and detached from the world in order to look on high. Thus they go up to meet Christ in the air (1 Thess. 4: 15-17); Christ who has come to take them according to His promise, changing or raising them, and in order to have them with Him in His Father's house, where He Himself is; John 14: 2. Thus they are for ever with the Lord; 1 Thess. 4: 17. Believers who have suffered are children* of the Father in the glory, and together form the bride and body of Christ.

{*See (Eph. 1) the precious instruction of the word on the whole of this subject. Christians, in relationship as Christ Himself is to His God and Father (compare John 20: 17), are like God spiritually, and His sons, inasmuch as He is the Father; then heirs of all things; then the body of Christ.}

362 This does not establish the kingdom, but gathers the co-heirs who are to reign with Christ, and gives their place to them with Him, infinitely above all reign (whatever it be) over the earth; although the latter be the necessary, blessed, and glorious consequence of it. Satan is cast out of heaven, where he will never again enter; Rev. 12: 12; ch. 16: 13, 14; ch. 18: 13, 14; ch. 19: 18, etc. Afterwards the saints return with Christ (Rev. 19; Col. 3: 4; Jude 14; Zech. 14: 5), and the power of the enemy is destroyed on the earth set free from evil; Satan cast into the bottomless pit (Rev. 20: 1-3) — not yet into the lake of fire — is no longer the prince of this world. Even the angels no longer govern it as administrators on God's behalf. Christ and those who are His own — man is established according to the counsels of God (Psa. 8; referred to in 1 Cor. 15; Eph. 1; Heb. 2) over all things, over all the works of God's hands. (Compare Col. 1: 16-20.) Christ appears in glory, the saints also appear with Him. (Compare John 17: 22, 23.) It is the kingdom of God established in power. (Compare Matt. 16: 28, and ch. 17; Mark 9; Luke 9.) Righteousness reigns, and men, the world, are in peace; Eph. 1: 10. There is in this state of things, fruit of the reign of Christ, the realization of all that the prophets have spoken of peace and blessing on the earth. Blessed time, in which war and oppression shall entirely cease, and in which all shall enjoy the fruits of God's goodness, without passions inflamed by the enemy impelling men to snatch from each other the objects of their lusts. Christ will maintain the blessing of all; if evil appear, it will be at once judged and banished from the earth.

363 Some accessory facts have to find their place here. The kingdom of the Son of David is to be established. All the promises of God with regard to Israel shall be accomplished in favour of that people; the law being written on their hearts, the grace and power of God shall accomplish the blessing of the people, blessing which they could not obtain when it depended on their faithfulness, and when they were placed on the principle of their own responsibility. At the same time the dominion over the Gentiles will be in the hands of the Lord, while they will be subordinate to Israel, the supreme people on the earth. Thus all things will be gathered together under a single head — Christ: angels, principalities, the church in heaven, Israel, the Gentiles, and Satan will be bound.

But before the introduction of this universal blessing, the wicked one will be in open and public rebellion against God. The Jews will be joined to him, at least the great majority of the people, and the Gentiles will gather themselves together against God. This rebellion will bring in a time of extraordinary tribulation on the land of Judah, and in general there will be a temptation which shall put to the proof all the Gentiles. But the testimony of God will go throughout the world, and the judgment will come, and will be executed upon the apostates from among Christians, upon the rebellious Jews, and upon all nations which shall have rejected God's testimony. This will be the judgment of the quick, the first resurrection having already taken place. The fulness of times begins at this period.

A few words will complete our sketch. Satan will be loosed from the abyss, after the inhabitants of the earth have long enjoyed the repose and blessing of the reign of Christ, and have seen His glory. When the temptation shall come, those who are not vitally united to Christ fall; and Satan leads the world against the seat of God's glory on the earth (Jerusalem) and against all those who are faithful to the Lord. But those who follow him are destroyed.

Then comes the judgment of the dead and the eternal state.

There is a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness. The kingdom having been delivered up to God the Father, Christ, who will have already subjected all things, is Himself subjected as man: a truth so precious for us, because He remains eternally the Firstborn among many brethren. Moreover I do not think that the church loses its place as the bride of Christ and the habitation of God. (See Eph. 3; Rev. 21.) The kingdom only, the existence of which supposed evil to be subjugated, will have an end.

364 All things will be made new, and God will be all in all We shall enjoy Him in perfect blessedness, and we shall know Him according to the perfection of His ways already developed in the history of humanity. His Son will be the eternal expression of His thoughts, and the First among those who are eternally blessed through His means — blessing founded on the value of His blood, which never loses its worth in the constantly fresh remembrance of the blessed.

Connection of the cross with the entire development of God's ways with man.

J. N. Darby.

<22006E> 365

Whatever brings out the perfectness of the blessed Lord's work, and the way in which it is adapted to the whole moral condition of man, while glorifying God in respect of that condition, and thus bringing man into association with God's glory — whatever shews the connection of the sacrifice of the cross with the entire development of God's ways with man confirms the faith of the saint, and enables him to admire the wisdom of God with increased intelligence and a deeper spirit of adoration. I send you therefore a few, I trust, plain thoughts as to the way the cross bears on the previous history of man, the manner in which it is linked up with it all, in connection with some of the statements of Galatians 3 as to the order in which law and promise came.

In the first place, to say nothing of the eternal counsels of God or of the promise of eternal life given us in Christ Jesus before the world was (precious as the consideration of it is, as founding our hopes on the sure thoughts of God Himself), we have from the outset, when sin had entered, the blessing and the deliverance established in Christ, the second Adam, not in any promise to the first.

"The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." The Seed of the woman was the second Adam, and, as is evident, not the first. The first is quite passed by. Man, the first Adam, was neither righteous nor holy. He was innocent, which excludes both righteousness and holiness. He had not the knowledge of good and evil. Righteousness discriminates between good and evil in the relationship in which we stand towards others, whether God or the creature, and acts in the sense of responsibility, according to the claim which such relationships have on us. Holiness hates evil intrinsically in itself; delighting in purity, in God's nature, it abhors all that is discordant with it. God is righteous, because He appreciates infinitely all that is due* to every relationship in which any being stands to another, and, above all, all beings to Himself. The highest manifestation of righteousness, the absolute manifestation of it in perfection, was His receiving Christ to Himself. He is holy, because He perfectly knows good and evil, delights in good, and abhors evil. We should at once be morally shocked if one spoke of God's being innocent (that is, ignorant of good and evil), and justly so. Now man was innocent. He enjoyed the goodness of God with thankfulness, alas! how short a time, and his ways towards others would have been the fruit of natural relationship where no evil was. Affection and loving care would have flowed out, without being cast on a sense of duty, because affection had ceased to prompt what the relationship in its perfection supposed.

{*Hence, in sparing Mary in her supposed fault, it is said, "Joseph, being a just man." For righteousness estimates the claim another may have on us, the weakness of another, of ourselves, the feelings of a good towards a fallen man, so that summum jus summa injuria. Cruelty, or hardness of feeling, is not righteousness more than the allowance of evil would be.}

366 But this was not to last; he soon fell into the knowledge of good and evil, and a bad conscience, which feared to meet God. He was no longer innocent. Conscience has a double character, which we do not always distinguish; the sense of responsibility to another; and the knowledge of good and evil in itself. The latter element was absent from Adam's mind before his fall. The sense of responsibility was there, the debt of obedience; it was in the nature of his relationship with God; but distinguishing things as good and evil in themselves had no place in his mind. To have eaten of the tree was no evil whatever in itself: he would have eaten of it as innocently as of any other in itself. God had forbidden it, and all depended on that command. Adam innocent was formed to understand responsibility to obey. To avoid a thing, where there was no command because it was evil, was unknown to him. He was innocent, ignorant of evil to be avoided. In his mind nothing evil in itself existed to be avoided.

He got conscience by the fall, which made it a bad one. Henceforth he distinguished things as wrong in themselves. He was in many things a law to himself, his thoughts accusing and excusing one another. If he forgot God even — it is hard to forget Him altogether when passion is over, natural when passion acts; for passion is forgetfulness of Him and of duty — but if he forgot God, conscience was there to tell him of wrong done. Righteousness, however the maintenance of it might be dreaded, had now its place and claim in his mind; and holiness, however absent it might be from him, had a meaning and a name through his knowledge of the evil it abhorred, which made it terrible in God in whom it could not but be found. Such was fallen man, lost, ruined, by his perverse will. He had listened to Satan, and trusted and believed him rather than God, whose favour he had willingly sacrificed for the pleasure of eating an apple, and the presumptuous hope of being as God in His knowledge of good and evil. As a principle, he got that knowledge in subjection to the evil he knew, and with the loss of his sweet natural relationship in innocence to God and all around him.

367 He was fallen, sinful, disobedient, guilty, and under judgment. To such a sinful and rebellious being promise could not be, and was not, made. It would have been sanctioning evil with blessing.

But a blessed hope is set before him as the object of recovering faith. The second Adam is set up; to him the promise (if promise we should call it) is made. He is announced as the destroyer of the serpent's power, as the first Adam had been the victim of its subtlety. The Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.

Thus, the first dealing with man after the fall was the setting up of the second Adam, the Lord Christ, as the destroyer of him who had subverted the first. The first was passed by. He was neither the vessel of promise, nor the heir of blessing. Individually he may have laid hold on the hope of the second Adam, but there was no restoring promise to himself. Another was set up in his place, to whom and for whom faith should look.

Such, then, was the position of man; sin, conscience in the sense of knowledge of good and evil, and (sin being there) a guilty and defiled conscience, and the revelation of a deliverer. The perverse will which had brought in the sin was not corrected by the conscience of evil, nor the revelation of a deliverer. It expanded itself with the expansion of humanity, and corruption and violence filled the earth.

And here I must distinguish, without enlarging upon it, between God's government of the earth and the result of sin as to relationship with Himself, and the salvation and deliverance which is the remedy for it. As regards government (that is, present effects upon earth — the ways of God), man, instead of paradise, finds an earth of toil and pain, and woman sorrow and grief of spirit in that which was natural joy to her. As regards the full effect of sin, both are alike driven out from God's presence, and the way of the tree of life closed to them. They themselves dread the God who should have been the spring of joy to them. The deluge which closed the scene of antediluvian wickedness was the judgment of the earth, the display of God's government of it. Eternal salvation and glory is quite another thing, as is everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. All, it is true, will be in Christ's hands. He will judge and govern, and He is the eternal Saviour; but the two things are quite distinct, though brought into connection in His Person, and so in the saints when the glory comes. The just distinction of the two will clear the mind on many points.

368 But God pursued the development of His ways in grace for the instruction and blessing of man.

Having called Abraham, and led him out from his country, kindred, and father's house, and appropriated him to Himself as His own, so to speak, in the world, as taken out of it, He gives him the promise. He becomes the father of the faithful, and the root of the olive-tree of God. The chosen and called one becomes the depositary and stock of promise.

Here positive promise begins, not merely the revelation of a deliverer who should destroy the works of the devil on the one hand, and a conscience knowing the evil in which it walked on the other, but a positive promise to a given object, "in thee"; so that the grace which called him out of the world singled him out also as its heir, and the vessel of the blessing of God in it.

The promise was unconditional and absolute. God gives it as the revelation of a purpose He will accomplish, and addresses it to Abraham, so as to fix the person in whom it was to have its accomplishment. God interferes in blessing, reveals His intention to confer it dependent on His own faithfulness alone. He blesses because He is pleased to bless, and blesses him whom He calls out to enjoy it. The promise extends out too, remark, to the whole world as to the sphere of its application. "In thee shall all nations be blessed." It is universal in the sphere of its application, absolute in its character, and its accomplishment dependent on the sole faithfulness of God.

In figure there was a development of this, which casts fresh light on the ways of God. Isaac is offered up, a remarkable type of the offering of Jesus, of the Father's not sparing His Son. He is received again from the dead in a figure, and presents a risen Christ after the accomplishment of His sacrifice. Thereupon the promise is confirmed to him. The promise of the blessing of the nations was not given to Abraham and his seed. It was made to Abram alone in Genesis 12; and so in Galatians 3 we read in the original, "And to Abram were the promises made, and to his seed." So again, the promise which was confirmed before of God to Christ (not in Christ). Hence it is the apostle insists upon its being one, for the promises to Abraham, as father of the Jews, were made in common to him and to his seed together; and it was promised that his seed should be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is by the seashore, innumerable. Whereas the promise of the blessing of the nations was given to Abram first, and then confirmed to the one seed, Isaac, figure of Christ sacrificed and risen again, with no mixture of anyone else, nor mention of a numerous posterity.

369 But to return. The promise was absolute and unconditional, the announcement of the accomplishment of blessing on God's part through the one promised Seed, an accomplishment dependent on His own faithfulness alone. The question of righteousness in those who were to enjoy it was not raised. God's grace in blessing was revealed, and, we may say with the apostle, in Christ; but the sin of those who should enjoy it was untouched, conscience left without resource, or without raising a question indeed about it. The revelation of a deliverer and the promise of God were now brought together, but the state of him who was to be blessed was not entered on in any way. Such was the force of the unconditional promise made to Abraham. It made the blessing of the nations certain: the question of righteousness was not raised. God had promised to Abraham, and confirmed it to the one Seed. His faithfulness would perform it.

After this came the law, redemption having been prefigured in the exodus and the passage of the Red Sea. The law raised the question of righteousness — it claimed it on the part of God. The promise was addressed to those under it on condition of obedience. "If you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation . . . . And all the people answered together, and said, All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do."

Here then the blessing was made dependent on the obedience of man. The mediator was not of one, but between two parties; and the covenant rested not simply on the infallibility of one who promised, but upon the obedience of another party also. For God is one: a mediator implies two parties; and here the accomplishment of the blessing rests on the condition of the obedience of the human party. The law then raised the question of righteousness which the promise had not at all. But on man's part there was utter failure as to it, and the law worked wrath and brought men under a curse.

Thus, up to Christ, we have conscience, promise, and law — law coming in by the bye (pareiselthe), after the certain and infallible promise to the Seed, to raise the question of righteousness on God's part with man, stating the rule of it if man was to accomplish it for God, what creature-righteousness (if such there were) ought to, and must be. It came in between the promise and its fulfilment for the necessary and important object, an object which could not be passed by, of righteousness before God being laid down as needed, to make good God's claim of it against man, but against man already a sinner.

370 I may add, before speaking of Christ's death, that He came as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers (for circumcision was not of Moses, but of the fathers); that is, He presented Himself as the accomplishment of the promises made to them in connection with men living in the flesh; so that, if received (that is, if man had not been utterly and wholly alienated from God), the blessing was there, both for Israel and all nations to be blessed also in the promised Seed — the gathering of the peoples to Shiloh come in Israel — the staves of beauty and bands would not have been broken. But the truth was, man was an utter sinner, his carnal mind enmity against God; and Christ, whatever grace He came in, could not but be God manifested in flesh, and light in the world. Without law man was lawless, under law a law-breaker; and when light and grace came, yea, God Himself, in loving-kindness and truth, he was the rejecter of all in which blessing was.

Thus, however, promise also was rejected by the Jew who had it, and all was utterly lost for man; there remained no link between him and God; or rather the proof was now afforded that there was, and could be, none between God and man in the flesh. This — for He was perfect love — was, I doubt not, the sense of what was expressed by Jesus in the words, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" The love was there, full, perfect, active in His heart. He shewed it in all that He did, in all it could be shewn in; but as to the proper effect of its power, its true object — the reconciling man to Himself, it was, so to speak, driven back into Himself; blessed be God! unweakened, but driven back, finding no response in man's heart, nothing to which it could attach itself there, in the selfish enmity which reigned there. For His love He had hatred.

371 But the death of Jesus opened the full flood-gates to reveal all God's love, and accomplish all God's purposes. He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He glorifies God about sin there, and accomplishes righteousness in the highest and divine sense; that is, He meets the fullest claims, and secures and makes good the perfect display of the divine nature and character, and this in respect of sin. So that grace reigns through righteousness, and not merely to present blessing but to eternal life through Jesus Christ our lord. And now see how the death and present position of Christ* meets the whole previous unfolding of the grounds on which man stood with God. Sin is put away by the sacrifice of Himself; conscience is perfectly purged according to God's own knowledge of good and evil; righteousness is established before God, the accomplishment of the promise is established. in His Person. Man had no righteousness for God, but Christ, dead and risen again, is of God made unto us righteousness.

{*Of course the believer alone has an actual portion in it; I speak of the value of the work in itself.}

The true heir of promise is there, and can take all the promises up in righteousness, which gives us also a title to enter into them, His position answering to Isaac's when the promise was confirmed to him after his being offered up in figure. All the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Him, and we are in Him. God having established us in Him who has taken His place in the power of a new life, as the Head of a new race belonging to Him by faith, righteous in Him, as we were sinners in the first Adam. And this reaches out (according to His promise) to sinners of the Gentiles as to the Jews, through the putting away of sin, and the communication of a life as new to one as to the other. There was no link between God and the old man, nor union between a sinless Christ and sinful flesh, though Christ was a true man come in the likeness of it. But there is a link between a believer and Jesus risen, in a new life given to the believer, in which, by the Holy Ghost, he is united to Him who in righteousness is before God in heavenly places. Christ's death writes death on all, absolute death — all are dead. There is nothing in man, as he is in himself, in common with divine life in Him (hence the apostle knew Christ no more in that way, present in the world, alive in the midst of men in the flesh, the Messiah of promise alive here below); but in that same death there is the answer to the whole condition of man in the flesh as a sinner; and, in taking the new position of life in accomplished righteousness in resurrection, Christ lays the ground of righteousness in a new way (God's righteousness, not man's, though wrought out in Him who was, and is, a man, and recognized by setting that man at God's right hand), so that grace can go out according to it to the glory of God by us.

372 Thus sin is put away, conscience purged, the curse of the law gone for them who were under it, righteousness wrought out, that the blessing and the promise might come in all fulness on believers through Jesus Christ. All that was brought out in need before on man's part, or promised on God's, was such, on the one hand, and finds its accomplishment, on the other, in Christ; and all the moral elements, on the ground of which God had dealt with man, are brought out, and established in grace in Christ — promises which man could not take up in righteousness, nor God righteously confer on him, yet which He surely must fulfil, as His own promises now run freely in all their fulness, on the ground of an everlasting and divine righteousness, and flow forth from divine love to believers, found as sinners among Jews or Gentiles, according to the import which is given to these promises by the death and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. The order is: sin* — conscience (death and separation from God) — promise — law, raising the question of man's righteousness (law broken, and promise despised) — Christ's death (sin put away, the law's curse removed, conscience purged, righteousness divinely wrought out), and then He risen, as the head of a new race, in the power of the Spirit and eternal life — the promises enjoyed according to the divine counsels and divine righteousness; Christ being Himself the heir, after the pattern of the offered and risen Isaac, and believers in Him cleansed from sin and divinely righteous by that which was wrought before they were graffed in Him, after the power of a new life, and in the energy of the Holy Ghost.

{*Here Christ is already announced, and Adam passed by, looked at as head of the race.}

[END OF DOCTRINAL VOL. 6]

Letter on the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures,

Or, Remarks on the Letter of Resignation of M. le Professeur Edmond Scherer.

J. N. Darby.

<23001F> 1

Introduction

The letter of Mr. Scherer to Dr. M. d'Aubigne having been communicated to me by a third person who desired to have my opinion of it, I answered with all freedom, without meditating any future publicity. I spoke severely in several places, because I judged severely that which I criticized. The Christian's faith is something too precious not to oppose clearly that which ruins it. And one will find all the imperfections in this letter necessarily connected with a composition of this kind. Perhaps it ought to have been corrected before being given to the public, but it has not been. The end in view in printing was to communicate it to a few friends, who desired to read it, for want of time to make copies.

Another word. The blame that rests on Mr. Scherer's letter cannot fail in a certain sense to reflect upon the author. But I desire ardently that the reader and Mr. S. himself, if this should fall into his hands, may distinguish as I have done myself as much as possible between Mr. S. and his letter. I doubt not that Mr. S., spite of his grave errors, has excellent qualities, and I like to appreciate them impartially, judging his doctrine without thinking of himself.

When I say that I could distinguish between Mr. S. and his letter, I do not mean that he does not deserve blame, for it is clear he is responsible for what he has done. But this is what I mean: the flesh in a Christian is not better, alas! than in a man of the world, and I cherish the thought that Mr. S. is a Christian, whatever may be the gravity of his position; I hope that this circumstance may be a blessing to him. While judging his actions according to their merits for the love of souls, I hope that he himself will judge this "lust of the mind," as my answer does, and, separating himself from them, escape the condemnation they merit.

2 If then I have said that to treat a subject so serious in such a light and superficial way is the act of a vulgar mind, I believe I have expressed a sound judgment upon the act of Mr. S.; but I sincerely desire that he may not feel hurt. But I do not desire the reader to esteem Mr. S. as a vulgar mind, but rather that he will join with me in hoping that after reflection, Mr. S. judging himself will shew that the words by which I condemn him apply to his acts and not to himself.

In order to treat the subject thoroughly it would need a volume and this is only a letter; you must not expect therefore more than a familiar and hastily-written letter can give.

_________

May, 1850.

M_____,

Thanks for having sent me Mr. Scherer's letter to Dr. Merle d'Aubigne.

I have seen nothing worse than this letter. It is a sign of a vulgar spirit to speak so lightly, so superficially, and with so much vanity and self-confidence, on subjects so serious. In the background (for I see no reason to accuse him of it) I see a bad faith, which betrays the presence and action of an evil spirit, of a demon. For my part I cannot reduce the question to that of a degree of inspiration, literal or otherwise — an interesting question for those who believe in a revelation. That which is contended for here is not at all a certain degree of inspiration (such an intention is denied), but all written revelation, and also all revelation made by the mouth of man. There are truths, but they are not a communication from God, unless they are communicated from the Person of Christ to the soul, if that even can be according to his principles. The letter denies the existence of all word from God, of whatever nature it be, except so far that Christ bears this title, for which, after all, from his system one has no authority. This might be a mistake of John's, or a rabbinical tradition, or rabbino-platonist; and indeed the expression is found in works of this character.

The question then which we have specially before us is, whether there exists a written revelation from God, which consequently bears His authority.

We shall not, therefore, at present discuss the character and degree of inspiration which we claim for the scriptures. We shall not enter upon the discussion of verbal inspiration, interesting as that question is to those who believe in a revelation from God. Neither is it our present object to defend the facts and doctrines of Christianity. These truths are not denied by some who deny their immediate communication to us by God. The existence of a written revelation from God, bearing His authority as His word, is that which we would now discuss. It is important to keep this clearly before us; for that which is denied is, that we have any communication of divine truth which possesses divine authority.

3 Now for us, according to the author of this letter, there is no inspiration from God, there is no divine truth; because a truth which is not communicated with divine certainty is not to us a divine truth. Or, to speak more accurately, an existing fact which cannot be naturally known to man, because not relating to this creation, cannot be a truth to my soul, if it be not communicated with divine certainty. In order to this, there might be an immediate revelation to each individual in each case; or there must be an inspired communication through others, either written or by the word of mouth. I speak not of truth previously revealed being applied to the conscience by the Holy Ghost, but of the way in which we arrive at the divine certainty of the truth by knowing that it came from God. A doctrine cannot have more authority as truth than the means employed for its communication. A man, without being inspired, may be the channel through which truth, already existing as a revelation from God, is imparted; and the truth, thus communicated, may act through the Spirit's power on the heart and conscience; for there is no basis for faith; but such an uninspired medium of communication — a preacher, for instance, or a tract — does not constitute a divine basis for faith in him who hears. That basis must exist beforehand in the fact of God having vouchsafed an inspired communication; and the effect now produced by God in the soul is, that the hearer is led to recognize this. Otherwise, though he may say, "I believe this or that," if I ask him, "Why do you believe it?" he has no answer; he can give no satisfactory reason for his faith.

Let us remember then, that when authority is spoken of, and it is said there is no authority in matters of faith, the words "divine certainty" may be substituted for authority; and that the doctrine now opposed is, that there is no divine certainty in the things of faith. That is, there is no warrant for faith at all. John the Baptist describes faith in these words — "He that hath received his testimony hath set to [affixed] his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God." But this reception of divine testimony has no existence in the system which denies inspiration. The testimony of God is excluded, and there is no place for faith. This may be called an a priori argument. But no! I only present the question in its true light; and this is often enough to convince a sincere person. For example; if any one disputed the interpretation of a text, and I could shew that his mode of looking at it — the effect of his reasoning upon it — was to make it appear that Christ was wicked, or to prove that He was not the Son of God; to state the real question would be, in fact, to decide it in the mind of one who knew Christ.

4 Besides, there are two kinds of a priori arguments, which it is important to distinguish; as they differ totally from each other, and are morally opposed to each other. Let us suppose that some one tried to prove God a liar. I answer, "That cannot be. A priori, I condemn your reasoning as false." In that case my judgment is sound (perfectly logical and philosophical, if you like to take that ground), because it is much more sure, nay, it is infallibly sure, that God cannot lie; whilst it is very possible that your reasoning is false, even though I were unable to detect the fallacy. How many things there are as to which the judgment of a wayfaring man is right, although he may be wanting in the capacity for reasoning rightly! And this is the safeguard which God has given to the simple-minded, namely, a divine conviction as to the truth with respect to things which are beyond their reach — beyond the reach of man; while the philosopher, who undertakes to explain them, sinks in the mire.

To say, "God ought not to be or to do so-and-so," is also what is called a priori reasoning; but it is of an entirely different kind. In the former case I measure the folly of man by the certainty of what God is; in the latter I measure what God ought to be or to do by the standard of human thought, which is necessarily false. "Thou thoughtest," said God, "that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set before thee things which thou hast done." In the first case I say, "God is true; therefore your argument, which denies it, must be false." In the second, I say, "This is my thought; and God must be, or must act, according to my thoughts." To measure man by the certainty of what God is, and to measure God by man, are two very different things. The former may be termed a priori reasoning. It presumes, I allow, that there is the knowledge of God; and it is possible that Mr. Scherer does not admit the force of such reasoning; and all men have not this knowledge. "He hideth these things from the wise and prudent, and revealeth them unto babes."

5 Now I do not exaggerate in saying that this system takes away all divine certainty in things concerning faith, and, according to him, one ceases totally and absolutely to set to his seal that God is true. That is, as to the testimony, God is excluded: the author's words prove it. "Otherwise," says he, "why is an historical certainty coupled with a moral evidence not sufficient for the Christian in things concerning faith?" The object then is to substitute a purely human belief in place of a divine testimony, in fact, to exclude God.

There are other striking examples of this want to exclude God in the letter. But to return to the subject: it is evident that, whatever may be the competency of witnesses, from their own faithfulness, and from the important fact of their knowledge of the circumstances which they relate, yet to deny direct inspiration, and to put in its stead the competency of witnesses, is to substitute merely human testimony for divine testimony. The aim of such a system is to exclude God. It asserts (for without this it would be open infidelity) that revelation is allowed, although not inspiration; that is, that the apostles, or others employed to communicate truth, had a divine basis for their faith, but that other believers have not: this is plainly the effect of the supposition. According to this system truth has been revealed from heaven, that is, has been divinely communicated to the apostles and others; but since that time there has been nothing to rest on but human testimony — credible it may be, but only human. This system allows of no divine basis, which, on God's part,* could shield the church from error. Now the mere statement of this doctrine is almost its refutation; besides which it is formally contradicted in the word itself. "But God," says the apostle, who carefully states the opposite of the notion of Mr. Scherer, "hath revealed them unto us** by his Spirit."

{*On God's part, I say, because no one disputes the possibility of man's falling into error through his own folly or negligence.}

{**What is true in this respect of one apostle, or sacred writer, is no doubt true of the rest. No one would venture to assert that the communications made through Paul were of a different character, or of another nature, from those given through Peter, or John, or any other prophet.}

6 The reason which the apostle gives for this revelation is very striking. "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are given to us of God." I was going to dwell upon this argument, forgetting that the apostle had used it; I will now only insist on the force of his statement: "Without a divine communication there can be no faith." That which belongs to man — that which is within the limits of his intelligence — may be known through the senses, through reasoning, or through the testimony of man; but it is not so in the things of faith, as to divine thoughts and truths. God alone knows them, and God alone can make them known; consequently man must be entirely ignorant of them, unless God reveals them. But He makes them known by His Spirit, that is, by revelation; giving the Holy Ghost Himself, who reveals them to the mind.

I speak of the apostolic work. The question then stands within very narrow limits. It is this: the apostles having received the knowledge of these things in a divine manner, did they communicate them to us in a divine manner, or in a manner, excellent indeed, but not inspired? God had revealed them to the apostles by His Spirit; how did they communicate them? Was their inspiration what is termed "simply religious inspiration"? Was it only that operation of the Spirit which is found in a spiritual preacher, and which leaves him still liable to error? Nothing can be more precise than the testimony of the apostle on this point. Continuing the passage already quoted, he says, "which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Could the idea of inspiration be embodied in a form of words more absolutely definite than the expression, "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth"? Here then there is nothing equivocal. When the apostle set forth the truths which the Holy Ghost had taught him, he used words which the Holy Ghost had also taught him. This unfortunate Mr. Scherer, betrayed by his vanity, can, with a revolting lightness (which, if one does not consider as such, is a blasphemy), call this a "cabalistic ventriloquy," but that which he designates thus is clear and certain.

7 And notice here, it is not said that it is not inspiration, but a cabalistic ventriloquy; that is, supposing inspiration to be true, that he designates thus, in contrast with the noble accents of human voice; that is, it was God Himself speaking through the mouth of man. This he designates with these insulting and blasphemous words.

As to the idea of reducing all inspiration to "religious inspiration," it is overturned by the fact, that inspiration is asserted in cases where "religious inspiration" was impossible, as in that of Balaam, when "he took up his parable," and spoke, having "heard the words of God." Besides, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others of the scripture writers, who have said to us, "Thus saith the Lord"; "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying," etc., are all properly so-called examples of positive inspiration. The reasonings of the author's letter apply to all. Still there is no equivoque here. The prophets boldly proclaim their inspiration, and we have the results of it in a written form. In regard to this I accuse the letter of a mean and evil faith. Be it remembered moreover, that the arguments which deny inspiration must, if applied at all, be applied universally. The Old and New Testaments stand or fall together. In examining this subject, the Old Testament cannot honestly be left out, because the arguments (except, perhaps, those which relate to the canon) apply to both — to the Old as to the New; with the addition that the inspiration of the Old has the positive attestation of the Lord and the apostles, supposing only the authenticity and correctness of the New.

But has the Old Testament authority, and has the New Testament none? Is the Old Testament the word of God, and not the New? It may be very convenient to our opponents, in reasoning upon a subject, to leave out that part of which the proofs are incontestable. For if the Old Testament be inspired, inspiration is a reality, and we possess the absolute authority of God's own word. The prophets have affirmed it; the Lord has recognized it; that is, He has recognized the inspiration of the Old Testament as it stands; and He has declared that nothing can invalidate its authority. The apostle also has declared that these scriptures were "given by inspiration of God," and are capable of making us "wise unto salvation." The principle of inspiration and of authority then is established. The words of Mr. Scherer are but blasphemous words, and for him it is reduced to this — the New Testament is not inspired; but he has not the faith to recognize that the Old Testament leaves no foundation to his arguments.

8 This should be thoroughly understood. The inspiration of the word of God is certain — its divine authority incontestable. This then alone remains: whether according to the author of the letter, the New Testament is part of it? His principles are false. It must only be known if the judgments of a man who evades irrefragable proofs are worth anything, when this judgment is based upon these false, and even blasphemous principles. There are those who tell us that it is not — that it is a mere human record of what the writers knew, either by their senses or by personal revelations to themselves, but which they were not inspired to write. Let us remember, however, that inspiration itself is denied. But he who denies inspiration denies that which the Lord and the apostles maintain; for they maintain the inspiration of the Old Testament. Such an one therefore forfeits all my confidence; and I cannot allow any weight to his judgment, when he tells me that the New Testament has not the authority of inspiration.

I will not multiply quotations to prove that the prophets assert the inspiration of their prophecies; because it recurs at the beginning of almost every separate prophecy, but I will point out the passages in the New Testament which recognize the scriptures of the Old as having this authority. "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me," Luke 24: 44. Jesus here recognizes the body of writings called the Old Testament in its three parts — still thus entitled in the modern Hebrew Bibles. The Lord gives them equal authority in verse 27 — "And, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." "Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me," John 5: 39. "And the scripture cannot be broken," John 10: 35. These passages demonstrate that the scriptures of the Old Testament were a body of writings recognized by the Lord; and that in the detail of its present divisions it was recognized as having absolute authority. But to have these writings — to have truths communicated in this form — is something more than to have the truth spoken by word of mouth, even though it were by the mouth of the Lord Himself. "If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John 5: 47.

9 The writings then were the object of faith, and consequently had the authority of the word of God. "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead," Luke 16: 29-31. When the apostle preached the truth at Berea, the Jews, his hearers, "searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so"; that is to say, they made use of the scriptures as an authority by which they judged the teaching even of an apostle; and they are commended for so doing; Acts 17: 11. The inspiration then of the Old Testament is demonstrated, its authority is recognized by the Lord, and the whole — as we possess it — is declared to be authentic and to be clothed with an authority which nothing can invalidate.

"The scriptures," as a whole, are owned of God as a distinct class of writings, having a certain authority, namely, that of HIS WORD. As it is written in Proverbs 30: 5, 6 — "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not to his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." Finally, the apostle Paul (2 Tim. 3: 16) gives a remarkable testimony to the same effect — a testimony which clearly designates this class of writings: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." We have only, therefore, to learn whether the New Testament forms part of "the scriptures," or whether the church is without a divine communication specially given to herself, and possesses only the Old Testament.

Here I would notice the folly of a principle set forth by the letter — that the claim to inspiration is necessarily limited to the book which makes the claim, or at least to the writings of the same author. This assertion is futile. Why could not an inspired author, or the Lord, declare all the other books, or some amongst them, to be inspired? And, on the other hand, there is no necessity that the other writings of an author should be inspired because one of them is so. The Lord sets His seal to the entire Old Testament, and Paul declares that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Does this only prove the inspiration of the Epistle to Timothy, in which the assertion is found? A man who seeks to overthrow the foundations of truth by such arguments as these deserves reproof rather than refutation.

10 In 2 Peter 1: 19-21 we find the prophetic word, that is all the prophecies of scripture, and that from men who spoke being moved by the Holy Ghost. I know that Mr. Scherer rejects this Epistle, but why should we accept this authority? The character of this epistle is not that of the work of an impostor. However, if it is not the work of Peter, it is certainly that of an impostor, for he calls himself an apostle, and this Epistle the second.

But I leave this point. That which Mr. Scherer says about the canon is also entirely without force. He maintains that we cannot avail ourselves of the New Testament till the canon is settled. Why not? Let us suppose that a wilding is found in my garden: can I therefore make no use of the good trees which are in it? Supposing the second Epistle of Peter were spurious, and if the Revelation merits all the reproaches which the letter's insolent pretension gives it, what has that to do with the epistles of John or of Paul? I might admit that one Epistle was questionable — which, however, I do not admit — without in the least questioning the others.

But I return to direct proofs. We have seen the inspiration, the authority, the canon even, of the Old Testament, fully proved, and the principles of the letter, which deny inspiration itself, utterly overthrown. But we have seen more than this. Paul received "by revelation" the truths he taught, and he communicated them in "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth," that is, by inspiration. Consequently it is certain that the early disciples had the truth communicated to them by inspiration, as the foundation of their faith. Now the argument of Mr. Scherer, if true, would only prove that God had changed His mode of acting, and left the succeeding ages without this foundation — without a divine basis for their faith: a change incredible indeed! But when Paul says, "which things we speak," does he mean those things which he spoke only by word of mouth? And has he taught nothing by writing? We well know that he has taught by writing that which had been revealed to him; that is, that his writings for this purpose were inspired. He even says so, which would not have been necessary after the passage we have quoted from Corinthians. But God has favoured us with this additional proof. "How," he says, "by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ." Should any say, "It may be so when fundamental truths are concerned, but not otherwise," even this refuge is denied by scripture.

11 In giving details for the inward regulation of a church (1 Cor. 14: 36, 37), the apostle says, "Came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." The communications then of the Spirit to the church or to the world were the "word of God," and that which was written by the apostle to direct the saints was "the commandment of the Lord." "For this cause," said the apostle to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2: 13), "we thank God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth THE WORD OF GOD, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." Thus we see that the apostle puts his writings on the footing of "commandments of the Lord," with the sorrowful consolation for those who cannot discern it, "if any man be ignorant, LET HIM BE IGNORANT." Now will anyone say that the apostle, acting in the self-same character, and addressing himself in the same manner, in virtue of his apostolic sanction and authority, to the Romans or to the Galatians, is less inspired than when he addresses the Corinthians? Such an argument deserves no other refutation than "if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." To say God has willed that the faith of the Ephesians and Corinthians should rest upon divine inspiration, and that of the Romans and Galatians on a human basis, deserves no serious answer.

We have a particular class of writings, and this class of writings is inspired and is called "the scriptures." Romans 16: 26 defines this principle very clearly. "But is now made manifest [that is, the mystery], and by prophetic writings [see Greek], according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." This passage again points out that class of writings which we call "the scriptures," writings which have the authority of a revelation — of an oracle from God: they are "prophetic writings." In short, to sum up this part of the testimonies which we possess, Peter, in his Second Epistle, recognizing these writings as the scriptures, tells us, when speaking of Paul's Epistles, that those who are "unlearned and unstable wrest them, as they do the other scriptures"; hereby proving that Paul's Epistles form a part of "the scriptures," a term very well understood, and having the same meaning then as now, as the Lord's own words demonstrate. I know, indeed, that Mr. Scherer rejects this Epistle, but I do not accept his dictum as an authority.

12 The existence then of prophetic scriptures — of the scriptures of the New Testament, which have the authority of "the word of God" — of "the commandments of the Lord," is most clearly proved. He who finds more authority in the words of the Lord's apostle than in those of the author of the letter — he who reveres the word of God and the revelations of God — will have no doubt on the subject. But if there exist writings of John or Peter, making the same claim, addressing Christians in the same manner, and that in perfect accordance with the same divine ministry committed to these apostles (as, for instance, the Epistles of Peter to the circumcision), could a Christian say, "the writings of one apostle are inspired, but those of another are not," although entirely of the same nature, and although the writer speaks expressly in the name of his apostolate, and as exercising the authority of his mission? I assume now their-authenticity, and that they are really the writings they claim to be. We need not look for the words, "I am inspired." We find in them the unequivocal expression of authority. The faith of Christians consequently clothes them with this authority. The authors announce the truth, as having a right to impose their thoughts upon the acceptance of Christians, and in fact they do so impose them.

Take the First Epistle of Peter. Does he not speak with full authority as an apostle? And when Paul said, "If any obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him"; had not that written word apostolic authority? When John said, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us" (1 John 4: 6), exercising thus divine authority over the conscience, do you think he meant that these words, pronounced so solemnly, had not the same authority? Such a conclusion would involve a palpable contradiction; for if they rejected his words, they did not hear him. One cannot attribute authority to his words spoken elsewhere, without attributing it to the words which claim that authority. If I say, "I command you to obey me," the command which I give, and the authority of that which I have already commanded, stand or fall together. I cannot believe the authority of Peter to be less than that of John or of Paul. He was sent forth with the same authority by the Lord.

13 What then have we proved? That there is a class of writings called the "scriptures" — which are inspired — which possess absolute authority as the word of God — which are recognized as such by the Lord and His apostles, and are constantly referred to by them with the greatest solemnity. We have found, that a very large portion of the New Testament is spoken of as forming part of these scriptures; that there is a body of writings attached to the apostolic work, "prophetic scriptures," employed by the command of God, and having the authority of the word of God. The question then is narrowed into very small dimensions. The assertion that there is no inspiration, no divine authority for "the word," has been proved entirely false. It is in flagrant opposition to the authority of the Lord and the apostles, and it seeks to overthrow that which they maintain. The only question then is this, Does such or such a book form a part of this inspired collection? A very important question, but one which, by the very fact of its being asked, pre-supposes the existence and the authority of the word of God, and seeks only not to confound human pretensions with the divine authority which it reveres, and of which it seeks to preserve the full value untouched and without alloy.

It is not our present object to bring forward detailed proofs of the authenticity of each book of the New Testament; to do so would be to write an introduction to the New Testament. Lower down I will indicate a few general principles of God's ways as regards this. The great question is decided. The object of the letter which you have sent me is not to prove whether such or such a book be genuine, admitting the inspiration of the rest, but to deny inspiration. Now this has been proved: inspiration does exist. The truth revealed has been communicated in words taught by the Holy Ghost. If this be so (mark it well), the letter bears the character, not only of a false principle, but of a principle hostile to God and to His goodness; it is subversive of the truth which He has condescended to make known to us, and destroys the very foundations of our faith. It is very important to have a right judgment as to the source and the character of that which presents itself as truth. "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; for many false prophets are gone out into the world." Following this injunction of the apostle's — of the Holy Ghost's — I solemnly judge that the principle of the letter proceeds from Satan. Here is not the place to examine to what point the principles of those to whom the author is opposed have furnished the occasion of this irruption of the enemy. Whatever saps the foundations of faith, in opposition to the express declarations of the Spirit of God, comes from the enemy; and I have always found that to deal with that which is of the enemy, openly and publicly as from the enemy, is the wisdom of God, and is accompanied by His strength and His blessing. Thus I deal with Mr. Scherer's letter.

14 The final appeal to the "written word," as to a recognized authority, which we find continually in the scriptures, is another proof of its authority. It is used there as an authority which no one, except a professed unbeliever, would think of disputing. Open the New Testament at almost what page you like, you will find a proof of this. "It is written — it is written," settled every question, decided every controversy. It is not the scriptures which have to be proved; they themselves serve for an absolute and final proof. This is the strongest testimony we can have. If I say, in canvassing some proof of human conduct, the law says this and the law says that, as settling the question; it takes for granted the existence of the law, and its sovereign authority over all disputed points — an authority which no one can gainsay. Thus it is in the use of scripture. If it is the word of authority (as says the letter), and not the authority of the word, and thus I believe it with an entire faith, that word even submits, in the most absolute manner, to the authority of the word. Examine the scriptures to know if things are thus. "These things were done that the scripture might be fulfilled." — "Jesus, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." — "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers." — "Promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures." — "Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures," and was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. — "And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith." — "And the scripture cannot be broken." — "Give place unto wrath, for it is written." — "That by patience and comfort of the scriptures we might have hope."

15 It was the highest of all the Jewish privileges that the "oracles of God" were committed to them. "For what saith the scripture?" — "The scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation." The Jews made "the word of God of none effect through their traditions." — "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures; and said unto them, Thus it is written." Is it in accommodating Himself to man, as the adversaries of inspiration pretend He did, in appealing amongst the Jews to the written word, that the Lord opens the understanding, that they may understand things which have not divine authority? No; the scriptures are treated by the apostles, by the Lord Himself, as having an incontestable and divine authority as the oracles of God, as the word of God. This is so entirely true, that when, in fulfilling His divine mission, it behoved the Lord to undergo the temptation of the enemy, the scripture was the weapon which He used, as being divinely tempered, against which Satan had no power, and his devices no possible success. It sufficed to say, "It is written." The tempter would have betrayed himself if he had questioned the absolute authority of the quotation: his best resource was to quote scripture his own way; but it does not fail under this trial. The second Adam still replies, "It is also written."

One may, without blame, prefer the perfect wisdom of our divine Saviour to the self-sufficiency and unbelief of human wisdom. And observe here the importance of this use of the word of God, the holy scriptures, the oracles of God, by the apostles and by the Lord. People say," But there are various readings, bad translations, statements which the increase of knowledge has proved impossible, so that scripture cannot be used as an authority." The Lord, then, was mistaken! There were various readings, bad translations (especially that of the Septuagint, indicated in the letter), and supposed inconsistencies, at the very time when the Lord said, "The scripture cannot be broken." When, in His controversy with Satan, He employed the scriptures, Satan, lest he should appear to be Satan undisguised, durst not question their authority. These things existed too when the apostle called them "the oracles of God." But none of these things prevented the Lord's recognizing their absolute authority on every occasion. "The foolishness of God is wiser than men."

16 As to proofs which may be given of the authority of the word, it carries its own proof with it, as does every testimony from God. This is a fundamental principle. It does not require proof; it furnishes its own proofs of everything to the soul. We do not bring a light to the sun in order to discern it; it enlightens us. The word of God is not judged; it judges. If God speaks, woe unto him that hears what is spoken, and knows not that it is God who speaks. There are those assuredly who will not own that it is He. If this refusal to believe be final, they are lost — sentence has already been passed upon them; the light is come, and the darkness comprehends it not. "The word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The word of God, whether spoken or written, has to be received as the word of God, and he who rejects it is lost. If any remain in ignorance of some of its details — if any are mistaken as to some book — they lose just so much of it through their pride. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple . . . moreover by them is thy servant warned." — "The entrance of thy word giveth light, it giveth understanding unto the simple." Read the whole of Psalm 119.

This conviction that the word is its own evidence is all-important; this alone maintains the true character of the word of God. Like Jesus, "it receiveth not testimony from man." He who believes not in the Son of God will be condemned. He that believes not the record that God gave of His Son has made God a liar, and has not life. Now, according to the Lord's own words, the scriptures testify of Him. The fundamental principle is this — the word of God must be received by faith; and the reasonings of man cannot be the foundation of faith; if they were, it would not be faith in God, nor faith in His word. "He believed God," — "They shall be all taught of God." — "Every man therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."

17 Having established this principle, I would enter into some details respecting the ways of God in this matter. We have seen how the Lord while on earth set His seal to the scriptures; but observe, in so doing He set His seal to the faith of those who had previously believed in them. It was not because He had already done so that those faithful ones believed. Their heart, their faith, had been previously tested. They had faith, because they had received the testimony of the scriptures (before they were thus sanctioned), when presented to their faith on the ground of their own authority. When Jeremiah spoke, it does not follow that all received his testimony; there were some who had not "ears to hear," but who listened to false prophets. When God is to be owned, it becomes a moral question; but in all ages believers have owned God by receiving His testimony. And unbelievers have not acknowledged God in the testimony. It is so now. God gives in His word sufficient moral evidence to commend it to the conscience. When He has established anything new, He has added a sufficiency of extraordinary evidences. But with this comes the moral responsibility of him who hears, which God never sets aside; and also the grace which acts in giving and establishing faith.

The reception of the word, and afterwards the understanding this word, are things presented to the responsibility of man. Grace alone can enable him to receive and to understand it; but nothing can set aside this responsibility, and nothing take away the necessity of this grace, or destroy its efficacy. The positive authority of the apostolic testimony, claiming submission as it does in the most peremptory manner, cannot alter this. "If any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." An apostle cannot go beyond that. For the things which are communicated in words taught by the Spirit are spiritually discerned. It was thus in the days of all the prophets. "Hear ye, and give ear," said Jeremiah; "be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride.

18 Now the condition which brings judgment upon the house of God is marked by this feature — the word loses its authority, excepting over the remnant preserved by Him. "And the vision of all is come unto you, as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore behold," etc.

Such was the condition of the people of Israel, and the cause of the judgment which befell them. It was then the Lord said, "Bind up the testimony, seal the law, among my disciples . . . . To the law and to the testimony." Thus also in the New Testament we are told, "In the last days perilous times shall come." What is then the resource of the faithful? "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God." The resource in "the last days" is reverence for the holy scriptures, and the assurance of their sufficiency. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." Therefore, whether it be amongst the Jews or in the church, the resource in evil days is confidence in the divine inspiration of the holy scriptures. The Lord has pointed it out and sanctioned it; but this confidence in the authority of the word existed before He had given it His sanction. And it is this faith, without any other sanction than the word itself which He has sanctioned. Precious testimony for latter days, since the same sanction applies to them also! The apostle, in warning us of perilous times, directs our thoughts beforehand to the same means of establishing the soul. Those who had faith in the scriptures, before the Saviour's testimony to their authority, were enabled through grace to discern what was God's word, and were approved by Him. Those who do so now have this same approval. They have the same responsibility as to what they receive. But although this responsibility exists, God does not cease to use means.

19 There is another principle which should be noticed here, as Mr. Scherer's letter seems to want us to add absurd and even foolish books, such as the epistle of Barnabas, to the word of God. "The oracles of God" are committed to His people. This does not entitle the church to impose her authority upon us; but she is undoubtedly responsible for preserving that which has been committed to her. In this trust Rome has shewn her unfaithfulness by adding apocryphal books. Now, although the church may in detail fail in her responsibility, it is impossible, in anything essential to it, that God should fail towards His church, or that Christ should cease to nourish and cherish it. God watches over all this — not to keep the learned from stumbling, but that believers may have food from Him, and an unerring rule of life. It is not the babe and the wayfaring man who find difficulties: God has given them the word, and preserved it for them; and their conscience bears them witness in the Holy Ghost that God works in them by this word. The Holy Ghost enables them, according to the measure of their spirituality, to use and understand it. A heart full of peace and joy, because taught of God, discerns and acknowledges that it is indeed the word of God. It is read, perhaps in a bad translation, and doubtless something is lost thereby; but God has taken care that enough should remain to teach the heart with certainty His truth and His ways. The word is "the sword of the Spirit." It carries conviction with it, when the Spirit uses it in the power of His grace. It leaves man under the responsibility of having rejected it, whenever it has been presented to his conscience.

A man of little information, but taught of God, is much more able to apprehend the whole truth, even through the medium of an indifferent translation, than the learned man, who, though a stranger to Christ, thinks he can judge of the whole canon. This is easily accounted for. The church puts the New Testament into our hands, for the oracles of God are committed to the church. This does not, indeed, impart faith, but it is the means which God uses for this end. The church presents us with the divine oracles, not with authority, as having power to judge the word, but as the faithful guardian of that which has been committed to her. This is done through parents, friends, ministers; and there is a general belief in the professing church that these oracles are the word of God. The simple-minded do not set themselves to judge of the whole canon of the New Testament before reading it. They read it, and the word produces faith.

20 A man receives by the teaching of God first one truth, and then another. The word has judged him — the word has revealed Jesus to him. To such an one the history of Jesus is all divine; it communicates to his soul what he receives with divine knowledge, for these things are spiritually discerned. The epistles unfold to him divine truth, and he receives it with a divine certainty that God has spoken to him. He makes use of every book in the New Testament, without knowing what the term "canon" means. And if some scholar would deprive him of his treasure — of that divinely inspired word which he knows to be of God — this word is "the sword of the Spirit" in his hands to shew him the folly of human wisdom. He pities the learned man who is a stranger to all that which he himself is enjoying.

He who has eaten bread knows what bread is, although he may not understand the art of baking. If, through grace, the believer grows in divine knowledge, he sees the harmony of the whole — the adaptation of the several parts. He has not only "the full assurance of faith," but "the full assurance of understanding" also. He perceives the divine wisdom of the Bible, not merely the divine truth which it contains. He finds perhaps a text spoiled by a bad translation; it does not harmonize with what he knows to be the truth of God. Under such circumstances he will say, "I do not understand that passage." I am supposing a person deprived of all spiritual help, which, according to the ways of God in His church, is very seldom the case. Humble in heart, he will attribute to his own ignorance his inability to understand the passage. "The wisdom of this world" reasons about the canon, and will form its judgment before it reads, and in consequence it receives nothing. The mind of man cannot create for itself the things of God. Nor can human reason pronounce upon the authority of the word of God. It may be said, "This is trusting to feelings"; but no! it is trusting to God. They shall be all "taught of God." The authority of the word can only be really known by believing in it.

He who has only man's thoughts will say, "But I must know that it is the word of God before I can believe in it." I reply, "You cannot." It is true, happily true, that we receive the New Testament as the word of God, on the faith of our parents or of our education; but it is never really received as such till it is "mixed with faith" in those that read it. For my part I receive the New Testament with full assurance in its present form, as it has been adopted by the universal church. Circumstances having called me to it, I have examined the external evidences and found them satisfactory; but that does not produce faith. It may be useful to obviate the objections made by those who do not live upon the word and cannot judge of it. The authority of God is not subject to human intelligence. I know that some of the epistles were questioned in the early ages, at least in certain places; but I doubt not that, in receiving as inspired those books which form the New Testament, the church was guided by God. The means by which God's word may be communicated are to be distinguished from that word itself as an authoritative rule; but these means may nevertheless be used according to the certainty of that rule.

21 A mother instructs her child in the truth, but she is not the rule or standard of truth. Thus the unlettered Christian receives the New Testament in the form in which it is distributed. It may be that he cannot demonstrate its authenticity, but he happily profits by the fact that the church receives it. It comes thus into his possession, and, when he reads it, he finds it divine. God thus uses means to spread the truth, and the book which contains it. The multitude. of believers profit by it. It is God who acts thus. If any answer must be given to unbelievers who dispute the authority of the word, it may be that only a few amongst those who receive and enjoy it are able to convince gainsayers; but that does not hinder God from using the scriptures, and giving faith to those who receive them; then the folly of gainsayers, and of those who are nourished with incredulity, appears to all.

He whose heart and mind are exercised in the word according to God finds not only the proof of its divinity, in the application of passage after passage to his conscience, but he gains the deepest conviction of its perfection as a whole, through the knowledge thus obtained of the fulness of Christ. I will take an instance out of Mr. Scherer's letter. He says the Spirit of God cannot make us feel the value of a genealogy. Such a remark only betrays ignorance of the word of God and of Christ Himself. To set forth the varied glory of Jesus, according to the counsels of God respecting Him, it is needful to present the different characters which He bears. This is the substance of God's revelation. Now His connection with Abraham and David, and His connection with Adam, are leading points in this revelation; and the genealogies of the New Testament set this before us. But this is not all. They correspond exactly with the character of the Gospels in which we find them.

22 The Gospel by Matthew, in which the genealogy is traced from Abraham and David, treats especially of the Messiah, of the relation of Christ to the Jews, of the fulfilment of prophecy in Him, and at the same time of His rejection as Messiah, and the transition to a new dispensation. Luke sets before us the great features of grace brought in by "the second Adam," and the great moral principles connected with this grace; so that in the body of this Gospel events are not arranged in chronological order, but according to their moral bearing. This is true even in the history of the temptation. In this Gospel the genealogy is traced up to Adam. John, on the contrary, gives us the Person of the Saviour, who is above all the dispensational dealings of God in the earth, the Jews being throughout set aside as rejected, and therefore no genealogy is given. "The Word was God." John's Gospel begins before Genesis, and at the close we find neither the agony in Gethsemane, nor the being forsaken on the cross; but other things are mentioned which are not found in Matthew or in Luke. Thus the different glories of Christ are manifested, and by degrees the admirable perfection of the word shines forth in all its splendour. The criticisms of man fade away, like the stars before the sun, which makes them disappear with the darkness that allowed them to be seen. The Bible presents us with a perfection, both in its details and as a whole, which leaves no doubt in the mind of one who has tasted it that, as a complete whole, it is divine.

I have hitherto spoken of the divinity of the word in its separate parts, as the sword of the Spirit which causes its power to be felt in the soul, while judging it, and revealing Christ to it; but I speak now of the word as a whole — of what is called the canon of scripture. If Matthew were wanting, we should not have the Messiah, Son of David, and Son of Abraham. If Mark were wanting, we should not have the Servant made in the likeness of man — a prophet on the earth; if Luke, we should not have the Son of man; if John, we should lose the Son of God.

In the Acts of the Apostles we have the foundation of the church, by the power of the Spirit of God; the commencement and development of the church in Jerusalem, through the instrumentality of the twelve; then the Gentiles grafted into the good olive-tree by Peter, the apostle of the circumcision; and, when Jerusalem had rejected the testimony, the church fully revealed and called by the ministry of Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles.

23 The Epistle to the Romans furnishes the eternal principle of God's relationship with man, the way in which, by means of Christ, dead and risen, the believer is established in blessing, and the reconciling of these things with the speciality of the promises made to the Jews by Him whose gifts and calling are without repentance. In the Corinthians are found details respecting the internal regulation of a church; its walk, its order, its restoration when it had gone astray — the patience and the energy of grace; the whole being sketched by the Spirit of God, acting through an apostle, and declaring the divine authority of His commands. In Galatians we find the contrast between law and promise, as well as the source of ministry; in a word, the condemnation of Judaism even in its very roots. Ephesians presents to us the relationship of the believer with the Father and with Christ, and the fulness of the church's privileges as the body of Christ, her connection with Him, and "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations," in which all the counsels of God for His own glory are unfolded. In Colossians the fulness which dwells in the Head for the body is set forth, and the solemn warning is given not to separate practically from this union with the Head, through allowing a show of humility to glide into the bosom of the church. In Philippians we have the apostle's experience of what Christ is to the Christian, as sufficient for all things, whatever his position may be — His immediate sufficiency, even when the Christian should be deprived of apostolic support; and the walk of the church in the unity of grace — in unity maintained by grace, when the spiritual energy of her human leaders should be wanting. It is a precious epistle in this point of view. 1 and 2 Thessalonians give us the hope of the church in the freshness of her affections; and the mystery of iniquity ending in the manifestation of the man of sin — a mystery notwithstanding which the church is called to maintain this hope, and to cherish these affections.

Timothy and Titus exhibit what may be termed ecclesiastical care for the maintenance whether of truth or of order: 1 Timothy, the normal order of the church; 2 Timothy, the path of the individual when it is in disorder, and there is general false profession of Christianity. All these present salvation and life. In the Epistle to the Ephesians the church is seen seated as a body in the heavenly places. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the faithful are viewed as journeying in weakness upon the earth, and Christ is consequently seen apart, as appearing for them in the presence of God in heaven. This is in contrast with the earthly figures given to Israel. This gives rise to a glorious unfolding of the Person of our Lord, as God the Creator, as man, and as the Son over His own house, the Creator of all things, and lastly as High Priest. His priesthood is very largely set forth. It is after the order of Melchisedec, as to His personal rights; after the likeness of Aaron, or rather in contrast with Aaron, as to its present exercise. This leads to the unfolding of the life of faith (the faith common to all saints), and to the final separation of the believing Jews from the camp of earthly religion, as having "come to the heavenly Jerusalem."

24 James sets before us that girdle of practical righteousness which restrains the natural tendency of the heart to abuse grace; faith must be real or living faith; and the last dealings of God with the twelve tribes (as in Jonah with the Gentiles), when the light and perfection of a new order of things eclipsed that old order, to which those tribes had proved unfaithful.

Peter gives us the government of God: in the First Epistle in blessing to saints as far as was applied; in the Second, in reference to the wicked.

In the First Epistle of Peter we find the Christian a pilgrim on the earth, placed in this position by the power of Christ's resurrection, according to an election which is not that of an earthly people, but unto eternal life. This epistle was addressed to the Jews of the dispersion (Peter being the apostle of circumcision), and was particularly adapted to them, through grace setting them free from the idea of an earthly establishment to be pilgrims on the earth in view of an incorruptible inheritance.

The Second Epistle of Peter is written in the prospect of his departure, and of the flowing in of evil. It exhorts them to press forward. On the one hand it gives the picture and the assurance of the glory of the coming kingdom in its heavenly aspect, but manifested on the earth; on the other, the corruption which would degrade and swallow up Christianity, and the consequences of this in judgment. Peter never represents the church as one body in heaven, as Paul does; he views her, or rather her members, as on the earth, and as pilgrims there. The exact correspondence of every detail with this point of view, even in the manner of presenting the glory (2 Pet. 1), manifests a perfection which proves its divine origin.

25 Jude admirably unfolds all the moral features of the apostasy* — its beginnings and its results; recording the solemn prophecy of Enoch, which we should otherwise have lost, and thus proving how clear, even before the flood, was the testimony of God, who is unchangeable in purpose from the beginning to the end.

{*Where there is similarity between Jude and Peter, there is a profound moral difference: Peter speaks of wickedness in connection with government; Jude, of apostasy from a first estate.}

John presents us with all the features of the divine nature, and that as life first of all, as manifested in Jesus, and then as characteristic of the whole family. The epistle is thus a safeguard against every pretension, which, wanting in these features, would seek to pervert the faithful. It is the means also of strengthening and establishing Christians, by the development of those qualities which belong to the nature of God, with whom, if light be in them, they have communion, as to the Father and the Son, and in whom, if love be in them, they dwell. This is true of every believer in Jesus. This love was manifested in Christ coming down here, accomplished in giving us the full joy with Him in His position above.

Philemon, and the two lesser Epistles of John, shew us that, if the mystery of God is revealed to us by one apostle, and the nature of God set evidently before us by another; if they lift us up to the height of His counsels and of His being, they can also be occupied with the interests of a runaway slave and his master, and with the anxieties and practical difficulties of an excellent lady, who was to reject those who did not bring the truth; and with a kind and worthy brother, as to receiving persons to whom Christian love would open the door, insisting on the truth, but refuting the jealousy of a local selfish person who desired to have things in his own hands. They shew us that that love which dwells in God, which is the very nature of God, which is manifested in the glorious work of Christ — that wisdom which ordains all mysteries for His eternal glory, disdains not to provide with perfect delicacy for the difficult relationships between a master and his slave; nor to manifest the tenderest solicitude with respect to the details of life. This love, in the perfection of wisdom and grace, links the fulness and perfection of God with every emotion of the human heart, with every circumstance of our life in this world. It sanctifies, by the revelation of what God is, a people who are to dwell with Him, and fits them for His presence by creating pure affections — by making a holy love the spring of their whole life.

26 In the Apocalypse the Spirit of God gives at the outset, in an admirable review of the state of seven Asiatic churches, the elements of a perfect judgment with respect to every state in which the professing church would be found, so as to guide any one connected with the church in these circumstances. He at the same time encourages the faithfulness of those who have ears to hear by promises of blessing from above specially suited to the difficulties of these several conditions. He declares that these blessings are prepared for "him that overcometh" in the conflict into which he is brought by the declension of the church. This declension had already commenced in the days of the apostle in their leaving their first love; it will end in compelling Christ to spue out of His mouth those who bear His name. Such is the substance of that which the Spirit of God gives us in the earlier chapters of this book.

Having thus furnished the Christian with all that he needs in the midst of the difficulties presented by the state of the professing church; and having revealed the judgment of Christ, with a perfection and a circumstantial adaptation which are most admirable, the Holy Ghost then lifts the veil to shew how all this will end in the judgment of the world. He reveals chastenings, first of all in outward things; then more directly upon man himself; afterwards, He discloses all the features of man's dreadful apostasy, the diabolical organization of his forces against Christ, and, at length, the judgment which will break forth at the coming of Christ Himself, the King of kings, and Lord of lords. This judgment is to make way for an administration of blessing and happiness (Satan being bound), which will only be interrupted by his being loosed from his prison, to test those who have enjoyed this happiness, and thus to bring on the final judgment of the dead and the eternal state in which God will be "all in all." This is the methodical and complete development of that which Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 Thessalonians had made known to the church in its moral elements.

27 At the close of the book we have more particularly unfolded to us the connection of the church with Christ in heaven, and with the times of blessing enjoyed under His reign.

There is another striking feature of the perfection of the Apocalypse, which may be noticed here, that is, its moral unity. The standing of the church is indeed defined in the opening and concluding paragraphs by the expression of her own sentiments; but throughout the book there is not one thought connected with the living communication of grace from the Head to the members. It is a prophetic book of judgment treating, first, of all that relates to the church, as seen in its responsibility upon the earth. In this portion of it there is promise, threatening, warning, judgment of its condition, revelation of the characters of the Son of man, everything connected with responsibility. But the Head, the source of life and knowledge to the body, is not mentioned as such. After the judgment of the church comes that of the world — the church being seen on high — a judgment increasing in severity up to the destruction of the wicked one. In this part of the book is found all that the faithful need, in order to understand the ways of God, and to discern the path which He has marked out for them in these perilous times; but Christ as the living source of grace is never referred to. Everything is in its right place, for it is the work of God.

The New Testament then, commencing with the manifestation of the Man Christ in humiliation on the earth, and carrying us forward to the eternal state when God will be "all in all," presents us with the full development of all the ways of God, and of what He is in Himself, in order that man may joy in Him, know Him, and glorify Him — that the believer may be kept through all the difficulties and dangers of the way by the wisdom and admonitions of God — and that he may understand His wisdom and His love. Man could not have composed this as a whole — could not have foreseen the necessity for each part. One feels in it the energetic spontaneity of life, that is, of the Spirit of God. Take away one single part, now that we possess the whole, and the breach is immediately felt by one who has seen and appreciated its completeness.

Perfection marks the book of God as a whole, as it marks everything which God has made, from the insect which sports in the air, up to man himself, created in the image of God, with a body of exquisite workmanship united to a mind capable of enjoying God, of communion with Him, and even, through grace, of expressing something of His character and His ways. The word is not a shapeless mass; it is the complete body of the revealed thoughts of God more perfect even than man, to whom it is addressed, because more immediately divine. Man, who would be wise, does not understand this body of divine communications, but judges this or that part of it according to the little pitiful history of ecclesiastical weaknesses and contentions. Things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. For him who is spiritual divine perfection shines forth in every page; and the unity of the whole, the perfect connection of its several parts, the relation of these parts to each other and to all the ways of God, to the Person of Christ, to the Old Testament, to the heart of the renewed man, to the necessities of sinful man, to the dangers and difficulties which have sprung up in the church — all combine to crown with divine glory the demonstration of the origin and the authorship of the book which contains these things.

28 Its author is so much the more evidently God from the human instruments having been many and diverse. But its unity — and above all, the intimate union of its different parts — demonstrates a complete and perfect body. If but one joint of a finger were wanting to a man, he is not a man such as God made him; he may have life, but he is imperfect, and his imperfection is perceptible. So take away a book from the New Testament, the remainder is divine undoubtedly, but it is no longer the New Testament in its divine perfection. As in a noble tree, the inward energy, the freedom of the sovereign vital power, produces a variety of forms, in which the details of human order may appear to be wanting, but in which there is a beauty that no human art can imitate. Cut off one of its branches, and the void is obvious; the minute connection of the remainder is destroyed; the gap which is made in the intertwining of its tender leaves proves that the devastating hand of man has been there.

This then is the way in which the Christian uses the word; each part of it acts divinely in him, and, in proportion to the progress he makes, it unfolds itself as a whole to the eyes of his faith with a divine evidence which unites itself with every element of his faith, with the varied glories of the Person of Christ, and with the universal perfection of the ways of God; a perfection of which the Christian has not judged a priori, but which he has learnt in the word itself.

29 When I see a man, do I need to be told that his form is complete? The more I know of anatomy, the more I shall admire its structure; but it is the sight of the man himself which makes me apprehend his perfectness. Thus it is with all the works of God; only His word requires, even as it produces, spiritual discernment. If any one be "a prophet or spiritual," let him acknowledge it. And how does the word dispose of those who do not acknowledge it? "If any be ignorant, let him be ignorant." It is humbling, no doubt, to have all one's learning treated thus; but between God and man this is as it should be. Outward evidences, as I have remarked, confirm the spiritual judgment. The learned man, who creates doubts for himself, needs evidences to remove them. The simple Christian feeds on that which is divine, and knows nothing of the difficulties which man's poor learning creates.

I will now examine some of the arguments used in the letter in order to shew their futility. It is a melancholy task, after having had one's thoughts directed towards the perfection of the Bible.

The first thing which strikes one is, that the arguments themselves are all extrinsic to the scriptures. We are told, for instance, that at the time of the Reformation one authority was substituted for another. But observe, it is not through anything found in the Bible itself that Mr. Scherer judges of its authority. No divine operation in the soul reveals itself in the letter. Since this is so, it is not astonishing that man's voice be openly preferred to God's which is treated as ventriloquy. One speaks of openness. Let the manner in which the Spirit of God has been unacknowledged have given place to this deviation as to the word — I understand that; but to belch out impertinent blasphemies is not openness for me, though it be done very openly.

Besides, the letter would have faith rest upon historical certainty and external moral evidence. I do not judge the author, I know not if he has faith or no; but after this phrase one would say that he ignores entirely what faith is, that he has never had divine conviction: he feels not the need of divine faith, and knows not its nature; for no such historical or moral certainty can be faith. Faith comes from God, and receives a testimony whereupon it sets to its seal that God is true. He speaks of the economy of the letter. But the application of the word by the Spirit is not the economy of the letter. Paul where he speaks of it reasons on the word. The rationalist, who has not the Spirit, can only see in scripture the testimony of the man who wrote it. This is easy to be understood. He gives up the Spirit and the word together, and falls back upon his own reason.

30 Mr. Scherer's letter insists on the imperfection of the text of the New Testament, on its being written in a dead language, on its being read in translations; and, finally, says that its authors followed the opinions of the day in which they lived. This last objection is itself but a judgment founded upon the opinions of the present day, and is not worth a refutation. It is an accusation, not a proof: and the accusation is but a calumny. In fact, if it were well founded, the same should be said of the Lord's own discourses, or the whole history should be rejected as false. (See John 3: 33, 34; ch. 8: 47.) As to the other objections, I have a divine certainty of their futility; because, as I have already shewn, the Lord has set His seal to the Old Testament scriptures in spite of the same difficulties.

Notwithstanding I would add a few words. The author confounds the rule of faith with the means by which it is made known; in the latter, the imperfection of the instrument is felt. No one would assert that a translation was divine; but, through human diligence, we profit by a divine work. The deposit, the rule of faith, remains in its original purity.

If clouds, formed by exhalations from the earth, obscure the light of the sun, they only prove, by thus veiling it, the power of that light, which, although not seen in all its brightness, still suffices for all human purposes. This objection then only tells us that, when God gives blessing, we profit by the blessing according to our diligence.

But this is not all. It is said that we do not even possess the original in its purity. This objection is in the main the same in principle as that we have just touched on. All that God gives He puts into the hands of men for their use; and they never know how to keep it as they ought. The revelation of God has been placed in the hands of men — of the church. Man has not preserved it in its absolute perfection: be it so.

God allows man to learn what he himself is; but faith knows that, behind all human failure, there is the faithfulness of God who watches over the church, and that Christ nourishes and cherishes it. Experience teaches, and the day of judgment will make manifest, that faith in God is always in the right. Thus the believer supposes it possible, that, through human carelessness, some defects may have crept into what was committed to man; but he has full confidence in the faithfulness of God. His experience, as we have seen, confirms his faith, for he finds the word divine. The judgment of God will decide that question for the unbeliever, which divine faith has already decided for the believer.

31 The examination of the text by learned men has indeed shewn the rashness of infidel knowledge; but it has left no serious doubts, except as to an extremely small number of texts or rather of words. It has not left a shade of obscurity upon any passage of the slightest importance as to the truth. One thus learns God's grace in caring for the word, as well as His original bestowal of it, although apparently He left all to the responsibility of man.

To say that the meaning of a passage is doubtful, in order to deny its inspiration, as if the doubt about its meaning proved it, is too absurd an argument to be repeated. It is saying that the ignorance and incapacity of man are a proof that God has not acted in anything which man does not understand. There is a superficiality in such reasoning as this, which reveals the true value of mere human wisdom. The meaning is doubtful. Doubtful to whom? To him who refuses to be taught of God.

The letter says that the writers of the New Testament implicitly followed the translation of the Seventy. The contrary is the fact. When the Septuagint gives the sense, they used it. Half their quotations are faithfully rendered from the Hebrew; and if there are passages which differ from the present Hebrew text, the researches of the learned have proved that they are borne out by the testimony of the oldest translations. In many instances the meaning is given without confining themselves to the exact words. Conscientious research on this point strongly confirms the divine inspiration of the authors of the New Testament.

Mr. Scherer tells us that there are inaccuracies, errors, and contradictions. I deny these contradictions and these inaccuracies. Let us remember that the certainty of the objector's knowledge must be first ascertained. I have no confidence in it. I have known many cases in which man would prune away the fruit of the spontaneous actings of the Spirit, and carve the beautiful tree into a round or a square. For my part I behold divine perfection in the form it bears. All is divinely adapted to the object which the Holy Ghost had in view. We have seen that John does not mention the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane; Matthew and Luke omit what John relates. What does this prove to me? That John was not there? Not so; but that the Holy Ghost is the author of the two accounts, and not John and Matthew. They were but the penmen of the Holy Ghost. Man would have related what man had seen. The Holy Ghost sets before me in the one Gospel, the man and the Messiah suffering; in the other, the divine Person who offered up Himself, and whose life no man took from Him. I see divine perfection where human wisdom sees blemishes. In the history of our Lord's temptation Luke puts the offer of the kingdoms of the earth before the temptation on the pinnacle of the temple, and, in consequence, omits, "Get thee hence, Satan!" "This is wrong!" cries the worldly scholar. "What perfection!" says the Christian. Matthew gives the historical order; Luke the moral order; for the spiritual temptation, through the written word, was of a deeper character than that of the offer of the whole world. The Man — the Messiah, Son of man — the Holy One relying on the promises, duly succeed each other. Now this moral order is characteristic of the whole of Luke's Gospel, excepting where the historical order is necessary to the truth of the recital. It is the Holy Ghost who writes.

32 I have myself found difficulties in the word. This has not surprised me, ignorant as I am; but I have found these difficulties, one after another, to be but the means of entering more fully into the perfection, the wisdom, and the divine beauty of the revelation of my God. If I still find more of these difficulties, and I do so, I wait upon Him to solve them for me; I do not say, "The meaning is doubtful," but "The meaning is doubtful to me." I do not say, "There is inaccuracy, and I am accurate enough to judge it without divine light"; but "I am ignorant, and God will enlighten me in due time."

We have seen that when the author said that Paul spoke not of his inspiration, this is an ignorance or a disregard of its contents, which, especially on such a subject, renders the arguments of those who could assert it unworthy of the attention of a serious man. The apostle asserts the exact contrary in the most clear and absolute manner. Notice that the letter sees but reasons and motives: all divine action is excluded. It owns, when one insists, the work in the conscience, but to limit it to the extent of his author's judgment. We have already seen how the scriptures claim for themselves the authority of inspiration. I need not return to it. I have already exposed the folly of the argument, that inspiration is limited to the passage which asserts it. I say it is folly; for why could not a text say, "All these writings are inspired"? The fact is, that the passages which assert inspiration limit it, neither to the book which contains them, nor to the writings of the same author. They establish a principle, or allude to the writings of another, to invest them with the authority of scripture. They establish the existence of a class of writings which have divine authority; they ascribe this authority to the entire Old Testament. The letter betrays here the lightness of its author.

33 The church, it is also said, may have made mistakes. Be it so; but is there no God? Would He allow us to be deceived on so essential a point? The author answers that He might, and boldly pronounces about books which have edified the church for centuries. But what is his opinion worth? That must be settled, before we allow it to invalidate the book to which it refers. I by no means admit the authority of the church; but I recognize her duty to preserve the deposit committed to her; and I believe in the faithfulness of God.

In a certain sense everything is necessarily referred to individual judgment; that is, each one is under its responsibility for himself. A Socinian claims a right to deny the divinity of Christ and the atonement. Were I the pope, I could not hinder his thinking so; but, being a Christian, I know that he is lost if he remain in this state. I cannot make another believe the inspiration of the New Testament: each one must judge for himself. But if Mr. Scherer rejects the word of God, the word will reject him. He is bolder than man should dare to be; but he will not be stronger than God. Salvation does not depend on faith in the inspiration of the New Testament. A man may be saved, though ignorant of its existence, for the truth which it contains may reach his heart through the lips of another. To reject the word of God, when it is made known to us, is quite another thing.

34 I admit that there is a difference between the inspiration of the New Testament and that of the Old — not as to authority, but as to character. The prophets of old said, "Thus saith Jehovah"; and they announced the thoughts of God, in His own words, on a particular subject, at the moment when His word was addressed to them. But the Holy Ghost — come down, as the Comforter, to lead into all truth — is different from the Spirit of prophecy, although the same Spirit. (See 1 Pet. 1: 11, 12.) "He searcheth all things, even the deep things of God." "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Christ being glorified, the Holy Ghost dwells in His disciples, and can open all the treasures of the glory of the Lord, all the tenderness of His love, of His relations, as man, with His own. The Word was made flesh, and God the Holy Ghost dwells in the church, and thus, if I may so speak, humanizes Himself, or at least the expression of His thoughts, while not ceasing to be God. He expresses Himself in grace and blessing in all the details and circumstances of human life; He helps our infirmities. "He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to God."

The inspiration of the New Testament partakes of this character. It unfolds itself in the unity of the church in feelings and affections, and ministers to her need by telling of the love and the ways of God manifest in the flesh in a world of sinners. But if the Holy Ghost has thus acted in the church united to the Head whom He glorifies, what He spoke, and what He caused to be written, was none the less the word of God — the thoughts of God communicated in words of His own teaching. As Christ did not cease to be God because he was made man, so he that received the testimony of Christ set to his seal that God is true. We must not give up (alas! that so many have done so) that presence of the Holy Ghost in the church, which produces religious inspiration, as says Mr. Scherer's letter, that is, the energy which acts in Christians in power and blessing, without making them an authority; neither must we give up the authority of that which has been communicated, whether orally, had we been present to profit by it, or by writings inspired by the Holy Ghost. Neither must we give up things which are the Lord's commandments.

35 Observe also, that it is not apostolic authority only which is the question, but the authority of the word of God. A prophet, who spoke by inspiration, and who could say, "The Holy Ghost saith, Separate me Barnabas and Saul," had as much authority in that instance as Paul or Barnabas. He was but the mouthpiece of God, just as that which Paul and Barnabas spoke by the same inspiration was the word of God. That which is said of the Gospels in Mr. Scherer's letter, namely, that the Gospels were not written by apostles, is idle. If an apostle had written without being inspired, his writing would only have had the value of that of a godly man. If one of the least in the church has been used by the Holy Ghost, his writing has the authority of the word of God. The infinite value of scripture proceeds from its one divine Author, and not, in any instance, from the character of its subordinate human authors.

The two Gospels which are not written by apostles are not on that account the less perfect in their presentation of God manifest in the flesh, according to that peculiar aspect in which the Holy Ghost would present Him in each. The instrument used in giving us the history of our Saviour is of no importance: the only essential point is, "Is Christ faithfully presented to us as God would present Him?"

The letter says that three of the Gospels are narratives on Christianity, rather than the productions of its religious genius. What a style to speak of the manifestation of God on the earth! It was not Christianity; at least it was Christ. It was God who was there. Is it not then the religious genius of Christianity to occupy oneself with one's God, God manifest in flesh? This philosophy is icy and contemptible. What incapacity to seize the true character of a thing when it has to do with God! To it man's voice is noble. When it hears God's voice, it is ventriloquy.

Let us see what Mr. Scherer says about 2 Peter, of Jude, and of the Apocalypse. "The church has erred in admitting the so-called Epistle of Peter; Jude uses fables and apocryphal books. The Apocalypse has seen its predictions contradicted by facts." It is easily said, The church has erred. Only one can just as well believe that he who utters this judgment is subject to err. No reason whatever is given to us.

In the Second Epistle of Peter I find the assertion that it was written by himself. It has a tone of deep and spiritual holiness, a dignified confidence, most remote from imposture; yet imposture it must be, if it were not written by the apostle Peter. I find in it minute allusions to things which happened to himself, and are related elsewhere, which would never have occurred to an impostor. There is not the smallest deviation from divine truth. There is a solemnity and an authority nowhere found except in inspired writings; and a direct application to the soul, as from God, of the authority of its contents, which is one characteristic of inspiration. The manner in which it deals with the word, as well as with the events of the life of Christ, has a divine character. We see in it a knowledge and a use of the grand principles of divine truth, which are unquestionably original, and which possess at the same time that divine force which belongs to the whole Bible. There is an absence of amplification only to be found in the Bible, and which is the result of that consciousness of authority, with which an inspired man would speak, or rather which was the natural consequence of his divine authority.

36 Those who have read the Epistle of Barnabas, which some would compare with that of Peter, will be able to judge of the difference between them, and of the discernment of those who could put it on a level with that of the apostle. It is scarcely doubtful that this so-called Epistle of Barnabas is a fabrication, though of his time; but one has only to read any of the Epistles of the Fathers (called apostolic) to see that God has guarded the testimony of His word, by the counter-proof of the futility of the writings even of the Apostle's companions. One would scarcely find so much nonsense in these days, even in religious books written for children. There is an epistle by Clement — kind and amiable enough — written to make peace at Corinth, but it is the only passable one; and even this is as inferior to the New Testament as, doubtless, the humility of the author would have admitted it to be.

Jude, says the letter, makes use of fables and apocryphal books in his Epistle; who told him so? The Epistle, on the whole, contains deep and wonderful instruction as to the features of the apostasy, which is foretold in other parts of the word; supplying elements which, although linking themselves with the whole of scripture, are found nowhere else. It contains deep principles of eternal and divine truth; and it sketches, with surprising distinctness in a few words, the moral progressive steps of man's apostasy, as well as its historical beginnings in the church — beginnings confirmed doctrinally, and by allusions to other parts of the New Testament. It bears the same marks of inspiration and divine authority which I have pointed out in Peter, and the same contrast with what we know to be of man.

37 But, it is said, there are fables in it. Which are they? Is the fall of the angels a fable? The Lord Himself tells us that Satan is a fallen being. We learn from Peter that there are angels reserved for judgment. The temerity of human knowledge calls everything which is beyond its reach a fable. I believed Jude and Peter, borne out if that were needful by other passages, more than Mr. Scherer's letter. All Revelation is a fable to him who believes not. Perhaps it is the mention of Michael contending with the devil. But this conflict with evil angels is, as a scriptural truth, recognized, not only in the Apocalypse and 2 Peter, but also in the book of Daniel (chap. 10: 20, 21) quoted by the Lord Himself. That passage shews that Michael especially interests himself in Israel: he is there called their "prince." We find the same thing in Daniel 12: 1 — a chapter, one part of which is especially pointed out as worthy of attention by the Lord Jesus. It proves that Michael is used of the Lord in behalf of Israel. One can easily understand the use which the Israelites would have made of the body of Moses, as we know what they did for centuries with the brazen serpent. We know also that the Lord buried him, carefully concealing the place of his interment. Does He not use the angels in His service for these things, and Michael especially, for Israel, and against Satan, who opposed his service to that people?

So there is not an element contained in Jude's statement that is not borne out in principle by the general testimony of the word of God. That Jude should have been commissioned to add to all this the record of another and similar fact is no difficulty to one whose mind is imbued with the word of God. On the contrary, there is much solemnity in the instruction. It has none of those curious and idle details, which we find in the fables of the apocryphal books; but it throws much light on that invisible world of Providence, the existence of which is proved by a multitude of passages, and which will be unveiled to us, when we shall know even as we are known. If I reason thus, it is not that I question the inspiration of Jude: no, for his whole Epistle is stamped with the love, the holiness, and the authority of God; and it has its own manifest place in the series of the books of the New Testament. I am not proving the truth of what Jude spoke by inspiration, but the superficial character of what Mr. Scherer said about him.

38 As to the accusation of borrowing from the Apocrypha, where is it proved? I conclude the prophecy of Enoch is alluded to, as it is found in an apocryphal book, bearing the name of Enoch, which was published in England some years ago, and which exists in the Ethiopian language. But there is no shadow of a proof that Jude borrowed it from this Ethiopian book. There would be nothing extraordinary in the supposition that the author of the so-called "Book of Enoch" may have been acquainted with this prophecy. The prophecy itself is confirmed by a multitude of passages in the Old and New Testaments. Its divine truth is proved by innumerable texts of all kinds. Is the relating of that which is certainly true, and nothing more, a proof of not being directed by God, because he who composes a book, known to be an imposture, adds to it a mass of crudities? Is it not rather a proof to the contrary, if proof were needed? Jude gives us a true prophecy. Another avails himself of the truth of this prophecy, which had come to his knowledge, to accredit a mass of errors. And this is brought forward as a proof that the former was not under the direction of God, and that he must have quoted the true prophecy from him who made so bad a use of it! And this is called reasoning, and wisdom, and knowledge!

To a Christian, on the contrary, the preservation of this prophecy has an affecting interest. In adding, to a truth taught elsewhere, the fact of its having been prophesied by Enoch, we have a testimony that, even before the flood, the man of God — who "walked with God" and was taken from the world, as the church will one day be — had already at that early period announced the judgment of the world he was leaving. "Known unto God are all his works, from the beginning of the world." All His purposes are fixed beforehand, whatever may be His patience and His dealings in long-suffering and in righteousness with man, ere those purposes be accomplished.

In short, to say that this passage has been taken from an apocryphal book is an assertion destitute of proof. The date of the apocryphal book of Enoch is controverted. Yet this must be settled before there can be any foundation whatever for alleging that the passage in Jude was taken from it. My own examination of the question has thoroughly convinced me that it was not.

39 We have now to consider the Apocalypse. This book is only rejected because not understood. Ignorance assumes the office of judge, and decides with the temerity natural to it. To one not familiar with the word, it is indeed obscure in its style; and it is so in its matter, because it treats of subjects which naturally tend to make it so. Nothing is difficult for Mr. Scherer. In vain a number of pious men have occupied themselves with the interpretation of this book, each, with many errors perhaps, adding their part of light to the light which grew by their united efforts. In vain has the great ignorance of all been manifested. Mr. Scherer perfectly understands this book; he knows precisely what the prophecy said, and according to him, "it has been contradicted by facts." What a pity that he has not furnished us with his interpretation so certain that it leaves no doubt! It is sure that, if he can say it has been contradicted by facts, he ought to know what it signifies. What trouble he would have saved the church! This is not the first time that ignorance has determined questions where true knowledge has discovered its ignorance and confessed it. To such a temerity, to a dogmatism so superficial, an answer is scarcely necessary. I only add that there is no book in the New Testament, of which the date and the author are established by more precise, more ancient, and more competent evidences; not one which has acted in a more holy and solemn manner on the conscience of true Christians; not one which links itself more admirably with the whole structure of the New Testament, as completing the whole edifice; not one, the absence of which in this respect would be more sensibly felt. There is not one that connects itself so much with the Old Testament, by borrowing the imagery of the prophets to unfold its revelations, while so far altering that imagery as to adapt it to the New Testament.

This mode of using the Old Testament forms the most perfect connection between heavenly and earthly things, a connection which is fully established in the New Testament. It also makes the symbolic language of the Revelation more easy to be understood, and the object of the book more apparent. There is scarcely a subject onwards from Genesis 1 with which the Apocalypse does not link itself, without effort, and in a manner which is altogether beyond human art. This book has the impress, the lofty range, the perfection of the mind of God, precisely in those representations and symbols from which man has endeavoured to borrow something, in order to give a more exalted character to the idolatrous creations of his own mind. Creation — the Jew — man — his power in the world — the work of Satan — that of Christ in its results of glory to Himself and to the earth — the church — the condition of the saints in relation to God and to the earth — the government and the long-suffering of God — the angels — all these subjects are in this wondrous book treated of and set in their relations to each other and to God. Nor is it deficient as to any one doctrine revealed in the word. It does not rehearse these doctrines; but it expresses them in new forms, and under altogether new circumstances, which throw fresh light upon their former associations and receive it from them in return.

40 How could there have been so suited a close to such a volume as the Bible? The Bible sets forth all the ways of God, from the creation to the return of that creation (long fallen, rebellious, and miserable, but now redeemed) into the order and blessing in which it is securely set by the fulness of God's grace; nothing being excluded save that which is incompatible with the blessing itself. It reveals the eternal Son of God acting in the midst of this whole scene, glorifying His Father, and bringing everything into a more beautiful order than had been lost. One can understand that a book like this would not close without taking up again all the threads of this wondrous, divine process, and exhibiting those results which, when the work of the Son is perfected, and all things subdued, will bring in the full and perfect dominion of the eternal God: the blessing of that God, who has made Himself known in Jesus. This is what the Apocalypse sets before us.

To enter into some details of another part of this book, who is it that in choosing seven churches (a number which, in itself, suggests the idea of a complete whole), could give us, in two short chapters, every moral position in which the church (and even every individual who has ears to hear) could be found, from the beginning to the end of its career? Who could, with this, give us the most precious revelation of heavenly blessings, adapted as special encouragement to the difficulties of each of these respective conditions? Who is it that could, at the same time, furnish the richest revelations of the divine and varied glory of the Person of the Son of God, a glory which beams with all-pervading brightness over every part of the subject, and that too, in such details as are calculated to strengthen those who may be placed in the circumstances described? This is what we find in chapters 2 and 3 of the Apocalypse.

41 One can understand, moreover, that when the inspired communications made to the church were about to be closed; when those who were commissioned by God to superintend were being removed; when evil, as the word everywhere testifies, was coming in like a flood; one can understand, I say, that the Spirit of God should have thus left to the church — to the faithful who need it — a moral summary, which could meet their need in the darkness gathering round them. Such a summary these chapters of Revelation afford us: a summary, which, if God arouses those who are His, explains to them the course and result of events which have taken place during the darkness, and makes manifest, even though the church may have slumbered, that nothing has happened without God; a summary, which gives warning also of the judgment which will fall upon the professing church, as the result of her unfaithfulness to God and to the light which He has dispensed, and makes room for His dealing with the world. This terrific judgment is the consequence of man's rejection and corruption of God's last and most gracious manifestation of Himself. The consummated iniquity of that which professes to be the church leaves room for nothing but judgment; and, when this judgment is executed, this closing book of scripture tells us that righteousness will be established in the world by divine power.

We can understand that such a book as this should close the revelations of God! Mr. Scherer sees nothing in it but historic speculations which have been contradicted — a view worthy of such a system. That it should contain things hard to be understood is not to be wondered at. Its language, it is true, is figurative, but it is full of moral instruction to the spiritual. God intended it to be a light to His people, for a peculiar blessing is attached to the observance of it; chap. 1: 3. It is only in proportion as the church awakens, takes her place in humbling herself, and apprehends her true relationship to God, that she will be able also to acquire a divine understanding of this rich treasury of all which throws light upon her outward position, and to comprehend the way in which God will resume the government of the world, to place it in the hands of the First-begotten to whom every knee shall bow.

42 The author of the letter prefers man to God, or, at least, would rather listen to him, and this is in reality preferring him. This will be charged as calumny. I shall be glad of it, for such sensitiveness will at least shew that conscience feels it is a horrible thing if true; and that a system which adopts such a principle as its basis condemns itself. Well then, I repeat it, he prefers man to God, and avows that he does so. For the rationalist the Bible is no longer the word of God. Human reason pronounces upon it, upon its verity, upon its moral worth; but it is self-evident that, were it recognized as the word of God, this could not — dare not be done. It is equally certain, that the rationalist does thus judge the Bible, and chooses rather to rely on his own reason than to acknowledge divine authority, be it in what book it may. He says, "the Bible is no longer the word of God; and I know not what detriment it will be to the cause of piety to exchange a written code for the living productions of apostolic individuality, authority for history, and, to speak plainly, a cabalistic ventriloquy for the noble accents of the human voice." If this be not preferring the word of a man to the word of God, what is it? Inspiration, which makes man the mouth and the voice of God, is "a cabalistic ventriloquy!!"

The author prefers the voice of man; he thinks it a nobler voice. Poor rationalists! self-admirers, to whom the voice of God, too clearly heard, is a deadly alarm — an unknown sound, which too plainly tells them what they are! Yet hearken to it, ye wise men, who are tempted of Satan to search into good and evil, relying solely upon yourselves. Hearken to it: you will find it, if it convict you, a voice of grace, which can restore you, and cover your moral nakedness with the perfection and the glory of the second Adam — of the Son of God.

Mr. Scherer pretends that one of the shapes which error has taken of late years is to assert, that the rejection of the inspiration of the Bible and of its authority over believers, allows the Holy Ghost to resume His rightful place. I fully allow that the church has grievously forgotten the presence and authority of the Holy Ghost dwelling in her. But I cannot understand how rejecting the authority of what the Holy Ghost has already spoken can enhance His authority. It appears to me to be rather opening the door to human pretensions and the devices of Satan. I have seen the latter effect — a door opened for Satan's devices — produced by the same cause; and in this letter we are completely given over to human pretensions under the specious guise of greater spirituality. The language of the author already quoted is: "Instead of the authority of the word, we shall have the word of authority; instead of referring the poor proselyte to the article of a code, to the ritual of a dogmatist" [which I would no more do, than the author of the letter], "or to the pages of I know not what mysterious oracles, we will refer him to all the great prophets of all ages, to the living instructions of the church, to the word of God personified in His servants, to the Spirit and to His manifestations, in a word, to the immediate contact of the heart with truth." How my heart would be brought into more immediate contact with truth, by listening to the voice of man, rather than by listening to "the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth," it is difficult to conceive.

43 I accept "the manifestation of the Spirit," if thereby is only meant the exercise of spiritual gifts for the edification of the church, and the energy of the Spirit manifested in these gifts; but I warn the believer to be carefully on his guard against all false claims to these "spiritual manifestations." I have witnessed such, and have had evidence, which to me plainly identified them with the active energy of Satan. It is not every spirit which is the Spirit of God; and Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light. Such "manifestations," when accompanied by the rejection of the word of God and of its direct authority over the soul, such as that which is found in Mr. Scherer's letter, proceed from the enemy of souls. This is the case with the Irvingites, and others. It is probable that this movement of the author of the letter is something after this, that the enemy is preparing bolder attempts of this kind, if the Lord hinder him not. The church in general does not sufficiently own the Holy Ghost to have real strength against such pretensions. But it is not in giving up the word, which the Spirit has given us, that we shall find this strength.

Observe, we are asked to renounce that which is here styled "I know not what mysterious oracles," but which Stephen calls "the lively oracles," and Paul, "the oracles of God" (and remark, "the lively oracles" were the letter of scripture), and to give ourselves up to "all the great prophets of all ages," that is, to all the vagaries of the human mind, apart from God, perhaps under the influence of Satan, to be tossed about on a restless ocean of uncertainty without chart and without compass. For there is no word of God, only "the noble accents of the human voice," and a "word of authority"! that is, whether it be an individual or a body which assumes this authority, we are to resign ourselves to the guidance of man — not of God!

44 I recognize the existence of the evil which Mr. Scherer professes to assail. It is one of the commonest devices of the enemy to attack a corruption when it grows old and loses its power over the mind of man, in order to set up some other evil more in accordance with the state of men's minds. Thus the heathen mythology was assailed by the scoffs of infidelity, as soon as it had been shaken by Christianity. This is what the letter does; it attacks that lifeless dogmatic theology, which makes use of the name of God in order to put restraint, not on man, but on the Holy Ghost. But while doing this, instead of bringing us back to the authority of God, it sets up that of man; instead of restoring the liberty and the rights of the Spirit of God, it gives us up to the spirit of man, publishing its unbelief as to the word, and undermining, as far as it can, all that is certainly of God. When this is once taken away — when there is no more authority of God thus, says the letter (which alone secures true liberty to man) — when there is no other authority than that of him who speaks or of the church, who will then be free?

Mr. Scherer speaks of the Person of the Saviour. Doubtless this is the centre and the strength of Christianity: but what faith would there be, or in what Saviour, if the word of God were taken from us?

Mr. Scherer speaks of the Holy Ghost, but he speaks in such an ambiguous manner that, to say no more, one does not know what he means by this title. This Spirit, says he, "which has made the apostles, which has given in them a form to the Christian conscience, to the doctrine, to the life, and operated in every sense the rich cheerfulness of the principle contained in their faith, — this Spirit will exercise in us a faith equally free and spiritual." Now, I own most fully the way in which the Comforter, sent down from heaven, has been grieved and forgotten; but I find here something vague and mystical, which in no wise answers to that which the inspiration, that Mr. Scherer disdains, said of the Comforter. It is a principle which engenders a kind of communism, and not the revealer of Christ, and the power of a divine Person in the church.

The Holy Ghost is the source of strength, of power, and of understanding in the church, and in the Christian. But if you separate the idea of the Holy Ghost from the inspiration and the authority of the written word, you give yourself up to the imaginations of the mind or to an authority which is merely human, whatever may be its pretensions or the ecclesiastical form it may assume; it is authority, and not truth, that is established. The word of God is the authority of the truth and of Him who reveals it.

45 What is the meaning of "this Spirit will exercise in us a faith?" But I find nothing in the way in which it is spoken of the Holy Ghost which leads me to think that it is an expression that negligence has allowed to pass. All is spoken in the same vague manner.

But I close my letter, already too long. I have been obliged to write it by snatches and half-pages. But when such a document is presented to me, I will not let it pass without exposing its character.

Had I had the thought of writing so long a letter, I should not have dared to address it to you, but here it is such as it is. I feel that, if it was not Mr. Scherer's letter, one would have been able to have taken up in a more decisive manner the pretension and the doctrines; but my business was with the Bible and with souls.

I still hope he is a Christian, though after his letter several will not believe it, for his philosophy has made it fall very low. I sincerely and heartily pray God to reveal it, but I denounce his doctrine and his system as being of Satan.

As Mr. S. has published his letter of resignation as Professor of the School of Theology at Geneva, I am now free to give entire publicity to my letter on the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.

APPENDIX

There is an important point which I have not yet brought forward, and on which I would add a few words; that is, the authority of the word, independently of the effect it produces on the heart. I may be led to recognize the authority of the word of God, through the effect which it has produced in my soul; but evidently, it is not this effect which gives it its authority. If the word produces this effect, it is because it possessed the authority which I recognize, before I yielded to it. I recognize it, because it exists. If Christ pronounced the words of God, His words had authority, notwithstanding the unbelief of His hearers; that is, they possessed intrinsic authority. Nor have they lost it, by being written. The Lord speaks (John 5) of "writings" being the highest order of means of communication. If the apostle has made the will of God known to us in "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth," the revelations he received and thus communicated have a divine authority over the conscience, even though they should be rejected by man. The authority of the word does not depend upon its being received by him who hears. It is not he who is to judge it, except at his own peril. "The words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." Here is what is called possessing an authority independent of him who pretends to judge of it.

46 We are not now discussing the authenticity of the testimony, but its authority, allowing it to be authentic. Wherein lies this authority? Suppose two persons read a portion of the Bible: the heart of one is touched and convinced of the divine authority of what he reads; the other remains in his unbelief. Does the authority of the word depend on the faith of one who believes, or is it the same for both, although unrecognized by him who believes not? It is evident that either he who believed was mistaken, or, if not, that the authority of the book, although unrecognized by the unbeliever, is as great for him as for the one who bowed to it. The authority lies then in the word itself, independently of the effect produced by it, or of the opinion man forms of it. It possesses intrinsic authority. The judgment of the last day will prove it. "The words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." It could not be otherwise with the word of God; but it is important clearly to establish this principle. The word of God cannot be useful if it is not received, but it has no less all authority because it is the word of God. Unless to deny the existence of all divine communication one cannot doubt this principle. To deny all communication is unbelief. We do not want to reason on what the church possesses in the scriptures, but to convince the unbeliever. And more, unbelief does not destroy the authority of the word, for the rebellion of man destroys not the authority of God.

The word itself establishes this. "And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; for they are most rebellious," Ezek. 2: 7; compare 1 John 3: 11-27. "He that believeth hath the witness in himself": this is the inward power of the testimony. "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar": here is the guilt of him who believes not. Thus the authority of testimony from God is independent of the judgment which man may pronounce upon it. The testimony will itself judge man.

47 Other passages which are derived from this principle apply it to scripture as a body of writings. "And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus," 2 Tim. 3: 15. Here the sacred letter, or scripture, has an authority over man from his childhood, still rendering the man of God perfect. Then it is not the judgment that the man of God had of the scripture that marked their value. He who knew their value, as rendering the man of God perfect, acknowledged their authority over him when he must have been thoroughly incapable of judging. That is, they had a full and absolute authority over him independent of his capacity to receive them, a divine and intrinsic authority. The most advanced man of God is happy to receive them in the same spirit; 1 Pet. 2: 1. 2. The apostle formally states the principle of authority in the same passage: "stand fast in the things which thou hast learnt, and which have been entrusted to thee, knowing from whom thou hast learnt them." It is the authority of him who had taught them which was the reason for holding them fast.

The intrinsic authority, then, of the testimony of scripture is clearly established. It is an authority independent of the reception of the testimony by the hearer; so entirely independent, that the word will judge him who is not obedient to it. This proves to us that God has endued it with moral evidence, powerful enough to bring in as guilty the man who does not receive the testimony, and who thereby treats God as a liar. Nevertheless it is only the grace of God which can overcome the moral resistance of man's heart, unbelieving as it is by nature and by will as to the things of God, though full of credulity as to the things of man.

There is another point which I have only glanced at, and which I desire to put forward a little more plainly. Many circumstances testify, that the narratives of the evangelists were written not merely by man, but by the Holy Ghost. For instance, John was one of the three apostles who were with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, an attendant upon the scene of His agony. He says nothing about it. Nothing could be more affecting and more solemn. John most certainly had not forgotten it, for he relates many other of the circumstances which are not to be found in the other Gospels; for instance, that those who came to take Jesus "went backward and fell to the ground," and yet respecting the Saviour's agony he makes not the slightest mention. John accompanied Jesus also to the cross; yet he says not a word of His having been forsaken of God, although he relates a multitude of other circumstances, which prove that the Saviour was as calm there as when he describes Him to us in the garden. A man who had written the history of the sufferings of the Saviour would not have failed to relate things so deeply interesting, and of which he had himself been an eye-witness. Matthew also would have related the remarkable incident which occurred in the garden of Gethsemane, of which he was an eye-witness, namely, that they all fell to the ground; but he does not mention it, whilst he gives an account of the agony of Jesus and His prayer, although he was not one of three who accompanied Him at that time.

48 Now if you examine these Gospels, you will find that this peculiarity — inexplicable as it would be if they were not inspired — becomes quite intelligible, when we recognize their inspiration. One and the same author wrote them all. The Holy Ghost, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and to shew them unto us, furnishes us in John with those circumstances of the history of Jesus, which would bring out the glory of His Person as Son of God — the glory of Him "who offered Himself to God" for us. In Matthew He gives us that which is needed to make known the suffering Messiah. The result is, not only harmony between the parts of each Gospel, but also between all the Gospels; producing a perfect whole — exhibiting the design and the workmanship of one and the same author. This principle is applicable to the entire contents of the four Gospels. I have only called the reader's attention to the garden of Gethsemane and to the cross, as striking instances. One who is well versed in the Gospels, and who has spiritual discernment, would know by the manner in which a subject is presented in which Gospel it is to be found. Compare the connection between the end of Matthew 21 and the parable in the beginning of chapter 22: also the way in which the corresponding parable in Luke 16: 16 is introduced, with that of the husbandmen in Luke 20, and you will perceive that the substance, the form, and the diversities of these parables are in perfect harmony with the design of each Gospel. In Matthew, we have the rejection of Christ in connection with the relation of the Messiah to the Jews; in Luke, the moral order of the events, the acts and ways of the God of grace, founded on the broader, more moral, and less official basis of the character of the Son of man. The same thing may be observed in comparing Matthew 24 and Luke 21.

49 There is another testimony to the truth of inspiration, the peculiar character of which deserves the reader's attention. It applies specially to the Old Testament, but it brings out very clearly the difference between the inspiration of the Old and that of the New. It is that the prophets did not understand their own prophecies, but studied them as we might do. We read in 1 Peter 1: 11, "Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister," etc. The prophets searched into that which the Holy Ghost had spoken through themselves. Their inspiration was so absolute, and so independent of the workings of their own minds, that they inquired into the meaning of that which they uttered, as any of us might do. This is not precisely the character of the inspiration of the New Testament; but it is not, therefore, the less real. Its character is declared in the succeeding word — "reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven."

"The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven" leads into all truth; and thus inspiration acts in the understanding and by the understanding; but it is not on that account the less inspiration. On the contrary, the apostle Paul preferred the inspiration which acts by the understanding to that which is apparently more independent of it. 1 Corinthians 14: 14-19: "If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth; but my understanding is unfruitful." Daniel 12: 8, gives us an example of that which Peter describes — "And I heard, but understood not; then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."

50 The reader will remember that the passage I have quoted is the one to which the Lord Himself referred the disciples, in order that they might understand it. Now if the prophet did not understand the revelation he gave, if the prophets searched into the signification of their own prophecies, it is most evident that those prophecies were given through direct and positive inspiration.

I desire to add a thought which tends to confirm the truth I seek to maintain, and which applies to the whole of the Bible. Our attention is called to the fact that the Bible is not one book, but a collection of writings by different authors. It is precisely on this fact that I ground my argument, adding also that they were written at periods very remote from each other. In spite of this great diversity of times and of authors there is a perfect unity of design and of doctrine: a unity, the separate parts of which are so linked with each other, and so entirely adapted to each other, that the whole work is evidently that of one and the same Spirit, one and the same mind, with one purpose carried on from the beginning to the end, whatever might be the date of each separate book; and this, not at all by means of mere uniformity of idea, for the promises are quite distinct from the law; and the gospel of grace is distinct from them both. Nevertheless, its parts are so correlative and form so harmonious a whole, that, with the least attention, one cannot fail to perceive, that it is the production of one mind. Now there is but One, who lived through all the ages during which the various books of the Bible were written, and that One is the Holy Ghost.

Look at Genesis: you will find in it doctrines, promises, types, which are in perfect harmony with that which is more fully developed in the New Testament; but in this book they are related in the way of narrative with the greatest simplicity, yet in such a manner as to give the most perfect picture of things, which should happen in after ages. Feelings natural to piety (speaking historically) are so related as to possess a meaning, which, when we have the key to it, throws light upon the most precious doctrines of the New Testament, and the most remarkable events of prophecy.

Look at Exodus, and you will find the same thing. Every thing is made according to the pattern seen by Moses in the mount, and furnishes us with the clearest exposition we possess of the ways of God in Christ. At the same time the law is given — and yet the law is not imitated in the gospel, which does not so much as contain a copy of it. Nevertheless, the law is linked with the gospel in a manner which makes it impossible to separate them, and which gives to the authority of this revelation a divine and absolute character. Were it not so, Christ would have died to suffer the consequences of a partially human institution; for He bore the curse of the law. Observe this carefully: it was "the curse of the law" revealed to man, and of which He said, that not one jot or tittle should pass away till all were fulfilled. And moreover, it was not when reasoning with the Jews, upon their own ground, that Christ said this, but when teaching His disciples, according to His own perfect wisdom, and solemnly setting before them the principles of His kingdom.

51 Take Leviticus: the details of its sacrifices furnish a light, which throws upon the work of Christ rays so bright that nothing could replace them; supplying a key to all the workings of the human heart, and an answer to all its need, such as it is found even among the heathen. These details prefigure every aspect of the work of Christ, as doctrinally unfolded in the New Testament, whether by Himself or by His apostles; yet, to their inspired writer, they were only Jewish ordinances.

Take Numbers — the history of the journeyings of God's people through the wilderness. "These things," says the apostle, "happened to them for examples [types], and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come." Who was it that wrote them for us? Certainly not Moses (although he was the human instrument), but He who knoweth the end from the beginning, and who orders all things according to His good pleasure.

All the circumstances of Christian life are found treasured up in these oracles, in so complete a manner, that the apostle could say, "They are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ." On the other hand, the New Testament is equally far from merely repeating the substance of the Old, or from making void its authority. It brings in an altogether new light — a light which (while setting aside a multitude of things as fulfilled) throws upon the Old Testament a radiance which alone gives its contents their true bearing. All this applies to the moral and to the ceremonial law; to the history of the patriarchs; to the royalties of David and of Solomon; to the sentiments expressed in the Psalms, as well as to other subjects. Is it not one mind which has done all this? Was it the mind of Moses or of Paul? Assuredly not.

52 Observe also, that all this refers to Christ, and to all the various glories of Christ — glories which God alone knew so as to reveal them beforehand, and to give, in the history and ordinances of His people, and even in that which is related of the world, precisely that which would serve for the development of all that was to be manifested in His Son Jesus. Accordingly, what says Peter? (Acts 2.) "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and seeing this before, he spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption."

I do not go through other books of the Bible to furnish proofs of this unity of design, which is manifested in a work wrought by such various instruments, and at periods so remote from each other — a unity realised in such a manner as precludes all idea of its having been intended by the persons who executed it. I only use the fact here in confirmation of the principle which I maintain; but to one who has any knowledge of the word of God, it is an incontestable proof.

I add but one word. In judging of inspiration by the precision of the account, a mistake is often committed as to what should be sought for. The Holy Ghost does not aim at that accuracy which would be needful to prove the truthfulness of man. The Holy Ghost has always a moral or spiritual object — the revelation of some eternal principle of truth and grace. Every circumstance which has no bearing upon His object is omitted. He regards not accuracy in that respect. But the moral accuracy is all the greater on this account, and the picture presented to the conscience much more complete. The introduction of something needful to human accuracy, would spoil the perfection of the whole as God's testimony. God does not seek to amuse the mind of man by stories to no purpose, but to instruct his heart by truth. This might sometimes make it rather difficult to balance the whole as a mere narrative; but there are two ways of explaining the cause of a difficulty — the ignorance of him who feels the difficulty, or the impossibility of the thing which has perplexed him. And man willingly attributes to the latter cause that which proceeds from the former. He who understands the designs of the Holy Ghost in what He says seizes the perfection of the word, where the mind of man is perplexed by a thousand difficulties.

On the Work of Christ;

or, Remarks on the Second Letter of Mr. Edmond Scherer*

J. N. Darby.

<23002F> 54

{*Translated from the French: Geneva, G. Kaufmann: Paris, Cherbuliez, 1850.}

Mr. Scherer has added a second letter to that already known and has just published them together. His aim is to shew that faith can abide intact spite of the denial of the inspiration of the scriptures; but this second letter is already the full proof of the contrary. The doctrine it contains is simply, in very fair phrases, the denial of the expiation of Christ and of the doctrine of justification by faith which flows from it.

The system of Mr. Scherer, who has not even the merit of originality, is only a diluted Irvingism. Besides it is the adoration of man, coloured with a certain mystic tint. Under the pretext of glorifying the Person of Christ, mysticism denies the efficacy of His work. Further, without the doctrine of expiation (such is the deceitfulness of the heart), admiration of the Person of Christ and of His life may be self-admiration. Christ was a man; and, by deifying man in Him, people put on themselves the crown of His glory under the pretext of the duty and capability of being like Him internally.

This system pretends to something more real, more intimate, more personal in religion. Poor heart of man! When will it learn that nothing so humbles it (and this is what is wanted), that nothing operates in it so strongly, in the way needed, as the knowledge that all has been done outside itself? Glorying in one's humility, and being indeed humble, are two very different things. It is not by thinking of oneself, in order to imitate humility, that one becomes humble; it is by being debtor for all to the grace of Him who has saved us. Pharisaism does not consist in attributing everything to oneself, but in blessing God for what one is, instead of blessing Him for what He is, Himself.

I do not pretend to handle this question thoroughly, but only to examine some points in Mr. Scherer's letter.

There is no novelty in his system, except that he excludes, as uninspired, what the mystics confine themselves to letting alone, namely, all the Holy Ghost's teaching by the apostles. See pages 33 and 34, where the thing is plainly stated. "You ask me," says he, "what remains of Christianity, when the dogma of inspiration is thrown out? 'Jesus Christ remains.' What remains of scripture? 'The history of Jesus Christ.'"

55 We find in this second letter the same levity as in the first in assertions about serious matters, and in cases when the smallest examination would have shewn how destitute of foundation those assertions are. There is the same inflation of style, serving to veil capital vices in the reasoning, and to conceal unbelief and the desire of exalting man. "Have you not found," says he, "salvation and life in Jesus Christ? and if it is so, how can you fear, lest any fact whatever should weaken this fact of immediate certainty?" (Page 28.) But it is not the fact of my possessing eternal life that this foolish doctrine weakens; it is the certainty of the truths that God uses as the means to communicate and maintain life. To deny inspiration is to deny the certain communication of truth on the part of God.

"Very far" (the author tells us) "from being incompatible with criticism, faith carries a critical force in itself." (Page 29,) This contradicts the sufficiency of moral certitude, and the historical proofs of which he speaks in his first letter. But, passing over that, there is little but words in this phrase. How does the fact that faith possesses a critical force shew that something else has that force? So far as there is any force in the reasoning, the reasoning itself precisely shews the contrary of what Mr. Scherer pretends to establish; for, if faith carries a critical force in itself, faith, having made its own criticism, excludes thereby the possibility of questioning its judgment: otherwise, its judgment is null. It pronounces, because it discerns. If I say, the tongue has in itself the capacity to discern the taste of what touches it, by attributing this faculty to the tongue, I exclude all judgment pronounced on the decision of the tongue; if not, I deny what I have just affirmed. The tongue says that honey is sweet. Who disputes its decision? Who disputes the power of the tongue — the very thing one has just been affirming? And this is owing to a special connection between the quality of an object, and the capacity to discern this quality. Thus, faith is faith, because it receives and understands the things of God, which are in connection with a capacity proper to faith; that is, the critical force which it has in itself implies the incompatibility of all other criticisms. This is so much the more true, because the quality recognized by faith excludes by this very fact all other criticism; for faith recognizes the authority of God in that which it receives; it believes God; otherwise it is not faith. Who will criticize God and His words? But, until one has received a communication as being such, faith is not in activity.

56 This manner of expressing oneself is, however, very imperfect, because it takes in only the fact of the existence of faith in man. The word of God, as is always the case, gives us much more light than the best reasonings. "The spiritual man," it tells us, "judgeth [discerneth] all things, yet he himself is judged [discerned] of no man," 1 Cor. 2: 15. There is the criticism with which all other criticism is incompatible. And what is the force of this expression? It is, that God is there introduced, and that the Spirit of God is in the spiritual man, directing him and conducting him. He discerns all things because he is spiritual.

Now, mark well too the effect of this truth. The Holy Ghost, working in man, does not exclude the responsibility of man; on the contrary, it gives him the right feeling of his relationship with God, and judges all that is inconsistent with that relationship. He does not act independently of the Lord, because He subjects man to God, and to what God has said. This was true in the case of Christ, and perfectly true in Him only. In us "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," tending always to produce imperfection in discernment and conduct. And again the Holy Ghost, working in man, does not exclude the faculties of man; He uses them; He is not judged by them. He uses them, so that it is human intelligence employed on all the subjects with which the Holy Ghost can occupy it, but employed by Him, enlightened by Him, receiving a capacity, in a certain sense, divine, without ceasing at the same time to be human. Man is thus delivered from the dominion of his corrupt nature. Reason neither judges nor governs; for if it does, it is only the will of man aspiring to independence, that is, excluding God, and always wrong by the very fact of this exclusion. When God is not already supreme, and His authority absolute in the eyes of a man, the man is altogether in a lie, because he is not in his moral place. But, while employing and in a divine way enlarging the capacity of man, the Holy Ghost submits him necessarily to God, makes God known to him, makes him receive what is of God — the word — because it is the perfect expression of the judgment of God. It is true that the flesh "lusteth against the Spirit," so that imperfection is there. The result is not one of absolute perfection. It is only in as much as he is spiritual, as I have already said, that a man discerns all things.

57 The Spirit not only makes man subject to God, places him thus morally in what is true, and renders him capable of morally discerning; but He delivers him from the influence of the carnal motives which constantly vitiated his judgment. The Spirit presents to the affections of man, God in Christ, as well as a development of the truth, in all the relationships of man with God, as sinner and as saint, and that according to the height of the Person and work of Christ, and it is His work alone which gives us the true estimate of sin. Christ always estimated sin according to God; but, as to us sinners, it is only in the cross that we perfectly estimate it, because we there see it outside ourselves, in whom all is darkened by sin. It is there that the hatred of man against God, and the love of God for man, have met in one and the same act; and it is there that the moral state of man and the perfect revelation of God have been completely brought into evidence. That act is, at the same time, righteousness and salvation, death and judgment, as they were never manifested before, and never will be; and in that act they have been manifested as salvation and as life, the means which God has opened for His sovereign love and the salvation of the believer.

The insulting spear, which struck the Saviour when already dead, only brought forth the water and the blood which atone for and cleanse the sin which made them flow.

Man, morally, his affections, his judgment, are thus purified by that Jesus whom the Holy Ghost presents to him, — that he may possess Him in his heart. Sweet and sanctifying proof of the Father's love! The Holy Ghost in man is a real and divine power; but He also works morally, and in the intelligence of him in whom He dwells. The spiritual man discerneth all things. All means are at his disposal. He judges all things, he takes knowledge of all things if needful, according to the Spirit and by His direction. It is not his reason which judges; he judges spiritually of all things. He judges himself instead of pretending to judge God, as if he had a capacity independent of Him. It is this that is incompatible with faith; this is that criticism which is incompatible with faith, because faith acknowledges God, and judges that proud criticism, which, in its folly, would judge God.

58 If then one would speak of faith, it is because it has a sovereign power of criticism, because it is incompatible with criticism. That which criticizes supremely cannot be criticized, it would be a flagrant contradiction. "The spiritual man," says Paul (for faith is an abstraction), "judgeth [discerneth] all things, and he himself is judged [discerned] of no man," 1 Cor. 2: 15.

What is this "transformation" of faith or of truth? It purifies itself, you say, rejecting every foreign substance. Well and good; but what is that movement in which "the constitutive elements of truth are found to be carried away"? Is not the truth of God stable, immutable, and eternal, transforming man by its power and by grace, but remaining ever itself, and ever the same?

Mr. Scherer — and this is convenient — wishes one to have the courage to set aside the dogmatic notion of inspiration, and place oneself, with the appearance of faith, on the free ground of the historical point of view, etc. It is clear that if I do that, all is done. "The assurance of faith," say you? In what? Founded on what? On Jesus Christ, will you tell me? But how should I have a divine history of Him, without there being a divine capacity to write it? It is a book that I read, it is not Himself that I see. Mr. Scherer will tell me that what I read is evidently divine. Agreed. But you must fully bear in mind that you have not Jesus personally. You have only what is written: it is that which must be divine, if the Jesus whom I know is divine. Is it man that does what is divine?

Mr. Scherer acknowledges fully that, in order to invent Jesus Christ, one must have been Christ himself. In effect, it is morally impossible to form a just idea of such a character, without having in one the moral elements of that character — without being oneself what He is. I add, that we have this security further than the fact of invention — for this fact would have been the denial of that character, so that we must necessarily have the thing itself. Now, this is what we have by writing: who is capable of it? Man, or the men who wrote it? Then they are all Jesuses — they are all inspired! This is so much the more evident, because, in order to have this perfect and adorable being, more men than one were employed. This history is not their own act; it is a whole which reproduces Him of whom they speak. Finally, if a man who has faith rids himself of the scriptures which serve as a foundation to faith, the question is not to know if he loses his own faith, but if he has not destroyed the foundations on which the faith of others may rest, and level the faithfulness of God, if he has not destroyed the very foundations of his own. For, if God has not spoken, on what is faith founded? If God has spoken by a man, then the man is inspired.

59 Mr. S. wishes us to "believe in the truth."* "You believe in Jesus Christ: believe also in the truth." This is all very fine; but what does it mean? Truth is an abstraction. It must subsist somewhere. There is such a thing as the truth — moral perfection in relationship with the Supreme Being, or, at least, a just estimate of those relationships — a life and a position which expresses that estimate. A man who tells me things just as they are tells me the truth; but to tell of things just as they are in connection with God is to say a great deal. If everything in these relationships is in its normal state, it is moral perfection.** In a state of sin the truth does not exist. All is a lie. I said, in the relationship with the Supreme Being; because, in the case of the creature, to exclude God is falsehood itself. It is what Jesus says of the adversary — "He abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him," John 8: 44.

{*This thought is borrowed from Mr. Vinet.}

{**I speak of intelligent and responsible beings; as to other creatures, it would be merely material perfection.}

One cannot say, God is the truth, because God is perfect in Himself, and again, no relationship is obligatory for Him. To say that a thing is the truth, there must be a point of comparison by which I can judge of the conformity of what is expressed to that which ought to be expressed. But this is not the case with respect to God. Viewed in His essential existence, God does not express Himself. He is what He is. He cannot be compared with anything; He, as the word expresses it, "Dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto," 1 Tim. 6: 16. How then is one to have the truth?

The truth is in Christ Himself. He is moral perfection in the relationship which can subsist with God, and in the most perfect way — the expression of God in His relationship with man. His life is also a life which is the just estimate of these relationships, amidst the evil where man is fallen. "He is the way, the truth, and the life."

60 This is what Mr. Scherer says (it may be objected). "Can one," he says, "truly believe in one without believing in the other?" But mark it well, for Mr. Scherer there is one and the other; and as to that other thing, the truth, where does it subsist — out of Christ? Where is it realized or possessed? Realized out of Christ? No one would dare to pretend such a thing and call himself a Christian. There would be another Christ. But possessed? Well, possessed out of Christ — where? There would still be another Christ; for to be this in thought, as we agreed, we ought to be this in point of fact. The man who possesses the truth outside of Christ does not want Him; he is himself the thing that he seeks. What then would be this truth which would be something besides Christ? When I know Christ, I know I possess the truth. I am certain that that truth will be glorified, because it glorifies God, and gives to each thing its own proper place. Although I might abstract, my confidence is not in an abstraction; it is in a living being, in Christ, and in God who glorifies Him.

Why distinguish confidence in the truth from confidence in Christ? Because the first is confidence in man — confidence in oneself.

This is most evident.

You have no confidence in the force of the truth as to a tree or an animal, and you are right. Why? Because they lack the necessary capacity to receive it, and they can neither taste nor appreciate it. The force of the truth is then in the moral capacity of the one who receives it; that is to say, your confidence is in the moral state of man. It is true that the truth in Christ is adapted to the conscience of every man, whose rebel will rejects it. Under the influence of grace the soul tastes its truth. As to the natural man, "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not," John 1: 5. For the rest, it is certain that truth came by Jesus Christ. What has been outside grace — its force in the heart of man? It is this, that the history of our precious Saviour can teach us. Does Mr. Scherer believe that Christ is the truth? Was Christ received? Had the truth in its perfection that force which compels one to receive it? What then does that expression mean — "believe in the truth"? that is to say, believe in its intrinsic force to make itself received? It is but the adoration of man, in face of his conduct towards Christ. Would Mr. Scherer produce a truth more perfect than Christ, or believe in the efficacy of something less perfect? If one distinguishes between the truth and Christ, to believe in the truth is but unbelief with respect to Christ. You confide in your attachment to the truth, which without that attachment is nothing. Man as a sinner, man obeying his lusts, is not attached to the truth; the truth has no influence on him.

61 But one may tell me that the man who possesses the truth, who loves it, who tastes it, has confidence in it, as well as in Christ. Is it a living being, and outside of Christ? Where does it exist? In the mind of him who has confidence in it.

But by what means will it have the force which inspires confidence? It is either by the power of God, and then it is faith by the power of grace; or else it is by the acceptation of him who approves of it — that is to say, by man. Now God is here left outside. The work of God is faith in Christ. In the other case, it is confidence in man, confidence in oneself.

It is at the bottom that which Mr. Scherer acknowledges. For him "faith in Christ is a sacrifice of self; confidence in the truth is a sacrifice of our timidity, of our prejudices, of our party spirit." Who is it that thus overcomes himself? It is man. The man who is true in his heart, in his motives, but outside of Christ; for if it is Christ as power, as motive, and as object, it is faith in Christ, and it is not to believe also in the truth. This new God (for in order for us to confide in Him, He must be God) this new God, I say, is only man after all.*

{*I shall hardly be accused of upholding theology and dogmatism; I hold them in horror. I think that Mr. Scherer says something very true about them. For the greater part of those who occupy themselves with it, theology is like a surgeon who would dissect his friend instead of loving him. But truth which is not Christ is nothing else but dogma.}

Truth is of all importance. One of the most important characters of the church is to be "the pillar and ground of the truth," 1 Tim. 3: 15.

We are going to see if Mr: Scherer upholds it.

He tells us that "Revelation supposes . . . the knowledge of God and the conscience of sin." Is that truth? The Saviour said, and Mr. Scherer reminds us of it, "they that are sick need a physician." No doubt; but He did not say, those who know themselves to be sick. But as to the knowledge of God, what does it reveal? The apostle said, that "by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3: 20), and that without law he would not have known sin; Rom. 7: 7. The Lord Himself says that the Holy Ghost would reprove the world of sin, because they did not believe in Jesus; John 16: 7, 9. If Mr. Scherer only means to say that every man has a conscience, I do not dispute it. But to say that the gospel supposes and does not create the sense of sin, and that the revelation of Jesus as light does not produce by grace, in the heart of man, the consciousness of what he is, this is to be as far off as possible from the truth. Mr. Scherer's own words shew us the true consequence of this idea, that the gospel supposes the knowledge of sin; and they prove that I do not exaggerate, in supposing that he means to say that the gospel is not given to produce it. He says, "the gospel is not for everybody; it addresses itself very directly to some, whilst with others it has not one point of contact." (Page 32.) Every Christian knows the contrary, and the word of God has a language entirely opposed to this. And if one has the consciousness of sin, without a revelation, why, as Mr. Scherer will have it, is it faith which supposes a revelation that weeps and is prostrate in the dust; or which, like that of the woman which was a sinner, covers the Master's feet with her tears of repentance and stifled sobs? (Page 32.) If one has the sense of sin, without a revelation, and thus without faith, how is there but one faith, that of the publican prostrate in the dust, or that which shed the tears of repentance — that is to say, which has a true sense of sin? And, besides, is that indeed the only faith? "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace," Gal. 5: 22. We have "not received the spirit of bondage again to fear," but we "have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God," Rom. 8: 15, 16. Is that a false faith which says, He "loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father" (Rev. 1: 5, 6); and which also says, "in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory"? (1 Pet. 1: 8).

62 Is all that tears, prostration, or stifled sobs; or else did the apostles, notwithstanding, "religious inspiration" that Mr. Scherer attributes to them, describe a false faith? Is it that I despise these precious movements of a renewed heart and conscience? God preserve me from it! But, with the habitual pretension of sentimental spirituality, Mr. Scherer confounds the first movements of the quickening Spirit in the heart with the simplicity of peace, with the calm of spirit and rest which are the portion of him who knows Christ. If there is no other faith than that which sighs and covers the Master's feet with its stifled sobs, what was the faith of this very same woman, when she went away in peace, because her sins were forgiven, and when she knew, from the lips of Jesus Himself, that this faith had saved her? But, if one would tell me that in the gospel faith receives an answer which removes the sobs and the tears, it is in that case nonsense to allege there is but the faith which weeps. Here is faith in the gospel of the grace of God, which gives peace and joy, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us; Rom. 5: 5.

63 Sentimental people love their own sobs, not the grace which produced them. The Christian, feeble as he may be, loves God, because God loved him first. He thinks not of his repentance, but of Him who vouchsafed it to Him, who gave him access to Himself by the blood of the Lamb, and who made him joint-heir with Christ His Son, according to His ineffable love. This ignorance of the gospel explains itself by things still more serious, that we meet with farther on in this letter. But before pointing this out I shall say a few words on another matter which, according to Mr. Scherer, the gospel supposes, namely, "the knowledge of God."

What vagueness! what a superficial way of treating serious questions! What is the knowledge of God? One asks oneself if the man who affirms that the gospel "supposes" this knowledge of God has himself the knowledge of God. "He who loveth not, knoweth not God," says the apostle John; 1 John 4: 8. "When ye knew not God," says another apostle, "but now ye have known God" (Gal. 4: 8, 9); and elsewhere, "the Gentiles who knew not God," 1 Thess. 4: 5. "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not," John 1: 5. Because the natural conscience tells a man that he is guilty, and that there is a God of judgment, does that man know God? He who speaks of a distinct motion in the soul, as if it was the knowledge of God, ought not to cry out against dogmatism and intellectualism, as evils of a religious life.

I come to things more serious still than the vagueness which reigns in these pages. All the gospel, Mr. Scherer tells us, centres in Jesus Christ . . . . "If one cuts off the dogma of inspiration, there remains Jesus Christ . . . . What remains to faith? The Person of Jesus Christ. He is the beginning and the end, the centre and the whole." Not a word of His work, mark it well. After having cut off the dogma of inspiration, what remains of scripture? "The history of Jesus Christ." A history, mark it well, imperfect as the men who wrote it; for, not having been kept by inspiration, their writings are but fallible accounts like those of other men. But is there nothing but the history of Jesus Christ, nothing of the witness of the Spirit as to the efficacy of His work? Does there remain nothing of it, even if it were not inspired? Did the religious inspiration of the apostles occupy itself with things of no value, when enlarging on the value of the work of Christ? No, according to Mr. Scherer, there remains nothing but the history of Jesus Christ, the Person of Jesus Christ. "It is the beginning and the end, the centre and the whole." For him the work of Christ is a nullity, and he declares himself that it is the suppression of the dogma of inspiration which does this.

64 But there is something more definite still, and it is with deep sorrow that I revert to some lines of the author, which are simply the denial of the doctrines which are essential to true Christianity. However, it is a mercy of God to have permitted that the effect of the rejection of inspiration should be at once stated by the very man who rejects it, stated immediately, so that the weakest Christian, the very moment he hears such words, should be warned of their bearing. I accept the truth that the Person of the Lord is the great object of faith; but there is, on this point, something very ambiguous in the idealism of the author, for I can no longer call it his faith. "Something supreme," says he, "pierces through His perfection, which is so really human. Sincerely man like us, He has however the consciousness of being above man. Humanity in Him rises up to divinity. He alone knew the Father, with whom He was in a relationship which was unique. He who has seen Him has seen God. All things have been put into His hands — He abides with His own unto the end of the world. The church worships Him, and prays to Him; it — acknowledges that its Saviour reigns in the heaven and on the earth, and that the reconciliation is accomplished by Him, because it is accomplished in Him, namely, in the very union of the God and man." (Pages 35, 36.) Is He God, the Lord Jesus? Was He God before He became man? What pains, what subterfuges to avoid saying this word! "Humanity in Him rises up to divinity . . . . He who has seen Him has seen God." The Lord said: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14: 9), and yet He was not the Father. "Reconciliation was accomplished in him, namely, in the very union of the God and man." Why of the God? Was He God? The last phrase which I have just quoted is perhaps the clearest on the subject of the divinity of Jesus; but the union of God and man leaves after all, as to the Person of Christ, and as to the true divinity of Jesus, a vagueness which nothing elsewhere can destroy. The word of God has nothing like this. "The Word," it says, "was with God, and the Word was God." "All things were made by him," and "the Word was made flesh," John 1. It is not humanity which in Him rises up to divinity, a sort of divine moral quality . . . . It is God — God, before being man — God who had made the heaven and the earth. "All things were created" by the Son, and for the Son, as the apostle tells us in the Epistle to the Colossians; Col. 1: 16. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands," Heb. 1: 10. One must not deceive oneself as to the meaning of words, and speak to us about dogmas. Was then Jesus the true God? He who, before becoming man, created the heavens and the earth — is He the Creator? "To raise humanity to divinity . . . a union of God and man." These are things that may be agreeable to man, they exalt ideal man; but was Jesus GOD outside man? Was He the Creator?

65 Mr. Scherer leaves us on that point in a painful uncertainty. Now, it is important for a serious man to know if his Saviour is GOD or not, and not to worship one knows not what.

On this capital point of reconciliation Mr. Scherer is by no means obscure. He denies the truth in the clearest manner. "Reconciliation was accomplished by Him, because it was accomplished in Him, namely, in the very union of God and man." Of sinful man! Is it that the reconciliation of sinful man (of a nature in which, according to the apostle, there is no good) has been effected by the union of this sinful nature with God? And what was this nature which needed to be reconciled? Was it not a sinful nature, and precisely because it was sinful? Is it that which was united to God, or to the God who united Himself to man in Jesus? And further, is it by the union of God and man that reconciliation is accomplished? "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them," 2 Cor. 5: 19, 20. I quote the passage the nearest to Mr. Scherer's idea, inasmuch as this passage speaks of that which preceded the death of Christ; but this passage shews the complete falseness of Mr. Scherer's doctrine. For if God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and not imputing their trespasses unto them, humanity was not reconciled by its union with God. God in the man Christ was occupied with this work of love in the midst of men still sinners. Alas! men would not have it, and something else was necessary. It is that which is found at the end, in verse 20, precisely what Mr. Scherer rejects, namely, an accomplished work to which the Holy Spirit gives testimony by the apostles. "He hath committed unto us,"* says the apostle, "the word of reconciliation." We beseech men to be reconciled to God, for He hath made sin for us Him who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

{*In reading this passage in Greek, which treats of the chief point of Mr. Scherer's system, and which teaches as being essentially the gospel precisely what Mr. Scherer denies, the light becomes still more striking. Three participles are dependent on the words, "God was in Christ," and point out three things which flow from this, of which the last is ministry of the Spirit confided to the apostles, to render testimony to the work of Christ as means of reconciliation, by the truth of God, after Christ had been rejected as living on the earth "God was in Christ" reconciling, not imputing sins, and committing to us the ministry of reconciliation. But this ministry was founded on the fact — become a dogma, in the ministry which spoke of it — that Christ has been made sin for us. Reconciliation is not then the reconciliation of man, or of humanity united to God in Christ, but reconciliation performed by Christ — made sin for him who was separated from God.}

66 Such is reconciliation, according to God: not the reconciliation of humanity towards God in Christ, (which is nonsense, because in Christ humanity was without sin, and it was the sinner that needed to be reconciled) but the reconciliation of men as sinners, of us poor miserable ones, estranged from God, and that by a testimony of love, founded no doubt on the Person of Christ, but which is founded on His work; not that He mingled humanity in holiness to Himself, but in that He who was holy and who knew not sin was made sin for us.

It is good to put the truth solidly and simply, without equivocation, in face of the extravagant dreams of man, who would make use of the perfection of the Person of the Christ-man in order to exalt himself under the name of humanity. Christ was made sin because we were sinners. This is the truth we have need of. Call it a dogma if you like; no matter. It is a dogma which, received into the heart, gives peace according to God. Other passages are quite as clear. "Having made peace by the blood of his cross." And you, it follows, "He hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight," Col. 1: 20, 22. We may notice, in reading what precedes, that the work of Christ is distinct from His Person.

67 "But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ," Eph. 2: 13. The reader can examine the verses which follow: they fully confirm that the doctrine of reconciliation is by the death of Jesus, and not by the "union of God and man."

But Mr. Scherer makes his opposition to the truth still clearer.

"The work of Christ is His Person in action, as the Person of Christ is His work in power. His death is the culminating point of this work. The sufferings of Golgotha formed besides the historical condition of the struggle of the just with the world, and of the Holy One with evil . . . . But there is here more than a simple law of history. The work of Christ is a work of salvation. Jesus saves us by His partaking of humanity, by His realization of holiness, and by the manifestation in Him of the love and of the pardon of God. In fact, if all men have been made sinners by the disobedience of the first Adam, the power of sin has been broken thus for all by the obedience of the Second." (Pages 37, 38.)

Would one wish for anything clearer to erase expiation from the Christian doctrine? Alas! it will be found.

"Heaven is too much considered as a dwelling-place which one may enter by pardon as one enters through a door, and where one is admitted as the consequence of an entirely judicial sentence, which is justification, in virtue of an altogether outward condition, which is the substitution of Christ, and of another condition quite arbitrary, which is faith in this institution: gross notions, which confound with the internal nature of things an imperfect symbol borrowed from the customs of men." (Page 49.)

Mr. Scherer does not believe in reconciliation by the union of God and man. The substitution of Christ is a death of Christ; it is accomplished in Him by the gross notion! His work does not even find a place in the enumeration that Mr. Scherer makes of that which, he says, people call the truths of Christianity.

68 "The church," he says, "would suffice to propagate what is called the truths of Christianity, original sin, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment." (Page 41.)

Need I recall to the reader what a place the death and work of the Saviour holds in all the Bible, from the sacrifice of Abel and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah up to the song of the apostle and church in the Revelation? We have seen the apostles attribute reconciliation to His death, to the death of Him who suffered "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." He "came to give his life a ransom for many," Matt. 20: 23. "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," Heb. 9: 28. "Who, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree," 1 Pet. 2: 24. "He is the propitiation for our sins," 1 John 2: 2. "Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification," Rom. 4: 25. It is, I think, useless to multiply passages, if the words of Isaiah, of Jesus, of John, of Peter, and of Paul are not enough. As to Paul, we have the declaration that it is of this truth, founded on the Person of Christ, that he has been ordained preacher. "For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, whereunto I am ordained a preacher," 1 Tim. 2: 5, 6, 7. Now it is not here only a question of inspiration. The ministry of reconciliation was confided to the apostles.

One of two things: either the apostle was mistaken in supposing that the ministry of reconciliation was committed to him, and was also mistaken with respect to the means of this reconciliation and the subject of this ministry . . . or the doctrine of Mr. Scherer denies Christianity.

Yes, it does deny Christianity.

I admit that the Person of Christ is the object of faith. I admit that, in all those who possess it really, this is living faith. But the reconciliation of which you, reader, and myself have need, which is our great business, the whole of our eternal blessing, the apostle attributes to one thing and Mr. Scherer to another, yea, rejecting as a gross notion the apostolic doctrine!

69 "The work of Christ," Mr. Scherer still tells us, "is His Person in action." (Page 37.) Did He not suffer? What was His activity when He was forsaken of God? "Jesus saves us by His partaking of humanity and His realization of holiness." (Pages 37, 38.) But "without shedding of blood there is no remission," Heb. 9: 22. "A propitiation through faith in his blood," Rom. 3: 25. It is a sacrifice offered once for all to God, which replaced all the offerings presented under the law. He has "offered one sacrifice for sins," Heb. 10: 12. In a word, the gospel of Mr. Scherer is another gospel, which is not one at all.

If the apostles preached the true gospel, Mr. Scherer does not possess it; if the Christianity which the apostles taught, which Jesus Himself taught, is the true gospel, that of Mr. Scherer is not; it is on the contrary the denial of it. Mr. Scherer may pretend to be more spiritual, to be fond of more living doctrine. It may be that the theology and the sterile dogmatism of schools have disgusted him: he cannot have a worse opinion of them than myself. Nothing more than theological pedantry extinguishes life, vitiates spiritual judgment, and feeds the flame of pride. The Person of Christ, the perfection of His humanity, has an importance that no one can exaggerate; but that alters nothing. It is none the less true that, betrayed by the workings of the intelligence on these points, Mr. Scherer denies Christianity on the principal point of the reconciliation of man with God. Mr. Scherer teaches a false gospel. If he believes from the heart that Christ is the true God, and that He has been it from eternity — if he believes that the Word which created the world became man, he gives himself at least a great deal of trouble not to say so, or to say it in such a way as to satisfy those who do not believe it, and not to appear to share the faith of those who do believe it. Now, it is of importance to know if it is the Creator God who is my Saviour; or if I adore one who is not really so. Let people cease speaking of the Person of Christ, if they are not sure that Christ is God. A sterile admiration of a beau ideal is not faith in the Son of God.

The doctrine of Mr. Scherer is but a vague and equivocal doctrine on the Person of Christ, a complete and formal denial of the gospel preached by the apostles, and of the teaching of the Holy Spirit on the subject of the work of Christ.

70 I will but add one instance of the same contempt, or the same negligence of what the Saviour said, which I have pointed out as characterizing these letters.

To deny inspiration yet more, Mr. Scherer tells us, "We find (in the biblical accounts), preserved by an authentic tradition, deep traces that Jesus had left in the memory of those who surrounded him." (Page 41.) Very satisfactory. means, it must be owned, when it is a question of possessing the words of Him of whom it is said, "He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God," John 3: 34. Happily we have received from the very mouth of Jesus the assurance that what we possess is not "profound traces preserved by tradition." "The Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you," John 14: 26. But be it the apostles or the Saviour Himself, it matters not to Mr. Scherer, provided he hears the "noble accents of the human voice," and that it is not God who speaks to him.

If human subtilty was to attack divine inspiration, one has but to bless God after all that this attempt has been so soon followed by a denial of the work accomplished by the Saviour to reconcile the sinner to God. The believer will understand that it is a question of the foundation of all his hopes, of his salvation, as well as of the glory of his Saviour. He will understand, that to deny inspiration is to deny the teaching of the Holy Ghost on the work of Christ and on salvation; that it is to reject all this as "gross notions," and reduce his knowledge of a living Christ to "profound traces preserved by authentic traditions!" He will understand that the scheme is another Christianity which is not one, a Christianity which takes the place of the Bible, and that all that remains to him of the volume which he possessed is only, according to Mr. Scherer, some treatises containing traditional remembrances, which teach us to do without the doctrine of the apostles; a God known without a single revelation, and traditions in order to know Him better; a beau ideal of humanity, which raises itself up to divinity; but no more propitiation for the sins which made us guilty before God. Fine inheritance! instead of the certain truth of our God, and of an accomplished salvation, which glorifies at the same time perfectly both the Person and the work of the Saviour, which gives perfect peace to a heart fully reconciled, and which introduces one as a child into the communion of a God of love.

71 Faith in the work of Christ does not prevent us from living by Him. It is he who eats His flesh and drinks His blood who dwells in Christ, and Christ dwells in him.

Remarks on "Christianity and Modern Progress" by the Rev. A. Raleigh, D.D.

J. N. Darby.

<23003E> 72

Allow me to draw your attention to a recent publication which professes to give grounds for harmonizing Christianity and modern progress. Such a production ought to produce pain and sorrow, and be dealt with in the spirit which such sorrow will, through grace, engender.

Still I feel, as it has been brought under my eye, that I ought not to pass it over.

No one, of course, is strictly responsible for it but the author; still, as it is an address from the Chair of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at its annual meeting, it acquires a weight which a mere individual discourse would not have. It shews the tone of the dissenting mind — what finds utterance from the lips of those whom it sets in its high places and in the chief seats of its teachers. It shews us to what point the dissenting body is come in the conflict now going on between faith and unbelief; how completely the high and holy ground of possession of the truth by divine revelation is abandoned, to look for tolerance from the infidel reason of man without God in the world. It is, in fact, a humble supplication to the infidel to be allowed to have share in the inheritance of truth, admitting that they have it in their sphere, and craving the admission that the Christian has it in his.

The infidel reasoners are far enough from troubling their heads about the petitioners; as Dr. Raleigh admits, they turn up their noses with contempt at the evidences of Christianity. The air, he tells us, is weary with their repetitions of scorn at Christian creeds. But Dr. Raleigh begs for quarter. If they have scientific facts, Christianity has historic facts.

No doubt Christianity has facts far better proved than any other facts of history, as every sober mind admits. Science has no such facts really. What are called the facts of science are merely the general laws deduced from phenomena or appearances; many, of course, I admit, adequately proved; but these, when of importance to our subject, are not really facts. Nobody unless some rare German, for I have known such, doubts of the astronomical system, demonstrated by the laws of a principle we call gravity. It is admitted because it accounts for the phenomena. I admit, if you please, as a fact, that the earth goes round the sun. Hence, when these laws are known, calculations can be made as to what will happen if all goes on as usual. In a word, appearances, accounted for by general laws, enable man's mind to draw mental consequences, that is, to calculate the ordinary succession of phenomena.

73 In natural science facts have another place. They are observed in their present existence, and what is observed, and that only, is a fact. These facts are then generalized. Not into laws, such as the law of gravity, but into general principles of causes, or rather similarity and succession of forms. Be it that all animal being is reduced to cellular atoms: I have nothing against it. I leave science in possession of its facts, and the gradual development of theories connected with them. The uniformity of succession of facts may be adequately ascertained. Harvey may find that nothing had living being which was not previously in an egg, and sufficient instances may be found in various forms of being to justify a general conclusion. It may or may not be adequately investigated to justify the conclusion that the fact is universal. In these cases I dare say it is. Still the conclusion is not a fact. It is sufficient to make a science for classification, and for man to act on and to learn by.

So in geology, though facts are much less accurately ascertained, still we may say a general succession of formation in a certain order is pretty well ascertained, sufficiently so to classify, though with defects and difficulties, and to form a science. Now no Christian has the slightest interest in combating these facts, nor, if done honestly and simply, scientific generalizations from them. But man's conclusions are not facts. Sir C. Lyell finds a skull or some evidence of human existence in the delta of the Mississippi, begins to calculate the silt deposited by the river, and says man must have lived 100,000 years. This I read in his second edition. I gave it away and got afterwards the third, and here he admits he was wrongly informed as to the data, and it must have been 50,000 years. Now, when I find such leaps as this, to say nothing of other questions, can I speak of facts? The fact is that there was a skull in the delta. All the rest is calculation or supposition.

74 We get some human remains in the Floridas. It must have taken 10,000 years for the coral insects to make the coral. But all this assumes depth of water, and rate of increase of the growth of coral, which are not facts: the only fact is that some human remains are in Florida. The case of cutting through what the Tine torrent has brought down has been insisted upon — Roman remains, bronze remains, and then those of the stone period, and then a skull (one thus thousands of years old). I was assured by a member of the Antiquarian Society, referred to in the account, that they all thought this a mistake, and that the skull was clearly stained with bronze on one side. Now I am not a geologist like Sir C. Lyell; but when we have got the facts, others are, or may be, as competent to reason. We have to remember that "is" represents a fact; "must be" is always man's reasoning: a very different thing from facts. It is a fact that there is a layer of sandstone of many feet thickness. It is a reasoning, not a fact, that it must have taken 20,000 years to have formed it. When I come to reasoning, and to probable calculations, and probable causes, I come to the uncertainty of man's reasonings, and to speculation as to how things came about, in which a thousand possibilities come in to make the "must be" uncertain. My experience of scientific investigation of causes and calculations has led me to conclude that they are extremely uncertain, and little to be relied on. Astronomy, being a question of mathematical calculation for the most part, is of course not liable to the same uncertainty. In general we may say, science is not a system of facts, but of conclusions from phenomena; and conclusions, however interesting and often adequately proved for common life, are never facts.

But on what different ground matters stand, as Dr. R. puts it, is soon seen when the real question is stated.

Those who take this suppliant ground with the infidel admit that, if the man of science has his facts, all must give way. "When so proved," he tells us, "we have but one thing to do — accept it." "No matter what they may seem to involve or bring after them. No matter what cosmogonies, ethnologies, chronologies, the facts may seem to favour or frown upon." Now I am perfectly assured that God's work and God's word cannot contradict each other. But this is not the real question here, but the means of certainty of knowledge, our knowledge. And Dr. R. says, "if they are facts, professed and declared such by the whole scientific world," etc. Now turn the case. Scripture affirms plainly and positively something, in the clearest way, as a fact. It upsets the theory of the scientific world. Will Dr. R. say, Well, if scripture professes and declares it, it is to be accepted, no matter what scientific conclusion it favours or frowns on? If not, he has accepted the authority of science as a means of certain knowledge, and rejected the title of revelation to be such. It is a question of authority, and certainty of knowledge.

75 I admit that science is not the object of scripture in any way. Of course it is not. It deals with the relationships of man with God. Material facts are before men, and left to men. Scripture speaks on ordinary subjects the ordinary language of men, that man may understand it. It says the sun rises; it does not speak of the sun's rays being, by the revolution of the earth, a tangent at the point forming the horizon to the eye of the spectator. But there are cases where scientific conclusions, not facts, come across the domain of scripture: say, such as the unity of the human race, involving the race in the ruin and effects of the guilt of the first parents of that race — cases, consequently, where it is a question of means of certainty. Which am I to trust, man or God? Thus, there are blacks: that is a fact. Many of these new philosophers conclude that there were originally more races than one. That is a conclusion, not a fact. I read, "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"; and that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Now I am not discussing here the point in itself of races of men, but what authority is the word of God to have? Which am I to trust, man's conclusions, or the statement of scripture, because it is a revelation?

I find men differing. Mr. Agassiz may tell me (he is a naturalist), that it is not Darwinian development, that this is utterly unfounded, but that there are many races, that the types of animal forms are different in different quarters of the globe, and that man in each partakes of this typical and characteristic form. Dr. Darwin and followers may insist that the gorilla of Africa, of one quarter of the globe, is the original type of the whole human race everywhere, his own ancestors, as the gorilla is the development of some less perfect form still, and that a stupid penguin may, in a sufficient number of ages, be formed into a clever man by natural selection, let alone gorillas. The ethnologist assures me that negro faces are found in Egyptian monuments in the times of the Osirtasens and Rameses in the earliest records we have of man, and that there must be two races.

76 Pictet, by accurate investigations of Zend and Sanscrit, assures me that no data of pre-historic man goes beyond some 3,000 years before Christ, as a limit. Now the only fact in all this is that there are figures of negroes on Egyptian monuments, and, if you please, different kinds of pigeons; the causes of which difference of typical form no one has yet adequately explained. But scientific facts, Dr. R. tells us, we are to accept, no matter what cosmogonies or ethnologies they seem to favour or frown on. If they set aside Moses' account, so much the worse for Moses; or Paul's declarations, so much the worse for his ignorance. "It is just as certain (Dr. R. tells us) that there are errors and mistakes in the Bible, considered as a human book . . . as it is certain that fallible men wrote the several parts of it, distinguished and selected them one by one from other contemporary writings," etc.

Now I will give all possible credit to Dr. R. The gap I have left out contains this salvo . . . "which, however, do not affect the substance of its inspiration, or impair the certainty we have of the complete communication of the divine meaning in it." What is the substance of its inspiration? Who is to put the limits? For instance, is the unity of the human race involving all in sin? The real question is that of the authority when scripture has spoken.

Critical examination of copies or translations are the careful ascertainment of what is scripture, the oracles of God having been committed to man, though secured to us by God in grace and providential care. The authority of what is ascertained to be so is another question. As to this, we have Dr. R.'s assertion, "It is just as certain that there are errors and mistakes in the Bible, as it is certain that fallible men wrote the several parts of it." What then is inspiration? What the authority of the scriptures? We find in the word that in the perilous days of the last times we are referred to the scriptures; and it is declared that every scripture is given by inspiration of God, and that what the apostle taught, having received it by revelation, he communicated not by words which man's wisdom taught, but which the Holy Ghost taught; 1 Cor. 2. And Peter says, holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. I need not recall how the Lord Himself puts His seal on the authority of the scriptures, and uses them as of divine authority against Satan, and in reference to Himself. The facts of Christianity, Dr. R. tells us, are adequately proved by history, and this is sufficient.

77 Proved by what? "They stand on the highest ground of historic credibility." No doubt they do, so as to prove the folly of infidels. But what has this to do with the authority of the word of God — our one security, according to the apostle, in the last days? But still, if all rests on historic credibility, there may be mistakes; and where is the authority of the word? "But here is our case" (says Dr. R.), "that out of this book, as history, and out of other books as histories contemporary and subsequent, there arise up to our view, first dimly in type and shadow, then clearly in personal life, the great facts which stand at the heart of Christianity," etc. Now here the scriptures, Old and New Testaments, I suppose, and other books, are heaped together to prove facts historically. One book may be more exact than another; they are all histories written by fallible men. And all this is to curry favour with, to get a little allowance from, those who care not for them, and will not have, save as an historical document (such as others are for ethnology), their book nor their Christianity at all at any price.

What shall we say to such pandering to infidelity? "For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor a profit, but a shame and also a reproach." If the church rests on the authority of God and of His word, they have a place which that authority will sanction and give honour to. "He that believeth not, hath made God a liar." "He that is of God heareth us." If they relinquish this to try and put themselves on a level with men, if they try and drag in Christianity after them, they have lost all their vantage ground, divine authority over the heart and conscience; and the infidel, to use an oriental expression, will make them eat dirt, and will not be bothered with their Christianity. And this is the ground leading dissenters have now taken. This is what it is important to notice in what is passing around us. They are giving up the only solid ground of truth. We must know now-a-days who is to be trusted. Christians must be Christ's and on the ground He has laid for it in the revelation He has given. God's word must have authority over men; or it is not His word, and it, and they who should have wielded it as the sword of the Spirit, have lost their place and title and true greatness.

78 And now see what a singular and strange blindness this treachery to the authority of God's word, this pandering to infidels, brings in. It is perfectly incredible that an intelligent man should have fallen into such utter darkness, if it were not that unfaithfulness to God ever brings in blindness and confusion in man. Men, Dr. R. tells us, were to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. Man "was made," he tells us, "for this world" (the italics are his), "as we may say, an earthly man in the higher sense — reproductive, progressive through the ages, industrial, scientific, artistic, conquering, lordly." Is this Adam in paradise, or out of it? How wholly is the fall ignored here! But to pursue. "But this is not all: the first chapters of Genesis are full of art and science. Poetry, music, metal working, husbandry, architecture; a whole city is built almost before Eden had time to wither. So far is it from being true that natural knowledge is the natural enemy of revealed religion, we see them here in their cradle, and they are twin sisters." Who would have thought that all here referred to sprung up under the hand of Cain and his family, after he had killed Abel, the accepted one of God and because he was so, and when God had driven him out from His presence because he had thus filled up the measure of sin, and had chased him as a vagabond (Nod) from before His face, from which Cain declares he was now hid — that Cain had now built the city and embellished it, invented the music and the metal working, to get on as happily as he could without God, and that the result of all was the flood? "This they willingly are ignorant of," even how the world that then was perished — the result of the mixture of the sons of God with the daughters of men.

Let us see the account from which the statement is drawn: — "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto Jehovah, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And Jehovah said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And Jehovah set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah," Gen. 4: 11-22.

79 And then Abel and Cain and his city of progress are twin sisters in the same cradle! Is it possible to conceive a greater degree of infatuation than that to which this pitiable servility to infidelity has reduced the writer of the address? Cain, driven out from the presence of Jehovah, hid from His face, a mark set on him by God, establishing a city where God had made him a vagabond and embellishing it with arts and sciences to make it pleasant without God — for God he certainly had not — and which ended in result in the judgment of God in the flood: this is our pattern, this is the twin sister whose embraces we are to court! We are to learn by it, we are told, that there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.* Is it possible for infatuation to be more complete? But such is the ground taken by dissent now; and, while reading that the friendship is enmity against God, pandering to the world, that the world may, in some small degree, admit it to its company and its career of progress.

{*Spoken wholly and exclusively of spiritual gifts.}

And what is the grand point of agreement? "The need is just this — that each party (if we may speak of parties in the matter) shall accept frankly the facts which are universally accepted by the other." Can anything be more absurd? Why, as to facts, am I to accept all that are accepted by another party? Why are infidels to trust the facts the Christian party accepts? It is merely trusting the competent investigation of the party, they would say their prejudices, a book or fifty books full of errors and mistakes, according to Dr. R. Why should I accept the facts other people accept, without knowing their infallibility or competency as conclusive, or investigating for myself? I take facts on adequate testimony, not on other people's accepting them. Nothing can be more absurd. A treaty of peace with those who reject the truth of God on such ground as this: because indeed my party believes it, they are to do so too, and I am to be bound by their facts as they choose to state them! And where is God in all this, where a revelation? Where a word sharper than any two-edged sword? Men's opinions (for the acceptance of facts is only that) are to be trusted, and trusted on both sides without examination, by an agreement between Christians and infidels; and this is to be the ground of faith and common progress: a ground impossible, I do not say to a Christian, who would be abhorrent from the whole scheme, but to an honest man.

80 But my object is not now to discuss the scheme, which seems to me the shallowest thing imaginable, and base in its servile pandering to infidel men of science; but in these days, when everyone sees that all is breaking up (and dissenters know it as well as anybody else, and this discourse is the proof of it, and the betrayal of their fears), we need to know what we can trust, and whom; and while I doubt not that there are many beloved brethren amongst dissenters, saints who believe in and trust the word of God as I do myself, such a testimony from such a place is a witness and a proof that we cannot trust for a moment the ground on which dissenters have placed themselves, nor the dissenting body as standing on the sure ground of divine truth. I urge, and such statements should only press upon the soul the need of doing so, every humble soul to hold fast the word of God and its authority, its divine authority.

We all know translations are man's work, and of course in a measure partake of his imperfection. All may know from the word of God that the oracles of God were committed to men to keep. But they are prophetic or inspired writings which were so. Their authority is a matter of faith. And though man's failure in faithfulness may affect details, as in the work of his own salvation, they are given, according to the wisdom and will of God to be His word, and are their own evidence, as the sun in the firmament. Man may, in one sense, labour for his own salvation; he may diligently seek to have the word of God pure; but the soul taught of God knows God has given both, and will have both owned as His and appreciated as His. It is God's will that man should use diligence thus; but the humble soul taught of God knows on whom it leans with confidence, and from whom it has received alike eternal life and the word by which it has been engendered in him. He may make mistakes in his path, in his interpretation of the word, but he is, for all that, led and guided of God in both, and attributes his mistakes to man in both, and faithfulness and truth to God. He says, "Let God be true, and every man a liar," and he knows God has not left him in darkness, but that God has given him a revelation from Himself, a revelation of grace and truth come by Jesus Christ, and of all His preliminary dealings, so important to the full understanding of that, and that the scriptures are able to make men wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus — able to make the man of God perfect, and that the entering of God's word gives light and understanding to the simple. The Christian is one who, by divine teaching, knows the truth and authority and power of the divine word. He accepts it in the largeness and fulness in which it is given, thankful if learned inquirers, as hewers of wood and drawers of water, can give it to him as free from all human imperfections as possible, if they labour that no earthly particles of mud be in the water; but the water he knows to be water, and drinks it and lives.

Dr. Colenso and the Pentateuch

J. N. Darby.

<23004E> 82

INTRODUCTION

It is impossible to treat the author of this book as a Christian. I do not say this as forming any judgment of his personal state in any way; I speak of the public profession of a religion he belongs to — Christianity, as contrasted with heathenism, Mahometanism, Judaism, or Buddhism. Dr. Colenso states that "our belief in the living God remains as sure as ever, though not the Pentateuch only, but the whole Bible, were removed. It is written on our hearts by God's own finger as surely as by the hand of the apostle in the Bible, that 'God is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' It is written there also as plainly as in the Bible, that 'God is not mocked, that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,' and that 'he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption."' (Pages 53, 54.) That is, with the Bible, or without the Bible, Dr. C. believes in the existence of God and His rewarding them that seek Him, and in natural conscience. In other words (as far as his book goes, which he puts forth as a manifesto), he is a profound Deist. Even with the Bible he only believes so much as his heart and conscience recognize, and that the latter is to be preferred to the Bible as the means of knowing God: "that He Himself, the living God, our Father and Friend, is nearer and closer to us than any book can be; that His voice within the heart may be heard continually by the obedient child that listens for it, and that shall be our teacher and guide in the path of duty, which is the path of life, when all other helpers — even the words of the best of books — may fail us." (Page 54.)

Now it is clear that neither believing that God is, nor natural conscience, is believing in the special facts of Christianity — the incarnation, atonement, resurrection, redemption, being born again, the exaltation of a Man to God's right hand, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In a word, no special truth or fact of Christianity is "written on our hearts by God's own finger," or can be possessed by mere natural conscience or belief in God. All intervention of God is left out. But it is in this, and the statement of what led to its necessity, that revealed religion consists. There is a conscience in every man: the word of God acts on it. I do not doubt that there is an instinctive knowledge of a God and of judgment. This is all Dr. C. owns, with or without the Bible. Revealed religion is a series of divine and marvellous facts and truths, unfolding an intervention of God in grace with sinful man. He sets this aside; his relationship with God is not founded on it. He prefers, as teaching, what he has without it; that is, he wholly and professedly sets aside Christianity. He goes farther; he recognizes "the voice of God's Spirit . . . not in the Bible only, but out of the Bible; not to us Christians only, but to our fellow-men of all climes and countries, ages and religions, the same gracious Teacher is revealing, in different measures, according to His own good pleasure, the hidden things of God." (Page 222.)

83 Dr. C. has, in substance, solemnly declared that this is not so (see Article 18 of the Thirty-nine Articles); yet I suppose this is no matter with rationalists. But his statement amounts to this: — Christians and heathens have all their particular religions; but, besides and within all this, all have a communication in their own hearts of the hidden things of God. The knowledge of God is not in the religion; for heathens and Christians have it more or less, whatever their religion, in their hearts. He confirms this by quotations from Cicero, Sikhs, and Hindoos. Cicero's statement (I suppose Dr. C. did not find it out) is merely asserting natural conscience, with the addition of a denial of the foundation-fact of revelation that man is a sinner driven out from God. "Whoever will not obey this law," says Cicero, "will be flying from himself, and having treated with contempt his human nature, will, in that very fact, pay the greatest penalty, even if he shall have escaped other punishments, as they are commonly considered." Now this makes human nature the measure of good, as indeed Cicero everywhere does. And just see the result, which neither Dr. C. nor Lactantius, from whom he quotes, seem to have noticed. This law, or right reason, "to the good never commands or forbids in vain, never influences the wicked either by commanding or forbidding." Could grace be more fully denied? Could the effect of law or conscience be more entirely mis-stated? There are good or wicked already-God knows how; and this law, or right reason, changes nothing — always succeeds with one, and leaves the other where he is. This is, we are told, "a voice almost divine." "The same divine Teacher revealed also to the Sikh Gurus (teachers) such great truths as these." (Page 233.)

84 He then quotes statements of the unity of God, but what is Pantheism, that is, that God is in everything; statements which recognize Mahomets, Brahmas, Vishnus, Sivas — of course not Christ: and that is a revelation of God for Dr. C.! He then quotes from Hindoo writings "the following words, which were written by one who had no Pentateuch nor Bible to teach him, but who surely learned such living truths as these by the direct teaching of the Spirit of God." (Page 224.) In these words God is celebrated, and there is a good deal of moralizing, such as may be found anywhere, but in which we find, "He that partaketh of but one grain of the love of God shall be released from the sinfulness of all his doubts and actions" — a comfortable quietus. "I take for my spiritual food the water and the leaf of Ram." "God dwelleth in the mind, and none other but God."

Dr. Colenso admires what is the avowed doctrine of these same teachers, without finding out that it is the grossest folly of Pantheism. "God is the gift of charity, God is the offering, God is the fire of the altar, by God the sacrifice is performed, and God is to be obtained by him who makes God alone the object of his work." Everything being but a development or expansion of God, we are too, and of course, so far as we realize God in it, become God in a superior degree. But all is God; and it is true of all things, man among the rest. This last sentence, as Dr. C. approvingly quotes, was by "one who had experienced somewhat of what Job had experienced." (Page 223.) All this is but extracting Deism from Christianity and heathenism alike, and making conscience the judge of what is to be received from each; only, unfortunately, Dr. C.'s conscience accepts the very grossest Pantheism, without so much as finding it out.

But there is more than that. This book does not believe as much of Christ as Mahomet did. Dr. C. openly professes to know much better than Christ upon the subject of the divine authority of revelation. Mahomet held Christ to be a prophet, and that He will judge the world. On the last point the book does not declare itself, if it be not an intimation borrowed from Cicero. Here is Dr. C.'s estimate of Christ's authority in what He declared: "We are expressly told in Luke 2: 52 that Jesus increased in wisdom as well as in stature. It is not supposed that in His human nature He was acquainted more than any educated Jew of the age with the mysteries of all modern sciences, nor, with St. Luke's expression before us, can it be seriously maintained that, as an infant or young child, He possessed a knowledge surpassing that of the most pious and learned adults of his nation upon the subject of the authority and age of the different portions of the Pentateuch. At what period, then, of His life upon earth is it to be supposed that He had granted to Him, as the Son of man, supernaturally, full and accurate information on these points, so that He should be expected to speak about the Pentateuch in any other terms than any other devout Jew of that day would have employed? Why should it be thought that He would speak with certain divine knowledge on this matter more than upon any other matters of ordinary science or history?" (Page 32.) That is, when Christ, the blessed One, spoke of the authority of the word of God — spoke authoritatively of the scriptures and of Moses — He merely followed the ignorance and prejudice of the pious rabbis of His nation.

85 Dr. C. has more knowledge, and is freed from the prejudices, and in consequence can tell us positively that Christ was wrong! He has found out that it is impossible that such things as are found in the Pentateuch could come from our loving Father. This, if we are to believe Dr. C., Christ had not moral discernment enough to find out, and took for granted all was right, so as to believe that what Moses wrote came from God. Now Christ says, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen," for He was of and in heaven; and the question is (not how He learned what He knew, but), when He taught positively, did He teach perfectly, or only under the influence of national prejudice? Dr. C. quotes the following passages of Christ's words: — "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" But it seems this appeal was all beside the mark, for Moses never wrote it at all. Hence, of course, they were not called upon to believe Christ's words either. "Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush." This too was quite a mistake. "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

But all this solemn appeal of Christ to Moses, as of equal authority and weight with His own words and resurrection, as a proof of truth, is a mistake, the prejudice of pious rabbis of His nation! Dr. C. is freed from them, and can prove he knows much better than Christ did. And this man is what is called "Bishop of Natal"! I may be asked, "Has he not declared his belief in all the canonical scriptures, and bound himself in this office to require it of those he ordains?" He has. What then does he do with his conscience? He tells us that too: it is governed by the Court of Arches. It is a mercy for upright men that modern rationalists so plainly shew themselves morally. I do not think I ever read anything so morally base as the reasons for signing the articles in the "Essays and Reviews." Old infidels broke with Christianity: it was sad enough; but modern ones keep their places, and only give up their faith.

86 The boldness of Dr. C.'s assertions, and the excessive carelessness of his statements and conclusions, are alike remarkable. He tells us that he does not believe in the deluge, because he does in geology. He has studied it in the Zulu country, and he now knows for certain (for Sir C. Lyell is infallible, if scripture and the Lord Christ be not) that a universal deluge could not possibly have taken place. Now Sir C. Lyell is unquestionably an able geologist, as well as the constant resort and refuge of infidels; but he has a system, and a system which geologists, less speculative and at the very least as able as he, entirely reject. Nor does he deny that the science is in its infancy. The ablest inquirers believe in a universal deluge; the latest researches tend to prove it. I say "tend," because no certain conclusions can yet be made from geology as to dates. I do not hesitate to affirm (and I am supported by the ablest geologists), that geological dates and periods stand on the most uncertain and unsatisfactory footing. Sir C. Lyell's system is utterly unsatisfactory — irreconcileable with the evident facts of the upheaval theory, which is generally admitted. Dr. C. assures us that a partial deluge is no better; so that in spite of universal tradition, scripture, the authority of Christ, who refers specifically to the deluge as true (Matthew 24: 37-39), and much geological research, we are to have no deluge at all. I do not know that I should ever have noticed this point, as it is impossible to follow it out here, but as affording a proof of Dr. C.'s manner of reasoning. It was not partial, he says, because a flood that should cover Ararat must in due time sweep over the Puy de Dome, because water finds its own level! — that is to say, water 16,000 or 17,000 feet deep in a narrow locality must have been some 5,000 feet deep at thousands of miles distance, when it had spread that distance in every direction! And a man who reasons thus is to call in question the accuracy of scripture!

87 But Dr. C. assures us the scriptures never affirm their own infallibility. Abstractedly "infallibility" belongs to a person, not to what has been already said. But they affirm that they are inspired by God, and that they have His authority. The Lord says, "the scripture cannot be broken" — appeals to it, as we have seen, as of equal authority with His own words — refers to them as testifying of Him — expounds them after His resurrection in what they taught concerning Himself — declares all that they said must be fulfilled — opens His disciples' understanding to understand them — declares that His rising from the dead would be useless to convince those by whom they were not believed. They are quoted by Him as absolutely conclusive authority. Facts here questioned, or borne with, because they may be "fairly disposed of," are referred to by Christ as undoubted history. So the apostles write whole epistles, in which their entire teaching is based upon the truth and inspired authority of scripture. Paul speaks of the scriptures "foreseeing"; so completely does he identify them with God. "But what saith the scripture?" is conclusive; not only so, they declare them to be by inspiration. They are called "the oracles of God," and the possession of them is counted to be the main privilege of God's people; so the law is called "the living oracles." Peter says, "No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." I dare say Dr. C. will call the authenticity of this in question. Take then the first epistle (though I am perfectly satisfied of the authenticity of the second): there he states that the prophets searched as men into their own prophecies, as given by the Spirit of Christ which was in them. Paul declares that "every scripture is given by inspiration of God," the security of the saint in the perilous times of the last days; 2 Tim. 3: 16. He calls the scriptures "prophetic scriptures," scriptures of the prophets; Rom. 16: 26. I have no doubt this refers to the New Testament; but, if it be the Old, it is saying they are inspired. So his own teaching he declares to be by "words which the Holy Ghost teacheth." The prophets were infamous impostors, if what they said were not the direct testimony of God Himself, for they say, "Thus saith the Lord." As to Christ, it is said, "He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure [unto him]." Thus, as Son of man, what He spoke, He spoke — to refer to Dr. C.'s question — "supernaturally," and His words were "the words of God." I am aware that Dr. C. says that on such subjects He was no wiser than other pious Jews, and that he thinks himself wiser than Christ and the apostles on such; but does he expect every one to have the same opinion of him that he has of himself? Does he think that many even will respect the judgment of one called a bishop who persuades us that Christ was prejudiced, and he is not? Poor human nature!

88 Allow me to ask you, Dr. Colenso, do you believe in the resurrection? Do you believe in this stupendous exercise of divine power, so suited to man subject to death? — I mean the resurrection of Him who was "delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." Is it not something, this coming in of God to take out of death, and from among the dead, His own Son given for our sins? Do you find this without a revelation? Does Cicero furnish you with this, or do Sikh Gurus, or Pantheistic Brahmins? They may say fine things about God and patience, and do the same things (as Paul says) as the rest: can they tell of the deliverance of sinful man? I can conceive no greater proof of imbecility and wilful ignorance of facts than to compare the revelation first of the whole history of man under God's dealings with his responsibility, and then of atonement, and the intervention of God in deliverance, with the fine sayings of some heathen — one too who shews men to be incapable of knowing God, as Cicero does, or with the moralizing of Pantheists.

But I close. I am not writing a book on these things, but penning an ephemeral article on the poorest piece of infidelity I ever met with; and I turn to the objections to run over them rapidly. Let my reader only remember that the object of scripture is not to meet objections, or give history, but, on the part of God, what is divinely instructive to man; that, if the Old Testament gave the perfection of the New, it would prove it was not true, for the true light did not shine till Christ came; that meeting objections does not give the force of the positive proofs. It seems candid to quote Kurtz and Hengstenberg (men who, however respectable, know little, as I judge, of the power of scripture). But in merely giving answers to objections all the positive proofs are of course left out. If no answer could be given to an objection, and yet there were positive proof of that against which the objection was brought, this would only prove the solution of the difficulty was not known. The positive proofs of the truth of scripture are such, that the denial of their being, as they are called, "the oracles of God," is an evidence only of the moral darkness of the rejecter of them. It is quite true I cannot explain light to a blind man; but every one who sees knows he is blind.

89 Above all, let my reader remember that the Lord Himself treats the scriptures as absolutely inspired and authoritative, quotes them as we now have them, and declares that all written of Him must be fulfilled — that "not a jot or tittle can pass from the law till all be fulfilled," the law which Dr. C. pronounces he could not attribute to God, save as he selects bits according to his own fancy, for he has of course a perfect judgment — a man who sees nothing in the minutiae of the law, which (while a yoke in the letter), as a shadow of good things to come, is full of the deepest instruction; let him remember that Dr. C. presents himself as wiser and better informed than Christ, and, if he have faith to do it, pray for one who can think so, and publish a book to tell the world he does.

Such views, they tell us, will unite all pious people in one mother church; and if such questions should disturb men's minds (and a serious person would ponder and weigh them before doing so), he has only to remember that Dr. C. has such a sense of the petty importance of his own position, that he cannot have leisure (so he tells us) to ponder awhile before he gives forth, pretending to be wiser than Christ, opinions which contradict what Christ says.

THE FAMILY OF JUDAH

The first objection is that in Genesis 46. Hezron and Hamul are stated to have gone down to Egypt, and consequently to have been born in Canaan; but that this is impossible if the ages of Judah and Joseph be considered. It is contended that Judah was forty-two when Jacob went down into Egypt, inasmuch as Joseph was thirty-nine. Genesis 30: 24-26; ch. 31: 41, are cited to prove that Joseph was born in the seventh, Judah in the fourth, year "of Jacob's double marriage." The impossibility of Hezron and Hamul's going down to Egypt arises from this, that Judah was twenty when Joseph went down into Egypt, and that Hezron and Hamul, who rank in point of time with Judah's great-grandchildren, though his own grandchildren by Tamar, could not have been born when he was forty-two, that is, twenty-two years afterwards. On the other hand, it is insisted that the narrative of Jacob's going down makes sixty-six souls go with him, and there are not sixty-six without Hezron and Hamul.

90 There is no ground for the objection at all. I do not insist on the uncertainty of the exact difference between the ages of Judah and Joseph, as what might be added, even if just, would hardly clear up the point; though, bringing it perhaps within the limits of possibility, it is sufficient to throw doubt on Dr. C.'s assertions. But Genesis 46 is simply to record the immediate descendants of Jacob who were associated with himself in Egypt to give his family. Thus Er and Onan are noticed; only, it is added, they died in Canaan. It is then added, "and the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul." This twelfth verse is distinctly genealogy, not that all went down into Egypt who are named in it; for Er and Onan are named because they are sons, while it is expressly stated they did not go down at all.*

{*The computation in the passage is not very clear. If we count in Er and Onan, we have thirty-three sons and grandsons. If we leave them out, we must count Jacob among the souls of his own sons and daughters. However, I am disposed to include Dinah and Jacob, and leave out Er and Onan, and read thus: "These he the sons of Leah which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-Aram, with his daughter Dinah, all the souls of his sons and daughters; thirty and three." As if he had said, This makes thirty and three. If not, we must count in Er and Onan, and make it mere genealogical computation of sons, and verse 26 would be general, the computation already given excluding Jacob, and Joseph and his sons.}

In verse 12 the introduction of "were" is emphatic, and the phrase, I apprehend, clearly intended to be supplementary. It is not "Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Pharez, and Zarah, and the sons of Pharez, Hezron and Hamul," which would clearly have been the case if they had been goers down into Egypt. But the historian stops at Zarah, and adds supplementary information: Er and Onan were on the list of sons, but they did not go down — they died before — and Pharez's sons were Hezron and Hamul. They are looked at as filling up the breach, but the latter half of the verse is (in contrast with going down) an explanation of the history of that family. As if he had said, These were Judah's sons, but I must add this explanation to the statement: Er and Onan never got down, for they died, and Pharez had two sons, who are counted in to supply their place. For though the leading thought be the going down of the family into Egypt, yet in order to this he gives the whole family; and that this is so is evident, for he introduces Joseph's sons, adding, that they were born in Egypt. Indeed I think it very questionable whether all Benjamin's sons were born when he came into Egypt.

91 It was after Joseph's birth that Jacob agreed with Laban to stay longer, and stayed six years. He then journeyed to Palestine, when Joseph must have been seven years old. He was sold into Egypt at seventeen. Hence Jacob had been only ten years in Canaan when Joseph went there. Jacob had settled first at Succoth, then near Shechem, and Dinah, who was probably nearly of Joseph's age, was old enough to be ill-treated by Hamor before Benjamin was born. For Jacob went off to Bethel after the destruction of the men of Shechem, and after leaving Bethel Benjamin was born and Rachel died. He does not appear either in the history. Joseph is a boy, the son of Jacob's old age. Benjamin could only have been two or three years old when Joseph went down; for if Dinah were seven or eight years old when she came to Canaan (say she was fifteen or sixteen when Hamor wronged her), seven or eight years had elapsed in Canaan before Benjamin was born, and two or three years more elapsed before Joseph went down. We must add twenty-two for the interval between Joseph's and Jacob's going down. Benjamin was thus at the utmost twenty-four or twenty-five. So he is called a "lad" (nahar) in chapter 43: 3, and a "little one" (katan) in chapter 44: 20, and (nahar) again in verse 31. This being so, and giving the fullest possible age of twenty-five, which, with the three terms, is very improbable, it is very little likely he had ten sons born to him. I doubt even whether Reuben's sons were all born, as he says, "slay my two sons."

On the whole, I think it is evident that this is a genealogical list without reference to the place of birth — the statement of the whole family, as a family, who went down. The manner of giving a genealogy complete, and a general fact which is not accurately true as to each individual in it, though it characterizes the subject of recital, we have other examples of. Thus, to go no farther than chapter 35, all Jacob's sons are given, including Benjamin immediately after the account of Benjamin's birth in Canaan; and it is added, "these are the sons of Jacob which were born to him in Padan-Aram."

92 The exact genealogy was the important thing, and it is given accurately. The main fact which characterized the family was their birth away from the land of promise, in the country where Jacob served for a wife. It was no object to except Benjamin in the statement; it was to give the accurate history of his birth. I doubt not for a moment he is a special type of Christ in connection with Israel; the son of his mother's affliction, but of his father's right-hand. But it could be no mistake; for the writer, or compiler, or whatever he was, had given all the details of his birth immediately before, and speaks in the passage itself of Jacob's being in that land. But, Benjamin being born, the time was come to give the whole family. The subjects are given with divine purpose, in view of after dealings of God which He foreknew, not as mere histories to amuse; and hence we get distinct subjects without arrangements of dates.

Dr. C. states that Judah's misconduct was after Joseph's going down to Egypt, because it is said, "at that time." Now Judah's genealogy and ways were all-important, because our Lord was to spring out of Judah. But after this history of Judah, which lasts some twenty years at any rate, the history of Joseph's going down into Egypt is resumed where it left off. Judah's history is introduced as a separate subject parenthetically. The last verse of chapter 37, and the first verse of chapter 39 are connected, and the history of Judah comes in between as a whole of twenty years by itself. "At that time" is only the general epoch, and the whole history is given together. This is exceedingly common in scripture. But as Joseph was a remarkable type of Christ, so Judah was His progenitor according to the flesh. And this Pharez and his son Hezron were so. I must add that the relative ages of Judah and Joseph are anything but clearly proved. The relative dates of Joseph's birth and his going down into Egypt, and of each to other events, are far more distinctly given.

On the whole the purpose of the statement in Genesis 46 is clearly to give Jacob's family; and hence some are noticed who did not go down to Egypt, and Hezron and Hamul are specially introduced into the verse, not with the list of sons but as associated with them. The saying, "Thy fathers went down into Egypt with three-score and ten persons, and now Jehovah thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude," takes up the general fact to shew the marvellous increase. The same is the case in the New Testament, especially in Luke.

93 Dr. C. in fact admits the whole case, where he says, "wishing to sum up the seventy souls under one category, he uses (inaccurately, as he himself admits) the same expression, 'came into Egypt.'" Now this settles the whole question. He gives a category of persons, that category being Jacob's family, with the general fact of that family's leaving Canaan and going into Egypt. But he introduces some who did not literally go down, though they were there. If this be so (and it is perfectly evident), Dr. C.'s argument is simply worth nothing at all. When he says, "all the souls which came into Egypt were three-score and ten," we have the demonstration that some at least who were born in Egypt, provided they were of the family that came, are accounted as coming. The case of Hezron and Hamul is much clearer, because there is only an accessory statement in the genealogy, "and the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul." And we have no need to say again with Dr. C., "the description is of course literally incorrect, but the writer's meaning is obvious enough," for it is literally correct, and the meaning obvious too. But I may add Dr. C.'s own remark, which shews the utter wilfulness and equal absurdity of his objection: "He wishes to specify all those out of the sons of Jacob who were living at the time of the commencement of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, and from whom such a multitude had sprung at the time of the Exodus." How soon Hezron and Hamul were born, we cannot say. They are brought into the list in connection with the loss of two of the sons of Judah, with whose history they were connected, one of them being ancestor of David and of the Christ.

THE SIZE OF THE TABERNACLE-COURT

The next objection is really almost too absurd to notice, but worthy of the futility of rationalist arguments. Dr. C. makes a computation of how far files of men, as many in number as could stand in front of the breadth of the tabernacle, would reach! Does he think the writer did not know, as well as Dr. C., that all the congregation could not have stood in the court? But he was not so morally dull as to think of it. Supposing the riot-act read to a crowd of a hundred thousand persons; and I say the riot-act was read to the multitude who stood before the magistrate, and I computed how far a hundred thousand men would reach, standing in a file directly before the magistrate; what would any one think of the sense of the person who made the remark? Or are the crowd not responsible because they cannot hear it? Away with such childish trifling. But the fact is, there is no ground for the remark at all. "Before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" has a most important meaning in these ordinances. Within the tabernacle and holiest of all was the place of Jehovah's communing directly with Moses; outside, yet in connection with the tabernacle, the place of meeting the people, of God's going out, not in the revelation of Himself, but in communications from Himself to the people, and of the access of the people to Him.

94 All the court of the tabernacle of the congregation was held to have this character of "before the door of the tabernacle," and all done there and communicated thence was done "before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." All brought up to the court was before the door. Thus, if all the people had been outside the court, and Moses had stood in the doorway of the court, they would have been "before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." It was the general expression for coming up to the court or entering it, though not going near the tabernacle where the door literally was. "The women," we read, "assembled themselves in troops at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." They did not come, when the tabernacle was set up in order, in troops between the laver and the holy place. But we have the matter definitely stated. In Exodus 40: 29 we find, "he put the altar of the burnt-offering by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation . . . and he set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar." Thus the altar of burnt-offering, the first thing met with on entering the court, was by the door of the tabernacle. Now this was the place where God was to meet the children of Israel, as contrasted with meeting Moses within the veil.

95 Exodus 29: 42 — "a continual burnt-offering . . . at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before Jehovah, where I will meet you to speak there unto thee. And there I will meet with the children of Israel." Thus Moses, standing under the hangings of the court and speaking to the crowd without, was speaking to them gathered before the door of the tabernacle. Had they been inside the court, he would have turned his back to them. So, when a person offered a burnt-offering, he offered it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before Jehovah: he killed the bullock before Jehovah, and the blood was sprinkled upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. They came up to Jehovah there, instead of offering it where they pleased, away from Him. And this was carefully secured by ordinance as a guard against idolatry. They had to bring all the beasts they slew up before Jehovah; Lev. 17: 4. The gathering of the congregation to the door of the tabernacle was bringing them up to the court, so that Moses, standing there, might address them. And the place specifically pointed out for this was not at the door, but where the altar was, that is, next the entrance of the court where the people were to come up with their sacrifices, and Jehovah met with them.

Such objections as these are child's play, proving only entire ignorance of God's ways with Israel and of the purport of the ordinances, carelessness of research into them with the pretension (the common accompaniment of ignorance) to see clearer than others, and the desire to make difficulties in presence of all the divine light which is found in what is objected to. Dr. C. seeks to prove his candour and care by shewing that the elders of Israel were not all the congregation. He might have spared himself the trouble. And he has gone through sums of arithmetic to prove the size of the court! I really have not examined whether his multiplication is correct; I can suppose it.

MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL

His next objection is as to how Moses and Joshua addressed all Israel; and he wisely informs us that the crying of the children, whose mothers must be supposed to have pushed to the first place, would hinder all but those close by from hearing. Was ever anything more childish? Supposing all did not hear, which may very well be believed, they were all put under the responsibility of what was addressed to them, of which those who were in earnest could easily put themselves in possession. Supposing the elders or heads of tribes were nearest, as is probable, they would have both informed and led the others according to what was said.

96 THE EXTENT OF THE CAMP

The next objection is to the possibility, with so few priests, of having the bullock for a sin-offering burned without the camp. Now I admit fully that the great object here is doctrinal, not historical. There is no history at all. What is ordained was only to be done in the case of the priest's, or the whole congregation's, sinning; it ought never to have happened, and it may never have happened. And from the way they went on (for they never circumcised their children, and certainly fell into idolatry, if the case did arise), they probably neglected the prescribed sacrifice. If it did happen once or twice, such a provision was no difficulty. That once or twice in forty years, or even in one year, such a toilsome ceremony should mark their sin was most appropriate. Nor do I doubt a moment that, though the priest was responsible, and must have had and seen it done, the Levites, or younger priests, might share the manual toil. And this is implied in the form of the Hebrew verb, which is the Hiphil, "to cause to go forth," used, no doubt, consequently for "bringing forth," but which may be by another as by oneself (as it is used for causing an evil report to come on some one).* For the rest, a walk of a mile and a half, or three miles, for their common bodily wants was nothing out of the way for a people who had nothing to do except to tend their cattle, which would in itself have taken them there. To suppose they used fuel as in London is simple nonsense. And they chose places where wells were, and God clave the rock when there was no water. It is really absurd bringing forward such objections. Had Dr. C. been a soldier, or lived in the dirt I have had to live in, he would have known that a walk of a mile and a half out of a city for the necessities of life was a very natural thing.

{*Yatsa is to go forth, as Bo is to go in or to. And hence the causative is used for bringing forth; because one who does causes to go or come forth. But there is no ground at all for confining it to the personal act of the person causing it to come forth. Thus, not only in the case of an evil report, Hotze Dibba, cited in the text; Deuteronomy 16: 23, bringing forth the tithe; Leviticus 24: 14, bringing forth him that had cursed; Zechariah 4: 7; Genesis 34: 24, 25, bringing forth Tamar; Exodus 3: 10, Moses is to bring forth Israel from Egypt, that is, cause them to come out. So Exodus 14: 13, Hebrews 14, So in Ezra 1: 8 we have, "those did Cyrus bring forth by the hand of Mithredath," where he expressly uses another to have them brought out. In a word, there is no ground at all for Dr. C.'s remarks.}

97 THE NUMBERING OF ISRAEL

The fifth objection is, first, that the shekel is called the shekel of the sanctuary before there was a sanctuary; and that the money of which the silver sockets, etc., were made was the redemption-money; and that the census which ascertained the number of the people on which the redemption-money was paid was six months afterwards, by which time the number must have increased. This has no foundation whatever. As to the remark, that it was called the shekel of the sanctuary before the sanctuary was set up, the book is a history, and gives the sum taken according to the value of the money known when it was written. They paid at the time what was known when the book was written as the shekel of the sanctuary — perhaps settled at the very time. As regards the numbering, it is clear the computation of the sum that was paid is made from the numbering itself, the result of which was known when the account of it was written. There is no continuing of the same number — Exodus 38: 26; Numbers 1: 46; it is the number itself. I do not know what is the ground for saying "six months." The tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month, the numbering took place a month after.

The sockets, chapiters, and filaments may have been made just before. They may perfectly well have given each man his money, and the actual numbering been made six weeks afterwards to verify it, and that number be given as the ascertained one, even if some few had attained the age of twenty in the short interval. The command to give the half shekel is given in chapter 30. But this was by no means all the silver, for many had offered willingly, but it was typically important that it should be understood that that on which the tabernacle of witness was founded was redemption; and what separated the service of God from the world was redemption. Hence the sockets of the boards of the tabernacle, and the hooks and chapiters on which the hangings of the court were fixed were of this silver. The actual numbering took place when the tabernacle was set up to verify the number redeemed, which had its own importance. If some shekels more were given, it was of no consequence whatever to notice them, as the direction for their use was given already. Some few might have died who had given their half shekel, some few reached twenty; but the sum when numbered is taken as the sum applied to the service. We know that the population in the wilderness was as nearly stationary as possible.

98 THE ISRAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS, AND ARMED

The next difficulty is, how they got tents on leaving Egypt, and carried them. I might fairly say I do not know. Some may have been badly off for want of them, have made them on the journeying, and while staying at Sinai for a year. As to carrying them, nothing is said; they had asses doubtless, perhaps camels, as well as oxen. The history says nothing about it. To say they could not have them is absurd; very likely they were at first greatly in want of them. All this is to the last degree idle; it is not the object of the history to give these details. Dr. C. then takes a very difficult Hebrew word to prove that, if it means "armed," there are difficulties in knowing how they got arms, or how they were afraid of Pharaoh if they had. It is really tedious to go through such absurdities. The word probably signifies that they went out "in array," not as poor hunted runaways; for God took them out with a high hand. "By strength of hand Jehovah brought us out of Egypt."

But it does not by any means follow, if their faith were not lively, that they would not be alarmed when attacked by trained soldiers. It is said in this same chapter (13), that God did not take them the short way lest the people should repent when they saw war, and return to Egypt. And they were so disposed. God suffered their faith to be tried for a moment, and they did repent when they saw war: only now it was but to make His deliverance the more conspicuous. Nor, where faith was not in exercise, was it very wonderful. Accustomed to be slaves, with all their women and children and cattle, the way of escape barred, no practice in war or even in any common military arrangements, they were in face of the most experienced warriors on earth with chariots and cavalry — themselves a great mixed multitude. When Dr. C. says "a body of six hundred thousand warriors," he says what is false. They were not warriors. They were of an age fit for war, even if that were true of them; but they were poor brickmakers, though now roused by God's intervention to leave the house of bondage.

99 THE INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER

The next objection, as to the Passover, is founded on misstatement and carelessness. Dr. C. insists that it was impossible to notify it, and have all ready in time. He tells us, the first notice of any such feast to be kept is given in this very chapter, where we find it written, verse 12, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night." Hence he argues it was impossible to have all Israel ready, and insists on this night, and on the use of the Hebrew word "hazeh." But "zeh" has not this kind of exactitude always. At any rate the chapter shews distinctly the falseness of the conclusion Dr. C. has drawn from it. The directions had been given at the beginning of the month, and the lamb had to be kept up three days: "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: on the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb . . . and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month."

Dr. C. says, this cannot mean that they had notice several days beforehand, because it says, "I will pass through the land of Egypt this night." This is very bad indeed. Moses is told to notify to all the people, to take a lamb on the tenth, and to keep it to the fourteenth; and this we are told cannot mean that they got notice beforehand, because the chapter says "this night," when it comes to killing and eating it! And what else can it mean? If the lamb was not kept up from the tenth to the fourteenth, the ordinance was not kept at all. All this objection does is to disclose the will of the objector. No doubt the momentous ordinance itself is what occupies the inspired writer; but the beginning of the chapter fully suffices to shew that the objection, drawn from want of time and notice, is as perverse as it is unfounded. The rest of the article does not deserve notice. In the first place kids would do, so that there was no danger of all the male lambs perishing. As to notice to start, they ate it, loins girded, and staff in hand, ready to go, and were prepared long before to be on the move, to sacrifice in the wilderness. Nor is there a word to shew there was any sudden notice, or that their move was caused by the urging of the Egyptians.

100 THE MARCH OUT OF EGYPT

Dr. C. thinks that his own confusion, in fright from a false alarm, proves that there must have been hopeless confusion in Israel. But they had for a length of time been demanding to move with all their flocks, and were now with loins girt and staff in hand, so that we cannot doubt a moment that all was prepared and arranged. There is no hint of an order to start communicated suddenly. The Egyptians were urgent on them to go. They had already borrowed jewels from the Egyptians in anticipation of going. The whole theory of Dr. C. is simply inattention to the scriptural account. Because that account dwells chiefly on the great facts which have a moral import, he concludes there were none else, even when they are positively stated, and makes statements moreover, and statements upon which all his argument depends, which are not in the passage or actually contradict it. I may add that I do not even admit that the six hundred thousand were only men in the prime of age; they were all above twenty — twenty and above — that were men, besides children. This would make a considerable difference in the numbers.

THE FLOCKS AND HERDS IN THE DESERT

As to how the herds were fed in the desert, it is certain they chose their encampment where there were springs. At Sinai God gave them water out of a rock. I may add that Dr. C. speaks of Mount Serbal as Sinai, which is more than doubtful, or confounds two opinions, applying statements as to one incorrectly to the other, ignorant that there was any difference; which, as to the character of the place of encampment, is important. Lipsius thought Serbal was Sinai, but more exact research has made it pretty clear it was not, and shewn where Israel encamped. The attempt to say, as Dr. C. says, that the wandering in the desert is not a necessary preliminary to all the history of Israel, is too barefaced — does too much violence to the common sense of every man who has read scripture — to call for an answer. Movements of whole nations in the deserts of Upper Asia have been frequent, when there was not the miraculous intervention of God to give water, which is stated in the history of Israel. Israel stayed mainly in the north of the desert on the borders of Mount Seir and the land of Canaan, where there were wells and pasture: though what is related in detail is what happened at Sinai at the beginning and at the close. When Dr. C. tells us that the scripture story says not a word about this long sojourn near Mount Seir and the Red Sea, he makes a blunder with his usual carelessness. The Israelites got through the desert of El Tyh* (which is not the desert of Sinai, as Dr. C. says) by a rapid and short journey to the desert of Paran and Kadesh-Barnea, close to Canaan. There they were called on to go up the mountain of the Amorites, and take possession of the land. Instead of this they sent the spies, the Lord giving His sanction to it, but at their desire. Their faith failed, and they would not go up, and were condemned to wander the forty years, till the men, save Joshua and Caleb, died.

{*El Tyh is a modern name (the wandering) for the desert district lying north of Sinai.}

101 It was on their refusal to go up that they turned and went to the Red Sea (Num. 14: 25); and then it was they compassed Mount Seir (Deut. 1: 40), and were on the border of countries affording supplies. In one place where they had no water, they were given it again miraculously, went down finally outside the Wady Akaba to the Red Sea, returned to Mount Hor for Aaron's death, and then at last down to the Red Sea again, going up the eastern side of the mountains of Seir to Moab and Jordan. The statement of Dr. C. is merely the result of carelessness in searching scripture. The detail of these long years we have not, but we have of a stay of a year in Sinai, where water was given miraculously, a short journey across El Tyh, Jehovah Himself leading them, their arrival at the borders of the land, and their journeying about Mount Seir and to the Red Sea, water being given them miraculously when it failed. Let me remark how beautifully, at the moment they were sent back from the land through their unbelief (Num. 14), God gives directions what to do in the land, shewing His promise and purpose as sure as His word and nature, in spite of man's folly and failure; Num. 15.

102 The only account we have of the stations, between their reaching the borders of the land in the second year, and their reaching Jordan, is in Numbers 33; and the localities at which they stopped during this interval of time are unknown till we come to Moseroth. Thence their journey is clear to the Red Sea, back to Hor, back to the Red Sea, and round Seir to Edom. (Compare Num. 21; Deut. 10) But we know that from Kadesh to Zered was thirty-eight years; so that they reached Kadesh in the second year before the end of it, probably a good while before, because the wars against the Amorites and Og were after Zered and before Jordan. Now they did not leave Sinai till the end of the second month of the second year. They abode in Kadesh many days, certainly more than forty; so that we are sure that the journey from Sinai to the borders of Canaan was very short indeed. They were there on the edge of cultivated land. God turned them back, but they never left the neighbourhood of Canaan, Seir, and the Red Sea. And He who turned them back took care of them, giving them water at Meribah miraculously when needed.

Of all this Dr. C. is ignorant, telling us scripture says nothing about it, not having examined that which he is pretending to prove unhistorical. This is true that Jehovah gives us those parts of the journey in detail which have a moral bearing, and not how the cattle were provided for. But the book is all false if it be not historical. We have the name of each place where they stopped during the whole forty years. This must be history or forgery. I have noticed elsewhere that the statement in Deuteronomy 10 seems to contradict the list in Numbers, but becomes the strongest proof of the historical character of the book when closely examined; because we find, by careful comparison of facts and passages, that they traversed the same ground twice from Hor to the Red Sea, from the Red Sea to Hor, and then back to the Red Sea, and east of Edom. But men do not make these apparent contradictions, solved by collateral facts, and shewn to be unconsciously true, save in relating real history, which, as they know the facts, they have no need to combine and arrange.

103 THE NUMEROUS ISRAELITES COMPARED WITH THE EXTENT OF CANAAN

Dr. C. makes difficulties as to there being wild beasts in Canaan with so large a population. His objections are futile. What is the population of India? How dense is well known, yet tigers and wild beasts abound. Modern European populations are no rule at all, nor even Port Natal, because they settled more in Canaan in towns and villages. Counting in the Canaanites besides Israel is only another instance of Dr. C.'s carelessness, for the supposition made is their total immediate destruction. My own conviction is that the number of Israelites is greatly exaggerated. The six hundred thousand are all males, not children — all the grown men.

THE FIRSTBORN COMPARED WITH THE ADULTS

The whole of the reasoning in the next chapter to prove the firstborn more numerous than is stated seems to me an undoubted mistake. I cannot doubt that those only, and the same in Egypt, who were still members of their fathers' families, are counted. The captive in the dungeon, and Pharaoh himself, may have been firstborn, but it is not supposed as in question that they should die; it was the house. "There was not a house where there was not one dead." In each family which was together the firstborn was taken. I do not believe that a firstborn father and his firstborn son were both taken or numbered. The firstborn children of child-bearing mothers were counted; the firstborn of existing families at the time of the numbering. It clearly, I apprehend, did not include old men and grandfathers whose fathers were dead, or even heads of families married out, but firstborn of living mothers whose families were with them. Hence they were counted from a month old; those below were yet unclean. Remark here that the question must have presented itself to the mind of the writer. It is a proof that it is historical, that an evident difficulty is left unsolved. A forger does not put an evident difficulty in his account. Here we have an apparent and evident difficulty. The number of grown men is in the previous chapter; no explanation given. Why? Because the writer is stating facts, not inventing a story, and therefore states the fact without noticing the difficulty.

104 For myself, I can only say, when I never thought of a question in it, I never took the statement as to Egypt or Israel to refer to other than families at home, unmarried members of households. Indeed, in this particular case, it may be questioned whether it was not those only born after the destruction of the firstborn Egyptians to whom the ordinance here referred to was given. God says He sanctified then to Himself all the firstborn. It would perhaps suppose an unusual number in their first year of liberation, which would be nothing extraordinary. However, on this I do not insist, as those under a month must be subtracted, who in this case might be numerous. "All the males" does not refer to all of all ages, but all the males as contrasted with females. Indeed in verse 43 it is rather implied that all were not: "and all the firstborn males by the number of names, from a month old and upwards, of those that were numbered of them, were 22,273." But neither do I insist on this, as the Hebrew may, I apprehend, be taken as "in their numbering" the same as "in number."

THE SOJOURNING IN EGYPT, EXODUS, AND THEN NUMBERS

As to the question of the increase of population during the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, it has been discussed and re-discussed a hundred times; and it must require overweening self-confidence in Dr. C. to bring it forward, as he does, as an argumentum crucis. He says the doubts he has "raised will be confirmed into a certain conviction, by its appearing plainly from the data of the Pentateuch that there could not have been any such population itself to come out of Egypt." (Page 148.) I suppose he must be ignorant of what has been said of it; if not, such language is simply overweening impertinence to men far better versed in such inquiries than himself. If the Israelites doubled in fifteen years, they would have been 1,146,880 in two hundred and fifteen years; in two hundred and thirty years, 2,293,760. But the statement of scripture is, that "the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them"; and the new king said, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we" . . . and they persecuted them. Very probably they were all removed to Goshen, giving rise to Manetho's story of Avaris. "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew"; so that their increase was not such as makes any difficulty. In England the increase in ten years was more than 23 per cent., where town and manufacturing habits largely impede; so that 35 per cent. in fifteen years is reached in the actual state of England. Thus doubling, in the circumstances of Israel, with extraordinary blessing in this respect was nothing incredible, though we have no proof of their numbers more than six hundred thousand males above twenty, and no proof that the majority of women were Egyptian or other strangers. If this fact be taken into account, the increase presents no kind of difficulty.

105 But the duration of the sojourn is a very obscure point; Josephus gives it both as two hundred and fifteen and as four hundred and thirty. The reader may see Fynes Clinton's investigation of the point, if he have access to it. He reckons two hundred and fifteen years, taking the shorter or Hebrew chronology. Many able chronologists doubt of this, as Hales. At first sight Galatians 3: 17 seems to decide the question, but when examined it does not, I think, necessarily do so. The apostle takes the time of promise as a general fact: "To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed." Now the confirmation to the Seed does not come in for some forty years after the promise. It is of this confirmation the apostle speaks, if we take the letter of what he says. But his object was not the date, save as shewing the law coming long after the promise. He refers to Exodus 12: 40, which was sufficient for him and is ambiguous. He may refer to patriarchal times as those of promise, and take the Egyptian state as four hundred and thirty years. The length of the sojourn in Egypt is an unsettled question.

As to the Chronicles, it is, I judge, a blunder of Dr. C.'s, which I should not think much of, were not his book solely founded on affected accuracy of detail. 1 Chronicles 8: 20 presents difficulties. This is always hopeful ground for infidels. What is difficult to understand they can more easily turn to their own purpose, for others have not a positive answer ready. If we follow the statement simply, however, there is no great difficulty. The Chronicles, besides giving the history of Judah, not Israel, and especially of David's family, gather up all the fragments possible of ancient history and genealogy for the return of Israel from Babylon. Take the passage thus — "The sons of Ephraim Shuthelah": his genealogy is followed down to a second Shuthelah, and there stops. Then the passage speaks of two other sons of Ephraim, Ezer, and Elead, who made a raid against Gath, and were killed; and then follows another son of Ephraim, which is quite natural, and his genealogy is given. His daughter Sherah is simply a descendant of his. Ammihud was fifth from Ephraim.

106 THE DANITES AND LEVITES, ETC.

The objection to the numbers of the Danites and Levites (that of the former being large, though Dan had only one son, which to an unpractised eye may seem to present the greatest difficulty) is founded on want of attention to the reckonings of scripture, as if in every case those mentioned are all. The very comparison with Chronicles which Dr. C. institutes ought to have taught him it was not so, for there are persons mentioned there who are not in Exodus. The genealogies are given, as far as needed, to make out the moral history according to God's government of Israel, but no farther. Any number may be left out, even generations may, provided what is needed is given. Next, generations are taken by Dr. C. as if they were the same then as now. They lived one hundred and thirty, or one hundred and forty, years, and their families were often proportionate, and here God interfered expressly to multiply them. Thus, if we had not Genesis 25, all scripture would have led us to suppose that Ishmael and Isaac were all the sons Abraham had. Here we see he had six sons more when he was quite an old man, of whom nations sprung. Here for other purposes it was important to notice it. In other cases it was not. Next, the assumption that Israel remained only two hundred and fifteen years in Egypt is a questionable one.

The number of the generation following the twelve patriarchs is no way decided. To begin the computation one really ought to take, at any rate, one hundred and thirty-nine, not seventy; that is, take the females in. So the children of Dinah and Serah do not appear at all. The fact of a number of children in one generation says nothing as to the result. Benjamin had many; Reuben had many: neither were large tribes. Does Dr. C. suppose that a forger would have been insensible to this if he had been inventing? It is the strongest possible proof that the account is historical, drawn from facts, for no one would have laid himself open to the objection. There was no need whatever, but that the facts were so, to lend a handle to objectors. It was unnatural, if it were not true. Dr. C. states that Moses' children were only two: I doubt it much. They were only two by Zipporah, but he had married also an Ethiopian woman. It did not concern the scripture history to say anything of children by her. We see from the genealogies that families were reckoned all under one head, if they were not numerous, so as to make a distinct family (1 Chron. 23: 10, 11); or they might come in as two, when properly the head should have been but one, as Ephraim and Manasseh. If Joseph had had a dozen sons afterwards, they would not have formed distinct families; Gen. 48: 6. They would have merged in the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.*

{*As to Dan, if the absence of others of the tribe not yet formed hindered the application of the rule laid down in the case of Zelophehad's daughters, the fact that he had only one son may have been removed in a few generations. Hushim may have had as many as Jair, who had thirty sons that rode on thirty asses' colts.}

107 All these considerations, which lie at the basis of the whole system, are ignored by Dr. C. We have an instance how much the names are taken merely to represent families, and how many may be left out, in the very case Dr. C. mentions; who, in his usual careless and superficial way, does not notice or perceive it, being simply bent on his own object. "The Amramites (he tells us), numbered as Levites in the fourth (Eliezer's) generation, were, as above, only two, namely, the two sons of Moses — the sons of Aaron being reckoned as priests. Hence the rest of the Kohathites of this generation must have been made up of the descendants of Ishar and Uzziel." (Pages 169, 170.) This is because Ishar and Uzziel are mentioned; Exod. 6: 21, 22. But this is simply that there was some special reason for mentioning them. Kohath had another son, Hebron, who may have had, for aught we know, ten times as many. In a word those are noticed in the genealogies as to whom some special motive existed, others not.

Dr. C. has not even found it out. All his calculation here is based, to say nothing of its general fallacy, upon his not noticing what was before his eyes in the text. But this fact, with a thousand other similar ones, involves a principle which makes the ground of all his calculations fundamentally false. Let the reader note this case, as it may clear his mind as to these statements of families. A genealogical succession is given, and only two sons out of four mentioned. One, it so happens, we can supply as far as it goes, because Moses and Aaron came from that stock; the absence of the other we cannot account for. In this case we are sure of it, because he is mentioned a few verses before. Now it is just as possible — very likely indeed — that Amram may have had a host of sons, besides Moses and Aaron, who are mentioned because of their importance. The names are given more to shew from whom people are descended who are known, than to tell all the descendants. All this Dr. C. has overlooked, and simply made mathematical calculations as if all were given. His whole system is false.

108 Dr. C.'s computations are merely neglect of all the principles of scriptural genealogies. Besides, I repeat, the numbers given are such as prove they are not fabricated; and the paucity of Levites, and the numbers of Dan, prove that the statements are drawn from history and facts (as the whole tenor of the statements bears on the face of them), and are such as no man on earth would have invented. Dr. C. says, It is incredible the Levite should not have increased more during the sojourn in the wilderness. The fact that Eliezer did not die proves nothing as to the Levites not coming under the judgment which fell on Israel for their murmurings when the spies returned. God was pleased to keep Israel at the same level in the wilderness. As to numbers that is clear. The Levites were no exception. God may have used providential means for this, as the privations of the wilderness, which affected the Levites as well as the rest. But there is no motive for thinking they were exempt from the judgment. But the truth is, the great change in relative numbers in the tribes shews all the reasoning as to the small increase of the Levites utterly valueless. Population may increase or decrease at such a rate, but that says nothing whatever for particular families. One increases, another becomes extinct. Thus Manasseh rose from 32,200 to 52,700. Ephraim had sunk from 40,500 to 32,500. Benjamin increased from 35,410 to 45,600. Dan was stationary, Asher had increased from 41,500 to 53,400. Judah had remained pretty stationary. Issachar largely increased. Simeon had fallen from 59,000 to 22,000. Thus the particular degree of the increase of the Levites, on which Dr. C. has bestowed so much labour, is of no import whatever. All Dr. C.'s remarks indicate a singular inattention to facts.

109 THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES

As regards the small number of priests making it impossible they could fulfil their services, unless in the case of the offering of birds, it is a mistake to think the priest had anything to do, save to receive the blood and arrange a burnt-offering on the altar. All the operations of slaying, flaying, cutting up, were done by the offerer. But let it be remembered we are speaking of history.

The doctrinal import (which is their real value) of the directions for the sacrifices is most precious, as these are known types of the sacrifice of Christ. No part of scripture is more important. This of course is lost on Dr. C.

Now as to history, we have no proof that a single offering was brought all the time they were in the wilderness. Burnt-offerings were always voluntary, and in the state of Israel, it is just as likely they never troubled their heads about it; for they sinned without compunction, and certainly had never circumcised their children, so that really they had no right to offer any sacrifice. That they did not offer a peace-offering is certain; for they murmured for meat, complaining of the manna, and got the quails in chastisement — at any rate on the second occasion. Save Miriam, we do not hear of any one having the leprosy. There is no evidence of any historical difficulty whatever, but the contrary. Indeed Amos 5: 25 complains that they did not offer sacrifice to Jehovah, but took Moloch and Chium for their gods.

History, therefore, has nothing to do with the matter; the instruction as to priests and sacrifices is doctrinal, not historic. The details of Dr. C.'s reasonings are as trifling as usual. As scripture speaks often of doves in the wilderness, he assures us the psalmist was hardly thinking of the terrible deserts of Sinai — of which he knows nothing. Was ever more egregious trifling?

110 THE PRIESTS AND THEIR DUTIES AT THE PASSOVER

As regards the Passover, Dr. C. says it was impossible the priests could suffice to kill the Passover, and sprinkle the blood. If, as it is evident they naturally would, they kept it as they had in Egypt, every house killed the lamb for itself. The whole difficulty is a soap-bubble, proving only Dr. C.'s will and foolishness. If Dr. C. had given himself the trouble of reading 2 Chronicles 30, which he quotes, he would have seen that the Levites (v. 17) killed the Passover, because many of the people had not sanctified themselves, and they did so only for those who were not clean. It rather appears that it was the blood of the burnt-offering which the priests sprinkled then. At any rate this, and Josiah's Passover, when the priest did sprinkle the blood of the paschal lamb, were special exceptional cases, and there were plenty of priests and Levites attending in their places. As far as the New Testament goes, it would seem each prepared it for himself.

It is really disgraceful for a person in Dr. C.'s position, or for any one, to make a formal attack on a book he has professed to believe in on grounds so futile, and with a carelessness which proves no honest research for himself, but that his will was father to his thought. He has, at any rate, proved himself, logarithms and all, to be an equally incompetent and pretentious man. Probably those by whom, nine years ago, he assures us, he was not thought unworthy of the position which he holds supposed that, in declaring he believed in all the canonical scriptures, he said the truth. Just think of a man taking the battle of Waterloo (and on the side of the victorious army, well knowing, as every one does, it is in pursuit most are slain) as a test of the numbers of Asiatic armies — as to which a child who has read Rollin's History of Greece or Persia knows the difference!

THE WAR ON MIDIAN

Dr. C. complains of the destructive razzia against Midian. Midian had been the means of corrupting Israel, and leading them to idolatry, so as to lead to twenty-five thousand Israelites falling in the pestilence God sent; and that by the inexpressible wickedness of Balaam, who, when he could not curse Israel, recommended Balak to lead them into sin, and then God could not bless them. For this they were punished, and, as a settled nation there, destroyed. Dr. C. congratulates himself that he is not called on to believe it. But thus he must give up the entire Old Testament for his own notions; he must give up God's judging the world. God sent Abraham's seed down into Egypt because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. The whole history is a history of the judicial extermination of these races for their wickedness. It is a question, not of history, but of the whole ways and dealings of God in judgment. He will find it in the Psalms; he will find it in the Revelation. God presents Himself as a moral governor, and in this special case used human instruments to carry out His judgments, as He did afterwards against Israel, as He had warned them by the prophets. The whole establishment of Israel was founded on the principle rejected by Dr. C. all God's judgments are.

111 Dr. C. does not like to believe in judgment. Be it so. But that is no way of judging of history. As to God's revelation of Himself, it is objected that the Old Testament character of God cannot be that of the true God. He did not reveal Himself in Judaism, He gave laws and promises; but He dwelt in thick darkness — was avowedly hid behind the veil. The way into the holiest was not made manifest. He was patient in goodness and grace, but the system was one of public moral government. The sins of the fathers could be visited on their children, as we see still in providential government. There was a code of national laws of which Christ could say, "Moses for the hardness of your hearts gave you this commandment." In the national laws he did not set aside slavery. The law made nothing perfect. God took, as a people in the world, the people where they were; put checks on will; softened in many respects the manners of the age by His authority; and, what was an immense point, suffered nothing to be done without it — an immense point, because arbitrary will was arrested.

But all this was not bringing souls to God, nor revealing God as He is to souls. He is light and love. He has been revealed in Christ — a revelation Dr. C., it appears, is content to give up. He is so wise, so competent to know God and judge of what He ought to be, that he can give up all revelation of Him; and yet he is ignorant of the first principles of the revelation he is giving up, and publishes an empty book, if ever there was one, to prove it. He assumes (as his statements are conclusive) Moses and all the prophets are ignoramuses, Christ knows no better than the rabbis, but Dr. C. of course does. Christ attaches His sanction to the whole of the Old Testament, as having the authority of God. Now this does not merely affirm inspiration; it is the blessed Lord putting His seal to God's having been justly represented there as thus revealed. Dr. C. thinks differently; he would not have such a God — is relieved in thinking it is not true. Christ felt no need of such relief. What shall we think of one who holds the nominal place of bishop of the Christian church, who counts himself the moral superior of the Lord? Who else will think so? Think of the vanity and character of the man who could! Did ever a man degrade himself to the same degree? For Christ did not see anything moral to make Him call in question its being a revelation of God; Dr. C. does. Christ could see that there were national laws given, as suited to the hardness of their hearts; that Dr. C. does not see. He is as ignorant of the relationship of the gospel to the law as a national code, as he is presumptuous and ill-founded in judging the law and slighting the gospel. For every man of sense the book will do good.

112 But I will complete the question of detail as to the Midianites. (Num. 31; compare chap. 21: 1 and chap. 28: 33-40.) The objection is, that time is not allowed for the destruction and other events before Moses addressed the people; Deut. 1: 3. I have, as will be seen, no objection to the result at which Dr. C. arrives; but I will shew the levity of the proofs, and then the excessive carelessness of the author. There is no proof whatever of the time employed in the destruction of Arad's cities. It is very probable the prisoners alluded to had been taken thirty-eight years before, when they would go up the mountain (Num. 14: 44, 45); they may or may not. Israel, then defeated, now avenge themselves. Five days may have very easily done the work. Further, it appears to have been carried into effect during the mourning for Aaron, for they left Mount Hor afterwards; Num. 28: 41. Next, we are told that there was a fortnight for the serpents and healing, and then a month of journeyings. This is the usual inattention to the facts. They moved on from one station to another, and murmured because of the way, and the serpents were sent while on the journey. They had made four encampments of this journey before the serpents were sent; this is certain by comparing Numbers 21: 10 and chap. 33: 41-43. Thus the three months and a half become perhaps a month and a half, or two months.

113 Sihon was defeated — it may have been in a day — and the country fell to Israel. They marched thence up north, and Og came out with all his people and was defeated. For all this there may have been a month, possibly more. Thus three months, at the outside, would have sufficed for what Dr. C. takes six months for. Let it be three and a half. This much is certain, that, in the point where Dr. C. is precise, the serpents and supposed subsequent journey, he is precisely wrong by not consulting the text. Dr. C. then, for the remaining facts, gives "March forward to the plains of Moab." March forward from where? They were in Moab; the expeditions had started thence. But they were by Arnon, the border of Moab. They made then very short stages. They might have moved their headquarters, but they were in Moab, only they moved into the plain from Mount Abarim. Balak was alarmed, and sent for Balaam. This may have taken a week. We have thus some four months gone. Here Israel fell into sin with Moab, and thereupon Israel attacks the Midianites by divine command. My statements leave two months for this. I should be quite disposed to say with Dr. C. six weeks perhaps, and probably four, was ample, so as to allow a month more for the previous marches and wars. No one can pretend to say how much each took; there was time enough for all.

But this is not even necessary, though it sufficed to shew the arbitrariness, and even error, of Dr. C.'s calculations. More was spent in some parts; in others the text contradicts him. But what is curious enough is, that Dr. Colenso has made the passages he holds to be irreconcileable, so as to prove they are unhistoric, exactly coincide by his computation, and has not found it out! Moses's address in Deuteronomy 1: 3 is after defeating Sihon and Og, as it is expressly stated, verse 4. Dr. C. says, "Thus, then, from the first day of the fifth month, in which Aaron died, to the completion of the conquest of Og, king of Bashan, we cannot reckon less together than six months . . . and are thus brought down to the first day of the eleventh month, the very day on which Moses is stated to have addressed the people in the plains of Moab, Deuteronomy 1: 3." Just so, accordingly, Deuteronomy 1: 4 states that it was after he had slain Og that he made the address. Dr. C. has managed to make a blunder in his proofs, but has tumbled by mistake into proving exactly historic what he attacks, and this is to set aside the Bible by unquestionable facts!

114 CONCLUSION

On the quotations from Cicero and the Hindoo author celebrating Ram I have spoken, and add no more here. A more pretentious and futile attempt to set aside the revelation of God it never came to my lot to examine.

It may be well just to add that the quotation from "Types of Mankind," which Dr. Colenso quotes, as he says, with entire sympathy, is from one of two works by Messrs. Gliddon and Nott, to prove that there are several races of mankind, as there are of animals, and following the analogy of the forms of these last, according to a theory of Agassiz; the object being to prove that the negroes are a distinct race, and formed and destined to be fit for slavery. I can hardly think, if he was so zealous with the Zulu for the honour of the true God as to condemn the Pentateuch, because it recognized slavery in Israel, that he can have read the book. It is very superficial, is wrong according to the best authorities as to America, particularly South America, and contradicts itself as to Africa; his only argument, to which he (Mr. Gliddon) constantly recurs, being the presence of negro figures on Egyptian monuments, of which, with Lipsius and others, he exaggerates the antiquity in a way which the monuments themselves clearly prove to be false, inasmuch as kings given as successive are proved by the monuments to be contemporary — as many as eight at a time. Mr. Gliddon was Consul-General of the United States in Egypt. I quite admit Dr. C. does not quote the book in what it says of negroes; but the argument which meets his entire sympathy is used to get rid of the "prejudice," which believes with Paul that "God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," in order to justify the reducing the blacks to slavery as a distinct race.

Scripture: the place it has in this day.

2 Timothy

J. N. Darby.

<23005E> 115

Allow me to say a few words to you, in which there will be nothing very new, on a subject on which simplicity and decision are of the utmost importance in these days. The Second Epistle to Timothy presents to us, as long ago observed, the ruin of the church in its earthly standing, and the heart of the apostle deeply affected by it, as would be the case, under the working of the Spirit of God, with one who had been God's instrument for founding it. It individualizes the duty of the Christian — a momentous principle in these days when the church (so-called, really the clergy) renews the pretension to govern the conscience.

This epistle does not give us the church according to the purpose of God, and its full character in heavenly places (as in the Ephesians), nor is it the order of the church on earth (as in 1 Tim.); but we have in it life and salvation, now fully revealed in Christ (chap. 1: 1, 9, 10), but a piety which could be found in Jews as such, and in which Paul could speak of his forefathers. The church, indeed, is not mentioned at all. Not that the fellowship of saints is not noticed; it is expressly, but of those in whom purity of heart is known to exist, the testing of which was not known in the first beginning. Then those who came were received: only the Lord took care of the purity of the assembly, and manifested His own, adding to the church daily such as should be saved. Now He knew them that were His, and the responsibility rested on every one that named the name of the Lord to depart from iniquity; and the believer is to follow the path of peace and grace with those that call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart.

Two points are brought before the believer here to guide his feet: his individual conduct, including his conduct as to other individuals; and his relationship to the public profession of Christianity in the world.

As to the first, he is, as I have said, to depart from iniquity. Such is the nature of Christianity, it cannot associate in walk with evil. He purges himself — for it is individual duty — from vessels to dishonour, which, in a great house, he expects to find. He seeks fellowship with those who join to a profession of Christ a pure heart, from which profession flows. On this, chapter 2 is as clear as possible. It is his individual responsibility; and it is important to take in both parts.

116 If the first part only is taken up (the departing from iniquity and purging from vessels to dishonour), the conscience may be upright; but a spirit of judgment and of self-righteousness will be engendered. If the latter only (to seek to walk with those pure in heart), without the former, conscience will be loose, and faithfulness to Christ, and obedience, more or less lost. The heart must be engaged in the love of God's people and fellowship with them, and the conscience be pure and faithful, as having done with evil, when evil is all around and allowed.

As to the second great point, our relationship to the public profession of Christianity in the world, chapter 3 gives equally clear direction. The peril of the last days is found in a form of godliness, denying the power of it. The direction is as simple as it is positive: "from such turn away." Where form without power is, we are not to go, but, in a positive way, to turn away from it. But this would not, in itself, in the perilous times, be sufficient; for in the decay of practical piety and devotedness in the evangelical professing world many, whose principles are far more false, lead individually a life of great devotedness — often, I allow, on false principles, yea, in themselves deadly principles — but it is a sad snare when devotedness is found on the side of false doctrine, and worldliness with a greater degree of substantial truth. This is not the case, if the effect be taken as a whole; far from it; but individual cases, and the fire of first impressions, produce enough to make the devotedness of individuals a snare, leading men to receive false doctrine and to fall into Satan's hands (for so it really is), when the devotedness is founded on a real denial of grace and truth of the gospel, as Paul insists on it.

Another point therefore is brought out here: the authority with which our souls are directly in communion, on which our conduct rests, the rule by which it is guided, and the application to the individual soul of that authority and rule. Is this mediate or immediate? Is it by the intervention of the church, as an authority between me and God? or is it the direct and immediate connection of my soul with God, and immediate subjection to His authority in His word? It is the latter, not the former. This is no rejection of ministry. If another knows the word better than myself — has more spiritual power, he can help me; and this is according to the mind and will of God. But he does not come between my soul and the word, but brings me more fully into acquaintance with what God says to me in it. My soul is only the more in immediate relationship with God by His word. This only is the rule and measure of my responsibility, the expression of the authority of God over me. Another may be the means of my being more completely so; but he puts me thereby in immediate relationship to God by the word, more fully and more in detail, but does not take me out of the relationship. It remains immediate, as before, and there can be no other; it is direct with God; and God's title is absolute, and embraces the whole of my being in obedience. He exercises His authority immediately by the word. This may sanction, and does, duties towards others; but these are acknowledged by the authority of, and in obedience to, the word — to God in His word. I am to fulfil every relationship in which God has placed me, but by and according to the word. My first, immediate, and all-ruling relationship is with God by the word. It has precedence of all others, rules in all others, and claims absolute and immediate subjection. "We ought to obey" is the Christian's ensign; but "we ought to obey God rather than men" is the absolute claim of God, who has revealed Himself fully, and reveals Himself immediately to us by the word.

117 The church may have — has — to be judged; the individual has to take notice of it — is called on to do so, so that it cannot have authority over him as the ultimate rule for his soul. He is bound to take the word of God as the ultimate rule and norm of truth and conduct, having authority immediately from God over his soul, with nothing else between him and God. It is evident we are not here speaking of the discipline of an assembly exercised according to the word. That word which ordains it recognizes its validity, but what in religious, and indeed, in all matters, is the ultimate rule and authority.

There is another question apparently, but which is not really one, namely, Is the soul immediately cognisant of the word, and is it responsible to God for itself according to that authority? — or can anything else come in between with authority, so that a soul is not immediately responsible to God according to that word? The only question really is — Is God's word immediately addressed to the conscience of man, so as to hold him responsible when so addressed? No one in his senses would deny that if God revealed anything to a man, he ought to give heed to it. Infidelity may contest the fact that there is a word of God — a ground which, in controversy, Roman Catholics generally take under the form of the question, "How do I know it is so?" I assume here there is a word of God. I inquire, is its authority immediate over my soul? — or is anything, now I have it, between it and my soul? Is the authority of the oracles of God absolute, immediate? Do they bring me under an obligation which allows nothing to come between them and my soul, or to limit or modify their authority? I would remark, in passing, that save three Epistles, the writings of the New Testament (and, as far as the principle goes, the Old also) were addressed, not to the clergy (if we are so to call them), but by the clergy to the people. The claim of the clergy to possess them as such is sheer folly; they were specifically addressed to the Christian people by those commissioned of God to do it. This is undeniable. In one, Paul specially charges it to be read to all the holy brethren, and they very young Christians; 1 Thess. 5: 27. If professing Christians are so ignorant now that they cannot understand it, this is the effect of centuries of the church's teaching, but is no longer the case where there is lowliness and where the grace of God is looked to. "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." "I am wiser than all my teachers," says David, "for thy law do I love." "They shall be all taught of God" is the promise given to us.

118 But my present object is less general than this, important as this truth may be. I speak of the instructions given by the apostle in Epistles, which were addressed to one in whom he had the greatest confidence as a servant and man of God, who had worked with him in the gospel, as a son with a father, and to whom he could reveal his inmost feelings, and could tell what was needed for the church when the evil days should come in; when the form of godliness, where the power was denied, forced on the conscience as duty the judgment of the state of the church — wherein the apostle has revealed to us Christ's judgment, and called upon us to bow to and act upon it — an epistle, in a word, which gives, not general truth and precious instruction to the Christian, but special guidance in the dangerous evils of the last days. This, with all church history before us, when subjection to the church was so long maintained, and darkness by it, and when the church (as Christ has loved, sanctifies, and will present it to Himself without spot and wrinkle) was so diligently and long confounded with the building of wood and hay and stubble, which had grown up, as they themselves admitted, into a large mixed worldly body, and that the church was as bad or worse than the world — this revelation of the judgment of the church is of all importance. Diligently was it insisted on, as by Cyprian and sundry others, that the Holy Ghost was and could be nowhere else; that all outside the external form were lost. And so sternly was this held, that while the former confesses that the state of the church was disastrous (just what the world was, bishops and all, so that the worst persecution was only a light-needed chastisement), yet they insist that when any left it, pressed in conscience by its state, they left salvation and eternal life absolutely; there was no grace elsewhere.*

{*It is somewhat strange that he whom Cyprian always called his master did so leave it. It is one of the riddles of theologians now, to distinguish the writings of this church-father before and after his leaving the great outward body.}

119 By this insisting on the privileges of an avowedly corrupt church too, souls who shrank from what was utter dishonour to Christ were left a prey to those who were really heretics or fanatics, when their consciences could no longer stand the moral state of the great outward body that held and claimed the place of the church of God. It is one of the sad parts of church history, the seeing how persons who left the public body when immorality and idolatry of the grossest kind were come in, often fell into the hands of, or were mixed up with, those whom Satan raised up to perplex and ruin the testimony of God. The primitive church never defended itself against the workings of heresy by the truth as they had it not (Irenaeus did so, perhaps a little), but by their own claims to possess all and their hereditary title to it: so even Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and others. And those who made more allowance were themselves philosophers far from the truth, as Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen. These did make a difference between some heretics and others; but, after that, schism or heresy were alike fatal:* and if afterwards a difference was made, none was made in denying salvation to them, or in burning them, when that became the fashion of the church.

{*It is a curious fact in church history, that what made Cyprian such a stickler for church unity, and no grace elsewhere, was finally given up and condemned by the church at large — the mere validity of schismatical and heretical baptism. Cyprian certainly was never consistent.}

120 Now, with such a history before us, how immensely important is it to see that the individual is bound to judge the state of the professing church! At all times they were called on to recognize Christ's judgment of the state of the church, and be guided by the word as to it. They would have learned not to confound the body of Christ with the professing body.* But in 2 Timothy 3 we are expressly called on to turn away from such as deny the power of godliness, though maintaining the form. But, if I am individually called upon to recognize and act on — whatever that action may be — the judgment of Christ as to the state of the church, then the church has ceased to be an authority, and is judged by the word, to which I am expressly called to give heed in that judgment; its judgment as a public body cannot be an authority governing my spiritual judgment, in which I am bound to follow the word, where it is itself judged in its mind and state. Christ expressly calls us individually to hear what the Spirit says to the churches; not what the church says, but what is said to them. I am not now saying what the consequence may be — on that 2 Timothy 2 and 3 are clear — but that the individual is called on to take heed to what Christ says as to the state of the church. It is not a thing to be overlooked that this first takes place in respect of Ephesus, where such blessing and knowledge of privilege was. The vessel of the highest grace, she represents the church's departure from its first estate, and receives the threat of the removal of the candlestick. But all I say now is: the individual is called upon as such to listen to Christ, and take notice of the judgment He forms of it. The church is a judged object, not an authority. The individual is bound to receive immediately from Christ or the Spirit by the word, what He says to him independent of the church's authority, yea, about the church itself. Yea, it is the proof that he has ears to hear, to hear Christ, to hear what the Spirit says. What, then, is the rule, when in professing Christendom there should be the form of godliness without the power, as certainly the apostle tells us would be the case in the perilous times in the last days, when Christians have to turn away from the form of godliness? We have it in a double form.

{*This Augustine did, but equally insisted that all were lost who were separated from the latter, and made the day of judgment the time of separation and a kind of purgatory.}

121 The church, it cannot be; that has brought us into perilous times, and the case occurs in which I have to turn away from the common state of things — men shall be so under the form of godliness without the power. There is no rule, no authority to retain me there. I am bound to recognize that state, and to turn away. First, the knowledge of the individual from whom I have learnt anything; secondly, the scriptures. The former is a simple, but very important rule. A tradition comes, no one can tell from whom: I am told that "the church has preserved it" is a sure ground of faith. Paul says, No; you must know from "whom you have learned it." It is said, "according to the fathers"; or "the consent of the fathers." But this gives me no authentic source. Timothy knew he had received it from Paul, a divinely-inspired and authorized teacher, and the thing was sure. No church-teaching, no tradition, however universal, can assure me the truth. I cannot say of whom (para tinos) I have learned it. I must have an individual of certain and inspired authority, to make me receive anything as the truth. I must know of whom I have received it. This applies to perilous times, when there is a form of godliness, when the church is in disorder — for a form of godliness without the power is itself disorder — and then a certain source of authority is of all importance. But if Paul, or Peter, or John have taught anything, I know of whom I have learned it, as Timothy did, and I am assured of it. If fathers, or no one can say who, have taught a thing, I have no divinely-given security.

The second authority referred to, which in part is the same, is the scriptures; but this has its special character. These are holy writings. God has provided that for His saints, which, with the key of faith in Christ Jesus, is a sure and certain guide — a body of writings called by the apostle (that is, by divine authority) the holy scriptures, of which a child could be cognisant as such, guided by the piety of a mother — and to be received as inspired and having divine authority, composed of a number of distinct writings, but forming a whole of which it could be said as a known whole, "the holy scriptures," and of each particular part, "every scripture," recognized in this way (in the most solemn manner by the Lord Himself, as well as by His apostle) as a whole, and as the inspired work of particular authors, and that as written documents, distinctively as such, and commanding faith as inspired. "Knowing this first," says Peter, "that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "That it might be fulfilled," is the constant testimony of Matthew; or, more generally, "then was fulfilled." "The scripture cannot be broken," says the Lord; "it is written in the prophets, They shall be all taught of God." "If they believe not his writings, how shall they believe my words?" And in Gethsemane (Matthew 26: 56), contrasting their testimony "in the temple," but "that the scripture must be fulfilled." So "then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the scripture," saying, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer." And in that same journey, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?" "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." It behoves, ought to be, since it was in the scripture. So Paul could say, "the scripture foreseeing . . . preached," because the mind of God was in it. So, as often remarked, the Lord quotes the Old Testament as a recognized whole, as used among the Jews, "Moses and the prophets and the psalms." He used the scriptures, the written testimony, to silence the adversary, and referred to them, in rebuking the Jews, as one of a series of divine testimonies, which left them without excuse.

122 I do not here quote the numberless texts in which the authority of the scriptures is recognized by the blessed Lord and His apostles. If these, He assures, were not believed, one would rise from the dead in vain, that men might be persuaded. No testimony from the actuality of another world would avail, if these writings were not listened to. But we find not only the authority of particular scriptures affirmed, but, what is important to remark, its being there gave it authority. It was sufficient that it was scripture to give it divine authority. The scripture cannot be broken. It is not merely that truths may be found in it (that may be the case in any sermon, or in this tract), or that the word of God is in it, but that being in the scriptures was sufficient to give to what was there authority as the word of God. It is God's ordained method of authority, not merely of truth — any one may be a means of communicating that — but it is authority for the truth, is clothed with divine authority in what it states, and is recognized by Christ Himself as having it, as also by all the apostles. They were more noble that searched them to see if what an apostle stated was so. The scriptures have authority, and are addressed to God's people; not as such to the clergy or ministers of the word, but, save a very small portion, as we have seen, are addressed by those ministers to the people.

123 From all alike we can learn. We can learn from these addressed to his trusted fellow-servants by the apostle Paul, what the church was, what it ought to be, and what it would be. Let us see then the apostle's account of the value of these books, and the place they hold, in what he says to Timothy, and that especially when the church has lost its true character, has a form of piety, and denies the power of it. After having spoken of Timothy's having learnt the truth from himself, the apostle says, "and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures." Here is the well-known book so entitled, which, as such, had authority. As a child, he had known it and learned its contents. And these scriptures, through faith in Christ Jesus (the great key to all), were able to make him wise to salvation. It is alleged that this is the Old Testament. No doubt what Timothy had known as a child was the Old Testament: but whatever has a claim to be called the holy scriptures comes under this title, and enjoys the privileges attached to that title. Paul claims this authority for what he wrote (1 Cor. 14: 37), and makes the difference between his spiritual experience, however great it was, and what the Lord said, but the things he wrote were the commandments of the Lord. The end of Romans assures us that the mystery of the gospel, hidden from the prophetic and all previous ages, was made known in prophetic scriptures* to all nations. And Peter puts Paul's Epistles on a level with the other scriptures. Scripture is a recognized title; whatever is that has authority, and by grace, enlightening power; it judges, and is not judged. This then is the divine, and divinely given resource for the Christian when the church is in an evil state — the scriptures, and the scriptures as a child has known the book: and they are capable to make the individual wise to salvation through faith in Christ. It is not a slighting of ministry. Timothy did not slight Paul assuredly; but the gifted apostle referred him to this as the sure individual guide when the church was in confusion and evil.

{*Not "the scriptures of the prophets": the passage is quite clear.}

124 But scripture can do more; it can furnish the man of God perfectly. And here we get more than the knowledge from a child, or saving wisdom through faith. The passage refers to the man of God — him who is for God in this world — a large and comprehensive expression. In a certain sense, in service, he represents God, so far as he acts under His guidance and by His power — "in all things behaving ourselves as the ministers of God." But he stands, at least, as serving God in the world. It is an expression borrowed from the Old Testament. And here we find not the book as a whole, but every part — everything rightly called scripture is inspired, theopneustos. Evidently, it could not have the authority which the Lord and the apostles ascribe to it; we should not see the Lord (in the most solemn moments and in the most absolute way) using His divine power to enable His disciples to understand it, if it were not truly inspired. But there is more than this.

It is not all the truth that the scriptures contain the word of God, but everything that is scripture is inspired,* and profitable for all needed to make the man of God perfect. Everyone who has to act for God in this world, to stand for Him before the world — and (though some be specially called) all have more or less to do so — finds all he wants to complete his state and competency for service, in the scripture. But it is not only this that it contains what is needed; but everything truly called scripture is inspired — has the distinct name given by God Himself to that which He willed to be received as coming from Himself. We have, a child has (as to its authority which faith alone can make effectual) writings which claim for themselves the subjection of our souls, as being God's word immediately to ourselves, so that the intervention of any is interfering with His right — His immediate right over the soul as belonging to Him. It is not that others cannot help me in apprehending what is there; but that He helps me to what is there, and none can interfere to hinder the direct claim of what is then on my soul, or he interferes with God's title, no matter whether it is an individual or the church which does so. And the higher the claim to do so, the greater the guilt.

{*I have no doubt that this is the right translation: but it does not alter the matter I am now upon. For every divinely-inspired writing equally and specifically ascribes inspiration to everything that has a title to that name, and then adds other characteristics.}

I acknowledge the authority of all scripture as absolute and direct from God. I may surely be helped to know more of what is there to be profited by, to be enjoyed, or obeyed. I am specifically taught to go to the scriptures, to rely on them — taught to do it individually, not as judging them, but as a direct claim of God over me when the church has become a form of godliness. Always true and enjoyed by all together when the church was right, in the Epistles received from the apostles, and the Gospels which we have given us of God, it became necessary truth — truth to this effect by the apostle, when the church was gone wrong, and perilous times would come in the last days.

125 Let us not forget, if the sense of the present state of things does not press upon us, that we know from scripture that those times were set in when John wrote and Paul wrote, and Peter and Jude. John could say, we know it is the last time: John could give the Lord's warning voice to the falling church in the seven churches of the Apocalypse; Peter could tell us that the time was come for judgment to begin at the house of God; Jude be forced to write to insist on the faith once delivered, because those had got into the church who will be the objects of Christ's judgment at the last day; Paul, that the mystery of iniquity already worked, and would do so till the lawless one was at last revealed after the falling away — that already all sought their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. And he (though the wise architect to lay the foundation), when his departure was at hand, had to warn his beloved disciples, as he had the elders of Ephesus, of the evils at the door, and that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, and the church be a form of godliness without the power.

Then the individual comes out afresh (for we learn nothing of the church in 2 Timothy except its failure and ruin), and the man of God has to hold his ground against advancing evil; and then the scriptures get the place they were meant to hold — a necessity not so felt when all flowed in the stream of divine power, receiving the care and leading of the apostles themselves, but brought cut for the days of evil and seduction with divine authority, divine inspiration, and divine sufficiency to instruct.

It is evident that "knowing from whom thou hast learned them" now resolves itself also into the scriptures.

The word of God, as the blessed Lord Himself, comes out from God, and is adapted to man. In this, with the living Word, it stands alone and is perfected in it.

126 Let me here engage my reader to realize in his own mind, and, if occasion call for it, insist with others on, the passage which connects itself closely with what we have considered — I mean the passage in 1 John 2: 24, "Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning: if that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father." Nothing has secure authority for the believer but that which was from the beginning. This alone secures our continuing in the Father and the Son. There may be much respectable, much "reverend antiquity"; and the spirit of reverence, where the object is true, is a very important quality in the believer, but an amazing means of seduction when it is not. But, as a ground of faith, the Christian must have "what was from the beginning"; the authority for believing must be "that which existed from the beginning" — must have been heard from the beginning. In the scriptures I have that certainty; I have the thing itself: nowhere else. Many may preach the truth and I profit by it; but by the word, specially here by the New Testament, I have the certainty of what was from the beginning, and I have it nowhere else. No agreement of Christians can give me this. If Rome and Greece and England were all one, their agreement would not give me what was from the beginning as a fact; the scriptures certainly do.

I may be told that it is very presumptuous for me to set my judgment against such authority. I have no judgment of mine to set; I believe in what Paul and John and Peter and the blessed Lord said: there is no presumption in that. I do as they bid me, I receive and hold fast to what "was in the beginning." If, indeed, any say that "it is not easy to understand," I ask, "Are they?" This is presumption — to say they can teach the truth better than the apostles and the Lord, who spoke to the multitudes. At any rate I must have, not what the primitive church held, but "what was from the beginning." Hence the same apostle says, "He that is of God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us: hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error."

What do I learn from Scripture?

J. N. Darby.

<23006E> 127

Preface

The following paper was drawn up, on the request being made to the writer to give a statement of his faith.

It was replied that the writer would not sign a confession of faith which he had drawn up himself; that all human statement of truth was so inferior to scripture, even when drawn from it [the written word], that he could not do it; and the drawing up of this has only the more convinced him of it.

In the first place, there might be important points left out, or that put in which had better not be there. And supposing everything right that was there, it was like a made tree instead of a growing tree. The word gives truth in its living operations. It is giving in connection with God, in connection with man, with conscience, with divine life, and is thus a totally different thing. To use another image, it is not the growing tree, but supposing all there, sticks laid up in bundles. The writer had, however, no objection personally to say what he believed, to give an answer when asked the question. What follows is given with a deeper conviction than ever of the imperfection of a human assemblage of truth; the writer adding that there are many things more which he should teach. But he could say, "I believe this"; I have learnt this from scripture.

___________

I learn from the scriptures that there is one living God,1 fully revealed to us in Christ,2 and known through Him as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,3 in the unity of the Godhead, but revealed as distinctively willing,5 acting,6 sending, sent,7 coming,8 distributing,9 and other actings; or, as habitually expressed amongst Christians, three persons in one God, or Trinity in Unity. God is the Creator of all things; but the act of creating is personally attributed to the Word and the Son, and the operation of the Spirit of God.10

1 1 Tim. 2: 5; 1 Tim. 4: 10, et passim.

2 John 1: 18.

3 Matt. 3: 16, 17; Matt. 28: 19; Eph. 2: 18

4 John 5: 19; 1 Cor. 12: 6.

5 John 6: 38-40; John 5: 21; 1 Cor. 12: 11.

6 John 5: 17; 1 Cor. 12: 11.

7 John 14: 26; John 15: 26; John 5: 24, 37; 1 Peter 1: 12; 1 John 4: 14.

8 John 15: 26; John 16: 7, 8, 13.

9 1 Cor. 12: 11.

10 Gen. 1: 1, 2; Job 26: 13; John 1: 1, 3; Col. 1: 16; Heb. 1: 2.

128 I learn that the Word, who was with God and was God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us,2 the Father sending the Son to be the Saviour of the world.3 That He, as the Christ, was born of a woman,4 by the power of the Holy Spirit coming on the Virgin Mary,5 true man,6 without sin,7 in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,8 the promised seed of David according to the flesh,9 the Son of man,10 and Son of God,11 determined to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead,12 one blessed Person, God and man,13 the man Christ Jesus,14 the anointed man,15, Jehovah the Saviour.16

I learn that He died for our sins according to the scriptures,17 having appeared once in the consummation of ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself;18 that He has borne our sins in His own body on the tree, suffering for sins the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; 19 and that He is our righteousness before God.20

I learn that He is risen from the dead,21 raised by God, by Himself, by the glory of the Father,22 and ascended up on high,23 having by Himself purged our sins, and sits at the right hand of God.24

I learn that after Christ's ascension the Holy Ghost has been sent down to dwell in His people individually and collectively, so that in both ways they are the temple of God.25 We are sealed,26 and anointed with this Spirit,27 the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts;28 we are led by Him,29 and He is the earnest of our inheritance;30 we cry, Abba, Father, knowing we are sons.31

1 See No. 10 on previous list, five paragraphs since.

2 John 1: 1, 2, 14.

3 1 John 4: 14.

4 Gal. 4: 4

5 Luke 1: 35.

6 Phil. 2: 7; Heb. 2: 14, 17; 1 John 4: 2; 2 John 7.

7 Luke 1: 35; 1 John 3: 5

8 Col. 2: 9

9 Rom. 1: 3; Acts 2: 30; Acts 13: 23; 2 Tim. 2: 8.

10 Matt 16: 13, et passim.

11 John 1: 18, 34, et passim,

12 Rom. 1: 4.

13 Phil. 2: 6-10; 2 Cor. 5: 19-21; Heb. 1 and 2; 1 John 2: 23 - 3: 3; John 5: 20; Rev. 22: 12, 13; John 1: 1, 14; John 8: 58, and many others.

14 1 Tim. 2: 5.

15 Acts 10: 38.

16 Matt. 1: 21. The word Christ or Messiah means anointed, and Jesus or Joshua, Jehovah or Jah the Saviour.

17 1 Cor. 15: 3

18 Heb. 9: 26.

19 1 Peter 2: 24; 1 Peter 3: 18.

20 1 Cor. 1: 30; Heb. 9: 24.

21 1 Cor. 15: 20; Matt. 28: 6, and many others.

22 Acts 3: 15; John 2: 19; Rom. 6: 4; Eph. 1: 20.

23 Mark 16: 19; Luke 24: 51; Eph. 4: 8-10, and others.

24 Heb. 1: 3; Heb. 10: 12; Eph. 1: 20, 21, and others.

25 John 16: 7; John 7: 39; Rom. 8: 9; the Father sends, John 14: 26; Christ sends from the Father, John 14: 16, 17, 26; Rom. 8: 11; 1 Cor. 6: 19; 1 Cor. 3: 16; Eph. 2: 22; 1 Cor. 12: 13; Eph. 5: 30; Eph. 1: 23. etc.

26 Eph. 1: 13; 2 Cor. 1: 22.

27 2 Cor. 1: 21; 1 John 2: 20, 27.

28 Rom.5: 5.

29 Rom.8: 14.

30 Eph.1: 14; 2 Cor. 1: 22; 2 Cor. 5: 5.

31 Rom. 8: 15; Gal. 4: 6.

129 I learn that Christ will come again to receive us to Himself,5 raising those that are His, or changing them if living, fashioning their bodies like His glorious body, according to the power by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself,6 and that those of them who die meanwhile will depart and be with Him.7

I learn that God has appointed a day in which He will judge this habitable world in righteousness by that man whom He has ordained, whereof He has given assurance unto all men, in that He has raised Him from the dead,8 and that at the end He will sit on the great white throne, and judge the dead, small and great.9

I learn that every one of us shall give an account of himself to God,10 and receive the things done in the body, whether they be good or evil;11 and as the righteous inherit eternal life,12 so the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, will go into everlasting punishment, be cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels; and that whosoever is not found in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.13

I learn that this blessed one, the Lord Jesus Christ, died for all, has given Himself a ransom for all, testified in due time,14 that He has made propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world.

I learn that He has thereby obtained an eternal redemption,15 and that by one offering of Himself once for all the sins of all that believe on Him are purged,16 and that by faith in Him their consciences are also purged,17 and God remembers their sins and iniquities no more;18 that being called of God, they receive the promise of an eternal inheritance,19 being perfected for ever, so that we have boldness to enter into the holiest by His blood, by the new and living way He has consecrated for us.20

l, 2, 3, 4, See No's. 28-31 on previous list, four paragraphs since.

5 John 14: 3.

6 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17; 1 Cor. 15: 23, 51, 52; Phil. 3: 20, 21.

7 2 Cor. 5: 8; Luke 23: 43; Acts 7: 59

8 Acts 17: 31.

9 Rev. 20: 11, 12.

10 Rom. 14: 12.

11 2 Cor. 5: 10.

12 Rom. 6: 22, 23; Matt. 25: 46.

13 2 Thess. 1: 7-9; Matt. 25: 46; Rev. 20: 15.

14 2 Cor. 5: 14; 1 Tim. 2: 6; 1 John 2: 2.

15 Heb. 9: 12.

16 Heb.1: 3; Heb. 9: 22; Heb. 10: 2.

17 Heb. 9: 14; Heb. 10: 2.

18 Heb. 10: 17.

19 Heb. 9: 15.

20 Heb. 10: 14, 19, 20.

130 I learn that to enter into the kingdom of God we must be born of water and the Spirit, born again,1 being naturally dead in sins, and by nature children of wrath.2 That which God employs in order to our being born again is His word.3 Hence it is by faith that we become His children.4

I learn that God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall have, everlasting life,6 but that to this end, God being a righteous and holy God, the Son of man had to be lifted up upon the cross;6 that there He bore our sins in His own body on the tree,7 and was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.8

I learn that He loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.9

I learn that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and without blame before Him in love.10

I learn that those that believe are sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the earnest of our inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession;11 that by Him the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,12 that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father;13 that they who have received this Spirit not only cry, Abba, Father, but know that they are in Christ, and Christ in them; that thus not only He appears in the presence of God for them, but they are in Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool;14 that they are dead to sin in God's sight, and to reckon themselves so; having put off the old man, and put on the new; alive to God through Jesus Christ (Christ is their new life); crucified to the world, and dead to the law.15

1 John 3: 3,5.

2 Eph. 2: 1, 3; 2 Cor. 5: 14.

3 James 1: 18; 1 Peter 1: 23.

4 Gal.3: 26.

5 John 3: 16.

6 John 3: 14, 15.

7 1 Peter 1: 24.

8 2 Cor. 5: 21.

9 Eph. 5: 25-27.

10 Eph. 1: 4.

11 Eph. 1: 13, 14; 2 Cor.1: 22.

12 Rom.5: 5.

13 Rom.8: 15; Gal.4: 6; John 14: 20.

14 Eph. 2: 6; Heb. 9: 24; Heb. 10: 12, 13.

15 Col. 3: 3,4, 9, 10; Rom. 6: 6, 11; Gal.2: 20; Gal. 6: 14.

I learn thus that if they are in Christ, Christ is in them and they are called upon to manifest the life of Jesus in their mortal flesh,1 and to walk as He walked,2 God having set them in the world as the epistles of Christ,3 whose grace is sufficient for them, and whose strength is made perfect in their weakness.4

131 I learn that they are converted to wait for God's Son from heaven,6 and taught to do so; and that they have the promise that they shall never perish, nor shall any man pluck them out of Christ's hand,6 but that God will confirm them to the end, that they may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.7

I learn that they have part in these privileges through faith in Christ Jesus, in virtue of which righteousness is imputed to them;8 that Christ, who has obeyed even unto death, and wrought a perfect work upon the cross for them,9 is now their righteousness, made such of God to them,10 and that we are made the righteousness of God in Him;11 that as His precious blood cleanses us from all sin, so we are personally accepted in the beloved,12 that as by one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of One many shall be constituted righteous.13

I learn that we are sanctified, or set apart to God, by God the Father, through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all, and by the operation and power of the Holy Ghost through the truth, so that all Christians are saints,14 and that in our practical state we have to follow after holiness,15 and grow up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, being changed into His image, to whom we are to be perfectly conformed in glory.16

I learn that the Lord has left two rites, or ordinances, both significative of His death; one initiatory, the other of continual observance in the church of God — baptism and the Lord's supper.17

1 John 14: 20; Rom. 8: 10; 2 Cor. 4: 10.

2 1 John 12: 6.

3 2 Cor. 3: 3.

4 2 Cor. 12: 9.

5 1 Thess. 1: 10; Titus 2: 12, 13; Luke 12: 35-37.

6 John 10: 29.

7 1 Cor. 1: 7-9.

8 Rom. 5: 1, 2; Gal. 3: 24-26; Gal. 3: 11, 14; Rom. 4: 16; Eph. 2: 8; 2 Cor. 5: 7; Gal. 2: 20; Heb. 11: 4; Acts 13: 39; Gal. 3: 9, 6; Rom. 4: 24, 25, and many others.

9 Phil. 2: 8; John 17: 4; Heb. 7: 27; Heb. 9: 25-28; Heb. 10: 12, 18.

10 1 Cor. 1: 30

11 2 Cor. 5: 21.

12 Eph. 1: 6.

13 Rom. 5: 19.

14 Jude 1; Heb. 10: 10; 2 Thess. 2: 13; 1 Cor. 6: 11; John 17: 17, 19; 1 Peter 1: 22; Rom. 1: 7; 1 Cor. 1: 2; Eph. 1: 1, et passim.

15 Heb.12: 14; 2 Peter 3: 14.

16 Eph. 4: 13, 15; 2 Cor. 3: 18; 1 John 3: 2, 3; Eph. 4: 1; Col. 1: 10; 1 Thess. 2: 12; 1 Thess. 5: 23.

17 Matt. 28: 19; Mark 16: 16; Acts 2: 38; Acts 8: 12, 16, 36; Acts 9: 18; Eph. 4: 5; 1 Cor. 1: 17; 1 Pet. 3: 21; Rom. 6: 3; Col. 2: 12; Matt. 26: 26-28; Mark 14: 22, 23; Luke 22: 19, 20; 1 Cor. 11: 23-26; 1 Cor. 10: 3, 4.

132 I learn that, when Christ ascended up on high, He received gifts for men, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; and that from Christ the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, maketh increase of the body, to the edifying of itself in love.2

I learn that, as the grace and sovereign love of God is the source and origin of all the blessing,3 so continual and diligent dependence on that grace is that by which we can walk after Him and to His glory, who has left us an example that we should follow His steps.4

I learn from the example and authority of the Lord and His apostles that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are inspired of God, and are to be received as the word of God, having His authority attached to it, and which works effectually in those that believe;5 and that the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart, being understood, not by the wisdom of man, but by the teaching of God, being spiritually discerned, they are revealed, communicated, and discerned by the Spirit.6

I learn that, while God alone is immortal in and by Himself,7 the angels are not subject to death,8 and that the death of a man does not affect the life of his soul, be he wicked or renewed, but that all live still as to God, though dead,9 and that the wicked will be raised again as well as the just.10

133 I learn that every assembly of God is bound by the exercise of discipline, according to the word, to keep itself pure in doctrine and godly walk.11

1 See No. 17 on previous list, five paragraphs since.

2 Eph. 4: 6-13; Acts 2: 33; 1 Cor. 12: 28; Rom. 12: 6; 1 Pet. 4: 10, 11; Matt. 25: 14; Luke 19: 13.

3 John 3: 16, 27; 1 Cor. 2: 12; 1 Cor. 4: 7; Eph. 2: 7-10; Titus 2: 11.

4 John 15: 5; Phil. 2: 12, 13; 1 Thess. 5: 17; Rom. 12: 12; Luke 18: 1; 2 Peter 1: 5-10, and many others. John 8: 12; John 10: 4; John 12: 26; John 17: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 15; 1 Cor. 6: 19, 20; Rom. 14: 7, 8; 1 Cor. 10: 31; Col. 3: 17; 1 John 2: 6; 1 Pet. 2: 2.

5 Matt. 4: 4, 7, 10; Luke 24: 25-27, 44-46; John 5: 39; John 10: 35; Matt. 5: 17, 18; John 20: 9; Matt. 1: 23; and a multitude of passages. Matt. 26: 54; 2 Peter 1: 20, 21; Gal. 3: 8; 2 Tim. 3: 14-17; 1 Thess. 2: 13; 1 Cor. 15: 2, 3; 1 Cor. 2: 13; 1 Cor. 14: 36, 37; Rom. 16: 26, where it is not "the scriptures of the prophets," that is, at any rate scriptures, but New Testament, not Old; 2 Pet. 3: 16.

6 Ps. 19: 7; Heb. 4: 12, 13; Luke 24: 45; 1 Cor. 2: 10; 1 John 2: 20, 27; John 6: 45; 1 Cor. 2: 12-14.

7 1 Tim. 6: 16.

8 Luke 20: 36.

9 Luke 12: 4, 5; Matt. 10: 28; Luke 16: 23; Luke 20: 38.

10 John 5: 28, 29; Acts 24: 15.

11 Heb. 12: 15-17; 1 Tim. 3: 15; Titus 3: 10, 11; 1 Cor. 5: 7, 13.

9, 10 & 11, were No's. 1, 2 & 3, on page 133 of the printed edition.

Either in Adam or in Christ?

J. N. Darby.

<23007E> 134

I have thought, on weighing the request of some as to a paper on the great principles of our being dead and risen with Christ, that a review of the progressive character of the blessing connected in scripture with it might be profitable for all. I have not the expectation of satisfying myself in what I shall present; but, as my purpose is to follow scripture, I may be able perhaps in the Lord's goodness to help others.

There are three great points to consider as regards sin (and I speak and purpose speaking entirely in a practical way): sins actually committed, involving us in guilt as regards deeds done in the body; the principle of sin as a law in our members, sin in the flesh; and separation from God. But in this last respect there are two aspects, separation of heart, and judicial separation. Both must be remedied.

The root of all sin is not in the lusts in which it is so hatefully shewn, but in having a will of our own, the departure of the will from God, the will to be independent, free to do our own will — "who is Lord over us?" When we do thus separate from God, we must have something, we cannot suffice to ourselves, and we sink into lusts, lusts in which our will works.

There is indeed another element which seems to me to have preceded both lust and will in man's fall, namely, distrust of God, which left him to the working of both.

Happy and confiding in God, he had no need to seek happiness in any other way; but Satan suggested to him that God had kept the forbidden fruit back from him, because if he ate it he would be as Elohim. Lust by this got entrance.

All this has to be remedied, and remedied according to the glory of God. Is that remedy a return to the old estate of man, a restoration or re-establishment of his original paradisaical state? is it that which is new — new, that is, as regards man? The answer is simple: it is wholly new. It is blessing in a second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. Man remains man, and the individual remains the individual; all their responsibility in their previous state recognized, and the glory of God provided for and vindicated as to it; but the state and blessing into which they are brought, as brought to God, is a wholly new one. It is God's way of doing this, and what He has done, which we are now to inquire into, according to the true and blessed word of God, who only can reveal these things.

135 It may be well first to turn to the responsibility of man as such, though the thoughts and purposes of God preceded it all. But the revelation of them came after it, as we shall notice, with the Lord's help, farther on.

Responsibility attaches to every creature who is placed in intelligent relationship with God. Wherever there is consciousness of such relationship, there is obligation to God in it. It may be in a holy nature, and obedience delighted in; in an innocent one, and little else but thankfulness known, save so far as we know it was in Adam, as obedience may be tested by commandment; or it may be in a state of sin, which does not alter the fact of relationship in which the fallen being stands, but his whole state is in such relative place. The first is the condition of the elect angels preserved by God, so that they have not left their first estate. The second was Adam's state before his fall. We may stay a moment to contemplate a state which passed away as if it were one intended only to give a lovely picture, that men might learn what it was, but incapable of lasting, the bright but peaceful freshness of morn for one who rises early to a busy and wearying day. Little is said of it, nothing of its joys. It was the true and real but transitory ushering in of that in which all moral truth has been brought out — of a scene which results for faith in a head anointed with oil, and a cup running over, favour that is better than life, and dwelling in the house of the Lord for ever, our Father's house, but not in itself the green pastures and waters of quietness which are the natural effect of the hand and guidance of the Good Shepherd.

The knowledge of good and evil was not there. The enjoyment of a good conscience was not there in the exercises which keep it without offence; there could not be a bad one. The peaceful natural enjoyment of goodness was there, and no thought of evil disturbed it. God could be thanked and praised, His gifts enjoyed. Evil, sin, sorrow, conflict, passions were unknown. It was a peaceful scene and a happy scene, occupation in what gave natural pleasure, innocent pleasure. They were set to dress the garden and keep it, and all was pleasant there; no want was there, nor would suggest itself. One only moral point bore another character, and tested willing subjection to God, namely, the ready acceptance of the divine will by a confiding soul. If man was to be a moral being at all, he must have obligation and responsibility somewhere: not in any object which supposed evil lusts — for he had none. It was obedience that was required, and simply obedience. What was forbidden would have been no sin, had it not been forbidden. It did not suppose sin in man: confidence in God would have made it easy and a delight. A dutiful child assumes the goodness as well as the rightness of a command, and both as well as the duty to obey. In fact up to the temptation all went on in peace.

136 This was the difference of man's and Satan's sin. He abode not in the truth, for there was no truth in him. Man was tempted into the knowledge of good and evil. The destruction of confidence, as we have said, lets in will and lust. It was dreadful to belie God's goodness in the midst of blessing, and trust one who could call it in question. All was really over then; for man was away from God, had ceased to believe what He said, had ceased to believe Him good — alas! no uncommon case since. But will and lust brought in this transgression at once, when the heart was away from God, and trusted itself and Satan — the history of our hearts ever since. Man had departed from God, sin had come in, transgression, and (by the fall) conscience, or the knowledge of good and evil. Up to this, righteousness and holiness were unknown to man; they require the knowledge of good and evil. But thus the normal relationship of man with God had closed; his responsibility could not, for he was a creature, and God his creator: nor was that all. He had himself the knowledge of good and evil, or (to make it intelligible) of right and wrong. His responsibility had taken the form of conscience, and relationship to a God forsaken indeed, but known, so far better as conscience makes us know Him, as a judge.

Into God's rest, Hebrews 4 teaches us, man in creation never entered. Such natural peacefulness without combat, as he may then have had for a moment, cannot be on earth now. There remaineth a rest for the people of God, where nature, then a new and divine one, will have it in fulness of blessing in God's own presence, where all will be according to the nature we have, without a disturbing element, yea, according to God's own nature, where we enter into God's rest.

But on the fall sin and responsibility ran on together in the place into which man, who had fled from God, was drawn out by God; and the world as such began. But man was separated from God, though He overruled all things. That which God has wrought for us as regards this state, and the accomplishment of His own counsels in grace towards us, is this: — perfectly meeting, according to His own righteous requirements, our state of sin connected with man's responsibility; closing, as to our standing before Him, our whole Adam life; laying a foundation, according to His own glory, for our being with Himself in that glory, in a new state altogether; giving us the life in which we can enjoy it; giving us the energy, revelations, and power of the Holy Ghost, by which, in this scene of combat and ruin, we may (through what He has given and done) be in relationship with Him according to the place He has set us in, and look forward to the glory; and finally, introducing us into the rest with and like Him, who being our title, is also our forerunner in glory — all in and through the second Man, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

137 As to responsibility and its effects, I may be brief. The place in which man was set according to God, the only place he had according to Him, he has wholly lost. He had turned away from God in heart, had fled from Him, through his newly acquired conscience, and has been driven out — that life and sin might not go on, for ever, together in the world. Return was precluded. This state and standing was in itself that of one wholly lost. Man was away from God. Mercies might and surely did remain, but place and relationship were wholly gone. In the judgment on the author of the calamity a promise was given, not to Adam, but on which faith might rest, that another should arise, and through His once suffering, totally destroy the power of him who had brought in the ruin. The Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This was simple promise and grace in another than Adam.

The two great principles of responsibility and life-giving had been set up in the garden. Man had failed in the first; and, having failed, was debarred in that state from perpetuating evil by the second. He could not be innocent and die. He could not be a sinner, and allowed to live for ever in the place of responsibility in wickedness. It would have been a horror. Return to innocence is in the nature of things impossible when good and evil are known.

But man was to be tested, having the knowledge of good and evil, and the pretension with it to be good and righteous. The result, though of all importance, I state rapidly, because it is surely familiar to most of your readers; I only, as necessary, recall it here.

138 Man has been tried, left to himself, though not without ample testimony and ground for faith. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence; and the judgment of God, in the deluge, closed a scene which had become intolerable in every way.

But the world, yet again, would not retain God in its knowledge, and, in its various national divisions, worshipped devils; for man must have some god.

God then began the distinct history of grace.

Promises were given to one called out, who became the spiritual, and to some, even natural, head of a race set apart to God: Abraham became the heir of the world. The great spring of hope being thus established, as the apostle reasons in the Galatians, the question of responsibility on the footing of revelation and special relationship was renewed: first, on the ground of requirement, man's obligations according to the true and perfect rule of them; secondly, on the ground of promise and grace.

The law was given by Moses. Israel, God's called and redeemed people, undertook to inherit the blessing, on the footing of doing all that Jehovah said to them; and a just rule of outward relative conduct to God and their neighbour, and that reaching to desire or coveting, was given to them. We know the result. The golden calf began, the Babylonish captivity closed, their path.

The second trial was on the ground of promise and grace, when Christ came and presented Himself in forgiving mercy and healing to Israel. It resulted in His rejection by His people; and they were finally cast off, to be restored only by sovereign grace, the grace of One faithful, at any rate, to His own promises. Isaiah 40-48 treats one; chaps. 49-57 the other of these trials.

But this last proof of man's state went farther. It was really a trial of man as man. As regards the law, the blessed Lord brought out a deeper essence than the ten words — loving God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves; and, as regards grace, He was the goodness of God manifest in the flesh, the light of men. It was not promise, it was the love of God — God present in love. But man's sin was thus fully brought out. For His love He had hatred. As God is love, He was hated, instead of loved with all the heart; as man, in gracious goodness and righteousness, they were His murderers instead of loving Him as themselves; they hated Him without a cause. This was too in full grace, Gentile wickedness being full, law-breaking in Israel already accomplished. But, though in the way to the judge, they would not be reconciled; and man's heart was fully tested by God's goodness.

139 The cross was the distinct witness of Israel's and man's sin. The mind of the flesh, of what man was in himself, was enmity against God. It had been fully tried and tested, and that by goodness. Its evil and will were only more and more brought out. It was manifested in its will (pure evil in the presence of pure good), not only by sins, though these abounded, but by the principle of sin and hatred of God. Amiable creature qualities there might be; but enmity against God, and self, was its root.

Was the flesh to be restored, or a new life and blessing to be brought in by Christianity? Is it the restoration of the first Adam, or salvation in and by the Second? Where is the place, the scene, in which the blessing is to have its result? To what does the life it is enjoyed in belong? To answer these questions we must look to the positive revelation of God, however that may be made good in the conscience when known.

I say, we must look to the purpose of God as revealed, to know fully what His mind as to this is. But we must look to the responsibility of man too; to the guilt under which he was lying as child of the first fallen Adam. For God's glory is affected by it.

I shall first call the attention of your readers to the purpose of God Himself as revealed in scripture. Ephesians 3 (as other passages) speaks of a mystery hidden from ages and generations, hid in God. But it adds, that now the manifold wisdom of God is known by the church, "according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." There was then a plan, before ever responsibility began, of glorifying God by the church in and with Jesus our. Lord. This precedes responsibility, which begins with creature relationship, and was dependent on it. Creation was the sphere of responsibility. Purpose belonged to God.

Nor is this all. Paul's apostleship (Titus 1: 2) was "in hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began." So 2 Timothy 1: 9, God "hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us, in Christ Jesus, before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ." The life which we have as Christians, new in us, is in origin before the worlds. "God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath life" — that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. This present world and time is but the scene where all this is developed and brought to light. Thus in Ephesians 3, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." So in Titus, "but hath in due times manifested his word by preaching." So in 2 Timothy 1: 10, "but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and incorruptibility to light by the gospel."

140 It is not, remark here, that there is a predestination of individuals, important as this may be in its place, but that the church — eternal life — the promise of that life — our present saving and calling, had their place before the world existed. The life itself had, in the Person of the blessed Son of God. And though from Adam individuals may have been, and were, quickened, they differed nothing from servants in their revealed standing. Life, the church, incorruptibility, our salvation and calling, have been brought to light and revealed, yea, as to the church, begin to exist since Christ came. But we must now inquire into the application of these truths, and how they are brought to bear on the child of Adam; how he has a part in the blessings contemplated in this purpose.

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." The blessed Son of God became Son of man, the last Adam, the second Man. He came as man before God, born of a woman, as under the law; Gal. 4: 4. In both He perfectly glorified God; walked as the obedient man, in the midst of temptation; and, as the law in the highest sense required, loved God with all His heart, and His neighbour as Himself. Victorious over Satan, as the first Adam had succumbed to him, He humbled Himself in obedience instead of seeking to exalt Himself by disobeying. In this God was perfectly glorified by man in Christ's Person. Responsibility, even in the most adverse circumstances, and every way put to the proof, was fully met, so that as man God had nothing to claim and found His delight. This was perfect as between Him and God, but redeemed no one. He abode alone, only so much the more perfect because He was, but still alone in it. As to His own perfectness, He could have had twelve legions of angels, but He did not come for that. Still this was an immense truth as to man and God and His glory. God had been perfectly glorified by a Man there in the scene where He had been dishonoured.

141 This in itself was of immense moment and to the glory of our blessed Lord. Not that this could be tested without His death, for the question was till then (not for faith but for fact), Will He be faithful in spite of everything? He was. His death threw back the light of absolute unmingled obedience on all His life from His birth on. He came to do God's will; His will was the spring of all He did; and if He had to learn what obedience was in this world of sin, where it had to be made good, He was, in spite of all suffering, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He was the blessed, gracious, perfect man, but the obedient man, as Adam had been the disobedient one — the obedient one in the midst of all suffering and trial, as Adam was disobedient in the midst of blessings.

In this, God had been glorified in man; but He was thinking too of all of us, of His glory in grace and purpose. He was going to bring many sons to glory. But these sons were found in sin, guilty too in fact in every way. All that the first Adam produced hateful to God was thus to be removed; and where grace and God Himself had been revealed in Christ, it only, as we have seen, drew out hatred in man. Other questions arose, though questions connected with sin in one way or another; death which stood out against man; and as regards the Jews, there was the breach of the law and positive transgression; and in rejecting Christ, not only man's common sin, but the rejection and the loss of the promises in Messiah, the promised Seed. Messiah was cut off and (surely the only true translation) had nothing.

But we may now see what, in the substance and purpose of it, was the import of the cross. As regards the previous Adam state and its fruits, and (I may add) any special transgressions of Jews against law, it was by the deep and blessed work of atonement, the total putting away of all guilt for the believer, all the fruits of the old nature were blotted out and effaced — gone out of God's sight; so it proved the righteousness of God as passing over in forbearance the sins of Old Testament saints (Rom. 3), and sets the believer now, Jew or Gentile, righteously clear in God's sight before Him in peace — this as regards the sins of the old Adam, or, if a Jew, transgressions also under law. They are gone. The work as to this had a double character. The blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat so that it should be presented to all, it was the righteousness of God towards all; and as the sins of His whole people were confessed and borne, so that there were none to impute.

142 This met responsibility as to the old man. As children of Adam we were under guilt in this place and condition. All is perfectly cleared; and we are before God white as snow, righteously owned as clear. But there was the tree as well as the fruit, the evil will, the lawlessness of nature Jew or Gentile, by nature the children of wrath. But Christ has died a sacrifice for sin. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [a sacrifice for sin, peri amartias] condemned sin in the flesh." Sin in the flesh, the principle of evil working and producing sin in us, is condemned. I do not say sins are, but sin; but it is condemned when a sacrifice was made for it, when it was put away by Christ's sacrifice of Himself. It is not forgiven: we doubtless are, as to it. An evil principle cannot properly be forgiven; it is condemned, but put away judicially by atonement in the sight of God by Christ's sacrifice. All that constituted the old man in God's sight is put away wholly in Christ's death, and that judicially by a work which has glorified God as to it; it was what became Him.

Thus far God has been glorified by Christ's perfect personal obedience as man, and by His work in atonement for sin. This work indeed for sin goes much farther. The whole new estate of the universe is founded on it. As remarked elsewhere, all God's dealings with this world are now on the ground that sin is there — must be, because it is there. But Christ has wrought a work in virtue of which God's relationship with the world, the new heavens and the new earth, when all is accomplished, will be on the ground neither of innocence nor of sin, but of righteousness. He is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin (not the sins — this He does not do, as falsely cited) of the world. But as to this object of Christ's death, that is, as to man as a sinful child of Adam and sin in the flesh, this is not all. Christ not only died in the consummation of ages (that is, when man's probation was fully gone through, as we have seen) to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, but He died to sin. He, the sinless One, closed all His connection with the whole fallen Adamic scene and Adamic state by death He, ever sinless in it, had come into this scene in grace, walked up and down in it, had been tempted in all points, and carried obedience on to death, and had thus done with the whole scene, and with the sin which He had to say to as long as He was here, though it had only proved at the end, as a result, that He knew no sin, that He lived as a man out of it and above it. Had He stopped short of death, that could not have been said, though now we can say so; we know He died to it.

143 Thus Christ was no longer connected with man in the state in which life in man was sin, though in Him sinless but tempted, and by temptation even to death proved sinless. Satan had tried to introduce sin into it in Him, but in vain; and now He died to it, ceased to be associated with man in that way absolutely by death. The estate of life in which He had thus to say to man ceased. He destroyed the power of death then, and annulled his power who had it, by undergoing the full extent of it, and rose into another condition of human life, in which man had never yet been at all, the firstfruits of those that slept. But the resurrection of Christ was not only divine power in life, and that in Christ Himself, who had power to lay down life and power to take it again; there was another truth in it. Divine righteousness was shewn in it. He could not be holden by it, but all the Father's glory was involved in this resurrection. His Person made it impossible He could be holden of it. His Father's glory, all that the Son was to Him, was concerned in His resurrection; but, He having perfectly glorified God in dying and finished His Father's work, divine righteousness was involved in His resurrection. And He was raised and righteousness identified with a new state into which man in Him was brought, and more than that indeed, for more was justly due to Him — He was set in glory as man at the right hand of God.

But for this another thing was needed. Not only did the blessed Lord meet for us who believe all our sin as children of Adam, by His death, so as to clear us according to the glory of God from it all in His sight, but He perfectly glorified God Himself in so doing. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him." So John 17: 4, 5. Hence, as stated in both these passages, Man in the Person of Christ entered into the glory of God. But it was wrought for us; our sin was put away by it. Christ, as having thus glorified all God is, is our righteousness. We are thus the righteousness of God in Him. We have a positive title to enter into that glory as regards righteousness, though owning it all to be grace (grace reigns through righteousness), and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, by the work and worth of Christ. "As he is, so are we in this world." But this took place in Him as entering into, beginning in His Person a new place of human existence, a risen man entered into glory. The power of eternal life was in it. Dead to the old scene and all that state of being and place and ground of relationship to God, He lives, in that He lives, to God. Christ has thus His perfect place of acceptance as Man with God, and we in Him. He is gone in the power of divine life, save according to divine righteousness, into divine glory.

144 A further truth connects itself with this. Christ risen and ascended has sent down the Holy Ghost which unites us to Him, so that we are in Him, members of His body, sitting in Him in heavenly places. Moreover, the Holy Ghost dwells in us. I will, with the Lord's help, take up this farther on. I only notice here, in connection with our present subject, that the Holy Spirit makes us clearly know the efficacy of Christ's work and our redemption; so that we are at liberty, knowing on the one hand that our sins are put away, on the other that we are in Christ. He is the earnest of the glory, the Spirit of adoption, and sheds the love of God, who has done all this, abroad in our hearts. We know that we are in Christ, and Christ in us. Yea, we dwell in God, and God in us; and we know it. His presence is more than this, but I reserve this part for a moment to consider our place in Christ.

The double effect of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ will be noticed here. There was, we have seen, responsibility to God on one side as born of Adam in the world, and God's purpose on the other, to bring us to glory and privilege in the second Adam. Christ has perfectly met one for us, and entered Himself, consequent on the work of redemption, into the other. He has glorified God as to the first Adam's state, but has died to it; not that He was ever in any of the sin of it, save as bearing it, but as with us here below as men, in like manner taking part of flesh and blood with the children in the likeness of sinful flesh, and made sin for us on the cross, when fully manifested as in that state knowing no sin. Now He is entered into the glory, the glory He had with the Father before the world was, as second Adam according to the purpose of God as to man, and according to righteousness; John 16, 17.

145 Our state, our salvation, hangs on this: and we may add, the whole condition of the Jews or the fulfilment of promises on the earth. The sure mercies of David are based on and identified with the resurrection of the Lord, as surely as He died for that nation also.

The cross is for God's glory, our salvation, and our state before God; it is the turning point of everything.

First: our sins, and sin, are put away. All is clean gone in God's sight according to God's glory.

But as alive and having our place in Christ, we see and are in Him as having died to that whole estate and condition, suffering as Son of man. The cross, as it shewed man's rejection of Him as come into the world in grace, so it breaks in an absolute way (nothing so absolute as death to close our connection with what we lived in, and the rather as He was rejected in will by man), with all He was in as alive down here. Our guilt as responsible men has been perfectly met for God, but we have done too in Him as to our life and standing before God with all down here by the cross. We are baptized to His death. It is the point we come to, we are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, but not we, but Christ lives in us. "We are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God"; we are to reckon ourselves dead. Hence we say with the apostle, "when we were in the flesh"; we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwell in us; if not, we are none of His. If we are Christians, our only true standing is in Him, as having died and risen from the dead.

I can well understand a Christian knowing only that, as a sinner, as guilty, Christ has died for him, and so seeing what he can rely on before God as a judge; and he is blessedly right; but his true standing, his place with God, is in Christ risen. "If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins"; and in this is for the Christian, as quickened, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which makes him free. The standing and life of the Christian, as such, rests in this; for he is risen with Christ, in this place before God, not in Adam state or nature: Christ has died the just for the unjust, so that he is not for faith in that at all, but alive from the dead through Jesus Christ our Lord.

146 But, further, Christ has gone up on high, as man, into glory, and as His work was for us, righteousness must put us there. All beyond the cross is not thus meeting our responsibility, but bringing in God's purpose. The good pleasure of His will was to give us sonship with Christ, adoption and glory with Him. Yet this according to God must be in righteousness and holiness too. It is righteous, for God has been perfectly glorified in His whole being and nature by Christ on the cross. And we know the firstfruits of this in His being glorified (John 13, 17); but thus it becomes according to sovereign grace and purpose indeed, but righteous, that we should be in the glory with Him. It was free purpose, but now according to what God is, righteous, and according to His holiness too, for Christ is our life withal not our sinful Adam one — a nature which cannot sin, for we are born of God. Thus the flesh is judged as entirely evil and we are of God; and, through grace, according to righteousness, our standing is in Christ before Him.

The Holy Ghost the Comforter is therefore given us as soon as Christ went up on high; and thus we know not only that we are risen with Him, but that we are in Him and He in us. This sets our standing, and consciously so, through the Holy Ghost in Christ; sitting in heavenly places in Him, accepted in the Beloved: — a blessed place; but this in purpose. Responsibility was there. It has been met according to God's full requirements. His resurrection is the witness of that, and so insisted on in Romans, not ascension there; so 1 Corinthians 15: 17. We are justified through His blood. But there was a value in Christ's work for God's own glory, His righteousness, majesty, love, truth, all He is and according to purpose. This done for us (good and evil being known) and in the way of redemption, gives us a righteous and blessed place in perfect love in the presence of God and our Father, according to a life and nature, and in a place, which Adam innocent had not at all. Our place in heaven is founded on the glorifying of God. Ephesians 1 brings this fully out.

147 I may add collaterally that, through far inferior and national, yet divinely given, joys and promises, this is true of Israel — true, I mean, that the death of Christ has broken all relationship with God founded on flesh, or connected with their standing as heirs of promise as to it, though to secure them on a surer basis. He who was heir of the promises came, as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. But if Israel in the flesh was naturally heir to them, Jews by nature, He laboured in vain, and spent His strength for nought and in vain. His people would have none of Him. The bill of their divorcement ran thus: "Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer?" Often would He, the Jehovah of Israel, have gathered Jerusalem's children, and they would not. If they had but even now known, in the day of their visitation, the things that belonged to their peace! but now they were hid from their eyes. Not only was Israel thus shut out according to their title to the promise, but the Messiah must give up, as thus come in the flesh, all that belonged to Him as so come in the flesh, though His work was perfect and with His God. He was cut off, and had nothing: so only it can really be translated. But this, by the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God, brought Israel, like the Gentiles, under pure mercy, as the apostle teaches us in Romans 11; and God, ever faithful to His promises, His gifts and calling, without repentance on His part, accomplishes them, but in pure grace, and yet in righteousness, through Christ's dying for that nation, and the mercies of David are assured in His resurrection from the dead. They indeed will enjoy the blessings of the new covenant and all their promises down here, but through Christ's death, and based on His resurrection. But, as in a deeper and more absolute work in us, their blessings are given with the complete setting aside of all their old standing under the old covenant in flesh, and founded anew on the cross and the resurrection of Christ. But this by the bye.

I may add that what came on man by sin, death, as well as an awaiting judgment, Christ has truly gone down into, and broken its power for the quickened soul for ever; resurrection has told its tale, and the power of death as the dread of judgment is gone for the believer for ever.

But this is not all. The Holy Ghost has been given to dwell in us, for we are cleansed. And as Christ has done that work which is the foundation of the eternal blessing of heaven and earth, so the Holy Ghost has been given to us to unite us with Him and dwell in us, so as to set us, as in Him and He in us, in the centre of the whole scene of His glory. This will be perfectly so in the ages to come. But even now, not only are we one with Him, according to Ephesians 1, but the Holy Ghost is in us, and the apostle looks to our being strengthened with might by It in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, and able to comprehend all the glory on every side, length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, filled even to all the fulness of God. Thus it is we are a testimony. Thus it is that glory is to God in the church throughout all ages. Thus the way Christ the blessed Lord has perfectly glorified God Himself on the cross, in His death, brings us into that glory according to divine purpose in and with Him, and fills us with the Spirit, that we may be able to comprehend all the glory of which Christ is the centre, and know the love which has made the glorious One bring us so into the centre of all with Himself to whom all glory belongs (all things that the Father has are His, and we, children, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Him) — not only bring us with Him there, but, better yet, give us Himself, and with Him a place with Him in the Father's love.

148 The result is this: the whole standing, condition, estate in life of the believer is changed, not outwardly as to the body yet, as is evident, but in relation to God, and that really by a new life. He is as completely out of the old as a man is out of the life of his former state when he has died, and now he looks to live with Christ who is risen; yea in spirit as having partaken of life from Him when risen, he can say he is risen with Him. His place before God is in Christ risen, not in Adam in the flesh. But as he is there by the death and resurrection of Christ, he is there according to the value of what He has there wrought: that is, all his sins, all he was in the first Adam, atoned for and put away totally and wholly out of God's sight. He is fit, according to God's own work and nature, for God's sight and presence. Morally he is justified before God; and, as regards God's nature and presence, he must be fitted for it to be in it. And Christ has perfectly glorified God Himself.

Harmless, holy, in love we must be to be there. Hence in Ephesians 1: 4 it is not said according to the good pleasure of His will. We must be that according to God's nature. But here, as we have seen, we cannot leave out God's purpose, if we would know His mind about us. His good pleasure was to predestinate us to the adoption of children, and bring us in glory as such into His presence. Such was the worth of Christ's death; so did He therein glorify God, that this purpose is righteously accomplished, and He becomes our life as risen, that we may have this place, and He, in unspeakable goodness, be the firstborn among many brethren.

149 But there is yet more. He in an especial way loved the church, and gave Himself for it, and thus it has a place with Himself as His body and His bride, and He nourishes and cherishes it, as a man would his own flesh. By the Holy Ghost, consequently given to us, we know our place thus given to us, sonship in present consciousness, the bride's relationship in divinely given knowledge. For the former [sonship] is individual, the latter clearly not. So far we learn what closely connects itself with it, that individually we know we are in Christ and Christ in us. But we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. We are consciously in Him in the presence of God, holy and without blame before Him in love, and the Father's children by Him: "as he is so are we in this world." This, according to God's purpose, is justly founded on His perfectly glorifying God in His offering of Himself. This is our place with and before God, a perfect one as and in Christ. Ephesians 1 brings it most richly before us.

This is privilege, not testimony, save as all privilege rightly so acts as to produce testimony. But, besides, Christ is in us; the Holy Ghost dwells in us individually and in the assembly. And here present joy, responsibility, and testimony come in. We have fellowship (the blessed Lord being our life) with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, that our joy may be full; we abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost; the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. Yea, "we know that we dwell in God, and God in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."

Our responsibility depends on this too. It is often thought that responsibility is connected with uncertainty. It is a mistake. Responsibility is founded on the relationship we are in. If we are always in it, we are responsible to act rightly in it. My child is my child, and cannot be otherwise. Hence he is always bound to act and feel as my child. Were he not in the relation, he would not; and so of others. We are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of promise by which we are sealed to the day of redemption. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost; we are not to use them for sin. We are to walk worthy of the calling wherewith we are called, in the unity of the Spirit.

150 Hence, when the apostle has shewn the church in that unity as the dwelling-place of God and us all heirs of glory in our position in Christ, he prays according to the riches of that glory, that we may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. And thus God was to be glorified in the church by Christ Jesus — this by a power that works in us. This becomes thus testimony. So the church is a testimony to principalities and powers in heavenly places. So are we called on to mortify our members on earth; to apply the cross to all the workings of flesh in us and every movement of our will; to mortify by the Spirit the deeds of the body. And the result, as in Paul, of bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus is that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal body.

Thus our being in Christ is the highest possible place as to standing, and perfect. But God's dwelling in us, our being individually and collectively His habitation and temple, Christ's dwelling in our hearts by faith — here is the power of fellowship grounded on our standing; here our responsibility, our state tested, as compared with our standing, not to put this to doubt but to use it; here the character, means, and way of our testimony.

We then are to reckon ourselves dead; we are not in the flesh at all, but in the Spirit; in Christ who has died, and justified us as to all we were in Adam, before God; alive to God through Him, and in Him members of His body. We are not to know ourselves as alive in the flesh, but as having died and risen again; not to know even Him after the flesh (that is, as down here connected with man and with Israel, as in the world) but as passed through death to all here, and by resurrection into glory and a new state, to begin and be the Head of a new creation, of which we are the firstfruits.

I do not pursue the consequences of this as to law, conflict, and other collateral subjects. My object was to lay the great basis of truth as to it, as scripture states it. We must look at the atonement in all its truth to know it thoroughly. No compassionate remembrance of weakness was there, no patience with poor dust and ashes as we are. God had no need — it was not the time — to consider weakness, as if the spirits should fail before Him, and the souls which He had made. One was there who could drink the cup, made sin before Him; and all the outgoings of the divine nature against sin were let loose against sin, as such, on One able to sustain it, that sin might be put away out of God's sight, according to His nature, that eternal blessing might be in righteousness before Him. Our special place must then be sought in His purpose. The foundation in righteousness is according to His nature; not merely the putting away of the old thing, needed for God's glory as it was, rebellion, and disobedience, and sin; but Christ by glorifying God entering as man into (yea, beginning) the new thing, the fulness of which will be in eternity, and in that the First-begotten from the dead, the Head of the body, the church, and withal the Firstborn among many brethren conformed to the image of God's Son in glory.

151 The Lord make us to know how truly it is all new. If permitted, I may enter more specifically into the prayer of Ephesians 3, and compare it with that of the first. For the present I confine myself to a skeleton of the whole subject. The reader will find the question of righteousness, and the essential character of the new thing through death and resurrection, treated of in the Epistle to the Romans; the purpose of God, our place in His presence in Christ, and His dwelling in us to fill us with blessing, in Ephesians. Hence, as to doctrine, Romans does not go beyond resurrection; Ephesians goes to ascension and union.

Evangelical Protestantism and the Biblical studies of M. Godet.

J. N. Darby.

<23008E> 152

The following pages were hastily penned at the request of a person who was keenly affected by the teaching which M. Godet's books presented in a popular form to the Christian public. Others having read the manuscript requested that it might be printed on account of the extreme gravity of the false doctrines it exposes. It was not without some reluctance that the author yielded to this request, the evidence of which will appear in the opening lines of this little work.

Besides mentioning the imperfections attached to a work undertaken whilst travelling, and in the midst of the innumerable fatigues accompanying the ministry of the word, the author considered, that in order to form a correct idea of his system as a whole, it would have been needful for him to make himself acquainted with all M. Godet's works. He has therefore merely limited himself to noting three essential points, which will suffice in his opinion to warn the people of the Lord against a teaching that assails His word, His Person, and His work.

M. Godet has many times answered the objections of rationalists, and this I acknowledge gladly. Had not the writings now before me falsified the very gospel itself, I should never have taken the pen in hand. I shall, in these writings, examine but three fundamental points relating to the gospel: the authority of the word, and inspiration: the Person of Christ: and, lastly, His work. I have during my life had too much of controversy to seek for it. In one's old age moral repose, Christ Himself, is that which the heart seeks beyond all else.

It is somewhat difficult, to one whose thoughts have been derived from the word itself, to answer such a book as that of M. Godet, in which the author, while availing himself of expressions used by that word, attaches to them some peculiar signification of his own. Thus the scriptures speak of redemption as the work of the Saviour, and that according to the common acceptation of the word, although the means used to work out that redemption are not in accordance with the world's thoughts. The scriptures speak of redemption as of a deliverance effected by a ransom, and subsequently by a power producing a full result in behalf of those for whom that ransom has been paid. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences," Eph. 1: 9. "Awaiting adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body," Rom. 8: 23.

153 Redemption, according to M. Godet, is but a positive interposition of God in the history of mankind — a work of education which has put on the character of a redemption. This work appears in the election of one family, and it is seen in development as that family gradually becomes transformed into a people. The manner in which M. Godet seeks to justify this definition of redemption is somewhat peculiar. He thus quotes 1 Corinthians 1: 21: "Since by wisdom the world has not known God in his wisdom, it has pleased God to save by the foolishness of preaching those who believe." I confess that by no efforts of reflection have I succeeded in comprehending how this passage shews redemption to be a work of education. The quotation moreover is false. It is written, "since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom hath not known God, God hath been pleased, by the foolishness of the preaching, to save those that believe." One of the unpleasant things that occur in such of M. Godet's writings as I have examined is, that at least half the passages he uses are inaccurately quoted.

According to the author, promised salvation is by Christ's advent consummated in His Person; the people, having rejected Him, perishes; and then salvation is proclaimed to the world by the elect of the nation. "And by this double result of Israel's history the religion of redemption with all its antecedents becomes divinely sealed." Is this the redemption of which the Bible speaks?

But let us proceed. "To this primary fact, a second is necessarily attached. The work of redemption, which we have just sketched out, has been accompanied by a work of revelation." "How has God accomplished this great work?" — that is, that of redemption — "He has made use of human agents for this work. And to effect this, it was needful for Him to attract, to win, and to attach them to Himself. Consequently it was necessary to make known to them His projected work — to unfold the scheme, at least according to the measure in which they were to participate in the execution of it. He must also make them contemplate prospectively its glorious goal, in order that they might be enabled to interest themselves by acquaintance with the purpose, and be labourers with Him in it, in a manner worthy of the work and of God Himself, with conscience and liberty." "The phases of revelation also keep pace with those of redemption." "At the period when God called Abraham to found with Himself the work of redemption, He revealed Himself to him."

154 There are many things I might take up in the pages whence I make these quotations, but I abstain from so doing, my aim being to expose the basis of M. Godet's system. I shall, I trust, abstain from expressing my own sentiments with regard to all stated by the author. At this time I shall occupy myself less with his manner of presenting revelation than with the views he presents in another work upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Possibly I may be wrong; but I fear offending that Saviour by using expressions which might give occasion to believe that I knew not by what spirit I was actuated. Therefore I shall confine myself to placing the views contained in these books in contrast with what is found in the word.

My reader might suppose that, in speaking of revelation and the work of the prophets, M. Godet occupied himself with the Bible. Not so. The Bible, as such, is to him no revelation, and this he formally avows. At page 10 he says, "The Bible therefore, notice it well, is not revelation itself; it is, properly speaking, the narrative given of revelation." "The statement" of those truths is "the authentic document of the redemption of the human race, as well as of the revelation by which that work has been accompanied." What then is revelation? It is "a fact which has its place between God and His agent; the place of holy scripture is between that agent and the rest of humanity" (ibid). With regard to the first part of the last phrase, I should have no difficulty in accepting it, were not the definition of the word revelation in question. Whether it be applied to the immediate communication God makes to the instrument He deigns to employ, or whether it be solely applied to the fact that that instrument through the Spirit announces to others what has been revealed to him, it is equally "a revelation from God."

But if one limits oneself to consider the communication made to the instrument employed, then in that which concerns us (us, "the remainder of mankind"), what have we got, we who are not the recipients of that immediate communication? We have a given statement — but given by whom? Is that given statement a correct one? "An authentic document" is too vague a term to throw a true light on this point; moreover this is all extremely superficial. It is, in fact, to us no question of whether the document be authentic, but whether its entire contents be absolutely true and given by God. The expression itself is very inaccurate. It is no given statement.

155 A very large part of the Bible, even on M. Godet's confession, professes to give the words of the Lord. "All the writings and some part of the prophetic scriptures, have these words for title: 'Thus saith the Lord.'" (p. 42.) Is it true or not? If that is true, there is no distinction between revelation and the Bible. The Bible is revelation itself set down in writing. M. Godet says, "The veracious document of the word of salvation." (p. 46). If it is veracious, we have, in all that it contains, revelation itself; and that does not only apply to prophecy but to law. It tells us there, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying." Is it true or not? The history of the creation, that of Abraham, etc., are they a collection of Elohistic or Jehovistic legends; or is it a written revelation? Man should live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Where find these words if the account rendered and revelation are not identical — if the Bible does not give us words from the mouth of God, that is, say, the revelation?

At the time of the temptation in the desert, all depended upon the fact that the Saviour yielded not in that moment. The first Adam had yielded; thank God, the Second could not fail, while all depended upon His standing firm to conquer the strong man. How did He obtain the victory? By citing that which is written. The scripture was sufficient for the Son of God as divine authority. He referred to words which proceeded from the mouth of God. Scripture cited, one single passage sufficed for Satan, reducing him to silence, the absolute testimony of his defeat. The Saviour made use only of scripture, although Satan quoted it also — falsely if you will, but in order cunningly to avail himself of the written word of God. The Saviour maintained His standing within that divine enclosure of safety, "It is written again." By those words that proceeded from the mouth of God, the victory on which our salvation depended was won. To the Saviour they possessed a divine and absolute authority — and to Satan also — and that in such a sort that he dared not reply. Had he done so, he would openly have betrayed himself as the adversary; and to man — to one Man at least — to Christ. Blessed are all they who follow Him!

156 But I anticipate somewhat. Let us bear in mind that the question concerns the communication from God to man; this we all recognize. In speaking of revelation, M. Godet says (p. 14), "They who receive it receive it not solely for themselves. The work of which it unveils the meaning has the world for its object." It is clear that revelation was not given to be the property solely of him who received it. It might so happen, and has so happened: but, as a general proposition, revelation is received by an agent to be communicated to others. Revelation was not for the channel to which it was confided, but for the people of God, for the church, and for the sinful world.

We will now return to M. Godet's theory, that also of all who deny the inspiration of the scriptures, who deny it in the full, entire, ordinary, and common acceptation of that word. The Bible IS the word of God. God has revealed to certain chosen instruments His thoughts and His purpose according as it seemed good to Him so to do, and, in thus doing, to use M. Godet's own expression, God has the world as His object. This communication was made from God Himself to the prophets. The communication is divine — partial it may be, but perfect. The communication is from God Himself, the prophet receiving it as given by God. But, although the world be His object — not the prophet — the world receives but a given statement of that revelation! The prophet, to the best of his ability, communicates to others what he has received. Thus the world, which is the object God had in view, receives revelation only as transmitted with all the imperfections which pertain to the exercise of the human mind, and to human faculties in connection with divine things — to the memory, for instance — in fact to all the weaknesses pertaining to our poor nature. The world possesses but a transmitted statement of the complete, perfect, and divine revelation, supplied by the men who received it; nevertheless revelation was made and communicated, as having the world and its well-being for its object!

Is this a theory that bears the impress of common sense? and what is it as concerns divine goodness? God desired to communicate to the world the mighty efficacy of the truth. He revealed that truth to chosen instruments; but the world, for whom He destined it, and His beloved church, could and can only receive it spoiled and marred by the weaknesses of the channels of communication, for whom personally it was not designed! And this is called rational! Nor is this all. The question becomes yet more serious, when the New Testament and more especially the Gospels are concerned, those given statements of events in which redemption was at least consummated, even though redemption be but the goal of the education of man. Manifestly this is of more importance than all besides. M. Godet speaks of it thus (p. 43): "The contradictions between the Gospel recitals. But our Gospels, as we have seen, are not revelation. Revelation is the fact related — it is Jesus, His work, His word. Our evangelists describe that fact to the best of their ability; one or two among them qualified from having been eye-witnesses, the others from such information as they were able to obtain."

157 But then, as regards the most important point, as regards redemption, there has been no revelation at all, because "revelation is a fact placed between God and His agent" (p. 16), whilst our evangelists speak merely from their title of being eye-witnesses, or from such information as they were able to obtain. It is a matter of personal memory, and even of second-hand communication, since M. Godet relies on the legends of the primitive church, to which he often refers. Mark, for instance, according to M. Godet, has, at the request of the Roman Christians, given his own reminiscences of the remembrances of Peter. Matthew has "edited the discourses," but another has added the facts that link these discourses together as well as it could be done. Luke, having made use of documents already published, probably made some expeditions into Galilee during Paul's imprisonment at Caesarea, in order to collect together all the possible recollections which the memories of the Galileans could retain; and then from these materials Luke composed a history in the Grecian style, the only one which merited that name. (See "The origin of our four Gospels." Biblical Studies: second series.)

M. Godet also says (of "M. Colani," p. 38), "I agree to it without any difficulty. Many of M. Colani's objections appear to me weighty, and some decisive, against a certain manner of considering the Bible, which might confound it with revelation." Thus we are left without any revelation, for we have but the Bible; and that, with such contradictions in its most important portion as to falsify the given statement, as to render it not from God but to base it upon the memories of Peter, of Mark or of the Galileans, and thus raise positive obstacles and hindrances to one's considering that which we have in the New Testament to be a revelation from God! And here we fall lower than ever. The greater part of the Old Testament was based upon communications from God to agents. Those communications were revelations. In the New Testament Jesus and His word are the fact, that is, revelation; and all that we get is only a matter of memory, bringing contradictions into the narrations! Our evangelists describe the fact to the best of their ability. The Christ is a revelation, but, according to M. Godet, we have no revelation of the Christ!

158 It is important that I should here point out a certain method of presenting inspiration (a method common to M. Godet and to all who oppose inspiration, but which serves to lead the simple astray). He speaks thus (Biblical Studies, p. 48): "To require a Bible dictated word for word from heaven would be requiring a book that would supplant human thought instead of fertilizing it; a book making a passive instrument of man, instead of calling his intelligent and free co-operation into request . . . . Would that be more divine?" We must not expect M. Godet to agree with himself. At page 44 we read: "When it is granted to a man to confer directly with Jehovah, two things simultaneously take place in him. Every creature, himself included, disappears into nothingness. God remains before him as the Being who alone is great, alone real." This has certainly some appearance of "supplanting human thought" — has it not? Now, not being inspired myself, I do not intend to define inspiration; were I so, I do not imagine it would be possible for me to explain it to one who was not. What I seek is God's thought; I neither seek to "supplant" nor to "fertilize human thought." But to define inspiration as being "word for word dictated from heaven," is but a human idea of the subject. When it has been written, "Thus saith Jehovah," or "Jehovah said unto Moses," either He has said it, or words have been put into the mouth of Jehovah, words which are not His own. God Himself makes a distinction in the form, but not in the authority of revelation; Num. 12: 6-8. Tongues were spoken which the person who used them could not understand. This was truly "supplanting human thoughts"; but Paul preferred to speak with his understanding. God could fill his heart with glorious and holy thoughts, and so keep him filled with them that nothing should be there, and consequently nothing be expressed, but that which God had placed there. These were the thoughts of God, but through the power of the Spirit became the thoughts, the joy, of a man, creating in him an intelligence, moulding his heart and divinely enlightening his conscience. God could in such sort possess Himself of the intelligence, the heart, and the conscience, that nothing could either enter in or flow out but what He had put there. This is also the highest character of inspiration, because all that is revealed belongs to us; whereas the prophets, in searching into their own prophecies, found it was not for themselves they ministered those things. Be it as it may, is it not wretched in the extreme to put "a Bible dictated word for word from heaven" in contrast with human thought, instead of discerning the operation of the Spirit of God, and man's mind formed by the communication of purely divine thoughts, they being adapted to man, and also received by him through the work of the Spirit of God?

159 Let us now examine how the word presents itself to us: for its absolute perfection as a whole, and its intrinsic power, cannot be known but by those in whom it operates. In the law it is, as we have seen, "Jehovah spake unto Moses." Is this true or not? If it be true, we have the word of God, and not merely a revelation made to Moses, but the word of God such as Moses received it. Pass on to the Psalms of David. "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said," 2 Sam. 23: 2, 3. If the given statement be true, the Psalms of David are the word of God itself; if it be false, there is even no piety in them, for it is not piety but fanaticism to say, "The word of God was upon my tongue," if it had not been there. Now the Lord Jesus has on many occasions put His seal to the whole Book of Psalms; the prophets in their turn declare, "Thus saith Jehovah." The word of Jehovah was with Jeremiah. This is Zechariah's appeal to the conscience of the residue of the people who returned from Babylon (Zech. 1: 4-6): "Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear nor hearken unto me, saith Jehovah; your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? But my words and my statutes which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers?" These were the words of Jehovah, and they were proved to be such. Jehovah also, and the apostles, have formally put the seal to that which the prophets have spoken, and mark it well, to that which they had spoken as we have it in the scriptures, and there alone.

160 And mark also this important point — it is not the word in the scriptures, in the Bible, but it is the scriptures themselves as such. It is not simply such and such a passage acting effectually upon me (though this may be the case), but it is the authority of Him who speaks by that means. It is not my mind judging the word, it is the word, God by His word, acting upon me; it is His authority established over my heart. The Samaritan woman did not say, "What thou sayest is true," but "I perceive that thou art a prophet." Thus all that He had said had authority itself as coming from God. It is the operation of the Spirit of God that imparts spiritual intelligence by the conscience, by faith — faith with regard to Him who speaks. God is known as being in it; it is divine intelligence. I do not reason to prove that the sun shines; I do not light a candle to know it: the light acts upon me and lightens me. I not only see the object on which my sight is directed, but I know that the light shines.

Let us now see what the New Testament teaches. What was it caused the Sadducees to err? They knew not the scriptures. What did the Lord quote to enlighten the two disciples of Emmaus? Moses and all the prophets. And what did He quote to the twelve? The law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, that is, the entire scriptures of the Old Testament, according to the Jewish division of them, as we possess them now. To the Lord these were authority. He founds His teaching upon them. Then He opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures (Luke 24), which would have been perfectly incredible and unintelligent had the scriptures not been the word of God. Would God give by divine power a special understanding to understand a human-given statement, which was as correct as its author could possibly render it from such information as he had been able to obtain? or is there a divine revelation for the Jew, and no divine revelation for the Christian in respect of the accomplishment of the truth as it is in Christ? Peter said (Acts 3: 18), "God hath thus fulfilled what he had announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets." The Lord declared (John 103, "The scripture cannot be broken." These, we are told, were Jewish prejudices. Did the Lord then confirm them in their Jewish prejudices in order to deceive them?

161 It is impossible to deny that the Lord and His apostles quote, contemplate, and in every manner encourage us to contemplate the scriptures as being altogether the word of God, and invested with His authority. They may present us the history and the words of wicked men, even of Satan himself; but it is God who gives us them, so that we know that which is according to God. So much is this the case that Paul fears not to say, "The scripture, seeing that God would justify the nations on the principle of faith, announced beforehand the glad tidings to Abraham." The scripture to him is so thoroughly the word of God, that he personifies it, as though God Himself spoke; such in fact it was by His Spirit. It is specially and expressly not a question of what has been revealed to the prophet, but of that which has been revealed by the prophet.*

{*See the expression in Matthew 1: 22; ch. 2: 15, which the Lord had said by that prophet. It is upo tou kuriou and dia tou prophetou.}

The scriptures are in question. There may have been many communications we do not possess, as having been given only for some special occasions. That which concerns the people of God for every age is contained in the scriptures, forming a whole. "No prophecy [says Peter] of scripture is had from its own particular interpretation; for prophecy was not ever uttered by [the] will of man, but holy men of God spake under the influence of [the] Holy Ghost." When the professing church bears the practical character of paganism, "having a form of piety, but denying the power of it," to what does the apostle refer us? To the holy scriptures, saying, "Every scripture is divinely inspired . . . that the man of God may be complete." Divine inspiration characterized that which has the right to be called "scripture" in its ordinary sense. That which Timothy was acquainted with was doubtless the Old Testament. If I call the New Testament "scripture," the New is inspired; if not, it has no title to the name of "scripture." Peter also, speaking of Paul's epistles, says that "the untaught and ill-established wrest [them] as also the other scriptures." Paul, speaking in general of the writings addressed by the apostles to the Gentiles, calls them "prophetic scriptures," for such is the true sense of Romans 16: 27.

162 I know not if M. Godet would exclude the most precious portion (if one may venture to make a distinction in a whole, every detail of which is perfect in its place) of all the divine history, of the life, sufferings, and death of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, of Him whom no human mind could portray, of Him of whom an infidel has said that it would have been as difficult to have invented as to have been Him. God has taken care, I venture to say, that He who was to reveal Him upon the earth for man's welfare and His own glory should not be falsely described, and thus could not be falsely represented before the world. He has taken care that, where alone it can be learnt what God is, there should be no room for that which could have been unworthy of Him. He has taken care that that which was divinely lovely, His own Son, should be divinely and perfectly presented as He was. And who was able for this but God Himself? He was man, and, blessed be His name, He made use of man for it. He was God, and God formed men that they might present God manifest in a man who was the perfect Man before God. He who is taught of God will discern God in every detail of the blessed walk of the Lord and of His expiatory death in this world.

M. Godet relates several legends on this subject, especially those of Papias, an infirm old man according to Eusebius who was a great lover of such histories. He quotes other Fathers of the church who themselves relate the legends that were current in the world one hundred or one hundred and fifty years after Christ. He quotes men who said that the church of Rome was founded by the labours of Peter and of Paul, for which M. Godet finds excuses, but which we know to be false. He who has chiefly preserved the most ancient of these legends tells us that the church of Corinth was also founded by the two apostles. I notice this to shew how little dependence can be placed on these men. I attach no importance to their legends: they may be true, or they may be false; one of them certainly is false — that which tells us that Luke edited his Gospel from what Paul had told him, for Paul did not know the Lord down here. The legends also state that Mark edited his Gospel without order, whilst in the recital of the Lord's labours in Galilee Mark presents them in order, which is also the case in Luke's Gospel. Matthew relates the whole in a single verse; then he edits his Gospel according to the subjects, not merely the discourses, but by grasping the chief points of the manifestation of Emmanuel, of the nature of the kingdom of heaven, and of that which, historically, was to replace on earth the rejected Lord.

163 It is of the utmost importance to notice that, in the rationalistic system which seeks to render an account of all by the circumstances of the writer, GOD AND THE OPERATION OF HIS SPIRIT ARE WHOLLY EXCLUDED. The facts may be important if they be correct; but the revelation of God upon earth in the Son of His love is left to such an appreciation as we may have of the uncertain rumours which were current in Galilee, or to the feebleness of the memories of fallible men. One need but read the Gospels to discern the divine traits that abound in them; but if we study them, we shall discover unity of purpose in each, and in all combined a fulness as to the Lord's Person, presenting of Him a complete idea and a perfect unity, thus affording an irrefragable testimony to the unity of the source whence all has flowed.

Thus, in the four narratives of His death, we possess in each Gospel that which corresponds with its own special character, whilst all concur in presenting the Lord complete in the perfect unity of His Person — all. As a divine Person in John, we have no sufferings in Gethsemane, nor on the cross. As Son of man in Luke, we have more of the agonies in Gethsemane, none upon the cross, but the triumph of His faith in His Father. As victim in Matthew, we see Him forsaken of God upon the cross, and find neither compassion nor anything except misery and malice in man, but Him perfect in all. Mark too much resembles Matthew for me to enter into further details now; but certainly he who is taught of God discerns in them all the divine description of the Son of God and Son of man, the Word made flesh — Emmanuel — Jesus, in His life and death described by One only — by Him who is the Spirit of God, that God might be perfectly glorified.

Do the Gospels teach us that all had to depend on the memory of Peter, of Mark, or on the information which Luke might have obtained in Galilee? "The Comforter [says the Lord], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you," John 14: 26. He was also to bear witness to Jesus concerning heavenly things. The disciples likewise were to bear witness to Jesus, as eye-witnesses doubtless; but the Holy Spirit which had been given them held in His hand the testimony both earthly and heavenly. He was to lead them into all truth; and what Jesus had been upon the earth — "God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" — was not the least part of that truth.

164 It is monstrous to give me the legends of Papias, or the imaginations of Irenaeus, instead of the promise of the gift of the Spirit, and of His testimony to the Lord's glory, to His life, and to His sufferings; it is still more monstrous, forasmuch as the Lord had expressly spoken of that gift for that purpose.

This is Paul's remarkable declaration concerning the new truths which the Holy Spirit come down from heaven has communicated to us; it cannot be more explicit: "God hath revealed to us by (his) Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of God . . . . We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things which are freely given to us of God: which also we speak, not in words [or discourses] taught by human wisdom but in those taught by the Spirit . . . . But the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God . . . because they are spiritually discerned." Revelation was by the Spirit; the communication took place by means of words taught by the Spirit; and, finally, the intelligence of him who received these words was given by the Spirit. Revelation, inspiration in the communication of revealed things, in fine, intelligence or comprehension — all was "by the Spirit."

In 1 Thessalonians 2: 13 it is again said, "For this cause we also give thanks to God unceasingly, that, having received the word of the Spirit of God by us, ye received not man's word, but, even as it is truly, God's word, which also worketh in you who believe." Doubtless this has been proclaimed by word of mouth, but that which the Thessalonians had received was "the word of God." It was not merely to Paul it was such, but it was such as communicated through him [par emon] to the Thessalonians.

This decides the nature of the communication. It was not a more or less faithfully given statement of the word of God. The assertion, that what he wrote to them that it might remain with them, so as to permanently establish them in the truth — the assertion, that what was to subsist for the whole church in all ages was not the word of God — is a matter that I leave to the appreciation of the piety and common sense of each reader.

165 M. Godet's system, as regards revelation, is false according to the apostle. That which he had communicated to them was so thoroughly "the word of God," that it worked effectually in those who believed — it carried the power of God with it. It was, as Paul elsewhere states, a savour of death unto death where it was not a savour of life unto life. If his gospel were veiled, it was veiled in those that are lost, whose unbelieving minds Satan had blinded. The light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shined not only into the heart of Paul, but before the hearts of men; that light was veiled only to those who perish; for the God who, by His word, had caused the light to shine out of darkness, had shone into the heart of the apostle, for the shining forth [pros photismon] of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The weakness of the vessel was so far from hindering its being the word of God for others, that that word was committed to feeble vessels, in order that the excellency of the power which worked through their means in others might manifestly be of God, and not of men. In fact, everywhere, and on every point, the apostle affirms precisely the reverse of what M. Godet states.

There is then a redemption, but it is "by his blood" — there is a work accomplished once and for all — there is a revelation by the Spirit of God — there is a communication made in discourses [or words, logois] received [through the efficacious grace of the Holy Spirit] in him who hears. Divine things were revealed, communicated, and received by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The same apostle also says, "If any one think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him recognize the things that I write unto you, that it is the commandment of the Lord," 1 Cor. 14: 37. So far is he indeed from confounding revelation and inspiration with the thoughts which a high degree of spirituality might produce even in him, that he carefully distinguishes the one from the other; 1 Cor. 7: 6, 10, 40.

Before proceeding farther, it is important to notice the manner in which M. Godet uses scripture. I shall neither produce all the passages quoted by M. Godet, nor all the errors consequent upon them. This would be tedious. Just a few examples suffice to shew that the reader must accept nothing without examination. Some are but of small importance, but (the habit once contracted) one must be on one's guard. Thus, at page 6 of "Biblical Studies," second series, he adds, "in it"; "that . . . we report to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us in it"; thus entirely altering the meaning of the passage. At page 36: "Thou art Peter, and on this stone" is false; petra is not a stone. At page 49, "after having informed myself exactly" is a false translation of which 1 Timothy 4: 6, and 2 Timothy 3: 10, are proofs.

166 At page 49 it is not a quotation, but a false statement of what Luke says. The latter never says that his history was derived from what the first witnesses had stated. That was not the source whence he derived his history; but he says that he communicated the facts of the gospel as they were most surely believed, and as they had been delivered by the first witnesses, having himself had a perfect knowledge of these things from the beginning, which is a very different thing from M. Godet's assertion. "It is evident that he possessed more than one of those works, and that he used them to compose his own" (p. 53). Now all this is mere supposition, without the slightest foundation. Origen (if my memory does not deceive me), at all events, one of the Fathers, remarks that the expression, "Many have undertaken," shewed them to be human essays, none of which was satisfactory, but that it was otherwise with Luke. I quote the sense, and from memory. At all events, there is no trace whatever in Luke of what M. Godet speaks. What Luke does say is, that others having undertaken to give a relation of those things, he desired to make known to Theophilus the truth of it all, having himself had a perfect acquaintance with it from the beginning. He writes his relation because others did not present the same certainty. It is the reverse of what M. Godet says. Now all his system respecting the Gospels is here in question; this is my motive in bringing forward these carelessnesses, whilst re-establishing the facts and the passages. He seeks to replace inspiration by patristic legends, and by human means of conviction. He uses this mistake at page 54.

What he says at page 52 is pure supposition, and a very serious matter to nullify divine history by such inventions. (See also page 66.) At page 105 he makes Jesus confess [the sins of others], because others did so — a complete invention. John would not baptize Him, and only did so on the ground of the fulfilment of righteousness. "Thus it becometh us." This is that which, according to M. Godet, enabled John to discern the holy virtue in Jesus. It is altogether an invention! Moreover, Jesus did not go down into the waters of Jordan with prayer, page 106. This was after His baptism, after He had in baptism publicly taken His place amongst the faithful remnant of the Jews — a difference not lacking in importance as regards the relations of man — a matter of infinite value to us. At page 106 we have also "a shining sign," "prefiguring the communication of the Spirit"; then three perceptible facts for the inward senses of John and of Jesus. All this is pure invention, contradicting the simple narrative of the Gospel, which is to us of infinite importance. I altogether reject the explanations which follow; but I must avoid entering upon controversy on the meanings of scripture, and simply declare that M. Godet does not relate scripture facts, but that he makes a romance respecting the Lord — a romance which is founded upon his own ideas. I might take up false thoughts and false doctrines at every page, but this is not here my object.

167 Further on I will speak of his views concerning the Person of the Lord. All that is stated at page 123 is a complete invention. I shall return to that later, also to what he says at page 129 concerning His tears; I shall also notice page 131. At page 149, Exodus 3 is quoted to shew that God can change, and be what He will, translating it thus — "I shall be what I shall be." In his reply to M. Colani, he translates it, "I am," making use of it then to prove He is the only real existence — Existence itself. All this is inconceivable levity in solemn things. At page 151, "being found in all things as a man" is an entirely false quotation upon a capital point, in order to serve as a basis to the author's doctrine. At page 169 he says that "St. Paul speaks of a salvation which will result from the life of Christ realized in man." M. Godet has full liberty to interpret the passage as he understands it, but none to state that Paul says so. He says nothing of the sort. For my part, in reading the passage, it is evident to me that this is not in the least degree its sense. All this suffices to expose the carelessness with which M. Godet quotes passages upon important questions, and how he presents to us as facts that of which there is not a trace in the Gospels — facts that are fiction. Now all his reasonings generally depend on those false quotations and fictitious facts.

168 The first thing then that I take up as an essential point in M. Godet's system is that, to please rationalists, he formally denies the Bible to be a revelation; then, in the history of Jesus, he replaces inspiration by the legends of the fathers, which, as regards the historical circumstances, may be true, or may be false, but which present no divine certainty concerning the facts which should reveal God, and form the basis of Christianity and salvation. He robs the Gospels of all divine authority. In the place of a divinely revealed redemption, he gives me interesting reminiscences of John or of Peter, and that at the expense of the explicit promises of the Lord. It is true he admits a revelation, but he admits it according to a wise and rational system, thus explained: Revelation has reached agents or channels in a divine manner; these were to communicate it to the objects God had in view when He gave it (be it to the world, the church, individuals, etc., etc.). But that communication has never reached them at all. The objects God had in view had of it but a given statement, which is no revelation at all; they who were the channels of it having corrected and contradicted each other!

Now, concerning the revelations which complete the history of Jesus, Paul declares to us that he has communicated them to us in words taught by the Holy Spirit.

In common with rationalists, M. Godet denies all that. They require man, but they do not require that God should reveal Himself — at least not to us. It is a revelation which does not go beyond the agents to whom it was committed, even if those agents understood it well. I pity these rationalists for having lost it!

___________

2

The other subjects I desire to treat are the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus. M. Godet is opposed to the doctrine commonly called grace. He will have free-will amongst men. I have no thought of engaging in these theological controversies, nor should I have touched on his "Biblical Studies," had not Christianity disappeared beneath his pen. Inasmuch as the author bears the reputation of orthodoxy, this becomes an imminent peril to simple souls. M. Godet truly believes that Jesus is the Eternal Son; he recognizes His divinity, though in a vague and confused manner. According to his fashion, he recognizes His humanity, but it truly is according to his fashion; he also recognizes His work of expiation in his own manner. Had M. Godet been a candid rationalist (that is, an unbeliever), I might have spared myself the task of examining his method of seeing things. All the world knows that rationalism is latent infidelity, and presents itself as being the only intelligent Christianity. However it may be, and notwithstanding the pretensions of the author to orthodoxy, Christianity has no existence in his book. It is replaced by a system which only exists in the thoughts of M. Godet — by a thorough romance, of which the hero is Christ, but not the true Christ, the Christ of the word, "the Christ of God."

169 According to the word of God, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself"; also, "him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him." According to M. Godet's book, Jesus is a man who, though moved by a filial sentiment toward God from the age of twelve years, had forgotten that He was Son of God, but recovered that truth by revelation at the age of thirty. He was always capable of sinning, though He never did so. Then, as man, born miraculously, and as innocent as Adam had been, He raised Himself from innocence to holiness, and in His Person elevated humanity. This work was completed at the period of the transfiguration. He might have resumed His divine estate, which He had renounced; but in conversing with Moses and Elias, He communicated to them His intention not to resume it then, but to descend, in order to suffer. This He did. God's right having been recognized by Him (the right to put all mankind to death), and that right having been made good in the death of Christ alone, other men, profiting by that which He had done, and by this means placed in a position of liberty, can, if they will, attain the same divine condition into which Jesus has entered.

I ask, Is this Christianity? Is it not an infinitely solemn and serious matter to falsify truth on the subject of salvation, just where the glory of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ are in question? But is such truly M. Godet's system? I have merely put together the prominent points of this system. In examining it, we shall see whether that which I have now presented as such be not verified by quotations from his book. Other things also appear in it. My object in the preceding summing-up is simply to shew that by this system he sets Christianity aside, and replaces it by inventions and human doctrines. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world," disappears. We get simply a man who sanctifies Himself during His life, in order that others may do the same, and attain the same divine condition. Moreover, after a repeated and most careful examination, I do not find from M. Godet's book that the penalty of sin is anything else than death — bodily death, or death in its physical sense. This is all that sinful man owes to God's righteousness, and Christ did not suffer beyond that in man's stead, and for man. I do not say that M. Godet believes in the restitution of all mankind, nor that he believes that the wicked shall perish utterly. That which is certain is, that, to him, the wages of sin is simply bodily death, and this was all that Christ suffered.

170 We will now examine the system in detail.

The first of the two pillars of this system is (p. 149), that God can become what He will. "I will be," says He, according to M. Godet, "what I will be." This is what he calls "God's absolute liberty." The Father, remaining in the simple but infinite perfection of the divine nature, the Word, which was God, was made man. Such are the aspects of that truth which this system places in complete darkness. God will be "each moment that which it will please Him to be!" The second pillar is what he calls "the absolute perfectness of man." There is no limit to it; absolute goodness is his aim. That God was really man, and a true man, is as important as it is precious; but this is how M. Godet presents it — there is no question of God revealing Himself in grace: all is subjective. "Jesus has been reinstated by His miraculous birth in the position of primitive purity and innocence in which the first man was before the fall, and that, in order to be enabled successfully to begin anew that walk of innocence on to holiness, which was the career opened to man, but at the first step of which Adam fell."

M. Godet also professes to be able to reveal to us God's intentions relating to the first man. It is, of course, altogether a fable, invented by himself. The object of God's decreed purpose was the second Man. All God's revealed counsels relate to Christ. Moreover, what M. Godet says about this is in contradiction to the revelation we possess. The first man was innocent. Now for holiness is needful a knowledge of good and evil, which Adam certainly had not, inasmuch as he acquired that knowledge by his fall. "The man," says God, "is become as one of us, to know good and evil," but man became at the same time ruined, a sinner, and lost. The Lord, we are positively told, was born holy, "that holy thing that shall be born of thee." M. Godet's theory damages and contradicts revelation, as much in respect of Adam as of Christ.

171 M. Godet also says, page 101, "History until Him [Christ] was comprised in one word, 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh.' Since His appearing, the true meaning of history is expressed by 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'" This is all false. That which is born of the flesh is always flesh, since Christ came as well as before. There had been quickened souls before His coming, as there have been since. I do not say that life and incorruptibility were brought to light in the same way, for it was not so.

M. Godet adds, "For the character of the Spirit in the Biblical sense of the word, is holiness, and where is holiness to be found but in Jesus, and what proceeds from Him?" Nowhere else, doubtless. But did nothing proceed from Him before the incarnation? Did the Son not act before His incarnation? M. Godet has no other idea of Christ than a subjective idea of man, and of a man who was simply man, though without having committed sin. God is really excluded from his system in all relating to His grace and truth. The innocent man must push on his way in order to reach God. Jesus was even delivered from sinning. "His peculiar birth . . . imparted solely to Jesus that ability not to sin which man possessed before the fall, and which we have lost" (p. 102).

As regards the development of Jesus, "What an admirable sight" (says M. Godet, p. 103, in expressions deeply painful to him who believes that God was in Christ, that Christ was the Lord of glory) — "What an admirable sight, that of that child, of that youth, accomplishing that normal development!" Afterwards he gives a narrative of His baptism, where all, as I have previously remarked, is fabrication — pure inventions — and where the doctrine rests on no scripture basis whatever. Not one trace of that which M. Godet says is found in the word. The result of it all to M. Godet is (p. 109) that "the difference between Jesus and ourselves in this respect (the descent of the Holy Spirit) is simply this, that He is charged with the general task of the salvation of mankind, whilst each of us never receives more than a small portion of it to accomplish with Him." Think of such language in speaking of the Saviour and His purchased ones! Christ, it is true, has acquired for us the same place in the glory as He possesses as man, and the relationship in which we stand by redemption is shewn in that which was His after His baptism; but therein to discern a large portion for Him, and a small one for ourselves, in the work of salvation, is indeed a startling error. Again, whilst M. Godet says (p. 105), "Christ made the sin of His whole race His own, in the aspect of association," the word tells us the reverse. "Except the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abideth alone." There is no such association there. Both He that sanctifies and those sanctified [are] all of one. True it is that He was truly man, made like unto His brethren, but in the incarnation there was no union. Christ has historically associated Himself with the godly remnant in their first steps according to God: never has He associated Himself with the unbelieving race of Jews.

172 Equally false is the explanation of the temptation. Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, has conquered Satan for us. Adam fell at the temptation or trial.

I cannot notice all. M. Godet has no other idea of Christ than that of a man who needed to take thought for Himself, as being capable of sinning. Of Him who in grace has bound the strong man in our behalf — of a Saviour, he has not a notion. "But," says M. Godet, "God can be what He will be." The word tells us He changes not. "I, Jehovah, change not." It is not something granted to His liberty, as M. Godet profanely expresses it — it is the perfection of His immutable existence. "Thou art the same" (su de o autos ei). Now this was said of the Messiah, when in Psalm 102 His humiliation and death are prophetically spoken of. The Spirit also shews how, after having seen His days cut short down here, He could be there for ultimate blessing. All this is in direct opposition to M. Godet's doctrine. The scriptures declare that He was the same — a word taken by many learned Jews for one of the names of God Himself — a word, at all events, quoted in Hebrews 1 to demonstrate that He was always the same. Thus, it is said of the Messiah, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and to the ages [to come]."

But M. Godet intrudes, or desires to intrude, with profane steps on that ground where the word has solemnly declared that the Father stands alone. "No one knoweth the Son but the Father." M. Godet assumes to know Him, and to define all. That Christ, as regards His humanity, increased in wisdom and stature, this the word is careful to tell us, and to us it is one of the most precious truths. His delights were with the sons of men, and He became truly man. This was the anthem of the angels when the manger received Him. That His acts as man were done in the power of the Spirit is also revealed to us. "If I," says He, "by the Spirit of God cast out demons." But the fulness of the Godhead was there: He was the Son assuredly; but, says He, "the Father who abideth in me, He doeth the works," and "I and my Father are one." In the fear also that we might believe that He had returned to the relationship of Son, or had recovered it at His baptism by John, the scriptures lift a corner of the veil which enveloped the thirty years of His life passed in obscurity at Nazareth, and present Him, at the age of twelve years, in the full consciousness of Sonship.

173 Scripture is opposed to M. Godet (p. 152): "This consciousness of Sonship, which was His light, He suffered to become extinguished within Him, in order to preserve only His inalienable personality, His individuality, endowed with liberty and intelligence like every human individuality . . . He was, by virtue of this humiliation, enabled to enter into a human development similar to our own." Can we — we at the age of twelve years, and that without having received a divine and entirely new life — say, "I ought to be [occupied] in my Father's business?" M. Godet is not even satisfied with that, but goes yet farther. Being unable to deny that He said, "My Father" at the age of twelve years, he takes pains to testify to us that this "in no wise involved a precise dogma in the thoughts of the child; a moral relationship was all that was in question" (p. 144). "At the hour of His baptism" it is "a revelation which He received from the Father," or (p. 145) it is "here again, a fact of intimate life, by which Jesus is rendered conscious of the relationship of love, which united Him to Him who spake to Him thus." Also, in speaking of Jesus entering into glory, M. Godet says, page 132, "Here then is human nature elevated in its normal representative to the possession of divine life." Is this then He of whom John spoke? when he said, "The Word of God . . . In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not." The Christ presented to us by M. Godet is another Christ than that of the Word, whom they alone received who were born not of the will of man, but of God. Also, when M. Godet (p. 151) quotes the beautiful passage of Philippians 2: 6-8, he entirely falsifies it, and then, at the close, adds, "being found in all things as a man." Notice well that the Christ of M. Godet's system is a man who begins with His exaltation in order to advance on to the glory. In the passage quoted from the word, the Christ descends lower and lower, till God exalts Him, and places Him in the glory.

174 It is important to notice the bearing of some other remarks of M. Godet in this matter. Page 101: "Before Christ's advent, it could be said, 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh': since His appearing, the true meaning of history is expressed by, 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'" This is thorough nonsense. I have another object than shewing it to be such, in now quoting it. I desire to ask, Are we really born of God?

At page 150 we get Christ who made Himself of no reputation, rendering Himself poor, and living in indigence, just as a king would who became a simple citizen. This comparison has no sense whatever. Christ has ever remained King. We read, page 153, "that the very moment of His abasement was for Jesus the starting-point of the lifting up again. In proportion to His development as a child, a relationship of the most intimate and tender nature was formed between Himself and God . . . it terminated in the spontaneous utterance of that expression, 'My Father.'" Then, at page 160, "Christ having been the first to supply the glorious career [of from innocence on to glory], invests us with His power to supply it after Him." At pages 112, 113, "the sanctification of human life, which He accomplished in His Person, He, in fact, purposed to reproduce later in all those who were linked to Him by faith." At page 94, "He makes Himself worker together with every man in the realization of his supreme destiny." At page 98, "His life is the realization of the normal development to which every human being is called in principle." At page 101, "The normal development of humanity, interrupted by sin," has recommenced. The thought of the new birth is excluded from M. Godet's system. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit" is but the history of that which has taken place since Jesus came. That "the Son quickens whom he will" has no place in this system. There is "a moral obligation," and in that domain (p. 94) Christ is the "génie" which becomes the mainstay to the work of all others. He groups around His person all those worthy of that name. It is man as he is — a sinner — aided by Christ, who can attain this absolute perfection. Man's natural condition is presented in a manner totally contrary to the word, as well as to the glorious Person of the Saviour. That there is none who seeks after God — that we must be born again — that thenceforth Christ becomes our life — that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us — that in us, that is to say, in our flesh, no good dwells — that the flesh lusts against the Spirit — that to be without law is to be without restraint to such a degree as to have required that God should send the deluge to cleanse the defiled world — that the flesh, the nature of fallen man, does not submit itself to the law of God, even when that law is given to it — that that which has crucified the Lord of glory, when He came in grace, cannot be subject to it — that it lusts against the Spirit in the Christian — that it seeks to puff up with vanity a man who had been in the third heaven — that no fresh grace delivers it from its pride and its egotism — that even to an apostle a thorn is needed, a messenger of Satan, to buffet it; — all these teachings of the word are utterly set aside.

175 Christ, says M. Godet, recommences the development of the innocent man (p. 191). "On the one hand, He [Christ] has perfected the development of humanity which had remained unfinished by the sin of the first man; on the other, He has re-established fallen humanity, and reinstated it on the path where it can henceforth reach its destiny." He had (p. 192) to "re-knot the thread of the normal development of humanity at its point of severance, recommence the moral work which was to conduct man from innocence to holiness, accomplish that series of acts of obedience, each of which was a sacrifice of natural life, and attain that elevated sphere of existence which scripture calls spiritual life." Christ then had no spiritual existence till He had attained it. "This is what Jesus has done" (ibid.).

"Now," adds M. Godet (p. 193), "Christ has not only perfected a humanity which had been arrested in its development, but has re-established a fallen humanity. "This is the second part of the work He has accomplished for us." Then (p. 159), taking possession of the condition to which it [human life] was destined [holiness], He, from the heights of heaven, works towards His own, through a daily Pentecost, the miracle of sanctification, which He has perfected in Himself, and thus prepares their elevation to the position He Himself occupies in the glory." "God all in one, and by Him one day, all in all; this is the means, this the aim." Will you know more of this? Read page 160: "He desires nothing less than to make each of us another self, a representative of this supreme type, the man-God." Compare page 159: "Why should not human nature, created in the image of God, have been destined from the first to become the free organ of the life of God, the agent of His omnipotence?" "The man-God would in that case have been nothing but true man, that is to say, that which God had eternally conceived and intended him to be." And immediately the author presents these imaginations as the expression of Romans 8: 29, from whence it would result that we are all men-God.

176 We shall be all like Jesus, all conformed to the image of God's Son. I must leave to the appreciation of each Christian a teaching which states that the union of the divinity and humanity, such as they exist in Jesus, is a purpose of God which ought to be realized in every Christian. Now this is systematically the author's plan. Thus, at page 204, "After having, during His sojourn down here, completely appropriated the divine Spirit, and made it His own personal life, as God Himself, He has become the sovereign dispenser of it towards His brethren." Then, at page 160, "What matters it if our life be a pathway of suffering, passing by Gethsemane and Golgotha, provided it terminate at the Mount of Olives and the ascension?" Not that M. Godet thinks the flesh does not exist, or that it improves. At page 208 we read, "Christ being born, and growing in us to such a degree as to fill our heart, and — to gradually banish our natural selves — our old man which never improves, and has nothing else to do but to perish." At page 191, it is "the result of a series of completely voluntary decisions in the sense of goodness." Then, page 205, "This work [that of realizing perfect holiness in a flesh like ours] once accomplished in Jesus, His spirit emanates from His glorified Person, like a quickening power, gaining in us the same victory that Jesus gained in His Person, and which realizes in our life, as Jesus did in His, the righteousness demanded by the law . . . ." The thought of being born anew completely and systematically fails throughout. It is progress in sanctification by the power of the Spirit, in gaining the victories Jesus gained in His Person. At page 208 we have, "a free and moral process." "The process in Jesus and ourselves is identical" (p. 209). Is this then a work perfectly resembling that accomplished in the sinner, to change innocence into holiness? In order to make these two so very different things meet, M. Godet says that Jesus has conquered sin in His Person, and that He reserved it to Himself to conquer it in humanity. But in fallen humanity sin dwells in the will. To Christ sin exists outside Himself. How, then, can there be room for a work perfectly similar in Him and in us?

177 Then (pp. 176, 178, 179) "What God required was not the satisfaction of His rights by shedding torrents of blood; it was the revelation of that right to human conscience which ignored it; it was the acquiescence granted to that right by that very conscience." "God demonstrated that great principle, that whosoever rebelled against God is worthy of death." Then "the very fact of redemption proves that what God sought has been, not the most, but, on the contrary, the least, shedding of blood, provided the same moral effect be produced. One man sufficed Him, in the bloody death of whom He has ostensibly manifested that which in reality had been merited by all; of one victim, at the sight of whom all others could say, that is the treatment which I had acquired for myself." It was also, "first, the revelation of God's right on guilty humanity; secondly, the recognition of that right by that humanity itself." Then (p. 182), "There a reparation, without default, has been offered. The most bitter death has been accepted as the just chastisement of sin, the right which God possesses to inflict such a punishment on man has been acknowledged without reserve. 'Righteous Father,' exclaimed the dying Son, in the last prayer He uttered with His own." Also (p. 192), "It was not a compensation for injustice, but a revelation presented to all of what all would have deserved to suffer, and what all they will truly suffer whom the spectacle of that expiation will not bring back repentant and believing to God." And again (p. 182), "The demonstration of righteousness which God desired to give the world has then in this case attained the character of absolute perfection. To the adequate nature of the inflicted punishment has been added the full acquiescence of Him who consented to endure it." After that (p. 185) our faith gives also our acquiescence, in acknowledging that it is we who deserve the chastisement. "It is by faith that this association of individuals, in the reparation wrought by Christ, takes place."

178 There are many other things to notice; but first, if bodily death be the punishment, and God be satisfied with that which Jesus has done, why should we die? Then, if bodily death be all, then all pay already down here the penalty of their sin, be they penitents or not. That death, says M. Godet, was the adequate nature of the inflicted punishment. The demonstration of righteousness has attained the character of an absolute perfection.

Why then must I myself, if the Saviour does not come in time to spare me this bodily death, undergo the full consequences of my sin, that same thing which God has already done? Such are the results of human wisdom.

Then, if I myself die, acknowledging that I have merited it, why needed it that Christ should have died? It will be said, Christ could adequately recognize it. But if it be but the death common to all, which is the wages of sin, and if I recognize that I have merited death, I recognize it adequately; then, morally in sight of the cross, I am no more advanced as regards this than otherwise. I only recognize it in proportion to my own faith, even if Christ died for me. And why, if some one had fulfilled the career of holiness, would he not also make expiation? Nothing prevents it according to M. Godet's system. That is not all by any means. That death is the wages of sin is quite true, but it is quite another thing to understand it, as though it signified that bodily death (natural, if you will) is ALL the wages of sin. This is so far from being true, that the full effect of judgment overtakes sinners after their resurrection, when death will no longer exist. "It is reserved unto men once to die, and after that the judgment." They must rise again for that judgment; I speak of the wicked. And when the well-beloved Saviour said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" this was not death. When that took place, He peacefully resigned His spirit into the Father's hands.

That which M. Godet tells us of the propitiation is equally false (p. 184, lines 17 to 19), that faith is needed to render a victim propitiatory. The word in Greek is not propitiation, nor propitiatory victim. M. Godet adds "victim." Christ, in Romans 3: 24, is a "mercy-seat" (the place where God is accessible) "through faith in his blood." But He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the whole world; 1 John 2: 2. The righteousness of God is now manifested to the world, in that Christ has gone to His Father, and the world sees Him no more; John 16.

179 We read again (p. 185), "Nor has He accomplished this expiatory act, in which the treatment which the sinful world deserved was manifested, with the object of dispensing, as from offering to God, the reparation which we owed Him." What is the reparation we owe Him for sin? From beginning to end it is M. Godet's gospel, not that of the word of God — "which is not another."

I shall not occupy myself with M. Godet's other interpretations; I do not accept them, neither his two justifications, nor the subsequent loss of those who have been once justified; for the apostle says, "whom he justified them he also glorified." I might have taker! up a mass of things which I believe to be antiscriptural, a crowd of entirely false interpretations. But I will not mix these things with the foundation of the truth, of the gospel of God. The gospel, and revelation of God in Christ, that of the Father in the Son, have disappeared, as well as the cup which an infinitely precious Saviour had to drink for us. It is this that makes me speak. M. Godet tells us that the Saviour comes ever since He went up. My pen, but for that, might remain dormant. But if another Christ than the true one is presented to souls, and another expiation than the true one as revealed to us by the word, and if this be done under the banner of orthodoxy, this concerns all the world.

M. Godet's system is the re-establishment of the first man, not the introduction of the second Man. The first man is not only a sinner, but he is lost and condemned. God has for our instruction used every means in His power to try if man could be restored. Left without law, the world had to be destroyed. The law having been given, man could not keep it; his flesh cannot submit to it. God sends the prophets: man persecutes and kills them. God then says, "I have yet my Son." He comes, and binds the strong man; He manifests a power sufficing to remove all the consequences of sin. But God's presence having been then and thus manifested, man would not have it. Sin, enmity against God there in goodness, manifest themselves to the utmost degree; man crucifies the Son of God; they had seen and hated both Him and His Father. From that time the history of man in the flesh was closed: "Now is the judgment of this world," says the Saviour. The fig-tree, man under God's special care, is condemned, never again to bear fruit. Stephen sums up his history in Acts 7; the law violated; the prophets persecuted and killed; the Just One betrayed and put to death; the resistance of the Holy Ghost. Such is man in the flesh. Nevertheless man's sin only brought about the accomplishment of God's counsels. Christ was made sin for us; there He glorified God, and faith can say, "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree." "He hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling."

180 Born of the Spirit, Christ being our life, we count that we are dead to sin. Our bodies being the temples of the Holy Spirit, we live from the life of the risen Christ, whilst waiting till He comes to take us to Himself in the glory (not to be man-God, like Himself, but) to be in the same glory, so near Him as to adore Him with the knowledge of what He is, and what He has done; not "restored," but saved and glorified, not merely by the death of a holy man, as though that were all, but saved from the second death, from eternal torments, by Him who, upon the cross, ere He died, was forsaken by God that we might be brought to and ever with Him. He was far from being "the object of the displeasure and reprobation of God" (p. 190). Never was His obedience so pleasing. "On this account the Father loved me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again." But this does not prevent that He drank the cup given by His Father, and that He bore in His soul the consequence of our sin.

I have finished. I will only direct the attention of him who reads these pages to the uncertainty and the ambiguity of M. Godet's expressions. I will quote but two examples. "The true meaning of history since Christ's appearing is expressed by 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'" The history of what? And again: "Christ has re-established fallen humanity." What is re-established? Has man ceased to be a sinner? Is he reconciled to God?

On the Putting Away of Sin

J. N. Darby.

<23009E> 181

The question having been raised as to verse 26 of Hebrews 9 and the putting away of sin, I send you a few lines on this subject.

In the first place I have frequently insisted on sin being put away by the sacrifice of Christ, in the sense that the believer stands before God perfectly justified and accepted, the Lord imputing no sin; he is perfectly clear before God. And this, thank God, I believe as I ever did. It is our blessed privilege in Christ. May every quickened soul enjoy it! God forbid that any nicety of expression should enfeeble it. But when expressions, not actually the word of God, are used, and conclusions are drawn from them, as if they were scriptural statements, we are forced to be more accurate. And this has been the case in the statement that sin has been put away by the sacrifice of Christ. This scripture does not state. He appeared once, in the consummation of ages, for the putting away of sin (eis athetesin) by the sacrifice of Himself.

I had long ago noticed that the expression, "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," would have its perfect completion only in the new heaven and the new earth, though the work on which that state was based was finished by God's Lamb once for all on the cross; but the force of Hebrews 9: 26 had not been so especially noted. Yet it is essentially the same truth. Sin, that hated thing, must be put out of that world which God created for His own glory.

We must not confound clearing our conscience and redeeming us, and putting away sin out of God's world as that which is offensive to Him. Verse 28 speaks of Christ's bearing the sins of many. Thus they are perfectly cleared.

But sin remains in the flesh and in the world, and it must be set aside, all things in heaven and earth reconciled to God; and this will take place. The work on which it is based, in virtue of which it will be accomplished by power, the work in which God is morally glorified perfectly and for ever, is accomplished, and Christ sits at the right hand of God in virtue of it. But the sins of the many who come under grace have been borne by Him, and the believer has been washed from all. Nor is this all as to him. Not only has Christ borne all his sins, but for faith he has died with Christ, and as dead he is justified from sin; the old man has been crucified with Christ. Sin in the flesh was condemned on the cross, and there is no condemnation for him.

182 It is in this general sense of our standing before God that it has been said that sin was put away, and, thank God, it is so. But the real thought was all guilt and imputation in our standing before God. But the putting away sin has a wider application in scripture; all things in heaven and earth are to be reconciled to God. Righteousness is to dwell in the new heaven and the new earth, and in a modified sense this will be the case even in the reign of Christ. Then it will be effected by power. But the work by which morally that is done in righteousness and for God's glory, in which it is really done in the moral sense, is accomplished, all that God is having been glorified on the cross where Christ was made sin; and faith lays hold on this.

Alas! very few Christians even make the difference of sins or guilt, and sin. Our sins are all forgiven, we are perfectly washed from them; and, besides this, as dead with Christ, the old man is for faith put off; its condemnation was in Christ's death. We are not in the flesh, though actually the flesh is in us. But the putting away of sin goes far wider, the putting it away out of God's sight in the world. And this, as a result, is not accomplished, though the work be perfectly accomplished on which that result is founded, and that work is in one sense more important than the fact, because God has been perfectly glorified there, in virtue of which it will be accomplished; and faith knows this work is done, and rejoices that there is no condemnation for the believer before God, the conscience being purged from sins, and sin in the flesh being condemned in the cross. So that there is no imputation and no condemnation. But sin exists. The effect of the work, as in God's purpose, is not as yet made good. Even as to the believer, he cannot say, I have no sin. "He that is dead is justified from sin" (not sins) here; but I have this title to reckon myself dead, Christ having died to sin.

If I say sin is put away, I weaken the force of "putting away," for sin is still there. It is not the world in which righteousness dwells. The sins of God's people have been borne, and the blood of propitiation is on the mercy-seat; so that we can go to the world and beseech sinners to come, as though God did beseech by us, in our little measure. That work is all done and accepted which enables me to do it. I can say to the believer that he is all clear, white as snow before God. But the putting away of sin is a wider thing. John 1 itself shews this — the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (not has taken away, nor sins). It is the removal of sin in God's sight in the world, a result not yet accomplished. This passage refers specifically to the result, Hebrews 9: 26 to the purpose and means of its being done, as verse 28 does to the other question of our actual guilt.

183 Incorrect expressions I should not make a fuss about; God graciously bears with them, if the heart is earnest and right. I do not stand in the gate to make a man an offender for a word. Here I inquire merely what is correct when the question is raised. Conclusions from what is not in scripture I do not allow.

Review of R. Pearsall Smith on "Holiness through Faith."

J. N. Darby.

<23010E> 184

My dear brother,

I do not question the sincerity or devotedness of the writer of the book which has been before us; but it has only led me to reject wholly its statements as incorrect, and I must add mischievous, and the rather because it is a perversion of what I believe to be one of the most imperious necessities of the church of God — "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." You know that I reject the thought (I have done so for five and forty years) of the experience of Romans 7 being a Christian state. It is the state of a regenerate soul under law, under the "first husband" of the chapter; not the delivered soul under the second husband, that is, Christ risen. But this is confounded by the writer with a state of purity on, I judge, a low scale compared with the statements of scripture: and there is consequently such vagueness, want of knowledge of scriptural truth, and contradiction in the book, that it is hard to deal with.

I confess, too, the effort does not attract me. That a man must realise this liberty, must possess it, before he can press its blessedness on others, is quite true; but it is not therefore necessary that one should always speak of such realisation in one's self. It makes a subtle self dominant, which lowers the spiritual state. I never saw any one make his experience the object of his mind, or that with which his mind was occupied, that it did not make self a great object to self. Whether the experience was ordinary evangelical experience, Romans 7, Galatians 5: 17, or that of the perfectionist, self holds a large place in the mind's eye; and it cannot be otherwise. And I think this book is a clear example of it. The blessedness and beauty of Christ Himself nowhere appear in it. He tells us that this doctrine makes more of Christ, and ourselves humble; but if you examine it, it is what Christ effects and produces in us, not what Christ is. And this makes all the difference. What distinguishes, according to John, "the fathers in Christ" is "ye have known Him that is from the beginning." It is all John has to say of them, but it is much and blessed.

I believe in deliverance. I believe in the unclouded enjoyment of that favour which is better than life, living in the consciousness that we are loved as Jesus was loved, knowing the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. I would insist on it. It is a chief grief for me as regards the church of God that they are as persons outside, at best hoping; not inside, entered through the rent veil, abiding in the light of God's countenance and looking at Christ and His cross in its own divine perfectness with the eye that the Holy Ghost gives. This I repeat is my daily (might I not say hourly?) grief.

185 But I say that, where the soul is thus in free and blessed fellowship with the Father's love and Jesus, it is occupied with them — with the unsearchable fulness of Christ; and that, when it has to be occupied with itself, it has to judge itself. That happens, though there be no excuse for it. But this will be self-judgment, not a reflective sense of one's own perfectness; that is never right. But this is the contents of, and what is urged in, Holiness through Faith.

Christ is the power to make us perfect and holy: not the all-blessing object of a holy soul that does not think of itself but of Himself. And the difference is very real and all-important, and scripture is quite clear on the subject. No attained state can possibly have the perfectness which is in Christ, nor even any perfecting influence, as thinking of Him has. I am thinking of self. It is because it falsifies and perverts the truth of deliverance that I object to this book, not because there is not the deliverance revealed to us in the scriptures. Hence I do not the least deny, nor do I desire to deny, the instances he gives of deliverance; but I wholly deny his interpretation and spiritual estimate of them; and (though surely deliverance is by faith, as every good thing is, and souls may have been delivered; and though experiences may vary according to the state of the soul, the wisdom of God who deigns to think of each particular case, and the knowledge of grace and truth), yet none ever get out of Romans 7 who had not been in it. There must be self-knowledge, which is what is found in Romans 7, and is always really found under law, and, as Mr. Smith admits, deliverance is found when a man despairs of self. But this is experience.

Divine grace sets us free when we know we are bound and have no power. But we do not know liberty when we have not found this out. Deliverance there is, which many deny, but deliverance from what is experimentally known and felt as bondage to be delivered from. And if Mr. Smith were to speak of this holy state of deliverance from sin to a man who had gone through this lesson, he would speak to the wind or delude the one he spoke to. In the instances given, those at least which are not too vague to build on, this lesson had been learnt, and I dare say the deliverance was very real. But Mr. Smith's conclusions from them are false. He confounds deliverance and purity and holiness as one thing, and, though not nominally on Wesleyan grounds and admitting the existence of flesh or sin in us,* yet he makes confusion of the whole subject by not taking scriptural statements as to it, or by misrepresenting scripture, which he largely does; and, by not looking at a glorified Christ as that on which the eye of faith is fixed, he lowers the whole Christian condition. This last point probes the whole statement, and shews not that deliverance is false, but that his view of it and confusion of it with purity as the same thought is false. There are after all a great many remains of Wesleyan error.

{*Yet he denies it too, and talks of its reviving; and he is in inextricable confusion in his statements, covering them by saying we ought not to analyse.}

186 Another thing that has misled Mr. Smith is that he has made the common experience of undelivered souls his only standard of comparison, so as to set up the state he pleads for — not scripture and Christ as his standard of comparison and judgment. This leaves all really in the dark. He can easily shew that the state of most Christians is not all that scripture gives; but another question arises: Is his state, and what he pleads for, what scripture gives? I affirm it is not; and his book, however well intended, is mischievous, because it puts what is greatly to be desired on false and unscriptural ground.

My part, then, is to compare his views with scripture. On deliverance from Romans 7 I should insist earnestly. I turn to the examination of his book. He begins by an appeal to the experience of those not set free, and asks if their expectations at conversion have been practically realised. My answer is: Infinitely and beyond all comparison more than realised. But, it may be remarked, nothing is spoken of but our own estimate of our own state; and moreover the appeal is to shame as to it before others, not the sense of sin. He then presses that the man loves sin still. Now this is not even Romans 7. There the person hated evil; his grief was that, though he really hated it, it still got power over him. Mr. Smith's way of putting it is false altogether; nor are flesh and the new man distinguished. This is seen really all through the book. "His affections shew the central powers of his being." Now this is totally false, and contradicts Romans 7, the idea of being born of God, and all the teaching of scripture.

187 One born of God surely hates sin at the bottom of his heart, however he may lack power or deliverance. It is because he hates sin that it makes him miserable; and justly too. "Sweet water and bitter" is a false use of James, who is speaking of what comes out of the person as "cursing man and blessing God," and denounces it, but has nothing to do with the inward experience of a soul. The man in James may be a fully delivered soul if he has got careless.

As regards what is said in page 3, no doubt victory over sin is desired; but what does this mean? It is very difficult to know in this book what the writer means — he so contradicts himself and neglects scripture. Is it sin which is there over which victory is sought, or is it deliverance from it so that it is not there? Indeed on pages 71, 72 this is all carefully thrown into confusion, to the hiding of scriptural truth in a way to deceive souls sadly. But the passage itself (p. 3) gives the wishes and motives of a tried soul as the measure of what we are to have, not scripture. It is trying, too, how (as p. 9) he continually quotes Peter — "dead to sins"; and once, perhaps, refers to being "dead to sin," which is the real question. Nor is "dead" the same word in the original, in the two cases. In Peter it is apogenomenoi, a very different word from that in Romans 6, as indeed the whole thought is. But Romans 6 is the doctrine of deliverance from Romans 7. Now it is just on this point, though differing from them as to flesh and a new nature, he gets on to Wesleyan ground; that is, while the definition of sin is left vague (pp. 71-72), that sins and sin in the flesh may be huddled into one thought; that is, Wesley's definition of sin — a voluntary, or, according to R.P.S., a conscious transgression of a known law — and the evil nature which gives birth to lust, of which Paul speaks. Now the confounding of these mitigates the idea of sin, and the real point of the teachings in Romans 6-8 is wholly lost, and a great deal more with it. Paul will have death to sin, not merely being done with sins, however completely. Nor is deliverance otherwise taught. Such a system leaves the evil unreached, as we shall see it does the result and object too.

188 Next I find on page 12: "That we might be holy and pure, and conformed to the image of Jesus Christ." Now; first of all, we see here the importance of the confusion between victory and purity, and the vagueness of Mr. Smith's statement. Had Christ to gain victory or be victorious over sin in the flesh? The thought were blasphemy! Victory, and holy and pure, are different things. "Holy and pure" means that there is no sin to have victory over, and that was Christ's state: victory over sin was not His portion. We are never called to be what Christ was consequently; for there was no sin in Him. We are to walk as He walked; for if sin be in me, if the flesh be still there, there is no reason why I should walk after it; no, nor think after it. This I fully hold. It never should be the source of a thought in me. I should walk in the Spirit.

In the Philippians, where Christian experience is found as exhibited in the apostle, the word sin does not occur. Yet Paul had a thorn in the flesh to buffet him, and needed it. Did Christ? The thorn hindered the action of Paul's flesh, a great and sovereign mercy. The existence of sin in the flesh does not give a bad conscience; the allowance of it does, and consequently hinders the fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; for then coming into the light makes conscience active to judge — thank God it does — instead of filling the heart with joy because we are with God. A person who prayed to be conformed to Jesus Christ (not if he prayed to walk as He walked, and even have His mind), that is, to be what He was, would prove his ignorance of himself as to the flesh, and of Christ too.

But, further, the passage alluded to is wholly misapplied. Conformity to the image of God's Son is in glory, and there is for the Christian no perfection at all but that. The view then scripture gives of conformity to Christ is far different from that which this book so carelessly gives. We are to bear the image of the heavenly as we have borne the image of the earthly. The standard of conformity to Christ is quite different from that of this book, and this is evidently of all importance on the subject we are upon, and the consequences will be immediately seen. "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is; and he that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself as He is pure."

189 It is not leaping by an act of faith into a positive purity and supposed conformity to Christ as He was here; but a perception of what He is, knowledge that we shall be conformed to Him when He appears, and hence purifying ourselves according to this standard. So in 2 Corinthians: "Beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord." Hence Paul's desire was to win Christ, and he counted not himself to have attained, but pressed forward towards the mark of his calling above in Christ Jesus. This is unattainable here, while it acts continually on us here. But we purify ourselves, and do not speak of a positive purity and holiness. The whole scheme of scripture is different from that of Mr. Smith; not that he denies progress, nor indeed do the Wesleyans; but it is (p. 84) "a blessed positive attainment or gift." Now purifying ourselves as Christ is pure, knowing that we shall be like Him, is quite another thing from this, and from what follows in the part I am discussing (p. 13), "Awake to righteousness, and sin not," speaks of actually sinning where saints had been going on badly at Corinth.

"Perfecting holiness in the fear of God" is not a leaping at once into a positive gift attained by faith, like justification. It does not become our author to talk of "intellectual tricks," but to compare his own statements more carefully with scripture before he sets about to teach others by "professing" his own attainments and to make his own experience the rule for others. When in Romans 6, of which I will speak more fully, the apostle speaks of being dead, he refers to living in sin, he speaks of walking in newness of life. He says: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof; for sin shall not have dominion over you." That is, he speaks of the law or power of sin, not of its absence, of having fruit unto holiness. He speaks in a totally different manner from the writer.

I add that Mr. Smith's whole doctrine on this point is false. He says (p. 15), "When destroyed? Plainly previously to our not serving sin. When was the old man crucified with Christ? Evidently previously to the destruction of the body of sin." Now this is made a sort of distinct act in me. There are three such, one after another. The apostle is teaching what the Christian state and condition is as figures in baptism itself, what his Christian profession is contrasted with continuing in sin, because One Man's obedience, not our own, made us righteous. We enter into Christ's death to have this righteousness: how then live in sin if we have died? But the time we were crucified was the cross. We were crucified with Christ to destroy the body of sin, so that we should not serve it. How this is realised I will speak of; but making it a threefold distinct process in us is destroying the whole force of the apostle's argument. Whoever has been baptized to Christ is, by his very profession, dead to sin; for he has been baptized to His death, and was to reckon himself dead, as crucified with Him.

190 The doctrine of the apostle is that every Christian has been crucified with Christ, and is to reckon himself dead; dead to sin, not sins. How this is realised, and what hinders, we will see hereafter. But if the Spirit of God dwells in a man, he is not in the flesh: if he has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. If Christ be in him, the body is dead. All important it is to realise this. How it is done chapter 7 shews. I will speak of it at the close. It is too important to notice merely in passing. But they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof

How "temptation comes more fiercely than ever" the writer does not explain. It is just as true that the Christian, as such, keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not, as that, as such, he cannot sin. Temptation is used in two senses in scripture. We are tempted when we are drawn away of our own lusts and enticed, and we are tempted from without by the enemy. The latter the Lord underwent, the former of course never. All this is confounded by Mr. S. He says temptation is not sin. In the sense used by James, it is sin. In the other sense of testing or trying, it is not. It is rather now "from without than from his own heart" (pp. 19, 20). All this is mischievously vague, betrays the consciousness that his own heart after all has something to say to it, yet excuses it as the Lord was tempted. Mr. Smith could not say of and in himself, "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me"; Christ could. If we held ourselves always absolutely dead, Satan would not touch us; he has nothing for the new man. But all this is vague and mischievous, as confounding inward temptation and lust with outward, and tending to the abominable doctrine that lust is not sin if we do not listen to it. Does it come from the life and Spirit of Christ in us?

191 But Mr. S., in a passage already referred to, seeks to swamp the existence of flesh in consciousness; and so making self-judgment and self-purifying by grace lose its place. Thus (p. 21) we receive by faith inward purity of soul. Where is that in scripture? Where do you find in scripture, "receiving redemption from all iniquity"? It is never said to be received, nor received now. And be assured scripture speaks more surely, more wisely, more exactly and truly, than we do. Besides, if it means that the flesh does not exist or that it ceases to exist, it is false. Mr. S. loses all this, which is expressly in scripture, loving to deal with consciousness. He cannot say whether the body of sin is destroyed, if so, it may be revived. It depends on the "definition of sin" (p. 71). "It is not in the range of consciousness to determine." What a setting aside of scripture is here!

Now entire liberty from the power of sin, fellowship with God, and joy unclouded in His favour without anything on the conscience as the only normal Christian state, I do not merely admit but would press. But the setting aside conformity to Christ in glory as the only result before the Christian because he has that Christ already as his life, and the existence of sin in the flesh which in its nature lusts against the Spirit and required a thorn, a messenger of Satan to hinder it in Paul, destroys (and it is Mr. Smith's system) the true character of self-judgment and purifying, and lowers grievously the Christian standard, and blinds to Christian truth, so as to interest the soul with itself, instead of, in the ungrieved power of the Spirit, fixing it on Christ. Mr. S.'s book is the strongest possible proof of this. There is the painful proof to the reader of being in the "range of his consciousness," and the absence of Christ as the object of the soul. That he is delivered I do not call in question, nor that he rightly judges the existing state of Christendom. It is because this is needed — and I am satisfied that he does it wrongly — that I notice his book. His system is a kind of mixture of views held by so-called Plymouth Brethren and Wesleyans, which the latter would not own, though he is not aware of it.

I only draw the attention of the reader (p. 26) to the way in which the low state of Christians is the measure he compares with. "If sinning be the inevitable constant condition of the Christian," then indeed are we in a poor case; but many would not accept this, and the question is, Is Mr. Smith's the scriptural way out of it? for he has a way, and seeks to point it out. Only I note that overcoming is not purity. Overcoming can have no place in another state of existence; purity will . . In a certain sense overcoming denies positive purity given. It is this vagueness and immaturity, this contradiction morally, from not having weighed scripture and so known himself, but comparing himself with the language of other Christians, which makes his book disagreeable to read.

192 On page 28 I find more formally, "that through Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection life in the soul, God has provided a power capable of conforming the children of the kingdom to the image of its head, few will venture to deny." Now I venture to deny it altogether. In glory we shall be conformed to the image of the heavenly, of God's Son. In this world He was absolutely without sin; if I say I am, I deceive myself. It is never said the love of God is perfected in our souls;* and the latter words just give a false idea of the matter — that it is our love, not God's. That comes in when it is said "we love Him because He first loved us." But "herein is love, not that we loved Him." All this is very mischievous, and conformity to Christ denies our state or Christ's. Here again (p. 30) I find mere victory over sin identified with conformity to Christ.

{*It is said (1 John 2: 5; ch. 4: 12) "perfected in us"; but this is God's love shed abroad in our hearts, but still God's love.}

I add, that the shewing that Christ met a felt need when there was guilt leaves the question untouched. Is the felt need one that scripture recognises? If it is sin not having dominion over us, clearly it is. But that is the question. What Mr. S. calls the need of the soul is not one produced by the Holy Ghost. He tells us (p. 31) that "whatever the Holy Spirit makes us yearn for, Christ came to give." Then if he means here (and this is what he does mean), I must never yearn for heaven, never yearn for seeing Christ as He is, never for His coming, never for the redemption of the body, nor think of being saved in hope, and, hoping for that I see not, wait for it with patience. A heavenly-minded Christian is unknown to, set aside by, our writer. Paul's desire to win Christ, to obtain "the resurrection from among the dead," the "one thing" he was doing, was all a mistake!

And this is my objection to Mr. Smith's system. His hopes and yearnings are too low. All he has to teach from is a comparison "of the current of our inward life" with his present state, comparing himself with himself, which is not wise. It is the range of his own consciousness, neither of which I accept as a rule or measure of what I am to expect from Christ.

193 It seems to me unhappy to be constantly using scripture for his own purpose in a sense it does not mean (p. 34). "Laying aside every weight" is for race, and not for what Mr. S. quotes it. "Frustrating the grace of God" has nothing to do with it either, and scripture never tells us to "know Christ formed in us"; quite the contrary, it presses our looking out to where He is perfect, and that we may live by faith and be changed into His image. Faith never looks at itself or at its effect in us, but at Christ in Himself. We are freed from the law of sin that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us. Mr. S. says it is strange that we should have ever doubted that love to God is included in this. Is it not rather strange in that case that, when the apostle speaks of this point, which he does more than once, he never speaks of the first table? Not only so, he declares that the whole law is fulfilled in loving one's neighbour as one's self. See Romans 13: 8, 9; Galatians 5: 14. That is, when the precise point is before him, he carefully avoids what Mr. S. insists on, and in fact contradicts him, calling the whole law love to our neighbour. We may be assured that scripture is wiser than we are. I think I could say I love God with all my heart, I should not dare to say with all my mind and all my strength. But this is only the imperfect estimate we make of our own state.

Again I find (p. 42) that it is constantly held that sinning is the inevitable condition of God's own saved saints. And note, "sinning," not "sin in us." I do not say more on this, but only here mark how uniformly this is the standard of comparison. Next I find "he, the Christian who puts on the Lord Jesus Christ, simply is placed where he by faith receives from God the power to act day by day up to the given measure of light upon his duty." Few, I apprehend, would deny this, though they might say, with James, as to the fact, "In many things we all offend," never we must.

But further, "It is the power of overcoming all discerned evil that is bestowed." Now I do soberly and seriously ask, Is this conformity to Christ? Is the discerned evil Mr. Smith speaks of not there? What is overcome? That a holy soul will judge evil in the root before God so that he does not dishonour Christ before men, that he learns evil, humble in himself with God, and not careless with Satan, is most true; but evil is there, and this is not purity or conformity to Christ. All this looseness of statement misleads instead of teaching; it hinders souls from bowing to the doctrine of the deliverance to which they ought to submit. Overcoming evil is not purity and holiness. The common use of "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" is a mere abuse of the text. The apostle is shewing that, if a person eats of what would be clean for stronger faith, it is sin to him who has not this faith, his conscience is defiled.

194 I then come to a doctrine (p. 47) common among the Wesleyans, which is utterly false: "God's Spirit is the Spirit of holiness; it cannot dwell with sin, or even with the love of this world." Then it leaves us on every evil thought, and must, if at all, come again; and I have no power to overcome, I do not know I am a child. I cannot grieve the Holy Ghost by which I am sealed to the day of redemption, if it cannot be where sin is! Did the Holy Ghost leave Peter when he was guilty of dissimulation, and come back again to make him anew an apostle? It is, in every sense, an unscriptural doctrine. We grieve the Spirit which does dwell in us, and by which we are sealed for the day of redemption. All the rest of the chapter is false doctrine. "The Spirit must fill the soul that is emptied of self." What has emptied it? How am I emptied of all else in order to receive the Spirit? Humbled by powerlessness, yes; but I must be filled with Christ to be emptied of self, though not to have learned its evil and be cast on Christ. There is never such a vacuum in the soul. If the Spirit does not fill it, the flesh lusts. It is really the false principle of the honest monk. I have tried it; I doubt if Mr. S. has. At any rate, it is mere delusion that the soul is emptied of self so as to be a vacuum in order to receive the Spirit. I will, the Lord helping, say a word on this before I close.

The review of the chapter which treats of the atonement is, I confess, painful. It lowers so dreadfully the Christian normal state, so muddles vital truths, so really allows of evil in Christians, that it grieves one's spirit. The washing by water is ignored, the existence of evil affirmed and denied, and the real efficacy of the atonement set aside, while the Epistle to the Hebrews is completely travestied. I do not speak with any bitterness of feeling. I do not doubt for a moment that the author is a child of God. But he must forgive me for saying he has gone beyond his depth, and has given ample proof of the evil of his views, and of the confusion into which they throw the sincere. The chapter is so full of confusion, one hardly knows where to begin.

195 Though we are told to follow after holiness, neither the inward sanctification of the Spirit nor the operation of the Spirit is spoken of in the Hebrews. "Sanctified" is by the will of God through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It is a sanctification of the people by blood, by Christ's suffering outside the gate, as the bodies of the beasts in the chief offerings for sin were burned without the camp. The point of the Hebrews is access to God in the holiest, where Christ is gone. The inward state of the individual is not its subject, but a rent veil, an offering once made by which the believer is perfected for ever — has no more conscience of sins — so that, if he leaves it, there is no more offering. So that Christ must have suffered often if cleansing was not perfected for ever; for without shedding of blood was no remission. It is not sprinkling, no recurrence to it is thought of, repetition of it impossible: it was Jewish. This is the essence of the argument. When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; not standing as the Jewish priests did, because their work is never done. He is expecting till His enemies are made His footstool; for, as to them who are sanctified, He has by one offering perfected them for ever. It is impossible to conceive reasoning more precisely opposed to Mr. S.'s statements than those of the apostle. That the epistle desires that the Jewish Christian should be perfect in every good work to do His will is all quite true, but has nothing to do with the matter. It is blood that sanctifies the people here. Departure from it is fatal perdition, and finally so.

But I turn to details. "Now cleanseth" is not in scripture. And adding to God's word is a dangerous thing. I have not a moment's doubt that it is used abstractedly; as I say, that medicine cures the ague. The Christian has the three parts of his true standing — walking in the light as God is in it (it is not said Jesus); mutual fellowship one with another (to apply met allelon to us and God is as irreverent as I am satisfied it is false); and thirdly, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. It is its efficacy to make us fit for the light as God is in it. But, I beg leave to add, there is no repetition of sprinkling of blood in scripture. It never loses its value in God's sight. It is an efficacious sealing of the covenant, efficacious cleansing of the leper, and consecration of the priest once for all. Washing of the feet there is, but this is with water; sprinkling with the ashes of the red heifer, but this is with running water, the blood having been sprinkled seven times at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. It is the washing with water Mr. S. ignores. This is what scripture applies to any daily failure, not re-sprinkling with blood. A man is converted, bathed in the water of the word ("Ye are clean through the word spoken unto you"); this is never repeated; but, if we do pick up evil on our feet in our walk, through Christ's advocacy (1 John 2), of which the righteousness and the propitiation are the abiding ground, our feet are washed, and communion is restored. Imputation of guilt never recurred, for Christ had borne the sin on the cross. So the value of the great day of atonement remained, the blood sprinkled seven times remained in all its efficacy, the sin had been consumed in Christ's death, and the Spirit brings back the remembrance of that, and communion is restored. But there is no re-sprinkling with blood, no fresh recurrence to it, if we sin.

196 But what is "stumbling in the way of holiness, not out of it?" What does stumbling mean? If anything, it means failing in walk, sinning. Do Christians sin in the way of holiness? That they do not lose the consciousness of their place and relationship, or come under law again, I admit. But stumbling in the way of holiness, I fear, tends to make light of sin. And it is owned to be a sad event, a transgression; yet does the believing heart not doubt even then its sanctification. What does this mean if inward purity and holiness is the sanctification? If it means a setting apart of the person by blood once and for ever, I should understand it, though I fear such a use of it would make a believer easy when he had failed, and harden his conscience.

But what means "hearing the command, What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common"? That we have not thereby ceased to be His, I believe; but defiling, by the vile sin which made Christ suffer, what God has cleansed, is a dreadful thing; and this is the meaning of putting the heifer's ashes in the running water. The passage in the Acts has nothing to do with the matter. It refers to not holding the Gentiles for unclean. But that is a little matter here. If this passage means anything, it means that I am to take the defiling God's temple very easy. I have not lost my sanctification. Yet in another place we are told that the Spirit of God cannot dwell where sin is, so that I am no longer a temple, nor is the sanctification of the Spirit there. The passage is so strange, that the only way I can account for it is, that conscience told Mr. S. that he did transgress, and yet he did not like the idea that he had thereby got out of the place he supposed he had got into. And it is one of the evils of fancied perfection that the person's pride does not like admitting that he has lost it; his conscience becomes dull too, or makes light of transgression.

197 I can have no word to say against being dead to sins, nor, as I will soon shew, reckoning ourselves dead to sin, nor being redeemed from all iniquity; but I object wholly to adding "inwardly" to cleansing from sin: the scripture does not.

When the apostle speaks of "cleansing from all unrighteousness," he is speaking of confessing sins; when he speaks of iniquity (anomia) as equivalent to sin, he is speaking of practising it. Anomia or iniquity, as that from which we are redeemed, is not sin in the flesh here; "for if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"; and we shall see that Mr. Smith admits this, though he has a remedy of which scripture knows nothing, and which really leaves us where we were. Cleansing is cleansing from stains when we confess our sins: so at least the apostle says. It is not merely cancelling a record, but making us white as snow; but that is when sins were as scarlet. Scripture never speaks of cleansing the fountain, the very source of evil thoughts. It speaks of purifying the Gentile hearts by faith, in a practical sense, putting no difference between Jews and others; but never of cleansing the very source, as Mr. Smith does. The flesh lusts against the Spirit. A messenger of Satan had to keep Paul's flesh down. There is no such thought as cleansing the source of evil in us, nor applying blood to it. All this is false.

To reckon ourselves dead, dead with Christ, and the flesh crucified with Him, because it is always bad — of this scripture always speaks, as the way of power, that only Christ's life may be shewn, but never of applying blood to cleanse the flesh, or source of evil. We do not come to "Jesus the light," nor walk in Jesus. All these thoughts are foreign to scripture.

198 But mark further the unintelligible contradictions we find here. We are "to receive the blood as cleansing the fountain — the very source of evil thoughts" (p. 55); "to wash inwardly the sin itself away, not merely the stains, but the sin itself" (p. 58); "that remedy is applied in the very source of the spring itself" (it was poisoned in its very source, he says); "it makes the waters pure and sweet, the waters that flow out therefrom" (from the source, p. 56). As the remedy is applied not only to the waters, but to the very source of the spring, one would have supposed that the source had become pure. Far from it. "If he then walks in the light, or in Jesus, it shines through and through him, revealing hourly the things that are contrary to God and to holiness." What kind of purity and holiness and cleansing the very source of the spring is that? Only as they are revealed by the light they are cleansed by the blood! The source of the spring then is not purified at all. "The moment that remedy is stayed, that very moment the poisonous waters flow out as foul as ever" (p. 59). From what purified source did they come?

My answer moreover is this, iniquity (anomia) is not used in scripture for the source and spring of evil, the flesh; and scripture never speaks of applying the blood to the source to cleanse it. Cleansing from all sin does not mean any change in the spring or source of evil; for the flesh is not changed, nor does scripture ever speak of its being changed or cleansed. What scripture does speak of is far dearer and more effectual. First, as to conscience, it is perfected: the worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins. Christ is in the presence of God, as is all the value of His precious blood; and by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified through the offering of His body once for all. If I look up to God, Christ and His blood are there before God, and imputation of sin is impossible. As regards the flesh, it is for ever condemned. There is no application of blood to it; but God declares me dead because Christ has died who is now my life, and I reckon myself dead and am called to bear about the dying of Christ, that nothing but His life should be manifested in me. If through carelessness (which I never can excuse, for sin has no longer dominion over me), I have defiled even my thoughts or my feet, Christ's advocacy comes in, and my feet through grace are washed. But, if walking in the power of the Spirit, sin does not arise in my mind, Christ dwells there by faith, and I constantly know, and consciously, that I am loved as Jesus was loved; I have fellowship (that is, common joys, thoughts, feelings) with the Father and the Son; for, whatever a poor feeble vessel I may be, the Holy Ghost cannot give different ones. Here, of course, there may be degrees and progress.

199 But to speak of conformity to Jesus, and then tell us that the light shines through us, revealing hourly the things that are contrary to God and holiness, is really mocking us with vain words. And to tell me that the very source of the spring is cleansed, but that the very moment the remedy is not actually applied to what would come from it (or things contrary to God and holiness hourly there), the poisonous waters flow as before — from the cleansed spring — is to bewilder, not to teach.*

{*The application of a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness to our hearts or to Christ's blood is really without foundation. A fountain of blood to cleanse is no scripture thought, of water it is. And it is said of Jerusalem in the last days. But there is no application of it to our hearts.}

How is it, I ask, if things are hourly brought to light contrary to God and holiness, that (p. 66) he is not ever conscious of inward impurity? must he not ever find within him an active fountain? The truth is, the deliverance urged by Mr. S. is a very imperfect one — far short of what scripture gives; it is a constant application of the blood to what is welling up, like repeated Jewish sacrifices, not the sentence of death by faith upon the nature, or the old man. He asks, as Wesleyans do, "Is death alone to be my deliverer?" I answer, Clearly so. He that is dead is freed (justified) from sin. But the believer who has understood the truth reckons himself dead, has the sentence of death in himself. This is a remedy applied to the source. It is only by faith, of course, till actual death come. But death by faith, or actually, is the only scriptural remedy for sin in us. It is not applied over and over again, of which scripture knows nothing, and which leaves the poisoned source there; but it is death for faith or in fact. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." "In that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God: so likewise reckon ye also yourselves dead unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

It is not a constant re-application and cleansing of what is never cleansed, but the constant normal state of the Christian. He has been crucified with Christ; he has died, and his life is hid with Christ in God; and even as to details, he mortifies — puts to death — the evil. It is power by the Holy Ghost. Scripture never speaks of cleansing the old man: the Christian, if he knows his standing, has put it off. What is the meaning of "Christ reigning in resurrection-life over sin"? (p. 67). Christ reigning over sin supposes it there, and is an ugly expression. Christ dwells in my heart by faith, and the body is dead because I reckon myself dead. Death, and death only, is deliverance. But I repeat, by faith we reckon ourselves dead. But death to sin is the only cleansing recognized in scripture, where the question is of inward cleanness and the flesh. The water, as the blood, came out of the side of a dead Christ. The water Mr. S. ignores; the blood he applies continually as if it was never finished. The blood must be shed, and Christ suffer, for that part of the work; and sin in the flesh was condemned when Christ was on the cross, and I died with Him. But of this more hereafter (p. 69). There was no cleansing, but condemnation and death in a sacrifice. Atonement (p. 69) is never the expression of the Father's love. Love was expressed in the Father sending the Son to do it; but the propitiation met God's righteous requirement. Drinking the cup was not the Father's love. Nor did Christ seek if possible to learn His Father's love. The real import of the atonement is lost sight of here. It is a mistake to say that the relationships of the Christian are entered into at conversion (p. 70); but this will come in when I treat of the scriptural view.

200 I have already spoken of pages 71, 72; but it is a striking example how there is no inquiry after scriptural truth. We have different definitions of sins and holiness. Does God give them? Does the word? Sin in the flesh is not looked at, sin and sins confounded, and "the truth" — the truth of God — not looked after, but all left vague in different definitions, and consciousness which cannot be trusted. This is very sad. And we are told the scripture plan is not to analyse, which is wholly false. It is fully and divinely analysed in Romans 7 and 8. The case put (pp. 74, 75) says absolutely nothing. There is no doubt that faith overcomes the world.

I have not much more to note. Scarce one passage, if one, is used as the Holy Spirit uses it in scripture: sin and sins mixed up as one thing; the existence of the flesh not fairly looked in the face; and the heavenly calling wholly ignored. In these points it is on Wesleyan ground. But other things are held which cannot be reconciled with this, as the reception of a new life in Christ. All is inextricable confusion.

201 I beg my reader to remember that I am not denying deliverance from the power of sin, but Mr. Smith's explanation of it, which I believe to be unscriptural and mischievous. He tells us that he does not give us the soul's secret to be discussed, but a life to be enjoyed. My answer is, his book is a discussion on the false principles of what is no secret to many. He says he believes we are humbly and devoutly waiting to open our heart and understanding to it; that is, we have received his teaching as true, and are only waiting to receive it into our hearts. But there is a preliminary question. Is his teaching true? This I am to take for granted, and only to hope to realise it. But I oppose, not deliverance, but his teaching about it as not true. A Christ only leading me to think of my own state is not a result which I desire, and that is the result of his book. "Paul," we are told, "confessed a Christ living in him, and triumphed." That he knew Christ was in him, and was his life, is true; but that was not his triumph, nor the character of his life.

I shall now state what scripture does set forth as to deliverance. Every one can judge how far scripture does state it as I am about to do. The Holy Ghost alone can give us the power of it. The first great truth as regards the believer's relationship to God is that on the one hand the Lord imputes no sin, and on the other he who is sanctified to God by the precious work of Christ is perfected for ever, has no more consciousness of sins, and boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Christ, by the new and living way He has consecrated for him. The apostle enlarges on this (Heb. 9 and 10), insists on its being done once for all, as an eternal redemption; that if this fitness for God, as to sins and acceptance, was not complete and eternal by Christ's one offering, Christ must have suffered often. There is no veil between us and God — it is rent; no remembrance of sins, no more conscience of sins; we are perfected eis to dienekes, not merely eternally, but without any interruption or break in it, as Christ is therefore sitting because all is done for us, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. There is no repetition of the offering, no more conscience of sins. Christ appears in the presence of God for us, the uninterrupted testimony that there is no sin on us. And this, remark, looks at the believer as on earth, as all the epistle to the Hebrews does, and Christ in heaven for us.

202 If we look at our higher privileges, then, I say, by the Holy Ghost I know I am in Christ, and He in me; I am sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. If any man be in Christ, it is a new creation. But Romans enters into it more fully, and analyses every point of a sinner's standing with God through forgiveness and deliverance; and the apostle in no way confounds the two. God's righteousness is revealed, because the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Every mouth is stopped, and all the world is guilty. All have sinned; and Christ's blood (chap. 3) and Christ's resurrection, as sealing His work on God's part (chap. 4), is the answer of grace; so that peace and present favour are enjoyed, and the glory of God in hope. The Holy Spirit being given, we glory in tribulations, and lastly in God Himself, through Christ, by whom we have received the reconciliation with God. This goes down to Romans 5: 11. From the 12th verse quite another subject is taken up; not our sins which we do, but our sin — what we are in the flesh. Here it is by one man's disobedience the many connected with him are made sinners. By one Man's obedience many shall be made righteous. It is our alienation from God, and the principle of sin in us. The remedy also is different, though still Christ's death; not that He was delivered for our offences, but that we have died in and with Him. We are not called to die, but to understand that we have died. So scripture uniformly speaks. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," Gal. 2: 20. "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him," Rom. 6: 6. "Ye are dead," Col. 3: 3.

We are never called to die; our Christian profession by baptism was to His death. The Christian not only knows that Christ has died and is risen, and that he is redeemed out of flesh into a standing in Christ, but that he also has died as a child of Adam. What God pronounces in Colossians 3 faith is taught to take up in Romans 6. Reckon yourselves dead as a child of Adam, but alive to God in Christ. "Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds." Now this is the scriptural way of deliverance, a subject treated quite apart from sins, propitiation, and blood-shedding.

203 Further, this is directly connected with experience, and legal experience in a renewed man. The main truth is that we are dead to sin, according to God, if Christ be in us. But the law has power over a man as long as he lives. But I am delivered from the law, having died in that in which I was held. We are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that we should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead. But this deliverance is a distinct thing, as I have said, from forgiveness. If Christ has borne my sins, and I, through grace, have been brought to believe in the efficacy of His death, I find forgiveness and peace. In itself this is a question of simple facts, if I believe in the efficacy of Christ's work and God's word concerning it to me. The work is entirely outside, accomplished on the cross, accepted of God when He raised Christ from the dead, and believing in it through grace, I have peace. Grace makes me a believer; but what I believe in is a thing wholly outside me, and perfectly accomplished once for all. This is not attainment of something I am which my experience may contradict, but outside myself a simple object of faith perfectly accomplished. But when told I am dead, dead to sin, it is about myself, and my experience contradicts it; I find sin working in me, and I say I am not dead to sin: my experience contradicts what is told me.

I am told I am forgiven; it is only a question whether I believe what is said. I quite admit it is God's Spirit and grace which makes me believe it; but I have to go out of all experience and believe in a work done for me and outside of me. But if the word says you are dead, my experience says I am not. Well, I am to reckon myself dead: how is this arrived at? Not but by another kind of experience — hopelessness as to the power of sin in myself; and this is really experience under law, requirement from me of what I ought to or would be. And hence the apostle treats it rather on the ground of pure law, and describes the state of a renewed soul under the first husband; law, requiring righteousness, which, weak through the flesh, it cannot succeed in having; for the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. But the renewed and quickened man is (as to his ground of standing with God) in the flesh, while under the law; it is still for him the question what he ought to be for God. The question here, then, is not how to be forgiven, but how to get out of the flesh, how to be dead as regards its power. Now God does not take us out of it till He has made us feel what it is to be in it. The work which delivers us is done; but we always hope to do better, and are all but despairing till we have learned ourselves, and, knowing we cannot get on, are hopeless as to ourselves, till we know what the flesh is as a distinct thing in us till we look to a Deliverer (not to victory as we are), and then learn that the cross has settled it for ever.

204 I first learn that in me, that is, in my flesh, there is no good thing; next, as I now hate the evil, though I do it, it is not I (for I hate it), but sin that dwells in me. These are all-important lessons; still humbling and needed self-knowledge is not complete. I find that the sin I hate is too strong for the "I" that hates it. There is no possibility of my mending my case. I need a Deliverer (not pardon), another to do it. But God's work is now wrought. I have got to know what flesh is, what I, as in flesh, am — the lesson God would experimentally teach me; and then find it was all done when Christ died, and I thank God and reckon myself dead. Faith applies itself to what was done on the cross. It is its reference to what was done there that gives liberty.

The soul has gone experimentally through the process of its discovering its own incapacity to set itself free, and, being entirely humbled and at the end of itself, finds that, what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, that is, a sacrifice for sin (peri amartias), condemned sin in the flesh. But where sin in the flesh was condemned, death was perfected; and I, crucified with Christ, know that He took the condemnation and that I am dead to sin. It has nothing to do with forgiveness. Sin in the flesh is condemned, not forgiven; but condemned in Christ made sin and in death which delivers me from it. Nor does a soul pass into this liberty by faith without the knowledge of self (it is not God's intention it should), nor does he attain it by victory; but, when he finds he cannot, he gets deliverance through the knowledge of its condemnation in the cross, and that we have died there to it. Hence the uniform statements of scripture, that the Christian has died, has been crucified, never that he has to die. Christ has died; and he has to reckon himself dead and alive to God, not in Adam, but in Christ.

205 I have no doubt, when a soul has been exercised and humbled according to what is described in Romans 7, Mr. Smith's being able to say there is deliverance, as there surely is, may be blest to a soul; but his teaching on it is all wrong. It is in vain to say we are not to analyse it. We are to take scriptural teaching on it; and, in fact, scripture does analyse it, and very exactly, and shews that, while the deliverance is by faith in what was done on the cross, where we have been crucified with Christ, it is preceded, and the desire of deliverance is produced, by a deep experimental process, in which what the flesh is, and law is, is learned as described in Romans 7; while the doctrine as to what faith receives is in chapter 6; what the law is, even when Christ is known, is in chapter 7; and the deliverance is fully analysed in chapter 8, or even to the resurrection of the body. Mr. Smith would substitute for God's teachings on it the range of his consciousness. I prefer the word of God.

I do not think that talking of the Spirit rushing in when there is a vacuum is worthy of the exercises of a soul before God, nor of the ways of God in grace, of the seriousness that befits the question of the salvation of a sinful soul; but I should have taken no notice of it, had it not been an unsound thought. Neither is there any vacuum, nor anything to form it, nor any rushing in of the Spirit. The work of the Spirit in leading to deliverance is the opposite of a vacuum. It fills the soul with the honest and upright, but deep and bitter, sense of the power of sin in us, and our incapacity for gaining the victory over it. The law — and in this case we are practically under law — gives no life, no power, no object. It requires very rightly that lust should not be there; and lust is there and leads me captive, and I find I cannot get rid of it.

The soul is full of sin, though hating it, and of bitterness as it never was before, and is broken down in the sense of its wretchedness; but this in itself is not power — any more than the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, was power; but through grace it makes us find out we have none, and casts us on Another — "who shall deliver me?" — and then, as has been said, we find through divine teaching that God sees us as having died in Christ. The abiding power of deliverance and liberty — true heavenly liberty — is the law (that is, the abidingly active power) of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. but though it may be possible that in some instances God may grant the faith of it in reply to the earnest cry of the oppressed soul (often dangerous, as leading the soul to think of what passes in itself*), the scripture account of deliverance is not redemption which takes place in our own souls then, but the divinely given understanding that God condemned sin in the flesh when Christ was a sacrifice for sin. We, as men in the flesh, were crucified with Him then.

{*It is not experience which is dangerous, but thinking of it instead of Christ. It is really thinking of self: self is of importance to self. I never saw it otherwise. Here Calvinists and Arminians meet.}

206 Thus sin in the flesh was condemned, so that the believer is free. This is what faith lays hold of. This is the unvarying testimony of scripture, and it occupies us with Christ and not with ourselves. It is not that I expect every one to be able to explain what has passed in his soul, nor recall the passages which explain it. But though the first effect may be merely the joy of liberty and peace perhaps of heart, if really taught of God, he will recognise that it is in the death of Christ he has died; that it is not a death which is then actually wrought in him, but faith in the death of Christ, as having died with Him on the cross.

But Mr. S. has largely explained it, and explained it wrongly. It is impossible but there must be experience. Something passes even in the natural man; but when the Spirit of God works, the deepest and most varied exercises of heart take place in this encounter of divine light and love with the darkness of the human heart. That is not the evil. The evil of the Methodist and Calvinistic experience system is that, instead of applying Christ as God's answer to their experiences, they apply another experience perhaps to it, and go back to what has passed in their own minds; that is, they are occupied with self, nourishing self, instead of substituting Christ for it. The evil is not the having the experience, but the making it the object of reflection. This is never faith, for faith looks outside itself. I know that Mr. S. says Christ is "all in all" (not really what is said, though commonly so cited; it is "all and in all" — all as an object of the soul, and in all as life); but for him that is a state of the soul, not really Christ Himself.

I have seen another book of Mr. Smith's, on which I will spend a few words. I repeat what I have said: I believe in deliverance from the dominion of sin, nor do I doubt — however little I except his unscriptural statements about it — Mr. S.'s enjoyment of it; but, with a confusion which makes his statement difficult to deal with (as we must divine from our own experimental knowledge the real force of contradictory statements), his doctrine is really unsound and unscriptural; his explanations of scripture false, and founded on additions of his own not in the text. It is in vain to say he is looking for freeing souls, not controversy. I know what that freedom is, I think better than Mr. S.; but he makes large statements as to scripture, and his statements on the subject before us are antiscriptural. Sinning and sin are again confounded, subjects carefully distinguished in Romans: one, as we have seen, guilt and its remedy, being treated of to chapter 5: 11; the other from verse 12 of that chapter, our state by Adam's fall and its remedy, being-spoken of. And it is, whatever Mr. Smith may wish, fully analysed. But of sin in the flesh he avoids the examination. He tells us we must be crucified hourly, and then that death is accomplished, but it is over.

207 But what is more serious, in his effort to avoid the abiding of sin in the flesh, a nature which lusts against the Spirit, he tells us we may be still tempted; but temptation is not sin; our Lord was tempted. No doubt He was; but this unhappy allusion ignores a difference clearly stated in scripture. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are (not, as in English, "yet" [which is in italics] "without sin," but sin apart, choris amartias), in every possible way, which might tend to hinder the perseverance and obedience of a servant of God. Such temptations only drew out perfections and not sin. But there is another thing, called temptation. Every one is tempted, says James, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Mr. S. says the avenues are still open. The avenues and motions — it is not said, I suppose by some misprint, motions of what. Motions being open in any case is obscure, wrong too. But avenues are open to what? Is there any principle of sinful flesh which remains? Lusts and motions of sin there were none in Christ: that is certain; and comparing us to Christ tempted, and talking of avenues open, to say it in the mildest way, culpably avoids the question. Does sin in the flesh still exist in the man delivered from its power? There is a thing which lusts against the Spirit, the two things are contrary one to the other. It is a most serious question for the Christian — Does the evil nature still subsist in the believer? And to speak of avenues open, if it does, is to deceive the Christian as to a traitorous enemy within, which he has to watch against. And if, as Mr. S. says, the Christian has to keep it in the place of death, what does he keep there?

208 But there are fundamental principles in question in this book which I must notice. "Death unto Life" is its title. One cannot have this life till we are dead. As expressed in the other book, when there is a vacuum, the Spirit pours in. Now allow me to ask, Is complete death to all sin, sin wholly losing its life in us, a vacuum if it is, produced in the soul without our having spiritual life at all? A negative process, producing this vacuum no one knows by what; the man remaining spiritually dead all the time, not having life and yet becoming dead to sin! It is as absurd as it is unscriptural. And do not let Mr. S. come and object to the metaphysics of sin, or say he does not write for controversy; he teaches utterly false doctrines; he may call it metaphysics or what he pleases, but a sober mind will hold fast by scripture, and reject his teachings. Romans 6 speaks of Christians alive in Christ, in telling us to reckon ourselves dead to sin.

I may add that the very question put by Mr. S. came up thirty or forty years ago with Irvingism, and was fully discussed, and by those as free from sin as Mr. Smith; and his doctrine, on searching scripture, proved to be false. There is in scripture the very important truth of being dead to sin, and sin having no dominion over us, we being set free, so that we have no consciousness of its working, but not of finding death to it that we might have life. Scripture goes farther even than having life in order to our being dead to sin. "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness." It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which makes us free from the law of sin and death.

And this leads me to another capital point. Romans 6 has nothing to do with experience, but states the ground on which every Christian stands. Deliverance, which Mr. S. makes no matter of effort of, but jumping into holiness by faith, is the result of the painful and humbling but most profitable discovery that we cannot gain victory over sin in the flesh, even when born again. There is deliverance, not pardon, from its power and dominion, when knowledge of self is experimentally gained. Romans 6 calls upon us to reckon ourselves dead, but does not teach us that we die by any present experience. This scripture never teaches, but that the Christian was crucified with Christ; it is the judicial state of every Christian, of everyone baptized unto (not into) Christ. There is no union by faith, or experience, or anything else in the chapter, but doctrine and exhortation. The Christ we have been baptized unto is One who having died, we are accounted by baptism to take part in His death; it is that to which we come by profession in being a Christian; and the ground of the reasoning shews the absurdity of Mr. S.'s view of the chapter, as do its contents. If one Man's obedience made me righteous, I may live on in sin, say the flesh and the world. But, says the apostle, you have a part in that by having a part in death with Christ; consequently, it is the opposite to living on in sin.

209 The doctrine of the chapter is perfectly plain. Whoever has been baptized to Christ has been baptized to His death. It is the force of the Christian profession, "Knowing this, that our old man is [has been] crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed"; that was the object, so that henceforth we should not serve sin. The apostle carefully avoids, or rather repudiates, speaking of sin not existing in us; one would have thought the destruction of the whole body of sin in its entirety would have induced its non-existence in us. Not so; it is a practical conclusion he draws, that henceforth we should not serve it. So we are exhorted to walk in newness of life. Mr. S. will insist on this being realized by experience. Be it so: I cordially accept it; but it is no experience of some work wrought in us at a given moment by which and when we were crucified. There is a work wrought in us; but it is the teaching us to know that the old man was crucified with Christ, not that it has happened at a given moment by a work in us. We are called to reckon ourselves dead, because we were crucified with Christ, and this makes practically all the difference; the mind is not occupied with a petty exaggerated work in us, but with the absoluteness of Christ's cross, and in Another, which hinders our being occupied with self, as is invariably the case in Mr. S.'s system. I do not charge him in particular; it is the invariable and necessary consequence of the system.

Mr. S. may tell me it is Christ he is occupied with. My reply is, Read his books: they are the answer. The standard is thus fearfully lowered. Scripture never speaks of our having to die to sin — never; but of our having died, and of our reckoning ourselves dead. We are set free, and then called to yield ourselves to God wholly and without reserve, a living sacrifice. "Ye are dead"; reckon yourselves dead, and in practice always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus — not our dying, note. I do not know that I need add more.

210 I repeat, Romans 6 is not experience, but doctrine and exhortation; and the difference is of all importance. Mr. S. would have found, had he consulted the original, that "freed" from sin is justified from sin, which I only note as shewing the difference between sin and sins. Death does not justify a man from his sins; but it is impossible to charge a dead man with evil lusts and a perverse will. I judge then that the liberty from the power of sin and the necessity of sinning, and no present consciousness of sinning, on which Mr. Smith insists, is true, and I would plead for it as earnestly as he could wish; but he has gone on to teach and interpret, he has grievously lowered the standard and misled souls as to scriptural truth concerning it, and greatly, though I am sure unintentionally, put Christ out of view. To his desires for Christians I cordially adhere. His teachings and account of the matter, for Christ's sake and souls' sake, for the truth's sake by which we are sanctified, I utterly and wholly reject; and the rather because he gives occasion to theologians to reject the deliverance by shewing the false doctrine and confusion by which it is accompanied.

The kind of changes in scripture Mr. S. allows himself are these: — "In the same way in which under and in the first Adam sin reigned in the soul unto death without limit or reservation, even so under and in the new Adam is grace to reign in our souls through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ." Now the addition of "in our souls" (not given as a quotation) is a false representation of the passage. There is not a word about grace reigning in our souls in the passage. Mr. Smith further changes "as" into "the same way," which the passage does not say; and, I may add, "without limit or reserve" either ignores the existence of sin in the flesh, or blinds people by leaving it out. At any rate it is not said "in the same way," nor is it said "in our souls." It is a false representation of the contents of the passage.

The use of 2 Corinthians 5: 21 (on page 8) is utterly inadmissible. "May we always remember that our adorable Lord became sin, which He was not, neither could be in Himself, that we might become, even now, that righteousness which we were not, neither could be in ourselves." This is very bad. It is not said "became sin," but that God made Him sin for us, a totally different thing; and our being God's righteousness in Him is not that righteousness, nor a state we are in. The passage is changed to "becoming sin" as to Christ, in order to our becoming righteousness now. To be of any avail to Mr. Smith, it must be a practical state in us which we could not be naturally; but the passage says, God's "righteousness in Him." The last words are carefully left out, and the statement as to Christ grievously altered. And if becoming sin is not a practical state (which I suppose Mr. S. would surely not say, ambiguous as are his words), his reasoning is of no force whatever; for our becoming God's righteousness in Him has then a wholly different sense from what it is Mr. S.'s purpose to give it. The perversion of this passage, I confess, shocks me. I do not quote any more passages; these two will suffice to shew how he habitually uses scripture.

211 I have also read Mr. Smith's tract on Romans 7. I certainly recognise that it is not Christian experience; it is the experience under law of a renewed soul, before it has found deliverance. It is also true that, when forgiveness has been known by faith, souls come under law before they know deliverance. But, for all that, I believe Mr. S.'s explanation of the passage is all wrong. As to the mere law, Paul outwardly was blameless. He discusses its effect when known to be spiritual, but reasons on it purely as law. The knowledge of forgiveness modifies the experience, but does not alter the doctrine. The question is between connection with law and a risen Christ. But I do not think this little book calls for a detailed review. Mr. Smith has got as far as Luther on Galatians; but in his system a man may be in Romans 7 again every week!

Letter on Mr. J.P.S.'s "Holiness through Faith."

Letter on Mr. J.P.S.'s "Holiness through Faith."

J. N. Darby.

<23011E> 212

My dear -,

The greater part of what is here, even to its terminology, is borrowed from so-called "Brethren," such as resurrection-life, etc. I do not mean by this, that it is not sincere or real, for I have no such thought, but that it is what you have known and received for years. You must be aware that the teaching that Romans 7 is not the Christian state, but that chapter 8 is, has been taught, as I have myself earnestly insisted on it now near fifty years, only I trust with increasing clearness. But what is added to it is not sound teaching, and lowers the standard which scripture presents to us, and tends to put estimate of self instead of thoughts of Christ.

Mr. S. does see liberty before God and from sin which is by faith, though not scriptural on this point either, as we shall see; but he compares a Christian state with those who are under the bondage of the law, or Romans 8, instead of comparing it with Christ glorified or down here, and hence falsifies that state as well as lowers the standard. Being free from the law of sin and death, filled with the Spirit, dead to sin, are to be pressed as the only right state of the Christian.

The question of the justness of the statement of this book does not lie there. It confounds this with a supposed state of purity, which is not the scriptural apprehension of the Christian's condition when free.

I find in the very outset a mis-statement which affects the whole book. It is said (p. 12), "If we give rein to our yearnings, asking of God whatsoever things we desire, what would be our first instinctive cry? That we might be holy and pure, and conformed to the image of Jesus Christ." Now while this sounds very well, and the desire after holiness is an essential part of the new man, yet this statement is not scriptural, and falsifies the whole truth on the subject.

Conformity to the image of Jesus Christ is in glory. We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. We have borne the image of the earthly, and we shall bear the image of the heavenly. The only positive object of the Christian is conformity to Christ in glory. And we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

213 And now mark the difference of the consequence. For Mr. P.S. it is to be holy and pure, etc. For scriptural conformity to Christ is in glory, and the consequence is, "He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself as he is pure." The standard is Christ in glory, and it is not said pure, but "purifieth." This is always the scriptural estimate. "Beholding with unveiled face [looking fully into] the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord." Hence Paul, in his fullest energy, seeks to win Christ, and along with this that he may attain unto the resurrection from among the dead. His object is the prize of the high calling, his calling is up above (ano). No state here is the object of the Christian.

Now this alters the whole character of Christian state and attainment. For this Christ's state down here is never presented as a model of attainment, for He was wholly without sin, and we are not in nature. Scripture says "he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk as he walked." Because we ought never to walk after the flesh, though the flesh be there.

No one desires that any should live in sin, or even sin at all. We have no excuse for a single idle thought, for Christ's grace is sufficient for us, and God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. But in Romans 6 it is not Christ's walk down here or state which is presented, but His being raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and our consequent walking in newness of life. Here Mr. S. makes it the point of his argument (p. 15) that we are not to serve sin. Of course we are not. But his argument here is all fallacious. What is stated is urged as the only normal Christian state. But the ground of the argument is that we (believers) were crucified with Christ: that is, when He was crucified, we were. Now it is of course faith that realizes this through grace, and if we do we are free: but the thing realized is, that we were crucified with Him when He was crucified. And it is so taken as the Christian state that the introduction to Christianity (baptism) is the introduction to that as its proper force; being baptized to Christ is being baptized to His death; and this, not the question of guilt and sins put away (that subject is treated to the end of verse 11, chapter 5), but our state and our relationship to God by Adam's sin, to which state we have died, and so are clear from it and out of it, Christ having actually died for us to this as well as borne our sins.

214 Hence also we are dead to law, for law has power over a man as long as he lives, and we have died away from under it in Christ, and are to another — Christ raised from the dead, and this is deliverance, not justification. It is thus we pass from Romans 7 to 8, the power and means described in chapter 8: 2, 3, and the deliverance continued on to verse 11. How much state, and not Christ, is the object of Mr. S.'s mind is evident from pages 16-19.

But all this betrays too a failing apprehension of the existence of the flesh. "The whole nature is body, soul and spirit, it is a readjustment of it," not Christ my life giving me the consciousness I am to be like Him, as He is. With this comes temptation more fierce than ever. What does this mean? "Temptation is not sin, for my Lord was tempted" (p. 19). What does he mean by "temptation"? Satan came and tried Christ in the path of perfect obedience. But what has this to do with purity of heart? All this is exceedingly immature and uncertain, and a strange confusion of the question of purity and assaults by Satan upon us. Nor do I find consistency of doctrine with himself or with scripture. "We receive the purification from all iniquity by faith, and that now, and that is from all iniquity" (p. 21). But in page 55, "If he then walks in the light or in Jesus, it shines through and through him, revealing hourly the things contrary to God and holiness, and as they are revealed by the light, they are cleansed by the blood. To walk in the light always leads to the blood of purifying." Now sanctifying is not used in the passage of Hebrews in the sense he does; but the whole doctrine of that part of the epistle is different from Mr. S.'s. The statement there is that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. And when he speaks of receiving the blood as cleansing the fountain, the very source of evil thoughts, murders, etc. (p. 55), is not the flesh the fountain of them? Is the flesh cleansed? Why had Paul a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, if the very source of evil was cleansed? Nor is "inwardly" in the text, nor is Jesus here spoken of as the light. It is "If we walk in the light, as he [God] is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin," and it is clearly as set in the light, brought so, that the light shews we are as white as snow (p. 26). You see how he takes the low condition of evangelical Christendom as his point of comparison: "If sinning be the inevitable, constant, condition of the Christian." Of course it is not.

215 Again, I find (in page 20) the false principle of conformity to Christ here, which, as stated by him, is not in scripture. "He knows no sin," but this book tells me the light always leads to the blood of purifying. Was this true of Christ? If not, there is not conformity to Him as down here. To what He is up there clearly no one is yet conformed. But it is of this scripture speaks: the effect is to make us purify ourselves. Had Christ to do this? So "victory over sin" is not conformity to Christ (p. 30). Victory there ought always to be, and indeed I should go a great deal farther. But this vague use of conformity to Christ is really very mischievous. We are called to walk as He walked, never to be what He was. I do not admit that "whatever the Holy Spirit makes us to yearn for, Christ came to give" in this life (p. 31). I yearn for a state, and so did Paul in Philippians 3 and in 2 Corinthians 5, which he could not have in this world by any possibility.

The same excessive vagueness and neglect of the force of scripture which we have already found is repeated in page 37, "These things prepared by God are not all postponed to a future scene, but are even now spiritually discerned." Now whatever is prepared is revealed, and may be all spiritually discerned, and this no doubt should act so as to make us live in these things, have our conversation in heaven, look on not the things that are seen but the things that are not seen — as those out of Romans 7 and alive from the dead. I have no wish, far from it, to weaken this. The flesh never should be allowed to act, even in our thoughts, but be held for dead, and Christ's grace is sufficient for it. But this is not "some things not being postponed to a future state," but the action of all heavenly things on a soul set free by being dead and risen with Christ; Col. 3. But here the things are above, and the essence of the teaching is that they are above. Our calling is above (ano), whatever we realize of it here.

Nor does Ephesians 3 (page 41) speak of our love to God required by the law, but of a much more blessed thing. We are rooted and grounded in love — not our love as man to God surely. It is Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, and our knowing Christ's love which passes knowledge (and therefore "as far as I was conscious") so as to be filled up to (eis) all the fulness of God. It is a mischievous thing to make this our love to God according to the requirements of the law, and false interpretation, and shews how this system (not freedom from Rom. 7) lowers the true standard of blessing and holy privilege. If the system only affirmed what is stated in page 43, I should not have a word to say against it. "He simply is placed where he by faith receives from God power to act day by day up to the given measure of light upon his duty. It is the power of overcoming all descended evil that is bestowed." Now scripture is perfectly clear as to this: sin shall not have dominion over us. Christ's grace is sufficient for us. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. All are not in Romans 7. But this is not the principle on which this freedom is based here. Mr. P.S. talks of conformity to Christ here, of being pure, etc. Now had Christ simply the power of overcoming discerned evil, and is overcoming discerned evil purity? The system is all false. Deliverance from the state of Romans 7 and being in Romans 8 and always so, is not false, but very important; but the principles on which this is based in the book are quite false.

216 Perfect (pages 43, 44) in Philippians 3 refers to the recognition of a calling above, having the conversation in heaven and this giving a motive for looking always onward; it knows no standard but resurrection, and not conformity to Christ here. I might say the perfection Philippians 3 speaks of is the denial of Mr. P.S.'s perfection, for it knows none but likeness to Christ in glory acting on motives now. Here again the standard is lowered, and a state here which is only a passing and imperfect effect of it called perfection. Perfection in Philippians 3 is not the walk. The perfect are exhorted to have this mind and walk and conversation. It is our heavenly standing as contrasted with forgiveness and morality. Enoch walked with God or pleased Him (this is only the LXX translation of "walking with") and God took him away out of the world. That was what satisfied his heart, not his walk, though he had the knowledge that he pleased God, a most true and blessed privilege. Note too here (p. 46) he identifies "sinning and under sense of condemnation" — things essentially different. It is clear that he has no distinct sense of justification and acceptance in Christ, as his reference to the application of blood to purify on each failure also distinctly shews. The doctrine of no more conscience of sins is unknown to him. I admit that knowledge is a poor equivalent for taking Jesus for all and present victory (p. 46), but it is not the question.

217 We have again false doctrine (in page 47), "God's Spirit cannot dwell with sin, or even with the love of the world." Had he said that it is not being filled with the Spirit, I should have heartily agreed. But I ask, did the Holy Spirit dwell in Peter, or had He left him when he used dissimulation, or how do I grieve the Spirit if sin and the Spirit cannot be there together? If a man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Do we cease to be Christ's if anything of worldliness gets into the mind. most sad as it is to see it? I have no desire to weaken the force of the solemn texts he quotes, but to apply them earnestly to conscience; but his use of them is wrong. We are not in the flesh but the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us. It is a state, not a walking up to that state, all important as this is. We have natural men, carnal Christians, and spiritual Christians, in 1 Corinthians. But it is a serious thing to say a man is none of Christ's, because he fails to live up to the power which works in him, though he has no excuse for not doing it, and is judged by the perfect law of liberty.

The body dead because of sin is the practical conclusion the apostle draws as to the Christian state. In 2 Corinthians 4 always bearing about Christ's dying is the practical realization of it. But I reckon myself dead by faith. All this is confounded, and false doctrine the consequence.

The use of the Epistle to the Hebrews (p. 51) I believe to be wholly false. Sanctification by blood is not the same thing as sanctification by the Spirit; and here I remark that the use of the symbol of water, of which scripture is full, is wholly ignored in this book. Christ washes the disciples' feet with water, He sanctifies and cleanses the church with the washing of water by the word, the disciples were clean by the word spoken, and out of His pierced side water came as well as blood.

Hence in this chapter Mr. S. purifies Christians by blood again if they fail, and (as we have seen) sinning and a sense of condemnation go together for him; and so of course repurifying has to be wrought by blood. In the doctrine of the Hebrews, which treats of the blood and work of Christ, it is when He had by Himself purged our sins, that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. And the worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins, and by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

218 As to water and feet-washing this is not so. So if (1 John 2) any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins. Here communion is in question, and this for the time is wholly destroyed by sin. On the other hand, righteousness is not in question before God, because Christ is our righteousness. It is not the sense of condemnation, but horror of sin and judging ourselves, not the thought of being condemned for it. The whole doctrine of the chapter is error. Further, the passage in 1 John 1 does not speak of a Christian's sinning (chap. 2 does this), but of the Christian position abstractedly, walking in the light as God is in the light, not of our sinning in the light, and then being cleansed. Perfect light, communion (not surely with God here, but) with one another, and perfect cleansing by blood, is the Christian's place.

And if (p. 57) the body or root of sinning within us be kept in the place of death, as it ought to be, there is no need for cleansing, nor is the conscience bad. The existence of flesh does not make the conscience bad, the allowance of its activity for a moment does. All this is confusion. Bearing about Christ's dying is not cleansing, but prevention, and this ought to be; but it is always bearing about, not a thing jumped into by an act of faith (whereas liberty is by faith, of which hereafter). It is when we fail in this that we have need (not again of blood, but, founded on that) of having our feet washed, or of the ashes of the red heifer in running water; Num. 19.

Further (in page 59) we have "the remedy applied to the very sources of the spring itself and the waters flow out sweet." Now this is false doctrine. The flesh is not changed. Keep it dead; all well, but this is not a remedy. Sin in the flesh when we are set free is condemned, not remedied, or the flesh purged. Paul's thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, was not healing a source, but putting down by a constant thorn what remained evil. Paul's mind was thus kept from the evil, but the source remained unhealed. That our value for the blood may hinder from sinning is all true (p. 60); but how cleansing by blood is to prevent sinning I am at a loss to conceive. Scripture never so speaks; it does of purifying our hearts by faith. Death only clears from sin. For even water flowed from the side of a dead Christ. And (p. 62) the Holy Spirit as power in life is consequent on the blood of sprinkling. There was no such thought as putting the blood after the anointing too. So (p. 63) sweet water and bitter do not come out of the same fountain; but it is not a mistake at all. Where a man is not set free according to Romans 8, the desires of the heart are right, but the waters that come out are bitter because the man is not free. Where he is free, and there is power as well as desire, there is no excuse if there be anything but sweet. They that are Christ's have crucified; but then the flesh is to be always reckoned dead, not to be purified. Why reckon it dead if it can be purified? All this, however well meant, is unscriptural error. It is at this point that the system touches Wesleyan perfection, though there be much more light.

219 To the general statement of the beginning of chapter 6 I have no objection: only cleansing, holiness, is substituted for deliverance. It is deliverance from a power to which I was captive, not cleansing. This falsifies all, and shews the confusion into which the writer has been led by mingling his thoughts with scripture.

Further, he will have a heart consciously cleansed, that is, a heart which reflects on its own state. Now a soul really delivered does not think of itself. What characterizes it, when it comes sensibly into God's presence is, that it has not to think of itself, but can think of God and the Lord Jesus. Coming into the light, if the flesh has been allowed to act, forces the soul to think of itself, yet not of conscious holiness, but of the evil allowed, which is not according to the light, to purge it. All this again practically lowers Christian privilege, and fills with self. The mischief arising from taking consciousness, not the word, for a guide is found in page 71.

There is no such uncertainty in scripture. Having been in the third heaven only awakened pride in the flesh, and called for a messenger of Satan to buffet it — not, remark, to put it down or to cleanse it when arisen, but to prevent its arising. It was there in the flesh ready to rise. This mistake, I doubt not, was the origin of Wesleyan perfection. The writer seeks to avoid it, but by pleading scripture is speaking generally to consciousness, not searching what it says on the matter. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and these are contrary one to the other."

As regards the incidents (mentioned in pages 74, etc.), it is only uniformly overcoming the world. Against overcoming and uniformly overcoming I have not a word. The second (p. 77) is only victory.

220 On chapter 7 I have no remark save its connection with others as its groundwork. I quite agree that we should not expect to sin again. The illustration cases (chapters 1 and 2) prove nothing but that there is deliverance from captivity to sin by being dead to it, according to Romans 8, Galatians 2 — a point I should earnestly insist on. The third case is professedly deliverance according to Romans 8, which is not the doctrine of cleansing but of being made free. Nor do the others give further light on the point.

But it is right I should speak of my positive estimate of the truth, and not merely comment on another. There is a deliverance, a liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, which is other than forgiveness and the joy that may accompany it, and which is often felt to be experimentally a mightier change than the first discovery of mercy and conversion to God. The Epistle to the Romans treats distinctly of these two things. First, propitiation and forgiveness of sins — justification from all the first Adam produces — through Christ's being delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification, and the blessed grace which has thus given us a portion with God, and given us to joy in Him. This closes with chapter 5: 11.

Then comes the state of the sinner by one man's disobedience, what we are and where we are, not guilt from what we have done. We are in the flesh. The quickening power of God does not deliver. It works the desire of holiness and shews us the necessity of it; but the flesh works still. To this the law which requires righteousness from us directly applies. The remedy for this is not the same as for guilt and sins, though it be still Christ's death. There it was Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, making propitiation, purging us from them before God. But the remedy for the power of sin in us, our state as in the flesh before God, is taking us out of it, our having been crucified with Christ. We have part in righteousness by having part in death. If we have part in death, we shall not live on. We are, by the Holy Ghost given to us, in Christ, not in the flesh. It is a new state and place, not the forgiveness of the sins of the old; as Israel not only escaped judgment by the blood on their doorposts, when God was a judge, but were wholly out of Egypt at the Red Sea, where God was a deliverer. So we are not only secured from judgment, but out of the flesh, sin, and the world when through the work of Christ we have received the Spirit through faith. We are not only born again, but have put off the old man, have been crucified with Christ, are dead; our life is hid with Christ in God. The Christ who has become my life, the new I — which lives to God and to Him only — has died, and I reckon myself dead. It is a mistake to say, when we are emptied of self, we can thus live. It is as alive from the dead that we yield ourselves to God as truly free.

221 The doctrine of this is in Romans 6; the practical process by which we arrive at it is in chapter 7, a humbling process, as it always is (though it may be modified by the knowledge of forgiveness), under law, the first husband, where a state is required, which we are not in. The flesh is not subject to the law of God, nor can be. We discover then our state, what the flesh is — not guilt. "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing"; next through divine teaching that it is "not I but sin that dwelleth in me"; but then that it is too strong for me, that I am captive to the law of sin in my members.

This is clearly not the Christian state at all, but a renewed soul under law. It does not say that the flesh is in me, but that I am captive to it, sold under sin. I am there, though it be not I, and cannot get out. But this is my state under the first husband, law. Death dissolves this bond. I have died in Christ, I have been crucified with Him, and power in the life of the risen Christ is now my portion, the flesh reckoned dead, and I alive to God in Christ. Consequently it is not when brought to be empty of self I am filled with the Spirit, but when brought to find self or flesh wholly evil and that I cannot get rid of it or get the victory over it. When I have learned that I have no strength as well as that I am ungodly (a point much harder to learn and more humbling), then I find I am delivered, having died in Christ to sin, and the flesh, and the law withal. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Christ risen, hath made me free from the law of sin and death. I am not a slave or captive, but free. What the law could not do, being weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin (a sacrifice for sin), has condemned sin in the flesh — not forgiven it. But when it was condemned, death was; so that, while the condemnation has been carried out in Christ, it is for faith dead since He is; and now the power of life in Him risen is that in which I live, dead to sin and alive to God, not in Adam or flesh at all, but in Christ.

222 Now being wholly free I can yield myself to God as one alive from the dead. I reckon myself dead as regards the flesh and alive in Christ only. I am not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God, given on cleansing by the blood, dwell in me; and if Christ be in me, the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Thus there is not any reason for ever having even an evil thought. Sin has no dominion over me. I am not a debtor to the flesh; and, being set free in the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, I am able (for Christ's power is there) to hold the flesh for dead. There is no reason why one single thought in my mind should come from the flesh, or from anything but the life of Christ, which is in me in the power of the Spirit. There is no excuse if such do arise.

There are two elements in this state: having put off the old man and put on the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness; and having the Holy Ghost dwelling in me. Hence God's way of acting is my measure of good, Christ, God manifest in a man, being the expression and model of this. I have perfect liberty in divine favour, loved as Christ was loved, and knowing it; and I may and ought to be occupied with what is revealed in Him, my affections being engaged there, and I filled with the Spirit.

But as this is a state of dependence, diligent seeking of grace alone can keep us thus, and in fact in many things we all offend. But my normal state is not grieving the Spirit, and so in God's presence, being able to think of Him and not of self. No state here is the object of the saint. He is not alive in the world, and he looks, having this life, to be conformed to Christ in glory, and if he thinks of himself at all, it is only to judge himself. But I believe — in complete deliverance from the law of sin which is in our members — that I am called to be filled with the Spirit, which would not allow thoughts from the flesh to arise in the mind, nor anything that would soil the conscience, but would make us live in the atmosphere of the divine presence. The practical realizing of this is by always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus; and thus God helps us by delivering us to death by trial that this may be fully made good; 2 Cor. 4.

223 I allow therefore no captivity to sin, no dominion of it. This, even when hopeless as to getting the victory, we find to be ours in Christ; and there all has to come from the Spirit, and all is fulness of joy with God. But this is carried out first by knowing, when hopeless as to victory over the flesh, that we have died in Christ, and then by always bearing about His dying, death still working in us, that the life only of Christ may be manifested.

"So that ye cannot do the things that ye would" is utterly false in Galatians 5. It should be "in order that ye may not do."

But there is complete deliverance from the whole power of sin, we reckoning ourselves dead, and undistracted enjoyment of divine favour in the relationship in which Christ is. The only normal state of the Christian then is unclouded fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and the uninterrupted manifestation of the life of Christ in his body, and (when in God's presence) not having to think of sin in himself, but freedom to think of God and what He is. He is divinely free through and in Christ. But he has no thought of a present state of perfection or of purity (only the Spirit is ungrieved and has not to make him think of himself); for his only owned state is conformity to Christ in glory, God having wrought him for that selfsame thing, in virtue of which he purifies himself as He is pure; and if he does think of himself, he has the consciousness of his not being like Christ as he would, but is glad to have to think of Christ only. But purifying himself is not consciousness that he is pure. His conversation is in heaven, his motives there, and hence necessarily, if he thinks of himself, the consciousness of shortcoming, though he be not troubled by any present thought of sin, but is able to think of Christ. A return to think of himself is for him already failure.

Yours, J.N.D.

The Effect Spiritually of "Holiness through Faith."

J. N. Darby.

<23012E> 224

Dear -,

I have read the little tract, and it has made me clearer as to the ground these people are upon, and a curious experience I once had. Mr. V. was on the common ground of "low Christianity," which leaves people open to this. "I have given up," he says, "the expectation of being overcome with waywardness and sin." No wonder Mr. R.P.S. had hold of him if this was his state. I treated this as a non-Christian state fifty years ago. I may have been inconsistent with deliverance, but I do not see what more they have than what I got near fifty years ago, save that it is on false ground, on which it is impossible to make real progress; or, at any rate, their state, progress and all, is what I should utterly deprecate.

It is not what frightens Mr. V. which frightens me, that is, the fact of communion not interrupted, or immediate consciousness of it, if it were. That is to me the normal Christian state (only not talking of it); and it may be a means of awakening your mind to something it has not yet got. But I am more convinced than ever, since I read Mr. V.'s tract, of its positively lowering tendency — I mean of leading to a sorrowfully lower style and standard of Christianity than what scripture presents to us (what scripture calls beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord). I hold the difference clearly in my spirit. It may bring down Christ to give a quiet trusting spirit down here; but it never takes the man to Christ up there, so as to exercise the soul in conformity to Him there. It is a Christianity of grace for the earth, to make man as man rest here; not to make him sit up there, and have his conversation in heaven. It may be a peaceful, but it is a human, Christianity.

No one can read the tract of Mr. V. without seeing it is all about Mr. V., not about Christ. Look at page 13, and see how entirely it is a state down here, and a Christ for down here, that he is occupied with. Now Christ is for us down here, and most gracious and precious it is; but it is not a Christ on high to whom our affections are drawn up, and our holiness judged by our fellowship with that. I suppose Mr. V. never had been set free; of course, as to that, it is deliverance to him; but in making this an object which occupies us, it keeps the soul down here, perhaps undisturbed by positive evil, but not rising up to Christ; and, as the energy of the system declines, a constantly lowering standard; but at best it is a Christ known for what we want down here. Promises are realized, not Christ and promises for us down here.

225 I cannot but think Mr. V. never really knew God's love. And what always strikes me is, the fuss they make about what I take to be the normal state of a Christian, varying in degree of fulness, but always the truth of his condition — unbounded confidence in unbounded love, and love known in Christ, and enjoyed for its own sake. Look at the promises referred to by Mr. R.P.S. in page 4: to what do they refer? realizing Christ, and spiritual conformity to Him in glory? Not a word. They refer solely to life down here. When I turn to John 15, where alone what is spiritual comes in, I find a teaching totally foreign to Mr. S.'s. His is entering by an act of faith into this trust and confidence, believing a promise. What is in John? "As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you, continue [abide] ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father's commandments, and have abode in his love." Then, "These things I have spoken unto you that my joy might abide in you, and your joy might be full." If I take the context, I do not find a trace of what Mr. R.P.S. teaches. It is far and wide from it. Consequently I do not find in St. Paul exactly the kind of quietness and constant triumph that Mr. V. speaks of and expects. I read, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling"; "without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God that comforteth those that are cast down," etc. He repented of writing an inspired letter.

I admit victory is ours, and in nothing to be terrified by our adversaries. I recognize peacefulness of heart in entire confidence is the Christian's path down here; but I do not think a Christian can seek Christ up there, nor in connection with His interests and His service here, without experiencing a deeper knowledge of self, and the subtleties of self and the flesh, and distress through the craft of Satan, and the mischief he does, than Mr. R.P.S.'s system knows anything of. I read of thorns in the flesh, messengers of Satan to buffet; I read of, "If need be ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." I read of "great anguish of heart" — this I admit in service; but you cannot separate the state of soul from service. It is peace in life, not the sentence of death in ourselves. And I hardly think rivers of water flowing forth means speaking of ourselves, or one's own joy, though it may sometimes in the first overflowing of it be natural and right. But to turn grace into this channel, I am sure, lowers Christianity.

226 I have no disposition to give up what I have got and get assuredly in Christ for what I find here — assuredly not. I think I know what they have got better than they do; but it is their state, not what is in Christ, which is before them. I could say more than this, but I prefer resting it simply on scriptural ground. I recognize the joy of finding true liberty in grace, as I did in my tract. Very likely Mr. V. has found it. It may be that you have not, so that it has a charm for you; but I am satisfied it is a system which lowers the whole character and tone of faith, and tends to keep the soul from all that is most precious in the revelation of God.

I know I am a poor workman, but I would not have the system on which they work for any consideration. It is too much a Christianity for oneself, and not oneself in and for Christ. The whole platform is a different one; but I must not go any farther.

Yours truly in the Lord, J.N.D.

Brief remarks on "An Address for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness."

J. N. Darby.

<23013E> 227

{"The Southern Ohio Association for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness does not believe, nor teach, that either by nature or through imparted grace can an absolutely sinless life be realized on earth. Whether tried by the commandment of God, which is 'exceeding broad,' or the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, the most holy human being is, through infirmity, ignorance, and faulty judgment, in God's sight, found full of short-comings and imperfections, and constantly needing the application of the cleansing blood. Neither do we believe that mortals ever attain to a position beyond which there is no progress or improvement, for we are taught that even after the redeemed come to 'a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,' they have yet to 'grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ' (Eph. 4: 13, 15), and will evermore be 'pressing forward to the mark,' and, beholding the glory of the Lord, be 'changed into the same image from glory to glory.'

"We accordingly declare that the names and phrases current in connection with our work, such as the higher Christian life, entire sanctification, perfect love, full salvation, Christian perfection, and the like, are not used in any opposite or contrary sense, but as having a meaning consistent with the truth we have just affirmed.

"This much being said to remove misapprehension and prejudice, we proceed to say that we do hold, and endeavour in humility and love to teach, that there is to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ habitual victory over known sin; whether in the grosser forms, which men can see in one another, or in the more subtle shapes of pride, envy, discontent, ambition, covetousness, animosity, or selfishness, which may be known only to ourselves and to God; that it is the privilege (and therefore the duty) of each Christian to say with Paul, 'I know nothing against myself' (1 Cor. 4: 4), and of all of us, to be able with him to call God and all who see us to witness how 'holily, justly, and unblameably we behave ourselves among them that believe'; with Enoch to have the testimony that we 'please God'; with John to have an uncondemning heart; and with Peter, and the Gentiles to whom he preached, to rejoice in the possession of a pure heart, created through faith by the 'falling' of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 10: 44; ch. 11: 15; ch. 15: 8, 9.)

"The particular proposition which we all, without regard to denominational connection, unite in affirming, is a definite and distinct work of the Spirit in the human soul, subsequent and in addition to regeneration or conversion. 'The promise of the Father,' which came upon the disciples at Pentecost, had been spoken of by the Lord Jesus in such terms as shew unmistakably that it was for every one who would keep His words (John 14: 16-23), and Peter, in explaining the Pentecostal baptism to the wondering multitudes, declared that they also might receive the same, and that the promise was to them and their children, and 'to all that were afar off, even as many as the Lord our God should call.' The apostles were converted before this; they knew the Spirit (John 14: 17), and the 'gift of the Holy Ghost' was an additional privilege and blessing, given of God to be the distinguishing characteristic of Christian experience during the dispensation which then began (John 7: 39), and continues until now.

"Many of us believe that we find this truth taught in the scriptures, not merely as the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the coming of the Comforter, but also as the revealing of the Son in us (Gal. 3: 26; ch. 4: 19; ch. 1: 16; John 14: 20); the mighty strengthening of the Spirit (Eph. 3: 14, et seq.); dying and rising again (Rom. 6: 35; ch. 8: 11, 13; ch. 7: 4; Col. 2: 12; ch. 3: 3); obtaining the glory of Christ (John 17: 22, 23; 2 Thess. 2: 13, 14); overcoming (Rev. 2: 17; ch. 3: 12; 1 John 2: 13, 14; Gen. 32: 28); the sealing of the Spirit (Acts 19: 2, 3, 6; Eph. 1: 13, 14; 2 Cor. 1: 21, 22); and in type in the Old Testament, as the crossing of the river Jordan.

"The state into which souls are introduced by this experience many of us believe we find described in connection with such ideas as soul union with Jesus (Hosea 2: 16, 19, 20; Rom. 7: 4); abiding in Christ (John 15: 4-9); sanctification or holiness (Ezek. 36: 23-29); 1 Thess. 5: 23, 24); full salvation (2 Thess. 3: 3; 1 Cor. 10: 13); Christian (not sinless) perfection (Phil. 3: 12, 15; 1 Cor. 2: 6; Prov. 11: 5; 2 Chron. 16: 9; 1 Kings 15: 14); heart purity (Acts 15: 8, 9; 1 Pet. 1: 22; 2 Tim. 2: 22); the peace of God, as distinguished from peace with God (Phil. 4: 6,7); the anointing which abideth (1 John 2: 27); being filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5: 18, 20); the life more abundant (John 10: 10; ch. 7: 38, 39); following fully (Num. 14: 24; Rev. 14: 4); risen with Christ (Col. 2: 12; ch. 3: 1, 3); the life of faith (Gal. 2: 20; Heb. 11: 8, 13, 17); the rest of faith, or life in the land (Heb. 3: 17, 19; ch. 4: 3, 10, 11); the riches of full assurance (Col. 2: 2); deliverance (Rom. 7: 24, 25; 1 Cor. 15: 57; Gal. 5: 16); life in heavenly places (Eph. 1: 3; ch. 2: 6); dwelling in love (1 John 4: 12, 16); the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ (Rom. 15: 13, 29); walking with and pleasing God, or fellowship and communion (Col. 1: 10; Heb. 11: 5; 1 John 3: 22; Prov. 16: 7; Psa. 147: 11; 1 John 1: 3-7; Heb. 13: 20, 21).

"It will, of course, be understood that in this we are referring not so much to what God has done for us, as to what the Spirit does in us; not so much to standing as to state. As to the former, all God's children are heirs of His, and 'joint-heirs with Christ,' and 'blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.' All are 'complete in him,' and by Christ's one offering are 'perfected for ever'; but the realization is another thing, and it is of this that we speak. The least little one in the host of Israel was as truly in the land as Caleb and Joshua, but in a most important sense the little one did not enter into possession. We are speaking of the 'apprehension of that for which we are apprehended' (Phil. 3: 12); the working of the Spirit by which we 'may know what is the hope of Christ's calling; the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe," Eph. 1: 18, 19."}

228 I have received the address of the Southern Ohio Association for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness. My simple business here is to see whether this system is based on scriptural ground. I cannot say I believe in associations for holiness, unless it be the church of God; but I let that pass.

229 Imperfection is now admitted. It is "Christian, not sinless, perfection," and the Christian is "full of shortcomings. An absolutely sinless life cannot be realized." I wholly object to the distinction, as vaguely allowing some measure of sin, and yet speaking of perfection. It is founded on error.

My first remark is, that the system (and I beg attention to this) ignores the communication of what in itself is sinless life, a life that cannot sin, the seed of God in the soul, what is born of the Spirit and is spirit, the new man after God created in righteousness and true holiness. It is "nature or imparted grace." A real being born again, the communication of a new life, the very starting-point of the Christian state (not standing), is supposed, and all depends on this.

Next, we are told that Christians "are constantly needing the application of the cleansing blood." Now there is no such thought in scripture as a renewed application of the blood of cleansing. As to this, scripture tells us that without shedding of blood there is no remission: otherwise, the apostle tells us, Christ must have often suffered. But by one offering He has perfected for ever (eis to dienekes) them that are sanctified. There is in scripture no re-application of the blood to cleanse. That is, the two essential foundations of the Christian's state before God are set aside. And we must remember that we are sanctified through the truth. The system is wrong in its first principles; it denies the two capital points of true Christianity.

The notion that after we come to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, we have to grow up into Him in all things, is assuredly not found in scripture, but is a simple absurdity. I am arrived at a perfect man, the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, and yet am to grow up farther! I suppose they may have founded it on some mystical sense of into; but there is no ground for "into," instead of "unto"; it is the same word as "to" a perfect man, "to" the measure.

The mere words in the second paragraph, though unscriptural, I do not speak of; but they are all founded on a totally false and unscriptural notion of the new birth, or rather are really the denial of it. "Perfect love" is in God, not in us; "full salvation" is only in glory.

230 That, as stated in paragraph third, habitual victory over known sin is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, I fully admit. "Rejoicing in the possession of a pure heart created through faith by the falling of the Holy Ghost," is an utterly unscriptural way of putting the matter, and, as far as true, is true of all Christians. But it is not a definite and distinct work of the Spirit which was the promise, but His presence. It is for every one; but a person is not in the Christian state without it, and by it his body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which cannot be by any distinct work.

John 14: 17 is quoted to prove that Christians knew the Spirit. This is all a mistake. Christ is speaking of the Comforter not yet come (see ver. 16); "dwelleth with you" is the same word as "abide." Christ could not abide with them; this Comforter, when He was come, would, and be in them, which Christ could not then either. But the Lord is distinctly speaking of the Comforter not yet come. He is speaking in express terms of the gift of the Comforter. I admit, and insist on, the sealing as distinct from conversion and quickening. But all is confusion here. This sealing is not "revealing the Son in us." The expression refers, as Paul uses it, to Christ's making Himself known to him. He was sealed after that through Ananias laying his hands upon him. "Strengthened with might by the Spirit" is the desire of the apostle for those who had received Him, as the apostle expressly declares; Eph. 1: 13. "Dying and rising again" is our state in Christ, and belongs to all Christians.

The great mistake of this system is, that it makes an extraordinary mystical condition of what scripture speaks of as the only true Christian state; and so fills with thoughts of themselves those who think they have got it (possibly have been sealed). And further it is all man's will and heart, not grace and the power of the Holy Ghost, as is said indeed in this paper: "It is not of the mind, but a matter of the will and of the heart"; but of its being a matter of the Holy Ghost's presence and power, which makes a person to be of Christ, not a thought. The body is dead because of sin, the Spirit life because of righteousness, if Christ be in us; if not, we are none of His, if even like the prodigal on the way.

Dead and risen with Christ, and we in Christ, and Christ in us, is the Christian state; different from conversion, I admit, different from being born again; as the prodigal converted, repentant, and returning, was different from the prodigal with the best robe on him, and the ring on his hand, and then only fit to go into the house. We cannot be in Christ without Christ being in us. (See John 14: 20; Rom. 8: 1, 9, 10.) One is standing, the other is state. Romans, however, does not give rising with Christ now as a present state, for this epistle looks on the man as an actual living man down here; Colossians does, but speaks of all Christians when it does.

231 "Obtaining the glory of Christ" now is a simple delusion. Our calling is above, in heaven, and when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; we shall be glorified together.

To the rest of this paragraph I have no objection, save that it is mixing what is sober and scriptural with what is false and illusory, and thus discrediting all.

"Soul union with Jesus" is language unknown to scripture. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," and by the Spirit we know we are members of His body, and in Him, and He in us. Hosea 2: 16, 19, 20, applies to Israel, and has no reference to "soul union." In Romans 7: 4 they have been betrayed by the word "married," which is not in the original; and further this should have shewn them that it is a question of the Christian state; for till then those spoken of were in the flesh, not of Christ; and it is by the Holy Ghost dwelling in them that they are not in the flesh; Rom. 8: 9.

"Abiding in Christ" no Christian can speak against; but it has nothing to do in John 15 with any special privilege. It was the duty of all, and applied then before the Holy Ghost was given. The same as to holiness; without it no man shall see the Lord. We are called to it; but Ezekiel 36: 23-29 refers first to Israel, and then, according to John 3, to the new birth; 1 Thessalonians 5: 23, 24 to the Christian's whole walk in holiness, and no special gift — "full salvation." These quotations are a general wish for all Christians; and the fact that God will not let us be tempted beyond our force (1 Cor. 10: 13) is a blessed truth, but common to all saints. Neither of the quotations has anything to do with full salvation.

As to Christian perfection, perfect (teleios) means "full grown," translated in Hebrews 5, "of full age." But the passage in Philippians 3 just shews the falseness of this view. This perfection the apostle had not attained — sinless or Christian. Our strangely deluded friends may think they are beyond him; they cannot be surprised if others demur to such a pretension. But he tells us what it is — the resurrection from among the dead, and winning Christ in glory; his calling was (ano) above, heavenly glory, and nothing else. And "perfect" means, when applied now, the knowledge not merely that our sins are forgiven, but that we are in Christ, having this new place with the second Man in glory, the mystery which God ordained before the world to our glory, as is expressly said in 1 Corinthians 2: 7.

232 "Heart purity" I have not a word to say against, only that there is nothing peculiar in it; but it is attributed to receiving the truth, to faith, or to all faithful Christians, in the decay of the church.

What is said of the "peace of God" is a mere blunder. It is of the peace in which God is Himself. The passage speaks in respect of our cares, which we bring to Him, and His peace keeps our hearts, not our hearts keep it. It is a direction to all Christians.

The "anointing which abideth," presented as a special experience, is expressly, and with purpose, spoken of babes in Christ, in contrast with advanced Christians, to encourage them against seducers. "Being filled with the Spirit" is an exhortation addressed to all Christians, because they all had it. If they had not, they were none of Christ's; Rom. 8: 9. And this I would press; for it is the grand and mischievous mistake of all these Christians. They give as extraordinary, and an acquisition of their own, what scripture teaches as the only true Christian place of any. I admit the low state of the Christian church has given occasion to this; but our bodies being the temple of the Holy Ghost is given as a motive for the avoidance of the lowest and grossest sin.

"Life more abundantly" is again a true and blessed thing, but the only true Christian life I do not deny that multitudes do not realize it, and that insisting on this is most profitable. My objection here is not to the fact, but to its being mixed with false pretensions and errors which discredit it.

So again of "following fully"; it is the duty clearly of all Christians. Christ is all, and they should walk as He walked — do this one thing — have no other motive for anything.

John 7: 33, 39 is stated of all believers, characterizing the dispensation of the Spirit, if I may so call it. John 3 gives birth by the Spirit; chapter 4, communion in the power of eternal life; chapter 7, the Spirit flowing out in spiritual blessings to others, in contrast with Christ's presence in the world.

233 The "life of faith" is the only Christian life.

"Risen with Christ" (Col. 3) is clearly of all Christians. Press its realization; you cannot do better.

The "rest of faith" is all a delusion; we are in the fight and labour of faith now, being told (in the passage referred to) that there remains a rest, and that we must labour to enter into it. It is the object of the passage (Heb. 4) to shew that Christians are not in it. It is said that believers are those who enter in, but not that they are entered. Life in the land shews the absurdity of it, for our land is heaven, and we are not there. And the passage insists on those in the land not having the promised rest.

The citation of Hebrews 4, though wrong, they may be excused, for many take it falsely thus, but to quote chapter 3 is too bad. "The riches of full assurance" might be passed over too, only that it marks the excessively careless and unintelligent use of scripture. In Colossians 2: 2 it is the "full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery," etc., and refers only to being guarded from philosophy and vain deceit by sound divinely-given knowledge. There are full assurance of faith and hope (Heb. 10: 22; chap. 6: 11); on this they may rightly insist. What they quote has nothing to do with the matter.

Deliverance (Rom. 8) is all right. It is what is the real truth in the high pretensions made by them, and mysticised.

"Dwelling in love" is all right: only (though it may be more or less realised, a matter of real importance) it is expressly said of everyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. "The fulness of the blessing of the gospel" is the character of Paul's visit to Rome. The rest are all well, but the duty and privilege of every Christian.

I have omitted "life in heavenly places," Eph. 1: 3; chap. 2: 6. Both places refer to the Christian position as such. The first says nothing of how far it is realised; it is simply God's thoughts about Christians in contrast with Jews: Christians are blessed in that way. The second is a careful statement of the position of all Christians or Gentiles.

234 The use of "apprehension," taken from Philippians 3, shews only a mixture of ignorance and carelessness. Apprehension is just laying hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of us; that is, heavenly glory, resurrection from among the dead, the changing of our vile body. So Paul tells us that he had not attained it. The present state was "conversation in heaven"; the unattained was "the calling above." There were professors who had their mind on earthly things; but their end, as such, was destruction. It is utterly false that what he was pressing after was anything down here. Paul states the contrary, and it is the folly of mysticism to pretend it has apprehended what Paul had not. The addition of "apprehended of Christ" ought to have shewn them that the word could not have any spiritual signification. Was Paul spiritually apprehended by Christ?

The passage in Ephesians 1: 18, 19 is falsely quoted, and only so can be misapplied. It is God's calling, and God's inheritance (an inheritance which the chapter expressly declares we have not yet got): the Spirit is the earnest of it. God's calling is in verses 3-5. How far it is realised in spirit now actually, when we are in the state to which we are called by God, is not touched on. It is simply what the calling is, which he desires they may all know.

It is really a weariness to discuss quotations made with no attention to the mind of God, and applied nearly all of them falsely to what they in no way refer to in the text. Knowledge is not everything; but when persons set about to teach, they ought to have respect for God's word and acquaintance with it. I reject their views. There is a setting aside of the true Christian state (not standing) which I believe most mischievous, turning what God states of it into an experience of which they can boast, an art they have learned, an expression they specially approve of. I believe Christians are in a low state; but they hinder their deliverance by connecting it with error, and by the abuse of scripture taken apart from the context, and the mind of Christ revealed in it. Receiving the divine mind from the word of God is not theory, or calling anything by a right or wrong name. Theory is neglecting it for men's experience.

I have thought the best and most useful thing to do was to analyse briefly their use of scripture, and to see, thus far, what their statements are worth. They substitute a work of the Spirit and their experience according to a low human theology, for the presence of the Holy Ghost and the revealed state of Christians according to the word. According to scripture a man is in the flesh, if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in him. This gives the deliverance they speak of, and Christian universal responsibility flows from it.

Dr. Bonar on Christ's work *

J. N. Darby.

<23014E> 236

{*"The Everlasting Righteousness, or, How shall man be just with God?" By Horatius Bonar, D.D. London: J. Nisbet & Co., 21, Berners Street. 1873.}

Dr. Bonar's book was sent to me, I know not by whom, with some passages marked. I send you the notes I made in reading it, for this is all that which follows pretends to be, though reviewing the work. The importance of the doctrine in question will justify my taking it up.

"The altar is the only place of expiation, and it is death that is the wages of sin" (p. 37). "Justified by His blood is the apostolic declaration; and, as the result of this, saved from wrath through him. Here we rest . . . . It is at and by the cross that God justifies the ungodly. By His stripes we are healed, and the symbol of the brazen serpent visibly declares this truth. It was the serpent when uplifted that healed the deadly bite" (p. 38). "Reconciled to God by the death of His Son, is another of the many testimonies to the value and efficacy of the cross . . . . The peace was made by the blood of the cross . . . . What can be more explicit than these three passages, which announce justification by the blood, reconciliation by the death, and peace by the blood of the cross?" (p. 39). "This sweet savour came from the brazen altar, or altar of burnt-offering. It was the sweet odour of that sacrifice that ascended to God and that encompassed the worshipper, so that he was covered all over with this sacrificial fragrance, presenting him perfect before God, and making his own conscience feel that he was accepted as such, and treated as such" (p. 40). "In so far, then, as substitution is concerned we have to do with the cross alone" (p. 41). "The justifying fact — the death of Him whose name is Jehovah our righteousness" (p. 79). Compare also page 219.

Thus speaks Dr. Bonar, and justly and well as far as it goes. But who would have thought that these are the statements of a book, one main object of which is to prove that it is not so, but that Christ was a sin-bearer all His life, and our presentation perfect before God depended upon His sin-bearing all His life, and that He only finished that work upon the cross? "They who own the doctrine of Christ suffering for sin, the just for the unjust, will listen to those bitter cries (those uttered during His life), as to the very voice of the Substitute, and learn from them the completeness of the work of satisfaction, for the accomplishment of which He took our flesh, and lived our life, and died our death upon the tree. But the completeness of the substitution comes out more fully at the cross . . . . Then the work was done, 'It is finished.'" (p. 36).

237 Now it is quite true that in the previous quotations, except the last and more important one from page 79, Dr. B. is resisting justification by resurrection (an idea I never heard of till I saw it in this book, and which has no sense if speaking of the value of the thing in itself). But in his zeal against this imaginary enemy, he has, I hope with his true and better feelings of faith, declared that, by the cross and blood and death of Christ only, we are justified and reconciled. The rest of his substitutory work is then only studied theology, not personal faith.

As to argument, Dr. B. so mixes up one truth with another, is guilty of such excessive carelessness, and exhibits such incapacity for seeing, not only what another says, but the force of what he says himself, and, I am afraid I must say, such ignorance of scripture on the subject, that it is difficult to deal with his reasonings. Christ's bearing our sins and our dying with Christ are confounded together; law and Christ's suffering life: accounting righteous or guilty is substitution; the actual transfer of guilt turns out to be only something available for everybody. But into these I will enter.

I regret to have to notice his book in such a way, for he pleads real and full atonement, and the need of it is as against rationalists, and assurance of salvation, if not in the clearest way, yet so honestly and fully that I should regret sincerely anything that might weaken his arguments as to this. But he has so lowered the gospel, so hidden God's love in "courts of law," though not denying it, so confounds propitiation and substitution, and so totally does away the real value of the latter by his missing altogether and falsifying its true character, that I feel it well to take it up and review his book. He has accepted, I see, the force of anenegke: so we may hope for acceptance of other truths; but he has not learned to be more careful in other statements. Let us see if a review of them may lead him on here too.

That Luther may have taken up imputing legal righteousness, as others did, may be all true. But, though he admits doubts and distress come from law, that he never knew real deliverance from it his famous treatise on Galatians clearly proves, as other parts of his life and his death. But Dr. B.'s "Luther's Rock, the righteousness of God," is an unhappy blunder. He carefully excluded the word from his translation of the New Testament. He always puts, "the righteousness available before God," Die Gerechtigkeit die vor Gott gilt: an unwarrantable and mischievous change which destroys the whole nature and character of the scriptural statement. Luther was an eminent instrument of God in His work: we have all to be thankful for it. But the word of God is above all price.

238 Dr. B.'s style is full of effort, and tedious by repetition, and turgid, sometimes descending very low in the effort, as when he says, "Possessed of this preciousness (imputed, still ours), we go into the heavenly market and buy what we need without stint. We get everything upon the credit of His name . . . . In His name we carry on all our transactions with God." But my business is with doctrine, not with words. And it seems to me that the whole tone of the book falsifies, even where there is truth mixed up, the entire presentation of the gospel in scripture.

Besides making of substitution a false and inefficacious unreality, the bringing the questions into God's courts of law is an idea wholly foreign to the scriptures. That law has been established by faith — that Christ has magnified it and made it honourable — is most true; but scripture does not describe the gospel as bringing men into courts of law. There is a solemn bringing in of unrepentant sinners into a court of judgment hereafter (yea, all shall give an account of themselves), and there is a reconciling of persons now: Dr. B. speaks of neither. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. This is the very opposite of bringing them into courts of law. As such He was rejected, and the full sinfulness of man brought out. But it was mercy, not law, brought it out, the rejection of One come not to judge but to save.

With Israel some such figure might be used. He was in the way with them as an adverse party; but then the result was in government on earth and judgment. The nation was set aside (as it will be till it has paid the last farthing — and even then its restoration is sovereign grace), that the apostolic embassy of the gospel might go forth, still beseeching to be reconciled to God, and grace reign through righteousness. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God is revealed as reconciling the world, or as beseeching men to be reconciled, Christ having been made sin for us, not bringing them into His courts of law.

239 The notion that He of whom it is said, "who knew no sin," is God as such, and that He was made sin in incarnation, which is Dr. B.'s interpretation, is too monstrous and too offensive as well as absurd to need reply. God has made God, who as God did not know sin, to become sin by being a man: can any Christian taught of God receive such a thought? God does know sin perfectly: to apply it to His not knowing it in conscience is blasphemy; to affirm it of One who was in the likeness of sinful flesh is of vital importance. "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" In Him is no sin. Is God's making God become sin (vicariously of course, I admit) any better? The Lord declares He comes to do God's will and that His law is in His heart. It was the Lamb, the spotless Lamb, the victim that was made sin.

Nor does scripture speak of God or the Father making the Word become flesh. Jehovah prepared a body. Then He says, Lo, I come, in the same willing and blessed love. It is an interpretation which outrages all spiritual intelligence. I should call it blasphemous, but that I am sure Dr. B. has no such intention. He is blind to the force of what he says; but it falsifies the whole force of God's coming into the world in grace, making Himself of no reputation (ekenosen eauton), when the Word made flesh dwelt among us full of grace and truth. This for Dr. B. is only Christ, the law, and we, when willing to go too, brought into courts of law to judge about the case! Besides, if this took place in the life of Christ, why have ambassadors? If it referred to Christ's death and His then going away, it required others to announce it.

The whole force of the passage in every aspect is set aside by this ruinous idea. It is miserable doctrine; and Dr. B.'s mind does not rest on the reconciliation of the sinner (I may say not at all, even in result; for it is only available to him: he is not reconciled). "Law and love must be reconciled" (p. 4). "The reconciliation God has accomplished"; and, as man's consent is required, the reconciliation God has accomplished must be effected before that. Man did not consent to this way of reconciliation when accomplished, save in rejecting and crucifying Christ. "God has done it all, and He has done it effectually and irreversibly, . . . He has done it by removing the whole case into His own courts of law . . . . God comes into court bringing man and man's whole case along with Him, that, upon righteous principles and in a legal way, the case may be settled at once in favour of man and in favour of God." Now this not only gives a representation of this matter of which there is no trace in scripture, and falsifies the character of the gospel; but it is alike absurd and misleading. Who is judge of the court? Nor is this all. Man is brought into court; but, in reconciling law and love, no individual man at all is reconciled. It is the reconciliation, not of a sinner, but of law and love. Perhaps no man may accept it.

240 "The consent of parties to the acceptance of the basis is required in court" (p. 6). Now where was this reconciliation of law and love on the cross? Man was only accomplishing his sin there, yet there law and love were reconciled. When the whole thing is settled, man's consent is asked — to what? To a reconciliation already accomplished? God, we were told in page 5, has done it all; and He has done it effectually and irreversibly. Done what? "Reconciled law and love" (p. 4). But here there is no substitution, or anyone reconciled: God has done it all before man has accepted anything. It is an accomplished thing, all done, finished, and yet no man reconciled; so that it is no reconciliation of persons at all. What was the principle of the work? "Transference of guilt, from one who could not bear the penalty without being eternally lost, to One who could bear it" (p. 17), and again the transference of the wrath from the sinner to the representative (p. 21); and so often. Now whose guilt was transferred? the wrath resting on what sinners was transferred to the representative?

Substitution is never spoken of in this vague way in scripture. All through, Dr. B. confounds propitiation and substitution. Substitution is one taking really the place of another; reconciling law and love has nothing to do with substitution. Was anything substituted for law or for love? Clearly not. They were both maintained and glorified. Were then everybody's sins transferred to Christ? If so, all are saved, or His having borne the wrath due to them is ineffectual and reversible. The whole argument of the book shews Dr. B. has confounded substitution which does suppose transference of guilt and crime from the guilty to another, a substitution of one person for another, as when a debt is paid (the illustration Dr. B. gives); while propitiation is to Godward. But one passage will suffice to shew this confusion. "God has introduced the principle of substitution into His courts . . . presenting a divine surety as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed." Here they are clearly treated as one and the same thing.

241 Now on the great day of atonement there was Jehovah's lot and the people's lot. The blood of Jehovah's lot was put on the mercy-seat. God's righteousness and love, and majesty and truth, all that He is, were perfectly glorified. Besides this, there was the scapegoat, both goats representing Christ in the same great sacrifice; but the high priest represented the people, and their sins were confessed on the head of the goat, and carried away, never to be found. Now here there was representation, transfer, substitution, and the work was effectual for those represented. In scripture all is simple and clear; and though in the mere shadow only for the year, yet it was effectual and irreversible. Substitution is simple and intelligible; the sins were confessed on the head of the goat, the people's sins, and they were gone. But in Dr. B.'s substitution the man may not consent, many alas! (we know) do not. Were their sins transferred to the Substitute and the wrath borne effectually and irreversibly, and yet they reject Christ and die in their sins? Dr. B.'s substitution is no substitution at all, for nobody's sins were really borne, and no people really represented. Christ is a propitiation for the whole world; but this is Jehovah's lot, the blood, in which God has been perfectly glorified in all He is, presented to God and accepted of Him. Now, says the Lord, is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; and if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him. And so it was and is.

Propitiation is presenting to a holy God what the righteousness and holiness of that God necessarily claim, while infinite love has provided, and infinite love has offered, the spotless sacrifice.

Substitution is for people whom the substitute represents; it is one man or person substituted for another, and taking actually the consequences of the conduct or position of him whom he represents. I speak merely of the meaning of substitution, not of the value of the Substitute, as Dr. B. says. The propitiation refers to the holy righteous nature and glory of God (and Dr. B. cannot too earnestly insist on its necessity); substitution, to those whose place Christ has taken. He was substituted for them and took the consequence in sovereign grace; and they are saved. He cannot charge as a judge the sins which He has Himself borne and expiated on those for whom He Himself has already borne them.

242 But not only does Dr. B. confound these two great scripture truths, but a third with them, namely, our dying with Christ, which scripture applies to quite another purpose. (See page 42.) Probably Dr. B. has never learned to make the difference between sin and sins (so clear in the Epistle to the Romans, on which indeed its whole structure depends): one referring to actual guilt, what we have done; the other to our lost estate, what we are.

But at any rate, "The transference of our guilt to the divine Substitute, and the transference of that Substitute's righteousness or perfection to us, must stand or fall together" (p. 29). When then a man's guilt has been transferred to Christ, he becomes the righteousness of God; yet the man may after all not consent and dies in his sins, though the righteousness of God is transferred to him! If it be said, man was represented in Christ, and He consented — consented to the transfer, then our consent is immaterial; and we are not brought into court, and saved all with no consent at all.

But now see the frail and inconsistent statement of Dr. B. "The one man's offence rests upon all men to condemnation, so the one man's righteousness, as the counteraction or removal of this condemnation, is available and efficacious unto justification of life." Now he has changed the passage.*

{*The translation of the English Bible is quite faulty; but it does not affect the point I am on.}

"Rests upon" in the first clause is exactly the same expression in Greek as is "available" in the second. And why this? And still more, if transference of guilt involves transference of righteousness, how is it only "available"? If it be said, yes; but the substitution is not efficacious unless it be accepted; then there was no real transference of guilt. If it is transferred and gone and if He has suffered, it is irreversible. The truth is, it is a denial of real substitution, and substitution is confounded with propitiation. The whole teaching is confusion and darkness; for Dr. B. tells us that substitution is the transference of the penalty from him who had incurred it to one who had not. How is this available for any, if the penalty have not been transferred? If it have, why not effectual for all by a judicial process, a legal title?

243 But I will follow some of the details of Dr. B. on the subject, and we shall see the inconceivable carelessness as to scripture, and how little he seems to weigh anything he says. I can only account for it by excessive confidence in his own thoughts. Victory over our great enemy was not by substitution. The perfect work of Christ and His death gave Him a title to annul the power of Satan; but it was not as substituted for any one.

In all the other examples we shall find there is personal appropriation, not an available means in the air. Jehovah accepted Abel and his offering. The typical victim was set between a known person and God. It was 'Abel's substitute,' but not something in the air available to some one who might accept it; in which case transference of penalty is an absurdity, as then the one to whom the penalty is due is relieved by its being transferred. Noah and Abraham are in the came case: only in Abraham's we have an example of the carelessness I speak of. There was no "consumption of Abraham's sacrifice by the divine fire," but quite a different thing: a burning lamp and a smoking furnace passed between the pieces — a wellknown form of covenant engagement in Israel, and the covenant was of the land to Israel. If Dr. B. would seek excuse from a confusion with the sacrifice of Isaac, it is in vain. There we read, "Behold the fire and the wood, but where," etc. In the passover those in the house were preserved. Dr. B.'s account of the sacrifices I cannot go into in detail: it would carry me too far; but there is the same inaccuracy. Remark only that, as to the burnt-offering, all is confusion. It is the perfection of the substitute presented in the room of our imperfections. A substitute for whom? If it was penalty transferred, whose penalty?

But what is more important, blood was shed, atonement was made. It is not merely that He loved God instead of us. This is not atonement by blood. No doubt the Substitute was perfect, but it was where He was made sin, glorifying God there. Imperfection is a strange word. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. But why the perfection of the substitute only when Christ's blood-shedding is prefigured? For whom was He a substitute? In the meat-offering, save in the case of the extreme poor, there was no atonement. Nor is there a statement of God's feeding on it; in the peace-offering there is; Lev. 3: 2. The meat-offering is much more the perfection of the substitute: in the burnt-offering there was a victim with blood-shedding.

244 In the sin and trespass-offerings we are told that sin-offerings were for unconscious sins — sins of ignorance; trespass-offerings, for conscious and wilful sins. This is a mistake. All the trespass-offerings in chapter 5 are sins of ignorance unless verse 1. The only cases not of ignorance are wrongs done to a neighbour, when, besides the offering, he was to restore it and a fifth part more. All this shews how careless and superficial all the statements are.

As to the explanation of the drink-offering, I confess it is beyond me. Dr. B connects it with the Lord's blood being drink indeed: why, I know not; and my reader may remark how in all this the perfection of the substitute is put for substitution. For what was the drink-offering a substitution? or how was it transferred penalty?

And now note the effect in the presentation of the gospel. It is not that precious blood is on the mercy seat, that God hath set Him forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. It is this principle of substitution. "And as He [God] acts on it in receiving us; so does He invite us to act in coming to Him." That is, the guilt of him who is invited has been transferred to the substitute, and so righteousness transferred to those guilty, so that it is not a sinner that is invited as such. Who can tell that to an unbelieving sinner, in order to his coming to God? I must tell it evidently to every sinner, and every sinner is certainly saved, and righteousness is transferred to him. Christ was raised, according to Dr. B., because that sinner had been justified by the cross, for so Dr. B. translates the passage. "It is this truth the gospel embodies, and it is this that we preach." The belief of this gospel is eternal life; and yet it is only available. I repeat my question; was the guilt really transferred or not? Was Christ a substitute for every sinner to whom Dr. B. preaches, so that all his guilt was transferred to Christ? If so, he has already none; nay more, Christ's righteousness is transferred to him before I invite him, and it is effectual and irreversible.

245 In speaking of chapter 3 I feel the need of care not to offend when the solemn, deeply solemn, subject of the sufferings of the blessed Lord is before us. It is unpleasant to speak of the folly and contradictions of man's thoughts when what ought to move our inmost soul occupies us. But mischief and contradiction are there, the deep sense of wrath and of the curse is lost and trifled with, and man's rejection turned into God's forsaking and wrath. It is a medley which on such a subject offends — I am afraid I must say, disgusts. Sufferings in which we are called to follow Christ, and take a part, are confounded with that in which He was really a substitute, the perfection of Christ's obedience confounded with the part of bearing sin, because the being made sin took place in that in which the perfection of His obedience was accomplished.

I have already noticed the contradictions which flow from Dr. B.'s reasoning against the dream of his own mind that some make the act of resurrection to have worth for justifying. Then he insists earnestly that the blood, the cross, death alone does, assuring us (p. 41) that "so far as substitution is concerned we have to do with the cross only"; and this in a chapter which is written to prove that He entered our world as the substitute, that "His vicarious life began in the manger . . . His sin-bearing had begun (pp. 26, 27), that He was circumcised and baptized as a substitute (pp. 29, 30); He was always the sinless One bearing our sins" (p. 32); that the Psalms in their confessions of sins are the distinctest proof of His work as the substitute, that is, during His life; that God's wrath and anger were then upon Him (p. 34), yet that the completeness of the substitution comes out more fully at the cross. There the whole burden pressed upon Him, and the wrath of God took hold upon Him (p. 34); yet He does not speak of the cross when He says, I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted; or when He says, Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, Thy terrors have cut me off (p. 32).

I have discussed all these Psalms fully elsewhere, and only state Dr. B.'s self-contradictions here. But when a person says that Christ was a substitute and shed His blood when He was circumcised, it is difficult (when we think of the wrath of God against our sin, which made the blessed Saviour sweat great drops of blood in only thinking of it beforehand and then drinking the cup we had filled for Him with our sins) to hinder oneself from expressing one's feelings at the cold and idle trifling. But we must speak of the general principle. Dr. B. makes His sufferings from man His being a substitute for us in bearing God's wrath. "For what can this poverty mean, this rejection by man, this outcast condition, but that the sin-bearing had begun?" (p. 27). Now Christ's outcast place we may partake of with Him. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. His disciples were not of the world, as He was not of the world. "If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you."

246 But what has all this to do with substitution? Was He born in a manger that we might be spared it? He was circumcised as the substitute, and this was "inexplicable" save on the supposition that even in infancy He was the vicarious One, not indeed bearing sin in the full sense and manner in which He bore it on the cross (for without death sin-bearing could not be consummated) but still bearing it in measure according to the condition of His years (p. 29)! Only think; it leads to doubt whether Dr. B. has any serious idea of what sin deserves, or what the wrath and the curse really is, and that the wages of sin is death. Bearing sin in measure according to the condition of His years! But His sufferings from man are always distinguished from His drinking the cup. See Psalms 20, 21. Those bring wrath on man (if not repented of and blotted out); this is atonement and brings salvation. In Psalm 22 He appeals from man's violence and wrong to God, and there finds forsaking in the words He used, where He alone could express them; but then the result is all unmingled blessing because it was atonement, deeper at first but extending waves till it reached the whole earth, and the seed to be born there. We are called on to suffer with Him, we read of filling up what was behind of the sufferings of Christ. Was atonement to be made — filled up — by any other? Circumcision in particular is not, in the Christian application of it, substitution; on the contrary, it is the putting off the body of the flesh, being dead to sin by Christ, not His bearing sin for us.

But the whole principle of a sin-bearing life is false. It is sin-bearing to no purpose; for without shedding of blood is no remission. He came to give His life a ransom for many; His taking it was not the ransom. Dr. B. now admits that anenegke refers to the cross. Where is apenegke used as to sins in His lifetime? He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. But here we have the man, the spotless victim, offering Himself, not becoming it in incarnation: that was no offering Himself by the eternal Spirit. It is for blood-shedding to purify.

247 He offered Himself (Heb. 9: 14), and so verse 28 where it is expressly said to be (apax) once. So 1 Peter 3: 18, "For Christ once (apax) suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh." So Hebrews 10: 10, "By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all," and so He perfected the sanctified by one offering (p. 14).

It is certain, that till after Gethsemane, the blessed Lord had not taken the cup to drink, for then He prays that if possible He might not drink it. The trouble of soul then so deeply felt, and in a measure in John 12, demonstrates not (as Dr. B. would allege) sin-bearing then, but exactly the contrary, anticipation of a coming hour of death, and being made a curse. In Gethsemane it is plain, but equally so in John 12. The coming up of the Greeks, bringing before His blessed mind the title of Son of man, brings into it at once the death needed in order that He should take it. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I to this hour. Father, glorify thy name." Is it not evident that it was a specific hour — the hour of His death which was before Him, when He must die that the corn of wheat might not remain alone?

Dr. B. tells us Christ bore our iniquities up to, and on, the cross; for the former, having given up anenegke, he quotes nothing. There is nothing to quote. His only proof is making the contradiction of sinners the same thing as the wrath of God, and the miserable contemptible use of circumcision and the like. He quotes Isaiah 53, giving a new translation of some expressions, which seem to me unfounded, whoever is their author. Thus, verse 11, "he shall look upon," etc., seems to me quite unwarranted, and the sentence to be justly translated, He shall see of the travail of His soul — that is, of the fruit of it. The words amal and min are simply this. Nor do I believe that "answerable" is the sense in verse 7. The English translation is right in both. The latter is an effort to bring Christ as answerable for sin during His life, but an unjustifiable one. His bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows is applied to His healing — has nothing to do with righteousness. It shews He felt in His soul the burden of the sorrow He removed; and this is a most precious truth, as He groaned at the tomb of Lazarus when seeing the power of death on all around. But this is not bearing sin. Nor did He become sick to take away our sickness.

248 As I am on translations, I will add, that raised again "because of" our justification, is an evil mistake — evil as to doctrine, for it shuts out faith from justifying, and falsifies chapter 5: 1. Men (why not all?) would be justified before believing at all, consequently not by faith. Further, it is not the force of the Greek. Had it been, because we were justified, it would most assuredly have been dia to dikaiothenai emas, which only comes in chapter 5: 1. "Having been justified by faith," when faith is there. Dikaiosis is the active doing of a thing, not the thing done, the noun derived from the second person of the passive perfect. The English translation is right. You may say "on account of our justifying." Our justifying was the why of the act. Then faith coming in, it is realized, and we are justified. Scripture does not know justification without faith, which this false translation asserts. But the whole doctrine of a sin-bearing life, from His birth up, is as false as it is mischievous.

There was an hour, the drinking of a cup, from which the blessed Lord sought if possible to be free, to be saved, the thought of which He went through in the deepest agony because it was sin-bearing, being made sin. Did this apply to His whole life? There He came in the divine freeness of His love. "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." But divine willingness, and human agony, are not the same thing. Did He pray if possible to be spared being a man? He did that which He suffered at the cross. It is false in every aspect and feature of it.

Dr. B. tells us He was born the Saviour. Of course He was. But this does not tell us that He was bearing sin all His life. He came to deliver His people from their sins: what He went through to that end, and when, is not touched by that. He manifested the Father, and God in love to man in His life, a perfect man amongst them. He stood as man made sin before God on the cross, though a divine Person, or He could not have done it. He may be said to be the substitute of His people personally at any time, but the substitute was when He bore their sins. He was God's Lamb always, but not the victim slain till the cross. How was redemption wrought? We have redemption through His blood. How is He set forth to be a propitiation? Through faith in His blood. What purges the conscience? The blood of Christ, who, mark, through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. This was clearly when He was a man. The question is not, whether His obedience was perfect, even unto death, the last test of it; nor if we are made righteous by it; but whether He was bearing sin all His life, yet no wrath upon Him, no propitiation nor redemption nor remission obtained. All these are by blood-shedding. The testament had no force while the testator lived. The putting away of sin was by the sacrifice of Himself. He was once offered to bear the sins of many. What does this mean if He were the sin-bearer all His life? Indeed the whole of Hebrews 9 is to shew the place this blood-shedding and bearing of sin once for all holds in the counsels of God, and makes the doctrine of a sin-bearing life worse than absurd. There was a sacrifice for sins which gives us boldness to enter into the holiest. A sin-bearing where there is no sacrifice is a sin-bearing which brings no remission to man and no glory to God.

249 The truth is, Christ never says, "My God" before the cross (always My Father), not even in Gethsemane. On the cross, in the hour of drinking the cup, He says, "My God"; after it (because now as man He is going to glory in righteousness, and has brought us there with Him), "my God and my Father," for He is re-entered into the full enjoyment of sonship again, and has brought us there: surely never so the object of God's love as when drinking the cup, for He could say, "therefore doth my Father love me," a word that belongs only to a divine Person, but in His own soul tasting all its bitterness undiminished by any consolation, or it would not have been absolute and complete, yet shewing His perfectness as to the state of His own heart in the words "my God."

I have gone thus into the great general truth of where sin-bearing was. But I must shew the carelessness and vagueness which baffles all hope of getting any serious doctrine from Dr. B. His very theme in chapter 3 is "His vicariousness is co-extensive with the sins and wants of those whom He represents, and covers all the different periods, as well as the various circumstances, of their lives." Now what is, I beseech my reader, vicariousness as to wants? Suffering, being tempted in all things, that He might be able to succour the tempted — that is blessedly true. But this is not transfer, that the other might escape. Supply for wants I can understand, but vicariousness as to wants is beyond me altogether; yet it is the real inlet into all the error. Substitution was said to be the transference of penalty, guilt, wrath, from one who could not bear the penalty to One who could. How does this apply to "wants"?

250 I will not dwell upon it; but John's baptism was so far from being a symbol of Christ's death that, so far as it would be received, Christ would not be put to death at all, but received by faith. Hence (Acts 19) those who had received it had to be baptized over again.

Resurrection does not justify us — assuredly not. No man is justified till he believes; and Christ's blood-shedding, and death, and drinking the cup, is the sole meritorious cause. But we are accepted in the Beloved, our place and standing before God is in a risen Christ. If we are in Him at all, there is no other but a risen One; but we are in Him before God.

It is not the whole truth, that being justified by faith we have peace with God; but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Probably Dr. B. has confounded this blessed truth, being ignorant of it, with being justified by resurrection. Of course some one may have said so, but it is the first time I ever heard of such a thought. Dr. B.'s interpretation of dia dikaiosin I have already spoken of, and do not hesitate to say it is unsound interpretation, and false doctrine leading to fatal errors. For we are then, clearly, justified without any faith at all.

There is another most mischievous statement (page 11), "Without law sin is nothing." "Until the law," says the apostle, "sin was in the world." And again, "they that have sinned without law." "Sin by the commandment became exceeding sinful": which it could not do, if it were not there already. "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence." I know men have (for this grave Presbyterian error, which contradicts all Paul's teaching) the passage in the English translation, "Sin is the transgression of the law"; but this is merely a false translation, founded on a doctrinal theory. The word anomia is never so translated elsewhere, and transgression of law is parabasis nomou. Not only so, but the same word adverbially anomos is translated sinning "without law" (Rom. 2: 12), in contrast with sinning under law.

251 I need not return to Isaiah 53 which is dwelt on in chapter 4. The sufferings referred to (page 47) we are clearly called on to undergo with Christ. If they called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more they of His household! if they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also. Paul was the off-scouring of all things. There was no transfer, but the same enmity. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. His whole statement is mere blindness and delusion. The "scenes before the cross were while He was on His way to it" and during what He calls "his hour," which till then He declared was not yet come. Now it was. Before that He had disposed of every heart as Emmanuel; so that His disciples lacked nothing. Now all was changed: He was reckoned among the transgressors; Luke 23: 35-37. But though then taking, so to speak, the cup into His hand, which His Father had given Him to drink, we are simply certain from His own lips that He was not yet drinking it, for He prays it might pass without His doing so. But this was their hour, and the power of darkness.

The statement in page 58 I hold to be highly objectionable; for after shewing from scripture that He sits down consequent on offering a sacrifice for sins, Dr. B. says, "the first note of that gospel was sounded in the manger, the last from the throne above. How much is contained between?" Thus the sacrifice in its proper importance and place is dropped, coming in as an incident among many things, shewing the system adopted, confounding God come in Christ to a world of sinners, and the man gone up on high in virtue of redemption accomplished.

I know not to whom Dr. Bonar alludes as having done with the cross. They are not Christians. It is the eternal centre, as to acts, of all moral glory. This is true, which from Dr. B.'s words he seems not to apprehend, that there is a difference between coming to the cross, as on this side of it, so to speak, and knowing it as meeting our wants, our sins, the way we must come; and looking at it when we have passed into God's presence through the veil, and are at peace in the holiest, looking at it on God's side, so to speak, and seeing how God is glorified in it. For this last we must have peace by it. Indeed neither has its real place with Dr. B. The first is merely a judicial decree in a court of law, the second is not in his system at all.

252 I turn to chapter 5. That grace reigns through righteousness is most sure, and that God is just in forgiving. But it is not righteousness that reigns; that will be in the age to come. Nor has Dr. Bonar any authority in scripture for the statements with which he begins. It is never said that God saves a sinner by righteousness. It falsifies the gospel, though God is righteous in saving him, and the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. The statements are unscriptural and mischievously so.

We have further the absurdity of the system in page 71: "The transference is complete and eternal from the moment that we receive the divine testimony to the righteousness of the Son of God; all the guilt that was on us passes over to Him, and all His righteousness passes over to us." Was ever such utter nonsense? When I believe, my guilt passes over to Him — now in glory! It is astonishing that such a sentence did not awaken Dr. B. to the falseness of his whole system. My guilt transferred to Christ now in glory! One is led sometimes really to doubt whether he can know the truth at all. These are blunders which seem impossible for one who does, for whom this is the reality of faith. It shews what his substitution means. Further, the righteousness of the Son of God is language unknown to scripture, wholly foreign to it. That Christ is of God made unto us righteousness, I bless God for with my whole soul, and that we are made the righteousness of God in Him. But nothing of the statement of Dr. B. is in scripture, and the quotations of Deuteronomy and the Psalms have nothing to do with the matter. Let the reader consult them.

Dr. B. reads, Christ is the end (or fulfilling) of the law for righteousness, which is wholly unwarranted. Telos is the end rather as concluding, or the object, just as "end" in the English, but it is not fulfilling. Will Dr. B. give a passage in scripture where telos is so used? I notice these things because they belong to a great system of doctrine. Thus in this chapter we read, "Jehovah is satisfied, more than satisfied, with Christ's fulfilling the law which man had broken" (p. 80). Why then need Christ die, if Jehovah is more than satisfied? Righteousness comes by the law, and Christ is dead in vain. And it is expressly said in the life of the God-man. And note that this was before the cross; it is transferred to me, so that I am partaker of, or identified with, this law-fulfilling — have perfectly fulfilled the law: all the law sentences against us are cancelled (p. 81). What then did Christ die for?

253 The statement in chapter 6 is a positive falsifying of scripture. This everlasting righteousness (law-fulfilling) comes to us by believing, the fruit of which is peace with God (p. 82). Now the antecedent to this in scripture is exclusively, "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God." It is Dr. B.'s scheme, but not scripture.

As to 2 Peter 1: 1, we obtain like precious faith by the righteousness of God, not righteousness by faith. Obtaining precious faith by righteousness is, as Paul says, "after that faith came." That is, God has been faithful to His promises and given us Christ. At any rate, faith coming by righteousness has nothing to do with righteousness coming by faith. Dr. B.'s note is all a mistake. The Epistles of Peter are addressed to Jews — to the sojourners of the dispersion. The faith, like precious faith with Peter and those in Canaan, the dispersed believing Jews had received through the righteousness of God. It was not indeed Messiah Jewishly they had got, but precious faith. Still it was their God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

But in this chapter we come to a point on which we must rest a moment. "The scriptural meaning of imputing," we are told, "is that the things that He did not do were laid to His charge, and He was treated as if He had done them all; so the things that He did are put to our account, and we are treated by God as if we had done them all." Now, where the principle of substitution enters, this is an important truth; but "imputed" is never so used in scripture. And Dr. B.'s quotations are a new proof that he really has no capacity to seize a statement of others, or to know what he means by his own. Look what a vague account he gives of Genesis 15: 6. It was imputed to him for righteousness, that is, his faith, as the apostle himself explains it. Now what is there here that another had done which was put to his account? The statement is that his own faith was imputed to him for righteousness.

Genesis 31: 15. Are we not counted of Him as strangers? Nothing done by another is put to account. They were treated or reckoned as such, just the meaning of the word. We are reckoned righteous: whether by something put to our account is another question. In the cited passage it was certainly not so.

254 Leviticus 7: 18. Not a word of transfer or putting another's work to account. In a certain case he got no credit for his offering.

Numbers 18: 27. Something reckoned or considered as having a certain value.

2 Samuel 19. It is holding him guilty for what he had done that he would deprecate, no transfer of anything.

Psalm 32: 2. Nothing is put to account. The man is blessed whom Jehovah does not reckon guilty. It is not said why.

Romans 4: 3, 5, we have had. The explanation of the construction put on the Greek is all nonsense. Counting him into righteousness (of "bringing him into" there is not a word) is worthy of all the rest. The English is quite right.

Romans 4: 6. "Imputeth righteousness" is reckoning himself righteous.

Romans 4: 8 is just a proof that it does not mean what Dr. B. says. The Lord does not impute the sin, that is, reckon the man guilty of it. It is his own doing which is not imputed, not somebody else's doing which is.

It is useless to comment on the others. In none of them is there a hint of something done by another put to the account of him who did not do it. They are negatives; so that it is simply not reckoning to a man what he has done himself, or faith is reckoned as righteousness — the man's faith. The whole statement is a mere delusion, as the citations prove. Will Dr. B. only give us a passage in which justifying is by a righteousness legally transferred? A man's being righteous is his standing in the sight of God, not a quantum of righteousness transferred to his credit. Indeed the Greek word for this is different. It is ellogeitai, not logizetai.

But the legal system taints every thought and apprehension of Dr. B. The purpose of God before the foundation of the world, to conform us to the image of His Son, is lost. It is merely an infinite legal claim. God recognizes the claims of righteousness (p. 100). It is an exchange of judicial demands (p. 101). We can plead in our dealings with God the meritoriousness of an infinitely perfect life, the payment effected by an infinitely perfect death (p. 101). So, from Bunyan, "defending thee with the merits of His blood, and covering thee with His infinite righteousness from the wrath of God and the curse of the law" (p. 104). The assumption of all our legal responsibilities by a divine substitution is that which brings deliverance, etc. (p. 105). The second Man came as the righteous One to undo by His righteousness all that the first man as the unrighteous one had done by his unrighteousness . . . yet such is the power of sin that it took thirty-three years of righteousness to undo what one act of unrighteousness had done (p. 105). So God can accept Him, and the law recognize Him as entitled to blessing.

255 Can anything be more unlike scripture? The love of God, God commending His love to us, by Christ's dying while we were yet sinners, God so loving the world, all the activity of God's love, His seeking and saving what was lost, God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, the Father on the prodigal's neck, when in his rags a great way off, with no best robe upon him: all is lost. I admit, as fully, as earnestly as any can, the need of propitiation and substitution; but all true gospel, the grace of God that brings salvation, is lost in this unscriptural, unchristian system. Law accepts where it is satisfied.

All Christ's sympathy, suffering to succour the tempted as merciful and faithful High Priest, is lost. No such thought is found in Dr. B. It is the triumph of evil, or substitution. Righteousness did "retire from the scene" and is seen only now in Christ's sitting at the right hand of God. (See pages 98, 99.)

There are four reasons given in Hebrews 2 for Christ's taking our nature, and suffering: God's glory (v. 10), the destruction of Satan's power (v. 14), to make propitiation for the sins of the people (v. 17), to be able to succour them that are tempted. Not one enters into Dr. B.'s gospel. Christ comes to meet the claims of the law; and that is all.

Faith is nothing but our consenting to be saved by another, Dr. B. tells us (p. 109). This is utterly wrong. Faith is setting to our seal that God is true in His testimony, and practically the reception of Christ, by the word, through the power of the Holy Ghost. "When it pleased God," says Paul, "to reveal his Son in me." Page 111 shews that there is no real apprehension of what faith is. It is "human and cannot satisfy." "God's pardoning, and justifying, and accepting, must be connected with the cross alone" (pp. 118, 119). Yet, just now, it took thirty-three years to do it. Of an infused resurrection righteousness I know nothing, save as practical fruit of righteousness by Jesus Christ our life; but of being accepted in the Beloved I do, and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And this connects our acceptance with death to sin, and deliverance from it by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which Christ's bearing our sins does not. This difference between the teaching of Romans to chapter 5: 11, and from thence to the end of chapter 8, Dr. B. is wholly ignorant of.

256 What it is to be not in the flesh but in Christ, of the law's having power over a man as long as he lives, but that we are delivered from it, having died with Christ, the difference between Christ's dying for our sins, and our having died with Him, of His meeting our responsibilities by bearing our sins on the cross, and our being in Him and accepted in Him, now He is risen and glorified, inseparable from His being in us, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, sin in the flesh being condemned — of all this Dr. B. is wholly ignorant. Legal claims satisfied is all he knows; and of course he condemns and mistakes what he is ignorant of. It is striking to see (p. 121) how he speaks of Christ dying for us, and Christ being in us, but leaves out, as a thing totally unknown to him, our being in Him. And note again how, in all this part (pages 119-121), the whole of his statement of a sin-bearing life is utterly subverted, "All comes from the one work of the cross." "It is death throughout." This is not true of the meat-offering, but it sets aside all Dr. B.'s theory. Dr. B.'s anger against others has betrayed him into sad statements.

To deny that a risen Christ is our life may be fit for legalism, and a denial of all real spiritual life; but if there be a real gift of life, in whom and whence is it? This is terrible — our being in Christ left out, and Christ denied to be our life. And Dr. B. forgets the verse even as to justification, that, though justification is not by life in us, yet it characterizes justification, as it is written, "by one offence towards all to condemnation, so by one righteousness [or act of righteousness] towards all to justification of life."

The truth is, the whole doctrine of acceptance in Christ forms no part of Dr. B.'s scheme. But that our whole position and partaking of life too depends on resurrection, though surely the whole foundation is Christ's death (which is indeed what I must insist upon), is clear, and it is the real point in question. Dr. B., though inconsistently talking of its being solely death, bases it on Christ's previous life, as meeting legal claims. Scripture declares that, unless the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone, and that it is in Christ risen that we have our place before God, knowing by the Comforter that we are in Him (and therefore there is no possible condemnation for us), that He is gone to our Father as to His Father, to our God as to His God. So Paul would not know Christ after the flesh, though he had.

257 The cross made the great turning-point and separation. In the law God put up a barrier round the mount of fire — was hidden behind the veil; there was no entrance into the holiest, the way not made manifest. As I have sometimes said, God did not come out, and man could not go in. Now God has come out in grace to man, and man has gone in in righteousness to God, we are in Him there sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He is our life. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me-the risen Christ, or One not risen? Christ alive in the days of His flesh abode alone. "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above," where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "When Christ who is our life shall appear." Here it is distinctively a risen Christ. Our life is Christ who is risen; we have been quickened together with Him, and raised up together.

Save in the vague words, "brother, and sister, and mother," Christ never calls His disciples brethren until after His resurrection. Nor is being quickened by the Son the same thing as being raised with Him: for here He is looked at as a man, and we have part spiritually in resurrection with Him; whence it is said in Colossians 2, "having forgiven you all trespasses." He bore our sins in coming down, and put them away, and then we are raised with Him. He has put us in the same place with Himself — His Father and our Father, His God and our God. Till redemption was accomplished, the corn of wheat abode alone. Dr. B.'s system is not Christianity in grace to the sinner, God in Christ seeking the lost, and on the sinner's neck when the prodigal had not the best robe on; and the whole of Paul and John's teaching as to our place and life and acceptance in Christ he is wholly ignorant of. God, for him, is a righteous judge, and if we come by a legal satisfaction into court, He is satisfied because the law is. The Lord keep me from such a gospel, and such a gospel from the world.

258 Even when he speaks, as he must in quoting scripture, of being in Christ, it is an exchange of persons. It is a judicial verdict or sentence given in our favour. God seeks for us, and when at last He discovers us in our hiding-place, it is not me He finds, but Christ. We are partakers in law of all the results and fruits of His work, no identity with Christ literal or physical (pages 79, 80). Jehovah is satisfied. Is this the gospel of the grace of God? God sought sinners. Is it not as if we found our way into Christ by our own consent, and then God found, discovered, us hidden there? And are we not really members of Christ, of His flesh, and of His bones? Are we not really living in Him, and He in us?

My conclusion is, that it is a deplorable heart-saddening book, almost leading one to doubt whether the author knows Christ and the gospel at all, and giving the certainty that the blessed gospel we have in scripture he certainly knows nothing about, at any rate not the gospel of the grace of God revealed in scripture. Such is my answer to whoever sent me the book.

Review of Dr. Bonar's work entitled "The Rent Veil."

J. N. Darby.

<23015E> 259

If it were only Dr. Bonar's returning to his vile and miserable thought of Christ being banished, or the persevering insolence of mind with which he changes scripture to suit his own purpose, I should take no notice of his book, "The Rent Veil." Christ has directed us what to do with the blind leaders of the blind — to let them alone. But the book is written with another object.

Dr. Bonar resists truth in every shape. In another book he mocked at the conflict of two natures in us, and that in a way which makes it mocking Paul's own words on the subject. Here the object is to set aside the sure settled standing of the believer before God. Dr. Bonar is evidently not in the liberty wherewith Christ sets us free, and he naturally teaches from the ignorance in which he is as to it. Only it is a sorrowful thing when ignorance is taught. He gives no sort of heed to the statements of scripture. He invents views of his own, and sets them forth as truth, with entire neglect of the word. Happily this enables us to detect how utterly groundless his statements are.

Two things alone occupy me here — his view of the Hebrews, which in every particular is the opposite of the truth, and the effort to continue on the first Adam by uniting Christ with him, instead of basing all — the first Adam being judged and rejected — on the last Adam, Him risen from the dead, when redemption is accomplished, with whom alone, when glorified, there is union. These two are vital points at the present day. Dr. Bonar is seeking to destroy what the Spirit of God would press on the heart especially now. I shall, however, shew that his statements on all connected with these points are wholly unscriptural, that godly souls may distrust his statements, and be on their guard. He seems to allude to perfectionism of Mr. Pearsall Smith's class. This I have met and answered in its place; and not only in print, but have had much to do with it where it is current. I should not notice it here, but to remark that, what is one great source of their errors, Dr. Bonar equally fails in the knowledge of the use of water for cleansing in scripture. They are really on the same ground; for both, if there be failure, there must be a re-application of the blood; of the water, the washing of the feet, they are alike wholly ignorant. It forms no part of their system.

260 But, to pursue our inquiry into the statements of the book, paradise is treated as the place of God's dwelling, which there was no veil to hide. Man could go in to speak with God: God came out to speak with man. It was not till after man had disobeyed that the veil was let down which separated God from man, which made a distinction between the dwellings of man and the habitation of God. All this is a fable. There is no hint of paradise being the dwelling-place of God. "The LORD God took man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it" (pages 39, 40). You may see a still more definite statement, that God was there even when man was turned out. "Both the veil and the flame said, We guard the palace of the great King, that no sinner may enter; yet they said the King is within." All this is a fable. One has only to read Genesis 3: 22-24 to see it is pure invention. The cherubim and the flaming blade of a sword, turning on itself, were set at the east of Eden, to keep the way of the tree of life, with this express and only object. Dr. Bonar slyly leaves out the cherubim.

Now for him they are always the church; but to make the church keep the way of the tree of life against man, as God's judicial watcher, would not have done; so it is left out. "God's first words to man were those of grace" (p. 16). There is not a word of grace addressed to man at all — temporal judgment, and that only indeed. In the judgment on the serpent it is declared that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. But Adam was not the Seed of the woman. His faith may have laid, I trust did lay, hold of it; but it was laying hold of another, not grace addressed to himself: a difference of all importance because it brings forward the second Man, in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen, and is no setting up of the first again. We are told that (p. 17) "man was allowed to build his altar, and worship at its gate. At the gate of paradise the first altar was built," etc. But man must remain outside meanwhile, he was not allowed to enter the place as holy; only he sacrificed at the gate of it. All a fable.

Page 19: "God then began to teach man by means of sacrifice. This method of teaching him concerning grace and righteousness widened and filled up age after age. For this fuller education the tabernacle was set up . . . . Not till man, the sinner, should master the profound and wondrous lessons contained in that book (Leviticus) could the veil be removed, and access granted." Was this so? There was no growth, but the whole thing established according to the pattern shewed in the mount. There was no such education. The apostle (2 Cor. 3) declares that from the very origin they could not, and never did, see the purport of this, in truth, most instructive system when we have the key. What the world learned of it Dr. Bonar must tell us. The whole thing is clean contrary to scripture. The importance is that it is, in Dr. Bonar's scheme, bringing on and educating the first man, and so bringing in blessing. The apostle is proving, on the contrary, the impossibility of this with man; that is, he teaches the exact contrary of Dr. Bonar's teaching.

261 We are told (page 22) "The second veil allowed any one to look in." Not only is this untrue as a fact (they could not see through the veil at all, nor is there any trace that the ordinary Israelite ever went beyond the brazen altar — the brazen laver was for the priests only), but the word declares the contrary in the strongest possible way. If the most privileged class of Levites saw anything inside of the tabernacle, it was death to them. (Num. 4: 20, and what precedes). That is, scripture carefully teaches, as to the essence of the position, the contrary of what Dr. Bonar teaches, and what he teaches as giving its character to the state of things, his whole system, of which this is a part, is the exact contrary of the truth.

I turn to the cherubim. "Doubtless," we are told, "Abraham," etc., "knew about them." All this is to carry on the alleged teaching of man. It is naught: no trace of it in scripture; a false conception of the position of Abraham, the root of promise, not of law. The cherubim were in the pattern on the mount. "The cherubim and the Messiah (p. 28) are all of one; the church is represented in the tabernacle as one with Christ, — members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Israel was taught that the church in the wilderness (Acts 7: 38) was as truly the body of Christ as the church at Pentecost." "These cherubim symbolized the church of the redeemed."

262 Page 55, where it is said, "He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one," there is no thought of the unity of the body; indeed the assembly as the body of Christ is never spoken or thought of in the Hebrews. "They are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren; saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing praise unto thee." All is carefully individual, even when the assembly or church is spoken of. Priesthood for men walking on earth, while the high priest is in heaven, is the subject of the epistle, not union with the head on high. But of this anon.

But the statement of page 28 has Dr. Bonar's authority, but not even an attempt is made to found it on scripture. That there was an assembly in the wilderness, no one in his senses denies; but what assembly? The nation of Israel, and nothing else; a body which excluded Paul's account of the founding of the church. That assembly in the wilderness was based on the middle wall of separation being strictly kept up; the assembly of which Paul speaks is based on its being wholly thrown down. "The church is represented in the tabernacle as one with Christ, members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." "Israel was taught that the church in the wilderness (Acts 7: 38) was as truly the body of Christ as the church at Pentecost."

Paul tells us the mystery had been wholly hidden — hid in God. But Dr. Bonar does not tell us how Israel was taught it, or how it was represented; how even it was in the cherubim, and "they symbolized the church of the redeemed." Would my reader take a Concordance, and trace the word cherub? The cherubim are the seat of divine authority in the exercise of judicial power. They are found when God judicially excludes man from the tree of life. They constituted the throne of God in the tabernacle. "He sitteth between the cherubim." "They were made out of one piece with the golden cover of the ark." There God judged and had His throne; therefore blood had to be brought to make propitiation. (See 2 Sam. 22: 8, and following.) There the cherub is in the strongest way the seat of judicial power. "Jehovah thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered His voice. And he sent out arrows, and scattered them by lightning, and discomfited them," etc. Let my reader turn to Ezekiel 1 and 10, where the judicial and throne character of the cherubim is displayed in so solemn a manner. If chapters 1-10 be read, the judgment of Jerusalem at that time will be clearly seen.*

{*Save the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, these are all the cases of the use of cherubim, besides the instructions for the tabernacle and the temple, in the Old Testament, or allusions, as Psalm 80: 1; 1 Samuel 4: 4. In the New Testament, the cherubim and seraphim in Revelation 4, though the word be not used, are a most instructive connection, because it gives judicial power, not only as governmental on the earth, but final according to the holy character of God.}

263 It is evident that the cherub is the judicial throne or power of God. That the members of the church may come in as instruments of that power when they reign is very possible, as the angels may in their own time and place. But to make what kept the way of the tree of life — what fills the first scenes of Ezekiel's vision — the throne in the tabernacle, or the careering judgments of 2 Samuel 22, the church, as such, evidently is simply absurd. The ground of it is that there were cherubim on the veil. It suits Dr. Bonar, because he can connect Christ with man in union, and make Israel the church, and deny the unique position of the church in union with Christ glorified. It sets up the first man, the great object of Satan in these days. Take Ezekiel. It could not be the church as now. That is clear then. Was God riding or sitting in Israel when He destroyed Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar? The statement of page 28 has no ground whatever to stand upon.

The next thing we have is the blood on the veil. "As often as the priest offered a sin-offering, the veil was wet again with the blood which dropped on the floor. Is this Christ bathed in the blood of atonement?" And he then refers to Christ's circumcision and Gethsemane. Then "we see the blood-sprinkled veil." The last sentence I must leave my reader to understand, if he can. "And all this for us, that the blood which was thus required at His hands should not be required of us." What has that to do with His being bathed in blood?

I do not dwell now on the effect such statements and language produce. But all is wrong. It is not true that the blood was sprinkled, then, as often as the priest offered a sin-offering. It had no reference to the individual sins of the people; the blood for these was sprinkled at the brazen altar. What is here spoken of was done only when the anointed (that is, the high priest), or the whole congregation, sinned; and the whole ordinance was different; the bodies were burnt without the camp. There is no ground to change the translation. Before Jehovah, in front of or before the veil, is right in word and sense. At any rate Dr. Bonar is wrong. He speaks of the wet veil, and its dropping on the floor. Not both; the purpose is represented in the type. If it was the veil, not the floor; if the floor, not the veil. The point was, it was in front of the veil. All the statement in pages 29, 30 is entirely false.

264 It is part of Dr. Bonar's system of preparing man by the partial apprehension, before Christ came, of the same divine things. The worshipper in the outer court saw nothing, could see nothing, was meant to see nothing. The whole statement is a fable. We have seen it was death, even for a Levite, to see the things in the outer part of the house. And even the descriptions had no prospective sense for Israel, as we have seen from 2 Corinthians 3. "The rending of the cherubim signified our identification with Christ in His death" — confusion twice confounded, and nothing else; as many errors as words. The church, as the body of Christ, was not to be rent. The figure is Christ's personal death, a most important and weighty truth assuredly, but nothing to do with our dying with Christ. The rending of cherubim is never given as a symbol in scripture, or in any way. Dr. Bonar cannot even say that it materially happened; neither the thought nor the fact is scriptural. It is Dr. Bonar's invention, connected with his invention that they are the church (itself a monstrous absurdity); but when we died with Christ, it is in no sense as members of the church: as such we shall never die. We died with Christ as Adam's sinful children. Sin in the flesh was condemned there. "Our old man was crucified with Christ." "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh" — "dead to law." The idea of crucifying the church, when such, is as gross a perversion as can well be conceived. This part of truth is individual, as (save in the hortatory part) Romans always is. It was the condemnation of sin in the flesh, but by which we are dead to it for faith, being baptized to His death.

As regards the actual rending of the veil, it is sufficient that this momentous fact is stated as it is. The Jewish system set aside, access to the holiest is fully open to the believer. Dr. Bonar's long dwelling on details only weakens by physical circumstances the immense moral weight of the symbolical act. It is in every way most unhappy. It drags down the details, which teach nothing, and force one to remember that there was then no true ark and no Shechinah in the temple at all, nor had there been since Babylon. When Christ was on the earth, He was the place of the Shechinah — the true temple. Dr. Bonar confounds the access of the worshipper and the call to the sinner, which makes even his treating of the rent veil false.

265 As regards propitiation and substitution, they are points of great importance, and important to distinguish; but, in order to deny the true import of these words, and the truth connected with them, Dr. Bonar has made confusion, and indeed most mischievous error, out of it. That Christ, for God's glory, stood as the representative man before God, and in a certain sense took our place, and died for all, making propitiation for the whole world, is true; and I add that if Dr. Bonar chose to call this substitution, though I should regret it as unfitting, and enfeebling its use in other vital aspects, yet it would not be my place to prescribe words to him. But he does a great deal more than this. By his hatred of the truth and fondness for his own views, he has upset the whole gospel. "The blood brought within the veil," he tells us (p. 109), "contained a world-wide message, so that each one hearing of that atoning blood might at once say, then God is summoning me back to Himself," etc. Be it so; but then "propitiation," he continues, "rests on substitution. In all these symbolical transactions we have one vast thought, the transference of guilt from one to another, legally and judicially." If this be so, then if each one hearing of it could apply it, the guilt of all had been transferred to Christ, and it cannot be untransferred, or transferred back again, for Christ has died under it, a work "perfectly valid for all ends of justice"; consequently there can be no imputation of sins to anybody at all — the guilt has been transferred.

Scripture carefully distinguishes propitiation and the transfer of guilt, Jehovah's lot and the people's lot on the great day of atonement. Sin being come in, God's glory was in question, and our sin too. The blood was brought under God's eye as propitiation, and the sins of the people were laid by their representative on the head of the scape-goat. Both ends were met, God glorified in what He was, and the people's guilt put away. So Christ appeared at the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; but besides that He was once offered to bear the sins of many.

Dr. Bonar confounds it all, and there is no sure gospel for the believer; for the transfer of his guilt to Christ does not assure his salvation, nor set him in divine righteousness before God; for this is equally true of the lost according to Dr. Bonar, and there is no true gospel for the sinner, for propitiation and transfer of guilt are the same; and the latter is not true, or all the world is saved. God has been perfectly glorified in the work of atonement, and that in the very place of sin, that is, Christ made sin, His righteousness against sin, His love to sinners, His majesty, all He is. God has been, then, glorified in the Son of man; and the testimony of grace founded on propitiation can go out to all the world. But, besides that, in the same work He has borne the sins of many, and they are cleared for ever. Propitiation, by the force of the term, refers to God — substitution to men. And though propitiation is by reason of man's sin, yet it refers to what God is. His nature and character, and God's glory, is involved in it. It goes a great deal farther than meeting the sin which may have occasioned it. Substitution takes up the sins it is occupied with as its whole subject and measure. But on this I will say no more here. If blessed truth is to be spoken of, it must not be in answering such a book as Dr. Bonar's.

266 Only a point or two remains before I say a few words on Hebrews. He quotes the beautiful Psalm (of confidence) 16: "Therefore my heart is glad, yea, my glory rejoiceth" (p. 88). Here is his commentary, "He speaks as an exile far from home, weary, troubled, exceeding sorrowful even unto death" (p. 94). "Looking upwards to the happy heaven which He had left, He could say, 'How many servants in my Father's house have bread and to spare, and I perish with hunger.'" (p. 97). The statements in pages 152, 153 are all utter confusion and mistake. In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle is insisting on the responsibility of man in the work; and where it was of wood, hay, and stubble, all would be burned. Nay, more; if a man corrupted the temple, he would be destroyed. It is the temple of God, not now such as is spoken of here by Dr. Bonar, but that temple under man's responsibility. And Paul speaks of laying the foundation of it. Strange if Old Testament saints were in it! It is confounding what Christ builds and what comes of man's responsibility; — just what God is carefully distinguishing now, and which Dr. Bonar confounds together, without finding out the difference, which stares us in the face in the passage he quotes.

267 How completely the work of Christ is looked at as completing the progressive operation of God in the education of the old man may be seen in page 79: "The ages of delay are over; the day of expectation has come to an end. The purpose of Jehovah is now consummated. The Father now delights in the accomplishment of His eternal design. Now grace and righteousness are one. So long as one burnt-offering remained unpresented, there was something wanting — something unfinished. But now the last of the long series has arrived. The type is perfected, the last stone has been laid; the last touch has been given to the picture; the last stroke of the chisel has fallen upon the statue. The imperfect has ended in the perfect — the unreal in the real." It is arrant nonsense; but what a place it puts the previous series of sacrifices and Christ's in!

But I turn to Hebrews, my main object in all these lines; and very few words will suffice. "It assumes throughout," says Dr. Bonar (Preface), "that the present condition of the church on earth is one continually requiring the application of the great sacrifice for cleansing. The theory of personal sinlessness has no place in it. Continual evil, failure, imperfection, are assumed as the condition of God's worshippers on earth during this dispensation . . . . Personal imperfection on the one hand, and vicarious perfection on the other, are the solemn truths which pervade the whole. There is no day nor hour in which evil is not coming forth from us, and in which the great blood-shedding is not needed to wash it away . . . . God's purpose is that we should never while here get beyond the need of expiation and purging . . . . They who, whether conscious or unconscious of sin, will take this epistle as the declaration of God's mind as to the imperfection of the believing man on earth, will be constrained to acknowledge that the blood-shedding must be in constant requisition, not (as some say) to keep the believer in a sinless state, but to cleanse him from his hourly sinfulness."

Now that the blood of Christ is the eternal security of all blessing, even in the new heavens and new earth, I wholly believe; and that no saint is personally perfect, I entirely accept. I see no perfection for a Christian but likeness to Christ in glory. That is before his soul now, and hence the intelligent Christian can have no thought of perfection here. He purifies himself as He, Christ, is pure. That in many things we all offend, as a fact, I believe — not taking my own failure as a rule from scripture itself. But the necessity, as "God's purpose," that we should be always sinning here, as Dr. Bonar would have it, I reject. We should be walking always in communion, and manifesting the life of Christ in our bodies, always bearing about in the body His dying. That, and that only, is the normal state of the Christian. To say that we do fail is a very different thing from saying we must. I can never excuse myself, for Christ's grace is sufficient for me, and His strength made perfect in weakness; and God is faithful not to suffer me to be tempted beyond that we are able. If we are vicariously perfect, that is, perfect through Christ before God in God's sight, we cannot, in coming to Him, come with a bad conscience.

268 I have given thus fully, with a short clearing up of the point as to personal perfection, the statement of Dr. Bonar, to shew that it is in every point exactly the contradiction of the epistle he is speaking of. Our imperfection in sinning is never spoken of in the Hebrews. When sinning is spoken of, it is unbelief; as Israel in the wilderness sinning wilfully after the knowledge of the truth, apostasy, and profaneness, and in every case final, hopeless, and irrecoverable ruin. When sinning is spoken of in this epistle, it leaves a man without remedy, as chapters 3, 6, 10, 12. Priesthood, as now exercised by Christ (I do not speak of the work of the great high priest on the day of atonement, that is finished), is not for sins in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is for grace to help in time of need, mercy and goodness in all our temptations and trials, that we may be sustained, and not sin, but not for sins. The doctrine as to a perfect conscience, taught in chapters 9 and 10, would make it wholly out of place here. The conscience, in direct contradiction of Dr. Bonar's statement, is always perfect. For him the blood-shedding is in constant requisition. "There is no day nor hour in which . . . the great blood-shedding is not needed to wash its evil away." The epistle is just to shew that in contrast with Judaism, where such repetition went on, it is not the case.

Let us ask the epistle itself. Chapters 9 and 10 are the special chapters on this point. I beg my reader to read them through, and see how, once for all, "eternal" is repeated. I can only quote a few texts directly to the point; and note, the question is purging the conscience, not merely putting away the sins before God, which of course must be done to purge it. He begins his great thesis in chapter 1. "When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down." And this sitting down he emphatically uses afterwards. "We have such an high priest, who is set down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens."

269 And now for the conscience — the value of Christ's work as to it. "Christ entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge our conscience?" That is its character and value. "He is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world." But I must be more precise. The point in question (chap. 9: 9) is making him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. What meets this is (v. 12): "By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place." This blood (v. 14) purges the conscience.

Further, "Without shedding of blood is no remission." "Christ is entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (v. 23) — always there in the virtue and efficacy of that which He has wrought. Nor can He "offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered." There can be no renewal of imputation or guilt, no expiation, no blood-purging, but by taking the guilt, and drinking the cup. If Christ expiates and purges (that is, with blood), He must suffer. But He "hath appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin," been "once offered to bear the sins of many," and "appears the second time to them that look for him" without sin (choris amartias), having nothing more to do with it for them. Could anything more distinctly exclude repetition of purging, or repeated purifying, to make the conscience perfect?

But is there not a repeated application of what is here spoken of as done once for all? Let us see the next chapter, where this comes practically up. Dr. Bonar insists on repeated purging, repeated application of the great blood-shedding; that it is in constant requisition to cleanse him, is needed to wash evil away, and that in order to the worshippers drawing nigh. I read that the old Jewish sacrifices could not make the comers thereunto perfect, the repetition being a remembrance that sin was there; but, if it had made them perfect, the purging and offering would cease, as Christ's sacrifice did, because the worshippers once purged would have no more conscience of sins. Does this look like admitting a perpetual cleansing with blood — once purged have no more conscience of sins?

270 But it is more explicit still. Christ comes to do God's will in grace. "By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all," chap. 10: 10. The Jewish priests were daily standing to accomplish a never-finished work; "but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." For His friends He had no more to do as to this conscience-cleansing work. "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." And this word "for ever," in verses 12 and 14, is not the word "for ever" used when it is said a priest for ever, eis ton aiona, it is eis to dienekes--uninterruptedly, without discontinuance. Thus those sanctified by Christ's offering are continuously, perpetually, perfect, as Christ sits continuously at God's right hand.

There is no interruption in that perfectness, no more conscience of sins, and this gives them boldness to enter into the holiest. There is not only no hint of re-application of the blood, but a declaration of no more conscience of sins, that the sanctified ones were continuously perfect, uninterruptedly so, so that they had boldness to enter into the holiest. It is not personal perfectness, but it is perfectness of conscience uninterrupted; Christ appearing before God for us, sitting continuously at God's right hand, because all is done, and we are perfected for ever — hence, in going to God, no more conscience for sins. It was the church not holding this fast that laid it open from the beginning to absolution and sacramental grace, and, till absolution was invented, that there was forgiveness for one sin after baptism; after this you must leave a sinner in God's hands. This is clear that the teaching of the Hebrews is formally, in a set and purposed way, the positive denial of Dr. Bonar's teaching; its object is to teach exactly the contrary to what he ascribed to it. There is, we learn elsewhere, a sprinkling of blood to seal the covenant, to cleanse the leper, to consecrate the priest; but not repetition. The repetition of the application of the blood is a denial of the gospel. And this truth comes in here, which I will notice to make all clear.

271 When it is not a question of conscience, and imputation, and guilt, which does require blood-shedding to put it away, but of communion, there is a cleansing of the state of the soul, but this is by water. The righteousness and propitiation remain unchanged in their value, and are the foundation of the other. In 1 John communion is spoken of. There, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins." But an idle thought interrupts communion, and that has to be restored, and Christ's advocacy comes in. So, in John 13, referring to what He does on high, He washes the disciples' feet, once washed, and in this sense for ever clean (this also with water). Bathed as the high priest was, they have need only to wash their feet, when they have picked up dirt in their walk. But it is no repetition of blood applied; there is no such thing in scripture for a Christian. Practical cleansing for communion there is, but imputation, guilt, has no place; expiation, propitiation, no place; "Jehovah imputeth no sin." Christ must suffer often. If the sin is borne, put away, and He has washed us from our sins in His own blood, all that is done once for all; but to clear the conscience by blood, Christ must suffer. But this is done once for all. He sits at God's right hand, because the sanctified are perfected for ever. Dr. Bonar has no idea of anything but personal holiness, or perpetual cleansing by blood. If he will read the Hebrews, he will find perpetual perfectness, no more conscience of sins. There is besides this a washing of the feet with water, a kind of cleansing, which all who do not see the perfectness of conscience taught in the Hebrews always leave out — do not apprehend. The apprehension of what is taught in Hebrews takes the cleansing out of the domain of righteousness, as to which we are perfect, and places it in that of holiness and communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Water is the remedy for that; the word, that is, in the power of the Spirit, as blood is for expiation and remission.

I will only add further, that Hebrews never contemplates the church as such, but the people of God walking in weakness on the earth, and Christ for them a separate person on high. Union with Christ is not its subject, and it is just this gives it its preciousness. Nor does it speak of the Father, but how we believers stand with God, and how we approach; and that is with a perfect conscience through Christ's one offering, so that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. If the reader examine the statements of the Epistle to the Hebrews, he will find that it is the work itself, or the offering of Himself, or it by Christ to God, not the process of application to us, which is spoken of; the effect is, but not the application. Thus we have, through the Eternal Spirit, offering Himself without spot to God, blood-shedding, the sacrifice of Himself, one offering, entering once into the holy place, not without blood, or in the power of His own blood, into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. It is the offering of Himself, or entering into the holy place, but no trace of application to us as the means of its efficacy, still less repeated application. By one offering He hath perfected for ever, in perpetual continuance, them who are sanctified. They have no more conscience of sins.

Cleansing and Deliverance

J. N. Darby.

<23016E> 273

As regards perfection, which is often a difficulty, the ground has been taken that, while the flesh never changes, which is perfectly true so far, yet supposing we sin, by referring to the blood of Christ, inasmuch as it cleanses, we are constantly thus perfectly clear. Blood has to cleanse because we are not clean. But this does not at all meet the point. What is wanted is not so much cleansing as power.

Now Christ's blood, though the ground of all blessing, connects itself directly with the conscience, with imputation, not with power; and to bring in the blood at once raises the question of the state of my conscience, and the consciousness that I am unclean. They tell me there is power sufficient to put you in relationship with God, and then that you are there pure. Now it requires earnest and honest attention to make the difference between deliverance from the power of sin and purity. Because, till we are delivered through a just sense of redemption, the sense of the presence of sin and of want of perfect purity connects itself with conscience and acceptance with God. Take Christians in general; and you will find they have a kind of feeling, though they would not like to say it, that they must sin. And quite true it is that, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; and that, in fact, in many things we all offend.

But you will notice in 1 John 1, when it comes to sinning, the apostle puts this in the past tense, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." Speaking of sin, it is the present tense, "we have no sin"; but of sinning, in the past tense, "we have not sinned," not "if we say we are not sinning"; and there is no such consequence to be drawn as that we must sin. "My grace," said Christ, "is sufficient for thee, and my strength is made perfect in weakness"; and "God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able." "I can do all things through him that strengtheneth me."

Nor does the existence of the flesh give a bad conscience: else I should never have a good one, because the flesh is always there. Neither is it a question with me whether God can impute a sin to me as a believer, for Christ has borne them all; nor is it a question of past sins or future sins, inasmuch as for Christians now Christ never bore any but future sins, though past sins are necessarily what affect the conscience. But the question is, whether that kind of power comes in by which I am brought into a condition where sin is not operative. I never could say that it must operate. For God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able; and, if I bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, only His life will work in me. So that if an idle thought is in my mind, I cannot excuse myself. Grace still acts in the advocacy of Christ; but I never can excuse myself for having ever allowed the flesh to act. Had I been faithful in closeness to Christ, the flesh would not have acted. Had I been occupied with Him, the evil would not have found place in my mind.

274 Here is a mother; she is told that her child has been run over at the railway. She is off directly. Does she think of the things in the street as she passes? Not she; on she runs. All those things which might have been an attraction to her if she had been unoccupied — a fine dress hung out, or a pretty picture — they none of them arrest her attention now; she does not see them. And so ninety-nine out of a hundred temptations never would be such to you if Christ were in your mind. If we were full of Him, there would be no room for the idle thoughts with which Satan seeks to distract us by the world around us, if he cannot occupy us with them as an object.

And if we do fail, this is no question of putting away sin, and of blood; but it is a question of water, when Christ is an advocate pleading for us to restore our souls. In John 13 He did not put blood into the basin, but water. Now, if my feet did not pick up the dirt — and they ought not to do it — then I should not need that action in John 13; but they do, and the Spirit of God brings the water of the word to my conscience, and this is the value of the passage. I have defiled my feet, and then I get water, and not blood. Water, as a figure, signifies always the application of the word by the power of the Holy Ghost. Christ has entitled us to heaven, but for our restoration He works in us by the word when it is needed, though it ought not to be.

The existence of the flesh does not stop communion, but the allowance of it does. In 1 John 1 fellowship or communion is the same word; and it is stopped by an idle thought; for the moment it is totally interrupted. God evidently cannot have communion with such.

275 But, further, in connection with this, Christ dying for our sins is quite distinct from our dying with Christ; it is a different thing entirely. We are called upon to recognize this, and live in the power of it. If we are dead with Christ, then "reckon yourselves" so; only I add that this is not finding out that I have died at a particular moment, and am brought by faith into this state (though every truth is learned by faith), but the truth learned here is that I died in Christ's death. It is my Christian profession. Being baptized unto Christ, I am baptized unto His death, and when the apostle bears about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, it is clearly not his own dying, but, as it states, the dying of Jesus. The thing I say is, Christ was the one who bore my sins, and so I get pardon; but I find no pardon for the evil nature. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." But when God did that, what happened? Christ died; then I am dead. If it had been myself personally under law, I should have had condemnation as well as death; but being crucified with Christ, condemnation is gone, and the death has come. If I apply it practically, and honestly say I am dead, how can Satan tempt a dead man? And how can you say a dead man has lusts and a bad will? It is not true. Yet this doctrine of purity in yourselves attained by faith, and that without the self-knowledge gained by exercise of heart under law, as taught in Romans 7, is very rife around us; and it is winning honest and sincere persons through the craving for a deliverance they have not got.

It is stated that there is a purifying that makes us now like Christ here. But this is unscriptural. It is asked, "Did you not when converted desire to be conformed to Christ?" But this is misleading people's souls; for I desire it now too. But what is taught in scripture is that, "when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure." This is a very different story. If I am already purified, I do not want to purify myself. The conformity to Christ proposed in scripture is in glory. He was absolutely without sin here; if I say I have none, I deceive myself. I ought to walk as He walked, not allowing sin to stir in me; but it is there in the flesh.

The effect of the whole thought is to lower the standard of the Christian altogether. I want to be like Christ in glory, and I shall be; and, meanwhile, though the flesh is here, this in itself would not interrupt my communion; and I recognize fully that as a Christian I ought, not grieving the Holy Spirit of God, to live constantly in the unclouded sense of God's favour.

276 I dare say there may be Christians who never have really comprehended what it is to be dead and risen with Christ. They cannot, as to their own souls, take this up. It is what the scripture calls being "perfect"; that is, not merely being forgiven the sins of the first Adam, but having our place in the Second, and that in the power of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We shall be actually perfect when like Him in glory; never before, because this is our standard. But if I have realized that I am in Him, dead and risen with Him, as He is, so am I in this world — first, as to judgment, and then as to the power of life and state before God, recognizing the deadness of the old man for faith through Christ's death on the cross.

But the view I have referred to supposes that a person can by faith slip into a state of purity; just as by faith he knows his justification. Now such are deceiving themselves, and that for this reason — you do not know yourselves yet, and you must. I repeat, what I have said elsewhere, that you do not get out of Romans 7 in some shape, till you have got into it, and know not merely guilt, not merely that you have an evil flesh, but, what is harder to learn, and more thoroughly humbling, that you have no power.

Suppose a person owed money, and I tell him it is all paid. If he believes I am a man of my word, no experience is needed; he is at ease, and very glad to hear it. But suppose I say, You are dead to sin. This is not the payment of a debt, it is an absolute statement of your condition. The man might say, "What is the good of telling me that? Why, I was in a passion this morning." His experience contradicts me. Nor can you get out of the difficulty until you have come to the personal consciousness, the self-knowledge, which finds out that you cannot get the victory over sin. It is a terrible thing to see; but it is learning this, that I have no power, and not merely that I am guilty. "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not"; and until you are brought to the conscience of "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" I cannot succeed; sin is too strong for me; I am not brought to the point, where alone the deliverance is got. I may or may not have the knowledge of forgiveness. This modifies the form, but not the substance, of the experience. It is always essentially under law, that is, a claim upon us to be in a given state. But you say "I must try." "Very well," I say, "Try away, try away." Why? Because then he will learn that he cannot, and presently he will say, not "How shall I do better?" but, "Who shall deliver me?" He is then in such a condition that another must take him out of it. He finds he is not only ungodly, but without strength; he has learned what he is, not merely what he has done; and then he sees Christ there in power, and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes him free from the law of sin and death. This is not a question of non-imputation, nor of cleansing, but of making free. Then I find it settled in seeing the truth and ground of it in the cross of Christ, and not in my personally obtaining of purity at a given moment.

277 Another thing I would just add. I ask, Are you content to have died then, and not to have the least atom of will of your own, nor wish, nor desire? Is there nothing in your heart that you would like to hold back against God? This tests us. Have we so learned what the principle of will is, or do we want to keep a little bit of it? Our state ought always to be one of unhindered communion in the power of the Holy Ghost without a cloud upon our spirits. But this is not really the state of things, and so it is power we want.

Cleansing by Water: and what it is to walk in the light.

J. N. Darby.

<23017E> 278

I have carefully compared with scripture, I trust before God, the system now pressed upon many as the desirable Christian condition of liberty and holiness. I have done it in His fear, not willing to lose any profit or advantage which faith in divine power could give me. However happy, I am too poor and weak not to be glad to have everything I can of Christ and of His Spirit. I admit that mere knowledge is far from being all, even when correct in the things of God. Power by the operation of the Spirit is needed, and the evangelical world is very unbelieving as to this. Still we are sanctified through the truth, and hence the question is — Is this system the truth, the truth of God? It seems to me to fail entirely, if examined by scripture as to the true standing of God's children — their real place in peace before Him; it has not learned this place, nor the character, extent, and means of holiness. It comes wholly short of the state of conscience produced by the Holy Ghost consequent on redemption, and as a necessary consequence lowers the character of holiness, and eclipses the place Christ should hold in the heart. There is more than one thing, I think, true in it, and important to Christians in these days; and it is because these are obscured by false teaching, and souls are thus misled, that I take notice of it. I desire to speak soberly, not slighting what is true, but guarding the soul of my reader, if God graciously permit and deign so to use it, against what obscures the truth. I shall first state what I do not oppose, that I may give no handle to those who might reject the presence and operation of the Spirit of God, and give all due credit to those who look for it.

In Mr. R. P. Smith's last work, "Walking in the Light," there are counsels which are useful, such as, when temptation is there, to look at once to Christ, One who has overcome. I have no doubt that, when we do, the enemy will flee, so to speak, as a frightened bird. It is not simply as if we were better, but the thing is gone. We may have sometimes to wait where there has been any giving way, but if we resist the devil, he flees from us. And this is important for assailed saints; there is positive strength in Christ and grace sufficient for us. I repeat, it is not merely an improvement or change; the assailing evil is gone.

279 Doubtless there may be other just and useful remarks; but my object is not this book but the system, and I have met many who hold it. I go on with what I admit and fully receive. I fully receive that sealing by the gift of the Spirit, founded on the precious blood of Christ, which sets at liberty, by which the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts and we cry, "Abba, Father" in the consciousness of being sons, know we are in Christ and Christ in us, loved as Jesus was loved — a wonderful place in which rest of heart is found. This I not only admit, but have pressed it some fifty years. Indeed it has distinguished characteristically the labours of those with whom I am associated. Not only so, but a multitude of souls in receiving it have found the power and presence of God more sensibly than at their conversion. I recognize fully that "there is no necessity and no excuse for sinning." Christ's grace is sufficient for us, and "God is faithful not to suffer us to be tempted above that we are able." Mr. Varley's tract shewed evidently that it was this deliverance and conviction that he had never had before and now received; and that was all. It is because this state of bondage is so common that the deliverance taught in this system is attractive. The normal state of the Christian is to live in the unclouded and conscious favour of God, and, if he lives in the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit. In fact, in many things we all offend.

That God often heals the sick in answer to prayer is clearly taught both in James and John: in the former according to ecclesiastical order, though by the prayer of faith; in the latter as an individual matter, and I have seen and assisted at the clearest examples of this both in England and on the continent. In two cases, at the request of the parties, prayer was accompanied by anointing.

There is danger of the mind being turned to, and stopping at, what after all is only a testimony, though a blessed one. The professing church has lost the sense of that which characterizes Christianity — the present living power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. It is not the end; for He leads us to the Father and the Son, and is the present power of our condition.

But it is of all importance not to separate the Spirit from the word of God, as it is not to separate the word from the present power of the Holy Ghost. The word is the sword of the Spirit, and what it reveals is spiritually discerned. The pretension to use it by the power of the human mind, or judge it by conscience, is really rationalism, or, to speak plainly, infidelity. And taking the power of the Spirit apart from the word lays men open to take every wild imagination of man and even an evil spirit for the Holy Ghost, as the word plainly shews us. Those who know the early history of Friends know the excesses to which some ran. It will be said, you cannot attribute this to the body or to those who were esteemed leaders among them. I admit it; but I do attribute it to the principle adopted by them: that the Spirit in them was superior to the word, a name which indeed they would not give to the scriptures, and this has been openly avowed to myself now by those who looked to the present special operation of the Spirit and its power.

280 It will be again said, this is not countenanced by those active in the movement. I do not deny this, but the way they leave aside the word and look to present power and experience as adequate testimony has led to it. I do say that this is the tree that fruit has grown on, and avowedly so; and this is very serious.

I admit further the difference between conversion, the power of the Holy Ghost in life consequent on the resurrection, and the coming down of the Holy Ghost from heaven, now known in the sealing and anointing of believers. The last two cannot be separated now that the Holy Ghost is come. Of this Romans 8 is a plain proof. They may be considered apart, but in fact they are one. The same Spirit that is life bears witness with our spirit that we are sons. The Holy Ghost when given distributes to every man severally as He will. He may be looked at as power, as in 1 Corinthians 12, power which is regulated in its use by the word there and in chapter 14, and here there is no promise of continuance; or these gifts may be looked at as given by Christ who is Lord in the administration of them in 1 Corinthians 12, and in this case only what is needed for the work of grace is spoken of (Ephesians 4, compare 2: 20), and there is promise of continuance. It is Christ's care of His body in gathering and nourishing it. In this aspect the apostles could confer the Holy Ghost, but there was also the general promise of Acts 2: 38. I do not go farther into this, interesting as the subject is. I do not resist faith in present operation and power of the Holy Ghost, provided scripture has its place, and the present condition of the church in the last days be borne in mind.

281 Further, I recognize that Jesus the Lord and Saviour can and does manifest Himself to us, as He has promised, when we walk obediently, so that what shall be our everlasting joy in heaven fills our souls here. It may be according to the weakness of the vessel, but still truly. This John 14 clearly tells us. Scripture sanctions such experience, though the passage may go farther than this. The love of God withal is shed abroad in our hearts. The Father and the Son make their abode with us. It is a blessed and unspeakable privilege. This, as the chapter cited clearly shews, is connected with our obedient walk — keeping Christ's words. The whole of this part of John is not sovereign grace to sinners, but the Father's dealing with His children as responsible as such.

My objection to the whole system is, that it subverts the true liberty and perfectness of conscience of the child of God; and, perpetually recurring to this point as if the perfectness was lost and incomplete, it applies to clearing the conscience in view of this what in the word is a question of communion and holiness, lowering and falsifying this last also.

It will have many supporters in this, because unbelief as to it is the prevailing state; but it is sorrowful when the pretension to a higher life is the support of unbelief.

The ground they go upon is the common ground of unbelief in the offering of Christ — the doctrine of continually cleansing and recleansing in Christ's blood. This is wholly unscriptural, and subversive of true Christian standing according to the word — that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. Nothing can be clearer or more positive than the teaching of Hebrews 9 and 10 on this subject, where it is elaborately argued, in contrast with the repetition of Jewish sacrifices, and as giving us boldness to enter into the holiest. The question raised is of a perfect conscience; and a perpetually unchangeably perfect conscience is elaborately taught, with a declaration that otherwise Christ must often have suffered, but that His work has done this once for all. He was once offered to bear the sins of many, and appears a second time without sin to salvation; a repeated cleansing of the conscience by blood is herein formally negatived. Christianity is contrasted with Judaism on this particular point. It is the offering, the blood-shedding, which clears the conscience, and that could be only once, and so that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins; and hence, while the Jewish priests were always standing, because their work was never done, Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins, is sitting constantly at the right hand of God, having no more to do as to the worshippers' conscience, because by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified-by one offering, note, and thus we have no more conscience of sins. And this word "for ever" is here eis to dienekes, not eis ton aiona, that which is continuous and uninterrupted, as Christ now sits at the right hand of God, constantly, till His enemies be made His footstool. And remark that it is not merely the putting away of sins efficaciously, true as of course that is (see Heb. 1: 3), but the perfecting of the conscience; Hebrews 9: 9; chap. 10: 1, 2, 12, 14; and see 12, 19. The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches clearly, unequivocally, insisting on it as characteristic of Christianity, a conscience constantly perfect, as sure as Christ is ever sitting on the right hand of God; perfect, not by repeated application of His blood, which is being imperfect, and cleansed again and again, but no more conscience of sins, perfected for ever, and that by one single thing in contrast with repeated cleansings. This blessed truth and state is ignored and denied by the system I am commenting on. The whole place is lost for the soul — the very truth God is pressing on His saints for their deliverance.

282 This error is founded on an entirely false application of 1 John 1 to which I will turn just now. But another point must first engage our attention — sin in us. This Mr. Smith is now obliged to take notice of Scripture is plain as to it. I admit that the existence of sin in the flesh does not rest on the conscience. It is the allowance of its acting for which our hearts condemn us. But here all is confusion through the ignorance of "no more conscience of sins." We are told "that which brings a sense of condemnation or impurity." Condemnation and impurity are very distinct things. Is it here condemnation on the part of God? This can never be the case with the believer. If it be self-condemnation, although free communion be not restored, yet a holy judgment is; I condemn what I had allowed. The whole operation of God in restoring the soul is lost by confounding the state of the soul, and a perfect conscience. This system brings back into imputable evil, needing blood-shedding or cleansing by blood, what is a question of holiness, of state, of water-cleansing; and the perfectness of standing, and holy dealing with the state, are both lost.

283 But I turn to what scripture states as to sin in the flesh. That of which I have already spoken refers to the fruits of the old nature, and the perfecting the conscience as to them by Christ's one offering of Himself. He has borne our sins in His own body on the tree, all of them. If all are not for ever put away, they never can be; He cannot die over again. Were this the case, as it is said in Hebrews, He must suffer often, bear the sins, drink the cup; but this is done once for all, and through faith in His work the conscience is perfected; if He did not bear all my sins, nothing is done; if He did, I am clear for ever.

But this is not all. The first part of Romans, to the end of chapter 5: 11, treats this question. But there is more. Not only are the sins of the old man all put away for the Christian, but he is in Christ. There is a positive acceptance in Him. He is in a new place according to the value of all Christ has done for God's glory. There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus. Now this is directly connected with the power of a new life, the possession of which, founded as it is on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, sets us free from the law of sin and death. There is no captivity under the law of sin, no necessity of ever sinning. But this, again, is based on the condemnation of the old man in the death of Christ. What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. It is not forgiven as sins are. The only remedy against it is its death; it has been condemned when Christ died, so that there is none for me. But in His death I died, being crucified with Him; that is, as there is no condemnation, so I have died for faith in Christ's death. In that He died, He died (not here for sins) unto sin once; in that He liveth, He liveth unto God: so reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God, in Jesus Christ our Lord. God accounts the believer dead (Col. 3); faith counts us dead, crucified with Christ (Rom. 6; Gal. 2); and (2 Cor. 4) it is practically carried out by always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.

284 But this is the Christian standing and position. "Ye are dead," "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you; and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

Mr. Smith's notion of getting back into Romans 7 is all false. That would be ceasing to be a Christian. There it is said, "when we were in the flesh"; in chapter 8, "ye are not in the flesh." It is the state and standing redemption has put us in "Ye are not in the flesh." This is God's estimate of the believer; he is in Christ, and Christ in him; and such is faith's estimate. "Reckon yourselves dead." If Christ be in you, "the body is dead because of sin." It is a new state of existence, though yet in an earthen vessel. Realizing it in practice is of all-importance, but I must be in it to realize it. But this Mr. Smith has absolutely nothing of. His perpetual cleansing of the conscience with blood denies it. He is with thousands, alas! on Jewish ground. Our being dead to sin is for faith reckoning ourselves so because Christ has died to sin once, and the sin in my flesh has been condemned then once for all already, and if I yield myself to God, it is not that I may have this or that, as they would teach us, but as one that is "alive from the dead." It is the Christian state, the basis of yielding myself to God. The sins are borne, and before God I have no more conscience of sins, and have perfect divine favour, as in Christ before God; sin in the flesh is condemned, but for faith dead, because Christ died, when and wherein it was condemned. "I am crucified with Christ." This is known by the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." He may be on the way, but he is not in the Christian state.

I turn to 1 John 1. The whole use of it is false. The case of actual sinning is in chapter 2. The first chapter is entirely abstract. Fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ is the joy and privilege of the Christian; but this must be according to the nature of God, who is light. Mr. S. speaks of bringing everything to God without evasion. Now this is most right and important. I would press it, not weaken it in anywise; but there is not a word of it in this chapter. "Walking in darkness," and "walking in light," are contrasted, as in Paul's mission to the Gentiles, "To open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified, by faith that is in me." So in chapter 2, the darkness is passing away, and the true light now shineth. God is light, and walking in the light is walking in the true knowledge of God; the new man is "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Light came into the world in Christ. He who follows Him has the light of life. And note here, what is spoken of is "walking in the light as God is in the light." It is not according to the light, but in it. There is no darkness at all in God. This is the revelation afforded, the message heard.

285 The question is not raised if we walk according to it or not. We are in the full revelation of God without a veil, or in darkness, having no knowledge of God. It is not the question how far we live up to it. But the Christian is really walking there. If it was my consistency, how could I say, walk in the light as He is in it, and then speak of cleansing from sin? There would be no need of it. It is upon the face of the passage the true Christian position, in contrast with ignorance of God. It is as much as to say, if you are a Christian — have been turned from darkness to light. But it is no partial light, but as God Himself is in it — the unveiled light of God's nature, as revealed through redemption in Christ. If this be so, two other things accompany it; it is not mine and thine, but communion in full blessedness in God revealed.

Further, to be there we need to be as "white as snow," and have "a perfect conscience"; for if the conscience is evil, the heart is never free. And this Christ's blood gives. It is its intrinsic value; as if I should say, That medicine cures the ague; it is not, goes on by repeated applications relieving details, but cures it.

Failure, I repeat, comes in in chapter 2: 1. Chapter 1: 5-10 takes up the details of any possible self-deception in the matter, as to sin and sins, and where we are as to them; but verse 7 is the abstract, absolute, statement as to Christian standing: in the light as God is, fellowship with one another, and under the efficacy of that blood which cleanses from sin. If it be our consistency, walking in the light as God is, then speaking of cleansing is absurd. Of bringing our state to God there is not a word. It is absolute and abstract.

But it is alleged that "cleanseth" is going on cleansing. It is not "has cleansed," nor "will." If people will take a continuous present, for which there is no ground, it must be continuous, not repeated, as "I am writing." But this has no sense. Particular failure, as I have said, is in chapter 2: 1, 1 where we have no application of blood, but the contrary. It is perpetual righteousness in Christ, and propitiation which was once for all. But a continuous cleansing is absurd and unchristian; it is self-contradictory.

286 Of repeated application of blood scripture knows nothing. I must be redeemed over and over again, justified over and over again! And let us see what it comes to in this system. Mr. Smith tells us that "trusting Christ for cleansing is only through the constant supply of blood from the heart, and guidance from the head. Lessen the current of blood, the corrupt matter from the flesh is imperfectly carried off, and disease ensues" (Preface, p. 7).

Now, I appeal to every Christian, to every one really taught of God, whether scripture ever so speaks of the efficacy of Christ's blood as cleansing the sinner. It would not be cleansing, but preserving in health. But the idea is wholly foreign to scripture.

"If we walk in the light," is walking in the true knowledge of God, fully revealed as He is in His holy nature without a veil, as contrasted with ignorance of God. Christianity is in contrast with a God who could give commandments but was hidden behind a veil. This brought fellowship in common joys, and we can stand in the light; for that which revealed it, the cross, the blow which rent the veil, put away every sin, every stain, and I am in the light, as white as snow. All is the present condition of the Christian as such. It is not that it will cleanse us if we fly to it, or if we bring everything to God without evasion. It is "if we walk in the light," not even according to our capacity in realising it (all these details are foreign to the verse, and come after), but if we walk in it as God is in it. The very expression "all sin," or every sin, shews us the same thing; it is not a question of details, but its universal and absolute value.

Then comes what the truth in us makes us know, and what we have to do if we fail, and the ways and government of God, and what Christ does if we fail. The righteousness and propitiation being ever there, our failure awakens the advocacy of Christ. But here there is no reference to the cleansing of Christ's blood. A repetition of blood-sprinkling, or blood-cleansing, is a thing unknown to scripture. The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins; Heb. 10.

287 But there is a cleansing which may be repeated, and which this system everywhere ignores, and of which we have a precise account in scripture — washing with water. "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word." "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth"; so indeed we are born of water, and begotten by the word of truth. The water came out of His side, as did the blood. When the Lord spoke of their having a part with Him now going on high, because He could no longer have a part with them, it is of this water-cleansing He speaks. Nor, as to the substance of it, can this be repeated. He that is washed (leloumenos), his body bathed, as the priests were in their consecration, needeth not save to wash his feet (nipsasthai, wash hands or feet, etc.), but is clean every whit, and ye are clean, but not all, for Judas was there. When sanctified and renewed by the word with the truth Christ's death and heavenly relation give to us, still we pick up dirt in our walk, and the Spirit (Christ being our Advocate) applies the word to the conscience. We are humbled, confess, are cleansed as to the state of our souls, morally, purified in thought and heart, and communion is restored.

We have the same in the ordinance of the red heifer in Numbers 19, the book which gives us the journey through the wilderness, to which this kind of cleansing applied, and not in Leviticus, where the sacrifices in their proper value are described. Nor in the case of the red heifer is there any cleansing by blood: this was always by blood-shedding, no remission without it; and that has been done once for all. The ashes in the running water were the testimony that the sin had been all consumed in Christ when the offering was made; but communion was interrupted, and the sense of what sin was, according to the death of Christ, brought home to the soul.

Thus this all applies to the state of the soul, to holiness, and to our judgment of sin. All this instructive and heart-searching truth is not only left out, but denied, in the system which, in these cases, applies the blood, not the water. And this is not merely a mistake in the terms, but denies the efficacy of the blood as that which perfects the conscience once for all, and the repetition of which is unknown to scripture. And so entirely is the use of water set aside that, in speaking of the consecration of the priests, Mr. Smith says, "first the blood, then the oil,"* whereas the first thing was washing with water, and by this he was consecrated to God, though the blood and the oil were absolutely necessary to perfect him in his place. Mr. Smith adds, "God's order is the blood for pardon, the Spirit to enlighten; the blood for cleansing, the Spirit to fill the purified temple." Now the blood was never repeated with the priest, nor indeed the oil; but he washed his feet and hands on every service he rendered, to which I doubt not John 13 makes allusion: only now it is only the feet.

{*This is not exact, but it is of no consequence here.}

288 Let me add here, that so far from the present tense in verse 7, on which so much is insisted, being repeated cleansing, when he comes to details and forgiveness in the present ways and government of God, in verse 9 he leaves the present tense, and says nothing of blood-cleansing. My anxiety has been to shew what the system deprives us of. Of the system itself I need not speak. Mr. Smith has avowedly brought it down to what I estimated it at the beginning; that it is simply deliverance from legal bondage, which is captivity to sin. He says (P. 107), "The better life we seek to portray differs from the former Christian life, as the sixth and eighth of the Romans differs from the seventh."

Now this deliverance is of great moment, and it is a distinct thing from forgiveness. On this I have so largely insisted elsewhere, and for so long a time, that I say nothing more of it here. I quite trust that Mr. Smith's and others' insisting on this will be useful.

To the end of Romans 5: 11 we hear of forgiveness; from thence to the end of chapter 8 of deliverance; in one, of the sins of the old man being put away; in the other, of our not being in the flesh, but in Christ and free.

Only one thing Mr. Smith has not noted, that one not in Romans 8 is not recognized as in the Christian state. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." Now "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness." The final result is quickening this mortal body. Before having the Spirit, they may be on the way but are not in the Christian state, any more than Israel were out of Egypt till they crossed the Red Sea, though the blood was on the doorposts. There God had the character of a judge; at the Red Sea, of a deliverer. Mr. Smith makes it a difference of degree, "erased blots on an early page, in a book scribbled on every page." Scripture makes it the difference of having the Holy Ghost or not, of being in the flesh or out of it, of being of Christ or not. I do not suppose Mr. Smith would deny this; but not knowing the true ground on which it rests in scripture, he obscures it all, lowering it down to experience. Yet he speaks of cleansing from all sin, that deep evil of our nature which is antecedent to sins.

289 Now what is cleansing from a nature, and that by blood? Cleansing from a nature by blood is unknown to the word. Sin in the flesh is condemned, and any cleansing there is is by our having for faith died to sin. Cleansing is from some actual defilement. From a nature we are delivered by death. All this cleansing from the evil of our nature is unscriptural, and arises from an attempt to reconcile an unscriptural system with what cannot now but be recognized as the truth of the word. Elsewhere Mr. Smith uses these very words for cleansing from actual defilement.

I must refer to another practical point in connection with the substitution of the blood of Christ for the washing of water, for repeated cleansing. They hold that, where we have failed, instantly recurring to the blood cleansing us, we are as happy as ever. All is right in a flash, rest of soul at once restored; and this I have found current among those professing to have attained this state in various instances, and in one very striking case published by an English clergyman.

Now in cleansing with blood this is so, because it is pardon and forgiveness of an act committed, or say even of a thought. It is gone, I am forgiven, and the joy of God's goodness in it is in my soul. I confess my fault, and, as to forgiveness, there is no question remaining between me and God, and the sense of His goodness is deepened in my soul, because it is a question between me and God, and is perfectly settled by the precious blood of Christ. Mr. Smith puts the case of impatience with a workman, and confession to him.

But when my state and God's glory are referred to, it is another case. Mr. S.'s conduct was most Christian and right, and the blessing which followed easy to be believed. But supposing Christ's name had been dishonoured before the world by some act or word of mine, where no confession to an individual had anything to do with it, I have no idea of anything being imputed to me; actual present forgiveness my soul may find; but am I to take it quite coolly that I have dishonoured the name of that blessed One before the world? Let every Christian's heart answer it.

290 Nor is this all. This wretched doctrine of repeated cleansing by blood hinders all self-knowledge and true growth by it. It is not a question of pardon: this is settled; nor doubting divine love: the Father loves us as He loved Jesus. But when the Lord looked on Peter, he went out and wept bitterly. Was he wrong? But more, when the Lord restores his soul, He never speaks a word of reproach as to his denying Him, nor refers to it. It was put away by the death of Jesus, but He does say, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" He goes to the root of it in the heart of Peter — self-confidence. "If all deny thee, I will not." That is, there is no hint of remaining guilt, but. there is a probing to the root of the evil, of which the actual failure was only a fruit. Now this cool return to rest and ease of heart looses all this. There is no searching of the spring of evil, unsuspected perhaps in the soul, for growth in true spiritual life; and the soul is never thoroughly restored and blessed till this is done.

A man may be taken in a fault, but a fall is never the beginning of evil. Take Mr. Smith's case; he was impatient, and spoke so to the workman; he owned it; all well, but how came he to be so? Neglect of prayer, of keeping in the sense of God's presence, with the seriousness and self-restraint it gives, too much setting of heart on the arrangements which were spoiled, a spirit too much engrossed with them, a tendency to impatience not adequately subdued by the habitual sense of God's presence. Here it is not a question of forgiveness, but of holiness of heart, of its depths, of the state of my heart. All this is lost on the system of cleansing anew by blood. It is a superficial system; it takes a low standard of what should occupy a Christian's heart; it makes a question of mere pardon of what should be a question of holiness; it denies the perfectness of conscience belonging to a Christian; and by raising this question in an unscriptural way, contenting the spirit with ease and rest through pardon, blinds it to the further exercise of soul, which seeks holiness and judges everything that hinders it as well as actual failure. It is not a doctrine promotive of holiness. There is levity in it. Individuals may escape the effect; or in the first fervour and tide of deliverance the soul may be above the shoals and banks; but in the long-run it leaves the soul in a superficial state.

291 There is only one more point which I feel called upon to notice — temptation, so called, not being sin. I have heard those under the influence of this system talk of suggestions, and slur over what has passed in their hearts. Mr. Smith (p. 105) says, "Let us beware of one special snare of Satan — that of trying to persuade us that temptation, or mere infirmity, is sin. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. His temptations were actual and real pressures to evil. He yielded not, and was without sin. Neither is the unwelcomed, unindulged, rejected temptation sin to us." This is very bad. Mr. Smith must forgive me for speaking plainly. He has fallen into the snare of Satan. Mr. S. is so exceedingly loose in his statements, that one has to make all sorts of necessary distinctions before there can be any answer.

Temptations and infirmities are not the same thing. Paul gloried in his infirmities, certainly not in sins, and if we do put them together, the sense of temptation is at once defined. Infirmities in this sense are the persecutions, and difficulties, and reproaches a Christian has to go through, if he will be faithful and devoted, and which would tend to hinder him in holding fast his faithful course. (See 2 Cor. 12: 9, 10.)

Mr. Smith might see that the "yet" in the passage he quotes [from Heb. 9] is in the Authorized Version in italics; that is, it is not in the original. Hence we can say that any such application to Christ as is involved in Mr. Smith's statement, is carefully guarded against. He was tempted according to [the] likeness [He took], that is, as a man, as we are in this world, sin excepted. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities; He was, and is still, for us, sensible to all that human nature can feel from outrage, reproach, desertion, unrighteousness, isolation, and the want of sympathy. The word of God discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts, judging their true character in us according to His holy presence. In all our trials and difficulties we have Christ's full and tender sympathy. What does Mr. Smith mean by actual and real pressures to evil? From within or from without? Were they (the Lord forgive the word!) lusts in that blessed One, suggestions of His own sin in the flesh! Was there anything in Him which was not to be indulged because it was evil? Let Mr. Smith explain himself. What did He not yield to? When Satan succeeds in "touching" us, he awakens the thought of evil, even if we do not yield to it. Did he succeed in doing this with Christ? "The thought of foolishness is sin," says the word. Was this in Christ? In His temptation He was hungry. This was no sin; it was a human need, and He felt it, and Satan sought to lead Him to do His own will as to it. But He lived by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. All the glory of the world from without was offered, but it awakened indignation, not any question. God's word was His motive for acting, as well as His rule. He was led of the Spirit to be tempted. We are tempted when we are led away of our own lusts.

292 All this flows from the damnable doctrine that lust is not sin. What is it? Is it holiness or righteousness? Where does it come from? It is the fruit of the sinful nature; "sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of lust." Those who rest on fruits in James — and I do not call it a strawy epistle — find no sin till it has conceived and brought forth. Those who go to the root with the word of God know that there is sin in the flesh. If Satan were to suggest to eat a handful of mud and dirt, would any one be inclined to do it? If he succeeds in touching us, it is because there is a desire in the sinful nature to which he adapts himself. If we are full of Christ, he will not succeed; but if the suggestion is awakened in our hearts, sin is awakened into the activity of desire, though we may rightly resist it; and if we look to Christ, we shall be victorious. Was any such suggestion awakened in the blessed One? All this loose insinuation as to Christ, to excuse and cover sin in ourselves, is very bad indeed. Was anything within in Christ which He had to resist? It must not be covered over with loose words, as "temptation or infirmity," which words have professedly in scripture a double meaning. (See James 1.)

The word judges thoughts and intents, the priesthood takes notice of difficulties and trials. Was the pressure of evil in Christ from within or without? From without He was spared nothing, but it only brought out a sweet savour. Within there was nothing but what gave the sweet savour in life and in death. I know of nothing more horrible than thus sacrificing the holiness of Christ to excuse and allow "suggestions," suggestions of sin in us. Instead of taking Him as the living standard of holiness, holiness is lowered in us, so as to allow of evil suggestions, and Christ is brought down to this level, that sin in us may be passed over. I do not rest on the word peccable, applied to Christ by some of those in these views; evil and unholy, I should say, unintelligent as the thought is, because it is not the real question.

293 Mr. Smith speaks of "that deep evil of our nature which is antecedent of sins or sinning." Was there anything of this in Christ? Mr. Smith would surely answer No. It was not an innocent thing which was born of the virgin Mary, but a "holy thing." Could Satan introduce anything of it in Him? He takes the love of money in Judas with subtle wile to betray the Lord. It was a suggestion, a temptation from without, but met that which was within, awoke it, and then there was a suggestion, in which the thought of the heart had a part — even if judged and resisted. There may be suggestions of blasphemy or despair, which are fiery darts of the enemy, when there is no lust. But there were never even such as these in Christ; if forsaken, He could say, "My God," and "Thou continuest holy." Did the enemy succeed in arousing evil thoughts in Christ which He resisted. I ask of any honest Christian are not these suggestions, thoughts in his heart? If they are not evil, why does he resist them? It will not do to talk of pressures of evil. From without? Yes. Did these pressures awaken in Christ's heart suggestions which He resisted as evil? If so, He ceased to be absolutely "that holy thing" — really never had been. He was a holy man, not an innocent man, and ever maintained His holiness — met Satan by obedience and dependence on God by the word. The wicked one did not touch Him. There were no suggestions; there are, or may be, in us, because the flesh, sin in the flesh, is there. Others, under the influence of these doctrines, I have heard say, He was imperfect, alleging His growth in wisdom and stature. He was a true real man, and, as a child, He was perfect as a child; the vessel grew as ours does. But this shews the way this doctrine works. Was He ever anything but perfectly holy? That is the question. If there were evil suggestions in His heart which He had to resist, He was not.

I seek, then, a fuller, more assured, unchanging ground and state of acceptance, and divine favour, than this system gives me. Here it fails and goes back to the common evangelical ground, which God is leading us beyond. I look for a deeper character of holiness, of which the false doctrine on the other point deprives us; and I see it depriving Christ of His holy glory, and me of a Christ who can be the treasure and food and light of my soul, and fixing the attention on self instead of on Christ.

294 I admit fully the work of deliverance distinct from forgiveness; the Epistle to the Romans elaborately teaches the two. And I believe all this stir as to a higher life has done good, in awakening souls to the need of something better than current Christianity, and I bless God for it.

I trust there is nothing which has the form of attack in what I have written. I not only disclaim any such thought, if such there be, but regret and recall anything which may seem to have this character, save what concerns the holy nature and Person of Christ; on that there can be no compromise. This dragging of Christ down in doctrine to excuse the evil suggestions of our hearts, as if there were no sin in them, is intolerable to every godly heart. The perfection was found to be imperfect, and Christ lowered to make it pass as no sin. This is intolerable.

I only add, it is not looking back to past experience that is our strength, though it may occasionally have place, but living on Christ now in the path of God's will. I deny Paul's talking about himself and his experiences, save where he says he is a fool in doing it — they had compelled him. "I say again, let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little." (See 2 Cor. 11) He does personify great Christian truths in his own person, as at the end of Galatians 2, as I have done a hundred times myself without suspicion of any particular reference to self. "I am crucified with Christ" is the only true state of every Christian; and he is pressing it as such in rebuking Peter.

"Higher Holiness"

*

A review of Dr. A. Moody Stuart's closing address as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

J. N. Darby.

<23018E> 295

{*RECENT AWAKENINGS AND HIGHER HOLINESS: the Opening and Closing Addresses in the Free Church General Assembly, 1875. By the Moderator, A. Moody Stuart, D.D. Third Edition. Edinburgh: Maclaren and Macniven, Princes Street.}

The question of holiness has recently stirred up too widely the Christian mind not to give attention to every form in which it is claimed. It has, I believe, usefully roused Christians' minds to the sense that there ought to be deliverance from the bondage of sin, and more entire devotedness to Christ — self-surrender to Him. As is ever the case, when what is true and important is based upon false principles, it has been accompanied by, or mixed up with, what is false — with the fruit of these false principles. Our part is to separate the precious from the vile, that we be as God's mouth.

The form in which this demand of holiness or perfection has been put forward, whether by Wesleyans or Mr. Pearsall Smith, has been pretty fully met, and I do not now recur to their views. The Moderator of the Free Church Assembly has stated his views on the subject; and as they involve some very important principles, and the position and character of Dr. Stuart will naturally command the respect of many, I will briefly weigh his statements. An excellent man, I doubt not, though personally unacquainted with him, and sound in the faith, he will not object to his sentiments being weighed by scripture. His mind, at any rate his statements, are neither clear nor accurate, always a difficulty in reviewing the thoughts of another. They are vague; but certain great principles are sufficiently clear to examine whether they are scriptural.

But I shall notice some of this vagueness where all is well meant. For the real result is that, with the best intentions, the statements mean nothing: only they ignore the true question.

"Outside the camp (he tells us) we find the Holy One numbered with transgressors. In that same hour his blood purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. We are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, in mind, in will, in heart; and sin hath not dominion over us because we are under grace." This is merely using the general effect for the reality of the state; the question of a new nature or life, and of the law, is carefully dropped. But I add, sin where? If it be in us, the whole man is not renewed. Scripture says, the new man is renewed in knowledge after God — is created in righteousness and true holiness; never that the whole man is. Practically sanctifying wholly is spoken of, and our being preserved; but the old man is said to be put off, not renewed. Scripture makes the division Dr. Stuart objects to. In fact, Dr. Stuart reduces the new birth to being born of water, leaving out being born of the Spirit. Death, not change, is what frees [justifies] us from sin. Our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed [rendered null]. But of this point I will speak farther on.

296 Dr. Stuart says one stain would occupy the stained person in heaven. I quite agree; and more, it would spoil heaven itself. But what stain? guilt or unholiness? He had spoken of our past stains, and also of the poison of sin, then generally of our stains, as to our qualification to be in heaven. Scripture says, "Giving thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," speaking of all Christians, and does not refer meetness to progress.

Many would reject this, but it is scripture they reject. Scripture does speak of progress continually, but not in this connection.

"It cannot however," we are told, "be set forth as within the plan of redemption that perfect holiness should be ours on earth. If we wash our hands with snow water, and make ourselves never so clean, we are quickly plunged into the ditch again, and compelled to cry out, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?'"

But there is no such thought as this in scripture. Job says, "Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." Dr. Stuart's holiness is a very poor thing, plunging immediately in the ditch again when we have cleansed ourselves. But Job is saying that his cleansing himself was nothing before God; he was as a man plunged in a ditch. "We are not, therefore, defeated," Dr. Stuart tells us; "we have learned that sin is not omnipotent over us, but that grace is omnipotent over sin." How so, if "we are quickly plunged into the ditch again?" Who plunges us? "There is no sin, no temptation, no obstinacy, no vitality of sin, which grace is not almighty to overcome, and at last to uproot it." Does this mean a sinful habit? If so, I should not deny this. But sin in the flesh — is that uprooted? Is it in the new man?

297 "Where sin and Christ met together on the cross, Christ finished transgression for us, and made an end of sin." Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin; but sin and Christ meeting on the cross has no truth in it at all. I have no doubt this is a misapplication of the passage, but I leave that aside. But Dr. Stuart adds, "And so in us, when sin and the grace of Jesus Christ meet together, grace triumphs — in the end always triumphs, and over every kind of sin." What has this to do with Christ "made sin" on the cross? and how do sin and grace meet together in us? What does sin mean here? I suppose a particular lust; but all is vague. The whole man was said to be renewed in mind, will, heart. The man was plunged quickly, it is true, in the ditch, yet not defeated! The teaching is really deplorable, and so vague that no soul can find where it is, save that, with a sense that it ought to triumph, it experiences being "plunged in the ditch," and cries out, "O wretched man that I am!" And this is holiness!

As to "Job, Daniel, and Paul," the statement that "the higher any man rises in nearness and in likeness to God, he is always the more deeply conscious of sin," is entirely unfounded. Job failed exactly in being conscious of sin, and made himself more just than God, and was overwhelmed into abhorrence of himself by God's revelation of Himself. Daniel never speaks of sin in himself at all, but in grace identifies himself with the past sins of Israel. Of Paul I will speak more fully. But there is no kind of evidence, that the nearer he was to God, the more conscious he was of sin.

Besides, it is the excessive vagueness of all this I complain of. What does conscious of sin mean? of its power actually in us? that there is an evil nature in us always simply bad? How then, is the whole man renewed?

That is the division of nature which Dr. Moody Stuart rejects. That the nearer we are to God the more we judge sin by a divine measure in ourselves, as in nature, is quite true; but that is not being more conscious of sin. All is deplorably vague and uncertain; and he whose whole man is renewed is at the same time, we are told, carnal, sold under sin. All this flows from denying the opposition of the flesh and spirit, and putting the Christian under the law, according to Romans 7, reducing us to Judaism; for in the Old Testament the doctrine as to the conflict of natures was not revealed, and the character of holiness pretty much what Dr. Stuart makes it — integrity of heart, loyalty of heart to God. God has now revealed Himself, and makes us partakers of His holiness. If I take the law as my measure, it is unscriptural to say, when I have the power of Christ, I cannot keep it. It is saying I must sin, which is not true. To say in many things we do all offend, is scriptural; to say that we must, is very evil.

298 Again, to say that it would be necessary for one child of God, who strives to be in the fear of God all the day long, to live for a day in the measure of hardness and deadness of another, is senseless, because if he were in the deadness and hardness he would not feel the evil.

The teaching then is most vague and unsatisfactory; but I must go to its root.

As to mistaken views, that holiness is in the will, so that we may pass over emotions (or, as the American perfectionists say, suggestions), as not sin, I reject with Dr. Stuart; so also that all is sunshine. These therefore I leave aside.

On his first mistaken view of holiness I shall dwell. As Dr. Stuart states it, I know of none who hold it save the followers of Freulich, and another in Switzerland. It is not forgotten that it is one person by those who hold, scripturally, the division of flesh and the divine life, the contrariety of flesh and spirit; nor is the sinfulness of the old nature accounted little — it is accounted absolutely and always bad; enmity against God; that it cannot be subject to His law. They insist on its absolute and permanent sinfulness as a nature, wholly bad, the source of evil lusts and enmity against God; that practically it should always be held to be dead. They do not believe that bondage to it, "carnal, sold under sin," is the Christian state.

Dr. Moody Stuart says, "As regards what constitutes holiness in redeemed men on earth, the dangerous opinion has been advanced, which makes a very excessive distinction, or rather division, between the new man and the old, between the flesh and the spirit in the believer, as if the sinfulness of the flesh were to be disregarded on account of the holiness of the spirit: forgetting that it is still one person in whom the evil and the good are found."

There cannot be "an excessive distinction or division" if there be two opposed natures; still less so, if one be divine, the other sinful. If two, there is division; if one be divine, the other sinful, there cannot be excess in distinguishing them. This is the question which Dr. Stuart ignores or swamps under the general charge of excess.

299 Let us see what is plainly declared in scripture.

First, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," John 3: 6. Is not this distinguishing them completely in their origin and nature, carefully so distinguishing, making a division between two distinct and contrary natures?

Man must be born anew (anothen). "Anew" is not a change or purifying what exists, but what, from the beginning onward, is a new birth.

We are born of God afresh; "of His own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures"; we are "born of the incorruptible seed of the word," and receiving Christ, He is our life. "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life." It is that which Adam innocent had not more than Adam guilty. "Christ is our life." It is not we that live, but "Christ liveth in us." Our duty is to manifest the life of Jesus in our bodies.

That this produces a change in the whole man is most true, yet it is not a change, but a new thing given — eternal life that God hath given us, that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us, and is become our life, Christ, the second Man. It is not I, but Christ that lives in me. Nothing can be more distinct than the corrupt first Adam, the flesh, and Christ, the last Adam, who, risen from the dead, is become "our life."

Let us see if scripture does not distinguish and oppose them one to another. As to the flesh, "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness," Rom. 8: 7-10. Does not this put them in division and formal opposition? Again, in Galatians 5: 17, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other." Could there be a plainer or more formal statement of what Dr. Moody Stuart objects to, or contradiction of his objection?

300 But this contrariety is expressed in the strongest way in scripture. Christians have put off the old man with his deeds; where, note, the deeds, the fruits, are distinguished from the man or nature. They have put on the new man. This new man is created after God. But more: death is the portion of the old man. Our old man is crucified with Christ, dead with Christ. We are dead and our life hid with Christ our life; to reckon ourselves dead and alive to God, not in Adam but in Christ. In us, that is, in our flesh, dwells no good thing, but Christ lives in us. So for practice we are to carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. He that is dead is freed (justified) from sin. And this old man and sin in the flesh is condemned wholly and finally, but, for faith, dead. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

The doctrinal portion of the whole Epistle to the Romans is divided into two parts. The first part of it tells us how grace has met our guilt, as having sinned, by Christ's death; and, secondly, from chapter 5: 12, how we have died with Christ, and thus sin in the flesh met. All this is ignored by Dr. Stuart, and merged in a renewal of the whole man. The works of the flesh, and the fruit of the Spirit, are contrasted in scripture as flowing from two distinct sources — the divine nature, under the power of the Spirit, and the flesh, in which no good thing dwells, from which deliverance is only by death, actually by actual death, and practically now by reckoning ourselves dead, as crucified with Christ.

This leads me to Romans 7, in which this system of Dr. Moody Stuart's leaves the Christian, just as scripture carefully takes him out of it. And I do not conceal from myself that, quite admitting the personal piety of those who do not see it, this changes the whole nature and character of Christianity. Paul diligently teaches that a Christian is not where this system leaves him, and that he who is in Romans 7 is not in the proper sense a Christian at all.

301 We must not blink the full assertion of this — IT IS A QUESTION OF WHAT CHRISTIANITY PRACTICALLY IS. A soul may be in the way, and He who has begun the good work will perfect it; but he is not yet in the Christian state at all while he is in the state described in Romans 7. The prodigal was converted, repentant, on the right road; but he had not the best robe on till he met his father; Luke 15.

I believe it often happens that the mind is in Romans through bad teaching, when it is really delivered in its relationship with God; many are so. But this does not affect the fact that there are two states entirely distinct, one the Christian state, the other not; not merely knowing it or not (of this I have spoken), but two distinct states.

Israel out of Egypt and brought to God's holy habitation, as in Exodus 15, was in a different state from Israel in Egypt, though God had visited them. The prodigal converted and repentant, without the best robe and having never met his father, was in a different condition from what he was with the best robe on him, and fit, and then only fit, to go into the house. Before, it was his own thoughts of what might be his state when he arrived; but when come, all was wholly and solely and actually according to his father's revealed mind.

Dr. Stuart, with alas! thousands of others, puts the Christian in the experience of Romans 7, and consequently treats him as carnal, sold under sin. I affirm that the whole object of the apostle's reasoning is to shew that a Christian is not there, but delivered from it, and that deliverance from it is the only true Christian state. Indeed I say more, namely, that what the apostle insists on is the absolute incompatibility of the two states — that a person can no more be under the authority of the law and that of Christ at the same time, than a woman have two husbands. This makes the issue definite and plain enough, and I state it so because I am persuaded that it is a question of what true Christianity is, and in these days is of vital importance. Many, many years I have taken the same ground for the deliverance of individual souls; but things are come to a crisis, and all is inquired into, and it behoves us to know what the word of God teaches.

I have already stated that the doctrinal portion of the Epistle to the Romans is composed of two parts, which divide at the end of chapter 5: 11. (Chaps. 9, 10, 11 are an appendix to reconcile the promises made to the Jews, with his no-difference doctrine.) The former part treats the question of sins or guilt; the second, sin, or the evil nature — the flesh. With Dr. Moody Stuart, stains of guilt and stains of unholiness are all thrown together, and all is vague.

302 Let us now see how the Spirit of God treats the question of sin and the flesh. He leaves the ground of individual responsibility and works, on which we are guilty, and exposed to judgment, and leads us up to the great heads, Adam and Christ, the law coming in, by the bye (pareiselthe), between. But by one man's disobedience the many (all connected with him, oi polloi) were made sinners, by one man's obedience the many (all connected with Him) should be made righteous. The objection of the world rises up at once; if one man's obedience constitutes me righteous, I may live on in sin. The answer is not to put man again under law, as is done so unscripturally in a flesh which cannot be subject to it, but to deliver man from sin in a wholly new life which does not come from the first Adam at all, but from Christ, the last Adam, so that He should live in this life: but more, His death to the old Adam-life also — not physically of course, but by faith, in that Christ, who is our life, has died. We have been crucified with Him, nevertheless we live; but not we, but Christ lives in us.

Let us see what is said of this in Romans 6, which is the full statement of this great truth. Let my reader remember that this part of the epistle does not treat of sins and guilt, but of sin; of the tree, and not of the fruit. How have we part in this righteousness of chapter 5? In having part in death-Christ's death. How then live on? That is the apostle's thesis. "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" The very profession we make, what we are baptized to, is to Christ's death; and we know that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (katergethe). In that Christ died He died unto sin, and in that He liveth He liveth unto God. "Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord" — not in Adam: as to that, we are to reckon ourselves dead.

Then comes our yielding ourselves to God (the practical walk of godliness in its root principle) as those that are alive from the dead. Thus the Christian is placed on a sure and fixed basis for his walk. He has died in Christ, and he lives in Christ, since he is justified from sin. You cannot charge evil lusts and a wicked will on a dead man. This shews the importance of distinguishing sin and sins. While alive he may have committed all manner of sins, and have to answer for them; but you cannot charge a dead man with sin as a present thing.

303 How does this affect the question of his being under law? He is not under it at all; Rom. 6: 14. Law has power over a man so long as he lives; but we have died. We have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we might be married to another, to Christ that is raised from the dead; (chap. 7: 4). The metaphor is changed in verse 6 (not indeed in the text, which makes the law die as the first husband); but the marginal reading is, I may say, universally accepted as true, as indeed it connects itself with the whole reasoning of the passage. We have died, and are freed from the first husband, the law; we (katergethemen) have been set aside from the law, having died in it. As he says in Galatians, I through the law am dead to the law by the body of Christ. If a man had died simply by the law to it, it was condemnation too; but being in Christ, He has taken the condemnation of sin in the flesh, and we have part in death to it.

The first husband then, the law, is done with, and we are married to a risen Christ, and cannot in any sense or form be under the authority of two husbands at a time. It is adultery. It is, we alive in flesh (and if not wholly lawless) under law, or we dead as to it with Christ by faith and married to a risen Christ, and the law in its authority in every sense gone as to us, for it reigns over a man only as long as he lives. Hence it is said, "when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law." I cannot say, "when I was," if I am in a place. I must be out of it to speak so, as is yet more clear in Romans 8: 9. The doctrine then is, that we have died, and are thus wholly delivered from the law and its authority, to have another husband.

Then the apostle gives the experience of a renewed soul under the first husband. For of the law only there is question here. Christ and the Spirit are not mentioned, save for deliverance from that state. It is solely and simply a renewed soul under the first husband, the law, learning there what flesh is — that flesh is not subject to it, nor can be, and that we have in this case no power to fulfil it, even if we love it. Verses 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 each shew it is the law that is in question as to experience. Deliverance only comes in verse 25, and is developed in chapter 8; the full reasoning on it is in verse 14, in 16, and in 22. We Christians know the spirituality of the law, and so it is felt to be by the renewed man, and his conscience consents to it as good, his heart delights in it; but he never performs it, does not find how to perform it, learns what sin (not sins) is, that there is no good thing in the flesh (sin becomes exceeding sinful), that the flesh is contrary to it all; but he also learns that he has no power to fulfil it. Sin, as a law in his members, makes him captive. He never does the good he would, but practises the evil he hates. Deliverance and power is what is in question. He is the slave of sin, sold under it, captive to it, learns to distinguish what Dr. Stuart will not have divided, but learns that under law the sin he hates is too powerful for his delight in the law; and that being in the flesh, not dead and alive in Christ, he is captive to the law of sin.

304 Christianity, besides forgiveness and righteousness before God, is just deliverance from this state by death to it in Christ, and power, the power of a new life in Christ, in which the Holy Ghost works, we being set free by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians and Ephesians go farther, but I confine myself to this one point now. This holy liberty is developed in Romans 8: 1-11 on to actual resurrection. Perfectionists have taken this deliverance for perfection; Dr. Stuart and Evangelicals deny the deliverance, and would keep us in Romans 7. Scriptural Christianity rejects both, because it shews that sin dwells in us on the one hand, and has power over us on the other, but that there is deliverance from that power.

Dr. Stuart takes merely the outside change, which, if consistent, should go on to Wesleyan perfection, denying deliverance from Romans 7, and the fact of the flesh being totally distinct from the new life, the last Adam as life in us from sinful flesh, and makes all Christians carnal, sold under sin! Christianity shews we cannot say we have no sin, but that we have died in Christ to it, are to reckon ourselves dead, and alive to God in Christ, and so delivered from the power of sin, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; for the Christian is not in the flesh in which the law could not be fulfilled, for it was not, and cannot, be subject to it. Dr. Stuart, in terms, makes the Christian carnal, sold under sin, and holds he cannot fulfil the law. Christianity delivers him from that state that he may fulfil it. It does a great deal more, but it does that. The Christian is one who lives by the power of spiritual life in Christ, a totally new thing which he has received — life in a risen Christ, God having given His only-begotten Son, that we might live through Him, His death and resurrection having set us free; so that, while this holy freedom is realised in the power of a new life, we have the title and duty to count ourselves dead in Christ's death, our old man (the flesh) crucified with Him.

305 Let us briefly see how this liberty is depicted in Romans 8. "There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus"; not whose sins have been borne by Christ, which clears and justifies us, but who are in a wholly new place in Christ; not in Adam or fleshly standing (for then they could not please God, and there they were when under the law, responsible for themselves for righteousness), but now redeemed wholly out of that place; not merely God met perfectly as a judge, like the blood on the lintel and door-posts, but as Israel out of Egypt, redeemed out of the place they were in (God being a Saviour or Deliverer) and in a new one, not in the flesh but in Christ:

This involves the corresponding truth of Christ in us. (Compare John 14: 20.) The blood is the strongest motive for walking, but this is a nature, a life which walks. Redemption and a new state of holy liberty go together. I am not seeking who shall deliver. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," Rom. 8: 2. I am not captive, sold under sin. My status and condition is exactly the opposite of chapter 7.

The question here is not if I act up to it — of course I should — but what is the status I am in? I am "not in the flesh," not in my Adam standing before God at all, but in Christ; "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit," redeemed into connection — living connection — according to the power of His resurrection, which is both the seal of redemption and the power of life with a risen Christ; and, besides that, I have received the Holy Ghost, that I may both know it (John 14) and have the power of it, the old man being condemned and dead; "for what the law could not do (chap. 7) in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." A new life is there in the power of the Spirit; but the old has been condemned in the death of Christ, so that there is no condemnation, and it died when condemned. I have death to sin, and no condemnation for it, through Christ's death. I need not, I trust, say here Christ had none. He could do that, being made sin for us, because He knew none. But sin in the flesh is condemned (yet so that there is no condemnation for me) but for faith is dead: my old man crucified with [Him], I am dead with Christ. The realisation of this in walk is found in 2 Corinthians 4: 10-12.

306 The new life is a new creation in me: I belong to the new creation by it; but as to my body, and in fact, I am in the old: only the Spirit reveals the things not seen, that we may live by them. Romans does not speak of the new creation, looking at the Christian as here on earth, but the mind of the flesh, enmity against God, is contrasted with the mind of the Spirit, life, and peace. The living presence and power of the Holy Ghost in us is clearly stated, and in formal opposition to the flesh in its nature. And we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of Christ dwell in us. It is a new standing, characterized by the Spirit being in us; if He be not, one is not in the Christian state.

This brings out the truth of Christ being in us, as before our being in Christ was spoken of; and the ground is stated on which the great truth we have spoken of is based. If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit life because of righteousness. Through the Spirit dwelling in us we hold the body for dead; for if alive, it is the evil flesh, enmity against God; and the life which we have is in the power of the Spirit — its fruit is righteousness. This is pursued to the resurrection of the body, which will be full deliverance.

It is not merely knowing our position, as some have said. We are not in the flesh but in Christ — in the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, the only recognized Christian state. In chapter 7, though converted, the man as to his standing was in the flesh, under the law, captive to the sin he hated. The motions of sin were by the law, he living in the flesh. Now he is not in the flesh but in the Spirit — in the place redemption has brought him into, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him. The fruits are a consequence. What is stated is the entire change of status and position: a man under the law, the first husband, and in the flesh; a man delivered from the law and married to Christ, in the Spirit, not in the flesh. A man is not captive or a slave, and set free, at the same time. Falling into sin carelessly when free is not captive to the law of sin in my members.

307 I only add a notice of two false translations which theology has introduced, and for which there is no excuse. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other" — the opposition which I insist on, and which Dr. Stuart denies. But then comes the theology: "So that ye cannot do the things that ye would." This is nonsense; for if I cannot do what the Spirit would, nor what the flesh would, I can do nothing. But it is used simply to mean, we cannot do what the Spirit would, shewing the practical state of souls. But there is no such statement; it is merely "that ye may not do" (ina me). They seek to hinder the working of the contrary natures.

The other is, "Sin is the transgression of the law." This is really, I must say, a wicked subjection of the word to theology; The word (anomia) is never used for "transgression of the law" anywhere else in the English translation of the holy scriptures; another expression is, parabasis nomou. I call it "wicked," because by it a human system denies what the word of God carefully insists on. Not only so, but it is the word rightly translated elsewhere "without law." Sin is not transgression of the law; to say so, universal as it may be, is a wicked anti-scriptural perversion. Sin is the evil nature which produces lust, the enmity of the heart against God. It is written, "Sin by the commandment became exceeding sinful," which could not be if sin was not there before the commandment. Again, the contrary is expressly stated. "Until the law sin was in the world." There is no transgression without sin. Further, it is said, "They that have sinned without law," the same word as an adverb (anomos), in contrast to sinning under the law. That is, the word of God puts it in direct contradiction to what this false translation does.

These gentlemen believe men are born in sin. I do not blame them for this, surely; but are men born in transgression of the law? It is false theological perversion, and nothing else; and it is time that false theology gave way to the word of God: for this affects the whole nature and character of Christianity. Patience has its just place; but, after all, souls are more precious than false theology.

308 The grave question is — Is there not a new divine life given in Christ (connected with the delivering power of redemption and the presence of the Holy Ghost), which is wholly contrary in its nature to flesh? Can there be an excess in the difference I make between them — the one being enmity against God, the other Christ as my life? Are they not divided, opposed, and contrary to one another? By one, children of God; by the other, of the devil: one of which cannot sin, because born of God, the other never doing anything else, mingled (it may be) in our life, but opposed in nature. However misstated in detail Dr. Moody Stuart's objection, it denies this. I do not call in question his genuine piety; but the question, whether in the Christian there be two entirely opposed and contrary natures, is too important to be smothered up.

Scriptural Unity and Union

*

J. N. Darby.

<23019E> 309

{*Being a review of Dr. A. Moody Stuart's sermon — "Jesus Christ the Bond of the Holy Universe" — preached at the opening of the Free Church General Assembly, Edinburgh, on Thursday, 18th May, 1876.}

My object is in no way to assail Dr. Stuart (of whose personal worth and piety, though myself unacquainted with him, I have no doubt) but to take up the true grounds of unity and union: points not only of great importance, but occupying the hearts and minds of Christians everywhere.

The desire of unity flows, I cannot doubt, from the Spirit of God. True unity and true union are from Him, and according to His mind. He will bring all things that are blessed around Himself as a moral centre. It evidently must be so, for He is God, and the true centre of all blessing. That according to this there is a special effectuation of this in Christ in the fulness of times, is clearly also revealed to us in scripture. Our question is: What, and of what, and how is this unity or union? How far is it unity, and how far union? These are not the same. Scripture must be our guide in the inquiry. And it is as precise as Dr. Stuart is vague. It reveals the purpose of God according to the good pleasure of His will, for the administration of the fulness of times, to gather together in one (anakephalioasasthai) all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth. It reveals an eternal state when Christ shall have given up the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all — surely ever Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but God as such all in all, not the subsistence of the kingdom held by Christ as man. As man the Son will then be subject, as we know He was on earth, though God over all blessed for ever, all the pleasure of the Godhead in Him bodily. I only add this to guard from error, as I have alluded to the passage in which His giving up of the kingdom and His subjection are spoken of.

There is another unity spoken of; that is, of saints on earth, and I may add in glory, and in a twofold way. First, as individual saints, a family I may call it, as it specially refers to the Father — Christ being the first-born among many brethren. Of this John speaks; of the church as the body he never does. Its second aspect is this: — those in whom the Spirit of God dwells are really united to Christ by the Holy Ghost, are members of His body, who, as man, is exalted to the right hand of God, in the glory He had with the Father before the world was. Both these will be perfected in heavenly places. The sons will be in glory conformed to the image of the Son. They have borne the image of the earthy; they will bear the image of the heavenly, made perfect in one. He will be the head of the body, the church, over all things.

310 I have thought it better to state briefly the scripture revelation as to unity. My statements are little more than scripture texts strung together, so as to shew what its doctrine is distinctly, before any comment on the statements of Dr. Stuart's sermon. For the truth itself is what enables us to discern any departure from it, and ideas which are purely human in their true light. True unity is too precious a thing, too much according to the heart of God, and must be, not to seek to guard against any erroneous views as to its nature.

The passages I would refer to, some of which I shall be led to notice more fully, are John 17: 11; 20, 21; 22, 23: three distinct unities. Ephesians 1: 19-23. Compare Colossians 1: 15-18. The same twofold headship is in 1 Corinthians 15: 24-28; Ephesians 1: 9, 10; Romans 8: 29, 30.

I am somewhat surprised, not at the sermon's producing an impression, but that its vague statements were not estimated more justly by those who sought its publication. I suppose want of scriptural habits of thought is what accounts for it. Its references to scripture are everywhere loose and inaccurate. The text itself connects part of verse 23 of John 17 with verse 21, leaving out verse 22, which makes a total change in the phase of unity treated of, and the effect of that in verse 24 is left out, or the discrepancy would be manifest.

There are three unities spoken of in John 17. First is that of the immediate disciples of Christ. The application of this unity to them is incontrovertible, as is evident from the language of verse 12. The second (20, 21) is of those that believe through their word, "one in us," and this was to the intent that the world may believe. The third is unity in glory, the glory given to Christ Himself of the Father, when the saints are made perfect in one, that the world may know He was sent of Him, and, seeing them in the same glory as Christ, know (most wondrous word!) that we have been loved as He was loved. May our souls admire such grace, and know what it is to dwell in it.

Dr. Stuart omits the statement of their being in glory (ver. 22), and connects the world's believing with their being made perfect in one. This is not the right way of dealing with scripture, and scripture so solemn and precious in its import as this is.

311 He tells us further, "the union of the true believer to Christ is set forth in our text, and secured by the double bond of a mutual indwelling." Now there is a mutual indwelling blessedly set forth in John 14 as known to saints when the Holy Ghost should be given, as He was on the day of Pentecost. But no union with Christ is spoken of in the text, nor indeed does John ever speak of it. It is another thought — one which in his epistle he carries on to dwelling in God and God in us, known by the Spirit He has given. Perhaps it is even a more precious thought than union, if in such infinite and unspeakable privileges, conferred by grace — of which, His grace, God will shew in the ages to come the unspeakable riches in His kindness towards us through Jesus Christ — we can speak of more and less.

On this mutual indwelling of Christ and us Dr. Stuart insists much. There is not a word of it in John 17. The mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son is spoken of as "Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee," but not so of Christ and the believer. Dr. Stuart has been misled by the sound of the words in "I in them, and Thou in Me"; but there is no mutual indwelling here at all. It is display in glory — Christ in the saints, and the Father in Christ. The whole statement is a mistake. We have only to read the passage to see it; and in privileges so wondrous, and thoughts so deep, it behoves us to keep close to scripture. If we do not, we shall lose much, following our own thoughts. I cannot doubt that so excellent a person as Dr. Stuart has done so here in giving course to his own thoughts, instead of cleaving close to the word.

I do not dwell much on the "oneness of evil." There is a oneness in evil in one sense. It is in man self-will departed from God, and enmity against Him, whatever its form, lawless lust, transgression of the law, and hating Christ, and therein His Father. Still the statements of Dr. Stuart seemed to me to hang little together. "The oneness of evil is among the most marked of its characteristics," yet "sin and unity are everlasting opposites." However, as my object is not to criticise, but to treat the subject of true unity, and there are important moral observations in the remarks of Dr. Stuart on the oneness of evil, I do not comment on it farther.

312 I should wholly object to his use of John 15 which is hortatory; and the true vine applies immediately to the then state of the disciples: "now ye are clean," being really, ye are already clean (ede). Hence, as the blessed Lord knew them, verse 6 changes from "ye" to "if a man," and returns to "ye" in verse 7, when fruit-bearing, not withering and burning, is the subject. "The true vine" refers to the vine brought out of Egypt. Israel was not the true vine, but Christ; as Christ, not Israel, was in result the servant owned of God — Isaiah 44. It is not church union. That is union of members to Christ the head in heaven, where it is not a question of cutting off, nor of fruit-bearing, nor of purging. I quite admit that there is the general analogy now, and the applicability of the exhortation. But I cannot go farther into the interpretation of the passage here. It has no application to Dr. Stuart's object, for it is at all events an exhortation. All this part of John takes up the responsibility of saints with the Father. It is "a lower sense" in which the disciples are said to be in Christ, namely, their connection with Christ then upon earth (ede, already), not when He was the exalted man in heaven, which alone is church union, as Ephesians 1: 19-23 makes evident.

But I pass on from this section, which is a matter of interpretation, on which I should be glad to hear any godly person, though not doubting the justness of what I have said: only remarking that when Dr. Stuart says "a lower sense," it cannot have two senses, and I suppose he would not deny that, if it speaks of "temporary believers," it cannot refer to union with Christ as members of His body.

In the following section, I admit the difference between the individuality of angels and the one race of which Adam was the head. And that Christ was the head of a spiritual race, taking Adam's place in a higher way, every intelligent Christian taught in the word will admit, and will moreover feel the importance of it: Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 are clear on the point. Dr. Stuart has given us, too, some interesting observations on the elements of all being united in Christ's Person, the full justness of which I am not prepared to speak of without weighing them more than I have, but which are quite worthy of being weighed, and which I pass from, only to pursue my main subject, union and unity. Here all is confusion, and sometimes difficult to seize from the way it is expressed. Union and unity, as here used, have no scriptural intelligible meaning.

313 That God is the fountain of all angels' good, and the source of their happiness, and the centre of their harmony, is certain. But what means their being "united to Him"? Who ever heard, in scripture at least, of angels being united to God? No trace of such a thought is in scripture. I am sure Dr. Stuart means no harm in it; but it is this loose thinking, away from scripture, which has deprived the church of so much precious truth. We, that is all those who have the Holy Ghost, are united to Christ, the glorified Man, as members of His body. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." But angels united to God is really in itself a blasphemy — though I am quite sure Dr. Stuart means such as little as I do. But the reality of union with Christ is lost through this loose way of speaking. When Dr. Stuart says, "Many of them fall away," I thought at first it might be a misprint for "fell away," as we read of angels, who kept not their first estate, and are reserved in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day. But he says, the elect angels abide, in the present tense too, as is the whole statement. The rest in the paragraph is really one mass of confusion. Their everlasting union to the centre of all good appears to be increased, confirmed, and secured.

As I have already said, there is no union to God. Angels, and principalities, and powers are made subject to Christ; and the whole state of things will be reconciled to God in His fulness, and brought into order under Christ, when the fulness of time is come. God has given to Him, the exalted Man, to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all (compare Eph. 4: 9, 10); but the increasing, conjoining, securing union with God, is an idea utterly foreign to scripture, and excludes what is in scripture, by what is substituted for it.

I will just remark that goodwill to men is not the form of the angels' words in Luke, but good pleasure (eudokia) in men. He did not take up the angels, but He took up the seed of Abraham; and it is beautiful to see the unjealous delight of these holy beings in the plans of God's glory, though in others than themselves, for "His delight (Wisdom's) was with the sons of men." But the reciprocating song of earth, when He had finished His work, is all confusion. The babes and sucklings spoken of in Psalm 8 are celebrating Messiah according to Psalm 118, a prophecy of which several verses are cited as to the latter days by the Lord and the apostles, particularly by Peter the apostle of the circumcision. It is the anticipation of that day, "the day which Jehovah hath made," when Hosanna to the Son of David will resound, not from the mouths of babes and sucklings, and the crowd that were divinely-compelled to do it, lest the stones should have to cry out, but from a people willing in the day of His power, when His heart will set Him in the chariots of His willing people. And note here, in this remarkable anticipation of that day, the expression "peace in heaven." It is not till Satan and his angels are cast out thence, that the full accomplishment of this will take place. Then in due time they shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah. Till then their house will be left unto them desolate, and they will not see Him. He meanwhile sits, not on His own throne, but on His Father's, as He expressly states (Rev. 3), according to the word: Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Then Jehovah will send the rod of His power out of Zion, and He will rule in the midst of His enemies.*

{*The careful reader of scripture will see that, where rejected, His God and Father took care that testimony should be rendered to Him as Son of God in the resurrection of Lazarus, Son of David in riding into the city, Son of man when the Greeks came up. The last involved death; John 11 and 12.}

314 The Lord had not finished His work when He entered into Jerusalem. His course down here may be said, in a certain sense, to have closed. His work He was just about to accomplish. But it is here summed up by Dr. Stuart, as God in Christ reconciling all things to Himself whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. There is no such passage, no such statement in scripture. Two passages are confounded, both misapplied. God, we read in the end of 2 Corinthians 5, was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing to them their trespasses. But the world would not have Him. Then, having accomplished the work of atoning redemption, and gone into glory, having been made sin for us, He sends out His ambassadors, to beseech men to be reconciled to God. Blessed gospel testimony and grace! There is another passage on quite a different subject, in Colossians 1. All the fulness (pan tu pleroma, a word of all moment against the Gnostic heresies — compare chap. 2: 9), was pleased to dwell in Him, and . . . by Him to reconcile all things to itself, by Him I say, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth,* and you hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh through death. Here the reconciliation of believers through the work of the cross is clearly distinguished from the reconciling all things. They were reconciled. "You hath he," etc. But God was by Him to reconcile all things. That was to be done. This duality is maintained all through the passage. He is firstborn of every creature, firstborn from the dead, Head of the church, His body. This is summed up at the end of Ephesians 1. These two passages in 2 Corinthians 5, and Colossians 1 are mingled together (by Dr. S.) and connected with His going on the ass to Jerusalem; and utter confusion is the natural result.

{*Note here, when it is declared all knees to bow, a third class is added, ta katachonia, infernal beings. They are gone out of heaven and earth, and are not put in the classes reconciled.}

315 There is an utter confusion too in all this part, one which has brought in abominable error as to Christ, in the foremost of the evangelical German divines, and in the Dutch reformed in America through them, namely, as if man was being restored. Adam was the image of Him that was to come. But all is utterly fallen and ruined in the first Adam. Now, says the Lord, is the judgment of this world; and again, now once in the end of the world (sunteleia ton aionon) hath He appeared to put away sin. The head of the blessing is man in a new state, risen and exalted. Man, as in the flesh, has seen and hated both Him and His Father.

As a general truth Dr. Stuart would not, and does not, deny that we all fell in Adam. But there is more than this. Man has been fully tested as to whether as such he could be restored. Without law he was so bad that the flood was needed even in this world; under the law his sin became exceeding sinful; and when God after this came into the world in grace, making Himself of no reputation, to bring love to sinners, and yet shewing divine presence and power in removing every effect of sin here below, they spat in His face and crucified Him. Now, says the Lord, is the judgment of this world. And we shall find that whatever God set up good, the first thing man did was to spoil all, though God went on in grace. Man himself fell the first thing. Noah got drunk the first thing. The golden calf was made before Moses was down from the mount. Strange fire was offered the first day, and Aaron never went into the holiest in his robes of glory and beauty. Solomon, son of David, departed from God; and Nebuchadnezzar put the faithful ones in the fire and became a beast. Finally, in the rejection of Christ it was (after all remedial means which were at God's disposal) demonstrated that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God. They had seen and hated both Him and His Father. Man must be born again (anothen). It is a new creation when men were dead in sins, connected with the second Man rejected by man, and now raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God.

316 That the blessed Lord was a true real man in flesh and blood is as essential to Christianity as He was God. In this I trust I have no controversy with Dr. Stuart. The Word was made (egeneto) flesh and dwelt among us, and, as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. This lies at the root, and is the essence, of Christianity, and a blessed truth it is, unspeakably so to us human beings, that, if a sinless man, He was a true man, body, and soul, and, one may add, spirit. This was called in question by heresy as soon as His deity was.

I think scripture is more guarded than Dr. Stuart here, but he is more guarded than some. Scripture never says, as some have, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and scripture is wiser than we are. This has been used to make union in incarnation, which is quite unscriptural. It issued in Irvingism; but the seed was under the clod in Scotch Presbyterianism, and is still cherished as a garden plant in the semi-Irvingites of that body. Dr. Stuart only goes so far as to say, flesh out of our flesh, bone out of our bone. Still it leads him half-way into the evil.

A new creation must in its nature leave out fallen man, as fallen, for he is not a new creation but the old one, that which is put off — no doubt the same person; but he is of, and lives in, a new creation, if in Christ Jesus. And what would the new creation have been, as to moral beings, if fallen man was left out as the object of it? The elect angels have not left their first estate. Dr. Stuart is as usual very vague. "The operation was to be in man, already existing, and defiled by sin, which separates while it defiles. It was from our corrupted stock He drew His holy manhood, because not merely men like us, but of us.

317 What has this to do with the new creation? Was union in incarnation? Dr. Stuart does not say so, but what do his words mean? "Was Christ a new creation," he says, "casting himself into the head of the existing family, and from it deriving his own everlasting manhood?" He does not say it was union; that he puts differently. But he states it, while admitting He was holy, harmless, undefiled, so as to lead the mind to a connection of Christ with man in incarnation, which, while from its uncertainty and vagueness it almost eludes the grasp, is perilous from the way it leads the soul to the verge of union in incarnation.

Christ assuredly was, as born into this world and ever, holy, harmless, undefiled; but it shews the habitual confusion of thought as to Christ, if we remember that this is spoken of Christ as High Priest (Heb. 7) and carefully presented as separate from sinners, in contrast too, with high priests "taken from among men." When scripture speaks of His taking flesh, a vital truth for us as I have already said, not only is it said "a body hast Thou prepared me": but in stating His doing so, the language is careful not to speak as Dr. Stuart speaks. The children kekoinoneke of flesh and blood of Him; metesche paraplesios is used.

Now I repeat that there may be no mistake — I hold His being truly a man in flesh and blood, and with a human soul as well as a body, to be a vital truth. It is the subject of the adoring joy of my soul; nor do I think it is half enough taught or believed, that He was a true man, while a sinless and holy man. What is false is connecting this with the idea of union with us. This vagueness as to union with man is so much the more perilous, as Dr. Stuart insists that there is a greater difference between the brutes and man, than between man and God. I suppose he refers here to the low and degraded form of infidelity called evolution. In his horror of this, perhaps for my part I should say contempt, I should heartily join Dr. Stuart. But as to our present point, he leaves out the present condition of man. Man was created for God; but, preferring to believe the deceiver, he did his own will. He has been driven out of Paradise, where he had to say to God, he was without God (atheos) in the world. His adaptation to God was eternal misery as having lost Him, and now this is not all the truth. Man, as far as his will could do it, has turned out of this world God when come into it in grace. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. In the moral sense he is infinitely farther from God than he is from the brute. If left to himself, he can follow the brute, and worse, and as regards God has no understanding. Christ was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. Man must be born anew to have anything to say to Him, save enmity, sins, and judgment. Conscience — the knowledge of good and evil — acquired by the fall, he has. Nor does gracious invitation restore him. "Wherefore when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer?" What He had seen and heard, that He testified, says John, and no man receives His testimony. The real question is not, did Christ come in grace to such? but did He unite Himself to them? or are renewed souls united to Him when, having accomplished redemption, He is exalted to glory? Scripture speaks of the latter and positively denies the former.

318 As to union in life, as I have said, Dr. Stuart is vague, and uses figurative expressions, which may mean nothing or anything. But he is distinct in identifying Christ's uniting Himself to us, and taking sinners into union with Himself. This last was the problem, he says, and solved by His uniting Himself to His people in death. Now Christ's uniting Himself to His people is unknown to scripture. He does not unite Himself to sinners, nor does He even to saints: they are united to Him, by the Holy Ghost, when He is in glory. They are members of His body; not He members of them; members of it when the Head is glorified, and they are created again. The end of Ephesians I and early part of Ephesians 2 are clear as to this point, and how it takes place, and where this is not seen, the real truth of unity is wholly lost. How can the Holy One be united to a sinner, if the union be real and spiritual?

He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Is that true of a mere sinner? And scripture is express in denying it. "Except a corn of wheat fall INTO THE GROUND AND DIE, IT ABIDETH ALONE." Hence in Ephesians, where union is spoken of, He is not seen till raised from the dead and set at God's right hand in heavenly places. And then, we being dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Him, and made us sit in heavenly places in Him. Then only is scriptural and real union, not in Christ born into this world, united to sinners in their sins; not a Christ on the cross, and when He was most especially alone, united to those for whom He was substituted before their sins were cancelled by His precious blood; not even a Christ glorified, united to sinners or to any down here. Scripture never speaks of His being united to us, but, saints being united to Him in glory, in a totally new life by the Holy Ghost, so that they become risen and heavenly people.

319 Remark too here that, where the Lord says He abode alone till after He had died He is speaking of the Son of man. Testimony to His being Son of God was given in the resurrection of Lazarus, to His being Son of David in His riding into Jerusalem. The Greeks come up, He says, "the hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified." But, to take this title, according to the counsels of God He must die. Son of God according to Psalm 2 He was; King of Israel, Messiah, according to the same Psalm He was; and surely, as to His personal title to it, Son of man. But the kings of the earth stood up, and the princes took counsel together. In a word, He must be rejected to take up the place of Son of man according to Psalm 8. So in John 1 Nathanael owns Him, according to Psalm 2, Son of God, King of Israel. The Lord's answer is, that he should see more henceforth (for Israel, in John, is rejected in the first chapter, to own those born of God alone), "the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man."

When Christ's birth, or His so wonderfully associating Himself with the called and repentant remnant of Israel in John's baptism, is spoken of, His title is Son of God, not Son of man. "That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God," and the Father's voice, when Heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended on Him alone, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Son of man He delighted to call Himself, but to say, forbidding, when His testimony was rejected, to be announced any more as the Christ; Matt. 16, Mark 9, Luke 9. The Son of man must suffer and be rejected, put to death, and rise again the third day, that as the risen man in a wholly new position, He might take the place revealed of the Son of man in Daniel 7 and Psalm 8.

This doctrine of union of the Son of God with sinners in their sins falsifies the whole nature of Christianity, a new creation, and man in a new life, united to a glorified man in heaven, by the Holy Ghost dwelling in him, consequent on the accomplishment of redemption. Dr. Stuart says, "Christ united Himself to His people by taking them to Himself in His death on Calvary." If this be so, all the vague language of Dr. Stuart and the plain language of bolder men, as to union in incarnation, and also the utterly unscriptural doctrine of His bearing our sins all His life is wholly set aside. But what does union here mean? "That He might receive us into oneness He stood in our place." This I believe, but it contradicts what is said a few lines higher up. That all His people were seen as if they were there, because He represented them, and as He bore their sins, so also they died with Him is true, blessed be God. But this has nothing to do with union. It is another great and precious truth, substitution. He stood in our place, as Dr. Stuart most justly says, but this is not union but the opposite of it. He accepted our penalty; thank God, and blessed be the name of Him who has loved us, He did. But that is not union, but standing there for us alone. All that Dr. Stuart says of its effect as to our sins I cordially say Amen to, as a poor sinner profiting by it, though it has done far more also for us and glorified God Himself, so that man goes into His glory. But this is not union. Union with Christ is in living saints when He is exalted as man to the right hand of God, the work of redemption, of perfect redemption, being accomplished when He was alone.

320 All that Dr. Stuart says as to His being broken in pieces is quite wrong. A bone of Him was not to be broken. In the passage "This is my body which is broken for you," broken is not really in the text. But on this I do not dwell further. As Dr. Stuart says, "He who was to be the bond of union for ever was left alone, as no other ever was or can be." With what is here said my heart unites, but He was then alone. Only I must remark the customary looseness as to scriptural truth in the words "The Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world." This is quite unsound and nowhere found in scripture. The sins of the world are not taken away, or there could be no judgment; indeed all would be saved. The end of this paragraph, in page 15, I think very objectionable, but it does not specially bear on my subject.

But that which follows, loose and unscriptural though it be in expression, yet true in result, contradicts consequently all the statements as to union before or on the cross. "Through His death the Lord Jesus sends His Holy Spirit into the hearts of His redeemed; and by that Spirit, in the day of our effectual calling, we are brought into a wondrously high and holy union with Christ, and with God." Now, as I have already said, in the scripture, it is by the Spirit when we have received it, we are united to a glorified Christ. The only true and scriptural union, and we may add, so of all true saints with one another is by the same one Spirit who dwells in each of them. No doubt Christ had to die to send the Holy Spirit down here: a plain proof, if we are brought into union with Him by it, that He was not united to us in death; but "sends through His death" has really no sense. We were unfit to receive it save as washed in His blood, and forgiven; but sending "through His death" has really no sense. "The Holy Ghost was not yet [given] (was not, as known in the New Testament, down here, though as a divine Person of course eternal in His Person, and operative in every work of God), because Jesus was not yet glorified," is what scripture says; John 7. If He went not away, the Comforter would not come: shewing early the place Christ must come in, as man, before we could be united to Him, He the head (Eph. 1) and we the body: we, sons by faith in Jesus withal, and He, the Spirit of adoption making us, being sons, cry Abba, Father; the power, and giving the consciousness of this new relationship with the Father, and membership of Christ. But scripture never says "His Holy Spirit." It is incongruous, though He be called the Spirit of Christ, as present in us, in Romans 8.

321 Nor is "union with God" a thought known to scripture. A common one, I grant it, but common to the unscriptural carelessness so usual among Christians. All this is loose confusion. And let it not be supposed that these things are immaterial. The true consciousness of our relationships with God, and the Father, and with Christ, is the atmosphere in which our Christian affections breathe and are developed. Communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ and with God, scripture speaks of (and it is our highest blessedness), but of union with God never. It is unintentional blasphemy. Union is with Christ, the man in glory. Speaking of union with God only destroys the very idea of union.

The statements of Dr. Stuart on the Trinity are hazarded, going beyond scripture; but I suppose he means what is truth, and it is not my present subject: so I leave it there. The history of the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost, which professedly divided the Greek and Roman churches, and which was a metaphysical novelty, forbidden even at Rome, in the time of Leo the Great, ought to have taught Christians in these days, whilst holding the doctrine of the Trinity personally, and unity in the Godhead without wavering, to avoid metaphysical theology in such holy matters, for this question of procession is mere metaphysics in divine things.

322 I now turn to "some of the great properties of this oneness." Now in Dr. Stuart's remarks on these, I gladly recognize piety and personal delight in Christ. But true union is lost in his remarks. He speaks of gathering together in one all the redeemed in earth and heaven. Of this scripture never does speak. It speaks of heading up all things under Christ; and it speaks of dying, not for the Jews only, but to gather together in one the children of God, which were scattered abroad. So that then they had not hitherto been gathered.

The unity of God's children down here is spoken of in a double way: the unity of children in a family, in their relationship with a holy Father, as in John 17, Christ the pattern among many brethren; and the unity of the body united to Christ, the head in glory. But this scriptural unity and oneness is lost in the vagueness of "all the redeemed in heaven and earth." That the unity of the saints in the New Testament will not cease when they are in glory, I surely believe (they will then be made perfect in one); that the body will then be complete, also the church of the firstborn, and the just men (the saints of the Old Testament) perfected, I do not doubt, though God has reserved some better thing for us.

But the unity spoken of in scripture is by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. As to the body, by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, barbarian or Scythian. This clearly could not be before. The Jew, on the contrary, was strictly bound to keep up the middle wall of partition — sinned if he did not. Now, by the cross, it is broken down, and He has made both one and reconciled both in one body to God, having slain the enmity, and we are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. There is one body and one Spirit. There was the unity of a nation before, the great body of whom were not converted at all. The glorified head, the man in glory, did not yet exist, who is head over all things, head of the body. It is not as the creating life-giving word and Son of God, that Christ is the Head over all things, and to the church His body. It is, as is evident from Ephesians 1, the man whom God has raised and set at His right hand. Then only too the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven. He could not be (John 7) till Jesus was glorified. And as we have seen from 1 Corinthians 12, then it was by the baptism of the Holy Ghost that the saints were baptized into one body.

323 So also it is as to known sonship, and the unity connected with it. "The heir so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant though he be lord of all . . . . But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, Abba, Father," Gal. 4. Thus they are brought into known relationship with the Father, to be fully accomplished in glory, when they will be made perfect in one, Christ the firstborn among many brethren.

Here are unities, that is, of the family and of the body: one a relationship with the Father, Christ being the firstborn; the other true union with Christ, the head formed by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, consequent on His being glorified as man — unities, of which Christians were bound to maintain the manifestation on earth, according to John 17 and Ephesians 4. In both respects they have failed. The wolf has caught the sheep and scattered them (thank God, he cannot pluck or catch them out of the good Shepherd's hand); and he has set up the travesty of unity in popery, and all sorts of churches, first national, and then free, among those who could no longer bear the corruptions of Romanism.

Scriptural unity and union is lost, nor scarce cared for, save that God is awakening a craving after it in these last days. It is confounded with communion, and union of organizations; which cannot be the unity of the body nor of the family of God. Duty as to it is forgotten, and men are content to leave it to be fulfilled in another world. Let us see what Dr. Stuart makes of it in these last pages of his sermon. The bond of children is confounded with the membership of the body, and this is said to be similar to the union between the Father and the Son, a gross and utter mistake; as if the analogies of John 17 could be applied to the union of the members with the head. Apply only the teaching of Ephesians or 1 Corinthians 12 to the wondrous statements of John 17, and see how it offends every moral sense and feeling.

324 The rest of this paragraph describing communion, I have not a word to say against. Only in strange confusion, using an account of the state of the world (habitable earth) under Christ's reign, Dr. Stuart makes the spiritual flock to be a "mingled" one, composed of wolves and lambs together! — a sentence which I profess myself wholly unable to comprehend. If he had merely used it as a vague statement of peace, I should; but he says, it is a mingled flock. I first thought it meant unconverted and converted together, but he goes on to speak of spiritual communion together, and what the mingling is I do not know.

How wholly union, in the scriptural sense, is lost in the thought of the state of the soul, is seen in what follows. That Adam was the head of his fallen race, no Christian denies; but what union to a covenant is, what "as in Adam all die" has to do with dissolving union with his covenant, I know not. Next, it is union to the world in its allurements and power. What has this to do with the reality of union? Then we have union to sin, which has no sense at all. Sin in the flesh we read of, captivity to it, deliverance from it; but union to it only bewilders the mind. It is there always in the flesh, though we are no longer under the law of sin and death, Christ having died to sin once, and He being our life in the power of the Spirit. Then, we read of union to self. Self is self. I do not live to self if I know the power of redemption; but all this has nothing to do with union or unity. It is my personal state as having died in Christ, and the risen Christ being now my new life.

As to crucifying being a lingering death but a certain one, it is all a mischievous delusion. If I am crucified with Christ, I am dead — dead with Christ, dead to the law; ye are dead, crucified with Christ, nevertheless alive, but not me, but Christ living in me. There is no lingering or gradual death spoken of in scripture. I am to reckon myself dead, and then for practice bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Only when actually dead, can it be said there is no sin in me. The whole theory here is unscriptural. But this by the bye. Union is lost in the vague use of it for the state of the soul. Union with Christ is not simply life; "as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will." This is divine work. Union is connected with Christ, seen as a man whom God has raised from the dead, and of us together with Him. In connection with union He is not seen as life-giving Son, but as a man raised by God when He was dead. Hence, in Colossians, it is also connected with our having been forgiven all trespasses.

325 As to the vine, Dr. Stuart is contradicting himself, for he has recognized in this sermon that there are temporary branches which are taken away. I believe no member of His body will ever be separated from Him; but the application of the vine does not hold good.

How we get strength from His crucifixion in weakness I know not, save perhaps by moral experience realizing it. Scripture does not speak of it. We abide in Him, if we eat His flesh and drink His blood, and in this sense eating Him, live by Him. But it is never said that we derive our strength from His crucifixion. Joy and fruit are our state. Union is another thing. Such statements deny its reality, and confound communion and union.

The last paragraph is sorrowful — sorrowful that Dr. Stuart's heart and conscience were not affected by what he speaks of. He recognises that the world's admiration has been turned into a taunt, with a saying sometimes "Behold, how they hate one another." "Yet their mutual love is as genuine, and in the same circumstances would prove as intense as eighteen hundred years ago." This is to be power for the salvation of the world. What is? That it would prove as intense in the same circumstances. Does the world say now, "Behold how these Christians love one another"? Does it not mock at their divisions? Is not corrupt Christianity taunting them with it? Is not the world turning openly infidel? What is this change of circumstances but the worldliness and scattering of Christians? Besides, how is it to be power for the conversion of the world, when, "in the loftiness of his heart, he (the worldly man) would count it despicable in himself to be capable of such an affection"? "It speaks as a living witness in the hour when the Spirit moves on his heart." No doubt, but then it is not by it he was attracted when worldly. It is the individual already under the influence of the Spirit who is attracted by it. "To the world," Dr. Stuart tells us, "Christian love is incomprehensible." Yet it has great power in converting the world! It is "despicable" in the world's eyes, but it is an "attractive spectacle, ordained for the world's salvation!"

326 The next property or power in it is "in our seen union on earth to Christ in heaven." What this means I know not. Men may see the fruits of it perhaps, but as distinct from these where the affections are set on heavenly things, it cannot be seen at all. There is nothing, in the passage Dr. Stuart quotes, to say to it. The chief priests, etc., took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus, that is, when on earth. The general effect of communion with the Lord, I surely do not question; but this confusion of communion with union, both in its reality and in its forming one body on earth, is one of the great evils of the day. It really denies union and promotes dis-union among saints. If they can have communion from time to time, shake hands across the hedge, as has been said, they are content.

But there is a craving, and from God. Union has therefore been sought in other ways. Of this even the Evangelical Alliance was, and is, a witness; but the name betrays its true character. For an alliance there must be two or more. They agreed to remain sects, and to meet notwithstanding. Indeed they confessed they had pretended to attain to too much unity, and they must be content with union. In America it has been sought by interchanges of pulpits. But there error and truth are all mingled together, and indifference to truth cultivated. In the English Establishment unity is sought in the same way. The most marked effort at unity is in the Presbyterian body. In Canada they have coalesced; in the United States the new school and the old school, that is Arminians and Calvinists, have joined. Dr. Stuart alludes to the union of the Reformed Presbyterians with what is called the Free Church of Scotland.

As an outward thing, one may rejoice in seeing less division among Protestants. As far as my acquaintance with their statement, the Covenanters were perhaps from their small numbers, and adherence to principle, as a general thing, the most godly living of the Presbyterian bodies. I trust they may not lose it by being swamped in a larger one. But it has nothing to do with the unity of the body of Christ. Imperfect as the views of Dr. Stuart as to unity are, as he sees merely the binding Christians together as the children of their heavenly Father (a blessed union surely, but not the body of Christ: union by the Holy Ghost to the man Christ Jesus in glory, so as to form his body); inadequate and defective as is his general idea of "gathering into one all the redeemed in heaven and in earth," of which indeed scripture does not speak, the unity he does know is wholly inapplicable, and indeed contrary, to these unions of ecclesiastical bodies. For they have not the pretension to be all saints.

327 I do not now discuss whether multitudinous bodies are right or wrong, but they are multitudinous bodies, not a gathering of saints, as such, to Jesus' name. They are not — cannot pretend to be — the body of Christ, nor a part of it, nor even the true family of God. Further, their object is to impose religion on the state, to make the state act on Christian principles. The gathering together in one the children of God, which were scattered abroad, does not enter their minds, but getting the state to act Christianly; and they insist on the authority and independence of the church exactly on popish grounds, not that of a little despised flock suffering under its persecution, but pressing its own principles on the state. That Christianity has modified men's habits is quite true. Men do not do in the light what they do in the dark. But making the world Christian in its ways is not gathering together the children of God. It is a return to Judaism,* as indeed the Covenanters, true-hearted people as they were, clearly did. They took the sword, and perished by the sword.

{*For the American war, no suitable hymns, we read, were found; they were obliged to use the Psalms. Then, as Israel, they could sing and fight. So indeed it was in Scotland.}

As to the unity of the body, it does not seem to cross their minds, formed on earth as it was by the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But the whole Free Church principle was a delusion: Christ is not the King of the church. Where is such a thought in scripture? "King of saints," in the Revelation, is a false reading for "king of nations," borrowed from Jeremiah. King of the Jews, scripture and the world's mockery owns Him to be. That He will rule over the nations is clearly revealed; He will take to Him His great power and reign, when divine wrath comes. The kings of the earth did rise up against the Lord, and against His anointed; they will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords. But Christ is not now sitting on His own throne at all, but on the Father's; Rev. 3: 21. God has said to Him, "Sit on my right hand TILL I make thine enemies thy footstool." And there the blessed One is in glory, gathering now His joint-heirs by the Spirit sent down from heaven, through the gospel, joint-heirs, once all united, and the manifested body of Christ, but whom the wickedness of man and craft of Satan have long ago scattered, caught the sheep and scattered them; yea, made of that which was the church, the most heinous corruption under heaven.

328 The union of Presbyterian or other bodies may remove partially the reproach of Protestantism; with the unity of God's children as a family it has nothing to do; and, as to the unity of the body of Christ by the Holy Ghost here below, wholly ignores it. "King of the church" is an utterly antiscriptural thought. When He shall reign, we shall reign with Him. He is now sitting at the Father's right hand awaiting that time. Meanwhile, as children of one heavenly family, in relationship with the Father, as members of one only body, the body of Christ, the church, we should be one by the Holy Ghost. For Christians the crucial truth now is the unity of the body formed on earth. Where is it? As I have often said, if Paul addressed a letter to the church of God which is at Edinburgh, who would get it? It would go to the dead letter office. Alas that it is so! May our hearts and consciences feel for the ruin of the Lord's once beautiful flock, for the unity of the scattered sheep and the unity of His Spirit manifesting His body on earth. The arrangements of ecclesiastical bodies cannot effect this.

That I have not misstated the link of church and state as desired by free and reformed churches, we have only to read Dr. Goold claiming acceptance of Covenanters' principles, Dr. Rainy, and Mr. M'Dermid, where it is stated in language stronger and more positive than that which I have said. The church claimed to have free entrance into every chamber of the national life. They are to bring nations in their national capacity into religious subjection to God, and conformed to His will. I only notice it now, not to controvert it as a system, a system in which popery has a far better chance, but to shew that their system, and their unity have nothing whatever to do with gathering together in one the children of God, which were scattered abroad, or with the unity of the body of Christ formed by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

Short Introduction to Romans

J. N. Darby.

<23020E> 329

The Epistle to the Romans, though not the highest in its character of truth, more comprehensively than any other sets forth God's glad tidings, and this with a method and depth which attest not merely the style of Paul but the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who inspired the great apostle of the Gentiles. His Son (for so the apostle preached Him from the first, Acts 9: 20) is the object of faith, come of David's seed according to flesh, marked out Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead. Thus the connection with the Old Testament is maintained, while the way is open for a new order of things through resurrection wherein guilt was removed, sin judged, and life manifested victorious over the enemy in his last stronghold of death, yea, with a title superior to God's eternal judgment.

Then, after presenting himself suitably as apostle by call to those called at Rome, he testifies his thanks for their faith, and his great desire to see them, whatever the hindrances till then, for their mutual refreshment. He desired fruit there as elsewhere, being debtor to all. He was not ashamed of the gospel (or glad tidings): it is God's power to salvation to every believer, because divine righteousness is revealed in it by faith to faith, as the prophet declared in a dark day for Israel. Thus, if the Son is the object of faith, the believer has part in God's righteousness.* Man had no righteousness for God, who reveals His to man; and hence it is a question of believing. For His wrath is revealed from heaven against all impiety and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness: the one embracing every shade of heathenism or ungodliness; the other especially Jews or, as we can now add, Christendom. How deep the need, how grave the danger, of sinful man!

{*Had a Jew unswervingly obeyed the law, it had been human righteousness and himself accepted accordingly. But in the cross of Christ we see not merely the Father glorified in obedience but God glorified as to sin, so that He is righteous now in setting Christ at His own right hand and justifying us accordingly by and in Him. This is divine righteousness.}

To the end of chapter 1 the Gentiles are convicted of their impiety in a brief but appalling sketch, confirmed too truly by all that remains of antiquity, utterly depraved not only by their lusts and passions but yet more by their idolatry which sanctioned, yea provoked and even consecrated, their worst evils. It will be observed therefore that the apostle does not trace the ruin to the beginning of the world, but only since the flood when men inexcusably slighted the testimony of creation, and, knowing God, glorified Him not as God, but professing to be wise became fools, and setting up idols were given up by the one true God above them, whom they would not serve, to become slaves of every vileness below them.

330 The opening of chapter 2 looks at the moralists, at men, Gentiles or Jews, who speculated on good but were a prey like others to the wickedness they condemned, despising the riches of God's goodness as they forgot His judgment, with whom is no respect of persons, those who sin without law perishing also without it, and those who sin in it to be judged by it in the day when God judges the secrets of men, according to the apostle's gospel, by Jesus Christ. Here he names the "Jew first" and the "Greek" in judgment, as before in the administration of the gospel. For judgment takes account of all things, and hence of superior advantages, each giving account according to his light and receiving according to his deeds. For salvation is according to grace, reward or judgment according to works. Thus both tests are applied, what they fell from, and what God will bring in at Christ's coming and kingdom. And as wrath revealed from heaven stood in contrast on God's side with earthly judgments in providence, so here on man's side does the judgment of the secrets of the heart.

The Jews are then distinctively and expressly brought forward, who with better light were no better morally, for the name of God was blasphemed on their account. So far is circumcision from availing them against their base inconsistencies that it becomes contrariwise uncircumcision; even as uncircumcision keeping the requirements of the law should be reckoned for circumcision, judging such as with letter and uncircumcision transgressed law. Sin is shewn to be the great leveller, as righteousness does not fail to exalt. A transgressing Jew was as bad as, indeed worse than, a Gentile; a Gentile who wrought righteousness no less acceptable than a Jew. God will have moral reality; and this, wherever found, alone secures His praise.

This raised the question, in chapter 3, of the superiority of the Jew, or of the profit of circumcision. The apostle allows it in every way, and first in being entrusted with the oracles of God. But man's unfaithfulness in no way hinders the certainty or the justice of God's judging the world. Nor do outward privileges in any wise suppose or secure a better condition, though aggravating responsibility. And the fact that, what the law or Old Testament says, it speaks to those under it (that is, to the Jews), totally convicts them; for it declares in the plainest terms that there is none righteous, none that understandeth, none that doeth good, all gone out of the way, and no fear of God before their eyes.

331 Thus, as the beginning of the argument proved the Gentiles ruined, so does the end the Jews: the result is, every mouth stopped and all the world under judgment to God. What is His sentence? Is there no mercy? There is His righteousness by Christ Jesus, righteousness which justifies the believer. Doubtless by works of law no flesh shall be justified, for by law is knowledge of sin, the very reverse of sins forgiven or of righteousness.

Law therefore cannot help Israel, still less a Gentile. What is the resource then? The apostle returns to the thesis which preceded his reasoning, and, with so much the more evidence of its urgent necessity, affirms that now apart from law God's righteousness is manifested. A truly wonderful statement, in which we have the relation of the gospel to the Old Testament, its universal direction, and its application in fact as being contingent on faith, while it meets all on the ground of sheer ruin and so of pure grace. It proclaims the work of the Lord which answers to the mercy-seat with the atoning blood of Jehovah's lot sprinkled on and before it, thus laying a righteous ground both to justify the forbearance of God in dealing with the saints of old or their sins in past times, and to display now that God is just, while He justifies him that believes in Jesus. By faith boasting is thus excluded, and God is shewn to be the God who justifies both Jew and Gentile while law itself is established instead of being made void.

There is nothing to hinder our understanding dikaiosune Theou in its usual sense of an attribute or quality of God, because it is also dikaiosune ek pisteos, for indeed it is revealed in the gospel for us to believe, and therefore we could profit by it on no other principle. It is of course choris nomou, "apart from law" (Rom. 3: 21), which, if obeyed, would have been man's, not God's, righteousness. The dorea or free giving of righteousness (Rom. 5: 17) is perfectly consistent with this: God's grace was the source of this gift; it was no question of one's work or fitness as under law. So Romans 10: 3, Philippians 3: 9, are both thoroughly in harmony with the fact that the apostle speaks of divine righteousness, or God's consistency with Himself in justifying the believer through the redemption that is in Christ. Undoubtedly it is a righteousness of which He is the author (as Phil. 3: 9 teaches), and which He approves; but it is below the mark merely to say this. For if man be imagined to have obeyed the law, it would have been a righteousness available before God; and man would have lived instead of dying. But this would have been neither eternal life in the Son, nor God's righteousness, but man's. Hence the definition of Luther, Calvin, Beza, Reiche, De Wette, etc., is unsatisfactory, as Luther's version, which is a paraphrase expressive of it, is erroneous. A righteousness which God might give or approve need not be His own, which the apostle over and over declares it to be. Of course it is not divine justice abstractly (which is perhaps the unconscious difficulty of most who approach the subject), but God just in virtue of the Saviour's work. How does He estimate it, how act on it, for the believer? The infusion of divine righteousness has no just sense, or it appears to confound justification with life; whilst the idea that it means mercy is a poor evasion which weakens the grand truth that not His love only, but His justice justifies the believer in Jesus.

332 The remarkable fact may here be noticed that confessedly the majority of commentators, who shrink from the plain meaning of the phrase in Philippians 1: 17, and even in chapter 3: 21, 22, confess that in verses 25, 26, it does signify, not God's mercy, nor His method of justification, or act of justifying (which in Greek is expressed by dikaiosis), nor that righteousness which is acceptable to God, but His justice. Here this is allowed to be the proper meaning of the terms, and what the context demands. Not merely did justice seem compromised by pretermission of past sins, and therefore require vindication, but the work of Christ had so glorified God in the judgment of sin that it was only just for God to remit sins, yea, to justify him that is of faith in Christ Jesus. And so, it cannot be denied, the apostle but explains what he means by dikaiosune Theou, when he adds that God set forth Christ a propitiatory, or mercy-seat, that He might be just and justify the believer.

333 If then it be so, that dikaiosune Theou can only mean God's righteousness where it is fully expounded (as in verses 25, 26), how unreasonable to give the same phrase a different force in the same context! (Verses 21, 22, just before.) If this be owned, with what consistency can one question its meaning in chapter 1: 17? Even chapter 3: 5 makes this apparent, for there beyond controversy the phrase means the consistency of God with His character (that is, His righteousness) in judging the world which rejects Christ, as the other passages shew His righteousness in justifying those who believe in His name. Compare also Matthew 6: 33, James 1: 20. Elsewhere (save in 2 Cor. 5: 21, which stands alone in using the abstract for concrete, but otherwise strengthens the same truth) the terms in the Epistles of Paul signify God's justice in justifying those who, resting by faith on Jesus and His blood, are accepted in all the value of His acceptance before God.

Chapter 4 confirms the principle of faith for justification by the example of Abraham, backed up by David's testimony in Psalm 32; and this before the law or even circumcision. Thus, if the Jews contended for the inheritance by law or ordinances, they must shut him out who had it by promise, and therefore by faith: if they were his children really, they must receive all from God on a ground that ensures the promise to all the seed, Gentile no less than Jewish; and the rather, as in his case and Sarah's they were as good as dead, and their accomplishing of the promise out of the question, that God alone might be looked to as able to quicken the dead; just as we, Christians, believe, not here simply on Jesus, but on Him that raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered for our offences and raised for our justification.

The consequences of being thus justified by faith are stated in the first half of chapter 5: peace with God, His actual grace or favour, and the hope of His glory in which we boast; nor in this only, but in tribulations because of their effect experimentally; yea, finally, boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom now we have received the reconciliation.

But the work of Christ goes much farther than the remission of sins or the display of divine love to us in view of guilt, however important it is that we begin with this. Pardon refers to our sins which must otherwise be dealt with in the day of judgment; but there rises also the question of our nature or actual state, not merely of our bad works, but of the sin that produced them. Here it is not personal guilt, nor Jews and Gentiles convicted as before, but the race with its head, and the sin which came in by that one man, though each also has his own sins. This clearly brings us up to Adam, though (thank God) also in presence of Christ, the law which came in meanwhile and by the bye only shaping sins into offences and causing them to abound. Now, if a single man righteously involved all his family in sin and death, who can dispute the righteous title of God that the grace of another man, Christ, should abound to His family for eternal life? Such is the argument from chapter 5: 12.

334 If grace be so rich in every way and for ever, should we continue in sin that grace may abound? It is a denial in effect of Christianity: so we learn in chapter 6. We that die to sin, how shall we longer live in it? We were buried with Christ by baptism unto death, that we should walk in newness of life. Our old man was crucified together that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin. For he that died is justified from sin. Thus we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Sin shall not have dominion, for we are not under law but under grace. Shall we sin then because we are thus? Certainly not. We were slaves of sin, but now, freed from it, we have become slaves of righteousness and of God, have our fruit unto holiness, and the end, worthy of His grace, eternal life.

Chapter 7 handles the question of freedom from the law, as it was already shewn that grace strengthens against sin, instead of making it a light or open matter. The married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he is alive: death severs this bond. So are we made dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we should belong to another who has been raised from among the dead in order that we might bear fruit to God. We were in the flesh, but now are cleared from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held, so that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. Observe however that it is not by abrogation of the law but by our death to it that grace acts.

Not that the law is sin, but sin, getting an occasion or point of attack by the commandment, works every lust, deceives, slays, and also becomes exceeding sinful. But though renewed, the person finds himself without strength, discerns evil in his nature as distinct from himself, delights in the law of God yet sees another law in his members bringing him into captivity, and so learns in conscious wretchedness the value of Christ for deliverance no less than pardon, though this in no way alters the two natures.

335 Chapter 8 closes the discussion with the fullest statement of the results of Christ's work in death and resurrection for the Christian. Three divisions present themselves: first, the deliverance pursued even to the raising of the mortal body, the Spirit being regarded as characterizing that life and state; secondly, the relations of the Holy Ghost to the Christian as acting in, with, and on him in power and person; and, thirdly, God for us in the face of every trying experience and all hostility from the creature, fully and triumphantly securing us.

First, what a status for those in Christ! The necessary action of their new nature, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, bespeaks their deliverance from the law of sin and death; as again God has already condemned in the cross sin in the flesh, not merely in its outbreak, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For there are persons characterized by each in life and character, the mind of the one death, of the other life and peace; and this, because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, and they that are in it cannot please Him, while Christians are not in it, but in Spirit, and so, Christ being in them, they hold the body as dead on account of sin, as the Spirit is life on account of righteousness. But even their mortal bodies will be raised on account of His Spirit that dwells in them. Secondly, the Spirit is a Spirit of sonship and an earnest of the glory that is coming, and we meanwhile groan by the Spirit, and God thus finds the mind of the Spirit, not selfishness, in us, while He makes all work for good. Thirdly, along with God's purpose of conforming us to the image of His Son in glory, we have divine power assuring us; so that, come what will, nothing shall separate from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Chapters 9-11 follow the doctrine, and have for their object to conciliate the special promises to Israel with the indiscriminate grace to sinners as such without exception in the gospel.

In chapter 9 the apostle shews that not he, but the Jews, could be more justly censured for making light of the peculiar privileges of Israel; as in truth he loved them quite as fervently as Moses. It was a question of God's call in Isaac. Nay, more, we see fleshly right still more manifestly excluded by the blessing of Jacob in disparagement of Esau, and this before the birth of the twins. It is a question thus of sovereign grace. Did they then complain of God's unrighteousness? It was all for Israel, that sovereignty of God: else what had become of them ruined before the golden calf at Sinai, had not God said, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy"? On the other hand, Pharaoh is the witness of His hardening and judgments. Does man yet find fault because God acts as He will? This is met by asserting God's title to judge man, and rebuking man's pretension to judge God. He has power; but how does He use it? With the utmost long-suffering toward the vessels of wrath, and in the richest mercy to its vessels, the latter being in themselves no better than the former. Thus mercy calls Gentiles who had no privileges and Jews who had lost all. Hosea and Isaiah, more than once, confirm all, shewing not only Gentiles called but Israel stumbling at the stumbling-stone laid in Zion, while faith only would not be ashamed.

336 In chapter 10 the apostle expresses his heart's desire on their behalf for salvation. But their zeal was not according to knowledge. They were ignorant of, and did not submit to, God's righteousness, seeking to establish their own. For Christ ends law (and all such efforts are legal) for righteousness to every one that believes. They speak incompatibly, that which is of law, and what is of faith; but God's righteousness is that of faith, Christ being the ground of it, and salvation the result, which therefore is as open to the Gentile as to the Jew who believed. Hence a testimony was sent out by God; and if few Jews received it, none the less did it go out unto all the earth; and here testimonies thicken from law and prophets to shew God found by Gentiles, and Israel disobedient and gainsaying.

Chapter 11 proves that the rejection of Israel is neither complete nor final, corroborated by the olive tree which lets us see the cutting off that awaits unfaithful Christendom no less surely than what befell the Jew, but that the Redeemer would yet come out of Zion turning away ungodliness from Jacob, and so all Israel be saved, coming in at length as an object of mercy no less than a Gentile. This drew out the transports of the apostle, as he thought of the depth of the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge.

337 From chapter 12 we enter on practical exhortations formally. The apostle beseeches the saints by the compassions of God to present their bodies a living sacrifice, without conformity to this world, but transformed by the renewing of their mind, to cultivate a sober, not a high, mind, as God dealt to each. For we being many are one body in Christ, and members one of another, with gifts differing which each should occupy himself in. More general calls follow, grace here too reigning through righteousness in the walk and spirit, widening toward men at large, which draws out the caution against avenging ourselves: rather should we, as God does, overcome evil with good.

Chapter 13 exhibits the relation of the saints to outward government in the world; subjection to what is thus set up of God, whatever it be, in the world, so that to oppose the authority is to resist His ordinance, on account not only of wrath but of conscience also; and on this account paying tribute and to all their dues, owing no man anything but love, the fulfilment of the law. And this too, urged the more by the nearness of the day, in the light of which we should walk, remembering that the night is far spent, and not gratifying flesh which loves the dark.

Then in chapter 14 follows the duty of brotherly forbearance, rendered at Rome in those days the more incumbent because of so many Jews and Gentiles meeting together there as Christians. The weak, as they are called, who were burdened with scruples, were not to judge the strong, who knew their liberty; neither were the strong to despise the weak. Conscience must be respected; Christ is Lord of dead and living; and to God every one of us must give account. Rather let one judge to put no stumbling-block in a brother's way, nor thus for meat destroy him for whom Christ died. Peace and edification should be sought, but also a good conscience, for whatever is not of faith is sin. The beginning of chapter 15 concludes this question with Him who pleased not Himself, but bore the reproaches men cast on God, thus entitling the Christian to all the comfort of the scriptures which speak of Christ, and strengthening us to receive one another, as Christ did, to God's glory.

Next we have, from verse 8, a statement of God's ways in the gospel justified by the Old Testament, and of his own ministry among us Gentiles, as a reason for thus exhorting them, though giving them credit for goodness and knowledge and ability to admonish one another. From Jerusalem and in a circle round to Illyricum he had fully preached the gospel and so aiming, not where Christ was named, but where they had not heard of Him; and, now that his work was done in the East, his old and strong desire to visit the West, after a deacon's service for the poor of the saints in Jerusalem (for nothing comes amiss to love), revives the hope to see the Roman saints on his way to Spain. But God had plans of His own; and if Paul was not saved from unbelieving brethren after the flesh in Judea, it was but to give him more the fellowship of Christ's sufferings who was delivered to the Gentiles by the Jews.

338 Chapter 16 finishes with commendation of a sister Phoebe, servant of the assembly at Cenchrea; salutations minute and varied in the appreciation of all that was lovely and of good report; and warnings against those who make divisions and stumbling-blocks contrary to the doctrine they had learnt. To turn away from such men eaten up with self-importance is the best answer to their kind speaking and fairness of speech. Here as elsewhere we should be wise to what is good and simple to evil. The God of peace will see to all that is above us, bruising Satan under our feet shortly. How much do we not need the grace of our Lord with us now!

The apostle's amanuensis, Tertius, adds his salutation, as do a few others. The Epistle closes with a doxology wonderfully suited to all we have had before us, yet intimating truth not here developed in harmony with which was his preaching. In the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians is this hidden mystery fully set out, the Epistles to the Corinthians acting as a link of transition, but each in due place and season, and all important for the saint and for the church. To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be glory for ever. Amen.

Summary of the Epistle to the Romans

J. N. Darby.

<23021E> 339

I fear the following brief opening up of the structure of the Epistle to the Romans will be very dry; and, with a view to edification, I should prefer to add more by way of application to the heart and conscience. At present that is not possible; yet I think what I may be able to give on the structure of the Epistle, with some passing remarks, may supply materials to those who study the word for their own edification through grace, with the ever-needed but ever-ready help of the Spirit of God. I think I shall be able to set out the structure of the Epistle more perfectly than I have ever myself done it, though latterly I have often partially referred to it in oral teaching. And, first, this is the structure as a scheme: chapters 1: 1-17; 1: 18 to 3: 20; 3: 21 to 5: 11; 5: 12 to chap. 8; chaps. 9 to 11; chap. 12 to the end.

The first 17 verses are an introduction: only the writer states the subject of the gospel, Christ accomplishment of promises and Son of God in power.

Then comes the ground on which the righteousness of God therein mentioned has had to be revealed, namely, that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Then follows the demonstration of the sin of both these classes. This second part begins with chapter 1: 18, and ends with verse 20 of chapter 3, whereupon the apostle returns to the unfolding the righteousness of God. Chapter 1: 18 is the thesis of the part 1 now refer to, the rest is the carrying out of the proof: chapter 1: 19, to the end of chapter 1 as to the heathen in general; chapter 2: 1-16 as to moralists especially, such as philosophers, but whoever they may be; verse 17 to the end of the chapter, the two: only that there is introduced in connection with the hypocritical judgment of the moralist the sure judgment of God to those without law, and those under law. It is the reality of this judgment, and the immutability of God's estimate of good and evil, which introduces the judgment of the Jew (verses 11, 17-29). Did this set aside the advantages of the Jews? In no wise. They had many, specially the possession of the oracles of God. The apostle now therefore takes them up upon the ground, not of God's true and righteous judgment of men's hearts and acts in the day of judgment, when all will be brought to light, and God must have realities; but on the ground of the revelation which they had, and in which they boasted, and, by a selection of passages from that, proves them, for that revelation was theirs and applied to them, utterly guilty; and thus every mouth was stopped, the Gentiles confessedly already, and now the Jews by their own scriptures which they boasted of as exclusively theirs. The world was guilty before God.

340 Verse 20 stands in a certain sense alone, and is a connecting link of what precedes with what follows, touching a subject which was an urgent one with the apostle. By the works of the law no flesh could be justified; for the law brought the knowledge of sin, not sins. Natural conscience often gave that, but of the state of sin in which men were. And that is what is described in the preceding verses quoted.

In verse 21 of chapter 3 we come to the remedy, the great revelation of the gospel. And first as to sins. Apart from law, which was the rule of man's righteousness, God's righteousness has been manifested, the law and prophets having borne witness to it. Hence, as apart from law, and being God's, universal in its character, God's righteousness to all — Jew or Gentile; and upon all those that believe, for it is the righteousness of God by faith in Christ Jesus. It is dia pisteos eis pantas, by faith to all; epi pantas tous pisteuontas, on all who believe consequently. All who return take up God again in grace by Jesus Christ, for all have sinned. They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Him. God has set Him forth as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. We have redemption, or here ransom, justification of the believer freely by God's grace, but through the ransom of redemption and so righteously, and God is approached at a mercy-seat; that is, blood-shedding on the throne of judgment according to the holiness and righteousness of God. God is approached according to this perfectness as well as man delivered. This is through blood. It has a double aspect. It proves God's righteousness in the remission of Old Testament sins, when He had shewn forbearance. It is divine righteousness itself declared now, as fully just and justifying him that believes, so that he is in righteousness before God. Thus a man is justified by faith without work of law, and God is the God of the Gentile as well as of the Jew. He justifies the Jew on the principle of faith; and, if the Gentile has faith, he is justified through it. Law is established thus. It convicts him who is under it of guilt, and is given all its force too in this respect, and its claims are met by the blood of Christ. This then reveals justification by blood for those who have sinned. He has closed with Gentiles and law.

341 But what of Abraham, the root of promise (chap. 4)? He believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. How does a simple narrative provide, because of an eternal Spirit, the deepest principles of truth for all ages! And this David confirms, shewing the blessedness of the man whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. As regards then not imputing sin, forgiving, and imputing righteousness are all the same, for actual sins are in question, judicially in question. It is not holding a man to be innocent, but the non-imputation of what he has done; he is judicially held to have no charge against him, he is justified or accounted righteous. It is added from Abraham's case that it comes on Gentiles as on Jews, for Abraham was uncircumcised when he got it; and he got it by the power of resurrection, believing in God's power to accomplish it, as we by believing that He has done so. Thus the resurrection of Christ, God's raising Him out of the place where He had gone because of offences, as satisfied as to those offences, and bringing Him into a wholly new place where He was accepted. And as it was all done for us, we say He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. All this applies Christ's death and Christ's resurrection to our sins. Only, having suffered for them, He came into a new place.

Chapter 5: 1-11 gives the glorious conclusion and consequences of Christ's dying for our sins and rising again: peace, present favour, hope of glory. Our complete actual place before God. But we glory in tribulations also on the way, because of patience and its fruits; and we have the key to all in God's love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. The perfect ground of this is there stated, and the conclusions drawn to our security in that love. Nor that alone, we glory in God Himself through Christ, by whom we have received this perfect reconciliation with Him. Verse 11 closes the whole subject of our reconciliation by Christ's death and resurrection. God has cleared us, commended His love to us so that we joy in Him; and all that He does by the way is only a means of blessing.

342 The whole question of our actual guilt has been settled, but our state has not been touched. The apostle shews that it was not a mere question of law but of sin, and so applied to man and not merely to the Jew; for sin was there from Adam to Moses, when law was not, and death proved it. Thus the rest is traced up to Adam, and it is shewn that grace must be of as wide an application; and Christ refers to all, to Gentile as well as to Jew. Chapters 3: 20 to 5: 11, inclusive, treat then the question of sins; chapters 5: 12 to the end of chapter 8 that of sin, and our condition through the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ. If it be a question of sins, each has his own; if of sin, we are all one lump. This is the ground taken from chapter 5: 12, though of course the sins come in as fruit. Hence justification is not seen as justification from sins but sin, and our living place in Christ — "justification of life." We are constituted righteous, and it goes to a fuller presentation even of this truth: "There is no condemnation." Nothing of the sort can apply to one who is in Christ.

Thus though God is not so fully presented in sovereign grace, our state before God is much more fully entered into, and that connected with death, life, obedience and connection with Christ. This flows on from the consideration of the common objection of flesh. If by the obedience of One I am constituted righteous, no matter what I do! I may live on in sin! But this obedience was unto death; by my public profession of Christianity I have gone down to death, been planted together in the likeness of death. If, as alive through Adam, I have taken my place in death, where Christ's perfect obedience for me was, I cannot live on in that life. A dead man cannot continue in sin, nor can he be charged with sin. A dead man cannot be said to have lusts or will. Here then Christ is looked at as having died, not for our sins, but to sin. Our old man crucified with Him, that henceforth we should not serve sin. The believer is to reckon himself dead consequently to sin, and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This, let me remark in passing, has a very full character; for Christ in the sense of personal walk and perfectness always lived to God; but while down here had always to deal with sin, to be tempted, to be exercised in obedience, and keep His feet from the paths of the destroyer; and, finally, knowing no sin, to be made sin for us. All testing and trial only brought out His perfectness; still He had to do with it, live above it, not let in what would have been sin and disobedience, or want of absolute obedience. Blessed be God, we know He did not and could not fail; nor was there the smallest answer or movement in Him to answer to incessant temptations from without; but He lived in the sphere in which He was moving, as the air around Him, and died to it. Now in that He lives, He lives to God. All that He had to do with sin in this world was to die to sin. He died and suffered rather than not accomplish absolute obedience to, and glorify, His Father. But now as man, God is the one sole object filling, satisfying, occupying the life in which He lives. There is no other object to claim its movements, no movements which turn towards anything else. "In that he liveth, he liveth unto God."

343 So we reckon ourselves dead to sin as crucified with Him, and alive only to God — a wondrous word. Our old man is crucified with Him, for the destroying the body of sin; and if I am alive at all, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord, and so alive to God. Life has no other object nor produce of thought and feeling. Hence I have not to serve sin. He does not say continue in it (this supposes life of and from it, that is, pure flesh), but not to serve or submit to it as a master even: a different thing, and which more directly concerns the Christian. And I have a right to speak, for it shall not have dominion over me as if I was under law (in which case it would, even if I hated it), but under grace. Thus I am set free, and in a happy and good sense my own master. Whom am I going to serve, to whom yield myself? To God, and my members as instruments — that is, all they are now — of righteousness to God. It is an absolute yielding ourselves up to God. Blessed privilege! And here I get fruit; in the slavery of sin, none: only it ended in death (guilt and judgment are not the subject here, but state); but now I have fruit unto holiness; walking in obedient righteousness, I learn God, His ways; I have fruit in separatedness and affections of heart to Him. So Moses says, "If I have found grace in thy sight, shew me thy way, that I may know thee, and that I may find grace in thy sight." There is added one word which brings all back to grace, lest living to God might be wrongfully reckoned to man. "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." But it is a blessed thing to be allowed to yield ourselves to God: so did Jesus; so in His life are we privileged to do.

344 Chapter 7, as often studied and commented on, applies this principle of death to law. The law has power over a man as long as he lives. But we have died in Christ; the bond with our first husband, if we have been under law (and being born of God, without the knowledge of redemption, put us under it in spirit, a state described at the end of the chapter), is dissolved by our death, and we are to another, Christ raised from the dead. We have therefore, besides death and a new life, the bond of relationship in which we are, wholly to Christ and no longer to the law to which we have died.

The state of a soul knowing, as quickened, the spirituality of the law, consenting to it, and delighting in it, but unable to keep it, and looking for deliverance, is then described, and deliverance found to be in Christ. The natures still remain the same.

This state of deliverance by death and resurrection is then unfolded in chapter 8. The man is in Christ. No condemnation is therefore possible. Such is the result. He is in the place into which Christ's perfect work has brought him, in that state in Him. The manner of the whole thing is then stated — its ground as to our status down here. The power of divine life in Christ Jesus, the raised One, in Him, now alive, who was dead, has set me free from the condition in which I stood, the law of sin and death under which I was in the first Adam. But I have died out of that, and am alive in Christ, and so freed from it. But this is not all. The law had the pretension to set me in righteousness, in a righteous place and standing before God; but it could not succeed. It was weak through the flesh, which was not subject to it, nor could be. The sin and flesh remained independent and unsubdued. But God has set us before Him. He has sent His own Son in the likeness of this sinful flesh (Himself sinless) and as a sacrifice for sin. Thus sin in the flesh was condemned perfectly and fully according to God (for there is no forgiveness of a nature), and He perfectly glorified as to it, but by death, in Christ's dying; so that, while sin is righteously condemned, Christ died as regards the state in which He was in the likeness of it and had to say to it (though perfect Himself and as perfect) and we in Him. Thus, while the sin has been condemned, so that God has no more to say as to it, I have passed wholly out of the state in which I had to say to it, and was in it, before God, because I have died in Christ; while the efficacy of His sacrifice secures the glory of God and the putting away of sin.

345 A few words will give the close of this part of the epistle. The first eleven verses unfold this deliverance and the natures concerned in it, but with the additional truth of the presence of the Holy Ghost which gives power and liberty; the effect of this, not merely as life and resurrection, even of the body, already noted, but as leading, guiding, bearing, personally witness, first for that we are children and heirs, then for the joy that belongs to us, but this giving a divine yet human sense of the sorrow and bondage of corruption around us in which yet our bodies have a part. But this leads to sympathy and the expression by the Holy Ghost in us of the sense of this sorrow in a divine way. He who searches the hearts finds there the mind of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost Himself interceding in it. Such is our blessed place as regards present evil. Read "according to God." We do not know what to ask for, but we express the need according to God, a groan sure to be heard. What a place as in us the Holy Ghost has here.

The rest of the chapter is the conclusion of all this part of the Epistle. If God be for us, who can be against us? For us as to gift, He has given His Son; for us as to justification, He justifies us; in us as to all the difficulties, nothing separates us from His love in Christ in them. They have been or are the scenes of His love. All difficulties are of the creature. His love is divine, yet has gone down to every depth and is exercised at the highest height. This is all the proper doctrine of the Epistle.

Chapters 9 to 11 meet the Jewish question and reconcile the doctrine of the difference between Jew and Gentile with the promises to the Jews. Chapter 9 shews that their own history forces them to accept the principle of sovereign grace, otherwise the Ishmaelites and Edomites must be admitted, and they would have been cut off because of the golden calf. God will use this sovereignty to bring in the Gentiles. Chapter 10 shews they stumbled at the stumbling-stone, and all had been predicted; chapter 11, that the stumbling was not final, but for the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles, and that, if the Gentiles did not continue in God's goodness, they would be cut off and the Jews grafted in again.

346 The rest of the Epistle consists of detail of exhortation, founded on our offering ourselves up to God a living sacrifice to God, proving what His will is. The doctrine of the body comes out here; each is to fill up the measure of his own gift, and not to pretend to more. We have also the instruction as to Christ, that He was a minister of the circumcision (that is, to the Jews) for the truth of God to confirm promises (this is not law), and that the Gentiles should glorify God for His mercy; and, lastly, that the mystery now revealed was hidden in all the ages of time, and now made known to the nations by prophetic scriptures.

Thoughts on Romans, Colossians, Ephesians.

J. N. Darby.

<23022E> 347

There are two great subjects treated of in scripture in connection with man's relationship with God — purpose in God, and responsibility in man. The former is in the second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This purpose was established before the foundation of the world. (See 2 Tim. 1: 9, 10; Titus 1: 2, 3; Prov. 8; 1 Cor. 2: 7.) Many passages refer to details of this. Ephesians especially fully develops it. But God did not begin with this, nor with the second Adam in whom these promises were to be accomplished, but with the first, placed in responsibility before God and in blessings dependent on faithfulness in his position.

Christianity begins when this question of responsibility is closed. I do not mean, of course, that Christians are not responsible. But their responsibility is that of children of God, redeemed by grace from the condition of ruin in which man was fallen. Individuals withal have to pass through in their own souls experimentally the results of this condition of responsibility; but in Christianity it is not to ascertain whether they can meet judgment, but to arrive at the clear discovery that they cannot, that they are guilty and lost; to have judgment realised in their consciences that "there is none righteous, no, not one" (every mouth being stopped, and all the world guilty before God); that they cannot themselves get out of this condition, but that Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost; that "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

I do not now enter into the details of this redemption, nor of what the purpose connected with it is. I only refer to it now to shew that it is when the divine development as to the first man's responsibility is closed, and man viewed as guilty and lost under it, that Christianity begins. The question of responsibility was gone through in the first Adam. First, he failed being innocent; then displayed his lawlessness in corruption and violence, bringing in the flood; then under law broke it; and when (all this being already true) God came into the world in goodness, the full character of sin was developed in enmity against God by the rejection of the blessed Lord. This closed the probation of man. Now, says the Lord, is the judgment of this world. Hence we read, "He appeared once in the end of the world (the consummation of ages), to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," and "these things . . . are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

348 Christianity then comes when the question of man's standing in responsibility is closed, not only as being a sinner, but when God having tried all means of recovery saying, "I have yet one Son," had tried them in vain as regards the discovery of good in the first Adam, or his recovery as such. He is already guilty and lost, and proved so.

Besides his state of innocence, inalienable life for ever and responsibility were attached to the two trees in the garden; but man took the wrong road in connection with responsibility, and forfeited life. In the law the question was again raised as to both; but satisfying responsibility was put before life. "This do and thou shalt live." Christ meets our responsibility in bearing the consequence of it, our sins, and, being made sin in that place, perfectly glorified God, and becomes our life (of which more hereafter). Thus and thus only the two are reconciled for sinful man — life and responsibility.

Now, from the beginning, the coming of Christ was intimated in the judgment pronounced on Satan; and then, when God began to deal with man in the new world when it had wholly departed from Him into idolatry, in the promise of the Seed in whom the nations should be blessed, to Abraham called out from it. But the promise was never fulfilled till Christ came; and He being rejected, though the promised Seed had come, the result of purpose was not fulfilled; but the ground of it was laid according to grace abounding over sin, and in righteousness, Christ having perfectly glorified God as made sin, and gone as Man into glory according to divine righteousness, so that man's being there was the demonstration of righteousness. Thus propitiation for sins was made, which met the responsibility, and the ground laid for the accomplishment of purpose, and then the Holy Ghost comes down on earth, the witness of these things, and the present power of that Christianity in which through grace we enjoy them.

Hence we have the responsibility and state owned and demonstrated, and man met in it in grace; and the purpose revealed and ourselves associated with Christ in it; but the old creation and the first Adam state judged and lying in wickedness and alienation from God; and the new creation, connected with the Second Adam, raised and glorified, revealed; while as to life we are brought into it, with the Holy Ghost dwelling in us.

349 Now the Gospels give us Christ come into the old creation, and in diverse characters, His passing into death as so coming; and all give the resurrection, which is the essential beginning of the new as to man in every respect, for example, life and acceptance; not all, His ascension. There is this difference in them, that while the three first (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) give us His rejection historically, and in prophetic testimony, more or less, what was to take the place of His presence; in the first (Matthew) as Man, and according to promise, that is, in the first creation, and in Israel; the last of the four (John), being the revelation of His Person, that the Word was God, precedes all dispensation and creation itself, and begins by the world He had created not knowing Him, and His own rejecting Him, and then unfolds His Person, and what was proper to Himself and His service and the coming of the Holy Ghost when He had gone to the Father.

All this is assumed in the Epistles, and in Paul's and John's our being in the ascended Christ; in Paul's also the doctrine of the "assembly," and the purposes connected with it. This leads me to our immediate subject.

Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, does not enter on the ground of the new creation, but treats of man on this earth as a responsible being, only in one word as an abstract doctrine shewing him as he will be, and that only personally: "Whom he justified, them he also glorified." Here alone (chap. 8) purpose comes in, but only as to the state of individuals. God's sovereignty is asserted in chapter 9, but only to give God title to let in the Gentiles, in contrast with a national election claimed by the Jews.

But the purposes of God, or the new creation which is in purpose, are not in view. Man is a responsible creature in this world, dealt with as such, though in the end glorified. This responsibility is met by the work of Christ, and the coincident fact of having life in Him. With this the great fact of present Christianity is recognised — the Holy Ghost down here. By this we know that we are in Christ, but as down here. It is the believer's state down here in virtue of the Holy Ghost coming here. He sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts; but all this is my state down here, not the new creation. Its being so indeed gives it such value, though from other scriptures I know all this involves a part in the new creation. But I am saved in hope, I rejoice in hope of the glory, I am a joint-heir with Christ as a son; but my present place is suffering with Him. Though promising thus personally the glory, likeness to Christ according to the purpose of God, the Epistle treats the question of the divine ground of righteousness and the standing of a Christian in this world through the removal of sin. This it does in a double way, having respect first to the conduct, and then to the state of man as a child of Adam. Romans 1: 18 to chapter 5: 11 treats of his conduct, and the perfect grace that has met his case. Every mouth is stopped, and all the world guilty before God. But God has set Christ forth a propitiation, through faith in His blood, whether for remission of past sins (as to which God had shewn His forbearance in the times passed before Christ's work); or now to justify him that believes in Jesus. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." So that by faith we have peace with God, stand in present favour, and rejoice in hope of the glory; yea, rejoice in tribulation as working good; yea, joy in God Himself through Christ, through whom we have thus received a perfect reconciliation.

350 But in all this, through knowing God's love by the Holy Ghost given to us, we have our personal standing before God here; it is not new creation, though the life we have belongs to it. But the Epistle meets the whole question of our personal relationship to God. First, Christ is a propitiation through faith in His blood, and being risen again, the ground of our justification is shewn to be perfect, and being justified by faith we have peace with God. God imputes no sin to the believer, Christ having been delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.

Then, from chapter 5: 12, the apostle takes up our state. Adam, by his obedience, has brought all connected with him into the condition of sinners; Christ, by His obedience, all connected with Him into that of righteousness.

But with this another truth is connected. If it be by one Man's obedience, we may live on as we like and be righteous by Christ's obedience, says the world. But I have this righteousness by having part in His death; the having part in it is the very profession of Christianity; but death is not living on! Thus delivery from the state and power of sin is by death, and our death is in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Romans, even in the first part, recognises the Christian's personal state on earth; the Holy Ghost is given to us, we are in Christ, live in Christ. The assembly itself also is assumed in the hortatory part; chap. 12. What is treated of, this state being assumed, is the divine way of grace as to it. Meeting our responsibility by bearing our sins I have already spoken of. The second part treats, we have seen, of our state.

351 But if we are alive in Christ, and Christ is in us, it is Christ who is risen and even is glorified, after having died. Such a Christ being our life, we are esteemed dead, for He who is our life, our true I, has died, and this is valid and effectual for faith. It is the profession of our common Christianity: we are baptized to it.

But in its effect (save the statement in chapter 8 of the effect of God's being for us) this is not pursued beyond death; so that, Christ risen being our life, we are set free. "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life, because of righteousness." Christ is looked at as our life, but we are not viewed as risen with Him. He has been a propitiatory victim, and delivered for our offences, and died to sin once, all alone. He is not looked at as gone down into our place, and Himself and we raised up together. In this case He is not life to us, but a dead Man raised up, and this involves not merely life in Him but a new estate into which He is entered, and involves a new creation, though it may be and is considered apart.

But in fact He has died to this creation, and been raised to be, as Man, head of the new creation, and head of the body. There is, however, in the teaching of Romans deliverance, for He has died. Hence, not only we live in Him, but "our old man is crucified with him," but we are still alive in this world with Christ's life — "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"; but dead to sin in it, and to the law. Risen with Christ involves the purposes of God, Christ being viewed as the object of those purposes, and the power which brings them about; and hence we are associated with Him in them, and hence it leads on to our union in the church with Him. Not but that Christ is viewed as risen in the Epistle to the Romans: we find it thus in the first part, where it is applied to our justification, our clearance from guilt. But this is the acceptance of the victim; if not risen, I am yet in my sins., In the second, we are stated "to be (married) to another," even Christ, that is raised from the dead. But we are not raised with Him. This introduces by the power of God at the next step into the new creation, as a state of things, and into the assembly. Christ, our life, or living in Him, is another thing from Christ viewed as a dead man raised, yet it is a risen man who is our life.

352 But being alive in Christ, that is not all; but we are alive in Him who was crucified, and we have died with Him, and this frees from the old man and from the law. Thus we are baptized to Christ's death, buried with Him by baptism unto death; but called upon, therefore, only to walk in newness of life, for we are here in this creation as to our place. "We know that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed," for "He that has died (which is our state through the cross) is justified from sin." You cannot charge a dead man with evil lusts and a wicked will. "Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall (also) live with him." Thus we are distinctly reckoned as dead; but living with Him is spoken of as a consequence of this, not as a state we are in. Christ died unto sin once, and now lives to God. His death is essentially identical with His dying to sin. "In that he died, he died unto sin once"; so we are to reckon ourselves "dead to sin" (for we are physically alive here), and "alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

A living Christ is our life here; but we are not looked at as raised up with Him. It is still the same responsible man, but all sins put away, one who will be like Him in resurrection, who is not to serve sin; it will not have dominion over him; it is not to reign in his mortal body, for there he yet is; but being set free to yield himself to God as alive from the dead, and his members as instruments of righteousness unto God; freed from sin by Christ being our life, and sin in the flesh condemned in Christ, a sacrifice for sin, and we, He having died, reckoning ourselves dead.

But everlasting life is the end, salvation is in hope, while we have fruit unto holiness here, sin in the flesh condemned in Christ's sacrifice; and that being in death, and available for us, we see the condemnation gone, and ourselves dead to sin. The great point is that we have died. Only it is in the cross, where sin in the flesh was condemned, and are now alive in Christ, called to walk accordingly here; not put, according to purpose, in Christ in the new creation.

353 This death is then applied to the question of the law. Now the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives. But we have died, and consequently have ceased to be under it. We are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that we should be to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead. Still we are looked at as here, but married to Christ, who is raised, but not we raised with Him. We are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held. And then the state of the renewed soul under the first husband is given at the end of the chapter, where our death in Christ is not known; not the power of life in Him who is raised, and the presence of the Holy Ghost in us giving energy according to Christ's place to this life; chap. 7.

Then the whole truth is summed up in the first three verses of chapter 8, the effect on the walk of the man down here in verse 4, which is man's responsibility as such, but the spring and power of the walk quite different, as are its effects (end of verses 4 and 5), with the judgment of man's condition when in the flesh.

But we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; if the Spirit of God dwell in us, our place and standing are not in the flesh before God. But note, the Spirit is come down here; it is still man down here, but in Christ and in the Spirit, and that by His Spirit dwelling in him, but that is down here. If he have not the Spirit, he is not Christ's; but if Christ be in him, for now it is Christ in him, and not he in Christ (compare John 14: 20), the body is dead, a mere lifeless instrument of service; if it lives, it is a spring of sin only, flesh. But, Christ being in me, who did die, because of it dead, it is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness; for that is what is looked for in this world, and that is what is found in the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of righteousness, which is by Christ Jesus to the glory and praise of God. Still we are here, sons of God indeed, and so heirs-joint-heirs with Christ — but not in the new creation, but in the suffering one, and suffering with it, though that suffering be not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed in us.

But we suffer, having the Spirit, as taking up these sorrows according to God, and expressing them by groans produced by the Holy Ghost, and understood by God as those of His own Spirit, though in our hearts, even when we do not know what to ask for. Just as Christ here could groan in sympathy with a suffering creation, and even Himself in the days of His flesh offer up His petitions with strong crying and tears, only not imperfect as we are, in it. The Spirit is the power of life, the Spirit gives us consciousness of sonship and our joint inheritance with Christ, and the Spirit groans in our hearts, we being such in the sense of all that is around us, we being joined to it as to our body, Christ our life in the inner man, and the Spirit dwelling in us. We are saved in hope, and know our place in the glory to be revealed, and hence feel the sorrow of our actual position, according to the Spirit of God, according to God Himself. We are sons and know it, but the sons of God are yet to be manifested. For the responsible man triumphantly asks, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" and knows that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Everything works together in this poor world for the good of those who love God. Hence the exhortation of the Epistle is to present — we being thus here — our bodies a living sacrifice (that is, not in actual death, as Christ).

354 In Ephesians they are sent forth from God to manifest the divine character on earth. Here they are set forth as actually subsisting men on the earth only set free, and to offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice. It is the responsible man justified and set free, with a new life in Christ to live to God, reckoning himself dead to sin, as having been baptized to Christ's death, as having died with Him.

The Epistle to the Colossians goes farther still. The believer, indeed, is not seen sitting in heavenly places in Christ. A hope is laid up for him in heaven, and he is to set his affection on things above, where Christ sits at God's right hand, not on things on the earth. But he is not only dead with Christ, but risen with Him; he is dead, and his life hid with Christ in God. When Christ appears, he will appear with Him.

And here it is of moment to notice two distinct aspects of man's state, taken up in these epistles. He is viewed as living in sins and the indulgence of evil, and he is viewed as dead in sins. It is one and the same state; if he is alive in the sins, he is dead toward God. In the former case death must come in to deliver, for there is no mending of the flesh; in the latter it is a new creation.

355 Romans takes up the former view, Ephesians the latter. The new creation is wholly the purpose of God. The former, living in sins, is connected with responsibility; the latter has the second Adam risen and glorified for its centre. The former deals with man as he is; only life is found in the second Man, and so death for the first; for the Second has died and is risen, and become the believer's life. Colossians practically takes in both as to the state of man; only it does not put him in heavenly places, nor speak of a new creation; it is only we "risen with Christ." Hence also the "one body" is alluded to, and they are warned against not holding the Head; but the doctrine of the body is in no way developed, nor the purpose of God revealed.

It is important to notice that the death is always the same, for it is Christ's death. Death there was death. He died, and therein died to sin once. That death, ours by faith, is the only death spoken of. His death as a person who had been alive in this world was His death to sin. We are dead with Him in Colossians, dead with Him in Romans. It is death to sin, in Him and in us; only He had none, and we do not literally die but appropriate His death through grace.

But in Colossians we are looked at as having lived in sins; chap. 2: 12; chap. 3: 7. This coincides with Romans. But (chap. 2: 12; chap. 3: 1) we are also risen with Him, and we are also viewed as having been dead in sins (chap. 2: 13) which so far coincides with Ephesians: only it does not go so far — not seating us in heavenly places, nor, as I have said, develop the doctrine of the body, nor the purpose of God. But the being risen with Christ takes the believer himself into a new state. It is not merely life in Christ. Christ having come down and borne his sins, coming into his place of death, the sins having been put away and forgiven, he is raised with Him, and thus enters on a new sphere of existence. He has done with all the elements or principles of this world; he is not to walk as one alive in this world subject to ordinances, as in a religion suited to the flesh; but to have his affections on things above, where Christ sits; he is dead, and his life is hid there, for Christ is his life, though he be not sitting there as yet himself. Hence he has put off the old man and put on the new, and this is renewed in knowledge — has his knowledge according to a wholly new sphere of existence, after the image of Him that created him.

356 Here "new man" is not exactly the same as in Ephesians. There it is new in kind and nature — kainos; here neos; that is, he starts afresh, as just born with this, but renewed in knowledge in anakainoo, a wholly new kind. In Colossians we are not spoken of as dead to sin nor law; but ourselves dead and risen; that is, more definitely associated with Christ in the matter. It looks onward, and not backward, as Romans does. The death is always Christ's own death; but in Romans it is viewed as delivering us as in this world from sin in the flesh and law; in Colossians, as associating us with Christ in death and resurrection. We are not dead lo anything in Colossians, as living here, though by Christ; but have died from one system and begun (neos) another. We are not alive in the world, nor manifested, nor sitting in heavenly places. Our life is hid above with Christ, and our heart and hopes are to follow after.

Hence too we have indeed the purposed reconciling of all things as to their state, but not the place in which all things are brought into one in Christ. Only the now accomplished part of the mystery is noted, "Christ in you [Gentiles] the hope of glory"; not the crown of glory here to Jews, as He will be; but in the Gentiles, and the glory a hope.

In Romans then we have the believer alive in Christ in this world; but dead with Christ (chap. 6: 8); and being so dead, dead to sin, as Christ died actually to sin, and is alive to God, and being dead, dead to law also (for law has power over a man as long as he lives), we are to live in newness of life; and shall be in likeness of Christ's resurrection. He is viewed as a man in his responsibility, as forgiven and justified (this to chap. 5: 11), rejoicing in the hope of glory, in tribulations, and in God Himself; and as regards state and sin in the flesh and law, he has died and is free. There is no condemnation for him; sin in the flesh was condemned in the sacrifice of Christ. This is all negative, save that he is free, and has the Spirit of God dwelling in him. He looks for the redemption of the body, the quickening of his mortal body; for he is yet in this world the responsible man: only he is now to walk in newness of life.

357 In Colossians he is risen with Christ, and as such has a hope laid up for him in heaven; he has died, as in Romans, but is risen with Christ. The rudiments of this world — not only philosophy (which is the wandering of the old man's mind), but any religiousness which supposes a man alive in the flesh — are passed for him. He is not alive in this world; but, being risen also with Christ, he has his life hid up there with Him.

But another element comes in; not responsibility, nor living and walking in sins; but, as towards God, dead in sins, which precludes the question of responsibility; yet God has quickened him together with Christ, having forgiven him all trespasses .

Remark too that in Colossians we have no mention of the Spirit. Once it is said, "your love in the Spirit" as a fact; but in the doctrinal part it is not spoken of. It is life. We lived in sins, but have died; we are risen also, and, as dead in sins, have been quickened with Christ. We are not to be subject to ordinances as if we were alive in this world; we are dead with Christ from all its principles. Christ is said to be in us, which is by His Spirit; but not the Holy Ghost as a Person given to us. That is a seal and an earnest to us here. In Colossians we are dead and risen with Christ. Christ is our life.

Another expression may be noticed. This is connected with our having in Christ all that was shadowed out in figures of the law. The body was of Christ, and we are complete in Him; that is, in Christ risen. The expression, "circumcision of Christ," is similar to "we live by the faith of the Son of God," "have the faith of God," "the body is of Christ." It is what characterizes the thing spoken of. It is not Jewish circumcision, the sign of putting off the old man, but the reality of it in Christ, namely, in His death, being buried with Him in baptism. What is put off is the body of the flesh, the body of sin destroyed, planted in baptism in the likeness of His death, our old man crucified with him. Christ after the flesh, as Gentiles, we have never known; Christ risen we put on. We have nothing to do with Christ as to coming to God, till the cross. There He draws all men. As alive, we can go back and feed on the bread that came down from heaven. We have no justification in the Colossians, but a new state; only that, that state being resurrection with Christ, all sins have been forgiven through what preceded. The old man is put off, the new man put on. In Romans the body is dead, the Spirit life in us down here.

358 In Ephesians we have purpose fully as to ourselves, as to Christ and His place as head over all things, and to the body. Hence we are only looked at as dead in sins, and there is a new creation. It begins (after shewing the relationship with God and the Father in which we are placed in Christ, and God's purpose to gather all things together in Him, our joint-heirship with Him, and the earnest of the Spirit till we have the inheritance), (that is, after shewing our calling and inheritance, and dealing for it) with Christ, known first as dead, but raised from death, and set at God's right hand, far above all principalities and powers, and given to be Head over all things to the assembly, the fulness of Him that fills all in all; and us also, once dead in sins, quickened and raised by the same power from that state together with Christ, Jew and Gentile also together, alike by nature children of wrath, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. It is not, as often remarked, with Him yet, but in Him, for this is operation of power for the accomplishment of purpose, not purpose itself. We are God's workmanship created again in Christ Jesus.

This is simpler than Romans or Colossians, because it is wholly and simply a new creation and our actual state with new life, and flesh is not in question at all. God is shewing the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus; only, of course, redemption and forgiveness come in. But, as I have said, there is no death to sin. I am not at all looked at as a living man here. The fact is recognized that we once walked in them; but we have put off the old man and put on the new, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. In Colossians we are only renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created us. We are not born and have not died, but, being dead in sins, have been created in Christ Jesus — God's workmanship. Hence, as to conduct, having put off the old man and put on the new, and having been sealed with the Holy Spirit of God for the day of redemption, we are called to be imitators of God as dear children, and shew God's character as Christ did, not to present, as from where we are (as in Romans), our bodies a living sacrifice to God as our intelligent service, but to give ourselves up in love as Christ gave Himself for us to God a sacrifice and offering. We are to walk in love, one essential name of God manifested in Christ, and walk as children of light; and if unable, Christ, who was the light of the world, will enlighten us.

359 Remark the perfectness of affection presented in chapter 5. We may look up in affection or look down. The higher the object, if we look up, the nobler the affection. Here it is to God Himself; if we look down, the more unworthy, the greater the love. So Christ for us; and Him we are to follow.

The subjective measure of our path is the truth as it is in Jesus (namely, the having put off the old man, which corrupts itself according to the deceitful lusts, and the having put on the new man, created after God), and not grieving the Holy Ghost. The objective measure is the blessed Lord, Christ manifesting God in this world as love and light. Only remark that we are said to be light in the Lord, not love; though we are to walk in it. For we have the purity of the divine nature in the new man, and, as born of God, cannot sin. But love, after all, is sovereign goodness in God. Thus the Ephesians has nothing to do with the doctrine of Romans, that God justifies the ungodly; nor with death to the old man, learned in the death of Christ, by him who felt (as born of God) its power and bitterness, though this be recognized in that we have put off the old man; but with the new creation, and the purpose of God revealed to those who have part in it.

Romans deals with the old thing: only we have life in Christ. Ephesians reveals the new, and sets us in Christ by the same power which raised Him from the dead and sets Him at God's own right hand. Hence we are sitting in heavenly places, and there is union.

Colossians does touch on Roman ground: only sins are looked on as wholly gone when the divine action begins in Colossians, as is true of the old man in Ephesians ("having forgiven you all trespasses"), whereas their putting away is positively treated in Romans. But it does speak of putting off the body of the flesh, having died with Christ, and adds, "risen with him," which leads to "the body," and puts in a new place, yet not in heaven, but that place looked to; and when this is treated of we are looked at as dead in sins, not dying or having died to sin, but dead in them. But heavenly things are a matter of expectation, as newness of life here was in Romans. There is not new creation which involves God's purposes, in which nothing old is, and so new creation, and the full purpose as to our acquired place, our place in Christ, though not yet with Him.

360 The Colossian is renewed in knowledge (anakainoo) after the image of Him that created him; the Ephesian created after God in righteousness and true holiness, and renewed (ananeoo) in the spirit of his mind, made fresh and new continually.

Galatians and 2 Corinthians require a few observations.

And first, of the latter, in chapters 4 and 5, we have the two points of death to sin and dead in sins referred to, confirming the explanation given. The former is the reducing to practice the death to sin.

Colossians 3 is God's view of all Christians: "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Hence he will not recognize a Christian to be alive in this world at all. He has members upon earth, his life is hid with Christ in God, he walked in evil practices when he lived in them.

Romans 6 is faith's acceptance of this; a man recognizes himself to be dead.

In 2 Corinthians 4 he realises it, always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in his body, and nothing else. There was the constant application of the cross, of the dying of Jesus, so as not to allow sin in his flesh to stir at all. He held the cross to it, and there is a realisation of this in which all link with the world and the will of nature is broken, and confidence is in Him that raises the dead; so that, death working in a man the sentence of death in himself, not to trust self, only the life of Christ lives, and thinks, and works in him. Death was applied to all that was nature in Paul, so that only the life of Christ in him worked in others. It was much to say, but Paul could say it of himself, and God put him to the test to see if it was made good. He was delivered to death that only the life of Jesus might be manifested in his mortal flesh.

We must compare 2 Corinthians 1 to understand this properly. (See verses 8, 9.) Only chapter 4 comments on and explains what is there historically stated. This was death; the sentence of death realised is always bearing about the dying and suffering in the flesh, ceasing from sin: only, being thorough in his path, it was for Jesus' sake he was delivered to death. There was no flesh or lust at work, and the dying of Jesus, borne about in what would have been the seat of sin, prevented the motions of them. I repeat, it was a great deal to say, but so it was. Christ was perfect in never allowing sin to enter; we practically, as far as may be in us, in never letting our will and lusts move when sin in the flesh is there, by applying His dying to hinder its even stirring. The Lord grant we may do it constantly! In chapter 5 we judge that all were dead. If we live, then we belong, as we have seen in Ephesians, to a new creation (vv. 16, 17). This belongs to a wholly new creation; it is not "he is"; but [there is] "a new creation." This much 2 Corinthians affords us.

361 A word now on Galatians. The comparison of Galatians 2: 19-21 and Romans 6 is full of interest, and much clears up the operation of law and our being crucified with Christ. In Romans 7 we read, "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." The law brought death an my conscience; for it is a ministration of death, and a ministration of condemnation. But in Romans 7 we have not the man delivered (save the last verse), but the process by which the soul learns what the flesh is, and our need of deliverance. Sin in the flesh is there, and the law comes and forbids it in its first movements in lust. It brings death on the conscience; sin rose up alive, which was dormant in indifference, nothing being done which affected the natural conscience; but "thou shalt not lust" brought in death. Then comes the experience under law — "no good in me" — then "it is not me" — then "it is too strong for me," and then deliverance. The law of the Spirit of life in Him, and sin in the flesh condemned in His sacrifice. In a word, the process of discovery of sin and its power in us, and the deliverance through Christ.

In Galatians, in contrast with legalists, we have the matter viewed from the Christian point of view. In that very work of the law which Romans owned brought in death, that death is viewed as a sentence judicially executed on me. I am dead to it by being dead. But if it had been the direct application of the law to oneself, it would have been condemnation as well as death. Still the apostle gives it its full effect; he "by law was dead to law." The law had judicially killed him. But this was as alive in the flesh. But how was this really done? Christ had been crucified: he had been crucified with Him, nevertheless lived, but not he, the killed Saul, but Christ lived in him. Thus the law had killed him: he did not exist any more. But the condemnation did not come in with the death, because it was really in Christ's death. It had taken place so that the condemnation was all gone, taken by another; and he dead by that which effected it, and Christ now lived in him. This death the law itself could effect and did; at least it did in the conscience of the renewed man: only it was done in the crucifixion of Christ, that the condemnation might not accompany it. For death is always my death, but it is thus deliverance from flesh.

362 There is another word in the Galatians we may notice, chapter 6: 14, 15. This leads us not to the new creation exactly, but that that alone was of any value. He gloried not in a worldly religion, what the world and self could recognize as done in the flesh; he gloried only in the cross. This is the shame of it more than death, though death it was, but a death of shame by which the world was put out; that which morally was all his glory, but made an end of every worldly glory. All that was glorious for him was the world's deepest shame, and where he had been crucified to the world, he looked down at it from that which closed all connection with it.

"Dead to the world" is not a scriptural expression simply as such: only we are not, having died to its principles in Christ, recognized as being alive in it. But it is not like sin, or the law, which, as far as we are concerned, have ceased to exist for us if we have died. They are either in us ending in death, or that which has ceased to exist for me altogether if I have died. Not so the world: I have done with it, but have to remain in it and be kept from the evil, and overcome it, as Christ did, as dead to its principles. It never was "I": sin, or the flesh was; and the law ceased to exist for me when I died, for it had power over me as long as I lived only. We have died to the world's rudiments, its principles, which were in us; still having died, I do not reckon myself alive in it. Death is always our death, and that only, whatever it makes us dead to, and this is always in the cross, and we are dead to all He died to there, for we were crucified with Him. But one thing this passage shews, that there is only the alternative-either fleshly ceremony and legal righteousness, which is none, or a new creation.

363 One thing remains to consider — the types which relate to this. If we look at the history of Israel up to the Red Sea, it is in itself entirely complete, for we have actual judgment on the one hand, and complete deliverance on the other; death and judgment on the one hand, and salvation by them on the other; that is, death and judgment for man in rebellion, or in Christ — delivering by them. When we come to experimental application, the state we get into by faith in this redemption, we must go farther, and take in the wilderness and Jordan and what followed. In this aspect the Red Sea begins the Christian course. The blood of the passover had met God's eye as righteous Judge, and His love can freely and righteously deliver, and they are delivered at the Red Sea. Christ's death and resurrection are a perfect redemption and deliverance. "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed; thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." God has "borne them on eagles' wings, and brought them" to Himself. In a word, it is redemption, making us thus strangers and pilgrims indeed in this world, bringing us to God Himself. The wilderness thus becomes the place where God exercises men, and brings out what is in their heart. (See Deut. 8: 2, 3 and 15, 16.)

Another part of Christian life (Canaan) is added to this, which, though not at the same moment perhaps in exercise, yet is part of the same life, for the Christian is always in the wilderness, and always in heavenly places in Christ, that is, whoever has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him. His intelligent realization is another thing; his enjoyment of it in faithful carrying out still another; but both are his place. He is sitting in heavenly places in Christ, he is walking on this earth as a pilgrim in the wilderness.

I proceed to consider the type of Jordan and what follows. Jordan is death, and still Christ's going down into it; but it is not God's rod smiting the sea, so that by that judgment was salvation, and no ark was there. In Jordan, in this passage of death, the ark goes first, or man could not pass; it is not defence and salvation and deliverance from their Egypt condition, their coming out free, but their going into the place of promise. It is the same death of Christ, but going down before His sheep, so that, He having taken away its power wholly, they should pass over dryshod; there was no barring river — the waters were gone — but an entrance into Canaan, yet an entrance into Canaan, not for rest, but for conflict as Jehovah's host in the good fight of faith against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.

364 The ark there is the efficient cause; that is, Christ going into death, but we going down there with Him though after Him; so that it is not His being delivered for my offences, wounded for my transgressions, nor even deliverance from bondage, sin in the flesh condemned on the cross, and I free as to a divinely given title by redemption; but I have gone through death with Him, and am come up out of Jordan into the heavenly places; not Christ dead for what I was, but my dying with Him, yet in His death.

Then I eat the old corn of the land, not the manna. Christ, as food for my pilgrimage and my wants, is not the character He has now, but Christ the food that belongs to the heavenly places. I sit there as to my title and standing without combat, and then combat to put my foot on and possess all. There it is that I am circumcised; that is, I have put off the body of the flesh. The rudiments of the world are done with, the reproach of Egypt is rolled away. Our politeuma (citizenship) is in heaven; but this does not hinder my running on to attain Christ and the resurrection from among the dead, but the contrary.

The Jordan then gives us death with Christ, and coming up out of it, resurrection with Him, as we find it in Colossians. This introduces us into the heavenly condition personally; then, where they were, they were circumcised, which does not belong to wilderness condition. There the heart and flesh are tested as down here for flesh is in us. But once passed the Jordan — dead and risen in Christ — there is circumcision — the putting off the body of the flesh; we have done with Adam, and have put on Christ. It is "the circumcision of Christ," because it is the true force of that typical rite as we possess it in Him. We have put off the old man and put on the new. Then we eat the old corn of the land, do not recognize ourselves in this world, nor know any man after the flesh. Then we eat the passover; recognize, being circumcised (dead with Christ and that realized), the full force of His death as full of deliverance as well as forgiveness, the close of all connection with Egypt, as Christ in death. Not now as blood on the doorposts, but as death to all the old scene, as seen of God.

Both the Red Sea and Jordan are Christ's death; but one is deliverance by sins put away and sin condemned in His death; the other, our dying and resurrection with Him. Ephesian teaching (though connected with this, as to the having put off the old man and put on the new, which is the experimental part of it, that is, our state before God and our sitting in heavenly places in Christ) is not found in the types. That is a wholly new creation when we were dead. There is no type of that. The types give the experimental knowledge of the redemption and deliverance of man.

365 2 Corinthians 4: 10, 11 gives us the practical carrying out of this. (Compare chap. 1: 8, 9.) Verses 14-18 take Ephesian ground. Death is simply death and Christ's death, of which it is expressly said, "In that he died, he died to sin once."

I may add another point which comes before us as regards death, both doctrinally and in the experience of the apostle. In itself death is always simply our being dead with Christ. Its application or effect may vary. It always applies to our relationship with God in nature. But this may be sinful nature in me, so as to be death to sin, or to the law, which was God's measure of conduct or rule of life for us as alive, as children of Adam. This death too closes; or it may apply to the principles of the world, the system that Satan has formed for the scene of the natural life's development and satisfaction without God. Of these we have spoken — and these are the material points, because these are either contrary to God, or that which, applying to man alive in the flesh, brought in death and condemnation; because as God's law it must be such to sinners when brought to bear upon them.

But Christianity is connected with a power, brought into this world of sin, and not belonging to it at all, the power of the Spirit of God, which, besides freeing us from the power of evil as dead in Christ to sin and alive to God, associates us with Christ in the new creation, whether as revealing it in hope, or as setting us in it in Him. "If any man be in Christ (it is) a new creation." There is one to which as such he belongs. "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself." God has "wrought us," for our "house which is from heaven." "We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained."

366 Now the old creation has a double aspect: nature as God made it, and natural relationships which as His own creation God maintains the obligation of, and sustains as good; or, on the other hand, as fallen and in an evil state. Of this last I have spoken. We are delivered from the power of the evil that is in it. But while he who condemns creation in itself, and the relationships God Himself formed (as marriage, parental authority, or the like), or resists what He has established in the midst of evil as authorities to repress it, is an enemy of God, and is led by spiritual evil; yet, supposing power and gift and calling from God, a person may live out of all these by the power which connects him with the new creation. The being in the natural relationships of God's old creation is not evil. It is very evil to say so. I do not speak of authorities now — it involves other questions — but of natural relationships.

But a man may, as a special vessel of the power of the new creation, be disconnected with the natural relationships of the old. Paul knew no man after the flesh. Not that he did not daily need grace, diligence, and even a thorn in the flesh, as others might; but that there was positive power in which he lived above the whole scene through which he moved. He did not merely live as a Christian, keeping his body under, and, we may say in a general and very full sense, out of the evil which corrupted the old creation; but, as to human relationships, out of the old creation as to his course and walk. He was before the world exclusively as a minister of God. But this is a question of power, and even of gift. It is not unconnected with deadness to the whole scene around; but still it is a matter of power and service. It was for the gospel's sake to carry out the activities of God's love more undistractedly in the midst of the evil; he insisting carefully on the other as established of God, being good. A man may live to God in them, acting up to them as of God, though, the power of evil having come in, he has to sit loose to them; 1 Cor. 7: 29. He may in a legal way dread them, as not free to God; or he may, as outside of them, if really free, have nothing to say to them, yet recognize them in their place, because he is free.

The Lord says, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" in His service (John 2: 4), and goes down 12), He and His mother, and His disciples; and on the cross owns her when His service was accomplished, and commits her to the care of the disciple He loved. He could shew that He could appreciate the beauty of the lilies of the field, love the young man who ran up to Him as lovely in character; though He could not occupy Himself with lilies, and detected the sinful root which governed the young man's heart. He could take up children and bless them, though fully recognizing they needed One come to save that which was lost. He could recognize, in a word, what was in nature of God, and manifest what was sin in it, because He was perfectly free from all evil, and it had no power whatever over Him; subject to Mary and Joseph, though conscious He was the Son of the Father. If we have such a place, it must of course be as dead, because sin is in us; but as free, though watchful, because Christ is our life.

367 Hence we can rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep, without a human cause save in others for joy or weeping, but in divine and gracious sympathy. But we must be wholly with Christ to do it truly, yet man to feel it truly as He was. Only in us this supposes us dead to self, for in us self is selfishness. I am "free from all," says the apostle, "that I may be the servant of all."

But this is not Gilgal nor circumcision. That rolls away the reproach of Egypt, puts away the body of the flesh, and deals with sin in ourselves. It needs this that there may be the free activity of God's love, not hindered by it; but there is more in it, the free power of the new creation, based on the cross of Christ; and we being such as we are, and where we are, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies, and delivered to death, too, to test and keep it thorough and effectual, and this where the free power is, and the call of God to it, in having the sentence of death in ourselves, the practical power of the cross, the dying of the Lord Jesus. The first power of this respects sin and the flesh, and the rudiments of the world (compare 1 Pet. 4: 1-3, connected with chap. 3: 18); but, where this calling and free power is, it may go on to being loose from all that might impede its exercise. Where this is not, the attempt to take it up is only monkery, which may be sincere, and will prove that we are not free, but slaves; sometimes with disastrous effects. Where that power is, it is indeed blessed, and the freest fullest service. If we are in the relationship God owns and approves, the duty attaches to us which belongs to us, according to God, with the affections too, only as to self, our own state of soul, the passage quoted from 1 Corinthians 7: 29 is our guide. As to mere natural objects sought, they turn us away (self is then the centre); enjoyed as of God when free, and not sought: God is owned in them. Honey could not be in a sacrifice; on the top of the rod, while pressing on doing "one thing," it may lighten the eyes. But we must be as the true Gideonites — lap the water with our tongue, as a dog lappeth, and not stoop down on our knees to drink. The times too are straitened.

Judgment-seat of God and of Christ

*

J. N. Darby.

<23023E> 369

{*The best editions read in Romans 14: 10, "judgment-seat of God."}

I am not aware that this expression, "the judgment-seat of God" or "the judgment-seat of Christ," is found anywhere else than in Romans 14 and 2 Corinthians 5: in the first of these two passages with a view to prevent individual judgments; in the second with a view to provoke to do good. The subject in itself is one of the most solemn and at the same time most blessed, and this so much the more as we understand it rightly. I believe that each act of our lives will be manifested then before the tribunal, according as the grace of God and His ways with us in connection with our own acts will be known then. We read (Rom. 14) that "every one of us shall give account of himself to God"; and the word, in this passage, mentions the tribunal in connection with the exhortation to brethren not to judge one another in respect of days, meats, or any other such thing.

I am disposed to think that the acts alone will be subject to manifestation; but all the private acts of our life depend so intimately upon our inward feelings, that it is, in a certain sense, difficult to distinguish the acts from the simple thoughts. The acts manifest the power of the thought or of the feeling. I believe that the whole of our acts will be detailed there, before the judgment-seat, not for us however, as if we were in the flesh, and thus to our condemnation, but to make evident to our own eyes the grace that occupied itself with us — regenerate or unregenerate. In the counsels of God I am elect before the foundation of the world; hence I think that my own history will be detailed before the judgment-seat, and, parallel with it, the history of the grace and of the mercy of God toward me. The why and the how we did this or that will be manifested then. For us the scene will be declarative, not judicial. We are not in the flesh before God; in His eyes by His grace we are dead. But then, if we have walked according to the flesh, we must see how we lost in blessing thereby, and what loss we have incurred; and, on the other hand, the ways of God towards us, all ways of wisdom, of mercy, and of grace, will be perfectly known and understood by us for the first time. The history of each one will come out in perfect transparency; it will be seen how you yielded and how He preserved you, how your foot slipped and how He raised you up again, how you were drawing near danger and shame and how He by His own arm interposed.

370 I believe this is the bride making herself ready, and I consider that moment as a wondrous one. There will be no flesh then to be condemned; but the new nature will enter into the full knowledge of the care and of the love, which, in true holiness and in righteousness and even in grace, have followed us step by step all through the running of the race. Some parts of our life, till then entirely unexplained, will be fully disclosed and become altogether plain; some tendencies of our nature, that perhaps we do not judge to be so pernicious and deadly as they are, and for the mortification of which we are perhaps now subjected to a discipline that we may not have interpreted aright, will be then perfectly explained; and, what is more, the very falls that plunge us now into such bitter anguish will be seen then to be that which God used to preserve us from something more terrible. I do not think that until then we shall ever have had a full knowledge of the badness of our flesh.

How blessed for us to know that then it will be not only all over with the flesh in the counsel of God, but that the flesh will no longer be attached to us! On the other side, I doubt not, the manifestation of God's grace toward us individually will be so magnificent that even the sense of the perversity of the flesh that we had, if it could possibly enter there, would be excluded by the greatness of the sense of divine goodness. Why do we not deny and mortify the flesh when we think of that hour? The Lord grant that we may do so more and more to the glory of His grace. This great subject of the judgment-seat brings the soul to a very full knowledge of our individual standing.

Letter on Original Sin

J. N. Darby.

<23024E> 371

My dear brother,

I find in general, that people do not know what they mean by original sin. Is it a taint, an evil in nature, or a relative state with God? For instance it is said, By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.

But it is never said, Christ has put away sin in any sense. He came once in the end of the world to put away sin. But the result is not yet produced. Faith knows it is effectual and rejoices. But the Holy Ghost convicts the world of sin because they believe not in Jesus; so that there they are, sin increased upon them by the death of Christ. But, I repeat, it is never said Christ has put away sin. He has done the work that does it, so that in the new heavens and new earth righteousness will dwell.

Hence my first answer must be the question, What do they mean by original sin? If it be the nature (as for instance in the thirty-nine Articles), it is not put away at all, but condemned in the cross. If it be the relationship and standing of the sinner, it is not changed till he believes. Only the cross is the adequate and glorious ground on which, God being glorified and the blood before His eyes, He can send to every sinner beseeching him to be reconciled; but this proves he is not till he answers to the call.

If it be meant that sins are put away (which is not original sin in any sense), and we remain guilty of unbelief, it is wholly anti-scriptural. The Lord says, "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins"; and Paul, "Let no man deceive you; for because of these things the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience." And men are judged according to their works for the deeds done in the body. Only remember with the vague word "original sin" we must know what they mean. The text generally, I suppose, applied to it is Romans 5: 19. But this says nothing as to putting away. And it is never said Christ has put away sin at all.

Your affectionate brother in Christ, J.N.D.

___________

I cannot answer for letters put in by those who have received them, because the inquiry to which they are an answer may be met most justly by that answer, but does not appear in the answer. But I have more to say. Original sin is theology, and not scripture, and the fruit of men's minds, which have not to be explained but refuted as not the expression of God's In this case it has no really ascertained meaning at all. My explanation of it would be merely my thought; and it is constantly used and said to be put away and used for children's salvation, entirely out of the bounds of scripture; and those who use it do not know what they say or whereof they affirm; and it is very useful for them to know this.

372 Such I judge is the case of your correspondent, though I have no wish or reason to complain of his note. If your correspondent uses the statements of scripture which he quotes and drops the theological expression of original sin, he will be all right. But his letters shew that he has everything to learn on the points he speaks of. He confounds, from the outset and all through, sin and sins, being born of God with forgiveness and divine favour. Speaking of sin in contrast with sins, scripture never speaks of its being forgiven at all, and carefully makes the difference between the two. It is just the vagueness and confusion which is on your correspondent's note which leaves so many souls in confusion and uncertainty, and hinders their progress. Many of your readers know that the Romans treats distinctly, and with diligent care, in two different well-defined parts the question of sins involving guilt, and sin, as the state which is the subject of deliverance, not of forgiveness, giving to each part a statement of resulting blessing. The last phrase of your correspondent's note I totally deny, as wholly erroneous.

J.N.D.

Death for a Christian:

Three letters to a mother and her daughter.

J. N. Darby.

<23025E> 373

No. 1

Dear sister,

Yes, doubtless, the loss of your dear daughter will be a sorrowful blow and a great gap in your family; but in one way or another I have for a long time accustomed myself to death in Christ; and, as far as Christians are concerned, to my mind it comes with smiles — in itself a terrible thing, I fully own, but now a gain. God will have us in the perfect light. For Christ, because of us, the way of life was through death. It is not necessarily so for us, because death is completely overcome; but Christ, who has overcome, is there with us, if we have to take that way to get out of evil and defilement, to enter into the light and perfect joy of His presence. If there is something that has not been settled with God, there may be a painful moment; for the soul must respond to the joy which is prepared for us. But in itself death is only the unclothing of that which is mortal and the passing of the soul into the light, into the presence of Jesus. One leaves that which is defiled and in disorder: what a joy that is? Later on the body will be found again in power and in incorruptible and immortal glory: we have but to wait a little while.

Salute with much affection all your children. I feel truly for them the loss that they are about to sustain. Your dear daughter would have been the joy of any family where she might have been found; she is going to be the joy of that of Christ, for we are entitled to say this. It is a comfort for those who are still journeying here below. God prepares us for heaven by cutting little by little the ties that still attach us, as children of Adam, to earth. Christ takes the place of everything; and thus all goes on well and for the better. May God deign to bless to the whole family this so real sorrow of heart, in which God ever good has mingled with the bitterness of the cup so much of that which is compassionately sparing and gracious.

374 I send this short letter for your daughter; I have been afraid it might be too long; but I feel sure that through the goodness of God she will enjoy this little word, reading it at leisure and when her strength allows of it. She will think of Christ and be refreshed. May God bless you and make you feel His goodness even in this loss.

________

No. 2

Dear M-

I would have much liked to see you once down here before your departure; but He who directs all things with perfect love has ordered it otherwise. You go to heaven before me. Death is not an accident that happens without the will of God; it has no more dominion over us: the risen One holds the keys of it. How immensely blessed to know that He has won a complete and final victory over death and over all that was against us, so that there is entire deliverance! We are delivered, save as to the body, out of the scene where evil has its power, and transported where the brightness of God's countenance ever shines in love, where there is light and love only, where God fills the scene according to the favour that He bears to Christ as to the One who has glorified Him in accomplishing redemption, according to the perfections which were shewn forth through that work.

There was a needs be for God to be manifested in these perfections in answer to the work of Christ; it was due that He should respond to the work of Christ in love, in glory, in the expression of the delight that He found in it. The name of His God and Father in love was unfolded in all its splendour; "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. He then declares that name to His brethren, and Christ praises Him in the midst of the congregation.

This is where I wanted to bring you by these remarks that might otherwise appear somewhat abstract. All this favour shines upon you: what God has been for Christ as man, because Christ glorified God as regards sin that dishonoured Him — what God has been in bringing Christ into His presence in glory, that He is for you, who are the fruit of the travail of His soul. Think of that, dear sister. Moreover, Christ has become infinitely dear to us because of what He has done for us. He gave Himself because He loved unboundedly. There is nothing in Christ that is not yours; He cannot give more than Himself, and what a gift this is!

375 I wrote to you, some time ago, that it is in thinking of Him — of Himself — that one has joy. You are not a joyful Christian. I understand it, I know it: there is discipline in that! Christ has not had the place He ought to have had in your soul. You see, I hide nothing from you. But that is not all: you have not confidence enough in His grace. Own all that might be a cloud between your soul and His love. You do it, I know; but the grace, the deep perfect love of Jesus, the love which is above all our faults, and gave itself for all our sins, the love which took occasion of our very weaknesses to shew its own perfections — of it you do not think enough. That love divine but also personal of the Saviour will fill your heart: Jesus will fill it; and you will be then not only in peace but joyful. I attach more importance to peace than to joy. I would wish to see you habitually in a joy more deep than demonstrative; but if Jesus is in the bottom of your heart, that Jesus who has blotted out all trace of evil in us, in whom we live before God, then your joy will be deep. May it be so.

Oh! that your heart may be filled with Jesus Himself and with His love, and with the sense of His grace. He has saved you, He has washed you, He has become your life, in order that you may enjoy God. What could you have more than Himself? You can see His goodness in the peace that He gives you and in the way in which He surrounds you with such care and affection.

For me, it is only a member of the family going a little before where the whole family will soon dwell. Anywhere else one is only en passage. Soon all will be over for us. How blessed, when every trace of that which has kept us bound in some way or other to this world of misery and evil will have completely disappeared, and when we find ourselves in that light where all is perfect! Therefore trust yourself to His love. I repeat, that He has completely overcome all that is between us and the pure light, as He has perfectly blotted out in us all that which did not suit that light. How good He is! What grace! And you are going to be with Him! How blessed!

Rejoice therefore, dear sister; soon we shall all be there. Yet a little labour and all will be over in the pure glory and in love. You go before us, and in heaven you will have to wait, while the others wait and fulfil their task upon earth.

376 God be with you. May the presence of that faithful and all good Jesus sustain you and rejoice your heart; I trust that such a long letter will not have tired you. I could say many more things yet to you: soon you will know them better than I do; it is a great cause of joy and an immense grace. Peace be unto you. I ask God to bless you, and that does good to one's heart.

___________

No. 3

Dear sister,

So your dear daughter is already in heaven! I thank you, dear sister, for having given me these particulars. Not only did I love her very sincerely, but I also see in her so true a picture of the work of the Spirit in connection with her whole life. When I say "true," I mean that it was not feelings only, such as friends reproduce to enhance the piety of a deceased person, but just what shews a genuine work of God, such as He produces in a soul with the real experiences of that soul. That is worth much more than a few artificial flowers spread over a grave. I feel indeed that the death of your dear daughter will make a great gap in her family, for you and for all. But God disposes of all, and He does all things well. And she is going to be laid (at least, her mortal remains) by her father. Well, they will be raised together. We shall not go much before one another in leaving this world: we shall all be together, blessed be God, when we are raised from the dust. With pleasure I think of that dear brother, that he will awake where there is no care and no pain. He will be near his Saviour, then his daughter with him, and then all the rest, on whom the grave has closed and who have disappeared from this troubled scene.

It seems to me that there is a certain change in my way of feeling touching those who die younger perhaps than I am. There was a time when I used to say to myself, Why, it ought to be your turn, since these go. Now I have more the sense of being dead and of seeing them file off before me to reach the Lord's presence; young or old, what matters it? And I remain here to serve, perhaps until the Lord comes, poor in service (I own), but giving my life to it, and to it alone. Immense privilege! if one only knew how to realize it, a privilege which makes us to be strangers everywhere, and that is, on the whole, a true gain even for the time being.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOL. 7]

Have we a revelation from God?*

J. N. Darby.

<29003E> 60 {file section a.}

{*A Review of Professor Smith's Article 'Bible,' in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' ninth edition.}

It is evidently an all-important question, Have we a revelation from God? a communication of His thoughts on which we can rely? Is there nothing certain, nothing certainly known, nothing which enables me to say, I have God's truth? Have I from God such a revelation of His mind as is authentic and authoritative, such that I can know from Himself what God is?

I cannot trust in man. Man who has not had such a revelation is lost in what degrades human nature. I cannot trust the church or doctors. They too have their history, and what a history it is! — and, in these days they are a reed which, if a man lean on it, breaks and pierces the hand. Where am I to turn to be able to say, Here I have the truth I can love and rest on? Here is what God has given me from Himself? To have this I must have two things: a revelation from God; if every man is a liar, here is truth. But I must have it also communicated authentically to be able to reckon it. It is a matter of fact that men have not known God, nor His character without a revelation. Universal heathenism, civilised and uncivilised, is the witness of it. They have not liked retaining Him in their knowledge when He was revealed to them. It is no use telling me that the worship of Lingam and Yoni, of cats and monkeys and fetishes, is a true knowledge of God. It may prove that man wants a God, that he cannot help having one; but, if so, that he cannot find Him, or will not have Him.

The case then stands thus: I look all around to find God and His truth. The heathen cannot point Him out; I cannot find man among them that is not degraded. He deifies his passions and adds degradation to them.

I am told perhaps, But Plato, does he tell us nothing of God? Well, if I leave the universal heathenism, and enclose myself in the narrow groves of the academy, I find one who teaches the grossest communism, women and all, and makes men and women a mere stock for breeding human beings for the republic, and holds that the supreme God can have no direct communication with the creature; but that it must be by demons, and mediately, perhaps, the logos. He was, with the Rabbinical Jews, strange to say, the inventor of purgatory. The later forms of it brought in Arianism. I cannot find it among Mahometans, nor their paradise of Houris above and the sword below. The Koran, which is on the face of it a wretched imposition — revelations invented for the occasion that called for them — the Koran or the sword is not a revelation of God, save as a judicial scourge of Christendom. The Jews cannot tell me of God, cast out from Him according to their own scriptures. Am I to learn it in the intrigues of the Jesuits, rendering every nation under heaven restless? or in the infallibility of the Pope, which nobody, but grossly ignorant partisans, believes and history gives the lie to? Am I to worship the golden idols of the mother of God set up on steeples and highways where there is power to do so? Is this to be my resting-place?

61 Shall I turn to Protestants? But the mass of teachers amongst them are infidels in most parts. Perhaps I may have the choice of Puseyism or liberalism, or countless opinions and heresies which contradict and destroy each other. Am I told that there is a real consent in the evangelical creeds? I do not quite admit it; Luther did not think so. They all agree in one thing — baptismal regeneration. But if I inquire whether the teachers believe in the formularies they sign — not one of them: they are obsolete. What am I to do? Say with Pilate, What is truth? and wash my hands in despair and give up Christ to His enemies? But we have the word of God to rest on.

Ah, here there is something — God worthily revealed. But — "the most unkindest cut of all" — it is not, I am now told, the word of God. It is a compilation of various traditions and documents some seven or eight centuries after it professes to be written, drawn God knows whence (only not from Him), and by God knows whom; partly a law produced some seven or eight hundred years after it professed to be written, with some of its documents recognised as already existent, perhaps, at that date; professed prophecies put together by some compiler frequently under some name they do not belong to; a long conflict having subsisted between the moral element and the ceremonial or priestly, but the former got the victory in Ezra's time, but only then, though they never had the law as it is till Josiah's time! and yet, strange to say, they got the victory only to fix the nation in ceremonialism and the authority of priestly tradition in which it had never been before! Besides the two chief documents, however, from which the early history is compiled, and other parts suited to them by the compiler, another author has been discovered whose writings are intermingled with the two chief ones, and whose object is to attach importance to the progenitors of northern Israel. Prophets claim an intuition coming from God; still their great object was not future events.

62 Such are the scriptures. They are, if we are to believe these learned men, not the word of God, but an uncertain compilation flowing from the progress of Israel's history, partly from priests, under whom the laws grew up, never complete till Ezra, partly from prophets contending with their principles (not, mind, with their sins against God or their breaches of the law, it was not formed yet), partly from lay life in the midst of the people. These are the factors (that is the word) of the Old Testament. As to the New: well, four epistles may be Paul's, the expression of the higher spiritual life in the Christian; the rest spurious or doubtful, and much of it comparatively a modern attempt to reconcile the Pauline and Petrine factions in the church, or a late fruit of Alexandrian philosophy and reveries or Jewish symbolism.

It is no great wonder if a very large body of the French Protestant clergy declared they would sign nothing, no apostles' creed, nor anything else; they supposed men would have to believe something, but they did not know what it was yet; and the poor laity, not so learned, but more of babes, said, as I know them to have done, "Pourtant, si nous sommes des Chretiens, il nous faut un Christ quelconque" (Well, but if we are Christians, we must have some kind of Christ). Such is the point to which what is called the church has brought us. Not now priestly ceremonies and traditions combated and corrected by prophets professing divine intuition, but priestly and ecclesiastical ceremonies and traditions bringing weariness to the spirit (where it does not rush to popery as a refuge), merging into heartless and flippant infidelity, living in a speculative pseudo-historical outside, without one spiritual apprehension of the divine substance of what lies at their door and before their heart — speculations which last some twenty years or so, first Paulus' gross denial of miracles and resurrection, then Strauss with his mythical Christ, and then Baur and the Tubingen school, the false speculative fancies of which are already judged and given up;* and now the later forms of these and De Wette and the like, warmed up anew for Scotland; as the English in such things generally do when they have passed their day in their native country.

{*That I may not be thought from scriptural prejudice to overstate the judgment formed on Baur's theory, I may refer to a laudatory article on Baur in the columns of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," in which the article of Professor Smith which has given rise to these remarks is found. "Unhappily," so the article closes, "his own opinions were influenced, not merely by his study of facts, but by a great speculative system which dominated his intelligence and prevented him from seeing," etc.}

63 It is admitted that Professor Smith has exaggerated what a child may see in Scripture, and, I add, through ignorance of Scripture not understood it, and that his system as to the books of the New Testament cannot hold water. I shall be told that for all this Astruc's theory and Baur's reasoning have produced an immense effect. They have, in those not taught of God; not in substituting any certain system, but in turning lifeless dogmatism into speculative infidelity and scepticism.

And where is the word of God? Where it always was, as light is in the sun. Men may have found olive leaves, and these be broken up into small patches of light, or hang over the spots in a way not to be explained. It may be found that the spots are coincident with auroras and magnetic disturbances; but those who have eyes walk, as they ever did, in its full and clear divinely-given light. It shines as it ever did, and the entering in of the word gives light and understanding to the simple. They have a nature that can estimate it in the true character God gave it, which these learned men have not; for He hides these things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes. "They shall be all taught of God," is the declaration of the Lord and the prophet for those who can hear.

That the Old Testament scriptures were collected into their present form a good while before the Lord was on earth, no one is interested in contesting; indeed, far from it, for Christ owns the divisions which now exist. Attributed to the great Sanhedrim, on (it is said) insufficient ground, or referred to Ezra, they were at any rate so collected; though Mr. Smith slurs it quickly over to refer to doubts as to Esther. Josephus is very express. There are not, he tells us, a multitude of books, but just twenty-two: that they had histories and writings after Artaxerxes, but these had not the same authority, they were not tested by prophets. That the books were collected, we can thank God for. Whether the history of Ruth be connected with Judges, or the Lamentations with Jeremiah, or relegated to the Ketubim, is of no sort of consequence. Their place in the history is plain upon the face of them. It is not to the believer a question who wrote Ruth. He receives them as the word of-- God. God is their author. It is, as Matthew expresses it, upo Kuriou dia tou prophetou — of the Lord by the prophet. It is also true that, in collecting the books, short notes may have been added, such as, There they are to this day, or other brief note of the kind. Such there are, interesting as divinely-given history, but in no way affecting the revelation. The book clearly shews that as a whole it is inspired and ordered in its structure by God; and when all this was done to make it a whole, this divine ordering of God's hand and wisdom may be in such notes as elsewhere. The question is, Is this book given to us of God as a revelation, given to us as it is? Is what is in it revealed of God, or man's thoughts?

64 The book professes to be an account of all God's ways from the creation (and even in purpose before it) till the Lord comes, and even to the end of time, till God can say gegone, It is done; I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. It professes further to give us a revelation of the Father in the Son. Is this immense undertaking a revelation of God? or a development of national life in a little petty nation, for our learned men can see no more? No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Is this a revelation of God or not? That is, is the account I have of it of God, as God has given it to us? for otherwise it is no revelation to me or to anyone else.

Serious questions these: the very undertaking proves its source. Had man done it, what should we have had? What have we outside this wondrous book? Their theory is, it is an imposture; for giving statements hundreds of years later than their alleged date, as if all were written by inspiration at that date is an imposition, and this from a nation constantly running into idolatry, and condemned by the book! And further (can any but learned men be blessed with such credulity?) persuading the people whom the forgers were condemning by it, that they had always had this law as a law from God Himself, when, if these doctors and the Josiah theory be true, they never had had it at all, it was brand new, or some old traditions furbished up from different old documents for the occasion; and remark further — for this we must now look into — that Christ and His apostles either from God confirmed the delusion, or deceived the people, and all those they taught, on purpose! That an imposture, moreover, is the holiest production that ever appeared in the world, bearing to every one that has any moral sensibilities a divine stamp upon it, which nothing else in the world has! Credat Judaeus Apelles. As Rousseau said, It would have been a greater miracle for man to invent such a life as Christ's, than to be it.

65 I will touch on some of the grounds they build their theory on; but I first turn to the book itself. First of all, it is treated as a whole by Christ and His apostles as having a well-known and specific character. "The scripture cannot be broken," John 10: 35. "Then opened he their understanding, that they should understand the scriptures," Luke 24: 45. "Search the scriptures," John 5: 39. They were a recognised collection which the Lord owned; and, yet more precisely, owned as we have them now and the Jews had them then. "All things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets and in the Psalms, concerning me." Here is the Torah, Nebiim, and the Ketubim — the three divisions which the Jews distinguish by the Gradus Mosaicus, Gradus Propheticus, and the Bath-Kol: in the two first, authorised by Numbers 12: 6-8; the latter human, in which their idea is that the writer, though inspired, expressed the sentiments animating his own mind, not knowing that all that was contained in it was the mind of the Holy Ghost; which is doubtless true often in such books as the Psalms.

Christ owned, then, what we call the Old Testament, and owned it as we and the Jews have it. But He goes farther; He owns them according to their present character and authors. "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?" (John 7: 19.) "Moses, therefore, gave you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers" (v. 22). There is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust; for had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John 5: 45-47). "If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken," chap. 10: 35. This alludes to the Judges being called Elohim in Hebrew; they shall bring him to the "judges" being very commonly Elohim, god or gods." Abraham said unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead," Luke 16: 29-31. How true it has been with these poor Jews and these unhappy infidels! Christianity and the resurrection of the Lord are of no avail if Moses and the prophets are not believed, and believed in their writings, for surely they had them. "He wrote of me. If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"

66 Remark further here that Septuagint translations, the "Compiler's" additions, and all that these speculators allege, were there then the same as now, the same collection, the collection as we have it; and Christ owned and insisted on the authority of that, and that as being Moses' writings.

But further, after His resurrection, not even when dealing with Jews who owned them, but of and from Himself for His disciples, the risen Lord, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself," Luke 24: 27. Think of the risen Christ expounding to His disciples a set of ill-compiled and contradictory old documents, pretended to be Moses and the prophets! But this is not all; they will say perhaps — for what will the folly of learned infidelity not say? — they were only the things concerning Himself which He selected. "These are the words which I spake unto you while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written." Ah! the written word is what He valued. Only just think of the risen Lord opening with divine power His disciples' understanding to understand a spurious compilation professing to be written by Moses and others! That He should do so that we might understand the divine word, we can well conceive, and, if taught of God, we know the need of it; but to do it for an imposition, pretending to be what it is not, an infidel speculator alone would believe. But the "unjust knoweth no shame."

Again, the Lord recognises the prophets as we have seen, and specifies the one most called in question, Daniel, "the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet." The reading is called in question in Mark, but not in Matthew, and the reading in Mark confirms the genuineness in Matthew, and further recognises the commandments as given by Moses to be spoken by God: for God commanded saying, Honour thy father and thy mother (Matt. 15: 4); and again Isaiah (v. 7), Well did Esaias prophesy concerning you, saying. This is in the first part. But He takes up also the second part of the "Great Unnamed." There was delivered to Him the book of the prophet Esaias, and when He had opened the book He found the place where it was written (ah! that is the word), The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . . . And He began to say, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. He was content to accept it as Isaiah, and affirms, what is of far more importance, and only really so, that it was of God Himself; Luke 4: 17-21. In the same chapter He authenticates the books of Kings and the history of Elijah and Elisha. He indirectly authenticates again the last part Or Isaiah (Luke 7: 27) in the prophecy of John Baptist; Isa. 40: 3. I need hardly quote more passages.

67 The discourses, life, and outgoings of the Lord's soul, though going necessarily far beyond it, and shewing it was to be set aside, as under the old covenant, for the accomplishment of far more glorious counsels, that the law and the prophets were until John, since then the kingdom of heaven was preached — the whole discourses and life of Jesus, I repeat, if the Gospels be read in simplicity of heart will be found interwoven with the truth of the law and the prophets as they are presented to us in ordinary Bibles, authenticating them as they are, so that you must tear away all the revelation of Christ in them to remove the authority of the law and the prophets. He did not come to destroy, but to fulfil them. Fulfil what? A poor compilation of Ezra's time, or fragmentary documents made up by man, gradually grown up into a law unknown at the beginning? or the word of God given by inspiration to Moses and those whom Jehovah had sent? He was born in Bethlehem, because by God's will the prophet had said so. He dies, because if not, how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be? Till heaven and earth passed, not one jot or one tittle would in anywise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.

I may turn then to the servants of Christ when He had been rejected, the apostles and writers of the New Testament. The apostles, those authorised and sent by Him to announce Christian truth, and inspired by the Holy Ghost for this service, and the other inspired writers of the New Testament affirm, or which in a certain aspect is stronger, assume, everywhere that the Old Testament, as we and the Jews (enemies of Christianity, but in this witnesses with it) have it, is an inspired record, written by those to whom it is ascribed, and given of God. I can understand that the Baurs and Smiths (who, as rocks that, originating nothing, can only repeat a sound) echo them, thinking themselves more competent to tell us what Christianity and the truth is than Christ and His apostles. I have met such, men who did not scruple to say so, though checked somewhat by the scandal so speaking of Christ gave; I have met them in Europe and the United States; but all are not quite fit for that yet. Such thoughts are soon sunk in the deep sea of lifeless infidelity.

68 Let us inquire then what the apostles or others do say. And first I will take what are called the great Epistles of Paul, what Baur takes as the sure ground of historical Christianity. To begin with the Romans, though chronologically the last of the four, Paul, he tells us, was separated to the gospel of God which He had promised before by the prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, made of the seed of David according to the flesh. Here holy Scriptures, holy writings, are owned; the prophets are God's prophets; and the whole system announced by them of the promise to the seed of David running through the prophetic writings and Psalms, from Samuel and all the prophets, is fully and clearly owned. Paul founds his own teaching on them, aiding of course the fact of the resurrection. What advantage had the Jews? Much every way, but chiefly what? That unto them were committed the oracles of God. Such were these holy writings. The special blessing, and they had many, was that they had the oracles of God. Poor Paul! to be so dark, untaught, as I have heard such say, by modern science. But what was the force of this? Man's unbelief could not make the faith of God of none effect. These oracles were so thoroughly of God that His faithfulness was involved in them, in making them good. But He shews Jews and Gentiles all under sin. How is that? It is written; chap. 3: 10. The Psalms and Isaiah are warrant for the assertion, and as to the text, the "Great Unnamed" has the passage; Isa. 59. It may be wearisome to quote so many texts; yet they shew that it was not a mere quotation to support a point, but that the apostles lived in, and based their teaching on, what modern rationalists deny.

69 What (Romans 4) saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, etc. Here Genesis is authenticated as the scripture, the word of God. Next David describeth the blessedness of this man. Here the Psalms are authenticated. Again, in chap. 5: 14, it is Genesis 5. Death reigned from Adam to Moses. This was until the law. Here the whole history of Genesis as to the fall of Adam under a law as to the forbidden fruit, no law till Moses, but death reigning by Adam's fall, then the law being given by Moses changing the ground on which man stood, not as to sin and death, but as to transgression, when there was (as in the two cases of Adam and Moses) an actual law, is treated not merely as a Jehovistic or Elohistic fragmentary compilation, but as God's account of man's whole moral standing with Himself till grace was rejected in the gospel, prophesied of indeed, but now actually meeting man's need as taught by the apostle in this Epistle, which, precious as it is, it is not my business to enter into now.

I pass over some passages confirmatory of this use of the Old Testament, and stop for a moment at chapter 9. Here Israel are dear to him as having law and promises, and even Christ as concerning the flesh. But where was all this shewn to be so when they were a rejected people? Not as though the word of God had taken none effect; and then all the history of Genesis is treated as the word of God, and the account in Exodus is cited, first, as declaring that God spoke to Moses, and then as to the history of Pharaoh. And here it is as Scripture says it. This is for Paul the same as God saying it. Next Hosea is cited as the word of God. "He saith in Osee." Esaias also crieth, quoted as of the same authority as God speaking in Osee: and this estimate of Scripture we shall find uniform. If he quotes the law (chap. 10), Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law. And here note Deuteronomy is quoted as what Moses says. For the learned men this is the Deuteronomic law first recognised by Jeremiah in Josiah's time! Perhaps from the latest hand of all, at least if we are to believe Graf. But farther it appears that the "Great Unnamed" was for Paul Isaiah himself. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? (Isa. 53). Then Deuteronomy is again quoted as written by Moses, and the "Great Unnamed" again as Esaias, who is very bold; Isa. 65. Then we have the book of Kings authenticated; Rom. 11. God has not cast away His people. How can I know this is God's mind? Wot ye what the scripture saith of Elias? . . . But what saith the answer of God unto him? I can reckon on the scripture as giving me God's mind and purpose. So if Israel be blinded for a time it is written (chap. 11: 8), quoting Deuteronomy 29: "And David saith": so the Psalms were a true testimony of God to what was going to happen. Again in Romans 15 we find Deuteronomy quoted as "He"; that is, in the formula of quotation, the scripture is God speaking. The Psalms and Isaiah himself are quoted as the word of God.

70 In Corinthians, a book of church details, the quotations are not so many, but it shews that Scripture is taken for granted as divine. The law is the law of Moses (chap. 9: 9); and this is God's mind, taken for granted as being so. "Doth God take care for oxen?" What Moses taught was what God taught. The history of the Exodus and the wilderness was God's history of His people, and His dealings with them recorded for our instruction; 1 Cor. 10: 1-14. Again (chap. 11: 9), the creation of Adam and Eve (Gen. 2) is quoted as a divine account sufficient to build moral duties on. In chapter 15: 54, 55, Isaiah and another of the prophets are quoted as fulfilled in resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 3 the account of Moses veiling his face is quoted from Exodus as shewing the true character of the law, and Israel's state.

Galatians gives us the same testimony. Take chapter 3. The Pentateuch is referred to as a sure and certain testimony for faith, and Scripture spoken of as God Himself, being His word. "The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith," than which nothing can be stronger as to the inspired apostle's estimate of it. Nor is this all. The teaching of Genesis, and promises there made and confirmed (Gen. 12 and 22), and the history of Mount Sinai, are taken in their order as the basis of God's ways. A promise made unconditionally could not be disannulled or modified by additions 430 years after, and all this identified with its fulfilment in Christ in due time. The place the law holds in God's ways, and the epochs of it, are made the basis of his argument, and of the true character of Christianity. The promise was what God gave, Christ was its fulfilment, the law came in between, 430 years after the promise, added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made. What for the rationalist is an uncertain compilation of uncertain fragments, the development of national life, is for the inspired apostle the orderly revelation, as it is given in our Bibles, of God's ways, His own revelation of them historically, so as to form the basis of the true character of Christianity which was in question among the Galatians. The accounts of Hagar and Sarah are for him sure ground to stand upon. Nor has he ever any other thought. If he answers to King Agrippa, he spoke none other things than those which the prophets, and Moses in the law, did say should come. Finally, we find in 2 Timothy 3 a formal testimony to the holy Scriptures, when the church should have the form of godliness and deny the power, with the direct declaration that all Scripture was given by inspiration of God.

71 John gives us the formal testimony that the law was given by Moses; and John the Baptist's declaration, quoting the latter part of Isaiah as being of him, and himself the fulfilment of it, as a sure prophecy, and of God. "Moses in the law and the prophets did write" is recorded as a known and received truth; the Psalms equally so. In chapter 2 "the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness; chap. 3. What Moses gave (the manna) was not the true bread from heaven; where Exodus and the Psalms are alike authenticated. "It is written in the prophets" is sufficient for the Lord Himself; not a bone was broken, that the scripture might be fulfilled; and His side was pierced that another scripture might be fulfilled, quoting Isaiah. They shall look on Him whom they have pierced; chap. 19.

Peter on the day of Pentecost rests on the authority of Joel, of David in Psalm 16; Acts 2. Moses it was who promised the prophet like himself; chap. 3. Yea, Samuel and all the prophets had spoken of those days, and all the holy prophets are brought in declaring the future blessing that was to come, the heavens receiving Jesus till then. Psalm 2 was being fulfilled; chap. 4: 25.

Peter formally declares that the Spirit of Christ was in the prophets, who studied their own prophecies to know what He (1 Pet. 1: 11) did signify in them, and quotes Isaiah, what is contained in the scripture, as of sure authority, warranting what was going on; chap. 2: 6. He accepts the account of the flood in Noah; chap. 3: 20.

72 The Gospel of Matthew, which specially presents Christ to us as the Messiah of the promises, Emmanuel, on His rejection, the substitution of the kingdom in mystery (chap. 13), the church (chap. 16), the kingdom in glory (chap. 17), bases, I may say, all its statements on the testimonies of the old prophets. Christ is Son of David, Son of Abraham. So numerous are the quotations that I can only notice the formal character of them, and one or two in particular. The formal character is spoken of (upo) the Lord by (dia) the prophet, a definite assertion of their true character. He quotes some as giving the events happening, ina "in order that" the prophecy might be fulfilled, opos "so that" there was a fulfilment, tote "then" when it is only a case in point. The latter part of Isaiah is "Esaias the prophet."

I need hardly quote more from the writers of the New Testament, besides a multitude of allusions in those I have referred to, to shew that Christ and the apostles accepted the Bible as we have it (I mean the collection of the books of the Old Testament as a whole) as of divine authority, as the word of God, inspired, and of absolute authority with them. It is that by which the Lord overcame Satan, to which Satan resorted to cover his guile. Man had to live by every word which proceeded out of the mouth of God.* Such is Scripture to the believer by its own intrinsic authority, and the words of Christ and the apostles carry an evidence which no cavils of infidelity can shake, while they call themselves Christians: and the authority of Christ Himself and of the apostles weighs more than the speculations of men, based by each on some new fancy of his own, and though helping on infidelity as it passed and the ruin of man's hopes, passing away with the influence -of the mental energy which created it. I only, in addition, beg my reader to remark that these quotations authenticate the writings and the writers, and the writings as being those of the writer whose name they bear, as well as the truths contained in them as given of God, and that with the authority of Christ and His apostles.

{*This, as all the Lord's replies to Satan, is quoted from Deuteronomy, as the word of God — words proceeding out of God's mouth, sufficient for Him, and sufficient to leave Satan without reply.}

We are left then, according to this system, with no certainty at all as to any truth of God. Objectors have subtilly spoken of authority, but there is no certainty. Not even the statements of the Lord Jesus and the apostles give us any; and, if not, these are uncertain and unauthoritative too, and we are left to the dark mists of infidelity and a world which has historically proved itself wicked and blind, without one sure communication from God.

73 Before I turn to the more interesting and instructive proofs of the unity of the Old Testament from internal proofs, it may be well to consider for a little the article which gives occasion to these comments. It seems to me slovenly both in substance and in form. On the latter I need not dwell; but when a writer tells us of Jesus speaking of the new dispensation founded on His death as a New Covenant, citing 2 Corinthians 11: 25, I am justified in saying it is slovenly. I thought this might be a misprint, but I really cannot make out to what he refers. No scripture ever calls this dispensation a new, or the new covenant, though we get all the blessing of it spiritually. Christ's blood in the institution of the Lord's supper is called the blood of the new covenant; and Paul (2 Cor. 3) says He was a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. But this does not call for protracted notice.

But, though the writer speaks of Genesis, having lost sight of the divinely-given use of the Old Testament, all resolves itself into the development of a little nation, with a national God, and more or less priestly superstition. But in Genesis we have the history of the world from the creation to Israel's going down into Egypt and his death, with all the great principles of God's relationship with man, except what are properly dispensational. There is not the law, nor the church, the two great subjects of God's ways afterwards for heaven and on earth. But leaving them aside, you have all the great root-principles of man's state and relationship with God, and in promise the cradle of all his hopes. Of these we must expect no trace in these heartless systems, but Elohistic and Jehovistic fragments, and interweaving by a compiler, one referring to the priestly party in Israel, the other not; why put together by the compilers, we are not told; but of the state and interests of man, or the glory and purposes of God — though both, as we have seen, are fully wrought into the New Testament as the basis of eternal truth — no hint, no trace. Man fallen, a world judged (a story to which Christ sets His seal), Christ promised, Israel's hopes founded, and their apostasy, and God's deliverance of them foretold, all in vain. Grace and judgment, and all God's ways, Christ promised and come and unfolding them, as did also the apostles, in all their momentous bearings, must give way to Ewald's "Geschichte," and Mr. Newman's "Hebrew Monarchy," and Baur, and Hupfeld, and Mr. Smith, in speculations which only shew they can see nothing where God has, in its germ, laid down everything that casts light upon a ruined world (for a ruined world it is), and God's dealings in grace with it.

74 But it is only fair to shew that the statements are slovenly: perhaps flimsy or superficial would be a more correct word. The theory is that there was a gradual development of the law. From Joshua to Samuel national feeling was much weaker than tribal jealousy. That there was a general dissolution, through idolatry and all seeking their own, is true, and Ephraim claimed a place hardly owned by others; but this broke out far worse afterwards even in David's time, and after Solomon's death divided the kingdom.

During the time of the Judges, we are told, the sanctuary and priesthood of the ark was the chief centre of monotheism. Of course it was at all times; there could be no other. There was no mercy-seat but there; there could be no day of atonement without it. Samuel, it is said, was by education a priest; but it was as prophet, not as priest, he accomplished his work. He never was a priest, and could execute no priestly office. Afterwards, to shew the progress, we are told that he fully sanctioned Exodus 20: 24, and did not act on Deuteronomy 33: 19. All this is utter neglect of both the letter and the mind of Scripture. There was no sanctuary at all during Samuel's activity. A tremendous judgment had fallen on Israel. Jeremiah refers to it (chap. 7) as prognostic of what would happen to Jerusalem.

There are three offices, as is often said, through which God has to do with His people — prophet, priest, and king. The priesthood, which was set to guide even Joshua, had utterly failed. Eli died broken-hearted, his two sons slain, and the ark of God taken. There was no restoration of the ark till the king restored it, though God sustained His own glory. The link of the people with God on the ground of their own responsibility, with priestly mediation, was entirely broken: no day of atonement, it could not be; Ichabod was written on it all. God had "delivered his strength into captivity; his glory into the enemy's hand." But a prophet is sovereign interference, and God could not be debarred this, and He had prepared Samuel as He had prepared Moses. Samuel maintained the worship of Jehovah as an acknowledged prophet and judge. But as a system the people failed here too, and demanded a king; and God gave them a king in His anger, and took him away in His wrath. Then God by Samuel called David, who became king and brought back the ark, but to Zion, not to the tabernacle; which was no longer at Shiloh, but at Gibeon, without any ark or mercy-seat at all; it was not owned by David. Solomon went there; but David, guided as he was and taught of God, placed singers at the ark to say "His mercy endureth for ever."

75 In spite of all their sins, power in grace had wrought restoration. The record is repeated in Nehemiah of the same faithfulness of God, and in the closing psalms, predictive of Israel's future blessing, prepared to be sung with greater testimony to its truth than ever, after Jerusalem has received at the hand of the Lord double for all her sins (Isa. 40: 2), and that in the kingly power of Christ in grace. Hence, in Hebrews Zion is contrasted with Sinai, the place of the law and the old covenant. Such is the scriptural statement of the matter. The thoughts about Samuel and the difference of the altars overlooks the whole real history of Israel at that time. Samuel acted with prophetic authority when there was no ark, and the whole priestly order was judicially set aside. The prophets did refer to the moral state of the people largely, but prophesied of a Messiah to come and grace for Israel and a new covenant. But God owned no covenant as the old covenant, but what He had made with Israel in coming out of Egypt. This is what is expressly referred to.

There is no thought of a development of religious ordinances from a relatively crude and imperfect state. The prophets recalled Israel to a well-known system: but it will be found that the blessings and judgments in Judah, which still owned the temple and Jehovah, were invariably dependent on the conduct of the king, under whom they were placed, and on whose conduct blessing or the contrary depended. We are told, indeed, that the proof of the development view "cannot here be reproduced." It is a pity: still the author does his best. I only remark that, while there was progressive prophetic light, the kings ordered the details of priestly service, as David did, and was inspired for it. As a system, the headship of the priest was given up in Shiloh, though not their exclusive service. We are told that the prophets, when they failed to produce immediate reformation, began from the eighth century, if not earlier, to commit their oracles to writing. Reformation of what? Who were these prophets? The eighth century was Hezekiah's reign. This was about four hundred years from Samuel. There were from time to time prophets who gave warnings; but what reformation were they attempting? All this is fable. David set up the new system, and "Solomon built him a house." Ten tribes went off because of the folly of the king, had no priests but false ones, and afterwards two most remarkable prophets, who wrought miracles authenticating their mission; which the Jewish ones did not, because Jehovah was publicly owned, and the whole system they recalled Israel to was fixed long ago, and owned by the people. The reforming prophets from Samuel to the eighth century is a fancy of the writer's. The former prophets (Samuel, and Kings) give us the history, and this was what God meant them to do. That they were the chroniclers is often repeated and easily shewn.

76 But to return to inquire for the proofs of the development of crude ordinances: if I read Exodus and Leviticus, they may be wise or not, yet they are not crude but elaborately detailed, and, if true at all, framed according to a pattern shewn on the mount. If they were not established by Moses, the whole history is a fable, utterly false from beginning to end; for "Jehovah said unto Moses" is the emphatic authority, save a few to Aaron, where it was special priestly service in what was established; and, I ask, was the pattern shewn on the mount a crude thing, to be developed by Moses? But the proofs — An altar of earth or unhewn stone is commanded, if they made one (Exod. 20), and this Samuel did when there was no priestly service and Shiloh was judged, and so did Elijah when Israel had left the temple. It guarded against idolatrous imagery. But we are reminded that God was to put His name in one place, according to Deuteronomy, and so He did, and faithful kings were constantly destroying the high places (for planting trees was equally forbidden), thinking to bring back things to order, not to make progress or develop. In Exodus 20 He speaks of recording His name in a place, and there He would meet them — blessed promise! But the next thing in the same book is the history of the tabernacle, to which in the wilderness they were bound to bring every animal they killed in the camp or out of the camp, under pain of death; and in the same Jehovistic account, if you will have it so, they are to appear before Jehovah at the three great feasts. Talking of development as to this is really nonsense: the earthen altar is the first ordinance given — a development, I suppose, of the crude details of the tabernacle given after; and then we jump to Samuel!

77 The quotation of Deuteronomy 33 is a prophecy of the last days of Israel in the blessing of Moses, the man of God. Even so they call the people to the mountain. What mountain? There they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness. Why should it not be the mountain of Jehovah's house established on the top of the mountains? This is a prophecy for the last days too. In Deuteronomy we have the three great feasts, and their going to the appointed place obligatory, and images and groves forbidden — all Jehovistic. The full directions as to going to the place where God had set His name are in Deuteronomy 12, when the Lord should have given them rest, and what they might eat at home and what not. But this had been even more strictly imposed in the camp, because in the land the distance might be too great, an altar of brass being made in the same book and place according to the pattern shewn on the mount.

Deuteronomy is a peculiar book, penned evidently for the confusion that might be found in Israel when scattered about the land. The Levites hold a much more considerable place, and the people. The Levites are not priests, as the article says, but the priests are very rarely mentioned, and provision made for this state of things, yet anything but development of ordinances. It is for the land entirely; Exodus and Leviticus, with very rare exceptions, exclusively for the wilderness. Probably, from what Amos and Stephen say, not one sacrifice, unless the regular daily ones, was ever offered. The history, though doubtless their duty then, is one of types, and written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are come; and though this be said of their history, yet the types of the sacrifices and the like are precious to every one that knows Christ. He knows Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us; he knows what Pentecost prefigured; and if intelligent in the things of God, what Tabernacles are too, not yet fulfilled; but to these things I will revert. Thank God, they were perfect at first, and only properly so then. All was made according to the pattern shewn to Moses on the mount. Rationalists may despise the New Testament too, and despise Alexandrian Epistles to the Hebrews; but we have not yet learnt that the most wonderful display of grace, holiness, and wisdom, wrought into a whole that none can rend, is only an imposture.

78 But the other proofs? — Ezekiel's temple. This is instruction for the restoration, not the historical one. Then instead of Jehovah-Shammah and the prince, they were miserable captives to the kings God had set over them in His anger; at least so Nehemiah thought. It is prophecy for a time after Gog is destroyed, so that all the nations may know that Jehovah is Israel's God, who had led them into captivity, and brought them out, and left none of them there at all. For there will be such days, let rationalists think what they like. It is a prophecy; in nothing an historic proof of any development made after the Exodus. When Ezra fixed the legal state of Israel, he did not fix Ezekiel's temple. This is really child's-play, fit only for rationalists. This, the writer tells us, is his "clearest proof," unless we may suppose the unreproduced ones may be.

But there remains yet one as to which the writer makes a pretty round assertion — Josiah's book. "The legislation of this book does not correspond with the old law in Exodus, but with the book of Deuteronomy." So it is stated. I must suppose he refers to there being one place of worship; but this was more strictly fixed in Exodus when the tabernacle was set up (that is, at first) than in Deuteronomy, only one for the land, the other for the wilderness. But of the contents of the book there is not one word in the Kings. I do not exclude from what Josiah says Deuteronomy more than Exodus or Leviticus, in which last we have the most terrible threatenings of all (see chap. 26). Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, and his heart was tender; but he had no idea of a new book or a new law. It was the book of the law that was found. In the long reign of Manasseh it had been utterly neglected; but he speaks of it as no new thing. "Great is the wrath of Jehovah that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book."

I have now completed the consideration of the produced proofs of the development of crude ordinances under the law. Rebellion, idolatry, desertion of Jehovah, gracious dealings on His part, and "hewing" them by prophets there was, and growing light as to Messiah; a new order of the details of service as to song and temple service by inspiration through David; a provision for walk in the land and failure in Deuteronomy; but of development from the pattern shewn in the mount not a trace. The writer tells us Ezra came with "the book of the law of Moses." Yet, according to him, it was not the law of Moses; but, if the Pentateuch be not all false, an improved code on what God had established by Moses. How "a nation which had attained a high degree of literary culture" was to be enlightened "in spite of the crass and unspiritual character of the mass of the people," I may leave to rationalists to explain. It is grammatico-historical exegesis, I suppose. Was I unjust in saying the article was superficial in form and substance?

79 I refer to one passage more. He alleges 1 Samuel 8: 7 as contradicting Deuteronomy 17. But how God in anger, as Himself rejected and giving the people their own way and telling them how it would turn out, is a contradiction of a statement of how it ought to be done, is beyond me. If my reader is not weary of such futilities, I am; they are characteristically rationalist.*

{*The allegation, that "there are six laws as to the passover, which, if not really discordant, are at least so divergent in form and conception that they cannot be all from the same pen," is another of these careless assertions without a shadow of foundation. In the first place, they are not all of the passover, but some of unleavened bread, which, though connected, was a different feast, and the difference morally important; and in two cases specially connected with the consecration of the firstborn. As to the rest, we have the historical account in Exodus, and reference to it when the three great feasts are particularly directed to be kept. How these are divergent, my reader must find out; I cannot. It will be found that in Exodus 13 there is no special additional direction as to the firstborn and unleavened bread, and no law as to the passover at all. So in chapter 34: 18. Moreover, they are all Jehovistic; so that the Jehovistic and Elohistic documents, as of two definite authors, come to nothing. But the statement is ridiculous, a proof of the folly and levity of all that is alleged. See page 135.}

I may turn to Astruc's and his followers' Jehovistic and Elohistic documents. According to Mr. F. Newman, they can be separated by mechanical means — a pair of scissors, for instance. With this I agree. It is an apposite statement. They can be separated with nothing else. But are these learned men incapable of making a difference between God abstractedly as a supreme and self-existing Being, and a relative name in which He makes Himself known to men, so as to be in special relation with them? My father is a man; but, besides that, he is my father without ceasing to be a man. Supposing I took the New Testament and said there must be two documents which scissors could separate because He is called God and Father? But Father is given as a relative name in the New Testament as much as Jehovah in the Old.

80 Abstractedly I have no objection to more documents than one, provided I have the result from "the mouth of God"; but in their reasonings after Astruc I see no proof of anything else than the absence of moral or any sense, and that, being empty in mind of divine truth, this fancy of Astruc's was one they could spin cobwebs out of. What fly but a rationalist would be caught by Hupfeld's third author of the northern party, and Mr. Smith's curious remark on it — "His literary individuality is, in truth, sharply marked, though the limits of his contributions to the Pentateuch are obscure"? This is strange! "literary individuality sharply marked, but the limits of the contributions obscure": their character is sharply marked, but it is obscure where they begin and end. Who will explain this for me?

But how does Scripture present the subject? God is God, but God has entered into relationship with men. These relationships are fourfold in Scripture, all referring to God abstractedly as such: El Shaddai (God Almighty); Jehovah (unhappily translated in English LORD in capitals, as a rule; better in French, l'Eternel); rather, which, save in mere figures, is entirely a New Testament name; and Elion, Most High, which, while revealed in promise is God's millennial name, — and will be displayed as possessor of heaven and earth, all antagonistic power being set aside. And these are clearly thus set forth in Scripture, though the last be less clearly, as being yet future.

The two first are expressly distinguished. Thus Exodus 6: 2, 3: "And Elohim said unto Moses, I am Jehovah; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." Not that He was not Jehovah, but He did not give Himself this name in His ways with them. (See Genesis 17, 28 and 32.) With Israel He was then Jehovah, as the great question was settled on Mount Carmel; "Jehovah, he is Elohim.

With Christians, the Son Himself being come, the Father is revealed, as the Lord Himself says (John 17): "I have manifested thy name to the men thou gavest me out of the world . . . . Holy Father, keep through thine own name . . . . And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." So Paul: "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Blessed privilege! peculiar to those to whom, through faith in Jesus, He has given the title to take the place of sons, for we are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

81 The first time we get Most High is when Melchisedek comes to meet Abraham. Not that God was not ever the Most High, but He had not taken it as a revealed name with His people on the earth. Here was a greater than Abraham, who blesses him after his full victory over his enemies. And God takes this title, not in connection with Abraham (which was El Shaddai, though he owns Him as such and as Jehovah too), but with the mysterious personage, figure clearly (according to Psalm 110, as developed also in the Hebrews) of Christ, King of righteousness, King of peace, now sitting on the right hand of the Father, on the Father's throne (Rev. 3: 21), not yet on His own, a priest after the similitude of Aaron now though not after his order, but who shall come forth at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when Jehovah-Elohim-Shaddai shall take to Him His great power and reign; the Ancient of days who sits on His throne, but the Ancient of days who comes (Dan. 7), whom the King of kings and Lord of lords, the blessed and only Potentate, shall shew, but who is King of king and Lord of lords; when, after the last confederacy against Israel (Psa. 83), through the judgment of the confederate enemies, men shall know that He whose name alone is Jehovah is the Most High, Elion, in all the earth, as the punishment of the host of the high ones on high shall have shewn Him Most High there (Isa. 24: 21), the Son of God and Son of man to whom all judgment is committed. So when the Gentile power, which God set up when He took His throne from Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar, comes to his senses, he writes, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from generation to generation," Dan. 4: 34. I do not quote Daniel 7 for Most High, save verse 25, because the word is plural and means, I doubt not, "the high" or "heavenly places." In verse 25, however, the beast speaks words against Elion bringing in judgment by them. But the kingdom of the Son of man is then set up. The little stone will have dashed the feet and toes of the image to pieces in judgment, and becomes then a great mountain which fills the whole earth; Dan. 2.

82 Who then is this Most High? This is the question so beautifully discussed in a poetic dialogue in Psalm 91. There are two great subjects in Scripture when personal reconciliation to God is settled. Sovereign grace puts poor sinners in the same glory as the Son of God, that He may be the first-born among many brethren, which is not our subject now — displayed in the transfiguration.* The other is the government of this world (see Deut. 32: 8, 9), of which the Jews are the centre, as the church is of the heavenly glory under Christ. Our present subject is the Old Testament, the earthly part. Here then Jehovah, the Jewish name of Elohim, is in question. Who then is the Most High? He who has this secret will be blessed. He who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of Abraham's God, the Almighty. Who shall say where the Most High is to be found? Messiah says, I will take Israel's God (Jehovah) as the Most High; I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge. Verses 3-8 are the answer. Then Israel speaks, Because thou hast made the LORD (Jehovah) which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil come nigh thy habitation. Verses 10-13 continue this. This is the passage by which Satan sought to tempt the Lord Jesus to try Jehovah if He would be as good as His word, acting in self-will out of the path of obedience; efforts which crumbled to nothing in impotency before the authority of that word which rationalists deny, but which the Lord trusted and authenticated as proceeding out of the mouth of God. In verse 14 to the end Jehovah declares His mind, closing grandly the dialogue, and putting His seal on Messiah's confidence in Himself, on whom He had set His love, as having taken the form of a servant. Here Jehovah, Israel's God, is shewn to be the Almighty and Most High, in the latter character bringing in the blessing of the earth: Jehovah, my God, even the Most High, has the blessing promised to Abraham. "Father" is of course left out, the name which belongs to the heavenly family when the Jews are cast off for having rejected Jesus, a state of things coming in between the end of the sixty-nine and the last half of the seventy weeks of Daniel, "the time of Jacob's trouble," (See Daniel 9.)

{*Both the celestial and the terrestrial parts are revealed in Luke 9.}

83 Hence, in the scriptures of the Old Testament, Jehovah is the name regularly taken up by the writer, whose whole calling was by the revelation of it (Exod. 6), and by all the prophets of the nations whose God He was. But it was of all importance to them that He was that God who is the ehyeh asher ehyeh, "I am that I am," God ever existing, subsisting in Himself and creating all else. And this is one great truth of what I may call the translation of the name in the Apocalypse; not "who was, and is, and is to come," but "who is" (o on), "who was" the God known of old, the promiser withal, and who is the "coming one" o erchomenos, when He will be Ancient of days, and Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and His name known (even that Jehovah, and Jehovah alone, is so) over all the earth.

Hence, too, it was all-important that this same Jehovah should be known as Abraham's God who had, and first had (save Christ prophetically) the unconditional promise. (See the historic basis of all this which Joshua 24 gives us.) Even Shem's race had fallen into idolatry (of which there is no trace before the flood), and Abraham's own family. Then God calls out Abraham out of the order and connection He Himself had formed, country, kindred, and father's house, to be to Himself, to a country He would shew him. Sovereign grace which chose him, the calling of God, and the promises were the great principles brought out when the world was not only wicked before God but had put demons in His place. The revelation of the church was only after Pentecost; but Abraham is the root and starting-point of the blessed race. Adam was the head of a fallen race; individual saints we have from Abel, and the judgment of wickedness in the flood, and government set up in Noah to restrain it; but in Abraham first is the head of a race that belonged to God in the earth, be it according to the flesh or the Spirit, the root of the olive tree of God; Rom. 11.

84 Many are the important lessons connected with this, but I cannot touch on them now. Jehovah, the God of Israel, was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This was His name for ever, this His memorial for all generations; Exod. 3: 15. God as God, the Being who is, not a creature who begins (esti, not ginetai), but exists in Himself — the Almighty, who called the vessel of promise without condition, and Jehovah the God of Israel under whom the Jews took the promises under condition of obedience,* must be identified. Hence, while it was of all importance to keep God's essential name of God, and God self-existent contrasted with every creature, and to keep this essential character present before their minds, it was equally so to shew Jehovah was that God, not a mere country god as those of the heathen. This, and the difference of promise on condition, and unconditional, we shall find running through the Old Testament from the Pentateuch to Nehemiah;** and the distinction is the basis of Paul's reasoning in the New Testament.

{*The whole doctrine of the "four great Epistles" of Paul, particularly of Galatians, and those foundational Epistles, is based on this difference of Abraham and Sinai respecting Christ the title to promise.}

{**Thus, in Exodus 32: 13, Moses appeals to God's promise without condition, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Solomon, for the temple, and the blessing of Israel in connection with it, does not go beyond Moses and the Exodus (1 Kings 8), on which judgment was pronounced when the Lord cursed the fig-tree; and in fact this was all lost, and finally under that covenant. So in Leviticus 26, where Jehovah goes through all His judgments as governing the people to the end, He goes back, not only to Moses, but to the original unconditional promises to Jacob and Israel and Abraham. They will have the blessings of the promises under Moses, but through God's remembering His unconditional covenant, which comes first. Nehemiah refers only to Abraham as a covenant, though He speaks of their deliverance by means of Moses, for this was a deliverance by grace. We have only to read Ezra and Nehemiah to see the utter folly of Jehovistic and Elohistic accounts. I suppose Ezra and Nehemiah were not compiling their own history from Jehovistic and Elohistic fragments. The reader may also notice another title, "the God of heaven," as now no longer sitting between the cherubim, a distinction which will help him in understanding the book of Revelation also. (See Rev. 11: 4, 13.)}

We find then, when it was what God as God did or was, it is God, Elohim: where it is the account given by those who knew Jehovah, it is Jehovah; and when the solemnity of the name of God as such is to be added to God known in relationship, it is Jehovah Elohim; when in special bearing upon Israel, it is Jehovah thy God, or our God — so constantly as a personal address in Deuteronomy. A spiritual-minded person will always feel the difference between the two. It may be the mere state of feeling sometimes expressed in it; sometimes it is of real importance when God's glory, as such, is concerned in it.

85 An analogous difference is found in the New Testament. Not only is it said, Come out from the world, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith Jehovah Shaddai; but in Hebrews, where the question is how man can approach God, as such, we never find the Father — it is always God; nor in the Revelation (save chap. 14, where His name is written on the foreheads of the special remnant there mentioned, but it is His Father). It is the throne of the government of the world which is in question, and it is Jehovah Elohim Shaddai, Lord God Almighty, as in chapters 4, 11 and 15.

In John's writings, while as to what concerns the nature of God, the name God is used — as "God so loved," "God is love," "God is light" — and the same as regards our responsibility in respect of it, the moment the divine action in grace is spoken of, it is Father. Thus, chapter 4, God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth, "for the Father seeketh such to worship him." This comes out in a striking way in the first four verses of 1 John 1, and in the rest of the chapter. So in chapter 1: 18 of the Gospel, and it will be found to run through all his writings. Suppose I were to say, Here is a Patristic and a Theistic document, and use "the scissors" to make the difference: it would prove nothing but alienation from God and moral incapacity. The principle is just the same.

In the Psalms the difference of Jehovah and Elohim is most marked. In the first book it is always Jehovah, the remnant is in Jerusalem, covenant blessings not lost. In Psalm 42 they are confessedly outside, worship in Jerusalem is remembered. There it is God. So in Psalm 63 it is God Himself. In Psalm 84 it is the tabernacles of Jehovah, though still of course God there. In the second book Messiah having been brought in, it passes in Psalm 45 from God to Jehovah and the God of Jacob. God Himself having interfered in their favour, and deliverance having come, He is Jehovah Elion (Most High) and a great King in all the earth, though (Psa. 48) He reigns in Zion.

86 I might go through the book of Psalms (and indeed have done it), and shew the constant fitness of the names used. There the truth that God Himself is their God, Most High, Jehovah, is fully developed; but their Father would not be found from Psalm 1 to 150, nor the Spirit of adoption which uses it. It is the government of the world, and that as Jehovah, great in Zion, God Himself, their (Israel's) God. But these instances must suffice. The attentive reader, waiting on the Lord, will readily, on reading the Psalms, apprehend the force of the expressions. To make two writers is simply absurd.

Mr. Smith tells us that "in a large part of the Psalter a later hand has systematically substituted Elohim for Jehovah"; and the proof? Stat pro ratione voluntas. There is simply none: a more utter incapacity for seizing the divine side of the contents of divine writings I never saw than in the remarks on the Psalms. The structure of the book, even as plainly shewn in its contents, and the different subjects of the five books or divisions found in it, there is not a glimpse of, though it lies really on the surface of the collection, and indeed shews a divine hand in collecting them. But this would be too large a subject to enter on here.

I only remark that, to get rid of the proof of the absurdity of the Elohistic and Jehovistic scheme, for which even the "mechanical means" would not suffice here, he boldly asserts they have had one name substituted for another, without an attempt at proof, or shadow of it. They are not "reproduced."

The stupid remark as to Elihu, borrowed from Mr. F. Newman, or perhaps by him too from "some learned German," recalls me to Job. In the most perfect way Elihu comes in (when the friends would have it that this world was an adequate proof of God's moral government, which Job rightly denied, though his heart rose up against God too), and as the interpreter, one among a thousand, he shews there is a discipline of the righteous, blaming the friends, yet shewing how Job was wrong too. He stands in a mediatorial character, a kind of daysman, to explain God's way, before Jehovah comes in in His majesty. I cannot conceive more total want of spiritual perception than this borrowed judgment as to Elihu. Yet I might have left this, but that I would remark that, in the introduction and in the account given at the end, Jehovah is found in the writer's part: in all the intercourse of Job with his friends, and Elihu, God and Almighty. What can the scissors do here? Cut the head and tail off, and lose the key to and the conclusion of the whole story.

87 Take another case. In the Proverbs it is always "Jehovah" — (I think there is one exception) — the direction of practical wisdom for those who had Jehovah for their God. In Ecclesiastes it is always "God," because it is the vanity of man's path and efforts after happiness here below in contrast with what God is as such. It is not a condition of covenant relations but man as such, and it is not therefore Jehovah.

Now in Genesis 1 and 2 to the end of verse 3 we have the great fact that God created. It is simply this truth known to no heathen (not that Jehovah, God known under a particular name of relationship, but) that God created the universe, and creatures, and man, and rested the seventh day. This completes that all-important statement. We know it by faith; Heb. 11. Then begins a new subject, not a new account of creation. This is not so. It is barely and very briefly alluded to in connection with there being no man; and then the condition, nature, and moral position of man is detailed, where God put him, under what conditions, the place of animals, and the woman. It is not that God created, but the condition and status of man before Jehovah Elohim. That God who was the one true God with whom man had to do, but had revealed Himself as Jehovah to him who told the story of all His ways from the fall, and man without law, and a judged world, and restraint and promise and law, and indeed, the whole condition of man with God till grace came and the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour; though of course the historical details up to law are given afterwards, God having taken up a people by redemption so to try man. Every principle of the whole history is given us in Genesis, only on the basis of promise, not of law and redemption and God's presence on the earth, which is in Exodus and what follows. But he who learnt this plan at the first connects that name Jehovah — a God of judgment — with the origin of it all. The Elohim of chapter 1 is the Jehovah of Exodus 6, and the narrative of Jehovah recounts all the history, up to law, of the true Elohim who now reveals Himself as testing man under law. To say that there are two accounts of creation is utterly untrue; there is nothing of the kind, no trace of it, but a special statement of man's state and condition as to God and all the creation around him; let it be shewn if there be.

88 In chapter 3 we have the writer using the term Jehovah Elohim. The great truth now comes out, but Satan saying in the same sentence, "Yea, hath God said?" to Eve; speaking in no sense of revealed relationship, God the Creator had said: so Satan again "God doth know." But the writer says they heard the voice of the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim), and so of all that follows. To make the first verse two distinct documents is just simply absurd. In chapter 4, Eve, taking up a promise, says, though mistakenly, "I have gotten a man from Jehovah." Here we have always Jehovah, not Jehovah Elohim, a simple history, not the solemn tale of man's ruin in his relationship with God. Is this a third document? In verse 25 God, says Eve, has appointed me. This speaks merely of the fact of what God, who works all things, had given her. In chapter 5 we have God again as such; nor could you say in the likeness of Jehovah, because it is a relative name, one specially revealed as to God, not that of the Creator, the divine Being. So Enoch walks with God. The earth (chap. 6) was corrupt before God as such. Yet the writer always speaks of Jehovah and His dealings (vv. 3, 5, 6, 7). And "God" deals with the earth as so corrupted; again, verse 22, as "God" commanded him, not Jehovah. Then in chapter 7 Jehovah said to Noah, and as Jehovah (v. 5) commanded him; then as God commanded him (v. 9), and again as God commanded him, and Jehovah shut him in (v. 16). Here again if you separate the verse into two, the last part refers to and connects with nothing, for Elohim is the word used when Noah went in.

In Deuteronomy 4: 32-34 where Elohim stands by itself in its proper force of Elohim, did God ever do such a thing as Jehovah our God has done? It is the force of the words, not two different accounts. To Joshua 24 they presented themselves before God as such, and Joshua said, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. That is, not only I find cases to which the fancies of Astruc cannot apply, but I find the reason why there are the two words.

One more case remains to refer to, mentioned by the article, that of Joseph. This is to be by Hupfeld's third author, a northern. It agrees, we are told, with the Elohistic author in a great part in the use of the name of God (Elohim), but is widely divergent in other respects. But this slurs over the facts to cover what upsets the theory. The first part of the account is Jehovistic; that is, the writer's account of Joseph uses the name of Jehovah. He says, Jehovah was with Joseph. That is, Moses knew the faithful One who bore this name with Israel, as he says, when God commanded Noah, and he went into the ark, Jehovah shut him in; when he recites what passes between Joseph and the dreaming servants of Pharaoh and Pharaoh himself, he of course says God. What had they to do with Jehovah, or any relationship with Him? In the rest of the recital of facts it is Elohim.

89 But a second account is out of the question; they are two parts of the same one. What brought "Jehovah" and "God" both into it? Was it a northern author? Jacob in his trial turns back to the God of promise and calls him El Shaddai. And, in Joseph's discourse to his brethren, it is clearly God as such in contrast with his brethren's (man's) doings. In Jacob's blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, while referring to God Almighty, he naturally desires a blessing from God upon them, not covenant blessings from Jehovah, but God's blessing on them. What the widely divergent things are, we are left to guess.

It is well to remember that these German writers start with the assumption that no account which relates miracles can be historical. That is, they beg the whole question to begin with. Inspiration is itself a miracle; creation is the greatest miracle of all, the intervention of God's will and power to produce that which would not have been without it. I am quite aware of the question of general laws, which, after all, are only the constant operation of God's will, and cannot therefore preclude its action. Let us remember, too, that the absolute denial of action, independent of general laws, denies Christianity altogether; for resurrection is not a general law nor natural sequence. Death is not a cause of resurrection. But if Christ be not risen, our faith is vain, and, as Paul tells us, the witnesses of Christianity are false witnesses. Let me add the remark here, that, in a book otherwise interesting and useful, the Duke of Argyle has slurred over this point. If miracle cannot be historical, Christ is not risen, and if Christ be not risen, Christianity is not true.

This is not the ground, if I understand the article in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which its author takes; but this will come up if we go on to the New Testament: as yet we are occupied with the Old. Now as to this, if the German theory be true as reproduced in the article, the whole of the Old Testament is an imposition; I mean if the law be not a system established of God by Moses, as we find it, but a late compilation in which crude materials were adjusted, and a system developed out of national life. As far as the law goes, it all professes to be words addressed by God to man through the mouth of Moses. Genesis has necessarily another character, equally requiring direct inspiration; for who among men can give an account of creation and the world's history, and a history on which all God's dealings with men (save the church and the law, of which we have spoken) are founded in their principles, and, as we have seen, the New Testament is based? Nor, indeed, can the beginning of Exodus be separated from the end of Genesis. I need not quote texts to shew that "Jehovah said unto Moses," and in this way communicated His will to the children of Israel, is the constant language of the law. It is a clear positive revelation of God's words and will by Moses as it stands, or it is an imposture. In Deuteronomy Moses rehearses it all, and speaks to the people, insisting on obedience, and recalling all that had passed in order to enforce it and keep them from idolatry, adding details of civil government for the land. Documents may or may not have been used; but the whole contents are, either a history and the original establishment of God's law for the people, with the deepest typical instruction for us, given by Moses from God; or an imposture.

90 The adding an account of Moses' death at the end of Deuteronomy does not touch this question. Mr. Smith tells us that copyists added what they liked, and did not feel themselves in the least bound to distinguish the old from the new; there was no notion of anything like copyright; they took large extracts and harmonised them by such additions and modifications as they thought necessary. A nice thing to rest one's faith on as the word of God, Scriptures that cannot be broken! But lawyers say, "Allegatio ejusdem rei cujus dissolutio petitur nil valet"; and what is the proof the Semitic genius, the Bible, is a stratification, not an organism? What proof has he of the Semitic genius? The Bible. There is no other ancient Hebrew book. And the question is, Is it such an unauthentic compilation? We have nothing but his assertion about the Bible itself, except that there were cells in the temple — that of course not being arranged according to God's direction either, it was the Semitic genius!

91 I need not say that the prophets openly declare their inspiration, that "The word of Jehovah came to them," "Thus saith Jehovah," and the like; that in the history, as of Kings for example, it is openly stated that they used the royal chronicles. But prophets used them and drew them up, as we have the example in Isaiah, that we might have them as the word of God. That God is not mentioned in Esther is just the opposite, as shewing the secret providence of God keeping His people when they were scattered and disowned of Him as a nation.

Thus not only have the Lord and the apostles owned the Old Testament as we possess it as God's inspired word, but it presents itself, as to the law as the direct fruit of Moses' communication with God, given fully and in detail originally, and the prophets, as the direct communication of God's mind and words from Himself; and all of it — history, psalms, and all — as an organic whole owned of the Lord Himself, and whose perfection, as such, will be perceived by those whose understandings He has opened, and who learn the whole scheme of God Himself.

In passing from the discussion of particular points and objections to a direct inquiry into more positive and essential evidence from the contents of Scripture, I recall to every heart that the question is — Is there a revelation from God? Man is departed from God. Is there any revelation from God by which, as far as the revelation of God goes, man can know Him? We know what man has come to without it. Are we to be left as the heathen, if haply we may feel after Him and find Him? or was there really a law given by Moses, and are grace and truth come by Jesus Christ? We have seen that the Lord declares the writings which the Jews received to be the writings of Moses, and does so not only to the Jews but to His disciples, and that He opened their understanding to understand them — the apostles the same, basing their arguments on the truth and contents of them. To one who is not audacious in incredulity this is sufficient. To those who affirm that a miraculous history must be unhistorical (that God cannot act, or will not at all now, having once established an order of nature), and so decide the question before it is examined, the statements of Christ or the apostles have no weight. But then it is pure impudence to call themselves Christians. It is flagrant dishonesty to accredit themselves with a name while they reject all it imports. We may earnestly desire their conversion, but that is all. They labour on what they hold to be an imposture, and profess to be followers of the imposture, and would have us believe that the holiest, most gracious, deepest, and yet truest and fullest communication of the knowledge of God is by an imposture. This is hard to think; but it is this we have to do with.

92 But again, there are those who believe there is a revelation, yet no inspired divine communication of it to others. Some allege that it is not even claimed. Now, see how rational this is. God has thought good to give a revelation of Himself, His truth, His grace, to men at large for their good; He has made this revelation, but in such a manner that it can go no farther in its perfectness than the person who receives it. It is given for the good of all, and perfectly given; but it stops at the first person who is the vessel of reception and communication, and to the rest comes only in the imperfection of man as to apprehension and communication; a divine communication for men, but by divine arrangement so communicated that it never reaches men as such! Nothing they can trust as divine is communicated to them. Can anything be more absurd?

But Paul states the case: When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen. There was a revelation to him for this purpose by God, but he could not do it! though for others, it could not reach them, actually given for them, but in such a manner that it could not reach them. This is the theory. But he did not handle the word of God — mark what it was — deceitfully; he did not adulterate the pure wine, but by manifestation of the truth commended himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God; 2 Cor. 4. So the Thessalonians received it, not as the word of man, but, as it was in truth, the word of God (1 Thess. 2: 3); so that if (2 Cor. 4) his gospel was hid, it was hid to them that were lost. Their minds were blinded by the god of this world. In 1 Corinthians 2 he states it formally: "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth . . . . But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God . . . they are spiritually discerned." They are revealed by the Spirit (vv. 10-12); communicated in words which the Holy Ghost taught, that others might have them as God revealed them to Paul (v. 13), and discerned by the Spirit (v. 14). (Compare verses 4, 5.) And such he asserts everywhere. The things which he wrote were to be received as (and were) the commandments of the Lord. The Old Testament prophets and Moses declare what they communicate is Jehovah speaking; so does the apostle.

93 Not only then is the Bible a revelation from God, but the communication of it is His work too — Thus saith Jehovah, or Jehovah said, in the Old, or "in words which the Holy Ghost taught" in the New; so that what we have is the word of God. It is "of the Lord by the prophet," or in words which the Holy Ghost taught. God did not leave us floating about in uncertainty. Only when it is presented, it is discerned spiritually, or, if rejected, is hid to them that are lost. With this as to the history, we find it drawn up by the prophets, and sanctioned by the Lord and the apostles.

It may be said that there are errors, and that we have only translations. I recognise that it was committed to the responsibility of man, just as in a certain sense man's personal salvation is; yet he is kept by the power of God, and it is so too, liable to the effects of human infirmity. It is quoted, recognised, and authenticated by the Lord and the apostles, and the law constantly referred to in the earliest writings of the prophets. As to translations, no one gives any as a criterion of truth; they are a means of communicating it, and the criterion remains as it was, providentially preserved of God; the New (as Mr. S., I thank God, admits) adequately proved to be authentic, and if so, the Old authenticated, as no other book in the world is, by it, that is, by the Lord and His apostles. It is alleged the LXX is quoted. This is confessedly a translation, and, as commonly known and used, is commonly quoted; but it is not when the writers of the New as taught of God had any reason for doing otherwise. They authenticate it only as to that for which they quote it.

But I turn to a pleasanter part of my attempt. I would speak of the unity of mind in the whole Old and New Testament. Whatever controversy may be raised as to dates, there is no question of their being writings separated by wide distances of time. Infidels do not question that. In some shape Jewish literature began with Moses. Jehovistic and Elohistic documents may be compiled, but there were such documents to compile. There were prophets many centuries before Christ; there were psalms composed by David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, as by others contemporary or more recent, as some assuredly were. There are different authors, different styles, different epochs; the grammar even became changed in its details in the process of ages, as the use of Hu for the feminine and of Nahar marks early Hebrew. Various authors and styles, in a word, follow each other through a series of some 1500 years. In the New Testament there is a development of truth and divine counsels, part of which is declared to have never been previously revealed, and in the nature of things could not have been so: I mean the mystery of which Paul, and Paul only, speaks — the union of Jew and Gentile without difference in one body for heavenly places, which it was impossible to reveal while Judaism subsisted, as setting it aside absolutely in its nature. For Judaism kept up, while Christianity broke down, the middle wall of partition.

94 Now, if with all these authors, and epochs (in the last case setting aside the previously existing system, though fully sanctioning it as divine), places, and times — if through judgment, promise, law, gospel, and the revelation of the church completing the word of God, I find one plan, one mind, through the whole, whose is it? Unconscious of the bearings of it on the whole, each occupied with the present moral bearing of that which was confided to him, ignorant in large measure of what others might have to say, or even setting aside what had existed and occupied others, I yet find all minister to one single plan. I find the clearest and strongest proof that one mind, one inspiring power, which knew the end from the beginning, and had this plan before it, is the real author of what we call the Bible. I insist upon its being a number of books (Jehovistic and Elohistic documents, if you please, employed, though I do not accept what is said) of different ages and characters. Prophecy, history, poetry, moral lessons, man before law, man under law, a narrow system to maintain the true unity of the Godhead when all was idolatrous, and a large system to every creature under heaven, which maintained the authority of the law but set it totally aside as a way of relationship with God; but through all one single thread of divine purpose running, which makes every part subservient in its place to the whole, making over sixty books (or, taking Jewish computation of Old Testament, forty-nine) one single book — the Bible.

I can only in such a paper as this take some special elements as shewing this, after stating from Scripture what the divine purpose is, only noticing (what is of the last moment) that it is not a mere purpose as to facts to be accomplished, but that these involve the whole moral basis of man's relationship with God: innocence, loss of it, moral responsibility, the law given as a perfect measure of it with divine authority, man doubly guilty by breaking it, remedial means in the testimony of the prophets and in the coming of the Son of God Himself, all in vain, issuing in the judgment of the world, and every mouth stopped, and all the world guilty before God, and a perfect salvation by grace on God's part, according to His own nature and glory, laid hold of in promise throughout all ages, and then fully revealed; and finally heavenly glory, and a restored earth under Messiah and the new covenant, and then eternity; and, I may add, the church's special place in all this, which is peculiar, all made manifest and unfolded in the development of this purpose, and issuing in the fulness of the divine glory, and the infinite and eternal blessing of those who believe.

95 The purpose is this, as stated in Scripture (Eph. 1), that for the administration of the fulness of times He should gather together in one (anakephalaiosasthai) all things in heaven and in earth in Christ (the Son of God and Son of man), in whom we have obtained our inheritance. In this there are two great scenes — heaven and earth, and as to them two great objects of revelation under Christ — the church and glorified saints in heavenly places, and the Jews in earthly: the one reigning with Christ; the others reigned over, as is all the world, by Him as Son of man raised and glorified, with the Father's house, where He is gone, as our home: one being the expression of the sovereign grace which has put us into the same glory as the Son of God; the other, the government of this world. See Ephesians 1: 22, 23, and 9-11, and Deuteronomy 32: 8, 9, for a brief statement of the Jewish part, verses 8 and 43. All are under the Son of man, or united to Him. This latter part, as peculiar to the church, I leave aside for the moment.

God began, not of course with the Last, but with the first Adam — not with the Man of His purpose, but with responsible man. This responsibility, as traced and followed out in innocence, fallen and without law; then (passing by promise, which was of grace and brought out in Abraham) under law; then in sending Christ after patient warnings and encouragements by the prophets, saying, They will reverence my Son; but they cast Him out of the vineyard and slew Him. Then, the probation of man having been thus fully gone through, man is treated as lost: only a full salvation provided for him in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, the Last Adam, the Son of man, all the promises and purposes of God are to be fulfilled. He is the man of God's purpose, all promises in Him Yea and in Him Amen; taking the inheritance of all things man was to have in the purpose of God, according to the redemption in which God was perfectly and in every respect glorified. Through all we have the great adversary revealed in all that was needed, that we should know clearly the position of those concerned, but no further.

96 The result of all this and its general principle is already brought out in the garden of Eden; not a promise to the first man — there is none, but the purpose of God when the first man had failed in responsibility. This responsibility he was put under, tempted by the adversary, and failed. The Lord God judged the woman for listening, but makes known the second Man, the Last Adam. He, the Seed of the woman, was to bruise the serpent's head, the serpent to bruise His heel — the latter in the cross, the former when He comes in power. This is no promise to the first man, though his faith might lay hold of it, but a revelation of the Second. Adam assuredly was not the Seed of the woman. The history is referred to as unquestionable truth by Paul (1 Tim. 2: 9-15), as a ground for minute details as to woman; as a basis of the profoundest doctrine (Rom. 5: 12-21), shewing sin to have been there by this means before the law, and when there was none; but referring to Hosea 6: 7,* shewing that Adam was under a law (not to eat of the tree of knowledge), but that from him to Moses man had none, confirmed as to the character of judgment (Rom. 2: 12), those that have sinned anomos, without law, being distinguished from those who have sinned under it. So for watchfulness it is referred to in 2 Corinthians 11: 3. So the whole order and structure of God's plan in Christ, connected with ruin in the first Adam, is unfolded in 1 Corinthians 15, specially verses 20-28, and verses 45-49, and that in resurrection. The accomplishment in Jews, Gentiles, and the raised saints, is founded on Isaiah 25: 6-8.

{*For "men" in text, read Adam, as in Hebrew and margin.}

But there were other and special promises made to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, renewed in David and confined to Israel, though mercy was to be extended to the Gentiles on their failure. Of this Genesis is full, and the state of Israel under promise and failure is the whole subject of the Psalms, besides Christ personally brought in as connected with them. (See Genesis 15 and 17.) These promises, given unconditionally to Abraham, were taken up conditionally at Sinai; so that, though the promises remained, yet under Moses the law was introduced, and on the ground of the old covenant their accomplishment depended as much on Israel's fidelity as on God's. God said, If ye obey my voice; and Israel said, All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.

97 Thus not only historically Israel stood on the ground of the old covenant, but an immense principle was established and question raised, Is man's righteousness the ground of his standing before God, or is God's righteousness that on which a sinner can be accepted? But Israel also thus stood on a double ground — promises made to Abraham, and righteousness under the law; and yet grace, unless God were the God of the Jews only, must reach out to the Gentiles, and this must be in Christ, and as taking His power as Head over all things, as we have seen, as Son of man. During the subsistence of the middle wall of partition, the blessing of the Gentiles was not shut out in hope, but left, as they were, in obscurity and darkness. When the world was idolatrous, the maintenance of the knowledge of one true God made this necessary, and so perverse is man, was with the utmost difficulty maintained. In the promises to Abraham it is as clearly as possible revealed in Genesis 12, and after Isaac's being offered up as a figure, and so received as raised from the dead, confirmed to the Seed. All nations were to be blessed in Him.

Have we a revelation from God?*

J. N. Darby.

<29003E> {file section b.}

{*A Review of Professor Smith's Article 'Bible,' in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' ninth edition.}

97 When Moses and the law had come in, then it was only on the judgment of Israel that this blessing came out, and that through Christ. (See Romans 11.) So Deuteronomy 32: 28, the judgment being solemnly insisted on in what precedes, both of Jews and Gentiles, though sparing a remnant in Israel, owned in verse 43 as His people, but the nations to rejoice with them. We have seen these two recognised in Isaiah 25, with the resurrection added, and all united with Christ's reign in 1 Corinthians 15, quoting Isaiah.

The contrast of law and gospel is fully discussed by Paul, and the promises without condition, and the law with both promises and gospel, in Romans and Galatians. In Galatians 3 he insists on the promise without condition, and that the law 430 years afterwards could not be added to an unconditional promise confirmed to the Seed, nor that promise disannulled. The law was broken, and that, as it depended under the old covenant on Israel's obedience whether the blessing was to be fulfilled, was easily disposed of. But the promises? They were to be made good through the promised Seed, the Messiah, a fact made clearer and clearer as Israel's disobedience grew more and more manifest, and indeed fully established in the promise to David; but then it must be through bruising the serpent's head and wider than Israel. When failure in the land under priesthood in Eli, and under prophecy in Samuel, and the direct government of God by these means had been fully manifested, God's king, the beloved, was raised up; and this double blessing of Israel and the Gentiles and man's glory as in Christ was brought to light, grace in power, though it was but a remnant in Israel who would finally profit by it.

98 But here the difficulty of the unconditional promises came in, and the promises of the Seed in which they were to be fulfilled. The law, as I have said, was clearly broken from the days of the golden calf. But the promises were to be fulfilled in the Seed, in the Son of David. Israel rejected Him, and lost all title whatever to any promises. God had taken away His throne when they went captive to Babylon. The cherubim and the glory that sat there judged the city and went up. But the promises? A residue was preserved and brought back, shorn of its glory as God's people, but still having these promises; and Messiah came, the promised One, a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and they rejected Him, and God wrought a salvation effectual for man. His salvation to the ends of the earth yet will accomplish His promises to Israel, only on the ground of pure grace, while He takes those that own the rejected One to be His companions in glory in heaven and to reign with Him. It is this that makes the apostle exclaim, O the. depth of the riches!

Now as Galatians 3 and Romans 2, 3 and 4 (and 7 yet more experimentally) discuss the law and grace and promise in its moral bearing for any, so Romans 9-11 discusses it in reference to Jew and Gentile in a dispensational way. In chapter 9 God must be sovereign, or Ishmaelites and Edomites must be let in, and all Israel, save Moses, shut out, and God would use His sovereignty to let in the Gentiles. Then Israel's rejection and stumbling at the Stumbling-stone was all foretold, and God's being found of the Gentiles; chap. 10. But it was not final rejection. Paul was a Jew, so there was a remnant; Deut. 32. The letting in of the Gentiles was to provoke them to jealousy. But lastly, according to infallible promise, the Deliverer would come to Zion; Rom. 11.

99 Thus in the law we have, not only a dispensation of God with Israel, but the great question of human righteousness raised for every soul. It was not an arbitrary rule, but God's perfect rule for man, taking up all the relationships in which He had placed man as now fallen, with Himself and each other, and requiring man's acting up to them, and he should live; but the flesh, man in his Adam-nature, was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be so: then they that are in the flesh cannot please God (no one in Adam's standing). Man's righteousness not only does not exist in fact, but is set aside in principle, but, as we have seen, without law, man was lawless, under it a transgressor, and, when God was manifested, then the Lord could say, Now they have both seen and hated both Me and my Father. Hence we read, Now is the judgment of this world, but, thank God, Now is the prince of this world cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. But now once in the end of the world (the consummation of ages) He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The heel of the Seed of the woman was bruised, but the work done gave Him a title in righteousness, according to God, to bruise his head. The power of the enemy was, by death, disannulled morally (ina katargese), and will be wholly set aside in heaven and earth when the Son of man shall come in His glory; not all enemies, it is true, subjected at once, but He having taken to Him His great power to reign and do so.

But not only were the Gentiles left in darkness during the narrow period of testing man under law, and the promises confined in their actual application to a peculiar people, but life and incorruptibility were brought to light only under the gospel, and access to God allowed, The state under the law was marked by the veil, and the barriers which forbade it; now the holiest entered, God's righteousness being by faith for Gentile as well as Jew, and all the higher glories revealed in connection with resurrection, and a new state of man and a new creation, of which Christ risen and glorified is the firstfruits and head, "the second Man from heaven" (o deuteros anthropos ex ouranou), and now gone back there as Man.

100 The reader who is acquainted with Scripture will have seen that I have only made an abstract of its statements in all I have said, and put them together so that we may see that it is one complete plan of God, of which the moral principles and the historical development, though distinct subjects, cannot be separated. But let us see if we cannot, in some leading details, trace it through the scripture, shewing them more in detail, enchained by the plan of one mind. Indeed it begins before the world, of course then in the thoughts of God, but revealed to us, through mercy, not till the gospel came, not till the first man had been fully tried and tested in his responsibility. Thus we read (Prov. 8), speaking of wisdom (and Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God): "I was [before the creation, which is poetically described] daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable parts of his [Jehovah's] earth; and my delights were with the sons of men" — here, in the nature and principle of His place, the Son of man.

Hence, when Christ was born, we find the angels celebrating his birth with, Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace [not goodwill towards, but] good pleasure in men. He did not, as it is written, take up angels, but He took up — here narrowing it to grace and promise — the seed of Abraham, consequently associating it at once with Old Testament history. So we read in 2 Timothy 1: 9: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ." So Titus 1: "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began, but hath in due times manifested," etc. So 1 Corinthians 2: "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God ordained before the world for our glory." Now, till the rejection of Christ, these counsels of God in grace were not brought out to light as we see stated here; because the first man, and the possibility of his recovery were being tried, though God, who knew what man was, was quickening souls from the beginning. Still we shall find full traces of all that concerns both the history of Christ, His rejection and future glories, or, as Peter expresses it, the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow.

101 Let us take Messiah and Son of man, and the connection of their titles with Israel and the future glory of Christ. In Psalm 1 we have the remnant carefully distinguished from the ungodly, as Isaiah says: "Except Jehovah of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah." But it is well to note, before we proceed to the chain of texts, that the Lord expressly tells us that this peace on earth was not to be accomplished by His first coming. "Suppose ye," He says, "that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division: for, from henceforth, there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three" (Luke 12: 51, 52), practically a quotation from Micah 7, where it is presented as the extreme of evil, evil drawn out in its worst forms in fact, by the perfect manifestation of good, of God Himself, shewn in the death of Christ, and in hatred of those faithful to Him; for all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

But as to Christ, He was to suffer and make atonement, sit not yet on His own throne, but on the Father's at the right hand of God — expecting till His enemies were made His footstool; where He is now, the work perfectly accomplished which perfectly glorifies God, gives us a perfect conscience, destroys in title the whole power of Satan, is the sure foundation of eternal blessedness, the new heavens and the new earth: but, through which we are called to take up our cross and suffer, who are to have the heavenly inheritance, and be like Him in glory, but must wait here with Him now, and while He waits, having the sympathy of our great High Priest, or with Him as to our spirits, if called away before He comes. If He is crucified, we must suffer, not reign, till He takes to Him His great power and reigns: till then Satan is still the god and prince of this world, not cast down from the heavens.

From the beginning man, under his influence, has spoiled what God set up good — spoiled it the first thing: so the first man himself, so Noah got drunk, so the golden calf was made, so Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, and the holiest was closed to Aaron save one special day; so through Solomon's sin the kingdom was divided; and, under Nebuchadnezzar, the Gentile power became a beast; so always, the apostasy set in before the apostle's eyes were closed.

102 But Satan will be cast down from heaven (Rev. 12), where he is now the accuser of the brethren. Then we shall have, as Luke tells us, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest; and "Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord" here below (Luke 19: 38): though, then, it was babes and sucklings that were found to utter His praise, to still the enemy and the avenger, or the stones would have cried out. It is when He comes again that evil will be put down.

But to come to the citations of passages of scripture: in Psalm 2 after giving the character of the remnant in Psalm 1, we have the determination of Jehovah to set His King on the holy hill of Zion, the anointed Man, the Son of God as born in this world, who is further to ask for dominion over the heathen, whom He will rule with a rod of iron, and break in pieces like a potter's vessel. (Compare Rev. 2: 26, 27.) But for the present He is rejected. The kings of the earth and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed (Christ or Messiah). Adonai, sitting in the heavens, shall laugh at them. In Acts 4: 26, 27, the Holy Spirit expressly applies this to Christ's rejection and death.

In Psalms 3-7 we have the consequent sorrows of the remnant, on which I do not enter. But in Psalm 8 Christ is celebrated in another character, when the Jews can celebrate Jehovah's name excellent in all the earth, and as having set His glory above the heavens, and as their Lord or Adon: a state of things not yet accomplished in fact, while the second verse is used by the Lord in the passage first quoted from Luke, as the testimony enforced, so to speak, by God, when the Saviour was here and rejected, quoting also Psalm 118, of which we may speak as specially referring to this future time of Christ's return in power. Now I quote this to shew that it is identified with man's being set over the works of God's hands. The Son of man, which the Lord constantly applies to Himself,* coming specifically into view, a passage as applied to Him in its full import as inheriting all God's purposes as to man; used as defining the whole position in the results of divine administration more than once by the apostle Paul, as (Eph. 1: 22) "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body" (compare Col. 1: 15-18); and again, in 1 Corinthians 15: 20-28, when all things are to be put under the feet of the risen (the second) Man, except Him who put all things under Him. Here the whole scheme is unfolded; and again in Hebrews 2 we are told that we see not as yet all things put under Him; but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. Nothing can be more precise to both the divine purpose and the measure of its accomplishment, than these passages.

{*He never calls Himself the Christ save to the woman of Samaria (John 4) when He had left Judaea.}

103 The general fact is again brought before us, in quite another part of scripture, in contrast with the earthly power of evil in Daniel 7. The chapter is divided by the expression, "I saw in the night visions," verses 1-6, 7-12, to give the last beast (the principal one) more particularly, then 13, 14; from 15 to the end, inquiry and explanation, bringing in both the saints killed by the beast (and who, as is confirmed in Revelation 20 go into heaven) and Israel. I quote verse 13: "I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him," etc. This was when the thrones had been set for judgment. But afterwards we find it was the Ancient of days who came when judgment was given (v. 22) to the saints of the most high (the high places). So in Psalm 80, where Israel is crying out (not merely Jews) for their final deliverance, it is (v. 17): "Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself." Thus the rejected Messiah, cut off, and who took nothing of the kingdom and glory, but cut off Himself, is the one who is the head over all things as Son of man according to the purpose of God.

This truth runs through the Gospels where no passage perhaps is quoted. Nathanael owns Jesus to be the Christ according to Psalm 2: "Thou art the Son of God, the king of Israel." "Thou shalt see greater things than these," says the Lord. "Henceforth thou shalt see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man." He takes His place as Son of man in contrast with and beyond that of Psalm 2. In John's Gospel the Jews are treated as rejected and reprobate from the first chapter (1: 10, 11), a remnant born again and believing, alone owned, because Jesus is God, and Him man never received, but was enmity against.

The three other Gospels present Him as Messiah, Emmanuel, Jehovah, the Saviour (Matt.); the prophet-servant (Mark); and Son of man in grace after the first two chapters, a lovely picture of the remnant in Israel (Luke). Hence we have genealogy from Abraham and David in Matthew, up to Adam in Luke.* When the Jews are utterly rejected at the end of Matthew 12, so that He no longer seeks fruit in His vineyard and fig-tree (vv. 46-50), He goes out to sow, but He that sows the good seed is the Son of man; the kingdom in mystery, that is, without a present king (chap. 13), the church (chap. 16), the kingdom in glory (chap. 17), are substituted for Israel under the old covenant, but in chapter 16: 20 they are charged to tell no man that He was the Christ: The Son of man (chap. 17: 12) must suffer of them; more immediately contrasted, in Luke 9, which ends the chronological history (see verse 21) when Peter, taught of God, owns Him to be the Christ, "He straitly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing, saying, The Son of man must suffer . . . but be raised the third day"; and then He shews them the glory of the coming kingdom; the Son of man would come in His own glory, in the Father's, and of the holy angels, as Son of man, Son of the Father, and as Jehovah. But (Matt. 17: 9) this belonged to another scene, and man as a new creation. They were not to tell it till He was risen again from among the dead, and (Luke 9: 36) they kept it close, withal wondering what rising from among the dead should mean,** (Mark 9: 10), and from that day began to press upon them that the Son of man must suffer; Matt. 16: 21; Mark 9: 31; Luke 9: 44. In John we have this under another form, namely that of a full testimony from God, when Israel had rejected Him, as Son of God, Son of David, and Son of man. The first is raising Lazarus; chap. 11: 4. "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, and that the Son of God should be glorified thereby."*** He is the Resurrection and the Life. Then (chap. 12: 13), they meet Him, according to Psalm 118, crying, "Hosanna! [save now, I beseech thee] blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord." Then the Greeks (Ellenes) coming up, the wider scene of Gentiles, the Lord says: "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit"; and (v. 32), "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." So in His rejection, abjured by the High Priest, He owns He is the One spoken of in Psalm 2, the Christ, the Son of God, but adds: "Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven." Thus that which dispensationally set aside the Jews under the old covenant, and ended their title under the promises, brought out the far deeper truths of the enmity of man's heart against God in goodness — "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father" — but the accomplishment of that glorious work in which salvation was provided for Gentile as well as Jew, and God perfectly glorified in all that He is; the Christ rejected, Messiah cut off, as Daniel declared; and that as Son of man, not now taking the glory, but as suffering, yet vindicated of God as such; the whole truth of Psalms 2 and 8, Adam the image of Him that was to come (Dan. 9, 7) brought into light and accomplishment, and this not in quoted passages, but in realising facts, and then, when the Holy Ghost was given, the passages applied and explained, as in Acts 4 and Ephesians 1, 1 Corinthians 15, Hebrews 2, with no appearance of putting together or arrangement by those who uttered these things, but shewing one mind and thought and plan behind it all, the word and counsel of God. I might multiply passages as to the use of Son of man, but I have only quoted what brought the bearing of Psalms 2 and 8 together. But the death of Christ closed the earthly history of Scripture, till the Son of man shall come in His glory. Hence Stephen, summing up that history from Abraham, when the promises began, shews the law broken, the prophets killed, the Just One betrayed and murdered, and the Holy Ghost resisted; and then sees the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. He had taken His heavenly place, though not yet set down. Now He sits at God's**** right hand till His enemies are made His footstool, having by one offering perfected for ever (eis to dienekes) them that are sanctified. It was the time of the church, His body, and the habitation of God through the Spirit. Hence the Son of man is no longer spoken of, save as giving Him His place on high; Heb. 2: 6. But as soon as I come to the Revelation, what Christ had declared before the high priest, partly as seen by Stephen and taught in Hebrews 2, the accomplishment of Psalm 110 is, as to the latter part, brought out prophetically in Rev. 14, coming as Judge for the ripe harvest of earth and the vintage of God's wrath (vv. 14-20). We find Him judging the church as responsible on earth in chapter 1. But from Acts 7 to Revelation He is never spoken of as Son of man, save that Psalm 8 itself is quoted (Heb. 2), to shew where we are in this history. Even then He is not called so.

{*I should read Luke 3: 23: ("Being, as was supposed, son of Joseph), of Heli," etc. tou Eli is connected with Jesus, not with Joseph.}

{**All as Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.}

{***The stupid rationalists cannot, of course, see why this miracle was brought in here.}

{****Christ had interceded for them on the cross, to which Acts 3 is the answer; but this also, Christ glorified, is rejected; and so all man's history closes in Stephen, and He sits down till Christ's enemies are made His footstool.}

106 I may briefly refer to some other points where this unity of mind is developed — the three great feasts of Israel, ordinances which pointed to the great principles and power of the gatherings of God's people. There were other feasts: the Sabbath, a sign of the covenant made with them, but also that His people are in due time to enter into God's rest (here that of the first creation, for us of the new creation, as risen); the new moon — a sign, I doubt not, of the restoration of Israel; as the tenth day of the seventh month was of their future mourning, and entering into the delivering power of the atonement; but on these I do not enter here. At the three other feasts, Passover (with unleavened bread), Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all Israel was to go up to the place where God had put His name. Full of interest as they are in themselves, I must now confine myself to them, as forming a chain of unity in the history.

PASSOVER has an unquestionably historical character. It was "a night much to be remembered," when, protected by the blood from judgment, they ate their unleavened bread in haste, preparing to depart out of Egypt. There is no evidence that I am aware of that they kept it after Sinai (Num. 9) till they were in Canaan. Those born in the wilderness were not fitted to do so, being uncircumcised until across Jordan; when, under Joshua they were, they did so (a very instructive figure, but a little beyond my purpose now). I only add, it is only when dead and risen with Christ we are circumcised, knowing what it is, and "the reproach of Egypt rolled away." Patience and proving in the wilderness do not belong to this. Hezekiah kept it, and Josiah kept it, as it had not been kept for long years. This criminal neglect of Israel is constantly used as an evidence by the Germans that the law was not given.

107 It was clearly established, in commemoration of God's sparing the people when judging Egypt and Pharaoh at the time of their deliverance from the bondage they were in. So it was ordained to be kept, and, as far as kept, was so. In Deuteronomy 16 it will be found to have a peculiar character; for there the three great feasts are spoken of in connection with the state of soul under the effect of that which they figure. In the Passover, the unleavened bread, type of holiness and the absence of sin, is the bread of affliction; and they were to turn to Him in the morning and go to their tents, though the feast lasted seven days. There is no thought of common joy, as in Pentecost and Tabernacles, though in these in different measure. When in presence of judgment, though spared, holiness is bread of affliction, the spirit of repentance is the form of purity, and it is necessarily solemn and individual. But the great idea of security from God's judgment was there in the blood of the paschal lamb: afterwards, of course, only a memorial of it. Every Christian knows that Christ was the true Passover. The chief priests sought to hinder His being taken on the feast-day; but God's purpose did not await their decision, and on the day of the Passover He was sacrificed as the true paschal Lamb, "the Lamb of God," to take away sin. Eating at table with His disciples,* the Lord Himself so instructs us: "With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I say unto you, I will not eat any more thereof till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22: 15, 16): so that we have a clear instance of the intention of God in an institution formally established by Himself, by the hand of Moses, celebrating their escape from judgment in Egypt, yet definitely purposed to be indicative of a better and more lasting deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan, and more directly from the judgment of God, by which we were bound down under its consequences. "Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." When God sees that blood, He passes over, where faith has believed the word.

{*For the Jews the same day, though not for us, and at the time when leaven was put away for the feast.}

PENTECOST we know to have been connected with the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was the feast of firstfruits (not the first of the firstfruits, the wave-sheaf the morrow after the sabbath, that is, Christ risen on the first day of the week, but) when the harvest was reaped. Here leaven was to be in the two cakes offered (for sin is always found in man), even if offered to God in the power of the Holy Ghost. At the same time a sin-offering was to be offered to meet this defect, not offered in the previous case of the wave-sheaf; but they could not be burned themselves as a sweet savour to Jehovah. Then, as it was connected with the Holy Ghost, they were directed, in Deuteronomy 16, to rejoice together in grace, and bring a free-will offering, according as Jehovah had helped them. All this abides in its true force — its purport accomplished at Pentecost, and its effect abiding to this day. Was it arranged of man for the future in its institution? or was its accomplished antitype, the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, arranged by man on that day? We have it in Leviticus, we have it with other details in Deuteronomy: one, Leviticus 23, a history of the whole time from Egypt till the Lord comes again at the feast of tabernacles; the other, Deuteronomy 16, the characteristic detail of which gives the moral import of the observance. If not arranged by man, it is a testimony to that purpose of God which makes the whole book one in the revelation of His mind.

108 We have yet the feast of TABERNACLES, but without any antitype at all, which makes it the more remarkable. This was for the land solely. They were to dwell in booths, a testimony that Israel had been wanderers; but that now the promises were fulfilled, and that they were at peace in their land, never, as Amos says, to be plucked up any more; and, as Ezekiel has it, gathered back all of them. It was to be kept after the harvest and the vintage; in result, when ingathering and judgment were accomplished. We have seen in Revelation 14 the Son of man reaping the harvest of the earth, and treading the wine-press of the wrath of God. In this character He comes, chapter 19. In this character He is prophesied of (Isaiah 63), when He comes in dyed garments from Bozrah, when the day of vengeance is in His heart and He treads the peoples in His anger. Compare Isaiah 34; chap. 26: 9, and Zephaniah 3: 8; and in each case the promises to Israel following.

How could the Lord keep this feast? He could not. He will appear and shew Himself plainly enough to the world when He executes judgment on the quick, and so we find it in John 7, "If thou do these things," said His unbelieving brethren, "shew thyself to the world." Then Jesus said unto them, "My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. Go ye up unto this feast. I go not up* unto this feast, for my time is not yet full come."

{*The "yet" is not genuine.}

109 But, then, there was another thing in this feast, an eighth day, a specially solemn day; it reached beyond the seven full days of this world's week to the first day of another which began afresh. On that day, "that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me (as the scripture said), Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive, for the Spirit was not yet [given] because Jesus was not yet glorified," John 7. He could not associate Himself with Israel at this feast, but He could tell them on that special day, which went beyond the order of this world, that the Holy Ghost would be given consequent on His taking a heavenly and glorious place as Man, with which that Holy Spirit associates us. With the rest of Israel on earth comes in, what is yet a hope for us too, association with Christ in heavenly glory, as shewn in its manifestation in the kingdom on the mount of Transfiguration, of which the Holy Ghost is given to us as earnest while Christ is entered as a forerunner, expecting till His enemies shall be made His footstool. Then He shall have all things gathered together in one in heaven and on earth; and then shall be fulfilled in Israel, and far better for us, the declaration of Deuteronomy 16: 14, "And thou shalt rejoice . . . because Jehovah thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the work of thine hands; therefore thou shalt surely rejoice." It was a feast hardly kept, and no wonder, in all their history; in Solomon's dedication, lost in the general joy, so to speak, and observed in Nehemiah's time (chap. 8: 14), when they had learnt, though sore smitten, to sing again David's song, "His mercy endureth for ever." Is all this without a purpose or an order, in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and in the Lord's remarkable conduct and words in John? while all the testimonies of the Lord's judgments, and of the rest of heart, far too numerous to quote here, confirm the truth of it, and lead, as it will, to the full singing of that lovely word so repeated in the end of the Psalms, l'olam chesedo, "His mercy endureth for ever": while we have better things in glory with Him where He is gone; yet all things to be gathered into one under Him "for the administration of the fulness of time," Eph. 1: 10.

110 The SACRIFICES and other TYPES of the Old Testament connect the whole Bible from Abel to Christ evidently. Moses made the tabernacle after the pattern shewn him in the Mount. There was therefore a purpose and intention in it. Christ has passed through* the heavens, as Aaron entered into the most holy place. The history is taken up, not only in the Hebrews where the whole is gone into, but in 2 Corinthians 3. And as to Hebrews, it is not a partisan confirming Jewish ceremonial; but, while treating it as of God, putting it wholly aside, and contrasting it with Christianity, the heavenly thing. The whole system is judged; "a shadow, indeed, of good things to come," and yet fully recognised. And, observe, not the temple which they had before their eyes, and which men would have thought of (this is never alluded to in Hebrews), but the tabernacle in the wilderness: for there the Christian is, though with a heavenly calling. It had a full moral and spiritual signification for us; yet was all contrast, a veil that closed the way to the sanctuary, not a rent one which opened the way in; a priest sitting down because all His sacrificial work was finished, not standing because it never was accomplished.

{*Not "into," as in the English version (Heb. 4).}

The whole history, I may say, of the wilderness is recorded in 1 Corinthians 10, and applied to Christianity. We have the ark in Joshua, under Eli, and David; and the history of Aaron's rod and the manna confirmed in Solomon's temple, and that by an allusion, as to a well-known thing, the strongest confirmation possible; though having a moral force that the means of journeying were gone when the rest was come; 2 Chron. 5: 10. The temple order, substituted by David and Solomon for the tabernacle, is found, though slighted, and the temple defiled, all through the Kings. Now, though fifteen centuries separated the establishment of the two systems, the first has far more sense and import now to them that understand, than they had then. They were "shadows of good things to come," but "the body is of Christ," Col. 2: 17. This applies to every part of the ordering of the tabernacle, where though priests could go and others could not, yet in contrast, as I have said; for the veil is rent, and the holy and holy of holies, have, so to speak, become one. What the altar meant, what the laver, details alluded to, I doubt not, in John 13, has its full force now. The mind which gave Moses the pattern in the Mount thought of Christianity in giving it; and Christianity, while setting the shadows aside, more than fulfilled their import.

111 With the HISTORY, if less obvious, it was equally the case. "All these things happened unto them for ensamples (tupoi), and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come," 1 Cor. 10: 11. Hence we find them knit, as they are found in the Pentateuch, with the constant instructions of the New, and the aptness seen by every intelligent Christian; indeed the whole history acquires its value, from its present application to everyday life, with the utmost and most instructive exactness. Historically the accounts of the Pentateuch are referred to and used for the judgment and instruction of Israel, as all the dates at which the Psalms may have been written, as Psalms 18, 78, 81, 99, 105, 106, 114. So the history of Judges in Psalm 83. The minuteness of the allusion in Psalm 80 shews more than any quotation how their minds were imbued with the history, God using it by His Spirit. God is appealed to as Shepherd of Israel, and leading Joseph like a flock, to shine forth from between the cherubim; and, it is added, "Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh." Why these tribes? They were the three next the ark at the rear of the tabernacle. The allusions are numberless. The spirit of the people from David to Babylon was filled — saturated — with the history in the Pentateuch, the Judges, and Samuel. The public neglect of Jehovah was great, and the judgments many; but their recollections and their desires lived in the history (see Judges 6: 13) we learn in the Old Testament, and what their prophets told them of the future. It was what made them know God.

If we turn to the SACRIFICES we find the same neglect of God, as in everything; but the full intention and unity of intention is evident, indeed plainly stated. We find it, from Abel onward, the only legitimate ground of access to God. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." "It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul." Sacrifices were offered to God, but for men; worship was connected with an altar, a deep and important principle notified to us in Cain and Abel, and in the patriarchs; nor in the tabernacle service could any strange fire be used to burn the incense, the neglect of which cost Nadab and Abihu their lives, and closed the entry of the holiest to Aaron save on the great day of atonement. Sin and death had come in; and death and the acknowledgment of sin must come in for man to approach God; and when all was ordered of God, a clean and spotless victim must be offered. Such offerings occur, and mark the career of the godly (the Abrahams, whose earthly life was a tent, his divine life an altar),* and repeated too often to call for any individual notice. When all was ordained in connection with the tabernacle, and detail entered into, there was the burnt-offering which was on the ground of sin being there and atonement made (though not for particular transgressions), but was all burnt to God, an absolute sweet savour; the meat-offering, in which was no leaven (figure of sin), but all kneaded with oil and anointed with oil, and that in each minutest part; much frankincense, but all burnt to God, fully tested by holy judgment and only sweet savour. Then others feasted on what was slain as did the offerer, priest, the priests, and God too, while the same abiding law held good as to the blood and fat; and lastly, when there had been actual sins, there were offerings for them confessed on the victim's head; and if the blood was carried into the sanctuary, the body burnt without the camp. If the efficacy of the atoning blood went into heaven, the victim was rejected outside the camp, an earthly religion (connection of a people with God upon earth) ceased and was impossible. And especially on the great day of atonement the blood was carried into the holiest of all — God's own presence, according to what He was, not merely man's responsibility met by what was done on the altar of burnt-offering without. Besides this there was a sacrifice connected with their journey through the wilderness, for any uncleanness contracted there, unfitting any, otherwise entitled, to go up to the worship of God. This last was carried out, not by the shedding or sprinkling blood again, but by sprinkling with living water, into which the ashes of the burnt heifer had been put. The blood had been sprinkled seven times where God met the people.

{*He had none in Egypt, nor till he returned to Bethel.}

112 All this had a purpose and a meaning. The prophets and Psalms refer to it as, with more or less order, it was historically continued. The resting on the mere outward offering with an unbroken heart is judged; but, as in Isaiah 53, there was One stricken for the transgression of God's people who made His soul and offering for sin, offered to God because sin was there; but a whole burnt-offering of a perfect sweet savour, God glorified in Him; as the meat-offering, pure as man conceived of the Holy Ghost, anointed with the Holy Ghost, and all He did by the Spirit, all sweet odour of grace going up to and referring to God above, though priests may scent its sweetness, fully tested by the fire of God's judgment; no leaven was there, all was a sweet savour to God. We feed on this sacrifice as the peace-offering, though the life and its energies were all offered to God — feed on it indeed, as bread come down from heaven, and as a sacrifice in death, only that death is become sure life to us, and what was absolute ruin before is now redemption and life, and we drink the blood too; not only atonement made for our sins and guilt taken away in our believing, but God perfectly glorified in His nature and intrinsic righteousness, measured by what He is and not merely by what we owe, and all our sins gone where they never can be found again. Such was the special offering of the great day of atonement.

113 There is for the believer no more conscience of sins; he is perfected for ever as to his conscience, while provision is made for restoring communion if we have defiled ourselves, the Holy Ghost by the word restoring the self-judging soul in virtue of that which shews sins for ever put away. He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself (complete in result in the new heavens and the new earth); and as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. God is perfectly glorified in His nature through redemption, and the believer's sins gone for ever, so that he has boldness to enter into the holiest.

I cannot, of course, here enlarge on so wide a subject as the sacrifices, profoundly interesting as it may be. What I have here to note is, that the word of God affords us, from Abel's time, a distinct line of thought, brought out in detail in the law of Moses, and prophetically applied to God's coming Servant in Isaiah, spoken of in the Psalms in words used by the Lord Himself on the cross, and then in the Gospels plainly declared "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," "the Son of man come to give His life a ransom for many"; and reasoned on, as everyone knows, in the Epistles, shewing Christ who died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, the Just for the unjust, a Lamb without blemish and without spot. The lamb of Abel's faith is the Lamb in the midst of the throne, whose bride the heavenly Jerusalem is Himself the light and glory of it — "a lamb as it had been slain."

114 The same divine thought runs through Scripture from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation; the divine thought, prefigured in Abel, in the Exodus, and the sacrifices of the tabernacle, sung in holy strains in the Psalms, prophesied of by the prophets of God, even to the price He was to be sold for, accomplished in the Word made flesh, and unfolded in the instructions of the Holy Ghost — God's precious Lamb, whose blood cleanses us from all sin. Was it a compiler of fragmentary documents in Ezra's time, or God, who has taught us all this, one immense moral truth from Abel to the consummation of all things, the foundation of the stability of the new heavens and the new earth which makes grace righteousness — the righteousness of God, and sets man at His right hand in glory, opening heaven to us now, and in time taking us there? It was God's thought, God's work of love, and God's revelation, never lost sight of, as it never will be when even the kingdom shall be given up that God may be all and all.

These may suffice as illustrations of how divine thought runs as a continued stream of purpose through the Bible as a whole. I insist upon its being many books, by many authors, collected no man knows by whom (not the "learned Germans" more than I or Mr. Smith), but proved to be divinely inspired, individually and collectively, by the divine oneness which pervades their contents, and the more from their being many authors in remote ages. But I will now take two special parts of the great collection; for collection, whoever made it, everyone admits it is, the Lord Himself setting His seal of acceptance on it as such — I mean the Gospels and Psalms — to shew the divine mind in each.

The traditions of Mark's Gospel, composed at Rome from Peter's testimony as its source, and Luke more or less from Paul's, I attach no importance to. It is quite alike to me whether a secondhand tradition (not very early either) be true or false, if an apostolic source be true or not. The question is whether God is the source. If so, the human instrument is of no moment. Mark was intimate probably with Peter, and certainly Luke with Paul; but the latter could not have himself given testimony from personal knowledge to him, and Luke attributes it to another source. This is true, that the tone and import of Luke's Gospel fall in more with Paul's ministry of grace to all; but all the preaching in the Acts (and we have only sermons to Jews from Peter and Paul) is based on the commission in Luke, for they are distinct in each Gospel.

115 It is very doubtful if the Epistles of Jude and James are from apostles. This is not the real question. That the apostles had a special mission, whether the twelve or Paul, for these also are distinct, is sure to every Christian; but if God inspired others, their word was just as sure; and if an apostle spoke or wrote or acted not by the inspiration of the Spirit, this was not the word of God. Those who believe in inspiration have, just as these historical critics, rested on traditional circumstances or proofs, or human evidence, strong indeed, I admit, for authenticity and the letter, but which leaves untouched the real question, Are they inspired of God?

The proof of Scripture in this respect is in Scripture, in the power of the word wielded by the Holy Ghost. When in that power it reaches the heart and conscience, its character, its divine character, is known, not only in the particular point in which it reaches them, but as to the true power and character of that which has done so. The woman of Samaria does not say when thus reached, "What you say is true," but, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." What He said came from God. His character and word were known to her. So it is with the Bible when a man is taught of God. It is recognised as His word, as Christ was recognised by those whose eyes were opened to see what was divine. Human testimony may prove the folly of human doubt, but no more, and so be useful; but divine operation alone gives divine faith. "He hath opened mine eyes." When men believed only through proofs to man, by miracles, Jesus did not commit Himself to them; He knew what was in man. It was man's judgment about Him, very justly formed, but only man's judgment, no revelation of the Son of God to the soul: this is by the word through the operation of God; and then a man is born of God and sees. But I must pursue my inquiry.

As to the Gospels then, they carry their own testimony with them. Men may make Harmonies or seek to prove discrepancies, or give us Eusebius's account of traditions, or, if we are to believe Eusebius, the foolish old man Papias' account of his pleasure in hearing legends of what Christ said — a good pious old man, I doubt not. One has only to read the Apocryphal Gospels to see what they are worth, the utter nonsense that is in them.* But each Gospel bears its distinct character, proving itself and completing the others. For while each can give us enough to shew what the blessed Lord's life was, yet the account would not be complete according to divine thought without all. First, there is a characteristic difference between John's and the Synoptical Gospels. They present Christ to be received as Son of David, Son of man, though of course the Christ and the Prophet-Servant; and in all He is rejected. In John, being God and the Son manifested in the world, the real ground of His rejection, we read in the first chapter that the world knew Him not, and His own received Him not; and they, the Jews, are treated as reprobate all through, and He is always come into the world, sovereign and quickening grace alone leading to His reception. And what He is in Person, and the Holy Ghost's coming, are fully treated of.

{*One tells us that Jesus was as a child the death of so many who meddled with Him, that His mother kept Him in the house at last. He was making mud birds one Sabbath and ponds, and a big boy came and broke His ponds. The birds took life and flew away, and the Child said, "As you have dried my ponds, you will be dried up"; and so he dried up and died.}

116 But let us see briefly these characteristics, so as to shew, in some measure, the divine completeness of the whole; and it is not pretended there was a clever compiler of the four here. I can only touch on a few leading heads.

In Matthew He comes as Messiah, Emmanuel, Jehovah, to His people, yet if Messiah, of course as Son of David. Hence His genealogy is traced to Abraham and David, the great vessels of the Jewish promise of the Seed. He was Emmanuel, Jesus, that is, Jah Hoshea, Jehovah the Saviour, for He shall save His people from their sins. Born at Bethlehem according to prophecy, the anti-king seeks His destruction, and He flees to Egypt, called back out from thence to be the true Son of God here below. Then John the Baptist executes his mission. Both here and with the Magi, while the Jews are the immediate object, yet a remnant only is owned in Israel morally, judgment is at hand, and grace can make of stones children to Abraham, and in the Magi the Gentiles are owned but in connection with one born king of the Jews.

Then Christ takes His place among this remnant, and immediately heaven is opened, He is anointed with the Holy Ghost, and the Father owns Him as His Son. The whole Trinity is for the first time fully revealed, and man's place (for us in redemption), according to God's counsels, made good in Him when He takes His place amongst them, Son of God there. Owned such He goes up, led of the Spirit, to meet Satan; for us refuses, if Son, to leave obedience in His taken place of servant, and overcomes Satan for us in perfectly waiting on God's will to act — overcomes his wiles, and sends away the adversary, and then goes to Galilee to the poor of the flock, calls disciples, and all the history of His service in Matthew is given in chapter 4: 23.

117 Then He describes the character of those who would have part in the kingdom without speaking of redemption. Israel were on the way with God to judgment (compare Luke 12: 49-59), and, if they did not agree, would be cast into prison, and not come out till they had paid the last farthing. And there they are to this day.

In chapter 8 He is Jehovah, and the Gentiles are again noticed. In chapter 9 we have the character of His ministry, which is forgiveness and power in grace (according to Psalm 103), and characterised by grace. In chapter 10 mission is exclusively to Israel in His own time then, to the end of verse 15; after He was gone, from verse 16, and that to the end till the Son of man should be come. In chapter 11 John the Baptist's ministry and His own are both rejected by Israel, and He takes the character of Son of God, unknown because of His Person, and alone able to reveal the Father to the comfort of the heavy-laden, and as the obedient man shewing the yoke they must bear to get rest. In chapter 12 the Jews are formally judged, and He disclaims any relationship on earth except that produced by the word. In chapter 13 He seeks fruit no more in His vineyard, but as Son of man carries out the seed which was to produce fruit; but the field is the world and the kingdom of heaven is described, that is, God's kingdom when the King is in heaven, taking the place of His presence on earth. He will come in judgment as Son of man, and the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Father's kingdom.

In chapter 14 He still continues His ministry in grace, but Israel and man are judged in chapter 15, and grace to the farthest from God according to Jewish dispensation vouchsafed to those who had no promise in His Person. In chapter 16 we have the church Christ builds (founded on the title "Son of the living God," proved in resurrection) to replace Israel, as in chapter 13 the kingdom in mystery, in chapter 17 the kingdom in glory. The disciples are forbidden to say any more He is the Christ, for the Son of man must suffer. In chapter 18, to the end of chapter 20: 28, we find the principles which were to guide the disciples and characterise their walk when He was gone — lowliness, His presence among them, forgiveness, judging the inward man of the heart instead of observing the outward law, and other great principles of conduct and service.

118 In all the Synoptics, the history of the last events, another chapter of the Lord's history, His death and not His life, begins with the blind man of Jericho. And He begins by again taking the character of Son of David, and presenting himself to Jerusalem as such. Then the Jews and their various sects come up one after another and are judged. The testimony of God in Judah till the Lord comes (chap. 24: 1-31), with exhortations to verse 44; the judgment of Christendom in chapter 24: 45 to chapter 25: 30, and verse 31 to the end the judgment of the Gentiles, to whom the message of the kingdom had been sent in those last days; in chapters 26 and 27, the last scenes, in which He is specially the victim here, led to the slaughter and dumb before His shearers, and every human comfort looked for in vain, the Christ the Son of God, but henceforth Son of man in glory, the veil rent. Then His resurrection and joining the poor of the flock again in Galilee, but no ascension: the twelve being sent out to disciple and baptise the Gentiles, a commission from Jesus risen, of the accomplishment of which we find no history in Scripture. The mission to them is surrendered to Paul, as recorded in Galatians 2.

The perpetual quotation of and reference to the Old Testament scriptures is evident to the most careless reader, with ina when it is the object of the passage cited, opos when it is an accomplishment of it, tote when it is only an instance of the thing. I have only noticed of course here what shews a perfect and systematic course of teaching, all based on the essential character of the Gospel. The events are not given in historical order in the life of the Lord, though generally following it, but are subjects treated of. The whole history of His life and ministry is in one verse, and then what characterised it — the mind of God in it. The rationalist may search very imperfect legends how it originated and was put together,* conjecture or reason on a Hebrew original or the contrary, and the Nazarene Gospel. The Christian taught of God sees with perfect certainty the character of the Lord as Messiah, Emmanuel, Jehovah, a Man amongst men, but Son of God, presented to Israel with all the principles He brought as such, and rejected by Israel to make way for deeper counsels and a better salvation: stating indeed a heavenly place for those rejected for His sake, but carrying on testimony, not from heaven, but from resurrection.

{*If any one be curious, he may read Marsh's conjectures.}

119 The gospel of Mark I need not dwell on. It is the ministry of Christ, and is more exactly in chronological order, the same as Luke when he is chronological, but not calling for special notice for the purpose for which I comment on the Gospels. The reader may notice that the Lord's life closes here too with Galilee, as far as the Lord's words go, chapter 16: 9-20 giving a short summary of what is recorded in Luke and John.

I turn to Luke, but only for some brief remarks, with a view to my special object. It begins with a lovely picture of the godly remnant in Judah, and the prophetic Spirit amongst them, hidden in the midst of the abounding iniquity of Israel; but where, as in the cave of Adullam, a godly priest, the true king, and the Spirit of prophecy are found. But the Jews are under the power of the Roman "beast," and events are dated by his reign. Then comes a genealogy,* which traces Christ up to Adam. He is Son of man come in grace, not the heir of promises to Abraham and David. At once, in chapter 4, He shews God's goodness extended to the Gentiles, so that they were going to kill Him. Then we have His power over demons and diseases, cleansing the leper and forgiving sins on earth; He is come to the sick. His disciples could not fast then — the bridegroom was there; — nor could new wine be put into old bottles, the truths of grace and the gift of the Spirit into Jewish ordinances. He is found (as constantly in Luke) praying as Son of man, and slighting their thoughts of the Sabbath; He was Lord of it as Son of man; it was the sign of the covenant with Israel; Ezek. 20. He gives then the summary of blessings and woes (the disciples are "ye poor"), but not the principles on which they would enter into the kingdom. There is more faith in a Gentile than in Israel, and then He raises the dead. The poor multitude and publicans justified God; the Pharisees rejected His counsel and are rejected. But wisdom is justified of all her children; and the child of wisdom is shewn in the poor woman, a sinner in the city; not in the Pharisee who, with God in the house, decided, as rationalists do, that He, most clearly, could not be a prophet. But forgiveness, salvation, and peace are the portion of the poor woman, to whose heart and conscience God had revealed Himself in Christ as light and love.

{*Chapter 3: 23 should, I have no doubt, be read "(Being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph) [the son] of Heli"; that is, son of Heli refers to Jesus, not Joseph; there is no "which was" in Greek. The Talmudists make Mary the daughter of Heli to be tormented in the other world. The vision of Isaiah (A.D. 68), it is said, makes Mary to be of the lineage of David. So does Tertullian according to Kaye. But this only by the bye.}

120 Then, in chapter 8, the sowing the word is spoken of; but we have not the mysteries of the kingdom. This Gospel is not dispensational; but the Lord rejects association, according to the flesh, with Israel. We have then an account of the expulsion of the legion of demons in Gadara, and, as often in Luke, more details as to the man. He would go away out of his home in this world with Christ, but was sent back for a testimony. The world gets rid of Jesus; and, I have no doubt, the rushing of the herd of swine is a picture of Israel's conduct when He was gone; but this is a mere figure I leave to every one to judge of. He goes to heal Jairus' daughter, but has to raise the dead. Only whoever touches Him with faith, in the way as He then was, is healed.

After feeding the multitude He is transfigured; and in the Gospel of Luke only we have the talking of His decease, and the going into the cloud, the heavenly part of the kingdom — a very important element. Their selfishness is detected in every form from the grossest to the most refined; and Christ is to be everything. This closes the orderly historical part of Luke. Christ's time was come for Him to be received up, and He stedfastly sets his face to go to Jerusalem. In the beginning of chapter 9 He had given His last testimony to Israel, only there was no inquiry who was worthy; and then comes the kingdom in glory, and entering into where the Father was, the excellent glory, and the strict prohibition any more to say that He was the Christ. We have no going through the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come — no prohibitory notice of Samaritans and Gentiles; we have the history morally, not dispensationally, given: here, too, He was praying when He was transfigured; no replacing the Messiah in Israel by the church founded on the title Son of God, but the heavenly and earthly glory when the Christ was rejected, and the cross, in bearing which they were to follow Him. On this He insists, while the multitude wondered at His present power. He sends His messengers before His face on His way to Jerusalem, the parting testimony to Israel; but the disciples were to rejoice, not because devils were subject to them, but because their names were written in heaven. Grace is taught, independent of Judaism, in the man that fell among thieves. Then we have hearing His word, and prayer. He was the test of every soul. The evil generation, as pictured in the return of the unclean spirit, is left out. Still the nation is judged morally.

121 The folly of the world in its desires is taught, and the fear of man to be conquered, and for disciples full trust in God exercised; while the heavenly portion of those who watch, and the rule in the return of Christ of those that serve, are beautifully brought out. The effect of His present coming in dividing nearest friends is told, and the application of being in the way with the adversary made clear. Judgment was on all the nation, the Sabbath is set aside in the work of grace, the kingdom very briefly announced in its external form, but in connection with entering in at the strait gate. He would often as Jehovah have gathered Jerusalem, but now her day was past. The sabbath again yields to doing good, and the call to the great supper and its results is spoken of: only the sick and the poor are added to what is in Matthew. We have then, what is in Luke only, grace in seeking and grace in receiving by the Father, God's joy in the salvation of a sinner thenceforth; what man, a steward out of place, is to do with his master's goods in view of everlasting habitations; and the veil withdrawn from another world, putting the outward blessings in this, promised to Israel, in their own true place. This morally substitutes Christianity for Judaism.

After some moral principles, He is substituted for the temple and Judaism in the case of the healed Samaritan: the kingdom of God was there. Prayer is urged, but when the Son of man came where would be faith? and self-judgment preferred to self-righteousness, and the heart searched instead of the commandments outwardly kept. There is none good but God. Salvation is only of Him.

He approaches Jericho; the story of Zacchaeus is added, full grace to a publican, but responsibility in service when He should be gone, and reward according to labour. Then in approaching Jerusalem on the ass, the remarkable expression, Peace in heaven. Till Satan should be cast out thence, no rest on earth could come. Jerusalem is wept over in grace.

122 In the prophecy to His disciples (chap. 21) we have no abomination of desolation, but the siege of Jerusalem by Titus not mentioned in Matthew. The true secret of Peter's fall is brought out, and the entire change in Christ's position now, as being there, not as Emmanuel, King in Israel as He had been, but as a malefactor on the cross. In Gethsemane is more deep human sorrow than in any Gospel; on the cross none. He is the perfect man: not here the victim before God, true as this ever remains. He went through the sorrow with His Father; and there was calmness itself when the sorrow was actually there. We have the account of the converted thief, and the assurance of a blessed intermediate state before He came in His (Christ's) kingdom: a most instructive and important history. I should have added that in instituting the Lord's Supper He does not speak of eating it new in the kingdom, but of the present thing, its being fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

We have the lovely history of the disciples' journey to Emmaus; and, passing rapidly over the circumstances of the resurrection, no going to Galilee, but going out to Bethany; the ascension related, and their blessing in connection with His going to heaven. It is He himself, the same Jesus who is risen; He eats to shew it; He opens their understandings to understand the Scriptures: repentance and remission of sins are to be preached in His name; but they were to wait for the power at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father — that is, the coming of the Holy Ghost. It is on this commission, as I have said, that the preaching of the gospel took place, as related in Scripture.

The whole Gospel gives us the moral change, and introduces the present and heavenly state of things, not dealing with dispensation, though of course with the setting aside of Judaism. It is the Son of man, and in divine grace. While Luke is especially characteristic, it is less easy to reproduce its character in a summary, because it is many minute traits which form that character: grace in the Son of man. Still the introductory chapters, the place and scope of the genealogy, the introduction of the parables in chapters 14, 15, 16, the introduction of going into the cloud in the transfiguration, the ascension, the thief on the cross, the woman that was a sinner, the frequent praying of Christ, the introduction of Gentiles, all marked grace that reached out beyond promises to Israel, and the Son of man in whom that grace came.

123 The Gospel of John, on the contrary, gives very broad lines of truth as to the Person of Christ and the coming of the Holy Ghost. Its character is totally distinct from the other three Gospels. It is not a history to display what Christ was here, His rejection and death, but a statement of all that He was in Himself. The Jews are all set aside, and indeed man, in starting; but all that Christ is, save His relative characters, is found already in the first chapter; in the third, what was revealed and needed for Israel and man to have part in the earthly and heavenly blessings. We have only to follow the contents of the Gospel to see its bearing. The sovereign operation of needed grace is found also from the beginning. What was found by results and experience in the first three Gospels is taught as truth here.

The first chapter begins before Genesis, because it treats of what was, not of what was done. As to Christ, He is God, in nature a distinguishable person with God, not become so by incarnation, but with God in the beginning. He was, when all began. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men: but the light shone in darkness, that is, amongst men, but the darkness comprehended not. God, in patient love, sent a witness to draw men's attention to that light. Next, verse 14, He became flesh, egeneto, became, not now en, was. He became flesh, was this amongst men as man, was a Son with His own Father, dwelt among men full of grace and truth. Christians have all received of His fulness, and grace for grace. Grace and truth came by Him, they were there, egeneto. The law was given by Moses. Then His work: He is the Lamb of God, the taker-away of the sin (not sins) of the world, and the baptizer with the Holy Ghost; He was anointed and sealed with it Himself. Then, as John had witnessed to Him as Lamb of God, His disciples gathered round Him. He is the Son of God and King of Israel. But much more: henceforth the heavens would be seen opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. He is not the Christ for Israel in this chapter; nor Priest above; nor Head of the church. John does not own the Jews, nor has he indeed to do with the church: all is individual, not counsels, but God revealed in the Son declaring His Father; and eternal life come down to be imparted to man, the Word become flesh.

124 In chapter 2 we have the result when the history of the gathered remnant closes, the joy of the marriage, the purifying water turned into wine, and the temple purged of all that profaned it. This closes the introductory part as to all that concerns Christ.

We have now what concerns men. But the incarnation is the introduction of what was before the beginning of all things, in the power of life in a Man, into the scene of the all things, to be eternal life indeed as from everlasting in His Person; but a wholly new thing, though a true Man amongst men — a new beginning. But the mere human conviction by evidence was nothing, and not to be trusted. Man must be born again (anothen), wholly anew. Nicodemus ought to have known this as a teacher of Israel. The prophets (see Ezek. 36) shewed it plainly that, even for Israel to enjoy the earthly promises, there must be a new birth; how much more to have part in the heavenly! This He would teach as coming thence, as no one else had to tell it, the Son of man, who was even then divinely in heaven. But the Son of man must be lifted up, that a people separated by faith should have a part in these heavenly things. The need was there on man's side, and the Son of man met it. The love of God was there on God's side, and the Son of God was given; but it is the world, not Israel. The condemnation now was that light was come into the world; and man hated it, and did not come to it. In the rest of the chapter John the Baptist unfolds who he is, the testimony being closed by the evangelist himself with the Father's love to the Son, and His having put all things into His hand: he that believed on Him had everlasting life. Man, God in grace, Israel, the world, and the Son of God come in grace revealing the Father, bringing eternal life, grace and truth — all find their place here; what Christ is, and the truth as to man, the being born again, and the atonement on the cross.

This closes the introduction, the epoch being marked by John being not yet cast into prison; after which Christ began His public ministry. In chapter 4 the Lord leaves Judaea, His country as come amongst the Jews; and we find grace with a Samaritan, prerogative mercy above Jewish relationship, and connected with His Person and humiliation, but no understanding of it in man; and this produced by dealing with the conscience. Worship must be in spirit and in truth, for God is a Spirit; but the Father, His name in grace, revealed in the Son, seeketh such. In chapter 5 we have the benefits under the law, dependent on the power of the person who is to use them, and there is none: the disease to be cured has taken away the force to use the remedy; Christ as Son of God brings it with Him. The Father raises the dead, and quickens them, so the Son quickens whom He will: and he who believes has eternal life: then man's responsibility as to it, life being come in His Person, with the evidences of John Baptist, His own works, the Father, their own scriptures: but they would not come to Him to have it. In chapter 6 He is Son of man, owned prophet, refusing to be king; He ascends up for priestly service, and the disciples go away alone; He rejoins them, and they are immediately where they went. Our food, meanwhile, is Christ humbled, the bread from heaven, and His flesh and blood; but if this last, His death, be not fed on, there is not life; in such case their portion is resurrection in the last day, in a state man never was in, even innocent. In chapter 7 the Holy Ghost takes the place of tabernacles, as we have seen, of which there is yet no antitype; in chapter 8 His word is rejected; in chapter 9 His work; in chapter 10 He will have His sheep at any rate out of Israel and the Gentiles too; in chapters 11, 12 we have the testimony rendered of God, as we have seen, to Christ when rejected as Son of God, Son of David, Son of man: but then He must die.

125 This closes His history, and He is now looked at as going to His Father — this from chapter 13. He must leave His disciples; but if He cannot stay with them, He must have them with Him gone now to God. For this He abides a servant, and washes their feet: for being washed (converted), that is done once for all. Their walk remains to be seen to. Further, God is perfectly glorified by Him in His death: so man goes into God's glory. In chapter 14 He went to prepare a place for them above, and will come back and receive them. They knew where He was going, for He was going to the Father; and they had seen the Father in Him, and so knew the way too. Further, when the Comforter was come, they would know not only that He was in the Father, but that they were in Him and He in them. In chapter 15 Israel was not the true vine, though a vine brought out of Egypt. He was so: and they the branches, and this on earth. Then the work of the Comforter is fully developed in chapter 16: sent by the Father in chapter 14 in His name: by Him, from the Father, as the glorified Man in chapters 15, 16. In chapter 17 speaking to His Father — wondrous grace that we should be admitted to hear Him — He puts the disciples (founding it on His work and glorifying, and revelations of the Father in Himself) on the same ground as Himself with the Father and with the world.

126 Then we have Gethsemane and the cross in chapter 20, His revelation of Himself to Mary Magdalene and to the disciples, and this whole period of Christian blessing characterised. The Jewish remnant, who loved Him, could not now have Him back in bodily presence, but they were now His brethren; He went to His Father and their Father, to His God and their God. He is in their midst, communicates life in resurrection in the power of the Holy Ghost, as God breathed into Adam, committing the administration of forgiveness of sins on earth to them. Thomas represents the remnant in the latter day. In chapter 21 we are in Galilee again with this remnant; and the service of Peter, who is blessedly restored through grace, and of John: one as the apostle of the circumcision to find his labour in Israel come to nothing as regards the nation, and he a martyr, as Christ; and John to linger over the condition of the church till He came. It is purposely given mysteriously, and in part refers to the last days. The net is the millennial haul, and does not break, as the gospel net did. (Of Paul's ministry we have nothing; it stands by itself, a dispensation committed to him.) We have no ascension in John's Gospel. It will be remarked, that, all through, it is the divine side and the purpose of God as to Christ, which is treated here; with the Holy Ghost who takes His place on earth.

I would still notice the distinction of the closing scene in the Gospels. In Matthew Christ is the victim, perfect in calmness and patience, with no ray to comfort Him, no heart to feel for Him; He is led as a lamb to the slaughter (man's wickedness frightfully brought out), but a perfect victim of propitiation, told out on the cross by the solemn words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In the midst of plans of the priests and the vacillation of Pilate, God's purpose is carried out in the true passover; and Christ is, before both, condemned for His own testimony to the truth.

In Luke you have deeper human conflict in Gethsemane, though perfection in it: being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly. On the cross there is none. He had gone through it as man with His Father, and the perfect result is peacefulness on the cross. Also, here, as man, He commends His spirit to His Father.

127 In John we have the divine side — no sorrow in Gethsemane, none on the cross. In Gethsemane they go backward and fall to the ground, and He delivers up Himself, saying, "If ye seek me, let these go their way." On the cross He puts His mother under John's care, and delivered up His own spirit when all was finished in the work He had to do. We have to learn in part, and the various parts separately, that we may know all. John was nearer Christ in His agony, but Matthew gives it, not John. Matthew saw the people go-back and fall, but says nothing of it. The Holy Ghost gives by each what suits the whole tenor and subject of that Gospel. Yet our Baurs and other Germans can see nothing but a composition to make peace among Christian squabblers in the end of the second century. Can there be greater poverty, more total moral darkness? Mr. Smith, professing for some other reason to believe, debits out this threadbare infidelity, without a ray of light to lighten the darkness, or say it is not true; or he would persuade us that Christ sanctioned, as written by Moses, and as the word of God relative to Himself, what was not written by Moses at all — an imposture in which he, forsooth, can see no harm! and he would have us believe that the Lord and the apostles were all wrong, and Dr. Baur and himself right.

I have referred to the Psalms as another illustration of unity of purpose and mind as collected. It is well known there are five distinct books, each ending with ascription of praise to Jehovah — Psalms 1-41; 42-72; 73-89; 90-106; and thence to the end. Each book has its own object and character. The first two Psalms, however, are an introduction, and give the key to the whole book. In Psalm 1 there is a remnant distinguished from the ungodly of the nation. Psalm 2 gives the counsels of Jehovah to establish, in spite of rejection by Jews and Gentiles, Christ (the Anointed) as King on His holy hill of Zion; also God's Son, as born into the world; and, finally, to subdue the Gentiles with a rod of iron.

I would now mention a principle of order which helps us to understand the connection of many Psalms. One or more psalms give the platform on which the thoughts and feelings of the following Psalms are based.* But, first, as to the character of the five books. In the first the remnant is still in Jerusalem, and the name Jehovah is used throughout, though in two Elohim be introduced. And here we have more prophetic reference to Christ, though rejected.

{*It will be found in individual Psalms, the first verse or two giving the thesis, the rest what leads to it.}

128 In the second book the remnant is out of Jerusalem; but their state is pursued through rejection till the authority of the Son of David be established. This begins with Elohim; but after Psalm 45, when the King is brought in in power, we find Jehovah, and triumph. Blood-guiltiness is owned, the sufferings and sorrows of the people under oppression and hostile power are recounted: and Elohim is largely, sometimes exclusively, used in contrast with man powerful in wickedness. Still judgment is looked for in faith, and true repentance in Israel. But the remnant all through are cast out, though their praise is ready (Psa. 65) when restored. In Psalm 69 Christ associates Himself with Israel, bearing their sins, and carrying their sorrows in His heart, though rejected of them; and here Jehovah comes in again. It closes, as already said, in the Son of David being established in glory and power.

The third book goes beyond the Jews, and takes in all Israel. They are to be received after the glory, and though faith does bring in Jehovah at Psalms 73: 28; 78: 21; 80: 4; 81: 10, still Elohim is the constant cry: they are not yet restored by the glory. Still we have this prophetically, and all the exercises of heart and faith and hope about it furnished to them by inspiration. Here too the old associations of Israel as a whole are far more fully before us. In chapter 83 Jehovah comes fully in again, on the judgment against the last confederacy being executed, and is used even in the depth of their humiliation (Psa. 88), their guilt under the old covenant. In the next Psalm mercies are recounted and Christ brought in (verse 19 called "holy one" wrongly. It is still Chesed, so the same as in the first verse generally; in verse 18 Kodesh), that is Jehovah. This closes the book.

The fourth book is the bringing in the First-begotten into the world. Jehovah has been ever Israel's dwelling-place. Of Psalm 91 I have spoken, where Jehovah is identified with the Most High in the accomplishment of the promises to Abraham. This is celebrated by faith in the next psalm. Then, with Psalm 93 as a preface, the introduction of Jehovah Messiah into the world, from the appeal of the suffering remnant who inquire if Jehovah is going to reign conjointly with the power of evil (v. 20), on to the calling up the Gentiles to worship at Jerusalem, where the presence and glory of Jehovah are fully established, in Psalm 100. In Psalm 101 we have the principles of the earthly kingdom; and Psalm 102, how Christ, who was cut off, could be there. He was Jehovah, eternal in nature (Atta Hu), and His years, too, as man should never fail. (See Heb. 1) Psalm 103 celebrates Christ as Jehovah (compare Matt. 9) in Israel; in Psalm 104 it is the God of creation who is celebrated; in Psalm 105 the God of Israel of old, but whose judgments are now in all the earth. In Psalm 106 Jehovah's faithfulness is looked to in spite of all their misdeeds.

129 The fifth book, from Psalm 107 to the end, is more general, but we have them gathered out of all lands; the great revelation that Messiah Melchisedec was to sit on Jehovah's right hand till His enemies were made His footstool: then His power would come out of Zion. It is fully celebrated that "Jehovah's mercy endureth for ever." The circumstances of deliverance are rehearsed in the Mahaloth, the law written (Psa. 119) in the heart of Israel who had gone astray like a sheep that was lost: and finally the great Hallelujah of now accomplished deliverance. Psalms 72 and 145 alone, as far as I remember, describe the millennial state itself: the first as to Christ; the second as to His association with the people. Psalm 118 is the full description of the return of Israel's heart to Jehovah, recognising His ways and their own fault, and is constantly quoted by the Lord in the Gospels, and brought out by the power of God in the last entry in Jerusalem; and it is quoted also in the Acts.

I return to note a few details based on the principle referred to at the outset. Psalms 1, 2, are the preface and key as I have said; then Psalms 3-7 the thoughts and feelings Christ's rejection has given rise to in the remnant, ending in His character as Son of man; Psa. 8. Of this I have spoken before. Psalms 9, 10* are the sorrows of the Jews and the delivering judgments of God; in Psalms 11-17 their thoughts and feelings, Christ's resurrection, trust and righteousness being introduced, ending in Psalm 18, when Christ's sufferings are made the key to Israel's history, from Egypt to the establishment of the kingdom in power. Psalms 19-22 are deeply interesting, creation testimony, the testimony of the law, of a Christ suffering, from Man exalted to glory and punishing all His enemies, of a Christ suffering indeed from man but then crying to God and forsaken, yet perfect and making atonement; nothing but wider and wider blessing flowing from it to the remnant which becomes the church, literally accomplished in John 20, to all Israel, to the world, and those born in the millennium: "He hath done this."

{*I do not understand how Mr. S. makes there an imperfect acrostic. It is looking inexactly and superficially at the outside, and missing all the force of the Psalms. We have a, a, b, b to begin with in Psalm 9; 1, b, k, r in Psalm 10.}

130 Psalm 23 forms another starting-point: Jehovah the Shepherd who cares for His tried one; Psalm 24 Christ the Jehovah who enters in triumph into the gates of righteousness on earth. The exercises on this go to Psalm 39. Then we have the accomplishment of the counsels of God, undertaken by a suffering obedient Christ, the key to all; and then the blessing on him (Psa. 41) who understands the poor, as He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, "ye poor"; and we can say, This poor man cried, and Jehovah heard him.

I need not go any farther to illustrate general principles, which is all I can attempt to do now. The divine sequence and connection of the Psalms is, I think, evident; yet they are confessedly isolated songs, composed at different times, even if mostly David's: a collection, but the mind of God shines through them as a collection; His purposes in Christ and in Israel, when Jehovah shall be owned as Most High in all the earth, a suffering remnant and a Messiah who has entered into their sorrows. Of course the Father's name is not and cannot be found in them, nor the Spirit of adoption. It is deeply interesting to see that, while His human sorrows can be viewed in Psalm 20, His atoning sufferings can be expressed only by His own mouth; Psa. 22.

I would say a few words on Petrine and Pauline teaching, as it is greatly dwelt on by these "learned Germans." It is folly, as they take it with their speculations, but most interesting, when rightly looked at. That the Jews had the strongest prejudices against the Gentiles is notorious, and that the Jewish Christians were not exempt from them is evident upon the face of the New Testament history. We possess in the Acts of the Apostles the case of Cornelius, and it is plainly in point both as regards Peter himself and those at Jerusalem. The affair between him and Paul (Gal. 2) tells the same tale, and reveals, as do other passages, the effort to force circumcision on the Gentiles. The council in Acts 15 under God decided otherwise at Jerusalem itself, which was the important point. But, clear as may have been the Christian decision, prejudices remain behind decisions acquiesced in. "Certain came from James" marks this clearly. Only in Hebrews 13: 10-13 are they summoned to give up Judaism.

131 But there was much more than this. The writings of Paul contain a doctrine unknown to all other parts of scripture — the church as the body of Christ. It is not mentioned by any other New Testament writer. The word is not used. It was a dispensation committed to him, besides the gospel, to complete the word of God. He was the wise master-builder who laid the foundation. It had been hidden from ages and generations: in proof of this, see Romans 16: 25 (read "prophetic scriptures," not "scriptures of the prophets"); Ephesians 3: 1-10; Colossians 1: 24-26.

John had nothing to do with this question: his ministry did not reach out to it. It was the revelation of eternal life, and the Father in the Son, and His becoming our life; but his ministry is always individual. If the children were to be gathered together in one by Christ's death, as well as the nation died for, it is individually as a family, not as the body of Christ. And in the mysterious end of his Gospel it passes from Peter, closes his life and ministry as Christ did, and passes on to Christ's coming: in ministry fulfilled in the Apocalypse. In this last chapter of John, Paul does not come in at all. John speaks of Christ's and our going to heaven but four times, as far as I remember. (Chaps. 6, 14, 16, and 17.) His ministry was the display of what was divine here below: hence its attractiveness.

Paul presents us in Christ before God: and this leads to union with Christ as His body. Peter's ministry, after presenting grace, redemption, and birth by the incorruptible seed of the word, and speaking of Christ's bearing our sins, very clearly dwells as his speciality on the government of God: in the first Epistle as to the saints; in the second as to the ungodly. I speak in all these cases of what characterises them. But none ever touches on what constitutes Paul's special ministry. I may add, John still speaks of preachers who had gone out taking nothing of the Gentiles, of Christ dying, not for our sins only, but for the whole world. He puts our standing clearly in Christ (1 John 4: 17); but it is still individual.

132 The Platonism of John is a fable; it is anti-Platonic in its revelations, and expressly so. The notion even of disputes after the destruction of Jerusalem seems to me unhistorical — save some Nazarenes and Ebionites in Palestine, soon sunk into insignificance. Judaism proper sank into oblivion. The Alexandrian corruption of Christianity issuing in Arianism was later and connected with Neoplatonism. Justin Martyr (A.D. 140) was infected with it, and others of that school in his time. But it was another thing. This is true that the full doctrine of redemption as taught by Paul never took root in the church: the church itself Judaised, and has remained in this state to this day. The return to Paul's teaching, and partially John's, is what is disturbing its slumbers at this day.

What was special in Paul's doctrine was that by the descent of the Holy Ghost believers, perfectly saved, were united in one body to Christ, Jews or Gentiles: and the fulness of redemption in a new creation was manifested, by the glorifying of Christ, as man, on high. Paul's conversion connected itself with this. He never knew Christ on earth — was a strict legal Jew. Christ was revealed to him in glory, and Christians spoken of by Christ as being Himself. He was delivered from the people and from the Gentiles, and sent to these last in connection with a glorified Christ, all disciples being one with Him: and the apostles at Jerusalem give up to him their mission to the Gentiles; Gal. 2. Of course this gave a special character to his mission, though the gospel, the basis of personal salvation, remained the same. It was a dispensation committed to him, a mystery kept secret since the world began.

This is the reality of the difference between the Petrine and Pauline teaching, which is sufficiently important. But this was too early lost (and the Pauline doctrine of redemption and the church merged in outward forms and organisation) to have been a ground for any great controversy. None held Paul's doctrine. The Pope is the successor of Peter, not of Paul, though the last may be smuggled in to appropriate and hide him. John's teaching had nothing to do with the question. Indeed the Baur theory is pretty much given up. I speak of it to free the intrinsic importance of the additional truth taught by Paul: for it is no difference of gospel, but a very much larger revelation of the counsels of God, from the idle, and (they must forgive me) low, husky, speculations of those who know nothing of the real contents — husks half gone already; for rationalist speculations cannot be expected to last above twenty years.

133 The accusations of plagiarism I do not make much account of. But I do not see original research in the article "Bible." It is the current speculation of the day. But that must be borrowed somewhere. De Wette, Ewald, F. W. Newman (who borrowed it from the Germans), Hupfeld, all give it to us: and I now see it in Professor Kuenen, whom I have just read. It is a mere reproduction of what these teach, and unless there was real personal research, it could hardly be anything else. "Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae iudicia confirmat"; only for "naturae" we must substitute "aeternae veritatis."

You may consult Eichhorn's (a rationalist's) judgment: — (1) None but ignorant and thoughtless doubters can suppose the Old Testament to have been forged by one deceiver: (2) They are not the forgery of many deceivers . . . . But how could they forge in a way so entirely conformed to the progress of the human understanding? and was it possible in later times to create the language of Moses? He goes through other suppositions, and says, How could a whole nation be often deceived and a different periods, and by what degraded themselves? The whole passage, too long to quote here, may be read: Moses Stuart has translated it. The writers all quote, he says, or refer to what has been written before. Profane history refers to Moses as the lawgiver of Israel. It would be a serious difficulty, if anything be a difficulty to a theorist, to see how or why an elaborate system of tabernacle arrangement, professing to come by direct inspiration from God, should be recorded, when a totally different one was before their eyes. No one reading the Old Testament for himself but must see a clear and orderly succession of historical events, though much more — collected afterwards, no doubt, into a volume — and that the effort to invalidate it supposes more absurdity than any other theory. It is too closely bound together historically. All is false if the whole be not substantially true as it stands, for it all hangs together and supposes itself all throughout. But faith depends on other workings in the soul than these external proofs. Doubts may be easily awakened, but did these reasoners ever present us with one certain solid truth?

134 As the matter has come publicly before all the world, I must say that Mr. S.'s defence is worse than his previous acts. To disseminate pure infidelity (for this it is), destroying the inspiration of the Bible as we have it, without a hint of anything else, and then to say he believes it for other reasons, is too bad to be qualified by any term I could use. It results in making it no matter to falsify the real origin of the books; and in making Christ and the apostles put their sanction on such a course, or declare one to be the true author when he was not. And if it were true, where was the inspiration of the writer?

The question is not as to Professor Smith (of whom I know nothing but what is published); but, Are plain souls to have the word of God, what "proceeds out of the mouth of God," quoted by the Lord and His apostles as such, and Christianity communicated in words which the Holy Ghost taught? or the fancies of Astruc and Baur and Smith, with no real communication from God Himself? What is my soul to lean on?

Happily, when the great conflict between man in the Last Adam and Satan took place, words which proceeded out of the mouth of God were sufficient for the Lord and for Satan, as they ever will be; and in the hour of His deep and atoning agony sufficed to express what was in His heart, that which no other heart could ever fathom or express. If there be a blessing in the world besides the Lord Himself in grace, it is to have God's word as He Himself has given it to us, like that Lord Himself, what is divine and heavenly but perfectly suited and adapted to man, in the heart of man: the Old Testament as a pipe which brings it, partially drunk at by those who conveyed it; in the New the heart itself, first the vessel drinking for its own thirst, and then the water flowing forth from the inmost man. "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen." All of it is that word of God which works effectually in them that believe. "If that which was from the beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father."

135 NOTE. See page 79.

In order to shew the advantage of reading the foregoing along with the article on which it animadverts, we give a quotation from it on alleged "Parallel Narratives" and divergent laws, in the Pentateuch: —

"This view is supported by the fact that, even as it now stands the history sometimes gives more than one account of the same event, and that the Pentateuch often gives several laws on the same subject. Of the latter we have already had one example, but for our present argument the main point is not diversity of enactment, which may often be only apparent, but the existence within the Pentateuch of distinct groups of laws partly taking up the same topics. Thus the legislation of Exodus 20-23 is partly repeated in chapter 34, and on the passover and feast of unleavened bread we have at least six laws, which, if not really discordant, are at least so divergent in form and conception that they cannot be all from the same pen (Exod. 12: 1-28; chap. 13: 3-10; chap. 23: 15; chap. 34: 18; Lev. 23: 5-14; Deut. 16.) Of historical duplicates the most celebrated are the twofold history of the creation and the flood, to which we must recur presently. The same kind of thing is found in the later books; for example, in the account of the way in which Saul became king, where it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that 1 Samuel 11: 11 should attach directly to chapter 10: 16 (cf. chap. 10: 7).

"The extent to which the historical books are made up of parallel narratives, which, though they cover the same period, do not necessarily record the same events, was first clearly seen after Astruc (1753 A.D.) observed that the respective uses of Jehovah (LORD) and Elohim (God) as the name of a deity afford a criterion by which two documents can be dissected out of the book of Genesis. That the way in which the two names are used can only be due to difference of authorship is now generally admitted, for the alternation corresponds with such important duplicates as the two accounts of creation, and is regularly accompanied through a great part of the book by unmistakable peculiarities of language and thought, so that it is still possible to reconstruct at least the Elohim document with a completeness which makes its original independence and homogeneity matter of direct observation. The character of this narrative is annalistic, and where other materials fail, blanks are supplied by genealogical lists. Great weight is laid on orderly development, and the name Jehovah is avoided in the history of the patriarchs in order to give proper contrast to the Mosaic period (cf. Gen. 17: 1; Exod. 6: 3) and, accordingly, we find that the unmistakable secondary marks of this author run through the whole Pentateuch and Joshua, though the exclusive use of Elohim ceases at Exodus 6. Of course the disappearance of this criterion makes it less easy to carry on an exact reconstruction of the later parts of the document; but on many points there can be no uncertainty, and it is clearly made out that the author has strong priestly tendencies, and devotes a very large proportion of his space to liturgical matters. The separation of this document may justly be called the point of departure of positive criticism of the sources of the Old Testament; and present controversy turns mainly on its relation to other parts of the Pentateuch. Of these the most important are: 1. The Jehovistic narrative, which also begins with the creation, and treats the early history more in the spirit of prophetic theology and idealism, containing, for example, the narrative of the fall, and the parts of the history of Abraham which are most important for Old Testament theology. That this narrative is not a mere supplement to the other, but an independent whole, appears most plainly in the story of the flood, where two distinct accounts have certainly been interwoven by a third hand. 2. Many of the finest stories in Genesis, especially great part of the history of Joseph, agree with the Elohim-document in the name of God, but are widely divergent in other respects. Since the researches of Hupfeld, a third author, belonging to northern Israel, and specially interested in the ancestors of the northern tribes, is generally postulated for these sections. His literary individuality is in truth sharply marked, though the limits of his contributions to the Pentateuch are obscure." — Ed. B. W. and R.

The Distinct Character of the Several Writings of the New Testament

J. N. Darby.

<29002E> 46

There are some subjects difficult to establish in mere ordinary statement, because their proof results not from palpable evidences of facts, or positive testimony cognisable by sense or intellect, but from characteristic exhibition; the apprehension of which implies both capacity for understanding its nature, and habitual exercise on the subject before us. The perception, however, of them may be conducive to a fuller entering on the whole scope of truth and its order. It is the peculiar character of minds of power (communicative power) in natural subjects to seize the prominent features which may act on the mind of others, in introducing the perception of or controlling the mind to subjection to these points as manifested truth; associating their minds with the principles of truth. In spiritual subjects, it is the object of much distinct converse in them to be able to present them primarily and vividly, so as to lead the way to fuller investigation of the divine mind.

The expression of one's own thoughts, and the acting so as to awaken similar thoughts in others, I find by experience to be two very different things; and the latter to be a rarer and more self-denying attainment than the other. By God's Spirit alone can it be done in power. I find myself utterly deficient in this power, and I feel that I must charge upon myself failure in spirituality in respect to this. I am led into this by an effort to present some thoughts, the result of habitual reference to the subject, which have grown up in my mind, strengthened after their first suggestion, not by an elaborately attempted proof, but by the continual development of them in subjects to which they refer — the best proof I find in scriptural subjects, and one to me the least communicable to others. But I shall state, as simply as I can, the thoughts, and leave their development where chiefly they will be found of value in the daily course of Christian reading.

I allude to this — I believe that the Gospels are by no means mere concurrent and coincident testimonies to Christ, and valuable simply as corroborative one of the other. Of course they are so, nor do I despise this positive help to the acknowledgement of the instrument and standard of faith — the written word. But the believer, acknowledging this as his foundation, seeks for the enlargement of heart which the fuller and more complete apprehension of that word may give him. I believe them to be (recognised as true and all bearing witness to the same great facts, and shewing thus their unity) the testimony of the Holy Ghost to distinct characters, in which the one Person they bear record of was revealed, and which He filled. All fulness dwelt in Him, not only of the Godhead bodily as to His Person, but the accomplishment of every character in which He could meet the requisition of God from man, and man's necessities, or satisfy the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the word of old, as exhibiting the divine glory. He came in "by the door," so that to Him the porter should open; and thus He became "the door," the only door in or out, to all else.

47 Now the Gospels generally fill up their peculiar place in their witness in this respect; they fill up the place of representing Jesus from His birth to the resurrection, sealed by His ascension into heaven, wherein He became properly the last Adam — the spring from which all the ministration of the living word flowed, and on which it was established — and the testimony of the righteousness of God set forth as His glory to be revealed. That is, all that Jesus was, is that which will be exhibited in glory: we see its substance, its texture, the beautiful order of all its filaments in His unglorified state; yet is He none of these things which He is meant to be, that is — save to faith. The glory exhibits it to the world. The artist skilled in the composition of the structure can see the exquisiteness of its parts — the nicely adapted arrangement of the materials — the perfect wisdom with which it is composed. Its presenting as a whole to the world will give the whole result externally.

He was the Son of man in all the varied moral truth which that name conveys; He will be the Son of man in glory. He was the Messiah in all the requisitions and gifts which had been appointed, and even recorded by prophets; He will be Messiah in the reign of His glory. He was the Son of God in His Person, as conversant in the world; He will appear in His glory as Son. As the potter's work goes in with all with which it will come out, yet would the eye unpractised see nothing of its beauty — none but the potter could see it; so none but one eye, and those taught of Him, can see the exquisite beauty which was in all this fulness of Jesus, or understand the beauty and glory and true majesty, in which He shall be revealed when every eye shall see Him. They "saw no beauty in him that they should desire him"; yet He was but cast into the fire that He might come forth to their astonishment with all the beauty which God could set upon Him — "his Father's glory and his own" — the glory of administered power, in the glory, the results of grace — "to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believed." Nothing can exceed the delight and profit I apprehend, through perception and connection of this glory of what Jesus was, in the veiled perhaps, but heightened and beauteous order of all His character in grace, with the glory in which it shall be revealed in the day of His appearing to His saints and the excellency of His kingdom.

48 The testimony and ministrations founded on these great truths, as building the church upon them belong to the Epistles and the subsequent contents of the New Testament, and not to the Gospels, whose office it is to state the facts, and develop in conversations the universal truths on which it is founded.

Now, there are three great characters besides His personal biography, in which the Lord is set forth: as the Messiah; as the Second Man known in the moral character of the divine nature which God required, the Last Adam; and, which is the climax of them all, His personal glory from which all flows as Son of God. First, His character properly Jewish; secondly, that in which it was co-extensive with the term man, and applied itself to this as coming from the hands of God; thirdly, that in which it was paramount to either, His personal association with the Father of glory as the Son of God, in which the value was attached to the others; and the power of quickening, in which alone they could have unity, was established and verified.

This, I say (as establishing promises, exhibiting grace, and founding the stability of both, in the Person of Him in whom they were fulfilled, with the personal grace and graciousness of His conversation and ministry in the world) forms the respective subjects, more especially of the four Gospels. We find them exhibited in John 11 and 12; that is, the Saviour exercised or owned in them by His power and the ordering of the divine counsels on His rejection by the Jews. Chapter 11 exhibits His resurrection power after that rejection "for the glory of God, and that the Son of God should be glorified thereby"; chapter 12, His kingship over the Jews as the Son of David, and, secondly, His headship over the Gentiles, His standard of conversion and attractive power in death, in that which took place in the desire of the Greeks to see Jesus.

49 Of the first of these characters which I have mentioned, Messiah, the Lord's connection with the Jews, Matthew is the appointed witness. Of course, the same truths are recognised everywhere. Luke exhibits our Lord in His converting character, and detecting in moral principles the inconsistency of man's estate with the divine character. John eminently presents Him in His Person and Sonship. Matthew, as fulfilling the law and the promises, "the minister [as the apostle speaks] of the circumcision for the truth of God"; Luke, as a witness of what is in man, and of the openness of the Father's house, and the love of the Father's heart to them that return, to the returning prodigal, "that the Gentiles should glorify God for his mercy"; John tells us that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and was God . . . and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." I believe the notice of this conduces exceedingly to the understanding of the different Gospels.

The evidences of it are some of them obvious, others more from use. We have one immediate one in the genealogies traced up in Matthew, to the sources of Jewish dispensation, David and Abraham; in Luke, to Adam, the Son of God. Again, if anyone will compare the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, they will see how completely the one is appropriately Jewish; the other presents us with the child,* one who "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

{*Till His birth, however, there is no allusion to anything but Jewish hopes; the passage which seems so is a mistranslation — "to you and all people" should be "to you and to all the people," Luke 2: 10.}

Another thing is remarkable; it will be found on examination, that, except in the positive necessary facts of His birth and death, Luke states circumstances, not according to their chronological order, but according to their moral connection; hence affording a most important link of interpretation. This is so, not merely in unconnected facts, where it is obvious, but even in the temptation in the wilderness. The sermon on the Mount, the character of the parables, of which Matthew 13 and Luke 15 may be taken as the types, all confirm and illustrate the position I am taking; and this is the real interpretation of the different language used in parallel passages. In one, the Holy Ghost preserved what bore upon the subject of one Gospel; in the other, what bore upon that of the other, and gave what the church needed, and God pleased: if all had been given, "the world could not have contained the books." The whole of Luke 7 and 8 illustrate in a string of circumstances the moral application of facts. A comparison of the closing scenes of our Lord's intercourse with His disciples and the Jews, and the prophecies consequent thereupon, further remarkably illustrate the difference.

50 In Matthew is given the full development of Jewish dispensation, and this so much so, that I could not apply any of the statements in Matthew 24 or the like to Gentile circumstances; whereas Luke explicitly opens the door, and brings them into the scene, as may be seen in the close of chapter 21 Whence also, I believe He introduces "all the trees," the fig-tree being the specific emblem of the Jewish corporate nationality. The close of the Gospel of John is equally distinct, or more evidently so in its character. But I do not feel in this synoptical view, that I need enter into any explanation of the Gospel of John. It is evident upon the face of it, that the Person of our Lord, as paramount to dispensation, though as coming subject to it, is its declaration.

The Gospel of Mark I believe to be the declaration of the personal ministry of our Lord, "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," and the circumstances of that ministry, to trace from circumstance to circumstance the character of minister in our Lord, His personal character, not in broad facts or prophecies the Messiahship, the faithful and true Witness, the Lord from heaven, the Son of God, one with the Father, but He who was all these become the patient considerate Servant, in actual ministry of those with whom He was conversant. Hence it commences with His ministry or baptism, giving no account of His birth.

When I retrace at all the enjoyment which I have had through the Spirit of grace, and of God, in that from which these observations are drawn, the studying our Lord in them, I am doubly conscious how little they can in any sort convey to another the resources of that enjoyment; nor indeed can this be. All I can hope is, that they may be the instruments of leading the minds of others into the same sources or streams, in which the infinitude, the unspeakable infinitude, of divine grace flows from and in Him in whom they are all concentrated, and concentrated for us, even Jesus the Lord, in whom "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." It is in communion with Him in the word, that these blessings are found; and communion whose depth, whose height, is never reached, but the fulness is ours, and that in the very peaceful strength in which He has adapted Himself to us. May He open our mouths in the understanding of His praise. It is this, after the establishment of our faith in the great truths of the Epistles, explanatory truths, that leads us back to the Gospels, to enter into and dwell upon the blessedness and fulness of Him in whom all the truths have their centre and accomplishment.

51 While my own mind rests specially on the Gospels in this view, as illustrating the Person of our Lord, I add at the wish of some a short synoptical view of the books of the whole New Testament, which will, at the same time, strengthen and confirm the remarks I have made upon the Gospels. It appears to me to be a presenting of Christ, the subject-matter of the faith which is in Christ Jesus, from His incarnation, which associates Him with David, and Abraham, and Adam, and presents Him as the substantiation of the mind of God, of which they are but prefigurements, though real ones, to the time when He shall return again — His second coming, when He shall illustrate all that He is in power. Hence, in the Gospels, we have all that He was traced to Adam, David, Abraham, the Word of God, and shewn forth in ministry with the great facts on which the testimony of the gospel was founded.

In the Acts we have the founding of the church of Christ, stating His resurrection and ascension, on which the Jewish and Gentile church is built, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit — the Acts not of the apostles, but of the apostles Peter and Paul (though recognising of course the others, particularly those who seemed to be pillars), that is, of the apostles of the circumcision and uncircumcision the ordering of the church by the deacons; the subministration by evangelists, deacons "who have purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness in Christ Jesus"; the general diffusion of the word of the gospel by all the faithful preaching (Acts 8: 4); and the foundation of the Gentile church, more peculiarly so called, on the ascended glory of Christ, that it might be "Christ in them the hope of glory," with the ordering by the Spirit of all their labours.

52 We have, then, in the Epistles, the ordering and care of the church and churches of Christ thus planted, in their various necessities, arising from the weakness of men, and permitted thus to arise that we, "upon whom the ends of the world are come," might have the answer, the rescript of God upon the case. In the Epistle to the Galatians, we have the great basis laid of justification by faith, and its connected doctrines, to the exclusion of all judaising to such an end. In the Romans we have a whole body of divinity in the way of dispensation, justly coming first, to chapter 8, developing all that was short of "no condemnation" — stating the whole of the Christian position in chapter 8, on the basis of thanksgiving for Christ; and from chapter 9 out, tracing the positive dispensations of God ordered beforehand, and resulting therefrom, closing with practice and a resume of the whole dispensation. In the two Epistles to the Corinthians we have the internal order and management of a church by the Spirit of God in the apostle. It would appear as if there had been no elders, that we might have direct from the apostle the arrangements necessary and pleasing to God for the purposes of the divine order; at least, elders do not at all appear throughout the books, but the directions are immediate to the church. I think this a remarkable and singular providence; to us at least it is so, and worthy of notice. For surely no goodness and provision for our weakness and folly is singular with God; boundless, multiplied, have they been. There are some who would despise it, as of little or no profit for the purpose for which it is given. What else is it for? I can conceive nothing more base than, having by perverseness disabled one's self from the use of means which God has provided, to turn round and say the means are deficient, without a symptom of humiliation for the real cause.

The Ephesians and Colossians bear many stamps of identity of purpose, but they are very beautifully distinct. They both follow up the dispensation into its fulness; but the Ephesians views it in the glory, the conferred or predestinated glory of the body — the Son's; the Colossians looks at the fulness of the Head of the body, as constituting that, through which the whole is brought into this order in and by the Head. The Philippians I would give as depicting the affectionate interchange of love in the intercourse between the parental apostle and his beloved and attached churches. Thus he unfolds his hopes, for in this way does the doctrine come out, and leads them in the same healthful train, opening the blessed truths to them, and so of his estate and thoughts of theirs.

53 The two to the Thessalonians are the building of the church in the great doctrine of the Lord's second coming, as an immediate and protracted expectation and hope, and the result of this special apprehension of it in the very healthful state of the church. These epistles afford very full doctrine on the subject, and guard against the only prejudices which the vanity or wit of man could form out of it or abuse. I need hardly say, that Timothy and Titus are the ordering of the church, as to its government and management by those set over it in the Lord (justly coming last with others first), the character of those appointed, and the use and service of such a ministry specially in guarding against evil, with all the absolute or external arrangements of the ministry and its dependencies, and the manner of using it. Its importance will be fully noticed by the service it is applied to, and its abuse at the present day. Its uniformity of character is given by adding the Epistle to Titus, and variety of use according to the circumstances in which it is placed. In Philemon we have the evidence of that minuteness of care, apostolic care, which recognises the ordering of an individual's concerns, and what would now be so multifariously despised — the church in a house.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is an instruction to the church, not an apostolic address to a church as such, of the way in which the types of the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ, and how He was the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, answering to Moses and Aaron, but after another order; and how, consequently in this also (as with the saints of old) it was a dispensation of faith, and we must therefore go "forth without the camp," as well as be strangers in the world, while Christ is on high. I should feel gratified at some other occasion, to enter more in detail into the structure of this beautiful and instructive Epistle, but would not do it now. Thus we see how the church, being built and ordered by a wise master builder under Jesus, closed by this important testimony to the Hebrews, carrying forth the principle of faith to them and bringing in all the value of their ministrations to us in Jesus as that principle of faith.

We have, however, some further developments of the mind of God before we close, but by other hands, that these pillars might all prop up the beauteous arc of God's canopy of heaven over the church, the shield of order and of beauty. The Epistle of James is the order of righteousness, the test of church order as a moral question, the statement of practical wisdom and righteousness, with a "Shew me." This is the church's part. "The Lord knoweth them that are his" the other side of the seal, not the sovereign claim and authority, but the order and recognition of His power and character. "Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." This latter part James the just administers in its principles; and the principle of its application "shew me," first in purity, secondly in goodness or mercy; while the sovereignty of the Lord is fully recognised and declared. It is then church righteousness and order, I mean in its principles. This fully explains the reasoning of the Epistle, and the comparison with the reasoning of the apostle Paul; one giving the root, the other, the manifestation. If taken not as acts of faith, the works James refers to were bad works — one the slaying a man's son, the other betraying a person's country.

54 Peter's Epistles, or to speak more properly, the instruction of the Holy Ghost by him, gives us further light. They shew, though there is but one body in glory, the continuing care in ministration of the gracious and unchanging God over the Jews, the strangers scattered, for such are the persons addressed in the first Epistle, the parepidemois diasporas among the Gentiles, where they thought our Lord spoke of going and losing Himself. His great thesis is the resurrection, and leading the believing Jews in this to their right place in faith, and shewing the appearing again of Jesus to be the great time of bringing in the promises by it; that the remnant were the chosen people who had not stumbled at the stumbling-stone, but had, according to the word of the Lord testifying of His own resurrection in Psalm 34, "tasted that the Lord is gracious"; identifying Jesus and Jehovah the stone of stumbling, but of preservation, Jehovah tsabaoth otho but l'miqdash--the Lord of Hosts Himself but for a sanctuary. The whole of the Epistle is addressed to the Jews, or rather to the two houses of Israel or their remnant, and pleads the resurrection and patience. The order and dispensation and the parenthetical character of this are very distinctly drawn in from verses 10-13 inclusive, of chapter 1. The second Epistle, though savouring of that character of ministry in all its motives and arguments, is general in its address "to them that have obtained like precious faith with us," more particularly however embracing Israel in the apostle's mind, as we may see in chapter 3: 1. It declares the judgment on apostasy, stating the adequacy of supply or the means of preservation in the memorial of the written word, founded on the faith of the seen and coming Jesus, and the instruments of that apostasy, false prophets and teachers, the character of it, and the remedy in that great subject which he had presented before them — the coming of the Lord, which is here presented to the apostates in the character of judgment, "the day of the Lord." And he exhorts them to diligence, that they may be found of Him coming, to be in that day without spot and blameless.

55 In the deeply interesting Epistle of John we have the intrinsic evidences of the power of Christianity as flowing from God; its essential and internal abiding character; our strength in it, as giving fellowship with the Father and with His Son Christ Jesus; and hence in the knowledge of His love, or rather of love, by that which has brought us into this fellowship, security against the haughty assumption of antichristian seduction, in the assurance which flows from that fellowship, and is conscious that it is already in that which is falsely assumed to be presented, or which we may be charged with being without; while this, characteristically presented in its necessary fruits, guards against deception on the one side and the other. This is effected (first no declaring its source in chap. 1) by the two personal evidences, He laid down His life, "by his Spirit dwelling in us"; and external, as a guard against the assumption of others and the denial of our own righteousness, by keeping His commandments, and loving brethren. The unity of the testimony to Christ's glory, in the Spirit, the water, and the blood, is there stated; and the internal and external witness distinguished: one, the blessing of the believer; the other, the condemnation of the world; closing with the general contrast "we are of God, and the whole world lieth en to ponero." "We know that the Son of God is come, and He hath given us an understanding": the next point is, "to know him that is true"; and the next, "we are in him that is true, even his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." He is the "true God and eternal life." Amen. All else is but "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

56 How blessed is the testimony that in Jesus we are in the true God, and — which is our interest, and blessing, and everlasting comfort in it — eternal life in Him! In Jesus we have eternal life, and in association with Him are thus capacitated for understanding and enjoying all that is in Him the Lord and true God. In the second and third Epistles we have the individual, living, and faithful care of the Spirit in the apostle against any falling into the seduction of losing the true doctrine of Christ: whoever fails here, that is, abides not here, has not God; and direction for the uncompromising boldness in rejection of such as partake of his evil deeds; the direction being, in the one, not to receive seducers, or we are partakers of them; in the other, to receive faithful witnesses of truth, because in them we are partakers in the truth. Both rest on this, "walking in the truth"; they are the details of Christianity, such as develop themselves in service.

Jude returns to the apostasy, but in a more generic character, that is, in its principle, tracing it as developed from Cain; its address, therefore, is universal. Further, all ungodliness is shewn to be apostasy in character; while the force of it through false teachers is shewn in 2 Peter 2. The Epistle, though short, is full of depth and beauty of moral power, though severe as needing it in its character. Nevertheless nothing can be more full of gracious beauty than the directions for our portion, till the mercy comes which holiness is taught to expect; for as the Lord's first coming is grace to sinners, so His second is glory to saints, and destruction to all those who have heard and known not His name. The Lord hasten it in its day, and us to it!

How fitly the Revelation fills this up and closes this book, I need hardly say. The apostasy has been shewn previously to have come in, the tares sown among the wheat. This closed the care of apostolic ministry, and fitted in, as it were, to the great final apostasy. The Lord is therefore shewn at once judging in the midst of the churches; and in His own immortality of glory and holiness on His Father's throne, in the intermediate time, governing till He comes forth in His power, and ordering all things for His church; making "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose"; ending with the perfection of the blissful state, the heavenly Jerusalem come down, and the joy of the whole earth thus blessed in communion with it, sorrow gone from before the presence of God, where it never can abide, when He comes forth in power; and in power He does then come forth, and no evil remains before Him. Meanwhile the church is comforted with seeing the Lord cognisant of all the troubles and circumstances through which she is to pass, and is ready to join in the cry of the apostle with which he closes the book of God's testimony, "Even so, come Lord Jesus." The first part of the book gives the care of the Lord; the second, the character of the apostasy, and of course how it resulted in judgment. Thus the dealing begins with judgment at the house of God, and ends with judgment on the ungodly and sinners — two distinct classes; and then blessing from Him from whom the book, the testimony came. I do feel, in writing thus rapidly (I trust for the profit of the church), the extreme solemnity of the truths, thus by the mercy of our God brought before us, that we might enjoy the blessings which are their result. To Him whose it is be all the glory and praise; and may He keep us, adding of His grace in our ways, "that an abundant entrance may be ministered to us into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

57 There are one or two remarks I would make in addition to this brief and hasty review of the bearings of the parts of this blessed book. I have given it because I believe it shews its perfectness and its adequacy, in answer to the lies and blasphemies which would denounce its imperfection; though, I am well assured, it will be understood and rested on by none who are not taught by the Spirit of God. I would remark then, first, the circumstance of the distinction between the epistles to individuals and to churches, "mercy" being always added in the address to individuals. The church is set in mercy, for it is looked at and known only as so addressed in the mercy of God. The individual is the daily subject of mercy to all his imperfectness and weakness, and is kept only by it.

Further, it will be found that the title given to the churches, when churches are addressed, is accordant to the subject of the Epistle, and the aspect in which it presents the church. Thus, to the Thessalonians, it is the church "in God the Father," because it is addressed in the full liberty and hope of sons, as waiting for the glory, in the coming of the Son of God, of the Father's house as sons. The Ephesians and Colossians, "the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus," as rightly holding the Head, and united to Him in one body, and in the hope of the glory of Him the Head — their Head; therefore in Christ Jesus especially, whence all their fulness flowed, as all fulness dwelt in Him. Nor are they therefore called the church, but viewed as saints, and faithful in that position or common connection with all the saints, as the Head of all, and parts of one body which should form the whole mystical man over all things, even as "all the fulness of the Godhead was in him bodily." In Philippians, we find "Paul and Timotheus to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons"; the comprehensiveness of that general affection which we have shewn therein. In the reproving Epistle to the Galatians we have simply "the churches of Galatia."

58 In the Epistles to the Corinthians, when the order and conduct which became the church as a "church of God" is entered into at large, this is the title given to it; and I must remark here that the church is never called in Scripture the church of Christ. I am not questioning ta ema panta sa, kai ta sa ema, but the only passage in which it is at all so spoken of is "on this rock I will build My church," which is clearly outward profession and confession of the truth; and hence, though it may be in given times pure, the church of Christ is known by its profession of Christianity, that is, of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. But this has nothing to do with the church of God. The church of God will be within that confession,* but the church of God is that for which the Lord Christ, the Lamb of God, gave Himself, purchased with His own blood, and shall be presented faultless in the presence of His glory. Now this may be encumbered with many outward circumstances, but judgment is applied to it as to the church of God; and hence the address I believe in the Corinthians: nor can spiritual judgment apply itself to any else, when the church is so mixed up as to render the separation of them impossible. Where there is not energy of the Spirit, and spiritual life to throw off the evil as a distinct thing, judgment is impossible; it cannot be addressed as being, nor is it at all, a church of God; it may come under the general designation as a part of the church of Christ, which is the subject of judgment in other sort, and excision in its external character; though the gates of Hades shall never prevail against it, as they did not against that on which it is founded, because the living resurrection Lord shall catch the children out of the judgment which He shall then exercise on him that has the power of death and his companions, into the glory that shall appear in Him and with Him, and their life shall be the rather in glory — life indeed. Then it is the church lives indeed in resurrection, proving more abundantly than ever, that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the children of the living God — believers in Christ the Son of the living God. The opening of the Epistle to the Romans opens itself in the fullest manner, and indeed is a remarkable and beautiful illustration of that on which we are speaking; for every part and order of the dispensation is brought out, and fixed in its resulting and proper power, on those addressed in the opening part of this Epistle. The truth of Jewish, and power of Gentile or resurrection character, is addressed to, and finds its application in, all at Rome "called," etc. I have been, perhaps, too long on this, as I only throw it out as a hint.

{*[The author would not now speak of the church of Christ as within the church of God, which is rather the last generic expression and embraces not only the body of Christ for which Christ gave Himself, but the house of God where His Spirit dwells. — Ed.]}

59 Though I do not say that the order of the Epistles is divine, I do not mean to break it by speaking of the Galatians first, for I believe it to be most providentially perfect: I merely alluded to it as containing a first principle. In order, Romans and Corinthians most suitably come first

Inspiration and Revelation *

J. N. Darby.

<29004E> 137

{*A review of Dr. Marcus Dods' sermon, Inspiration and Revelation, with a preface (Edinburgh, 1877); and the system of rationalism of Dr. Ewald of which it is a popular echo.}

We have to avoid the wiles of Satan continually. His temptations are ever there in all we pass through; but there are some things which come more directly from him, errors by which he seeks to deceive Christians and undermine the truth, as Irvingism, Puseyism, Rationalism. And these are to be met as coming directly from him. If we meet them thus we may expect help from God, while if tampered with in a friendly way we cannot. Such is the question which turns up on every hand around us now. Infidelity and the undermining the truth and the authority of the word are rampant. It does not surprise the Christian acquainted with Scripture; it confirms his faith in it, because he is warned there that it would be so. It is his painful experience however, but Scripture has taught him that in the last days perilous times would come.

The active mind of Germany has been the officina, the workshop, of this in various phases in these latter years. Paulus and Strauss and Bauer, and the rationalists from Semler and Eichhorn down, and England and other countries, have been infected with it. Scotland, through the forms of its church government, has recently been most openly under the public eye.

I have nothing to do with the church matters of that little section of Christendom which made itself conspicuous in Europe by a public claim to purity and disinterestedness beyond others, nor have I to do with what is expedient for United Presbyterians if the question arises there. Their internal affairs are no concern of others, save as the Christian must care for everything that concerns Christ's truth and Christ's people. Nor do I expect them to listen to Dr. M'Cosh advising the rationalists to leave and set up for themselves. If Satan is at work, as I have no doubt he is, honesty is not what you are to expect. But the question concerns every Christian.

Dr. M'Cosh has told them,* what every one outside themselves can see, that the principal dissenting bodies in Scotland, and eminently the Free Church, are on their trial. It is not merely, as Dr. M'Cosh says, "What are the churches to do?" nor is any "shrewdness" required in the matter. The question is, What are those who believe that Scripture is inspired to do when Rationalism, Broad-Churchism, as Dr. M'Cosh calls it after its English name, has reared its head and infected the ecclesiastical bodies of the country, and when, as in the case of the Free Church, though it suspended Mr. Smith as professor, they are really trifling with the faith? — the latter, in the last form the question has taken, having shelved the matter by what is called moving the previous question. I do not trust in churches; I do not know which of them is to be trusted. Is Rome or Greece, is the Lutheran — the very seat of infidelity — or the reformed, who are in the same state? Holland is far worse than Dr. M'Cosh represents it: the well-known converted Jew Capadose left it a few years ago because it was universally infidel. France is notorious. Will the Anglican, with its Puseyism and Broad-Churchism, give me rest? or now, Scotland falling into the same track of heartless indifference to the truth? "Ephraim has grey hairs here and there upon him, and he knoweth it not." The attack on the word of God is not from heathens as of old, or open infidels, but from the bosom of Christendom itself. Men who are called its ministers are undermining the confidence of the simple in what was the basis of their faith, the true basis of all faith, the word of God. "If it were an open enemy, I could have borne it; but it was thou, my companion, mine own familiar friend." They tell you they believe in the Bible, nay, in inspiration, only taking up literary questions. It is false; utterly false. None can deny that it is but the crambe repetita — the dishing up afresh — what is borrowed from the Eichhorns, though he is now left far behind, the De Wettes, Bleeks, Ewalds, Riehms, Grafs, Knobels, Bertheauts, and a host of others, to say nothing of Kuenen, who avows himself a Unitarian and ready to join with Jews, only they would not probably do so at present. I have not read all these. But I have read some of them. It is all one system. Some more insolent and bold, as Graf and Kuenen and De Wette (though there was in his history and views, it would seem, a drawing to the truth of Christ as he went on, which was interesting). But I do not speak of the individuals, knowing none of them. I speak of a regular system unfolded in their books, and now propagated by professors and ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. They differ from each other in details; nay, you must know what edition you read of the principal ones, or you will be stating something false about them.

{*In his pamphlet Broad-Churchism in Scotland.}

139 But this is not really the question. They all develop a system which destroys the authority of the word of God, which denies it comes from Him to us. This is attempted to be denied, and covered up, and softened down, not to frighten honest minds, not to say Christian ones, too soon. But this is only Satan's craft, and if those who talk of literary inquiries into the history of the sacred writings believe really that we have God's revelation, they must know that this system undermines it, that it denies that we have God's revelation on God's authority. I shall proceed to shew this.

There are two systems in the main, if you take thoroughgoing destructives as Graf and others (De Wette grew somewhat more sober); that Deuteronomy was the first book written, and in Josiah's time, or a little before, but produced then by the high priest; and that the legal enactments of the Pentateuch were added after the Babylonish captivity, Moses' name being used to secure the priestly influence established in them. I suppose this is not inspiration.

According to Ewald, the great body of these laws were drawn up by a priest very soon after the building of the temple by Solomon. This is the "Book of Origins." He admired greatly the character of the writing, which is the production of a great and elevated genius aroused by the reigns of David and Solomon. This too was to enforce the priests' rights and authority. This history includes the creation, to which, being of an elevated mind, he could look back, and went on to the history of the Judges' time, but this is lost, and was very briefly related; for he tells us what parts of it are clearly lost. But he holds there was before this a book of covenants which recorded various covenants of Abraham and Abimelech, and Isaac and Jacob, etc., and Exodus 20 to 23. This was written about Samson's time. Even before this there were written documents, as songs, and the book of the wars of the Lord, and that of Jasher. After the Book of Origins, the great work of Solomon's time, there were in his earlier editions a third and fourth, in the last, a third, fourth, and fifth writer, to complete the recovery and collection of the old traditions, adding and connecting and modifying, and, besides this, one who put all together and added some passages to make a rounded whole of it.

140 Bleek is certainly soberer in his judgment of details, but he does not in the least believe in the inspiration of the word of God. None of them ever thinks of such a thing. The difficulty of shewing it in positive statements arises, as far as any exist, from their taking it for granted there is none. Nothing of the kind ever crosses their minds. Even Lange, so much thought of, speaks of it in his Life of Christ as an obsolete thing which hindered all development of the truth.

But before I shew from Ewald and Bleek the real character of the system — and I choose the most capable and respected (indeed, Ewald may be taken as the most complete, and as a representative of the moderate system; as Kuenen, Graf, and others whom I have not read, of the daring and open contempt of the word of God; Bleek as the most sober of all); but, I repeat — for none regard the Scriptures as the oracles of God — according to none of them can man live, as the Saviour teaches us (quoting Deuteronomy as authority against Satan, and silencing him by it) by words which proceed out of the mouth of God.

But I shall begin nearer home with the sermon of Dr. Marcus Dods and his excusing preface. Dr. Dods goes so far as to admit that, when the prophets say "Thus saith the Lord," a revelation has been made to them. Would he allow me to ask him, Has none been made to us, when the prophets say "Thus saith the Lord?" This you will not find from Dr. Dods. Happily, if we do not find it from him, we can from such words find it out without him. But the whole point lies there; is there a revelation to us? How God revealed the truth to the prophet is not, as he would have us believe, in question at all. No one can tell how, save as, in some cases, told us in Scripture; Num. 12: 6, 8. But how the word of the Lord came to them, those to whom it has not thus come are not likely to know. Nor do I believe a prophet could explain it to one who had not experienced it. The question is: Is it the word of God for me as given out by the prophet? Well, if "Thus saith the Lord" be true, it clearly is; though Dr. Dods will not say so. "Similarly of the apostles," adds Dr. Dods, "I, of course, believe they are the authoritative teachers of the church, and that, in order to fit them to be so, special revelations were made to them." Is what they have written the word of God to us? This is the question. Paul tells us very distinctly how the matter stood. God has given to "us not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God; which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." And he adds the third step too. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit: but they are foolishness unto him, because they are spiritually discerned."* We may compare the words of the Lord in the special case of their answering before magistrates: "Take no thought of how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." The theory of these doctors is that the gracious Lord would put words in the mouth of His servants for their difficulties: but in what was to be truth for the church at all times, the basis of its faith and its security against error, direct communication (I do not say revelation) to us of the truth was not so made by those to whom He made the revelation of it for that purpose.

{*And note here, there is a difference between revelation and inspiration, a point for many reasons I should insist on. But revelation is to the divine vessel or instrument: inspiration is the communication he makes of it. The spiritual apprehension is in him who personally profits by it.}

141 Dr. Dods does not deny that in the case of the prophets man had revelation made to them; but he does carefully distinguish between this and the inspiration of the Scriptures, and he distinctly denies that any revelation is made by them to us. Now, in the case of the prophets, the matter is palpable, and he shirks it in the sermon, and confines it to a revelation to them in the preface, and as to the apostle says: "In their case also, I desire, as Paul himself obviously did, to bring the revelations made by God into the foreground, and to allow the inspired state of the human mind to fall back into a secondary place."

This is very poor special pleading. Of course Paul's business was not to explain a "theory of inspiration." Who thinks it was? But when the revelations were brought into the foreground, who received them then? to whom did they, or do they, become revelations? That I need to be spiritual to enjoy them is true; or, if it be gospel to a sinner, grace to work in bringing it home to him. But that is another question. But if Paul brought the revelation unadulterated, not corrupting the word of God, for so he calls it, into the foreground (that is, in his communication of it to others, I suppose, according to the measure of their spirituality), they received it, that is, the revelation he brought into the foreground, the revelation he had received himself. It was to this end it was so given to him. "When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen." And his boast is that through the Spirit he brought it to others as pure as he had received it himself. (See the end of 2 Cor. 2 and 4: 2.) Of course the revelation of truth was the thing of importance. But revelation to whom? If to the hearers or readers, it was God's word to them as the apostles and prophets had received it. Thank God!

142 I only recall here in passing the utter absurdity of a theory, which would tell us that God, willing in grace to give a revelation to the whole church, and in some respects to all men, gives it in such a way that, as a revelation, it goes no farther than the one to whom it is communicated. It is a very convenient system for the clergy, who may desire that we should believe all that they give us as authoritative teachers, but a poor case for us Christians that we have no revelation from God. Our good friends will say, Were not the apostles authoritative teachers? Surely; but they tell us how and why. "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe," 1 Thess. 2: 13. They imparted to them the gospel of God. It was "not yea and nay, but in him was yea" — yea "all the promises of God" were; and Peter took care they should have the things "in remembrance," and John wrote his epistle that they "might believe." There were not only authoritative teachers, which no Christian denies; but we have what was authoritatively taught, and was and is the word of God. Either we have what was revealed to Paul or others as purely and as fully as he received it, as he asserts (2 Cor. 2: 17); or, the authoritative teachers being gone, we have no authoritative word of God at all. Nor had they directly then. Nor has, in fact, Dr. Dods any, as I will plainly shew a little farther on.

143 But, before I turn to his more direct subject — the historical part, there is another point I may notice, which refers also to the subject we have been upon. Dr. Dods believes the prophets when they say, "Thus saith the Lord." Now in the greater part of the Pentateuch (and he will "contend for the historic credibility of the narratives") we find, "And the Lord spake unto Moses," very commonly adding, "Speak unto Aaron," or "to the priests," or "to the children of Israel, and say unto them," etc. Is this true? If so, we have, not a revelation of God in history credibly reported, but the word of God revealed to us. So in Deuteronomy we find "These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel," and then (chap. 4) he says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." Is it true, or did he deceive them or not? If not, all the commandments, which are inseparable in the four last books from the history, and the history with them, are the word of God. If it is not true, or he deceived himself, or meant to deceive others, we have no sure warrant for the history, nor any revelation of God at all. If it be true, we have the revelation made by God to Moses. I do not insist on the absurdity of a system which makes the words of the prophets in warning to the Jews, and in statements occupied with their history and future hopes as a nation, a revelation from God; and the account of the fall of man, the promises, the law, the judgment of the whole world — a subject infinitely more important to us all — no revelation at all. The absurdity of it stares every intelligent Christian in the face.

And now, to turn directly to the historical part of Scripture, Dr. Dods' theory is that God has revealed Himself in certain great acts, as the flood. These are revelation, and we have a credible history of them.* Dr. Dods ignores here the word of God, and the operation of the Spirit of God in every way, and represents in a way utterly false the documents he is speaking of. Speaking of Paul's writings he says: "I may not be able at once to accept all he teaches; I cannot accept it merely because it comes to me with authority. I can only accept in doctrine that which fits itself in with my previously received ideas and my stage of mental growth." . . . "Having accepted Paul or any one as an authoritative teacher, it is of course at my own risk I disagree with him in any one particular." Can there be a more complete denial that it is the word of God, or of our having any revelation from God? Who in his senses would talk of disagreeing with God in any particular?

{*In the Bible, then, we meet with two things — God's revelations of Himself, and the literature in which these revelations are recounted and preserved. Speaking of the flood, he says: "That is the revelation, and the Bible gives us an account of this revelation."}

144 Unless, with strange inconsistency, it be the inferior revelation of prophets, Dr. Dods has no revelation from God at all. Next, it must "fit itself in with my previously received ideas, and my stage of mental growth." Could it not possibly correct your previously received ideas, Dr. Dods? If the ideas which Paul gives us are God's ideas, do you not think they might? As to mental growth, I find, if it be mere man's mind, He hides these things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes; He chooses the foolish things to confound the wise. That there is progress in divine knowledge no one denies, and that we need the Holy Ghost to apprehend spiritual things I fully recognise; but in Dr. Dods' statement, neither as to source nor power, is there the smallest recognition of God as to our receiving what is in Scripture. What Dr. Dods would have is to "apprehend the distinction between these two things — God's revelation of Himself, and the narrative or record of that revelation in the Bible" (page 12). There is no revelation in the narrative, note. So (preface, page 6) "All that we need contend for is the historic credibility of the narrative." It will be said, he only refers to "a special theory of inspiration." He does in order to reject the plenary inspiration of Dr. Hodge; but his theory is a theory of no inspiration, but of historic credibility. So far as the historical contents of Scripture are concerned (we have spoken of the prophets and apostolic writings), "revelation stands firm, though there should prove to be no such thing as inspiration." Now this is absurd in principle; and Dr. Dods' statements false in fact, and false as to the ground of reception. Paul tells us that all or every scripture is given by inspiration of God. I do not go through the proofs rapidly summed up in the tract Have we a Revelation from God?* but no honest man can deny that Christ and the apostles quote all parts of the Scripture as inspired. Perhaps Dr. Dods may not agree with them; but if he does not, he does "wait with a warning over his head." He may be assured of that.

{*Reprinted from vol. 1, Bible Witness and Review.}

145 But his moral theory is all false. Truth is presented to the conscience, and the conscience reached, but the effect, according to Scripture, is to believe the message and the messenger. The woman of Samaria, when her conscience was reached, did not answer the Lord, Who told you that? by what historical document, or story of another first witness, do you know that? but, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." Her convinced soul recognised the divine authority and source of the word spoken to her. The noble ones of Berea, when it was the general truth of Christ, searched the Scriptures whether those things were so; they recognised their authority; "therefore many of them believed." Their inquiry was not whether the new truth "fitted in with their previously received ideas." Most certainly it did not (it is always fresh truth which tests the faith of the heart); but whether it fitted in with the Scriptures, the certain word of God, the revelation of God. Fresh truth which calls for faith never can be part of the historical revelation of God, or it would not be fresh. It will never be inconsistent with, but confirm, what was previously revealed. The truth previously received one may adhere to, and pride one's self in, and reject the new. "The time cometh when he that killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things they will do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor Me." I do not doubt we have all revealed truth in Scripture. In these "perilous times" we are referred to the Scriptures and expressly as inspired of God — certainly not to my previously received ideas. And we have the promise "they shall be all taught of God." Dr. Dods recognises neither.

Further, Dr. Dods refers to the narrators in the New Testament as claiming no other ground, but that of being eyewitnesses, referring to the common objection of infidels, namely, what is said in the beginning of Luke. Now that the Lord in gracious condescension did use eye-witnesses, so that men should have no excuse for not believing, is most true and precious; but that the credibility of Scripture statements is "grounded not on any inspiration" is utterly false. I will not rest on Origen's comment on Luke's words that the others had taken it in hand as men, and Luke's was divinely undertaken in contrast with that. But, in the first place, Luke states exactly the contrary of what Dr. Dods says: "not," he says, "in any inspiration which could give him a knowledge of events of which he could not in any other way be cognisant, but upon the ordinary grounds of belief in history, namely, that he had his facts from those who were eye-witnesses." "Many," Luke says, "having taken in hand to set forth the things most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses of the word, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first" (parekolouthekoti anothen, the word being the same as that used by Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. 3: 10), with the addition of anothen). The others had related the history as delivered by eye-witnesses. But this did not satisfy Luke; so he wrote his Gospel having perfect knowledge of everything.

146 But note here that it is not merely inspiration for the knowledge of facts which is denied, but such a guarding of the writer as should preserve him from writing a false account. It was "the ordinary grounds of belief in history." Now the Lord expressly speaks of both grounds as to the apostles. The Holy Ghost would come and testify of Christ; "and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." Nor is this all. In John 14 the Lord says to His disciples: "he, the Comforter, shall teach you all things, and shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Dr. Dods puts on the ground of confidence a spiritual state in the apostles which made them sensitive to everything in Him which was of the highest value. We are in a spiritual region because we are in the hands of spiritual men. They had the Spirit of Christ, and so coincided with Him as to what was important. Now this shews the hollowness of all this theory. Dr. Dods has given up inspiration in the history of Christ, and even guidance, so that they should not commit errors, and we are cast upon the apostles coinciding with Christ, being spiritual men. When? When they saw all the things which passed in His life down here. What does Dr. Dods himself tell us? "We can scarcely suppose that the evangelists saw all that had to be seen in Christ, but we can only see through them." But then they must coincide with Him, and see as important what He saw as important. Now, through grace they believed He was the Christ and had the words of eternal life, and dung to Him. But will Dr. Dods shew me one single instance where they entered into His mind, where they understood Him, or, if they did, did not remain entirely opposed to what He told them? "We have no bread," when the Lord warned them against the leaven of Pharisees or others. "Hath any one brought him meat to eat?" when, rejected in Judaea, the blessed Lord's heart was expanding through the opening blessing that reached out beyond it through the conversion of one, a stranger to covenant and promise, and He had meat to eat that they knew not of. And when He told them that He should die and rise again, "they were exceeding sorry," and again, "That be far from thee,

147 One sole instance we have, a heart whose affections rose with the rising hatred of the Jews just ready to kill Him, and spent the best she had in lowliness on Him; and this was to be told wherever the gospel was to be preached — a solitary case, so strange to Him who looked for comforters and found none — and it has been. And even after the resurrection they say on the road with Him, "We thought it had been he which should have redeemed Israel"; and the apostles most closely bound up with Him and with one another saw (were eye-witnesses, Dr. Dods) and believed, for as yet they knew not the Scriptures that He must rise from the dead, and went home again; and that was all about it for them. And another woman, clinging to His empty grave (all the world was to her if He was not there), is made to the apostles themselves the messenger of the highest privileges the saint can have, from the lips of Jesus Himself. Then, after that, He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures; but He assured them too, that "blessed are they who have not seen and who yet have believed." Were they, before He made them understand the Scriptures? "Mainly this, that they had the revelation at first hand, that they were the men before whom the revelation was made, and who were so impressed with it, and saw its meaning as to be moved to preserve and perpetuate this impression for the sake of others?" What does John tell us in one case? "These things the disciples understood not at the first; but when Jesus was glorified then remembered they that these things were written of him, and they had done these things unto him," John 12: 16.

Impossible for anything to be more contrary to Scripture, or I must add greater insensibility to the sweetness and true history of that Bread which came down from heaven, than the statements of Dr. Dods. And, if it were only after He was glorified that they could tell the wondrous tale and have told it to us, blessed be God! It was not that they were impressed with it while He was there and saw its meaning; but that the Holy Ghost was come down from heaven, and they gave us a history of the Son of God, and Son of man, as none but the Holy Ghost could give, or make us understand and delight in.

148 Dr. Dod's theory and principle is utterly false. Nothing but the utter darkness of man's mind and heart that could give us such a statement as that it was spiritually valuing what He valued that made them competent witnesses; that it was those who were most in sympathy with the purposes of God and who were most imbued with His own Spirit, who were best prepared to see and recount His revelations. But it is every way false. First, who could tell them of a glorified Christ? They could follow Him to the cloud; the angels told them He would come again; but what about Him while He was away? The Comforter would come and take the things of Christ and shew them to them. All things that the Father had were His: therefore He said, "He shall take of mine and shew it unto you." Where were the eye-witnesses now? Yet, sweet as it is when at peace through His precious blood to dwell and feed on that Bread come down from heaven, and attractive in itself even to the sinner, the blessing is not to look upon the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen, which are eternal, to set our affections on things above, not on things on earth. Where is our Livy or Thucydides, as they miserably say, for thus?

Hence Dr. Dods tells us what we have got by Paul's teaching is, "spirit supersedes law" — rather poor Presbyterian teaching; but that is all he can lead us to find in it. "This is the ultimate teaching the world needs or can have." Is there nothing of the Person and glory of Christ and God's purposes in Him? I find him telling me that eye indeed hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but "God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God; which things also we speak."

149 Now it is quite clear that all these blessed things on which our affections are to be set, where our conversation (our politeuma) is, are known only by the revelation of the Spirit. For Dr. Dods all is simply "spirit supersedes law." Besides, Christianity is the ministration of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3), and the veil on Moses is done away in Christ; and thus the sacrifices, the pattern of things in the heavens, and the whole scheme hidden in the shadows of the law, have their true force given to them through a suffering and glorified Christ, sitting at the right hand of God the Father till He comes again, His enemies being made His footstool. With all this history has nothing to do. It is all revealed and understood solely by the Spirit of God. There can be no history of the facts and glory of heaven. What could be heard when one went there could not be revealed at all; and the history we may in one sense have of it has no sense for us till it ceases to be history and becomes shadows of better things which the Spirit opens up to us in them.

But even in the earthly part, to spiritual intelligence the operation of the Holy Ghost in the Gospels, in the revelation of Christ on earth, is as plain as in the heavenly part. The four Gospels reveal Him in four distinct characters, as has been long ago remarked — (1) Emmanuel-Messiah; (2) the Servant-Prophet; (3) the Son of man in grace (after the two first chapters shewing Israel's and the remnant's position); (4) the Word made flesh, eternal life in the Son of God, and at the close, the other Comforter, the Spirit, promised. And in each Gospel the Holy Ghost calls up before us, through the mind of the evangelist, what presents the Lord in the character it treats of. Take the closing scene: all is power and divine in John without suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross; in Matthew the sheep dumb before his shearers, the suffering victim without a comforter all through; in Luke more suffering expressed in Gethsemane, none on the cross; there all was grace and confidence. Mark is substantially here the same as Matthew; he takes the place of suffering instead of active service. The mission of the disciples is distinct in each Gospel. Into all this I cannot enter here, but it is not as eye-witnesses we have the accounts. Matthew was present when all went backward and fell to the ground, but tells us nothing about it. John was nearer to Christ when in an agony, but it is not his subject. John was one of those that slept, but there is not a word of it. Mark was not, but tells us all about it. Who told them the infancy of the Lord? If we believe Lange, it was Mary, with plenty of nonsense about it. The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, was worthy of one historian, alone capable of writing His history, the Spirit of God; happy those who were made the instruments of doing it! No Christian denies that the twelve, at least, were eyewitnesses, and he appreciates God's grace in it in dealing with men. But none but an infidel as to God's revelation denies the operation of the Spirit of God in the testimony they have given.

150 It remains for me to speak of the history of the Old Testament, before I shew what the principles of this school are, a school with which Dr. Dods has fully identified himself, not only in general principles, but in the whole scheme on which these principles are carried out. My reader need not suppose I charge Dr. Dods with agreeing with them in details, for no two of them agree. Dr. Bleek, for example, declares Ewald's as utterly unproved and ungrounded. So Ilgen's, of which I only know by report. But these details merely refer to the dates at which the different histories of which the Pentateuch is compiled were written. There are in the main two schools, one making Deuteronomy the first book, and the body of the Pentateuch worked up after the captivity, with some Mosaic tradition, but no regular book of law till Josiah's time (that there was no regular book of the law is pretty much Bleek's view too); the others that the body of the laws are Mosaic, though not written by him, save a song or two and register of journey, Deuteronomy with Joshua coming in their natural order.

But all leave a revelation by Moses entirely out of the question, indeed all revelation; and it is to this system in its actual form Dr. Dods in the note to page 18 gives his adherence, besides insisting in the text on the infidel principle of it. The Bible is not a revelation, but a record of the historic facts in which God has revealed Himself, such as the flood, etc. Now all this is as shallow and poor as can be. We have an ordinary historical account, "the ordinary grounds of belief in history." But first, by the historical writers of Scripture Dr. Dods does not mean what we have actually in Scripture at all — that is merely an account compiled out of them; at any rate, "not always those who brought the books into their final state, but those, whoever they were, who first recorded the revelations made." One thing is never thought of in any shape — God's having anything to do with the record. The prime requisite is knowledge of these facts at first hand. But this we have not got at all, "Whoever they were!" Some fragments may be preserved, songs and genealogies, and different documents, a very few from the first hand, and these curtailed, added to, fashioned according to the thoughts of those "who brought the books into their final shape." So that what we have got may be as to a part of the history from the first hand, whoever he was, but may not be. But at any rate they were "brought into shape," so that "first hand" we certainly have not!

151 But there are other serious difficulties. Though there are important facts revealing God's ways, the greater part of the historical books are not composed of facts at all. They are laws, exhortations, promises, warnings, prophecies, institutions, which were the shadow of good things to come — feasts which prefigured great future dealings of God; things purposely ordered to be patterns of things in the heavens; God's estimate of men, the conduct of men as laying the ground of God's ways with them, and that often of the deepest instruction and the finest development of motives in men, and in God as to His government; the elements, as in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, of God's future dealings; personages who came out involving immense principles of God's dealings in otherwise trifling incidents, and principles and relationships which run through God's ways on to glory, yet with no great revelation of God in the acts themselves, as for instance, Melchisedec; things "which happened unto them for examples, and written for our admonition on whom the ends of the world are come." There seems a purpose here in their being written. Whose? Of those who first recorded the revelations, in all these details, or those who brought the books into their final shape? or of God in His wise and holy counsel?

But I have some further inquiry to make on this statement that God gave revelations of Himself in His acts, and then we have a credible account of them from eye-witnesses at first hand. Take Dr. Dods' example, the flood. What eye-witness gave us the account of this, or of the tower of Babel — nay, even of Abraham's altars, of Jacob's wrestling? Did Adam record for the benefit of his posterity his disobedience and sin, and exclusion from paradise, and the barring of the way back to the tree of life on which the whole history of man, and Satan, and redemption, and mediately or immediately judgment, depends? What "first hand" wrote the ordinary credible history of what passed in the garden? We may go farther, if need be, to do so. Has Dr. Dods got the morning stars and the sons of God who shouted for joy to give us a credible history of creation?* Was anyone there to hear, "Let us make man in our image?"

{*The tabernacle, some of these doctors tell us, could not have been made or exist in the wilderness, did not in the land, as the history of the nation proves, but was invented, being copied from the temple when it was known. This shews the importance of the principle, for it was made after the pattern in the mount; and it is so treated in the Epistle to the Hebrews.}

152 But why should I continue? Was ever such senseless stuff? Whether we consider the delicate shades of thought in a thousand cases, small events of the utmost import, statements of what God thought and said, and a multitude of facts which no eye had seen, and all forming part of an immense scheme of God as to man, and of His glory in Christ, and gathering together all things in Him, every part of the record (which, thank God, we do possess) shews the gross and senseless absurdity of the whole scheme.

I shall shew what the authors of this system, those from whom all this is drawn, and whose system is substantially accepted in Dr. Dods' note, to which I have referred, make of these "Urkunde und Quellschriften," those who first recorded the revelations; but I thought it best first to take up Dr. Dods' statements themselves as he presents them. He does not go so far as the gravest of them as to the prophets; he carefully confines himself to the historical books, and I have done so. Divine and interesting as the prophets are, the history contained in Genesis is of far more importance to us. Of this, according to the system, we have no revealed record, but only what rests on the ordinary grounds of historic credibility; and, moreover, in cases where the whole plan of man with God depends on it, and redemption has all its sense from it, we cannot possibly have any such history at all. Does the revelation of the thoughts, and what I may call the private thoughts, of God, rest on the ordinary grounds of historic credibility? It is puerile absurdity, an infidel rejection of what Christ and the apostles have told and taught us as to these books; while the saint who has to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that word which pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, has no such word to look to at all.

153 I turn to Ewald and Bleek, leaving aside Kuenen and Graf, whom I may call openly infidel. Ewald shews at once his view of the matter. The beginning of his "Geschichte Israels" is a dissertation on the nature of legend; how it develops itself, and the forms it takes under various circumstances; in fact, a mere abstract statement of what he is going to tell us of the Bible, and drawn from his view of it. I leave aside the references to the Book of the Wars of the Lord, and a supposed account of Moses' life,* to one of which the Scriptures themselves refer, as not material, to come to his first larger source of the history, the "Book of Covenants." Here all refers to covenants — Jacob and Laban, Isaac and Abimelech, Abraham and Abimelech — shewing restless and unsettled times. This, therefore, will have been written in the time of the Judges, in the latter half of the period, or more exactly at the beginning of Samson's rule, etc.

{*He refers what is said of Jethro to this, and I think this only.}

But Genesis 49 leads to a closer knowledge of the time. This flows entirely from seeing the twelve tribes as they dwelt scattered in Canaan in the time of the Judges. Nothing could describe in a more lively way their then state than this song. Deuteronomy 33, which was a copy of it made in the time of kingly rule to fill up the felt want in that of Genesis, shews it was made earlier, when Israel's unity was not established. But verses 16-18, where Dan is spoken of most exactly, shew us the time, as they clearly refer to Samson's time and his being in the judge's office, describing his heroic dealing against the Philistines; and in a note it is added, as also among the Arabs, the image of a warrior as a serpent is largely developed. And the more certainly this position of the tribe under Samson was soon over, so the more surely must such an utterance be written down during the short happy elevation of Samson. So the state of things related in Judges 1 is evidently the state of things in the time of the composer — a state already so fully changed under the Kings, that the "Book of Origins" sketches a totally different picture of Joshua's and Moses' days. The stream of accounts handed down flowed more richly, as we might expect, when no more important time had eclipsed them. So the legends as to the patriarchs were taken up into this work evidently circumstantially, and with remembrances whose completeness subsequently constantly suffers. Their time was so distant from that of the composers that he could there venture on a higher artistic presentation with poetic freedom. That the dying man had a clearer sight, and specially a dying patriarch could cast his view over the future of his posterity, was the view of all antiquity. And so the composer dared to bring in the dying Jacob as a higher voice of pure truths to be spoken of all the tribes. As he had to praise and sharply blame some of them on seeing the state of the scattered tribes with a troubled heart, his spirit takes refuge in* the memory of the patriarch Jacob and it. Not only Moses' blessing (Deut. 33), but such utterances as Genesis 48: 15-19; chap. 27: 27-29; chap. 39 ff.; Numbers 23 f., depend entirely on this model.

{*Or "goes off to" flüchtete.}

154 Now I ask if, in all this account of the recorders of the first revelation of God, there is the smallest sign of God's Spirit, or of anything coming from God at all? It is purely a human composition, not a contemporary one; and if there be an allusion to an event which the professed author puts forth as a prophecy, it is a proof that it was written at the time prophesied of. That is, there is a complete denial of all inspiration. From this author we have the decalogue, only without the reference in the seventh day to the creation which was added by the author of the "Book of Origins." But that blessing of Jacob's shews a genuine prophetical spirit, so in the conclusion of covenant with God; Exod. 23: 20-23. He adopted older songs, already written down, into his work, as Exodus 15: 1-19; Numbers 21: 17, profiting by the above-mentioned Wars of the Lord. "On the other hand, it is impossible to think that such verses as Jacob's blessing (Gen. 49? springs from anything else than mere artistic power in composition.

I add this part as shewing what genuine prophetic spirit means. So we must regard a considerable part of the Mosaic laws as got from old writings, which must be from an earlier date, as he introduces them as communicated to Moses by God after the decalogue to be laid before the people. "The book of Jasher" contained songs which furnished abundant materials in historical songs. It was an historical book of instruction without connected history. It was written in the beginning of Solomon's reign. This brings us to the "Book of Origins," written, says Ewald, at that time. Only I must add (124) that Exodus 20: 23 to chap. 24: 19 was introduced into the "Book of Covenants." But what I have given as to the "Book of Covenants" may suffice.

155 The "Book of Origins," Ewald tells us, was a much larger work than the "Book of Covenants," and more recent, belonging to the reign of the early kings, which gives its whole character and we have much larger fragments of it. The date is clear from the way in which, in the midst of describing the time of the patriarchs, he is looking at his own time. The author of the "Book of Covenants" had only once made Jacob cast his eyes forward to the latest future, and therewith into the beclouded time of the author (time of the Judges). But the author of the "Book of Origins" (in Solomon's time) is bolder, and in this the voice of God appearing to the patriarchs overflows often in cheerful utterances and joyous promises for the seed or later posterity, as if the time of the author (to which such utterances with the hope that their blessings would yet last to future times properly refer), was one of the rare times which from a mighty train of complete prosperity feel themselves lifted higher, and look forward to yet greater; and we find, among other things, Abraham and Sarah and Jacob would become a multitude of nations, and kings would arise out of them. How then could the blessing be limited to a definite and peculiar, and so evidently accidental, a blessing as that kings should descend from the patriarchs? This question can never be answered unless we hold fast that the work was composed in the times of the first opening bloom of the kingdom, which furthered Israel's true good.

So the change from kings in Edom to heads of tribes comes from David's conquest of Edom. And the name of Hadad, who fled to Egypt, is found in the name of the last king. But the exact time is learned from 1 Kings 8: 2. Much, no doubt, as we now have it, is worked up by a later hand; still we have much of the authors, and yet it must be before the glorious time of the kingdom was over, and no better termination than "the glory of the Lord filled the house" would be found, so that we may hold for certain that the work was completed in the first third of Solomon's rule. He favours thus Judah, but was a Levite, as the author of the "Book of Covenants" certainly was not. His object in this time of rest was to take a survey of history in its whole compass, bringing it down, however, always to Israel as the central object, following constantly that line of genealogy, but going up to the origin of all history like the Grecians after their conquests over the Persians. But then he goes back to the origin of the various heads of the four ages, Mosaic, Patriarchal, Noachic, and Adamic: so it is a book of origins. This refers to the expression, "These are the generations" (Toledoth) of such a one as Noah, and then, as in Genesis 5: 1 "these are the generations of man" (Adam). But the picture (Schilderung) rises up boldly yet beyond all that, seeking to declare (erklaren) or expound the origin even of all that is visible in a history of the creation (Gen. 1 and 2: 1-3); yet this only to be treated as an introduction to the proper work which begins at chapter 5: I. It might give us still oftener the title "These are the generations" (origins), even afterwards as to the tribal genealogies of Israel, if the most of these parts of the work were not at present lost.

156 There is, he tells us, a special charm in these accounts. A not less healthful than strengthening breath of an elevated spirit blows on every feeling reader, and only the author, because he lived through his own time with the warmest participation in it and a treasure of royal thoughts, could understand what was most elevated in antiquity in the liveliest way, and bring forward for posterity with a master hand what lay there not to be lost and elevating, and paint it with increasing attractiveness, without for that reason failing to recognise the higher happiness which the bloom of the present kingdom afforded. Then attention could be turned also to the whole state of the people as to laws, as it had formed itself gradually since the dark times of antiquity and then existed, but certainly had never till then been the exhausted subject of writing; for attempts indeed at shorter compilations of the most important laws of the people, besides the decalogue, had been made in writing, and many of them might at that time have been long written, as the oldest somewhat circumstantial attempt at a code known to us (Exod. 20: 2, or rather 23, to 23: 19), was inserted in the former work ("Book of Covenants"), and as the "Book of Origins" has adopted two smaller collections of laws. But the smallest trace fails us, and it is in itself improbable that the whole wide compass of all possible (denkbaren, thinkable) legal determinations and holy instructions had ever been made in writing at an earlier time.

157 He tells us that Hosea (chap. 8: 12) sets out as supposed that, in his time, and specially in the northern kingdom, a number of books like the "Book of Origins," and not a few highly esteemed, were current, but not in the least heeded by the government. But this stream of myriads of written laws could not be very old.* This expression of Hosea's shews that such writings at first had no public recognition, but as free products of skill in authorship were current for centuries among the people, and some of them, perhaps, had won a higher consideration and become holy, and so must we evidently think of the "Book of Origins." This specially as regards the origin of the Mosaic sanctuaries and institutions and the rights of the priestly race, and as it paints all that was of law and rights as having its origin in the first beginning of the olden time (Urzeit); so also in that account sets it forth with so much the greater diligence and development, so that it should be valid at the present time (David and Solomon) as pattern and rule. So it was, he tells us, with the Indian Puranas. And as the previous writer ("Book of Covenants") had his point of departure from the idea of the covenant established in Sinai; so the "Book of Origins" undertakes to shew what divine laws and covenants had their origin already in the beginning of the previous ages under Abraham, Noah, and Adam, and how the laws and precepts, like man's race, even from the simplest beginnings onwards have always spread out and been developed. (Gen. 17; chap. 9: 1-17; chap. 1: 27-30 are quoted.)

{*In the English translation we read: I have written to them the great things of my law. Ewald translates "great thing," rebehv myriads, and I suppose does not heed my law torathi.}

Right and law are not in all times the same. They change, especially according to the great changes and windings about of all human history: and yet every valid right must stand on ground above men and bind them as a divine command, as if it took effect through a covenant between God and mankind. And as he had the consciousness that many laws which prevailed in the community had their origin in the olden time before Moses, so he links the explanation of the obligation and use of circumcision to a suited occasion in patriarchal times. Hence in the proper Mosaical history he seizes every occasion to insert what is of law; expounds at the exodus from Egypt, in full detail, the laws as to the passover and firstborn; and puts off the chief subject of Mosaic institutions and laws (the sanctuary and the priestly race) into the short time of the sojourn of the people at Sinai; partly while according to all fixed remembrance the people were really formed anew under the establishment of the last great covenant of men with God, and partly because of the suitable resting-place for the exposition of a great connected collection of institutions and laws; and specially so as to the sanctuary, the highest centre of the religion and constitution of the people, and as to the ark glorified by being received into Solomon's temple, made after the pattern of that sanctuary. And thus the author starts from that visible sanctuary (the temple) in his sketch of the whole that was to be pictured; describes it with all that belonged to it as made according to the divine pattern shewn and prescribed to Moses; and then gives the sacrifices and their order and use. Only Numbers 19 ought to be inserted after Leviticus 16.

158 If we treat now the whole manner and way in which the author puts in order and describes the Mosaic laws in recounting the history, there cannot be the smallest doubt that it is solely on this account that he describes them as communicated from Jehovah to Moses, and through Moses to the congregation, or Aaron, if the contents concern the priesthood; namely, that, as in his time they were in force as holy, an historian could only place their origin in that commencement of the congregation. They had won their force and holiness through long use, and so the author puts them as divine commands. Hence he has to seek what goes back to Moses' time, and what gradually or from other causes had come in. The author does not set up to be Moses. And when a prescription in the connected whole of the description applied only to the land, not in the wilderness, the author makes Moses announce it prophetically, sometimes with the addition, "When ye are come into the land." He revives the law-giving time, and depicts Moses and Joshua as models of leaders of the people, himself imbued with the same spirit. And certainly he took much out of the former historical work, or worked it up after his own manner, and took what was already in it, the inimitably described manifestation at Sinai, and with it the decalogue (where the words Exod. 20: 9-11 are an addition from himself), the rather, as it was necessary in itself. He then praises largely the author for a priestly, lawgiving, leading royal spirit, and closes with thus apostrophising the author's elevated spirit whose writings have for centuries succeeded in being taken for those of the great hero Moses himself. "I know not thy name, and guess only from thy traces where thou walkedst in time, and what thou didst; but these traces lead me irrecusably on not to take thee immediately for him who was greater than thee, and whom thou couldst thyself honour as he deserved. So see that in me there is nothing false, and no desire not to recognise thee altogether as thou wast."

159 Having given Ewald's estimate of the historical books, and, where it was of moment, in his own words, as regards the two chief original histories, the rest need not occupy us long. There were, he tells us, a third, fourth, and, in the second edition, a fifth narrator, who worked it up. And here remark it is not that there were original documents used, which is possible: but what we have is the work of those who composed the history. The earliest (save a small fragment or two of a life of Moses, and the Book of the Wars of the Lord) was composed in the time of Samson; we have not even the ten commandments as they were originally given. The various morsels of the third narrator are given in page 145 (third edition). The special excellence of this writer is the uncommonly high and clear view of the work of the prophetic and divine Spirit which appears more or less in different minds, and gives us some of the finest pieces in the Old Testament, as Numbers 11. Still though elevated, he is far from the artistic painting and bolder picturing of him (the fourth) who will soon be described. He had much to do with the account of Joseph, but a good deal was woven in afterwards. He lived in the time of the prophets Joel and Elias, in the ninth or tenth century before Christ, and belonged to the northern kingdom, so that his work was for it what the "Book of Origins" was for Judah. He gives the different bits in the Pentateuch which belong to this writer. I shall only give what shews the estimate of these new German views, which are to replace inspiration and the revelation of divine thoughts and intentions in the word of God. The pieces of the fourth narrator shew a high and ripest cultivation of all spiritual powers and capacities of the ancient people which can hardly be surpassed. One may justly maintain that, in the handling of the original early history, this work presents the progress to the extremest freedom of conception and picturing beyond which nothing more is possible as the pure artistic giving form to, and profiting by, legend; and one recognises easily, in the form of the whole popular life of the time which shines out from it, the commencing of loosening the chains of the old limits of the Mosaic religion, and the powerful rising again of many new thoughts and strivings.

160 This in a note to the reference he compares to the bright days of Islam after the Crusades, though in a different spirit then. The prophetic spirit which characterises it, flowing out ever wider, over its nearest limits, also completely fills now the original early history and transforms it with the greatest freedom into more beautiful new forms. Thus Messianic hopes link themselves, as we see in the great prophets, the most easily to the historical beginning of all the higher life of the patriarchs. The beginning and end meet — what is between is only development — so that we hardly find more elevated expectations uttered by the great prophets. The third narrator kept closer to tradition, and was in the prophetic point of view what the "Book of Origins" was to the lawgiving; whereas the prophetic thought in this work governs the history as its own field, and handles it from the outset onward with all freedom. To this is ascribed Genesis 12: 1-3; chap. 18: 18 ff., chap. 22: 16-18; chap. 26: 4 ff.; chap. 28: 13, the fully-formed Messianic hopes, the truth of the infinite grace of Jehovah surpassing everything, along with the deepest sinfulness and corruption of the earthly (natural) man, the like of the not accidental origin of evil in man, are such luminous thoughts as the sun of that century first elicited from holy ground (that is, the ninth or eighth century before Christ). This fourth narrator introduces, losing sight of the difference of times, Mosaic sacrifices, as in the case of Noah, and even in Cain and Abel, without anxiously asking if they belonged to the gate of paradise. The wickedness of Gibeah was the pattern of that of Sodom, as one cannot have originated without the other. And as Amos refers to Sodom and Gomorrha only, our narrator confines himself to these. Through this new birth of old history much has been preserved from legendary traditions, but also through this working up much has been broken up (aufgelost) and become unrecognisable, or thrown away as of no importance.

The fifth narrator belongs to about Joel's time. From him the first great collection and thorough working up of all the previous sources of the original early history proceeded; to him the whole present Pentateuch and book of Joshua must be referred, except the three kinds of additions which were inserted later. So that we have a narrator who indeed sketches much altogether new with his own hand, and according to his own thought, as the need of his own time seemed to require it, but most of it only out of older writings, either verbally repeated, or here and there somewhat changed, and on the whole is more a collector and thorough worker-up than an independent writer and original historian. The distinction of Israel and the other nations is more strongly marked, particularly Edom, Moab, and Ammon, who were then throwing off Israel's yoke, whence the prophecy of Balaam, the Assyrian being looked at rather as a friendly power, Josephus enabling us to trace the place of Amalekites and Kenites then. The ships of Chittim refer to a war of the Phoenicians for the subjugation of Cyprus, whence pirates had been attacking all those coasts, as we read that Elulaus, king of Tyre, conquered those of Chittim, etc. But, through this division of foes and friends of the spiritual religion, which was much more marked then, this historian introduces a remarkable supplement to the "Book of Origins," in that he sets up in the olden time before the flood an opposition of holy and corrupt, of good and bad among men; Gen. 4.

161 After the previous one had already pursued the origin of wickedness farther up to the first man, and has developed it there at the same time in a prophetic way, he brings in striking pictures of things before the history, as Genesis 15 before 17, and so on. But he leaves out a great deal of what he had before him. So he sets Jehovah in addition to Elohim (Gen. 2: 5; chap. 3), which he had from the fourth narrator, but gives up the unusual dragging double name in the simple relation; Gen. 4. However freely the fourth narrator has handled the original history, it is never with a law-giving object; for the single time when he brings forward laws he does it only in his usual competition with the old sources (Exod. 34: 10-26), in order to declare the decalogue and its origin in his own way. Leviticus 26 is inserted by him, and could only have been written after the dispersion of one kingdom, as we have the sorrowful feelings of the descendants of those dispersed (vv. 36-40), so that this could not have been written before the end of the eighth or beginning of the seventh century (B.C,),

Last of all came the author of Deuteronomy in the time of corruption after Hezekiah, and the author (desirous, as this advanced age required, to improve the Davidical kingdom yet existing) introduces Moses himself as speaking; and as he conceals himself under the name of Moses, so does he the king, whom he wishes to improve the state of things, under the name of Joshua; but he deals more boldly with history as in so far removed a time.

162 I need not go farther into the details as to Deuteronomy. Its character and that of Joshua in Ewald's eyes is clear from what has been said. It was written in the latter half of King Manasseh's reign, and in Egypt. It was the book which was the foundation of the reformation in Josiah's time. Deuteronomy 33 is an imitation of Genesis 49. The song (chap. 32) was already written in Jeremiah's time. The wish that Judah should come to his people shews the time of composition, when it was hoped all Israel would be subject to the king of Judah. It appeared as a distinct work, but was wrought up into one with the previous works, already much read. Ewald describes the way in which he who put it all together managed. The Deuteronomist calls the great previous collection Law of God, or of Moses; so the old name of the "Book of Origins" and others was forced into the background. Then, by the later transformations and additions, the true old divisions of the "Book of Origins" were made thoroughly obscure, and the whole work such as it became at last, we know not by whom, thrown into six parts. Still, out of the wreck of the older writings, and the multitude of later additions, much of what was original glimmers forth, and all later transformations have been able to cast fully into darkness neither the elevated remains of writing of the earliest time, scattered in the work, nor the whole history of the origin of the work — at least with the more accurate search which alone is the fruitful as it is the becoming one.

My reader will now understand what Dr. Dods means when he says of the historical writers of Scripture, "Meaning by the historical writers of Scripture not always those who brought the books into their final shape, but those, whoever they were, who first recorded the revelations made": only remembering that Scripture is not a revelation. For Dr. Dods God's public acts are that, Scripture only an account of them. His "theory of inspiration" as to these books is that there is none at all. We have nothing really from God but old legends, the first a hundred years after Moses, containing a chapter and a half about Jethro, and then a number of books, the two principal writers in the Judges' and Solomon's time, but transformed (umgestaltet), worked up (umarbeitet, verarbeitet) and added to, for centuries, and at last Deuteronomy and Joshua added, and the whole brought into form. Prophecies of events give the date of writing, because the reference to them shewed the writer has these events before his eyes. The result is easily apparent now. What an uncommon fate this great work ran through before it received its present form! How from a little beginning, with every important change of the whole Hebrew literature on to the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century, it grew and was changed! In the course of the strong changes and transformations which this great work experienced, much in it has lost its original clearness and peculiarity more and more!

163 A comfortable look-out this for those who sit down to read the word of God, or even a credible history of God's revelations of Himself!

I turn to Bleek. He is, in certain respects, more sober and moderate than others, but rejects all inspiration avowedly, and in his statements there is no ground left for any at all. I shall quote enough to shew this, but be more brief, as the main general principles are already given from Ewald, and as to details none of them agree. Bleek rejects Ewald's system, as Ewald had done one of his own previously formed. Bleek says, "Ewald there (in G. I.) assumes, as we have said, but for the most part without bringing forward any actual proof." And again, after speaking of Ewald's system, he says, "I cannot say, however, that I see anything at all to lead me to this view, but the contrary," etc.

Bleek holds to the notion of Elohistic and Jehovistic documents invented by Astruc,* but that with more sober judgment than most, holding that the great body of Moses' laws were made for the desert, as shewn by expressions in them, and written contemporaneously with their enactments, but that discrepancies, dislocations, repetitions of the same scenes, prove other hands, and diverse documents to have been made use of in compiling it. But his proofs of Moses' authorship or of that of contemporaneous authorship of the laws from the allusions to the camp and the naming of Aaron, Riehm (Stud.-u-Krit.) holds not to be at all valid. Indeed we have only to read the various systems of the writers to see how untrustworthy they all are. United in one thing the denial of inspiration asserted explicitly by the apostle Paul, whom they ignore, as indeed by the Lord Himself, who teaches us to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (and where are these to be found if Scripture be not inspired?) not one of them agrees with the other. Each frames a system for himself, and often changes his own, as Ewald himself and Bleek did.

{*Ewald had resisted this but (it seems) changed his mind; so he says little about it.}

164 Note here the immense difference as to the intelligence of Scripture involved in inspiration, and the way they are thrown into these false systems by denying it. First, the general purpose of God, the mind of God, is lost. It is the notion or feeling of the individual writer which governs the statements. All true clue to the bearing of the passage is lost, the difference between grace and government under law. But, further, as the denial of inspiration precludes prophecy, where any allusion to subsequent facts is made, this must be written after the things had happened.

Paul tells us further, "these things happened unto them for ensamples (types, tupoi), and they are written for our admonition on whom the ends of the world are come." Now, if God be the author, I have here, to be sought patiently and humbly, what the admonition is in the things which happened for this purpose; but if a possibly credible history framed by the feelings of the writer be all I have, I cannot look for what the apostle tells me is there.

Again, as an illustration of their dislocations (Num. 19), the red heifer ought to come after the sacrifices in Leviticus. Now this only shews total ignorance of the mind and grace of God in these things. In the beginning of Leviticus we have all the aspects of the sacrifice of Christ in the most exquisite detail, and the exact expression of its divine truth and bearing: but as it is in itself, and its various value as the basis of our approach to God. Numbers gives us our journey through the desert, where we are in danger of defiling our feet, and rendering ourselves unfit for communion, though belonging to the Lord and under the efficacy of the atonement through which the Lord imputes no sin. Here, therefore, exactly in its place, the provision for the defilement which interrupts communion is made known. But, where there is no inspiration, there is no mind of God to be sought for. A mere credible arrangement of facts with human motives gives no ground for it. For these writers, consequently, there is no thought of a mind of God in the book at all. If there is such a thing, therefore, they have wholly lost the clue to the interpretation and order of the books. Thus it is not a question of a theory of inspiration. There is in the book no revelation of the mind of God at all.

165 Bleek does not conceal this, nor make really any middle system between verbal inspiration and human authorship. Carpzov, he says, holds that the Biblical historians generally received the whole contents of their works both in matter and form by immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and not by means of tradition or independent inquiry. But such an assumption is altogether unnatural' and untenable, if we take an impartial view of the contents and form of the historical works in the Holy Scriptures. Opinions, indeed, vary as to the exact mode in which the Holy Spirit co-operated, etc.; but it will be acknowledged by all without further question, that, if their history treats of times and events which they had not themselves lived in or taken part in, the knowledge of them must have come to them by means of tradition . . . . But the probability of the purity of tradition handed down from ancient times is always greater if it comes through writings removed as little as possible from the date of the events than when it is merely oral.

I have some doubt of this. Oral tradition may be vague, of course, but written accounts of this kind are not sober history but myths, and arranged by priests in connection with their false gods, ancestral worship and what ministers to their influence. Take the written accounts in Cory's Ancient Fragments, the Vedas and Puranas, or even G. Smith's account of the flood, one of the most striking of these legends, or Deucalion's, or the history of the Titans; and see whether written accounts secure accuracy. I shall be told that these are poetry and myths. All of them are not, save (which is the very point I insist on) that these ancient accounts always seek the marvellous. Accounts are handed down, and when by men left to themselves, they make myths of them in every country, whilst Scripture gives the divine account of events which in man's hands were made myths of.

But there must be more than man to present the truth, the divine view of it, and to give even a certain account of events far back in the world's history. Besides, who is to select the facts which are morally important so as to bring out responsibility, and promise, and law in their order, and lay the foundations of grace in sin and God's sovereign love, giving hope by prophecy, while law and responsibility were insisted on, till the rejection of the Son of God come in love shewed that grace only could avail for man; while the ordering of the sacrifices gives a far fuller view of that of Christ than anything in the New Testament, though when offered, after all they were not understood? It is a whole which certainly man never put together. I have no objection at all, as I have long ago said in reply to this infidelity elsewhere, to a thousand documents, provided it is God who out of them gives me His mind.

166 But to return to Bleek. He accepts the Elohistic and Jehovistic theory of Astruc and others; and the main body of history he accounts with many to be the Elohistic one, the same, he declares, as Ewald's Book of Origins. But repetitions of the same story as Bethel, Beersheba, etc., prove it was put together, not written by Moses, or one Mosaical author. But there is more. As to this he is very decided. The idea of inspired prophecy is not admitted. He might assume with Ewald that the interest in Joseph might arise from its being from a northern author, if their composition happened so late as Ewald states it. But if so, how came Judah to receive it? As to God's having anything to say to the history, that is not in question. He then settles that this Elohistic writing extended down from the creation to Saul. The references to taking possession of the land of Canaan, and Joseph's bones, so again the promise that kings should descend from Abraham, are proofs of the date at which it was written. This is done in such a way that it may be supposed with great likelihood that he had the fulfilment of these promises before his eyes; so that it was not written, at the earliest, before the days of Saul. No other author but one who had set forth the command of Joseph concerning his bones would have related so trivial a circumstance as their burial. The certainty of faith that God would fulfil His promises, noticed withal in Hebrews 11, never enters their head. It was doubtless drawn from more ancient accounts by the Elohistic writer; but it was natural that they should be interested in such a part of their ancestors' history, and this was revised and expanded in our book of Genesis. However, Ewald's account of it is lacking in proof and clearly arbitrary. It would seem, however, that the author of our Elohistic ground writing did not employ the materials he derived from the earlier records exactly in the same way as the Jehovistic completer of the work dealt with his sources. Instead of simply appropriating them in all their original peculiarities of form, he adopted them in accordance with his own individuality as an author.

167 The Elohistic "writing endeavoured to avoid introducing references to Mosaic or post-Mosaic circumstances and regulations into the patriarchal times." Thus there is nothing of clean and unclean beasts. Did Noah make the difference, or did he not? "It does not certainly admit of a question that the author of the Elohistic writing formed his narrative in general accordance with the historical tradition as he found it already existing, in ancient, perhaps pre-Mosaic, records. But we should expect from the individuality which he exhibits as an author, if he himself had belonged to a time when David and Solomon had raised the tribe of Judah to such great distinction and pre-eminence over all the other tribes, that the ancestor of that tribe would have come forward far more prominently among his brethren than is actually the case." Ewald's view is quite inadmissible, etc.

The sum of the discussion in which he seeks to refute Ewald is based on the principle that the whole character of the writing is produced by the circumstances in which the author found himself, whether under Saul, as he says, or Solomon, as Ewald holds. But it is too long for me to introduce here. Only all this shews that there is not a thought of God's hand in it or inspiration, or even God's guardian care, but simply and solely of man. But I will add a few passages to confirm this on Exodus 15. As to a part of it, he says, from the context, and the whole relation which this bears to what precedes, it is not likely that Moses would have expressed himself in this way immediately after the passage of the Red Sea, etc. Again, "These unmistakable inaccuracies and things not agreeing with the context could not in any way have got into the narrative, if the latter had been appended to their laws by Moses himself or a contemporary of his, and above all, not very easily if the whole were the work of a thoroughly independent historian." . . . The circumstances attending it lead us to think that the visit of Jethro to Moses is placed too soon in the history; also, that the Mosaic ordinances on the institution of the tabernacle of covenant likewise have too early a place. It is likewise previously remarked that in other respects the narratives are in themselves somewhat obscure and inaccurate, not rightly agreeing at least with other accounts of the Pentateuch.

168 Now I do not hesitate to say that all this judgment flows solely from ignorance of the divine mind in the passages, and consequent inability to estimate the perfect and admirable order and connection in which the passages occur. They are a series in which that divine order is singularly striking; but those who leave out God in the matter cannot, of course, discern His wisdom or His order in it. "There are several times in Exodus accounts of something being written down by Moses, once in reference to historical matters of fact, and twice as to legal ordinances, yet there is plainly nothing about them which, by its whole internal character, would shew them to be genuinely Mosaic. In Leviticus 26 the author of this admonitory discourse, as it here runs, probably had the circumstance under his notice that the people had been punished, at least partly, by expulsion from their country, and consequently its composition in its present form must have occurred at a later date than that of the Jehovistic. This last is perhaps not later than the reign of David, and not quite in the latter part of his reign." (Vol. 1, 299, Venables' Translation.) As to Balaam's prophecy, I think it must be assumed that the speeches of Balaam were not literally recorded just as he delivered them, since even a contemporary Israelitish author could not easily have gained an exact knowledge of them. We have reason to suppose that the prophecies received the form in which we now have them through the Hebrew author, who composed the whole narrative and perhaps knew nothing more definite of their purport than that the foreign seer, instead of cursing the Israelites conformably to the wish of the Moabitish king, had repeatedly blessed them. Can we have a more complete setting aside of God in the whole matter? After further dwelling on the language (Hebrew), and the name Jehovah, neither of which the Mesopotamian would have used, he says: "Now if our assumption as to the authorship be correct, we may, of course, very well suppose that the circumstances by which he himself was surrounded floated across the mind of the Hebrew composer of the narrative, and in this way he came unconsciously to intermingle with it references bearing the marks of his own time, or the wishes and hopes which he entertained." Thus he ascertains the date. He is disposed, though it be difficult, to decide it was in Saul's reign. Hence the Elohist may have written it, otherwise the Jehovist must have met with and adopted it. There might perhaps have existed in the Elohistic writing a shorter and somewhat differently-shaped narrative of Balaam's history; and this is pointed out to us in chapter 31: 8-16, since Balaam here appears under somewhat different circumstances . . . . It is not to be denied, however, that the last verses in Balaam's speeches present great difficulties . . . . To me it continues to be the more probable view that the conclusion of his discourse ran somewhat differently in the original narrative than it does at present, and that its present form belongs to a later time than the composition of the rest of the account, and of the whole book of Numbers, etc.

169 To such straits do those reduce themselves who deny inspiration. Denying the possibility consequently of prophecy, they fix the date of composition by the circumstances mentioned in it, and, when there are several as here, are at their wits' end. But the ridiculous notion of a credible contemporary history disappears as much as inspiration; and what have we got instead of the word of God?

But these, as we have seen, are substantially on the same ground, be it in the sober speculations of Bleek, or in the enthusiastic admiration of the more poetic Ewald. The historic books of scripture are treated as mere traditions worked up by human authors; that is, as human compositions, and if any part has the form of prophecy, it is used as a proof that the author lived at the time the event referred to happened, and then put it in a prophetic form into the mouth of Moses or Abraham, etc.

I do not think Dr. Dods, in the very flimsy sermon and excuse for it which he has published, honest on the point. He says, so far as regards the narration of events, in which God has revealed Himself, we find the historical writers of scripture, in thorough agreement with criticism, asserting that the prime requisite is knowledge of these facts at first-hand; and he quotes Luke, and quotes him falsely, making him say exactly the contrary of what he does say. But what has this to do with the matter in question? This is substantially the inspiration of the Old Testament, where he passes over the fact that in the most important parts of it such a principle can by no possibility apply. There are no accounts written by eyewitnesses, as in a measure (though not as to large and most important parts) in the New Testament. In all the law-giving part of the Old Testament divine communications are asserted to have existed. Jehovah, or Jahve if they like it better, spake unto Moses. This does not go on the ground of credible witnesses, nor are they facts they could be witnesses of. They are not facts in which God revealed Himself, but words from the mouth of God. This is either true or false. God did speak to Moses or He did not. But it was not that of which any could be a witness save at the first revelation at the foot of Sinai. The great law-giver might prove Jehovah had spoken by him by making the earth open her mouth and swallow up those who resisted the authority he had by it; not God's way, no doubt, in these days of grace. But this only proved that in the communications there were no witnesses. Yet this large part of the Pentateuch is not the case of credible witnesses to God revealing Himself in facts, but God giving a revelation of His will by His word without any fact at all. As to the fall and all the circumstances of it, it is the weightiest fact, save the coming of the blessed Lord to redeem us from it, that ever happened in the world, knowledge at first-hand being just nonsense, unless it be first-hand from God Himself, which Dr. Dods openly denies.

170 But Scripture does not simply give facts in which God has revealed Himself. It tells us things in which man has revealed himself when there was no divine fact at all; in which the devil has revealed himself and will, and his ways and wiles, till he be cast into the lake of fire, and all the development of the various relationships between God and man till he rejected the Son of God: I may say the whole history of the world as related to God, with all in man and in God, and in Satan that it depended on; minute facts historically in which God had no part, but on which all depended; responsibility and life-giving power in all their bearings and relations one to another from the garden of Eden till glory and judgment; in innocence without law, under law, under grace, through the cross and the Holy Ghost given; up to glory and judgment. Who would have the discernment to choose the right facts to give all this? This theory lowers the whole nature and moral value of Scripture, as it is ridiculous theoretically that we are to have the facts of Genesis from credible eye-witnesses.

171 I do not think it honest of Dr. Dods to talk about a theory of inspiration. Wisely or unwisely, men may have theories about this, generally unwisely I think; for God's way of communicating, though He has partially in the case of Miriam and Aaron spoken of it, is not much within our ken, nor, as I have said, if I were inspired could I communicate the manner of it to one who was not. If it be said "The word of the Lord came" is clearly direct inspiration, what is the meaning of that as to the manner of it? But it is not honest, because Dr. Dods denies as to the historical parts of scripture that they are a revelation at all. God's acts are the revelation; the scripture is not God's revelation at all. Those may credibly record His acts; but this is man's doing. It is nonsense, because the greater part of historical scripture, and that which is used in the New Testament as divine, is made up of what are not God's great acts; yet all hangs inseparably together — what refers to man's responsibility as well as what God often, consequently, did. It is nonsense, because of the most important part you have and can have no account from firsthand eye-witnesses at all — moral nonsense, because man would not be competent to choose the important facts on which the whole history depended morally, having, outside Scripture, proved himself incompetent even as to the great facts, by turning the tradition of them into myths, one more absurd than another, and in those most like Scripture connecting it with false gods and wrong principles, and falsifying the facts themselves, as in the recovered Babylonish account of the deluge. It is absurd, because it supposes God meant to reveal Himself to man, and yet did it so that the revelation could not in the most important points, or indeed in any, reach men with any certainty at all. And further, it is, as to the word of God, infidelity. According to Dr. Dods there is no such thing at all.

Let not Dr. Dods flinch. May his conscience indeed feel the destroying the whole ground of faith for simple souls! But he expressly declares that the revelation is some act in which God revealed Himself; that Scripture is at best a credible account of it by man. I see nothing in it but the effect and flimsy reproduction of the more open infidelity of the Germans discussing Hebrew literature; and the note can leave no question as to its source in any mind acquainted with German writers. But it goes beyond, not their principles, but their statements; happily for others, unhappily for Dr. Dods, in that he denies that the historical part of Scripture is a revelation at all. I should have a great deal to say to many details of his reasonings; but I am not going to merge in a controversy of details the great and vital question, Have we in Scripture (that is, the historical part) a revelation from God? I say the historical part, because Dr. Dods so expresses himself; but it would involve all the words of Christ and the apostles, for they all treat it as such.

172 I may add, though it be of little moment in view of the all-momentous subject, that Riehm (though differing from Bleek in many details, as all these writers do from one another, constantly rejecting utterly the grounds on which their proofs are based;* yet) in all that is important, entirely agrees with him. Genesis 17: 6 is a proof that it was written in David's time! Bleek put it too soon in Saul's; he is right in holding that Deuteronomy was written in Manasseh's reign! The Deuteronomist had the four first books of the Pentateuch before him (see Studien und Kritiken, 1862)!

{*Thus Bleek of Ewald. Ewald's view is much more involved; much, however, in it is incapable of proof and part quite erroneous. Again, the opinion of Bertheau, which is generally allied to Ewald's and likewise quite groundless. Such passages are common.}

I add also that we may see what man and tradition make, not of creation, for none believe in that, but of the formation of things out of chaos (Sanchoniathon quoted by Eusebius in Cory's Fragments).

He supposes that the beginning of all things was a condensed dark misty air, or a breeze of thick air, and a chaos turbid and black as Erebus, and that these were unbounded, and for a long series of ages destitute of form. But when this wind became enamoured of its own principles (the chaos),* and an intimate union took place, that connection was called Pothos (cupid or desire), and it was the beginning of the creation of all things. And it (the chaos) knew not its own production, but from it with the wind was generated mist, which some call Ilus, mud, but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from this sprung all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe. And there were certain animals without sensation from which other animals were produced, and these were called Zophasemin, that is, the overseers of the heavens, and they were formed in the shape of an egg; and from mist shone forth the sun, the moon, and the greater and lesser stars.

{*This explanation is Cory's.}

173 I need not go farther; other such statements may be found, and less absurd perhaps in the records. This is Phoenician. But it is not only for the absurdity I note it, but to remark that we have a vague tradition of the Spirit of God (it is pneuma, the same word as wind) moving on the face of the waters, and find what it becomes when His account is not given in its purity by the hand and inspiration of God. It is connected with all the worst principles of the heavenly powers of the zodiac and of astrology; mere human generation, a great principle of heathenism; and in other accounts, as the Babylonish, with the creation of the false gods, the mundane egg, encircled by the serpent and after the flood, of which the tradition was naturally better known, though the facts are falsified and connected with idolatry, the tower of Babel and the like, but all falsified and turned to the setting up false gods and mythological fables. Out of Scripture where is there credible testimony? how came it there only? The theory is a gross absurdity, contradicted by well-known facts. What a mercy it is to have the blessed WORD OF GOD, and to believe it, authenticated by the Lord Jesus and the apostles! What do men fall into where they have not got it? I have taken my review of Bleek's statements from Venables' translation, and Ewald from the original. I might have multiplied quotations from both; but the system is plain from what I have quoted.

As to Deuteronomy, the author cannot well have been Moses. We have already seen that the Deuteronomic legislation contains those very laws which by their form and purpose are very unlikely to have been promulgated by Moses in this shape, for example, the precept as to kings, and the legal ordinances as to military concerns to which many others might be added; also that there are certain passages in these discourses of Moses which contain much that it is most improbable should have been spoken by him in this way. The view taken of the high places is a great topic with Bleek and all these writers in connection with subsequent history. Hence he concludes: "It is evident from what goes before, that it (the date) cannot be fixed until a long time after Solomon, perhaps not before the age of Hezekiah, king of Judah"; Hezekiah having been the first who rooted out not only idolatry but also the high places. He rejects the postponing it to the Babylonish captivity; there would have been more reference to it in the threats. He rejects the Josiah fable, and puts it between Hezekiah and Josiah. What is said of the Josiah story he declares often quite uncertain, often absolutely improbable. The blessing of Moses is not from him, as he once thought. It was probably written about 800 in Jeroboam 11 and Uzziah . . . . "The purport of most of the sayings, and particularly the conclusion of the whole song, leaves us no room to doubt that it was composed at a time when the Israelitish people, the ten tribes, were, as a whole, in happy circumstances. For if present circumstances can alone account for such being referred to, we must guess at the time of composition." He rejects here also Ewald's view and says, "We may consider with the greatest probability that the author of Deuteronomy was also the last editor of the whole Pentateuch, and that the work received from him the extent and arrangement in which we now have it . . . . We may easily imagine that by his hand perhaps certain things were altered or inserted in the previous books." And I might add, from his remarks on Judges, Samuel, Kings, a multitude of similar —  perhaps of stronger passages; but the same principle of human composition and judging. Such is the account by the very soberest of these German speculators on the Pentateuch, on the date by the notices of events, which could only be known by their being in the author's own day. One who rejects the wild statements of the bolder infidels believes the Mosaic laws in general refer to the desert, and rejects the fable about composing Deuteronomy in Josiah's time. Not that we gain much by that, for it was after Hezekiah's; but inspiration is utterly rejected by all, credible history and contemporary history not believed in; the most recent part of the history, the Exodus and Moses' time composed some 500 years afterwards, part of it 700 or 800 years with some traditions no doubt; and the whole under the influence of the state of things the composer was in and the supposed prophecies drawn from the circumstances in which the composer lived.

174 And this is called a literary consideration of the Pentateuch, as contrasted with the religious point of view! Contrasted it is surely. Only one must remember that the literary point of view denies all that makes the scriptural history a religious book at all. The later editors have composed it according to their views, and the writers arranged it according to theirs. God had no part in it at all, as far as appears in either. And I beg my reader to notice that I have not quoted here the more openly infidel, but the most solid and sober, Bleek, translated into English by Canon Venables, who, though not agreeing with everything, translates it as a specially valuable introduction to the Bible. But they are all alike in their rejection of divine inspiration. It is not "every scripture is given by inspiration of God," but no scripture is. Dr. Dods does not go so far; he admits the prophets are when they say, "Thus saith the Lord."

175 Mr. Smith with versatile inconsistency, which on such a subject is the most culpable want of seriousness, says that he believes for other reasons in inspiration, when he has published what he holds to be proof, borrowed indeed from others, that they are mere human compositions; and draws from and authenticates, unless I much mistake, the worse class of infidels, that is, those who are more open and impudent in their treatment of Scripture.

The Question and the Crisis

J. N. Darby.

<29005E> 176

Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 19th [1877].

My dear brother,

I send you some details on the statements made in the papers you sent me. Mr. Smith says, Ezra 9: 11 proves that Deuteronomy 7 must be from the prophets; but we have exactly the same statement in Exodus 34: 11-17; so that his proof proves nothing, unless Exodus be from the prophets too. But prophet is a mere word for those who spoke the word of God, as Abraham is called a prophet, and Moses.

Besides, the argument is an absurdity. It is an absurdity to pretend that Ezra, a ready scribe in the law of Moses, who, it is alleged, compiled it in its last form, should speak as if it was not given by Moses at all, and say it was the prophets, and yet say, in the same sentence, Israel was going into the land to possess it when the commandment was given, as he does. Only a rationalist, who can believe anything but the simple truth, but no one of sound sense, could swallow such a fancy as this. If Ezra referred to Deuteronomy (which is very likely, as he speaks of going in to possess the land, which characterises that book), then he assuredly refers to it as given before the Israelites entered into the land. None but those accustomed to assume, and justify too, forgery in documents which pretend to be divine, could allege that Ezra attributes to prophets of the seventh or eighth century a statement of the law which he was teaching as the law of Moses; and, in the deep grief of his heart about their sins before God, accredit and state the forgery in speaking to God. Upon the face of it, to apply "thy servants the prophets" (saying, "the land into which ye go to possess it") to prophets hundreds of years after they possessed it, is a gross absurdity. The defilement of the land is not particularly spoken of in Deuteronomy 7; it is much more in other chapters, and more especially in Leviticus 18.

I must add a few words on the prudent wise speech reported in your Scotch journals as that of Dr. Rainy. I can only take it as it appears, "wary and well-considered." Supposing, speaking of course as a mere natural man, that some one had given my mother a box on the ear, instead of knocking him down or thrusting him away, I say, Well, but I must see if the fingers reached to the ear: otherwise this is not a box on the ear; if it only struck the cheek, the accusation is not correct. With what feelings should one view such a son? With profound contempt. Here I must add indignation, because the faith of thousands is in question. The speech would insist that it should not be felt there was a crisis. There is a crisis, and the crisis is this: Whether the Free Church of Scotland in its public profession be, however many may object to its tenets or forms, a body maintaining the faith of Christianity as based on the word of God, or not? It is not Professor Smith who is on trial; it is the Free Church. I have no interest in either, save as a Christian ought to be interested in all men and all good; but in the authority of the word of God every one who is loyal to Christ must be.

177 Members of commissions may laugh if it be asked, Are we to have a Bible or no? but this is the question. Germans may hold, still pretending to be Christians, that the allegations of miracles at once render a book unhistorical; but the proofs by which they convince others that it cannot be are the proofs by which Mr. Smith would prove that the Pentateuch, and especially Deuteronomy, are unhistorical, and these are with heartless indifference, on the ground of legal technicalities, to be allowed to be valid on the plea that Mr. Smith on other grounds holds them trustworthy. And what grounds are these? That, because these Shemitic historians, like Thucydides or Livy giving speeches they invent as spoken by the persons they wrote about, do not think it fraud to put the words in their heroes' mouths, we must take them as they gave them, and they were received at the time; and this is divine inspiration! Does he mean, or does the speech mean, that this fabled Shemitic system was held at the time for divine inspiration? That they received what was known to be put into Moses' mouth by a modern author to polish crude legislation, as the WORD OF GOD by the mouth of Moses saying, "Jehovah spake unto Moses saying," when they knew and received it as Mr. Smith does now (namely, that it was not so given), though some few portions might be true traditions of what Moses taught? Let us see what the "wary and well-considered" compromise speech in the journal amounts to. Mr. Smith is guarded enough. We have this account of Scripture from him: the written record of the revelation of God's will which is necessary unto salvation makes use of certain forms of literary presentation which have always been thought legitimate in ordinary composition, but which were not always understood to be used in the Bible. Used by whom? How carefully the inspiration of the writings is avoided! Mr. Smith does not call this fraud as Dr. Kuenen honestly does ("pious fraud"): that is his opinion, but not the question.

178 Classical authors no one is troubled about; men did the best they could, or what they would, to present matters as they saw them, or would please their readers. Did the Holy Ghost do so? The record uses the fraud of literary compositions which I do not call fraud! But where is God in the matter? How carefully He is left out! What more can an infidel want? What does an extreme infidel as Dr. Kuenen, or a violent-tempered but more sober-minded infidel as Ewald, or one in borrowed plumes as Mr. Newman, desire but to reduce the Scriptures to this level? This is what the system of Mr. Smith does. He now tells us that for other-reasons (which he withheld in what went out to all the world, and till this was called in question) he believes in the authority of these books; but the proofs he gives to all the world, and which are unrecalled, are proofs, not (mind) of a date, but that the books are not what they pretend to be. Does he believe that the composers and compilers and polishers were inspired to say that their work was God speaking by Moses? Nothing can be clearer than that it was so given, and sanctioned by the Lord's authority as such. Their nature, their authority, their contents, depended on these contents being inspired. They had no other, they have no other; the very circumstances are identified with the truth of their being by Moses and from God, for that is inseparably interwoven with the history they contain. On this I shall speak again in touching on the reported speech. But the Scriptures, even in his defence, are not spoken of by Mr. Smith when defined as inspired. When he justifies the statement by quotation of the Confession, they are a record of the revelation of God's will but formed after the pattern of literary compositions which ascribe to orators or the like speeches invented for them. This is not inspiration of the Scriptures. It may lead us to distrust "Confessions" as no better than a sieve, as a means of securing truth, and saving those who hold the opposite of what their authors held, but that is all.

But I turn to the reported speech and the wary defence of Mr. Smith. The speech saves the credit of the speaker. "On reading the article it was with the greatest possible feeling of apprehension and pain. Not only he did not agree, but it would not meet with general approbation; he had a very strong impression that they were fitted in the greatest degree to create bewilderment, anxiety, and misapprehension in the mind of members of the church." What about? Was it not as to the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures? Yet such a question, we are told, cannot possibly arise, or might be soon settled. Now, I do ask what was the bewilderment and anxiety about? Mr. Smith accepts and gives the proofs of infidels that the Scriptures were the development of crude legislation and national life, large portions professing to be what they were not, nor of the age nor of the person who was stated to have received them from God as God's law — gives these proofs as general satisfactory proofs that the case was thus, without a hint that he thought otherwise. He propagates infidelity, for everybody knows it is infidelity and the elaborately wrought-out theory of infidels; which we are now to understand he does not believe, though he believes all the proofs of it.

179 As to the canon, one was really a love-song about the purity of northern Israel contrasted with Solomon, which we should have lost but for a false theory about its being an allegory; but the bewilderment and anxiety was not about the inspiration or canon of Scripture, nor whether we are to have the whole Bible! But Mr. Smith and all agree, we are told, that the Bible is inspired. What then was his article about? The escape from the difficulty is: The question is not about inspiration, but whether certain positions brought in, in connection with the explanation of Professor Smith's views on the Bible, are really inconsistent with this position. A queer roundabout sentence; but have we no views of Mr. Smith on the Bible, or on parts of it? Nothing but positions in connection with the explanation of his views? And is what every one knows to be characteristic of modern infidelity in the theological sphere to be spread broadcast by professors of theology, without a hint of anything else? Nay, accepting really as desirable progress views that are to every honest mind totally destructive of the inspiration of Scripture, and then to be told there is no question about inspiration? And how is it excused in a compromising way? We are not, we are told, to deal with it as if some party were rising up to unsettle and undermine these great doctrines. But a party has arisen up, and, as every one occupied with these subjects knows, unsettling and undermining these great doctrines; and all that Mr. Smith has done is to popularise them in a well-known book of general science, the Encyclopedia Britannica, wherever the English language is spoken in the two continents. He has reproduced and disseminated for all English readers, and as valid, the wellknown modern grounds of infidelity as to these great truths. Scotland and the Free Church have been the source, or. if not the source, the instrument, of spreading over the world modern infidelity as to inspiration and the canon of Scripture, as a part of the more accurate knowledge of modern science in a popular publication. This is the broad fact, and no special pleading in church courts and committees in Scotland will alter it; nor, it is to be feared, if the Free Church clear itself, undo it.

180 The speech defends the position of the committee as far as it dares; it does not agree with Mr. Smith, but defends its "deliverances" on the substantive merits, mark, not on the competency of the committee. "You will not succeed in laying a libel for heresy in connection with this view of Deuteronomy." I should not call it "heresy"; infidelity is its true character. However, the published speech declares that to hold that a book purporting to be spoken by Moses immediately before Israel's entrance into the land, and directly from Jehovah as words from His mouth in reference to their conduct as so entering, was not so spoken but written some hundreds of years after, proving this by passages alleged to be in contradiction with what was ordained by Jehovah originally, is not heresy as to the inspiration of the books. Such false statement, it is alleged, was a generally allowed licence of literary composition. Were these late modifiers of the old law moved by the Holy Ghost to say that Jehovah spake it all by Moses before Israel's going in to possess the land? "It is," we are told, "a different case where there is a general disposition in certain quarters, or in any quarter, to move off from these fundamental doctrines." Is there none such? Every one knows that large masses of Protestants, and Protestant teachers, have moved off from these fundamental doctrines both in Germany and in England; that their works are translated into English, and have largely affected the public mind; that this attack on the inspiration of the Scriptures is one of the chief characteristics of modern infidelity; that the "Deuteronomist" is one of their chief points along with the "Great Unnamed," Zechariah, and the Song of Songs as a northern pastoral.

181 Now, I will suppose that as yet this hacking up of Scripture has not penetrated into the Free Church, at least in "any quarter." The speech assures that an attempt to make "heresy" of these views will not succeed. A man is "not particularly wise who is particularly sure about them," that is, about the usual orthodox view of the inspiration of Deuteronomy, etc. True, "a man is not particularly wise who is particularly ready to raise questions about them." The questions on many points as to authorship, date, and so on, are "awkward questions." "They are really not matters of faith at all." How calculated to relieve "bewilderment, anxiety, and misapprehension, in the minds of members of the church"! Mr. Smith had done something to relieve this feeling in his answer to the sub-committee. He tells us of a "persuasion of the divine authority of the book (of Deuteronomy), which rests on the witness of our Lord, the testimonium Spiritus Sancti. It would be possible to adjust the result thus. But this the speech cuts away from under our feet. As to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, it "does not believe that Jesus and his apostles ever said anything on that subject." But kirk commissioners will hardly make sober men think that it is declared by inspiration that "Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying," when it was not Moses at all; and that when the Lord says "Moses' writings," "He never said anything on that subject."

It is trifling to talk of who wrote down the words; the question is, Is it a divinely given, and therefore, perfect account of what God spake and did by Moses, and was really uttered by Him, interwoven as it is with all the details of the history of God's people? We know that, save the one to the Galatians, Paul wrote none of his epistles. In one case we know who did it for him: "I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle." He signed each, saluting in grace, that it might be authentic. Does anyone think, because Tertius adds that, sanctioned as it is by the Pauline salutation, we have not Paul's inspired writings? All this is child's play, and worse. The speech does "not see how a very conclusive argument could be raised against anyone maintaining that the book of Deuteronomy was written after the promised land was occupied, and therefore by some one living in the promised land, though he was directed and enabled to embody in that book the authentic declarations and speeches of Moses." This will tacitly, seemingly at least, screen the infidel system which insists on its being written afterwards in the land and not by Moses. But save in one fatal word it does not touch the question. It is perfectly immaterial when and where it was written, as in Tertius' writing the Epistle to the Romans, provided I have a divinely given and therefore divinely authentic word and reproduction of what Moses said before Israel entered into the land, as the book professes to be. We have no statement that Moses textually wrote anything but the song in chapter 32 and the law put beside the ark of the covenant, but there is no "embodying" what Moses said in some other record. It professes to give what Moses said by God's command and with God's authority to the people before their entry into the land, stating where it was spoken; and all through the book it is almost chapter by chapter repeated, "the land which ye go in to possess." Now who wrote it is no more important than Tertius in Romans; but if it be not Moses who spoke the things before Israel's crossing the Jordan, and really the directions for Israel in the land when actually going in to possess it, the book is a false book, not an inspired one — an imposition of some later hand, not a revelation of God. And this is what the system in fact alleges.

182 It does not "embody" what Moses spoke. It gives, and states that it gives, what he spake and where. And if this be not true, the book is not true. But the statement of the speech, while screening the statement of Mr. Smith, does not touch it. That statement, as of all the infidel school who hold this, is that the Deuteronomist put Moses' name in as a licence of literary composition; that it was written centuries afterwards — some Mosaic revelations and modifications and adaptations of later development thrown into the form of a declaration and testimony by Moses. A crude legislation — such is the theory — was developed and perfected by the priests and the national life of the people. Let any one read Deuteronomy and see what it professes to be, and say if such be its character; whether it "embodies" sayings of Moses, or whether it be not, save the last chapter which has nothing to do with the question, the directions of God by Moses to Israel before going into the land. I deny the alleged additions and contradictions. That there are provisions for a state of things which did not exist in the wilderness is quite true. A considerable part consists of civil enactments adapted to their condition in the land when the kingly government did not exist. There are two probable interpolations, like "there it is unto this day" (chap. 2: 10-12 20-23), and possibly one other passage besides (chap. 3: 9), which may or may not be; that is, one or two small parentheses evidently such, which do not affect the substance of the book, nor have anything to do with a later date.

183 And let it be here remarked, the question is not about dates or writers where Scripture does not state who speaks or writes, but about inspiration. People may discuss who wrote the Hebrews as no author is named: it may be wise or unwise; but that the Spirit of God dictated it, that it is inspired, is another question.

I hold the tradition as to Luke and Mark wholly irrelevant. The question is, Are they inspired accounts of the Lord's life? Learning from Peter is nothing to the purpose if they are not inspired; from Paul as an eye-witness Luke could not: indeed his own statement leaves no ground for it.

The question is this: When Deuteronomy says, These are the words which Moses spake, are they really such? or something concocted, centuries after, out of a crude legislation given under Moses through the development of national life, by priests or prophets who contended against them? Though, indeed, we are called on to believe that the law which was the priest's work, at least the Deuteronomic or more advanced form of it, was concocted by a prophet, one of the class opposed to the priests; for we are to believe anything, provided it be not inspiration and the truth of God. I have nothing to do with Mr. Smith or commissions of the Free Church. The question is far wider than that: it is of the propagation of an infidel view of Scripture all over the English-speaking world in a popular book of science. The Free Church is indeed on its trial as to faithfulness, but the evil has to be combated on its own merits. It may be sorrowful to see every professing body of Christians more or less giving up the truth; but the question is there, and we cannot avoid it. The word of God, the Scriptures, are what we are taught to rely on; and those who are taught of God will rely on them. The enemies' attacks are especially directed against them. Cavils and special pleading will not do in this conflict: it must be the faith of God's elect, or spiritual "traditores" on whom no reliance can be placed in the conflict.

184 I have had some doubt as to sending you this, because I believe, as I have said above, the question must be treated on its merits, and this is (save the first paragraph, as to Ezra) on the kirk commission, and what is reported as Dr. Rainy's speech, to me far more painful than Mr. Smith's article. It is a question of the Free Church about inspiration as well as about inspiration itself. It is only a bye-battle, and it ought to be treated for God on its own merits. But if you think it may be useful for souls, you may use it. But the question is raised, and will have to be discussed, not as a local but as a fundamental question. As I have said before, it has long pressed upon me as an impending conflict.

Union in Incarnation, the root error of modern theology.

J. N. Darby.

<29006E> 185

The subject on which I would engage the attention of your readers is one which affects the whole character and nature of Christianity, branching out into what is really infidelity on one side, and abominable heresies on the other; but held in its root principles by persons who would utterly reject both. It is found in the most highly-esteemed ministers of the Free Church of Scotland and widely spread in it; in the Baptist Colleges, and taught by eminent Baptist ministers in the United States; elaborately developed in the revived energy of evangelicalism in Germany, whence it has passed in a gross Puseyite shape to the Dutch Reformed Church in the States. Its full doctrinal results were developed in Irvingism. The worst kind of infidelity is based on it, to which the German doctors approach wonderfully near.

The question is this: Was Christ in incarnation united to humanity to renew it? or is the life of believers a wholly new life in every case, and, in the case of the church, believers united by the Holy Ghost to Him glorified? Those orthodox in the main take up only the renewal of the first man; the full-blown doctrine is Christ's union with fallen man. It is a capital question; because this makes fallen man, the first Adam, that which is taken up of God for blessing as such, to which the Word therefore united Himself, and that (however sinless they may hold Christ to have been personally) in its sinful state, before redemption. The truth looks upon man in the flesh as utterly rejected and lost; that Christ stood alone, though a true and very man, till He had accomplished redemption, and then, when He had accomplished it, a redemption available in justification and life to faith, before as after the cross; that a wholly new nature was given, in which man enters into the benefit of it, there being also in the case of the church actual union with Him glorified by the Holy Ghost, members of His body.

The Wesleyans have not, that I know of, the doctrine of such union of Christ with fallen humanity, but they take up in practice its effect, with the assertion of some good in fallen man, and that what is wrought in salvation is the setting right the first Adam, not the communication of a totally new life. The German doctors agree with them in this. Without it, they say, there is no "Anknupfungspunkt," no point to which grace can attach itself. Now God does act on man's knowledge of good and evil, or conscience, but a new life is given. Christ, the last Adam becoming our life in contrast with the first, needs no "Anknupfungspunkt." Irving held that Christ, while sinless in word or deed, had a sinful human nature; lust, where the will did not consent, not being sin, as is held by Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and a very great many others, as for example, our modern perfectionists — a horrible error. The apostle Paul expressly makes sin the source of lust in Romans 7. It is an error which makes void the tenth commandment, as he there uses it. Christ, according to Irving, by the Holy Ghost kept sin in the flesh down, and so kept all His ways holy, and was perfect, and obtained thus the Holy Ghost for us, that we may do the same. The substitution of Christ as bearing our sins, and therefore dying for us, he expressly denied (and the truth of the atonement, viewed as substitution, is involved in the question), holding that He died because of what He was as a mortal man, not because of our sins. I need not go farther into his doctrine.

186 Dr. Moody Stuart, late moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, says: "We are renewed in the whole man after the image of God," a most false presentation of what is said in Scripture, where the new man only is spoken of in Ephesians 4: 24, as a new creation, in Colossians 3: 10 as renewed in knowledge; but in both, the new man, in contrast with the old, he continues, "in mind, in will, in heart, and sin hath not dominion over us, because we are under grace," carefully omitting "because we are not under law."

Mr. M'Leod, Presbyterian minister in Canada, says: "They" (those whom he calls by a name of reproach) "falsely teach that in regeneration the old nature remains the same, the new is introduced. They speak of it as if it were the introduction of a new power into the soul, not as if it were the regeneration of the soul itself, as if the Holy Ghost created a new being, and inserted it into us; while the Bible teaches, not that any new power is added to the soul, but life from God is breathed into the soul, as it were, or in the language of Scripture the soul is born again, passes out of its former state of unbelief and darkness, and enters into a new state of faith and holiness. All the powers of the soul are so affected as to be renewed, and to bring forth fruit unto God"; and he, confounding Christ's taking true humanity with union with humanity as a race, objects to saying, "between humanity as seen in our Lord and humanity as seen in us there could be no union." He says if so He could not stand in our stead, again confounding union and substitution; whereas it was because He was alone in sinless humanity that He could stand in our stead.

187 Dr. Bonar openly ridicules the idea of two natures, or anything equivalent to it, in the Christian. He indeed puts Christ in our sinful place, though sinless, all through His life.

I will give an extract, from the discourse of a president of a Baptist College, of a sermon preached with applause at a convention and conference of Baptists, which will shew the doctrine in its fulness and true root plainly stated, not saying that all have received every part of it, but as here presented in a full formal way. It is borrowed, sometimes almost verbally, from a German theologian, and has been reproduced in the same terms by one whom perhaps I might call the leading evangelical minister in Switzerland, at any rate in his own canton. It is current in a modified shape everywhere, even where its full bearing is not understood. It has been carried to its extreme results by Menken, in Germany, of whom I know little, and by Irving in England, of whom I know a great deal. Its effects, diluting Christianity and subverting the truth, prevail where, as I have already said, sometimes its true root is unknown and its just consequences utterly rejected; but their Christianity is mutilated and spoiled by it. The sermon itself is a dream of Christ's life, founded on the doctrine of which there is not a word in Scripture, reproducing the German or Swiss I have alluded to.

"Connected in every fibre of His nature with the common nature of mankind, He saw that He must suffer, the Just for the unjust. It could not be that human nature should fail of enduring the settled and necessary penalty of its sin,* and He not only had a human nature, but in Him human nature was organically united, as it never had been before, except in Adam; if the members suffer, should not also the Head? When He was but twelve years of age, the consciousness of this divine commission had dawned upon Him. Sitting as an humble questioner before the doctors of the law, the conviction had become overmastering; I am He, the teacher and prophet promised long ago . . . . I am He, the sent of God, the Son of God. And the eighteen years that followed had made this conviction part and parcel of His very being; growing with His growth, and strengthening with His strength, it had taken up into itself all the energies of His soul, conscious or unconscious, until His life and His work were identical, and He could say, 'Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.'" I will not pursue the wretched picture, created by an unscriptural imagination, which is given of Christ's conflicts, through realising what was before Him. Suffice it to say that it resulted in His consecrating Himself, and that as devoted to death, in His baptism by John.

{*Here we see how atonement is involved in it.}

188 But as to this the preacher then takes up a third point, founded on Christ's baptism by John. It is "a proof of Jesus' connection with humanity, with its sin, and its desert of death, Jesus' connection with human sin, and His consecration to death for the sins of the world; how clearly that stands out in the baptism!" "Jesus personally," he tells us, "and in every act and thought of His life, was sinless . . . and here we come to the greatest mystery of God's grace — the Person of Jesus Christ, and His assumption of the common nature of us all. If Jesus had no connection with a sinful and lost humanity, or if that connection with a sinful and lost humanity had been merely a factitious and forensic one, then it would have been the greatest breach of justice, the sheerest insult to purity, the most extravagant of absurdities, that the Lord Jesus should have submitted to an ordinance which was in some sense a confession of sin, and a declaration that this sin deserved nothing less than death. My friends, we can never explain the baptism of our Lord, unless we remember that Jesus was made sin for us,* taking our nature upon Him, with all its exposures and liabilities, that He might redeem it and unite it to God"; not sinners, mind, but "it." "But this one mighty fact, the taking upon Him of our nature, does explain it. As one with humanity, He was about to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." I might go on with much more, but it is hardly needed.

{*Note here the monstrous interpretation which I had heretofore supposed it impossible for any to hold, that "him who knew no sin" means Jesus in His divinity; and "made sin" the incarnation, "that holy thing," not the cross and atonement then.}

189 In all he says of John's baptism there is not a word of truth. Actual sins, not sin in humanity at all, were confessed. Did Jesus confess such? In Him it was fulfilling righteousness entering in by the door. Jesus went, not with sinful Jews, but with God's remnant in their first step in the path God's word had led them into, as the door of the kingdom. So far was John's baptism from being to death, that not one who had been baptised of him would ever have put Christ to death. If all had received it, they would have received a living Christ, Messiah; and He would not, as far as that went, have been put to death at all. But this is not my business now. Dr. Strong uses it as a proof of His doctrine. My business is with the doctrine itself, which is here pretty fully brought out, not by an adversary, but by an advocate of it; and that, not an openly heretical teacher, but one who speaks truth when he comes to the application of it — a fair sample, in its best forms, of the system. "I also," he says, "must die to sin, by having Jesus' death reproduced in me. I must rise to a new life, by having Jesus' resurrection reproduced in me." I do not accept the form of this statement: still it connects itself with vital truth. But then comes the ground. "The putting away of the sin and guilt of humanity, which was the essential feature of Christ's work, must take place in me, and this I must do by having my life incorporated with His life."

This really denies the atonement. What is the "guilt of humanity"? But on its own ground this is quite unscriptural. Not I, says Paul, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. 2: 20); but I do not now enter farther on this. The foundation is thus laid; "It was humanity that bore the curse in His death, and all the true life of humanity rose from the dead in His resurrection." He then puts our death and resurrection as a result of corresponding death to sin and resurrection to holiness. This is an unscriptural way of putting it, based upon the error I combat-the denial of our evil nature, always the same but reckoned dead already by faith, and kept down through the Spirit by a totally new life. But I cannot pursue it here.

It is a common way of putting it, and connected with reforming the old man, the root of all being now exposed in this doctrine, and cropping out all over the world; largely taught in the Free Church of Scotland, in various shades and degrees, sometimes not knowing what it means, sometimes in its mere practical results; but likely to be widely spread by last year's Cunningham Lectures on the kenosis, or self-emptying of Christ, which are a developed index or "catalogue raisonne" of German speculations and heresy; where their effect too is already seen in the way the blessed Lord is spoken of, even by the author.

190 How different, how contrasted with all this, is the calm and beautiful simplicity of the scriptural account of Christ's life! Let us see how Scripture states the incarnation. After stating (John 1) what Christ was (Theos en o logos), John tells us (verse 14) what He became; the word was made flesh (sarx egeneto), and dwelt amongst us. So in Hebrews 2: 14: "As the children were partakers [kekoinoneken] of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner took part [meteschen] of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death." He became a man, was made a little lower than the angels, that He might die; Heb. 2: 9. But His being born in flesh was by the power of the Holy Ghost, so as to be holy as so born; Luke 1: 35. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore that holy thing [to agion] which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." He was as to the flesh born of God, holy, Son of God; what was born of Mary was a holy thing. He was, by divine power and the operation of the Holy Ghost on that blessed and obedient handmaid of the Lord, born a holy thing, as man. This was not sinful flesh. He was (Gal. 4: 4, 5) genomenos ek gunaikos, genomenos upo nomon, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. But this, in us, is thus the fruit of redemption. To as many as believed (John 1: 12) on Him, He gave authority to take this place, to none others. But to proceed. We have here no union with sinful humanity; but, what was wholly unique, a sinless Man, born holy in a miraculous way. The place of sons for others belongs only to those who received Him.

Does Hebrews 2 lead to any other thought? "Behold I, and the children which God has given me"; only these are spoken of. These children were in flesh and blood; so He took part in it. But the objects of His doing so are carefully distinguished from the race. I am not questioning that Christ died for all; I believe it. But His drawing all men was by His death, not by incarnation, but by what wrought redemption when man had despised and rejected Him, and the world was judged, and the whole of it lay in wickedness; 1 John 5: 19. He had to draw those (John 12: 32) not united, but far from Him. But I have said the objects are carefully distinguished from union with the race. They are (Heb. 2) the children God had given Him. He took up (takes up their cause) not angels — what an occasion to speak of His connection with the race! — but He takes up the seed of Abraham. As they were in flesh He took it, but not a word of union with humanity. But more than this, we have the positive statement of who those are who had part in this oneness. He who sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one (ex enos),* and they are so as so sanctified. Death He tasted for every man; but union with man is unknown to Scripture. They speak of His being bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh; Scripture never. If the words in the New Testament (Eph. 5: 30) be genuine, we are of His flesh and of His bones when He is glorified. And in the Old Testament Eve was such of Adam, not Adam of Eve. In every form the theory is as false as it is mischievous.

{*It is confined to those who are sanctified. They are ex enos.}

191 The other quotation in Hebrews 2 confirms the same truth: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren," which was accomplished after His resurrection, as Psalm 22 plainly intimates, and is so beautifully unfolded in its accomplishment in John 20. The words which follow fully establish the point: "In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." The truth is, there is no such thought in Scripture as Christ being united to men or humanity. He was a true man, but there was no union with other men in their sins. Nor is union with humanity a scriptural thought at all. The only connection with men, which can in any way be alleged or pretended, is in 1 Corinthians 11, "The head of every man is Christ"; but there it is power, not union, which is spoken of, relative position of dignity. The setting union previous to redemption work falsifies Christianity and the state of men. The passage has been quoted, that we were "crucified with him." This is indeed faith's apprehension, and God's apprehension of us as looked at as in Christ, inasmuch as He died for us. But it only confirms the great truth I seek to establish. Who are the "we" or the "I" crucified with Christ? The believer, and the believer only. Were all the ungodly sinners who die in their sins, and who never heard of Christ, crucified with Christ?

192 That He was a propitiation for the whole world I read in 1 John 2, but there He was alone for others. It was done towards God, and the blood on the mercy-seat opens the door of the gospel to all sinners. But this has nothing to do with union with the race. It was done for, not with, them. When the title of Son of man is shewn to belong to the Lord, how does He take it up? Through His death. The Father took care that, if men despised and rejected Him, the testimony to who He was should be there. The resurrection of Lazarus demonstrated Him Son of God; the riding in on an ass bore witness to the glory of the Son of David; then the Greeks come up, and the Lord says (John 12: 23): "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified." Here the race is in question. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Son of God and King of Israel He was, according to Psalm 2; but to take His place as Son of man, according to Psalm 8, in the glory that belonged to Him according to that title, He must die. His Spirit then enters anticipatively into that scene, and He warns His followers they must follow Him in that path, but bows in perfect submission to His Father's will, seeking only His glory; and this, as it ever did, opens out to Him the vista of His glory which flowed from it; "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." For in truth they were far away. So far was it from union, that it was as wholly rejected from the earth, lifted up and away from it, that He would draw men. When man had rejected Him utterly, and the world was judged in consequence (John 12: 31), lifted up out of it, He, the crucified Jesus, through death, and by it, became the attractive point to all men in grace. The sin of man, in total alienation from God and the love of God, in redeeming power for such, must both be made manifest, and meet in the death of the Lamb of God, before there could be any bond between them. Redemption is the sole basis of blessing. A living Saviour was, as in the world, Son of God, Messiah, entitled to be King of Israel. A Son of man who has died and risen again can alone take the world, and take it as a Redeemer and Saviour. He who descended into the lower parts of the earth is the same that is ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph. 4: 10); and He, and in that character, takes the place and power in grace and glory which belongs to Him. So when His hour was really come (Luke 9: 51), and the disciples own Him as the Christ of God, "He straitly charged them to tell no man that thing, saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day" (Luke 9: 20-22); and then shews them His glory.

193 No doubt as Son He quickens whom He will, and has, from Adam on; but He is not for us the life and the resurrection, but the resurrection and the life; John 11. Hence in John 6, where He is the bread of life, He so insists on resurrection at the last day. It was on totally new ground, founded on His death, man could have blessing; vv. 39, 40, 44, 53. He gives His flesh for the life of the world; and unless men eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, they have no life in them. Whoso eats that has eternal life. Union with men, and sinful men, without giving life or redemption, is a Socinian fable; unwittingly often I freely admit; but it is so. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone." He took flesh and blood, but stood alone, quickening indeed, as Son of God, whom He would, but as man in the flesh, alone in the place He stood in, until by death He could righteously bring in others, and redemption (without which — save of course Himself — none could have to say to God) was accomplished. A Son of man, alive in the days of His flesh, in union with men, without giving life, and without justification or redemption, is unknown to Scripture; but a union with sinful man, giving life and redemption, or justification, before His death, is alike unknown to it. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." A union of Christ with sinful man is wholly unknown to Scripture.

What then was God doing with men before? Quickening souls assuredly from Adam on; but in His dispensations with men testing their state for their own instruction; in the former world setting them in innocence in the garden of Eden, where they fell, and then on to the flood without any special institution, though not without testimony. That world became so bad, that it was destroyed by the flood. Then in the new world came government in Noah; promise to Abraham called out from the midst of universal idolatry; the law, testing men and bringing in transgression; the prophets, to recall to the law and testify of Christ. Then God said, I have yet one Son: it may be they will reverence my Son. And when they saw Him they said, Come let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours. Not only was man lawless without law, and a transgressor under law, but when grace came in the Person of the blessed Son of God, they would none of it. The presence of a divine Person drew out the enmity of the heart of man against God: "Now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." So far from their being a link with humanity, or man as a race, it was the final test of their state: God come in grace, as a man in their midst. The result was: Now is the judgment of this world.

194 Hence, in speaking of Christ's death (Heb. 9: 26), it is said, "Now once in the end of the world [the consummation of ages] he hath appeared." Morally it was the end of man's history; not the communication of life, hypothetically even, to a race, nor the taking it up into union organically; but the deliberate and entire rejection by that race of Him in whom was life. And so it is stated (John 1: 4, 5), "In him was life, and the life was the light of man" — emphatically such; "but the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not." To as many as received Him, He gave title to be children; but they were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (v. 13). It had nothing to do with the first Adam and his nature; if He was received, it was in being born of God. Light had come into the world; and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. That light was life, but with the testimony of John the Baptist, of Christ's work, of the Father, of the Scriptures, whence they thought they had eternal life, they would not come to Him, that they might have life. There was no mixing the Last and first Adam, no renewing the latter by the former, but the utter rejection of the former by the latter, and the judgment of a world convicted of sin by His rejection. Union in incarnation is a mystical and mystifying fable. Man must be born again.

This leads me to the second point — the form the error takes when union with sinful man in incarnation is not so distinctly held as by the Germans and their scholars among Presbyterians and Baptists — namely, that nothing new is given to man; that the old and new man are not contrasted in the renewed man; but that there is simply a renewal of man as he is, in his affections, thoughts, and whole soul. Such is the Wesleyan doctrine. Such is the basis of perfectionism; such is the current doctrine amidst crowds of Christians and their teachers, exalting the first man to the losing of the full and blessed truth of grace in the Second. Amidst a large class, such as the Wesleyans, it has taken this form: man, body, soul, and spirit, was in a good state before the fall, in a bad state after it; then, by the operation of the Spirit, in a good state again. And thus, they consistently hold, a man may be born again ten times a week, and also be perfect; but it is the perfection of the first man, not of a Christ in glory, conformity to whom is alone spoken of as our goal in Scripture. With all classes who have these views, varying in details, lust is not sin, unless the will consents — a horrible, unholy doctrine; and denying that sin in the flesh is condemned, and the whole truth of the fallen state of man. But my part is to see and state what Scripture says as to this, not now to go into details as to the false doctrine itself. Possibly at the close, if there be any profit in it, I may state, from the respective writings of those who hold them, the views into which this evil root of doctrine has branched out.

195 Scripture states distinctly that divine life is a wholly new thing given of God, always in absolute contrast with the flesh, for which death is the only remedy. I have been somewhat surprised at this truth being contested. Certainly some years ago the conflict of flesh and Spirit was generally owned amongst real Christians, if we must not except the Wesleyans. But our business is with the word of God. First, I quote the wellknown passage (John 3), "Except a man be born again" (anothen), again in its origin and source, for anothen means from the very beginning or starting-point, as in Luke 1: 3, "from the very first." And this was in reply to Nicodemus, who thought he could be taught and led right by teaching. Further, in insisting on it and answering Nicodemus, who did not see how so totally a new life could be possible and puts the case of a natural new birth, the Lord declares that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, is of that nature, as every animal even is of the nature of that which is born; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit — has its nature.

Now the mind of the flesh (Rom. 8) (not the carnal mind, as a condition of soul, but to phronema tes sarkos) is enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. "They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." Is not that a new thing altogether? And if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. So that all have not this new thing. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin; and the Spirit is life, because of righteousness. Is not the Spirit being life, Christ being in us, a new thing? But again (1 John 5: 11, 12): "This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Is not having the Son a new thing to the sinner? Not merely changing his affections and thoughts, but having the Son, we have life; not having Him, we have not life. Hence Christ says, "Because I live, ye shall live also," John 14: 19. He gives His sheep eternal life; John 10. He is that eternal life (1 John 1: 2) which was with the Father and was manifested to us. The Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit; 1 Cor. 15. "When Christ, who is our life," says the apostle (Col. 3: 4); and again in Galatians 2: 20, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is life which is given us, life in Christ in the power of the Spirit; "the law" — that is, its nature and uniform character — "of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." We are alive unto God in — not Adam, but — Jesus Christ our Lord; Rom. 6: 11. It is a well of water (John 4), God's gift in Christ, springing up unto everlasting life, in its highest state of eternal glory. When the full Christian place is understood and enjoyed, there is a life of which God is the source. We are born of God through the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells in us, giving power and liberty in this life with God, and from sin, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. But into this, blessed as the subject is, I cannot enter here.

196 Being by the word (James 1: 18), that which is heavenly and divine, yet suited to, and, when in Christ, belonging to man, is communicated for the sanctifying of the affections and thoughts, a nature having been communicated, when born of God, capable of enjoying what is thus revealed. "Of his own will begat he us, by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." "We are born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever," 1 Pet. 1: 23. Hence we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; Gal. 3: 26. The things revealed by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2) are communicated in words which the Holy Ghost has taught. And so far as man lives rightly, he lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God; Matt. 4: 4. This quickening and forming of the Christian's affections, by the word revealing things above, is fully acknowledged, and, I trust, cherished by my readers, as by myself. But the examination of Scripture will shew that the flesh, or old man, is an evil thing, gauged and rejected of God and of faith, accounted dead by reason of Christ's death, but never renewed, never changed. Its history in Scripture shews it to be hopelessly bad; lawless when left to itself, transgressing the law when placed under it; when Christ came in grace, hating and rejecting Him; when the Spirit dwells in a man, lusting against it, and, if he be taken up to the third heaven, seeking, if it had been permitted, to puff him up about it. We are not simply sinners, but sinners dealt with in long patience by God — a patience that has brought out the full evil of our heart; we are by nature the children of wrath.

197 First, that which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3), a positive specific nature, which has its own lusts and delights, such as they are. Its works are manifest — may be seen; Gal. 5: 19-21. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God. The renewed mind knows that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing; Rom. 7. The fruit of the Spirit is in formal contrast with its works; not only so, but it lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against it, and these are contrary the one to the other; Gal. 5: 17. They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but if we live after the flesh, we shall die. If through the Spirit we mortify its deeds — for it is a nature which has its deeds — we shall live; Rom. 8. Is there any forgiveness, any amelioration, any remedy applicable to it? None?

All sins, with one exception, can be forgiven; but there is no forgiveness of an evil nature. God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh; Rom. 8: 3. It is the nature and standing of the first Adam, and, when we are in this, we are said to be in the flesh. What then is the remedy? Is there none? One only, if remedy it is to be called — death. It was condemned in Christ's death, as we have seen in Romans 8: 3 (not that He had any of course, but as made sin for us); but that, if it was its condemnation, was also death. He that has died is justified from sin; Rom. 6. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live: but not I, but Christ liveth in me; Gal. 2. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts; Gal. 5: 24. Knowing that our old man is crucified with Him; Rom. 6: 6. If ye be dead with Christ; Rom. 6: 8. Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; Col. 3: 3. Hence the very place of faith is to reckon ourselves dead to sin (Rom. 6: 11), and, as the flesh is still in us which lusts against the Spirit, to bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body; 2 Cor. 4: 10. Christ having died, it is, for faith and the life of Christ in us, as if we had died, and we reckon ourselves dead, crucified with Him; dead to sin, dead to the law, crucified to the world, and the world to us, Christ lives in us, alive to God — not in Adam, for our old man is crucified with Christ, but — in Jesus Christ our Lord.

198 Scripture is as uniform and as clear as it possibly can be. There is the flesh which lusts against the Spirit, things contrary the one to the other; but we are entitled and bound to reckon ourselves dead, inasmuch as in us, that is in the flesh, there is no good thing. But Christ being in us, the body is dead because of sin (its only fruit, if we are alive in the flesh), and the Spirit life because of righteousness. Hence we say we have put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and put on the new, after God created in righteousness and true holiness, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. And note, it is not merely the deeds, but the old man with his deeds; the truth as it is in Jesus is the having done so and having put on the new man.

The first part of the Epistle to the Romans treats of guilt and forgiveness, through Christ having died for sins; the second, our having died with Him, so that by Him we might live to God. Scripture is clear in the contrast of flesh and Spirit, the old man and the new; but we are entitled to hold the first for dead, and our life to be Christ and not the flesh. Also before God, we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in us; Rom. 8: 9.

To deny that a new life is communicated to us, and that the old man, the flesh, is always contrary to the Spirit, is to deny the plainest testimonies of Scripture; while our privilege and duty, if indeed the Holy Ghost dwells in us, is to know that we are in Christ, not in the flesh, and to reckon ourselves dead, the old man crucified with Christ, seeing His death is available to us for that also. The perfect result will be our being like Christ in glory, as was shewn to the disciples in the transfiguration. Nor is there any other perfection for the Christian than this: only we are to realise it here, Christ in us the hope of glory; and if Christ be in us, as our life, is not this something wholly new, and contrary to all that the flesh is? We are in Him for acceptance, He is in us for life and walk. If my reader would see this life fully developed, let him read Colossians 3: 5-17. Let him note that in chapter 2: 20 our death with Christ is laid as the basis where our being alive in the world, in the religious aspect, is not allowed; and in chapter 3: 1 our being risen with Christ. We are associated in life with Him risen, now that He is glorified, our life hid with Him in God. No thought of sustaining the old Adam-life, nor taking it up into Him, or infusing His into ours by a kind of incorporating power; but, on the contrary, we are dead and gone as to this, and Christ is our life, and so belong to heaven, where He is, though not yet there.

199 This only remains to refer to, the positive testimony that our union is as believers with Christ in glory. We have seen it already, when speaking of the alleged union of Christ with us in incarnation (Heb. 2), that only they that were sanctified were of one with Him. But there remains some positive evidence to notice. In John 14 the promise of the Comforter is given, expressly upon the ground of Christ's being gone on high as in John 7, the Holy Ghost was not yet [given] because Jesus was not yet glorified. When He was come, as we read in John 14, "In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Who? Humanity? No, the disciples only. The Comforter was not for the world — "whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you," John 14: 17. And this is the more definite, because in the early part of the chapter the Lord speaks of the Father being in Him, and He in the Father, but not of the disciples being in Him, or He in them. This belongs to the present time, when Jesus is glorified, and the Holy Ghost come.

The same great truth is brought out in Romans 8. There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus; but this is through the presence of the Holy Ghost, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, consequent on the death of Christ. "Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and if Christ be in you," etc. Here is union, and through the Spirit; Christ being glorified, we in Him and He in us. So in 1 Corinthians 6: 17, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts," 2 Cor. 1: 21, 22. So "if any man be in Christ, it is a new creation; old things are passed away, all things are become new; and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ," 2 Cor. 5: 17, 18.

200 So in a more special character of this union, the being members of His body, it is to Christ as raised from the dead by God's power and set at His right hand, and we by the same power quickened with Him, and raised together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him. Thus God has given Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all. So indeed in Ephesians 2: 12-18. So in chapter 5, connected with the comparison with the husband and wife, and Eve's union with Adam. So it is largely developed in 1 Corinthians 12 as a system established here on earth, that it is by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body, to which Christ, and those united to Him by the Spirit, are compared. The whole groundwork of the New Testament, and the truth taught in it, is that Christ, though a true man, was alone until He had accomplished redemption; and that then, when He was glorified, we are in Him, united to Him, by the Holy Ghost, He the Head, and we the members. John gives us our being in Him individually; Paul also our corporate union with Him the Head, as living members of His body (He, the Head, being glorified on high).

Christ's union with sinful humanity is an anti-scriptural fable.

The life the Christian receives is a wholly new one; he is born again, that which is born of the flesh being flesh, that which is born of the Spirit being spirit. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. There is no renewing or ameliorating of the flesh; it is enmity against God and cannot be subject to His law.

201 Our union is with Christ glorified, in a new life in Him, through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, of whom our bodies are the temple, and against whom the flesh always lusts.

Let me add that God, in His history of man, has shewn what flesh is, and even the creature left to himself. The first thing man has always done is to spoil what God has set up good. Man himself — the first thing we read of him is eating the forbidden fruit. The first Noah did, after offering thanksgiving for his deliverance, was to get drunk. Israel made the golden calf, before Moses came down from the mountain. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire the first day after being consecrated, and Aaron never went into the holy of holies in his garments of glory and beauty. The son of David, Solomon, loved many strange women, and the kingdom was divided. The Gentile head of gold persecuted the godly, and became a beast, characterising the empires that followed him for the seven times. What shall we say of the church? How soon did all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ, and forsake the devoted and faithful apostle! John could say, "There are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time." But God has worked on in grace, in spite of this, to shew what He is, His longsuffering and goodness and patience. So all those things — man, the law, the priesthood, royalty in the Son of David, He that rises to reign over the Gentiles, His being glorified in His saints — all is made good in its place in the Second Man, the Last Adam. May His name be eternally praised! As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy. As is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, so also we shall bear the image of the Heavenly. And in the ages to come God will shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. I speak of man's evil, not surely to delight in it, but that we may so know it, and that in conscience, that we may take, through grace, Christ instead of ourselves, and be occupied with Him.

I cannot but recall to the reader what this system involves — that "Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for us," means that Christ, having been sinless in His eternal divinity, was made sin in being made man! By whom? Not when He offered Himself without spot to God, but He was made a bad sinful being by God, when coming into existence in this world!

Christological Pantheism

J. N. Darby.

<29007E> 202

There is a very grave question at issue now in the professing church of God, which branches out uniformly into many collateral points, all of which, though in different degrees, affect Christianity; that is, the true nature of Christianity itself. The root of the whole question however is, Where is the bond, the union, the living association between what is divine and men?* It takes the form of Popery or Romanism; Ritualism or Puseyism, so called, in the Episcopal body in England and in this country;** the Stahl and Hengstenberg school in Lutheran Germany; and in what is called Mercersburg theology among the Dutch Reformed here. The last is allied to a new school in Germany, propagating actively its views on the Person of Christ; but all, however various the shades of theology, are essentially the same. They all hold union to take place in the incarnation, to be with humanity, not (consequent on redemption) of believers with a glorified Christ; and, without in words denying it, they put redemption entirely in the shade. Redemption, in their view, is not really accomplished by the atonement, but by the incarnation.

{*Union with God, spoken of by both Evangelicals and Ritualists, is a thing (save, of course, in the Person of Christ) unknown to Scripture.}

{**America}

Their system of union develops itself in the life-giving power of sacraments; and in insisting on the importance and organic power and authority of the church, but meaning thereby the clergy. Where the German school has infected it, it introduces the organic and historic development of Christ's life in the world, and that in all arts and sciences, a kind of Christological pantheism. In all cases, the mystical power of the clergy, and organism of the life-giving power of the sacraments which the clergy alone can introduce into them, is its practical character. It slights the written word and the operation of the Spirit of God; and, while speaking much of historical development, carefully avoids historical facts, as well as scriptural statements, and the direct authority of the word of God over the soul as from God Himself. That is, private interpretation, the church, the creed, the Ecumenical Council, in result, the clergy, are to be trusted. The church has developed the imperfect elements of Scripture; and theology (which is of course in the hands of the doctors, that is, themselves) is alone full and formal truth.

203 It is remarkable how God is set aside in this system, and man, humanity, exalted and made everything of, even in Christ and His work, as far as His work is made of any account.

I shall notice some details, but I shall take up the root-question as concerning every one; for it is a question of what Christianity is — what the truth is. The consequences are deplorable and demoralising wherever it prevails; but, without denying that there are pious persons and real Christians ensnared by it, I affirm that, as a system, it is a denial of the truth of Christianity, of Christianity itself in its foundation and vital truths, as revealing what man is, and bringing what man is, and bringing him savingly, to God. I add these last words because the error, save in the German school of the system, is not in the objective part of Christianity (or no one could be a Christian who adopted it), but in the application of its efficacious power, and the way in which God has dealt with man. They do not deny that those who oppose their system believe in the Trinity; in the incarnation; in the true humanity of the Lord; in the atonement; in the union of the two natures in one Person in the blessed Lord; as I myself adoringly recognise all this: and the true value of the two ordinances established by the Lord, baptism and the Lord's supper — both (and especially the latter as a continuous thing in the Christian's life) precious to his soul. I may add the exercise of ministry as given and appointed by Christ. These are not the questions at issue; at least I have nothing now to do with those who call them in question. For me, as to all the first truths, there is no Christianity without them, nor orderly Christianity without the latter. The question is, Where is the point of contact between God and man, these things being true?

But I go farther in what may be considered agreement with the school of error. I do not deny, but assert and affirm strongly, that the Lord established a church, that is, an assembly, on earth; which, in one point of view, is His body, formed by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; and which, in another character, is the habitation of God on earth by the Spirit (not the clergy; they are in no sense the church). This (and the word means nothing else) is the assembly. But, though individual relationship with God is always put in the first place by the word of God (relationship with the Father in grace and Christ the First-born among many brethren, and responsibility, conscience, and faith are uniformly individual), yet God did establish an assembly on earth, designated as "the body of Christ," and as "the habitation of God by the Spirit." Further, the Lord instituted two great ordinances in connection with it — baptism and the Supper of the Lord. He established also a ministry in gifts given by Himself from on high — evangelists, pastors, and teachers, as He founded it by apostles and prophets, besides its being compacted by that which every joint supplies, so that it should, in the edification of itself, increase with the increase of God. All this is plainly stated in the word of God itself. No history is needed to give it authority or validity. The particularly views of Rome, of Dr. Pusey, or of Dr. Nevin, about these things, are another question. They are not inspired; the word of God is.

204 But I go farther still. The Person of the blessed Lord is the centre of all Christian affections and all Christian truth for the believer (and God has given us eternal life in Him — "he that hath the Son hath life"); as, in God's time, all things will be headed up in Him in heaven and in earth. This is supremely dear to the believer's heart. But how and where are men brought into living association with Him? All those to whom I refer say, in the incarnation and the sacraments. That life is and was in His Person is most true. His Person is the foundation of everything; but where are we brought into association with Him? The formulary among the Episcopalian Ritualists was, the sacraments are a continuation or extension of the incarnation. German theology, and American borrowed from the Germans, has added a principle of historical development before as well as after the incarnation, which the soberer Episcopalians have not adopted, as far as I am aware, but confine themselves to the continuation of the incarnation of the Son of God by the sacraments in the church, and have not followed the reveries of the Germans; but the doctrine, as far as the truth I am occupied with is concerned, is the same.

The atonement loses all its importance as a redeeming work; at-one-ment, as Irving said and they say, was in the Word being made flesh and receiving humanity in His own Person. Our connection with God is restored by incarnation. Many grave errors flow from this as to justification and the like; but I confine myself to the root of the matter. Thus it is stated in this country:* "The Son of God . . . assumed humanity and became the universal man, standing related to the race as redeemed in Him, as the first Adam stood related to the race as fallen in him. The humanity of the One is as broad, as universal, and comprehensive, as the humanity of the other." "The very assumption of that nature, in its sinless perfection, was itself the redemption of humanity. In Him humanity stands redeemed already, as the source and fountain of the new race which proceeds from Him." "The church becomes, accordingly, an object of faith, inasmuch as it is a continuation of the mystery of the incarnation." "The sacrament of baptism is the divinely instituted means by which, ordinarily, the life-communication takes place."

{*America.}

205 How far this goes in the hands of the followers of the Germans, and how it lowers redemption to what is human, may be seen in what follows: "He, taking upon Himself our nature, not simply as an individual, to stand forth as one in the teeming race of Adam . . . but, grasping the very foundation of our human existence, appropriates it to Himself as the generic force and life of our race; not a man, but the man; the second Adam, like unto the first, as the bearer of the totality of our humanity, comprehending in His Person the whole of our human life." Now that He was the last (not second) Adam is all right, and that He took all that constitutes a man is all true; but this means a vast deal more. "For man is man, in the proper sense of the term, only as his life reveals itself in the outward forms of the institutions and relations in which it becomes actual in the world. The family, the state, learning in all its departments, the arts, the sciences, and all monuments besides of the activity of the human soul, stand not apart from, but are truly comprehended in, the constitution of our human life. These departments, if we may so call them, and all others besides, comprehended thus in the wonderful constitution of our humanity, must come at last to a vital union with the divine. Failure in this is failure equally deep and disastrous in the purpose of its being; it is death. But to attain to this is to attain to life and immortality! It was in this comprehensive sense that the Logos apprehended our nature, and took it into union with His divinity. These are the 'all things on earth' which the divine will would gather up in Christ, even in Him, of which St. Paul speaks."

I give this long quotation to shew how entirely man, as in and for this world, is in the mind of those degraded (for such it is) by this system. Not a trace of spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, to say nothing of God Himself, communion with the Father and the Son. It is bringing Christ and the effect of His incarnation to the sphere of the mere natural man; indeed this is stated in terms. Again:

206 "Moreover, we must bear in mind that the humanity of Christ is, and must necessarily be, co-extensive with Adam's. Its remedial powers must be commensurate with the ruins of the fall, and reveal themselves wherever these effects are to be found. We look, therefore, for their regenerating and sanctifying potencies in every department of human life. The family, the state, our social relations in all their phases, art, science, learning, and all the outward revelations of human powers, are gathered up in this supernatural constitution," etc. "There all things in earth were gathered up and completed in the Person of Christ and the mission of the church on earth is to carry forward this germinal realisation to an actual development in the world." Christ come in the flesh in this world, the incarnation prolonged (to speak with them) in the church, has its object in this world to take up human development in what are man's natural faculties. This is "the meaning and design of the incarnation of our Lord, and the constitution and powers of His holy body, the church." Of a citizenship in heaven, or affections on things above, not on things on the earth; not a trace, save the denial of it. I add another short quotation to shew it is systematic teaching, not merely individual opinion.

"The gospel is emphatically a world-saving power. It enters into the life of the world in an organic way . . . the scheme that says, 'There can be no real marriage of divine and human powers, of the life of Christ, with the life of the race, in an abiding, historical, sacramental union, and continuing in the world in such a way as to carry forward society in a living process of life and growth in knowledge, and in faith, and in hope, and in charity, and in all that belongs to the existence of an emancipated and regenerated humanity' . . . is not only unreal and unhistorical, but it seems to run directly in the face of the plainest teachings of the word of God. This teaches that God is in Christ, and that Christ is the life of the world," etc. Thus writer, indeed, though making God create the world by His omnipotence, yet, as to its present form, whether accomplished in six days or six long geological periods, tells us that "all nature was made to rise, by an inherent law and tendency, from one gradation of development to another under the moulding generic power of the Almighty, until, finally, the whole culminated in the creation of man," which is little less than Darwinianism, and the progress from atomic cellules by "an inherent law and tendency."

207 But we must now see the introduction of this life in Christ. "Christological theology must be historical" . . . "His [Christ's] deepest, truest, and most real coming through the Old Testament is a coming in flesh and blood, a coming in and through generations, a coming in history; not in the events of history merely, but in that human life in which lay and from which operated the life of history. Yea, more, if we acknowledge, as all Christian historians do, that the incarnation is premeditated in heathenism, we are in like manner impelled to escape the subtle deception into which the mind so naturally falls, that this same prevening heathen history could have such a relation to the incarnation, if the eternal Logos had not such an aptitude for the human as that His own life should also be in some kind of underlying and underacting communion with the life of whose activities this heathen prophetic history is the creation and the result. If such be the relation of the life of the Logos to human life and history, previous to His actual incarnation, how infinitely deeper and more certain must be that relation after He has actually entered the human in a personal way, and so joined His own divine-human-life with the life and history of the race!

"Let us not deceive our own minds by separating history from life. Christian history, the history of Christianity, is the coming of Christ," etc. "Thus Christ came in humanity as its genuine principle of life, before He was actually incarnate in the fulness of time. But the mystery was not completed in this prevenient union of His with humanity."

Now, that the Son quickened souls from Adam onwards, no Christian, I suppose, would deny. That in God we live, move, and have our being, so that we are in a certain sense His offspring, we know is scriptural truth. But this is vastly more. It is in heathenism, as such, communion with divine life in Christ. The whole of this argument (and here the theologians run completely into the same channel both here and in Europe, with a large class of Germans whose system is infidel) confounds the wants and cravings of a being created for God, when they have Him not, with the answer that grace gives to those cravings in Christ: a very grave blunder.

208 But I must pursue my subject. To notice all their errors would be endless. It is the antiscriptural, antichristian character of the system, as a whole, which occupies me — "that His saving life exerts its redeeming and restoring power in humanity," and "that the person of the God-man, which is constituted by the real and true union of the divine and human, is the ultimate generic principle of redemption, the generic head of the new humanity." "He was the principle of that hereditary blessing which laid hold of human life generally."

Now it is perfectly clear, that in the counsels and wisdom of God before the worlds (Prov. 8) His delight (Christ's, as wisdom) was in the sons of men. His incarnation, as celebrated by angels, was the expression of good pleasure in men; Luke 2. They were the race of His predilection, and it was in Christ, the Word made flesh, that this was to be accomplished. But our theologians use this truth as a basis to their own speculations. Adam was only a candidate for the grace of life,* to be enjoyed only in the event of his "predetermination admitting him into the wonderfully mysterious sacrament of the tree of life." It is "not, and never was, designed by the Creator that man should have life in himself, but only as he stood in vital union with His own being as the absolute ground and source of all life. To be out of and separated from God is to be dead; to be in union with Him is to have life." Note well: this denies the immortality of the soul, and confounds permanent life with the divine life as possessed in Christ. Either Adam, as created, had not life in himself by creation, or he was united with God already, and fell when he was. Nay, the very devils could not exist. It is a theory involving ten thousand absurdities and heresies, at once confounding death and separation from God; spiritual death with dying as a creature, and life, as existence, with divine life in communion with God. As to union with God, though used by many Christians, save as regards the Person of Christ it is a wholly false and unscriptural idea; it is always with Christ become a Man, and risen from the dead, that we have union.

{*This is really the foundation of annihilationism. Would he have died if he had not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?}

But I continue: "In what form the reunion of the human and divine would have taken place, had not sin entered into the world, it is not necessary for us here to inquire. It is enough to know that it would have taken place . . . . There was no miscalculation in the divine reckonings which the presence of sin for the first time revealed." However, sin came in; but "the union of the human and divine was originally involved in the plan of creation, as its ultimate design and end; in this union as it holds in the Person of Jesus Christ, do we find the revelation of God's will touching this precise interest." "The appearance of sin as a disturbing force, growing out of man's free self-determining power, was confronted immediately by this very resource for its effectual overthrow." It is not thus denied that Christ's going down to death, and meeting the penalty of the law, was needed; as He took humanity, He took it as it was, subject to its penalties, and consequently died on the cross. But, "though finding in sin a fresh call for the incarnation, yet this determined not the fact, but only the form under which it should hold." "The archetypal conception in the divine mind, overthrown by the fraud and malice of Satan in the first Adam, we find in this second Adam in the complete elimination of all the abnormal forces, carried along in the bosom of humanity, not only restored and realised, but perfected and advanced." This is in Christ incarnate down here. He "exhibited what, from the start, lay really and truly in the normal sense of humanity." Nay, even "the church, it fully appears, was no necessity of the fall. It existed anterior to the accident of sin; and, had the fall never occurred, would have continued, though not under the subsequent form of mediatorial offices and propitiatory agencies, but as a divine instrumentality, answering man's normal development. It sprang necessarily out of our moral constitution and our relation to God as the subjects of His moral government." "True to this law of his own moral being, he would have been advanced, without bodily decay and decomposition, to a state of full glorification, but only through the appearance, ultimately, of the Logos incarnate." Thus sin was an accident, impotent, as is said elsewhere, to hinder the course of God's purposes, foreseen indeed of God; and redemption by blood itself, an accident, a provision, a "change of procedure," "a subsequent form," dependent on this accident. "But it will be borne in mind that Christ was not a new humanity, a creation de novo; His was Adam's humanity as under the power of the curse." "In its commencement it was human nature, as that of His virgin mother, and therefore fallen." It is added indeed, "From the moment of the holy conception sin was eliminated."

210 But this is not the doctrine of their leading theologian, and in a discourse published by the request of the Synod he holds that "on the divine side, that which was divine was mediated by the divine Spirit, and so found pure generical beginning in fallen and depraved human nature. In this bosom of the abnormal human the divine gradually assumed the normal human, by a steady victory over corrupt human nature in the womb, forward to the birth of the Holy Child." "So on through life, it is fully and naturally human. Though as human He is tempted, truly and really tempted, He is always victorious over defect and corruption of that nature. "Under the law" which He has assumed, and which ever presses upon and vitally touches His pure life at every point, thus presenting to the world the picture . . . of a sinless man. Thus in His own personal human nature He obtained, first of all, a complete victory over that abnormal humanity with which He had formed a union, presenting it fully restored to its normal purity, in His own Person, especially exhausting and overcoming at every point the virus of sin and death, till He came forth from the grave victorious over its last power and penalty, and glorified human nature in the heavens. All this was one continuous, silently-working, steady, victorious miracle, going forward in His own Person, a victory of sinlessness overcoming depravity by the process of His divine-human life in the womb. Though made of the woman . . . He was still made under the law, that is, His human nature had to be purely developed out of the bosom of an impure humanity." (See Rom. 8: 2; 2 Cor. 13: 4.) I add the quotations to shew that they carry the principle on to the cross.*

{*Note the absurdity of the system, a divine-human which was sinless, overcoming depravity in an impure humanity. So He had two humanities in the womb, besides what was divine. How thoroughly degrading mentally the system is!}

This is pure Irvingism. A sinless effect was produced, but by His being victorious over an evil nature within: where defect and corruption existed, He restored it to purity, but it was with corrupt abnormal humanity He had formed a union and had to overcome the virus of sin. Where was it? "This victory was first in Himself, that it might be also for us. It had to take place in Him, because He is the principle and fountain of life to all. 'For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.' Let these great words be understood." They are wholly misunderstood. They were spoken when He was going to His Father (John 17), as He says in the passage, "Now, I am no more in the world." He was setting Himself apart as the glorified Man in heaven; not what He had been doing all His life. He knew no sin. It was a "holy thing" that was born of the Virgin Mary.

211 So, to the same purpose, is quoted by them, "He learned obedience," and "being made perfect." "As His own divine-human life thus sanctified and perfected" (think of a divine life needing sanctification!) "was to become the restoring and perfecting life of humanity, it had to extend beyond Himself, that it might begin and carry forward to a like victory fallen and depraved human nature in others." "But it must lay hold also on the fallen world beyond man." "And all the particular miracles wrought by Him are only individual manifestations of that same divine-human miracle life." "The miracle is supernatural because its force is the life of a higher world." Consequently, dividing the Red Sea and the Jordan was no miracle, nor the earth opening and swallowing up Dathan and Abiram. Christ's divine works were miracles of good: but the definition is as false as the doctrine is.

I do not go into all this system, fully developed as it is in Europe, and borrowed here. "Human nature in its creation . . . free from all sin . . . was not yet perfect, but awaited process . . . in order to become perfect. How much more was such a process of development, not only possible, but also necessary, in the fallen humanity which the Son of God assumed." "We assent here, with Lange, that the very idea of temptation implies the possibility of sinning." "His triumph over the temptation of the devil was a personal victory, a step in the process of His own perfecting of Himself, as well as for the benefit of His people." "This view is required by the nature of Christ's human will." It is then said, "if the human in the Person of Christ had been compelled by an overshadowing power to will as it did." But this flows from their idea that the corruption and "virus of sin," of a fallen abnormal nature was there. The non-possibility of sinning did not even arise from a compelling power, for then, without that power, He might. It would not have been the holiness of His nature, but from the intrinsic rightness of Christ's will, in His holy Person, as a man. Their darkened understandings have not been able to distinguish between morally impossible (and here absolutely so), and impossibility by compulsion; because they have a false unholy Christ. The Christ of God had no inclination to sin. His will was only to obey: and He was led of the Spirit to be tempted.

212 As regards the sympathy of the Lord, on the ground of which His liability to inward temptations, and even His peccability, is insisted on, it fails altogether. For the sorrow and discouragement of sincere souls does not come from the existence of sin in the flesh, but much more from their yielding to it. Now, if they are to get sympathy here by Christ being in the same state, He must have failed. But then all is lost. And if not, the whole argument is proved false on its very base. Such persons do not know what true deliverance is. Nor do I ask for sympathy for sin, but the word to judge it, and deliverance from its power by redemption and the Holy Ghost, in the knowledge that I have no strength. The advocacy of Christ to restore communion if we do fail, when we are free from the law of sin and death, is founded on righteousness and propitiation.

But as I am on this point, I add, they have no true Christ at all. I read, "How such human nature, as body, soul, and spirit, including a human will, could be held in personal union with the divine, so that this humanity was complete, without a human personality or ego, we cannot understand, but we believe it is a mystery revealed for faith." Where? Why does the blessed Lord say, "Not my will but thine?" Why does He say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" if there was no ego, no human personality? Why does Hebrews quote, "will I sing praise," and "will put my trust in him," "behold I and the children which God hath given me," if there was no I (ego)? Why does He say, "My God and your God, my Father and your Father" (not our), if there was no personality?* And this last remark, that Christ never says "our" with His disciples, I borrow from a European minister of some note, thoroughly imbued with the German system, where it is at home, not borrowed, and itself spoiled, as it is at Mercersburg. And this last statement, that Christ had no human personality, no ego, which is really heresy (though God and man were united in one person), and the mere folly of man attempting to fathom the mystery of His Person, when He has said, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father," is found in the Article of one by no means the worst of their doctors. His antecedent respect for the blessed Lord has not been destroyed, as in others of them. But all hold it was corrupt fallen human nature which He took and had; not that He took human nature from a fallen mother but without sin, miraculously, by the power of the Holy Ghost. But he is the least bad on this point.

{*I am quite aware of and accept the ordinary orthodox statement of two natures in one person, though what was at first insisted on as orthodox as to upostasis was afterwards condemned, and the meaning of the word changed; but the statements quoted in the text are really Monothelite. It shews the danger of those early discussions, for the simple faith that Jesus was God and man in one Person can be easily accepted as plain and vital truth; but the moment you deny personality in the man Christ Jesus, you run into a thousand difficulties and errors. What is really denied is Christ's individuality as a man, as it is in terms elsewhere.}

213 But my object here is to bring the system fully into the light. Hence I quote several passages to shew it is the system, not individual opinion. Thus another says to us, "The temptability of Christ grew out of His peccability; His peccability out of the realness of the human side of His being. What is less than infinite is temptable and peccable. Christ's humanity was less than infinite; therefore His humanity might have been overthrown." And that, note, united in one Person to Godhead, without there being even an I, or human personality — a word wrongly used really — in His human nature! Was ever such folly and confusion? God united to fallen humanity, with defect and corruption and the virus of sin in it! My hand revolts at writing such blasphemous absurdities.

This taking the fallen human nature, the ultimate generic principle of redemption, "accounts for the striking analogy between the birth of the God-man,* and the new birth of every human soul that is now born from Him. Both alike are a birth to a true and pure human life, out of a fallen and defiled humanity, by the operation of the Holy Ghost." "This birth is vouchsafed to as many as receive Him." This last gross misapplication (indeed false sense) of John 1: 12 I quote, as connecting itself with the subsequent teaching as to baptism. I add another here, to shew the strange heretical confusion of those teachers: "If therefore we say that in baptism a real immanence of the nature of Christ and of human nature, a mysterious oneness of His holy essence and the sinful essence of man, is brought about, we also hold fast to the idea that this is not to be regarded as an immanence finished and immediate, but one endless beginning." Think of one endless beginning, of a oneness, of Christ's holy essence and the sinful essence of man! Is this endless oneness(!) of holy essence and sinful essence a moral oneness, or what?

{*Strange to say, this expression was utterly condemned as heresy in the early ages.}

214 We have thus the Lord's incarnation, the point where (they say) He connects Himself with human nature; not merely personally, or rather not personally (so they expressly say), but in nature as the new head of the race (He is not a man, not a human personality, but) with humanity, and that fallen humanity the new head of the race. This is continued in men by a new birth, the continuation of this divine human life, and this last not by the word but by baptism, through which there is a mysterious oneness of His holy and man's sinful essence, and this forms the body of Christ! I must give some quotations to make the last point evident. The general statement is thus: "The Spirit in Christ, the Spirit having entered into the apostles in the mystery of Pentecost extraordinarily, the Spirit, by their divinely appointed ministrations, through holy baptism." Thus it grows into a holy temple. "The life of Christ infuses itself through the foundation and the entire organism of this life-building."

Further, preaching presents the claims to us: "This preaching is the means by which the quickening energy of the Spirit opens the blinded eye of faith to an apprehension of the sinner's estate as dead, and the spiritual discernment of the kingdom of life, as the power of deliverance from this ruin. Now, this faith is the organ of the human spirit by which the objective supernatural order is discerned, and its participation is made possible. But this subjective power of discernment and receptivity is by no means one with an actual entrance into it and a participation in its life. It is only the qualification and ability so to do." "But unless the human activity is met by a curative response on the part of Christ, the soul still remains under the power of death" (only it has got its eyes opened). "The office of the apostle, preparatory preaching, is then simply to effect the preparation on the part of the sinful subject for the reception of the communication of grace. The meeting of the human and divine activities we have in the sacrament of baptism."

215 "The question now is by which of these means specifically does God design to effect this wondrous work; by the word or by the sacraments? Not by the word, that is, as we have defined it, the preaching of the gospel, and for this plain reason: preaching is directed to the mind or intellect, the moving of the affections and of the will is not reaching the life-centre of the being; the intellect or mind is not the life of man; all the thinking, feeling, or willing that one can do, though assisted in their acts by a divine power, cannot of themselves make a man a new creature in Christ Jesus. This inward radical divine work must be accomplished, therefore, by the only other means — the sacraments . . . . Baptism is the ordinance of this mysterious union . . . . Holy baptism is the means of grace whereby the Holy Spirit ingrafts, for the first time in any substantial sense, the believer into Christ, and thus brings him into a state of salvation."

I continue: "In that Christ as the unseen Head stands in an inward indisputable relation to the church as His mystical body — that is, that total organisation of souls which has its point of personal unity in Him, receives the power of life from Him through it, renews and animates itself, and the members themselves are all its organs — He, by means of baptism, causes this universal organic relation to become effectual in each single new point of life which He appropriates to Himself and His kingdom. As He continues His life through the church as a whole, so He also continues it through this particular mode of individual life, and therefore makes Himself the true beginning of life to it."

But, faith being necessary, as they hold, "The child stands on the warm bosom of the faith of the church, which, through its parents or sponsors, is pledged in its behalf." "Neither can we say that the word is the specific means of grace, whereby men are ingrafted into Christ. The word, as preached by the apostles, was a call to Christ. This was its object, to turn the attention of men to Him, as the true Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. When they were ready to receive Him, they were baptised into Him, and thus made members of Him." "Christian baptism then, we think the Scriptures teach, is the sacrament of our incorporation into Christ." "The word has to do with truth; the sacrament with life. The one operates upon the intellect and affections; the other upon the centre of the being. By the word men are brought mentally and morally into contact with Christ; by the sacrament into actual life contact." "The theology then we speak of is churchly. It believes in the church . . . in the bosom of which only, not on the outside of it, the gospel can be expected to work, as the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. So far as this goes, of course, it owns and confesses that the church is a medium of communication between Christ and His people." (His people, then, are not the church!) "They must be in the order of His grace, in the sphere where this objective working of His grace is actually going forward, and not in the order of nature, where it is not going forward at all (but where Satan reigns and has his own way), if the work of redemption and sanctification is to be carried forward in them with full effect. In this sense, most assuredly, salvation is of the church, and not of the world," etc. Now that, as a general truth, sanctification is to be looked for in the church, not in the world, is all true enough. But the gospel, they say, cannot work outside of it; the poor heathen are in a bad way, and redemption is carrying on, and that only inside it. Salvation is not of the world, assuredly, but it is to the world, and could never have been, had it not come to it as such; nor could the church otherwise have existed. The grace of God brings salvation — where? to those already within, or to men without to bring them in?

216 There are some points I shall touch on just in detail; but I assert now that the whole of this system is totally antichristian and antiscriptural. "Christ incarnate is the point of union, and His divine-human life is continued by baptism; the word is not the means of communicating it; baptism incorporates into Christ; the accident of sin produced a change of procedure (that is all): man was to be perfected in Christ at any rate." All this is false: Scripture, as to the main points, teaches precisely the contrary; and God's glory is wholly, totally, left out in a most extraordinary way. Human perfection is the only thought.

Now, that it was in the wondrous counsels of God to have man in the same glory as His Son is, however wonderful, blessedly true. That Christ is life, our life who believe, is equally so. The question is, where and how life in this system, not death, is the means of redemption. "His saving life exerts its redeeming and restoring power in humanity, not by becoming an individual man among men, and then operating on the general life of humanity, but by entering into it; and this entering is by birth, so that the new creation of human nature in its organic being falls together and co-ordinate with natural human birth. The reheading of humanity is thus effected in its very beginning by the union of the divine-human life" — (two human lives again in Christ) — "with human life in a human birth; even as man's first creation was completed by the conjunction of the breath of God with the human lifeless form, when God made man a living soul by breathing into him the breath of life. From all this we cannot but see that the Person of the God-man, which is constituted by the real and true union of the divine and human, is the ultimate generic principle of redemption."

217 Humanity (in its nature) is redeemed by incarnation; and this is carried on by baptism! Now, all this is definitely contrary to the revelation of God; and, in that sense, is a denial of Christianity. It is true, that conformity to the image of God's Son is the portion of God's saints; true, that God's delight was in the sons of men before the world, and that the Lord did not take up angels but the seed of Abraham: true, that the incarnation was the expression of good pleasure in men; true, not that the human-divine life of Christ was the generic source of the race before the incarnation, but that the Son quickened souls from Adam onwards; true, that He is now the life of all believers, and the Head of His body, the church. But reunion with Christ, connection with Him, is with a glorified Christ, and with a glorified Christ alone, after He had accomplished redemption. As the first Adam sinned and was cast out before he began to be the head of the race, so the perfect and divine ground of righteousness was laid and complete before Christ, as man, became head of a new race as man. It is with a glorified Christ that the church is united, and with no other. There are many errors and heresies in the system; but, if this be so, the whole system is fundamentally false. It is a false Christianity, "another (a different) gospel, which is not another," for another there cannot be. Death and redemption must come in before we can be united to Christ. What Scripture shews us is the counsels of God before the world for uniting us in grace to Christ in glory; then God beginning not with that, but with the responsible man, Adam. When he had failed, and fully tested, was found an enemy of God, there came the second Man, the Lord, to seek and to save what was lost; and, when He (having glorified God as made sin) had accomplished redemption in His death, to unite us with Himself as gone on high.

218 Man failed in innocence, failed under the law, killed the prophets sent in mercy; and then God said, "I have yet one Son; it may be they will reverence my Son." "But they cast him out of the vineyard and slew him." There was lawlessness without law, transgression under law, and, when God came in grace, absolute enmity against Him. The Son had quickened whom He would, no doubt, all along; and their sins were forgiven through His blood: but man, as such, was then fully and finally proved enmity against God. Flesh was not subject to the law of God, nor could be; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Not only was man driven out from God's paradise on earth, as a sinner; but he had, as far as he could do so, driven God out when He came in grace into this world. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin . . . . If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." Such was man, guilty in fact, and lost in estate. Redemption was needed, not merely a communication of life: not redemption by a mystical communication of life — a thing totally unknown to Scripture; but redemption through Christ's blood, propitiation: not the folly of "oneness of a holy essence and a sinful essence," but to be born anew, wholly "created in Christ Jesus"; being redeemed out of the state he was in, and associated with the Redeemer, but only when the redemption was accomplished. Christ the Lord came, as Son of God and King of Israel according to Psalm 2; a minister of the circumcision, to fulfil the promises made to the fathers; but the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers took counsel together against Jehovah and against His Anointed. He was the despised and rejected of men. He came into the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Those who did receive Him were born, not of the will of man, but of God.

Still His title was good. He was also Son of man. But when was He to take this? When rejected, God gave witness to Him, as Son of God in raising Lazarus, as Son of David in riding in on the ass. One title yet remained; when was He to take this up and have others connected with Him? The Greeks came up desiring to see Jesus: "The hour is come," He says, "that the Son of man should be glorified. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it ABIDETH ALONE; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," John 12. The Son of man must die, that others might be associated with Him. Without that, He abode alone.

219 Hence it was, that, when He had given full testimony, He charged His disciples strictly to tell no man that He was the Christ; saying, "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected, and put to death, and rise again the third day." Hence, as in the former passage, in John 12, His soul was troubled, and He said, "Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I to this hour; Father, glorify thy name"; and then, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." It was a dying Saviour that was this point of gathering; one rejected by man, but, by sovereign grace, therein a Saviour. He rises again, and is glorified to be in the place where He connects man with Himself; so that "He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." And if He was made a little lower than the angels, why so? "For the suffering of death, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man" (or "thing"). And then we read, "It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." It was not by incarnation He sanctified any one. "By the which will we are sanctified, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

And now see another aspect of it, the glory of God and of the Son of man Himself. It became God, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. These doctors only see man, humanity, aptitude for humanity: God and His glory have no place in their system. They quote the passage, "The life was the light of men." Let me finish the sentence for them, which they do not: "And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Rejection, and increased guilt, and proof of sin, was the only fruit in man of incarnation taken by itself. It was condemnation, not life, to others, "for this is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." When the blessed Lord, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, was it there His blessed career of grace stopped? No! "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; WHEREFORE also God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow," Phil. 2. Here it is He takes the place of Head of the new creation.

220 In John 13, as soon as Judas went out to betray Him, the Lord says, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; and if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him"; and He has, as man, been exalted into the glory of God. So in John 17, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory I had with thee before the world was." And it is as thus perfected in glory that He has become "the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him."

But God was glorified in Him also. All good and evil came to an issue on the cross, and there only perfectly. There was man's absolute evil, enmity against God come into the world in goodness; power in grace that removed every evil brought in by sin, even to death; but, as that displayed God's presence, it drew out man's enmity. The sin was not healed by it, but made fully manifest in its absolute character. They killed the Prince of Life. There the complete power of Satan over men was manifested and exercised — the prince of this world came. There the perfection of man in Christ: the prince of this world had nothing in Him; but there was perfect love to the Father, and perfect obedience displayed by Him. Perfect righteousness against sin, in God, was displayed as nowhere else; but perfect love to the sinner. Nor could these both have been manifested together in any other way. Cutting off men might be righteous, but no love; sparing them all without atonement, held to be love, but no righteousness; nor would destroying them all be God's glory but defeat and failure. But through Christ's death God's majesty, what became Him, His righteousness, His infinite love and truth — all have been glorified, and the foundation of the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, laid in Christ's appearing (in the consummation of ages) to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. "Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God," Heb. 9. All this we are to believe is through the accident of sin, which changed the mode of procedure, humanity being the end of all! But if the prince of this world was cast out by this wondrous work, then was the judgment of this world.

221 Where then, in all this, was reconciliation? The incarnate Word, the Son of God, was rejected. The premediating heathen, in whom Christ's life was germinally and prophetically, as they tell us, were — the apostle tells us (Eph. 2) — without Christ, strangers to the covenants of promise, and without God in the world, given up in judgment to a reprobate mind (Rom. 1), because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, by nature children of wrath, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. And how reconciled? or where redemption? In incarnation, and the uniting the divine life in Christ with fallen humanity? Not at all. "And you, who were alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death," Col. 1. "God was in Christ reconciling" — not He had by incarnation done so. The world would not have Him in that character. He was occupied with that work, but totally rejected. Satan was the prince of this world, and the world came under judgment. The wrath of God was revealed; and then, Christ having died, the work was committed to His ambassadors.

There was no link formed by Christ Jesus with other men by His incarnation. Preparation was made for it: but it issued in the judgment of this world. If we look to life and union in the church, the body of Christ, its fullest and highest character; is it in incarnation, or with a glorified Saviour, and (for us) by a new creation? No union till He is glorified! "What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, . . . and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." He is not in the place of head till He is glorified. And, when we were dead in sins, God hath quickened us together with Christ, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. If any man be in Christ, it is a new creation: "old things are passed away, all things are become new." Therefore the apostle knew no man after the flesh; yea, though he had known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth he knew Him no more. Christ had come as the Messiah of the Jews, as the crown, if He had been received, of humanity; but as such He had been rejected; and now it was only through redemption by blood, and as a glorified Christ that man could have connection with Him.

222 Does Peter, who enters less into the counsels of God than Paul, take a different ground from this? No; "we are begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Is redemption otherwise than by blood? "We are redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ"; and we "by him do believe in God who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God." It is by His stripes we are healed, and, if He be our life, it is as risen. In Colossians as in Ephesians, when we were dead in sins He hath quickened us together with Him; He suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Hence in John also (chap. 6), where He speaks of the bread come down from heaven, He takes care to add, "If ye eat not the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."

They tell us that God has gathered together all things in Christ. Scripture does not say so; but that God has made known to us the mystery of His will, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He will do so, in whom (Christ) we have received an inheritance, and that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory; Eph. 1. So, in Romans, we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be we suffer with Him that we may be glorified together. Not only so, but we are assured that all things are not put under Christ now (Heb. 2), but He is crowned with glory and honour, according to Psalm 8, and He is sitting, not on His own throne yet, but on His Father's, expecting, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, till His enemies be made His footstool. So in 1 Peter, the prophets, searching their own prophecies, found it was not to themselves but to us they did minister the things which are now reported to you by them that have preached the gospel to you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; and we are to be sober and hope to the end.

223 God will head-up all things in heaven and in earth in Christ, but, though He was incarnate that it might be so, incarnation did not put Him in this place. Though all power is given Him in heaven and in earth, He is not in this headship yet. His incarnation brought Him into universal rejection: man saw no beauty in Him to desire Him; it was the time of His rejection, not of every knee bowing to Him, nor is this time come yet. Now He sits on the right hand of God expecting. These doctors make it a sanctifying of arts, sciences, etc., on earth, by penetrating life. The Scriptures make it a bearing of the cross now, separate from the world; a suffering with Him, and then a glorious Christ, under whom are reconciled all things in heaven and in earth, as reigning in glory: and that we only are reconciled now by His death, and He expecting till His enemies are made His footstool; and always (eis to dienekes) now, and, till then, sitting at the right hand of God, while His joint-heirs are being gathered.

Through death He has glorified God, through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. It is the travail of His soul that He is Himself to see. Through death He has reconciled us to God; redemption is through His blood. It is as glorifying God on the cross that He is glorified by God; it is by His blood He has redeemed out of every nation: hereby know we love, in that He laid down His life for us; He came to give His life a ransom for many. There He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him; 2 Cor. 5. His incarnation drew out the enmity: by the cross He reconciled Jew and Gentile in one body, making peace. What He had seen and heard, that He testified, and no man received His testimony. When He came, there was no man; when He called, there was none to answer. He spoke that He knew, and He testified that He had seen, and they received not His witness. God came out to man in Christ, and man rejected Him, crucified the blessed One come in grace. But the veil was rent in His death, but never till then, and men can go to God in the holiest. It was not by life, precious as that is, but by death that He redeemed us and reconciled us to God.

224 The whole system is utterly antichristian and antiscriptural: moreover it is, as a natural consequence, a perverted and false system practically. It insists on the union of supernatural grace and the order of nature in this world, and makes Christ's headship to be in enjoyable arts and sciences in this world, instead of, as He says, taking up the cross and following Him — setting our affections on things above, not on things on the earth, as being with Him dead, and our life hid with Him in God. If Christianity be true, this system is false. If it were not for the extreme ignorance of Scripture, both textual and critical, which they display, I should say the audacity of their statements would be marvellous; but I suppose much of it may be attributed to ignorance.

They say that the communication of life is not by the word but by sacraments. Now what saith the scripture? "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures," James 1: 18. So Peter: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." We are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now faith cometh by hearing (akoe), and hearing by the word of God: he that heareth my word and believeth Him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life; John 5: 24. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe; 1 Cor. 1: 21. Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness; Rom. 4: 3. For this cause thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which worketh effectually in them that believe; 1 Thess. 2: 13. Lastly, when the church had become utterly corrupt, as bad as the heathen, so that the times were perilous, the apostle refers to the Scriptures as able to make wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus; 2 Tim. 3. I shall refer to this again when I come to speak a word of the church. I have quoted only direct passages as to the word, of faith in it, quickening and vivifying. There are many other passages which speak indirectly to the same purpose.

They tell us baptism is what gives life and incorporates into the body of Christ. First, as to life, no passage that I can call to mind states anything of the sort. Before Christ, and during His life, it clearly could not be. When Christ was there, the dead heard the voice of the Son of God, and they that heard lived. I can only take their quotations. They quote Peter's statement in Acts 2, but nothing is said there of communicating life at all. They were to be baptised for the remission of sins, and they would then receive the Holy Ghost. They were baptised in Samaria when they believed; of course they were, but no word of life or life-contact. The case of the eunuch is then quoted, the writer being ignorant that the verse is not genuine: but even with it not a word about life. Lydia and the jailer were baptised, and their households: but no word of receiving life. Saul was called to arise and wash away his sins for the formal administration of forgiveness. I do not doubt this had real force, though it is not the ground of it, but the death of Christ whereby we are justified by faith: but not one of them alludes to communication of life by baptism.

225 Our doctors claim the interpretation of the Scriptures for themselves; if any one wants to see what it is worth, he may learn. from their comment on the texts they have quoted as to "the word." They prove to us that Peter does not use "the word" of the preaching of the gospel, from the fact that he says that it "liveth and abideth for ever," which cannot be affirmed of preaching — is not that profound? They seem to be ignorant that Peter only quoted a passage of Isaiah affirming that the gospel was a fulfilment of it. Did they never read "the word preached"? The word is what is preached, and so the apostle would say, "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Who does not see that it is not the act of preaching (that is, the part of the preacher), but "the word preached"? But God has chosen by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. It is wearisome to notice such absurdity. Supposing I were to say, "Eating his dinner has quite set him up," and a Mercersburg theologian, claiming to be an interpreter of the word and refusing "private interpretation," should say, "Eating cannot set a man up"; what answer can one give to such wisdom but to say, apechei, All right; I quite agree?

The passage of James (chap. 1: 18) is passed over as lightly as possible — no wonder.

When Paul writes of Christ sanctifying the church "by the washing of water by the word," they tell us it means water and the word, an "unmistakable testimony to the importance and force of holy baptism." What! When the Lord says, Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you; and note, that if so, the word as spoken of us in Ephesians 5 never can be applied to the soul again: for baptism cannot be repeated. But they have to change the passage to make their use of it. It is alleged that it is affirming that the "Holy Spirit has power to act in an extraordinary way, dispensing with the ordinary organs of communication." So indeed the Lord affirms He does as to this very matter. The wind blows where it lists, and ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. It is curious how they go in the teeth of the word, doubtless through ignorance.

226 But the word of God is the ordinary means, the divinely-appointed means, of communicating life, as we have seen: which baptism is never said to be. They speak of magical operation: it is very irreverent when speaking of being born of the Spirit who is the immediate divine agent of imparting the divine nature. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit": but what more magical than a little clean water, and a few words spoken by a man who pretends to have power to do it, being the means of communicating divine life! Far from me to despise baptism; I believe it to be the divinely-appointed door of admission to the place where God has placed His peculiar blessings on the earth. For such a place there was in Israel, and such a place there is in Christendom, awful as its state may be: not of entrance into the body (of this I will speak), but into that habitation which God has set up, and where He dwells by His Spirit. But not only is baptism not life-giving; but it does not mean this even as a sign. It is to the death of Christ we are baptised, unto, not into; we are not baptised into anything, but unto. They were not baptised into Moses, and it is the same word: so, "Whereunto were ye baptised?" Here the translators, though they changed it when they could, could not mis-state it. The answer was "Unto John's baptism." We were baptised unto (eis) Christ's death. How? There is no dead Christ, and you cannot be baptised into His death. We are identified with Him (sumphutoi) "in the likeness of his death."

The only connection with life is the passage in Colossians 2: "Wherein also we are risen with him"; but there it is carefully added, "by faith in the operation of God who raised him from the dead": and even there the coming up out of baptism is resurrection with Him: not simply quickening or life-giving, but formally distinct from it. Baptism is death — reception in the visible assembly, through death of that which we were, as alive in the first Adam, the death of Christ. As to putting on Christ in Galatians 3, it is only the public profession of Him, as contrasted with Jew or Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, male or female. The passage itself is that which declares that "we are all children of God [not by baptism but] by faith in Christ Jesus."

227 Nor is baptism incorporating into Christ. There is positive testimony to the contrary: "For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body." The Holy Ghost come down from heaven unites to the glorified Head in heaven. That baptism of the Spirit, we are told, took place on the day of Pentecost. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit"; others, when they came in amongst them, partook of the same Holy Ghost.

But perhaps the most curious effect in detail of this antiscriptural system is the absolute denial of all operation of the Holy Ghost by the gospel in the world. "It (the church) meets us exactly at the right point, as setting forth the form and manner in which Christ, by the Holy Ghost, carries forward His work of salvation in the world. If we are to hold fast the objective historical character of what this work was first, and still continues to be in His own Person (mark the work is first in the Person of Christ), it cannot be allowed to lose itself in the agency of the Spirit in a general view, it must necessarily involve for us the conception of a special sphere, this likewise objective and historical, within which only (and not in the world at large) the Holy Ghost of the gospel is to be regarded as working. This is the church." "To look for it in the world by private spiritualistic negotiations with God . . . is to look for it where it is not to be found."

Now, I ask, in opposition to this teaching, were Paul's evangelistic labours in the church or in the world? That the church was formed by them, where it was not before, no doubt: and doubtless the converts were all baptised. But where was the Holy Ghost of the gospel working? Was it "not in the world at large," as they say? It is as absurd as it is evil. Let us hear what he says. Did he preach the gospel in the church or in the world? He distinguishes this double ministry; Col. 1. But the Lord Himself before Paul, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature . . . . And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by signs following them." And to Paul: "The Gentiles, to whom now I send thee to open their eyes," etc. So Paul: "Whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and bringing forth fruit, as it doth in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth." And what was this gospel? We read in Ephesians 1: 13, "The word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." He does not think it worth while to mention their baptism, though, doubtless, it took place.

228 I said he distinguished his gospel ministry and his church ministry (Col. 1: 23); "The gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister." . . . Then "His body's sake, the church, whereof I am made a minister, to fulfil [complete] the word of God." I may add here, what belongs to another point, that the reconciliation of all things, which they affirm to be going on now, is distinguished from our reconciliation now who form the true church. (See vv. 20 - 22.)

Again Paul declares himself (Rom. 1) a debtor to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and the unwise; not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed; and in the doctrinal part of the Romans, all is absolutely individual, only in the hortatory part is there any allusion to the church. There it comes in as a known fact. His boast is that he preached where Christ had not been heard of; 2 Cor. 10; Rom. 1: 5. He would not have anything to do with the church in this service; Gal. 1: 16, 17. It was where Christ was not named; he went directly from Christ, "not of man nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father." (Compare Romans 15: 15-21.) What the apostle boasts of as his glory, these theologians denounce. But more, the commission in Matthew 28 was never carried out; Paul's took its place (Gal. 2: 6-9), and Paul puts his mission in contrast on these points with theirs. They may have gone abroad, as Mark 16; but this is the only allusion to it in Scripture, the tradition as to it being a very late one.

229 But, besides, Paul declares he was not sent to baptise at all, but to preach the gospel. I know our theologians, with the Baptists, say this was for fear of its being thought he baptised in his own name. But this is a come-off. He positively declares Christ did not send him to baptise but to preach the gospel: the cross, the death of Christ — foolishness, no doubt, to a ritualist, but — to us who are saved the power of God. But is it not a strange thing if life-contact is only in baptism, he should tell us he was not sent to do the only thing which gives life, and to do that which "the Holy Ghost of the gospel" does not do? Pity he was not sent to Mercersburg. And somehow he "laid the foundation" in his ministry. As regards the full revelation of the mystery of the church, a dispensation was committed to him. The whole testimony of Paul, both as to the gospel and as to the church, is set aside by these ritualists; that is, of him to whom the mission to the Gentiles was specially committed by Christ Himself, and relinquished by the apostles at Jerusalem.

But let us consider this doctrine of the church scripturally and historically too: for these doctors avoid history to replace it by dreams of their own fancy. We have the church or assembly of God under three aspects in Scripture, primarily two, and then one of the two as the effect of divine workmanship, and as the effect of the work as entrusted to the responsibility of man: "The body," if we speak of that which is united to Christ, the glorified Head in heaven (Eph. 1, 5; compare 1 Cor. 12), set up on earth, but to be complete and perfected in heaven, is not formed by baptism. Simon Magus, for instance, was baptised, but had neither part nor lot in the matter; the one hundred and twenty at Jerusalem had formed the nucleus of the church but were never baptised at all. There is no trace of it, nor anybody to do it: yet they were the church itself at its starting. It is, we are expressly told, "by one Spirit we are baptised into one body." This baptism, we know from Acts 1, was on the day of Pentecost. The truth concerning this one body was more fully developed in Paul's ministry. But Christ exalted on high was the Head, those who had the Holy Ghost the members. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. It is never connected with water-baptism, nor are there rotten members of Christ's body. An unbeliever not born of God is not a member of Christ's body! He is "without Christ"; nay, more, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you." "There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus." "The whole body edifies itself in love"; they are "members one of another." The "Head is Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love." So "there is one Spirit and one body, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling"; and then "one Lord, one faith, one baptism"; and then "one God and Father of all": the circle each time widening — with the Spirit, the Lord, and God the Father. The same distinction is made in 1 Corinthians 12.

230 This is one aspect of the assembly of God. There is another — it is the "habitation of God," and that now "by the Spirit." But this is viewed in a double way in the word: Christ builds; and man builds. "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." But here Christ is the Builder, and the building unfinished, nor can Satan hinder its being built. He can catch the sheep and scatter them, but not pluck (catch) them out of Christ's hand. So in 1 Peter, the living stones come and are built upon the Living Stone, a spiritual house; no human agency is spoken of as bringing them. So Paul: "fitly joined and compacted it groweth to a holy temple in the Lord." This house is not yet finished, it is growing, grace is carrying it on; it is not that life is given by energy in a sacrament: but living stones come.

But when I come to 1 Corinthians 3 it is another matter. Here man's responsibility comes in and man's agency. As a wise master-builder, Paul laid the foundation; but every one was to take heed how he builded thereon. If he builded with gold, silver, or precious stones, he would receive a reward: if with wood and hay and stubble, his work would be burnt up: in a word, the work depended on the responsibility of man. Looked at as to the result on earth, God's temple might be badly built: and man, as he has ever done from Adam, has wholly failed. This I shall shew. The papacy, and then Ritualists, drinking in their sweetened poison through their utterly false views as to baptism (false in every respect), have confounded Christ's work in building, yet unfinished, with their own wood and hay and stubble; or worse, they tell us that, by an organic system of clergy and baptism, it is to restore the race and bring in consecration of everything to God, uniting the supernatural with the natural as it did in Christ, or grace and nature till it culminates in glory!

231 Now let us see what God tells us. First looked at as the kingdom of heaven: When Christ had sowed the good seed, the enemy came and sowed tares, and the evil done had to remain till the harvest; the wheat of Christ's sowing was not spoiled, but the crop was here. Next take Jude: False brethren crept in unawares, baptised with the organic system we must suppose, but false brethren always, no life-contact with Christ, but spots in their feasts of charity, and of these Enoch prophesied, The Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment. The evil went on to the end. In John we have the other character of evil. They had gone out, apostatised, were not of them though they had been among them. The last times were already come marked by these antichrists. Paul more fully: The mystery of iniquity did already work; only there was what hindered it; and, when this was gone, the man of sin would be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the brightness of His coming. He could say already, All seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.

In 2 Timothy we have the Holy Ghost's directions when the church had fallen into this evil estate. God's sure foundation remained, the Lord knew them that they were His: and whoever named the name of the Lord was to depart from iniquity. In a great house (for such would the church become) there are vessels of gold, silver, and earth, some to honour and some to dishonour; if a man purged himself from these last, he would be a vessel to honour and fit for the Master's use. Spiritual judgment must discern what these teachers were worth in the house, for it would contain all sorts. But, further, so far from trusting the church, in the last days perilous times would come, and a description is given of Christendom, the same (save two or three words) as that of the heathen in Romans 1, not of the world without. There would be a form of piety denying its force; believers were to turn away from such. What was their resource? The Scriptures expressly: what Paul taught, and the Scriptures given by inspiration of God, that, when the church was gone to ruin, the word of God remained sure: and this was to guide.

232 So John: If that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you, ye shall continue in the Father and in the Son. No developed and formed theology: but that which was from the beginning. He wrote this concerning those that seduced them. But further: In the seven churches, he that hath an ear is called upon to listen to what the Spirit said to the churches. Christ was judging them. They therefore could be no authority. He that had an ear for what Christ said was to listen to His judgment of them. Thus, so far from their word being an authority or rule, we are called on to listen to the word which judges their state: and whence can we date the ruin? Paul declares that after his decease wolves from without and perverse persons from within would arise; John that they were already in the last time. It was merely, alas! what had ever happened under man; with Noah, with Israel under the law, with the priesthood, with the Jewish royalty, with the Gentile. Thus, what God had set up good, the first thing man did was to spoil and ruin it. But we have the additional testimony from Paul that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, the Scriptures and what was taught by inspiration from the beginning being the only resource of "the man of God," and able to make him wise unto salvation. John tells us that the last time was already come: so Peter, that the time was come that judgment should begin at the house of God. And mark this: when Romanists or Ritualists tell us to listen to the church, they merely mean themselves, the clergy; they interpret the Scriptures, doling out as much as they think proper to give us, and cooked up as they please.

Paul, they would have us believe, did not know how to address the church; what was from the beginning is not what I am to hold fast! Let us see what ground there is for this apostate doctrine, this doctrine of Satan — for such it is: he knows the power of the inspired word of God. To whom did the blessed Lord speak? To the multitude. To whom did the apostles speak and write? First to the world; but then in the Epistles — all save three short ones — to the assemblies, the mass of believers. If you choose to call them clergy, the clergy wrote to the mass of common believers. The church, or mass, really never teaches. Those gifted, as sent, teach the assembly; but the Scriptures generally are addressed; always addressed, to the body of believers; God's word is addressed to them without any interpreters. They are God's own word to them, by which I should be called upon, if needed, to judge even apostles, with a curse pronounced upon them if they taught anything else.

233 The church never teaches. The teachers are to be judged by the word of God. Sad it is if that be needed, for gifts of teaching there are; but, if needed to be done, God has sent His word to the saints at large. He who comes between and intercepts the message meddles with God's rights, not merely with mine. If I own this title in the clergy, I am withdrawing myself from God's own direct title over me as His servant; but I cannot from my responsibility, for He has addressed His word directly to me. Man cannot withdraw himself from the consequences of his own moral state in reading it; that is true, nor is he meant to do so. If he comes presumptuously, he will reap the fruits of his presumption. If he comes meekly ("as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word") he will reap the fruits of God's grace. Those teachers who write "Bible-worshippers," and deny what they call verbal inspiration, may learn, at any rate the simple may, what the apostle teaches: "We" (the apostle himself and the inspired teachers) "have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God." There is revelation: "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." There is verbal inspiration. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, because they are spiritually discerned." There is the intelligence of the things taught in the word, as it is written; and it is the distinctive character of the time of grace: "They shall be all taught of God."

And, now, let us see how far the church is to be trusted — the historical development. I affirm that the history of the baptised mass is the history of the greatest wickedness — crimes natural, ecclesiastical, and unnatural — that ever disgraced human nature, worse and more universal than among the heathen, bad as they were.

Did our theologians ever read the letter of Nicholas Clemangis (rector of the University of Paris at the time of the great schism, the greatest man of his age), and his description of the state of morals? In the middle ages, so great was the violence and disorder — one pope annulling as invalid all the ordinations of another whom he had driven out — that a book had to be written to apprise the people there were still sacraments — unnatural crimes universal, especially among the clergy; and such a state of things in the papacy, that the great Roman Catholic historian, cardinal and Jesuit Baronius, declares that for a century he cannot own the popes for legitimate, but only puts their names in for dates, set up as they were by the mistresses of the Marquis of Tuscany, or by their mothers, mistresses of deceased popes. The Pope got hold of a book written by an honest man, denouncing the state of things, and suppressed it, saying that it would be too scandalous, and that he would punish the most flagrant cases. And the gloss of the canon law on a decretal, speaking of degrading for licentiousness, declares that it cannot be for simple fornication, for then it would be universal. There is no such system of wickedness as the organic system preached up by Ritualists. I challenge them, with their historical Christianity, to state honestly what history states; nor, though more decent outwardly since the Reformation, is it really very much better now. This was the baptised organism that contained — (can I say the words?) — Christ's life!

234 Let us turn to an earlier date: Did our theologians ever read Cyprian de Pudentia (or Chrysostom's two treatises on the same subject)? Here we go back to, say, 240 A.D. after Christ. But a century before what do we find — that is, forty or fifty years after the death of the apostle John? Infamy under the form of asceticism. Do our theologians, for I do not much trust their acquaintance with history, know what subintroductae, or pareisaktoi, in full blow at that time were? So common that it had to be taken up by councils. I do not defile my pages with what was read in the churches then as holy practice.

And as to doctrine, I will give a specimen from one called an apostolic father, but who was really the brother of Pope Pius the First: "A man had a vineyard and set his servant to stake up the vines. The servant did so, but did more than he had been set to do — cleared the garden of weeds. The Lord of the vineyard consulted with his son and his friends what he should do with his faithful servant, and they agreed he should be made heir with the Son. The servant was Christ, who was set to establish the clergy, but did a great deal more than God had set him to do — namely, cleared away our sins. The Holy Ghost is the Son, the angels the friends." Is not that the church maintaining and forming sound doctrine?

235 But our theologians will tell us, it is hunting up evil and finding some obscure individual, and the church cannot be answerable. It was read in the churches, though more in the east than in the west, is quoted by Irenaeus as Scripture, and treated by Origen as questionable, if it was not inspired. They tell us, as proof of the value of the church forming doctrine, that it was only after long struggle that the formal truth as to Christ's Person was established. His divinity at the council of Nicaea. But what does this mean? They do not mean to deny that the truth as to Christ's Person is in Scripture. It means, therefore, that the church had lost the truth of Christ's Person. And so it was. Scarcely one of the known teachers was sound on the deity of the Lord; and those who were, as Irenaeus, were unsound on other things. And Cyril of Alexandria, who set up the title of Mother of God, was a decided Eutychian, so called afterwards in doctrine, justified himself by the authority of Athanasius: it seems to me, he was warranted in so doing. He was as turbulent a ruffian as ever lived, heading the mob at Alexandria to plunder and ruin, and drive out the Jews when Patriarch of Alexandria, and spending all the possessions of the church of Alexandria, which were immense, to bribe the courtiers and empress-sister of the emperor to banish and persecute Nestorius, in which he succeeded. He canonised the man who sought to murder the governor at Alexandria who put down his rioting. The (Ecumenical Council at Ephesus was as great a scene of iniquity and open violence as occurs in history, so that the Emperor sent troops and put the leaders in prison, from which Cyril escaped, and they bribed the court, Nestorius' patron having died. In the previous Council of Ephesus (the Concio Latronum, convened by the Emperor, attended by the Pope's legates, with every element of a general council) the bishops beat old Flavianus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in such a way that he died of it. It was quashed afterwards through shame.

This was the primitive church, its organic progress to sanctify the world! They could not cure the baptised heathen (in life-contact, we are to believe, with Christ by their baptism) of getting drunk at the festivals (memories, so called, at shrines of their relics) of the demigods: so the church allowed it, putting saints in the place of demigods, that at least they might get drunk in honour of saints instead of demons! The church (that is, the clergy, the interpreters of the Scriptures) did this. You will say, What proof is there of it? Augustine states it, who tried to put it down. The same state of things is mentioned in Paulinus of Nola; and Gregory Thaumaturgus left only seventeen heathen in his diocese by means of it: and it was part of the directions of Pope Gregory the First to another Augustine sent to convert the Saxons. It is a curious fact that Sicily, which had never been converted from heathenism, went over, I may say in a body, to Christianity; and gave up their splendid temples for churches as soon as Mary was declared by the Fourth Council to be "the mother of God." God has preserved His testimony and truth in spite of the church thus viewed — of what Ritualists call the church; He cannot fail. These things were not exceptional, but the general state. But what were saints to do if they listened to the clergy as interpreters when they turned Arian with the emperors — when, as Jerome says, the world awoke and found itself Arian? When even Hosius and the Pope Liberius gave way, were they to follow the clergy or the Scriptures? The Luciferians, a sect named by Jerome, had their name from one Lucifer, who would not go with the world when all the clergy turned Arians. Athanasius is justly held in honour as to this too; but what was the course of the whole body of the clergy? Have the clergy of the church of Rome organically maintained the truth in the worship of the Virgin Mary, or in transubstantiation and the offering of the mass? Let us have it out plainly. Ought people under their jurisdiction to follow their interpretation, and acknowledge their authority? They are just as much clergy as Oxford or Mercersburg. They tell us that God has divided His attribute of Almightiness between Jesus and Mary — almighty justice to Jesus, and almighty mercy to Mary. Are their parishioners to believe this? and, as the present Pope has declared, that we must go to the heart of Jesus through the heart of Mary? Dr. Racy has exposed this.

236 Very likely Mercersburg does not believe these horrid doctrines. But why am I to trust them more than their adversaries; or why acknowledge their competency to interpret more than the Pope's? Am I to believe in purgatory in Savoy, because the clergy teach it; and cross the lake of Geneva, and hold that it is utterly false in the Canton de Vaud, because the clergy teach so there? Am I to hold transubstantiation as vital truth in France; and declare it idle fables and blasphemous deceits in England? Am I to hold that Christ is God in one parish in France, and deny it if I go into the next? For so I must if I listen to the clergy and their interpretation. Were not — though, thank God, there is a reaction — the clergy in France, Germany, Holland, as a body infidel, and still mostly are, or indifferent? It is all well to talk of the church, and hearing the church: but what church am I to hear? The body of the Reformed church was, and in a very large and major part is (particularly the clergy), infidel. Is this the doctrine I am to receive?

237 In Geneva the State has abolished ordination entirely. In Neuchatel it has left every man to preach what he likes; and half the national church have left and set up for themselves. In all the principal cantons infidelity reigns among the clergy; the godly laity are getting tired of them and their nothingarianism. They have said to me in France, "But if we are Christians, we must have some kind of Christ"; and then not so very strict either. In Paris Christianity was carried against avowed infidelity by twelve votes of more than 2,600 voters in the Reformed church. I do not doubt that the Lord is graciously acting, but it is not generally by the clergy but in spite of them.

It is vain to say things are becoming better. What became of souls if they listened or listen to the clergy when they are infidels or rationalists? When the clergy turned Arians with the emperors, were they or the word of God to be listened to? If Mercersburg or others teach false doctrine as to the Person of Christ and the sacraments, am I to be saved by listening to them? Can they answer for my soul "in that day"? They insist on the peccability of Christ: we are therefore authorised in putting the case (the Lord avert the blasphemy from every heart, that He did sin!), putting it as a supposition, for they affirm it to have been possible: "God was united for ever to sinful man." Is it not enough to revolt and repel with horror every true soul? Say it, not to doctors, for God hides things from wise and prudent, but to a poor uninstructed saint: he will make short work with clergy interpretation. What simple majesty is in the statement! "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." For these theologians, who pry into divine secrets and pretend to know the Son, whom none knows but the Father, "the divine" (they are sometimes afraid to say what), "having taken sinful nature up, was gradually victorious over it, purifying it." It was the power of the Highest overshadowing the Virgin Mary for Scripture: for the interpreters, it was "united in the womb to sin in the foetus, and purifying the nature." (Can more offensive folly, of which there is not a word in Scripture, be conceived?* I am ashamed to speak of it, but it must be spoken to put these pretentious men in the true light): and that, for them, is "redemption"!

{*Elsewhere it is: "The victory of sinlessness over remaining depravity by the process of the divine-human life in the womb."}

238 But we have the faith of the church in creeds: the Apostles' Creed, for instance, universally recommended in all ages by the church. Now this is a deception; they know its history well, they will not venture to speak of the ancient fable, for fables were plentiful in those days (there was one Lucius with uncertain name, a coiner of false documents), that each apostle came forward to give one article. The Apostles' Creed is not, as we have it, as ancient as the Nicene Creed. Some analogous formulary was gradually established in each diocese; the Roman creed was pretty much the same as what we have, save some important articles. But what we have, save these, is first given by Ruffinus (published in Fell's Cyprian) in the fourth or fifth century; but there was no descent to hell in it, and, what is more important, no procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. This was added, it is said, from Spain, when the Visigoths gave up Arianism, and thence passed into Gaul; but this was quite late, and Leo put up the creed in silver tablets at Rome that nothing might be added, the Council of Ephesus having forbidden any additions. This article, added none knows how, is rejected by the whole Greek church, and is the avowed cause of division. I say avowed, for it is pretty clear it was ambition and rivalry. I am not insisting on rejecting nor on receiving it; but what if true must be of first-rate importance in the creed has divided the professing church, instead of having a common faith by it.

But these professors, as one of them says, leave the poor Greek church out in the cold. In the recent conferences of the archbishop of Syra with the English prelates, this article could not be got over, and then Dr. Pusey, it is said, declared they were farther off than ever from union. A priest or patriarch in Turkey did let in an English clergyman to communion, but was severely taken to task by the ecclesiastical authority for it. I am not sure, but I rather think, he was excommunicated.

239 But let us take the Apostles' Creed as it stands. There is not a trace in it that Christ is God; an Arian, nay, a Unitarian, could sign it as well as, nay, better than, one who held the fundamental truth of the trinity of Persons in the unity of the Godhead. Is not this rather serious if it is to be the norm of faith? The Father is God and Almighty, and the Son and Holy Ghost spoken of apart with no hint of divinity! Creation is attributed to the Father* exclusively; all that is said of Jesus Christ is referable to what He was when become Man.

{*It is singular enough that, while creation is, of course, ascribed to God in the unity of His Being, when the Persons are distinguished, it is never ascribed to the Father but to the Son and Spirit.}

Now Scripture leaves no shadow of doubt on such subjects. "The Word was with God, and was God." He became Man: "The Word was made flesh." He never became (but in the beginning was) God. When all that has a beginning began, He was; and was a distinct Person. As far as the creed was the expression of early faith (for it was the creed of Aquilina, and we may practically say, of Rome), the church had so lost the faith — at least its teachers the clergy — that it required the council at Nice, with the Emperor presiding and keeping order among the disputing bishops, to get it on the ground of the divinity of the Lord: and larger assemblies unsettled it again, and it took council upon council to set things straight. Nor, mark, are the great branches of the baptised organism agreed which councils are general, which not. Augustine declares them to be no final rule, one correcting the other by clearer light.

I know not that I have more to add. Many errors, and important ones, could be noticed, and ignorance of Scripture flowing from following men's thoughts and system. Thus, we are told, that the Holy Ghost after He came is not called the Spirit of the Father or of the Son. He is both: and as far as I can trust my recollection, only after His coming. But I notice this only to shew the rashness of assertion. Their doctrine is false as to justification by faith; it is for them inherent or infused, though professedly not exactly Romish doctrine.

240 But my only object was the ritualism, the Person of the Lord, and the church, running into this main point: Is redemption by incarnation, or by the death of Christ? They say, formally, by incarnation (the Scriptures, as formally, by the blood of Christ); and all their system hangs on this. As to the clergy, it is Quot homines, tot sententiae, unless we go to Rome, who treat their doctors as outside the church altogether. Take even their friends the English Puseyites (from whom our Mercersburg doctors declare they borrow their sacraments and clerical system, not from Germany — alas! they have no bishops, and, if their friends are to be believed, no organic succession at all, no divine channels of grace whatever: happily in Romanism and Anglicanism the clergy are not necessary to baptism — a midwife can do it, so they may be considered to have life-contact after all!) their Christianity is just saved! As to an interpreting clergy, they are absolutely without any. A goodly system this to secure the truth for the simple! Which am I to believe? Happily I am content with what John, and Paul, and Peter, and the blessed Lord Himself taught, "FROM THE BEGINNING."

"Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming," 1 John 2: 24-28.

The Atonement

J. N. Darby.

<29008E> 241

There is in John 3 a twofold aspect of Christ presented to us, as the object of faith, through which we do not perish but have everlasting life. As Son of man, He must be lifted up; as only-begotten Son of God, He is given by the infinite love of God.

Many souls stop at the first, the Son of man's meeting the necessity in which men stood as sinners before God, and do not look on to that infinite love of God which gave His only-begotten Son — the love which provided the needed lamb, the true source of all this work of grace, which stamps on it its true character and effect, and without which it could not be.

Hence such souls have not true peace and liberty with God. Practically for them the love is only in Christ, and God remains a just and unbending judge. They do not really know Him, the God of love, our Saviour. Others alas! with more fatal error, false as to their own state and God's holiness, with no true or adequate sense of sin, reject all true propitiation. The "must be lifted up" has no moral force for them, nothing that the conscience with a true sense of sin needs.

The former was one great defect of the Reformation, the other comes of modern infidelity, for such it really is. Alas! that defect of the Reformation, as a system of doctrine, is the habitual state of many sincere souls now. But it is sad. Righteousness may reign for them with hope; but it is not grace reigning through righteousness. I repeat, God is not known in His nature of love, nor indeed the present completeness of redemption.

The statement of John 3 begins with the need of man in view of what God is, as indeed it must; but it gives as the source and result of it for the soul, its measure too in grace, that which was in the heart of God towards a ruined world. As in Hebrews 10, to give us boldness to enter into the holiest, the origin is "Lo! I come to do thy will; by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." The offering was the means, but He was accomplishing the will of God in grace, and by the exercise of the same grace in which He came to do it: for "hereby know we love, that he laid down his life for us." So in Romans 5 God commends His love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It is summed up in the full saying: Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

242 This point being premised, and it is an important one, I add that we cannot present too simply the value of Christ's blood, and redemption and forgiveness through it, to the awakened sinner whom that love may have drawn to feel his need; for by need, and because of need, the sinner must come — it is his only just place before God. The love of God, and even His love announced in forgiveness through the work of Christ, may, through the power of the Holy Ghost, awaken the sense of need; still having the forgiveness is another thing. That love brought home to the soul through grace, produces confidence not peace; but it does produce confidence. Hence we come into the light. God is light and God is love. Christ in the world was the light of the world, and He was there in divine love. Grace and truth came (egeneto) by Jesus Christ. When God reveals Himself, He must be both — light and love. The love draws and produces confidence; as with the woman in the city who was a sinner, the prodigal, Peter in the boat The light shews us our sinfulness. We are before God according to the truth of what He is, and the truth of what we are. But the atonement does more than shew this; it meets and is the answer to our case when known. It is the ground, through faith, of forgiveness and peace. (See Luke 7: 47-50.) Christ could anticipate His work, and the child of wisdom go in peace The law may by grace reach the conscience and make us feel our guilt, but it does not reveal God in love. But that love has done what was needed for our sinful state. Hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us. He was delivered for our offences, died for our sins according to the Scriptures, is the propitiation for our sins, set forth as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood, which cleanses from all sin. With His stripes we are healed. I might multiply passages; I only now cite these, that the simple basis of the gospel on the one side, and on the other the work that love has wrought to purge our sins and withal our consciences, so that we may be in peace before a holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, may be simply and fully before us.

We must come as sinners to God, because we are sinners; and we can only come in virtue of that which, while it is the fruit of God's love, meets according to His holy nature the sins we are guilty of. But then, while it is true that our sins are removed far from us who believe through grace, as they were carried into a land not inhabited by the scapegoat in Israel, yet we have only an imperfect view of the matter in seeing our sins put away. In that great day of atonement the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it; just as it was sprinkled on the lintel and two door-posts to meet God's eye. "When I see the blood," He says, "I will pass over." It was in view of the sin of Israel, but presented to God. The goat whose blood was shed was called, on the great day of atonement, "Jehovah's lot." The blood was carried within; so it was with the bullock, and with the bullock it was exclusively this. The testimony was there, blessed be God, that as dwellers on the earth our sins have been carried off where none shall find them; but what characterised the day was putting the blood on the mercy-seat — presenting it to God. On this day only, too, it was done. In the case of the sin of the congregation, or of the high priest, it was sprinkled on the altar outside the veil; but on the great day of atonement alone on the mercy-seat within.

243 Now, though the sinner must come as guilty and because of his need, and can come rightly in no other way, as the poor prodigal and so many other actual cases, yet this does not reach to the full character of propitiation or atonement, though in fact involving it. The divine glory and nature are in question. In coming we come by our need and wants; but if we have passed in through the veil, we can contemplate the work of Christ in peace, as viewed in connection with God's nature, though on our part referring to sin. The sins, then, were carried away on the scapegoat, but what God is was specially in view in the blood carried within the veil. The sins were totally and for ever taken off the believers, and never found; but there was much more in that which did it, and much more even for us. God's character and nature were met in the atonement, and through this we have boldness to enter into the holiest. This distinction appears in the ordinary sacrifices. They were offered on the brazen altar, and the blood sprinkled there. Man's responsibility was the measure of what was required. His case was met as to guilt; but if he was to come to God, into His presence, he must be fit for the holiness of that presence.

Not only Christ has borne our sins, but He has perfectly glorified God on the cross, and the veil is rent, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest. The blood, therefore, of the bullock and of the goat, which was Jehovah's lot, was brought into the holiest. The other goat was the people's lot, this Jehovah's: He was dishonoured by sin; and Christ the holy One was made sin for us, was before God according to what God was in His holy and righteous nature.

244 Now, says the Lord, is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him; and man entered into the holiest, into heaven itself. Having glorified God in the very place of sin as made it before God, He enters into that glory on high. Love to God, His Father, and absolute obedience at all costs, was perfected where He stood as sin before God. All that God is was glorified here, and here only: His majesty — it became Him to maintain His glory in the moral universe, and thus in bringing many sons to glory, that He should make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering; His truth was made good; perfect, righteous judgment against sin, yet perfect love to the sinner. Had God cut off man for sin, there was no love; had He simply forgiven and passed over all sins, there would have been no righteousness. People might have sinned on without its being any matter. There would have been no moral government. Man must have stayed away from God, and misery and allowed sin have had their fling; or he must have been admitted into God's presence in sin, and sin been allowed there; man incapable withal of enjoying God, and, as sensible of good and evil, more miserable than ever.

But in the cross perfect righteousness against sin is displayed and exercised, and infinite love to the sinner. God is glorified in His nature, and salvation to the vilest, and access to God, according to the holiness of that nature, provided for and made good, and this in the knowledge, in the conscious object of it, of the love that had brought it there; a perfect and cleansing work in which that love was known. This, while the sins were put away, could only be by the cross: God revealed in love, God holy and righteous against sin, while the sins of the sinner were put away, his conscience purged, and by grace, his heart renewed, in the knowledge of a love beyond all his thoughts; himself reconciled to God, and God glorified in all that He is, as He could not else be; perfect access to God in the holiest, where that blood, the testimony to all this, has been presented to God, and the sins gone for ever, according to God's righteousness while the sinner has the consciousness of being accepted according to the value of that sacrifice, in which God has been perfectly glorified, so that the glory of God and the sinner's presence there were identified. Angels would learn, and principalities and powers, what they could learn nowhere else.

245 And this marks the two parts of propitiation — man's responsibility, and access to God given according to His glory and nature: in the sins borne and put away, the scapegoat, God judging evil according to what man ought to be; and access to God according to what He is. The last specifically characterises the Christian; but the former was necessary, and accomplished for every one that believes; both by the same work of the cross, but each distinct — judicial dealing according to man's responsibility, access to God according to His nature and holiness. I he law in itself was the measure of the former, the child of Adam's duty; the nature of God, of the latter, so that we have the infinite blessedness of being with God according to His nature and perfection, partaking of the divine nature, so as to be able to enjoy it, holy and without blame before Him in love. Of this Christ as Man, and we must add as Son withal, is the measure and perfection; and let it not be said that, if we partake of this nature, we need not this propitiation and substitution. This can only be said or supposed by those who have not got it; because, if we partake of the divine nature, we judge of sin in principle as God does, we have His mind as to it, and as upright of ourselves as in it, and so come, as I have said, first in lowliness in our need to the cross, and, then purged in conscience, comprehend the glory of God in it.

These two points, in their general aspect, are clearly presented in Hebrews 9: 26-28: Christ appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; and as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. It is carried out in application in chapter 10, where we have no more conscience of sins, and boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

But this leads us to a still wider bearing of the work of the cross. The whole question of good and evil was brought to an issue there: man in absolute wickedness and hatred against God manifested in goodness and love; Satan's whole power as prince of this world, and having the power of death; man in perfect goodness in Christ, obedience and love to His Father, and this in the place of sin as made it, for it was there the need was for God's glory and eternal redemption; God in perfect righteousness, and majesty, and in perfect love. So that all was perfectly settled morally for ever. The fruits will be only complete in the new heavens and new earth, though the value of that work be now known to faith; but what is eternal is settled for ever by it, for its value is such and cannot change.

246 Propitiation, then, meets our sins through grace, according to God's holy nature, to which it is presented and which has been fully glorified in it. It meets the requirements of that nature. Yet is it perfect love to us; love, indeed, only thus known as wrought between Christ and God alone, the only part we had in it being our sins, and the hatred to God which killed Christ.

But it does more, being according to God's nature, and all that this nature is in every respect. It not only judicially meets what is required by reason of our sins, man's failure in duty, and his guilt, but it opens access into the presence of God Himself known in that nature which has been glorified in it. Love, God in love working unsought, has through grace made us love, and we are reconciled to God Himself according to all that He is, our conscience having been purged according to His glory, so that love may be in unhindered confidence. Man sits at the right hand of God in virtue of it, and our souls can delight in all that God is, our conscience being made perfect by that which has been wrought. No enfeebling or lowering the holiness of God in His judicial estimate of and dealing with sin; on the contrary, all that He is thus glorified, no pleading goodness to make sin light; but God in the will and love of salvation met in that judgment and holiness, and the soul brought to walk in the light, as He is in the light, and in the love which is His being and nature, without blame before Him, a perfect conscience so as to be free before Him, but a purged one which has judged of sin as He does, but learned what sin is in the putting of it away. Without the atonement or propitiation of Christ this is impossible. God is not brought in: it is but human goodness which drops holiness and overlooks sin or estimates it according to mere natural conscience. Christ has died, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

247 It is not innocence, for the knowledge of good and evil is there, nor the slighting of God and an unpurged conscience, nor even the return to the former state of Adam (not knowing good and evil, innocent), but God fully revealed and known in majesty and light and love, and we brought to Him according to that revelation in perfect peace and joy by a work done for us, which has met and glorified His majesty and light and love in the place of sin, as made it, by Him who knew no sin.

The full result will only be in the new heavens and new earth, the eternal state of blessedness, a condition of happiness not dependent on fulfilling the responsibility in which he who enjoyed it was placed and in which he failed, but based on a finished work accomplished to the glory of God in the very place of ruin, the value of which can never in the nature of things change; it is according to the nature and character of God, it is done and is always what it is, and all is eternally stable. Righteousness, not innocence, dwells in the new heavens and the new earth, not feeble man responsible, but God glorified for evermore. The result is not all there yet; but we know that the work is done through the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and we wait as believers for our portion in the rest when all shall be accomplished, accepted in the Beloved.

Judgment is according to man's responsibility, shut out then judicially into that exclusion from God into which man has cast himself: blessing is according to the thoughts and purpose and nature of God in the exceeding riches of His grace displayed in our salvation through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ come to bring us into His presence as sons.

Sin and sins are before God in the cross, and propitiation wrought. There sin and sins met God, but in the work of love according to holiness and righteousness, which brings to God according to His nature those who come to Him by it, cleared from them all for ever.

In commenting on Dr. Waldenstrom's statements* as to the atonement, I would begin by saying that I entirely agree with him (and indeed I have long insisted on this in contrast with the church confessions of the Reformation), that it is man who is reconciled to God, and that Scripture never speaks of God's being reconciled to man. The statement and the thought are wholly unscriptural, and shock rather the scripturally-taught mind. And it alters the whole tone of the gospel and the state of soul as to God, both as to peace and the sanctifying power of the truth, for it is the truth which sanctifies. That God is always the same and immutable is assuredly true. Thank God, it is so. There is one thing stable; or what would be?

{*Om försoningens betydelse af P. Waldenström, Stockholm.}

248 But while fully acknowledging this, it seems to me that some of Dr. Waldenström's thoughts come from tradition, or from his own mind, not from the word of God; and these I would briefly notice, while my heart would encourage him in his conflict in maintaining the truth of which I have just spoken. And here I would add that I look to the Scriptures alone as the foundation and source of truth; on them alone I shall base any doctrine; and if I call in question any statement of Dr. W.'s, it will be because it is not in the word; and I present to him these remarks, first of all, that he may weigh them before the Lord, remembering how important the truth is, and how all blessing and sanctification flow to our souls by it through grace. It is to the Scriptures that the apostle refers us in 2 Timothy 3 when the perilous times should be come. And are they not here?

Dr. Waldenström's first proposition is "that no change has been effected in the heart of God by the fall." Now as to God's nature, this is surely true. If He is love, He is always love; if righteous, always righteous; if holy, always holy. But because He changes not, His relationship towards others changes, and His conduct and dealings, because they are changed.

God would not, could not, because He did not change, drive man out of paradise when he was innocent. This would have been a change in God if there was none in man. But He did drive him out when he had sinned, because the righteousness (which would have left him to enjoy in innocence the blessings in the midst of which He had placed him while unchanged, and because He Himself did not change) now had to deal with one that was changed, and therefore dealt differently, dealt judicially, with the guilty and alienated, which He had not to do before. Leaving him to enjoy the tree of life, and turning him out and barring the way to it was an immense difference, an immense change, not in God, but in God's ways and dealings with man because He did not change. And to say that God does not change in Himself does not meet the question. Even the love was quite different in its ways and character. The love of complacency in what He had made good is very different from the sovereign love of mercy which works to redeem a fallen, defiled, and guilty creature. God rested when all was created, and all was good; but, when Jesus was maliciously accused of violating the Sabbath, His sovereignly beautiful answer was, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." How could the love of God, a holy God, rest in sin and misery? It could work in grace, but it could not rest. And there is a revelation of that in God in redemption which had no place in innocence. "God commendeth his love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Love takes the character of grace to what is in enmity, not of complacency in what was His own work.

249 Here let me remark that, if I do not mistake him, Dr. W., with all who rest in theological traditions, reckons Adam to be righteous and holy. He was neither, but innocent. To be righteous or holy requires the knowledge of good and evil, and this Adam had not till he fell; and the difference is immense. We have only to speak of God as innocent, and the believer's heart at once revolts from it — is offended by it. Righteous and holy He surely is.

This difference in Adam is clearly and formally stated in Scripture. It was the promise of Satan (Gen. 3: 5), and Jehovah Elohim declares it to be so (v. 22). Tradition has falsified all this, but the word is clear and certain. It does not mean, "You shall know evil who before knew only good." Would Satan have proposed such a thing as this to him, or, still more, could it have this sense in God's mouth? "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." No, he was before innocent, and now makes inwardly the difference between right and wrong, not merely by an imposed law as tradition teaches, but inwardly as God does, though he may be hardened or misled as God cannot be. We must not confound the rule for conscience with conscience. The law is the perfect rule for the conscience of Adam's fallen children, Christ's walk for the Christian; and this the soul taught of God accepts, and with delight. The conscience takes knowledge of the difference of what is right and what is wrong.

250 Further, the question is not, as Dr. W. states it, "If the fall was an obstacle in the way of man's salvation." It was no obstacle to his salvation. Salvation was not needed without the fall; but it was an obstacle, and in itself an absolute one, to man's acceptance as he was. Christ came to save what was lost, and that, because God was not changed but remained holy and righteous — is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity." I do not speak of God's wrath against the world being the obstacle; but the unconverted man is under wrath, a child of wrath. I do not say this was an obstacle to salvation; it was not, because God was sovereign in goodness.

But Scripture does not speak of the matter as Dr. W. does. He asks, "How could he be propitiated that loved?" A person who loves deeply and truly may require something in order that he may shew favour. The eternal maintenance of the unchangeableness of God's character, of the nature of good and evil as He sees it, may require it. Not merely man's being saved is in question, for that is not the result of Christ's death as to all men, if He did die for all, but the public testimony to the immutability of God's nature, and to maintain it in the sight of the universe; yea, to lay the foundation of the immutable blessing of the new heavens and the new earth according to what God is, supreme as righteous, holy, and love. A father with the most perfect love to his child may require for the order of his family that satisfaction to his authority, what maintains it before all, and the rules of his house, be done. "It became him [God] for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings," Heb. 2: 10. It became Him. Did He not love that blessed One? Yet it became Him to do this. So that this statement of Dr. W.'s is alike inadequate and incorrect. There is that which becomes God because of what He is, which is not love, though love be His unchangeable nature.

And now see how Scripture actually speaks of the very point. It does not simply say that, where sin abounded, love did much more abound, but grace did much more abound. But more. We were by nature the children of wrath: it was our natural inheritance from God; for whose wrath is spoken of? What belonged to us? "But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us." So that wrath against us, as our natural portion from God, is not inconsistent with infinite and sovereign love. Thus Christ in the synagogue looked upon them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The grief was love, the anger His righteous estimate of their sin.

251 Grace reigns, blessed be God, but it is through righteousness; Rom. 5. Dr. W. seems to say it is in making us practically righteous by removing our sins. But it is "God's righteousness." Does he question it is God's wrath? I quote Romans 1: 17, 18, for both, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed." Why? "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." And then Paul proceeds to prove all the world guilty before God as the reason of this. It is not true, therefore, that wrath cannot be where there is love. A father full of love may be rightly angry with his child, and when Dr. W. says "wrath in the heart," he is misled altogether, and confounds hatred with judicial anger. There is no hatred in God to man assuredly. Yet God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day and ought to be so.

Farther on Dr. W. admits that there is wrath against sin in God's mind, and therefore against the sinner while he abides in the sin; but what God does is to take away the criminality by Christ, and so He can love the sinner, and His wrath has no ground as the sin is gone. Now, as thus put, it is merely the personal state of the sinner which removes the wrath in removing the occasion of it. And this is doubly, and in every way false. First, it mars the perfectness of God's sovereign love. God loved us while we were sinners, and this is characteristic of His love, His saving love; and, secondly, it ignores the righteousness of God, and the work by which judicially the sins were put away. I do not mean that he denies that Christ died for our sins as a fact; but it is merely the effect in us which removes the wrath, the state we are in which leaves God free to love us; our criminality is gone, we are cleansed, so there is no object of wrath left because we are clean. He speaks indeed of God's wrath being His justice, but all his reasoning is that there is no "change in the disposition from anger to kindness."

But peace had to be made when there was wrath, and the sovereign love that saves is not the favour which rests on those reconciled; Rom. 5: 1. God loved us when we were sinners; He loves us without any change when we are cleansed. But we are cleansed, reconciled, we are told. Now I fully recognise, and insist on it, that God loved us when we were sinners, and that we are reconciled. But then, according to Dr. W., the only change is in our state, which leaves God free to love us; whereas He loved us when we were in our sins. The change spoken of is by the operation and work of grace in us. The work of Christ we needed is wholly left out. I do not mean that Dr. W. in terms denies there was an atonement; he says, Scripture teaches the necessity of an atonement. But what is this? Is it anything towards God? "The reconciliation must be effected by our recovering the righteousness in which God through His righteousness could again become our eternal life." There are as many errors as thoughts here; but I only notice now that the mediatorial work of atonement is simply a change in our actual state, otherwise "the righteous One is a consuming fire for the unrighteous," and so over and over again. I quote one passage more: "No: where there is sin, there is wrath; God's wrath is unchangeably manifest, as sure as God is God." I ask in passing, Is there no sin in us? "His justice can take no other form against sin but that of wrath, and it is impossible that there should be sin without the wrath of God." "But where there is righteousness, there is no wrath to be quenched, for there can be none." "But an individual who is blameless respecting the law is outside its wrath, and instead thereof enjoys its blessings." Did God then not love us when we were sinners? If He did, and it is impossible there should be sin without the wrath of God, wrath and love go together. All Dr. W.'s system is false.

252 The truth is, all this confounds divine favour resting on us in Christ, and sovereign love to the sinner. The first part of what the Lord says in John 3 is thus left out: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." The Son of man, He who represented man, must be lifted up — die on the cross, and where was such a lamb to be found? "God so loved the world that he gave his onlybegotten Son." The "Son of man" must be lifted up, the "Son of God" was given, the same blessed Person; but "Son of man," to die for man's need, standing for man before God; "Son of God," vessel and proof of God's sovereign love. He is therefore spoken of as representing man, which Dr. W. denies, and not merely God. Nor did He, properly speaking, represent God in dying, nor in being made sin. His doing so was the effect of God's infinite love to man, which was His own withal; but in the work thus wrought He suffered as Son of man made sin. This could not represent God. If the world be reconciled, the relationship is changed, though God be not. But this Scripture never says.* Christ, Dr. W. tells us, "was struck by the curse of God's wrath against sin." "He descended," he says, "into our sin," and so was "struck by the curse of God's wrath."** Whom did He represent then? Was Christ, as Man made sin for us and struck by the curse, representing God in this place? That His doing so was the effect of infinite divine love is true; but did sin, and wrath, and the curse represent in the infliction of it God's love or God's righteous wrath against sin? By the grace of God He tasted death, being made a little lower than the angels to that end; but was His tasting death, and drinking that dreadful cup, and sweating as it were great drops of blood at only thinking of it, God's love to Him or apprehended by Him? Did He pray, that if it were possible, the cup might pass, meaning the cup of God's love?

{*The Swedish translation in 2 Corinthians 5: 19 says, God has reconciled the world, not God was in Christ reconciling. So far, Dr. W. is excusable; but he knows Greek. The translator is inexcusable. I suppose he followed Luther, who also so translates it. But there is no possible pretence for so translating it in the Greek; the Vulgate does not. And so far from being reconciled, the world rejected Him when He came. Hence the ministry of the apostle was beseeching them to be reconciled. I shall always treat the passage as it really is.}

{**I am told the exact translation is the curse and wrath. But this makes no difference.}

253 I am told it was to justify us, to make us righteous. All true; and His not sparing His own Son was the infinite love of God. But what was Christ doing and suffering then in order to that end? We must not slip away from it by confounding the effect in believers and the work or suffering which wrought that effect. God does look upon believers with complacency as righteous in Christ, and the result is far greater and more admirable than all that Dr. W. speaks of. He has obtained for us to be partakers of His own glory according to the counsels of God; but the wrath of God, His judicial wrath against the sin, was removed by Christ's being made sin for us and bearing our sins, not by our state in consequence of it, which is the effect of that. "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." If the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, He was substituted in drinking that dreadful cup for us. He was our (believers') representative there. God dealt with Him so because of our sins which were laid upon Him, and for that reason peace comes to us; not because we became actually righteous: our peace is the effect of His chastisement. You may quarrel with the word 'appease,' and confound judicial stripes with 'hatred'; but do not let us lose what Dr. W. does not deny, though he argues it away in taking 'wrath' for 'hatred,' and making the ground of our peace our actual state of righteousness; whereas we are made the righteousness of God in Christ because He has been made sin for us; 2 Cor. 5: 21.

254 Our peace is the fruit of God's judicial chastisement falling on Christ. If not, of what is it the fruit? "He was struck when he descended into our sin" (was made sin for us) "by the curse of God's wrath against sin." The sin then, according to Dr. W., has been dealt with in wrath. Whose sin? If Christ descended into our sin (an expression by no means agreeable to me), and the curse of God's wrath came upon Him for it, it is not simply God's loving us. Righteousness dealt with sin in wrath, and thus God's anger (the curse) was executed, and so peace was made: His anger was turned away from us. When He who knew no sin was made sin for us, the curse fell on Him. Never was Christ so precious to His Father as then. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life." But this is not the question. Did not "the curse of God's wrath" which was due to our sins come upon Him? He had no sin; He was delivered for our offences, and "the curse of wrath" came. If as our representative He bore our sins, and God's curse and wrath came upon Him, He was our representative so as to have the curse upon Him, for because of those sins He so suffered and drank the cup, and the anger was over and gone, as regards all that believe. The anger against our sins had to be executed, and so ceased; with us it would have been eternal condemnation, but through a mediator's stepping in and taking the curse He has redeemed us from it. Christ has redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us. Infinite love, no doubt; but whom did Christ represent when "the curse" came upon Him for sin? Was it God when He laid on Him our iniquity? That He was God, and else could not have done it, is all blessedly true; but it is not the question. Did He represent God in suffering the curse which God laid upon Him? He glorified God: that is true ("Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him"). And glorifying God was the first grand object, and not merely love to us. This was part of the glory, no doubt, but it was not all. It is not simply that God was putting away our sins, but there was a mediator with whom He was dealing about sins. God was making Him sin, and dealing with Him in the way of a curse because of it, when He had "offered himself without spot to God." Curse and wrath have been executed; and thus peace has been made. It is not without God's dealing with sin, that He has treated us as righteous, nor was our being made righteous "recovering our righteousness" (a wholly unscriptural thought) which made God righteously favourable to us; but He held us to be righteous because of what the mediator had done, and this was not representing God, but "the man Christ Jesus" bearing the curse of wrath from God. According to Dr. W. himself God takes vengeance. He is not unrighteous who taketh vengeance, and He claims it exclusively to Himself: "Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord." Assuredly this is righteous judgment with Him, not passion or hatred; but it is real. Christ will appear "taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

255 But through a mediator there is peace made for us. The Red Sea which destroyed the Egyptians was a safeguard, and the way of deliverance, for Israel And it is to this work of Christ God looks in sparing and forgiving, not to the state we are in in consequence of it, true as that consequence may be. When Jehovah executed judgment in Egypt, He did not say, "When I see them righteous, through the slain lamb of course, I shall not smite them"; nor "I will spare them because they have recovered righteousness." The blood was to be put outside the house to meet God's eye, and He says — "When I see the blood, I will pass over you," Exod. 12: 13. And if I am justified by faith, faith in what? Not faith in my state of righteousness; but faith in the Person and blood-shedding and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I do know I am forgiven and cleansed through it, but my faith is not in that; for faith in my being righteous cannot be what justifies me, but faith in Christ and His work does justify me. I believe that God has accepted that work. Anger and wrath rested on me; Christ stepped in between and drank the dreadful cup, and there is no more anger for me. There was wrath outstanding against me, and now there is not: call it "appeasing" or not, that is the truth. It is not that God does not impute my sins, because I am now righteous and there is nothing to impute, but because Christ has borne them. I believe on Him who raised up Christ from the dead, delivered for our offences, raised again for our justification; and having been justified by faith I have peace with God; Rom. 4: 24, 25; 5: 1.

256 My present state of righteousness, though it may be the reason why there is no cause for wrath now, says nothing about my past sins, nor can it be the means of clearing them away; but a real work of Christ suffering for sins, the Just for the unjust. That work may be the means of bringing us into that state, so that God looks on us with complacency. But what did the work? what cleared the sins? Was the cup, and what Dr. W. calls "the curse of wrath," love in itself? Love to us may have caused its being done; but what was it that was done?

And here I must make a remark as to Dr. W.'s use of Romans. He only uses the second part, which does not treat of our guilt by our sins, but of our state by Adam's sin. "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners," Rom. 5: 19. The two parts of the Epistle are quite distinct. The division is between verses 11 and 12 of chapter 5. The first treats of our sins and guilt, the second of our sin and state before God; and, though the cross be the remedy for both, yet the difference of its use is very marked. "Christ died for our sins" is what avails in the first part. Believers have died with Christ in the second; they are no longer before God in the flesh. They are "in Christ," "in the Spirit." Their status is changed, they pass (having been "crucified with Christ") out of Adam into Christ. Now this does refer to their standing or state. The first part of the Epistle on the contrary deals with the guilt of their own sins, the sins they are guilty of as children of Adam. This first part escapes Dr. W.'s attention altogether, and it is in this that "propitiation" is found (Rom. 3: 25), not in the second. Christ died for us in the first part; in the second we are "in Christ," "not in the flesh." He was "delivered for our offences," in the first part (Rom. 4: 25); "our old man is crucified with him" in the second.

Now I shall have some remarks to make on the use of the second part; but I here notice the first. After having spoken of the guilt of Gentiles and Jews, and that God's wrath was revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, the apostle tells us that God had "set forth Christ for a mercy-seat through faith in his blood to declare his [God's] righteousness for the remission of sins that are past . . . to declare at this time his righteousness, so that he is righteous and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus," Rom. 3: 25, 26. It is not man's righteousness, but God's in justifying a sinner. God's wrath has been "revealed from heaven." Guilt was there, and consequently wrath was there. Guilt is put away, so that wrath should not and does not reach the believer, though one guilty and deserving it. How so? Christ is presented to man as "a mercy-seat," where he could approach God according to "God's righteousness." And how so? "By faith in his blood." And to whom was the blood presented on the mercy-seat, as on the lintel and the two door-posts? To God. It was not God seeing man's righteousness, and so having nothing about which to shew wrath, but having Christ's blood presented to Him which caused the wrath due to man, as guilty, to be passed away, and not to be inflicted. God sets forth Christ in this character to poor sinners in the gospel to reconcile them; but what He presents is that the blood has been presented to Him in the sanctuary, and He justifies not the righteous, because they are so, but the ungodly, because Christ has died for our sins, and He sees the blood and passes over, and man can approach through faith in Christ's blood.

257 All this aspect of the truth is passed over by Dr. W. He turns to the state of those in Christ in contrast with Adam, the second part of the Romans, and speaks of "justification of life" for those who have died with Him, and forgets the justification of "the ungodly" through faith in the blood shed for our sins. My faith, in coming to the mercy-seat, is in that which has been done for the ungodly, in the blood which has been carried into the holiest, and not in my state as having "recovered righteousness," so that there can be no wrath against me. God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ's blood; not the righteous, because there is no ground for wrath. Justifying is even wrongly used. Even in the second part of Romans it is "of many offences to justification"; not complacency and absence of wrath, because man has righteousness. And wrath is not spoken of there as ceased; but that, if He has reconciled us when enemies, having been reconciled "we shall be saved from wrath through him" in "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

258 Nor was it merely forgiving our transgressions that was the effect of Christ's work. He "suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." The great day of atonement tells us the same tale and the same truth: only then it was signified by "the veil" that men could not go into "the holiest"; whereas now the believer can boldly. Dr. W. affirms that there was but one meaning to both goats; but this is contrary both to the institution and to the explanation in Hebrews. As to the institution, one was called "Jehovah's lot," the other was for the people: not that the first was not in view of the people's sins, but there was the double thought — (1) of Jehovah's glory and nature in the holiest; and (2) the removing the sins of the people according to their responsibility, gone where they never should be found. Nothing can be more distinctly set before us than this double character; it is one that runs through all the sacrifices and estimates of sin. They may be measured by the responsibility of man as God's creature, and the law is the perfect measure of that, and that is a question of positive guilt, and in general sacrifices at the brazen altar were in view of that; or they may be looked at as fitting me for the presence of God in light. Into this the Jew could not come, whereas we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the new and living way." The goat whose blood was shed and Hazazel were practically one; but it is evidently a double aspect of Christ's atoning sacrifice: the slain goat was "Jehovah's lot," the other not. This surely meant something; all God's nature and character were connected with it.

I say this not as an opinion, but as stated of Christ as the ground of His being in glory as Man. "Now" (when Judas went out) "is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him," John 13: 31. So in John 17: 4, "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now glorify thou me with thine ownself with the glory I had with thee before the world was." God's glory and the glorifying of Christ are the effects of the cross here, not the putting away of our sins only, which lowers it in its character, blessed as that truth is for us. It was thus "Jehovah's lot." So He was "God's lamb to put away the sin [not the sins] of the world." "He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9: 26), a matter clearly distinct in Hebrews 9 from "bearing the sins of many" (v. 28). The blood was presented to God. God had been dishonoured by sin, His fair creation all spoiled and come under the bondage of corruption, His race of predilection (man, in whom His purposes were) the slave of sin and Satan. His glory had to be retrieved, and in the very place of sin; thank God that such a thing should be! As a Man, Christ did so. All that God is was glorified, man perfectly obedient at all cost, the Father perfectly loved, His majesty, truth, righteousness against sin, and love to sinners, all brought out and made good through the blessed One who suffered. We bless God unceasingly, and shall for ever, that it was in that which was done for us. Still we have the Lord's words for it that it was "glorifying God," where He makes no allusion to its being for us. Only man is gone into God's glory through it.

259 Hence the blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it, and also on the altar of incense; and this was the way of approach to God, not merely of putting away guilt, for we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and the incense altar is our place as priests. Nor, though it was done in respect of the sins of the people, was it the cleansing them or forgiving them. It was what belonged to God, the holy place and the altar of incense, the place where God dwelt, which had to be cleansed, not the people. It was not forgiving them, though the basis of that, but "Jehovah's lot" cleansing the place of His presence, shewing the character of Him who dwelt there who could not bear sin and uncleanness. Then the people's sins were laid on Hazazel and carried away. But what concerns "Jehovah's lot" is all left out in Dr. W.'s scheme; it is reduced to what was accomplished in Hazazel. Even as to this Dr. W. in his general thought loses its real force, and makes it a reconciliation of the world, an abstract putting away of sin for all, not the actual real, effectual, putting away of sins but of this I will speak further on, when I come to speak of certain passages which he quotes not according to the word of God.

My object now is to shew that the great effect of the distinction of the two goats, and, I may add, of what was done with the bullock, whose blood was employed as one of them, is lost and set aside by Dr. W., and the bringing us to God in the holiest (not merely clearing the world) dropped — the highest and especial blessing of the saint; and this done, not by forgiving His people, but by presentation of the blood to God, by whom the excellency of this sacrifice in which He has been glorified in respect, yea, through the very means, of sin, is justly estimated. It is far more than forgiveness, it is being brought to God; and by that which is done Godward, in respect of what God is, not manward, though the occasion be what man has done. It is entirely arbitrary to say that Jehovah's lot and the goat for the people have the same signification, though both refer to the sacrifice of Christ. In one God was glorified in respect of the sin that had come in, in the other the sins were removed from the people. It is not all that men be forgiven: sin must be removed out of God's sight; and He has done what accomplishes this blessed purpose. It is what reveals and glorifies God Himself in a wholly new way.

260 Moreover, the just anger which rested on the guilty on God's part is removed as to the believer by the sacrifice of Christ, call it "appeasing" or what you will. It did not change God, but it changed the relative attitude of God towards the sinner. What He is, and will be in judging, actually towards the sinner, He is not towards the believer, not because of what the believer is become, but because of what has been done for him in the sacrifice of Christ. As when God said when He smelt the sweet savour of Noah's sacrifice, "I will no more curse"; not because man was become good, for He adds for "the imagination of the thoughts of his heart is evil from his youth."

In sum, then, the blood was presented to God for Him to see, on the door, on the mercy-seat; and Christ entering in not without blood was the witness that He had suffered, borne the sins, been forsaken of God, drunk the dreadful cup. That was not love, it was death, the curse, what Dr. W. calls "the curse of wrath" (an expression I should not use), and consequently God acted differently towards the believer from what He must have acted, had this not been done; not because He was changed, but because He was not; but acted according to His constantly righteous nature. He did not love us because we had recovered righteousness, but when we were sinners. The system of Dr. W. diminishes the love, and alters its character as much as it does the righteousness. God smelled a sweet savour, a eth reach hanichoach, the odour of rest, and said, I will no more curse, and this is called ilasmos, ilaskesthai, and the mercy-seat ilasterion in the New Testament. Now, those words refer to God. They involve forgiveness and favour, but favour obtained by the sacrifice of Christ presented to God. I do not say love caused, for it was infinite love gave the Son to be the lamb of propitiation; but that love wrought by a work which maintained the righteousness and holiness of God in forgiving and justifying: and, though the word may be used for the effect, it is applied to God in the New Testament, and its meaning is "propitiation" or "appeasing." "Reconciling," which is applied to believers, is a totally different word, katallasso katallage. The ilasmos was offered to God, ilasterion was where His blood was placed on God's throne, and it was God who was the object of ilaskesthai, man of katallage (1 John 2: 2; Rom. 3: 25; Heb. 2: 17); and as to katallasso, see Romans 5: 10, 11; 2 Corinthians 5: 18-21; Colossians 1: 20, 21. As to the last word Dr. W. is right. It is man, not God, who is reconciled; but Dr. W. has failed in giving its force to the former.

261 I must now shew that connected with this there are a number of statements made by Dr. W. which are from traditional habits of thinking, not from Scripture. The question of sin has wholly lost its judicial character in Dr. W.'s mind. He sees only the moral condition of the sinner. "He who continues in sin is struck by God's wrath against sin, nor is this relationship altered by the death of Christ." "To be carnally minded is death; if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: whenever there is sin, there is unchangeably God's wrath, as surely as God is a righteous God, and salvation from this wrath is only to be obtained by justification from sin," Rom. 5: 9. Now all this seems fair enough; but it misrepresents the case, because it confounds the ceasing to be carnally minded (that is, my state) with justification from sin, which is wholly and solely by the work of another, though it may be accompanied by a work in me which does change my state. But the whole statement is a mistake as to the gospel, even as to the love shewn in it. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them": and this was when the blessed Lord was here in the world. It was God's way of dealing when the trespasses were there. And, as to justification, it is not the morally righteous He justifies, but the ungodly; Rom. 4: 5. We are "justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation [mercy-seat] through faith in his blood."

262 Do not let the reader suppose that this implies continuance in sin. That question is met by Romans 6, but not by weakening what goes before in Romans, which really treats the judicial question, but by adding the truth of a new divine life, and death to sin, in Christ. It remains that by one man's obedience many are made righteous. The world will always charge this as being an allowance of sin; but the believer who has a new life knows better. A holy nature, Christ become his life, hates the sin; but this is holiness, not righteousness; and one who is convinced of guilt does not reject the forgiveness and justification of the guilty, because he knows he wants it, though he may be kept a long while from peace because he confounds the two.

Dr. W. does not deny, it will be said, that Christ was a propitiatory sacrifice.* He does not. What then does a propitiatory sacrifice mean? Was it offered to God or to man? Whom does it propitiate? It is not that man is versöhnt (reconciled), but sühne (propitiation) presented to God. He accepts the words but denies the thing; for example, "If we regard the plain words of Scripture respecting Christ's redemption, we find them treat solely of man's reconciliation." "It is not, God laid His wrath on Him." This is quite untrue. I do not use the word 'wrath'; but stripes, chastisement. He was wounded, bruised for our iniquities, is said. Dr. W. will answer, It was that we might be healed. Thank God it was. But what happened that we might be? Dr. W. calls it "the curse of God's wrath." How can he say God did not lay His wrath upon Him? His mind is running rightly on our being reconciled, and divine love in it; but he contradicts himself when he admits that, when Christ descended into our sin (was made sin for us), the curse of wrath came upon Him. And what he says just afterwards is unfounded and contradictory to itself and Scripture. "It is correct to say that God's justice was satisfied by Christ's atonement, not any demand of God's justice for vengeance over the sinner, for God loved him, but the demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification as a condition of his salvation." This is the merest sophistry. What did that justice demand for this justification? Was it not, according to Dr. W., "the curse of wrath" on Christ? Call it "curse of wrath" or just vengeance against sin, is alike. "Vengeance is mine: I will recompense, saith the Lord" — emoi ekdikesis, ego antapodoso, legei Kurios. nagam ushilem belong to God, and wrath is revealed now from heaven against all ungodliness, not merely temporal judgment, as in the government of the world. What was the "demand of God's justice for the sinner's justification"? Was it "the curse of wrath" or not? I use in both cases Dr. W.'s words. All this reasoning of Dr. W. avoids the question. The object of the atonement, he tells us, was to remove his (man's) sins; but this was not all: there was glorifying God; but I only ask now, What in the atonement did remove the sins? Was it "the curse of wrath"? and, if so, whose wrath?

{*But then the love that gave Him was love to sinners in their sins and under wrath.}

263 But I turn now to expressions in which Dr. W. states his system, for which he has no warrant in Scripture: "I find it everywhere written that God through Christ reconciled the world to himself." It is nowhere so written.* If it be said, let us have "faithful adherence to the words of Scripture," I read, "God was in Christ reconciling the world." But, so far from its being reconciled, "the world knew him not," and "his own received him not." It is the statement of God's dealing with the world when here, and goes on then, as a distinct thing, to "the ministry of reconciliation" in the apostle; Christ, who knew no sin, having been "made sin for us." But in no way or form does it say the world has been reconciled. 2 Corinthians 5: 17, 18, distinctly shews that it is those who belong to the "new creation" who are reconciled, and what follows shews that it is by the word; and that God in love is beseeching men to be reconciled. God could not beseech the men of the world to be reconciled if they already were. Again, in Colossians 1: 20, 21, he speaks of the time to come, when the whole order of things in heaven and earth will be reconciled, and then speaks of Christian believers, the holy and faithful brethren at Colosse, "and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." So far from saying the world is reconciled, Scripture carefully teaches an exclusive actual present reconciliation of believers. The nearest approach to such a thought does not refer to the efficacy of Christ's death at all, but to the dispensational dealings of God, in which the casting away of the Jews opened the door of grace to the Gentiles as such; Rom. 11: 15. In Ephesians 2 again you have peace being made: it was to make of Jew and Gentile together one new man, reconciling both to God in one body, and to that end He goes and preaches peace to the nigh (Jews) and those afar off (Gentiles): but a reconciled world by the cross is unknown to and denied by Scripture. "The whole world is lying in wickedness." That the door of grace and preaching peace to it is opened is true; but believers only are reconciled ("you hath he reconciled," you who are in the faith) according to the positive statement of Scripture; and this affects the whole scheme of Dr. W.

{*See Note to page 253.}

264 Further on, replying to Mr. Welinder, Dr. W. confounds the sovereign love of goodness to a fallen world with love of relationship. Both writers assume the world to be reconciled, and neither sees the difference of special affections and absolute general goodness. I ought to love everybody; but my love to my wife and children is another thing. God loved the world; but believers are His children, and the church of God Christ's bride and body. We are "God's children by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3), sons of God, and "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it" to present it to Himself as God did Eve to Adam. I cannot go farther into this here; but it does shew that in both these writers theology and tradition have eclipsed the light of Scripture.

Dr. W. says: "The atonement spoken of in Scripture was an atonement by which the sins of the world were removed." No such thought is found in Scripture; that He is an ilasmos for the world is said, but that the sins of the world are removed is wholly unscriptural. If so, there could be nothing to judge men for; for they are judged according to their works (Rev 20: 13), and the Lord says: "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins"; and the apostle, "Because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." It is said of Christ that He is o airon, not of the sins, but of the sin of the world, and that He baptises with the Holy Ghost, not that He has taken away our sins. This taking away of sin will be completely fulfilled only in the new heavens and the new earth, and He, as Lamb of God, is this taker away; but that the atonement spoken of in Scripture was one by which the sins of the world were removed is utterly and wholly untrue.

Further, there is no statement that God gave His Son that the world might recover the righteousness it had lost in the fall — not even that Adam had righteousness before the fall; nor had the world or Adam any union with God before the fall or after; nor is "union with God" a scriptural expression or thought at all: "dwelling in God and God in us" is, but not union. It is utterly unscriptural. Union with the glorified man Christ is scriptural, and that is by the Holy Ghost. We are "members of his body," but this is the result of redemption (see Eph. 1, 2); and this even Adam unfallen had not at all. In what follows both controversialists again confound His love of divine goodness towards the world and the love of relationship, and that love of goodness towards the world, as such, with individuals personally; and though I doubt not, thank God, that God sought and seeks wandering sinners in their sins, Dr. W. forgets that in the prodigal son it was a returning prodigal come back to his father, to whom a father's love was displayed, and the best robe put on him, and he received into the house. The two first parables in Luke 15 give the love that seeks, the last the love that receives; and though all be grace in this chapter, and the father went out and sought the elder brother (the Pharisee), he never got what the father's love gave to the prodigal — his own fault, doubtless, but still true — he had neither kiss, nor best robe, nor ring.

265 When Dr. W. says "God's point of view is solely as follows: God loved the fallen world, and, moved solely by his own love, sent his Son to save and restore us from sin," he states what is quite unscriptural. That God did so love the world is true, but that God's point of view is solely this is not true. Nor is it said that He might remove its sins. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; but His point of view is not solely this. This phrase, "that whosoever," etc., is carefully repeated, and what Dr. W. states is not even put first; but "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever." That is, the scripture carefully states two things, and puts that first which Dr. W. leaves out. I am not objecting, assuredly, to God's love being the source of it. I sympathise with Dr. W. wholly in this; but his statement is contrary to Scripture on the point in question. It obliterates what was needed that this love might be made good. He will say, "I have stated elsewhere that the atonement, a propitiation, was needed." He has; but he has, through pre-occupation with his side of the question, cast out what he fancies opposes this, and falsified its nature, and here falsely stated that God's only point of view is, "God so loved"; whereas, in the very place where this is said, another point of view is formally and in the first place stated, and the blessed Lord is revealed in another aspect in which He had to be presented to God, on man's part, for atonement. "So must the Son of man be lifted up." Had not God given His Son, there could have been none such; but this is added as the way by which the first was accomplished. But there was need that man, for man, should be presented to God, and that "lifted up" — that is, take "the curse," drink "the cup" (suffer according to Dr. W.'s words) "the curse of wrath." Love provided the Lamb in God's Son; but the Lamb must be slain, presenting Himself as man, "who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God" on man's behalf, and take "the curse" and drink "the cup" from God's hand, forsaken of God. This was not in itself love; but it was propitiation. God's love (though the work was so perfect for His glory that the blessed Lord could say, "Therefore doth my Father love me") did not shew itself to Christ then.

266 Dr. W.'s statement as to Ephesians 1 is also ungrounded. He says, "it means"; but it is not what it says, but quite a different thing; and the meaning Dr. W. gives to it is wholly and utterly below and aside from God's thoughts in it. Saving us "through" is not choosing us "in." Our being "in Christ," "the last Adam, the second man," is a great scriptural truth, not yet in Dr. W.'s mind at all. But, for that very reason, I do not go farther with it here.

As to His justice suffering a violation and so demanding an indemnity, I should not perhaps so express it. But "the Son of man must be lifted up" is just that, "the chastisement of our peace" being upon Him is just that. "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." His being "made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him," and countless other passages, state clearly what Dr. W. denies. Righteousness declared in the remission of past (that is, Old Testament) sins is declared by Christ's shedding His blood; forbearance had been exercised as to them. This was now proved to be righteous.

Dr. W. has not at all seen that it is God's righteousness which is revealed, when things "worthy of death" had been done, and that through Christ's death, God's wrath being revealed as well as His love. We are "justified by his blood," and using such words as "indemnity" will not alter the divine and substantial truth that "by stripes" and "chastisement from God" we are justified and healed; that by His bearing our sins and receiving from God what was due to them, the cup He had to drink, being forsaken of God and dying, we are cleared and justified. He offered Himself without spot to God to be a sacrifice, He must be lifted up; He prayed that if it were possible the cup might pass, but it was not if we were to be saved; and so, call it "indemnity" or what you please, we are saved from wrath through Him. His death was an apolutrosis, it was a lutrosis, without which there is no apolutrosis for us. Luke and Hebrews both use the word lutrosis which is just redemption by ransom, losegeld, or indemnity, loskaufung. These are exactly what Dr. W. says is not in Scripture. He says "we obtained the righteousness which was a necessary condition for our salvation." Where is this in Scripture? And so far as it is scriptural that "we are made the righteousness of God in him," how is that so? is the question. "He was made sin for us."

267 Dr. W., as I have said, forgets it is God's righteousness. God's wrath is the shape or form assumed by God's justice with reference to sin. I agree. But where was this displayed? Was it not in Christ's suffering "the Just for the unjust," a lutrosis, the substitution of Christ as "made sin for us"? And Dr. W.'s argument is all false. He says quenching wrath is then the same as quenching justice. Supposing another is punished in my stead: as to me the wrath or punishment is quenched, and by justice; and justice is executed. The justice remains: but in my going free, and there being no wrath for me. God's wrath against the sinner, by reason of the sin and guilt he lay under, is taken away for the believer by the death of Christ; "by his stripes we are healed." The Lord has laid on Him our iniquity. We were children of wrath, a wrath which will be executed against unbelievers, but we are saved from wrath by Him; He is our deliverer from the wrath to come; 1 Thess. 1: 10. And this was by Jehovah laying on Him our iniquity when He made His soul an offering for sin, and His taking the stripes due to us.

It is written; the whole of Isaiah 53 states it. "Christ bare our sins [1 Pet. 2: 24] in his own body on the tree," and drank that dreadful cup, the thought of which made Him sweat as it were great drops of blood, "suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust" (chap. 3: 12), "bore the sins of many," and, had He not then fully completed the work, must have suffered often (Heb. 9). "He was offered to bear the sins of many." Before whom, and from whom, did He suffer? He is gone in "not without blood." To whom presented? Blood must be shed for remission. Why? Dr. W. tells us it was to cleanse us, to obtain righteousness: but why that in order to such an end? He will say he cannot tell. Scripture says it was a lutrosis, an ilasmos, and that it was presented to God. No Christian doubts its cleansing power for faith on which Dr. W. insists. But the present question does not lie there.

268 Dr. W. talks of God loving the world less after than before the fall. But all this is misapprehension. There was no world before the fall. There was a being whom God had formed according to His own mind, in which, as the fruit of His own handiwork, He could take pleasure, and view him with complacency. After the fall there was not. It repented the Lord that He had made man upon the earth and grieved Him at His heart; Gen. 6: 6. "The friendship of the world is enmity against God." "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." God could not have the love of complacency in a fallen sinful creature as He had in His own perfect handiwork; and the plain proof is, "He drove out the man." What was that? His love, in the sense of sovereign mercy in Himself, was greater after the fall than before. Unfallen Adam did not need it.

But all this is lost in the confusion of Dr. W.'s statement. He confounds God's nature with His relationships in respect of good and evil, and leaves out His righteous judgment. He insists that the law condemns sin against it as before. Of course it does. But "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The curse does not reach believers because Christ was made a curse for them. It is a poor cavil to say being made a curse was not punishment; it is "chastisement, stripes, wounding, bruising, forsaken of God," according to the word of God; "the curse of wrath," according to Dr. W. I do not at all admit that it is only unbelief that is punished; but God's wise order is that it is by faith we have forgiveness and justification; and the unbeliever dies in his sins, and is also guilty of refusing the Son of God and despising mercy. His whole theory and all its applications are false, because he holds without a trace of scripture that the atonement has removed the sins of the world. His confounding the distress of unrepentant David ("while I kept silence") with Christ's taking the curse atoningly, shews how far a false theory can lead into darkness; and that is all.

269 His statement that "where there is sin, God's wrath is unchangeably manifest as surely as God is God," is deplorable in every way; for what then is love to a sinful world, which he rightly holds, and declares incompatible with wrath? (And see Eph. 2: 3, 4, and following verses as to activity in grace.) It denies the atonement — Christ "suffering, the Just for the unjust" — and it leaves us always under wrath; for "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." This is the effect of theoretical reasoning instead of simply receiving Scripture. What is said withal in Scripture is that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree — bore the sins of many. "Gave us his righteousness" is not found in Scripture. If it be, let Dr. W. shew it. This is tradition also, not Scripture. He is "made righteousness to us of God" (1 Cor. 1: 30), is said; but. "gave us his righteousness" is never said in Scripture. The difference is total; and, I insist, with Dr. W., "I must have scripture, not theological theories." And let Dr. W. remember, too, that it is Christ suffering (from whom? of whom was He forsaken?), "the Just for the unjust," that was to bring us to God.

But Dr. W. boldly asks, "Where is it written that man is free from wrath because God in His Son punished sins against the law, so that He can no longer be justly angry with us because of these?" Did Dr. W. ever read Isaiah 53? was "the curse of the law" not the punishment of sins? did He not suffer, "the Just for the unjust"? was He not forsaken of God? what was the cup He had to drink? was not the chastisement of our peace upon Him? is it not with His stripes we are healed? was it not for our transgressions He was wounded? was it not for sins Christ suffered, "the Just for the unjust"? It is, then, "so written." Did it not please Jehovah to bruise Him? put Him to grief when He was making His soul an offering for sin? To whom? Was He not bearing others' iniquities there? was He not bruised for their iniquities? was it not for the transgression of Jehovah's people He was stricken? Was He not bearing the sins of many there? It is written, and written in both Testaments, that "by his stripes we are healed." Stripes from whom? "It pleased Jehovah to bruise him." Oh, it is sorrowful to think that any one, for a theory, can pass over the deep mystery, but revealed truth, that God was dealing with sins, our sins, in the atoning sufferings of the Son of God, "made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death"! What is hard to conceive is, how Dr. W. could ask where it is written.*

{*It is never said that justification is accomplished for the whole world. That "Christ died for all" is written. It is never said in Scripture that He bore the sins of all, but carefully avoided, changing the language to "many," or "our," where needed. But propitiation and substitution are all confounded by Dr. W., and the first part of Romans 1 to chapter 5: 11 is left out, and the second part, which speaks of our being all sinners through Adam's sin, taken up; where believers reckoning themselves dead, not propitiation for sins, is discussed. But all these points are jumbled together in Dr. W.'s statements. Here I only draw his attention to statements made without any warrant from Scripture.}

270 But we are "justified by faith," and it is wholly unscriptural to apply this to the whole world. Scripture applies it solely to believers. I have already said I entirely agree with Dr. W. that Scripture speaks of our being reconciled to God, not God to us. I would insist on it; still I do not agree with what is said of saints and forgiveness; but I make no remark on it. Only Dr. W. seems to have forgotten that the publican's supplication was ilastheti. I admit the expression came to be used in a very general sense; but it would not support Dr. W. in his statements, but the contrary. It is based on the idea of the propitiation; of the offended person being propitiated, and so propitious. Nor does his reasoning on 2 Samuel 21: 14 meet the citation. I have no objection to his translating ahther to be entreated for the land, as the English translation has it. But why was He acherei-ken, thereupon, entreated for it? was it not on a reparation done to His judicial authority on the violated engagement made by Joshua and the princes (Josh. 9: 18, 19)? The same remark applies to 2 Samuel 24: 25. I do not say reconciled; but I ask why, on what ground, was God entreated — that is, heard the entreaty — as to the plague, so that it ceased? Was it not because offerings were offered to Him?

His argument as to the ransom money has no force, because the question is, what is the meaning of ransom or atonement through which their lives were spared? That Christ is the only one for eternal salvation no Christian denies.

271 Dr. W. rests on objectionable words in his adversaries' statements. Thus he alludes to sacrifices inducing a disposition in God. Now I object to these expressions, as does Dr. W. They are drawn from the false idea of reconciling God, producing (so to speak) love in Him; and this is quite wrong, and Dr. W. on this point quite right. But they were not presented to God simply to reconcile or induce a disposition in the sinner. But, if Jehovah was entreated for the land, it is not that men entreated Him but were not heard; but that they were now heard when they entreated. What was the cause of this? The offerings presented to God, or satisfaction made to His outraged justice. When Jehovah smelled a savour of rest and said, "I will no more curse the ground," on whom was the effect produced by the sacrifice of Noah? The result was the ground was no more cursed, Dr. W. will say. No doubt. So the passage says. But why? Who says that it should not be cursed any more? Who smelled the odour of rest so as not to curse any more? It is too plain and intentionally positive to admit of any question. Dr. W. is not correct when he says "the enmity" in Ephesians is the enmity between Jews and Gentiles, to the exclusion of all else. The passage speaks of reconciling both to God; still God's enmity is not spoken of. In his statements about the goats, Dr. W. seems to me wholly to have missed the mark, but I have spoken of it. I only remark here that one goat secured admission to the presence of God according to His holy nature — "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," as is expressly and elaborately taught in Heb. 9, 10 — and the other, the removing of all the sins of God's people according to their responsibility towards Him; and Dr. W. loses an immense deal if he does not see both; and alas! it is the case with many Christians.

It is utterly untrue that nothing else is said of sacrifices than perfecting us. This is not the case, even in the Hebrews, "for then must he often have suffered." What and from whom? Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Offered to whom? What was bearing sins? what did it mean as to Christ? Did He sweat as it were great drops of blood at the thought of justifying us? The whole work was done, "finished" on the cross, before my conscience was perfected, or even felt the need of it. He is sitting down because the work is perfect; and God has accepted it in righteousness, has glorified the Man Christ at His right hand, because the Man Christ had glorified Him when made sin upon the cross. It was, I repeat, wholly done, and Christ, sitting at God's right hand in consequence, before anything was done with my conscience at all — done with God alone — and, if it had not been, my conscience could not have been perfected at all. Christ's own glory as a Redeemer depended on it. And even as to us, that is not all its import; He "obtained eternal redemption" and an "eternal inheritance." If His blood does purge our conscience, it is because "through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God." Yea, He fills all things through it. (Eph. 4: 9, 10, and indeed chap. 1: 23.)

272 Besides, it is not said only "God so loved the world," but "the Son of man must be lifted up." There was an incumbent necessity which He had to bear. So, as we have seen, "Jehovah smelled a sweet savour; and Jehovah said, I will no more curse." It is totally untrue that nothing else is said about it in Scripture than that "God so loved the world."

Again, I say, in reply to the assertion "that the world was reconciled to God" in the cross, not God to the world, that it is not the manner in which God's word expresses the matter. Not a text can be cited that says anything of the sort. It is wholly unscriptural, and one of the grand mistakes of Dr. W. which misleads him as to everything. Nor, above all when Christ said, It is finished, was it said that the world was reconciled. It was the closing of the scene as regards the world which proves they had both seen and hated both Him and His Father, and, in that character of reconciling the world which He bore in earth, it would see Him no more; John 14: 19.

I do not accept Dr. W.'s criticism as to "reconcile." In the first place, ilasmos and katallage are quite different, that is, "propitiation" and "reconciliation." And this makes his whole argument utterly worthless. But besides, though kaphar may etymologically mean to cover, it does not follow that the Piel (kipper) does, which he would, in many cases, find wholly out of place. The word for covering sins, in the ordinary sense, is kasah as kasui in Psalm 32; and, as far as kaphar is connected with covering, out of whose sight were they put? and how? Were they not before God, in His sight, when Christ bore them? and what was the consequence as to Him? Was not this the propitiation? In Daniel 9: 24 it is not said, "then shall the transgression be taken away,"* but to take away. To cover sin is quite another word, kasah. To atone for iniquity is l'kaphar.

{*I take the English translation of Dr. W., not understanding Swedish, though having his article in that language. But the force of the Hebrew is plain.}

273 Further, in Hebrews 9, as to "once hath he appeared to put away sin," it is eis athetesin amartias, "to the removing of sin" (not sins), a wholly different matter, bearing our sins being added as a distinct thing just below. Sin will not be removed, as a result, entirely, till the new heavens and the new earth, though the effectual work which is the ground of it be accomplished.

Nor are the weeks of Daniel accomplished yet. Messiah was cut off after the sixty-ninth, wa ayin lo, and took nothing of the kingdom and Messiah-glory. But to enter into this would lead me too far, though the not giving heed to it has led to much misinterpretation of Scripture in Dr. W.'s statements.

We never find the reconciling of the world to God as an effect of the cross. But if sin were "a wall of separation between God and man," as it was, was not Christ made sin for us, and forsaken of God, according to Psalm 22, and was not propitiation wrought there when He made His soul an offering for sin, and bore the sins of many? What relation was Christ placed in to God then? Never obedience so fully accomplished, never so fully shewing love to His Father, but "made sin for us who knew no sin." It is not, I agree, reconciling God to us; but both Dr. W. and his adversaries take "We are reconciled," for the world, which is wholly unscriptural; the apostle speaks of believers. In 2 Corinthians 5 he is speaking of those in Christ and the new creation. He was reconciling the world; He hath reconciled us. The passage is quite clear, and the ministry of reconciliation was then committed to them, and that toward the world, Christ having been made sin for us. In Colossians it is distinctly "you," that is, the believers at Colosse.

The effect of this error runs through every page. "God was in Christ reconciling" is spoken of as if it was the world which was reconciled, a totally different matter. The statement is wholly unscriptural. "Be ye reconciled" was the apostle's ministry to the world; that is, they were not so yet. The Scriptures are "uniform" in not saying God was reconciled, uniform (it is spoken of twice) in saying believers are, and equally uniform in presenting the world as not so by Christ's death, but that His death gave the basis of the apostle's "ministry of reconciliation." Being reconciled does not mean God being appeased. But what was the basis of that ministry? Was it Christ's taking "the curse of wrath" or not? Was that necessary in order to it, or otherwise the wrath have abode on us? God's love to us was not free "because we were righteous," but wrought its perfect work while we were sinners. "Hereby know we love that he laid down his life for us." That righteous state was the effect of something else, and faith in that was needed to become righteous. This theory destroys the sovereign freeness and fulness of love, as well as the propitiation by a work wrought when we were far from God and unrighteous. "God justifies the ungodly" — so Scripture says at least — and that "by faith." Faith in whom and what? Reconciling the "things," which is yet to come, is of the "things," not of God; but Dr. W., in his explanation, does not give any meaning to "having made peace by the blood of his cross," which precedes reconciliation.

274 There are many things I should not accept in Dr. W.'s statement here, but I pass them over as not the main point; but he has not explained the ilastheti of the publican in the temple. I am not insisting on reconciling God, for I do not think it scriptural; but the "making peace by the blood of the cross" suffers in the hands of Dr. W. To say that God is not angry with the sinner, because He loves him, is confusion of mind. I can be angry morally and judicially, I cannot perhaps be righteously anything else, with those I dearly love. Did Christ not love those whom He looked at "with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts"? Wrath may be come upon a people to the uttermost, and God not cease to be love, and he even who says it — Paul — not have ceased to love them devotedly. The union or meeting of infinite love and "the curse of wrath" is, by Dr. W.'s own admission, the essential character of the cross. Dr. W. must allow me to say that his argument as to the atonement-money or the numbering of the children of Israel is wholly without force. The commandment was not concerning the numbering, but concerning giving a ransom for their souls; lest they should die when they were numbered, being brought, poor sinners that they were, personally and individually under God's eye when thus numbered.

275 I must repeat, because the fallacy is incessantly repeated by Dr. W., that the effect produced is not that by which it is produced. He insists that the work of Christ was in order to reconcile men, to cleanse them, to justify them. Agreed. And he cites passage after passage to shew this. I accept them all fully. But this does not touch the question, What was the work done, or what the sufferings endured, that this effect might be produced? What was presented to God? Christ was made a curse for us, made sin for us, suffered the Just for the unjust, was forsaken of God, drinking that dreadful cup, which could not pass away if we were to be saved. The effect was the cleansing of believers; but what was the meaning of that which cleanses them through faith, in which Christ was alone with God that they might be so cleansed? Were not men redeemed from the curse by His being made a curse for them? Was that curse God's love to Him?

And so with the goat of atonement. It was cleansing the holy place and altar, etc. No doubt; but what was done that they might be cleansed? Did not death, in figure, "suffering the Just for the unjust," come in that they might be cleansed, by reason of Israel's sins? As to the two goats, I have spoken of them; but God does not give one explanation of them, as Dr. W. says. It is not said of the first goat, "He shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited"; Aaron having confessed their sins on the head of that goat, not on the other. That both represent one Christ and one cross is true; but in confounding these two aspects of the cross Dr. W. loses a great deal. At any rate, Scripture does not give the same explanation. Is it nothing to have all one's sins taken away, never to be found again? It is Dr. W. who neglects the meaning Scripture attaches to these figures.

In his remarks on Hebrews, Dr. W. omits to notice the real point of the case: the "perfecting" is "as pertaining to the conscience," and by the blood carried in. Through Christ presenting Himself, and then entering in "not without blood," the conscience was purged. And this alone is the purging spoken of, so that we have "no more conscience of sins"; not consciousness of sin, but conscience of sins, sins on the conscience, because Christ has borne them and gone within, "not without blood." It is not our state, but the state of our conscience before God; we as to this are "perfected for ever" (eis to dienekes), always and perpetually, because Christ is always now (eis to dienekes) sitting at the right hand of God; not like the Jewish priests, standing, renewing a work which was never done. No cleansing of our state is spoken of, but of our conscience by Christ's offering who is gone in not without blood. Dr. W. does not state what Scripture states here. It is false that no other import of Christ's sacrifice for God is spoken of than that it was a consequence of God's unchanging love. It hides Christ's forsaking of God and drinking the dreadful cup, and His standing as Son of man who must be lifted up.

276 Dr. W. says "God so loved the fallen world that He gave it the offering to restore it. And as there is nothing else said about it in Scripture," etc. There is something else said about it in Scripture. Christ "offered himself without spot to God through the eternal Spirit," and "the Son of man must be lifted up." Dr. W. will say, "that whosoever believeth might not perish." No doubt; but why must He be "lifted up" on the cross as "Son of man" that they might not? And this is said, as well as that "God so loved"; but Dr. W. always passes it over.

It is not true that Scripture says that God never had any anger against him (the sinner). It is expressly said, "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," will be rendered "to every soul of man that doeth evil," and "wrath from heaven is now revealed." "Now is the accepted time, the day of salvation"; but those who despise the grace of it are "treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Wrath from God, therefore, rests on and is executed against men; yet God does not change. Vengeance belongs to Him. "Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?"

But Dr. W. is all out of the way as to reconciling. I do not return to what I have already insisted on, that Scripture never says the world is reconciled any more than God. Christians are, and Christians only; but there is no foundation for what he says as to the force of the word. Kaphar is a difficult word, at least with al (see Lev. 16); but Numbers 25: 13 shews Dr. W. cannot make good his statements. But into this I will enter no farther, because it is perfectly plain that in the New Testament reconciling does mean reconciling the people, changing their disposition; and we have no need of turning to nice discussions on words, and their use in the LXX. It is somewhat more than changing the disposition, because it includes a relative object as to which that change takes place-one is reconciled to some person or thing. This being by an offering or the like, the meaning of the word is extended; but it is not merely cleansing, or anything of the kind. In Romans 5 we have, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more," etc. Now this is changing the disposition when one was an enemy, and thus bringing back the mind to God. So Colossians 1: 21, "And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." That it is by an offering which cleanses and purges the conscience, is true, and what I should insist on. The heart could not return really, if the conscience were not purged, nor this unless the sins were purged; but this was by Christ's suffering the agony of the cross, forsaken of God, God's infinite love to us bringing back the renewed heart to Him thereby. The end of 2 Corinthians 5 fully confirms this. Reconciling is bringing into happy relationship with another when we have been out of it, as Matthew 5: 24; and to speak of katallage, diallagethi, as equivalent to ilasmos and ilaskesthai, is unfounded; as making such words as ratsah, or nathar, or chata, or hithchata, or naathar and kaphar the same, is falsifying the sense of words; so yom kastui; so in Numbers 16: 46 (Heb. 17: 11), wrath, getseph was gone out from the presence of Jehovah, and Aaron was l'kaphar; nor was it to reconcile the people, but to stay the plague, to stop the wrath that was gone out.

277 And it is an unhappy thing, because the effect of atonement (when wrath would justly come out against us) is to cleanse and reconcile us, to weaken the truth of that righteous wrath, and its being righteously arrested by the precious blood presented to God, and that bearing of sins, which makes it righteous in God to justify the ungodly and forgive their sins. Appeasing God, ilaskomai, placare, let the word be what it may, is not changing God, but glorifying and satisfying God's righteous judgment; so that He may say, "when I see the blood, I will pass over."

Scripture does know the expression of the anger or "wrath of God." What Dr. W. says of it is not true. "God's wrath is revealed from heaven," and, if we do not believe, abides upon us; John 3: 36 And it is written, "Thou wast angry, but thine anger is turned away," Isa. 12: 1. And the passages are very numerous too which speak of it. I do not know Swedish; but Dr. W. will know that sühnen and versöhnen are different things, though like the Greek, the meanings run into one another as cause and effect; but they are essentially different: one does apply to God; the other does not. And "we have the propitiation" is an abuse of the word. Dr. W.'s statements on this are most unequivocally unscriptural.

278 Dr. W. reverts to the statement already often noticed to give it a particular application, saying, "The forgiveness of sins is nothing but an application to the individual sinner of the taking away the sins of the whole world, which took place in Christ." Every part of this statement is unscriptural. It did not take place in Christ. There is no such thought in Scripture; indeed if there were, there could be nothing to judge them for. And further, no such application would be needed, for the sins would be already taken away. The forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness is by faith; Rom. 4.

Ephesians 1: 7; Colossians 1: 14; Hebrews 10: 18, cited by Dr. W., do not say one word of what Dr. W. says. But further, redemption from a state is the commonest use in Scripture and in modern speech of the word 'redeem.' We say "redeemed from captivity," from destruction, from death; so that all the discussion about Anselm and the fathers is to no purpose. We are delivered from the wrath and the curse by Christ's being made a curse for us. From whence did His suffering come? "He hath put him to grief." Debt is used as a figure; but by the Lord. It was not restitution of money; of course it is a mere figure; but it was not to remove the sin of man, that is, from man (which indeed is in every sense an unscriptural way of putting it, and will not be found in Scripture), but by bearing our sins for us; and if Scripture speaks of putting away sin, it is putting it as a state and condition out of God's sight, and that even of heaven and earth, not of forgiveness. He condemned sin in the flesh. But, as for faith we died, were crucified with Christ, we are freed from its law. When we are brought in, then it is Christ who knew no sin was made sin for us; that is, it was what was done for us, outside of us, not our state, though that state (righteousness of God, note, not of man, though the believer stands in it) be the purpose of it, yet not an actual righteous state in us, but we made the righteousness of God in Christ. (See Rom. 8: 3; 2 Cor. 5: 21.) Dr. W. has evidently not taken into consideration this part of the truth.

279 I turn to the conclusion: "No change was effected by the fall of Adam in God, or in his disposition, but what was effected was that we fell into sin, and by sin into eternal death. In the work of Christ there was no change in God or in His disposition, but we gained righteousness, and thereby eternal life. And behind this work of Christ Scripture only recognises one thing, God so loved the world." Now though save the last phrases I recognise in general the truth of this,* yet the statement is fundamentally false, because it suppresses a mass of scriptural truth of the most solemn character, and in the last phrase denies it. Is wrath not spoken of in Scripture? It was no change in God Himself, yet we are not merely fallen into something: God drove out the man, and not only so but shut up the way back to the tree of life, previously free to him; and man must get life some other way. It is the gift of God, and, save in the sense of man's ultimate state in glory, righteousness is not the way of regaining it. Man must be born again when he is a sinner.

{*But Scripture speaks, as we have seen, of God's repenting that He had man on the earth, and its grieving Him at His heart.}

Dr. W. speaks of wrath against sin elsewhere; but why, in order to systematise, is so immensely an important thing left out here? It is no change in God; it is righteousness dealing justly with evil. Man fell under wrath by sinning, God's wrath. It is the wrath of God which abides upon him if he does not believe; he is a child of wrath, Jew or Gentile alike; and it is part of the truth which came in by Christianity though not in itself of the grace, that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Something does remain "behind," besides "God so loved," that is, "the wrath of God." Already God's driving man out of paradise was an execution of judgment, and the flood was righteous judgment. But it was not fully "revealed from heaven," nor judgment pronounced on man till he had rejected Christ, because another question was to be tried in God's ways: could the first man be restored? He was tried without law, and the flood had to come in; he was tried under the law and broke it (the flesh was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so that they that are in the flesh cannot please God), tried by the patient goodness that sent the prophets till there was no remedy. Then God said, I have yet my Son, my well-beloved, it may be they will reverence my Son. And when they saw Him, they said, This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours. Man has both seen and hated both Him and His Father. Then the Lord pronounced the sentence: "Now is the judgment of this world." Except death were gone through, and the curse borne by another, the "corn of wheat" remained alone.

280 The wrath of God was "revealed from heaven," but by the sin that work wrought which cleanses the believer for God according to God's own perfectness in light, and man took his place in heaven, according to the righteousness of God, in Christ. He came to seek and to save that which was lost — now proved so. No doubt faith rested on promises and prophecies before the Lord came: but now all came out: the mind of the flesh was "enmity against God," but the veil rent, and heaven opened. The answer to the spear, which made sure that the Son of God, come in love, was gotten rid of from the earth, was the blood and water which cleanses and saves every one that believes, that comes to God by Him. Love was revealed; for hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us; but wrath was "revealed from heaven." And if "God so loved the world that he gave his Son," so was it equally true that "the Son of man must be lifted up," or we should have perished under just wrath. And it is not true that Christ was only God's representative to take away our sins; He was man's representative and made sin for us, bearing our sins so that it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, He put Him to grief when He made His soul an offering for sin, having offered Himself "through the eternal Spirit without spot to God."

I have nothing to do with the traditions of theologians and do not notice them, but with what the word of God brings before us. I have spoken of this at the beginning as to principles; but Dr. W. brings it all again forward here, and it is the kernel of the question. I agree with him, reconciling God is not spoken of; but he is one-sided in hiding a mass of truth which Scripture puts clearly forward. All that is said as to God being what He is in His revelation of Himself is delusion. God is love, God is light. But God could not act in wrath to man innocent (for man was neither righteous nor holy, as theologians say) — He would not have been righteous — and wrath was not revealed nor judgment, but, solely, the consequence of disobedience that man would die. All that Dr. W. takes up, and all that was said when man was judged in paradise. But God did act in wrath when he had sinned, and turned him out of paradise, and shut the way of the tree of life; but it was not revealed before, and surely not executed, nor was love revealed as it was in redemption. Christ was God's representative on earth, the image of the invisible God. But whose representative was He when made sin, and what was the consequence to Him? With the theories Dr. W. opposes I have nothing to do. He joins with his adversaries in holding that God reconciled the world to Himself; and from this common error one draws his theological consequences, which I refuse, as they are not in Scripture, and the other hides other plain scriptural statements and falls into denying them.

"Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim."

281 Here, in this section X, Dr. W., as I have already said he did, speaks of wrath. But then how can he say, "Nothing remains besides and behind but God so loved the world"? Because the momentous fact of wrath remains. Perhaps he will tell us, Yes, but the world was reconciled, which is totally unscriptural, and how reconciled so that there is no wrath, if the wrath of God abides upon them, as Scripture says and Dr. W. admits, and Christ is our deliverer from the wrath to come? Yea, they are "heaping up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Dr. W. says this reconciliation is "not a change of disposition, but of relative position, placing in another relation to a person"; but how in another relative position when the wrath of God abides on him? That wrath is not executed now (save in chastisement for our good in love, called "wrath" in Scripture, Job 36), and that it is the accepted time, the day of salvation, is true: the wrath is "to come"; but "he that believeth not is condemned already," the "wrath of God abideth upon him." Dr. W. tells us God cannot be angry and love at the same time. If so, there is no wrath abiding on the unbeliever, as he admits it is, or he is not loved.

All this error flows from one-sided reasoning and the utterly unscriptural notion that the world is reconciled, because it is the time of the exercise of grace founded on Christ's death, as the apostle states. I do not comment on the fallacious arguments of Dr. W.'s opponents. He and they have both started from a false tradition.

282 I have only to remark, again, that Dr. W. avoids the question; namely, that saying the object of the atonement was to justify the sinner (which all will admit was one object) does not touch the real question: What was done there in order to justify him? What were the stripes with which we are healed? Herein we find again the utterly anti-scriptural doctrine: "The race of Adam was herein justified." We are justified by faith, not without it, though it be through the atonement. The saved are righteous in Christ, but "salvation only for the righteous" is as unscriptural as possibly can be. Christ came to save sinners — "not to call the righteous, but sinners." God justifies "the ungodly." Christ came "to seek and to save that which was lost." This is another fundamental fallacy of Dr. W., that we are justified by being made personally righteous.

Dr. W.'s argument as to demons is sadly sophistical. The necessity of appeasing God as alleged was, if people were to be saved. If the devil and evil spirits were to be saved, according to God's justice an atonement would be needed; but Christ did not die for them, nor undertake their cause. This is poor sophistry.

"Community of love" is not sovereign love to sinners. All this too is sad confusion of mind. God commends His love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The power of tradition is curious enough here, where Dr. W. says such a passage as "God reconciled the world unto Himself," when there is absolutely no such passage in Scripture, just where he is insisting, quite rightly, on seeing how Scripture does speak. The conflict of theologians I leave with Dr. W., thoroughly decided with him to know only what Scripture says.

It is quite true that justice is not wrath or judgment. But as far as men go, we may justly say we turned God into a judge by sin, not assuredly into a righteous Being. When he had created Adam innocent, there was nothing to judge. It would have been judging His own workmanship. But righteousness becomes wrath (not hatred) when evil is in the presence of judicial authority exercised in righteousness. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness; but God is a righteous judge, and God is angry every day. And now wrath is revealed from heaven as surely as infinite love is. In sovereign grace He rises above the sin, and loves without a motive, save what is in His own nature and part of His glory. Man must have a motive for loving. God has none but in Himself, and "commendeth his love to us" (and the "His" is emphatic as to this very point), in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: the best thing in heaven that could be given for the vilest, defiled, and guilty sinners. Dr. W. seems to me to lower and depreciate the love of God quite as much as His justice and His righteous wrath.

283 There is one other point to which, though I have noticed it, I return, as of vital importance. Dr. W. holds that Christ represented God before men, not men before God. The first part is most blessedly true, but even that not to the extent of the inferences Dr. W. would draw from it, that there must be identity of operation. The Son did not send the Father, nor not spare Him but deliver Him up for us. The thought would be utterly anti-Christian. He accepted His part of the work of grace. "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God"; and, a body being prepared for Him, He took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of men. I may return to this point elsewhere; I merely take note of it now, and turn to the question of representing God to men and man to God. Now, in His life down here, he that had seen Him had seen the Father, a most precious and sanctifying truth. John 14 is express in stating it, as the whole life of Jesus is the verification and illustration of it. He is, moreover, in His Person the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His being, His hypostasis. As to this Scripture is plain; and I have no controversy with Dr. W. Further, that He was true God and true man, united in one Person, is not in question either; it is believed by both of us. The question is, Did He stand for men before God as well as for God before men? That He does in heaven is quite clear. He is gone into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us; Heb. 9: 24. But was all His life down here only a manifestation of God to men? When He took His place with the godly remnant in Israel, being baptised with John's baptism, assuredly not confessing sins as they did, but fulfilling righteousness, having emptied Himself and taken the form of a servant and entered upon the path of obedience, en schemati euretheis os anthropos, saying to John, "thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." When He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, did He represent God to men? Was it not, as the first man was tempted and fell, the Second man held fast and overcame? Did He not overcome saying, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and overcome by refusing to go out of the place of a servant which He had taken, though challenged by Satan to do so as being Son of God? Did He not hold the place of man when He said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God? Did He not, when He dismissed Satan, saying, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve? He was always the obedient man before God, as Adam was the disobedient one; and though He abode alone till redemption was accomplished, the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying, yet He stood in this world as man before God, as well as God before man. Who was the obedient man, did always such things as pleased His Father, pleaded in Gethsemane when His hour was come in the days of His flesh, with strong crying and tears made His supplication unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared apo tes eulabeias. Was this representing man or God?

284 That He was alone till redemption was accomplished I fully recognise, but alone, as the sinless man amongst men, to accomplish what was called for from man for God. If He tasted death for every man, was that as representing God to men or standing for men before God? When God laid our iniquity on Him, was it representing God before men? When it became Him, for whom are all things, to make the Captain, archegon, of our salvation perfect through suffering, whom did He represent? When He cried in deep agony, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, did He represent God to man? That He must have been God to be fit and able to do it is most true. Yet He was not representing God before men, but drinking the cup given to Him. When He was made sin, for whom was He made sin? Did He represent God to man then, or stand for men before God when He took up the cause of man (Heb. 2)? He did not represent God to men, but it is written in a certain place, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, Thou crownedst him with glory and honour." He was the Second man, the last Adam. He was the archegos of our salvation, the obedient, sinless, suffering Man who overcame Satan as man for men, was made sin for us, died for our sins, that is, represented us before God, our iniquity being laid upon Him, and drank that dreadful cup, taking it from His Father's hand, "the curse of wrath." Was suffering the curse of wrath representing God to men, or man as made sin under the righteous judgment of God?

285 I add that, though the priesthood of Christ be now in heaven where He appears in the presence of God for us, yet all His life was in every sense a preparation for it. He had so taken up man that it became God to make Him perfect in that heavenly place through suffering. He was tempted, suffering being tempted, that He might succour them that are tempted. Not only so, but He was made like to His brethren in all things, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. And so in chapter 5 of the same epistle, comparing Him with the Jewish high priest, though shewing the difference. And it is clear that the priest represented the people before God, confessed their sins on the scapegoat, and went into the sanctuary for them, as Christ has done into the true sanctuary for us. The priesthood of Christ is no doubt for believers; but to deny that He represented men, stood there as man for them before God, and that on the cross (as in Heb. 2: 17) as man, alone indeed but for men, is ruinous error.

Propitiation and Substitution

J. N. Darby.

<29009E> 286

My intercourse with saints, and especially with those who preach, has led me to discover that a good deal of obscurity in their manner of putting the gospel (and I may add a good deal of Arminian and Calvinistic controversy) arises from not distinguishing propitiation and substitution. I am not anxious about the words, but about the practical distinction, which is very simple, and, I think, of moment. I say the words, because in propitiation, in a certain sense, Christ stood in our stead. Still there is a very real difference in Scripture.

This difference is clearly marked in the offering of the great day of atonement. Aaron slew the bullock and the goat, which was called Jehovah's lot, and sprinkled the blood on and before the mercy-seat and on the altar. The blood was presented to God, whose holy presence had been dishonoured and offended by sin. So Christ has perfectly glorified God in the place of sin, by His perfect obedience and love to His Father, in His being made sin who knew no sin. God's majesty, righteousness, love, truth, all that He is, was glorified in the work wrought by Christ, and of this the blood was witness in the holy place itself. Our sins gave occasion to it; but God Himself was glorified in it. Hence the testimony can go out to all the world that God is, more than satisfied, glorified; and whoever comes by that blood is freely, fully, received of God and to God. But there was no confession of sins on the head of this goat; it was about sin by reason of Israel's sinfulness; but it was simply blood offered to God. Sin had been dealt with in judgment according to God's glory; yea, to the full glorifying of God; for never were His majesty, love, and hatred of sin so seen. God could shine out in favour to the returning sinner according to what He was; yea, in the infiniteness of His love, could beseech men to return.

But besides this there was personal guilt, positive personal sins, for which Israel was responsible, and men are responsible, according to what is righteously required from each. On the great day of atonement the high priest confessed the people's sins on the scapegoat, laying both his hands on its head; the personal sins were transferred to the goat by one who represented all the people, and they were gone for ever, never found again.

287 Now this is another thing. Christ is both high priest and victim, has confessed all the sins of His people as His own, and borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The two goats are but one Christ; but there is the double aspect of His sacrifice, Godward, and bearing our sins. The blood is the witness of the accomplishment of all, and He is entered in not without blood. He is the propitiation for our sins. But in this aspect the world comes in too. He is a propitiation for the whole world. All has been done that is needed. His blood is available for the vilest, whoever he may be. Hence the gospel to the world says, "Whosoever will, let him come." In this aspect we may say Christ died for all, gave Himself a ransom for all — an antilutron peri panton, an adequate and available sacrifice for sin for whoever would come — tasted death for every man.

But when I come to bearing sins, the language is uniformly different. He bore our sins, He bore the sins of many. "All" is carefully abstained from. I say carefully, because in Romans 5: 18, 19 the difference is carefully made. The first, our sins, is the language of faith, left open indeed to anyone who can use it; but used and to be used only by faith. The believing remnant of Israel may use it, including the blessing of the nations, for He died for that nation; Christians use it in faith, for all that have faith to use it. The second "many" restricts it from all, but generally has the force of the many; the oi polloi, as contrasted with a head or leaders, the mass in connection with them. Adam's oi polloi were in result all, but all as in connection with him; Christ's oi polloi, those connected with Him. But it will never be found in Scripture that Christ bore the sins of all. Had He done so, they never could be mentioned again, nor men judged according to their works.

That Christ died for all is, as we have seen, often said in Scripture. Hence I go with His death to the world as their ground and only ground of approach, with the love shewn in it. When a man believes, I can say, Now I have more to tell you: Christ has borne every one of your sins; they never can be mentioned again.

If we look at the difference of Arminian and Calvinistic preaching, we shall see the bearing of this at once. The Arminians take up Christ's dying for all, and generally they connect the bearing of sins with it; and all is confusion as to the efficacy and effectualness of Christ's bearing our sins, for they deny any special work for His people. They say, If God loved all, He cannot love some particularly; and an uncertain salvation is the result, and man often exalted. Thus the scapegoat is practically set aside.

288 The Calvinist holds Christ's bearing the sins of His people, so that they are effectually saved; but he sees nothing else. He will say, If Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, there can be no real love for anything else. Thus he denies Christ's dying for all, and the distinctive character of propitiation, and the blood on the mercy-seat. He sees nothing but substitution.

The truth is, Christ is said to love the church, never the world. That is a love of special relationship. God is never said to love the church, but the world. This is divine goodness, what is in the nature of God (not His purpose), and His glory is the real end of all. But I do not dwell on this, only pointing out the confusion of propitiation and substitution as necessarily making confusion in the gospel, enfeebling the address to the world, or weakening the security of the believer, and in every respect giving uncertainty to the announcement of the truth. I believe earnestness after souls, and preaching Christ with love to Him, will be blessed where there is little clearness, and is more important than great exactitude of statement. Still it is a comfort to the preacher to have it clear, even if not thinking about it at the moment; and, when building up afterwards, the solidness of the foundation is of the greatest moment.

The Way of Holiness

J. N. Darby.

<29010E> 289

If we pay a little attention to Scripture, we shall see that holiness, while based essentially upon being born of God, our having put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4), renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us, being made partakers of the divine nature — holiness, while manifested here, is dependent on, and directly and characteristically associated with, the heavenly objects and hopes, revealed to us by the Holy Ghost, consequent on the glorifying of the Lord Jesus as Man. Obedient and dependent confidence, perhaps I should more justly say confiding dependence, characterise at all times the soul whose eyes have been opened in faith, the divine life in man. But when God was hidden within the veil, and even so known, as to His actual revelation of Himself on earth, the holiness was co-ordinate to the revelation made. Faith, doubtless, may have often looked above it all, and known that God was in heaven, and man upon earth; and prophetic truth might point men farther, and tell men that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had entered into the heart of man, the things which God had prepared for them that love Him; but it could only tell them that man had not, nor had it entered into his heart, and the ordered revelation given of God presented a God revealed on earth, and holiness was referred to His house, and that house was down here; admitted, as it was, that heaven was His dwelling-place, and that the heaven of heavens could not contain Him.

Yet His name and revealed glory were down here in the tabernacle and in the temple, and everything, and all true consecration, was referred to that. There He dwelt with His people, His house was holy — there were holy flesh, holy garments, a worldly sanctuary, an altar most holy, and holy vessels. They were to be holy, because He who dwelt amongst them was holy — would allow no uncleanness in the camp. The vessels were holy, and the unclean could not draw near. Everything was consecrated to Him as dwelling there, and once a year an atonement made, and His tabernacle cleansed, because of the iniquity of the children of Israel, among whom He dwelt. Naturally, though further thought might, and did, break into faith, holiness practically referred to the revelation made of God and His dwelling-place, as revealed; relative holiness — and all true holiness is relative — relates to God as He has made Himself known.

290 The abstract remained true, that holiness became His house for ever, but the measure and character of it referred as obligatory to the way and measure in which the necessary and divine object of it was revealed. But the Holy Ghost signified, by the veil, that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle had its standing. A law was given by a mediator; but the people could not come nigh, even to the revelation given of God upon earth. A holy house, and holy vessels, and sanctified priests, surrounded God outside. A figure of Christ in one, for whom it was death if he did not go in with a due cloud of incense, marked that the way of man to God was not opened; and the revelation of God to man was not till the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, declared Him, and the rent veil shewed the open way, with boldness, into the holiest for sinners cleansed by the blood shed in rending it.

But there is more than this. Christ is entered in as Man, and sits at the right hand of God in the heavenly sanctuary. Further, the Holy Ghost is come down, and takes the things of Christ and shews them to us, and all things that the Father hath are His. Hence we say now, not (save as what had been) "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him," without adding, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Such is the Christian estate, as contrasted with the statement of the prophet, often cited as if it were the Christian state itself. Hence we are called upon to set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth. We cannot set our affections on what we do not know. And note this, that the true character of a man morally is what his heart is upon: a man whose mind is set on money is an avaricious man; on power, an ambitious man; on pleasure, a man of pleasure. He is morally what he loves, and his mind is full of. Our conversation, our living associations, are in heaven. It is the place we belong to, and, in our home affections, are associated with, and as Christians pursue, as the one thing which governs our mind, here indeed in the race, but the prize is our calling of God above (ano) in Christ Jesus. And what is this high calling this calling above? The word of God lives, and makes faith live more uniformly in these things than we are aware of. We find not only the blessed personal names in the unity of Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but in the dispensed order of the divine economy in grace, God, the Lord, and the Spirit; for God has made Him whom the Jews crucified both Lord and Christ, and thereupon the Spirit is come down here.

291 So, in 1 Corinthians 12, there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord; diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all. So, in Ephesians 4, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all. So, in all the Epistles, grace is wished from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. To us there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ; and even in the first announcement by Mary Magdalene to the apostles of the new Christian privileges, based on redemption, after the resurrection of the Saviour, it ran, "Go tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, my God and your God." Thus we are called to walk worthy according to these three titles. In 1 Thessalonians 2: 12, it is to walk worthy of God, who has called us to His own kingdom and glory. In Colossians 1: 10, That ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. So Ephesians 4, That ye may walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, and that vocation is the power of the Spirit of God, God's habitation through the Spirit, one body, and strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, rooted and grounded in love that we may be able to comprehend with all saints the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled up to all the fulness of God. It is according to a power that works in us.

It is according to these things, Christ being our life, that holiness is formed in us. The new life is a holy life in its nature, but it has its objects by which, in thought and affections, it is formed in its character. While the Father's love is the sustaining and peaceful enjoyment of this state, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us, Christ personally, as He is now in glory, is the object before our eyes. Other things are associated with Him, but Christ is the central and absorbing object. Christ is all objectively, and in all, as life, the living power in which He is enjoyed as personally in glory. There are two points to observe here in connection with this, as forming this holiness. First, its only measure and standard is Christ in glory, Christ as He is. Secondly, its full attainment and manifestation in us is when He comes and changes our vile body, and we appear with Him; then we are for ever set apart to God, with and like Him, and perfected and perfect.

292 The effect of looking thus at Him is a walk down here as He walked in those who are in Him, and whose measure of duty this is. He was that Holy Thing come down from heaven, and "the Son of man who is in heaven"; and so, with perfect patience, and unfailingly displayed, with His own heart's joy above as to its state the effect was a path of perfect holiness, obedience, and love down here, a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen, but which He has traced in the wilderness, in which there is no way. Divine life in Himself, but with His heart in the heaven, to which He belonged, and was in divinely, speaking what He knew and had seen, and on the joy set before Him, as Man down here, He walked in grace and holiness. Now we are united to Him, and His joy is our portion, and as He had life in Himself, so we in Him; and so far as our hearts are fixed on Him, we walk as He walked down here, the heavenly things wherein He dwells being the sphere in which we live, our conversation being in heaven, whence we look for Him to change our vile body, and fashion it like His glorious body. We are to be holy and without blame before God in love. Now this answers to God's nature, holy, blameless in His ways, and love: and, so living before Him, we enjoy Him, the infinite object of a nature which, morally speaking, is the same as His.

We joy in God, and this is evidently a holy joy. But when we come less abstractedly to consider our state, and that by which we live, likeness to Christ, which this verse in Ephesians 1 also expresses, becomes the measure of our moral state. We live by the faith of the Son of God. Being like Him, and with Him for ever, becomes the object we pursue. Thus we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly. Such is the wondrous purpose of God: He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

293 This is the ground of all the blessedness: God's purpose is that we should be associated with, one with, His own Son, the second Man, the last Adam, as Son of man but Son of God, in His manhood, as we are and indeed more closely than we were with the first; not Christ, as is often stated, united to men before and without redemption, but we to Him when He is glorified, having accomplished the redemption which gives us a place in the glory with Him, and He has done all that is needed to bring us there. Of old, before the foundation of the world, He rejoiced in the habitable parts of Jehovah's earth, and His delight was in the sons of men. God prepared Him a body, and He came in time, and to do God's will in our salvation, becoming a true man, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, now crowned with glory and honour. As man in the glory He had with the Father before the world was, and having become our life, and accomplished the work of redemption on the cross, and gone into glory, gone up on high as man, He has sent down the Holy Ghost Himself our abiding righteousness, that we might know that we are in Him, and He in us; not yet with Him, but in Him, and knowing it by the Holy Ghost (John 14), as it is written, If any one be in Christ, it is a new creation. There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus. He has quickened us together with Him, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; but, as said, not yet with Him, nor partaking of the glory.

We have the treasure in earthen vessels. We are thus set, having Christ as our life, redeemed and justified, with the glory before us; Christ, as Man, entered into it — entered too as our forerunner; with the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, the earnest of it, giving us to know withal that we are in Him, and He too in us, sons, and so heirs, but all in a poor earthen vessel. Our path as Christians is founded on this. Philippians 3 is the expression of it. This one thing I do, says the apostle; and Be ye followers of me, says the apostle, and so walk as ye have us for an ensample; . . . for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, and fashion it like His glorious body. The portion of true believers in heavenly things is settled. We give thanks to the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. As the thief was taken to paradise with Christ straight from the cross, paying indeed the penalty of his sinfulness to man, but the blessed Lord having borne his sins, and put them away out of God's sight. But in general we are left to pass through the wilderness, and to manifest the life of Christ — be the epistle of Christ down here.

294 Now, as this new life is a holy life in its nature, so it has its objects — the sphere in which it lives. They that are after the Spirit mind the things of the Spirit; and He takes the things of Christ, and shews them to us. Now we are united to Christ in glory, one spirit as joined to Him, sitting in Him in heavenly places, and predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son, that He may be the first-born among many brethren. We look to have our vile body fashioned like His glorious body. He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly. In our bodies we belong to the old, we have our treasure in earthen vessels. But we are entitled to hold ourselves for dead, crucified with Christ. If Christ be in us, the body is dead because of sin; and Christ being in us as our life, nothing can satisfy the desires of this new life but full conformity to Him in glory, who is its source and power.

The turning of the heart, then, towards this full conformity as the one object of holy pursuit and progress, is clearly pointed out in Scripture. First, I will quote Colossians 3. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Now this affection is the very essence of sanctification, as is evident, and we must not suppose that we have not these things revealed to us. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But we have received not the spirit which is of the world, but that which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. So Paul, declaring his own walk, and what became Christians, says, Be ye followers of me . . . for our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour, who shall change our vile body and fashion it like His glorious body. But more precisely, as connected with sanctification, the Lord says, in praying the Father for them, Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth. And then, For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth. He sets Himself apart as the Man in glory to whom we are to be conformed, the Son of God, in whom the whole truth, according to God's mind as to man in His purpose, is accomplished, that it may be brought, in living truth and power, by the Holy Ghost, and wrought in us. Which thing, says the apostle, is true in Him and in you. because the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth.

295 Conformity to Him in glory is the grand result. He is there in it, and the Holy Ghost, taking the things of Christ there, forms us morally into His likeness. Such is God's way. Let us take other passages which, while they shew this, shew the completing of it in God's measure at His coming. In 1 John 3 we have, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself as He is pure. Now the first thing we have to notice here is the blessed truth, how thoroughly we are associated in the mind and word of God with the blessed Lord all through. The world does not know us, because it did not know Him. We children; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. This is the sure hope before us, according to God's purpose, and we know it will be accomplished.

What it is has not yet appeared, but we are so identified with Christ, that this we know, that we shall be perfectly like Him, conformed to the image of God's Son. And now see the present and sanctifying effect. He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. The sure certainty of being like Him gives the measure and character of our heart's desires and affections, and we purify ourselves as He is pure. Sanctification, in its development, is the removal of everything, thought, or motive unsuited to that in which Christ is revealed to us as Man in glory, and the realisation in our minds of that which is revealed. In this there is growth. So we read in 2 Corinthians 3: 10. The veil being taken off the glory of the Lord: We with open [unveiled] face beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. This is the same truth; beholding in spirit the glory of Christ, the exalted Man, we become continually more like Him.

296 Another remarkable passage is in 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13, as shewing when and where the great result is brought out and manifested. The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, as we do toward you, to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Now this connects, in a most remarkable manner, present holiness in the saints and the appearing of the Lord. The apostle looks to their present state, but draws the veil, and shews it in its full manifested character when Christ appears; so that, if we do not know how to connect these two things, the sentence becomes unintelligible. Present holiness, in its nature and character, is what is manifested in us when Christ appears. So we are told that ministry is that we may grow up to Him who is the Head in all things, and the apostle laboured to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And our walk is to be worthy of God, who has called us to His own kingdom and glory. How high and holy is this calling! what a character it gives to the saints! what an association in heart and spirit with a glorified Christ on high!

Our conversation, our living associations, are there, and we wait for Him just to change our vile body, and all will be suited and in order. We have, as a rule, to pass through the world; but the holiness introduced into it is that which is above, suited to the expression in motives and thoughts of what that glorified Man is, who is the object of our affections, who has sanctified Himself, that we may be sanctified through the truth. We are the epistle of Christ here. If God chastises us, it is that we may be partakers of His holiness. We are completely associated with the Second and glorified Man, who is not ashamed to call us brethren. Our holiness is wrought out in our lives down here; but it is formed up there in fellowship with Himself, where our affections and minds get into the state to be manifested down here. There is in that a bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus, that His life may be manifested in our mortal bodies; but the whole positive side of forming and progress is in realising what He is, separated from sinners, up there, the positive blessedness of the perfected Man.

297 This produces what He was down here, the perfect Man down here, and this is what the perfect man [literally, full-grown] means in the New Testament: heirs morally, one who not only knows the forgiveness we need as regards the sins of the old man, but has learned his place and character in the new, has the positive side in Christ. But how blessed is this full association with Christ, the Man of God's purpose, who is according to His heart, and which by the Spirit brings us to know and enjoy Him where He is, and become continually more like Him, to whom we are to be perfectly like when with Him in glory!

May the Lord only give us diligence of heart in seeking it. To be in the holiest, where God is, and to know what holiness is there, and to find Christ there in glory, and to know God's thought and purpose as to man, and to know that we shall be formed in glory like Him, sons in the Father's house — what infinite joy! — and to know it is our portion, as Scripture teaches, and that He is not ashamed to call us brethren, in what was ordained before the world for our glory. God, even if it be by chastening, makes us partakers of His holiness, and the Son the pattern of our glory, brought into fellowship with Him according to Ephesians 1: 4, 5. Such is the joy and hope of God's children.

Forgiveness and Liberty

J. N. Darby.

<29011E> 298

I would, for a few moments, draw the attention of brethren in Christ to a point, as to which I think there has been a good deal of misapprehension in practice, and which, while the joy of known forgiveness seemed to make all plain for a time, has left souls subsequently in distress and difficulty, even when not doubting of their acceptance, though it has sometimes come to that. Forgiveness is not deliverance, and they have been a good deal confounded. It is a very common experience, when a person has found peace through the blood of Christ, that the pardoned and justified soul, filled with joy and gladness to find its sins gone, the conscience purged, the sense of divine goodness filling it, thinks that it has done with sin because it is at the time full of joy, and the Lord's goodness and favour; but thus is not deliverance.

It is deliverance from the burden of sin upon the conscience, but ere long the soul is surprised to find sin still there; yet this deliverance from the sense of guilt, received forgiveness, has very often been taken for the setting free the soul, as in a new position before God. This it is not. It is freedom, compared with the bondage of uncertainty of acceptance in which souls are attempted to be kept. The question of sin in the flesh is yet unsolved. I do not speak of perfection, so-called, which has missed all sound discernment as to the state and hope of the Christian, and invariably lowers the Christian standard of holiness and the judgment of sin, tending to harden the conscience, and lower the state of soul before God. There is no perfection, no goal, for the Christian, but being like Christ glorified Himself. But pardon, in its fullest sense is rarely known by the soul that is happy in the way that I have just spoken of, which only knows the deliverance of the conscience from the burden of sins actually lying on it, and thinks of none else: but even in its fullest conception, that of not imputing sin, forgiveness applies to the sins of which the flesh, the old man, is the source, clears the conscience, but the fruit of Adam life is all that is contemplated by it. It deals with what man has done, as a fallen child of Adam. It leads to the knowledge of divine favour, and, I may add, the hope of glory as revealed in Christ. But, while thus knowing God in His ways of grace, and so far completing my sense of grace, self-knowledge, and the consciousness of a new position in Christ before God, are not yet acquired. That we have sinned, and are guilty, and deserve condemnation, is in such a case fully acknowledged. What we are in the flesh, and what we are in Christ is not yet experimentally known. Hence the soul does not stand in its new position before God, is not delivered, is not freed from confounding the old man and my place before God, nor from the power of sin.

299 Deliverance has a double character; perfect freedom with God in love in my place before Him; and freedom from the power of sin in myself. We are in Christ for the former; Christ is in us for the latter. We are no longer in the position of the first Adam. Though outwardly in the world, and the flesh unchanged, we say, "When we were in the flesh." Then the motions of sins which were by the law wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. This new position, and the consciousness of it, flows from the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, while he refers us to Christ's work as the ground of it. I do not now say simply, He bore my sins, and cleared me for ever from them, but, I am in Christ before God, accepted in the Beloved, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. I am not in the condition of a child of Adam, responsible before God, and thinking of my condition in His sight in connection with my conscious state; I have died to that as wholly and hopelessly evil, and know by the Holy Ghost that I am in a new standing altogether, in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. I am not in the flesh but in the Spirit. Christ has died to sin, and I have died in Him, and He is my life; I am alive to God in this new life in Christ before Him, and reckon myself so by the Holy Ghost. My place is in the second Adam, not in the first. Not only my sins are forgiven me, but I have died out of the place and nature in which I was guilty by its deeds before God, and the second Adam is become my life; I am alive in Him to God. Of this the Holy Ghost gives me the consciousness. There is no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus. You must condemn Christ glorified, before you can condemn me.

Let us see how this is. I may have learnt forgiveness clearly, or I may not. But if I trust in the work of Christ for my forgiveness, as well as in His Person — for it is a present, effectual, and finished work — I am thereupon sealed with the Holy Ghost. After having believed the gospel of my salvation, I am sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Here is a new position altogether: "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." I have the place of son by faith in Christ Jesus, who is risen; and because I am one, God has given me the Spirit of His Son in my heart, crying, Abba, Father. I know my relationship, and live in it, not in Adam's. But, further (John 14), "I know that I am in Christ, and Christ in me"; I have changed my place before God altogether, and am in a new one — Christ's who has died, and is risen again. I reckon myself dead to sin; the old man has been crucified with Christ, that I should not serve it. And I am free — "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," not elsewhere. I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit — not if I am converted, but, if the Spirit of God dwells in me. I know I am in Christ, and Christ is past sin, the judgment of it, death, Satan's power. That is my standing and place before God. Death is gain, if it comes, for the body is not, as to power, redeemed — we wait for it. But I reckon myself dead to sin, my old man crucified with Christ. I am before God in Him who is glorified — in Christ. This is the doctrine presented by the apostle.

300 We have owned in our very profession of Christ that we were away from God in the flesh, but have taken our part in Christ's death as a Saviour, in order to be with God; and as He died to sin once, so we thus reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive to God, in Him who is our life, in the power of the Spirit. The result is in Romans 8, where we enjoy the life in liberty, according to the power in which He lives, and as dead to the sin which was condemned in His death on the cross. We are in Him now. The manner of it is that the sin which held me captive, and distressed me, as a renewed person, was condemned in Him on the cross (v. 3), so that there is no condemnation by reason of it for me. But this was in His death, and it is as though I had been there, as He was there made sin for me, and thus the condemnation is past and finished. But then, as to the flesh, sin in the flesh, I died; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Thus for faith I am delivered from sin in the flesh, as having died in Christ, in that Christ has, who is my life. It is not resurrection with Him — that carries us further — but death in Him on the cross as to the old man and state, and He now at the right hand of God, my life. Such is the doctrine and effect. Christ, who died, my life, and I in Him, in the power of the Holy Ghost, and through that dead to sin altogether, He having thus died, and the sin in my flesh condemned there, but for faith I died to it, for I died in Him. The condemnation He took, but it was in death, so that I reckon myself dead to sin in His death, and He is now my life, Christ in me, the only thing I own, and that by the Holy Ghost, as consciousness and power.

301 I am no longer in the flesh. My Adam place is no longer my place and standing before God. The flesh is there, but I am not in it, but in Christ, or not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in me. My place is thus summed up in Romans 8: "There is therefore now no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus: for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death; for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." The sin in my flesh has been condemned, fully dealt with, in the cross. And afterwards, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you"; but "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness."

But when I speak of Christ my life, and Christ being in me, the body dead because of sin, its only fruit if alive in its own life, I do not speak of a work done wholly outside me, finished, and accepted of God, so that sin can be no more imputed; but of one which, though really and effectually done for me on one side, or it would be legal efforts, and the spirit of bondage again to fear, as it is in so many, is at the same time realised in me, so as to be experimental. If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. I reckon myself dead. In a word, experience comes in. Hence, while chapters 6 and 8 give me the ground of faith in what Christ has done, teaching me to reckon myself dead, and alive to God in Christ, because Christ has died, and has been raised from the dead, between this, so far as developed in chapter 6, and the enjoyed effect in chapter 8, we find introduced the painful experience of that from which we have to be delivered.

The delivering work was done on the cross, so that our state, by faith in Christ, is dead to sin, and morally, as to the life this side the cross, in which He, sinless, had to be made it, wholly closed, and alive now wholly beyond it all, with nothing but God to live to; and this, not by our efforts, but by faith through grace; yet, as conviction of guilt goes before known forgiveness, so the experimental knowledge of self before deliverance. No effort clears the guilt; no effort effects the deliverance; but there is the knowledge of self, and that we cannot get free by improvement or victory, as there is the knowledge of the guilt which is pardoned; only here it is self-knowledge and present experience.

302 Of this the law is ever the instrument; if we have learnt forgiveness already, the form is modified, takes the shape of hoping we have not deceived ourselves, and the like; but it is always a comparison of our state, and what God requires, and that is law; very useful for the discovery of our state, but bondage. I repeat, as it is important, wherever we reason from our state to what God's acceptance of us may be, that is, in principle, law just as the prodigal son between his conversion and meeting his father. It calls itself holiness, will insist that without holiness no man shall see the Lord, which is necessarily and eternally true, but mixes it with God's acceptance of us, connecting this and our state, so that it is really righteousness, not holiness, that the mind is occupied with: for in holiness we hate evil because it is unholy, not because we are out of divine favour by it; but, whatever shape it takes, it is always really law, a question of evil that makes us unacceptable to God.

Now the doctrine is that we have died in Christ. The law supposes living, responsible men, as, of course, as children of Adam we are. The law has power over a man as long as he lives. Dead, it cannot deal with him as a present responsible person. I cannot accuse a dead man, as a present thing, of evil lusts and self-will. The apostle puts the case of the marriage relationship; death dissolves it, and leaves the person free; we have died under law, but so are dead to law, and now are married to another, a risen Christ, who is, as man, put in a wholly new place, after the question of sin is settled, and then gives the experience of the soul under the first husband, the law, not now as to guilt, but as to the power of sin dwelling in us. Here I learn that in me (it is not what I have done) dwells no good thing; the flesh is simply and always bad. Secondly; it is not myself, being born of God, for I hate it, it is not therefore I. This is often a great relief, though it be not deliverance; but thirdly, though it be not I, it is too strong for me: I am captive to it. All my efforts only prove this to me. As effort and conflict, I give it up as hopeless, and look for another to come in and deliver me. I have learned that I have no strength (not that I am guilty), and that is what I had to learn, the lesson God was teaching me; and when brought there I find it is all done. I am not in the flesh at all, the condemnation of the flesh which tormented me was accomplished on the cross, and I am in Him who is risen and is on high after all was done; and founded on this, I have life, and power, and liberty by the Holy Ghost, by which I am in Him who is risen and know it. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death, and the sin in my flesh has been condemned in the cross, on which I died with Christ. I am not in the flesh; that, be it what it may, is not my standing before God, but in the Spirit, accepted in, and as Christ is, boldness for the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world.

303 The effects of this are of all importance in many ways. First, the soul is happy, has the Spirit of adoption, liberty in love before God. Secondly, the staff and strength of self is broken. There may be the truest purpose of heart and yet unsuspected and unbroken self, as when Moses killed the Egyptian. And an experienced Christian will soon see the difference. Many do mischief in the church through this. With self we have ever to contend, ever to judge it, but self-confidence is another thing, there is not then the waiting upon God which characterises the exercised soul which knows itself. Only I would add, we may find self-judgment, when not delivered, and only on the way to it, but then confidence in God will be wanting.

Further, the whole character of worship is affected. Where mere forgiveness is known, the ground of it is only deliverance from guilt and ruin; true, but a witness that our conversation is not in heaven, what we were as guilty sinners, rests still on the spirit. Now I believe that the wonders of the grace that redeemed us, and the value of Christ's precious blood, will be more felt in heaven than here, but we shall enjoy what is actually there, not be thinking habitually of where we were. But our conversation is in heaven now, our living relationships for the new man; we belong to it, are in Christ; our affections are to be set upon things above, developed in connection with what is there; the Holy Ghost gives us to know the things freely given to us of God.

304 And this will affect every part of the Christian's inward life, and his more outward life and service. Hundreds will be found who have found peace in forgiveness, but not deliverance as taught in the word. I add, as it is sometimes a difficulty, that the two parts of Romans must be read not as in necessary sequence, as to their contents. The first, chapters 1-5: 11, treats of personal guilt, and grace that meets it. The second, chap. 5 :12 to chap. 8: 39, our state through Adam's sin, and the remedy for that.

I would add, as a further help, that if there is heart indifference, or even sloth, it is not surprising that we do not find deliverance, or if there is a walk contrary to the mind of the Spirit, or what a Christian should seek, deliverance by the power of the Spirit is hardly to be looked for. But further, if a person who has found deliverance is so walking, though the soul may not get back into uncertainty as to its standing, or return into a state of Romans 7, yet the Spirit which is the power of this new state, being ever grieved, and so communion with the Father and the Son lost, though not the knowledge of the relationship, the affections not being filled with what belongs to this new position — all is confusion and obscurity in the soul. One is a child, but where is my father? I belong to heaven, but where for me is the heaven I belong to? What I know of both serves but to make me sensible of my actual loss of them. Hence, though it is not subjectively a question whether I am a son, it is objectively a failure of what a son enjoys, so that darkness is on the spirit. I hardly know whether I can call myself so, though I do not doubt it. For this the only remedy is humiliation, and drawing near to the Lord, and giving up the hindering idol.

In dealing with the souls of others, the first point is to discern whether the soul is really delivered, or if it be negligence when it has understood its position in Christ before God. This is a matter of spiritual discernment. Where there is a legal and self-judging temperament, it is not always so easy. And we must remember that there are many true souls who do cry, Abba Father, with God, but through bad teaching are afraid to take their place in acceptance; these we must seek to make clear by the word.

On the delusion of Death to Nature, and the misuse of Laodicea.

J. N. Darby.

<29012E> 305

Our affections may be all right, and our mind more or less in confusion and in error; and by "our mind" now I speak of spiritual intelligence and real acquaintance with God's mind in the word.

But when one in this state sets about to teach, he teaches confusion and error. It is not merely imperfection in statement, arising from the earthen vessel; which alas! is a pretty constant companion, though ever less, the humbler and the more distrustful of our own thoughts we are, seeking only to reproduce the thoughts of God, so graciously given in His word, and thus feeding His saints, as well as calling sinners.

But such teaching becomes a thought of our own to which the will attaches itself, which is turned to our own glory, nourishes subtly self, and misleads others into the error accredited by the affections which may have been connected with it.

What has given occasion to these lines is a leaflet which has been sent to me from the North of England, professedly intended only for adepts, as on a large blank space is printed, "For private circulation only."

I do not think the truth hides itself thus, or teaches an esoteric doctrine. That meat should be given in due season, that milk is for babes, and solid food for grown men, Scripture teaches, and no one would deny. But this is not a special private doctrine for the initiated, kept secret from all but adepts. This was charged upon those who were initiated into this system of doctrine, and strenuously denied. Perhaps some unwise females might have acted foolishly; but here it is recognised in print. It is one of the difficulties of teaching by printing that it does cast all indiscriminately broadcast.

But this is not choosing a tract or paper suited to the state of a soul, which every wise Christian would do individually, though he may cast the gospel more abroad; but this is to be confined to private circulation. But this by the bye. I take the question up on its merits, and affirm that the whole basis of the system is false and unscriptural, proving only that the propagators of it are ignorant of grace in its full real character, of what the flesh is, that is, of themselves; and that the whole ground of their system is unscriptural on the point they are so pretentious about. Our introduction into the Father's eternal kingdom, the new creation, is never connected with death to anything. It is all an unscriptural delusion. That bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus enables us, through grace, to manifest His life here, is alike true and practically important; that we reckon ourselves dead as the starting-point, and that God reckons us dead with Christ, is equally true; and the last point makes it true liberty, and not legalism, as this doctrine tends to do. These principles will be found in inverse order, from what precedes, in Colossians 3, Romans 6: 11 and 2 Corinthians 4: 10. And it is of the utmost moment that we seek to have them as realities, and not mere recognised truth. The truth sanctifies, but it must be the truth as it is in Jesus; that is, in living power by the Holy Ghost. It is not some saying, "We are Philadelphians," nor others treating these as poor blind Laodiceans, while they have the gold tried in the fire: neither will do. Put either into the fire, and I fear, if in this state, only a small remnant of gold would be found, and that Christ, and not themselves. We want realities, men of God who do bear about in their bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus. And he who does will be the one who will best know his worse-than-nothingness, and the excellency of Christ as He is in Himself.

306 But to come to the doctrine: — it is not with death to sin, or death to nature, or life out of death, or our being dead and risen, that sitting in heavenly places, or the new creation, is connected. The changes are rung on these without end, and we thus become in actuality the righteousness of God; and that, according to my leaflet, is perfection! All is false. Sitting in heavenly places and the new creation are connected in Scripture with being dead in sins, not to sin. It would not be a new creation if it were not so. (See Eph. 2.) And hence it is all simple grace and divine power, a creation when we were dead, and, as quickening, the power of God as wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him in heavenly places, and us, when dead in sins, He has taken and set in Him. Hence, it is twice said we are saved, the actual perfect fact (sesosmenous). The system would own, when there was intelligence, that this was true of all believers, but would realise it, etc. Realise what? God's power in raising the dead, as Creator of the new creation! for nothing else is spoken of. It is, moreover, all a past thing which He wrought in Christ, and according to this power in us. And so ever in Scripture; 2 Cor. 5. All were dead — had died, if you please — and there was a new creation, where all things were new, and all things of God.

307 On the other hand, where being dead to sin is the point, dead with Christ and risen with Him, there is never found a word of new creation, nor sitting in heavenly places. Our affections are to be set on what is heavenly, where Christ is; in realising it we bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus; but it is manifestation of divine life here. The whole doctrine is an unscriptural delusion. The new creation and putting us in heavenly places is a work of God's power as to those dead, not out of nature but dead in nature, and the dying and rising with Christ does not set us there at all, nor is it spoken of as new creation. Quickening even together with Christ, as in Colossians, is not life out of death, that is, death to sin; but in Colossians it is also when dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh. The life-out-of-death-to-nature system, or to the flesh, is an utterly false view according to Scripture. Both (that is, new creation associated with sitting in heavenly places, and being dead and risen with Christ) are most important truths: one teaching us what sovereign grace and divine power has done for us; the other in connection with our experimental state down here.

To confound them is not blessed new light, but unscriptural darkness, and ignorance of the word and self.

I shall now take up the second point — being dead to nature. I fear I may subject myself to some contempt if I suggest that not one of them knows what they mean. What is the nature which the cross deals with? Not the flesh — that they speak of as a distinct thing. He sees the cross put an end to "his flesh." "But far more intimately still the cross deals with his nature also." Now, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God is very true, but not very new. That they neither marry nor are given in marriage in those blest scenes, we do not deny. If still Laodiceans, we are not Sadducees or Mormons. In this sense surely "full deliverance does not leave nature untouched"; and, more, we may have to hate our father and mother, if Christ be in question, even down here. With all this Christians are more or less familiar, and many practically so; and its realisation cannot be too earnestly pressed, and in connection with being dead and risen with Christ: only not unscripturally confounding it with "breathing the air of the new creation, to rise and rest with Christ in glory."

308 This, we have seen, is unscriptural confusion — very ecstatic, only unhappily not true. But what is death to nature? Elsewhere they have told us it is to the good as well as the bad. Now, morally, there is no good thing in us. So that, either they must hold that there is something good in man (whereas the mind of the flesh is enmity against God), and be utterly astray as to foundation truth, or take nature in the sense of what is entirely out of the moral sphere. Now Scripture carefully guards nature in this sense from being touched or attacked, because it, as such, comes from the hand of God Himself.

The matter stands thus: God made man upright. Man fell into sin, and the will of man became enmity against God, and nature subject to corruption and the various corruptions that are in the world through lust. Grace through redemption brought in for us (all being not yet perfected) the glorious state of the second Man, and, speaking of our actual state down here, a new life, a perfect conscience, and a power wholly above, and not of, the order of things in which we live as a fact, and which connects us with the heavenly Head, the second Adam, who is perfected. Now this power is entirely above the whole system in which nature lives — as I have said, is not of that order — does not belong to it. If a person lives wholly in the power of this, so that his mind never gets into the sphere of nature, he will still have to contend with, or be preserved from, the workings of an evil nature. But, as to his active life and service here, he will live out of the sphere of nature. So Paul knew no man after the flesh. His whole life was the fruit of the Spirit: to live was Christ. He lived wholly above it, and Scripture recognises such a state. But where this is spoken of, it has nothing to do with dying to a state here. It is a nature wholly new which cannot die, and belongs to a sphere which has nothing to die to. It is, as in Ephesians 2, a new creation (2 Cor. 5), a thing wholly apart, and supposes we were dead, not alive to die to anything; and so it applies to service in the love of Christ, not state, save as wholly of the new creation, without reference to any other. So, where the Lord alludes to it, it is for the kingdom of heaven's sake.

309 When once we descend into any connection with the old, it is either sin in the flesh, or it is worse than deadly to die to it. Another thing has to be remarked, which, in connection with these new views, is of all importance, and shews the falseness of them where they are new. This state of abstraction to divine things is always connected with our being in Christ, not Christ in us, and hence with sovereign grace which has put us there, and is true of every Christian as to his real standing. Thus, in Ephesians 2, we are sitting in heavenly places in Christ, and it is to usward who believe. So, in 2 Corinthians 5, If any man be in Christ Jesus. Now in Colossians, which is their great battle-horse, it is Christ in us, and we are not sitting in heavenly places at all; it is a hope laid up for us in heaven, and all in conformity to this: Christ sits there at the right hand of God, and we are called to have our affections there.

Hence His Spirit is not introduced, and, being looked at as still on the road, we read: "If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away," and that in view of being presented holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight, as a future thing. I do not doubt the faithfulness of that blessed One to keep us, but in Colossians we have to be kept in the midst of evil and temptation. In Ephesians we have no "ifs," but are actually sitting, not yet with, but in, Christ in heavenly places. Hence Christian life in us down here is developed in Colossians as nowhere else in Scripture. And remark that our being in Christ is sovereign grace, not a process, however blessed, in us. You have no development in Ephesians, but a place and state we are to shew out, in contrast with an old and sinful thing.

But further, when Christ in us is treated of, and death as connected with what we are down here, is spoken of, it is sin, not nature, we have done with. In a new creation we have done with nature in the first Adam, have put it off, are renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. But where, as in Colossians, it is Christ in us, it is death to sin and the world, not to nature. And in Romans 8, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin," not because of nature. I am dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world. Indeed it is remarkable in Colossians how the heavenly state is passed over as a state, though suited affections are looked for down here; but it is Christ in us, the hope of glory; or, we appearing with Him when He appears, though in a subjective way affections ordered by it are looked for; and this is because death and resurrection with Christ are treated of, not a new creation. For even in that which goes farthest (chap. 2: 13), and draws nearest to Ephesian truth, we have no introduction into heavenly places, unless in the new creation. And in the new creation death to the old man is never spoken of. The whole system is ignorance of Scripture, not new truth.

310 I might add that death to sin and resurrection are connected with testimony and service and spiritual state subjectively down here as to the effect, not with communion in heaven, as far as I am aware. As regards nature, as distinct from sinful nature, instead of having done with it, where it is taken into account — and if I die, it is taken into account — it is, in positive opposition to this teaching, carefully guarded and owned. Being without natural affection is one of the signs of the last days, the worst state of evil. As created of God, it is carefully owned. Relations which in nature still subsist were established before the fall. Everything in man is spoiled by that fall; but when nature is separated from its fallen condition, in which it is called flesh — and this separation is the essence of this doctrine — it is carefully maintained, not died to; sin is — at least the Christian is reckoned to be dead to it, not nature. So in speaking of divorce — that was the effect of sin; but in the beginning it was not so, says the Lord: "God made them male and female," and maintains, and insists on maintaining, what God created — nature. So the apostle: forbidding to marry was a doctrine of demons, though, if a man could give himself up to Christ's work, it was better.

When the Lord looked upon the young man, He loved him; but as to his moral state, sin, the lust of money, possessed the young man's heart, and he preferred it to Christ, and left Him. In service, till His hour was come, the Lord had only for His mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" But when that was over, in that most solemn moment, He could say, Mother, behold thy son; Son, behold thy mother. It has been even said that the Lord, when returning from the temple at twelve years old, made Himself in grace, in going back with Joseph and His mother, subject to the bondage of corruption! But this makes the law sin, for the law commands it. In competition with Christ, all yields. He created these relationships, and is Lord in and above them; but while a risen state and heavenly things, where they have no place at all, are recognised, they, as formed by God, are fully recognised; and there is no dying to nature spoken of in Scripture. The soul may be in a certain sense out of it, not think of it, as in a fresh sphere into which it has entered; but if one has to say to it, he is bound to own it as of God, though He be paramount to it; and, if it be set in opposition to Him, it is then sin.

311 And it is not only existing relationships which are maintained, but the absence of natural affections is a mark of the last degradation of human nature. As regards the relationships, they are surely to be held in the Lord. But nature, if taken apart from sin and flesh — as it is in this doctrine — we do not die to in Scripture. It is what God has made. In speaking of it, we have to abstract our thoughts from the state into which it is fallen, as this teaching assiduously does; but, so abstracted, it is what God made and owned and carefully maintained, though a power is brought in which is above it, and out of its sphere: dying to it is utterly unscriptural and false. It is what God owned, and God maintains and owns, as of Him, and asserts it, and even denounces as of Satan what does reject it as created by Him.

That all is corrupted, and that sin in the flesh is condemned in the cross, and that the Christian has died to sin — this is earnestly insisted on in Scripture.

Another grave error, ruinous to the truth, is connected with the system: our being in Christ and Christ in us being confounded — truths which go together, but are quite distinct in their nature and bearing. Divine righteousness loses its whole nature, place, and bearing. Sovereign grace has placed us in Christ before God, and Christ is made unto us righteousness; we are made the righteousness of God in Him. He having perfectly glorified God, when He was made sin for us, and bore our sins, God's righteousness has set Him as Man at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; and part of the righteousness of God is that He should see the fruit of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied: He must have us, therefore, in the glory with Him, and like Himself. Wondrous counsels of God! Wondrous efficacy of the work of Christ! Yet a necessary part of His glory. What would a Redeemer be without redeemed? Yet to us all grace, the exceeding riches of grace. But it is no work in us which is the basis of this, but Christ's work for us, when absolutely alone and made sin for us. He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him — not He in us. It is quite true that we must have the life to have the righteousness; but that does not make of the life in us our divine righteousness as they do. They make of our being in Christ and Christ in us, not that Christ is both our righteousness and life in power in us, but that thus that life is our divine righteousness, we are it in the power of that life, the fulness being in us; and on the other hand, that, as Christ who is our life is in God, our life is in God. The righteousness of God, which, Scripture says, we are made in Him, they make out He is made in us: it is our state, not God's righteousness.

312 "We behold the righteousness of God subsist in a living person for our hearts." "Righteousness is dwelling in life of new creation." "The Son of God in the power of divine righteousness is the new source of the race whom He leads onward through the desert. There is an energy below which is suitable to the fountain of life eternal above. As truly and really as we were constituted sinners, so are we truly and really constituted righteousness as in Him who has become in resurrection the power of God to us. Christ Himself, risen in victor strength, is to be known in the saint (chap. 8: 10) as really as he felt the power of evil in his Adam state. There is actual positive righteousness, not only justification by faith. It is established in the cross, and in virtue of the work done there; it flows down with glory in its train, and lifts him out of death" ("Voice to the Faithful" — Pauline Epistles — Romans); and much more that follows.

Now, is this being "constituted righteous" according to Romans 5, or the righteousness of God in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5? So again, in Ephesians. "Justification of life — the power of righteousness actually known in the vessel on earth." "But where the living power of him who subsists in divine righteousness comes in, the natural man must wholly retire." "Righteousness as in power and place in God to sustain us in light and glory where he is." "Thus we see our side of the new man as a throne of grace, and God's side the fountain of life and righteousness"; so "we rise higher and higher in the power of God's righteousness." "The whole energy of hidden life in God is now acting in the power of righteousness in glory." I might add much more; but this is enough to shew that divine righteousness for this system is Christ in us, bringing glory in its train; we go up to Him, being dead to nature and to all here, but to find the "power" of righteousness in glory. Hence, in the tract, "All Things are Ours," we read, "And finally as the full result of salvation, made the righteousness of God in Christ."

313 This is a result obtained by dying to nature, an experimental condition. In the passage, it is Christ made sin which is the ground of it; in this system, it is our having died to nature, and so having actual righteousness (in express contrast with justification by faith) according to the power of righteousness in glory. And what is the effect? The simple sovereign grace which took us when dead in sins, and set us in heavenly places in Christ, is practically lost, and those under the influence of the system filled with what they call Christ in them — but really as is ever the case, with themselves — and Christ in Himself is practically lost to them. It is, we are told, "escaped from the scene below, to look around in that effulgent light with not a mist of earth to intervene." We are to suppose this is the experience of the writer. Nor have I found one who came under the system who was not occupied with himself. But John, in writing of fathers in Christ, has nothing to say of them but "They have known him that is from the beginning."

I have only Laodicea to speak of, a solemn subject, which in itself would require more time and development than I can give to it here. I can only speak of it in connection with our present subject. And my remarks may be very short, as what is said is merely the fruit of human imagination, the gold something extra-extraordinary, this divine righteousness in power in us, as breathed into us in John 20, not union, but more: we receive the positive power of divine righteousness, "not a mist," having left the earthly scenes and nature in a life out of death, identified with the new Man (Christ) in God. Now, reveries of interpretation I should leave where they were; but this is connected with the whole system. Laodicea, I doubt not, is the state to which the professing church is come (outside the gross evils of Thyatira, which also goes down to the end, and is the ecclesiastical form of Christendom into which Puseyism seeks to bring us back), which Christ will finally spue out of His mouth. Still, some who have ears to hear may remain in it, and Christ never deserts His own. And He is there to knock and arouse, not owning the state of things, as in Jerusalem of old, but still dealing with souls in it, and pressing on them the having the divine reality of Christianity — the fine gold of divine righteousness, the white raiment with which all true saints are clothed, and spiritual discernment to know divinely the truth. Nor is supping with Christ, blessed as all such associations are, anything extraordinary. Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. But this is no special privilege; and reigning with Him, as it is the privilege of all that suffer with Him, is really the lower part of the glory, and what belongs to the government of God; not intimacy of communion, but publicity of glory, what is manifested on earth; as in the transfiguration, not inside the cloud, but manifested to men on earth.

314 It is Colossians, which never sets us in heavenly places, but makes us appear when Christ appears. We have only to read Revelation 19 to get both these things. Wonderful it is that poor creatures such as we are should have such a place. Still, it is the governmental glory, not the Father's house, not "to be ever with the Lord." Though with many it is a mere volatile imagination which runs after these things, I have no doubt that there is in many the true desire to live in fuller communion in that which is above, as new creatures, as dead and risen with Christ. God forbid that I should quench this: I believe it to be very much needed; I crave it from the Lord for myself; I would not damp such a desire. All I desire is that it be not mixed up with false doctrines and idle self-winged imaginations.

What some have found is merely the liberty which belongs to every Christian. I speak of a system which I believe to be unscriptural. For my own part, I do not doubt of the true desire of him who is looked up to by many as its author for more living association with Christ in glory. There is a want of patient weighing of Scripture statements, and I dare say, as is usual, disciples have gone beyond their master. Still the unscriptural system is there.

315 APPENDIX

I add a few words, that my opposition to what I consider error may not be mistaken for opposition to the blessed truth that error clouds. I hold the cross to be the end of man's moral history — "now is the judgment of this world" — now "they have both seen and hated both me and my Father"; and that we are livingly associated with a glorified Christ through the Holy Ghost, and that by His power we enter into the enjoyment of that we are called to. Our conversation is in heaven. Not only that we are forgiven and justified as regards our human responsibility in connection with the first Adam, but introduced in spirit into all that Christ is entered into, and are associated with His place as Man and Son, as we were with Adam's. It is the difference of what Scripture calls the perfect (full-grown) Christian. It is because I more and more believe, and I hope more and more realise, this blessed place, that I would clear it of the errors with which imagination and man's mind have surrounded it. I would more than ever earnestly press our place being Christ's place. Only that Scripture carefully guards the individual glory of His Person. Still, He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren.

I am the rather disposed to make this plain, because it has been sought to identify me with this system. I have received this day a tract entitled, in large letters, "There must be Death upon Nature." I must beg leave to decline any responsibility for tracts not put out by myself. I am told this is mine. But in running over this leaflet I see nothing but what is right; the word 'nature' is used, and there are some incorrect things not very important. What I think of dying to nature will be found in the foregoing pages, written when I had not seen the leaflet I now refer to. Of course we have to have done with our present state of human nature, and, in the measure in which it has lost its power over us as connecting us with all around, we shall be able to act for God in the world, always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus. But we are purposely left in it here, having to take up our cross and follow Him. I have no doubt that nothing that is of nature in thought can do God's work here, or enter into His presence above. Our bodies are to be "a living sacrifice." But this is not what they mean by nature, nor the effect of being dead to it. Nature on the leaflet attributed to me is being dead to everything which would hinder our following Christ — hinder His being all. If people are settled in peace, this cannot be too strongly pressed; for, even if men have wives, they must be as those who have none. I am more than ever anxious to press Christ being everything, and ourselves dead to everything that would dim our seeing the heavenly glory. But because I would press this, I would clear that doctrine from what would falsify and cloud it.

Gethsemane

Luke 22: 44

J. N. Darby.

<29013E> 317 (Translated from the French)

The state of heart has more to do than exegesis with the understanding of this passage. Yet important doctrines, or rather facts and truths relative to Christ, are connected with these remarkable verses. I shall try to bring out the position in which the ever blessed Saviour is found here, although the appreciation of the bearing of these verses depends, after all, on the spirituality of the heart. It will be understood that doctrines about Christ are connected with them, when one knows that verses 43 and 44 have been omitted by more than one manuscript, evidently because according to the view taken by the copyists they made Christ too much a man. Now it is this which gives to these verses their true value: Christ, in the Gospel of Luke, is essentially man. We there find Him in prayer much oftener than in the other Gospels. Thus, after His baptism by John, it was whilst He prayed that heaven was opened upon Him; it was whilst He prayed that He was transfigured; chap. 9. So also He had passed all the night in prayer before choosing the twelve disciples; chap. 6: 12. All this is exceedingly interesting, yea, of profound interest for the heart.

But other elements present themselves in the consideration of these verses which are before us. An immense change was taking place at this time in the position of the Saviour. Until then He had, by His divine power, provided for all the wants of His disciples, entirely disowned as He was, and in appearance dependent on the kindness of a few women (for it was their particular privilege thus to devote themselves to Him), or of other persons, for His daily bread — if needed, a fish. They brought Him exactly what was necessary to supply His wants. And when He sends His disciples to preach in the cities of the glorious land, He knows how to turn the hearts so that they lacked nothing. But He was to be rejected. The things concerning Him were to receive their divine and wonderful solution, and to be accomplished according to the depth of the counsels of God. He was going, not to shelter His disciples from every evil, but not to shelter Himself, and to be exposed to the outrages of those who said, "He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him." Christ was not yet drinking the cup of wrath. This was accomplished on the cross; it was there, that which He suffered from the hand of God, supreme and expiatory in its nature. But the moment was come which He Himself described by these words: "This is now your hour, and the power of darkness." The hour of temptation, not of wrath but of temptation, when the Saviour must have thought at the same time of the terrible cup that was before Him. The enemy tried to overwhelm Him by the circumstances, before which human nature, as such, would shrink; and in view of the forsaking of God amidst these circumstances. The Saviour entered at this moment into the trial; but He entered into it perfect in every way, receiving the cup in obedience from the hand of His Father. As to the circumstances, and as to that which weighed upon His soul, Satan and the men under his power were everything: as to the state of His soul, they were nothing; His Father was everything. This is one of the most perfect and profound instructions for all our troubles.

318 It is to this supreme hour that the apostle John alludes when he says, more than once, when no one touched nor could touch the Lord: "His hour was not yet come." But I would enter into some further consideration of the character of this hour of temptation. The Lord in His grace deigned, led by the Spirit, to allow Himself to be tempted, having associated Himself with us to take part in our miseries and troubles. Satan tempted Him at the beginning by all that which (sin apart) induces man to act from his own will, that which leads him into sin when he listens to his own will — the need of food, the world and its glory, the promises outside the path of obedience and in distrust of God and of His faithfulness.

But the Second man maintained His integrity, and Satan could not succeed in making Him depart from the path of the Man of God. The strong man was bound and Christ returns, with the power of the Spirit, being untouched in His soul, "to spoil him of his goods." He delivered all those who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him; He was the Man who conquered, gaining the victory over Satan, as the first man had broken down. By the Spirit of God He cast out demons; the kingdom of God was there. All the effects of the dominion of Satan disappeared before Him, even death itself. Alas! this did not change man's heart; who was, in the affections of his flesh, enmity against God. Death was needed for the redemption of man; quite a new state of being, his reconciliation with God; the righteousness of God was to be glorified; the claim that Satan had over man by sin in death and that by the judgment of God, was to be destroyed and annulled. The righteous vengeance of God against that which was hostile to Himself was to be manifested. So that all the enmity of man against God, all the anguish of death viewed as the power of Satan and the judgment of God, all the energy of Satan, and lastly the wrath of God (and it is bearing in the latter that expiation has been accomplished) were to meet on Jesus, and did meet on the head of the Lamb of God, who opened not His mouth before His oppressors. Terrible testimony shewing that the hour of man and of his will is the power of darkness! The hour of God in righteousness for man is but the righteous wrath which abandons Him, and finally excludes from His presence him who is in hostility against Him. What powerful and infinite proof of grace, that Christ tasted this in His grace; that God gave Him that we might escape it, that Christ tasted it, offering Himself without spot to God for that! Outwardly the power of Satan and the malice of men led Christ to death and the cup of God's wrath. And it is thus that the perfection of Christ knows how to separate absolutely these two parts of suffering, and to turn the terrible suffering, from the power of Satan in death, into perfect obedience to God His Father, because He passed through that fearful hour of temptation with God, and without entering into it one moment as a temptation which might have for its effect in Him to awaken His own will. Such is Gethsemane; not the cup, but all the power of Satan in death and the enmity of man taking their revenge (so to speak) on God ("the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me"): all perfectly and entirely felt, but brought to God in an entire submission to His will. It is the Christ — marvellous scene! — watching, praying, struggling in the highest degree; all the power and the weight of death pressed upon His soul by Satan, and augmented by the sense He had of what they were before God, from whose face nothing then hid Him. But He always kept His Father absolutely before His face, referring everything to the Father's will, without flinching for a moment, or trying to escape that will by giving way to His own. Thus He takes nothing from Satan or men, but all from God. When He is well assured that it is the will of His Father that He should drink this cup, all is decided for Him. "The cup which my Father hath given, shall I not drink it?" All was between Him and His Father, the obedience is calm and perfect. What ineffable victory, what supreme calmness! suffering, yea, but between Himself and God! Satan now was as nothing, men were the instruments of the will of God, or the redeemed of His grace. See what happens when they come; Jesus went forth, and when He announced Himself, they fell to the ground. He voluntarily offers Himself to accomplish the work, and thus permits those to go in safety, who had no strength to shelter themselves, to subsist in that terrible moment when the triumph of good or of evil was to be decided, and where the righteousness of God against sin lent its force to the power of death and the malice of those who were the voluntary slaves of him who possessed the power of death.

320 The perfect bond of love has overcome through the subjection of Christ as Man to the judgment against sin, by which righteousness can triumph in blessing according to love; the expiation of sin has been made, and the power of Satan and of death annulled for him who comes to God by Jesus. But Luke 22: 39-44 presents to us Christ conscious of that which was to happen, and, as man, occupied in communion with His Father, with this final and decisive trial. Was He to enter into the temptation, that is to say, to yield to a will of His own, even by desiring to escape death and the cup of judgment, or to find an occasion of obedience, instead of sparing Himself? For Him obedience, however terrible the sufferings, was the joy and breathing of His soul.

Not to dread the judgment of God would have been insensibility; to avoid it would have been to fail as to the will of His Father, since for this cause He came to this hour. It would have been to fail as regards the salvation of man, in which the whole character of God revealed itself even to the angels. But here Christ does not draw the character of this moment from elevating and encouraging motives, but He goes through it in entire subjection to the will of God with all the pain attached to it. He prays. Verse 43 puts the question in all its simplicity. An angel appeared to Him to strengthen Him. It is a man having need of help from on high. If He had not been that, it could not have been the deliverance of man.

321 The pressure of anguish only became stronger on realising the evil with which He had to do; but this struggling agony of soul is only expressed by more intense prayer. His soul attached itself more strongly to God, and He rises — having perfectly gone through the valley of the shadow of death, the power of Satan, the horror of evil as opposed to God — He rises victorious. The cup which His Father would give Him He will drink. Then it will not be a question of struggling, watching, or praying, but of subjection. A perfect calmness marks the cross, a calmness of darkness where man's eye does not penetrate; but the subjection is perfect. Here goes out the cry, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." It was perfection, the perfection of suffering; of subjection, but not a struggle, where the soul cleaves to God in order not to enter into the temptation, a temptation — mark it well — not by means of something agreeable, but of all the power of evil, of death, of Satan, who tried to make the Saviour shrink before the awful cup which was found on the path of obedience, the cup which produced our salvation, and the glory of Jesus as man. On the cross, in the solemn hour of expiation, all takes place between the soul of Christ and God. In Gethsemane, the Christ, in presence of all the efforts of Satan, cleaves to God so as not to enter into temptation, but follow the path of obedience low as it brought Him. Now He descended into the lower parts of the earth, alone, forsaken, betrayed, denied, and, lastly, abandoned of God — perfect, victorious, obedient, the Saviour of those who obey Him. And notice here, therefore, that in Gethsemane, infinite as were His sufferings compared with all ours, Christ is an example to us. We have to watch and to pray, to struggle in prayer perhaps, so as not to enter into temptation. Sometimes even, when some affliction comes upon us by our own fault (in Christ no doubt it was the fault of others), it is difficult to submit to the ways of God. It is the same thing when, in one way or another, the path of obedience and of uprightness, the path of life, is painful. A more easy path, more verdant to the eyes of the flesh, is to be found by the side of it. Then in our little troubles our portion is that of the Saviour, to watch and to pray so as not to enter into temptation. The trying path (see Psalm 16) is the path of life. There God is found; there is the deliverance for His glory and for our own. May God keep us in it! We need His grace, we need sometimes to struggle in the presence of God, to hold good; but He who overcame is with us. And if we have gone through the trouble of circumstances with God, the circumstances themselves will be but the occasion of obedience when in fact they do happen. This is the secret of practical life.

322 In the expiation, it is evident that Christ was our substitute, and is not our example except in the fact of His perfect subjection. There were, doubtless, on the cross, profound sufferings of body and soul, where Christ was a perfect example of patience for us; but in speaking of the cross we are pretty well accustomed, and rightly, to have the moment of expiation before our minds. It is in this sense only that I make a difference, as to the example. It is important in these days to maintain as clearly as possible the idea of substitution where Christ was alone, of suffering in which we had no part but by our sins. One is willing to have Christ as a burnt offering, a Christ who offers Himself (we, by grace, can offer ourselves, we ought to do it); but a Christ who is a sacrifice for sin some often will not have. Are we to suffer for our sins and to bear them? Morally speaking, there is a glory in expiation, in the cross, which is not found even in glory. I shall share the glory of Christ with Him, by the infinite grace which vouchsafed it to me. Could I have shared the cross? The Christian knows what he has to reply. May God teach us in exercises of piety, but may He keep us firm in the simplicity of that faith which rests on a perfect expiation, accomplished by Him who has borne our sins in His own body on the tree!

Hence, to understand Gethsemane, we must understand Christ as Man, as He was at the time of His first temptation in the wilderness; then all the power of evil and of death in the hands of Satan, and in presence of the judgment of God in death against sin. If Christ had not gone through that — the horrible bottomless pit, this deep mire, where there was no footing, lay on our path — who could have gone through it? Satan tried to make Christ shrink, before the abyss which our sins had opened, to place it between His soul and God. The effect on Him was to make Him draw near with greater intensity of soul to God, to ascertain His will while realising all the horror of that moment in fellowship with Him, and then thus to find therein an occasion of perfect obedience without entering into temptation.

The cup of judgment itself He drank on the cross.

323 A word on our portion in following His example, if a trial is before us. If it be the will of God that we should pass through a trial, if even we dread it, our wisdom is to present ourselves before God, and to place all before His eyes. There may be anguish; that in which the will in us has not been broken will be laid bare. When we would avoid the temptation because it is painful, that is, spare ourselves instead of yielding the fruits of righteousness, instead of submitting ourselves to it for the good of our souls and for the glory of God, the evil path of selfishness, which the heart tries to take becomes evident; we choose "iniquity rather than affliction." When these exercises are sent for the development of grace, grace is developed, God working with the trial in the soul. When it is discipline, positive chastisement, and the soul submits — receives the discipline from the hand of God, the discipline has lost its bitterness and borne its fruit. In it God is all in holiness for the soul. I do not desire that one should anticipate evil, but that, when the evil is in view, one may pass through it with God and not with man — that one may watch and pray so as not to enter into temptation.

The Gospel and the Church according to Scripture:

Being a review of "Church Doctrine, Bible Truth," by the Rev. M. S. Sadler

J. N. Darby.

<29014E> 324

There are many things I accept in this book, truths that the evangelical world have, from circumstances, lost, or which have been thrown by them into the background. I shall refer to some of the chief ones here.

First, I believe the Person of the Lord has lost the place — at least in revival preaching — it ought to have, and it makes that preaching, though I doubt not often blessed, seriously defective. Salvation by the love of God to sinners — surely a blessed truth — is preached rather than Christ. This I have long felt and remarked. Still, Mr. Sadler is all wrong about it, as I shall shew. He leaves out the salvation — rather a serious defect, and certainly unscriptural.

Secondly, I have no doubt that worship, with the Lord's supper as the great and characterising centre of it, and not preaching, is the great object of Christians assembling themselves together. Preaching and teaching is the work of individuals, and goes on pari passu. But it is not the assembly's (and church simply means assembly) part to teach or set forth the gospel, but the apostle's, evangelist's, or whoever is able. The assembly is taught, and confesses the truth.

Thirdly, going to heaven — an unscriptural expression — has displaced in the evangelical mind the coming of the Lord and resurrection. But, for all that, Mr. Sadler has wholly missed the mark here too. He has read the Scriptures enough to see the defects of the evangelical school, but has not the faith of God's elect so as to know the truth either as to the gospel or the church. Moreover, as to church history, his representation of it — I do not mean intentionally — is far away from the truth. He must have read it with a very prejudiced eye.

I must first take notice of his statements as to the Gospels in a few words. Here, as to what is evidently vital, his statements are quite unfounded. "Gospel" is not applied, as he states, exclusively to the announcement of certain events occurring at a particular time in the history of the world. "Gospel" means simply glad tidings, whatsoever they are. The verb is applied to the good news Timothy brought of the Thessalonians to Paul; 1 Thess. 3: 6. As to Mark, the incarnation and birth of Christ form no part of what he calls the Gospels. Further, the gospel of the kingdom* being at hand, which above all is called the gospel in the four Gospels, is not included in Mr. Sadler's list, and could not subsist, as chiefly there spoken of, till all the events which are were past. All that is peculiarly Paul's gospel (though surely recognising all) is outside all the events contained in Mr. Sadler's list. It did not begin, in fact and in doctrine, till Jesus was glorified.

{*In Matthew, the kingdom of heaven.}

325 Paul calls it the gospel of the glory, and this is vital to his mission, and that which connected it with the assembly or church, which he alone speaks of in his teaching as formed on earth, and speaks of as a distinct and separate ministry; and he is specially the apostle of the Gentiles. Nor even does what is said by Mr. Sadler as to the beginning of Romans give any true idea of Paul's statement as a whole there, nor even of that part of it which Mr. Sadler does refer to. I think it of great moment to note, as I have often done in public and in private, how the apostle puts Christ personally forward here as the great subject of the gospel; but Mr. Sadler's use of this fact is partial and false. As "made of the seed of David according to the flesh," we have nothing to do with Christ. He was "a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers": the Gentiles stand on other ground. They "glorify God for his mercy," having no promises, though prophecies spoke of them. As Son of David Christ was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and could not take the children's bread and cast it to dogs. He declares, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone."

As God manifest in the flesh, He is the object of infinite delight to the believing soul — its food, as the bread come down from heaven; and when we have found peace through the divine commentaries of the apostle on the value of His work, the soul returns to the Gospels to feed on the bread come down from heaven. But even as to this, though souls may be drawn by the adorable grace manifested in His life, yet, till they eat His flesh and drink His blood, they have no life in them to feed on Him as bread come down from heaven. But, to shew how little foundation there is for this statement of Mr. Sadler, the meaning he ascribes to "gospel" is not the meaning of it in Mark. In the same chapter as that to which Mr. Sadler refers, the evangelist says, "Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel [the glad tidings] of the kingdom, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand." The preaching is the same; Matthew 4: 12, 23. Such was the constant tenor of Christ's preaching.

326 The twelve, consequently, were sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So, in Luke 4: 18-21, He preached the fulfilment of promise, not His death for our sins, or resurrection; and so, verse 43, He preaches the kingdom of God. In chapter 9: 2 He sends them to preach the kingdom of God. As regards His death and resurrection, we read that, from the time immediately preceding the transfiguration, He forbade them strongly to say any more that He was the Christ; and so far from preaching His death, or that being the gospel then set forth, we find that, when He told them of it prophetically, they could not bear to hear of it. Yet His death and resurrection, now they are accomplished, are become the great subject of testimony (1 Cor. 15: 3, 4), and that for our sins. Christ according to the flesh (that is, as presented to the Jews as their Messiah, come according to promise) Paul knew no more; 2 Cor. 5: 16. See Matthew 16: 20, 21; Mark 9: 31; Luke 9: 21, 22.

I turn to what is said of it in Romans. We have seen that Paul begins with the double character of Christ, known as Son of David according to the flesh, and Son of God by resurrection. But Mr. Sadler leaves out that Paul was not ashamed of the gospel, or that it was the power of God to salvation, because the righteousness of God was revealed in it (Rom. 1: 16, 17); and that he largely sets forth (chap. 3: 19-26) how Christ was set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood — how, further (chap. 4: 25), He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. I believe the gospel will have power in the measure in which it is stated as facts, and I bless God that it comes in the shape of facts, because the poorest can understand it. But what it is for us is spoken of. God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The shepherd seeks the sheep, the woman the piece of money, the father has his joy in recovering the prodigal.

327 It is not merely objective facts concerning Christ, but God's disposition towards us as displayed in them, not merely that Christ was raised but raised for our justification; not merely that God's Son came, but that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life. It is not exclusively applied to the announcement of certain events; it is God's dealing with us revealed in them, and our conscience and heart directly dealt with by it. God was in Christ. Yet this is not the way the ministry of the gospel is put, but "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." This was Paul's estimate of the gospel history, and then of his own gospel when Christ had died, that, as though God did beseech by us, we beseech in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God. In the passage quoted by Mr. Sadler from 1 Corinthians 15, it is not that Christ died, "a certain event occurring," but Christ died for our sins; the purpose and grace of God to us as sinners is stated.

Mr. Sadler's account, then, of the gospel in the New Testament is a totally false one as to every part of the New Testament, and falsifies the whole bearing of it, and the way God deals with man in it. And this is connected with his whole system. His gospel is a system of facts, contemplated by persons ecclesiastically born of God in baptism. The gospel in Scripture is the expression in facts, and the public declaration by the Holy Ghost (sent down when the facts were accomplished, and Christ, having by Himself made the purgation of our sins, had sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens), of what God is in His love to sinners, and of how they might be righteous before Him through faith in the work accomplished by the Saviour. The gospel is addressed to sinners in the attractive power of grace. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Mr. Sadler's gospel, whether during the lifetime of Christ or after His death, is not what Scripture makes it. With him it is a history for saints: the Scriptures make it glad tidings for sinners. The facts may be the same, and these facts we have to announce; but he announces them, to those whom he deceives as to their state (calling them saints when they know they are not), as objects of contemplation, while the scripture gospel presents them to sinners as what they need, and the expression of God's love to them.

328 "The gospel," says Mr. Sadler, "does not appear in Scripture under the aspect of certain dealings of God with the individual soul apart from its fellow-souls. It does appear as certain events, or outward facts," etc. We have seen how the gospel is stated in Scripture. Glad tidings are hardly actual operations in individual souls, but such dealings are as much presented in Scripture as pertaining to the gospel, as the blessed facts concerning the Lord. "Except a man be born again" is not exactly glad tidings, but it is with this truth the Lord meets Nicodemus. "In the day," says Paul, "when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." The whole Epistle to the Ephesians is occupied with what Mr. Sadler says is not the gospel, but in a large part is dealing with individual souls: and he is wholly mistaken in saying, as he does, that it is only of the church. The church relationship with Christ only comes in at the end of chapter 1; the previous part of the chapter is occupied with individuals and their relationship with the Father, and if it be not gospel, I know not what it is. The whole of the doctrinal part of the Romans — and I suppose there is some gospel there — is occupied exclusively with individual souls, and the church does not come in at all.

The church is not found in the Romans, save in the hortatory part (chap. 12), and for the plain reason that responsibility is individual, conscience individual, justification individual, judgment individual. 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says he was sent to preach the gospel, is individual. To whom did Paul preach the gospel? to sinners standing on individual responsibility, or to the church? The answer to this will at once shew, not only the falseness, but the absurdity, of Mr. Sadler's statement. See 2 Corinthians 2: 12-16: this was preaching the gospel, and nothing could be more peremptorily individual, and dealing with individual souls. We have only to go to Scripture times to learn the absurdity of the whole system. The gospel is for responsible sinners, not for the church, however needed for what Mr. Sadler calls the church now, as it surely is, because they are largely unconverted sinners, though far more responsible sinners than the heathen, but of the church anon.

329 Read 2 Corinthians 4: 14: we have there "the glorious gospel," or rather the gospel of the glory. Paul fancied he was by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. He had not had churchmen to instruct him, it is true. Quite true, he spoke of the death, resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus in his gospel. This assuredly is not what I am opposing, but that he spoke of them only as events and outward facts, apart from dealing with the individual soul. That is, what Mr. Sadler says about it is wholly and entirely false; and I repeat, this is connected with and involves the whole system. Scripture tells us God of His own will begat us by the word of truth; churchmen tell us it is by baptism. Which am I to believe? This is the question.

I might multiply proofs of what the gospel is as presented in Scripture; what I have given must suffice. Mr. Sadler seeks to prove his statements by the Gospels, forgetting that these are records of Christ's life and death, and most precious ones for those who believed already (though surely the Holy Ghost may use them to give faith), not preaching the gospel at all. They are memoirs, as called in old times, richly setting forth the Lord Jesus in the different characters in which He came among men, according to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost. He is Son of David, Emmanuel, in Matthew; the Prophet Servant in Mark; the Son of man, in grace, amongst men in Luke; and His whole Person, with the mission of the Holy Ghost, in John.

What little we have of the preaching of the gospel in Acts is altogether the contrary of what Mr. Sadler states. Peter, who never preaches that He is the Son of God, after explaining what Pentecost was, at once charges their individual sin home upon their conscience: You have crucified and slain, God has raised up, Jesus. What was their condition? And they were pricked to the heart, and he tells them, on their urgent demand, what they were to do. It is not a mere outward event, but their act of sin, and God's having owned Him whom they had slain, so as to act by grace upon their consciences. It was for as many as the Lord their God should call. It was individual, and those that received the word profited by it. It is the same story in Acts 3: 13-15, though with a different object.

In Paul's discourse at Antioch (Acts 13) it is the same thing, verses 38-41 dealing with individual souls. The same principle governs them, verses 46-48. We have no preaching to Gentiles, only we learn that its effect was individual faith. God opened the heart of Lydia; they so spake that they believed; and Paul at Athens preached Jesus and the resurrection. When the jailor asked what he should do to be saved, Paul in his answer knows nothing of Mr. Sadler's system, but says, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. No thought of Mr. Sadler's system here, though there can be no doubt he was added to the assembly. As he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, salvation is always individual, never what Mr. Sadler makes it to be. The discourse in Acts 17 is Paul's apology, not his preaching. Of course the apostles preached Christ, not His incarnation (perhaps, as Acts 10: 37, 38, His service as "anointed"), but man's rejection of Him, and God's testimony to Him in resurrection, and then whosoever believes shall receive remission of sins. That is, they did not only give many, doubtless all-important, facts, but they did always deal individually with souls. That in reasoning they sought to prove with the Jews that Jesus was the Christ is of course true, but it proves nothing. The commission given in Luke is the one that runs all through the Acts; and this was, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name, which is strictly dealing with the individual soul.

330 One other point remains to be noticed under this head. The church, we are told, after speaking of these "outward events," makes provision that this gospel of the kingdom should be set before her children; "she provides for the setting forth of the gospel, under this one scripture aspect, by the arrangement of her yearly round of fast and festival." We have seen how little true this statement as to the one aspect of the gospel is; but here, assuming the facts of the gospel, a second point arises, the means of communicating it. The church gives a yearly round of fasts and festivals, so that mere outward events may be before the mind without any dealing of God with the individual soul. Such is Mr. Sadler's approved method, adding a small complement of saints and saints' days — whether to complete the gospel, or for what other purpose, he does not tell us. He seems to bring it in charily (page 12). Scripture says, "it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe"; but this foolishness of God dealing with the individual soul does not please the wisdom of the church. It has its own way of doing it. It keeps days, and months, and years. They turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which they desire again to be in bondage.

331 "I am afraid of you," says the apostle. It was, he tells us, going back to heathenism. And Mr. Sadler, with his knowledge of ecclesiastical history, must know that, except Easter, which was the Jewish Passover, and Pentecost, and perhaps some more recently added saints' days, the church festivals were deliberately and formally adopted from heathenism. Christians, so-called, would have festivals, and they tacked on Christian names to heathen ones. The great Augustine informs us that "the church" did it, that if they would get drunk (which they did even in the churches), they should do so in honour of saints, not of demons. One of the Gregorys was famous for this, and left only seventeen heathen in his diocese by means of it. And another Gregory, sending another Augustine to England, directed him not to destroy the idol temples, but to turn them into churches; and as the heathens were accustomed to have an anniversary festival to their god, to replace it by one to a saint. It was thus Europe, Africa, and Asia Minor at least were Christianised. Sicily, which in spite of all efforts had remained heathen, as soon as it was decided that Mary was the mother of God at what I must call the disgraceful and infamous general council of Ephesus,* gave up all her temples to be churches.

{*I do not mean the Concio Latronum, which however, though disowned, was just as much, in every respect, a general council. There the bishops beat poor old Flavian, the patriarch of Constantinople, so that he died of it. Yet in no point did it fail of what made a general council.}

It was as easy to worship the mother of God as the mother of the gods. But everywhere drunkenness in honour of the saints, and even in the churches, took the place of drunkenness in honour of demigods, the great Augustine and other fathers being witnesses. Such were festal anniversaries, Christmas having been (and it is still celebrated in heathen countries) the worst of heathen festivals, to celebrate the return of the sun from the winter solstice, without a pretence that Christ was born that day, but as they could not stop the revelry, they put Christ's birth there. Such, in real fact, is the church's celebration of anniversaries and saints' days. This is certain, that the apostle declares that it was a return to heathenism, so that he was afraid his labour was in vain — avowedly turning the great and mighty parts of Christianity, by which God acted on souls, to bring them into blessed and divinely-wrought relationship with Himself, individually and collectively, into certain outward events, or outward facts, and exclusively to their announcement as occurring at particular times. "I am afraid of you."

332 In result the gospel is founded on a series of mighty and divine facts, by which, through the foolishness of preaching, God, in the power of the Holy Ghost, does act on individual souls for salvation, and gather them into one. The church system makes of them a set of outward events, historically remembered by anniversaries, Mr. Sadler rejecting the dealing of God in souls by them. According to him these are born, not by the word as Scripture declares, but by a sacrament without any personal faith or operation of the word on their hearts whatever. Of this system I will now speak. The author's statements are as follows: —

"It may be called the great 'church' truth of God's word; and may be stated somewhat as follows: —

_______

"This body has always been an outward and visible body known by certain outward and visible marks. Men have always been admitted into this church by a rite or ordinance which betokened God's special goodwill towards each one of them. This church, or body, has always been governed and instructed by a visible ministry. This church, or body, or family, always has been, and, till the second advent, always will be, a mixed body; that is, it has always consisted of two sets of persons, good and bad, penitent and impenitent, those who realise God's love, and those who do not."

Every one of these statements is unfounded. That in Israel and the church there was an assembly, or gathering of individuals, is quite true. Of these we will speak in due time. But it was never God's plan to save people by joining them together in a body or family, kingdom or church; specially it was not so from Abraham's time, and men were called of God before. It is false to say they were always admitted by a rite — false to call them all a church — false to say this church or body has always been governed and instructed by a visible ministry — false to say it has always been a mixed body. The statements following are all equally false, some openly absurd.

333 People are saved, always were, individually, by grace through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and life received from Him, begotten by the word of truth, justified by faith. I admit an outward visible body in Israel and in the church, though in different forms and on different principles. That God has set His manifested blessings in a known place, as Israel or the church, since He raised them up, is true; but in neither is personal salvation by coming into it as a system set up on the earth, though figuratively and formally administered there in Christian times, and, if connected with the personal confession of Christ, then formally received and enjoyed. The church, or assembly of God, has more than one application or aspect, is never the kingdom, has, in its truest sense, privileges other than salvation, and in this sense is distinct from the outward and visible body as it exists at present, though it may be found in it if viewed in a certain aspect. But we must examine the statements.

Abraham is the beginning of the religious institutions of God in the new world, and is the root of the olive-tree of promise. When the world had turned to idolatry (Josh. 24), God called Abram out, and established the promises in his seed. He was the first head of God's family, as Adam of the sinful one. There was no root of a family of God, as Adam was the root of an evil family, till Abram, though there had been saints. This, then, I recognise. But this did not begin salvation. About one-third of the world's history had passed away ere Abram was called of God. Abels and Enochs, and surely many others, had been saved before Abram's time. They were saved, according to Mr. Sadler's own statement, for he begins with Abram, without family, or church, or nation. Was the salvation different in its nature and its ground then? Were they saved in a different way? If not, the whole statement is without foundation. That, as a rule, manifested saved ones are found, where God has publicly and outwardly called a people amongst that people, is quite true. But that is a very different thing from saving men by joining them together as a body, family, kingdom, or church. Either Mr. Sadler must have two kinds and ways of salvation, or his principle is upon the face of it false. For during a third of the earth's existence, taking his own date and commencement of this process of saving men by joining them to a body, family, church, or kingdom, there was nothing of the sort to join them to. Mr. Sadler's system falsifies the nature of salvation.

334 In the next place the scripture states the contrary of what Mr. Sadler says. It is expressly said of Abraham (Isa. 51: 2), "I called him alone, and blessed him." It is first, with Mr. Sadler, a body, and then a church, as if it was all the same. But the blessing of Abraham was neither in a body nor a church. It was in him, and in his seed, really Christ. The true heavenly promises were made to one Seed only, "and that seed is Christ." The apostle carefully tells us it was to one. "Now to Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ." "If we are Christ's, we are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to promise." Now, that these were in the church, and baptised too, the passage itself shews. I will speak of both, but the promise is exclusively to Christ; Gal. 3: 16-29. "All the promises of God are in him, yea: and in him, Amen," 2 Cor. 1: 20.

As to Abraham himself, our immediate subject, men have always, we are told, been admitted into this church by a rite. A church means an assembly, and nothing else. Into the church as formed on earth, an external body, or Christian profession, men were admitted by a rite, and that rite baptism; into the body of Christ, decidedly not. But as to Abraham and his seed according to the flesh, this is wholly a mistake. Righteousness — and I suppose that is the way of being saved — was reckoned to him in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised; Rom. 4: 10, 11. That is, Scripture insists on exactly the contrary of what Mr. Sadler teaches. Circumcision was the seal in Abraham of the righteousness of faith, and the formal token of the covenant, according to the title possessed by his family. The title was the being of Abraham's house. Uncircumcision was a condition of forfeiture: one who was of the seed of Abraham, and who was not circumcised, had broken God's covenant. Just as if the old man be not put off we have no part in grace, though baptised twenty times.

But though this was the formal covenant token in carrying out the covenant, God was sovereign. Every one actually born in Abraham's house, or indeed bought with money, was bound to be circumcised. Circumcision was the seal of the promise made to Abraham, and if one of the promised seed was not circumcised, he lost his title; but it was a seal to which he had a title by birth. But, further, the real blessing was by promise: circumcision did not bring into it at all. Abraham's seed was called in Isaac, and the covenant promises to that seed, not with Ishmael; but Ishmael was circumcised as much as Isaac [Gen. 17: 23-27]. Nor was, indeed, circumcision, as Mr. Sadler speaks, an ordinance which betokened God's special goodwill towards the men of the family: the promise did that. It was an imposed condition subsequent, giving a required state, and, if it was neglected, the person was cut off.

335 Further, this body, or church, we are told, has always been governed and instructed by a visible ministry. Here, note, family is dropped. It would not do. No one instructed Abraham but God immediately, which He did very often. A large part of Genesis, and a very important part, consists of these revelations. When there was a people gathered, there was a priesthood besides Levitical assistants. When the Christian assembly was gathered, there were gifts bestowed in principle on all, though in distinctive efficacy on some, as apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers, and evangelists, and others called miraculous, or which were subsidiary. There were, besides this, local overseers and servants.

The family is now introduced again. This church, or body, or family, "has always been a mixed body." The family was never a body, nor was the church always a mixed body; for at the beginning the Lord added such as should be saved; afterwards, as manifested on earth, it became such; but first by false brethren creeping in unawares; Jude 4. Israel never was a mixed body. In Israel moreover it was never a question of salvation, but of the place and inheritance of the promises according to the flesh, and none but those who were of the fountain of Israel, or joined by being circumcised, could enjoy them. There was a strict middle wall of partition. Each part of the statement is false.

To pursue the statements of the book: "The covenant of God has always been with this visible church." God's covenant was with Abraham, but he was no assembly, which is all that church means, and the promise was confined to his seed — Christ; but God's church of the New Testament was not revealed then (Rom. 16: 25; Eph. 3: 3-11; Col. 1: 26): the circumcised alone had part in the blessings. If they were in the covenant of promise, and were not circumcised, they were cut off. Israel subsisted by keeping the middle wall of partition up: this made the church, or the revelation of it, impossible; the church exists consequent on its being thrown down; Eph. 2: 11-22. With Israel there was the covenant of the law, or the old covenant, and later, in Jeremiah, the promise of a new one to the same people. Of this covenant we reap the benefit of having it in the spirit, namely, forgiveness of sins, and to be all taught of God, and to know Him. But with the assembly there is no covenant made. The Mediator is come, the blood of the new covenant shed. Israel refused to enter into it; and we, while enjoying the spiritual benefit of it, have, if indeed believers, what is far better — an accomplished salvation, and the Holy Ghost, the Comforter (the witness, present power, and seal of it, and the earnest of the glory that belongs to it) being heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, and this individually.

336 Our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God. Of this "the church" knows, perhaps, nothing; but they cannot deny that it is in Scripture, even if they call it fanaticism. They seek to reduce us to the condition of Judaism, but this is not Christianity nor God's church. He has set Judaism aside to establish it. Even in the lowest aspect of it, He has taken away the first to establish the second. The application of church to Israel in the Christian sense (for the word merely means assembly), that is, as the body of Christ or the habitation of God through the Spirit, is without the slightest foundation in Scripture. Nay, more, it contradicts its clearest and most important principles in reference to this subject. Every principle of the one system is in direct contrast with those of the other, save that both belong to God. What the church is I shall consider presently.

"The word of God," we are next told, "has always been addressed to this outward visible body." The Epistles, where addressed to churches, were so no doubt, but all composing churches were held to be really saints. But to say "the word of God has," etc., shews only what a mist of their own raising these people are living in. Paul's gospel, he specially declares, was to every creature under heaven; I suppose that was the word of God. In Mark we read, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." And Paul, in the passage quoted (Col. 1), carefully distinguishes his being a minister of the gospel, and a minister of the church to fulfil or complete the word of God; and here was one contrast between Israel and the church. Israel had no such commission. It was a nation; and those of the fountain of Jacob had the word and the promises, and there was no word of God to others, but a law and prophets to them. God has raised up a ministry in Christianity because it is grace to sinners, wherever they are.

337 Before I proceed further to examine Mr. Sadler's views of the church, I will, because of its importance to souls, examine definitely and more at length whether salvation is individual. The church, to which I attach the greatest possible importance, I will examine fully; but salvation is individual. If there was but one saved person in the world, he would be saved as men are now; but he could not be an assembly. When the Lord says, "Ye must be born again," he speaks necessarily and clearly of individuals. Whether it be by baptism, we will inquire just now, but it is individual. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit" is individual. "The wind bloweth where it listeth." At the end of chapter 3, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." The promise of living water in John 4 is individual. "The Son quickeneth whom he will" in John 5 is individual. The promise in John 6: 40 is individual, and whatever the eating means (and most certainly it is not the Lord's supper*), it is individual, as verses 35, 44 plainly shew. Verse 47 is conclusive as to individual salvation. John 7 is individual, as verses 37, 38. So are chapters 9; 10 (vv. 27, 28) is as clear as words can make it; and this even if the sheep are all scattered by Satan. "Catcheth," in verse 12, and "plucketh," in verse 28, are the same word. Chapter 11: 25, 26 is individual.

{*Verse 51, and other verses, as 54, prove that whosoever eats, as here spoken of, is saved for ever. So that everyone, the worst hypocrite, that took the Lord's supper, would be saved!}

I might quote other passages; but the truth is that all John's writings are strictly individual. The church is never introduced as a truth in them at all — not even in chapter 17, which seems most like it. It does not speak of the assembly or church, but of the unitedness of the individuals in grace. There is indeed a threefold unity, of the eleven disciples, of those believing through their word, and of all Christians in glory. It may perhaps surprise some, that in the Epistles the church is never spoken of as a body formed on earth by any besides Paul.

In the Acts, Peter's words apply to individuals. "Repent and be baptised every one of you for [to] the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." It was to as many as the Lord their God should call. They are addressed as individuals, and there is no hint of a body or assembly. Men repent individually, and are forgiven sins individually. I do not doubt they came into the assembly, but nothing is said by him about it. The first intimation of union with Christ in one body is at Paul's conversion; Acts 9: 5. In Peter's sermon to Cornelius it is the universal testimony, "Whosoever believeth in him," Acts 10: 43. So Paul: "By him all that believe are justified from all things," Acts 13.

338 It is the same story with the jailor at Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" — no word of joining a body to be saved. I do not doubt a moment that they became part of the assembly of God, but not a word is said of it connected with salvation. So Paul preached "Jesus and the resurrection" at Athens, and "kept back nothing that was profitable" at Ephesus, preaching "repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ": individual dealing with souls, and nothing of the assembly or church, and that in the very place where he afterwards unfolded it.

In Paul's account of his preaching before Agrippa, there is no word of the church in his commission to sinners. He was sent "to open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me." Consequently he shewed everywhere that men "should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." It was individuals; he pressed a work wrought in them; but not a word of the assembly, or joining it, in his testimony to the world.

Now this is the more remarkable, because Paul was the one who specially, and indeed Paul only, built up in church truth those who did believe. But, as we have seen, it was a distinct part of his ministry, as unfolded in Colossians 1. I believe what we may call church truth is more important than ever; and in going to the Gentile as he did, Paul laid the foundation of it (for their free admission was externally the basis of that truth, which God is now mercifully bringing out again); but for salvation he preached "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."

339 I have already spoken of the Romans, where all in the doctrinal part is individual, as responsibility, repentance, justification, and being dead to sin, must be in their very nature with sinners. Hence, having spoken of what Christians knew as such of the spirituality of the law, he changes from "we" to "I" — "We know," "I am carnal." But all is without exception and carefully individual.

In Corinthians he speaks of the assembly; but so far is the church, as God's building, from being the way of saving, that he speaks of wood, and hay, and stubble, which was to be burnt; and presses upon them, in chapter 10, that they might be partakers of the sacraments, so-called — be in the external or sacramental church — and fall in the wilderness all the same. From that* on he speaks more of the body than of the house. But of these points anon. But when, as in 2 Corinthians 5, he turns to the gospel and salvation, individuality takes its full place again.

{*The transition is in the middle of chapter 10.}

In the end of Galatians 2 again, we see individual state. The promise by faith of Jesus Christ is given to them that believe. The putting on Christ is not salvation, but the giving up being Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female, and being Christians and nothing else. It was (begging pardon of the Thirty-nine Articles) a badge of their profession. But we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and heirs crying, Abba, Father, but all this is individual (Gal. 3 and 4); and they are then carefully warned against keeping days and months and years. Faith that worketh by love was the availing thing. All is carefully individual. They were all in the assembly already.

In Ephesians 2: 8 salvation is individual, though it be the Epistle in which the doctrine of the church is most fully unfolded; but it is a second order of truth, not salvation. It is when speaking of the individual, that he speaks of the gospel of their salvation, and then they were sealed, by which they were members of the body; chap. 1: 13. The first truth is children or sons by faith, as in Galatians.

Philippians is all individual, though the assembly be fully recognised.

It is in Colossians the apostle distinguishes his ministry of the gospel and of the church. Holy days were but a shadow of things to come, now passed away; Christ being the body, they were now mere heathenish Judaism, against which he was warning them. Take chapter 3, from chapter 2: 20, indeed, and see how all is individual.

340 In Thessalonians men obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, not by the assembly, as in chapter 1: 9, where it is clearly individual. In 2 Thessalonians 2: 13, 14, we have a formal statement that it is by sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto they were called by Paul's gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Of Timothy I will speak. Titus tells us that the grace of God brings salvation, but adds no word of the church. Of chapter 3: 5 I will speak.

Of Hebrews and the rest I need not speak at large. The assembly or church forms no part of doctrine there. That Christ leads our praises in it (chap. 2: 12) we learn, and (chap. 12: 23) that there is an assembly of firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. Conscience, which is always individual, is perfected, and this gives us boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Faith is that of an individual coming to God, and by that he obtains witness that he is righteous through the more excellent sacrifice. That salvation is through joining an assembly is alike unknown and opposed to Scripture. Men are justified by faith, then sealed by receiving the Holy Ghost, through which they are of the one body. Baptism is their formal admission into the external company on earth. Of this we must now speak, and shew all Mr. Sadler's theory utterly false.

I believe, let me now say, that the truth of God as to the assembly is, in these days, of the last importance; that God's order was to gather souls as well as to convert and save them; and that many of our highest privileges are connected with it. But the assembly or church has two very distinct aspects in Scripture, consequent upon its being formed by the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost — that of the body of Christ, and that of the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost. Besides this, in the latter aspect, that is, as God's house, it has a double character — what Christ builds, and what man builds responsibly.

All this, which is declared in Scripture, is missed by Mr. Sadler. All his thoughts are vague and in confusion; all his statements as to the Ephesians unfounded. He says (p. 45), "a kingdom or fellowship which he deigns to call his body." He never calls His kingdom His body. "He instituted means of grace, by which they were to be brought into this fellowship" (p. 45), and (p. 46) "all baptised into his name are to be accounted as belonging to it . . . . In this case the baptised are the church (p. 46), and responsible for the grace of having been made members of Christ." All this is false.

341 In 1 Corinthians 12: 13 we read, "By one Spirit we are all baptised into one body." That this is the Holy Ghost, and not baptism by water, is as clear as words can make it. The apostle is speaking of spiritual manifestations — gifts given by the Holy Ghost: "All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body." One has only to read the chapter to see, with unquestionable evidence, that the apostle is speaking of the Holy Spirit Himself.

But, to leave this beyond all controversy, we have a positive declaration by the Lord Himself of what the baptism of the Spirit is: "Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence," Acts 1: 5. Accordingly, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with tongues. That coming of the Holy Spirit was the baptism of the Holy Ghost spoken of, and of these and other gifts, which were the fruit of it, the apostle is speaking in 1 Corinthians.

That the apostles even ever received Christian baptism there is not a trace in Scripture, nor indeed the hundred and twenty who were together. They were to wait for the promise of the Father, receiving power by the Holy Ghost coming upon them, which took place accordingly, and "Christ being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear," Acts 2: 33. This was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which they were baptised into one body. That water baptism introduced into the body, or made men members of the body, is a notion wholly unknown to Scripture. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." The gift of the Spirit is always distinguished from it moreover. They were to repent and be baptised for (to) the remission of sins, and they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; Acts 2: 38.

342 In the case of Cornelius, he received the Holy Ghost, God's proof that He would have him in His assembly, as formed down here, into which consequently Peter orders him to be admitted by baptism. Whether before or after, they are always distinct. So in Samaria they believed what Philip preached and were baptised. After that two of the apostles go down and pray that they may receive the Holy Ghost, for as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. So in Acts 19 twelve men, on Paul's instruction, were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied. Baptism and the reception of the Holy Ghost are distinct; and it is by the latter that believers are baptised into one body, which is a real union with Christ. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," by which we are members of His body, He being the Head.

I turn now to being born of God in baptism. This is equally unwarranted by Scripture — nay, formally contradicted. "Of his own will," says James, "begat he us by the word of truth"; and Peter, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever," 1 Pet. 1: 23. Paul tells us, "In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4: 15), and he was not sent to baptise — strange, if men were born of God by it. He tells the Thessalonians God had chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called them by his gospel; and the Lord declares, "Ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you." I have quoted positive passages. He who keeps to the word will find it confirmed in every page.

But we will examine the passage which speaks of being born, as they allege, in baptism: John 3: 5. It is only an effort to squeeze it out of the passage, for of baptism directly it does not speak. Further, it is well to remark that it is not said, born of the Spirit by, or with, water, but born of water and of Spirit. I have already said the apostles were never baptised (they were clean through the word spoken) nor is there the idea of communication of a nature by water. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The water is necessarily dropped here; John 3: 6.

343 As a testimony of the extreme ignorance of Mr. Sadler as to scriptural truth, I would cite from page 54 the declaration that we find no allusion to such a use of water in the books of the Old Testament. This is a singular preoccupation of spirit. The Lord demands how Nicodemus, being a teacher of Israel, did not know this: the Old Testament, that is, furnished him fully with this truth. Let us turn to Ezekiel 36: 25: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh: and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them, and ye shall dwell in the land . . . . And I will call for the corn," etc., dwelling on temporal promises to Israel in the last day, which last promises lead the Lord to say, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" and He goes on to the fuller doctrine of the cross, which involved the rejection of Messiah, and the impossibility of the present fulfilment of earthly promises.

This leads us at once to see what being born of water means; it is purifying from evil, sanctifying through the truth; and the Father's word is truth, that by which we are positively told by James we are begotten, born again according to Peter, who distinctly says, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit." "Ye are clean," says the Lord Himself, "through the word which I have spoken unto you"; so Paul, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water by the word." There are two things, and, to set Mr. Sadler quite at ease, at the same time communication of a new life or nature. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," and the purifying the soul by obeying the truth, for this birth is by the word, the incorruptible seed of God. The whole tenor of the Lord's statement contradicts the "church" doctrine. "The wind bloweth where it listeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit." Whereas it is tied in that system to a formal rite, which all are bound by the system to carry out universally. Besides, it is the way of seeing the kingdom, as well as entering it, with the solemn statement of "Verily, verily." Does baptism make people see it? Not now, for the child at any rate, to whom that system habitually applies it, does not see it at all; not the kingdom of glory, for they admit that many baptised never see that at all.

344 To a Jew (a rabbi who looked for the kingdom of God, and had read Ezekiel, and looked for the kingdom according to that and other passages) the being born of water and the Spirit had the clearest and fullest signification. But nothing blinds like the church system. Speaking of the insignificance of water does not concern me, as I do not apply it to baptism by water at all. But this is a mistake, because baptisms by water were the universal figure for cleansing among the Jews, even with proselytes, at least women. All the rest of Mr. Sadler's statement has nothing to do with the matter; save that, when he rejects believing as the way of being born, the scripture replies, "We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." The word nowhere joins the Holy Ghost and water as baptism, as if the Holy Ghost acted in it and by it. It is always a distinct thing.

But further: baptism is not even a sign of the new birth, but of death. We are baptised to Christ's death. It is a figure of death and burial, as Romans 6 and Colossians 2 clearly testify, and hence is connected with remission of sins because (in coming up out of death — death with Christ, which is figured by it, and risen with him) we come up forgiven all trespasses, as is said in Colossians 2, and, having, as to our profession, left the old man behind us, we put off the old man, crucified with Him, reckoning ourselves dead.

And note, our resurrection with Christ is not the same as quickening. In resurrection Christ is viewed as a raised man. God raised Him from the dead, and us, for faith, with Him. But we are baptised to His death. I go down there into His death, and am raised with Him, "through faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." It is not the Son quickening whom He will, nor simply our being born; but Christ a dead man raised, which implies the remission of sins for those who have part in His death, buried with Him, and consequently to walk in newness of life, reckoning oneself dead to sin, and alive to God in Him.

What Mr. Sadler says as to Ephesians is a mistake. Church union with Christ is not the only or great subject of the epistle, doctrinal or hortatory. You do not come to it till the very end of chapter 1. All the previous part, our calling and inheritance, is based on our relationship with the Father, and being in the same place as Christ, as to this, as sons. In the hortatory part we are to be followers (mimetai) of God as dear children, and walk like Christ. In our relationship with Christ, it is with Him as man, whom God has raised. Then the body, and our quickening with Him, is spoken of. There is no reference to this relationship in the hortatory part, except in speaking of husband and wife.

345 Now as to other passages connected with baptism, the "church principle" gives remission of sins by it regularly, when the person has committed none. So that the application of all this is singular enough in this system. A heathen or a Jew, baptised to Christ, does, I doubt not, receive administratively forgiveness of all past sins — I believe a great deal more in connection with Christ's death (a believer, as to his conscience, is perfected for ever), but I believe that he comes in as one who has died with Christ, and left all the old things behind him — is indeed as a risen man.

But we must consider the passages, which are of great importance in their place. We are all baptised to (never "into") something, as "to" Moses, "to" John's baptism, where it is the same word; and where it is said, "baptised to," or "for, the remission of sins," it is that which is the portion given in Christ, and we come to partake of it, just as we do to have death to sin; where a person has been a sinner, he receives it, as to all he had done, in it. Baptism is that by which we are introduced into the enclosure in which God has set His blessings administratively on earth, though He be sovereign. There is forgiveness there, the Holy Ghost there, the administration of all God's blessings down here. On entering, I enter into the condition and place where these blessings are enjoyed. Hence we find, washing away sins, the consequent receiving of the Holy Ghost, indeed every blessing in Christ, as far as they exist down here, connected with it. But no one save those blinded by "church principles" could, as having read the Scriptures, ascribe operatively and effectually to baptism the possession of these privileges. The blood of Christ, and nothing else, washes away our sins before God; but I come professedly to Christ in baptism, in whom and where this blessing is. It is the admission into the open confession of His name and death, and, in a certain measure, resurrection. Hence guarding it where he says it saves, Peter says, "not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer (request, eperotema) of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

346 As to being born in it, such a thought is never found. Regeneration is connected with it in Titus, and modern language has connected that word with being born again. It is only found in one other place in Scripture. "In the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory" — the millennial earth, a new state or order of things. Thus Peter, when he speaks of saving us, is referring expressly to Noah, who came through the flood, which was death to the old world, into a new one, and was buoyed up by that which was death to them, into that new one — was saved by or through water; so we, seeking a good conscience, find it in Christ's death, brought safe with Him into the new place of resurrection. I believe regeneration in Titus refers to baptism as a sign of this. But we are washed by passing out of the old condition of heathenism, or Judaism, or fleshly life in any sense, into the new state of things, which is, where real, a new creation altogether, of which we are thus — professedly at any rate — partakers. But then Paul carefully distinguishes this from the renewing of the Holy Ghost. I have no doubt he is thinking of the regeneration as a real thing, but not as the renewing of the Holy Ghost as an actual inward work. It is a change of state and position, the renewing an actual internal work. This is never connected with baptism.

I have spoken of Acts 2: 38, and of Acts 22: 16. Ephesians 5: 26 has, on the face of it, nothing to do with the matter: the washing is by the word. Mark 16: 16 brings in faith on preaching. Now, if a heathen believed Jesus was Son of God, and refused to be baptised, he refused to be a Christian when he knew he ought; for him it was refusing to confess unto salvation. It has nothing to do with any efficacy in baptism; Tit. 3: 5; 1 Pet. 3: 21. I have spoken of Romans 6: 1-4 and Colossians 2: 12. To say that being baptised to Christ's death is being born of God is as absurd as to the meaning of the rite, as it is groundless. That death is the force and meaning of the rite is quite true, and it is so used by the apostle; but it has nothing to do with any inward work, or being born again.

On Galatians 3 (p. 58) also I have spoken. Romans 6 and Colossians 2 are both used as public profession; Romans, as shewing that living on in sin denied it; Colossians, that this profession of being dead subverted the religion of ordinances, which Mr. Sadler is insisting on. We are no longer alive in the world in Colossians, we are dead to sin in Romans. The conclusion Mr. Sadler draws from the passage in Romans, in page 56, is exactly the contrary of that drawn by the apostle. The difficulty was, if one man's obedience made us righteous, we might continue to live in sin. How shall we that have died to sin live in it any longer? And that is what you did professedly, he goes on to say, in baptism; you were baptised to Christ's death. You are denying your profession of Christ by such an argument.

347 As to Colossians 3: 1-10, it is not "yet" (p. 57), but "because," and the passage proves the contrary of what it is cited for. If I am risen with Christ, I have power, and am to mortify these evil members — for he will not recognise the Christian as having his life in this world; he is professedly dead and risen with Christ.

What Paul is shewing in 1 Corinthians 10 is that, belonging sacramentally to the church, taking in both sacraments, did not secure salvation, which I wholly accept. It was a professed deliverance out of the world, but not the new birth. In Jude he shews the same thing: they had an outward deliverance, like Israel, but, he adds, not having believed (and we are children of God by faith), He afterwards destroyed them. This is a poor argument for the value of baptism, and, note, saving out of Egypt has nothing to do with personal or eternal salvation. It was the deliverance of a people, a change of situation; which is just what baptism effects, not involving any real change or internal salvation at all. And so both the passages declare: a very necessary warning when such a book as Mr. Sadler's is written.

It is perfectly true that in his epistles to the various churches the apostle treats those to whom he writes as saints; not indeed on the ground that Mr. Sadler puts it, but on the solid ground of God's work — on that of real faith — as I shall shew. In the Galatians alone he speaks doubtfully in one passage, but recovers his confidence in the next chapter. And observing days, and months, and years, was one great cause of his doubts — the Judaism Mr. Sadler recommends; Gal. 4: 10, 11-20. He recovers his confidence, looking to the Lord; chap. 5: 10. He anxiously warns the Corinthians, but is not in doubt of their real Christianity. Brought out of heathenism by the word and Spirit of God, and passing by baptism formally, as Mr. Sadler says, into God's established place of blessing, the apostle treats them as real Christians, but on the ground of their real faith, never on the ground of a fancied work in baptism. He does shew in two instances what baptism implied in the Christian (Rom. 6; Col. 1), but never as the ground of addressing them as saints. When he does in this way refer to it, it is to warn them not to deceive themselves by such a thought; 1 Cor. 10. Let us see this.

348 In Romans 1: 7 they are saints by God's calling, and (v. 8) he thanks God for them all that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world. He sought to be comforted by their mutual faith.

The church of God at Corinth were saints by God's calling, sanctified in Christ Jesus. The formal profession is even distinguished as those who everywhere called on the name of the Lord, though treating them as true, unless proved otherwise; and, so far from not esteeming them as real saints, he declares that God would confirm them to the end, so that they should be blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. God had called them into the fellowship of His Son, and He was faithful. The worst among them turned out in fact, sad as his conduct was, a real Christian, and was restored. Accustomed to heathen habits, they had everything to learn morally. Indeed, as we read in the Acts, God had a great people in this notedly corrupt city. In those days dissipation in sin was called Corinthianising. In the second epistle, they being restored in state by his first, he speaks of them with full confidence, "having confidence in you all," chap. 2: 3. Titus' spirit had been refreshed by them all. His boasting of them was found to be a truth. The whole epistle shews his confidence in the reality of their Christianity. In chapter 12 he is afraid he may have to use sharpness as to some who might have sinned, but of their true Christianity no doubt.

Of the Galatians I have spoken. There for a moment he stood in doubt. But this proves what I am saying, and that Mr. Sadler is all wrong. For they had been all baptised like all the rest. It was their actual state which raised the question, though they had been; and when that was turning from the truth, their baptism availed nothing as to their being treated as saints. "Ye did run well: who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth?" Nor does he therefore boldly call them saints at the beginning, though in looking to Christ he regained his confidence. Their baptism did not suffice for this.

349 In Ephesians there is no doubt. They were not only saints, but faithful in Christ Jesus; but here the apostle distinguishes between one Spirit, one body, and one hope of our calling; and one Lord, one faith, and one baptism — the latter, as public profession. But of the Ephesians he affirms that they were quickened of God when dead in trespasses and sins. They had been sealed after believing. His address is not founded on their baptism, but on their faith. Every verse of the Epistle bears testimony to it. The church is one which Christ has loved, sanctified by the word, and will present glorious to Himself: one was as true as the other, His loving, sanctifying, and presenting glorious to Himself

The Philippians gives the same testimony — that he looked to a real work. He was thankful for their fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He that had begun a good work would perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ. He writes to them on the ground of true faith and grace, not on that of baptism, assured moreover that the work would go on to the day of Jesus Christ.

In Colossians "faithful brethren" is again added. And what was the ground of his writing? He had heard of their faith in Christ Jesus, and their love to all the saints. It was reality, not baptism. They too had been dead in their sins, and God had quickened them with Christ and forgiven them all their trespasses. Would Mr. Sadler say this to all his congregation, and, as Paul to the Corinthians, that God would confirm them unto the end? and to the Philippians, that He who had begun a good work in them would perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ — that they were all complete in Christ? or with Ephesians, that the same power had wrought in them which had raised Christ from the dead and set Him at God's right hand? He knows he would not; his whole theory is false and delusive. Preach to them as baptised, and not as heathen — all well and right. But the Epistles go on the ground of real Christianity in the soul.

With the Thessalonians, he knew not their baptism but their election of God, because his gospel had come to them, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost; so that they were ensamples, and so spoken of that he needed not say anything. The word worked effectually in them; they were his hope and joy and crown, when Christ came. In the second, their faith grew exceedingly, and the love of every one of them all towards each other abounded.

350 Of Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, I have no need to speak: they were individually known and chosen brethren.

The whole thing is an awful delusion, which the reading of the Epistles exposes at once, in its bare nakedness and soul-deceiving character. But we have an Epistle which speaks of the converse of this, and, if possible, proves more strongly, because negatively, what I say. The church was soon corrupted.

Jude tells us that false brethren had crept in unawares. Who could creep unawares into Mr. Sadler's system? Baptised, no doubt, but crept in, and unawares, but shewing distinctly that, where they were not real saints, they were not recognised as saints on the ground of baptism indiscriminately, but detected as having no business there. They had crept in unawares, spots in their love-feasts, feeding themselves without fear. If Mr. Sadler's theory were right, why not address them as saints, like all the rest, by baptism?

Peter equally takes the ground of true saints, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, and declares they were kept by the power of God, through faith, to the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. They had purified their souls in obeying the truth. Christ was precious to them. In the Second Epistle he stirs up their pure minds by way of remembrance. The other Epistles are mere treatises, not addressed formally to Christians.

Only that in John some had gone out that it might be manifested they all were not of them. They had slipped in undetected, but were manifested as "not of us." God did not allow them to remain: if of them, they would have continued, shewing clearly what "of us" means. But baptism is never laid as the ground of addressing saints as such, but faith and being obedient to the truth: in a word, being Christians in truth, though some false brethren began to creep in unawares.

I conclude then (that, while baptism was the public and outward admission into the Christian assembly, as formed on earth, and so to its privileges here, and so formally to the remission of sins, which was found there, and hence, when sins were already committed, their remission received administratively, and men passed into a new place and position, being accounted to have wholly left in Christ's death, to which men were baptised, their old standing), it is not being born again at all according to John 3, it has nothing good or bad to do with being a member of Christ's body, nor was it any way receiving the Holy Ghost, which is always carefully distinguished from it. It is not receiving life, not being made a member of Christ's body, not receiving the Holy Ghost. The whole theory is antiscriptural as to the meaning and import of baptism, as well as to any fancied actual efficacy.

351 I now turn to the scriptural view of the church or assembly of God. It is formed, we have seen, by the descent of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is given to believers as a seal on God's part of their faith, by reason of their being cleansed by the blood of Christ. They are sealed to the day of redemption. The effect of this in the individual, though full of blessing, and as important as the others of which we shall speak, is not our subject now. But the result, as stated in Scripture, as to the assembly, is that it is the body of Christ, each individual who is thus sealed being united to Christ the Head, and a member individually of His body; all thus sealed constituting His body. This, though it will be perfected as a whole in glory, is constituted on earth; for the Holy Ghost has come down here consequent on the Head being a Man exalted to the right hand of God. This may be seen in Ephesians 1: 19-23, as it is in the counsels of God: and in 1 Corinthians 12 as in fact down here.

But there is another aspect of the assembly, the house of God: only we must remark that the body of Christ exists by true union with Christ by the Holy Ghost. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit," and "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." If he be thus united to Christ, it is a real thing. "If Christ be in you," says the apostle. People have taken the Spirit of Christ here to be a temper or state; but the words cited which follow shew at once the fallacy of this. "If Christ be in you" is the sense the Holy Ghost puts upon it. Ephesians 5 clearly shews what this body is — the bride of Christ. It is what Christ loved, and which He will present to Himself, as God presented Eve to Adam. It is no doubt established on earth, because the Holy Ghost is come down to earth, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost took place then; but it is real — if one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one rejoice, all rejoice with it. We are members one of another. Of this the Lord's supper is the symbol and the outward bond; 1 Cor. 10: 17. Baptism with water is not what makes us members.

352 But I now turn to the house. God's dwelling amongst men is a great truth, and the consequence of redemption. He did not dwell with Adam innocent; He did not dwell with Abraham. But as soon as Israel was redeemed out of Egypt, though by an external redemption, He came to dwell among them in the Shechinah of glory. We read in Exodus 29, "They shall know that I Jehovah their God have brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them." Consequent on a true eternal redemption, Christ as Man being at the right hand of God, the Holy Ghost comes town, making the assembly His dwelling-place.* But here we have to look at the house, as Scripture presents it to us, in two distinct ways; according to the purpose of God, and indeed as founded by Him on earth; and as administered by man responsibly.

{*The individual saint, doubtless, too; but this is not our subject here. 1 Corinthians 6 gives the individual; 1 Corinthians 3, the assembly. Each is called a temple.}

According to the purpose of God, it is not yet complete. The Lord says, "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." This is not yet complete. At least, we trust that souls will be yet converted. God is not slack concerning His promise, but long-suffering. So Peter: "To whom coming as unto a living stone . . . ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house," 1 Pet. 2: 4, 5. So in Ephesians 2: 21: "In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." Here, in the first case, the Lord Himself builds, in the others no instrumentality is spoken of: the living stones come, the building grows, to a holy temple. This is the Lord's work and it cannot fail, and the stones are living stones, built on Christ the living Stone. It may be visible, as it was at the beginning; or invisible, as it has become through man's sin. But the Lord builds His temple, and that cannot fail, and His work cannot be frustrated.

But the external body, as a house and temple down here, in which we are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, has been entrusted to the responsibility of men, as everything has to begin with. "As a wise master-builder," says Paul, "I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon." Here is man's responsibility. Wood and hay and stubble may be built into the house. Till God judges it, it is the temple of God, as the Lord calls the temple His Father's house, though it was made a den of thieves. We have instruction how to conduct ourselves in a state of things which, in its hidden germ, began in the apostles' day. Where there is the form of godliness, denying the power of it, we are to turn away; to purge ourselves from the vessels to dishonour. In the beginning it could be said, The Lord added daily such as should be saved, and that visibly. Now we say, "The Lord knoweth them that are his"; and "every one that nameth the name of the Lord," must "depart from iniquity." The wolf may catch and scatter the sheep, but cannot pluck* them out of the Saviour's hand.

{*In the original it is the same word as 'catch.'}

353 The mystery of iniquity wrought in the apostles' days. All, at the end of his career, sought "their own, not the things of Jesus Christ"; and he knew that after his decease, the barrier gone, grievous wolves would enter in, and from within men arise speaking perverse things to draw the disciples after them. Jude tells us that false brethren had already crept in unawares, and these, we learn from him, were the class who would be judged by Christ at His coming. And John tells us that the last times were already there, manifested by apostates. The church then, as God's house, might be largely composed of what would be burned up — wood, and hay, and stubble. But when this was so, when there was a form of godliness and the power denied, from such true Christians were to turn away, and walk with those who called on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart. True saints would be hidden, or might be, so that we could only say, the Lord knows them that are His.

But there are explicit directions what to do when this is the case — turn away from them. The church could have no authority, for Christians were called upon to listen to Christ's judgment of it. See the seven churches. Jezebel would be its teacher, the mother of its children; and from its lukewarmness it would be spued out of Christ's mouth. And the apostle in 2 Timothy 3, when the perilous times of the last days should be come, refers to the Scriptures as able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. When the church would be a false and insecure guide (having the form of godliness, denying the power of it) the believer is referred to the Scriptures as a secure one, and called on authoritatively to listen to and hear the Spirit's judgment of the church.

354 The body of Christ, though set up manifestly and visibly on the earth, cannot have false members, because it is such by real union — by the Holy Ghost — with Christ its glorified Head. The baptism of the Holy Ghost formed it, not the baptism of water. It is the church which Christ loved, and for which He gave Himself to sanctify and cleanse with the word, and which He will present to Himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. He nourishes and cherishes it, as a man does his own body, for we are members of His body. But as this is by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the assembly takes another character. It is the habitation of God through the Spirit — His house; in its origin identical in its extent with the body — the Lord adding daily those whom He was saving. This also will be an everlasting character of the assembly of God. Glory in the church, to all the generations of the age of ages, is the desire of the apostle, and in the new heavens and the new earth the tabernacle of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, will be with men. This Christ builds; it is formed of living stones, and grows into a holy temple; the workman is the Lord Himself in His grace. Nor can Satan prevail against it.

But, as man himself, the world under Noah, the law and priesthood in Israel, the kingdom in Solomon, and Gentile power in Nebuchadnezzar, it has, as to present administration and manifestation, been committed to man's responsibility, and man, as in each of the cases named, has signally failed, and failed the first thing. So it was with man, with Noah, with the law, with the priesthood, with the royalty, with the Gentile power. So it has been with the professing church. As to general decay, all sought their own, the last days had come, nor was there to be recovery. As a dispensation on earth, they did not continue in God's goodness, and would be cut off. Evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse; there would be a form of godliness, denying the power; and the evil that had come in by false brethren would grow to be subject of judgment when the Lord came. History only confirms it.

355 Things were read in the churches forty years after John's death which would scarcely be received by an infidel now as doctrine, and contained practices as superior piety which would be scouted in decent society. I challenge anybody to deny it who has read the Shepherd of Hermas. It issued in the abominations of the middle ages and of Romanism, which truly made, as an infidel has said, the annals of the church the annals of hell. No heathenism was so systematically bad. Baptism does not make any one a member of Christ. The church was set up visibly, both as the body and the house. The body nothing can touch, because it exists by real union with Christ, the Head. The house, according to the counsels of God, is built by Christ, and is not yet complete; but, as every system ordained of God, as formed down here, it has been committed to the responsibility of man, and man has failed. And not only will it be set aside, but it is there judgment begins. Corruption and apostasy mark its result, and it will be set aside, as Israel was. This, indeed, is a general truth, that everything has been first committed to man's responsibility when it was established, and man responsible has failed, and all is to be set up in power and perfectness in the Second Man.

2 Timothy directs us how to act when the church has failed, as 1 Timothy gives us the order in which it was established. The attributing the blessings and promises, given to the body and the house as built by Christ, to the house as carried out by responsible man and built of wood and hay and stubble, is the origin of popery and what is called Puseyism, leading men to trust in, and cling to, that which God is going to judge and cut off, instead of to the word of God, to which He has referred us in the perilous times of the last days. It is just this, with many false details, which the church services do, and Mr. Sadler seeks to justify.

I notice a few details. Regeneration is a falsely used word. But being born again is not by union with Christ, but by His quickening power by the word; nor is baptism being born again. It is wholly false that the Galatians were children of God by faith, because, as Mr. Sadler says, as many of them as had been baptised to Christ had put on Christ. Indeed Mr. Sadler contradicts himself, for he says it is a needful supplement to faith, and, if a supplement, it could not be because of baptism they were children by faith. The Galatians states they were children by faith, and faith only. That in baptism they had professedly put on Christ, in contrast with being Jews or Greeks, or anything else, is true. But the epistle expressly speaks of the Spirit as that by which those who are sons by faith cry, Abba, Father. The doctrine that a child who has not committed sins receives remission of sins in baptism is a cruel mockery. That he is baptised to that which thus belongs to Christianity, as its leading privilege, may be true, if it be done intelligently.

356 Speaking of being baptised "into" anything is a mistake. It is "to," as to Moses, to John's baptism. There is no Christian covenant. The kingdom of God is not the church, nor the body of Christ. That men enter into the kingdom by baptism may be all well, though entrance into the house seems to be more accurate. It is into the public company of God's professing people, but even so "house" is only a figurative word; but they do enter where God dwells in the Person of the Holy Ghost.

I do not discuss the question of Calvinism. Mr. Sadler's statements as to the falling from grace are not sustained at all by the passages he quotes. That they may fall away after being baptised Scripture plainly states. He cannot have a better human statement as to it than his Article 17. Baptism is not the seal of any covenant. It is expressly declared that the Spirit is the seal of faith in the believer. The whole of this part of Mr. Sadler's book assumes as admitted truth what there is not the smallest warrant for in Scripture (as page 95). There is no admission into a Christian covenant. Regeneration is not grafting into Christ. Circumcision was not entering into the covenant, nor did it effect that infants should be children of God under the old dispensation. The whole statement is fancy. "Children of God" was not a title even of believers in the old dispensation; see Gal. 4. This and the following pages are a congeries of unfounded assertions, but the general discussion of the subject in the previous pages suffices.

I will now take up Mr. Sadler's teaching on the Lord's supper, the precious and blessed memorial of the Lord Himself, who deigns to care that we should remember Him. If ever there was anything calculated to touch the heart of a Christian, it is this; nor do I doubt that, as with all means of grace, so, especially with this, positive and direct blessing ensues to the believer. For my own part I know of nothing, of what I may call the institutions of Christianity, connected with so much joy and fruitful influence to my soul. No Christian will despise preaching, teaching, exhortation, reading the word, or common praise and prayer, if he knows his need or his privileges, nor indeed other things less properly institutions; but in none are the affections, as formed by the Spirit of God, so fully and solemnly moved as in the Lord's supper. But I reject, and reject as indeed destructive of this, the view Mr. Sadler takes of it. Solemnity, seriousness, and self-judgment in going to it is every way to be cultivated. But superstition always cultivates mystery and fear in our nearest approaches to God; Christianity, the contrary everywhere. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Fear hath torment, and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. God's perfect love — for it is God's love that is spoken of — casts out fear; 1 John 4.

357 He would not have us always in torment. And with striking beauty, when speaking of our love to Him, it does not say we ought to love Him, but, in the sense of love fully displayed in what precedes, we love Him because He first loved us. For in the case of a superior even of a mother, or any one we look up to — and in this case it is infinitely so — the deep sense of their love to us is true love to them. In what precedes, God's love towards us as sinners, dead in sins and guilty, is shewn (1 John 4: 9, 10); in the Christian enjoyed in a new nature by the Holy Ghost (v. 12); and then perfect with us — for there is no excuse for the translation, "our love" — giving us boldness for the day of judgment, because as Christ is, so are we in this world. The thought of God's love has reached from the condition of guilty dead sinners to the day of judgment; and this takes away fear, for we know Him. He has revealed Himself to us as the Father sending the Son, and bringing us, while once guilty sinners, far from Him, as sons into His presence, in Christ Himself; He is fully revealed in Him, and we complete in Him, before Him; and hence, while redoubling our praise and adoration, taking away fear, save the blessed and most wholesome reverence which fears to offend. In this sense "blessed is he that feareth always"; it is the beginning of wisdom and a beginning that is never lost, but increased in our fullest blessedness: indeed then we feel our own nothingness and forget ourselves, but never Him, when sensibly in His presence, as His fear makes us.

358 The whole spirit then of Mr. Sadler's system though engaging to the natural man, the effort at mystery and fear, is contrary to the very character and object and nature of Christianity, as made known to us in the word. In it the veil is rent from top to bottom, free entrance into the holiest given, and that with boldness. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared God, and made Him known as He knew Him in His bosom. That the Person of Christ is mysterious is most true, but this would go quite too far, for no one knows the Son but the Father; so it is absolutely because of the union of Godhead and manhood in one Person. But in intercourse with men the Lord was openness and affability itself among them, as one that served, and just as free with His poor ignorant disciples as with Moses and Elias in glory, and speaking on the same subject. See the kind of intercourse of Ananias in Damascus (Acts 9: 10-16), and of Paul (chap. 22: 17-21), and how the Lord met them.

The truth is, that it is just bringing us, as the whole system does, to Judaism. There the Holy Ghost signified by the veil that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest; Heb. 9. To us the word is boldness to enter in by the new and living way through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. And it is this Mr. Sadler wants to make a mystery and a veil of again; and the Christian may be assured that it is not God's presence known in the holiest that will give him levity or carelessness in his conscience; he will be, as Paul expresses it, "manifested to God," and he is speaking of manifestation as it will be in the day of judgment (2 Cor. 5),* for God's holiness and judgment of evil never vary. But it is not fear, because we are before Him in Christ as sons, accepted in the Beloved, blessed, if I am to believe Scripture, as men to whom the Lord imputes no sin. And of that state only the scripture says, "and in whose spirit there is no guile." Why should there be, if we are white as snow? and, if we fail, have confidence in God to confess it, with a full and open though a broken heart, the Holy Ghost who dwells in us leading us, through the advocacy of Christ, to do so?

{*"Appear" in verse 10 is "manifested," Paul saying not only we all should be, but he was then.}

359 I have said thus much because of the importance of the truth of Christianity in itself, its true nature, and because it changes the whole aspect of the subject we are upon. But I will enter directly on the subject. And, first, it is difficult to acquit Mr. Sadler of a want of honesty. It is hardly conceivable that a person who seems to have studied the text of Scripture on his subject should not know that eating "damnation" to themselves is exactly the opposite of what we mean now by damnation. Either the word was not used then as it is now, or the translators were not honest; for the "damnation" here spoken of is a chastisement sent that they might not be condemned. They ate and drank judgment to themselves; for if we judged ourselves, we should not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. And the judgments are spoken of: sickness, which went on even to death, called "sleep" because it was that of Christians. Thus the speaking of "damnation" is in open contradiction of the passage, and subverts its whole purpose and object.

No true Christian doubts the divinity of the blessed Lord, but, solemn as was the institution of the Lord's supper, every word He spoke, and every act He did, was the expression of the same divine Person, so that the attempt to make anything especially mysterious on this account, in the Lord's supper, is utterly groundless; and, indeed, when He says, "in remembrance of Me," it is much more of Him viewed as man, conversant with them on earth, than as to His divine nature. "Remember Me" suits His presence and love down here; and if we add His death, it is certain that, though the whole value of His divinity is attached to His death, and only as a divine Person could He have done it, yet He died as man, not as to His divine nature. He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. And whilst holding fast the full deity of the blessed Lord as a very foundation of Christianity, we must not forget there is one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. His Person was no more mysterious in the Lord's supper, though the occasion was more solemn, than at any other time. If we speak of circumstances as especially mysterious, it was when a babe lying in the manger. But in truth it was always the same.

What we have to examine is what He said. But it may be well, in order to simplify this, to reply first to what is alleged of John 6. The Gospel of John has a peculiar character; it does not present Christ to be received, but, in chapter 1, speaks of Christ as unknown by the world, and rejected by the Jews, save such as were born of God. Electing love is insisted on throughout, and the Jews treated as reprobates. Hence, in every chapter in this part, Christ is brought out in contrast with that people. Here the Passover is referred to, and what Christ was as Jehovah, manifested in feeding the multitude, according to Psalm 132. He is owned as prophet, will not be king in a carnal way, and then sends the disciples away to find their way alone on the sea, and, having dismissed the Jewish multitude, He goes up on high to pray. He is Jehovah, Prophet, Priest on high, rejecting the royalty in a carnal way then. He is on high, and the disciples alone. He then shews their true food while He was on high, and externally separated from Him. Is it Christ Himself, or the Lord's supper? I might say really, or exclusively the Lord's supper? For the Lord speaks of the eating of Him, whatever that is, as one thing, though in two aspects, but of that which is one, and which is in itself absolutely efficacious. Indeed, down to the end of verse 53, it is in Greek the aorist, an act which has happened; from verses .54 to 58 it is the present characteristic of the person spoken of, the eater of My flesh.

360 Remark further, you have the incarnation, death, and ascension of the Lord Jesus closely connected one with another; in a word, His whole history, so to speak, as become Man. But the middle and most important part is not Himself, but a rite! so they would tell us. Then the first part of which the eating is equally spoken, and closely connected with the second (v. 51), is not in the Lord's supper at all; so that the doctrine does not fit at all as a whole. When we come to the substance of the chapter, the impossibility of its application to the Eucharist stares you in the face. "This is the bread which came down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." And it is well to begin before this. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life . . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat [have eaten] of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world . . . . Verily, I say unto you, except ye eat [have eaten] the flesh of the Son of man, and drink [have drunk] his blood, ye have no life in you [yourselves]. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day . . . . He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."

361 I ask if the Lord would say to a parcel of Jews surrounding Him, that they had no hope of life but in the Eucharist, which they had never heard of, and knew nothing about? or did He speak of Himself, whom they were to receive, living and dying? Why, if they had not life by faith in Him — had not come to Him by faith, they had no place at His table at all. But I quote a few words more: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me shall live by me. This is that bread that came down from heaven . . . he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." Now mark, first, if a man has not eaten His flesh, and drunk His blood, he has no life in Him. The man begins all real living Christianity by receiving the Eucharist before he is one! Their own doctrine of receiving life by baptism is all a fable; or, if he has, he must make sure and die spiritually, or he is not in the case to participate in the Eucharist.

They talk of sustaining life by the Eucharist, as men by eating; but these men have life, and daily eat as living men, sustaining life by it, as God has ordered. But here they have no life in them at all unless they eat. If it be by receiving Christ into the heart, incarnate and dying, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that is intelligible enough, especially addressed to unbelievers; but to say it of the Eucharist is alike false, absurd, and contradictory of its nature, for it is for Christians. According to Mr. Sadler's system, it is "received by the faithful"; they are to receive it with a true penitent heart and lively faith. Mr. Sadler has to admit that the Lord confers eternal life on the whole man by it; but then he also admits that no carnal wicked man can get any benefit by it; but, if not outwardly wicked, it is a man who has not had eternal life conferred on him.

The language of the Lord, as to a Person who has not eaten His flesh, nor drunk His blood, not having life, makes it perfectly impossible to apply it to the Eucharist; for the eating and drinking the Lord speaks of is the first receiving of life: till they ate and drank, they had no life in them. None but dead souls can partake of it, and so receive life. To talk of preserving or sustaining is in the teeth of the express terms of the passage.

362 But further he who did so eat was to live for ever, and that not hypothetically or conditionally, but live for ever. The Lord repeats and insists on this, and carries it expressly on to final blessedness in the eternal state. "I will raise him up in the last day." It applies, says Mr. Sadler of the Eucharist according to his system, to body as well as soul. That is easily slipping over what is said. The Lord, repeatedly and with emphasis, insists on eating being eternal life, living for ever, never dying; and, not content with this, goes on to make him who eats sure of final blessedness in resurrection.

Does that apply to the Eucharist? And let not any one come here and say it puts him in that state, and if he continue well. This is not what the Lord says. He declares that he who eats, according to this passage, "shall live for ever," and starting from the assertion, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."

The point of difference between the manna and this bread was, that they did die: with this kind of eating, "never die" is the very point of the passage. Whoso eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, and Christ will raise him up in the last day. It cannot be the Eucharist, for no believer can partake of it in that case; for the believer has everlasting life, as declared in this passage, but he who eats of this has no life in him till he has eaten of it. On the other side, he who partakes of the Eucharist has obtained (though there be, as being dead, "no life in him") eternal life, will live for ever, and be raised by the Lord at the last day. They know, as well as I do, that this is in no way or aspect applicable to the Eucharist. The Eucharist refers symbolically to one of the three great events referred to in the chapter, as the chapter does in one part to the realities of which the Eucharist is a symbol. But the chapter in no part, and in no way, refers to the Eucharist. Not one word of it can be honestly applied to that rite, while every word fully and blessedly applies to that to which the rite itself refers.

This disposed of, I turn to the only real inquiry: What do the words of institution mean? I have already spoken of the value I attach to the right use of the Eucharist, and, so to speak, meeting Christ there; but we are now speaking of a particular view of it. Mr. Sadler tells us that taking it as a memorial is a rationalistic view of it. My answer is, Christ said, "Do this in remembrance of me." He tells us it is not "doing" on our part, but Christ's giving and we receiving (page 122). But Christ says, "Do this." As to figure, Mr. Sadler recognises that the bread and wine are still and ever bread and wine, and nothing else in themselves. They have therefore, if any value beyond bread and wine be in them, that value as figures.

363 And now note that there was not then any such Christ as is symbolised in the bread and wine, nor is there now. What is unquestionably symbolised is His body (given) for us, and His blood shed; that is, a Christ in death. and no way else. There is no such Christ now. And this the apostle expressly states: "We do shew forth his death, until he come." Whatever means of grace it may be, it is not an existing Christ as He is or was then. So He speaks of His shed blood. It is, in a word, a Christ on the cross, and His death, that is in view, though it be done in remembrance of Himself. To turn it away from this is to turn it away from Christ's institution, and the express declaration of Scripture.

John 6 represents to us Christ as the Word made flesh in the incarnation, and then suffering on the cross, at the end hinting at His ascension as Man to glory. But the subject of the chapter is a humbled and dying Christ, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and actually dying (though to take thereupon a glorious place as Man where He was with the Father before the worlds), in contrast with a reigning Messiah.

We have the same path of grace in Philippians 2, contrasted there with the first Adam. He made Himself of no reputation (eauton ekenose), and took a servant's form; then, being found in fashion, He humbled Himself unto death, the death of the cross; then He is exalted of God. But He is fed upon as humbled and dead, His blood shed; once exalted, both these things are passed and closed. He is the subject of eating only as bread come down, and dying, and shedding His blood.

In John 6 this is presented solely as the beginning of life to us. He gave His flesh for the life of the world. Till I eat it, I have no life in me. Feeding is more than simply believing, though inseparable from it. It is nourishing the soul with the object of faith. Though first phage, an act past and done, yet trogon, eating, characterises the believer; but no such Christ as he feeds on is in existence now. It must be by remembrance. It is shed blood he drinks. If it be not shed and out of the body, there is no redemption, and so we must receive it peremptorily or not have life. Without shedding of blood there is no remission; and the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die, or it abides alone.

364 In the institution of the Eucharist it is the same subject, only not here bread come down from heaven (a position just closing in John 6), nor an exalted Christ, but blood shed and the body dead, and only so. There is no such Christ in existence, as the one represented in the Eucharist; but it is Christ in that way in which He wrought redemption, obtained remission, and laid the foundation of the new covenant. It is Himself we remember in the infinite love of this, but His death we shew forth. It was done once for all in the end of the world.

Mr. Sadler tells us that the slaying of the lamb and the passover was not a remembrance, but that Jehovah did pass over them. This is a great mistake; for it answers to Christ's actual dying and shedding His blood, so that God should pass over; but the passover was to be kept yearly as a remembrance when there was no passing over, when they were in the land, as we are in heavenly places in Christ, and celebrate a deliverance and redemption accomplished long ago. "And it shall come to pass when ye be come to the land which Jehovah shall give you, according as he has promised, that ye shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of Jehovah's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel, when he smote the Egyptians," Exod. 12: 25. It was (v. 24) "an ordinance to thee and to thy sons for ever." And again, "Remember this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage . . . there shall no leavened bread be eaten," Exod. 13: 3. "And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which Jehovah did unto me when I came forth from Egypt. And it shall be unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes . . . thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year." It was a perpetual remembrance. It was at a season when they killed the passover; Matt. 26: 17 and following; Mark 14: 12; Luke 22: 7, 8.* At this season of the passover the remembrance of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, Jehovah institutes the remembrance of a better sacrifice and a better deliverance.

{*John taking the divine side of His Person, we have no account of this but the doctrine as to the work itself in the doctrinal teaching. Chapter 5 is the life-giving Son; chapter 6 the incarnate and dying Redeemer — our food while He is absent; chapter 7 the Holy Ghost given instead of the feast of tabernacles, where He will shew Himself to the world, which He could not keep then. I add, chapter 8, His word rejected; chapter 9, His work. In chapter 10 He will have His sheep in spite of them, and other sheep too. Chapters 11, 12 are God's recognition of Him as Son of God, Son of David, Son of man, which introduces His death, besides Mary in Bethany, a remnant who in a measure entered into it. From chapter 13 He is looked at as going up on high, but we have no suffering Christ led as a sheep to the slaughter; no sorrows in Gethsemane, but power and giving Himself freely up; no sorrows on the cross, but giving up His own spirit to the Father, when the time was come.}

365 Mr. Sadler would think a slain lamb a better memorial. Thank God, the Lord did not think so. I pity Mr. Sadler. Would he (I am ashamed to speak of it) have drunk the blood of it, a most weighty and momentous part of it to us? Further, death was death, and could not be touched but as death and the wages of sin. Now death is life and gain; for Christ has in all the depth of it paid those wages, and we feed on it as life. And the memorial of what wrought this is sweet to our souls, as is His love who did it. The giving of the blessed Lord, celebrated in the Eucharist, is His giving Himself — His life on the cross for us in infinite love. We know Him as living now in glory, we feed on Him as once dead on the cross for us. He is in us as life now. We remember Him as once a sacrifice, whose value, and the sufferings and love in it, none can fathom. His love is divine and human and constant now; but He cares, though now in glory, that we should remember Him as He was then, that time of love when He gave Himself for us. Mr. Sadler may think it rationalistic. We cherish the thought that He cares for our remembrance — did so when suffering — in our inmost soul. We feed on it. Hereby know we love, that He laid down His life for us. It is infinitely precious at all times; but the Lord's supper is a special occasion instituted by Himself, at the moment of His doing it, the same night in which He was betrayed, to recall and be a memorial of it. That He meets His gathered people there I do not doubt.

366 Looked at merely doctrinally, it was the substitution of a sweet memorial of eternal redemption wrought, for one of an earthly deliverance of a people who now rejected their Messiah but only accomplished the higher purposes of God in doing so. That blessed work was also laying in blood the foundation of the new covenant. Of a covenant with the communicant, or with the church, no trace is found in the word. It is a mere doctrinal fable. We get the blessings of it spiritually, as I have said; but formally the new covenant, as the old to which it refers as new, is made with Israel, and with no one else. There was a covenant made with Abraham (besides promises relating to Israel) confirmed to the seed Christ; and those who have Christ's Spirit, being in Christ, and Christ's, have the blessing of this (though they have a great deal more), but as the new covenant, promised in Jeremiah 31, the Mediator of it having come, and the blood of it shed, we participate in spirit in its blessings, God having done all needed to set it up, and the Jews having refused to accept the Mediator, even in glory; Acts 3 and 7. It will be established, according to promise, but by grace in God's due time. This Christ also teaches. It is the new covenant in His blood, and, further, shed for many. It is thus shed blood alone which is before us in the Eucharist. It is an abiding witness that, as to God's part in it, the foundation of the covenant is laid in the blood of the Mediator of it, and that that blood is shed for many. It is further a sign of the unity of the body, so that those who take part in it are there as one body in Christ, identified withal with all true saints.

The word "blessing . . . we bless," as is perfectly evident from Scripture, is simply giving thanks. (See 1 Cor. 11: 26; chap. 10: 16; Luke 22: 17; compare Mark 14: 22, 23; Matt. 26: 26, 27; exactly the same word as John 6: 23.) When the Lord therefore says, "this is my body," He speaks, it is admitted, figuratively. It is still bread.* It could not be His body then, nor, in spite of Augustine, did He hold His body in His own hand, nor was there thus any such body, that is, dead and the blood poured out, as it is said (ekchunomenon). Nor is there now. It is the figure of Christ as a victim and only so. I do not insist on "broken," for I suppose it is not the true reading. If "given" be genuine, it is the same thing; but I rest on the whole evident meaning, and it is expressly for us, not to us. It is the shed blood, shed for many. That we feed on Christ as then dead for us, and His blood shed, when eating the bread and drinking the wine specially, though at all times, is all well. But it is we who eat, and we who "do" in remembrance of that which must be, and can only be, remembered as past, though the One I remember is now ascended to the right hand of God, the same loving Saviour. The real act is our eating, and our drinking, our doing in remembrance; and even if "breaking" be spoken of, on which Mr. Sadler insists, it is we who break too. The wine is equally a figure, and a figure of blood shed, a shedding which took place on the cross, of which we perpetuate the memory.

{*It is a curious fact that the epiklesis, or invocation of the Holy Ghost, which was used to prove that there were two natures in Christ, when superstition had set in, as there was bread and the divine thing too, and which was considered the consecration and still is by the Greek church (though since the time of St. John Damascene they have tended, though with uncertain steps, to transubstantiation, a word now used among them), is not in use in the Roman Missal (which in this essential point differs from all ancient liturgies), nor in the English. The Greeks use "this is my body" too; but though appropriating the elements thus in a certain measure in a side chamber, called prothesis (if my memory be not treacherous), this is not full consecration.}

367 As regards its being a figure, as Mr. Sadler says, identified with its object in the use of it, I have no objection to the thought at all. The more it is realised the better. Were I to do, or capable of doing, so horrid and wicked a thing as spitting on my mother's picture, I should be putting disgraceful and most wicked contempt on my mother. If I eat unworthily (not be unworthy to eat), (and they were carousing and drinking their fill, and despising the poor) I am guilty of so slighting and counting a common thing the Lord's body. I have no thought to weaken this a moment.

There is also communion; but Mr. Sadler's translation and explanation, and his church's with it, is wholly false. The English translators, most unhappily and avowedly fond of changing the word when it was the same in Greek, have translated the same word, communion, partaking, fellowship. Thus it is koinonia of the blood, of the body. But in verse 18 the priests who ate of the altar are koinonoi of the altar, and in verse 20, koinonoi of devils. Communicating or communicators of altars or devils does not give a very intelligible sense; but the moment we use the word rightly, the sense in each case is evident. They are morally identified with that of which they partake. The priests among the Jews were (koinonoi) morally identified with the altar of Jehovah, the heathen with the demons or devils to which the Gentiles offered. Were they going to identify themselves with devils and with the Lord, and provoke the Lord to jealousy? If they ate and drank with each — partook of them, they were koinonoi, morally partakers or identified with them. "Communication of" is a simply impossible sense if we read the passage.

368 The reasoning as to covenant (in page 136) proves just the contrary of what it is produced for. Covenants were ratified with blood, not with figures of blood. The covenant therefore was ratified on the cross, where blood itself was spilt, not in the Eucharist, where Mr. Sadler admits there is really no blood at all. It arises from his notion of ratifying a covenant with the communicant, a tradition perhaps of his church, but an idea of which no trace is found in Scripture. "I am the true vine" refers to Israel, the vine brought out of Egypt. There was no church union then with disciples. This began at Pentecost. Ephesians 1 and 2 shew it to have been impossible till after the death and exaltation of Christ. They were already (ede) clean by reason of the word He had spoken. I do not pursue this farther, because it has nothing to do with our subject. "Vine" and "door" remain figures in any case. The statements of page 132 are wholly without foundation. Supposing He is the true door, "door" is a figure, nor is there any entrance into the innermost sanctuary. "True vine" refers to a vine not, after all, the true one, that is, to Israel. All this is ranting. The image in Hebrews is a veil, not a door, and they went through it, and had not to eat it. All this is hardly worth so many words.

As regards a sacrifice, the scriptural answer is simple enough, "There is no more sacrifice for sin." The insisting on the flesh of Christ is of all importance. His true incarnation and true death was a crucial point. So only was He a man, so only could He make atonement. It was an evil spirit which did not confess Him come in flesh. This was that spirit of Antichrist. All acquainted with church history know that the church was tormented with this at the beginning, teachers called Docetae or Gnostics denying He came in flesh; whence also Paul says "the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The insisting on it by John, and his motive for it, are as plain as plain can be to any one reading his writings, knowing the value of the truth, or, as I have said, acquainted with church history. Christ was a real true man, in a body, in flesh, and really died as a man shedding His blood, though God over all blessed for ever. But all this has nothing to do with the Eucharist, save that it is in the most important way presented to us there in what is the external bond of the church's very subsistence. Nay, it is all frightfully weakened and subverted, by turning these vital truths into a false explanation of the Eucharist; for I recognise as I have said, that the Lord's supper is the central point of union and worship, as to its forms, and according to Christ's institution.

369 Mr. Sadler admits that the Eucharist has scarcely one feature in common with the things which in Scripture are called sacrifices (page 173). He tells us (page 174) that the real spiritual value lay, not in the costliness of the victim, nor in its death and the outpouring of its blood, nor in its consumption by fire, but in the implied reference to the atoning death of Christ. But it was in these things that the reference consisted; and they made them, and above all Him, a sacrifice together with the offering of Himself up to God, to be one; not one of which elements is found in the Eucharist. A "memorial" of Himself will not do, it must be Himself. Christ must offer Himself without spot to God. He must, as we are told in Hebrews 9, suffer to be a sacrifice.

He gives the disciples the memorials or symbols of His body and blood to eat and drink, not to offer. They were to do it in remembrance of Him, not sacrifice Him over again. That His sacrifice of Himself is in remembrance, no Christian will deny or be disposed to deny. But if we are sacrificing Him, then it is not a remembrance of Him. Blood must be shed for a sacrifice; what is sacrifice must bear sin, or suffer, or at least suffer as made sin. But the Eucharist looks at the blood as already shed, at the sacrifice as already complete, and is a witness in remembrance that it is so, and that nothing can be added, taken away, or repeated. God has accepted it, and Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, because by one offering He has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. A commemoration of His having died cannot be a sacrifice. He did not offer a sacrifice in the upper room; and though the value of His sacrifice is ever in heaven, He is not doing it in heaven. He is, as Hebrews 10 insists, in contrast with the standing Jewish priests, always at work because nothing was really done, sitting at the right hand of God because all is done, expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. To the Judaism of an unfinished work always doing, this "church system" would reduce us. A glorified Christ cannot be offered in sacrifice. He is, as man, glorified, because He has finished the work which His Father gave Him to do.

370 Let any one read Hebrews 9 and 10 carefully, and see if this theory is not the subversion of Christianity in this respect. He does intercede, thank God, with God. He is an advocate . with the Father to obtain help not to sin, to restore our communion if we have sinned; but this is founded on a finished work, and a complete righteousness. Where in Scripture is it said Christ was pleading His sacrifice in the upper chamber? where that the church is pleading in the holy Eucharist? (Page 175.) It is a pernicious fable, and that is all. I challenge Mr. Sadler for his authority to produce such a thought from the word of God. It is superstition, not piety: presumption, not lowliness; a pretension to be offerers of Christ, as if He had not finished all.

Mr. Sadler pretends there are better means to recall Christ to our hearts than the Eucharist. The answer is simple: Christ did not think so. For my part I thank God He did not. Doing it in commemoration, doing it to shew the Lord's death, is not offering a sacrifice in any sense. No doubt it is with Christ, not with our faith, we are occupied, but we are not offering Him. All that Mr. Sadler is obliged to add to make out his case (p. 177) is not in what Christ said. Doing a thing in remembrance of Him is not sacrificing Him, and does not mean it; nor was He then offering Himself at all, but giving the symbol of a finished sacrifice to eat. No comparison of the Eucharist and Jewish sacrifices is needed. In many respects it is more excellent. We drink what represents the blood of Christ. It is occupied with the sacrifice as already finished, not as being constantly done typically and never done really. But each was right in its place.

It is never said in Scripture to shew forth [the Lord's death] before God, and angels, and men. The church, as were God's servants individually, is a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men, and this act will come in with the rest. But a sacrifice is offered, presented, shewn to God only; and this applied to the Eucharist is abominably false, and subversive of Christianity, which rests stamped with this seal and impress, "no more sacrifice for sin," or else the full value of the finished one is denied. I repeat, it is that only one, once offered as finished once and for ever, that is remembered in the Eucharist. To refer it (p. 186) to the giving thanks, blessing (not two things in Scripture), breaking, taking, eating, drinking, as the sacrificial character, shews the fallacy of the whole thing, for the drinking could not be till the sacrifice was over, nor indeed the eating. As to the others they are at best only consecrating to be a victim. Breaking referred to Christ is unscriptural;* the bread is broken. It is not said of Christ.

{*It is a false reading where introduced [in 1 Cor. 11: 24].}

371 I hardly know if it be worth while to answer the chapter on priesthood. The whole system is so foreign to Christian truth, and the subject of the ministry has been so fully discussed elsewhere, that it is a weariness to go over it again. Still I will say a few words. First, Mr. Sadler expatiates on the apostle having peculiar powers. He might save himself the trouble. Every Christian owns it, I suppose. In the next place, I absolutely deny any ordination to ministry, a principle now very generally admitted by Christians, even by those who submit to it for the sake of order. Scripture, at any rate, is clear as to it. Further, he confounds everlasting redemption and forgiveness, or justification by faith, never recalled (for whom He justified, them He also glorified; and being justified we shall be saved from wrath), with administrative forgiveness in God's dealings or government, where, if a person be sick through chastisement, he having committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. (Compare Job 36.) In this sense the assembly forgives sins (2 Cor. 2: 7, 10); nay, I forgive my brother his trespasses. Of an elder or priest's doing it with authority there is no trace in Scripture. On the contrary, where the elders are introduced, the prayer of faith saves the sick; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him, not a trace of any act of the elder.

Mr. Sadler goes on the principle of administering the sacrament. Sects may profess it, as he says, but Scripture knows nothing of it. They broke bread, kat oikon in their houses. The disciples came together to break bread. That the thanksgiving and breaking of bread should be, for comeliness and edification, done by some grave brother, is all well; but we have no administering it in Scripture. The bread which we break, the cup which we bless, speaks of what Corinthians do as such. The apostle was not there, and there is no hint of elders at all, though we know there commonly were, but their existence is ignored at Corinth if there were. There is no hint of any administering it. It is probable at Troas that Paul did it, though the words are very general. It was natural.

372 As to baptism, as a rule the apostles did not baptise. In Mark, if it be genuine, they are not sent to baptise but to preach the gospel. "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved"; but of who did it, not a word. From Galilee (not Bethany) the twelve were sent to baptise the Gentiles, making them disciples, and this, note, from a risen — not from an ascended — Christ. In the commission in Luke, always acted on in the Acts, there is nothing of baptism. The commission in Matthew 28 was to the Gentiles alone. This the apostles formally gave up to Paul and Barnabas (Gal. 2), the Lord having expressly called them to this service, and Paul tells us he was not sent to baptise — contrasts himself with the twelve who were. It is alleged this refers to his motive, not to have them counted his disciples; but this is not so: he gives it as a general reason for his conduct, though for that reason he rejoiced in the result. I do not doubt they baptised all their converts, Jews or Gentiles; but they had no commandment for the former, and they gave up the latter to Paul, and he expressly says he was not sent to do it.

So much for the commission. Then as to practice; in Acts 2 no hint of the apostles, or of any commissioned by them, doing it. They were to be baptised for the remission of sins, and they were baptised. In chapter 8: 12 they were baptised, men and women: not a word of who did it, only not the apostles, nor, as it appears, any commissioned by them. It was all news to the apostles. In Cornelius' case Peter commanded them to be baptised, and Paul boasts, save in a few cases, of not having done it. As an argument for Mr. Sadler, I may add that lay baptism is valid in the English Establishment, as it is, and very common too, with Romanists. As regards commission to administer the Lord's supper, I should have added, there is none such; they were to take, eat; they were to divide it among themselves. It is exactly the opposite of a commission to administer it to others. The whole statement from beginning to end as to administering sacraments, in principle and as to the facts, is wholly without foundation in Scripture; that all things should be done decently and in order is not. Indeed this thought is generally received by Christians on the continent, and is growing rapidly in England. But scarcely one of the assertions of Mr. Sadler (pages 206, 207) is founded on fact.

373 Christ did send the apostles to preach, at least if the end of Mark be genuine: at any rate they were to be Christ's witnesses, and Paul was expressly. He did send the twelve to baptise the Gentiles, which commission they relinquished, and He did give authority to remit sins administratively; He did not to administer the Lord's supper to them, nor to any one. And, note, if by baptism remission of sins was received, which to those thus brought in I do not deny, as a rule it was not the apostles who remitted them, but other people without any commission at all. That the apostles had an extraordinary commission, authority to ordain things in the churches, power to confer the Holy Ghost, besides their gifts, is quite clear. But even as to preaching and teaching, let us see how this clerical commissioning stands. At the persecution of Stephen all were scattered, except the apostles, and went everywhere preaching the word, and after the special case of Cornelius, by these first the gospel was carried to the Gentiles.

Here was a strange case: either all were ordained, and there were no laymen; or all laymen were preachers without any commission. And what makes it more striking is, that the hand of the Lord was with them, and many believed. Peter tells them, as every one had received the gift, so to minister the same. If one who had received a talent did not trade with it, without any other authority than having it, he was a wicked and slothful servant. If preachers came, women even were to judge of their doctrine, not of their commission: this never occurred as a safeguard to the apostle. Diotrephes would have found it convenient if only such had existed. And in the assembly they were only to speak two or three on one occasion, that all might speak and all might be edified. Everyone had a psalm, interpretation, doctrine; but all things were to be done to edifying, not to confusion. The whole tenor of the New Testament denies emphatically a clerical order of ministry. There are gifts given from on high, apostles, prophets, as foundation; pastors, teachers, evangelists, till we all come, etc.; and, besides these positive ministries, that which every joint supplieth, making increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love. And those who had this gift had it everywhere. Local elders there were, some ministering in the word, some not. That they should be didaktikoi was to be desired. Their overseership was evidently made more useful by it.

374 To all Mr. Sadler says about the effect of administering I have already spoken; the administering itself, we have seen, is an invention, as appointing others to administer it. Hebrews 6: 1-4 is in contrast with spiritual Christianity. Baptisms are washings; laying on of hands is not spoken of ordination, as far as appears. The things are Jewish knowledge of Christ, and ways, as contrasted with the Christianity brought by the Holy Ghost. Laying on of hands was used for everything, sacrifices, healing, etc. The deacons had hands laid on them as apostolic sanction; I have little doubt the elders too, but Scripture carefully avoids saying so. Acts 13: 2 was commending to the Lord, and nothing else (chap. 14: 26); and was repeated on a second journey (chap. 15: 40); and, if anything else, was the ordination of an apostle by laymen, a singular proceeding, if giving a commission and authority be in question. The apostles, and the apostles only, could give the Holy Ghost by it. On the one hand the Holy Ghost distributed to every man severally as He would (1 Cor. 12); and on the other, as to permanent ministry, the Lord gave, as ascended up on high, and as every one received the gift, he was to minister the same, as coming directly from God. Not a word of ordination in any case of ministry.

Mr. Sadler does not indeed venture to say more than "there is reason to believe." I can only say that, if we read the New Testament, we have reason to be sure of exactly the contrary. And this to justify a man, established by God knows who, pretending to give the Holy Ghost to make a priest to forgive sins! a power which the apostles administratively had, and which as to details was exercised by the assembly in its discipline, and even through individual prayer in chastisements, but the conferring of which on a priest, or the idea of a priest, is unknown to the New Testament, save as we are all kings and priests to God. The whole system is a false invention, denying the power and presence of the Holy Ghost. I challenge all the clergy to give me a case of ordination to ministry. I have quoted what gives thousands of cases of ministry without ordination. That they commended to God, and bore witness of consent and approbation by the laying on of hands of laymen, so-called, or the elderhood, we find; but conferring ministry there was not, save from on high and by the Holy Ghost. Communicating the truth there was, to faithful men too, but never ordination to ministry. It is the substitution of man for God the Holy Ghost.

375 I have examined thus all the great principles of Mr. Sadler's book. They can in no respect stand the test of Scripture. I do not feel it necessary to discuss Confirmation, or the Burial service. The chapter on Confirmation is so excessively weak (suppositions founded on suppositions, to defend a poor imitation of apostolic power not half owned in the service itself) that it is not necessary. The Burial service depends on the whole system, though in many cases a horribly unfeeling thing too. But with the details of the particular sect I have nothing to do.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOL. 8]

Examination of the book entitled "The Restitution of all Things"*

J. N. Darby.

<31002E> 75

{*The Second Death and the Restitution of all Things. By Andrew Jukes. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Third Edition.}

This book denies all true sense of what sin is; that men must be born again; and the cross, as Christ bearing our sins. We die as He died; and that is all. And, I judge, there is more behind, which he says, aping Paul, he cannot utter (p. 75). I should add that guilt is never thought of or recognised, nor Christ's work as meeting it in any way.

The book is written in the form of a letter to a friend. On page 2 he says, "Your difficulty is, How are we, as believers in Scripture, to reconcile its prophetic declarations as to the final restitution of all things with those other statements of the same scripture which are so often quoted to prove eternal punishment?" There are no such prophetic declarations as to the restitution of all things absolutely. He leaves out, as all such do, the words "which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3: 21), "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," Acts 3: 20, 21. The "all things" refer solely to those things of which the prophets have spoken. The reading of the passage dissipates the notion based on it by leaving out the end.

Again, "scripture, you say, affirms that our God (whose?) is a Saviour full of pity towards the lost, seeking their restoration so loving that He has given for man His only-begotten Son, in. and by whom the curse shall be overcome, and all the kindreds of the earth be blessed; and yet that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched. How is it possible, you ask, to reconcile all this? Are not the statements directly inconsistent?" No. There is nothing to reconcile, no opposition whatever. Suppose He has been rejected — found none to answer? "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3: 36. Those in hell are not kindreds of the earth.

76 Nature and providence are said to veil as much as they reveal. "We must confess to some veil or riddle here. It is precisely the same riddle which we find in every other revelation . . . . Providence surely is a revelation of God; and yet is it not, like nature, a veil quite as much as a revelation?" Why so? All this is confusion and error. Nature and providence are under the effects of the fall, and the fruits of sin are there. If these last are in the word, I must cull out what is and what is not. But the word is perfect as Christ was. It is want of intelligence in me — unbelief in me — that hinders my understanding it, not the effect of sin in it. It is quite wrong then to say that "Scripture, as it appears to sense, makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as nature and providence seem to make Him."

Again, "Even so it is with those other two revelations which, much as they have been gainsaid, the church has received and yet believes in I mean the flesh of Christ and holy Scripture." "The church": what church? He quite treats it all through as some known adequate authority.

What he concludes regarding nature, providence, and Scripture at page 14 is all false, as we have just shewn; and the esoteric referred to has been discovered by him!

That God was willing, in revealing Himself, to seem inconsistent by giving the law, is utter nonsense and confusion. There was no seeming inconsistency, for the law was the just measure of what the child of Adam ought to be, so as to convict him of sin; not the revelation of what God was at all. "If men are in the flesh, God comes to them in flesh," etc. All are in the flesh (not disembodied) when God comes to them. All this section (pp. 14, 15) is a denial of the truth, where it is not pretty nonsense. "Why have men always heard God first speaking in law before a gospel dawned on them? Why must it be so, or at least why does He allow it? Is it a mistake of His which we must avoid when we attempt to make Him known?" etc. We may use law to convict of sin; but all up to Christ was a testing of man, not a revealing of God, save promise and prophecy. Then, in the fulness of time, God was revealed in Christ; light shining in darkness, and no man received Him because men were darkness. Then grace wrought to lead to it.

77 The concluding sentence of this paragraph is totally false; for God never revealed Himself till Christ came. "It was needful that He should shew Himself under the forms and limitations of that creature in and to whom He sought to reveal Himself, that is, by shadows before light, by law before gospel, by a letter before a quickening spirit — in a word, by the humiliation of His eternal Word stooping to come out of man's heart and in a human form." Where? Nowhere in Scripture. When he says this "could not be done without truth" stooping "to come in human form, out of the heart of man, even as Christ came forth from Mary," we ask, Is man's heart the birthplace of truth, as Mary's womb of Christ? Man's heart indeed! And yet he says "this word is no stranger to me!" Also "knowing that it has many things to say which we cannot bear at first." Who? The disciples before Pentecost (John 16: 12), or the little children whose sins are forgiven, who know the Father, and have an unction from the Holy One and know all things? (1 John 2.)

At page 19 he begins to consider the question, "What then does Scripture say on this subject? Its testimony appears at first sight contradictory . . . there are direct statements as to the results of these [law and gospel] which at first sight are apparently irreconcilable." He first states the results as to law and condemnation, and at the close says: "Words could not well be stronger. The difficulty is that all this is but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very different doctrine. For instance there are, first, the words of God Himself, repeated again and again by those same apostles whom I have just quoted, that 'in Abram's seed all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed' (Gen. 12: 3; chap. 22: 18; Acts 3: 25; Gal. 3: 8); words which St. Peter expounds to mean that there shall be a 'restitution of all things'; adding that, 'God hath spoken of this by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began,"' Acts 3: 21. This is utterly false, and a deliberate misquotation of Scripture. It is achri chronon apokatastaseos panton on elalesen o Theos. Then our author quotes more passages, but Paul in Colossians 1: 16 leaves out ta katachthonia, the "things under the earth." They are neither re-headed, reconciled, nor delivered. This is introduced in Philippians 2: 10, where bowing to Jesus' name is spoken of. The whole created scene is to be restored, but what is cast out of it is left out.

78 But the deliverance of a groaning creation in Romans 8 is at the revelation of the sons of God. The liberty of glory the creature will have part in, not the liberty of grace; Rom. 8: 21. And when he quotes, "through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," it is all right, but not to restore him. When he quotes, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," mark "was"; but the world, instead of being reconciled, hated both Him and His Father, and shewed their incorrigible enmity by crucifying Christ. The passage from Romans 5: 15 ("If by the offence of one [the] many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto [the] many"), when quoted as now given, proves the contrary of Mr. Jukes' doctrine. It is the many connected with the one respectively. "The many" connected with Adam are all his race; "the many" connected with Christ all His race, that is, all believers. The English translation of verse 18, as he gives it, is wholly false. It should be: "So then as [it was] by one offence towards all men for condemnation; so by one righteousness towards all men for justification of life." He says: "To another church he states the same doctrine, that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'" I do not accept the use made of the words. I have no doubt it is all in Adam, and all in Christ, at any rate "the same doctrine." It speaks of the resurrection of the body. The reading of the passage will dissipate his view of 1 Corinthians 15: 24-26: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death": and this is at the resurrection of the wicked, so that no enemy is destroyed after it. He quotes further Ephesians 1: 9, 10, "That . . . he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him."

But in Philippians 2: 10 there is a third class. And this gathering together is in the millennium, "the fulness of times," when confessedly the wicked are not restored. "That at [or, in] the name of Jesus [that is, Saviour] every knee should bow," etc. The gloss, "that is, Saviour," is wholly unwarranted in the passage noted. Again he quotes, "Who is the Saviour of all men," 1 Tim. 4: 10. But mark two things: first, "Is the Saviour"; and, second, it is providentially Saviour as the passage plainly proves.

79 Again, "will have all men to be saved." No doubt thelei, but this is now in the day of salvation; 1 Tim. 2. It is all wholly a present thing. That Christ was a ransom for all, I believe. As to Romans 11, "that he might have mercy upon all" is, as he quotes it, the merest abuse of words. The Jews are come under mere mercy as Gentiles by rejecting Messiah and the promises. "That the world through him might be saved" it is too bad in the author to quote for his purpose, for that passage distinguishes believers as alone profiting, and the rest judged. "He is the propitiation . . . for the whole world." So He is. "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." So He will. "That he might destroy the works of the devil." So He will; but all this proves nothing at all as to the rejection of rejectors. Destroying the works of the devil rather implies that the devil stays where he was, and that as a result "there shall be no more death," etc.; and then without are "the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars," who "shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death," Rev. 21: 8. His quotation for universal salvation of John 6: 37-39; chap. 12: 32, is too bad. The first passage spoken of carefully teaches that only those will be saved whom the Father has given Him: look at verse 36, and indeed at the whole chapter. The other passage — "draw all men unto me" — is the present effect of the cross in contrast with a Messiah to the Jews.

After giving several sets of passages, with the confusion indicated in the few we have remarked upon, he asks: "Now is not this apparent contradiction, few finding the way of life, and yet in Christ all made alive? God's elect a little flock, and yet all the kindreds of the earth blessed in Abraham's seed? mercy upon all, and yet eternal punishment? the restitution of all things, and yet eternal destruction? the wrath of God for ever, and yet all things* reconciled to Him? eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and yet the destruction through death, not of the works of the devil only, but of him** that has the power of death — that is, the devil? the second death and the lake which burneth with fire, and yet no more death or curse, but all things subdued by Christ,*** and God all in all? What can this contradiction mean? Is there any key, and if so, what is it, to this mystery?" The conclusive answer is, There is no "contradiction," nor "mystery." The above references are all falsely cited apart from their context. This makes the apparent contradiction. Then he mentions the common answer, "That some are saved and some are lost for ever"; that therefore the words, "in Christ shall all be made alive,"**** only mean that all who are here in Christ shall be made alive; that the Lamb of God, though willing to be, is not really, the Saviour of the world, but only of those who are not of the world, but chosen out of it; that, instead of taking away the sin of the world, He only takes away the sin of those who here believe in Him;***** that all things therefore shall not be reconciled to God;****** and that "the restitution of all things," whatever it may mean, does not mean the reconciliation to God of all men.

{*Only all things in heaven and earth, not the things under the earth in Philippians 2.}

{**katargese, which is not destruction but annulling his power. The word used as to the works is an entirely different one: luse.}

{***But then all things are not restored.}

{****"All in Christ" is the real force; and, at any rate, it refers to resurrection.}

{*****All these passages have only to be read in their connection.}

{******We have already seen it is the state of things in creation, while those under the earth (infernal, katachthonia), mentioned in Philippians, are omitted; and further, the reconciliation of believers is spoken of as a distinct thing.}

80 This (he says) is the approved teaching of Christendom; this is the orthodox solution of the mystery: the simple objection to which is, that in asserting one side of scripture it is obliged not only to ignore and deny the other side, but to represent God in a character absolutely opposed to that in which the gospel exhibits Him (pp. 26, 27).

The Lamb of God is "the taker-away of the sin" (not sins, a very different thing), true in the new heavens and the new earth. "All things" here are the things spoken of by God through the prophets, and hence things on the earth.

Mr. Jukes then affirms that "the truth which solves the riddle is to be found in those same scriptures which seem to raise the difficulty, and lies in the mystery of the will of our ever-blessed God as to the process and stages of redemption.

81 "First, His will by some to bless and save others; by a firstborn seed, 'the firstborn from the dead' (Col. 1: 18), to save and bless the later-born." This is pure invention. Christ alone and the church are spoken of, in contrast with general restitution of the state of things.

"(2). His will therefore to work out the redemption of the lost by successive ages or dispensations, or, to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages,'" Eph. 3: 11. This, too, is mere imagination. We have only to read the passage to see that there is not one word about it. Nor has the "therefore" any ground, for he is concluding from his own fancy, and not from Scripture. Ephesians 3: 11 is speaking solely of the church now.

"(3). Lastly, His will (thus meeting the nature of our fall) to make death, judgment, and destruction the way to life, acquittal, and salvation; in other words, 'through death to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,'" Heb. 2: 14. But this is through Christ's death, and, as to sin, ours with Him. All is confusion. We have only to read the passage to see it. The power annulled is not that which dies.

The author's simplicity is rare. He adds: "These truths throw a flood of light on Scripture, and enable us at once to see order and agreement where without this light there seems perplexing inconsistency." "Truths!" They are no truths at all, but false "therefores" from falsely used passages. His questions a little farther on — "What was the object of the incarnation? . . . What was intended to be accomplished by the first and second death?" etc., are all presumptuous folly, not revelation. When he writes, "inquire" what is the breadth and length, and depth and height "of their heavenly Father's purpose." It is not of this. Of what it is, is not said in Scripture; but it very certainly is not "the restitution of all things," as Mr. Jukes interprets that phrase. Again, we have a misuse of 1 Timothy 4: 10, when he says: "By this light we see more fully God's purpose in Christ, and how He is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe"; for it is obvious that it means nothing about the future at all, but that Paul labours and suffers reproach because, as a present thing, God is providentially caring for all, but specially for "those that believe"; as says the word, "The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers," 1 Pet. 3: 12 .

82 But our author is caught with the mere sound of a passage, regardless of the sense; or uses a mere change of sleight of hand to effect his purpose, as when he says: "While others not partakers of the first resurrection of judgment; that is, by the judgment of the coming age of ages." "That is," etc., is a mere gloss of his; entirely outside of all Scripture. It is very tedious to "look in order at each of these three points," when one has proved they are mere fancies. But it will only shew his false use of Scripture. "(I). First, the purpose of God by the firstfruits or firstborn to save the later-born. This, which is in fact the substance of the gospel, like all God's secrets, comes out by degrees; scarcely to be discerned in the first promise of the woman's seed; then 'in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed'; for the seed in which all the kindreds of the earth are blessed must be distinct from, and blessed prior to, those nations to whom, according to God's purpose, in due time it becomes a blessing." All clearly false; unless it be Christ, and then the whole argument fails. As a scripture the contrary is here — the elder serves the younger; the Gentiles come in before the Jews. But the "seed" is declared to be Christ (Gal. 3: 16), not "some" as he has said, "His will by some to bless and save others" (p. 27). The reference to Romans 11: 16 will shew what is spoken of and what is done. Again, "Christ, says the apostle, is the promised seed (Gal. 3: 16) and the firstborn (Col. 1: 18), and in and through Him endless blessing shall flow down to the later-born." But this says nothing to his purpose. Believers are the seed in Him: not unbelievers; Gal. 3.

When he says "Christ, as Paul shews, is firstborn in a double sense: firstborn from above, first out of life," etc., it is all false. Nor is Christ ever called "first-fruits of the creature." When he says, "All things are of God; but it is no less true that all things are by man, as it is written, 'Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead'; therefore, as by one firstborn death came into the world, so by another firstborn shall it be for ever overthrown," it is not true that all things are by man. Where is it so said? What he says is not "written." The resurrection came by man; it is nowhere said by a firstborn. When he says of Christ, "who by a birth in the flesh has come into our lot," it looks like positive error. When he speaks of its being "ever the firstborn from the grave that the law speaks of" (where?) and that is the woman's, not the man's firstborn, the whole thing is a rhapsody of nonsense. But the only proof he alleges is false; Christ is not called "firstfruits of the creature." All things are not by man; He who makes all becomes a man.

83 Again, "According to the law the firstborn had the right, though it might be lost, of being priest and king; that is, of interceding for, and ruling over, their younger brethren." Quite false. They might be offered to God and redeemed, but had no rights as such. It is totally false about being priests. Aaron and his family alone had the right of being priests. In the passages quoted or referred to — Exodus 13: 2; chap. 24: 5; Numbers 3: 12, 13; chap. 8: 16; 1 Chronicles 5: 1, 2 — there is not a word about the matter. It is all a rhapsody in pages 32, 33 spun out of the writer's own mind, even when quoting Scripture. When he says, "God's purpose is by the firstborn from the dead to save and bless the laterborn," Scripture says they are quickened by Him.

"But the truth goes farther still; for there are others beside the Lord who are both 'firstborn' and 'Abraham's seed,' who must, therefore [why?] in their measure share this honour with and under Christ, and in whom 'as joint-heirs with him' [God's heirs?] the promise must be fulfilled that in them* shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed . . . . As if Christ and His body only should be saved, instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of saving others." Saving others! What does that mean? He applies the promise in Christ to us. It is folly, or it would be blasphemy. Ministers of blessing we may be; but does he mean to say that we, quickened and redeemed, when in glory shall shed our blood for them? Was ever such stuff?

{*Paul carefully insists it is only in one, Christ.}

Again, the references he relies on and gives on page 33 are all false; that is, there is nothing about a firstborn in them. "Even of the elect, few see they are elect to the birthright, not to be blessed only but to be a blessing; as firstborn with Christ to share the glory of kingship and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, to raise up seed to the dead, and in and through Christ, their life and head, to redeem their lost inheritance." It is all utter stuff. "Later-born": how born? How "avenge their blood"? "Redeem!" What is raising up seed to the dead? "to redeem their lost inheritance?" Nobody did this, or had to give it up in the jubilee.

84 Mr. Jukes dwells on "firstfruits," and affirms that the sheaf at Passover, and the other at Pentecost in the form of cakes, were both called firstfruits. "Both in the law are distinctly called 'firstfruits,' though they are distinguished by a separate name, the ears at Passover being called Reeshith, the leavened cakes at Pentecost Bicourim." This is inexact; both are called Reeshith, both Bicourim, but Reeshith Bicourim is applied to the sheaf only. Reeshith is put first. But the words give no ground for the alleged analogy. The church or assembly of the firstborn calls us simply "firstborn." Christ only is called "the firstfruits of them that slept." It applies solely to the resurrection, and only Christ's are spoken of — "they that are Christ's." The wicked will be raised; but the passage has to do with resurrection only, and has nothing to do with any general restitution — not even with wicked men. It is "the resurrection of the just." The parties are Christ, the first fruits of them that slept, and they that are Christ's at His coming; none else. "The offering of the firstfruits to God being accepted as the sanctification and consecration of the whole coming harvest." What "harvest"? At the "harvest" our Lord refers to (Matt. 13: 40) the tares are cast into the fire. Scripture knows of no "harvest" in Mr. Jukes' sense, or general restoration. "Who share the honour with and under Him of being the Pentecost first fruits." "With" is not said, but "they that are Christ's." "Who with Christ are through Christ Abraham's seed?" Galatians 3 says believers baptised to Christ; those sealed with the Holy Ghost.

Nothing he says of Scripture can be trusted; not even when he says in a note — "Saul, whose name means death or hell." It is not so; yod and vau are not the same. Saul means "demanded."

He goes on to say that the conversion of the nations will be accomplished by Israel, "who at their conversion converted, like Paul, who is their type, not by the knowledge of Christ in humiliation, but by the revelation of His heavenly glory, shall, like Paul, become apostles to the Gentiles, 'priests to the Lord and ministers to our God' to all the earth."* This is a mistake. The testimony goes out before to both, and the remnant then own Christ coming in glory. Paul in his conversion is a type of the Jewish remnant, but there is no ground for the exclusion of others; he was one of the pre-trusters.

{*The footnote about the seventy Hebrews that went down into Egypt, the seventy heads of nations, and the sending out of the seventy by Christ, is all wrong.}

85 When he says (p. 38), "The church is also Abraham's seed," it is not so. We are, as Christ's; not in our church character. He adds: "To the church, therefore, belongs the same promise as firstfruits with Christ." In the firstfruits of the day of Pentecost there was leaven. When he speaks of the church with Christ being a blessing in its own heavenly and spiritual sphere, the statement is without foundation. The leaves of the tree, of which we eat the fruit, are for blessing down here. Full of his own thoughts, he mistakes when he says the church will act as priests; for a priest is for those out of the way, to minister to those who are out of the way; for a priest did not minister to any but for accepted blood-washed ones.*

{*Hebrews 5: 2 does not apply at all, nor does Revelation 1: 6, or chapter 5: 10. In Hebrews we are not kings; in Revelation we are not for those out of the way.}

"This is the church's calling . . . with Him to be both prophet, priest, and king; and this not here only, in these bodies of humiliation, but when changed in His presence to bear His image, and do His works with Him." But we are never said to be prophets then. Priests and kings we are. But Christ Himself must give up the mediatorial kingdom. We reign over the earth, and, as priests, offer up the prayers of the saints; Rev. 5. At the end the wicked are "without."

It is a fable, as it is nowhere written in Scripture, that believers' "death and resurrection shall only introduce them to fuller and wider service to lost ones, over which the Lord shall set them as His priests and kings, until all things are restored and reconciled to Him." There is not a hint of such a thing in Scripture; it is a stupid romance. "To whom, I ask, shall the church after death be priests?" We answer, In resurrection to those on earth. Not to those "who have departed hence in ignorance," nor "to 'spirits in prison' such as those to whom after His death Christ Himself once preached."

It is said in Revelation 5 as kings we reign over the earth; as priests we present the prayers of the saints. We are not to be prophets then. All the rest is imagination. When Mr. Jukes says, "The words distinctly assert that our Lord went and preached unto the spirits in prison, who once had been disobedient in the days of Noah," we affirm that they certainly do not; that is, it is not said He preached "in prison." Not only so, but God declares, in Genesis 5, His Spirit should yet strive but those 120 years. And yet they would tell us that with these only He strove afterwards. He speaks as if we comfort the lost where they are, in Gehenna! How they pass the "great gulf fixed" he does not say; Luke 16.

86 "I may add here, that this same truth that the first-blessed must save* others is set forth, though in a slightly different form, in the kindred law of redemption touching the firstlings of beasts, whether clean or unclean. The lamb redeems the ass. So it must be." No such thing! the owner redeemed it with a lamb. It is well that English is ambiguous. Firstblessed may be plural or singular. To say that we are going to save others, because we are joint-heirs, is too monstrous to listen to. It is really awful to read of our joy "to be like Christ — that is, to be channels of blessing to viler, weaker souls — for all higher and elder beings serve the lower and younger. The firstborn, therefore, must serve and save others . . . like Christ, channels of blessing and life to thousands of later-born." Is Christ no more than a channel, or do we bless as redeemers? Yet he dares say so.

{*How?}

When he speaks of the two leavened cakes being offered up together in "that great coming Pentecost," we ask, Which is that? and surely in glory they will not be "leavened cakes" at all. When he says, "Oh, glorious day, when our Lord and Head shall give of His treasure to His Firstborn, that they may with Him redeem all lands and all brethren!" we say, It is infamous to link them and the Lord in redeeming. "Then shall the laver be multiplied into 'ten lavers,' till the water of life become a 'sea of crystal' large enough for even Babylon the Great to sink into it, and be found no more at all for ever." This is senseless sentiment dissipated into mere air. When we ask, Who were cleansed in the lavers? Only actual priests, already consecrated, being washed!

87 So when we ask, Where is such a sea as he describes into which Babylon could sink? There is no such sea. The "sea of glass" was solid, and there was no sinking into it, and no purifying; Rev. 4, 15, 21. Were it so, this is the kingdom given up, while "without" are the wicked. Then we have a quotation from the Apocrypha, which has nothing to say to the matter either: "Then shall the elect run to and fro as sparks among the stubble." And when he romances about "Christ's members judging the world with Him, and consuming the evil with that same fire which Christ came to cast into the earth, and with which He is yet pledged to baptise all nations," we ask, Where is He so pledged? The Spirit is not for the world. No doubt the fire is, but it is "everlasting fire."

It is a mere assertion that the firstborn, though first delivered from the curse, have a relation to the whole creation, which shall be saved in the appointed times by Christ and His body, for there is no scripture; and to end the sentence with bring about "the restitution of all things" is false quotation, as is also what follows; for Ephesians 1: 3-10 has not a word about it, nor has Ephesians 2: 4-7. Ephesians 1: 3 is falsely connected with verse 10, and this is given up too. "The church, like Christ its Head, is itself a great sacrament," etc. This is all romance and nonsense. So when he says the blessing of the elect is "but the means and pledge, as the apostle says, of wider blessing," it is not true, and the apostle does not say it. The reading of 1 Corinthians 1: 27, 28, will shew that he misuses it for the future when it means the present. And so is it to utterly confound the day of salvation and the day of judgment to say that, when He comes in judgment on persons, it is "a priestly work of judgment and purification by fire which must be accomplished that all may be 'subdued' and 'reconciled.'" All this is before the "fire" save as "the perdition of ungodly men." Then it is clearly not purification. What he says of Moloch is blasphemy, and as applied to us monstrous.

"But Scripture never says that these only shall be saved, but rather that in this 'seed' whose portion as the firstborn is double, 'all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed.'" This is a shameful abuse of Scripture. Christ is the "Seed"; and specifically one; and the blessing is of "the kindreds of the earth," not of the lost in Gehenna.

As for his reference to the church ordaining "All-souls' Day" as well as "All-saints' Day," and thus "may have been teaching more than some of her sons may yet have learnt from her," and that "she believed that, like her Lord, she is truly linked to all, and with Him is ordained at last to gather all, we ask, Where did she learn it? and to keep days? (Gal. 4: 10, 11). And to deduce such a conclusion from the unscriptural action of the church can only impose on those who are willing to be deceived by gratuitous assertion. But it were positive wickedness, if it were not absolute nonsense, to say only by the cross* can the change be wrought in us which conforms us to Christ and His image — which makes us, like Him, lambs for the slaughter, and as such fitted to bless and serve others. His misapplication of Scripture is very painful: so he says, "And, indeed, so narrow is the way and so strait is the gate that leadeth to the life and glory of the firstborn, who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,'" etc. — a misapplication of what is wholly unconnected.

{*What cross?}

88 (2). "I pass on to shew that God's purpose by the firstborn from the dead to bless the later-born — as it is written, 'so in Christ shall all be made alive,' is fulfilled in successive worlds or ages; or, to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages,' so that the dead are raised not all together, but every man in his own order. 'Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming'; which latter resurrection, though after Christ's, is yet called the resurrection from among the dead,' or the first resurrection. All this about God's purpose is false. Scripture states no such purpose. If "so in Christ shall all be made alive, be the true translation, which I do not think, it is resurrection. But what does "raised" mean, as applied by Mr. Jukes to the dead"? Does it not mean restoration in his sense of all? But mark the eras of resurrection as given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: (1) Christ the firstfruits; (2) Afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming; (3) Then cometh the end, gegone,* when there is a within and a "without as Revelation 21: 8, 27; chap. 22: 14, 15, clearly teach. At the "end" the wicked are "without." The dead are not "raised" but to "judgment"; the result of which is not blessing, saving, and restoration, but to "be cast into the lake of fire," Rev. 20: 11-15. This is the express testimony of Scripture.

{*Or as Lachmann, gegonan (Rev. 21: 6).}

89 It is vain to reason because Christ was raised before the members of His body — also called firstfruits — "who will not be all gathered till the (fancied) great Pentecost," that it is plain the purpose of God is wrought not all at once but through successive ages, and that this fact gives us a hint of further mysteries, and some key to "the ages of ages." Firstfruits, and the morrow of the Passover sabbath, or Christ's resurrection (Lev. 23: 9-22), is all one period. Moreover, it is not said that the saints share Christ's glory as heirs of God, in subduing all things unto Him. This is nowhere said; nor that "all have been made alive in Him by His resurrection," but only all in Christ, all believers, and Christ gives up the kingdom when the wicked are "without," as we have already pointed out. And there is no scripture for their being "subdued." It is also false to affirm that there is "nothing in the gospel the figure of which is not in the law, nor anything in the law the substance of which is not found in the gospel," for there was only a shadow not the image (Heb. 9); and the church was "hid in God," Eph. 3: 9. As to Pentecost and Tabernacles (p. 50) we say, no doubt; but it is now or the age to come.

Where is it said that the "mystic periods are all different times for cleansing and blessing men; sevens and seven times seven; the former of which are figures of the ages, the last of the ages of ages in the New Testament"?

We ask for proof of this, or where it is so said, and why so? It is mere imagination. When he says of those who could not go free as some did at the sabbatic year, that they might at the year of jubilee "regain what had been lost, and find full deliverance," he ignores, what makes it wholly fallacious, that they were already the rightful heirs, are restored to their own inheritance. What he says of the jubilee is totally false (see Lev. 25: 16), so that the proof is exactly of the contrary. "Not of persons only," it was not of persons at all. To what is Acts 1: 7 applied? To what is quite different from that to which our Lord applied it. The Scriptures are everywhere pressed out of their express and obvious meaning, in order to have some show of scripture for the creation of his own fancy.

Besides, one grows sick of exposing nonsense like the following: "For the woman is our nature, which — if it receive seed, that is, the word of truth — may bring forth a son, that is, the new man." Our nature brings forth the new man! In which case nature, or the mother which brings it forth, is only unclean during the seven days of this first creation." Here again all is false. The old man must die. "And then in the blood of purifying till the end of the forty days, which always figure this dispensation." Always? Genesis 7 is not the figure of it: Moses in the mount is not: Ezekiel 4 is not. It is all imagination. "But, if instead of bearing this 'new man,' our nature only bear its like, a female child," etc. Bears it through the quickening word! Miserable trifling!

To those too who believe that the church was divinely guided in the order and appointment of the Christian year, etc., the apostle's word is, "I stand in doubt of you," Gal. 4 8-20.

90 The statements as to the incarnation are, to say the least, extremely hazarded, and bear the stamp of some of the worst current errors, and the fact is quite false. The new man does not spring out of the weak nature into which the eternal Word is come, if indeed there is any sense in the passage. At the end of this purification of women he adds: "There is like teaching in every time and season of the law, and its days and years figure the 'ages' of the New Testament"; but he gives no proof, but expects, I suppose, "that there is some teaching here, though he cannot understand it."

When he refers to such nations as Moab and Ammon being ejected in an earlier age and saved in a later, it is true of them no doubt; but what proof is there that it is a figure of others? And when he adds: "For them also must there be hope in the new creation according to the promise, 'Behold I make all things new'; for Christ, who, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in Spirit, went in Spirit and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,"* is "Jesus Christ (that is, Anointed Saviour)** the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"; we must remind our readers that it is at the time when He makes all things new — this part of his statement is not honest — that Scripture tells us that the wicked "shall have their part in the lake of fire," Rev. 21: 8. His allusion to Christ passing over the sea and healing the man possessed with devils fails utterly; for they would not have Him. It is a picture of the world's rejection of Christ when some were healed. It gives no countenance to his notion that Christ "casts out devils also on the other side of the deep waters." "Such is the light which the law and prophets give us as to God's purpose of salvation through successive ages!"

{*The Spirit spoken of was in Noah (see 1 Pet. 1: 11), "a preacher of righteousness," who "prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world." God had said: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man; for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years," Gen. 6: 3. Christ by His Spirit in Noah then preached to the spirits now in prison; and note that the only persons spoken of are those of whom it was said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man. His days shall be an hundred and twenty years." With these only He is said to strive again!}

{**It is not.}

91 Creation and regeneration are next referred to, and said to "tell no less clearly, though more secretly, the same mystery." "In creation each day has its work to bring back some part of the creature, and one part before another, from emptiness and confusion, to light and form and order." This is utterly false; for so it was not creation, but bringing back something — reconciliation rather than creation. When he continues: "These first works act on the rest, for of God's will this 'heaven' is a fellow-worker with God's word in all the change which follows, till the whole is very good"; we ask, Where is that? His note from Parkhurst, in which he says that "heavens" means the "arrangers," because the heavens have been the great agents in disposing all material things, shews us that Parkhurst had about as much childish fancy as Mr. Jukes. He was a strong Hutchinsonian, and held this interpretation. It is all stuff.

It is equally false to say, as he does, that the quickening of the body will be in any way effected by our quickened souls. Scripture says (Rom. 8: 11), zoopoiesei kai ta thneta somata umon dia to enoikoun autoi Pneuma en umin. "For our spirit is to our body what the spiritual are to this world" is distinctly false — and the conclusion false. "So surely shall the quickening and manifestation of the sons of God end in saving those earthly souls who are not here quickened." This is not only imagination, but deadly false doctrine.

But he is as unhappy in pressing "for ever" and "for ever and ever," into his service, and telling us that the word is literally "for the age," or "for the ages of ages": eis ton aiona does not mean "for the age," nor is aionios not eternal. See 2 Corinthians 4: 18: what is seen is pros kairon, what is not seen is aionios. It is definitely what is opposed to for a time in its absolute proper sense. "Ages" no one denies. But, when he says that "God's wisdom was ordained before the ages to our glory," means God's bringing glory to the fallen creatures, accomplished through successive ages, we reply, Nothing of the kind. It was the mystery Paul preached ordained for our glory, and which he states to be what is now — not in the future.

92 Then he says, "We are told distinctly of the 'purpose of the ages,' shewing that the work of renewal would only be accomplished through successive ages"; it shews nothing of the kind. Paul writes the wisdom of God in the church kata prothesin ton aionon; Eph. 3: 10, 11. "By the Son, God made the ages" (Heb. 1: 2) is quite false, even as to translation; and the reason given is also invented and false — that each age was made by what the word gave of God's mind. It is "worlds," not "ages"; also in Hebrews 11: 3. It means in both places the universe. When he quotes "the end of the ages," and that on us "the ends of the ages are met," it does appear strange to say "words which . . . seem to imply that other ages are approaching their consummation." How so, if it is in sunteleia ton aionon, the "end of the ages"? It is positively the contrary: we are in the sunteleia (the end), though the things are not fulfilled till Christ comes. And when he speaks of God's shewing His grace in the "ages to come," there is no restoration spoken of, but solely and expressly His kindness "towards us."

"Now, what is this 'purpose of the ages' which St. Paul speaks of," etc.? Paul states it expressly to be the church; Eph. 3: 10, 11. Our author answers: "The ages are the fulfilment or substance of the 'times and seasons' of the sabbatic year and jubilee under the old law." And we have seen that the Gentiles remained slaves for ever; Lev. 25: 46. Again: "They are those times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord, when he shall send Jesus Christ." But this brings in the end. It is strange to read that then cleansing and rest will be gained by those who now are without their rightful inheritance. What made it their rightful inheritance? Is God bound to save the lost?

When he affirms that in "the ages," and in no other mystery of the gospel do we find those good things to come of which the legal times and seasons were the "shadow"; we must say that it is quite differently applied in Hebrews. One has to come as to fulfilment: for this (the church) is not one (p. 59). When he identifies those ages to come with "times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power," we ask our readers to turn to Acts 1: 7, and read the passage. It speaks of restoring the kingdom to Israel, and not of saving those who died impenitent.

93 What he says of the book of Revelation is entirely false. It does not speak of these "ages of ages," but the contrary. It goes through judgment; then says, "It is done." There is no opening out of the processes and stages of the great redemption. But when the end comes, all is done (gegone); and sinners (as has been already noted) are "without." There is no redemption of those who are judged. Mr. Jukes' quotations or references are not to be trusted. He says the book of Revelation, more than any other, speaks of the ages, and he refers us to Revelation 1: 6, 18; chap. 4: 9, 10; chap. 5: 13, 14; chap. 7: 12; chap. 10: 6; chap. 11: 15; chap. 14: 11; chap. 15: 7; chap. 19: 3; chap. 20: 10; chap. 22: 5. Look at them; never believe a quotation or reference till you do. Paul does no such thing as speak of "the ends" of some; but absolutely "the ends of the ages," ta tele ton aionon.

When he says Christ's mediatorial kingdom, which is for ages of ages, is one delivered up, he refers to a passage which only upsets his argument as to ages. The kingdom of the world, of our Lord and Saviour,* is come," Rev. 11. It is one state or dispensation shewing the vague general use of ages (p. 61). He says the inspired writers, "when they had in view a greater or more comprehensive age wrote eis aiona aionon, that is, "to the age of ages." We ask, Where but in Ephesians 3? "When they intended the longer 'age' alone, without regard to its constituent parts, they wrote eis aiona aionos ='to an aeonial age'; this form of expression being a Hebraism exactly equivalent to eis aiona aionon, like 'liberty of glory' for 'glorious liberty' (Rom. 8: 21), and 'body of our vileness' for 'our vile body,' Phil. 3: 21. When they intended the several comprehensive 'ages' collectively, they wrote eis tous aionas ton aionon, that is, 'to the ages of ages.' Each varying form is used with a distinct purpose and meaning." This is all wrong: aiona aionon would be only one age so characterised. "Glorious liberty" does not give the sense; it is "liberty of glory" in contrast with liberty of grace, of which the mere creatures, not even our body, could not partake; and it is "body of humiliation," not "humble body." God lives, eis t. ai. t. ai. Does this mean "ages" collectively? The whole scheme of precision is a delusion. eis ton aiona by itself is "for ever," "eternal." There is an object in the change, but very often just borrowed, as Hebrews 1: 8, from the LXX olam we-ed. His quotations are incorrect, leaving out the article which is most commonly inserted. The only place where eis ton aiona toi aionos, is (I believe) in Hebrews 1: 8, and he quotes without the article to make it "an age," which is quoting it falsely in words and sense. eis tous aionas ton aionon is said of God (Rev. 4: 10, and elsewhere), "who liveth," e. t. ai. t. ai. Does God only live for the comprehensive ages? Is that what the passage means? The saints reign eis t. ai. t. ai. In Daniel we have (chap. 7: 10) eis aiona ton aionon. In Chaldee, "unto [the] age, and age of ages." What does that mean? There is, according to Mr. Jukes, glory to Christ in the church for certain collective ages viewed as one, but that is all. He compares 1 Corinthians 15 — Christ giving up the kingdom — and Revelation 11: 15. But he forgets that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death, and Satan is cast into the lake of fire with the beast and false prophet, and they are tormented for ages and ages; but the next thing to the resurrection of the saints is (eita to telos) the end. So the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. Then the wicked dead are raised, and Christ gives up the kingdom, the saints having lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; and when the dead are raised and cast into the lake of fire it is the end, it is gegone. So that his confounding the ages of ages and the giving up of the kingdom denies plain Scripture. There is one thing singular, that Mr. J. never alludes to the commonest and simplest form of expression eis ton aiona, an expression which, according to him, must mean the age. Now, with "this," it may mean age; but when used abstractedly, it constantly means simply "for ever."

{*Or, according to the now more received reading, "of our Lord and of his Christ." [This seems strangely obscure, as there never was a doubt about the text here, but as to the plural form of the phrase instead of the more correct singular: "there is come the world. Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." — Ed.]}

94 The fancy that Alpha and Omega seem to imply an end of the peculiar manifestation of Christ as King and Priest, under which special offices revelation shews Him, because there will be an end of lost ones to be saved, is all a delusion. (Compare Isa. 44: 6.) He thinks it would have been more respectful to the word of God, if our translators had been content to give the exact meaning of the words they render "for ever," or "for ever and ever," but which are simply "for the age," or "for the ages of ages." But I deny it to be the exact sense. (See Rev. 4: 10, and other places; and the passage in 2 Cor. 4.) Does Peter (2 Pet. 3: 1) wish Christ glory "for an age"? It is important to hold them fast on these proofs, that their statements as to it are false. The note on page 62, as to 2 Peter 3: 18, is quite false: eis emeran aionos is not an exact literal translation of the words in Micah 5: 1, mimei olam, and which in our authorised version are translated "from everlasting." me is not eis, not "to," but "from," and it is "days," not "day."* But if they were, what do they mean? The passage is, on the contrary, a proof of the use of aion for eternity, in contrast with time. "The 'ages,' therefore, are periods in which God works." "Therefore": why? His conclusion is drawn without any solid reasoning, as has been shewn. The end is next after the first resurrection, as Revelation proves. (Page 63.) It is totally false to say that "Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back to the glory which He had 'before the age-times,' 'that God may be all in all,' for the Son Himself is then subject," 1 Cor. 15: 28. Nor does "Jesus Christ" mean Anointed Saviour, but Jehovah the Saviour, the Anointed, or Christ. To apply Hebrews 13: 8 to prove salvation through the ages, translating "for ever" for the ages, is very bad. And the scripture gives another reason for the name, which exactly sets aside this, "for he shall save his people from their sins." Thus Mark 11: 14, or Matthew 21: 19; John 4: 14; chap. 6: 51 - 58; chap. 8: 35, 51, 52; chap. 10: 23; chap. 11: 26. So eis tous aionas--Romans 1: 25; chap. 9: 5; chap. 11: 36; chap. 16: 27. Now these, and many others, it is absurd to say mean "ages," as if God was to be glorified only for certain ages. So Philippians 4: 20; 2 Timothy 4: 18.

{*[So in the LXX we have ex emeron ai.--Ed.]}

95 The same may be said of "It will, I think, too, be found that the adjective founded on this word, whether applied to 'life,' 'punishment,' 'redemption,' 'covenant,' 'times,' or even God Himself, is always connected with remedial labour, and with the idea of 'ages' as periods in which God is working to meet and correct some awful fall." (Page 64.) Romans 16 shews, with other passages, exactly the contrary. There were "aeonial times" in which God was testing man till he rejected Christ. "Now," says the Lord, "is the judgment of this world," and the sunteleia ton aionon is come on us. But all is not fulfilled. Christ came in the end of the world to offer Himself; and then the things are reported by the gospel preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; and we wait for them to be brought when Christ is revealed; 1 Pet. 1: 12, 13. Of this the prophets spoke. When He gives up the kingdom, "it is done." And it is false to say that eternal life is aeonial life: "but the end everlasting life": "this is life eternal": and as to God Himself "who liveth for ever and ever." There is nothing about the "ages"; and his assertion, "ages during which Jesus Christ is the same, that is, a Saviour," is a mistake. The word is unto, eis,* not during: Yesterday, to-day, and for ever, eis ton aiona. Mr. Jukes' statement is wholly unfounded. "For ever" does not mean aeonial (p. 65): "The aeonial God" — the God who works through these "ages." Instead of this, it is in contrast with temporal or repeated workings. And so of the rest, "redemption," "spirit," "fire," or "inheritance," all which in certain texts are called "aeonial." All false! So again: "As the context of Romans 16 shews God as working through aeonial times." How? There is not the smallest allusion to it.

{*In note to page 64, what he affirms is incorrect. In Genesis 21: 23 it refers to Abraham's confidence in the promises. Isaiah 26: 4 has nothing to do with the matter. He is the Rock of Ages — abiding ground of confidence. Nor, indeed, has Isaiah 40: 23. "In Exodus 2: 15 we read of God's onoma aionon, that is, His name as connected with deliverance." It is nothing of the kind; it is His constant name with Israel. His comment on 2 (or chap. 4: 17, p. 67) is puerilely false. The connection of the word baros with aionon shews it plainly. Again, the use of akatalutos with punishment would have no sense, if I should say indestructible judgment or punishment.}

96 Redemption was by a work done once in the end of the world (sunteleia ton aionon), or He must often have suffered; Heb. 9. It was the Father our Lord addressed when He said, "This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God." The rest is not there — that this marks the renewed life peculiar to the ages. It astonishes by its rashness to read "Aeonial or eternal life therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on for ever and ever," when we read in Scripture that Christ is the true God and eternal life which was with the Father. "He that hath the Son hath life: he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." When he gives as the Lord's explanation of the word eternal, a life that has to do with a Saviour, and is part of a remedial scheme, we ask where? "Aeonial is simply of the ages" (p. 66). That is the question. "And the 'ages,' like the days of creation, as being periods in which God works, witness not only that there is some fall to be remedied, but that God through these days or ages is working to remedy it." Creation proved nothing of the kind: I wholly deny it as a universal proposition. "The adjective aeonial or age-long cannot carry a force or express a duration greater than that of the ages or aeons which it speaks of." If it means it! But the positive use of it in Scripture confutes all this. It is not even said they are partakers of Christ's endless life: their life is only and always aionios, and if, for whatever reason this means endless, then aionios does mean endless duration, for that is the word always used for this life, as it is exactly in the same position for punishment. "By death, and by death only, that He destroys," etc. Whose death? His citation and use of John 12: 24 is the grossest misapplication. It is fruit in others, the saving of souls by the death of Christ, as He who gave His life a ransom for many. He could have had twelve legions of angels. "Advance" of what, and of what character, was it in Christ? (Page 69.) Christ has shewn us the way, we are told. He has shewn us we must take up the cross and follow Him, though to do it till He had dried up the swollen waters of Jordan was impossible. But is that the meaning of Christ's death bearing fruit? that we have to tread the same path? The elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress; and this he calls salvation, the way they are saved. This is a fatal denial of the truth of God and Christ's glory.

97 As to the passages quoted, page 69, "goes from strength to strength" and "from glory to glory," neither of them applies to death or any like change. "Christ has shewn us all the way down from" the lowest parts of the earth, "from the virgin's womb," etc. This is all donner la change sur la parole. "The elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress through death." Then Christ did not go through death for them; they do the same! "Others may think they will be saved in another way than that Christ trod." To save whom did He die, if all save themselves by going through the path Christ trod? All this contains abominable false doctrine, and denial of real Christianity.

98 "Nature and sin must be judged and die." Judged in whom? Scripture says it was condemned when Christ was [a sacrifice] for sin. Mr. Jukes complains of some "seeming to think that Christ died that we should not die, and that their calling is to be delivered from death, instead of by it and out of it; because the meaning of Christ's cross is not understood, but rather perverted, and therefore death is shrunk from instead of being welcomed as the appointed means by which alone we can be delivered from him that has the power of death, who more or less rules us till we are dead, for sin reigns unto death, and only he that is dead is freed from sin; because this, which is indeed the gospel, is not received, or if received in word is not really understood. Even Christians misunderstand what is said of that destruction and judgment which is the only way for delivering fallen creatures from their bondage, and bringing them back in God's life to His kingdom." First, Christ's death for us, as guilty, is ignored; next, that sin in the flesh was condemned in Christ's death; next, sin must reign, more or less, till we actually die, and our own dying is the gospel, not Christ's dying for us! That we reckon ourselves to be dead in the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and so are delivered as crucified with Christ; and that Christ lives in us, are equally ignored. We are delivered by our own death, and sin reigns till we die! Christ has not made the Jordan dry for us, destruction and judgment delivering us by our going through them ourselves! I may add "freed" (though we are made free then, chapter 8: 2, 3) is not the true word in the passage cited; it is "justified." This is very bad. Whose "destruction and judgment"? That we reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ died is true.

But if we examine Scripture and compare the contexts, we shall find the whole scheme, giving the clue to all the judgments of Him who killeth and maketh alive, Mr. Jukes' fancy, and confuted by the connecting of the passages with the Lord's coming and reign, and "Then cometh the end." But it is a doctrine worse than mere fancy. He adds: "As this is a point of all-importance, lying at the very root of the cross of Christ and of His members, and giving a clue to all the judgments of Him who 'killeth and maketh alive,' I would shew, not the fact and truth only, that for fallen creatures the way of life is and must be through death, but also the reason for it," not that Christ died for our sins and to sin on the cross, and that we reckon ourselves dead to sin as well as justified, but the cross of Christ and ours!

99 Now, if we weigh this linking "the cross of Christ and of His members," he shews that he has no thought of the atonement — guilt is ignored; but as He died thus, they die and so live. This he says is "the root of the cross of Christ." He then goes on to say why this is. The cross is not a fact only, but power — God's power and God's wisdom, to set heart and mind free! Scripture says He was crucified in weakness, but liveth by the power of God; and it is not said that the cross is God's wisdom and power, but that Christ is. His word ascribes peace, propitiation, forgiveness, to the cross, of which Mr. J. says nothing: what Mr. J. says, it does not. Finally, we do not actually die. We have not to die to sin, but to reckon ourselves dead, then to mortify and carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Death is ours, and gain. The whole system is unscriptural and false.

"For both to head and heart life is a terrible riddle, which neither Greek nor Jew, the head and heart of old humanity, could ever fully solve . . . . To both God's answer was the cross of Christ, which gave to each, to head and heart, what each was longing for: power to the one to escape from that which had tied and bound it, for by death with Christ we are freed from the bondage of corruption, and from all that hinders the heart's best aspirations; wisdom to the other to see why we must die, or what is the reason of all present suffering." Is this all that the cross is? Is there no thought of guilt which is met by it? No craving of the conscience of convicted sinners? The very reading of such a quotation will deliver the simple that know what the cross is. The way to life is not for fallen man through judgment, or he is condemned. (Page 72.) His teaching of the cross is only dying with Christ; of which Scripture always says as to believers that they died, not that as He died so we die — as the same path of life. There is no dying for us in his perfect cross. Here are his texts — Matthew 16: 25; Galatians 2: 20; Romans 6: 3, 4; 2 Timothy 2: 11, 12; Romans 8: 12, 13. This is significant; atonement there is none.

"Why is the way of life for us through the cross?" Whose? He says that the way man got away from God must be retraced, if by grace we come back to Him. But Scripture says, No: it is "by a new and living way." (Page 73.) He says ". . . poisoned and destroyed the divine life in man's soul." What divine life? Equal nonsense is talked about Eden being the paradise called by Paul the third heaven. Did Paul go back to Eden? "It was by death to God we fell out of God's world." (Page 74.) We did not fall out of God's world. Man was a guilty transgressor and driven out by God. Though we reckon ourselves dead to sin by Christ's death (Rom. 6), all our author says is hollow. What "spiritual world" are our souls living in? All is vague and loose. "Christ died this double death for us, not only 'to sin,' but also to 'the elements of the world.' And to be free we also must die with Him to both." I repeat Scripture says we have died; and was He in nature and in the world of darkness?

100 On page 75 all is nonsense about quickening God's life again in man. "As the life of hell was quickened by a lie, so the life of God is quickened by the truth." What is that? "Even by the Word of God, who came where man was to raise up God's life in man, in and by which, through a death to sin and to this world, man might be freed perfectly." "In Christ the work has been accomplished." What work? He adds — "In Him by God's word and Spirit God's life has been again raised up in man," etc. God's life was not in man at all. There is the life, a new one, when man has received Christ; and he reckons himself dead as crucified with Christ; but, for all this, all that Mr. Jukes says is false, as "God's life" and living in the heavenly paradise are spoken of as to Adam.

The note to page 75 is also a mistake. He says, "Not without a deep and wondrous reason is bahsahr both goodness and flesh in Hebrew." It is nothing of the kind. Besorah is good news, from Baser, to bring good news. Basar is flesh. If he applies it to Christ, as it would seem he does, it is yet worse. What does he mean by "again raised up in man in Christ"? In Him was life. He was eternal life come down. There are things concealed here which, as he says, "it is not lawful for a man to utter": he is concealing thoughts he dares not state. "Come back out of darkness." Is that of Christ? What work "in Christ"? does he mean on page 76? "Die to that which keeps him far from God." Was that so of Christ?

101 There is the most absurd misapplication of passages of Scripture, using them in a sense they do not bear: "Kills to make alive," "turneth man to destruction, that He may say, Return, ye children of men." This is God's judgment to bring about the death to that which keeps man far from God! Satan's double lie was that God grudges and is untrue, and that by self-will man may be as God, and God's two methods, law and gospel, meet this state of things. "By the one God's life is quickened in man": What is that again? It is not a new one then, anothen. By the other, through present or future judgment, "the hellish and earthly life is slain and overcome." I ask: What judgment? for if saints were crucified with Christ, and no longer live, they have not to die, but to reckon themselves dead. "Is man as God? The law settles this." It does not; it settles that he is not as man ought to be. "The law" . . . ."to be abolished": this he quotes as if scripture; but Scripture does not say "to be" but "is abolished," Heb. 10: 9; 2 Cor. 3: 13. "He taketh away the first." His use of Scripture is not to be trusted; his whole book is built up out of a misuse of it.

His reference to promise to Abraham not being disannulled by the intervention of law to prove that, though men are judged, condemned, and sent to hell for their sins, the judgment thus endured "cannot disannul the previous covenant," is a specimen of this absurdity. (Page 78.) And law is not judgment, but death and condemnation; 2 Cor. 3. "But this killing is to make alive." There is no such thought or expression in Scripture. Where is it so written? His theory requires such a passage, and there is none, and yet this for him is the whole point; for he is going to make damnation do it. "Judgment therefore (?) must end in blessing." Why?

"God our Father judges to save." Scripture tells us (the Lord Himself says), "The Father judgeth no man." It is a name of grace and relationship; and Christ the Son, to whom judgment is committed, does not judge to save. The Father judges in chastising His children here; 1 Pet. 1: 17. Christ died to save. Mr. J. says: "He only saves by judging what is evil." Is that true as fully judging it in the persons guilty, and if by that means, what did Christ do for them? "The evil must be overthrown; and through death God destroys him that had the power of death." Whose death? The devil's?

For in Mr. J.'s system it is the death of him in whom the power of the evil is. This is utter perversion.

102 "A new creation, which is only brought in through death, is God's remedy for that which through a fall is held in death and bondage." (Page 79.) This is totally false, confounding two distinct truths; in Ephesians and in Romans. A new creation is not brought in through death, or it is not a new creation. When we were dead in sins, says Ephesians. Romans teaches us to reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ has died. When he says we die more quickly to sin through the burdens and infirmities of "this vile body," than those will who reject God's judgment here, and meet it in a more awful form in the resurrection of judgment, it is all totally false, both as affirmed of us and them; for Scripture nowhere teaches that believers die to sin, in their own proper persons: Christ died to sin because He had none.

"Such is the reason for salvation by the cross." Is it that Christ had to be saved through dying? Or whose death or cross does he speak of? If we are dead to sin by Christ's cross, all his system denies the truth. Whose is he speaking of? And note how guilt and bearing sins are left out. "But the great illustration, here as elsewhere, is to be found in the law, that appointed 'shadow of good things,' which in all its varied forms of sacrifices asserts the same great truth, that only by the fire of God and through death can the earthly creature be changed, and so ascend to God." (Page 80.) But these sacrifices were the substituted death of a victim for others. How can this apply to those who have rejected salvation, and for whom the scripture tells us there is no more sacrifice for sins? Hence for Mr. J. it is personally dying to sin, which Scripture never speaks of — save as to Christ; carefully the contrary.

As to the sacrifices shewing that the creature cannot be changed through death, were they not types of Christ, and therefore spotless? Had He to be changed? What he says of the sacrifices is all wrong as to fact. Only very rare ones were burned: most were eaten. The fat only of some was burnt: as a whole the sacrifice did not "perish in its first form to rise in another as pillars of smoke before God. If then all this was 'the pattern of things in the heavens,' we have another witness that a transformation wrought by fire is yet being carried on in the true heavens, that is, the spiritual world." There is no such witness. They prefigured Christ, and no one else. There is no question of "our nature not being spared any more than the animal was not spared by the priest."

103 Mr. J. tells us that "no divine change can be wrought even on God's elect, save by passing through the waters and through the fires." They are born with a wholly new life. He says, as the Lord "fulfilled the types of suffering, so will He fulfil the same in the bodies of those who are His members." How so? we ask. Are they to do that same work which Christ did? Or what was He doing in dying? anything as to Himself? All he says on page 81 of the uniting power of fire and of fires for the elect is idle and false. And his use of Scripture, as of casting fire into the earth, and salting with fire being the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and fire which Christ desired to be kindled, mingles the most opposite thoughts together, so as to make falsehood and error of all. What is united? Bathing with fire is not baptising with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The baptism with the Holy Ghost took place on the day of Pentecost. Fire is always judgment. Christ does not say He desired the fire to be kindled.

His theory is salvation by chastening; and a denial of divine life given, and atonement for sin. But chastening is another matter. There must be life and relationship for that. And reconciliation is not transmutation of our nature "by the fire of God into partakers of Christ's flesh and blood." And what is "partakers of Christ's flesh and blood"? Is there no new life? "In and through Christ we have received this transmutation; and through His Spirit which is fire, is this same change accomplished in us." Same change with what? Says Scripture, "Through whom now we have received the reconciliation," and katallage (Rom. 5: 11) is not "transmutation," but an entirely different thought and thing. And the footnote to page 82 completes the absurdity, where, founding his remark on a false reading of the Hebrew,* he affirms — "His purpose to the creature is through destruction to perfect it, and by fire to make it a bride to the Lord." How unlike His purpose as expressed in God's word; Ephesians 5! "The Christ also loved the church, and delivered Himself up for it, in order that He might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water [not fire] by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it might be holy and blameless."

{*Page 82. His note about Hebrew words is not true. The reason why the first two mean also perfection is because it is complete or finished. What he says of ishah is not true. Esh is fire, once Keth (Jer. 4 • 29) eshah. Ishah is from ish or more fully enesh.}

104 "And as with the firstfruits, so with the harvest" ("This same change!") Was Christ really changed? "The world to be saved must some day know the same baptism." Will it be saved? For "the Lord," Mr. Jukes adds, "will come by fire," and "by fire and by His sword will He plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." It is also mere trifling with words to affirm, as he does, "The promised baptism of the Spirit must be judgment, for the Spirit cannot be poured on men without consuming his flesh to quicken a better life." But the Spirit is given only when we believe. As to "consuming his flesh to quicken a better life," whence is the life thus quickened, and what is a quickening like? Is it a life already there in embryo? Besides, Christ says, the world "cannot receive" the Holy Ghost. Where in Scripture do we read that God's "warfare and wrath . . . works both righteousness and life"?

On page 84, while he rejects the Annihilationist doctrine, "that those who abuse their day of grace will be utterly annihilated,'' he asserts that God's plan is, with regard to man, "out of, and through the fall, to raise him to higher and more secure blessedness, as it is written, 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive'; not all at once, but through successive ages, and according to an appointed order, in which the last, even as the first, shall be restored by the elect," etc. Read the passage "as in Adam," etc., and see of what and of whom it speaks. There is not a word of all this in Scripture, but the contrary (as we have shewn already). It is the same blasphemous nonsense I have already spoken of in which he makes us save others as Christ did. As to 1 Corinthians 15, it is altogether about the righteous dead.

Page 85, the answer Mr. Jukes gives to What is conversion? is all false. It is not at all, as he says, "a change involving a death unto sin," etc. He has purposely made it vague or false. Where do the condemned get their new life, and when? "There is but one way to bring seed out of the earth . . . . Nothing is done without the water and the fires." But the life is already in the seed, to be quickened and eventually ripened. "Conversion is only wrought through condemnation." All is fundamentally false here. Instead of conversion being through condemnation, condemnation of self is through conversion. "The law condemns and slays us, not to annihilate, but to bring forth a better life." How? Law did not, and could not, give or bring forth a better life. To confound (p. 86) my spiritual judgment of sin and self with God's judgment of guilty sinners, is stupid and senseless. The way in which Christ's passing through death, which he calls the baptism which awaits Him, and a baptism of the same kind for us, so that we may say, too, "How am I straitened till it be accomplished," is as unscriptural as it is shocking, and disgraceful trifling with Scripture. We are baptised to His death; and we have only to read Acts 2 to see that his appropriation of baptism for the remission of sins is the grossest abuse of words to suit his purpose. Christians are baptised to Christ's death, died with Him, and have received the Holy Ghost.

105 "And that therefore, and to the same end, those not so baptised here must know the last judgment." Who says this is to be to "the same end"? It is the folly of confounding dying to sin and God's final judgment. "Judgment which is to meet the greater hardness and impenitence of the reprobate." Miserable! Not an idea of Christ and of a new life, nor of peace through grace? "It is, therefore, simply because God is what He is, that He is through love, and because He is love, the curse and destruction of the impenitent." (Page 87.) Was it love, we ask, that Christ experienced on the cross when He was made a curse for us? He was made sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. All this and bearing sins is wholly left out; and also wrath revealed from heaven. Christ went by the cross, and so got the blessing; and so must we; and so must the wicked for themselves!

No one denies chastisement, but we are chastened that we should not be condemned with the world.

Paul does not tell the church to deliver to Satan. "Souls are taught not to blaspheme by being delivered to Satan"; why withhold "for the destruction of the flesh"? "What does this not teach us as to God's purpose towards those whom He also delivers to Satan and disciplines by evil, since they will not learn by good?" He does no such thing. Satan is there then himself!

In page 88, "for man bears God's image" is never said in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 11: 7 is man contrasted with woman. The rest is utter nonsense. In the judgment of the great white throne (Rev. 20), there is not the smallest intimation of salvation or recovery. The judged go into the lake of fire, the second death. And in quoting Revelation 21: 5-8, why does he leave out gegone, It is done? The becoming is over. "What does He say here but that all things shall be made new?" It is contrast with the former state of things, and all is finished, gegone, and the wicked, in contrast with the overcomers, are in the lake of fire. Yet He does not say so, but "I make." He says their "part" is there. The accomplishment of the earthly promise to Abraham is past, and the promise does not refer to that time when gegone by his own shewing is there (p. 90) *

{*A. L. Newton. — She never thought a right thought on this subject. The curse did not involve the blessing. The second Man, not the first, was to overcome.}

106 As to Paul's two passages, "wished himself accursed for them," and have "hope," not fear, "that there should be a resurrection of the dead," etc. The first has no connection with the subject. He had loved them as Moses, who had said, "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which Thou hast written." Then he also says that the saints are said to have died to sin, "that is, the dark spirit world": we ask, Where is this said?* As to the second, he expresses his convictions and hope of resurrection, adding, as part of it, this important fact, "both of the just and of the unjust." The rest are within the limits of that dark and fiery world, the life of which (p. 91) is the life of their spirit — a strange idea, whose value is to shew that he feeds on German notions, which can identify clairvoyance and animal magnetism with the life of Christ in man as man, owning withal his fall.**

{*It is borrowed from the Germans, I think from Lange, who is as wild as he is full of error.}

{**See Lange's Life of Christ.}

They get out of the dark world by the second death! "Even if we have not light to see this, ought not the present to teach us something as to God's future ways; for is He not the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?" Why "for ever" here, when elsewhere only "for the ages"? "We know that in inflicting present death His purpose is through death [whose?] to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil." Not at all. Christ became a Man to do it. This is totally false, and it confounds, as elsewhere, Christ's dying for us, and the person's getting free through his own death. Our reckoning ourselves dead to sin with Christ is, for him, the same thing as the judgment of sinners by God in wrath! "How can we conclude from this that in inflicting the 'second death' the unchanging God will act on a principle entirely different from that which now actuates Him?" On whom would the second death, in order to save, be inflicted? On Christ? It must be so to have any show of truth, for that it was in the first case. "Or shall the greater foe (the second death) still triumph, while the less, the first death, is surely overcome?" Satan, the great foe, does not, but is judged and in the lake of fire. Being judged is not "triumph." The resurrection of the wicked is the destruction of death, "the last enemy." Who has taught us to limit the meaning of the words, "Death is swallowed up in victory"? Scripture: "Then shall come to pass that which is written." It is at the resurrection of the just; 1 Cor.15 .

107 "Is God's will to save all men?" (1 Tim. 2: 4). The word used for "will" in Greek does not mean purpose. "His appointed means for our deliverance" is not our death, as he speaks of it, but Christ's. The last sentence of page 92 is filled with dishonest quotations, for the passages which he cannot but know refer to the Lord's coming are dishonestly applied to another time. Why not add, "of which the prophets have spoken" to "the restitution of all things," and thus honestly declare that it refers to this earth? "He shall save his people" is the scriptural application of the name of Jesus, his last reference.

As to freeing bondsmen and debtors, as a type it proves the contrary. Only Israelites were set free (p. 93); as to the heathen the bondage was for ever. It is therefore the contrary to what Mr. J. says, "Fallen still are his children." They are not. Scripture says we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; Gal. 3. Where there is no faith, there the person is not a child of God. "A larger mercy from our Father in heaven." Whose Father? All this on page 94 denies sin and guilt, judgment and righteousness. And judging sin is not being overcome of evil. And the whole of his closing remarks are without one word of sins, guilt, responsibility, or righteous judgment! His whole system is a mere dream of his own imagination, outside of Scripture and against its plainest teaching. His view of Job, too, is wholly wrong; but I do not pursue the question here. His "testimony of scripture" we have now examined, and next come to his examination of

108 "POPULAR OBJECTIONS"

It is said that this doctrine [of restitution] is opposed to the voice of the church, to reason, and above all to Holy Scripture. "For the rest, if the church speak with God, woe to those who disobey her." What is "the church"? Who set her to teach? And where is her teaching? "Where then, I ask, and when has the Catholic church ever authoritatively condemned this view of restitution?" Who set her to do it? What council had any warrant? The church teaches not. "It [the doctrine of endless torments] can never be classed under 'Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.'" Nor can anything else. All that he says of the Fathers east or west I leave. What matters it who held it, or who did not? Is it in Scripture? is the question. Mr; Jukes appeals to this, and asks, "What does this prove if the doctrine is really taught in Scripture?" Nothing, assuredly. If it was from the beginning, it would be.

But what he says immediately after is unfounded. "Many things have been hid in Scripture for ages. Paul speaks of the revelation of the mystery which had been hid from ages and generation, some part at least of which, though hidden, had been spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." Utterly unfounded, or Paul was all wrong. This is ignorance, but I fear I must say wilful ignorance. "But when have God's people as a body ever seen or received any truth beyond their dispensation?" Only Mr. Jukes, then, we are to believe. The ways of Israel are not examples to us. The things happened to them for ensamples. (Page 98.) The doctrine of the union in one body is never spoken of. The call of the Gentiles is expressly spoken of in the scripture, which Paul uses. It is a false suggestion of Scripture's silence where it speaks plainly. That is, Scripture spoke plainly, and Paul used it. It was absolutely silent on another point, and it required a positive revelation to declare it. Both were the word of God. God's unerring word is final. "But when I see the church's blindness," etc. (Page 99.) Where is the church's teaching now? "For if the flesh that bore Christ was not ours, His incarnation does not profit us." I thought there was something at bottom as to this. I quite think "that the church's judgment cannot decide a point like this, if that judgment be in opposition to the word of God." But the church is a mere deception — where is it? For Mr. Jukes, the papal system "is its widest branch." And who gave her authority to teach? God teaches finally as to doctrine in the Holy Scriptures.

109 The church has nothing whatever to do with even the teaching of the truth. It is not hers to teach, but to be taught. What is truth is all in the Scriptures. But it is natural, with what he makes of the church, to flatter it. (Page 100.) "Transubstantiation is a mistake built on Christ's very words, and the doctrine of endless torments is a like misunderstanding." Poor work is this! Did He wish His disciples to believe that He held Himself in His hands when He took the bread, as indeed Augustine says we must, in a manner, believe, and when He was not crucified? But the words were used when He was alive in the body, so that the disciples could not have mistaken Him. So much the more when we think of His saying "My blood," and even, "This cup is the new covenant." They could not have misunderstood Him then; no more could any now who were not wilfully ignorant. The words which declare everlasting punishment are, if possible, plainer still.

Then, on pages 101-2, he takes up the objection that "this doctrine militates against the atonement, for if men shall at length be saved, God became man to redeem from that which is equally remedied without it." But how "saved"? According to Mr. Jukes they are saved by their own suffering and death. Atonement in its scripture sense is everywhere left out; and guilt too. Salvation is only the change of a nature by dying. His teaching as to the fall and its consequences is not scriptural. God drove out the man. Guilt and judgment are ignored. Here, too, we have this German semi-infidelity: "In this fall God pitied man and sent His Son, in whom is life, to be a man in the place where man was shut up, there to raise up again God's life in man, to bear man's curse, and then through death [whose?] to bring man back in God's life to God's right hand," etc. Was He in the distance, away from God, dead in sins, raising up God's life in man in His own Person? Or did He go into man's place and suffer death as made sin, bruised for our iniquities? "Obtain the life by which these shall rise." Not so. They do not rise by that life. They are raised. Of what was Christ the firstfruits? Of those "that are Christ's." But how does it follow hence (from this doctrine) that those who are not firstfruits, if saved at all, are saved without Christ's redemption? "God's word could quicken and deliver us out of the horrible pit, that we might be firstfruits of His creatures; why should we say He cannot bring back others out of death though they miss the glory of being firstfruits?" Redemption by bearing sins in death and forgiveness are wholly ignored! Mr. Jukes uses the Bible terms in another sense than they mean in Scripture: even hell is used in another sense. (Page 103.) "The other part of the objection that none believe in redemption who do not believe in hell, is true"; but this is donner la change. "Hell" is used in another sense from the objector's. So going to hell is not delivery to Satan — he is in it himself. It was prepared for him.

110 The second objection, "It is further argued that, if grace does not, judgment cannot, save man; How can damnation perfect those whom salvation has not helped? Can hell do more for us than heaven? The answer to this lies simply in what has been said above as to the reason why the way of life for us must be through judgment . . . judgment therefore to shew us that what we are is as needful as grace," etc. Then we must all go to hell, and that by judgment. But life-giving and judgment are contrasted, and those who have life do not come into judgment (krisis). "If we want further examples, Nebuchadnezzar shews us how judgment does for man what goodness cannot. The remedy is to make him a beast." This begs the whole question, in making the chastening of the living the same as the final judgment of the adversaries of God. Besides, chastening itself does not change the heart unless grace work.

"Let the nature of the fall be seen, and the reason why we are only saved through judgment is at once manifest." This is utterly false to say "only"; and the whole question remains. By whose stripes are we healed, how was peace made? So the statement, "The firstfruits from Christ to us are proofs that by death, and this alone, our salvation is perfected," raises the question — By whose death, Christ's in atonement, or ours in judgment? That this is his meaning appears from his saying, "unbelievers who will not die with Christ are lost because they are not judged here." But suppose that "by the ministry of death and condemnation in another world the work of judgment to salvation were accomplished," what puts away their sins? For unbelievers die in them, and there is no more sacrifice. He has perfected that work, and He came to do it once. Hebrews 9 and 10 are urgent on this point. It was in the end of the world He appeared once to put away sin. He dies no more. Mr. Jukes makes our death and condemnation here what saves us, and so of the lost afterwards!

111 (3). "But it is further objected that this doctrine gives up God's justice; for if all are saved there will be no difference between St. Peter and Nero, virgins and harlots, saints and sinners." The objection if so made, and the answer ignore Christ's atoning death. His error is not that he saves the condemned without redemption; he denies all redemption as Scripture states it, though the word 'atonement' may be thrown in to blind people. Christ's own case he is afraid to utter. (See page 75.) It is absurd, he alleges, to say, "God's justice is given up because He saves by judgment." But do we get what our sins deserve from justice? We do not come into judgment. He says "the elect being first quickened by the word, and then judging themselves in this world, or being judged by a death to sin are freed from Satan." Even death to sin was Christ's; Rom. 6. We reckon ourselves dead, and if all are freed by our own dying, what, then, did Christ do for them? But Mr. Jukes goes farther. "What scripture teaches is that man is saved through death . . . that others not so dying [as the elect] to sin remain in the life and therefore under the curse and power of the dark world, and are therefore delivered to Satan* to be punished, to know, since they will not believe, their fall and their need of God's salvation. But all this simply asserts the justice of God." This is dreadfully bad, and sets aside Christ's work altogether, save as the first dier! It is, in fact, a purgatory which does the whole work.

{*This, as we have seen, is a gross perversion of the words of Scripture.}

As to "no distinction," he asks, "Is there no distinction between reigning with Christ, and being cast out and shut up in hell with Satan?" But then that is all; and in the long run one is saved as much as another, only in another world, having rejected Christ. Receiving a wholly new life and guilt are both ignored in Mr. Jukes' notions. He falsely uses and indeed translates Romans 9. And it is merely slurring over the real question to talk of an outwardly pure and blameless life needing the blood of the cross.

112 (4). The fourth objection he answers is from analogy — that, as many creatures in this world fail to attain their proper end and perfection, so thousands of our race may miss their true end, and be for ever cast away. This is mere reasoning with which I do not meddle. Assertion may be met by counterassertion; but where Scripture is claimed for anything, it needs to be examined. But then he says: — "Why not go further, and argue that death, and not life, must be the final ruler of the universe?" Through sin it is so of this present world. Nor does he deny it, but declares apparent death is only a change of form, the change being a witness of present imperfection, but not of eternal bondage in that form, nor of destruction or annihilation when that form perishes. He insists on change, and that analogy shews that what appears worthless or destroyed may contain what is precious. But all this remains the same nature. But Christianity depends essentially on our receiving a new life, anothen, not a mere change, which in mere nature may take place. (Pages 108-9.) We know there is nothing precious. "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." And "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life."

(5). "The greatest difficulty of all is that which meets us from the existence of present evil." "Was He not infinitely wise, and holy, and powerful, when the earth was without form and void? Why, then, should this state ever have been changed by Him till all was very good?" Here creation is ignored, and whatever judgment brought it into the ruined state. No recognition of sin bringing in the misery and evil of the present state. Then, on page 3 he speaks of the "Day of Judgment, and the promised Times of Restitution." Judgment is not restoration, and there are no promised times of restitution of the wicked, as he makes it. It is positively false, and not in Scripture; and it is equally false, as he means it, that the Father will go on working till all things are made new, and everything is very good. When God makes all things new, He leaves the wicked "without," and "everything very good" is never said but at creation.

As to Romans 8: 20, 21, he has quoted it falsely in saying "through Him." It is "on account of him who has subjected [it]," dia ton. It was not the creature's own will, but on account of another; and Adam, not God, is the "him" referred to. And "the creature into the liberty of glory of God's children," has nothing to do with restoring the wicked spiritually, for which Mr. J. falsely uses it; and the deliverance of the creature is when His children are glorified and judgment is on their adversaries. Evil subserving some good purpose (otherwise God would never have permitted it), or, say, "I form peace, and I create evil," just shews the false use he makes of Scripture. He does not create moral evil: it is temporal evil as contrasted with peace--not with good. Again, "Prophecy announces a day when there shall be no more curse or death, but all things made new. In this witness we may rest, spite of the fact and mystery of present evil." This is before the final judgment; a settled fallacy that runs through the book. "No curse" is the millennial state (Rev. 22: 3); "all things new" after it, and then the wicked are without, outside the scene where there is no more crying, pain, or death; Rev. 21: 2-8. "Curse" is not spoken of as no longer the question. In Revelation 21: 1-4 are new heavens and new earth, and in verses 5-8. These passages prove just the contrary of what Mr. Jukes affirms.

113 (6). He says truly, "What saith the scripture?" is the only question on this subject. Mr. J. speaks of sin creating an antagonistic world. Sin creates nothing. It is always enmity. It is judged; this is not equal power. "Willed" is falsely used; and will in this passage is not purpose. "And all this (antagonistic world) in opposition to the word of God, which says that God's Son 'was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil,' who, if the so-called orthodox views be right, will succeed in destroying some of the works of the Son of God for ever." So the Son of God does; He destroys the works of the devil. The judgment of Satan is not Satan's work, nor that of wicked men. He has morally destroyed them already.

On page 115 he tells what his reason concludes, as to those being punished for their sins with everlasting punishment. He gives no scripture for it, but exculpates the sinner as much as possible, and speaks of weakness, the tempter, strong passions, conscience not helping him, failing to avail himself of mercy. The Lord says "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father"; and Paul, of the least enlightened, "that they are without excuse." There is no true sense of sin; no power of the word of God in the conscience. "I cannot say my reason would conclude on his ground," and this is the root of all these reasonings. "Once God's child," he says. Only in nature and at the outset, as His created offspring, and that is exactly what makes it eternal misery. "Even nature teaches . . . to act more generously." That is "nature" is to judge God, instead of having a sense of sin deserving judgment! As one said, "God condemned men for eating an apple." The truth is, man gave up God for an apple, believing Satan, not God!

114 Mr. Jukes represents man only as unfortunate, like a child which has hurt itself, and God as indulgent. But God is a holy and righteous Judge, which is all left out (p. 116), for death and hell are only to save — not judgment of sin or exclusion from evil. His statements are a mere expression of natural human kindness, as it may be found in an animal, and a totally false representation of both God and man; nature's reasoning, but not the Holy Ghost's. A child falling or hurting itself is all his thought of man's sin, and human pity for man's misery is all his idea of God. All this is nothing but the absence of the just sense of guilt. Have we deserved to be forsaken of God? or why was Christ? He thanks God we have revelation. Thank God we have; but he adds, "That word declares man's final restitution." Not so; it does the contrary. It says, "Hath never forgiveness," and see Revelation 21, as already quoted. God seeking the lost till He find them is the grace of the present time; and the elder brother would not go in, and did not get in.

(7). "But it is said," he says, "certain texts of holy scripture are directly opposed to the doctrine of universal restitution. We have already seen that, taken in the letter, text clashes with text on this subject." I do not admit it. To say that all those texts which speak of "destruction" and "judgment" have been explained by what has been said by him above as to the way of our salvation, is simply lying against the truth.

What he says (p. 117) of Romans 2: 12 — that it is the state of all by nature — is utterly false. It is expressly said, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts. It is very bad thus to pervert God's word. Again, 2 Corinthians 4: 3 refers to those who are being lost, in contrast to being saved — apollumenoi — sozomenoi, those to whom the gospel is hid when preached, not their mere common natural state. In all the quoted texts, it is so. In Luke 15 and 19 it is apololos or os. There is actual state, so that the force of the passages against his argument is very strong. "For the Good Shepherd must go after that which is lost until he find it." Where is this said? It is according to him God's duty, and the point of the parable is that it is His sheep. Page 118, "By faith Isaac," etc., is a temporal prophecy.

115 When he affirms (p. 119) that "there is scarcely a doctrine of our faith which, at first sight, does not seem to dash more or less with some other plain scripture," we reply, only when man's mind is at work. After much more human reasoning he speaks of a superior intelligence overruling all, according to a scheme of perfect love; a statement never made in Scripture, which tells of judgment of sin, not of overruling in result. But when perfect love was manifested, for His love Christ had hatred: "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father."

The texts chiefly relied on as teaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment are then looked at by Mr. Jukes. The first is what is said of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost: "shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which is to come," Matt. 12: 32; Mark 2: 29; Luke 12: 10. Of these he says that, so far from teaching that sin can never be forgiven, they teach the opposite: "first, all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; secondly, that some sins can be forgiven as against the Son of man in this age; and thirdly, that other sins against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven either here or in the coming age, which last words imply that some sins, not here forgiven, may be forgiven in the coming age, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost not being of this number. This is what the text asserts." As to what he says in the note (p. 120), the words, two ages being specified, prove that the passage could have only an absolute sense.

But the whole statement is all a blunder. This age is before Messiah, "the coming one" when He is revealed, but two only are admitted in the passage. It is Olam haze and Olam ha vo. Certainly in Messiah's age there was forgiveness larger than under the law. What does he mean by saying, "Man cannot reject or speak against the Spirit until the Spirit comes to act upon him"? There is no question of rejecting the Spirit. They blasphemed in saying Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub. The Spirit did not act on them but by Christ. In Stephen's case (Acts 7) it did act on the Jews; the conscience reached, with the will unchanged, led to his stoning by them. "To reject this last [the Spirit] cuts man off from the light and life of the coming world." His whole statement as to the Spirit convincing the heart, and then being rejected, is false. "This sin, therefore, is not forgiven, neither in this age nor in the coming one. But the text says nothing of those ages to come, elsewhere revealed to us; much less does it assert that the punishment of sin not here forgiven is neverending." Scripture says, it is not forgiven under the Messiah — hath never forgiveness, ouk echei aphesin eis ton aiona — shall not be forgiven unto men absolutely. This age and the coming being mentioned, the words shew the absolute force of eis ton aiona. With two ages specified it could have no sense but as absolute. As to the ages to come, all is unfounded and hypothetical. In Ephesians 2 it is expressly "His kindness towards us" — not others, that we read of.

116 It is all fancy and false on page 122 about the mystic seventy weeks. One is amazed at the utter absurdity. Daniel's prophecy of "the seventy weeks" is quite clear, and so is what it refers to, ending with the Lord's coming, and applying to Jerusalem. There is nothing about a jubilee. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins even to the end, as long as God is a Saviour." And what, when He is a judge? Are to be sentenced, and to be forgiven, the same thing?

(2). A second text, "The wrath of God abideth on him." His plea is that it says that "Man, so long as he is in unbelief, cannot see life," "but an unbeliever, though while he is such God's wrath abides upon. him, may pass by faith out of the wrath to life and blessedness." It is not a question of nature, but that, when in the state of sin and ruin by nature, and Christ presented to them in grace, they rejected Him and grace; then they should not see life. Christ does not say cannot, but "shall not see life," etc. Nor does it say so long as he is in unbelief. It is a broad statement that he who does not believe "shall not see life," and the Son is referred to as having all in His hands. The wrath of God (for there is wrath) abides on him; John 3: 36. "If it were not so, all would be lost," he says. This is a proof that all is false. It is totally untrue that, if this text bears the meaning we affirm it does, an unbeliever could not have any hope of life or deliverance, for it puts the turning-point on faith, and he that does not believe shall not see life. (Compare 1 John 5: 12.) The text is as plain as possible. Some do believe; some do not. If not, they shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them.

117 (3). Another text is, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," Mark 9: 42-50. "For every one shall be salted with fire," etc. That is, all shall be judged — the saints, that they may not be condemned with the world — the rest by final judgment; but salt, separation from evil, belonged to sacrifices thus given to God. "And every sacrifice must be salted with salt." Those who were consecrated to God, whose life was an offering to Him, should not lack the power of holy grace which binds the soul to God, and inwardly preserves it from evil. Mr. Jukes' explanation of it from the law really shews nothing but a total want of spiritual understanding. Making the meat-offering duty to one's neighbour, when it was a sacrifice by fire to God, and Christ's leavenless Person, shews a mind away from all truth.* Page 126 is all wrong, from beginning to end, in every point. The bodies of the sinoffering were not burnt as unclean; nor, generally, were they burnt at all: only very particular ones referring to the people or the high priest were. Those parts which were not burnt were eaten. What does he mean by "worm," alluding to the consumption of those parts? They were eaten. On page 127 we have a continuance of the same absurdity. It would seem the altar was hell; and yet he says the sin-offerings were burnt outside! It is all conflicting nonsense. The fire never being quenched** "typifying the preservation of that spiritual fire, which it is Christ's work as priest to kindle and keep alive." That is in hell! The passages he quotes just state that nothing should intervene to stop or arrest the judgment; the fire would not be put out. The words "the fire never shall be quenched" have the same sense in Mark as in all the rest — that nothing shall avert or suspend the judgment of God. It was not chastening, but final judgment. In Isaiah it refers to the valley of the son of Hinnom, hence Gehenna; where the fire was kept up continually to consume the filth of Jerusalem, and the carcases of the rebellious remained a constant spectacle. Was the burning of the sin-offering without the camp a fire never quenched? (Page 128.) Was ever greater nonsense?

{*The footnote about the sacrifices is incorrect; the fat was consumed on the altar; and only when the blood went into the sanctuary was the body burned without the camp: otherwise it was eaten by the priest.}

{**It is no more "quenched" than "go out," save in one place; perhaps "let go out" would be the truest. But "not go out" is quite right.}

118 (4). All that he says about everlasting, as not being neverending in Matthew 25: 46, proves that he has nothing to say. Nor does the word translated "punishment" ever mean in the New Testament a corrective discipline, as he alleges. It is only twice used; and the verb twice. (Page 129.) If the bliss of the righteous be eternal, so must be the punishment of the wicked. If Scripture be examined, there remains no question as to the word kolasis, that it is judicial torment, or torment, where the verb is used — never correcting. The other place where the word is used is 1 John 4: 18 — the verb in Acts 4: 21; 2 Peter 2: 9, in neither of which is there any other thought than "punishment."

(5). Another text: "Good were it for that man if he had not been born." As to what was said to our first parents, it was only what came on earth. If Judas' fall end in the restoration of the fallen one to more secure blessedness, then it would have been good for him to have been born — the highest witness of grace. What he says, "It is surely significant that one and the same awful prophecy is by the inspired writers of the New Testament applied to Judas and Israel," is not the case. Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 are both quoted in Acts 1: 20, but the part of the prophecy used in Romans is not that quoted in Acts. That Israel came under the same judgment as Judas in this world is quite true; but this has nothing whatever to do with what the Lord says of him. This is a mere come-off. The words, "Let his habitation be desolate," are founded on Psalm 69, and Israel never will be restored as they stood on the old covenant. They are cursed as the fig-tree was, never to bear any fruit. What is said of Judas is absolute — good not to have been born. And to say that Luke 19: 42 is in substance the old man and the new is tampering with the Lord's words. Is that what the Lord means?

Page 134 is too gross perversion of the Lord's words. "Good* not to have been born" means better through this very wickedness!

{*In the footnote, page 134, he says it is kalon, not agathon, that the kalon may be missed, while the agathon may be by grace obtainable. Now agathon would have no sense.}

119 "For all that rose in Adam falls in Christ, even as all that fell in Adam rose again in Christ." Where is this in Scripture? The quotation of Psalm 37: 35, 36, is an absurd use of it. "I sought him, but he could not be found." That is, he rose again, and was blessed!

His interpretation of the rich man and Lazarus is all wrong. It shews a change of dispensation, and the introduction of eternal and unseen things, as to which Christ withdraws the veil, in contrast with earthly things; and to say that the gulf was impassable for man, but that Christ might pass, is trifling with the word of God. Abraham says, "they that wish cannot pass," but this only means they can pass in another way not named. Dives did not so understand it; that is, the Lord who makes him say, "I pray thee," etc. "It is no use," says Abraham; "if the word will not do it, a man going from the dead will not." Yet we are to believe it can be done after all, and saying that, because man cannot make himself good, it does not follow God cannot. He does not change the flesh, but gives a new life, and the unbeliever shall not see life.

He next takes up the objection (p. 140) that it is opposed to the obvious sense of Scripture, and Scripture being written for simple and unlettered men, the simplest sense must be the true one. There is no such testimony in Scripture as that all death shall be done away; it is never said of the second death, which is the whole point. On this point Scripture contains no "apparent contradictions."

He quotes Romans 5: 14-21, and then asks what is the obvious meaning of these words: "Can a partial salvation exhaust the fulness of the blessing which St. Paul declares so unequivocally?" Certainly. It is carefully stated to be "the many" connected with the obedient One. "Why, then, not receive the teaching in its plain and obvious sense?" This is just what we have to do; only one verse in our English version is utterly mistranslated: "Therefore, as by one offence toward all men to condemnation, even so by one righteousness toward all men to justification of life," Rom. 5: 18. This is what has happened for justification of life and so reigning in life, which he admits they lose. "The many," not "all," are constituted righteous. This passage, instead of teaching Mr. Jukes' doctrine, carefully teaches the opposite. All connected with Adam have sin, condemnation, and death, and are lost; all connected with Christ have righteousness, justification, and life, and are saved. Surely we need the Spirit to understand the revelation; but it is not Scripture, that the death we see, and this only, is the way to fuller blessed life: we shall not all die. He takes up this objection next: "If you indulge the hope of the final restoration of all men, why not lost spirits also? Why should not the judgment of angels be their restoration?" "Why," he asks, "if He died for all, that by His death He might destroy that evil nature, and deliver them?" Through all this he drops atonement, and only looks for change, for which he absurdly quotes Hebrews 1: 11, 12. I answer, the thought sets aside Christ's work. He does not take up angels at all; He does not take up their cause. The flesh is never changed.

120 Mr. Jukes says, after giving more than two pages to it, "I confess I cannot see that God would be dishonoured by such a conclusion of the great mystery." And on his principles the restoration of devils is necessary; and then we have this rhapsody: — "When I see that man contains all worlds, and is indeed the hieroglyphic of the universe . . . but hell and heaven, and the life of each in him!"* How is the life of heaven in him? "Ye are of your father, the devil," said our Lord. "Lucifer and Adam, the two first great offenders, the one in his male, the other in his female property!" Simple truth is worth a good deal of this kind of trash. That "the hellish life can be transformed," he says. It never is. All these interpretations and answers to objections only shew that scriptural proof is against him, and his answers are the best proof that he is wrong. As to the case of Jonah (p. 148), grace individually, without promise, has nothing to do with natural judgments.

{*This is pretty exactly Swedenborgianism.}

(4). "CONCLUDING REMARKS." — "Then cometh the end" settles the question as to receiving truth beyond our dispensation; it is error we reject — not truth. "It is humbling to proud spirits that all their pride and rebellion must be overthrown." Are they saved, not being born again? "For teachers to learn is to unlearn!" No doubt ye are the men! "We are saved by hope," not by fear (p. 150), is an entire abuse of the words of Scripture perverted by what he adds. We are saved en elpidi, not we are saved dia. "I rather believe that, if the exactness of final retribution were understood, if men saw that so long as they continue in sin they must be under judgment, and that only by death to sin are they delivered, they could not pervert the gospel as they now do, nor abuse that preaching of the cross, which is indeed salvation." As to "exactness of final retribution," we ask, exact to what measure? And his statement leaves out the gospel, or rather sets it aside. "God consigns," he says, all but a few to endless misery. (Page 150.) They are enmity against God, and have rejected His love; they have both seen and hated both Him and His Father.

121 "Can such a doctrine be true? If it be, let men declare it always, and in every place." (Page 153.) So they do, and it is a powerful means of conversion. "If we think Him hard, we become hard." Does he think he deserves to be shut out from God? "The Gospels," he says, "shew that God is love," and that as manifested in Christ. But when Jesus came, how was He received? "Wherefore when I came, was there no man?" He came in the fulness of grace, reconciling; but they drove Him out of the world; they killed the Prince of Life, and preferred a murderer! "Because we were in the flesh, He came in the flesh." He expatiates on His grace coming "to bear our burden, break our bonds, and bring us back in and with Himself to God's right hand for ever,"* but never one word of His bearing our sins. "How He did it, with what pity, truth, patience, tenderness, and care, no eye but God's yet sees fully." But what effect had all this? Christ's own testimony is, "Now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." Of what he says (p. 156), "Will the coming glory change all this?" — that is, the love which seeks the lost. The reply is — Christ as a Judge is different from Christ as a Saviour in what He is to others, in what He is doing in bearing sins, and judging men for them. The grace manifested did not change men, nor does it now without quickening grace. And "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." When judgment comes on men, it is not the time of saving them. (See Heb. 6 and 10.) Christ cannot then die for their sins; it is too late. And who says that "with Christ in heaven believers will look upon the torments of the lost in hell"? (Page 157.) It is not true that those who know the love of God are indifferent to the case of the lost. Known love acts as love; but there is no great need if all are to be saved at any rate. But Christ, through an unwearying love when on earth, did not win men to God. For His love He had hatred. All this denies the need of being born again.

{*This is quite unscriptural.}

122 It is wretchedly false to say, "With their views they can only judge the evil." This is not true — they can serve in grace. "They do not believe it (evil) can be overcome by good." Nor can it. "Salvation through the cross — that is, through dissolution, above all in the face of Jesus Christ* — tells out the great truth that solves the great riddle, and shews why man must suffer while he is in sin, that through such suffering and death he may be brought back in Christ to God, and be remade in His likeness." I pray the reader to mark this passage; it shews clearly what Mr. Jukes' system is, and propounds a gospel wholly different from and subversive of the gospel of God. It is through a man's suffering while he is in sin he is brought back in Christ to God. Christ's dying for our sins, His atoning work, is left out, as is our receiving a new life in Him. All that constitutes the gospel and truth of God as our salvation by grace, and God's gift of eternal life in Him, and we are saved by our own suffering death while we are in sin. Nothing can be worse. "The cravings abroad," of which Mr. J. speaks, are not "the work of God's Spirit," but of man's restless mind, and those which the Spirit of God does produce cannot be met by Mr. Jukes' speculations, which contradict the word of God.

{*This again is a gross perversion of Scripture. It is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, then when He is in glory.}

On the page (159) where he says, "I conclude as I began. The question is, What saith the scripture?" He misuses and misapplies Scripture, as he has done from the beginning. He says, "the question is, in fact, whether God is for us or against us; and whether, being for us, He is stronger than our enemies?" This is set aside by asking, Of whom is Paul speaking, believers or unbelievers? All this is heedless of truth.

"POSTSCRIPT." — The extract from William Law (pp. 161-168) denies what is said of God in Scripture: "Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord." There is not one word either in Jukes or Law of guilt, bearing sins, forgiveness, justification by faith, or of the blessed Lord Jesus' work for us. A work in us both speak of in the same way.

123 "APPENDIX, NOTE A," attempts to give the scripture use of the words "death" and "destruction," in order to combat annihilationism. This deadly and anti-scriptural doctrine, which upsets atonement, repentance, and responsibility, I repel more absolutely than Mr. Jukes; but this is not the place to go into the question.

"NOTE B." — Extracts from the fathers. Where do you find Christianity in them? I never did, and it is denied in some of these extracts. None except Diognetus, and perhaps Irenaeus, were sound on the divinity of Christ. The believer can receive only what was from the beginning, that is, what is in the word of God. "He that is of God heareth us." The abuse of Scripture in Mr. Jukes' book is flagrant. The remarks from page to page in what precedes will shew this.

On the Greek words for Eternity and Eternal

(aion

and

aionios)*

J. N. Darby.

<31003E> 124

{*Both Plato and Aristotle treat the universe as a living animal, proved so by its constant movements: from them also Philo.}

I have thought that, as one of the forms in which infidelity circulates at present is Universalism, or the Restitution of all things, it might be well to put out clearly and simply some facts (for that is what they are), which may deprive its advocates of one main ground of their reasonings, and that without any reasoning on the general subject of a doctrine, which, when examined, sets aside the truth of Christianity. I refer to the meaning of aion, and also of aionios. We are told by Dr. Farrar, with much pretension to competency in affirming it, that "everlasting" or "eternal" ought not to be found in the Bible; by Mr. Cox, that it means properly an "age" and "age-long," and that it cannot be right to translate them eternal or everlasting. Mr. Jukes, with a wild imagination, takes the same ground. They simply echo one another. Now all I purpose to do here is to state some passages from other authors, which prove that (while used in other senses, some of which are not found at all in Scripture), it does mean "eternity" and "eternal." I will afterwards examine some of the passages in Scripture in which it is found.

Aion in Greek properly means "eternity." I do not dispute here, whether we are to believe with Aristotle, that it is derived from aei einai; or with other modern writers from aio, I breathe, whence it had the meaning in Homer, Euripides, and other authors, of life and breath; or possibly these may be two different words, one from aei on, the other from ao spiro, whence the two very different meanings. This is certain, that the word is distinctly used by Plato, Aristotle, and Philo (and, according to the dictionaries, by Lycurgus, whom I have not the means of consulting) as "eternal," in contrast with what is of time having beginning or ending, as its definite and proper meaning.

Plato (Timoeus, ed. Steph. 3, 37, or ed. Baiter, Orell. et Winck. 712) says, speaking of the universe: "When the father who begot it* perceived that the image made by him of the eternal (aidion) gods moved and lived, he was delighted with his work; and, led by this delight, thought to make his work much more like that first exemplar." Inasmuch therefore as it (the intelligible universe) is an eternal (aidion) animal (living being), so he set about to make this (the sensible) universe such with all his power. The nature therefore of the animal (living being) was eternal (aionios, before aidios), and this indeed it was impossible to adapt to what was produced (to genneto, to what had a beginning); he thinks to make a moveable image of eternity (aionos), and in adoring the heavens he makes of the eternity permanent in unity a certain eternal image moving in number, that which in fact we call time; that is, days and nights, and months and years, which did not subsist before the heaven began to be, then with its being established he operates their birth" (beginning to be, genesin auton). And after unfolding this, he says (p. 38): "But these forms of time imitating eternity (aiona), and rolling round according to number, have had a beginning (gegonen).... Time therefore began with heaven. that they having begun with it may be dissolved with it, if there be indeed any dissolution of them, and according to the pattern of eternal (diaionias, in some MSS. aionion or -as) nature that it might be as like as possible to it. For that pattern exists for all eternity (panta aiona estin on), but on the other hand, that which is perpetual (dia telous) throughout all time has had a beginning, and is, and will be." And then he goes on to speak of stars and planets, etc., as connected with what was created in time. It is impossible to conceive any more positive statement that aion is distinct, and to be contrasted with what has a beginning and belongs to the flux of time. Aion is what is properly eternal, in contrast with a divine imitation of it in ages of time, the result of the creative action of God which imitated the uncreate as nearly as He could in created ages. It is a careful opposition between eternity and ages; and aion and also aionios mean the former in contrast with ages.

125 I now give Aristotle peri ouranou, 1, 9 (ed. Bekker, 1, 279): "Time," he says, "is the number of movement, but there is no movement without a physical body. But outside heaven it has been shewn that there is not, nor possibly can come into existence, any body. It is evident then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time outside. Wherefore neither in place are things there formed by nature; nor does time cause them to grow old: neither is there any change of anything of those things which are arranged beyond the outermost orbit; but unchangeable, and subject to no influence, having the best and most independent life, they continue for all eternity (aiona). For this expression (name) has been divinely uttered by the ancients; for the completeness which embraces the time of the life of each, outside which there is nothing, according to nature, is called the aion of each. According to the same word (logon) the completeness of the whole heaven, and the completeness which embraces all time and infinitude is aion, having received this name from existing for ever (apo tou aei einai), immortal (athanatos, undying), and divine." In 10 he goes on to shew that that beginning to be (genesthai) involves the not existing always, which I refer to as shewing what he means by aion. He is proving the unchangeable eternity of the visible universe. That is no business of mine; but it shews what he means by eternity (aion). It cannot be aidion and genesthai at the same time, when, as in Plato, aidios is used as equivalent to aionios. Aristotle has not the abstract thoughts of Plato as to ideas, and the paradeigma of what is visible, the latter being a produced image of the eternal paradeigma. He rests more in what is known by the senses; and makes this the eternal thing in itself. But the force of aion for both is a settled point; and Aristotle's explanation of aion as used for finite things, I have long held to be the true one; that is, the completeness of a thing's existence, so that according to its natural existence there is nothing outside or beyond it. It periechei the whole being of the thing.

126 As to Philo, the sentence is in De Mundo, 7, en aioni de oute pareleluthen ouden, oute mellei, alla monon iphesteken. Such a definition needs no explanation: in eternity nothing is passed, nothing is about to be, but only subsists. This has the importance of being of the date and Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, as the others give the regular, and at the same time philosophical force of the word, aion, aionios. Eternity, unchangeable, with no 'was' nor 'will be,' is its proper force, that it can be applied to the whole existence of a thing, so that nothing of its nature was before true or after is true, to telos to periechon. But its meaning is eternity, and eternal. To say that they do not mean it in Greek, as Jukes and Farrar and S. Cox, and those they quote, is a denial of the statements of the very best authorities we can have on the subject. If Plato and Aristotle and Philo knew Greek, what these others say is false. That this is the proper sense of aionios in Scripture, is as certain as it is evident. In 2 Corinthians 4: 18, we have ta gar blepomena proskaira, ta de me blepomena aionia. That is, things that are for a time are put in express contrast with aionia, which are not for a time, be it age or ages, but eternal. Nothing can be more decisive of its positive and specific meaning.

127 I will now quote various passages of Scripture to shew aion or aionios has the definite meaning of "for ever," or "eternal," in English. No one who has examined its use in Greek questions that it is used for life, or the whole period of a man's existence till he breathes his last; nor that it may be used for ages or periods, looked at as a whole. The question is, Does it not properly mean eternal or for ever, and that where age and age-long would have no sense? Thus Matthew 21: 19, of the fig-tree: Let no fruit grow on thee eis ton aiona. "For the age" has no sense. It never was to grow. So Mark 11: 14. That eternity is not grasped by man as a definite idea is true, because definite is finite, and man, being finite, cannot grasp what is in-finite. It is known only as that which is absolutely; or negatively as that to which end is denied.

Again, Mark 3: 29, oik echei aphesin eis ton aiona. What age? It is not in the age, as some have fraudulently translated it, but "has not ever forgiveness." It is not any particular age; the eis allows no such sense, and the ton would require some particular age, which even so would leave no sense to eis. It can only mean here "for ever." There was a present age and age to come, o aion outos, and o aion o mellon, and well known to the Jews, the olem hazeh, and the olem havo; and an increased measure of forgiveness was looked for in Messiah's age. This sin could be forgiven in neither; no additional increase of forgiveness was looked for beyond Messiah; and each measure belonged to its own age; it was not a prolonged process, but what occurred in each as proper to it. But eis ton aiona, can only mean "for ever," though "for ever" may be used metaphorically when there is no withdrawal of the gift or promise, and the effect cannot last longer than that to which it applies. The gift has no limit (it is, as Aristotle says, apeiria), the existence of that to which it applies may. I do not lend it, I give it for ever; yet what I give, or the person to whom it is given, may cease to exist; but the gift is for ever, without repentance, out and out.

128 So John 4: 14, shall not thirst "for the age": is that the meaning? or never? John 6: 51, 58, "live for ever"; John 10: 28, not perish "to the age": is that the sense? John 13: 8, thou shalt not wash my feet "to the age!" A multitude more may be quoted to the same effect; some with the modified sense I have spoken of above of absolute gift and calling never to be retracted. But eis ton aiona never means "to the age" in any case.

Take 1 Peter 1: 23, 25, logou zontos theou kai menontos eis ton aiona. Does it last only "to the age" (applying it to the logon, not to theou as some do)? So verse 25, rema menei eis ton aiona. So 2 John 2, the truth shall be with us "to the age!" So Jude 13, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness eis ton aiona. Here again "to the age" has no sense.

The case of aionios is just as strong. It is used seventy-one times in the New Testament. Of these it is connected forty-four times with life, where "for an age" or "age-long" is just nonsense, as believers to have age-long life and shall not perish. It is in contrast with ever perishing. The knowledge of the Father, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent, is life for the age. Is that all? The words of Jesus were remata zoes aioniou not tes zoes. It was that in its nature, not a specific period: indeed believers have it now. In Romans 6: 22 the end is everlasting life. So that the life of that age, though no particular one is ever spoken of, is the end of the matter. It is not merely dark beyond as to a Jew, but there is no object beyond. My object is not to argue the point, but to consider the words here; but I must say that, if anything could lower and degrade the hope and present joy of the Christian, it is this miserable notion that "eternal" does not mean eternal.

But, farther, Christ was that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us; 1 John 1: 2. He is our life; he that hath the Son hath life. He is the true God and eternal life. Five, I may say six, times it is used of "eternal fire," or "punishment." The rest are various, glory, salvation, redemption, inheritance, Spirit, God Himself. But none of them is eternal! all belong to this wonderful unknown age, and no more. But the eternal weight of glory is that of which the apostle speaks, when he says that the things are not for a time, proskaira, but eternal, aionia, chapter 5: I going on to say that he was looking for a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We have the word used with chronon (times) in plural for the times of God's active dispensations. Before anything was created, this life was given us in Christ; putting it in its nature out of time.

129 Read these passages, and say if (while no one denies that there are ages and dispensations in which God has wrought and works), it be so that eternity is excluded from the revelation given to the Christian, and from the rest of God (for the promise is left us of entering into His rest), and that eternal glory, the eternal God, only means a God that has to say to that age. That God having called us to His own kingdom and glory, specifically that as our calling, this means a temporary period, an age which characterises Him, so that the eternal God is only the age-long God. That this life promised before the ages (chronon aionion), and which Christ is in His Person as with the Father, is only a life in one of these ages; and that when I read that the God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory by Jesus Christ, for which we may suffer a while, it is only a temporary glory of His for some special age; 1 Pet. 5: 10. That the glory of God, for which we hope in contradistinction to the peace and favour we possess, is only a temporary thing, for I suppose His own glory is the glory we boast in Romans 5. That language of exuberant apprehension is used, such as "ages of ages," and all the "generations of the age," or "eternity of ages," we know. But this does not alter the meaning of the word: aionios is properly the opposite to proskairos.

Dr. Farrar on "Everlasting," "Damnation" and "Hell."

J. N. Darby.

<31004E> 130

Dr. Farrar, with a great deal of pretentious language, appealing to his own perfect knowledge, his own deep sense of responsibility, and speaking in the sight of God (he says) and of the Saviour, perhaps of angels — he would hardly be so narrow-minded and illiberal as to speak of "elect angels" with Paul — and of what never crossed Paul's narrow mind, "the spirits of the dead" — declares that not one of the words, "damnation," "hell," or "everlasting," should be found in the English Bible.

Now with (I dare say) less knowledge than Canon Farrar, no unusual conscientiousness, still in the fear of God, I beg leave to say that what Canon Farrar says is entirely unfounded, in the essential point wholly untrue. I am not, in a note, going to enter into much Greek or Hellenistic learning, though both refute what Canon Farrar says as to "everlasting"; nor is there need. One passage suffices to shew as to this word that his statement, with all its pretension, is false. "The things which are seen are temporal (proskaira); but the things which are not seen are eternal" (aionia; 2 Cor. 4: 18); that is, eternal is the opposite of what is for a time.

Need I quote more? Let the reader take a Concordance, and see the passages where "everlasting life" is used (or eternal), and say if everlasting should not be there. And note, "eternal life" in the Person of Christ was with the Father; 1 John 1: 2. Is "eternal Spirit" wrong? (Heb. 9: 14.) God has called us to His eternal glory; 1 Pet. 5: 10. God lives for ever and ever (Rev. 5: 14), the everlasting God; Rom. 16: 26, I might multiply quotations; but these suffice to prove, or even the first alone, that the statement of Dr. Farrar, with all his boasted knowledge and conscientiousness, is, as to this word, either ignorance or dishonesty. Would Dr. Farrar in the Old Testament change the word "everlasting" in Psalm 90, "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God"? is "eternal power and Godhead" wrong? (Rom. 1: 20.) Is "eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2: 10), eternal salvation, eternal redemption, wrong? Is "everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth," wrong?

131 As to "damnation," the English word was used more loosely when the Bible was translated than it is now. In 1 Corinthians 11: 29, it is used in contrast with final condemnation. The translators, where one word was used in Greek, took pains to use several in English, and thereby disfigured the sense of many passages, or at least obscured the connection. Thus in John 5 we have "judgment," "condemnation," "damnation," all used for krisis, where "judgment" is the only true translation; but this does not affect the substance of Canon Farrar's assertion. He speaks of the word in its ordinary modern acceptation. "Damnation" is used frequently in the English New Testament for judgment, as in Matthew 23: 14; Mark 12: 40; Luke 20: 47; Romans 3: 8; chap. 13: 2; 1 Timothy 5: 12; and this is the sense of 1 Corinthians 11: 29, in contrast with condemnation with the world. Now, even if this "judgment" be everlasting condemnation, still the word means judgment.

But there is another and a stronger word than krima used, even in express contrast with it, so as to plainly mean final, absolute, condemnation. The word is katakrima. What a man is condemned to must be known by the sentence. We have both words in Romans 5: 16, "For the judgment (krima) was by one to (katakrima) condemnation," and in verse 18. So, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," Romans 8: 1. "God justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (vv. 33, 34). "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. 11: 32), where partial earthly judgments are contrasted with a final absolute condemnation. It is not therefore the mere word "damnation" for which I contend, nor to which Dr. Farrar objects, as all his sermon proves; for it is used in the English version many times, not in the sense of eternal condemnation; but that eternal condemnation meant by the word in modern times is spoken of in contrast with judgment, and as a distinct thing. Hence the apostle speaks of "eternal judgment" (Heb. 6); "eternal punishment" (Matt. 25); "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord"; and (Mark 3: 29), "hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of (enochos, subject to) eternal damnation." And where the wicked have their part in the lake of fire it is said, gegone, It is done, when Omega is written on all things.

132 Now it is not the use of the mere word "damnation," which had not then the definite force it has now which is insisted on or objected to. In Mark 3: 29 it is krisis, judgment; but it is eternal, conclusive, absolute, and final. The objection made is to what is meant by the modern use of the word, and that is definitely stated in Scripture.

The other word is "hell." Now, unfortunately, two words are translated "hell" in the English Bible — Hades and Gehenna: one meaning the temporary state of departed spirits, the unseen world without saying more; the other used for the fire that never shall be quenched. Its meaning is, etymologically, the valley of Hinnom, where people offered their children to Moloch, and which was defiled by Josiah; and, it seems, a fire kept up to consume what was filthy and unclean out of Jerusalem and called Tophet. Hence we have in Isaiah, "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; and the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it," Isa. 30: 33. "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh," Isa. 66: 24. This is, on the face of it, a material fact; there was a constant fire enduring continually, to which those bodies were enduringly subjected. Now Sheol, or Hades, is never confounded with this. It was an actual valley between Zion and what is called the Hill of Evil Counsel, south of Jerusalem, where tradition places the house of Caiaphas, if my memory serve me. This valley, where the unquenched fire consumed what was unclean, which yet, according to Isaiah 66, should remain in the consuming fire unconsumed, an abhorring unto all flesh, was used for an image of a sorer punishment, and was called Gehenna (Anglice, "hell"); that is, literally, the valley of Hinnom. Now this word is found in Matthew 5: 22, 29, 30; chap. 10: 28; chap. 18: 9; chap. 23: 15, 33; Mark 9: 43, 45, 47; Luke 12: 5; James 3: 6.

In Matthew 5 the statement is general: danger of hell-fire — thy whole body cast into hell; referring to sacrificing one member rather than sin; clearly not the valley of Hinnom. "Fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell," chap. 10: 28. It is not the valley of Hinnom. They do not put souls there. It is metaphorically used for the place of final judgment and punishment. Chapter 18: 9 is as in chapter 5; in chapter 23: 15, a child of hell — one who is the natural heir — belongs to this place. That it is the place of condemnation in judgment Matthew 23: 33 shews: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment (kriseos) of hell?" (Mark 9: 43-48.) We have solemnly repeated the call to sacrifice the dearest thing that is a snare to us, under penalty of being cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. It is a judgment, a judicial punishment, for which there is no relief, of which there is no cessation.

133 In Luke 12 it is used as a known thing, a place, the effect of divine judgment. James 3: 6 is only of importance as shewing that it is connected with pure unmitigated evil; where nothing else is. Now a person who reads all this cannot doubt that that which the word "hell" is used for in English is fully contemplated. The desirableness of not confounding it with Hades, the vaguest possible word for the unseen world, no reflecting mind would deny. It is a place into which God's judgment casts the unrepentant and rebellious wicked, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. That human figures of fire and worms are used may be; but the force of it is plain enough — it is the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, where God casts in judgment those that are righteously rejected, where there is no remission, when God says gegone, It is done; and without are whoremongers, and all who love and make a lie. Hades is not Gehenna, and Gehenna in the New Testament is never used as the Valley of Hinnom. The proper English word is "hell"; that is, the place where pure evil, if such a phrase may be used, meets its final doom, after restoring means (even to God's giving His own Son, and beseeching men to be reconciled) are exhausted, and where the effect of judgment remains unquenched.

Canon Farrar is wrong in saying 'everlasting' should not be used: no other word but that, or an equivalent one, would give the sense of what is not pros kairon for a time, or temporal. He is wrong in saying "damnation" should disappear, though it is used with uncertainty of meaning in the English version; nor is the mere word what is really in question, but what it is now used for — full and final condemnation; and this is used and contrasted with partial judgment.

134 Finally, "hell" is the only true English word, as usually employed, which answers to the word Gehenna in the New Testament. With great and boasting pretension to knowledge, and a conscientiousness which the spirits of the dead are to be witnesses of "perhaps," I find (in the report given in a weekly journal, which is all I can speak of) ignorance as to the use of language in the New Testament, or, if it be not that, a want of conscience in the solemn things of God.

Natural and Supernatural

J. N. Darby.

<31005E> 135

"Natural" is that system or kosmos in which we are placed, and which follows constant natural laws; and therewith man's agency, placed in that system, and in power over the lower part of it, according to his measure — a sphere whose laws are the subject of man's will, and in which he disposes of their agencies in this lower world. "Supernatural" is a power which in its activity is above and beyond that system. It may use the ordinary powers of nature; miracle does not consist in acting without them; but if it use them, they are not set in activity by the sequence of natural law, but by the will of the supernatural power, and by it directly. I light a fire, and produce steam from water; but here it is not the simple fiat of power that heat should be of itself; I produce it by natural laws on which I am dependent. God may by an east wind blow and drive back the Red Sea, or bring quails; but He causes the wind to blow where He will: this I cannot do. If Satan can do it as permitted, it may be supernatural also, but this is limited. God may order things so that we may fall under the effect of natural causes; but this, though divine ordering, is not a miracle, though equally divine power; it belongs to another sphere, the relationship between man and God. It is not in the sphere of natural causes, acting above or beyond them, to produce effects in that sphere.

But then, as to miracles, and the idea of making them the result of natural causes, in a sphere of which much is yet unknown to us, Christianity rests on the truth of resurrection, which is certainly not according to the course of nature. And of this the Duke of Argyll can only say, Why should it seem incredible to you that God can raise the dead? No doubt God can, and He has raised Christ Himself. But that is shirking the question.

But besides, to a man lame or blind from his birth a word heals or gives sight. This is not the unknown course of nature, unless you make God's power (which is to Him the course of nature and will, in which He does what pleases Him in heaven and earth) to be the course of nature. But a word, and the word of a man, doing this is not the course of nature, save what is natural to God. To talk of it as such is to make the course of nature and fixed laws mean nothing. It is God's nature in goodness and power, if you will, but acting in sovereign goodness; for love, though His nature, is in its operation sovereign, and, if it acts according to laws, they are moral laws, the laws of His own nature. That word commands the agencies of the physical laws as in the lame or blind, and they then produce their natural effect. But in that word of command is the power of the miracle, according to the centurion's faith; "Speak the word [logo], and my servant shall be healed." Natural action was restored, but by direct power.

136 But this thought of God's acting according to laws involves a great fallacy from using the term in a double sense. God does act according to His nature, or, if you please, according to the laws of His nature, that is, its uniform unchangeable principles when He acts, and the manifestations of which constitute His glory. He is righteous and holy; He cannot lie, and He cannot be not Himself. His acts manifest Himself. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; but this was no physical effect of a cause operating without will in itself. God has ordered a system of cause and effect, but there is no will in it. We call its laws, established fixed laws, because the effect is uniform, regularly and always produced, though I doubt not the causa causans is always operative, and necessary to the effects. But in the acting of God, though all such acts are consistent with His nature, and must be so, it is not the cause of acting. God's will is the cause, though we readily understand His will cannot act contrary to His nature; nay, His nature may set His will in activity.

"God so loved the world, that he gave," etc. This is not a material necessity imposed apart from will in what acts; it is moral, displaying a nature by a will. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; but this does not make holiness something necessarily producing an effect, as gravity acts universally in matter. There is nothing to do with cause and effect in it. So miracles of goodness prove God's nature when wrought because He works them, but they are not always wrought as a natural consequence attached to anything. God acts. These, when they are wrought, are according to, and display, His nature: but they are not the necessary and constant effects of that nature as a producing cause. God is always such, and, if He acts, so acts as not to deny Himself — it were impossible; but He does all things according to the counsels of His own will. To confound the physical laws of the creature, always operating as constituted by the Creator, with the sovereign power who constituted that order, to whom none can say, What doest Thou? is a great moral blunder.

137 Law is a uniform course prescribed by adequate authority.

The Duke of Argyll's book is useful in the main, but as in the case of miracles, so in creation, stops short of Christian ground and truth. The things which were seen were not made of the things which do appear. In the beginning God created. That there may be proofs of progress and developed design, and of laws, and of uniformity in it, may be all true: but this does not hinder that they exist, and the law too, by the fiat of the Creator.

Science and Scripture

J. N. Darby.

<31006E> 138

It is far happier to take the word of God simply as the word of God, and have nothing to do with the infidelity of man. When in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe: and that is the true ground for the soul. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God hath made him a liar." If man does not bow to what God says now, God will shew he had enough evidence of the truth in Christ and His word, so that the rejection of it proves what he is, and he will have to bow to it in that day. "The word that I have spoken" says the Lord, "the same shall judge him in the last day."

But we all know that infidelity is rampant, and that numbers of young Christians, in houses of business and elsewhere, are beset by it; for "the unjust knoweth no shame." I send you therefore a few remarks, very brief, not going into the discussion of the subject, but merely some general principles which may help them when they have to do with it — principles which set its just limits to science.

Science is occupied in phenomena, what the perceptive mind of man can take cognisance of. It may search into these with the utmost minuteness; it may see that these are regularly governed by general laws, and from the universality of phenomena discover a general principle which acts in all of them. It sees too that certain phenomena are constantly consequences of other phenomena, so far as that, when certain phenomena occur, they are, if not hindered by some external power, followed by other phenomena which are their consequences. There are certain constant facts, and facts which flow from other facts, with (as a general rule) a regularity which constitutes a law of nature. All this science can investigate.

Doubtless there is a vast number of such facts and connections not yet discovered, and I know of no limit in principle to any discovery of the order of nature. But science can go no farther; it deals with phenomena (that is, the perceived course of nature), and cannot go beyond them. These, as ordinary and universal phenomena, can be (if science has gone so far) traced to causes which have produced them, and regularly produce them, or to some general uniform principle, such as what is called gravity; so that there are, as to the course of nature, general laws and productive causes. Still the way this is spoken of is very commonly incorrect; as if there were a succession of events. Now this is not the case in much referred to.

139 A general principle is discovered, as gravity, or the action of acids on certain other substances, or the laws of electricity. In these cases there is no succession or series of events, but either constancy in fact, as in the movements of the heavenly bodies, or, if certain substances are applied to others, uniform effects produced, and new combinations formed, and the like. This has nothing to do with a succession of productions. I do not say everything produced has proceeded from an antecedent, and this from another. It only proves that there are certain general laws which govern what exists, so that they as a rule act uniformly, or perhaps constantly. Adams or Leverrier could discover that there must be a planet in a certain place because of certain disturbances in the movements of Neptune, and there it was found.* So Kepler discovered elliptic orbits, and equal spaces in equal times, and the like: and chemistry ascertained the combination of elements in regular proportion. That is, regular and orderly (or, as they are called, general) laws of the operations of forces in what exists in the visible universe have been discovered constant in their nature. What exists moves in a regular way, or, when the occasion is there the same thing produces the same effects; not a succession of productive causes, but uniformity in the actions of each, so that we can calculate on effects if nothing hinders. But that is all. Science informs me of these general laws which govern what exists; but the things must already exist so to act.

{*Though, it seems, there is a satellite of Uranus which goes contrary to the uniform direction of the solar system; I am not aware that it has been accounted for; but if not, I dare say it may be.}

Science can go no farther than the phenomena, and consists in generalising them under a uniform law. But, before the course which existing things follow, the things must exist which follow that course, though that course may have begun with their existence; and no doubt they did. But that course only is the subject of science, its general principle as a fixed law. The existence, and probably the law it follows, is there before the researches of science can begin, and the laws of force and phenomena when they have begun; and these only are the subject of scientific generalisation. Of existence or the source of laws which govern force and produce effects, it can tell me absolutely nothing. They are not the subject of science at all. Many, very many, know a vast deal more of science than I do. It is not my occupation, and I am willing to learn many interesting facts from them; but they cannot tell me better than I can know myself what the domain and sphere of science is. I can judge of that as well as they — perhaps better, as it is not my idol.

140 Science is occupied with phenomena, and phenomena only, and that to discover the facts and the laws which govern them; but all they search into is only the actual uniform operation, where it exists, of that whose existence is there before the inquiry could arise. They must take that for granted when they search into the laws which govern its present phenomena. Science can discover the laws of what does exist, but there it must stop; its existence they have no law for. With all respect for their skill in what mentally is very interesting, if they go beyond it they are simply sutor ultra crepidam. I suppose for some I must translate the rebuke given by the Rhodian sculptor to the cobbler who could shew that the shoe on the statue was not rightly made, and, famous by correcting the work of a renowned artist, would go farther, and judge the work, but was only the cobbler beyond his last. With the existence of the creation, or of the laws which govern it, they have nothing to do. They may investigate those laws when they exist; if they go beyond, I say, Ne sutor ultra crepidam.

But what they have discovered leads me to another point which they have obscured by their studies and constant occupation with secondary causes, and which is much more simply and clearly apprehended by unscientific minds. If a man of science met a peasant with his cart, and tried to prove the cart had not been made, he would bring Bedlam, not science, into the poor man's mind. He might explain the curves produced by a fly on the periphery of the wheel as it turned, what the principles of the pressure of weight on the parts of the cart were, and the plane of draught, how far equal wheels affected the draught, and much more. Nay, he might explain to him how the stimulus of the whip applied to the horse behind set the centripetal nerves to produce an effect on the cells, or combination of cells, in the horse's brain, and by some unknown reflex action set the motor efferent fibres in activity, so as to act on his hind heels, and even his fore-legs, at the same time, to move the cart. Still my poor carter would believe his cart had a maker, and was made with a particular design to carry manure or corn, as the case might be; nay, perhaps, in his ignorance, that, though born of a cart mare, the horse was made too, and would fancy, poor ignorant man with a whip in his hand, that it was made for him to have dominion over; nor would he be much in the wrong.

141 But I must turn to the direct point. A succession of produced facts they have not. They have uniform and universal continuance of force, operating in a constant way as a general rule, though perhaps not absolutely universal, as gaseous molecules or the satellite of Uranus, but enough to give a general fixed phenomenal law, and uniform effects of certain chemical substances; but this knowledge of phenomena brings out the principle of causation. Thus Mr. Mill says, "All phenomena, without exception, which begin to exist, that is, all except primeval causes, are effects either immediate or remote of those primitive facts, or of some combination of them." This science has no right to say. It can only say, This is the case in all the course of material nature which we have examined; and, as an induction, we reckon on it elsewhere when the same cause is in operation, or from the same effect conclude to a similar cause. Nothing more.

But the principle of causation, intuitively believed in men's minds, so that he cannot think of beginning to be without it, is established scientifically as necessary to material existence, and the course of nature in what begins, by the infidel himself. He cannot think otherwise. As a scientific induction, then, it is necessary to the first existence of material existence and fixed laws. That is, I have a creative power. It is true that this leads me to self-existence, which, for the very same reason, I cannot understand, because it does exist without being caused. But this is merely saying man cannot understand what is beyond him. Of course he cannot, or he would not be man, that is, a finite creature.

That is, science must stop in — what belongs to it — the course and order of the kosmos, or ordered universe, and in its nature cannot go beyond it. It knows there must be a primeval or primitive cause for everything; for everything in its sphere is the effect of a cause, and, it asserts, must be. If so, material existence itself must be, and the fixed laws also. As to what and how that primeval cause is (which is not caused, or it is not primeval), it cannot tell. Of course it cannot; nor do I blame it. It is in the nature of things. But ignorance is no ground — I should say no valid ground; for ignorance is very fond of asserting — no valid ground of asserting. That is, science assures me from what it does know that there must be a primeval cause of the existence of what it searches into; but it is, and must be, wholly ignorant of that cause — cannot conceive it: it is not in its sphere of knowledge.

142 As to change of species, I must say, though I cannot enter into it here, there is no ground for asserting it. Mummies and geology all give us the same continuous species, as has been fully shewn, and no passing from one to another. Facts fail the assertors of it; and facts only are of any worth here. And as to evolutionism, while within the same species there is clearly development from the sperm to the plant, from the ovum to the full-grown creature, species appear perfect in starting, though in the kind of creature there is, as a general rule, progress up to man himself. And, so far from the stronger driving out the weaker during the subsistence of a race, the stronger are those that disappear.

Infidelity would exclude a Creator. Its will is in its thought. Mr. Mill talks of primeval causes, primitive facts, collocation of permanent causes;* but this only proves that he was forced to come to what was primitive and permanent, what exists of itself. Another tells us we are compelled to admit a primordial cause or causes, of whose nature logic and science can tell us nothing. "Thus we are conducted to a blank wall by a method which is wholly powerless to penetrate the mystery which lies behind." He adds, "This we may call logical or negative atheism." Now I understand this; for this author, though an evolutionist, does not deny revelation, but avows himself a Christian; but it is not correct, because it pretends to think of what is beyond the blank wall, when it knows and sees nothing. It has no negative right even, but only to say, I do not know — it is not in the sphere of my knowledge; I am simply ignorant, and leave it to intuition and revelation, where all is plain. Indeed we may go farther, because the mind of man does conclude there must be a cause, nature.

{*Afterwards in a wretched way he admitted one, and materials to hand, with a bungling result.}

143 It is a very simple principle, that the mind of man cannot go beyond the mind of man, or it ceases to be such; that it cannot reach God so as to know and grasp what He is. If he could, God is not God, or man not man. Cicero's subjecta veritas quasi materia can never take in God. It puts God and man wholly out of their place, and though in an innate sense there is a God remains, it is a fact that man by his own power has never known Him. His highest reach is an "unknown God." With conscience it is another matter; but that is not science. As to this it is clear, fixed laws cannot account for existence, for the things must exist to have the laws attached to them. They are forced to recognise causation; man does so necessarily, and that leads up to a first cause, but it is not science. This may occupy itself with fixed laws, but the laws were fixed somehow before it began its work. What they are when they exist, science may ascertain, but no more.

Christ on the Cross

Psalm 22

J. N. Darby.

<31007E> 144

The more closely we look at the Lord Jesus on earth, at His path here, and at what He met with in that path, the more we see the terrible alienation of men's hearts from God; and the more too we see the blessing of the fact that the Son of God has been in this world, and has passed out of it by death.

This is a great fact, and there is none like it — not creation even. There is no fact so great as that of the Word being made flesh, and dwelling among us, and after all being utterly and wholly rejected, for Satan is the prince and god of this world, who exercised his terror on those who followed the Lord, and his full power on the world at large.

But everyone must see that such a thing could not have happened without God's mind. Christ could not have gone down to death had God not permitted it; as He said Himself, He could pray to His Father, and He would send Him twelve legions of angels; or He could have wrought a miracle and delivered Himself; or walked away in Gethsemane when all fell to the ground. But He did not come into this world for that; neither did He come into the world simply to go out of it as rejected. When we see Him dying, we cannot but see that there was some thought and intention which could only be made good through that death. Why should He go down into death and judgment if those to be saved were not there? Thus, seeing Him there, we get the condition of those about whom He came. Thus too we see One going down into that place, and rising out of it, so that the whole power of the evil which He is come to set aside is annulled; and in this too we see His divine perfection — His perfect love. He had come to attract men's hearts; but, as He says, for His love He got hatred. Man would not have Him, and He goes on to the cross; and God, in all He is against sin and in His divine wisdom, was glorified in the death of Jesus.

It is this we are a little to weigh in this Psalm, which the Lord Himself quoted on the cross. The Lord here not only takes up the central truth that He was forsaken of God, but that His path on earth led to this — all the circumstances through which He passed; and all testified to the truth of the condition the world was in. All along for His love He got hatred; but this did not hinder the love, it only led to its full expression. And, as nothing but the cross shews out so completely the state the heart of man was in, so there only can we bear to look evil in the face — only in that cross in which I see sin and evil fully manifested, and yet perfect divine grace meeting it.

145 First see the blessed character in which the Lord visits the world. Certain truths may be learned elsewhere, such as creation and providence, but not judgment in righteousness, at least not until the end, and then it will be learned in the destruction of the wicked. This was what Job found so hard to understand — how those who did evil prospered, whilst the righteous were persecuted. This is just because the time of judgment is not come; the time of mercy is now going on, and we cannot have mercy and judgment at once. So all is a riddle now. There is too much of badness for man to be able to think that things are of God; and too much of goodness, even amidst all the ruin and wretchedness, for him to see how it is not of God. Men try to get over it, and to be indifferent to it; but there is too much even for selfishness itself not to see it. However favourable exterior circumstances may, for a few, partially remedy things, we must see that, taken as a whole, there is but ruin and wretchedness in the world.

But when Christ comes, I find perfect goodness in the midst of this scene of confusion, where there is the power of evil and suffering and sorrow. It is quite another thing from all that went before, though prophets and the like testified of it; but what I see in Christ is God Himself manifesting goodness —  of course manifesting men's hearts too — in the midst of evil and sorrow, and profiting by them to do it, and that in order to win men's hearts back to Himself. Government there is, and judgment there will be: that is the necessity of God's nature, for God cannot allow evil to go on for ever; but Christ's coming was to get back man's confidence in God by the presentation of goodness.

Satan had made man distrust God, saying, If you do what I bid you, you will be like God. Christ came to make us really so, and presented Himself to every sorrow and to the worst of sinners, saying, Can you trust God? Do not say you are too bad; I have come because you are bad. Do not say you are too wretched; I have come because you are wretched. Do not say the evil is too great; there is nothing so great as God. And, where this voice is heard, we see the sinner comes to Him, weeping — and it is all right to weep about sins — but confiding in this love which can be trusted, when nowhere else can the heart turn and confide.

146 That is what the Lord was. If any pretended to be good, He unmasked them. If any pretended to be above the evil, He shewed what they were, as He said, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" They were "whited sepulchres," He says. But there is always perfect grace for the sinner, as we see in the case of the woman they brought to Him. No doubt her guilt was great, and her sin horrid, and stoning justly deserved; but who is going to stone her? He detects all hearts. Though "love," He is "light," and it is impossible that any sinful heart can stand before Him. If they try it is only to have the veil drawn off as only God can draw it, and they must confess their guilt; one word of His reaches the conscience, as the woman of Samaria says, "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did."

We must be before God according to what we really are: the effect of the light is to do this; and, when what we are is brought out, it is met by perfect love in the goodness of God. There is no hardness there. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Christ was the manifestation of that goodness which never could be wearied — never could be irritated — never could fail in meeting sorrow — that goodness which had come to meet the badness.

We know that the world could not stand it. The Pharisee was too proud to receive it. The world cast out His name as evil; and at length, restraint having been taken away, and His hour being come, He gives Himself up. And now it is said to the world, "Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain," He, of course, being delivered to this by the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God."

But oh, beloved friends, what a fact! To think of the idleness of the human heart! That God should have been in this world, and that man should have turned Him out, and that then man can go away and amuse himself! It is hatred to Christ at the bottom, or despising Him; but it is covered up with pleasures, amusements, vanity, anything. Man can go on amusing himself in a world which has rejected God! Still God has not given up His purpose; He is still calling out a people to His name.

See how, in this Psalm, everything brings out the state of the world. Look at all the circumstances which surround the Lord; every man is in his place. "Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round" — that is, violence. As to His friends, they run away. Of His disciples, one denies, and the other betrays. Pilate washes his hands when about to shed the blood of an innocent man. The Jews say, "His blood be on us, and on our children," as we know it is to this day. The high priest, who is there to intercede for those who are ignorant and out of the way, gives his voice against the innocent. All testifies to the moral darkness of the world. Some we know were beating their breasts with human feeling at what was going on, and the centurion gave a perfect testimony that this was the Son of God; but the world would none of Him. Still He was condemned in both cases on His own testimony to the truth; and then went on in perfect meekness to the cross.

147 If we look too at Gethsemane, when He was in an agony His disciples were sleeping. And, when the men come to take Him, He has not a thought for Himself; it is, "If ye seek me, let these go their way." He puts Himself forward — stands in the gap — and then the disciples all run away. All the circumstances testified to what was in the world, and He perfect through it all. And in this Psalm He, as it were, rehearses it all, and His own sorrow and suffering in the midst of it.

But these were, however deep and real, external, and from man. From these He turns to God. And here the proper subject of the Psalm and His unfathomable suffering is found; He looks to God in the trials, and there was no comfort in the cup He had to drink. "Be not far from me, for trouble is near." Then, sorrows pressing Him still more closely, He says again, "Be not thou far from me, O Lord." Still as yet they were but the outward pressure from the hand of man. He was not stopped by them. He was going on through them to the cup which His Father was going to put into His hand; and there He met that which made Him cry out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" "Our fathers trusted in thee; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. But I am a worm, and no man." So deep and terrible was the cup of judgment against sin!

It is this we are brought to through the circumstances which surrounded Him. Christ was in the world, and His being there shewed out what man was. For His love He had hatred; and this is just as true of Him now. It is then that His love sets about its proper work: not to express what we are, but to put it away. Bringing out and manifesting what we are by itself, had it been possible, would have driven us to despair, but never could have done us any good without the work that brings us back to Himself, and makes us happy to be there.

148 Beloved friends, we must not deceive ourselves. They who seek pleasures and the like do not care to hear about Christ. Christ is not here now for you to put out your hand to crucify Him again; but the world that did it is not one bit changed. The world does not like to have Christ pressed upon it, and the carnal mind knows that it is so. What is the effect on man naturally when Christ is pressed upon him? He does not like it. What could he say of all his thoughts, and feelings, and inclinations, if God were in the room and all were manifested? Bring Christ into any drawing-room in this country — not to speak of wicked places — and what is the effect? All is spoiled if God be there; and the reason is that, where man finds his pleasures, he cannot have God. Suppose you could take a natural man to heaven; what would he do there? There is nothing there which it would be possible for him to enjoy, and he would only wish to get out of it as fast as possible. This is all that it would come to: if God is brought where our pleasure is, it spoils all; and if it were possible for us to be taken where He is, we could not stay. And yet man is amusing himself, and that in the place where Christ was crucified! It is all well till judgment or death come; and then he finds that he has been walking in a vain show, and has disquieted himself in vain.

I find then the perfectness of the love of the Saviour. His rejection only served as a means of expressing His love still further. Mark the reality of this expression as meeting all our case. Were we lying in death? He puts Himself into it. Did we deserve the cup of wrath? He takes and drinks it. Was all the power of Satan against us? He goes into it and breaks it. Christ does not say, You come to Me properly, and then I will help you. No; He comes down into it all; He does not seek to escape; He does not turn away from the insults and violence of men, but, through them all, He offers Himself without spot to God.

When I see God's love and purpose in dealing with sin in death and judgment — when I see this blessed One there — then I get this truth, that God has been occupied about sin in grace. When I see this blessed One putting Himself in such a place as this, I see that the whole question is brought before God and dealt with by Him in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it is not as when God deals with us here, full of mercy and tender compassion for our infirmities; there was no mercy for Christ — no screen to hide and spare Him. He was the one divine Person capable of bearing all the weight of that burden, and willing to do so; and He did it.

149 And oh, what a spectacle it was! If God were to sweep away all in judgment, righteousness might be seen, but there would be no love; if He were to receive all passing over sin, there would be no righteousness. But, when Christ takes our place on the cross, we get divine righteousness against sin as nowhere else, yet infinite divine love to the sinner. Here all that God is was perfectly glorified, where sin was perfectly manifested, but where the Lord accomplished the work which put away sin.

Then we find in this Psalm that the Lord is heard in His cry. He says, "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns"; when the cup was drunk, and He had been, so to speak, transpierced by them, His resurrection was the public testimony that He was heard. But, even before He died, we find Him peacefully saying "Father — " "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." He did not die from weakness; He gave up His spirit. We have thus the whole question of sin finished and settled; and, if not settled then, never to be. It may be in eternal judgment, if this great salvation be despised, but no more settling the question of sin with God. If settled then, it is perfectly settled — settled according to the perfectness of the divine nature, according to the holiness of God, and settled for eternity. Christ, having cried out to God in the place where He drank the cup of wrath, was heard; and His resurrection is the testimony that He was.

But remark another thing, and that is, the constancy of His love. Opposition does not stop it; through everything He goes on with His love. You cannot find a want that does not find grace in Him; you cannot find a sinner such that he does not meet grace for his deepest need. No power of Satan, no heartbreaking through the heartlessness of man, nor quailing before his wickedness could stop it. It only shewed out His love the more, the more opposition it met with. And He had no motive to go on but that love that was in Himself, and perfect obedience.

150 Then He says: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee." What name? The name of His Father and God; the name of the One with whom He had found unclouded favour, sin having been put away. He is in the presence of one of infinite holiness; He had known and felt His power against sin; and now He gets back as man into the enjoyment of His own blessedness, not simply as the eternal Son of God before the world was, but as Son of man. He enters as having wrought the work, and now He says, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." So, when He rose, He said, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God." He had never called them that before. Now He puts them in the place He had acquired for them. He had wrought the needed work, and now He takes His disciples into the relationship He Himself was in with God, in virtue of what He had done; for, what He had done, He had done for them, and that is where He sets them.

Thus we see what this salvation is, if our souls get into the truth of what that love was which made Him go down into the dust of death when all the power and malice of evil burst out against Him. God met Him with righteous judgment against sin when made sin for us. And then see how He glorified God about it, and understand that He, the forsaken One, got back into the full unclouded light. Then I say, There I am; for He has said, I go to my Father and your Father. I have taken your place, and wrought the work that was needed to bring you to God. You are made the righteousness of God in me, for I have been made sin for you. His first thought is, when heard, "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." I must make them as happy as I am myself; I must declare thy name to them. And His love passes on, unenfeebled and undiminished, to make good the effects of His work. He says, Now you are going to be with me; and marks how we are never separate from Him. When the cup was drunk, He drank it alone, but now we are never separated from Him. He does not say, Now they may sing; but, In the midst of the assembly I will sing. He leads the praises; He declares the name in which He rejoices. How wonderful that we should be thus associated with Himself! It is a figure of course — His singing; but it tells us how He associates us with Himself in everything.

151 And how perfect this salvation is! Am I to believe this? Am I really to stand in the same relationship to the Father as He? This is what He tells me, and it is impossible that He should mislead or deceive me. If He say, "Peace I leave with you," He adds, "My peace I give unto you." He says, "That my joy might remain in you." What does perfect love do? It seeks to associate the person loved with itself in the place where it stands; and this is the way Christ blesses. It is not only that He gives "gifts"; that He does too, for our need; but He introduces us into His own happiness. He says, "That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me." That is His love — perfect — though we are such feeble vessels. He introduces us into the place on purpose that we may be with Him.

We find too, in this Psalm, that He goes on to the millennium. It is not now "Fear him" only, as we get in Revelation: but, if you fear Him you must praise Him. "Ye that fear the Lord, praise him."

Now perhaps you would like God to bear with a little sin. No; He can bear with none; He puts it all away, and then puts the best robe on us, and brings us into His house, so that our hearts can go out to Him in liberty. There is truth in the inward parts; sin looked at in the light of God and put away. What peace this gives the heart! Can you look at the cross and say, I do not know whether my sin is forgiven? You know that at the cross all was out; He was made sin there; there God dealt with it in His Person. "Once in the end of the world he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." I know the work is done, for that which He came to do He accomplished perfectly. I do not ask myself what I think of it; I know what God thinks. God has raised Him from the dead; not only accepted Him, but glorified Him as a man, in consequence of His having perfectly glorified Him about sin. Once seen, this clears away a thousand cobwebs of man's mind and invention. I shall never get another Christ to do the work, and the One who has died never can die again. Blessed be God, He has done the work, and its value never can cease so long as He is before God.

152 I may be chastened, rebuked, encouraged, and warned; the revelation of His glory may draw me on, but nothing can ever touch the righteousness of God which I am made in Christ. "If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father," and "He is the propitiation for our sins." But the righteousness is never touched; in virtue of it, instead of imputing, He is our advocate if we fail, and the soul is restored.

How perfect is this! It is hard for us to believe it, because it is hard for us to believe in such love. Do you believe that Christ has really brought you into association with Himself? He sets the tune of praise, and you are to follow Him. If you say you do not know whether He has finished the work — if you do not know that you are in perfect light and favour — you cannot sing in tune with Him: He knows well that the work is done; He knows well that He is in perfect light and favour.

I know you will find difficulties, but that is another thing. You will find a grace that reigns through righteousness. He has wrought that perfect work that we may righteously trust Him. How is it with you? Are you reconciled? Can you say that through this work you have peace with God? Naturally, we know, we like pleasure, gain, society, amusements, anything, provided it is not God. Are you reconciled to God? If so, in the midst of all our feebleness, we can fly to God. When temptations arise, where do I go? I go to the strength which is "made perfect in weakness."

It is sweet to see how the apostle, in Romans 8, applies this love of God to everything. He who has given His own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? He is for us in giving all things. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? He is for us in justifying us. He is for us, whether it be the giving on His side, or the guilt on ours. He is for us as to the trials, or the difficulties. No matter what, if God be for us, who can be against us? When trial comes, we remember that there is a rest. And, if there be a rest, it is for God's people; and, if it be for God's people, it is God's rest, and He will come and take us to it. I may send and fetch a person to me, if I do not care particularly for him; but if I think much about him, I shall go and meet him myself. So He says, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself."

Deliverance

J. N. Darby.

<31008E> 153

The Epistle to the Romans, beloved friends, takes up the Christian, if we compare one aspect of his condition with another, on the lowest ground. If for instance we take the Ephesians, there we find the Christian spoken of as "raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus"; but you never get him there in the Epistle to the Romans. Though in the end of chapter 8 it is stated that he is predestinated in God's original purpose for the glory, yet we never get him as risen and in the heavenly places, but looked at as on this earth, and of course he is. We will see now a little, with the Lord's help, how He does look at a Christian on this earth.

Now thus looked at, though not sitting with Christ, yet Christ is his life. Here am I a sinner in myself, and my flesh has got no good in it. The whole Epistle develops very fully what the Christian is, looked at in this world, and the chapter I have read treats one special part of it, and that is his positive state and standing, not his guilt; as to his guilt, it has been treated very fully up to the middle of the previous chapter.

To begin with, the apostle says he is "not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed." And then he goes on to shew why it must be God's righteousness that is revealed — simply because man has none. God's law had come and required righteousness in man, which it could not find; but the gospel comes and reveals God's righteousness, and he is not ashamed of it because it is revealed in it. He shews us the Jews under law and the Gentiles without law, and proves "every mouth stopped, and all the world guilty before God." Instead of the law making it any better for the Jews, it only proved their guilt; and as to the Gentiles, that which might have been known of God in creation left them without excuse when they went to idolatry.

He next shews us how "God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood," and applies that death to the past and the present, saying that it declared "God's righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God." God had been forbearing with them, but there had been no proof of righteousness in His forgiving them one more than another; but now on the cross it is explained. And not only this, but He is "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." There it is the present time, His righteousness is now revealed, and we stand upon the ground of this righteousness that has been revealed.

154 The place where it has been shewn and manifested is in setting Christ at God's right hand. This is a demonstration of the sin of the whole world, because it did not believe in Christ; also a demonstration of righteousness, "because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more": the Saviour they had rejected they would see no more till He came again as Judge. Thus the gospel comes and shews us that He is seated there (besides being the Son of God) in virtue of the work of the cross. There is where God's righteousness is displayed for faith to look at. I see thus the perfect love of God which sought us in this way. I had sins, but no righteousness; I have nothing but Christ to look to, and my eye rests through faith where God's eye rests; God is satisfied, and so am I through grace. I see the sins put away through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that there is no more question of sin, because my righteousness is Christ; He is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." All is perfectly settled once and for all, and I am made the righteousness of God through Christ — God's righteousness. What we rejected God accepted, and proved His righteousness thereby. All the fruit of the old man is done away, and we are in Christ accepted.

But now comes another question; not that of our sins being put away, but of our deliverance from the principle of sin. As we read, "As he is, so are we in this world." On the ground of what we are by faith all our sins are put away; but then comes the power of sin — this evil nature — what is in me, not what I have done. But can I in this world say that I am delivered from sin? that I am made free from sin?

Now this word "free" is often abused in English; it has two meanings. It is not here used in the sense that there is none in us, as I would say, "That horse is 'free' from vice"; but it is in contrast to the word "captive." It means we are not captive to sin. He takes up the question of law as he took up the question of righteousness. Man had not made out righteousness either with law or without it; then God gave him Christ to be his righteousness. Now the question is whether, we having thus got righteousness, the law can deliver us.

155 Well, in chapter 8 it says, "What the law could not do." It is not guilt now, but the flesh is not subject, neither can be. He means it has a will of its own. We know we have a will of our own. Now a will of our own is the principle of sin: whenever I have got a will of my own, there is sin — self-will, just the same as Eve when she would go and eat the fruit. The law thwarted the acting of will, of course; it was "holy, and just, and good," so it must; but it did not take away, nor did it alter sin; but "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh": the law of course had nothing to do with that.

There are three things the law could not do: it could not give life, and, even supposing we got life, it does not give strength; and, another thing of the deepest moment for our souls, it does not give an object. But in Christ I find my life, my strength, and my object. "They that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit"; they have the true object. I get in Christ an object that is sufficient to delight God Himself.

For the fact of life will not do; we must have it, of course, but that is not sufficient. The old man is here yet: there are lusts. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be"; therefore the law instead of delivering me brings me into captivity. It is just what we get in Romans 7. Suppose a man quickened in this world, what will be the effect of the law upon him? It will give him the knowledge of sin; "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." Yet "the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good"; but it did not give anything of what we want; it was only the rule outside it, and gave us nothing to enable us to walk up to it. Here was a man in a kind of sleepy indefinite way going on quite comfortably, a man with a good conscience; "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." When the law came, it said, "Thou shalt not covet"; but it did not take away the lust; and he found at once another law warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin. There was no deliverance. God allowed him to use every kind of effort to get the victory; but it all only went to prove not simply that he was guilty, and that he had an evil nature, but that besides this he had no strength; and that is an exceedingly miserable condition.

156 If we were to tell the world that they had no strength, they would say, Why, there is an end to all morality! Even a child has faith in its own powers; it says, Oh, I will be good tomorrow! But I say, I am going to punish you to-day — for what you are now! And this lesson of no strength is a great deal a more humbling one to learn than that of the fact that certain sins have been done in some past time of my life. It raises the question, not of what I was before I knew Christ, but of what I am now that I do. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God"; but the effort made to do so is very useful in this way, that it brings us to the discovery of what we are. If you have found this out, you have found out what Paul did: "to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not."

But now is there no deliverance? Of course there is — positive deliverance!

As I have been saying, the apostle shews us, besides the question of guilt, the question of state. I have been seeing what the state of bondage is of a renewed man under law, in contrast to the state of a renewed man knowing what it is to be risen with Christ. We are united to Christ risen, and, being thus, He brings in, not the death of the law, but our death. So that I have not got to hunt up things in my heart to see whether evil is present with me; this would be law, and the law cannot help me at all; but I have got Christ as my life, Christ risen and glorified too; and I am past death and raised up, though I do not go on to glory here, because it is a man here walking on the earth. I have got Christ to be my life, not Adam; I am not alive to God at all as born of Adam; we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us." When I stood as a child of Adam before God, the law i! was applied to me on that footing. I have not got what meets it. As long therefore as I am in the flesh, I cannot meet God or please God, and I never can get free or happy with God. So much the better, that I may find it out.

157 Now the flesh never changes; "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." When man fell, the world got so awfully bad that God had to destroy it; when God's Son came into the world, they crucified Him; when the Spirit came, the flesh lusted against it; and when it has gone into the third heavens, it puffs a man up — if there were a fourth heaven, it would only puff him up more: that is the end of it!

But there is deliverance! If there were not, I would not speak of it. Then where is it? In death! It is when Christ has died and has risen that He becomes the power of life in me; but in itself this does not put away the flesh. There is nothing for it but what is added: "God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh"; there is no pardon, no taking it away, nothing but absolutely condemning it. If I take the cross, the highest act of grace, I find that there God condemned sin in the flesh.

But then, beloved friends, this condemnation of sin in the flesh, what was it in? I cannot get away from this evil nature, and Satan too is against me. But Satan is nothing to the new man! Only "resist the devil, and he will flee from you"; but he is everything for the flesh, of course! The world is just a great system that the devil has built up round man to keep him easy without God. It began at once with Cain; he goes out from the presence of the Lord, and what is he to do? He builds himself a city in the land of the vagabond. God never made the world as we see it; of this world Satan is the prince. Cain built his city so as to be comfortable in the world; and there were the artificers of brass and iron, and there he gets Jubal with his music, and he calls the city by the name of his son, and there we see all the conveniences of life, and harps, and organs, and then people ask, What is the harm of brass or iron, of harps or organs? None! I do not say there is any harm in music and instruments; but this I say, there was a great deal of harm in his making himself comfortable in them without God. We have got capacities for music and art and so on, and people take pains to amuse themselves with them because there is a famine in the land.

I find in the cross of Christ "the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world"; I find sin and the flesh condemned there. Condemned in what? In death! If the law condemned sin in the flesh, it only got to the lust; it was the ministration of death, and ministers condemnation. But what I get in Christ is death — the death of the old man. In His sacrifice I get death: He has not only been crucified for my sins, but I have been crucified with Him. Whilst He has become my life, His death is as available for the old man as His life is for the new. He not only died for our sins, but He died unto sin once; "in that he died, he died unto sin once"; not that He had any for Himself, but that He put Himself there for us; and then "likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord"; I have the full power of life.

158 "God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." I find sin a grief to my heart. Now, God condemned it in Christ on the cross; and as a believer I have death to sin just as much as I have condemnation for sins all gone. "He died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Well, now, that is where it comes out! — I cannot win the victory! But God is teaching me the whole thing is settled; it is, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is not simply that the old man is not there — that is not deliverance; nor that the combat is not there: but do you think it is the same thing if I am struggling with a man and I get him down with my knee on his chest, or if the man gets me down with his knee on mine? If I combat with Christ for me, I get my knee on him. Of course there must be combat, but meanwhile I am not saying I am captive to the law of sin, whereas what we see in Romans 7 is a man who is: his soul is all right, but he cannot do it.

I get in the death of Christ this testimony, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God"; and as to ourselves, we are to be "always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." I am thus set free. It is not that flesh is not there; it was in Paul, but he had the thorn in the flesh to buffet him; he got it to keep something down. Well, that proved it was there; the thorn kept it down so that it did not shew itself, but still it was there. If you fancy it is not there you lower your standard; but there is no reason why you should ever for one single instant let the flesh stir or shew itself. And what has brought you to this is death; of course, you must have life for it, or else you would be dead to everything.

159 Now, you are never called to die to sin, because the old man has died in Christ and the new man cannot die. Have not you been baptised to death? Then how can you live on in sin if you are dead to it? Are you dead? And where? In the death of Christ. It is always a past thing; there is no such thought in Scripture as our dying; it is we "are dead." You have never any death for the old man but that of Christ on the cross. What faith gets hold of is this; I have died in Christ; then I am free. Therefore mark, beloved friends, what he says: "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" He brings in death instead of the law; he puts the flesh to death, to faith, of course; he does not look for fruit from it; but he comes and kills the tree and puts another in its place, and that is Christ, and says, "Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace"; I am now free!

Well, you are free; and what are you going to do? Are you going to give yourself back to sin again? Why, "yield yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead." Of course He does not come and say this to unconverted men; but, the moment a man calls himself a Christian, I say, Now you are alive and free; to whom are you going to give yourself?

One word more. It is of great importance to grasp this complete redemption — the death and resurrection of Christ Himself become the power of life to us, so that we can reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God. "What fruit had you in those things?" But now, he says, you have fruit — fruit to holiness down here; you walk in a path that you know has beauties — positive fruit of holiness in this world, and "the end, everlasting life."

But, I repeat, in this epistle you are perfectly in the world, and how are you to get power? Through death. Suppose for a moment that I always held myself dead, there would not be a movement — not a lust; therefore, John, speaking of it in an abstract way, says, "He that is born of God doth not commit sin." It is just as if all sorts of evil things were outside in my passage, and the danger lay in my opening the door and letting them creep in; you will find all these evil things in your room if you do not watch. What we are called upon to do is, not to die, but to put to death; "Mortify your members that are upon the earth"; that is, I have power to do it, so I am to put them to death. Christ is my power, of course.

160 But, now, are you content to be dead? Or would you like to spare some of your flesh? Are you content to have no more of the world than a dead man has? Constantly we shall find we have little chambers in our hearts that we do not like to open to God; we go on in our prayers until we come to that, and then we stop, and then God has to break the door open in some rude way. Practically you are saying, I would sooner have this idol than God; not in your soul, of course, or you would not be a Christian. But now, supposing you have not anything kept back from God, have you taken this ground with Him that you are practically dead? It is not perfection, because I know no perfection but Christ glorified. The only perfection that is before a Christian is conformity to Him in glory, and I am never satisfied until I am with Him in that glory. But are you free? Have you got real deliverance? "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The first thing we want is forgiveness; but the second thing we want is deliverance, and it is there for us. I have my eye on that Man in the glory; I am going to be like Him; it is there I get the object that is before my soul.

"God for us"

Romans 8: 26-39

J. N. Darby.

<31009E> 161

This is the only passage in the epistle to the Romans that speaks of the purposes and counsels of God. The epistle takes up the responsibility of man, shewing how grace has met it in the cross of Christ, and ends with exhortations founded upon this. Man is looked at as alive here on the earth, though justified, with Christ his life, and so dead to sin, and hence exhorted to yield himself to God as free. But in this one passage, which closes the doctrinal part of the epistle, the apostle gives us God's purposes.

In the previous part of the chapter he speaks of "no condemnation," of that which has been wrought out for us through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is not merely forgiveness and the clearing us of all our sins, it is positive deliverance from the power of sin in our Adam standing; it is not merely that which met the righteous judgment of God, but that which delivers us and brings us in Christ into a new place. And to this is added the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, who first "bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God"; and, secondly, "helps" us as we pass along the road, "making intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered."

We are not in the flesh as to our standing before God, but our bodies are yet under the effect of sin, and being in the body "we groan within ourselves." Everything around us is in a state of confusion and corruption; we are redeemed in the midst of it, but we wait for the adoption, the redemption of the body.

The Christian, having thus the redemption of his sins, and the earnest and comfort of the Spirit, goes on to learn that God is for him. We do not know what to pray for as we ought. We have spiritual desires of good, and the sense of evil around us, though our intelligence is not clear enough; but He makes intercession in us according to God. We do not know what is the best thing to ask for: some things cannot be remedied till the Lord come; but, whilst we do not know what to ask for, we do know that "all things work together for good to them that love God." On this we can reckon with unfailing assurance.

Job is a wonderful book in this way. There we are given to see how these divine dealings are carried on. The throne of God is set up, and the sons of God come in before Him, and Satan goes in too. Then come God's thoughts about His servant; "for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him." But we must wait God's time, and then we see "the end of the Lord," for God was looking on all the while.

162 It began, note, with God. He says to Satan, "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man?" God had considered him. Satan says, Well, You have made a hedge about him, so why should he- not fear You? Then God lets Satan loose at him. He lets him take all that he has, his servants are killed, his children too afterwards, his fortune gone; and Job says, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Then Satan says, Skin for skin, a man will give anything he has for his life! Then God says, You can have his body, but not his life. So Satan smites him with sore boils, so that he becomes both wretched, and the derision of his neighbours. His wife wants him to curse God and die, but in all this Job sins not; he has "received good at the hands of the Lord and shall not he receive evil?" So that I get this fact: all that Satan did against Job entirely failed, save that it entirely cleared him from Satan's accusation and the charge of hypocrisy. All that Satan could do he did, but could do no more than he was allowed to do.

But now we see how God was watching over Job. Job was full of himself. He was doing blessedly, but he was thinking of it too. Supposing God had stopped short here, what would have been the effect of it? Why Job would have said: Well, I was gracious in prosperity, and now I have been patient in adversity; and he would have been worse than ever. God had justified him from Satan's accusations, and his suffering had only prepared the way for closer dealings of God.

Job's friends come and tell him that he must be a wicked man, or such things would not have befallen him; that this world was an adequate witness of the government of God. Whether his pride was hurt by his friends, or whether it was their sympathy broke down his spirit, as sympathy often does, I cannot say; but now Job broke down utterly, and cursed the day when he was born. It brought the flesh out. The loss of the cattle and all that, had been nothing, but now the latent evil is laid bare. Still his faith recognises the good in God, though his flesh breaks sadly out. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." So he says, If I could find God, He would not be like you. But his friends' work was done now.

163 Then Elihu comes and takes the ground of special providence in God's dealings with His people. He says, Take heed lest God does not take you away with a stroke. But when God comes in, Job says, not "when the eye saw me, it blessed me," but, "now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes." He knows himself in God's sight. And all that Satan has done was merely as the instrument preparing for the work that God was going to do.

Thus we get an exhibition of God's ways. This world is not now an adequate witness of God's government. On great occasions it may be sometimes seen, and indeed, if we have eyes, in small. At the flood it was; and at the destruction of Jerusalem Israel was made to taste it. But, even now, God has the upper hand, and makes everything work together for good. In the book of Job we are let behind the scenes. We see God teaching the man's own heart what was in it, giving him to feel his utter nothingness, and outward blessing followed. For such was the character of blessing as known in that day in the way of government.

The apostle looks beyond all this discipline — beyond the ways of God on the road, which are only the instruments to work out His purpose. It is Satan's world in a certain sense, though he cannot take things out of God's hand. He could go to the Chaldeans and say, Take the cattle; and how little they knew they were doing God's will all the time, and that the hand of God was in it! They are all the ways of God with a view to His purpose, making everything work together for good, "for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." That is His purpose, and we are even now nigh enough to see and trace His hand — anyhow we shall see it soon, if we do not now.

He goes through the whole course of God's sovereign purpose till it lands us in the glory. It is well to notice that predestination is always to something; it is not the persons merely, but He has predestinated them to something. Then He closes it all in with, "What shall we say to these things? If God be for us who can be against us?" Not only am I cleansed so that I can stand before God, but I get this immense truth — God is for me. As, by Christ, I believe in God, my heart knows that God is for me in everything; "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." The heart, in looking at God, can say as to every circumstance of the way, "God is for me." I may not always like what He does, but He is always for me. "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground," not without God merely, but "without your Father."

164 Job says, "Blessed be the name of the Lord," and it is lovely to see his patience and submission. But the apostle goes farther. It is another thing to "glory in tribulation." It is one thing to say, He is wise and good, and another to say, He is for me.

Another point, too, I would notice. When the Holy Ghost reasons with man, He does not reason from what man is for God, but from what God is to man. Souls reason from what they are in themselves as to whether God can accept them. No, I say, He cannot accept you thus; you are looking for righteousness in yourself as a ground of acceptance with Him. You cannot get peace whilst reasoning in that way, and I should be very sorry if you could. But "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He loved us from no motive at all but what was found in His own grace. We do not know Him. The prodigal did not know his father till his father was on his neck kissing him. He was reasoning from what he was, and not from what his father was, as to how he would receive him.

The Holy Ghost always reasons down from what God is, and this produces a total change in my soul. It is not that I abhor my sins; indeed I may have been walking very well; but it is "I abhor myself." This is how the Holy Ghost reasons; He shews us what we are, and that is one reason why He often seems to be very hard and does not give peace to the soul, as we are not relieved till we experimentally, from our hearts, acknowledge what we are. As in the case of the SyroPhenician woman, the Lord does not seem to listen, and so He goes on until she owns that she has no title to anything, that she has no more claim through promise than through righteousness, till she only pleads that there is enough goodness in God to give her what she has no right to; and Christ cannot say that there is not.

165 Until the soul comes to that point He does not give it peace — He could not; it would be but healing the wound slightly; The soul has to go on until it finds there is nothing to rest on but the abstract goodness of God; and then "If God be for us, who can be against us?" There are three things here in which He is for us: God is for us in giving; He has given the very best thing, Him who is one with Himself, His Son. If God has given His Son, surely He will give everything else. Of course He will! It is reasoning down from what God is and what God has done. I ask, Will He give me all I want? Yes, indeed; and not only all I want, but He will set me in the glory, and I certainly shall not want anything there. This is the giving part. If He have given His Son, He will certainly give less things.

Well, but what about my sins? This is the very place I learn how great the love is; where I get the answer, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth." Why, it goes up to God in justifying. It is not we are justified in His sight, but He justifies. Little matter who condemns if God justify. If I look at my sins I get this great truth, that "God is for me." It is through the work of Christ I am justified, but here God is looked at as the source of it all.

It is just as in Zechariah, when Joshua stood clothed in filthy garments. Satan accuses him, and what has he to say for himself? Nothing. And who takes up his cause? The Lord Himself! And can Satan begin again after that, or put the brand in the fire which God has plucked out? God takes away the filthy garments; He replies to Satan and puts him to silence as the accuser, and that too when Israel were wretched sinners, just come out of Babylon. He says, Give him a change of garments. And so He is ever about our sins. He is first for us in giving, and then in justifying. He does not leave us in our filthy garments.

"Who is he that condemneth?" ought to be in the previous verse.

Then arises the third point: shall anything separate us from this divine love? "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God." He does not say God; we find God again lower down, but here it is Christ; and see how gracious this is. I get the love of One who has gone into all the difficulties, all the sorrows of the way. We do not know much of them, but still there are trials, and what do we get in them? Divine love. Christ has tasted it all. God is for us in them. "It is Christ that died." He has been down even into death, so I need not be afraid of that. Oh, but then He is so high up now! Well, if He be, "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." He went through all these things that try and test the heart down here, and up there He lives for us. So "who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

166 It does not say from Christ, but from His love. We certainly never shall be separated from Christ, but the point here is, that no circumstances by the way can separate us from His love. There are none that He has not been through. Perfect isolation in this world is perhaps the most trying thing a man can go through. Christ was absolutely isolated. As regards comforters here He had not one. At the very table where He told of one going to betray Him, they disputed who should be the greatest! The Holy God looks down upon us, and, in His love, counts the very hairs of our head as a Father; but here it is the love of Christ in that He has gone through the sorrows.

"Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?" More perhaps than cares; it is the cross that answers to the crown. "Or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." So the apostle had the thorn in the flesh — that which to human eyes, and to his own, was a great hindrance to his preaching, making him awkward in his ministry; but he gloried in it. The me was put down, and it paved the way for the power of Christ. It was not that he did not feel it, but he says, "I glory in infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me"; and in Romans 5, "We glory in tribulations." I have the key to it all in knowing that God is for me and that "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous"; so I can glory in it. It is more than submission. It is the apprehension of the ways of God through this world, and the knowledge that there is a perpetual care over us making everything work together for our good. Let Him work, though in trial; He wants to do me good in my latter end.

"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come nor height. nor depth, nor any other creature. shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." No suffering that can come to me through a creature can separate me from this love which is in God. It is a love which is divine in its nature, and which comes down into all my circumstances. God is thinking of me in the trial; He knows beforehand all about it. He did not pray that Satan might not sift Peter, but that Peter's faith might not fail. He had to be sifted. Why so? Because there was confidence in himself, and this must be broken down. But then there was the danger that he might despair, and go out and hang himself like Judas, and so the Lord prays for him. He must be sifted, like you and me, but it must be under God's eye that he may learn the perfect character of God's love to him in it all.

167 God is then for us in giving, for us in justifying, for us in caring for us in everything; even as with the children of Israel, He took care of their very clothes as they passed through the wilderness. God is for us through everything. If death stare me in the face, well, Christ went through it. If evil powers be against me, well, I have a love with me that has been tried, and destroyed that power. I learn in these very things the perfectness of the love of God. It comes out in the minutest circumstances, in every little detail. I come up boldly to this truth, that "If God be for us, who can be against us?" There is nothing that can make me say, I do not know whether He be for me or not. If it be difficulties and trials, I say, Well, it just shews what pains God is taking with me.

And now, beloved friends, have you got to thus thinking of God? It may not be very pleasant, but certainly not a single thing can happen to me that is not the very best thing that God can do for me. Submission is all right, but it is "In everything give thanks." Can you do that? Are you near enough to God to give thanks to Him for everything? Our wills must be broken (that is quite true); but our hearts meanwhile give thanks. We shall feel the sorrow; God does not mean that we should not; it is not insensibility; but I get this blessed truth, that He who works all things according to the counsel of His own will is the One who is for me. Then I can so trust His love, my will being broken, that I can not only bow but give thanks.

The Lord give us so to know Him that we can say, I am but a poor vile sinner, but I have learned this, that God is for me. Amen.

Sanctification

John 17

J. N. Darby.

<31010E> 168

I have it on my heart to say a few words on this chapter in reference specially to the character of sanctification.

At this moment, as we all know, the Lord was rejected. From chapter 13 we get Him speaking on this ground: "Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father." All through the Gospel, from chapter I, He is unknown to the world, and rejected by the Jews. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." But from chapter 13 He speaks as going out of the world and ascending on high.

In this chapter, however, what is brought out is, that He came forth from the Father, not from God only; and this involves "eternal life": "To know thee [the Father] the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." That is where eternal life comes in. Its character is that it is the knowledge of the Father; for the Father sent His only-begotten Son, that we might live through Him. Of course, therein we know God also, "who by him do believe in God"; but it is in the knowledge of the Father, and Jesus sent by Him, that there is eternal life. And then the character in which we know Him is that of "holy Father"; and this is sanctification. When it is a question of the world, it is "righteous Father." It is not that grace does not go out to poor sinners in the world to deliver them out of it, but that saints are not of it and have done with it.

In some places it is a current thought that Christ came into the world to connect Himself with humanity — that He united Himself to man in the incarnation — which is utter falsehood. He was a true man — in one sense more man than we are, for a perfect thing is more than a corrupt thing. The union of God with man — with humanity as it was — is wholly unscriptural; there is none before redemption. Nor is it ever said that God, or a divine Person, united Himself to us. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, true man in the flesh, but no union with us; and to maintain that there is is totally false. I refer to it, because it is very current among Christians of all shades and forms. The doctrine of Scripture is that we are united to Christ after redemption is accomplished — to a glorified Christ. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone" — entirely and totally alone.

169 We have here a most important point practically, because "the friendship of the world is enmity with God." Wherever I let the spirit and associations of the world in, I am associating myself with that which has rejected Christ. It may seem harsh, but it is not so harsh as the world rejecting Christ when He was here in grace. So the judgment of God is connected with it. He says, Righteous Father, I have manifested thee, and the world has not known thee. So when it comes to the Holy Ghost it is, "Whom the world cannot receive," because it does not know Him; it is only the believer who can. The world is a judged system, "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out." The Lord laid the foundation of an entirely new state of things, as to which He says, "holy Father." As to the world, it is said, it "hath not known thee"; and you cannot present God better to the world than Christ did.

You will find as things go on in these last days that this question will come up. Faith sees by the Holy Ghost what God's thoughts about it are, and our part is to get hold of them. When the Lord comes, it will be too late for the world; that is the day of judgment.

"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The Father has a world of His own which He has given to us, to which He has taken Christ to be the centre — the new creation. The world, as it is, rejected Christ when He came into it; and now all that is over. He came in grace: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself"; "He came unto his own and his own received him not." And now we are to walk by faith as to these things, and not by sight, for the whole thing we belong to is a new creation. "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." That is what a Christian is; and we have to keep hold of it in our walk and in our testimony. I do not know what good we are if we go along with the world that rejected Christ. It is true we have the treasure in earthen vessels, but we belong entirely to the new creation; the treasure is not in its natural associations as to its surroundings here.

It is a solemn thing to say, but it is the truth, that we are begotten by the word of God. Plenty of creatures He had before; you might call Adam a kind of firstfruits if you like; but the saints now are the firstfruits of a creation that is not manifested at all, except as they live according to it here. We have to shew it out in our bodies until Christ comes.

170 We read also, "By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." In Hebrews it is always sanctification by the blood — on the cross. There was a complete breach between God and the world, and the believer set apart to God. Here there is a double ground of sanctification, God's will and Christ's offering. And thirdly, which is the practical part of it, we get the Holy Ghost as Him who actually works it, the immediate agent of the work in us: "Elect, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." There is the communication of a new life in Christ: "He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." It is the spiritual life, of course, he is speaking of; a man has not got life at all if he have not got the Son.

But, you say, do they not all know this? No. The common doctrine is that you are born again, but this is viewed as a change of the old man. They say that you were body, soul, and spirit before, and that you are only body, soul, and spirit after, only in a changed state, and that it is an exaggeration to speak of anything more — of two natures — of any new nature added. But it is a totally new thing — Christ our life, so as even Adam, innocent, had it not. And this is really the principle of holiness. That which is born of God is a holy thing; we are "born again . . . by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever," for the word of God does abide for ever. It is a totally new thing; in the unconverted world it is not there at all; and therefore the Lord stops Nicodemus by saying, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God"; he must be born of water and the Spirit. Many, I trust, do know this, but, where there is ignorance as to it, it will work gradually out in some shape, and it makes all the difference whether I distinctly recognise that it is a new man, Christ living in me, by which I live to God.

Christ is that eternal life which was with the Father, and becomes spiritually our life; it is nothing that is in man or of man. That gives it its true character. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." We have seen eternal life in the Person of the Son come down from heaven; He was made a man; so in John we read, "The life was the light of men." It is emphatic there. It is not the life of angels. It is what you call a reciprocal proposition. That is, life and light of men answer completely to each other, and each may be affirmed of the other.

171 All that which was simple failure at the beginning came out as enmity against God's own Son when Christ was in the world. He displayed divine goodness and power, all that divine grace could be; but this manifested God, and this man would not have at any cost. He says, "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father." He was rejected in His word, and in His work, as is brought out in John 8 and 9. Thus it was not a question merely of failure and sin; there had been plenty of that before He came; it was that God Himself had been manifested in goodness before men, and because He was God they would not have Him. The world has been tested in this way, and the result is that, fallen man having been turned out of paradise, God, as far as man could do it, has been turned out of the world into which He had come in grace, when it was in the sin and ruin into which man, that was turned out of paradise, had got. And so the world will not now bear a man that is like Christ. It will bear plenty of Christians; an amiable Christian it will get on with; but a Christian is called to be faithful. Remember the Christian has two natures, and wherever he gets on with the world, it is the Christian who goes to the world, for the world cannot go to the Christian; it has only one nature.

"The carnal mind is enmity against God." Says the world, we will not have Him. So "He gave himself to deliver us from this present evil world." Thus I get the One, the Man that the world rejected, and that God delighted in; and God says, I must carry out My purposes of grace; and to Christ, Come and sit at My right hand till I carry them out. So that is where He is gone, and the world sees Him no more.

Now for the character of sanctification connected with this.

In Israel it was a little different. God was amongst them as a delivered people. He said to them, "Be ye holy, for I am holy"; I will not have you in My camp without holiness. God was there; within the veil certainly; but still He insisted upon it that they were a people whom He had taken to Himself, and that they must behave themselves as such. The veil was there unrent, "the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest"; this characterising the whole of God's dealings then with man as to the revelation of Himself. He was sitting within the veil; death to any man who came in! even the beast that touched the mount was to be stoned. God was saying, I am so holy that I cannot let any one come near Me. I will give you laws and promises, but into My presence you cannot come.

172 It is not so now. When Christ died, the veil was rent, and we have "boldness to enter into the holiest." What was was that God did not come out to man, and man could not go in to God. Keep the law, and have human righteousness, but still do not come near Me. All this closed in the rejection of Christ. What is is that the veil is rent from top to bottom, and that the only place I have to walk in is in the light as God is in the light, and if I cannot walk in the light I cannot walk with God at all. A Christian's place is not that he ought, but that he must walk in the light as God is in the light, or he cannot walk with Him, or in relationship with Him at all, for now there is no veil. We have a title to be in the holiest by the blood that brought us there, and are fit for it as cleansed from all sin, and there is no other place to walk in with God. But we reckon ourselves also dead to sin, to all that is without. This is the very thing that gives us deliverance. I am not in the flesh at all, therefore I can go in with boldness.

We then come to what this sanctification is positively. God has personally accepted man in Christ; the Son of God is in the glory. Our actual condition is never spoken of except as being in connection with the second Man in glory; our only connection with God is in Christ; we are "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." This is not a question of our responsibility; it all depends upon the finished work of the second Man; it rests upon what is done. Christ has obeyed even unto death, and is glorified. As the result of His work, we have been begotten again with the word of truth, we have been made the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and thus have a new nature. We are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

Now this new nature must have an object, and God has given it one that is not in this world at all. There is not a single thing in this world that will not unsanctify us if we go after it. Sanctification is all connected with Christ in glory. The whole thing is new: the nature, the character, the object by which we are sanctified through the Holy Ghost, is outside the world entirely. The work being fully accomplished, the Holy Ghost comes down and says, Now the world is done with, and if you do not come out of it in body, be out of it and in heaven in spirit. I have come down purposely to connect you with One outside it. The object before us is a glorified Christ; He is our life: we are "created in Christ Jesus." The believer has duties here, and is not taken out of the world; but his life is wholly connected with Christ at the right hand of God, and everything that diminishes our perception of Him there diminishes our practical sanctification here.

173 Our testimony is that the Man whom the world rejected is at God's right hand. Where the gospel begins is (not with Christ come into the world, great as was the grace and love shewn in that to win man's heart, and to which he turns to feed on with delight when saved, but) with Christ turned out of it. The world rejected Him, and God took Him up into heaven and made Him there the head of the new creation, and we are to be conformed to it. "And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." "Sons of God"; we have the title of Christ: "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God." This was never said before redemption.

And just mark how the apostle identifies us with Christ; "the world knoweth us not because it knew him not." He completely associates us with a rejected Christ down here. "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be" — we have the treasure in poor earthly vessels now; "but we know" — we are so identified with Christ — "that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" — up there in glory. We shall never see Him as He was down here in humiliation, but in glory we shall see Him as He is.

174 And now what is the effect of this? "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." I see the work of redemption accomplished; I see Christ at the right hand of God; that is the Man I am connected with; and as to this first Adam, I must reckon it dead; it is enmity with God, and I am not in it though it be in me. When we look at our portion, it is that "we are sons of God, and when he shall appear we shall be like him." That is the Christian hope, beloved friends, and the only thing that there is for the Christian's heart.

He "purifieth himself even as he is pure." I can never be as He was, for He never had any sin in His nature; but I am going to be perfectly like Him. Thus I may do without all the notions of men as to perfection in this world; these are a mere delusion from beginning to end, for it is a glorified Christ we are going to be like, and no other Christ. He does not say we are to be pure as Adam was.

And why purify myself? Because I am not pure, and therefore I must purify myself. He does not say pure as He is pure. But He is the standard by which I purify myself — Christ, as He is there above. I am to be like Him, and the life I have of Him can never be satisfied till then. I have ever to purify myself.

You may find other passages on the subject, but there is no other way of looking at sanctification in Scripture. There is no setting apart to God except in the second Man. It is, "Beholding with open [unveiled] face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory." Into what image? Why, the image of the One I am looking at — Christ in glory. We have it expressed in three ways: "Beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord"; then "the glory of Christ who is the image of God"; and then "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." When I come to associate it with man, I must get it as it is in Him up there. If I say, Where am I to look at God's holiness in a man? I answer, In Christ in glory. He was the Holy One and walked according to the Spirit of holiness down here, and I am to walk as He walked; but that by which the Holy Ghost works this in us is by looking at the glorified Christ up there, by having an object and a motive up there which takes my heart out of all that is here, as His was who walked through the world, as I have to do. I am going to be with Him and like Him. A man who, in heart, is not only with God and for God, but even now an imitator of God as a dear child — that is Christian sanctification.

175 And as when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, and we purify ourselves now as He is pure; our holiness, our walk now, is referred to that day in 1 Thessalonians. His coming runs through all our relationships here, and then as to holiness it says, "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you; to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father" — where? In our walk down here, of course, people say. But it is not so put. It is "at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." It is quite true the work in us is to purify ourselves as He is; but it is to be "unblameable in holiness" when He appears. Of course if we are sincere, we purify ourselves now as He is; but God has taken man clean out of this world as to his living associations and his conversation, and "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory."

What a blessed calling is ours! all connected with a glorified Christ — a Christ that the world has rejected; with a holy nature, born of God, and as an object for this life, He has given you the glorified Christ the Son of God. God, even in this way, is making you partakers of His holiness. You say, But I must get this holiness formed perfectly in a man to know its true character. You have got it in Christ up there. Now let us turn back to the chapter we read, and you will find it there.

It puts us in Christ's place before God — before the Father, more strictly — and into Christ's place before the world. The first verse begins by bringing in the Father's name, Christ on high after finishing the work, and then the disciples are placed before the Father too, His name being manifested to them. "Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son." The verse beginning, "Now come I to thee" closes the first part. Then He says, "I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." This is our place. In the thoughts and mind of God we do not belong to the world at all. Christ tested it in every way, and never found, except in a poor woman who anointed Him at Bethany, a single comforter or capacity for sympathy in others, not even in His disciples.

176 How then am I to be set apart in the world? If I have nothing wholly outside it, my leaving particular evils comes to giving up one thing and taking to another; but getting something that is outside of it delivers me wholly from its power.

Let us keep to the word of God. The word of God is the word of God; it "discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart." Men when reasoning against the truth will reject the word of God; they will reject its authority, and say, "Do not quote the Bible to me." It is just as if, when I have a fine-tempered sword in my hand, they should tell me not to use it. When you meet with cavillers, the only way is to use the word, and you will find that it does detect. Just use the word, and you will be astonished to see how they come out with all their rationalism and infidelity.

But to turn to it now. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Well, He says, "sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." This is just what Christ the blessed Son of God was; He was the truth itself, and the truth perfectly suited to man's heart and conscience. This is what the word of God does, looked at as a means. The Father's word brings the truth into my heart, and searches it, and detects everything that is there; it comes as a light and shews everything there that is not of the new creation. And it does so by revealing what is up there. The law did not do this; it came and claimed from man what man ought to be down here; no murdering, no stealing, and, besides this, condemning lust. It takes man as man, and says, That is what man ought to be. But this is not what we have got in Christ. What we have in the truth in Him is the bringing of what is heavenly down to a quickened soul, the bringing down to it all that is in God's mind about itself. It is set apart to God by the revelation of what is heavenly, what is in Christ above, and judges thus all that is not. They were believers, and now He is looking for them to be sanctified, and that is done by shewing them what is heavenly, associating them with what is in Him above by the Father's word.

"As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." To carry what? The manifestation of Christ revealed by the Father's word. I cannot be sent into the world if I am in it and of it, nor can I go there as sent by Christ, but as I am fully associated with Him in the spirit of my mind. He says, I send them into the world as Thou hast sent Me. What does that tell us of their mission?

177 "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified by the truth." He is set apart as the Man of God's counsels and heart, as Man in glory. Nay, He says, "I set myself apart"; and the Holy Ghost brings the knowledge of it down, and, by the communication of Christ in glory, makes me more like Him every day. He says, You must not have a motive that is not drawn from Me in heaven. All sanctification is referred to being like Him there, kept by the Holy Father to walk as He walked down here before His Father.

Whilst it is, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me," it is, "Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." It is very solemn. He appeals to the Father as against the world. It is lying in wickedness. Meanwhile, Christ is "made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." "Imputed" cannot be applied to all these words. If to any, it is not the subject of this text. People talk of "imputed sanctification"; how about imputed redemption? What does that mean? I hope we shall get more than imputed redemption on going into glory! It is the kind and measure and standard of these things, and that is Christ, and He made them of God to us.

It is a question of partaking in God's holiness. The world has rejected the Son of God. Up to the cross it was proved that nothing could win man's heart: he must be born again; and now, being born again, I am associated with Christ. I am going to be in the same glory that He is in, and I am going on until I get there, purifying myself as He is pure. Then I shall see Him as He is, and be like Him. The world we are naturally of has rejected the Son of God, and the associations of the believer are with a glorified Christ, waiting till He comes to take him home. God has sanctified us to Himself by the blood of Christ.

The State of the Soul after Death

J. N. Darby.

<31011E> 178

The state of the soul after death is a subject which deeply interests us all. The rejection of the coming again of Christ to receive the saints, and to judge the earth, before the end of the world, and the losing sight of the distinctive importance given to the resurrection in the New Testament, has given in the common evangelical faith, and that where sound in the main, an absolute character to the vague idea of going to heaven, exclusive of all other conception of happiness and glory. But Scripture spoke too plainly of the Lord's coming and the resurrection of the saints, to allow the thought of going to heaven when we die to maintain the absorbing place it held in the minds of the pious. Strange to say, going to heaven is not spoken of in Scripture, unless in the one case of the thief upon the cross going to be with Christ in paradise. Not that we do not go there; but the scriptural thought is always going to Christ. Since He is in heaven, of course we go there; but being with Christ, not being in heaven, is what Scripture puts forward, and this is important as to the state of the spiritual affections. Christ is the object before the soul, according to the word, not simply being happy in heaven, though we shall be happy and in heaven. I speak of it only as characterising our habits of thought. Poor human nature is apt to fall into Scylla to avoid Charybdis. It is apt, too, to follow its own thoughts, not simply to receive the word of God. There was a reaction, and the recovered truth of the Lord's coming and the first resurrection obtained an importance in some minds, which eclipsed the going to heaven when we die, too vague, and too little formally scriptural, to satisfy those awakened to search the word. It was stated that the soul sleeps, is unconscious, till the resurrection, even by some who, in the main, were sound in the faith; while with others this notion carried them on to deny not only the immediate bliss of the departed, with Christ, but that we ever went to heaven, and what constitutes distinctive Christian hope. Alas! soon very many were led to deny the fundamental doctrines of the gospel.

My object now is not to enter into controversy with these last, who deny the immortality of the soul; it has been done, and done very effectually, by more than one; my object is to give a plain scriptural statement and proof from Scripture, that there is immediate happiness with Christ for the departed Christian. It is an intermediate state, and so, as to His position as a man, is Christ's though He be in glory. The departing Christian waits for the resurrection of the body — and then only will he be in his final state in glory. Men speak of glorified spirits, Scripture never. The purpose of God as to us is, that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, so also we shall bear the image of the heavenly." This was exhibited for a moment when Moses and Elias appeared in glory with Christ at the transfiguration. (See Rom. 8: 29; 1 John 3: 2; 1 Cor. 15: 49; Luke 9: 28-36.) This, and to be for ever with the Lord, received to Himself in the Father's house, is our eternal state of joy and glory. This latter part is seen also in the account of the transfiguration, in Luke, where they enter (Moses and Elias) into the cloud whence the Father's voice proceeded. (See also 1 Thess. 4: 17.) But this is our eternal state, when Christ shall have come and received us to Himself raised, or changed into His likeness, when our poor earthly body shall have been fashioned like His glorious body; Phil. 3: 21. God hath wrought us now already for this selfsame thing, and given to us the earnest of the Spirit; 2 Cor. 5: 5. To be with the Lord and like the Lord for ever is our everlasting joy, and that the fruit of God's love, who has made us His children, and will bring us into the mansions prepared in our Father's house. Two things belong to us: first, to be like and with Christ Himself; and, secondly, to be blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Him. Redemption has made this ours; but we are not in possession. We have only the earnest of the Spirit, though God has wrought us for that selfsame thing.

179 The first point, being like Christ, we have already spoken of, though what has been cited there introduces us with scriptural authority, to the second — so shall we ever be with the Lord. But I add here other proofs of the second point, namely, that our portion is in heavenly places. It is distinctive of believers who have believed and suffered with Him. God, we are told, will gather together in one, under Christ, all things, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; Eph. 1: 10. So we read all things were created by Christ and for Christ (Col. 1: 16, 20); all things will be put under His feet as man; Heb. 2; 1 Cor. 15: 27, 28; Eph. 1: 22. But we read in Hebrews 2 that all things are not yet put under Him. He sits now on the Father's throne, not on His own; Rev. 3 . 21. God has said, Sit at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. He is (Heb. 10) expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. The time will come when not only all things in heaven and earth will be reconciled (Col. 1: 20), but even things under the earth, infernal things, will be forced to recognise His power and authority. Every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ, the despised and rejected of men, is Lord, to the glory of God the Father; Phil. 2: 10, 11. For this we must wait. But in this gathering of all things in heaven and earth under one head, Christ, our part is in heavenly places, and as it is our portion now in spirit, so it will be our part in glory. Nor is there any real separation between these two. Of course we are not in glory now, there is no need to insist on that, but that is our calling now, that which we are redeemed to, and wrought for, and wait for. Now we have the treasure in earthly vessels, and groan, being burdened. When we are out of the body groaning is over, and we are with Christ in joy; when He comes we shall have a body suited to that heavenly place, we shall be in glory. Thus (Eph. 1: 3), "He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ" (2 Cor. 5: 1), "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"; Philippians 3: 20, "Our conversation [citizenship, our relationship in life as Christians] is in heaven"; and in the same chapter, verse 14, where you have 'high calling,' the true force of the word is calling above, as may be seen in a Bible with a margin. We are called to be up above there. So, in Hebrews 6: 19, 20, we read that Christ is entered within the veil, that is, heaven itself; chapter 9: 24, and as our forerunner. So, Hebrews 3, we are partakers of the heavenly calling. As united to Christ by the Holy Ghost, we are sitting in heavenly places in Christ — not with Him yet, but in Him, that is our place. So, when the Lord comes, He gathers, indeed, as Son of man, out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity. But the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Hence, Moses and Elias not only are manifested in glory on earth, to shew the state of the saints in the kingdom, but they enter into the cloud, God's dwelling-place, whence the Father's voice came.

181 It is thus clear that as God will gather together in one all things, both which are in heaven and on the earth, our part is to be like Christ in glory, and with Him for ever, and that in heaven itself, blessed with all spiritual blessings (as Israel with temporal ones) and in heavenly places (as they in earthly). If we are joint-heirs with Him (Rom. 8: 17), we have what is yet better, to dwell in the Father's house where He is gone. Hence it is clearly and distinctly expressed (Col. 1: 5), that our hope is laid up for us in heaven, and Peter tells us (1 Pet. 1: 4) that an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, is reserved in heaven for us. All this clearly shews our blessings are where our hope enters, where our forerunner is gone; what our glory is, celestial, not terrestrial. We shall bear the image of the heavenly, and shall be for ever with the Lord. He has gone to prepare a place for us in the Father's house, and will come again to receive us there to Himself. He has declared, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." One might expatiate on the blessedness of this, the wondrous place given to us, that in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus! but my object now is to give the scripture statement of our blessedness, and the proofs of it. What I have said gives our calling the same throughout, from the moment we are called, to the glory of eternity. There is no other, there is "one hope of our calling." God has called us to His own kingdom and glory; we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Their Father's house is the home of His children. But this has not told us, in distinct statements, what the intermediate state is, though it has shewn us, as a general principle, where all our blessing is, what redemption has obtained for us. The God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus; wondrous love! but an integral part of Christ's own glory, for what is a Redeemer without His redeemed? And once I believe that the blessed Son of God has died for me as man on the cross, nothing that a creature whose life He has become, can have is too great, as the effect of it.

The whole object of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to shew that our portion is heavenly, in contrast with the Judaism which was, and, when Israel is restored, will be, earthly. They had a high priest on earth, because God sat between the cherubim down here. Such a High Priest became us; holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens: why? because our place and portion are with God there. Our place and calling are in the heavenlies. All had to be suited to this; the excellence of the sacrifice and the service of the priest. But how far does the word of God shew us our intermediate state, between the time of our being in this tabernacle, in which we groan, and having it glorified, when Christ comes, and shall change our vile body, and fashion it like His glorious body? Once we have understood the previous passage, and that our calling and portion are heavenly, all is simple and plain. Our citizenship now and always is in heaven. How far we enjoy it when we die is the only question — more than here, or less? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him (Luke 20: 38), though dead for this world, they are for Him as alive as ever, and so for faith. But it is alleged they sleep. There is no ground for this whatever. Stephen fell asleep, that is, died. It was not his soul fell asleep after death; those which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with Him (1 Thess. 4: 14), but these (v. 16) are the dead in Christ. Some have fallen asleep, that is, had died (1 Cor. 15: 6), the same word as sleep in Jesus, in 1 Thessalonians 4. This is contrasted with being alive, in Thessalonians, with remaining to this present, in Corinthians. It is just simply dying, and a beautiful expression to shew they had not at all ceased to exist, but would wake up again in resurrection, as a man out of sleep. This is clearly determined in the case of Lazarus; John 11. The Lord says, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. They thought it was taking of rest in sleep; then said He plainly, Lazarus has died. That is, sleep means plainly dying, and awaking is not awaking the soul, as if it slept apart, and so leaving it, but bringing back from the state of death by resurrection. A Christian's falling asleep is neither more nor less than dying; a soul's sleeping is a pure invention. People living upon this earth fell asleep; that is, they died. That is what it means in plain speech, and nothing else, and we do learn clearly in Scripture the state of those who die in the Lord. Paul knew that God had wrought him (and he speaks of it as to all Christians, as their common faith) for glory, and did not wish to die (be unclothed) as if weary, but that mortality should be swallowed up of life.

183 Christians have Christ as their life, as they have Him as their righteousness, and, this being so, as to death itself (2 Cor. 5: 6), they are always confident, knowing that whilst they are at home in the body they are absent from the Lord. Life, eternal life, in Christ they have, but here it lives absent from the Lord, in the earthen vessel; when it leaves the poor earthen vessel, which makes it groan, being burdened, it will be present with the Lord. Is that better or worse, and where is He? Is it, though it has already the Holy Ghost as the power of life, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, going to sleep, and knowing nothing? Is that the confidence he had, who saw such a power in this life in Christ, that he was not, as his object, looking to die, but mortality to be swallowed up by it; yet, when it lost the tabernacle which made it groan, it was not capable of anything else! And remember Christ is our life; because He lives, we live. Have we lost our connection with Him when we die? Does He sleep in us? Again (Phil. 1) Paul was in a strait betwixt two, to depart and be with Christ, which was far better, dying — mark what he was speaking of — gain, though living with Christ. That is, he, having the blessed joy of knowing Christ was his life, and living entirely for Him, so that it was worth his while to stay, yet found it far better, gain, to go to sleep and know nothing of Christ or anything else! not having a thought of Christ or possibility of serving Him, his desire, as to his own joy, was to go to sleep, and know nothing of Christ at all. Is it not perfectly evident, that when he speaks of being with Christ, and of its being far better than serving Him here, though that was worth while, he speaks of the joy of being there? Who would think, if I spoke of the satisfaction and gain of going to somebody, and being with him, I meant I was going to be fast asleep, and not know I was there? But we have more: the Lord declares to the thief, who alone of all men, in that memorable hour, confessed Him, that he should be with Him that day in paradise. Was it not happiness He promised him, being with Christ and in paradise? Does that mean that he should be fast asleep, and know nothing? I ask if it be not supremely ridiculous, and flying in the face of the very point of Christ's words. The statement occurs in Luke, who, all through his Gospel, after the first two chapters, which are consecrated to the poor pious remnant who waited for Christ, and give a most lovely picture of them — God's hidden ones in the midst of rebellious and unbelieving Israel — after these chapters, I say, the Evangelist gives the testimony of divine grace in the Son of man, and the present state. He proceeds with the genealogy of Christ up to Adam, and then unfolds, all through his Gospel, the grace that in the Son of man blesses man, and blesses him now, and in a heavenly way.

184 It is not dispensational, like Matthew, but grace and present grace, and heavenly grace, by the gospel, the present state of things. It answers, as far as it goes, to the testimony of Paul and the Acts. Now the poor thief, while a most bright and eminent instance of the power of grace and faith, confessing Christ as Lord, when everything contradicted it, naturally did not go in knowledge beyond his countrymen. He was sure that He who hung upon the cross would come in (not into) His kingdom, and prayed that Christ might remember him then, in blessed confidence in Him. The Lord's answer was, according to the whole tenor of the gospel, You shall not wait for that. I bring salvation by grace; to-day, this selfsame day, you shall be with Me in paradise, the fit companion of Christ in blessedness. This, then, is the portion of the departed saint, to be with Christ in blessedness, absent from the body, and present with the Lord. I am aware of the miserable subterfuge, by which it is attempted to read it — verily, I say unto you this day, thou shalt be with Me in paradise. It not only destroys the whole characteristic point of the passage, according to the tenor of the Gospel it is found in, but it perverts the order of the passage, as it destroys its sense. "To-day" is at the beginning of the phrase, to give it emphasis in answer to when Thou comest. There is the solemn assertion, "Verily, I say unto thee." To add 'to-day' to this is simply puerile, destroying withal the allusion to the request of the thief, who only hopes to be remembered when Christ should come in His kingdom. No, says the Lord, with the solemn 'verily' which He used, you shall not wait till then, this day you shall be with Me. What is the sense of "Verily I say unto thee this day"? It destroys the solemnity of the assertion, but "Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise" more than fulfilled the hopes of the thief, and revealed to us other than earthly joys, when we leave this world to depart and to be with Christ. The wickedness of the Jews, as an instrument, fulfilled the promise in breaking his legs, as it did that in which the work of redemption was accomplished, which gave the poor thief a title to be there. Such, too, was the expectation of Stephen, when death arrested his course here. He saw Christ, and looked to Him to receive His spirit. Did He receive it? And was it only to put an end to his service and joy alike, and put him to sleep?

185 The intermediate state, then, is not glory (for that we must wait for the body. It is raised in glory, He shall change our vile bodies, and fashion them like His glorious body); but it is blessedness where no unholy evil is. It is being with Christ Himself, the source of joy ineffable. The hopes and "always confident" of Paul, of Stephen, were not disappointed, nor did the assurance given by the Lord to the thief fail of fulfilment. I ask if the bright hopes spoken of in 2 Corinthians 5, Philippians 1, in Acts 7, and the Lord's words to the thief, for any honest mind, can mean going fast asleep, and knowing nothing? When the Lord described the state of the rich man and Lazarus, did it mean that either the wicked or the just were asleep, and knowing nothing? I shall be told it is a figurative description. I admit it fully; but it is not a false one, and it is not a figure of men going to sleep and knowing nothing. But, further, if 2 Corinthians 5: 6-8 means being happy with Christ, it means being happy with Him when we die. Death is the subject spoken of, for the apostle had despaired of life (2 Cor. 1); and absent from the body, and present with the Lord, is not resurrection, it means leaving the body, not taking it; departing and being with Christ is not His coming and raising or changing us to be in glory. The apostle is speaking there again of death, remaining here, or leaving the world. It was dying which was gain; Phil. 1: 21. Life and death are in distinct contrast in verse 20, and then analuo is used for dying (v. 23), as is analusis; 2 Tim. 4: 6. The attempt to apply analuo or analusis to Christ's return, because it is used for breaking up from or leaving a festival, is a poor conceit, contradicting the express statements of the passage. The word means disuniting or destroying what is united, and so is used for death. Neither Philippians 1 nor 2 Timothy 4 leave a trace of doubt in the matter. The effort to pervert Luke 23: 43 and Philippians 1: 20-23 is only a proof that the force of the passage cannot be got over, and the character of the effort to set them aside betrays itself.

How a spirit enjoys Christ we cannot tell as to the manner of it, but there is no difficulty whatever. My spirit enjoys Christ now, in spite of the hindrance of the poor earthen vessel it is in, and though now we see Him not, yet rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is not my body which enjoys Him now, but my soul spiritually, with the hindrance of the earthen vessel, and absent from Him, then without the hindrance of the earthen vessel, and present with Him. The believer may rest perfectly assured that, departing from the body, he will be present with the Lord, and if His presence is joy to him, that joy will be his. No one would be more anxious to press the Lord's coming, and our waiting for Him, and the importance of the resurrection. I would urge it, as I have urged it, on the saints, and indeed upon all, in its due place; but not to weaken that all live to God, even if they are spirits in prison, nor the excellent joy and blessedness of being with Christ when we depart, that to die is gain. It has justly cheered and shed heavenly light on many a dying bed, and yet will, if the Lord tarry; and the scripture is as plain as to the happiness of the saint on his departure as to his being with Christ, far better, as to joy, than the most successful service here, as it is that Christ will come and take all His saints to be with Him for ever in glory, like Himself; though the latter is the full and final state of eternal blessedness, when the marriage of the Lamb withal shall have come, and when we shall be for ever with the Lord.

Christ in Colossians 1

J. N. Darby.

<31012E> 187

On the whole I should judge that pro panton is not merely before all things in point of time, nor the head of them when taken up in power. Christ is prototokos pases ktiseos, He has this headship in place, because He has created them all. He must therefore have existed before them; and to say merely that He was before creatures as they are does not say a great deal. I apprehend that it is His natural superiority, not taken place, to all things, as having a being independent of? superior and prior to, them all; more than prototokos, which is a consequence of His being their Creator, more than priority in time; but distinctness of being superior to all in nature, independent of any place He took, and existing without them, hence in a nature which was superior to them all, referred to them all, but naturally as wholly above them; a divine place, because it was of nature in Himself, not given but estin, what He is, not egeneto. Autos estin pro p. And what follows confirms this; for all things subsist and consist as a whole, and the parts have each their sustaining and ordering energy in Him. He was first alone, independent of them, and then, when they existed, is the constant sustainer of them in the co-ordination in which they subsist, as of their subsistence itself. Still He is viewed as the Christ, but it is what the Christ is. We have no en in Hebrews 1, but elalesen en. All the rest is mediatorial in character, though the Mediator is fully recognised as being God — indeed it is the object of the chapter, but it is the Christ who is recognised as being so.

So in Colossians 1 you have His place, only founded on what He is, and His creative and sustaining power, the creation having been en auto, the pro panton as said not being the place He takes in virtue of creation in the resulting order of God, but what He is in His personal place and glory, always in respect of the panton naturally, in divine place, power, and priority.

As to the church estin arche prototokos ek ton nekron inagenetai en p. autos pr. It is only by resurrection; and here we have result, what He becomes genetai. And then we get the resulting effect, and how far it is fulfilled.

Thus we have of the Christ what He did, verse 16; what He is, verse 17 and half 18; then what He becomes, or will be. Verse 15 is His general place and title as manifested, but fully accomplished at the end; His relationship in His place toward God and toward the creature, His mediatorial glory according to counsels. Verse 19 is part of the egeneto, though here only the eidokia as to it. The fact is in chapter 2: 9, only it is not here His personality as one. Then in verse 20 et seqq. comes the effect.

188 John is simpler, speaking but of His Person. He was God, and all was created by Him. The rest is egeneto, as particularly verse 14. Colossians is more complicated, because, while saying what involves it, it does not state His divinity, but gives the place rather than the nature, though that place be naturally, or rather supernaturally, above or before all and the Creator's, while John and Hebrews state that He is God.

En has the force of what characterises by the power which operates in that governed by it, dia used in similar connection is of course instrumental. Thus en auto ektisthe ta panta. This past act of creation was wrought in the power which was personally in Him. For this reason He is prototokos when He personally takes His place in creation. So continuously all things consist en auto. It is the same power which continuously holds all together in the unity of the kosmos. When He speaks of the instrumental action by which all have been and are created, it is dia and eis auton. In verse 19 en has the ordinary sense of "in," or place, pan to pleroma being the nominative (compare chap. 2: 9), and this will reconcile di aulou: so verse 22, en to somati, and dia tou thanatou. So en in a lesser case, verse 29, en dunamei, and chapter 2: 2, en agape: cf. 2: 23; as often en sarki, en pneumati, ye are en pn; Rom. 8.

Thus the creation of all things was characterised and wrought by the inherent power which was in the Lord Jesus Christ, and all things subsist together as one ordered and law-governed whole by the same constant and inherent power. When the pleroma is spoken of, then His Person is distinguished as the One by whom and for whom, He being to take it personally as the prototokos. All the fulness was pleased to dwell in Him, and by Him to reconcile: prototokos is what He is in creation, the reason oti en auto ektisthe. It is what He is, not His divine nor His human nature. Cf. 2: 9, 10, where we have the pleroma tes theotetos in Him on one side, and we are pepleromenoi in Him on the other. This is consequently the place He has taken before God, head of all principality and power. The pleroma of Godhead dwells in Him, but when He takes a place as man before God, a man, but personally and above all principalities as man. The way in which the Godhead and Person of Christ are connected, or both, before the mind of the Spirit, is striking in what follows. Verse 13 is clearly God; verse 14 passes on to Christ. He has taken it out of the way, beginning a new sentence grammatically distinct really.

189 The prototokos clearly holds a special place in the revelation of God's counsels. He takes it as man; He takes it as Son; but He takes it as having created all, all things having been created en auto. As a fact it is His creation, but also dia, looked at as the actual instrument of God's counsels; the object also, all is eis auton. But then in sovereign grace He is also prototokos amongst many brethren. So the prototokos is introduced into the world, and the angels worship Him. But then all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and we are complete, pepleromenoi, in Him. And now continually all things subsist in Him. Hebrews 1, though the same general truth, presents more a personal Messiah, and so manifestation. God has spoken en uio. He is the express image of His substance. Indeed in Colossians we have the eikon of the invisible God in the prototokos, and all this is in a man! It is a wonderful thing, and the place among men holds the first place, as in Proverbs 8. The church, as His body, is another line of thought, though closely connected. In John it is more the Son in and with the Father, and we in Him, more personal and relationship though it is in. With the Father it is ex (1 Corinthians 8: 6), so Romans 11: 36, ex, dia, eis. In Hebrews 1 it is di on and di ou. But this is another thought.

Our Relationships to Christ

Revelation 1: 4-7; Revelation 22: 16-21

J. N. Darby.

<31013E> 190

I have taken these two passages which precede and come after all the prophetic part of the book, as giving us the relationships in which the saints stand to Christ, to whom the book is confided.

In these opening verses we get an address, and the answer of heart in the saints to that address; and then, when the book closes, the address of the Lord to His people as the bride, and the answer. I desire to shew the place in which the Spirit of God sets the saints, and the connection of it with their character, affections, and duties.

One abstract remark may be made. Our affections and our duties flow from the relationship in which we are set. It is clear that if we are creatures of God, our duties as such flow from our knowledge of that. So with our earthly duties and affections — they flow from our relationship one with another, whether as husband and wife, or father and child. It is a very simple remark, but of all importance, with regard to the saints' position. But then I must be in this relationship to have these affections, and I must know what the relationship is to which those duties belong. If I had no consciousness of being a child, and happened to meet my father, I should have no sense of the duties and affections belonging to me as a child. In order to have right affections, I must be in the relationship to which the affections belong, and I must know that I am in it too. The relationship must be known as mine, in order to possess the affections belonging to it. I cannot love Christ as a Saviour, if I do not know whether He is a Saviour or not to me; I cannot love God as a Father, if I am not sure whether or not I am a child. Now the importance of this is, that a full settled knowledge of salvation is the spring and foundation of our duties to God — not only the knowledge of the fact of salvation, but of what that salvation has brought me into. It has made me a child, and I am bound to walk and feel as a child. It is so if I take Christ as He presents Himself at the end of this book: immediately the Spirit and the bride say, Come. If I do not know that I belong to the bride of Christ, how can I, when He thus presents Himself to me, say to Him, Come? It is the relationship in which I am from which all must flow, and no duties and affections are rightly founded until we know ourselves to be in this relationship to God. There may be a craving after the thing, and there will be. If I am an orphan, I would give anything to have a father; but I cannot have the affections of a child, because I have not got a father to love me. Wherever the divine nature is, there is the spring of these thoughts and feelings of love to God, and of holiness; but I cannot have them in perfection for my soul, because I have not the constant enjoyment of my relationship. A law may be imposed upon a person, but it never produces any affection. There may be a law which claims certain feelings and affections from me, but that gives no consciousness of the relationship by which these affections are produced: consequently it gives me no power. This is the real character of the law. Instead of being founded on a relationship that is existing, it promises that by keeping it I shall get life. If I keep the law without having real life, I am to get life by keeping it.

191 I find that principle laid down in Scripture — duty called for in order to the obtaining of life; but never does it produce the thing. Law claims from man what he ought to be, but it does not and cannot place man in any relationship with God, in which he may enjoy the blessing that belongs to God. Now it is not so with Christ. He does bring us, by the salvation which He has wrought, into relationship with God; He gives us a known settled place before God; and then our affections and duties flow from the place we are in. They are not the means of obtaining the place, but that which belongs to the place we are in. If we are the bride of Christ, we ought to have the feelings and wishes of one that is so. Throughout, when you enter into these verses, that suggests itself to the heart. In whatever way Christ is spoken of, there is at once what calls forth a response from the hearts of the saints. Whatever may be said as to His titles or offices, or what He is, the effect of speaking of Him with whom we are in relationship, is to awaken feelings in our own hearts of what He is to us. For instance, if I were to speak to a child of its father, as one who had eminently distinguished himself as a hero, or a statesman, the child's feeling at once would be, That is my father. He would not say, That is a great conqueror. The child's feeling would be, That great man is my father. So it would be with a wife. If she were told that such a person had greatly distinguished himself in any place, and she knew it was her husband, she would say, That is my husband; because all this glory awoke, in the mind of the child or the wife, the consciousness of the relationship in which they stood to the one to whom they belonged. Now that is the case with the church of God. You cannot speak of any glory of Christ or of God, that does not awaken in the heart of the saint the consciousness of what God and Christ are to itself. This is characteristic of the existence of such a relationship, and the affections that belong to it. You cannot speak of the person with whom others are in relationship, without awakening in their hearts the sense of what the person is to them.

192 The whole character of this book is one of judgment. It is not the Father communicating with the church by means of the Holy Ghost which dwells in it. And when Christ is described, it is as One whose eyes are like a flame of fire, judging in the midst of the churches, or as One coming out of heaven on a white horse, a sharp sword going out of His mouth, that with it He should smite the nations. When it is God, He is sitting on a throne from whence lightnings and thunderings proceed, and sending out preliminary or final judgments on the earth.

Now we shall find here, by the feelings that are expressed, the way in which the saint, the child of God, feels when Christ is brought forward. We shall find that, even when He is presented in judgment — that is, in an earthly character — the church has immediately awakened in her heart the place and relationship in which she stands to the one thus presented. Jesus, the Prince of the kings of the earth, is alluded to: at once the answer is, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." If the "Root and offspring of David" is named, the Spirit and the bride say, Come. It is the characteristic of the soul that lives in the conscious blessedness and enjoyment of an existing relationship with God. However Christ is presented, it is her own relationship with Him that is at once awakened in the bride. What I see in the word is not merely God visiting us as sinners, as He has done, but that when He has visited us, He has brought us into blessed connection with Himself, and having brought us there, He calls us, as in that connection, to live in the delight and in the duties that belong to it.

We do not thoroughly understand how lost we are in our natural state, because we do not look simply to our place in Christ. It is in the measure that we understand that they who are in the flesh cannot please God, and that the flesh is not subject to God and cannot be remedied, that we are cast over by faith into our place in Christ. The moment I come to know that my relationship with God depends upon what He is for me, and what He has made me by grace in Himself, and not upon what I am to Him, it is all simple. It may astonish many to see that it does not depend upon what they are to Him. They will say, Are not men judged according to their works? To be sure they are. But who among you will stand this judgment? It is not merely a truth: but what is your condition if it is a truth? We are lost. We can only say, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." There is an end of all flesh as such. If Christ came, He came to call sinners — to seek and save that which was lost. It was all a settled thing as to man in the flesh. You and I, looked at as moral responsible beings before God, have walked in such sort, that we could not stand in the judgment — no one, not even a Christian, could. I am not talking of grace saving; but of man judged as a responsible being to God. If God deals with us on this ground, we could not, as Job says, answer Him one in a thousand. That we know to be true. There is not a single person, if it were a question of the most careless person in the world, who does not know that he cannot stand in the judgment. If he were brought to-day into the presence of God, he would do what Adam did — go and hide himself if he could; he would not dare to stand and be judged of God. The saint knows it, but the sinner knows it too. As a present thing, he has no desire to be with God. If it was offered to ever such a decent man of the world to go to heaven to-day, he would not — nor to-morrow either. When then is he to go? When he cannot help it. If he must die, he would rather go to heaven, but there is not a man of the world but would stay out of heaven as long as possible. If God reveals Himself in judgment, man will fly from Him; and when He revealed Himself in grace, what did man do? Spat upon Him, crucified Him. The story is told. Conscience tells us the one thing, and the facts of Christianity tell us the other: man would not have God. That is what we all are, and without any difference. Some may have produced more bad fruit than others, but we are all alike lost; and therefore God deals with us, consequent upon the death of Christ, on the ground that we are lost. It is of immense importance to see this fully, in order that we may fully enjoy God's love. "For a good man some would even dare to die." "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That is, I learn this — that if I am bad, dreading judgment, and having no affections towards God, if God has loved me, it is according to the perfectness of His own nature. This is how grace meets a man's case. He is brought to this conviction, that he is a poor lost sinner with no desire after God — a lost sinner after having been tried in every possible way — tried without law, tried under law, and then tried by Christ, coming in grace to meet them in all their need. And what was the result? Man was lost, hopelessly lost. "We will not have this man to reign over us." We will have the world without being troubled with God.

194 Here I get God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; I find perfect love cognizant of what the sinner is, knowing how it would be treated, yet coming down to save. When I look at Christ's coming to me, I get thus the knowledge, that God, in perfect love, and with the knowledge of what I am, has visited me to save me. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Having found this, I have met with God, and I know Him. I find myself perfectly evil, my heart altogether evil, but I have seen Jesus, and He loves me perfectly: I have met Him in my sin, and I know Him. That is not relationship yet, but I know what He is. If I have gone to a person that I have considered my master, and have done everything against him, and if afterwards I have met him and he has assured me of his love, I have my every doubt and anxiety taken away. I shall not then wait for the day of judgment to know what God is to me, for I have met Him in Christ when I was in my sins. But then we could not go into heaven with our sins, and the next thing I find is, that Christ takes up this very place in which I was. Was I in death? He goes into it. Was I under condemnation? He goes under it. Was I in sin before God? He is made sin for me. I find in the cross the Lord Jesus coming and putting Himself in the very place where I was before a God of judgment. Thus, taking the sinner's place, He goes down into death. He is forsaken of God, and being made sin, He bears their burden upon the cross, and now He is risen again. The question of the dealing of God with sin has been gone through on the cross. But, that blessed One having been made sin for me, the holiness of God has been gone through, and man has been proved a lost sinner. But Christ having taken his place, the whole history of my sin is closed; it has received its reward in the Person of Christ. And He is risen, and there is another Adam, instead of the first Adam, in the presence of God. It is not merely God visiting the sinner in his sin, but One, who has taken the judgment of my sin upon Himself already, is in the presence of God in righteousness. There I get the whole dealing of God to settle the question of sin. "Christ has appeared once in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" In order to be enabled to enjoy the love of God, that is what my conscience wants. If I receive that by faith, I can stand in the presence of God, with the knowledge that God loves me perfectly, and that, as a righteous God, He receives me in Christ.

195 If you take these two passages, you will find in one what Christ has done for us, and the place in which He has put us, and in the next, the relationship which flows from it, and the conduct consequent upon it.

In Revelation 1: 4, there is not a word about God in His character of Saviour, but in the character of Jehovah, as Almighty; and the seven Spirits that are before the throne shew that perfection of the divine Spirit in which God judges. Therefore Christ comes last, and when I come to Him, I get the statement that He is the faithful witness on the earth; then there is His resurrection — He is the first-begotten of the dead; and, lastly, He is the Prince of the kings of the earth. It passes over all that He is in heaven as the High Priest, and as my righteousness before God. But though Christ is only thus spoken of, in connection with the character of the whole book, yet what is the answer of the saints when Christ is spoken of? "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." It is what He is to them. Though Christ is spoken of suitably to the whole character of the book, yet the church knows Him as He is for itself. Even if He is spoken of as the Prince of the kings of the earth, I say, This is the One that loves me, that has saved me; I know Him as the One that is in heaven, consequent upon the work that He has done for me. I know what He is for myself. He has loved me and washed me from my sins in His own blood. He is the faithful witness, and the Prince of the kings of the earth; but what I know is, that He has loved me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood, and if I think of the place in which He has set me, He has made me a king and a priest to God and His Father. It is the character of Christ's love, that all which He takes from the Father in glory and blessing as man He gives to us. If I talk of Him even as a Prince on the throne He cannot do without me, He makes me a king too. A man of the world can be generous, but he does not bring another person into his own condition. This is what Christ does. "My peace," He says, "I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." I will give you the very same peace that I have Myself. So too, "The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." And not only that, but He gives them His Father's love — "that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." He puts us into His own place. This is perfect love. He Himself comes, and He has washed us from our sins in His own blood. If He is a king and priest, He has made us kings and priests along with Him. It is only when I have the consciousness of being utterly lost, and look up to the love that God has shewn in the gift of His Son, that I can understand it all.

196 If I look at the day of judgment, I say, It is all over, it is a settled thing with me, and if God deals with me in judgment, I am ruined. It is too late to talk about being better — I am lost. But now through Christ I am saved. I have got God that has come in, dealing with this lost person and giving His Son for him. It is not merely quickening him; but besides that, when a soul is quickened and feels what sin is, and what righteousness is, and yet that he has not got it, God has given Christ as his salvation. You want deliverance out of a condition that you are in by nature, into another condition in Christ, and that is what God provides. The believer is not only born again, and sees that holiness must be, but he has found in Christ the very thing that he wants. The grace of God has brought salvation. This is another thing. I am not merely renewed, but I wanted an answer to the exercises of my soul, and that is what I have got in Christ. Would it be right for a child to be uncertain whether its father loves it or not? If it were so, I should say, That child has not right affections. We ought to be able to say, I know thoroughly well that the Father loves me — He has given His Son for me. It was a love which knew my case, and thought of it. Christ has loved me and washed me from my sins in His own blood. He has made me as clean as the value of His own blood can make a person. I am put thus before God, and then made a king and priest to God. By-and-by every one shall be blessed under his own vine and his own fig-tree; but the place that the heart of the believer finds itself in now is in Christ's own place, consequent upon the love wherewith he has been loved.

197 "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him." And what is the consequence? "And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." I can testify that every eye shall see Him . . . and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. But am I to be wailing because He comes who has washed me from my sins in His own blood? No, I am rejoicing. My portion is one thing, my testimony another.

If we look at the last chapter, after all the prophetical details have been gone through, I am not only washed and made a king and a priest to God, but I am of the bride. And here Christ sets Himself again before the church; He always does so. In the previous part of the chapter, as a warning, He said, "Behold, I come quickly." And now the Lord, having closed the testimony He had to give to the world, says in verse 16, "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches." And then He gives Himself these three characters: — "I am the root and offspring of David." He is the root of David, the spring of all the promises made to David: and He is the heir of all of them, because He was the promised seed of David. But then He gives Himself another character, and that is, "the bright and morning star." Nothing is said about the Bridegroom here. He is the bright and morning star. What is that? It is not the day. It is what no one sees the moment the sun is up. Those who are on earth in the day of the Lord will not see that star. It is what is seen by those who during the night are watching. Then, when the Lord comes, the star is seen no longer.

"The night is far spent, the day is at hand." That brings home our present condition urgently to the church of God. From the moment that Adam fell, it was night, it was dark. It was still deeper night, as God went on dealing with man till Christ was rejected. And now the judgment comes. But it is just there the dawn begins. Man had departed from the light. The rulers of "the darkness of this world" is the expression. Before Christ came, it was night, because the sun had not risen; and when Christ was in this world, He was rejected. There was no connecting man with Christ but by His death. He came down to man, He visited him in grace; but "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." He was merciful, He might come down to others in the meeting of all their need, but He was alone except He died; and when Christ died, there was the closing of the practical judgment of all that man was, looked at as in the flesh. It was proved that no dealing of God could make the fig-tree bear figs, and God said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." He had gone on digging and pruning, but no fruit was borne; the gardener was cast out, Christ was rejected. But "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound"; and God comes in grace and sets a man at His own right hand. And now the night is far spent, the day is at hand. The very rejection of Christ, which proved fully and completely the entire darkness in which man was lying, set a new man, another man, according to God's counsels and heart, in glory at the right hand of God, displays this blessed One before our faith, and says, Look there and you will find life. "Because I live, ye shall live also." You will find righteousness — everything — there.

198 I now know that God has come in, not merely trying man as He did for four thousand years, but doing His own work; and He has wrought that work completely, and Christ has gone up as "the second Man" that has taken His place in righteousness in the presence of God. I can say, That is my life. There is a victory over sin, there is a putting away of sin, there is an accomplishment of righteousness. There is one who has got His place there because of sin being put away, and because of accomplished righteousness; just as surely as the first Adam was turned out of paradise, the last Adam has come in. And now I can say that I can see the dawn. The Jew must wait till the High Priest comes out to know whether the offering is accepted or not. When Christ comes out again, they will look upon Him and mourn. But I do not wait for that, because the Holy Spirit has come out, and His presence gives me the blessed consciousness that Christ has been accepted before God, as my life and righteousness. My faith makes me know that I have it all in Christ. But when am I to get the fruit of this? I have got the Holy Ghost, but what is my relationship to Christ? The Holy Ghost come down gives me the knowledge of it. I have got the Spirit, and the knowledge of these two things — that Christ is my righteousness in the presence of God, and the Holy Spirit the seal of it. But, more than that, Christ is the Head, and we are the members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. And what is their character when He talks about them? It is as the bride. It is never said of Christ that He was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh when He was down here. But now that He is at the right hand of God, we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Just as Eve was of Adam, we are of Christ — and more so — because the Spirit of Christ dwells in me and unites me to Christ. When the Sun of righteousness arises with healing in His wings, there will be judgment, treading down of the wicked, etc. But meanwhile, while Christ is hidden from the world, faith sees Him; and faith, seeing Him, has trusted and leaned on Him as its righteousness before God, and the Holy Ghost is given as the seal of that righteousness. Therefore He says, "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." He is these two; the earnest of the glory, and the present certainty of the love. I do know the love now, the Holy Ghost giving me the consciousness of perfect love; but He is also the earnest of the inheritance.

199 That bright and morning star is before the day rises. We know Christ before we see Him. We have not seen Him and yet have believed. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." We are associated with Him while He is not in the world. When the sun rises, I shall see Him in His glory, but we know Him behind the cloud. He is the Son that has revealed Himself to me — this One who is in the heavens, as He revealed Himself to Paul: therefore it is the gospel of the glory. I know Him as my righteousness, and as the Bridegroom to the bride. The morning star is that which will be accomplished, but which is the knowledge of Christ as known to the watching believer when He is not known to the world at all.

So, in Peter, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." The word of prophecy is a light shining in a dark place. The world is all dark, and prophecy comes in and tells me the end of a dark world, and of all that passes in it. It is going on down a full stream to destruction. I cannot go on with that; my affections cannot be engaged in it. But the night is far spent, and the day is at hand. We know Christ in heaven, we know Him as the morning star when the world does not see Him. We know Him above, where the church first was put in relationship with Him. It is said to the church of Thyatira, "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron," etc. "And," He adds, "I will give him the morning star"; that is, he shall be a king and shall rule; but, besides that, I will give him Myself. We shall have an inheritance, and this with Christ. But do you think supposing a person were going to be married, and said to the bride, You will have a fine estate, would that be what would most occupy her mind? Certainly not. If her affections were true and right, it would be himself and not the inheritance that she would be occupied about.

200 So it should be with us. All God's word will be accomplished. We shall have the inheritance, but we shall have Christ. We get the bright and morning star. It is in that character that Christ reveals Himself here. But what is awakened in the church's heart is the thought of her own proper relationship to Christ. He does not say, Now I am coming; it is she who says it. "I am . . . the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come." It is the desire of her heart. When He is named in that character, she is longing for Him to come — not to be washed. The saints already had said, He has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. His first coming did that. He has done it all. And when, through grace, I am brought to look up to God, and trust Him as a poor sinner, I am brought into this place by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, because righteousness has gone up on high. The Holy Ghost comes down and seals me, because I am made the righteousness of God in Christ. And now it is not merely the thought and feeling, I wish I were the bride, but there is the consciousness of the relationship, and I say to the Bridegroom, Come. The Spirit says it because the Spirit is down upon the earth. I have got the living water and the Spirit, but I have not got the Bridegroom. The Holy Ghost, having come down, and dwelling in believers, produces the certainty of the value of what Christ did and was down here, and the longing desire to see Him. We shall reign with Christ, but to be with Himself is better. James and John said, Give us a good place in the kingdom. But what does Paul say? "That I may win Christ." I have had Christ revealed in me, and I want Him. It is not the uncertainty of there being relationship, but the affections that belong to the relationship.

201 "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." We get the whole circle of the church's affections. When the Spirit of God is working in the saints, what will be the first affection? Christ. The Spirit and the bride turn to Him and say, Come. What is the next affection? It is the saints. Therefore it turns and bids him that heareth say, Come. If you have heard Christ, you come and join the cry. Even if you have not the consciousness of relationship, would you not be happier if you saw Him as He is? Therefore say, Come. The first affection is towards Christ Himself; but the bride would have every saint to join in these affections, and in the desire to have the Bridegroom. But does it stop with those who have heard the voice of the Lord Jesus? No. The first effect of the Spirit's turning our eye to Christ is the desire that Christ should come; and, next, that the saint who hears His voice should have the same affection. And what next? We turn round to those who may be athirst, bidding them come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.

The saint who has the sense of the blessedness of having drunk of the living water which Christ gives, wants others to have it also. What is a thirsty man? It is a man that has got a want and no answer to it. "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." I have an affection created in me by grace, but it is satisfied. I have got what my soul wants. I have got God in all His blessedness in love, and I have got Him nearer to me than human friend could be. I have known what it is to thirst, but now I am satisfied. I have got all that my soul longed after. But if there is a thirsty soul here, you will say, If I could only feel sure that I had got this living water! This shews that you have not drunk.

You cannot enjoy Christ without knowing it. If the Spirit of God quickens a soul, it will have wants that are not satisfied, but if it has gone and drunk of Christ, it will be satisfied. The church has not yet got the Bridegroom, but it has the water of life; and therefore it can say to the world, I have got what you want: you come and try. If you are thirsty, and only drink of that water, you will never thirst again. I have got Christ in my heart; and when you possess Him in your soul, it gives you the consciousness that you have got the very same happiness that there will be in heaven. You may know Christ better, and love Him better when you get there: there will not be the hindrances of the vile body; but it is not another God, another Christ, another Holy Ghost that you will have. All the things that will make me blessed in heaven, I have now. I may be inconsistent with Christ, groaning in this wretched body, because I have so little faith to see my place. I say, What a hut I am in! The reason I do not like the hut is because I know I have got a palace. I judge my present position because of the glory that is before me. But if you want to know what makes a Christian happy in life and death, it is that the Christ he has got now is the Christ that he will have in heaven. He has got his home there, where the One he loves and knows best is already.

202 But more than that, if we have this living water, and people do not even thirst, still I can say, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." I can tell them I was just as vile as they, and God came and called me in His grace, when I was going far astray from Him. So that now I can say to others, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." We have got this water, we have not got to buy it. We have this relationship to Christ, and the affections that flow from it, so that we turn to those that are athirst, bidding them welcome yea, "Whosoever will, let him take," etc.

Thus it is that I get the whole circle of the church's affections, from Christ Himself, down to the poor sinner far from God, because I have the consciousness of the affections that are suited to Christ. The Christian is in this world in virtue of his salvation in Christ, a witness of the love that has saved himself. And then we have to seek, remembering that the life we have is a dependent life, that this witness should be bright; "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body."

Only remark these two things — where we are brought in faith, with the Holy Ghost dwelling in us. I see that Christ has died to put away my sin: that is what I know, looking back. And, looking forward, I see that the same Holy Ghost, who gives to my soul to possess a certain knowledge of the value of Christ's first coming, tells me that He is coming again. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, etc . . . . looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us." He puts us back and shews us Christ, and forward and says, That is your Bridegroom; He is gone to prepare a place for you, and will come again for you.

203 If I look back at Christ made sin for me, and if I look forward to His coming again to receive us unto Himself, shall I be afraid of judgment when He comes? He positively declares that He will come and receive me to Himself. Is that the way I shall stand before His judgment-seat? Yes; He will come and fetch me, and receive me to Himself. And why? Because at His first coming He had settled the whole question of my sins. The person before whom I appear in judgment is the One who died already to put away sin and who is my righteousness before God; and it is as made like to His glorified body that we appear before Him.

I would ask you, Are your souls standing in this relationship with God in Christ? Do you believe that God in mercy has thus visited you in perfect love, and that now the place you are set in is that blessed relationship itself as the bride of Christ, who is waiting till He comes to receive her to Himself? Only remember that, if you desire the affections and the walk that belong to a Christian, you must have the consciousness of being in the relationship, or you cannot have the affections that belong to it. God has given us a salvation that brings us as saved persons into relationship with Christ. But in order to be consistent, I must know what I am to be consistent with. Do I expect you to be consistent with me as my servant, or as my child, if you are not standing in those relationships to me? If we are the bride of Christ, let us seek to be consistent therewith. But we must first be consciously in the place of relationship, and then seek, though it be amid suffering, to be consistent with it.

The Lord give us, by His living grace, to be brought into the consciousness of the place in which He has set us.

Christ: His Work and Testimony

Colossians 1

J. N. Darby.

<31014E> 204

It is not the body and its privileges we have here, but the Head and its fulness; not the Spirit, but Christ as our life. But this is quite as momentous. So also we have the walk in view of the hope. We see where the apostle puts us as thus risen with Christ, and yet walking down here, and so a question of finishing our course. In Ephesians we come forth from God, and, being with Him there, shew out His character as Christ did. If I say I am risen, let me walk as risen; if justified from sin, yield myself unto God, dead to sin, and alive from the dead.

Verse 4. He had heard of their love to all saints. But one cannot get the knowledge of His will unless it is connected with all saints; for Christ's heart does take in all, and if we do not, we fail to embrace that of which His eye has taken in the circle; Eph. 3: 18. The moment we get into a risen state, we are all one. We are Jews, Gentiles, all sorts of things, when looked at as men on the earth; but when risen, all that is done with.

There are two things — one may say three — which we have in the resurrection of Christ. First, the testimony of God is to the full acceptance of Christ's work — "God hath raised him from the dead"; and, secondly, the effect of that, which is a new place with God altogether where neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Adam innocent nor Adam guilty, ever were. It is an entrance into an entirely new condition; we belong to a new creation altogether. This, beloved friends, is of all moment to our hearts — the consciousness of our relationship with God. As to Christ, sins are past, judgment past, death past, Satan's power past, when He rose from the dead. His death had been a terrible testimony to the state of the old man — it was a total breach with man in the flesh. "Let no fruit grow upon thee henceforth and for ever.?" We never get fully into the consciousness of our proper blessing till we clearly and distinctly understand, not only that we are guilty, but that the tree is bad. God has set aside man, and in the flesh he cannot please God; he has no actual living connection with Him whatever — no life, no nature, in which He can please Him; Rom. 8. When we talk of being risen with Christ, we have left all that scene behind us which Christ has left behind; not of the world, as He is not of it, though we have to go through it, of course, and to keep ourselves unspotted from it. Christ got into life again — a totally new state past all these things; we are crucified with Him, dead to sin and the world, and in this new condition in which Christ is now. He was there dying under our sins — we, found dead in them, and now quickened along with Him, with all our trespasses forgiven. In Colossians it is only this change of position, not all that it involves.

205 The apostle desired for them that they should be walking here as risen men, filled with knowledge, that there might be the doing of His will. There is a path which the vulture's eye has not seen, but which is unfolded in Christ, which He has tracked for us, and "he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." If you look at Christ, you never see one single thing done for Himself: perfect grace, a testimony to the will of God, which is known only spiritually, not legal righteousness. Is it such righteousness to be smitten on one cheek, and turn the other? That is the only thing we have now to look for, which will not be found even in heaven — a perfect path in the midst of evil.

It is a trying path often: people will now and then trample upon you; but is my object to keep Christ, or my character? You will soon find in that way what the motive that governs you is. If the eye is single, you will get knowledge from God as the vulture, the most clear-seeing thing there is. The eye of Christ in us sees the thing that pleases Christ, and, of course, the world cannot understand that at all. They may admire it, for they see the unselfishness of it. The more we go on, and the more evil grows up, infidelity, corruption, and superstition, the more that faithfulness will tell. The world may not understand why a person gives up all he has, but it sees that he does so — that there are motives which govern the heart soberly and quietly. Bring the word of God to them: they do not think it is a good sword, but it is; for it reaches the conscience, and no man is an infidel in his conscience. In the midst of this poor selfish world, if there is a person who is living entirely for another, they cannot understand it. The fact that they cannot understand it makes them understand it in one sense: they see there is something they cannot understand.

Verse 10. "Walk worthy of the Lord" — the whole object of the Christian in his going out and coming in, in his whole path in life. What a wonderful privilege! A poor creature in myself, but called on to walk worthy of the Lord. Beloved brethren, think of it!

206 Verse 11. "Strengthened with all might . . . unto all patience and long-suffering." What was Christ's life? All patience and long-suffering; everything was against Him, and His path the path of unchanging goodness, of all patience and long-suffering, in passing along. Seek in this world patience and long-suffering. The world, being a world which will not have the principles of the Christian, will not have Christ; our path in it is patience — patience in service with souls. Souls are full of themselves, but always at bottom there is a want. "Redeeming the time," not diligence, but seeking opportunities which are given, and being so full of Christ that I do not miss them when given. Patience may seem a little thing, but just try your own heart, and see if it does not test you. Saul waited six days and three quarters, and lost the kingdom because he could not wait the other quarter. He acted for himself. Nature could wait a long time, but could not go through with the thing. Patience acts for God: "Let patience have its perfect work." Christ never did His own will; you are set to do His will, sanctified to His obedience.

Now the apostle lays the ground which I had on my heart at the beginning; but what I have been saying is of all practical importance. The light is my place. We never can give a right testimony, or be servants to others, till our own relationships with God are perfectly settled. You cannot carry the testimony of God with intelligence unless you know your own place. It is not that you talk about yourself, but can you say in God's presence, "I am thanking Thee because Thou hast made me meet"? The walk is all founded upon this: I insist on it, for we all know how it is rejected, but it is the ground on which all Christians are set. You may go through the deepest exercises (the deeper the better), but when brought into your place as a Christian, you give thanks that He has made you meet. That perfect and infinite love has taken me up, a poor sinner, and made me meet for the light. That is where I am — a blessed thought — it is the perfectness of love; God's thought, and He has carried it out. Supposing me to be actually risen, am I not fit for the inheritance of the saints in light? Self-righteousness (which is a very subtle thing) says, "I am not fit." Why, you do not know yet how bright that light is! But I do know that He, whose love has thought of me, must have that which is fit for His presence, for He is light as well as love, and He has wrought it in Christ. The prodigal was quite as sincere when he set out in his rags as afterwards, but he was not fit to go in till he had the best robe on.

207 Verse 13. "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness," etc. Here we are naturally in Satan's kingdom, the ruler of the darkness of this world. A man may not mean wickedness, but the glory of this world — its grandeur — has influence on the heart. Well, it is darkness, simple darkness, and all the time that is spent there is loss, for everything that is not Christ is loss — there is no life in it. The life of Christ in us cannot be looking after wealth, and power, and vanity — the one thing we have to do in the world is to overcome it. The blinding power of Satan is there, but we are delivered from it. It does not say, "brought into light," but it gives the experimental consciousness of what the light is — "the kingdom of the Son of his love." It is light: I get out of this darkness, which only ministers to my wretched selfishness, to nothing but self, the very opposite of what Christ was. There is one true, holy, blessed place — the presence of God. I have got into (not merely the light, but) the kingdom of the Son. The One who is the delight of the Father's heart, the sufficient and adequate object of the Father's heart, who satisfies and draws out His love — we are brought into the kingdom of that Son. We have to go through the world, which has risen up because man was turned out of paradise; but I have passed out of it into the kingdom where God's perfect delight in His Son is. We have to judge ourselves, and watch, that it may be effectually wrought in us; but here the apostle is giving thanks that it is done — that we are brought, even while here, to know we are loved as Christ is loved. He has given us what is sufficient for His heart and our hearts to delight in, and, in the second place, we are loved as He is loved.

"All things were created by him and for him"; but He could not, in the counsels and love of God, take those things without having joint-heirs — His bride. He has come up, after having wrought redemption, not only Head over everything He has created as man, but also Head of the body, the church.

Verse 21. "And you hath he reconciled"; that is more than "made meet" for what God wants, according to His holy nature. We are not simply fitted, but God has reconciled our hearts now in that perfect love which has come out and wrought all in Christ's death, while the world is not reconciled. The reconciliation of Christians is a present effectual thing, through the knowledge of the perfect love of God, which did not spare His own Son. He has given Him for my sins, blotted them out, and left no uneasiness on my conscience. Not only are my sins forgiven, but I am reconciled to God. Take it up in your consciences, beloved friends: Christ my righteousness, sins all gone, myself loved as He is loved — that is my place. How far can your souls be looking up to God, without one thing to hinder your enjoyment? He has brought us to Himself — brought us into His presence, in the full sense of the unclouded love of His heart.

208 Then we get the effect of this as regards the testimony. Paul was made a minister of two things; and so are we, whether in private dealing with souls, or in public ministry. I have learned this love which reconciles, and I will carry it out to every creature. I carry the love of Christ so in my soul, that, if a want comes, I have what will minister to it — so living in the love of God, with the sense of it in our souls, that it comes out naturally. If I meet souls, do I carry God to them? This is the Christian testimony; we carry this in our own souls, as made meet and reconciled. No matter what comes, difficult times, etc., if I can only carry it out, there is that which, if any one has ears to hear, is heard in the heart. I may be rejected of course, as Christ was, but that is the character of the testimony — the light too, as well as the love.

The second thing is the ministry of the church. This is not to sinners; but you cannot have a due sense of the thoughts and purposes of God in bringing us where He has, without carrying it all with you. The church supposes the fulness of love, and the perfectness of redemption, which breaks through our testimony. If we are conscious of this, that God has called us to be the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, which He is gathering to present to Himself, that love which has been known to us in its fulness will give a stamp and character to everything we say. It would be a gospel which carries its testimony to the ruin of man, but also to the love which is never satisfied till it sets us with the Son. A complete redemption cannot be hid — I cannot preach the gospel without bringing it in. The current of love, which we know, lays the foundation in the heart of all that is built upon it, and it gives another character to the gospel. My being with God, according to that perfect reconciliation, enables me to go out and meet the want of every poor sinner. You may do it in difficulty and trial, but carry that with you; and neither infidelity, nor anything else, can answer it.

The Christian's Life in Christ

Colossians 1

J. N. Darby.

<31015E> 210

The character of Colossians is that the saint is looked at as risen: we hear nothing of the Holy Ghost except the expression, "your love in the Spirit." But it brings out the other side, Christ as life in us, more fully here than anywhere. Christ is in us, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." The way the saint is looked at is as risen; the consequence is that he is not, as in Ephesians, in heavenly places. In Ephesians you have the work of the Spirit of God, and the presence of the Spirit revealing things above, and associating us with them: here in Colossians the saint is dead and risen with Christ, a risen man walking through the midst of this world. In Romans you see a living man actually in this world, as we all are, Christ being his life, and rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. We find, therefore, in Romans that a man is to yield himself to God; whereas in Ephesians we are looked at as coming from God to shew God's character in this world. If you are able to do what is in Ephesians, you will be able to do what is in Romans. Christ had given Himself a dying sacrifice; you are to give yourself a living one. In Ephesians we have, "Be ye therefore imitators of God as dear children" (Eph. 5: 1); this goes farther. What Colossians gives us is, not heavenly places, but that we are dead with Christ, and risen with Him, and this life is fully developed here.

We see the way the Christian is to live, and this founded on the place in which he has been put by grace. After that he speaks of all things as to be reconciled to God, while the church He has reconciled. First he takes the great truth of what our life is and our walk, and what it is founded on. There is a path in this world, the spring and character of which is that God's will is in it, a path the vulture's eye has not seen, which was perfectly fulfilled in Christ. "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked," 1 John 2: 6. The saint is given a path through this world which has nothing to do with the world, but which displays the character of Christ in it. "But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," Matt. 5: 39. This would not be righteousness, but Christ displayed. You will see this immense privilege of walking down here like Christ, who could speak of Himself as "the Son of man who is in heaven," who lived a heavenly — more than this, a divine — life down here. There was not a single motive in Christ which governed the world, or a single motive in the world which governed Christ. "I will even make a way in the wilderness" (Isa. 43: 19), that is the Christian's path.

211 Sometimes we get stopped on the road. "Well," I say to myself, "the eye was not single, or the whole body would have been full of light." It is a path of God. Christ come down to this world, and He treads a path like which there is nothing at all. We are sanctified to the obedience of Christ; God's will was the motive of everything with Him, this was the very way in which He baffled Satan. He never did anything but because it was God's will, not merely that it was according to God's will, though this was true, of course. "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." He had been owned as Son, and the Spirit had descended on Him (there He makes our place), and then He was led of the Spirit to be tempted in the wilderness. When Satan comes and says to Him, "Command that these stones be made bread," there was no harm in eating when He was hungry, but He says, "I have got no orders to do it," "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." So He does nothing, and Satan does nothing — he could not, for that would have been an end to his wiles. The blessed Lord comes to do God's will, and He was "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

We see this in a striking instance when Martha and Mary sent unto Him saying, "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." We would have said, "He will be off directly," but He had got no orders to go. "When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was," John 11: 3-5. We can explain and understand it now: the raising of Lazarus was to be a last testimony to Him. Such is the knowledge of God's will, not merely doing the right thing. God tests the state of the soul thus. If there is wisdom and spiritual understanding, and one is going on rightly, looking back at something one had been doubtful about, one feels, "I wonder how I could have doubted about it at all."

There is a path which the saint has to tread through this world, which is God's path for him in it. God puts him to walk there to test the state of his soul, whether he has wisdom and spiritual understanding. "If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light," Luke 11: 36. A candle not only is light itself, but it gives light to all around. "In thy light we shall see light." "The spiritual man discerneth all things," there is progress in this surely; the measure of it we get in the next verse, "That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." Suppose I did not know my Father, I should not know how to walk worthy of Him. But the babes do know Him.

212 A man's object is always what gives him character: if he loves money, he is avaricious; if he loves power, he is ambitious; if pleasure is his object, it is that which characterises him. The Christian's object is Christ.

We get walking worthy three or four times in Scripture. In Thessalonians we have, "That ye would walk worthy of God who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory," 1 Thess. 2: 12. "Worthy of God!" think what this is, and that according to the place we are to have with Him in glory, when all is complete. We have another here, "That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." The divine Man in this world is our example. Then in Ephesians we have, "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called," Eph. 4: 1. Walking "worthy of the gospel" in another passage (Phil. 1) is almost the same. In one sense we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in these three passages.

If we talk of walking worthy of the Lord, we shall be fruitful; "being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God"; and our hearts, affections, object, mind and walk formed by that: that I get as the walk of the Christian. Then we have the power he walks in, "Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power"; that is the strength to walk right. Now mark how it works, "unto all patience." We would think it was going to do something wonderful; but it is not energy or will, but patience that is the secret of it all. You want to hurry God sometimes, but you never can. We find this sometimes in the desire for restoring a soul — a right thing to wish; but God must go to the bottom. Take a lovely example of this in the Syrophenician woman. The Lord seemed painfully hard; the disciples say, "Send her away; for she crieth after us"; they said this to get rid of her, but He did not answer her one word. She had no title, no promises, nor anything else. At last he said, I cannot "take the children's bread, and cast it unto dogs": this brought her to the acknowledgment of what she was, and of what God was. She insisted that there was love enough in God to meet her as she was. "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then she got all she wanted: Christ could not say there was not. Seemingly the Lord was hard in this case, just as when they sent the message to Him, "Lord, behold he whom thou lovest is sick," and yet, "He abode two days still in the same place where he was."

213 Patience requires thorough confidence in God: God is working His own work meanwhile, but we must follow Him, not go before Him. If I am "strengthened . . . unto all patience," there will be none of my own will, and I shall be long-suffering to others. Power works in patience, longsuffering and joyfulness. Christ was the "Man of sorrows," yet He could say of His disciples, "That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves," "I do always those things that please him"; but He waited to know what the things were that pleased Him.

In Colossians 1: 9-11 we have the state of the soul; then in the following verses the privileges on which it is based.

What was the first sign of an apostle? "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds," 2 Cor. 12: 12. Patience was the first grand sign of an apostle. You never find the apostles healing a friend because it was pleasant to them. "Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick" (2 Tim. 4: 20); and Epaphroditus who had been hunting up Paul somewhere, "was sick nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow," Phil. 2: 27. There is the path of the saint, he is not of this world at all; he is in it, and he has to walk through it in the spirit and character of Christ, with spiritual intelligence of God's will, and having God's strength, doing God's will when it comes. "Let patience have her perfect work," Jas. 1: 4. As regards the grace that puts us into this path, you will find it is the fullest that possibly can be. "Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." All the patience and longsuffering are founded on that. Not only has He justified me, and given me a title to glory, but He "hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." I can say God has made me — all Christians I mean — fit to be in the light.

214 We have seen the path and walk of the Christian; here we see the grace that puts us into it.

The thief could go straight to paradise; he was fit to be there through the work of Christ. We have no more remarkable testimony to the work of grace in the soul than in his case. When the whole world was against Christ, he confesses Him: when He was hanging like himself on the cross, he says, "Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom": he was certain of that, and when in agony of pain he never thinks about it. You see further the perfect work of confidence wrought in him. How should we like to be remembered, hanging, as he was, there? Yet he was fit to be with Christ in paradise. He was the one single person that was a comfort to Christ on the cross, the blessed work of His grace surely: He had none other comfort in this world.

"Which hath made us meet"; there we get the blessed consciousness which introduces us into this walk. "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness." We "were sometimes darkness, but are now light in the Lord." Satan is "the ruler of the darkness of this world": we have been entirely delivered from that, from the darkness of this world, and all that is in it — from Satan, its god and prince. When God was revealed in Christ, He could say, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness," Luke 22: 53. This world — we have ten thousand mercies in it to be thankful for; yet it is a world that has rejected the Son of God, and Satan is over it. "This is your hour."

My beloved friends, I dread the influence of the world over saints more than anything. The world is so subtle that it will come in at the back door if you turn it out at the front. When one has more children, one wants a bigger house, and so it comes in often; it is not like gross sin which anyone can condemn. How began the world? It ended by turning Christ out of it, but it began with Cain. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and in the land of Nod (Nod means a vagabond) he built a city, and called it by the name of his son. This is just what the world has done; it has settled itself out from God. Then you cannot have a stupid city; so you get wealth — cattle the wealth of those days — and artificers in brass and iron, and musical instruments, the harp and the organ. People say, What harm is there in all this? The harm is this, that, having been driven out from the presence of God, and now, what is worse still, having driven Christ out of the world, man must try to make the world as pleasant as he can, because he is away from God. There is no harm in brass and iron, but there is harm in using them away from God. If I knocked a man down in the street, there would be no harm in my strength, but there would be harm in the use I made of it.

215 "And hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love"; not only have we thus light but love, the two essential names of God. I have got both according to Christ. While I have been delivered from the power of darkness, I am brought (not simply into the light, but withal) into the kingdom where all God's love displays itself in the Son of His love; there I am living. Then he adds the how of it all, so to speak: "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." Light is a thing of perfect purity: if we have been washed white as snow, the more the light shines, the more it shews what we are. Now we have been delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. In Him I have this blessedness; my sins are all forgiven, and I have a perfect conscience, so that I am able to enjoy it. We have got walk founded on that.

We have another immense blessedness here. We have had the character and perfection of the walk of the Christian, and the fulness of the grace we have got in Christ; and now he comes and takes up what God's ways and plans are — "By him to reconcile all things unto himself." This is not come yet, but we get Christ in the place He holds, and where we are in the order of divine events. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature" — He reveals God, and when I see the created system, He is the head of it; the ground of this is that He is the creator of it. "And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." There I get the blessed truth for us that, while the Son created all things ("By him and for him were all things created"), yet He would not take them into possession, till He had His joint-heirs. The time is coming when the created heavens shall be all in order, and Christ the Head of all as Adam was lord of the old creation. We find the same thing in Hebrews 1 — "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." He did not take this place simply as God. "Now he that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." He went down into death, in one sense lower than the creature; He went through death, the grave, hades; and now He is far above all heavens, and He fills all, not simply as God, but in the power of redemption. He is head over all things to the church.

216 All things have not yet been brought into order; but meanwhile where Christ is sitting now is at the right hand of God, "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool"; He has not yet taken His great power, but He has perfected us. "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb. 10. "We see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus . . . crowned with glory and honour," Heb. 2: 8, 9. Part of Psalm 8 has been fulfilled, but not all. This is unfolded in 1 Corinthians 15 too. He is now sitting at the Father's right hand, while He is gathering His joint-heirs. He is the Firstborn of every creature in title. He is waiting till it is fulfilled. "And he is the head of the body, the church": this is special relationship. He will have the headship of creation, and He is head to the church, but herein He is the firstborn from the dead. There I find the scheme of God thus stated, that Christ, who created all things as Son, takes all as Man, but then He is not only head over everything, but head to the church. That is an immense truth, not only a fact but a truth. The Son of God met the whole case our wickedness had brought in; He has been under death, under Satan's power, "made sin for us."

The position of man in the Lord Jesus Christ is after judgment has been executed; he has entered a place that Adam innocent never had, after death, after Satan's power. He is in this new place with a totally new life, Christ's own life, in that place. "In him was life"; He becomes a man because God's "delights were with the sons of men." He takes on the cross our responsibility, and, God being perfectly glorified there, He goes into a new place, according to God's glory, that is for us. "For all the fulness was pleased in him to dwell." If you look at verse 9 of the next chapter, you will see the fact. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Here you get the purpose: that is all the difference. It was not merely a particular individual with a certain quantity of the Godhead — a thought very familiar in those days, but "All the fulness was pleased to dwell in him."

217 Then I come to the second thing: He will reconcile these things, but "You hath he reconciled" (we get it again in 2 Cor. 5). Here we have this blessed truth that this is our present condition of soul with God. I have learnt His love; I have learnt that my sins are gone; my heart is brought as a present thing into God's presence, and here I am with God, without a cloud or quiver, reconciled to God. "To present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." This is our condition in the purpose of God: then we go on to our responsibility in connection with it.

We have got back to God with a sense of more love a great deal than if we had never sinned, for we see God not sparing the best thing in heaven for us. Now I can joy in God for myself. You will find warnings afterwards: still that is what we have here. You will soon find your conscience and responsibility exercised with what follows here. Not merely are we fit to go to heaven; but when I go to God by Christ, I believe in His perfect love, and I have a perfect conscience so that I can enjoy Him. That is the reason I find a very touching thing in John's epistle; 1 John 4: 9-19. First he speaks of the way in which God's love has been manifested. He has given His Son, given His Spirit to dwell in us, made His love perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; then he goes on to say, "We love him because he first loved us," not we ought to love Him. The heart has drunk in all that this love has brought, eternal life, as well as propitiation for our sins, the Spirit given, boldness in the day of judgment, because we shall be like the Judge; all this streams into the heart, so that we can say, "We love him because he first loved us." The sense of this love is reconciliation. If you hear a child saying, "Oh, if you only know my mother, her love, her tenderness, and though I am so foolish, she is always the same"; that child loves his mother, though the mother's love is always the superior. "We love him because he first loved us" supposes reconciliation.

218 Righteousness shall reign when Christ reigns; righteousness shall dwell in the new heavens and the new earth. The effect of our being reconciled in a state of things not yet reconciled is to put us on our responsibility to go on to the end.

The wilderness is no part of God's purpose; but it is a part of His ways. You will see in Exodus 3, 6, and 15, that God's purpose for the Israelites was to give them Canaan. So it is with us; and He takes the case of the thief to shew that the wilderness is not a necessary thing.

Here we are, going through the world, and with that are connected "ifs." There is no "if" in the purpose of God, there is no "if" in the accomplishment of His salvation; but there are "ifs" in the way He leads us, humbling us and proving us. "If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel." If you give up Christ, you will never get there! He puts them through the wilderness, where they are tested and proved as to their obedience and dependence on God. There is no "if" as to my being in Christ: I know I am in Christ — "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (John 14: 20); but the moment He takes me as an actual living man down here, He says, "So run that ye may obtain," 1 Cor. 9: 24. I am set to go through the desert, and if I do not go on to the end, I shall never reach Canaan. What is my confidence? "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." I get Christ the blessed testimony of it; there promises come in. It is not a promise that Christ is my righteousness, but I have promises along the road.

In the ways of God He puts us through this world, where we are dependent on His faithfulness to keep us all the way. We "are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation," 1 Pet. 1: 5. We are in danger every moment, but it is as plain in Scripture as A B C, that God will keep us to the end; but do not you tumble, do not you get tripped. What is the good of saying, "Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand"? (John 10: 28.) Because we are in danger of being plucked. "Catcheth" is the same word: "The wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." I have perfect security in the Lord's faithfulness, not in my own; I get therein dependence on Him. "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not," He said to Peter, and his faith did not fail. I get a vast mass of what is most blessed connected with this, not merely the fact that eternal redemption has been accomplished, but that there is not a moment that God is not thinking of me! No outward violence can prevail against us, "Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand"; and no inward decay, "They shall never perish."

219 There is a striking passage, though not nearly so blessed as that in 1 Corinthians 1. What makes it so gracious is that the Corinthians were going on shockingly ill. "I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ," chap. 1: 4. "Who shall also conform you unto the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." chap. 1: 8. What does Paul do then? He begins to find fault with them, and he blames everything they were doing. We are put through this place of difficulty, exercise, and trial, but we have this word that we are "kept by the power of God": therefore our responsibility is brought out to be leaning on His grace every moment. I may say to my child, If you tumble you will be killed, but I am not going to let him tumble. You are put through these exercises every day to prove whether you are faithful in leaning on His blessed strength, not on your own, to the end of the journey. God's way is to put us through the wilderness, as He did the Israelites, but He never forgot them, never left them without manna. He puts us through this process in bringing us to glory, that we may know ourselves, but He interweaves His grace with all our trials and difficulties. Not only has God wrought eternal redemption for us, but "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous."

If I undertake like Israel, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do," I shall surely tumble; but if I say like Paul, "When I am weak then am I strong," I shall be safe. Paul was in danger when he came down from the third heaven, and the Lord sent a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him; then he learns that, when reduced to utter weakness, and when he felt his weakness, the strength of Christ was made perfect. We have to go through that — we all have. We are reconciled to God, and His purpose is to present us "holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight"; but we are exercised all the way to see how far we "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." In the desert there are "ifs" constantly. God knows whether we need much sifting like Job, who got a good deal, Satan being let loose upon him; but what was the effect of it all? "Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."

220 There is no uncertainty as to the perfection of Christ's work, and no uncertainty as to His receiving us to Himself in glory; but He wants our hearts to get practically into the sense of constant dependence on Him, with the blessed promise that in this path He will never fail but will keep us to the end. When there is wandering of heart, there is danger directly; therefore we get such expressions as "Keep yourselves in the love of God"; there daily responsibility comes in, and we gain immensely by it, having "our senses exercised to discern good and evil." Paul does not say, "I believe," but "I know whom I have believed": the soul finds rest there.

We get something, in its measure, like this in the Old Testament in Psalm 23. The psalmist says, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." He does not say, "Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong" — I have great blessings, but it is the Lord Himself who blesses me. What is the way he learns that? His soul is restored, the Lord spreads a table for him in the presence of his enemies. He had learnt Him through all this, and he is not afraid of the power of death, or of the enemy: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me": and he knows that God will keep him to the end, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

We find in Colossians 1 these three things: —

1. That we are to walk worthy of the Lord, nothing short of it.

2. The blessed consciousness that, if it be a question of our place, all is settled.

3. God's carrying us through a road where we are sifted and tried as to the motives of the heart, that we may know what is in our hearts, and know Him too.

It is a wonderful thing that God thinks of our dangers, our characters, and our circumstances. He never ceases to think of us along the road.

The Christian not of the world

Colossians 2

J. N. Darby.

<31016E> 221

There is practically one subject in what I have read, but divided into two parts: one, Christ as contrasted with all the thoughts of the world; and the other, the true place of the Christian as in Him. It is a new place, even in Christ. He begins by pressing on them a warning against all the philosophy and Judaism abroad. They really ran into the same channel; and this is connected with the second point referred to, because they belong to this world. Christ is put, first, in opposition to all that; and, secondly, he unfolds that what is in Christ is in a risen Christ, outside of this world. There are the same things current now, for people are turning back to "the rudiments of the world." All this infidelity and ritualism have just the same root, though not the same shape; both belong to this world, and are what man's mind and imagination, as a child of Adam, can take up. The contrast is Christ risen — Christ out of this world.

This chapter brings out both. They are the workings of man's mind and imagination — what man can do; whereas the moment you get what God has revealed in Christ, and the place Christ is in, man has nothing to do with it. They are the rudiments of this world: the one is reasoning or mental flesh; and the other is imaginative flesh. This ritualism — Christ offered every Sunday, etc. — is as if there was not one offering for sin. But I find "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Then it is not perfected! This makes all the difference. My imagination and fancy can take hold of these things, or the mind rejects them; but they are the denial that Christ has finished the work of redemption.

We are very little aware (though they are quite different parts of human nature) how it all has to do with man — man not delivered from himself — and having Christ instead. The apostle first warns them, and then shews what the real thing is, that is, Christ in heavenly places. God had taken up human nature among the Jews to see if it could be brought into connection with Him; and it could not. It was tried in a certain sense; but God had to hide Himself behind a veil: if there were no veil, you must be able to stand in the light, as God is light. God never came out, but He set up a gorgeous worship, and He gave the law as a more perfect rule for human nature, for man as he is. The question is, has man kept it? No one has. Where a person is going on under Judaism, he will take all the gorgeous part of it, and, on the other hand, he talks of the law, without the consciousness that he has not kept it. Of course numbers fear the law when their conscience is awakened; and, where there is truth of conscience under such a system, they are always unhappy. Man's mind takes its own course, and ends necessarily without finding God. "Can man by searching find out God?" Instead of that, you get God fully revealed in Christ, and man brought to God in Christ. Christianity supplants the darkness of the natural mind (I do not say soul), which could have nothing to do with God, and which, take it in its fullest broadest sense, is necessarily atheism, as it never reaches to God, confining itself to what the mind can find out; and that is what they were all doing here.

222 The apostle was anxious about them, because they were constantly mixed up with these things — living in the midst of these Greek philosophers. Although he had never been there, yet his heart knew experimentally by the power of the Holy Ghost what the snares were, and he says, "I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you." He felt the dangers that were there, and he looked on these saints as belonging to Christ, whom he so loved and laboured for, and he shewed interest in them.

Verse 2. Here I get the understanding of the mystery of God, and that is another thing altogether. It is not the way we are accustomed to understand the word "mystery," as a thing not to be found out; but it is a thing only known by revelation — it is not known save to the initiated. It is that which by divine revelation and teaching we know, and it brings us into a totally new world.

You get, then, another important thing needed. Supposing I was the greatest scientist in the world, there is not a bit of love about it: it is connected with nobody, and there is not an atom of soul-work in it. Therefore God cannot be known, for God is love. Faith gives us an inlet into all the things that love has done. Science is as cold as ice — dead cold: you cannot let a bit of feeling in. There is no relationship with anything in the world or any One above it (v. 2). But revelation lets in "To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God" — God the source of their life, God the One who dwells there by the Holy Ghost among them, and gives the feeling that flows from the relationship into which they are brought. The mind may get developed, but there is no moral [motive?] in it — it is not in its nature. The Christian acts by a motive. Science does not touch the ground that the soul is on. What has feeling to do with the discovery of how the physical nature works? In Christ I learn the blessed truth, that God dwells in me by the power of the Spirit in the divine nature, and I have communion with the Father and the Son. I get into a new world altogether.

223 Then I rise "unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding." Understanding of what? Of how animals were born? No; of the hidden mystery. I get my heart opened to see all the scope of God's plans and counsels in Christ. You get the "full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10: 22) (that is not science!) that "he that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true." Science says, "I think this, and I think that" — such is all it has. I find adequate certainty about all common things, but if I have the testimony of God, I get the positive certainty of faith — the only certainty we have. I have set to my seal that God is true — He cannot but be true.

I get another "full assurance," and that is "hope" (Heb. 6: 11), for there you have the affections engaged, and the things realised. It gives much greater reality — the very acquaintance imparts great reality. I am going to be in the same glory with Christ, and that is the full assurance of hope. Am I going to be there? Yes, of course, if you are a believer, and you have the earnest of it in your hearts. "Earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven" — that is the full assurance of hope.

The third thing goes much higher — "Full assurance of understanding" — for it is part of God's plan and counsel in Christ; and if we are not there, Christ's glory is not complete, and it cannot be otherwise. "We have the mind of Christ." If I have the full assurance of hope, then I see these things as a part of God's plan and Christ's glory, and that is the full assurance of understanding.

"To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." There is nothing so certain in the world as the revelation of God, known only by redemption. Now you belong to another world: these things (philosophy, Judaism, etc.) do not belong to the world I am in. Of course there is God's creation, but it is His first creation; it passes away, or we perish from it. It is a wonderful creation, but that is not being reconciled to God, and being in the new creation. In this mystery are all God's wisdom and knowledge — all summed up — all His counsels there, to which the natural mind has not even an entrance, and never can, for "they are spiritually discerned." It rests on the revelation of God. The soul finds its affections in the new creation; it has a world it belongs to, and "they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." You get the figure of it in Abram. He had not so much as to set his foot upon; he was not in the land, but he belonged to it, and that is just where we are, "As having nothing, and yet possessing all things." The world attracts Lot's heart in the character of its efforts at grandeur; but Abram was a stranger and pilgrim, and he says, "If thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." Lot goes down to the plain just ripening for judgment, and pitches his tent near Sodom; then he gets nearer and nearer, till he is snatched out of it. As soon as Lot had gone down and chosen this prosperous place, then God says to Abram, "Lift up now thine eyes," etc. As soon as he had completely given up the world in heart, then the promised land rose up before him. He realised the thing that was promised to him. It was separation to God in faith. He got the full assurance of hope.

224 Now we go on to learn where the Christian is, not what he is yet. "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." It is Christ up in heaven in another world. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Here I find the actual starting-place, and this is, that in Christ all the fulness of the Godhead bodily is revealed. I have the perfect revelation of the fulness of the Godhead in Christ. I have nothing new to look after (save of course, to know it better), for I cannot go beyond the fulness of the Godhead, and it is revealed to me. In Christ, in that Man — more than man, for He was God too — has been the revelation of the fulness of the Godhead. It requires eyes to see it; but to faith, which saw through the veil of His humiliation when here, there was not a trait in His character, an act in His conduct, or an expression of the feeling of His heart going out to the misery around Him, that was not the revelation of the Godhead; the Father was revealed, as in John 14, all was revealed, and nothing else to seek after, except to know it better.

225 Then I get the other blessed side (v. 10), "In him dwelleth all the completeness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him" (just the same word in the original). Yes, and I say I am complete in Him before God — God is completely revealed to me in Christ; but what about you? can you stand before Him? I am before Him complete in Christ, with not a single thing wanting. This makes it such a full statement of what the mystery is — the positive relation of all the fulness of the Godhead in One who has come close to me in love, that I may know He is love. When Christ was in this world, He did not seek anything great or grand for Himself. What did He seek? Sorrow, poverty, misery. That is what God has been doing in this world — perfect love (and power too) relieving distress — love that brought down perfect goodness to where I was; that is what God is to me. Perfect goodness in the midst of all the sorrow and misery of this world, and the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily! Ah, poor science! it is a long way off from that. It can tell me about protoplasms, but about divine love never!

The mystery of Christ shews me this completeness without going to outside things — not up in the clouds to reach it if we can, but brought down to me here. I am complete in Christ, but as I find God perfectly revealed (none of us can measure it, of course, or even go through it — we have to search it out, and grow in it) then I find this on the other side: How can I stand before Him, and grasp all that? Are you fit to be in His presence? Yes; I say, "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." That is the place you are brought into, just as the completeness of the Godhead was brought to us in Christ. Then I find that I am complete according to all God's thoughts. Just as God stood in Christ before man, man stands in Christ before God. It is not merely philosophy spelling out what has been all around us since the creation, it is the One who created it all; and besides this, I find my personal blessedness in it. I am complete in Him, I have everything I want, and that I want for eternity. "Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one" — all one set. What life have I got? Christ. What righteousness? Christ. What glory? Christ. Just in one position and state. How can I tell how much God loves me? This I can tell you (or rather Christ has told us), that you are loved as Christ is loved. And we know it now. "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it," etc. He dwells in us, and the Holy Ghost brings down this love into our hearts; "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us."

226 Now the apostle turns to a special thing which was their difficulty then, that, while he gives the whole scope of God's mind in the mystery, he goes down and deals with this fleshly religion. The Colossians were accustomed to be in the midst of these things. The Jewish system was bringing out for us whether man in the flesh could have to do with God. How many souls there are now under the law in their hearts (they are lawless if they are not)! You must get the knowledge of sin by the law, if rightly applied. It is man, as responsible man, getting a perfect rule of what he ought to be, and circumcision is merely the expression of that — death of the flesh. All that was shadowed forth in those things you have in Christ.

The apostle turns more to details to shew where we are as Christians (v. 11). A totally new thing it is — the putting off the body of the flesh. They never had circumcision in the wilderness, not till they crossed the Jordan — a figure of our dying with Christ. Gilgal was the place where they rolled away the reproach of the world. I get the same here. Before it was a circumcision made with hands; now it is without: I have the true circumcision. Instead of the mere outward ritual of the thing, I have the thing itself; I am complete in Christ. How so? Why I am dead and gone! I have put off the old man altogether; I am not speaking of carrying it out: this you get in 2 Corinthians 4: 10. A risen Christ is my life, all connection with this world is gone. I am dead to sin, and alive to God. I have put off the body of the flesh, I have died with Christ. I reckon myself dead; I have got a risen Christ as my life; to faith then I have done with this flesh — done with it altogether. I have got this new thing; I am in it (of course I am in this poor earthly tabernacle still, but) I do not belong to this world; I have died through the death of Christ. It is not merely saying you must die — saying "you must" does not give a thing. If you have died with Christ, you are risen with Him — you have left it all behind. It is the very character and meaning of baptism. With Christ I died, I am baptised to Christ's death. Here am I, a living man, and I go through death with Christ (an outward sign, of course) — a person who has gone with Christ into His grave, and come up out of it again. He passed out of the condition He was in here as a man on the earth into a totally new place — God raised Him from the dead. You then get, "Wherein also ye are risen with him," etc. As a Christian you are risen. I have got into this new state; I say, That is myself, for I am a Christian.

227 And now we get much further light on our condition. "And you being dead in your sins" (v. 13). I was living in sins in the other, but the truth of "dead in sins" goes a good deal farther: alive as regards my sins, but dead as regards God. This goes farther, and takes up the nature that likes doing them. There is not one single thing in your heart with which God could link Himself. "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." There is nothing in heaven your nature would like.

I get now, not merely "quickened," but "quickened together with him" (v. 13); because, supposing I am alive, I may be spiritually alive, or I may be in Romans 7. Any one there says, "I think Christ is precious to me, and I love His word and His people," but he is examining himself to find out if he is in the new creation. Like the prodigal, he has not met the father; but this is not quickened together with Christ — quickened, no doubt, and when I speak of being quickened in that way, it is the divine operation of a new life in my soul. But quickened together with Christ is different. Where do I see Christ Himself? Not as quickener, but as quickened. Christ as man has been raised from the dead. He died under our sins — for them; He went on unto death for us, and God has raised Him up, and, supposing I am a believer, I am raised up with Him. If I look at myself, it is as raised with Christ, as it says here, "Quickened together with him." It looks at Christ as a dead man, but that in coming down to death He put away my sins, and therefore I am raised with Him. It is not merely the fact that I have life; I have life in a new condition where Christ is. I have got into a new place before God — Christ's place — and all my sins are left on the other side of Christ's grave. I do not own the old man, it is the horrid thing that has been deceiving me.

There are two more things I would just mention. There are these ordinances — all "blotted out." All the things the flesh can do in order to gain acceptance are dead in the flesh that did them. Where do I find Christ now that we are risen? Where do I find Christ in the Lord's supper? It is His death. "Bringing Christ into the elements," as people say; there is no such thing, for it is a dead Christ. The shed blood shews forth His death, and there is no such Christ now. After His resurrection He is alive, death can have no more dominion over Him. And so baptism, as to its signification; it is unto His death: I have gone down with Christ to death, and I am risen with Him.

228 Only one thing more. In order to bring us thus complete in Him, there were other things against us — these "principalities and powers" (v. 15). Christ has destroyed Satan's power in the cross; I was a living man in sin — that is gone. Then all those ordinances I was bound to — they are gone. Well, then, Satan's power (not that he has not power) — Christ has triumphed over him, "Through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil"; so death has lost its power too. The cross of Christ has closed the history of the old man, and of all its associations. I was a slave of sin, "I am quickened together with him" — a slave to ordinances, they are "nailed to his cross" — a slave to Satan, his power is destroyed. I am risen with Christ beyond these things, and that is where the Christian is. I am going to have an everlasting holiday; I have it even now in spirit. I am going to God's rest in heaven. I do not keep days, for this is going back to heathenism. Do you think the sun going round will make them keep days in heaven? It is an everlasting holiday; it is only in our hearts now, for if we follow Christ, we learn its sorrows and griefs too, for He was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." We are taken out of all the speculation of philosophy, for we are in a world into which it cannot get.

Now, beloved friends, are your hearts ready to accept such a Christianity? The flesh clings to what the flesh likes — clings to the world, and that which Satan has power over us by, and therefore there is still the combating. But are you content with this? I do not talk about realisation; but are you content to take that path which Christ walked as your path? — to take up your cross daily and follow Him? It looks bitter to the flesh, for it is another world that the flesh can have nothing to say to, even in thought. We shall fail in many things; but are you content to have done with the world into which you were born — to be dead out of it? It is the character and essence of what Christianity really is. My place is as a Christian come up out of Christ's grave. Are you content to take such a Christianity as that? You will never escape the wiles of the devil — either philosophy or Ritualism — you have not got what takes you out of their sphere and dominion. It is the wiles of the devil we have to stand against, not his power — resist him. We have still that allowed in us, in our lives, which Satan can use and get a hold of. You say I must have done with this world that does not want Christ; but if I am risen with Christ, I say I have done with it. The more we go on, the more we shall see it is what is needed. If we are not using the power of Christ in that way, we shall not succeed. If we are risen with Christ, there is a world that the life belongs to, and a world that the flesh cannot touch. Is my heart living for the world where Christ is gone, or for this world?

229 The Lord give us to see Him so precious, that those things that were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. It is all very easy with a single eye, but "a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." If Christ is up there, then, of course, our hearts will go after Him. It must be a thorough thing.

_________

We see in this epistle that Christ is all: there is life in Him; then we see the object into which this life grows — the child grows up into that. We get, further, all the scene into which Christ has entered, as the child grows up into the scene around him. Christ is all, and He is in all too. Then another thing which we are all conscious of — the way in which He has met our need as poor sinners, the work of Christ which He has wrought for us all alone; all that meeting our consciences, and the effect of it too, which is that the Christian is looked at in two different ways — as a sinner saved, and as one who stands in the system and circle of God's purpose; they are two very distinct things, and the way of treating them is distinct too.

There are many thorough and devoted Christians who do not get beyond this first thing that God has done; but there is another thing — the thought and purpose God had in doing it, our portion looked at as connected with the second Adam.

He is our Saviour as regards the first man, looked at as responsible man, but behind all that, and beyond all that, there is the purpose of God, in which we are looked at, not as in the first man, but in the Second. You get the old man looked at (vv. 12, 13), One dying for our sins, standing in our place as guilty sinners, saving and justifying us; and then you get the second point, "quickened together with Christ." Whenever he speaks of quickening in these epistles, it is not merely the fact of having life; He looks at us as dead in our sins, not responsible people, but dead, and God not dealing with a responsible man, but a new creation, totally new; it is quite a different aspect, though they run into one another. I have died in Christ — "in which things ye walked when ye lived in them," and death had to come in as to that life.

230 There are two things in connection with that, though he does not go much into the second in this epistle. First, we are a new creation, then there is the sphere in which this new creation has its life. Our conversation is in heaven. As to myself, I know that in me dwelleth no good thing, but I am placed, like Christ, before God. He has said, "My Father, and your Father"; "as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly" — this takes another scope altogether.

We come in as guilty sinners. If I merely get hold of the purpose of God, without conscience being reached as to sins, there is no truth in it; I must know what I am in myself before I can know what I am made in Christ. That is the point I had in my mind, which I desire to have your hearts turned to — the difference between saving a sinner, and one whom Christ is not ashamed to call a brother; that is not true about sinful Adam. Looked at as new creatures, we are new creatures in Christ Jesus (in Colossians he does not go much farther than that); new creatures which grow up as a child does in the sphere in which it lives, in which all its thoughts and affections are developed.

Verse 2. You do not want the wisdom of the world here; the life is of God. We are passed through this world, left here for exercises and trials, much to learn and much to unlearn, but still we get this sphere into which we are brought by grace, as well as the nature which is capable of enjoying it.

Verse 6. "So walk ye in Him." If Christ is our life, let us walk in Him, the heart not getting out of this sphere which belongs to the new creation. You must all know, if you know anything of your own hearts, that double-mindedness is a great snare, even in the most sincere. We are constantly surrounded with that which belongs to the old man. I am not talking of sins. Take an unconverted man — his heart is like a highway for everything that comes before him in the world. That is an extreme case, but for us there is the danger of distraction, politics, all the things going on around us; and if the heart is not living in the sources of strength, it is doubleminded — I do not mean in will, but that which determines the conduct of a Christian is not there; it is not the strait and narrow way for his heart, but that running through his mind and heart which saps the spiritual strength, and the manna is light food for him, not sweet as honey, but light food. Such is the danger of distraction, and so he says, "Beware."

231 Verse 8. "Not after Christ." This is the turning-point. The world has its principles, its rudiments; and all these things that distract us belong to the world's estimate of things, and we do not suspect danger. People are talking of things around, and we are drawn into the ordinary conversation, and we come out with the consciousness that we have been unfaithful to Christ, and our spiritual strength is weakened. When the people were thinking of the leeks, the onions, and the cucumbers, they forgot they had been making bricks without straw in Egypt. A glorified Christ on high is the testimony that the world would not have Christ, and it goes on with its own rudiments and principles. Look at the prayer in Ephesians 3 — what infinite blessedness! the poor world has nothing of that, and there you get the sphere of the life.

"In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." I get this wonderful central object, that where all the fulness of the Godhead is, it has all been in a Man: how little our hearts reach up to it! He says, "Strengthened with might," that we may. But there it is for us, and in us too we can say in one sense; but that which He looks for is, that having got in a Man, the object of the Father's delight, all the fulness of the Godhead, I should feed upon that with joy. If my soul has really felt and seen the fulness of the Godhead in Him in this world, if my eyes are open to see what He was there, I find this wonderful thing, a Man who is much meeker than I am, who thinks about my feelings much more than I do about His, and He is here close to me — a Man much more true, humble, gracious, affable than any other; and now we are united to Him where He is. You find what people do when they are settled in the truth of justification — they go back, and feed upon the Gospels. He becomes the food of the soul, and its object; and we find this unspeakable truth, that He who is sufficient for the Father's delight is sufficient for mine — my thoughts poor enough, but His perfect. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"; that is what is before us in "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; and this truth was the very first one that was attacked. And this is the reason of one of those cases of gracious thoughtfulness which we get at the well of Samaria: 'If thou knewest Who it was that came down so low as to be dependent on a woman like you for a drink of water — '

232 He was utterly alone in a world of sinners, and then worked redemption; and now we are brought through the power of redemption and the Holy Ghost to see who He is.

He never gives up His Godhead place. It does not cease to be condescension when the thing is complete, and instead of waiting on our infirmities, it is bringing us into His blessedness. What are all the distractions of the world in the face of such a thing! It was His intention we should walk by faith; when He speaks of sight, it is the sight of heavenly things, but it is equally true we cannot live by sight here.

Verse 10. If the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him, we are complete in Him too — complete according to God's mind, in Christ before God. What is the measure of that completeness? Christ. And what is that "in Christ"? God looked down at Christ, looks at Him now, He is all the desire of His heart, and we are complete in Him. All that satisfies God's delight, His spiritual judgment (if I may use such an expression of God), He also brings us into (of course, He keeps His Godhead). All His thoughts as to righteousness, holiness, love are satisfied in Christ, and we are complete in Him. What a place, beloved brethren! And it was brought down to us in perfect grace where we were; and, on the other hand, there is all that God's heart and righteousness could delight in, and we are in that, Christ the measure. God had His measure for man, that was the law, what the first man ought to be; but here it is where all God's thoughts are satisfied, not in the first man, but, in His own wisdom, in the second Man.

He applies it now in detail. We see how God takes us up as poor sinners to redeem us: first, as regards His dealings with us where we were; and then, taking us in our lowest possible condition as dead in sins, we see what He has brought us into. Here I get the putting off, the circumcision; that is no part of the purpose of God. It is not put off outwardly, it is the discovery, not of certain things we have done, but of this old stock, the flesh, which is enmity against God, a positive thing in me, to which death must be applied; it is in grace, for it is the death of Christ. I find the evil thing, the flesh, lusting against the Spirit, and the only remedy for that is death; to reckon ourselves dead, that is our place as Christians, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I get the figure of that here in the putting off of a thing always evil in its nature. If I try to keep it down, as not knowing it is dead in Christ, it will be a laborious effort, in which I can never succeed; but if I see it dead with Christ, I see it is a question between Christ and God. "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Of forgiving it he does not talk; it was an evil nature, and God condemned it in death.

233 But in all this God is dealing still with the old thing. First, I need to get my sins blotted out as guilt, but when I want, in honesty of heart, to walk aright, I find this — I died there; I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and I say, It is not I, it is only sin, and this was crucified in the cross. But then all that deals with the old man. It is the necessity of my condition, but not the purpose of God. Many, alas! have not even learned that. They see their sins are forgiven, but not that they have died out of that condition, so as to have done with it altogether. I am entitled to reckon myself dead, and then in Christ, who has redeemed me, I get by the Holy Ghost power against it; but still that is all about the old thing. I get this death to sin, and resurrection too, but still dealing with the old thing. But then, when I come to the new thing, I can look at it in another aspect. It is stated in this epistle and in Ephesians. In Ephesians it is more as to its nature, "which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth." God's own nature reproduced, it was manifested in Christ, the pattern and fulness of it. In Colossians 3: 10 it is expressed a little differently: "Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." I have got to know what love is; I know what righteousness in the divine sense is, and I know what holiness is. If I am chastened, it is that I may be a partaker of His holiness. "Renewed in knowledge" — I press this, for while Colossians does not put us so much into the new sphere, I am renewed in knowledge. He has brought into our souls the knowledge of what is pleasing to God, a new nature, associated with God in its very being and nature.

234 Supposing for a moment that I have known justification, have known the old man dead, I get another thing, "dead in your sins" (v. 13). When I come to know myself, I see that, spiritually speaking, I was dead, not a living sinner dealing with the old thing as bad, but I am dead in sins. My starting-point is total alienation from God; it is not the things I have done, nor the evil nature that did them, but no one thing in my heart that answered to God, and when the only thing that answered to God's heart was here, we would have nothing to do with Him. I have got on to another ground now; I have found out that, in respect of God, I was dead in sins; but then, when I was lying, in a spiritual sense, dead in sins, Christ came down to the cross, and He died for my sins; and I get Christ, not as the quickening Son of God, but rather as quickened, and with that alone in Scripture the new creation begins. When speaking of the lusts and sins of the old man, I say, You must die; but now on this ground I am totally dead, not a movement of my heart towards God, and nothing could stir any movement. It was tried — God, in His love, sending His Son; and what it woke was hatred.

I am quickened together with Him, an entirely new thing which I had not before, Christ now the only life I have. God's power has come in, and taken me spiritually out of that state, as He took Christ out of it, and has put me into Christ, not yet with Him. I am created in Christ Jesus, and so he says, If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation: our faith ought to realise it, for we are not there actually yet.

In this new creation we are sitting together in Christ, but it does not go so far as that in Colossians; He makes me a partaker of His own nature, and this is the only thing I own at all. What is the first man? What does he belong to? To the world, of course. This makes one of the difficulties of the Christian. I cannot expect the world to see what I see. But there is a path the vulture's eye hath not seen, and He does help us through these difficulties. We have to go through it; but this is not the world the new Man belongs to.

As dead in sins, we are totally away from God. Do not we know it, beloved friends? Take the most respectable, decent man in the world — the things of Christ have no interest for him — he is dead towards God; he may be intelligent, honest, etc., but you never get Christ in his heart. It was just the same with ourselves. It is not a question of reprobate criminals, but we were dead.

235 Supposing I get a dead man, is there any motion in his heart towards another? No. Can you produce any? No. You may galvanise him for a moment, just as striking impressions may be produced, but he is dead. But I get this unspeakable grace, that Christ came down here actually to death. God quickened Him and us, and I am a partaker of the divine nature, a totally new thing — of the second Adam, not the first — a man that belongs to God's new creation, because he is a new creation. We never know thoroughly our blessing until we get hold of that; the thorough consciousness of what we were as dead in sins; the grace of Christ in coming down here; and therefore we are totally and actually raised out of it into another world. God has a new creation, of which Christ is the Head, He sitting now at God's right hand alone, and we strangers and pilgrims seeking a country, Christ the ensample, and we have to follow His steps, the path which none but the spiritual eye can see through this world. A new man, created of God, the life I have now got as created to satisfy Himself and all that He is. When we were these poor wretched sinners, guilty, away from God, it was in the purpose of His heart, ordained before the world unto our glory. I cannot enlarge upon this now — perhaps could not do it properly if I tried. But there is that sphere we belong to altogether, though left to go through this world.

Beloved brethren, as born of God you belong not to this world at all, but to the world where Christ has gone to prepare a place for you, and from whence He is preparing you for the place. When dead in sins, He has quickened us together with Christ — the divine grace of the Son of God, who became a man on purpose to die, and came into our death and sins, made sin for us, and He is gone to be the beginning and the Head of this new creation. Our every-day trial, how far we are living in this new creation, our conversation in heaven.

There are these two things: the nature you have got, "created after God in righteousness and true holiness"; and then, where will that find what will satisfy its affections? It is revealed to us in Christ, and the Holy Ghost down here has brought these things out before us, "that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."

236 We have to see, beloved brethren, how far we are not only keeping out the evil lusts of our hearts, but as new creatures are living in the new creation of God. I may be a babe in it, of course, but the affections of the babe are as true as those of the old man. How far is your conversation in heaven, where Christ is gone to prepare a place where you may be with Him and like Him? your hearts in love and thankfulness to Him who loved you, living in the things He died to bring you into.

What I desire your hearts to study in Scripture is this — that while there is this reckoning ourselves dead, there is the other aspect, that, dead in sins, we are created anew in Christ Jesus. You are a new creation as to state and condition, but how far are you living in the sphere it belongs to? It is a wonderful thing to think God has created us thus, Christ the attractive point there the power of it all; and what is this poor world to me?

The Lord give us, beloved friends, as quickened together with Christ, all trespasses forgiven, to see what it is to have our conversation in that which we belong to.

Christian Life

Colossians 3

J. N. Darby.

<31017E> 237

We get here the great groundwork of Christian life, and the development of Christian life itself, both negatively and positively — what we put off, and what we put on.

It is of all moment for us, not only to understand it as stated in Scripture, but to have the statements of Scripture transferred to our hearts and consciences, that we are in an entirely new creation, "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." So the first man was made in the image of God, though now a lost ruined creature. In death and resurrection man gets a new place altogether, not only quickened, but quickened together with Christ. A man may be quickened as to the state of his mind, and yet think he is alive in the world, which is the very thing we are not. As to our condition before God, we do not belong to the life that is on this side of death. A new life may be given, and the man left down here; but Christ is looked at as a man who has died here, after having come into our place, taken the judgment — the cup, and gone away beyond it; and this is our place; not as to our bodies of course, for we have the treasure in earthen vessels, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies; but our place in faith and in life is Christ's place, the Second man's place, and not the first man's. If our bodies, it is the first; if our souls, it is the Second. We are taken out of the old place by redemption. I repeat it, for it is very important for the apprehension of faith, that Christ the Son, a divine Person, communicated life, but Christ died, and now we are quickened together with Him. The place we were in by sin and disobedience, He was in for us, and, He having perfected the work needed to redeem us, we are taken up into the place where He is, and when He comes to raise the dead, we shall be there actually. Now it is putting on the character of Christ; then it will be actually the thing in glory.

All through, the teaching here is not simply that we are born of God, but raised with Christ, who as Man is actually there; and it is the basis of Christianity to understand it, and the love that gave Him too. We have to watch and deny the ways of the old man, which seeks a place in the world, likes consideration, etc.; but Christ took the lowest place, and calls us to follow Him. As to our place with God, it is as near Him as Christ is. "If you died with Christ, how can you be alive spiritually in this world?" It is very strong as to a Christian's place. The world is always soliciting the Christian back into it; it is an immense system which Satan has built up to act on the flesh and to hide God. This cannot satisfy conscience, and therefore, when a man's conscience is awakened, he bows his head as a bulrush, saying, "Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" and gets under ordinances. He has not got out in spirit and state from this world — is not dead to it; it is the religion Paul had when he was Saul the Pharisee. An unconverted man can do these things better than a converted one, for the latter has too much thought to be satisfied, though he may be doing it. He may go on his knees, and be vexed and angry if you do not think well of him for it; he is making out his religion as a living man, not as a redeemed man.

238 Man is a religious animal: it is a necessity of man's heart. His reason may reason him out of the want of God, but there it remains at the bottom, and breaks out again, as it was after the French revolution. It is part of man's nature to have to say to God; it is the consciousness that he cannot supply his own needs in this world, and must turn to a God above him. It may be miserably corrupted, but man wants help, he wants to look up. The devil used this to let him make gods of his passions; but in man's nature is a craving after God; and man, when not set free by the work of redemption, will be religious; it is Pharisaism — there have always been Pharisees. It is just ritualism, alive in the world, and subject to ordinances, not dead with Christ; chap. 2: 21, 22. I may fancy there are precious mysteries in these things, but they are all to perish with the using, and therefore the old nature makes its religion in them — "a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." They go back to the shadows, as if they were something real, and are subject to ordinances; man's will is in it, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. It is to the satisfying of the flesh. Who was satisfied when the Pharisee thanked God he was not as other men are? To whose credit did it go? To God or Christ?

Supposing I were to fast seven times a week. Well, I think myself better than the man who only does it six times; it is satisfying the flesh. Supposing it is prayer (I need not say prayer is the most blessed privilege a man has); but if he says so many prayers, the one who says five is better than the one who only says three: it is satisfying the flesh, though neglecting the body. That is, as regards being dead with Christ, I am clean out of it, I have left it all behind; what is it to me if I am dead? No good thing in you at all, for the religious doings of the flesh are flesh still; it is merely saying, I am not dead with Christ. What are our greatest privileges, as Christians, may be used in this way.

239 Chapter 3: 1. If risen with Christ, you are not in the world. If I have got this Christ-place, that I have died to the world, making Christ my life, I reckon myself dead, and alive to God, not in Adam, but in Jesus Christ our Lord. It is a great thing for the believer, it strikes at the root of a number of things in detail as we go on. Am I, a living man as born of Adam, to question my place with God as such? or am I dead with Christ, risen with Christ, and having my place with God as such?

"Where Christ sitteth"; there is one Man who has gone there, a blessed Man who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am with Him risen, knowing redemption or forgiveness, and my affections rest on Him up there. I see Christ on high. "Set your affections on things above," etc. He is looking for the state of the moral mind here. Having the consciousness that Christ is my life up there, my heart follows Him. A dead man cannot have his affections or mind on things of earth.

Verse 3. Another thing which comes out most blessedly here is our complete thorough association with Christ. What is true of Him is true of me. "He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one." Christ is dead, we are dead: Christ is hid in God, our life is hid in Him: when He appears, we appear. "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." There is this blessed identification with Christ, our sins put away; and as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall bear the image of the heavenly. "As he is, so are we in this world"; not that we are actually in the glory, but it is our place before God. It gives wonderfully settled peace, beloved friends — all sins completely blotted out. But this is not all, there is another thing — in what kind of a way am I going to be received, supposing He had forgiven us, and left us here to go on as best we could? That is not what He has done. "Accepted in the Beloved" — that is what a Christian is. What the flesh has done is blotted out, and put away, but then we are in Christ, "as he is, so are we" — the positive side, in short, not only the negative; loved as Christ is loved, "the glory thou hast given me, I have given them." "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them," that is now. The world will know we are thus loved when it sees us in the same glory with Himself.

240 Christ was totally alone with God when He was made sin for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; and when this was done, sitting above in glory, He sent down the Holy Ghost to give us the consciousness that we are in the same place.

You find many such passages, as in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ is not raised, we are not raised. He was really a dead man, and if I am not raised, Christ has not been. We get all in this blessed association with Christ. But where it pinches is, if that is true, "he that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." This will not do with the world. It pinches our poor wretched hearts if the flesh works; but when the heart is on Christ, it is freedom and blessed liberty; but it is a hard thing to the feeble heart that I am to be like Christ down here. I know I am going to be like Christ in glory, to bear the image of the heavenly; and so there is one object on earth — to win Him, and to purify myself even as He is pure. Beholding the glory of the Lord, I am changed into the same image.

Here is the groundwork which is thus laid: dead with Christ, risen with Christ — not there yet, of course, but our affections set upon things above, not on things of earth; they cannot go together; "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Our affections follow Christ where He is actually gone; our hearts have got into the place where He is risen in glory. How far have our hearts got there? We have actual acceptance, we know we are in Christ before God; but how far are our hearts content to follow Him, as He said, "Follow thou me"? A very strong word it is, as taking us right out of this world — a full and absolute object for the heart. There is a way the vulture's eye hath not seen — the following Christ, the one thing God delights in.

In verse 5, etc., you find more fully than anywhere in Scripture what this life of the Christian really is. But it is "members which are on the earth only." But mark this: the moment I am here I have power, which in the flesh I have not. "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law did work in my members to bring forth fruit unto death." The renewed man under law has no power; when dead and risen with Christ, we get power. "Mortifying" is putting to death. Scripture does not say "dying"; but we are called to reckon ourselves dead, because He has done it and has become our life, and then I say to the flesh, I do not know you, I have had enough of you; I am dead.

241 Colossians gives the fact, Romans 6 is faith's estimate of it. 2 Corinthians 5 is practically carrying it out, "and so death worketh in us, and life in you"; there is power, the power of Christ.

Verse 6. Unbelief is not the only ground of judgment. The world is condemned as such for having rejected Christ, but judgment is for works.

Verse 7. "In the which ye also walked some time when ye lived in them." They are not supposed to be in them now that they were in Christ; they had walked in them, like other Gentiles.

Gross things come first, what is plain and evident; but he does not stop there, for he will not have the flesh stir. How is it that you get angry? Is it not this, that the flesh is not subdued practically? Impatience — where does that come from? You say, "Oh, but it is so vexing, so provoking." Would Christ be impatient? And you have Christ's life. "Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man and his deeds." I get three characters of sin — devil sins and brute sins; corruption and violence in anger and malice; and then, added to that, "Lie not one to another," with the ground of this, "seeing ye have put off the old man."

And now we have the putting on. Mark the measure of this here, "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." My standard of what is good is spiritual knowledge of God's nature. We are renewed in knowledge. I say that does not suit God.

If I take the character and image, I see that manifested in a man in Christ. In Ephesians it is, "Be ye followers of God as dear children." He takes the essential names of God, light and love, and in both cases he takes Christ as the pattern. A person says, An imitator of God! how can I be that, a poor worm like me? But what is your pattern? Christ — that is the way we are to walk. It is not simply what is claimed from man under the law, but my walk is to be the expression of God; and I see this in Christ — love manifested in the midst of evil. It is not, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, but, the world being an evil world, you must go and shew out God in it as Christ did — "made partakers of the divine nature."

242 Verse 11. It is not said here, Christ is all in all, though that is very well in its way, but it is something more here, which is very important. "Christ is all"; no object but Christ. And what does that mean? The cross, perhaps; we may have to go through it. He is "in all," the power of life, and the sole object of life. When it is affections, He is all, everything, to me; and He is in me the power of divine life too.

I have here also a most important principle: if I am to produce these fruits, and walk in this way, as He tells us, and there are a thousand different details in which it comes in every day, and all day — well, I go as the elect of God. If I send my child out, I say, Walk as my child, and he must recollect that he is my child; if he has lost the recollection of it, the whole nature and character of the walk is gone. Be imitators of God as dear children; do not forget this. So here, Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, etc. Just think, if I carried that with me all the day long! Here am I, the elect of God: God has chosen to delight in me. He will surely make us know our own nothingness; but there is the consciousness of this love, just as a child knows its father's affection, not at all that he is worthy of it. Separate to God, and loved of God, I go through the world in the blessed sense that God, in His sovereign goodness, has taken me into His delight. We find all these things are said of Christ. Was not He the elect of God, One chosen out of the people? Was not He the Holy One in the fullest sense? Was not He the beloved One, the beloved Son, all His life sanctified to the Father in an absolute sense? And He says, Walk as such. You cannot do it unless you have got the motive, that which moves the affections, though there may be duty. We are to walk through this world, not to attain anything, though I shall get joy and blessing; but having got this place, there is the putting off the old man, and the putting on the new. Being in that place, and having that life, I put on the things that become it — "meekness, longsuffering, humbleness of mind, lowliness." He always took the last place; when rejected, He said, "Let us go to another

243 "Forbearing one another, forgiving one another." Did not Christ forgive us when He was insulted, spit upon? Yes, and you go and do that too. If you look at 1 Corinthians 13, you will find there is not one atom of activity spoken of there as to charity, but it is all self-denying, meekness, patience. If you know what self is, you know that is where we are tested. I must bring not merely kindness into the path, but the divine element which checks anything that is contrary to holiness, while humble, lowly, etc. It has with it the divine thing which cannot acquiesce in an evil to itself; love, the bond of perfectness, will put it all in its place. The moment I bring God in, I bring in what has a claim upon the heart, in thorough consistency with the One who says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." If your heart were always perfectly peaceful, quiet, and gentle, how many things which provoke would not be there! It gives, too, calmness of judgment so that we know what to do. Christ's peace was never disturbed. You never find Him in a position where He was not Himself; even in Gethsemane, when in an agony, He turned round to His disciples, just as if nothing had happened, and said, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" He goes from one to the other, just what He ought to be with His Father about this dreadful cup, and just what He ought to be with His poor disciples in love to them. Of course we fail, but that is the principle.

Verse 10 is not merely negative, nor the putting on the character of Christ, but the unsearchable riches of Christ, the soul opening out on all that belongs to the Christian; "teaching and admonishing one another . . . singing with grace," etc. Not merely knowledge, but the affections expressed as human beings do express them, and as they will be expressed in heaven — "singing," the word giving the knowledge of all things, and then melody in the heart.

"Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." How can I bring Christ into the common things of this world? Whatever word comes out of your mouth, or whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. You say, Is there any harm in that? Can you do it in the name of Jesus? If not, do not leave Christ to go and do it without Him. Are you going to see that exhibition? Why not? I cannot go in the name of the Lord. I take the common things of life purposely to make it simple. Do you smoke? No, I cannot smoke in the name of Jesus. I do not mind what it is — everything in word or deed — the gross things of evil all cast off, and then what would be called by man indifferent things. It is an indifferent thing if I put the book this way or that way; but supposing my Father held very much to my putting it this way, and I do not, you may say, Well, I do not know about the book, but I know where your heart is. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." If you make a law, it will be very hard, but if Christ is everything to me, it will be easy. If I love my father very much, I shall take great care to put the book as he likes.

244 Then another thing that marks where the heart is — "giving thanks." These wretched things, which distract the heart, and force the Holy Ghost to be judging, are not there, and He becomes the Spirit of joy and thankfulness to God, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, which constantly goes up for everything in thankfulness to God in the sense that He is the Author of everything. Even sorrow is blessing: it is more profitable to be in sorrow than in joy. We can give thanks, if really the love of God is in our hearts, walking as to everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, no distraction in the heart; where there is this, the Holy Ghost necessarily becomes a rebuking Spirit, instead of a Spirit of joy and thankfulness.

Are we in His favour which is better than life? Our lips shall praise Him. The Lord only give us, beloved brethren, to walk in that way, confiding in divine love, and seeing the proof of it in the love that gave Himself for us, kept privily in His presence from the provoking of all men, to go through a world of confusion and restlessness with the peace of Christ in our souls.

Christ in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit sent down.

Acts 2: 22-36

J. N. Darby.

<31018E> 245

This passage brings very definitely before us (Christ having been exalted as man by, and to, the right hand of God) how consequently the disciples received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. This runs through all the instruction given here. The place of Christ, having finished redemption, is to sit now at the right hand of God, "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool," Heb. 10: 13. He has not yet taken His own throne at all; He is seated on the Father's throne. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne," Rev. 3: 21. Thence He will "come again," as He says in John 14, and receive us unto Himself.

Christianity is not the accomplishment of promise. Of the earthly part the Jews were the centre. But God meanwhile "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ"; and then, till Christ comes again, He is sitting on the throne of the Father, and has sent the Holy Ghost down.

The Christian is one in whom the Holy Ghost dwells between the accomplishment of redemption and His coming again. The thought and purpose of God about us is that we should "be conformed to the image of his Son." The Holy Ghost is given to dwell in us meanwhile, to dwell in us individually — collectively too, but I speak now individually. That is what the Christian is: Christ is his life, his righteousness: it is a ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8: 9); it does not say, "If he is not converted," though that would be true, of course. You see so many saints everywhere who are not settled in their relationship with God; the present power for this is the Holy Ghost come down.

The coming of the Lord Jesus is not simply a little bit of knowledge which we may add to the rest, but it is the hope of the Christian. If we die we go to Him, but what is held out to us is that the Christian is waiting for Christ. "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation," Heb. 9: 28. If we die we go up to Him, and blessed truth it is too; but that Christ shall come, this is the hope of the Christian, the only full hope. "To depart and to be with Christ which is far better," true this is not the purpose of God for us; the purpose of God is that we shall be like Christ. I do not want to be like Christ with my body in the grave, and my spirit in paradise: the expectation of the Lord's coming makes the person of Christ to be so much before the soul. I am going to see Him and to be like Him. Scripture does not talk of going to heaven; "Absent from the body, present with the Lord," 2 Cor. 5: 8. "To depart and be with Christ which is far better" (Phil. 1: 23), always the thought is going to Christ. That is what we all want personally, that Christ should have a larger place in the heart: "Rooted and built up in him"; "To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." "Christ is all," and He is "in all" as the power of life; having become our life, He is before our souls to fill them.

246 Christ is the motive for the Christian for whatever he does, whether he eats or drinks; and his desires are never satisfied, and never can be, till he be with and like Christ. Therefore he is always waiting for Him. The Thessalonians were converted "to wait for his Son from heaven," 1 Thess. 1: 10. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, instead of being a little bit of prophetic knowledge, is interwoven with all the thoughts and condition of the Christian. Grace has appeared teaching us (Titus 2: 11, 12), and the grace that has appeared is the grace that saves. When the Lord went up on high the Holy Ghost came down, and through the Holy Ghost we have not only the knowledge but the fruits of the place He has given us. The seal of the Holy Ghost is put upon us: the presence of the Holy Ghost is that which gives the full knowledge of our place and blessedness. Redemption, which brings us to God, is finished; we are exercised afterwards — all that goes on, but our relationship is never in question. I believe the government of God is most important when we are children; "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous," Job 36: 7. This is most important and blessed in its place; but the great thing is first of all to get into the place where God has put us.

The very names of God go along with this. To the patriarchs He was "God Almighty," when they were strangers and pilgrims; to Abraham He said, "I am thy shield, and thine exceeding great reward" (Gen. 15); to Israel He had given promises, and He takes the name of Jehovah, the name of One who, having given promises, never rests until they are fulfilled. Then in the Revelation He speaks of Himself as the One "who is, and who was, and who is to come," Rev. 1: 8. All that was concerned in a certain sense with this world; but it is not so with us. We are called to suffer with Christ, because Christ has been rejected, and this with the full knowledge of redemption. "And I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them," John 17: 26. God has another name, "Most High." You never find the name "Father" from Psalm 1 to 150. "And this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," John 17: 3. "Life and incorruptibility" have been brought "to light through the gospel," 2 Tim. 1: 10. The name "Almighty" does not carry eternal life. "Jehovah" fulfils promises, but does not give eternal life, but the Father sent the Son, "that we might live through him," 1 John 4: 9. "For the life was manifested and we have it, and bear witness and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us," 1 John 1: 2. "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in the Son," 1 John 5: 11. When we receive the Son, we get into the place of children; it is the force of the expression in John's Gospel. "But as many as received him to them gave he right to be called children of God," John 1: 12. The Son is there, and we are associated with Him completely and fully. In Matthew 3 the Holy Ghost comes down upon Him, and the Father's voice says, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." There the full revelation of the Trinity is Christianity: we have the Son as man, the Holy Ghost coming down in bodily shape like a dove, and the Father's voice, in that wondrous scene of Christ taking His place publicly as man. "I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God," John 1: 34.

247 The Old Testament saints were quickened surely; but if you take Galatians 4, you find they were not in the condition of sons. "The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all," chap. 4: 1. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (v. 6). That had not been the case before; they were ordered to do this and that under the law.

248 "Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit," John 12: 24. He was totally alone, a true man in His relationship with God; even when He declared His Father's name to His disciples, they did not understand a bit of it. Then you see redemption brings us into this place.

Let me turn back to the basis of all this. Here am I a child of Adam, with an evil nature and sins; Christ bore my sins, and that is all perfectly settled for ever — if it is not, it never can be; but it is "once for all, for ever"; there is no other application as regards the putting away of my sins in God's sight. He does not impute them for the simple blessed reason that Christ has borne them, and He is sitting at the right hand of God, because it is done. Many a true honest soul sees only past sins put away, but what about sinning afterwards? Go to Calvin, and he will send you back to your baptism, while the evangelicals go back to the blood. "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come . . . can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect," Heb. 10: 1. "In which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience," Heb. 9: 9. If I go into God's presence, I have not the most distant thought that He imputes anything to me as guilt: that is what is wanting to so many souls. "Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins," Heb. 10: 2. He does not say sin: the old stock is there. I "But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year," Heb. 10: 3. I go into the presence of God now, and I see Christ sitting, because by one offering He has settled everything. "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins; but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool," Heb. 10: 11-13. He sits at God's right hand, because He has finished that work perfectly. "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (v. 14). He has set them apart to God, and He has perfected for ever their consciences.

"The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing," Heb. 9: 8. Now we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." The thing is done; it was prophesied of before, but now it is done. "For ever" here means never interrupted. If I come to God, Christ is always there, and my conscience is always perfect. I may go and humble myself in the dust if I have dishonoured Christ: it is in the holiest that I learn how bad sin is. I could not be before God in the light until the veil was rent, but "by one offering" Christ has perfected my conscience. When I go to God I find Christ, who bore my sins, sitting at the right hand of God because He has done it. This will make me see sin a great deal more than anything else. I have got a new nature, and I am in the light as God is in the light.

249 This turns the question from righteousness to holiness. So long as I am connecting it with a question of acceptance, it is righteousness that I want: suppose righteousness is settled, then I abhor the sin because it is sin, for itself. "Well but," you say, "without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." That is quite true, but you are looking for righteousness, not holiness. The clearance in that way is absolute; but there is another thing which gives my soul its place before God. Not only Christ died for my sins, but I died with Christ; the tree is bad, not only the fruit: then I reckon myself dead. In the first part of Romans we get nothing about experience. Suppose I owed £100 and that it was paid for me, no experience would be in question; but suppose I say to you, "You are dead to sin," perhaps you would say, "Indeed I am not, it was working in me this morning." Till you are clear about that, you are not settled in your place. The old tree has been cut down, and grafted with Christ. In Romans 6 I reckon myself dead: "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" (chap. 6: 11); in Colossians 3: 3 we get, "For ye are dead"; and in 2 Corinthians 4: 10, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." We find God's estimate and faith's estimate; and in Galatians 2: 19 we have the summary of the whole thing, "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." When I find a nature working in me contrary to Christ, I say it has been crucified with Christ, and I do not own it. "What the law could not do . . . God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," Rom. 8. He has forgiven the sins and condemned the tree that produced them, but the tree that was condemned has died in Christ.

250 I have to learn thus, by the power of the Spirit of God, not merely that what the old tree produced has been blotted out, but that Christ is my life; "I am crucified with Christ," and sin in the flesh has been condemned. Where? Where you died with Christ: when Christ was there for sin, sin in the flesh was condemned, not forgiven; it died, for faith, where it was condemned. "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom. 7: 24, 25. Looked at as in that old man, I died in Christ. The moment we believe in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we get the sealing of God. Because the blood of Christ is upon me, then the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in me. They received the Holy Ghost on believing the forgiveness of their sins. In Acts 10 we find the same thing: faith received the forgiveness of their sins in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then the Holy Ghost came on them. As in the figure in the Old Testament, we are washed, sprinkled with blood, and then anointed with oil. The Holy Ghost comes, then I know where I am, that my standing is in Christ: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," Rom. 8: 1. "In Christ" is my standing before God; the Holy Ghost is the present power of it all; the work is Christ's.

I get the other point, knowledge of salvation, and knowledge that I am not a child of Adam but a child of God. "To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins," Luke 1: 77. "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost," John 1: 29, 33. He could not baptise with the Holy Ghost till He had died, and was risen and glorified. I know the place I have got into: the treasure — is in an earthen vessel, but I have got the knowledge of salvation. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," 2 Cor. 3: 17. It is that which enables me to say with truth, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." There I get first the accomplishment of redemption; and Christ sitting on His right hand; and the purpose of God, as the blood on the lintel and door-posts made the Israelites free, and they were brought from Egypt to the Red Sea, out of an old place into a new, so that Moses could sing, "Thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation," Exod. 15: 18. "Thou shalt bring them in" (v. 17). I get these two things, complete redemption is one; the other I have not got yet; Christ has entered as our Forerunner, I have not entered yet, but the Holy Ghost is "the earnest of the inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." Christ "endured the cross, and despised the shame," and He is set down as man at the right hand of God. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand," Rom. 5: 1, 2. I know by the Holy Ghost that I am in divine favour. We have these three things.

251 1. We are justified, and have peace with God.

2. We stand in present grace, in divine favour.

3. When Christ comes again, we shall be in glory with Him. "That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me," John 17: 23. It is "That the world may know," not believe: this ought to be now, but it is very far from it. When it sees us in glory, it cannot help knowing; when we appear in the same glory with Christ, people will think, "Why these people that we trampled under foot are in the same glory with Christ!" We do not wait for that: the world will know when we are in the same glory with Christ, but now we know by the Holy Ghost, "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them," John 17: 24. Beloved friends, just think of that: your hearts ought to have the consciousness that He loved you as He loved Jesus! A child might say, "I am a foolish child, I think little about my mother"; but he has no uncertainty about his mother's love to him. We never apprehend all God's love to us; still we know we are children and sons. It is no uncertain place: I know I am loved as Christ is loved; we have poor wretched hearts, that is quite true. A true child does not measure its mother's love; I am sure it could not, but it knows and is in it.

We have got "the adoption of sons." "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." I have got the consciousness of it; I know my place. We know God as our Father. The soul that has the Spirit of God dwelling in him knows not only the clearing of the sins of the old man, but that he is in the second Man, and knowing it, he cries, "Abba, Father." "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren," Heb. 2: 11. They are "all of one," one set, as it were. What is my life? Christ. What is my righteousness? Christ. He is not one with the unconverted world; there is no union in incarnation. He stood for us in the cross, but He has united us with Him in glory. If I take the Father's relationship with Christ as man, He is not ashamed to call us brethren. In Psalm 22 He says, "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare thy name unto my brethren." His work was finished: as soon as that was done, He comes out in resurrection, past the power of death and of Satan, and He sends this message to His disciples: "I ascend unto my Father and your Father: and to my God and your God," John 20: 17. He had never said that before, though He called them "sister" and "mother" and "brother" in a general way. Beloved brethren, what we want is to see how Christ has united us to Himself, to see the way God has brought us into the place of the second Man, as sin brought us into the place of the first man.

252 One point more, our connection with Christ: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter." "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." Ah, it is a terrible thing that saints are so far from scriptural ground as to say we cannot know! We are in Christ, "accepted in the Beloved," and we have the Spirit of adoption. One thing more, besides the point I am on: Christ is in us. You cannot live on in sin, you are dead; that is where the Christian's responsibility is, not in connection with his acceptance ("By one man's obedience many shall be made righteous"). I know He is in me, having bought me at all cost, and there I see responsibility. I get the two things in Romans 8. "No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," and "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." You have been delivered, you have redemption in Christ, and you have been sealed with the Holy Ghost. I own nothing as life in the Christian but Christ: the whole of our lives should be the expression of Christ and nothing else, our "speech always with grace, seasoned with salt." Only one other thing, beloved friends; God is love, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts: therefore we get in the Epistle of John, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." We have the Person of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, so our bodies are temples: God is there in the perfection of His own nature; we have to watch not to grieve such a guest. It is through the Holy Ghost that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts; that is the key to everything. "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also" (Rom. 5: 3); it is the key to everything; I want it, and He sent it. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, and the Holy Ghost comes down giving us the consciousness of the present relationship in which we are to walk.

253 "Be ye therefore imitators of God as dear children," Eph. 5: 17. How are we to imitate God? Was not Christ God? I earnestly desire that all our hearts may get hold, through the power of the Spirit of God, of the place we are brought into, that we may have the consciousness of this, the knowledge of it through the Holy Ghost until we go to be with Him. The Lord give you to have this consciousness. Why, beloved, to think of the Father's love at work, and the Son of God having gone down to death for you, it is not much to expect!

The Lord give us to feel what we owe Him, that our whole desire may be to glorify Him.

On Sealing with the Holy Ghost

J. N. Darby.

<31019E> 254

Our being sealed with the Spirit is too important a point to allow it to settle down into the ambiguity and mist into which it is fallen in many souls. The Scripture is plain and positive on the subject, and it constitutes, not the foundation, but what is specifically characteristic, of the Christian state. Details and experiences as to it may require detailed inquiry, and sound and enlarged spiritual experience. But the presence, and as to the individual the indwelling, of the Holy Ghost, constitute Christianity, and the Christian state of the individual.

When John the Baptist proclaimed Christ to his disciples, he announced Him under two characters: "The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world," and "He it is that baptiseth with the Holy Ghost," the last being evidenced by the Holy Ghost descending and abiding upon Christ Himself. All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily, but He as man, and He alone until redemption was accomplished, was sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost — in His case a testimony to His own perfectness; "and John saw and bare record that he was the Son of God," John 1: 29-34; Acts 10: 19; John 6: 27. So He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. By the Spirit of God He cast out demons. By the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God. He spoke the words of God, for the Spirit was not given to Him by measure. If it was by resurrection He was declared Son of God with power, it was according to the Spirit of holiness.

I refer to these passages, and many more connected with the point might be quoted, to shew the immense importance of this fact. His being sealed was the testimony to His own perfectness; in us it is the fruit and seal of redemption. But if it sealed the Person and character of Christ, and that it was by this power He wrought as man, and we are made partakers of it consequent on redemption, its importance, though not the foundation, can hardly be overrated, and the connection of our position with Him is brought into a wonderful light: he alone possessing it while He was alive here below, but competent to confer it on us when gone on high, and redemption had qualified us for receiving it. The coming or baptism of the Holy Ghost was consequent on the exaltation of Christ. Christianity, which as I have said is characterised by His presence, could not exist until Christ was glorified (John 7: 39); and Christ when exalted received the Holy Ghost as to the exalted man anew in order to its being sent down; Acts 2: 33. This is confirmed as to its being sent by the words of the Lord Himself. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go away, I will send him unto you," John 16: 7.

255 Whither He went we know; John 14: 4. The Comforter is sent by the Father in Christ's name (John 14: 26), and by Christ from the Father; chap. 15: 26. But these are details. And this presence of the Holy Ghost was so real and distinctive a thing, His personal presence definitely characterising Christianity as such, that it is said in John 7, "The Holy Ghost was not yet, for Jesus was not yet glorified." "Given" is added in italics, which is all very well for the general sense; but I give what is literally said, that the full distinct force of the words, the words of that Spirit, may be before us. Of course it is not that the Holy Ghost did not exist: no Christian would think of such a thing. And the Old Testament bears witness from creation on of the existence and operation of the Spirit in all that God did upon the earth. But as the Son of God created all things, still, as He Himself tells, did not come personally down here to dwell among us till the incarnation, so, though the Spirit of God wrought from the garnishing of the heavens, and the brooding on chaotic waters, He did not come to dwell personally down here until there was a glorified Man sitting at the right hand of God. As to the Son it could be said, "I came forth from the Father and came into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father"; so it could be said by Christ of the Spirit, "If I go away, I will send him unto you, and when he is come," etc. He was promised in the Old Testament. The promise was accomplished on the day of Pentecost, and Christianity exists.*

{*I do not doubt the Holy Ghost will be given specially in the beginning of the millennium, but that is not our subject here; as now given, it connects us with an absent, heavenly, and glorified Christ.}

The texts we have briefly referred to have brought before us some very weighty points. The Lord Himself was anointed and sealed, and this given as a sign that He was the baptiser with the Holy Ghost, and giving occasion to John the Baptist to bear record that Christ was the Son of God.

256 Further, we have seen that until redemption was accomplished, and there was the man that did God's will, sitting at God's right hand in consequence of it, the Holy Ghost (spoken of as constituting and characterising Christianity by His presence) was not yet. So the disciples of John at Ephesus, "We have not so much as heard whether the Holy Ghost is." He was sent down the witness of Christ, as man, being at the right hand of God.

This is of all importance. The point of departure of Christianity was man's taking a new place in righteousness on high, consequent on redemption being accomplished where sin and death and Satan's power and God's judgment were; that Man being Son of God withal. Accordingly Christ received as man the Holy Ghost on being exalted on high, not then for Himself as when perfect on earth, but to confer on those who believed, putting them in relation with Himself and what was heavenly on high.

Scripture is clear as to its being only for believers. John 7, already quoted, states the fact: "the Spirit which they that believed on him should receive."

But it is stated more strongly in John 14: 16, 17, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth [abideth] with you, and shall be in you." We have there the Spirit as the constant portion of the saints, sent consequent on Christ as man being exalted to the right hand of God, whom He received anew on high to confer on His own, and who could not be thus present down here until Christ was so exalted. The Son had been here, and was here to be received by all who knew of Him. Men would not have Him, but that is another thing; but the Spirit is not for the world. He may by God's chosen instruments announce the gospel to it. He was known by being with us ever, and dwelling in us. Men were and are born of the Spirit, but the Holy Ghost Himself coming down is another thing. This happened on the day of Pentecost. They were not to go forth till then, but to tarry at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high, to wait for the promise of the Father which they had heard of Christ; Acts 1: 4, 5; chap. 2. Clean through Christ's word, who had withal already breathed on them that they might be partakers of His new risen life, as God breathed on Adam, their understanding already opened to understand the Scriptures, they were to wait for the Holy Ghost coming down upon them.

257 The world knew nothing of it, but in its effects. It was for those only who already believed on Him, putting them consciously in the place in which He was with God. That other Comforter, which in a certain sense took the place of Christ, though only to reveal Him more fully, and as a heavenly Christ who had accomplished their redemption, and through the efficacy of that, was the object of their hope in glory, of which He was Himself the earnest and the revealer. This was for those only who took part with a rejected Saviour, for believers. There were those who believing had received life through His name, who lived, through hearing, through grace. the voice of the Son of God. They must have been, to see and enter the kingdom; the Jews must, to enjoy hereafter the earthly promises as the Lord shewed to Nicodemus. But the Spirit was to come new when redemption had been accomplished, and Christ exalted as man to the right hand of God, to take the things of Christ and shew them to the disciples; and all that the Father had was His, and to make them know that all He had as the exalted man was theirs.

All this is something quite different from my being born again, or even that special quickening in the power of Christ in resurrection, with being born of God by His word of truth (John 20: 22), save as this was necessary to a person's receiving it, and that the same Holy Ghost operates in and by this life when He dwells in us. Of the former I shall speak. The connection of the given Holy Ghost with this life, when dwelling in our bodies, is manifest in Romans 8. That life is not separated from its divine source, when He dwells in us, though His personally dwelling in us as a divine Person is another thing, also spoken of in Romans 8 as the Spirit itself. If He was our life in Person, He would be an incarnation of the Holy Ghost in us, which is futile on the face of it. We are born of the Spirit, but what is born of the Spirit is not the Spirit, though it be spirit, that is, characterised morally by the same nature; John 3. In this sense we are made partakers of the divine nature. The Colossians treats of life and does not speak of the Holy Ghost; Ephesians does repeatedly, and we get contrast with flesh characterising the epistle, and union with Christ and sonship developed. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost which we have of God, and are bought with a price, hence to glorify God in our bodies. We have thus the gift of the Holy Ghost before us, characterising by His presence Christianity and the Christian. The difficulty which arises in people's minds has for its origin, that the effects of His presence necessarily connect themselves with our experience. It could not be otherwise; the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us without producing certain effects on our minds. It is a present power when a believer is sealed working in us, and we are apt to judge of it by looking at it in our minds, and confusion comes in. Seeing whether we are walking up to the privilege is all right, but that is quite a different thing. It is not a finished work like Christ's outside of us, and having absolute divine value in God's sight, but a living power working in us, whose presence is the seal, with which we are sealed.

258 It is of moment to distinguish between the sealing and the operation of Him who is the seal when dwelling in us. God sets His seal on those who believe on the ground of the perfect work of Christ, and His being glorified in consequence. Of this John 7, Acts 2, and the day of Pentecost are witness. They were believers, and for a good while, and they were to wait at Jerusalem to be endued with power from on high. They believed on Christ as one dead, risen and glorified, and that faith was sealed; but the work was fully accomplished and Christ fully glorified, or the Holy Ghost would not have been there. The effect was to follow. They belonged to God according to the perfect work of Christ, and were sealed as such. So the redemption of Israel to God as a people was absolute, independently of the exercises of the wilderness and Canaan. The presence of the Holy Ghost was the immediate consequence of the perfectness of Christ's work and glory, where faith in it was, without any question of experience or a work within, save that they believed. It was the seal of faith. As a seal it had nothing to do with experience.

Here it may be well to notice the Epistle to the Romans, confusion as to which produces confusion in the minds of saints.

As is generally acknowledged now, and certainly is the case, there are two distinct treatises in the doctrinal part of Romans. That which speaks of guilt, and grace blessedly meeting it through Christ's death and bloodshedding, ends in chapter 5: 11. In this part our actual sins are the ground of God's dealings. All have sinned. In the second part, chapter 5: 12, to the end of chapter 8, this is not the case. Our state as in the flesh is spoken of, and then as in Christ or the Spirit. "By the disobedience of one many were made sinners." The question there is not the forgiveness of sins, but death to sin, as having died with Him. All the development of this part is experience connected with self, and practical. The first part is not, but the effect of a work done for us and outside us, and God's love now known as the source of it. Christ was delivered for our sins, and raised again for our justification: therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. In chapter 5 we have the conscious happiness of the believer connected with that work for us, and God known in love through it, but nothing connected with our state of experience. Here, first, the Holy Ghost is mentioned, God's love being shed abroad in our hearts by it. The presence of the Holy Ghost in the Christian is assumed. But it is the love of God known by it, not, as in the second part, how and what it works in us, though it does surely work in us when given; but to connect the second part of Romans with the first as a continuous process is a mistake.

259 Guilt by our acts is a different thing from our state as children of Adam. In one we are guilty, and (unless justified) come into judgment; in the other we are lost. The effect of the work of Christ is to clear for ever all our sins away. By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (eis to dienekes). So that, once purged, we have no more conscience of sins. Blessed is the man to whom God imputeth no sin. They are remembered no more, and as, when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, we are, besides being purged, risen in Him in the new standing which is the effect of His redemption for man.

Now the sealing of the Holy Ghost, based on forgiveness, gives the intelligence and consciousness of this new position. The idea of God's imputing guilt to us is impossible (unless, perhaps, in some extreme case when delivered to Satan as a chastisement). But that is not all. By the Spirit, by the gift of which we are sealed, we know we are sons, crying, Abba, Father; Gal. 4. We know we are in Christ, and Christ in us (John 14), and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts; Rom. 5; compare 1 John 4. And He is the earnest of our coming likeness to Christ in glory; 2 Cor. 5.

260 The Spirit may rebuke and humble us as to consistency with the place we are in. Thank God He does. But He never can give a testimony in our souls contrary to, or other than, the place where perfect redemption has placed us, that redemption which has brought Him down to dwell in us. Such a thought would be making Him give a false testimony. But the Spirit is truth.

"We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." It is not merely the fact of a new life communicated, but the consciousness of the position in which redemption has placed those who have that life. "I go to my Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God." It is not only that the Son has quickened us, but that Christ has finished the work given Him to do — is entered as man into a wholly new place (where Adam, innocent, was not), and, being glorified, the Spirit gives us the consciousness of the relationships into which He has brought us. And this place is the fruit of a work done outside us, though those who partake in it must also be born again, and is known through the Holy Ghost given as the seal of our faith in that work, but of nothing else. But the question of experience does come in in the word, and that connects itself with the difference of flesh and Spirit. It behoves us to consider what flesh is. What it is in its evil nature, I need not dwell on here; it is the evil nature in which we are, as born of sinful Adam; but as regards our relationship another consideration comes in.

In this sense, What is it to be in the flesh? It is to be in relationship with God on the ground of our natural responsibility as men, as children of fallen Adam. It is, as to our moral state — which in itself is true — making the disposition of God towards us to depend on what we are towards Him. Of this the law is the perfect rule. It says, if conscience is awakened, I am such and such: God will be so and so towards me. Grace is on the opposite ground: God has been, and is, through Christ such and such, and I shall be so and so, as the fruit of it. But this changes everything.

Take the parable of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, you hear much about him; he owns his sin, that he is perishing, and sets out to his father, for confidence (not peace) always accompanies divine awakening, but he says as a consequence, Make me as one of thy hired servants. Arrived, with his father all this disappears, and he with it, and his place is wholly what his father is to him and does for him. When converted and in the right road, he had not yet the best robe, nor his father on his neck, to make him in his own consciousness and actual place what the father's thoughts were towards him.

261 Now his whole condition was changed; it was what his father was for him, and had done for him. The mind may get bewildered by false teaching, putting back under law, where its true effect is not discovered. This was the case of the Galatians; but they were therein fallen from grace, Christ became of none effect to them. It was not a state of soul. They did not, in adding circumcision, think of anything but adding, but the apostle saw plainly enough. It was not an experience, a state of soul; it was Christianity given up altogether in its very principle. They were, as to their minds, if not as to God's, fallen from grace.

Hence, in Galatians, no kind words to begin with, no salutations at the end. It was for the apostle, not a state of their souls, but Christianity given up; he wished the doers of it cut off. If this system were true, Christ was dead in vain, they who taught it were accursed. All that has nothing to do with experiences and states of soul. It was making "Christ the minister of sin." Through the redemption that was in Christ, the blessing of Abraham came on the Gentiles, that believers might receive the promise of the Spirit. He then goes on to shew how believers received the Spirit (they were sons by faith in Christ, and because they were sons God gave the spirit of sonship), and specially insists on the presence of the Spirit, and how they got it. There was the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free. He was, as he expresses it, travailing again in birth for them. They had got, not into a bad spiritual state as Christians, they had in their minds given up Christianity. The question was then the flesh and the law, man as he was and God's rule for him, or Christ glorified and the Spirit putting us consciously in His place and acceptance before God and the Father by redemption. That this last was gone was not a bad state of soul, as I have said, but Christianity given up, doubtless not in will there, but in the thing itself; and this is our point now. The Holy Ghost was given, not in respect of any particular state of soul, not even of being born again, true as this was as to those to whom it was given; but simply in virtue of faith in a Saviour who had died, and was risen and glorified, as indeed there was no other; and if Paul had known Him otherwise — and as a Jew he had — he knew such no more.

262 The presence of the Holy Ghost was specifically and distinctively the consequence of the glorifying of Jesus, who had accomplished the work that saves us, in dying, shedding His blood for us as man, and rising again. Thus there is evidently a double part as to Christ Himself, His suffering in obedience unto death, drinking for us that dreadful cup, the thought of which made Him shed, as it were, great drops of blood, and, as a consequence of that, His being glorified. The former was the accomplishment of redemption demonstrated by His resurrection, or our faith would be vain; if He were not risen, we should be yet in our sins. He would be lying in death as another. Subjectively, man was in his new state in Christ risen. Hence we read, "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." He has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood. The latter, His being glorified, is what He is entered into and has obtained for us, but which, though happy meanwhile if we depart, we shall not possess till He comes again to receive us to Himself. It is evident from Scripture that the Holy Ghost came down when Jesus was glorified, His work being accomplished; but when we by faith have part in the accomplished salvation, but have not yet attained the glory, He is the seal of faith in the one, and the earnest of the other. For in Christ all is accomplished, and He is entered as our Forerunner; and the Holy Ghost sent down and dwelling and ministering in us gives the full consciousness of the fruit of the one in forgiveness, and of our place in Christ. He gives withal the consciousness of being sons, and if sons, then heirs. Born again we must be to have the smallest part in these things, but it is faith in Christ's work which is sealed by the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We have redemption through Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins; the Holy Ghost is the earnest of our inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession. The. great general truth is that believers, and believers only, receive it. If we look into details, and build on Scripture statements, we find there must be faith in the work of Christ, as well as in His Person, in order to a person's being sealed. Thus, when the terrible conviction was produced in the minds of the Jews that Jesus was the Christ, and that they had rejected Him, but God exalted Him, they say, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter says, "Repent, and be baptised, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." They are to believe in the exaltation of Christ, of which the gifts were the present proof, but they were to partake in the effects of His work in order to receive the Holy Ghost. So, in Acts 10: 43, it is the testimony to the remission of sins that is sealed by the Holy Ghost coming. So Ephesians 1: 13, it was the "gospel of their salvation" in which they believed, so that, believing in Christ, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit as earnest of their inheritance. That a person may be born again, and not have received the Holy Ghost, is perfectly certain according to Scripture, for "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God," and this the disciples did while Christ was on earth, but could not have the Holy Ghost, which did not come until the day of Pentecost; though they had life, and were clean through the word.

263 It is alleged the case was different — He was not come. Quite true, but they were born of God. I refer to the fact that we may distinguish between the two. And in Samaria, after the Holy Ghost was come, they believed and were baptised; but the Holy Ghost was fallen upon none of them, which happened afterwards by the laying on of the apostles' hands. In the same way Paul, then called Saul, was converted by the appearing of Christ to him on the way, and three days afterwards Ananias was sent, that he might receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.

A Christian, then, is one in whose body the Holy Ghost dwells as in a temple, giving him consciously the place in which accomplished redemption places him; but God, having wrought him for glory with and like Christ, while the knowledge of his place in Christ is clear to his soul, this last, glory with and like Him, remains a hope laid up for him in heaven. The Jews must be born again to get the millennial blessings; John 3; Ezek. 36. But those who believe in Christ, not having seen Him, associated with Him while He is not seen, sealed with the Holy Ghost, have their part with Him where He is not seen. "He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."

264 There are three great privileges which result from the presence of the Holy Ghost, though all in us should flow from it. First, we cry, "Abba, Father," Gal. 4. We know we are children; Rom. 8. Next, we know we are in Christ, and Christ in us; John 14. Thirdly, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts; Rom. 5. His presence is the power of the blessing with God, with Christ, with the Father. Compare 1 John 4: 12, 13.

But it is not promises, or accomplished millennial peace, blessed as that will be in its place, but, God having wrought us for an eternal weight of glory, the revelation of which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which God hath revealed to them that love Him. Subjectively the new man is fitted to enjoy God Himself, but the sphere in which his affections are developed is that which is done for him, and is revealed to him, and here the work and sufferings of Christ, and the glories, and for us the heavenly glories, which shall be revealed. Between the accomplishment of the work, and our having part in the glory, the Holy Ghost has come down to seal us as redeemed and justified, and to be the earnest of the part we have not, only that "as Christ is so are we in this world," and conscious of it in living faith.

Forgiveness, the Father's love, our portion and place in Christ, with joy in hope of the glory of God, such is the place and portion of those whose life Christ is. Of this the Holy Ghost is the present power and revealer to the soul, when faith in Christ and in His work has been sealed for the day of redemption; or (more accurately) they, on the ground of that faith.

The new man is capable of enjoying divine and heavenly things, but cannot reveal them. If it be said, They are in the word; agreed, but they are, when there, spiritually discerned. The sealing of the believer with the Holy Ghost (on the ground of his faith in the Person and work of Christ, who has accomplished the work of redemption, and sits on the right hand of God, so that he knows the efficacy of that work, and his place before God, as a son and in Christ) is a truth as clearly stated in Scripture as can possibly be, and constitutes Christianity and the Christian as a present state of things: certainty as to guilt removed, present sonship in divine favour, and joy in hope of the glory of God. But here it is also founded on Christ's work as delivered for our sins.

265 Another point now comes in, the connection of this with the state or experience of the soul. I do not now mean of guilt and imputation of sins: of that I have spoken. Our conscience is purged through the blood of Christ; but what passes in the soul? There is that which is never forgiven — sin, the principle in the nature — which God must abhor, and the new nature abhors, and which we find in us. I have already referred to the now well-known division in Romans 5: 11, up to which our whole state as to guilt, and the grace that meets it, is fully gone into: propitiation, Christ delivered for our sins and raised, and peace with God, present favour, hope of glory, His love shed abroad in our hearts for the way by the Holy Ghost given to us, so that we joy in God Himself through Christ, by whom we have received this reconciliation, we are reconciled to God, and joy in Him. We have then another subject: one man, the head as to sin, One as to obedience; the many connected with him constituted sinners by the offence of one, and the many connected with the Other constituted righteous.

This was evidently a new ground and subject; personal guilt and judgment rested on what each sinner had done. Here it was a race in a state of ruin by the offence of its head. The law came in by the by so as to aggravate the sins by making them transgressions, and to detect sin, the root principle, by its requirements when the conscience was awakened.

It was not now the forgiveness of the sins of the old man, and cleansing from them by grace, and so being brought into present favour on God's part towards us, but our being brought into a new state and standing before God in the second Man — our being in Christ Jesus. In chapter 6 we get the doctrine; in chapter 8 we get our state as the result, we are in Christ, and Christ in us, heirs of glory, and sufferers with Christ here. In chapter 7 we get the legal process by which we acquire self-knowledge, in order to our morally consenting to having Christ instead of ourselves. In this second part of the epistle it is not Christ dying for our sins, but our dying with Christ. Remark here the difference between chapters 5 and 8. In chapter 5 (where guilt had been displayed as universal, and the grace that met it in propitiation, and Christ delivered for our sins, and raised again for justification) all is divine favour and goodness, peace with God, such as He is, as regards our sins, present grace or favour, hope of glory; it is love shed abroad in the heart, and joying in Him. In chapter 8 it is our state, dead with Christ, alive in Him, we in Him before God, so that there is no condemnation, the law of the Spirit of life setting us free, the mind of the Spirit, life and peace. In chapter 5 it was God's love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; in chapter 8 He bears witness with our spirit that we are children, He intercedes in us. It is our state towards God as in Christ, not what God is towards us.

266 I have said that chapter 6 gives us the basis of this in doctrine. We are baptised, our profession of Christianity is to Christ's death, our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin, as a whole in its concrete form, might be destroyed. There is an end of our old Adam state by the cross. Christ died (not here for our sins, but) to sin, and we are baptized to His death, are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, not in Adam, but in Christ Jesus our Lord. All that is in the Father's glory, what He is as displayed and surrounds Himself with according to what He is, was engaged in the resurrection of Christ; holiness, righteousness, majesty, love to the Son, recognition of what He had done, supremacy above all evil in light and love, and Christ as man rises by and into it, and that as having perfectly glorified God, where all was exactly contrary to it. And we are alive in Him, have Him risen as the life suited to it. We may have it in an earthen vessel, but it is our place with God. In this the flesh has no possible part. As man, Christ entered into it through death, closing (Himself ever sinless and apart) all connection with man as born of Adam; a true real man and Son of man, but Head, as risen of a new race and state. It is right to remark that He never united Himself to men — a common and ruinous doctrine. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." He alone, as we have seen, was anointed of the Holy Ghost, and sealed of God the Father, still a true man come of a woman, come under law, and in the likeness of sinful flesh, and going with the godly remnant as associating Himself with them. He was there a man amongst men, but that association was closed by death, save as Lord over them. We are united to Him in His new and glorious state as Head; Eph. 1, 2. But this is kaine ktisis, a new creation. But to return to our direct subject.

267 "We are crucified with him." Here it is our "old man." We are still in the body, but we are not on the old standing-ground with God, we have died out of it in Christ, we are crucified with Him, we reckon ourselves as dead to sin here (to the world in Colossians), and alive in Him to God; our old Adam standing before God is gone by death, and we are in Christ, alive to God in Him, to give ourselves up to God as those that are in Him alive from the dead, and free to do so in this new life. We are not looked at as risen with Christ in Romans, but justified, and Christ our life, as men living in natural life down here, only Christ our life in it, in Him before God, not in the flesh.

Now the first part of the epistle brings us from conscious guilt into divine favour and knowledge of divine love, as justified by Christ's work; the second, into the knowledge of ourselves as having died with Christ to our old state, and being in Him before God. Our profession is not merely believing in Christ, but being brought into His death, baptised to it as our portion. But the first is complete and absolute. The doctrine of sealing is not found here; but the person is sealed, a guilty person restored to God's favour, and enjoying His love, reconciled to Him, and delighting in Him. I repeat, the first part is complete in itself; the man is a pardoned, justified man, enjoying God's favour, His love in his heart by the Holy Ghost given to him, and rejoicing in the hope of glory. It is judicial. Eternal life is not a present existence, but given to those who continue patiently in well-doing (indeed it is always a future thing in Romans, where not merely a general fact of grace); only God commends His love toward us.

Our state and standing out of Christ and in Christ is another and distinct point, but when in Christ the sealing of the Holy Ghost is here also assumed and developed. It is specifically taught in Ephesians and 2 Corinthians, but always as that of believers, that is, of those who have life already, and are washed in the blood of the Lamb. Christianity is not known in its real character where this is not. The starting-point of this, as to our standing, is — we have been baptised to Christ's death, our old man is crucified with Christ, so that we should not serve sin. It is done with for faith, we are set free. But is there no remedy, no ameliorating the old man, no power in the new to walk out of and independent of it? There is no amelioration nor power in the new to go right by itself, even when one wills it. If righteousness is to be had in our fallen Adam state (in the flesh), then the law is the measure. But the flesh is not subject to the law of God, nor can be — law, no doubt, in its spiritual character, for law forbids lust, and the flesh lusts. To stand before God on this ground is therefore a hopeless matter, but the question is, in this part of Romans, our standing before Him.

268 But we have the two points: we are born again; but this is not enough, for the flesh is there, and what characterises the law is our obtaining righteousness by what we are. But sin is there. But if not enough, it is not all: our old man is crucified with Christ, we have died to sin in Him. Thus for faith the flesh is gone in death, and Christ is come in life. Sin in the flesh has been condemned in the cross, but death came to the old condition of man; not that Christ, of course, had any sin, but He was made it for us. He was on the cross "for sin." So that condemnation of sin in the flesh is passed, and death, the power of Christ's death, is come. I am now connected with a Christ risen from the dead. My first husband, the law, ruled over me as long as I lived; but I have died with Christ; by His death God condemned sin in the flesh. That condemnation Christ took, and ended in dying; so by my death I have ceased to be under law, have died out of the condition to which law applied, and am not only alive in Christ, but connected with Christ risen in this new place where sin and condemnation are entirely over and passed. My being quickened left the flesh there, though I hated its fruits and workings, and as the principle of law, and our mind under it, is that which God will feel as to us, is the effect of what we are; the holier my desires, the more miserable I was; but having part in His death, I reckon myself dead.

The deliverance, then, is by the death of Christ, that is, my being crucified with Him, and connected with Him as risen. But how can I know this? By the Holy Ghost. In Romans 8 we are in Christ, and Christ is in us (vv. 1, 10). Now the knowledge of this is by the Holy Ghost; John 14: 20. We are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. No condemnation, because we are in Christ; and if Christ be in us, the body dead because of sin, its only product if alive; yet we are alive, because the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

269 And now mark that in the parenthetical chapter 7, which treats of the bearing of law on the question, we have two states of the soul, both when quickened, not of progress or degree, but absolutely incompatible — so incompatible, that one cannot exist if the other does, a relative position in one of which the soul is connected with law as with a husband, in the other with Christ risen from the dead. The soul has died in the first, so as to have done with it, died away out of it, only as crucified with Christ, or it would have been condemnation as well as death; 2 Cor. 3; Gal. 4. We are dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we might be married to another; we could not have two husbands at once. Then we get the experimental effect of the law, as seen and estimated by the light of Christianity. It awoke, and as an occasion provoked sin.

The experience of chapter 7 is not the cry of a man in it not knowing what it is, but the estimate of it by one who can judge of it with spiritual knowledge. We, we Christians as such, so the expression is ever used, we know that the law is spiritual. As to the fact, no one was ever in such a state, the will always perfectly right, and the doing always wrong. It is the working of the law when the will is renewed, but the man is under law, and as to the thoughts of his relationship with God he is in the flesh, loving obedience and God's law, but judging of God's thoughts of him from what he is himself, which is the opposite of grace.

The law is seen to be spiritual in its requirements, his conscience consents to it as good, his heart delights in it after the inner man, but he does not succeed in keeping it. He is captive to the law of sin which is in his members. To will is present with him, but how to perform the good he finds not. Now this is experience looked at by a delivered person, but of a person clearly undelivered, a person under law, a man when he was in the flesh. He learns, thus looking at it, not guilt, but that there is no good in him, that is, in his flesh; next, that it is not himself, since he hates it; thirdly, that it is too strong for him — he cannot succeed in his will to do right. It is a lesson of two things — that there is no good in the flesh when estimated spiritually, and next, that we have no power. To distinguish the sin from oneself is often a relief, but not deliverance. Now it is of all importance that he should know, and experimentally know, what flesh is, and so what it is to be under law; but God has no pleasure in keeping him there when he has learned it. But it is not the Christian state. There is conflict to the end when we are delivered, but then that is in the Christian: the flesh lusts against the Spirit. Here there is no question of the Spirit, nor of Christ, save in contrast, another husband, which you cannot have at the same time. As to this the chapter is positive. We cannot have two husbands at the same time. If I have learned the love of God in the gift of His Son, and my standing is there, divine acceptance does not rest on what I am for God — under law it does.

270 The chapter is the estimate of the working of the law by one who has the Spirit, and can say, "We know." He does not say, therefore, we are carnal, Christians could not. If I am asked, Has he the Spirit? — Is he sealed? I answer, Decidedly not, he is captive to the law of sin, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; and in chapter 8 he is made free, and not in the flesh. And if one is led of the Spirit, he is not under law, but that is exactly what is described in Romans 7, but described by one who, being out of it, can describe it by the Spirit. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Though I have spoken of chapter 7 as parenthetic, and justly (for it comes in between the doctrine of chapter 6 and the practical state of chapter 8), yet, in a certain sense, chapter 6 closes the doctrine of the epistle. Sin has not dominion over them, for they are not under law, but under grace; so, yielded to God in obedience, they have their fruit unto holiness here, and the end everlasting life. The wages of sin is death; the gift of God eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus the two experimental states are gone into, under law, and in the power of the Spirit in Christ. The complete contrast of the two is evident, not degrees of progress, but contrast of state. The incompatibility of the two I have spoken of, implied in the two husbands, the change being introduced by nothing short of death, as an absolute cessation of the bond. But I now speak of the contrast in the state itself. In chapter 7 he is in the flesh, in chapter 8 he is not in the flesh because the Spirit of God dwells in him. The experience of chapter 7 contemplates the law only; in chapter 8 he is dead to the law by the body of Christ, and it is a question between the flesh and the Spirit. Christ is in us, and the body dead, and the Spirit life in the delivered soul. We have, then, first, in chapter 7, the two husbands contrasted — a renewed man connected with law, and the same with Christ raised from the dead, the first bond being absolutely severed by the death of the person in it. Then you have the experience of the former, the renewed man under law, estimated by the Christian intelligence of one out of it, and the flesh is judged, and the incompetency of the renewed soul to overcome it under law. It needs a deliverer, that is, God through Christ. We are alive in Him, and He in us, and have died to sin, been crucified with Him. There is therefore now no condemnation for them in Christ, for though flesh is in me, I am freed from its law through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ, and I, as to my standing before God, have nothing else than Christ as life in the power of the Spirit. What the law could not do, nor I succeed in under it, because the flesh was not subject to it, God has done; for it has judicially disappeared in the death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, and there it and I to sin died with Him. The old man is crucified and gone in the cross: God has condemned sin in the flesh there.

271 But here the power of the Holy Ghost comes which dwells in us. It is a sum of our state in, already in, verse 2. But the things of the Spirit and walking after the Spirit refer directly to a divine Person and to a new nature; and to this, though not yet separating Him from life as its power, the change from the old position of Adam standing is distinctly referred. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." It is not subjecting flesh, which cannot be subject to law; but "if Christ be in you, the body is dead," according to chapter 6, for alive in itself, it only produces sin; yet I am alive, "the Spirit is life" as the power and producer of righteousness. And further to complete the deliverance: "if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ [the head of his people] from the dead will quicken your mortal bodies, by reason of his Spirit which dwells in you." It is the Spirit of God, as contrasted with flesh — of Christ, as that which we are as now livingly formed after Christ — of Him that raised up Jesus (Christ's personal name) from the dead, as accomplishing our final deliverance. From this on the Holy Spirit is spoken of, not merely as a divine Person dwelling in us, and so working on life, but as acting distinct from us. By the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body, we are led by the Spirit; He is the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself, it is said, bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children, with the inheritance in hope, and helps our infirmities in our patient passage till we are there; the Spirit itself, when we do not know what to pray for as we ought, making intercession for us, but in us, and that according to God: so real is this presence with us.

272 There is, then, a deliverance* — not being born again, not forgiveness — though both be true — but deliverance, in that we have died with Christ, our old man crucified with Him, and He our life, in the power of the Spirit of God; and, while His work is the basis, it is possessed and known, and our place in Him, by the Spirit dwelling in us, which Spirit we receive on believing in the efficacy of Christ's work for the forgiveness of our sins. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us. Scripture is as clear as possible on the point. It is equally clear that one in Romans 7 has not this deliverance; the proof of it is very simple — he is seeking to be delivered. It is not a repeated thing, but a state into which we enter: the whole of chapter 8 is a proof of it; we are in Christ, have the Spirit of adoption, the Comforter, which is not taken from us.

{*We have it here, and based on Christ's death, and enjoyed by the Spirit. So in Galatians 5: 1, "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." So 2 Corinthians 3, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."}

It is not being born again — that is a "must be"; not the revelation of grace and salvation — this is by the cross. The visitation, as prophesied of by Zechariah, was to give knowledge of salvation to the people by the forgiveness of their sins.

It was the gospel of their salvation which led to the sealing of the Gentiles. I have no doubt that He who began the good work will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ. But the testimony of Scripture is constant. The prodigal came to himself, was repentant, confessed his sin, and that he was perishing, and set out on the road which, in fact, led him to his father; but he had not reached his father, nor knew his mind, could not cry Abba Father, nor had he on the best robe, which made him fit to enter into the house. It is in vain to say he was not conscious of it; he had not got it. Christ was delivered for our offences; but though He has made peace by the blood of His cross, we have it not till we are justified by faith. It is alike important to see that it is completely made, and that we have it not till we believe. Indeed, to say that we have peace with God, and are not conscious of it, is nonsense. It dislocates, too, the connection of the Spirit's presence and Christ's work. To be free, and at liberty, liberty with God, crying, Abba, Father, and freedom from the law of sin and death, and not be conscious of it, has no sense, though we may not be able to explain how it is; but we have the joy, and know it. I attach no importance to the word 'Christian' — probably given by the world; but his body who is such is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which he has of God.

273 The comparison of some passages in Romans and Galatians shews distinctly how this is a distinct state, and not a mere progress in the condition of the soul, the liberty of sons, the fruit of redemption, in contrast with bondage under law, even if born of God. In Galatians 3: 23: "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under law." Before faith came we were under the law, a schoolmaster unto Christ, but after faith came we were so no longer. We are all sons (not children, two things not confounded by Paul) of God by faith in Christ Jesus. But the heir, so long as he is a child, differs nothing from a slave, though lord of all. But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Chapter 5 exhorts them to stand fast in this liberty; the flesh lusted against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; but if led of the Spirit, they were not under law. Flesh was there, but their state and standing was wholly changed; they were sons, free, led of the Spirit, not under law, because Christ had redeemed them out of that state, and so the Holy Ghost was given to them, if faith had come in. The state was the consequence of God's Son being come to redeem, and faith in that. Now look at Romans, in the delivered state — Romans 8, As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. And how is this? We are not under law, but under grace, reckon ourselves dead. (Compare Gal. 2: 19, 20.) Christ having died, we are delivered from the law, dead with Christ to sin and the law too, married to another, Christ risen. We are in Christ: the law of the Spirit of life in Him has set us free; for what the law could not do, God has done, sending His own Son for sin. The consequence is not a law imposing human righteousness, but the things of the Spirit our portion.

274 Though the flesh is in us, we are not in it, not in that standing before God, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in us, not if born of God; that they were when undelivered. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit life; and then he goes to conscious sonship by the Spirit, and so, not to one being born, but to the witness by the Spirit of being born of God (children, not sons): we are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. The principles of the state in chapter 7 are the law, the flesh, sin, captivity to the law of sin, undelivered, the will right, but no power to carry it out. The first six verses give the two relationships to law, and Christ risen, death wholly closing one, being the only deliverance from it. The principles of chapter 8 are, in Christ (not merely forgiven, but in a new state), made free by the law of the Spirit of life in Him, sin in the flesh condemned in His having died a sacrifice for sin, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, the Spirit of God dwelling in us, the body dead, the Spirit life; sons, knowing we are such, suffering with Christ, to be glorified with Him; Christ and the Spirit, not mentioned in the first; the whole subject is the second husband, in the power of the Spirit in the second. It is impossible that two standings and relationships can be more distinct. Having believed in forgiveness by Christ's blood, the believer has received the Spirit, and knows by it where he is, as having died with Christ, and being now in Him.

Bad teaching, which puts being born again (a vital and necessary truth, and examining whether we be in the faith, a very natural thing then, but a mere and entire misinterpretation of Scripture), instead of an accomplished and known redemption by the work of Christ, having led many true hearts away from plain Scripture truth, I add here what Scripture plainly states. If a soul can in truth before God say, Abba, Father, that soul is sealed. If a person really knows that he is in Christ, and Christ in him, he is sealed. If the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, the man is sealed. (Rom. 8; Gal. 4; Rom. 13; John 14; Rom. 10.) Other proofs may be given of if, for the whole life of a man is, save particular failures, the evidence of the Spirit of God dwelling in him; but I take the simplest and most immediate evidence in a man's soul purposely and such as are in terms stated in Scripture. Now what hinders the simple acceptance of this truth is, that the full doctrine of redemption is not believed. Forgiveness is looked at as forgiveness of so much past sins,* of sins up to our conversion, what was really Jewish forgiveness, which is contrasted in Scripture with Christian; Heb. 9, 10. What Scripture calls eternal redemption is not believed in. As to Christians in general, what it is to have no more conscience of sins, they cannot tell you, or even of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes no sin. No, all their past sins were forgiven when they believed, but sins since? well, they must be sprinkled again, or the present priesthood of Christ on high applies to it, neither of which is in Scripture.

{*Past sins in Romans 3 are the sins of Old Testament saints. It is clear that at the moment I am forgiven, I can only apply it to sins already committed; I have no other. But this does not touch the question of the extent and bearing of Christ's death, which was before I had committed any. It is confounding the Spirit's work and Christ's.}

275 Ask them what it means, when it says that by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified; they cannot tell you: each sin, after its commission, has to find its forgiveness as and when it may; and people are taught that it is a very dangerous doctrine to think otherwise. Now there is an interruption of communion; there is a gracious washing of the feet with water; but when I have believed in Christ's work there is no more imputation of sin, I am perfected as to conscience. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. He who bore our sins, and put them away long ago, is there. We must not confound the work of the Spirit, which makes me own my faults, and the work of Christ, finished and effectual once and for ever. He bore my sins when I had not committed one of them, and if forgiveness, in the sense of non-imputation, has to be gained now, it would be impossible; for Christ would have to suffer for them as the apostle says, "For then he must often have suffered from the foundation of the world." Hence he who has not the sense of redemption in his soul by faith, and he who really has, are by current teaching put on the same footing, though one has the Spirit of adoption, and the other has not — one looks for mercy, not yet obtained by faith, and the other, with God, cries Abba, Father; but both are taught to suppose sin imputable alike, and to search if they are children, and the delivered man is thrown back by false teaching under law in Romans 7. If you can really cry, Abba, Father, you are surely sealed; but then no sin can be imputed to you, or Christ is dead in vain. Judaism was, as to that, better than this half Christianity. There, if a man sinned, was a sacrifice, and his sin was forgiven. Here, once, perhaps, pardoned for what was gone before, he has nothing but uncertainty for all that follows. But Christ has obtained eternal redemption, and blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no sin. And the work being complete, and he who is sanctified perfected for ever, the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins, and Christ is sitting down on the Father's throne because all is finished. Of this the Holy Ghost is the witness; being born of God is not.

276 There is one text as to which it may be well to add a supplementary word: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," Rom. 8: 9. "None of his" alarms people; it is simply that he is not yet His, any more than the prodigal was in a son's place till he reached his father.

Verse 1 puts us in Christ, this verse Christ in us, which is the Christian state, according to the promise in John 14. It is not the state of soul which is a question here, but the fact of Christ being in us, as the next verse proves, connecting it withal with chapter 6. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. This cannot be till we have that Spirit. We are not till then in the Christian state as belonging to Christ in fact, even if on the way, like the prodigal. The Christian is always looked at as born again, forgiven, and sealed. That is the Christian state — till then he is not in it. The indwelling of the Spirit is part of the Christian state, as Galatians, Romans, 2 Corinthians 5, 2 Corinthians 1, and a multitude of other passages, shew.

There is one other passage I would refer to, as sometimes cited, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." Now, first, the sealing of the Spirit is not the subject here, nor is being born again. It is assumed and referred to in chapter 3: 24: only there the Spirit's testimony to dwelling in Him, and He in us, is only applied to His dwelling in us, as even gifts of all kinds might shew. But obedience marks the Christian, keeping His commandments, and this involves dwelling in God, and God in us, the consciousness of it being by the Spirit given to us. So verse 4. So in our verse 13, but the terms varied, He hath given us of His Spirit: the terms, indeed, of the prophecy, but here of moment, as connecting us with God in His nature. John is not occupied with the administrative acts, such as sealing, by which our relationships are known. He dwells in the nature of God, and communion with it. He is light, so are we. He is love, and he who dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him. Our koinonia is with God, and we walk in the light, as God is in the light, in love, as Christ loved us. I do not doubt it is through the Spirit, but what John is full of is our being in God, and God in us, as a present thing, not our being sealed for the day of redemption — a day not come yet; and it is of His Spirit, so that we should dwell in and have communion with Himself. This is not sealing, though it be through means of it, that is, of the gift of the Holy Ghost. Romans 5 is nearer to it, and there it is by the gift of the Holy Ghost, but an effect of it, not the thing itself. When a man is quickened, and trusts in the blood of Christ, and is sealed with the Holy Ghost, then he enters into the fulness of God, of all that is in Him, his new nature innately enjoys, is innately capable of enjoying all that He is; the Holy Ghost is the revealer of, and spiritual power to realise, what is revealed, and thus we enter into that fulness, our conscience being perfect through the blood of Christ.

277 Thus entering into what the Holy Ghost brings us into, we dwell in God, and God in us. And this is the position of every Christian, of whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God. But these are looked on as sealed, as this passage itself shews. With a parenthesis to detect evil spirits, the view of the Christian state begins, 1 John 3: 23 externally, verse 24 internally, chapter 4: 7, and following. It is not the habit of John to treat the divine administrative process of God's ways, but the nature of God, and the fulness that is in Him, and our connection with it in its character and power. This process the reader will find in Ephesians 3: 14-19. It is the full blessing into which we are brought by the Holy Ghost with which we are sealed. Ephesians is the realisation of it. There is another point important in this passage, the force of "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God." Here a man is openly in the place of a Christian; but it is in no way the fact of His Person, in contrast with His work. In the passage itself, the whole of what He was, has done, is now in glory, is brought into view: nor in what follows is it simply that we are quickened, but that he that hath the Son hath life. The whole mystery of godliness, as regards us, viewing Christ as a Man in glory, who once came down, and finished the work, and is gone back to the Father. Verses 9, 10 we have the Son sent to be life to us, and propitiation for us; in verse 12, God's love is perfected in us now; in verse 17 He is viewed as the glorified Man, and as He is, so are we. It is evident that this takes in the whole history of Christ in saying Son of God. But the way in which John speaks of Christ goes further: He is truly a man "come in the flesh," but God in His Person. We know Him that is true, and are in Him that is true, that is, in His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, He, outos "is the true God, and eternal life."

278 Read the verses from chapter 2: 28; chap. 3: 3: is He spoken of as God, or as man? As both in one half-verse He appears; we are born of Him, so sons of God, but the world does not know us, as it did not know Him. It is one Person who is God and who is Man, according to the aspect in which He is looked at, and believing in His Person is the secret and foundation of it all; but a divine Person who came down, is God, finished the work, and is gone up, a true man who has died, but Son of God. So we enter into all the fulness of God, dwelling in Him (being in Christ), but according to all that He has displayed Himself to be in His ways with us in Christ, and blessed it is. But this is different from the administration of those ways, even the sealing with the Holy Ghost, by which we are capable indwellers.

Paul gives us this administrative and judicial dealing of God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, by faith in Christ the Son, who has wrought redemption. We are sons, not merely children, and so the Spirit of His Son is sent forth into our hearts. John goes on to what this brings us into, in its fulness in God, as revealed in the Son. All belongs in God's mind, the nous of Christ, to every believer, as the best robe, and the shoes, and the ring to the prodigal; but we enter into them by being sealed with the Holy Ghost, and are able to do so, being strengthened by Him according to Ephesians 3. And now the matter stands thus: dispensationally it was when the Son of God had come, been crucified, accomplishing redemption and gone on high; then, and then only, the Holy Ghost came down, the public seal and testimony that He was the Son of God, the glorified Man on high. So with the individual, when he believes that the work is accomplished, in the efficacy of that work, he is sealed with the Holy Ghost, giving the assurance of our place by what Christ has done, and the earnest of what He has obtained for us, having put away our sins, and done away the whole of our old standing with God, flesh and law, and entered as our Forerunner into glory as man, in virtue of redemption.

279 Now when Christ is at all truly preached, even where the efficacy of His work is not clearly applied, still what has that efficacy is placed before the soul as a truth. According to ordinary evangelical ministry, people are told they must be born again — quite true — and to examine themselves if they are; and if the value of Christ's blood is spoken of, they are carefully warned and guarded, lest they should have any false confidence, not to deceive themselves, etc. The effect is, that the mass (where the word reaches the soul) remain in the spirit of bondage, and searching their own state to see if God can accept them; the ground may be laid, but are they fit for heaven? the efficacy of the blood being a resource at the end of their career, many truths for living by, as men say, one to die by. A few, in whom the Spirit of God made it a felt need, do realise forgiveness as a present thing, and even that of attainment; consequently, being sealed, they cry to God, Abba, Father, but remain in the spirit of bondage after all, thrown back on their self-examination, and the judgment, they can form of themselves, not here fully seeking to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord, in true holiness and divine life, but turn even this into a question of fitness, that is, of righteousness, and true holiness is lost, as is divine righteousness. Acceptance, save as a thing in the air, is not known. And such is the state of the Christian world. Let watchfulness, diligence of heart, the fear of God, working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, be pressed on the redeemed and saved with all diligence, but on such as such, and when they are such. For though we have the assurance of being kept and confirmed to the end by divine power, yet if we are redeemed, and because we are, we have the wilderness to pass, where all is sifted and tried in us (John 10; 1 Cor. 1), but where the true believer relies on the faithfulness of the living God, who withdraws not His eyes from the righteous, as he does on the perfect work which redeemed and saved him (so that he is not in the flesh) and brought him into this place of testing.

280 In result, then, the pattern and the model of the Christian's place is Matthew 3: 16, 17. The heavens are opened to him; He is sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost; and the Father owns Him as His beloved Son. Only Christ was in this place as man in His own excellency. For us redemption was needed; for except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. Hence, our faith must rest, not only on His Person, but on His work, to find ourselves in that place. And this is what the truth of the matter is as to delay. It is not delay in sealing, when faith in Christ's work is there — I see no ground for that — but delay in the heart's believing in its efficacy, appropriating faith in Christ's work.

_________

I allow myself to add a line on another subject, as misrepresentation has gone forth. I insist that when Christ's presence is spoken of, with two or three gathered in His name, it is Christ — not the Holy Ghost. The difference is very real: the Holy Ghost was not incarnate, was not made flesh for us, did not die for us, and in this respect cannot be the object of the same affections. On this I have constantly and uniformly insisted. What gave occasion to the contrary representation was, as far as I can ascertain, a bad translation of a French tract; where evidently it was said Christ was present en esprit, spiritually (not corporeally), and this has been translated by "the Spirit."

Church and Privileges

J. N. Darby.

<31020E> 281

Things, truths, not words, are my objects. I had supposed that kuriake was the source of kirche in German, kirk and church. "Kyroike" I never heard of; it may be all right. Some philologists now say that this is all wrong, and that kirk, or church, comes from the Saxon. I can only say I really do not know, nor have at this moment the means of ascertaining, if indeed it be ascertainable with any certainty. But the truth is I have a pious horror of the word "church," because no one knows what it means.

What does it mean? Mr. G.'s congregation might build him a new church; then it means a building. Or Mr. S. may be a member of Mr. G.'s church; then it means an assembly under the presidency of Mr. G. In England, he is going into the church means he is going to become a clergyman; he is gone to church, is the public service or worship — gone to the church is the building again.

The Roman Catholic church and the Greek church are large bodies of persons professing Christianity, associated under these designations. So of Presbyterians, and Covenanters, Lutherans, etc. If you press the matter, the church is the teaching, the authoritative part of it. This is so even among Protestants. The thirty-nine Articles of England tell us the church can decree rites and ceremonies, and has authority in matters of faith. So that we have to know what a person means by "the church" before we can reply to a question as to it.

But I will just mention a little bit of history which refers to this, and why it is so current a word. When James I (or, as we should say with Scottish Covenanters, James VI) had the Bible translated, the translation in popular use was the Geneva one, made by the refugees in Queen Mary's time. This always used the word "congregation." Now James had a long experience, or knowledge at least, of his mother's conflicts with John Knox, and was not very fond of Scottish principles embodied afterwards in the covenant, and used to say, "No bishop, no king." He therefore gave strict orders to have the word "church" everywhere, and not "congregation." Hence the prevalence of a word which has really no meaning.

Say "assembly," which is the meaning of the Greek ekklesia, and all ambiguity disappears. "Ecclesia" was the assembly of those who in the small Grecian states were citizens, and so had right to vote, etc., and then was applied to analogous bodies or meetings. We all know what an assembly means. Only now we have to do with God's assembly. For example, "Take with thee one or two more, etc., if not, tell it to the church." To whom is it to be told? Well, the minister, or perhaps the presbytery. With the Roman Catholic, "if he will not hear the church" wins awful proportions. Now say (as it really is) "the assembly," how simple all is! If wronged, go yourself first alone; if in vain, take one or two others; if still in vain matters being ascertained, then tell it to the assembly. For the present mixed state of things this may seem very inconvenient, but the sense of the words is plain enough.

282 Now apply this to Acts 7. "This is he that was with the assembly in the wilderness." Can anything be simpler? Israel was a vast assembly in the wilderness, and assembled themselves at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. For though a different word in Hebrew, the tabernacle got its name from its being the place of meeting. But then all possible reference to the church in the Christian sense disappears. Who denies that the six hundred thousand men who came constantly to the entrance of the court were an assembly? There were three words used for it, Kahal (as is stated by Mr. G.), from Kahal, the verb to call together; Moeed, and Heeda, or Gneedah, the two last from Yaad, to appoint a place or time of meeting. Hence the tabernacle was called Ohel Moeed, the tent or tabernacle of the congregation.

Israel was a great assembly or congregation, as none can dispute, but which proves simply nothing as to its being what God's assembly is, according to the word, now. It is "Ecclesia," an assembly, in Acts 7, and the word, being simply an assembled multitude, says just no more than that. The identical word is used when it is said (Acts 19), "Having so said, he (the town clerk) dismissed the assembly." Put "the church" there, and what nice sense you will have!

I quite understand it will be said, "Yes, but they were God's assembly in the wilderness." Admitted, but the whole question remains; that is, were God's assembly then, and God's assembly now, constituted on the same principles, on the same basis? There was no question then of conversion, or faith, or anything of the kind, or even profession. They were, as Scripture expresses it, of the fountain of Jacob, descendants of Israel according to the flesh, and under condition of being circumcised the eighth day, which, by the by, none of those born in the wilderness were at that time. That assembly was a nation; God's assembly now is not. The fact of being an assembly, or the word, proves nothing; the whole question remains — Are the Israelitish nation, and God's assembly called by grace, the same thing, or assembled on the same principles?

283 Mr. G. makes some enormous statements: First, "The church of Pentecost was Israel." Why, the Jews had openly rejected the Lord, and Peter in his sermon says to those who had ears to hear, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation," and the Lord Himself, "Henceforth your house is left unto you desolate, for I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." They were a judicially rejected people, though not for ever, and are so to this day. They were men of Israel; but the assertion, inconceivable as it is, only shews how far a false principle can carry any one. God did not say in Joel, "He would give the great outpouring of His Spirit to Israel." He said He would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. In patience with Israel He dealt with them, and began at Jerusalem; but it was the Holy Ghost being given to Cornelius that opened fully Peter's and the Jewish Christians' eyes.

But let us enter a little more into the heart of the matter. Mr. G. says, "To them were committed the oracles of God; to them pertained the adoption, glory, covenant, giving of the law, service, and the promises; Rom. 9: 4. Nothing more can be said of the church now."Now here is the nucleus, the heart, of the question: not the introduction of Old Testament saints into church privileges, unscriptural as that is, but reducing God's assembly now to the measure of Jewish privileges. The former might alone be treated as a mistake, the latter deprives God's assembly of its true divine standing, and this is what makes it of moment. The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came (egeneto) by Jesus Christ.

Let us see what Scripture says on the matter. In the tabernacle there was a veil, behind which God sat between the cherubim; the Holy Ghost thus signifying that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first tabernacle had its standing. Now by Christ's death the veil is rent from top to bottom, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. We can, and are, to walk in the light as God is in the light. Is this "nothing more" to Mr. G.?

284 I will not insist on God's righteousness being declared now, the righteousness of God being revealed, not prophesied of, because I desire to take what is most positive and on the very surface of Scripture. See Galatians 4. "Now I say the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a slave, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father; even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father; wherefore thou art no more a slave, but a son." Is it "nothing more" to be brought to be sons of God by known and accomplished redemption, and know it, to live in the relationship, instead even of an heir differing nothing from a slave?

Will Mr. G. allow me to ask him, were the Jews under the first covenant, or the second, in their relationship with God? Are we under that first covenant? But more, we have the difference clearly brought out in Hebrews 10: 9: "He taketh away the first that he may establish the second." It will be said that these were ceremonies; but what ceremonies? The priesthood is changed; is that merely a ceremony, a better hope by which we draw nigh to God? And see the difference: the sacrifices could not make the comers thereunto perfect as pertaining to the conscience; there was a remembrance of sins every year. Now we are perfected for ever who are sanctified; so that Christ, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. He is seated there, because all is done, till His enemies are made His footstool; and our sins and iniquities are remembered no more. The worshippers once purged are so in such sort that they should have no more conscience of sins, instead of a remembrance of them every year. We have eternal redemption, a purged conscience, because the sins are purged once and for all, and boldness to enter into the holiest, "giving thanks to the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col. 1: 12), having the knowledge of salvation given to His people by the remission of their sins. Is all this "nothing more"?

285 Take what is said by the Lord; and this will lead us to the question of the Holy Ghost. Than John Baptist no greater prophet had ever arisen, and of those born of woman none greater; but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Many kings, prophets, righteous men, had desired to see the things which the disciples saw, and had not seen them; but "blessed," says the Lord, "are your eyes, for they see." They were more blessed than their kings and prophets — they had Messiah with them. But so great was the privilege and advantage of having the Holy Ghost, that it was expedient that Christ should leave them; for if He did not, the Comforter would not come; but if He went away, He would send Him. What a thing to lose, Christ's personal presence in grace! Yet so great was to be the effect of the coming of the Holy Spirit, that it was better He should go. But they would persuade us that He had been there all the time of the Old Testament! (See 1 Pet. 1.) They searched their own prophecies, and found they did not minister to themselves, but to us, the things now reported by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Was the promise to pour out the Spirit "nothing"? Clearly it was not anything if He was there all the time as when poured out.

And now mark the foundation of this immense truth. God never dwelt with Adam innocent, nor with Abraham or others; but as soon as a redemption, external even, was accomplished, we read, "They shall know (Exod. 29) that I, Jehovah their God, have brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them"; and the Shechinah of glory came down and sat between the cherubim, and led them in the wilderness. So it was, when an eternal and full redemption had been accomplished, and man (though much more than a man) sat down in virtue of it at the right hand of God, that the Holy Ghost came down to dwell in God's people individually and collectively.

We must not confound between the divine action of the Holy Ghost and His coming. I think it will be found in Scripture that all direct action of God from creation is by the Holy Ghost. Even Christ could say, "If I by the Holy Ghost cast out demons." At any rate He moved on the face of the waters; by His Spirit God garnished the heavens; He inspired the prophets, and wrought all through the divine history; but this was not His personal coming. So the Son created all things, but He did not come until the incarnation. "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father," John 16: 28. So speaks Christ of the Holy Ghost: "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go away, I will send him unto you, and when he is come," etc. (John 16: 7, 8.) And this was so distinct a thing, that it is called "The Holy Ghost" without saying came, or given, or anything else. Thus John 7: 39, "For the Holy Ghost was not yet" — given is added — "for Jesus was not yet glorified." So the disciples, baptised by John in Acts 19: 2, said, "We have not so much as heard whether the Holy Ghost is."

286 All Jews knew the being of the Holy Ghost; but this was His promised presence, and this is easily understood as to John's disciples, because he had spoken of Christ's work as twofold: — He was "the Lamb of God," and "he it is that baptiseth with the Holy Ghost"; which was the second great part of His work — baptising with the Holy Ghost — and could not be done till He was glorified. So He tells His disciples after His resurrection, "Ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost not many days hence."He Himself was anointed and sealed with the Holy Ghost when He stood, the first man fully, perfectly, acceptable to God, who had ever existed since evil entered, perfect in Himself. God "anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power."

And what is the effect of the Holy Ghost's dwelling in us? The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us; Rom. 5. We know that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us; John 14. We know that we are sons, and cry, Abba Father, the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit. He takes the things of Christ, the glorified man on high, and shews them to us. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God; so that God dwells in us, and we in Him, and we know it by the Holy Ghost given to us; What eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive, God hath revealed unto us by His Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; and, Christ living thus in us, the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit life because of righteousness. Man at the right hand of God, in righteousness, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in the believer as the consequence of it, characterise Christianity.

287 All this is lost by this system. What made it expedient for Christ to leave His disciples, we are told, is all the same as what they had before He came! The anointing of the Holy Ghost is "nothing"! Besides, he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, and this leads to the corporate difference.

Till Christ ascended up on high there was no man at the right hand of God, no one to whom the believer could, as a present fact, be united, and consequently, as we have seen, no Holy Ghost either to unite him to Him. But Christ ascended up on high, a man, in righteousness, and the Holy Ghost consequently came down, not to the world, but to believers. Let us hold fast this great truth — the essence of Christianity, as the cross and God's love are the foundation of it. The Head being on high, we are quickened together with Him, according to the power with which God wrought in raising Him from the dead, and setting Him there, and raised us up Jews or Gentiles together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ, not with Him yet; Eph. 1: 19-23; chap. 2: 1-7. Neither part of this was true before Christ was glorified. There was no such glorified man, no Holy Ghost come down from heaven. On this Scripture is clear as possibly can be. There was a Son of God who could quicken; no raised glorified man, whose going to the Father was the testimony of God's righteousness, nor Holy Ghost come down, the divine witness of it. We are members of His body; He has given Him, as so exalted, to be Head over all things to the church which is His body. Thus by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body, Jews or Greeks. Israel had lost his place as such. There was no difference now. By the cross the middle wall of partition was broken down, and of twain one new man to be made, and both reconciled to God in one body by the cross.

Now the duty and essence of Judaism was the keeping of the wall up; Christianity as a system on earth is founded on its being broken down. Were the Gentiles in the church brought into the Jewish state as is alleged? No; He makes of twain one new man, and reconciles both, and came and preached peace to those afar off, and those nigh, for neither had it. The apostles and prophets (the prophets are the prophets of the New Testament, see Eph. 3: 5) were the foundation of a new edifice, a habitation of God through the Spirit. This had never been promised, never revealed at all and could not have been. To say there was no difference between Jew and Gentile would have destroyed Judaism at one stroke. It was not revealed at all; Eph. 3: 4-11; Col. 1: 26; Rom. 16: 25, 26. In verse 26 it is not "the scriptures of the prophets," but now by prophetic scriptures, graphon prophetikon.

288 But the grand point is the coming of the Holy Ghost consequent on the exaltation of a man in righteousness to the right hand of God. So when Christ says, "I will build my church" on the revelation made by the Father to Peter, what was the meaning of that, if He had been building it all the time? The church then, the body of Christ, is formed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost consequent on the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God; the Holy Ghost, as so come, was not yet, when Christ was not glorified; and this baptism as is declared in Acts 1, took place a few days after, that is, on the day of Pentecost.

Romans 11 has nothing to do with the church, the body of Christ. It is the olive-tree of promise (and the church was never promised even), and it is accompanied with a revelation that, when the Jews are grafted in again, the Gentile branches would be broken off. There were promises and prophecies at any rate, which apply to Gentiles, as, "Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people"; but if Israel be God's people, the church cannot exist with it; for there is no difference of Jew and Gentile, and blindness in part is happened unto Israel, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. They are enemies as touching the gospel. It is "the casting them away" in "the reconciling of the world." The church is the body of Christ formed by the Holy Ghost on earth, while Christ sits on the right hand of God.

I should have many things to note if I merely took up the article. "House of the Lord," or any application of it to the place where the people meet, is wholly without foundation in Scripture. "The church of the wilderness" is also unscriptural. "The kingdom of heaven" is not the church at all. It is really too bad to say, "the apostles do not say a word about a new organisation." There is a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof. Did not Paul organise the church? Were the priests and Levites priests and Levites of the Christian church?

There would be another difficulty which Mr. G. has not noticed at all; that before the Exodus there was no assembly of any kind at all; individual saints, Enochs, and Noahs, and Abrahams, but no assembly; but I do not go beyond what is on the surface of the article.

289 What I press is this — that the Holy Ghost is come, and that, when He came, the baptism, by which the saints were made one body, took place. The assembly is the body of Christ, the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost on earth, and never existed before that baptism, and could not, for the Head did not exist, nor was the Holy Ghost in consequence descended to unite men to Him so as to form that body. He gave Himself not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad.

Letter on the Sufferings of Christ

J. N. Darby.

<31021E> 290

I trust I should retract at once, if I thought I was in error, especially in what concerns the blessed Lord Himself. I am quite ready to admit, and have admitted over and over again, that doubtless expressions may be made clearer. My principal difficulty to bring my mind to bear on it is the character of the objections. I admit the objectors have succeeded in troubling some; but I find daily many of these, the moment they have read what I have written, perfectly tranquil. The attacks, begun with deliberate fraud in quotation, were followed up by low malice, most of which, when I have seen them, I have not read. I should be ready to explain to the humblest and most ignorant. But the attacks have not commanded my respect. I am aware the enemy has succeeded in troubling some, and leading others to profit by it, to hinder souls whose consciences were making progress; but the Lord has a long look out. Our faith has to wait for Him, and such I seek for myself. I only fear that it may leave some, for whom I had hoped better, in the mud they have sought to create. I only ask to be enabled to do at each moment what is right in the matter, believing, though it be the enemy's work, it will do good. I proposed to the brethren to go out of communion, and leave off ministering (not for any difficulty I had) but to leave them perfectly free; but they would not hear of it in these parts, and in many others.

I am not the least uneasy myself. I feel distinctly it is an effort of the enemy, and that he will be baffled; but I do not want to involve others in it, nor will I make it a matter of self-defence, mingling that up with the Lord's glory, and raising discussions, when it ought with such a subject to be edification. As regards connecting it, or comparing it, with Mr. Newton's doctrine, were it not for the pure wickedness of what set it a-going, it would be beneath contempt. To say that being born in a state, and seeking to extricate oneself, and not being able till death, is the same thing as being born in the very opposite, and always walking in that state, and entering into the sufferings of another in grace, does not deserve to be reasoned on. The same thing! One makes the other impossible. I cannot condescend to take notice of these attacks: those who get entangled in them must count the cost for themselves. Explain my own views, or unfold the truth as far as I can, this I am ready to do; but I am in no hurry. I do not want to get defending myself, but prefer trusting the Lord who will make things clear. Some parts of it are a new kind of trial, but there is grace enough in Christ for it, and I leave all that, without great difficulty, to God. We shall find out where He is leading. May the Lord save as many as possible from Satan's power in it.

291 I am ready to do all I can towards it, where it is really sought. I have no doubt many expressions may be made clearer; but, if honestly examined in the context, they cannot have the sense attached to them. In substance, instead of having to retract, I believe my enemies to be in very mischievous and evil error, going far to deny the reality of Christ's sufferings, and thus depriving Him of a blessed part of His glory, and us of the deepest comfort and vital truth.

I can easily understand that what relates to the remnant of Israel may not be understood, and hence that part is difficult to enter into. That does not trouble me. But the denial of Christ's sufferings, where these are real, is another matter; and, allow me to say, though I shall reply to your questions out of the New Testament, you cannot understand that subject without referring to the Old. Nor can I consent to give up that which was able to make men wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.

I am aware that Mr. Newton said his doctrine was not in the New Testament, but in the Psalms; but one of the devices of Satan is to deprive us of truth by connecting it with deadly error. This is one source of trouble to honest minds now; but it is a reason for going peacefully on in the truth itself, and having patience with people's minds. His doctrine was in neither. Nor do I admit such a principle. For the Old Testament throws infinite light on what we have often only the fact of in the New. There is sufficient in the New to connect it with the Old, as in the case of Christ's sacrifice, but far more detail in the Old. If you expect to find the details as to the remnant of Israel in the New, you will be disappointed. Mr. Newton connected the blessed Lord with sinful guilty Israel, and hence had necessarily a false Christ. I say He entered into the sorrows and sufferings of the godly remnant. It is never stated in my papers that He was in the place that brought them in. The attacks on me are founded on a deadly error; that entering into the sufferings, or suffering with them in heart and grace, supposes Himself to be in the state or place which brought them in. Christ was baptised with the baptism of repentance. Was He in the case, or state, or position to need it? Every Christian knows that He was not, yet He submitted to that, or went through it.

292 There cannot be a more dangerous principle than that on which the charges against my statements are founded. They are really unawares founded on Mr. Newton's principle, not what they are attacking. I have no thought on the personal or relative positions of Christ which is not that of the whole church of God.

The only thing new, and which is not so for multitudes of saints, is there being a Jewish remnant, and His entering into their sorrows. The rest is merely calling souls to, I believe, a most profitable and faith-deepening contemplation of the blessed Lord's sufferings; and that, for friends or foes, I am not going to give up. Statements may be cleared up, but not truth given up. Thank God, many studious souls had been already, and the hubbub raised has led many others since to draw great profit from it.

I will now turn directly to your question and to the New Testament. But you must feel that before God no divinely-taught and God-fearing mind will leave out Psalms 22, 69, 102, or Isaiah 50 or 53, in learning God's mind on the sufferings of the Lord.

It is admitted that in Gethsemane Christ was not yet drinking the cup: we know that He could then pray that He might not. Was He suffering simply from man for righteousness' sake? I merely state this as a general principle, that there is suffering which is not from man for righteousness, nor accomplishing atonement. You ask the question, "If smiting were necessitated in the blessed Lord, except as the sin-bearer?" You have just fallen into the dangerous error I adverted to. Where have I said it was necessitated? I have stated just the contrary. And this makes all the difference. Atonement is wrought in the forsaking of God when Christ was made sin for us. No doubt death was there consequently, but much more than death, and to confine it to the act of death is fatal error — just what one form of infidelity is now doing. And it is just because minds have lost, or never had, the true sense of what atonement is, its unfathomable depth, that they have confounded other true sufferings with it. When the Lord, with strong crying and tears, made His supplication to Him that was able to save Him from death, was it only from wrath and the work of atonement? When He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me," were they watching with Him undergoing atonement? The Son of man was to suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation, and be put to death, and rise again: is this a statement of atonement?

293 You will say, perhaps, these were His sufferings from man simply for righteousness' sake. No doubt man's hand was in it, as it was in the cross, where atonement was wrought. But Scripture teaches me that it is not simply that. The disciples had seen His sufferings from men all through. This He only began to tell them of on His last journey to Jerusalem. Not only so, the Lord's position and theirs was changed — His hour till then was not come. He was acting with Emmanuel power, and sending them forth, and disposing of every heart, so that they lacked nothing. But Messiah was to be cut off, and He tells them in Luke that all was changed in this respect; Luke 22: 35-37. "But now let him that hath a purse take it. For I say unto you that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors, for the things concerning me have an end." No doubt this was fulfilled in that in which atonement was wrought; but it is not atonement which is spoken of, but the rejection of Messiah, and the total change which accompanied it. When the Lord spoke of smiting, quoting from Zechariah, no doubt it was in death, or unto death, He was smitten; but He is not speaking of atonement. "All ye shall be offended because of me this night; for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered." Does this mean, I will make atonement, and gather into one flock Jews and Gentiles, being lifted upon the cross? Was it smiting the Shepherd as then having gathered the Jewish sheep around Him, so that they were scattered? If I am to believe the Lord, it was this latter. It was not the gathering power of atonement, but the scattering power of smiting; not the lifting up, though in the same work, but the smiting the Man on the earth, the earthly Shepherd.

You will say this went much farther. To be sure it did, blessed be God; but this does not alter the fact that there was this. Man's hand was in it, Satan's hand was in it. He had departed from Him for a season; now the prince of this world came. It was man's hour, and the power of darkness. The blessed Lord's soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death (and note, before drinking the cup). You will say this was only from man and Satan. It was (though His power never changed) a declared change from His spoiling his goods. And Scripture shews me that, while tried by this to the uttermost, and suffering, He looked up to His Father through it, and would only take it as a cup from Him; that His perfection was shewn in bowing to it all as His will and way. And not only was atonement made, but Messiah was cut off, all the promises connected with His presence in Israel in the flesh set aside, the beloved nation and city, over which He wept as that which He would have gathered often, cast off and judged.

294 This was not from man's hand merely, though through it. It was God's divorce of His people, wrought out alike because of need in the death of Messiah. It was not atonement, but judicial, and while it was because of their rejection of Christ, His heart, who wept over them, entered into it, suffered in it and by it, and in His piety did not take it from secondary causes, but from God's hand. No doubt He at the same time wrought atonement, was wounded for His people's transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities, as by His stripes they will be healed, but all this on the far deeper ground of atonement; but this does not set aside the truth of the setting aside all blessings in the living Person of Messiah, all promises connected with it, nor that the Lord felt all this, and suffered. Was it not in His cutting off the people were rejected (not saved by atonement, true as that is)? Was it God cut them off, or man (not finally, as we know, but as connected with a living Messiah)? Do you think Christ was indifferent to all this, or not? Was He not true in heart when as yet it was only in prospect that He wept over Jerusalem? I shall be told this was only sympathy. I abhor the statement. Scripture teaches me that He suffered that He might sympathise. I believe it fully, deeply.

Persons hostile to the truth have taken the statements I have made as to the different states of heart, or a tried soul, to which, consequently, this interest and sympathy of Christ might apply, and given them as the state in which Christ was. I might, no doubt, have guarded by a positive disclaimer against such an application. To an honest mind it was needless; to a dishonest one, useless. When in the general statement, I had carefully put it in, to guard against any misapprehension on the very point you take up, it was deliberately and purposely left out, and unsuspecting minds caught to be puzzled by it. With this before me, what do you feel I can think of the clamour that has been raised?

295 I have answered your question from the New Testament. If you, with these facts of the New Testament, take the Psalms, you will soon find your mind guided into further truth and apprehension of what passed when this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him. I have no desire to give up what I have learned there. I believe both the atonement and the personal sufferings of Christ are lost by doing so, and true sufferings, in order to sympathise, turned into sympathy. I cannot enter here into more detail. The fact that Christ's sorrows ran up into atonement, the positive drinking the cup of wrath, and putting the sin away; that His sufferings merged in this, which hinders the wrath coming on them who have a part in its efficacy, has made it more difficult to estimate those dealings of God which are judicial, but have not in accepted ones even the final character of wrath. In Christ one passed on, so to speak, into the other; in us, and spared Israel, it does not, because Christ has taken that for us; but in a legal state we dread it, and so will Israel at the end. All, if at peace, separate them easily; it is not so if we are not.

Judgment begins at the house of God. They are difficultly saved. This has nothing to do with atonement. Jerusalem has received at the hand of the Lord double of all her sins. This excludes the idea of atonement. Does all this pass without any interest of the blessed Lord in it; or did He so suffer as to be able (besides atonement, which alone renders the other possible as a distinct thing) to enter into their sorrows? Read the Psalms, and see. Read the New Testament, and see if you cannot find facts which are the fulfilment of them.

I am willing and bound to do anything I can to help any, the feeblest soul. I am willing to stand aloof from brethren (I do not mean to separate from them in heart or will), if they have not the courage, or are not in a condition to face the adversaries of the truth, or are so perplexed by them that the connection with it is a burden; but I am not willing to give up the faith I have in the sufferings of the blessed Lord, nor the link of heart with Him which the apprehension of them gives me. But I believe souls are getting great blessing by the consideration of them, and Satan doing a work, as is often said, in which he deceives himself. I dare say many could not explain it thus logically, many may make crude statements; but the true of heart will be blessed in learning the sorrows of the blessed Lord. It is not the first time, alas! some have been driven back by the truth.

________

296 The one point on which there might be difficulty, is the bringing of the smiting, which in act took place on the cross, into the whole period from the supper. This might have been explained (it is at the end of my tract), but for fair minds is no ground of difficulty or objection. Scripture does so fully. "Ye shall be offended because of me this night; for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." They were scattered before the time of smiting was there. "So now I say unto you, he that hath a purse, take one," and the Lord's discourse in John, "Now is the Son of man glorified." The whole tenor of the Gospels is this — to take the smiting as come, the same as the sense of the smiting.

Power in the Church;

or, not imitation, but obedience in the sense of present ruin.

J. N. Darby.

<31022E> 297

I feel a little difficulty, my dear friends, in taking up a subject in which my mind is exercised with you all. There is exceeding grace of expression in that word in Nehemiah, "The joy of Jehovah is your strength." The mere principle of imitation, as regards power, is very mischievous. When the church has become awakened to the discovery of what she has lost, the very probable tendency will be to seek to imitate that power. Such is never the condition of faith. What the church has to do is to know its actual condition, and to turn to God in the condition that it is in. Many have gone astray in trying to be like the state of the early church. The place of faith is to be cast on God, and not to assume what we have not. This dispensation is one in which the kingdom of God is not in word only but in power, and this must be had from God. All imitation of it is worthless. This leads us to a point of great comfort. While we are guilty as to what is lost, yet God is in no sense hindered by the resources which He had given; He has yet all fulness to bestow on us. The church is cast on God's own resources. I believe, as our brother has said, the church may find a blessed excellency of grace which they had not at first. This was the case in the days of Nehemiah with regard to Israel; the joy of Jehovah was to be their strength, and therefore he stopped the weeping. Though they were in great distress, and in subjection to evil, yet we read, "Since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, unto that day had not the children of Israel kept such a feast, and there was very great gladness."

We find that this was one of their gladdest feasts; they had never had it till the day of their sorrow. Being cast, then, on the resources of God, "the joy of Jehovah was their strength," not the joy of Moses in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. I feel very strongly that this principle is of great practical importance. Though there is the discovery of sin, in comparing the state of the church with what it once was, yet we have the fulness of God in giving blessing suited to our own present condition brought out. The children of Israel did anything but pretend that they were not in sorrow. The next chapter shews this; they were in great distress, they had no glory, but they had the joy of Jehovah, and they kept the feast. The secret of this confidence is direct reference to the Lord. I am as much entitled to have confidence in God as anybody since the foundation of the world. I can never qualify the resources of God, being limited by nothing but His own holy grace, which does all that we want now. Imitation of the early church is not faith, but reference to the word of God, as applying itself to my condition, is. You cannot imitate power, it is folly — you must have power.

298 As regards the first part of the question — the source of power is the same in the church now as it was in the days of the apostles, but its exercise manifestly is not the same. "Our word," says the apostle, "was in demonstration of the Spirit, and with power." I believe that the demonstration was the external witness of the power, the exhibition of the deposit that was in the church to the world. As it regards the question of the power in the church being the same as in the days of the apostles, it does not exist; there can be no question as to that. If we come to discipline in the church, there is no limit to its power but the extent of its existence. We have not, in fact, the same power in exercise as the apostles had. I see two distinct divisions in the apostolic office: the one antecedent altogether to the church as gathered by testimony; the other did not exist till the Holy Ghost was poured out on the day of Pentecost.

Then we have apostolic power for the church in the inspiration of the Scriptures. This is evidently closed, for Peter says, "Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able, after my decease, to have these things always in remembrance," 2 Pet. 1: 15. This would have been most monstrous presumption in Peter if any other apostles were to have followed him. Paul, in like manner, commends the believers at Ephesus to God, and to the word of His grace, which was able to build them up, etc.; Acts 20: 32. Why did he do this? Knowing that after his departure grievous wolves would enter in among them, not sparing the flock, therefore he commended them to the word of God's grace, and not to the apostles who should follow him. In 2 Timothy 3 we read that in the last days perilous times shall come (not wonderfully blessed times, but perilous ones); but, says the apostle, continue thou in the things which thou hast learned. The Holy Scriptures were what the apostle referred Timothy to when the perilous times should come.

299 We read in 1 John 2, "Ye have an unction from the holy one, and ye know all things; I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it." When the apostle was present even, he did not teach the saints without reference to their competency to prove all things. On that I see the church of God is cast. Then, as regards anything that is called for now, we have not apostolic power to meet it, but we have God's resources, and there is no limit to them but the faithfulness of God, which cannot fail. I feel bound to exercise all the power with which God has entrusted me, not minding anything in the wide world: there is no limit to our responsibility of using what God has given us. God deals invariably on this principle. He gives to man a deposit, with the responsibility of using it aright. I believe the responsibility of the apostles was to give the deposit, and that of the church to keep it, but it has failed, as man always fails. Moses gave the people of Israel the law; they had the responsibility of keeping it, and failed. In the different characters of deposits man failed in each. God could never propose man's sin, though He might give prophecies, and shew what He would do when they did fail; so that the apostle could say, "All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." Even before the apostle died, he saw the departure from their high privileges of those who were not their own, but bought with a price.

"God is faithful" in whatever state we are to minister the supply that is needed. Our proper place is to present ourselves before God as we are, and this will always humble us. In reference to the passage which has been quoted in Mark 16: 17, if the question be asked wherefore is the power in the church now not the same as in the days of the apostles? Clearly because of man's unfaithfulness. The promise in Mark is not made to the apostles, but to those who believed in the apostles' ministry. It did follow those who believed, and that promise was accomplished; it is left in a vague manner, because it was to be the proof of the faithfulness of the church in the deposit that was given to it, and it failed. Paul and Jude describe the very persons who crept in unawares as the object of Christ's coming with ten thousand of His saints to judge . . . . In the word of God I get the positive testimony that the church has apostatised, and thus, as to wherefore there is a difference between its state now and in the days of the apostles, there is no difficulty in deciding it (though the cause of the difference should deeply humble us). We have failed in our responsibility as to that which they deposited with us, and that is reason enough.

300 John's falling down at the feet of the angel to worship him was the very thing which Paul speaks of as the sign of apostasy, though of course in him it was only a momentary error; but it shews the tendency of the flesh, even in the holiest man. The spiritual discovery of the condition in which we are, and the casting ourselves on the resources of God as those who have failed is perfectly humbling and sorrowful, but then "the joy of Jehovah will be our strength." What was the lesson God was teaching His church when He suffered Paul to be cast into prison? Satan thus appeared to have gained a great advantage, but God's meaning in depriving the church of the presence of the apostle was, that we might get His judgment as to the duty and state of the church without an apostle. The first great duty of the saints now is to humble themselves. (See Phil. 2.) The first Adam exalted himself, and soon got humbled; the second Adam humbled Himself, wherefore God hath highly exalted Him. We read too, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God," etc. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you," etc. In the distinct consciousness that it was God, and not Paul, who wrought in them, He shews them where they are cast in the absence of an apostle — on God.

I do see a distinct difference between what we find in Luke and the Acts, and that which is opened out to us in John 20. The first was testimony to the Jews respecting Christ, as the anointed Man led of the Spirit, having been rejected by the Jews in that character. He is presented by Peter as the exalted Man, and it is clear to me that He was presented as such to the nation, not to a remnant, as we read in Acts 3: 26: "Unto you first God, having raised up his Son, Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities." But the rejection of the message delivered to them by Stephen, and his death, close this ministry.

Saul was converted by a testimony to the union of the saints with Christ, who appears to him from the glory, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" There was in this the direct discovery that, in touching the saints, he was touching the Lord Himself. I do not find anywhere the union of the church with Christ, and of the Jew and Gentile being "fellow-heirs of the same body," etc., except in Paul's epistles. Saul was the willing, active, apostle of Israel's rejection of the Holy Ghost's testimony to Jesus; he is met on this very errand by the Lord in glory, and made the witness of Christ and His saints being one, and he was the instrument of communicating this mystery to the Gentiles.

301 John 14, 15, and 16, I believe, treat of the Spirit quite differently, though they have been all classed together. In chapter 14 the Lord was putting His disciples on the ground of privilege on what had been given them, and not on what they had apprehended, and the condition in the latter part of the chapter I would say has been fulfilled, although I deny not that it should have a practical effect over us; but in the Comforter the church has its own peculiar blessing. And then comes another thing, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." The old vine had been proved to be degenerate, it was one dependent on ordinances. Christ, the true vine, was the power of fruit-bearing, and therefore this is the necessary character of the Christian vine; if it were not to bear fruit, it must be cut off. Remark that immediately consequent on this we have the promise, "I will send the Comforter," and now it is as the Spirit of testimony to the world sent by Christ from the Father, and not merely the Spirit of communion sent by the Father in Christ's name.

One part of this Paul was incapable of: "Ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning"; whereas Paul says, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." He does not call himself a witness of the things which happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. I see the same thing in the Hebrews, "which was confirmed unto us by them that heard him." As a Jew he was the object of testimony, not himself a witness.

I find in 1 Corinthians 12, where the various gifts are spoken of, the Lord is spoken of as sending the Spirit, to make us servants of the Lord, and that He is not given as the promise of the Father to children — this was for the perfecting of the saints. Ephesians 4 speaks of the same thing. The apostle, having developed the fulness that is in Christ, unfolds the operations of that fulness in those gifts which are for the maturing of the body. The gifts spoken of here are to continue, because the body can never cease to be the object of the care and love of Christ, let it fail ever so much in witness to the world. The question may be asked, had not the church at Corinth failed, and yet the gifts remained amongst them? No; not in the sense in which the church has now failed. Apostolic power could restore them, as it said, "Ye have perfectly cleared yourselves in this matter." We there see the exercise of apostolic ministry, not in judging the church when it had failed, but in sustaining the church when it was failing. People sometimes speak of gifts as though they were the instruments of restoring the church. But this is a most mistaken idea. For the Corinthian church came behind in no gift, when it was in a most disorderly state, but still this church was not then put out of its place of testimony to the world through these gifts. The Lord had not then said, "I will remove thy candlestick out of its place."

302 In the Epistle to the Ephesians we see the blessed source of the church's own fulness, and that it is the habitation of God, where He dwells; and what we want to comprehend is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know that love which ministers to the church, to make it grow up into the fulness of its Head. If God were to exhibit His power now in the church by giving it the gifts it once had, He would be acting inconsistently with His own righteousness in identifying Himself with that which has lost its moral character; for surely it is not now the exhibition of what Christ was in the world. But, on the other hand, if the Lord did not now minister the gifts mentioned in the Ephesians, He would fail in maintaining the blessedness of His character, and the stedfastness of His love to the church.

As to there being positive gifts for ministry in the church now, no doubt there are pastors, teachers, evangelists, as distinctly as possible. One great cause of the confusion and disorder, in which the church is now, is the want of wisdom in recognising these gifts; so that we often find evangelists teaching old saints, and pastors going out to preach to sinners. This shews the confusion which man has produced by his own arrangements.

I could not exactly say that gifts necessarily accompany the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. It is not merely that God has set in the body all these things. If I were asked in what state God made man, I should say, "upright"; but this would not be true of him now. Has every man necessarily a gift now? No; there are many services now that cannot be called gifts: the giving a cup of cold water in the name of Christ is a service to Christ and to a saint, but it is not the exercise of a gift, though of more importance than a gift, because it is the proof of love. Whilst the gift is God's and supreme, yet He forms the vessel, and suits it for the distinct gift which He gives to it.

303 Paul was a highly educated man; Peter was a poor fisherman. God glorified Himself in them both. He chooses the vessel as well as gives the gift. God will be supreme — He uses what vessel He pleases. Paul never went to the feet of Gamaliel for wisdom after he was a saint; he was a prepared vessel in providence, filled in grace.

How may any gift be ascertained, etc.? There is not a more important principle than that every gift ascertains itself in its exercise, as says the apostle Paul, "the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord." In the exercise of any gift, nothing can remove us from individual responsibility to the Lord. The Lord gave the gift, and the Lord requires the service. Do not mind the whole church (they are but "chaff") when they interfere with our responsibility to the Lord. Exercise the gift in subjection to God's word, and those who will judge, let them judge. I could not give up my personal responsibility to Christ (miserably as I may fail in it) for all the church ten times told over. The mark of the wicked and unfaithful servant was, that he was waiting for some other warrant than grace to use the talent which had been committed to him. People may say, but many false prophets may go forth thus. Yes, surely they may; and what control can you have over an evil spirit? In John's epistle to the elect lady, we find him saying, even to a woman, "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not," etc. She even was made a judge of the truth. The remedy he had to secure the little ones against the snares of the devil was the truth.

The first thing we want is faithfulness, and real humbleness of mind; each one will then find his proper niche.

As regards the prayers of the saints for the Spirit, I could not pray for the Holy Ghost, though I could pray to be filled with it, that He might so take possession of my soul, that the power of outward things might be taken away, and that thus He might be able to work in me with unhindered power. While recognising the Holy Ghost as having been given to the church, and that therefore He cannot be given again, it is very important to remember that the Holy Ghost is God; and therefore the church has to look for fulness which is infinite, and I could most earnestly pray that the Holy Ghost would put forth His energy (I know not how) in the church of God; and this is not stirring up the gift that is in us individually.

304 On the other hand as to God's dealing with His children in discipline, I do not believe that there is such a thing as God's hiding His face from a Christian: his standing is in God's faithfulness, and God looks on His people in Christ; but I do know that His people get out of communion themselves. I believe that, as to fact, communion may exist, and people think, because of it, that they have none. The feeling of finding out that you have been far from God is because you have found out His presence, which discovers to you the evil of the state you have been in, which was the lesson you wanted to learn. If a child had been slighting his father's commands, when he was in his father's presence, it would make him feel very uncomfortable, because it would bring to his mind his disobedience.

When chastening comes to the soul, it is out of communion with God as the Father, and consequently it is as from the Lord; but when I find out the meaning of the discipline, there is distinct apprehension that it is the Father's doing — the Father purging the branch; when the soul is restored to communion, there is the discernment of the parental feeling. It is "the Lord" who judges the church. If as an individual child I look to the Father, when the church is concerned I look to the Lord.

The use of dispensations is to nurture our minds into the knowledge of what God is, from whence all dispensations flow, and to lead them to look on to that time when "God will be all in all."

A short reply to "Landmarks," No. 6, of the S.P.C.K.

J. N. Darby.

<31023E> 305

First, I do not admit that the celebration of the Lord's supper is a matter of obedience to a precept, nor of obedience at all, save as every right thing is obedience to God. And the difference is great, though I only note it without dwelling upon it.

Secondly, the tract confounds ministry and apostolic order. Apostolic order is lost, ministry is not. It is a common idea, but only an error. Ephesians 4 proves that ministry was to continue to the end. But gifts from Christ on high, labouring according to God's calling in the unity of the body, are not elders appointed by apostolic authority in every city. Teachers, as Apollos, taught wherever they were, were elders nowhere; evangelists exercised their gifts in the world, were as such elders nowhere. Pastors were pastors in the unity of the whole body. The pastor of a church is a thing unknown to Scripture. Elders might have any of these gifts, but these did not make them elders. It was desirable, in addition to various moral and social qualifications, that they should be didaktikoi, not didaskaloi. Such as were are especially distinguished in 1 Timothy 5: 17. Brethren admit that the apostles chose elders for the brethren in every city. But since the corruption of the church, already begun in the apostles' days (see Jude, who shews that this was to continue to the end), we have not elders. Bishops and elders in Scripture are the same thing (Acts 20: 17-28), the word overseer in the last being bishop (Titus 1: 5, 7); but a bishop, priest, and deacon, is a form unknown to Scripture. Where are the elders in the Establishment? They might be also gifted ministers, but in Scripture ministry is a gift from on high, and woe be to him who has his talent and does not use it! And the word of Scripture is, "As everyone has received the gift, let him so minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Nor is there a trace of consecration by man for it in Scripture: unless it be the apostolic conferring of gifts which the prelates of the Establishment pretend to imitate. It is never said that hands were laid on elders; but it is probable they were, as it was the usual sign of blessing, and it is said, "Lay hands suddenly on no man."

306 The apostle declares that, after his decease, evil would come in, but he makes no provision for the continuance of order and elders; he tells Timothy to communicate doctrines to faithful men, without the smallest hint of consecration. As to ministry, we have the positive promise of its continuance in Ephesians 4. But men have substituted for elders (or bishops) and deacons, the Pope, cardinals, archbishops, diocesan bishops, archdeacons, priests, and deacons. The apostolic order has disappeared, the ministry has not. The professing church has invented a disordered system not found in Scripture; and the Brethren, in the midst of the ruin, accepting a ministry given of God, do not pretend to be apostles to restore scriptural order. They admit a visible society, but fallen into corruption and disorder. The inventing, not a ministry, nor order, but disorder, is on the part of those whom the writer approves. But the Brethren do believe in the presence of the Holy Ghost, of which not a word is said in the tract; and in the authority of Christ over His church, and His fidelity to it to the end.

But this confusion of ministry given from on high and regulated order, leads to another false point. It is said, "If the christian ministry has thus failed, the visible church of Christ must have failed with it." The reason given is purely human; but the word of God declares that this visible church would fail, that in the last days perilous times would come, and there would be the form of piety, denying the power; it gives a description of it which answers, save two or three words, to what the apostle gives of Paganism in its worst corruption. He says too, expressly, that there would be a falling away before the man of sin was revealed. But he does more; he says that the mystery of iniquity was already at work, only there was a check upon it. Jude, as we have seen, says that the evil had entered, and John (1 John 2) that apostasy had already shewn itself, so that they knew it was the last time. Brethren believe then that there is a ministry of evangelists, pastors, and teachers, and that, according to Ephesians 4, they will continue to the end. Apostles and prophets (though the words, particularly the latter, are used more vaguely) are expressly stated in chapter 2 to be the foundation, which is not now to be laid. What is now called apostolic order is not only not found in Scripture, but is quite contrary to it, and the earliest tradition even does not recognise it. In the Epistle of Clement no trace is found of what is now called a bishop, either at Rome or Corinth, whereas elders are distinctly spoken of. That there was soon presiding elders is true, but Tertullian and Jerome give different accounts of their origin, the former attributing them to the apostle John, the latter to the common consent of the church to put an end to the party-spirit of the elders, each seeking to have the disciples under himself. Diocesan episcopacy, metropolitans, and the modern hierarchy date from Constantine's time only, and followed the civil divisions of the empire. If the author has ever read others of the apostolic Fathers, as the Shepherd of Hermas, or even Barnabas, it will be impossible for him to deny the utter degradation, moral and doctrinal, into which "the church" had fallen a century after Christ. In two centuries its corruption was alike notorious and infamous. We have only to read Cyprian to know it.

307 As regards the separation from Mr. Newton, I have no wish, but quite the contrary, at this distance of time to bring up the name of one for whom I only desire every blessing; but as it is brought up, I must refer to it. Mr. Newton taught, printed and published, that Christ was further from God than Israel when they made the golden calf, and had to find His way to a point where God could meet Him, and that was in death. He taught, printed, and published, that in the final state the saints would be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent as God. We did break with this, though the evangelical world receives him, as far as I know, still. Who was right in this case, godly people will decide. The breach with what, from the name of a chapel, is called Bethesda (a Baptist cause) was because they received those who came from, and in some cases were imbued with, the teaching of Mr. Newton. There was no secession with Captain Hall; he went out, but had no followers. The rest of the vague accusations I leave as such. It seems to me that a gift for preaching, I add, or teaching, is better than preaching or teaching without a gift, or pretending, as the prelates do, to confer the Holy Ghost for a priest's office. The system of clergy is geography, not grace. There are so many parishes, and they must have clergy for them. The crying evil of the Establishment is that the clergy, to maintain their position, continue, in contrast with Brethren, associated with the grossest false doctrine, the denial of inspiration, and infidelity. Popish errors are held by a vast mass of the clergy, and tolerated, because they cannot help it, by those who have a horror of these things, because if they did not tolerate them, they would break up the whole system which has become the nursery-cradle for Popery and infidelity. A humanly-composed creed these Christians called Brethren have not, but they hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, as stated in the inspired word of God, and exercise the just discipline of God's house, as there taught, on those who depart from it. I do not doubt they have failed in many things; I speak of the principles on which they walk.

308 The writer of the "Landmarks" then comes to the doctrines they teach. The writer does not attempt to charge them with any departure from foundation truths. Silence as to this is striking. The use of the Lord's prayer, the state of soul as to repentance, or certainty of salvation, are all that the writer refers to. Without a human creed, unity of doctrine in fundamental truths is by God's grace maintained. With three, the earliest of which (the Nicene) was three centuries after Christ, with thirty-nine articles to boot, fundamental doctrines are given up, and Popish doctrines and superstitions are wasting the vitals of the Establishment. As to the rule of life, the divine rule of life for a Christian is Christ. He that saith He abideth in Him, ought so to walk as He walked. Was Christ's walk only the Old Testament rule, or was He not God manifest in the flesh? Grace was manifested in Him which we have to follow. "Be ye followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ has loved us and given himself for us." "Hereby know we love that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." I need hardly say it is not in expiation: but as a pattern of love it binds us. We are to grow up to Him, who is the Head, in all things. He that knows that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him seeing Him as He is, purifies himself as He is pure. And, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. He who can see nothing in Christ but the rule of the Old Testament has himself a very poor idea of Christ and of His spotless life of grace, full of divine instruction as the Old Testament is, and lovely as the expressions of obedience and faith which are found there, are. But there is a great principle which marks the difference. Christ's life was divine grace, God Himself in grace as a man, and that the Old Testament could not give. It is to be found in One only. A path which the vulture's eye hath not seen, but which has been traced for us by the footsteps of that blessed One — divine love and holiness in the midst of evil in a patience which went on, till it ceased to be exercised in the silence of death, and the blood and water told of a salvation accomplished for those who were His enemies. The example of Christ is the true rule of life for a Christian, which as presenting God in love went beyond the Old Testament, "Which thing is true in him and in you," 1 John 2.

309 As regards the Lord's prayer: its perfection no one denies, but as perfect it was suited to the time in which it was given; it was not in the name of Christ. "The Holy Ghost was not yet given." Nor do we find a trace of its use afterwards. The superstition attached to its use is shewn by an effort in the received text to assimilate the words in Matthew and Luke, which no one acquainted with the fact denies. Each form is perfect in its place; but the fact of there being two bars its being an inspired form of words for us. For which form are we to use? When the disciples had not the Holy Ghost, the Lord graciously taught them how to ask and what to ask for. The contents are not only of course perfect, but as a summary full of instruction as to what we should desire. But I suspect were I to ask the author's parishioners who repeat it by rote, what the Father's kingdom is, they would find it hard to tell. The use of it may shew superstition, but I know no rule against its use, though it would certainly shew ignorance of divine order in Scripture, the Holy Ghost not being then given, and Christ's name not being given as that in which the prayer is offered. He who would add it says the prayer is imperfect, which I do not.

I must say the charge as to repentance is not fairly put. There was, at the time that revivalism became common, looseness among some as to the meaning of repentance, not only among some called Plymouth Brethren, but others who were not among them. They met with the false Methodist doctrine of 'first repentance,' and then faith founded on the abuse of the passage, "repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ"; forgetting it was to be preached in Christ's name, and that it was absurd to talk of repentance if what was preached was not believed, that the truth by which men were called to repentance must be believed to produce the repentance. Two Plymouth Brethren, I judge, overstepped the mark in their statements, as did others more strongly; so that I myself wrote to rectify from Scripture, and the true force of the word, some statements put forth. This (though it was nothing peculiar to Brethren, but belonged to a movement in which some of them took part, and took place as to them as it did as to others in resisting a most mischievous doctrine) overstepped the truth on the other side, as poor human nature is apt to do. I notice this because the maintenance of sound apprehension as to repentance is of importance to all, and I judge that there is a tendency in all the revival movement, and much modern preaching, to superficiality in this respect, large as the blessing may have been which has accompanied it; and one or two of our brethren did not escape the snare, but I must add, when noticed, recognised and avoided it. But the passage of the tract quoted by the author of the "Landmarks," and indeed the tract itself, if not carefully worded, affords no ground for the attack made. It is, on the contrary, a discussion on repentance, which is divided into two kinds, a division made by evangelicals before any of us were born, a division into legal and evangelical repentance. The tract is written to distinguish legal and gospel repentance; the way it is quoted conceals this, the word gospel losing its emphatic form by omitting the context. It is not my object to justify the expressions in the tract. This statement assumes and supposes repentance, and states that the things spoken of do not enter into gospel repentance. Godly sorrow works repentance, and therefore is not repentance itself. It is stated in the tract impugned, that sorrow for sin and the works that God works in us accompany salvation. The author says they are not parts of gospel repentance itself. I may like or dislike the way it is put; but the statement is not at all that repentance is not called for, but that gospel repentance is not of works, but of grace.

310 Two of the passages, quoted by the "Landmarks," prove what they are cited to deny. The doctrine of the tract is that God meets us in our sins by setting forth Christ and His cross, and that thus His goodness leads us to repentance, but insists that all pretension to righteousness must be given up in coming. I do not think this to be logically exact, but it is ten thousand times more evangelical than the "Landmarks"; and it is not logic, but the gospel which saves souls.

The statements that sorrow and living to God are no parts of the gospel repentance are true, and the "Landmarks" prove it. According to them, the one precedes, the other follows it, and the third text, so far from speaking of carrying on, says it would have happened long ago. The tract insists on the difference of gospel repentance, which is lost sight of when quoted without its context. "It arises," the commentary says, "out of sorrow," and is not therefore the sorrow it produces — "the fruit of good works": they are therefore no part of repentance itself, but a consequence of it. The third text cited does not bear out the statement, but the contrary. The next statement is entirely unfounded, and only proves that the writer does not believe in justification by faith.

311 There is such ignorance and confusion in the statement of the "Landmarks" on this point, that it is difficult to deal with. "If once," it is said, "a man can say 'I believe,' he need no longer fear sin; all his past sins are already put away." What not fearing sin has to do with his past sins being put away, it is hard to see; but, it is added, he need not fear punishment, he is already sure of salvation. The first statement has really no sense, but I shall take up the substance of the subject, not the manner of putting it. The author is, I suppose, ignorant that at the Reformation the universal doctrine was that personal certainty of one's own salvation was alone justifying faith. I think they went too far, because they made it a faith about their own state, not in the Lord Jesus; but so it was. And it was generally affirmed in their confessions, and condemned in the Popish Council of Trent as the vain confidence of the heretics. I do not know whether the writer has read the Homilies of his own denomination; at any rate he has signed the declaration that they are sound doctrine, and there he will find the doctrine he condemns. It was the great doctrinal turning-point of the Reformation. I do not know whether he believes the Thirty-nine Articles; but if he reads the Seventeenth, he will find as wise a statement of the security of the believers in grace as I know penned by human hands.

But what is more important, let us turn to Scripture. I read, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Can a man have peace with God if his sins are not already put away? And the blessed reason precedes: "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." "For if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins." But if He is? And if this work of the blessed Lord on the cross has not put away the sins of those that believe in Him, what is to do it? For without shedding of blood there is no remission, and there is no more sacrifice for sin. This forgiveness is in contrast with the legal state under Moses. By Him all that believe are justified from all things; Acts 13. Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name: was it to be believed? His precursor John the Baptist came to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins. "To him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of their sins."

312 "Her sins," says the Saviour, "which are many, are forgiven"; and to her He said: "Thy sins are forgiven, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." But it will be said she loved much: no doubt, and repented deeply, and that was all right, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. We believe with the apostle Peter that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and that thus, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin." Does this blessing come on any? We read that "faith is imputed for righteousness"; which the writer may see rightly interpreted in his Thirty-nine Articles. Was "thy faith hath saved thee," said exceptionally to the poor sinful woman, or written for our learning? See what is said in Hebrews. "How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God?" The service of the living God is a consequence, note, of a purged conscience. And, as it is reasoned in the same chapter, inasmuch as without shedding of blood there is no remission, if it was not wholly done on the cross, Christ must have often suffered; but now He has been once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him He shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation. He has obtained an eternal redemption.

Not only so; in consequence of this one sacrifice, worshippers have no more conscience of sins. He does not say conflict with the flesh, but of sins imputed to us on the conscience; because Christ has borne them. The Jewish priests were ever standing up offering new sacrifices: interesting figures, but which could not put away sins; but Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down. Why? For by one sacrifice He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. He has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, when He had by Himself purged our sins, and there He sits as the glorified Man, till His enemies be made His footstool.

313 And as God's love and will was the source of this, and a divine work of atonement the ground of this, so a divine testimony assures us of it. The Holy Ghost is a witness, saying, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Further it is written in Romans 8 that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry "Abba Father"; that is we have the consciousness of being children, the Holy Ghost bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. So in Galatians 3, "We are all the children [sons] of God by faith in Christ Jesus," and (chap. 4) "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." And elsewhere, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The Lord Himself tells His disciples in John 14 that when the Comforter should be come, in that day we should know that He was in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us. Hence in Romans 8 we learn that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Hence, according to Hebrews 10, instead of (as in Hebrews 9) there being a veil by which the Holy Ghost signified the way into the holiest was not made manifest, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which He has consecrated, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and we are to draw near in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.

Does the author mean to deprive us of this, or dream that we can be in communion with God with an unpurged conscience? If so, he has never been really in His presence, for the thing is impossible. But I shall be told that we have to be humble: no safety without it. He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. But nothing gives lowliness like the presence of God and communion with Himself. We feel, if we think of ourselves, our own nothingness, happy if this be so complete as to think of nothing but Him. But if the conscience be not purged, His presence, who is light, awakens it, brings the sense of the evil upon our souls, and confession is drawn out by confidence in His love. All this ministers to holiness, and there is no holiness without it. He makes us partakers of His holiness, even if He chasten us.

But to return. John wrote to all Christians: "I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake," 1 John 2. What does this mean? and even the little children know the Father. As to being saved, I read: "He hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling." Again in Ephesians 2: 5, 9: "By grace ye are saved"; and this is not merely a principle: the word is in the perfect passive, which declares the actual and abiding fact. The principle is there, of course, but a great deal more.

314 1 John 1: 8. No intelligent Christian says he has no sin, the flesh in which is no good thing is ever there; but for salvation, if the Spirit of God dwell in us, we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, though the flesh be in us. But the words which precede are "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin," the divine answer to the flesh being there. Perhaps the author would reply, "Yes; if we walk in the light." This, though a very common, is a totally false view. But, if so, it is "in the light" as "He [God] is in the light." Now if we walked according to the light as God is in it, we should want no cleansing at all. Yet it is "If we walk in the light, as he is in it"; that is, the true full revelation of God who is light. (Compare chap. 2: 8.) It is the Christian position, a reality. He walks in the true knowledge of God now revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Failure is referred to in chapter 2: 1, 2.

But the writer confounds the flesh in us, and the imputation of sin, guilt, before God. How can I fear punishment if Christ has borne my sins? The Judge before whom I appear is the Saviour that put them away. I speak of those who believe. And when he objects to being sure of salvation, the Christian is, because "He came to give the knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins." Hebrews 6: 4-6 speaks not of conversion nor forgiveness received at all, but of the enjoyment of all the privileges of Christianity, and open apostasy from it, which is finally and hopelessly fatal: he meets fiery indignation which devours the adversaries. And this is not only so in this passage, but in every place where falling away is spoken of in the Hebrews; it is final and fatal; it is apostasy. It is impossible to renew them.

Galatians 5: 4 is a salutary warning against the doctrine of the author's tract. The Galatians would add law to grace for justification, the apostle tells them they cannot be united, but that, if they look to the law for justification, they cannot have Christ for it. The law specified and required man's righteousness for God most rightly and justly as a law, a perfect rule for a child of Adam, with a curse if he did not keep it, which none ever did (Christ of course excepted); so that as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For the law must be perfectly kept for righteousness under it. But in the gospel is the revelation of God's righteousness for men, because they had none for God. There was none righteous, no not one. Men are justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

315 Now these two things cannot go together, that is, my accomplishment of law for righteousness, and God justifying me freely through Christ by His own righteousness through faith, because I have not done so. I will speak of holiness, but you cannot at the same time have a man righteous by law-keeping, and righteous by grace through Christ's work, because he has not kept it. If I make out righteousness by law, Christ is become of no effect to me, I have given up grace; for works of righteousness are not grace.

Nothing can be simpler than 1 Corinthians 9: 27. The apostle lived as a godly watchful Christian, as well as preached, that he might not be a preacher to others, and a castaway himself. Quite right, and nothing simpler, and a warning to all who are engaged in such service.

1 Corinthians 10: 19 is a most salutary warning too against light-minded presumption; but "thinketh he standeth" is nothing of "in Christ and Christ in us"; for such, there is no condemnation. Nor will you find in the New Testament any word of a man being in Christ, or quickened, and lost. But this phrase does not necessarily involve final ruin. Any of us may fall if we are not watchful, and are on the way to do so, if we do not watch and pray lest we enter into temptation. God forbid any of us should take up these things lightly.

Philippians 2: 12 I will speak of by-and-by, because it has a different character.

I will now take up another aspect of Christian truth and privileges — eternal life. This has a double aspect, and is spoken of accordingly as is salvation also in two ways. We have it, a life in Christ. It is also spoken of as the full result in glory, "the end, everlasting life." There it is according to the counsels of God, when we shall be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. This, of course, I need not say, we have not got; we are not yet in glory. But eternal life we have. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life." And John wrote that they might know that they had eternal life. God sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," John 3: 36. Again chapters 5: 34; 6: 47-54, "Verily, verily, I say unto you: he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment], but is passed from death unto life." And again, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand," John 10: 37, 38. And the Lord insists on His Father's power and His interest in them.

316 I can conceive nothing clearer than these passages. John takes this side of divine truth, Christ came to be eternal life to us, Paul more of presenting us justified and accepted in Christ before God, though each speaks of both. Thus Paul says, "when Christ, who is our life," etc. (Col. 3 and other passages.) "Christ liveth in me," and "that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh." But if the word of God be true, the believer is justified and has peace with God, and has everlasting life, and if sealed with the Holy Ghost, he knows he is in Christ, and Christ in him (John 14), has the witness in himself (1 John 4), has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10) — boldness in the day of judgment, because as Christ is, so is he in this world (1 John 4: 17), not surely in His personal perfection, how far from it! And I add the only Christian perfection is being like Christ in glory, but in His relative place with God. Christ is gone to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God. We have received, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father." Nothing can be clearer or more positive than scripture on the subject; we are reconciled to God, we have peace with God. How, if our sins are not put away, it would be hard to tell if the fear of God be in our hearts.

The "fear of sin" has nothing to do with the possession of the forgiveness of sins, unless that this cleansing of the conscience produces it. For who would fear to dirty himself, one who was quite clean to pay a visit to a superior, or one that was dirty already? But the whole thing is a mistake. The true fear of sin is the spirit of holiness, not justification, not the dread of punishment because of God's righteous wrath against sin, which in its place is just and useful, but because, as having now a holy nature as born of God, I hate it in itself and as displeasing to God. A fear of wrath is not a fear of sin but of its consequences, which, though right in its place, is a very different thing.

317 Practical righteousness is the just judgment of good and evil, according to God's estimate of them, and acting on, and owning God's authority, and our responsibility in respect of it; it is made good in the judicial acts of God, of which the measure, as regards us, is our duty to God and our neighbour. In this we have failed, and now in grace through faith are dependent on Christ's work, not on ours; through that we rest on God's righteousness. On this, blessed as the teaching of Scripture is on it, I do not now enter.

Holiness is the horror of evil, and delight in good, according to God's estimate of it (though of course our thoughts are imperfect) for its own sake, and as displeasing to God. Supposing even there were no punishment at all, we must come by the first as sinners; but we get into the second, in principle, from the very beginning, but less sensibly till the conscience is purged, for we must come first as guilty sinners. But for this a new nature which does take God's estimate of good and evil for its guide and rule, is necessary, and that new nature is a holy nature.* But there is no development of it in the affections, or communion, till justification and peace with God is settled. Its first effect of taking God's mind, His revelation of Himself in light, is to make us find out that we are guilty, unclean, and thus it works repentance. But for this, I must learn confidence enough in God to be willing to open my heart to Him. And He has revealed Himself in love in Christ who is also this light to us. I see what I am before God, first rather what I have done; but His love leads me to confession of it, as the woman in the city that was a sinner, or Peter in the boat, or the prodigal unfit for God, knowing it, yet going to Him because He has revealed Himself to us. And this is genuine gospel repentance, fruit of God's quickening power, our being born of Him, and His revealing Himself.

{*This is connected with the recognition of God's authority, and, in its application to the conscience, will be connected in each with what he has actually done and been.}

318 The first impressions may be more characterised by fear, if light predominates on our coming to God; more gently attractive, if the love does. But, in all cases, in true repentance there are both, because God is both; and God has revealed Himself and quickened me to see things, at least in principle, as He sees them, and judge them by a new nature and will; and my responsibility towards Him is felt. Now the first need here is not holiness in the delight of it;* there is the sense of the want of it. The new nature feels there ought to be holiness for God; it takes the character of not being accepted, because of that want. What we crave is justification, forgiveness, and righteousness. But it is not the question of holy affections and exercise, but the want of them pressing as guilt upon the soul. Now Christ's work meets all our guilt. If it does not, we are lost for ever. God's holy authority in righteousness must be maintained; but it has been, and glorified on the cross, and His love at the same time fully, divinely, displayed. A bad conscience cannot be in the exercise of loving affections. But the blood of Christ purges the conscience, makes it perfect with God; and the sense of divine love which gave Christ to do it, and in which He gave Himself, possesses the soul by the Holy Ghost, by which the believer is then sealed. He delights in such a God, knows Him as his Father, dwells on His love shed abroad in His heart by the Holy Ghost, knows he is in Christ and Christ is in him. Christ too is precious to him; His lowly, lovely, perfect path on earth is the manna he feeds on, above all His dying, and perfect love there; and now he sees Him by faith at the right hand of God, in glory unveiled, and is thus changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. He knows that when He shall appear, he will be like Him, seeing Him as He is, and he that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself even as He is pure.

{*So in Deuteronomy 16 the unleavened bread of the passover is the bread of affliction.}

Holiness in life is the consequence of salvation. "He hath saved us and called us with a holy calling." "Being made free from sin and become servants to God, we have our fruit unto holiness." I admit that being born of God, and having received Christ as life, the principle of holiness is there; as all human nature is in a child of an hour old, but its conscious development and practical exercise is when the question of justification is settled. Desires there will be before, but ending in sorrow of heart, because the desire is not satisfied, the heart is really under law; we must be holy, we feel, and we are not.

319 Now at peace with God, and knowing that He who bore our sins is at the right hand of God (surely not bearing them now on Him, but sat down there when He had by Himself purged our sins), we are sanctified by the truth, the Father's blessed word, Christ having sanctified Himself, a man in glory, that we might be sanctified through the truth. Beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. The affections of the heart are fixed on Christ as having so loved us, and given Himself for us, and He is received into the heart, and we are thus sanctified and grow up to Him, the Head, in all things, His walk being the only true measure of ours. And here it is that diligence of soul comes in, not in connection with redemption and justification. There is legal diligence as to that, but only to discover that we cannot succeed, not only that we are guilty, ungodly, which is the first thing, but that, even if to will is present with us, we cannot find how to perform that which is good; we first learn our sins in true repentance and then ourselves, a deeper exercise yet. The former is treated in Romans 1 to 5: 11; the second in chapter 5: 12, to end of chapter 8; in each part the answer of God in grace to our need being treated of. But supposing all this, there is still the working out our own salvation in fear and trembling.

Now it is perfectly evident that we cannot work out our redemption; we must, as the Psalm says, let that alone for ever. Christ has finished the work, and is as man at the right hand of God, because He has; and God has accepted it as complete. There is no more offering for sin. We have nothing to do with atonement, we cannot bear our sins, or we are lost for ever. If we have a place with God, it is because Christ has borne them. That is settled for ever. When He had made by Himself the purification of our sins, He sat down, and is there continually, because all is done. But, further, we are in Christ, if sealed by the Holy Ghost, that is, if real Christians, and we know it according to John 14. Now there is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus.* Also Christ is in us, found in Romans 8: 10. Now as to Christ's having wrought redemption, borne my sins, being in Him, and He in me, there is no working out by me. Exercised and brought to repentance we are surely, if it be a real work so as to feel our need, but then to believe in a finished work, and to know if we do that we are in Christ, and Christ in us, and so no possible condemnation for us. Scripture is plain. By one man's obedience, the many are made righteous, and to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

{*The last half of this verse is not genuine. It finds its proper place in verse 4, and if rightly translated would say exactly the contrary of the truth.}

320 Where then is the working out of salvation? The Christian is viewed in two ways in Scripture, as in Christ, and therefore, as Christ before God, forgiven all the flesh's sins, no condemnation, boldness for the day of judgment, because as He (Christ) is, so are we in this world, and boldness to enter into the holiest now. But this supposes of course, and evidently, that his faith is genuine. Upon the basis of this, and the perseverance of such to the end, the Thirty-nine Articles are sufficiently clear: though being in Christ is not treated of. But as a fact, almost all (the exceptions are rare) Christians pass through a longer or shorter period of exercise and testing. They are men on the earth, even if ever so truly men in Christ. There is no doubt that, if they are really in Christ, Christ will keep them; they will never perish. None shall pluck them out of the Saviour's hand. He will confirm them to the end, that they may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom they were called. I have already said this is well and wisely put in the Seventeenth Article. Still they are tested and proved in their life down here, and, if ever so truly born of God, have much to learn, much to correct, much to learn of themselves, and of God's tender and faithful love, and what it is to be dead with Christ to sin and to the world; much to learn of the fulness of Christ, and to grow up unto Him in all things. A child a day old has as much life as a man of thirty, and is just as much his father's child, and the object of his tender affections, but evidently his state is very different.

Now the work of Christ completes our salvation as to redemption, and making us His own — all true believers will be like Christ in glory. On this Scripture leaves no shade of doubt. The perfection of His work is such, that while his conversion and faith were singularly bright, the thief with no time for progress could go straight to be Christ's companion the same day in paradise. And we read in Colossians 1, "Giving thanks to the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light"; but as a general rule, there is the race, the wilderness to cross, which makes part, not of the purpose, but in general of the ways of God. And this course being here below, salvation is spoken of as the full result in glory when Christ comes again, a salvation ready to be revealed, as well as the accomplished work of Christ at His first coming; and the Philippians always speak of salvation in the former sense.

321 There is very little doctrine in the Epistle, but a most full and blessed development of the life of one [Paul himself] living in the Spirit. Now in this our course here below, the proof of reality is just the seriousness which works out the final salvation with fear and trembling, for the snares and dangers are real on the way, though there be the promise of being kept through them. That does not hinder their being there. The force of the passage however is misapprehended. Paul, when present watched against and met the wiles of the enemy for them; he was now in prison. They were still in the conflict, and had to fight the good fight for themselves. But if they had lost Paul, they had not lost God. It was He that worked in them to will and to do. But it was a solemn thing to be the scene of conflict between God working in them and the power of darkness, though the victory of Him who wrought might be certain. But He works in us; we are kept by the power of God through faith. Hence it is a moral process in the human soul; it is a testing, proving, sifting, teaching, helping; we learn ourselves and God, though the result in God's hand be not uncertain. But it bears most precious fruit. It teaches and maintains dependence; it gives the experience of the sure faithfulness of God, of One who makes all things work together for good to them who love Him: we learn not only to glory in salvation, and in the hope of glory, but in tribulations, and finally in God Himself, whom we thus come to know, who withdraws not His eyes from the righteous.

It is not a question of righteousness. As to justifying righteousness, Christ is our righteousness; but God's constant unfailing watchfulness over, and care of, the righteous. Further, so far as we have learnt of Him, we manifest the life of Christ in our mortal flesh; we are set as epistles of Christ. But how is it to be manifested if we have not got it? Let the author and any reader here remark that all duties flow from the place we are already in, and are measured by it. Child, wife, servant, whatever the relation, I must be in it to be responsible for the duties of it. To be responsible to walk as a child of God, I must be one, and moreover know it. The Christian, every true believer then, is redeemed and in Christ. There, there is no "if." But he is also in fact on the road to glory, and must reach the goal to have it. He has the promise of being kept, but is morally exercised along the road in dependence, in grace, in watchfulness and diligence, the true proof that it is a reality with him, that he knows himself and the God of love and the snares that surround him, a place that belongs to one who is redeemed, where he learns the ways of God, and His faithful unfailing love, and His holy government, and works out his salvation in fear and trembling. For he is ever in danger as to his daily path to glory, though he is dependent on, and counts on the faithfulness of Him who keeps him — grace sufficient for him, and strength made perfect in weakness.

Reply to Judge Marshall's Tract on the Tenets of Plymouth Brethren (so called).

J. N. Darby.

<31024E> 323

There is sufficient fairness in the statement of Mr. Marshall, in rejecting the greater part of the stupid charges in the paper he quotes, to make it easy as well as pleasant to deal calmly with his objections on other heads of doctrine. Though on one head Mr. Marshall is roused, in general he quietly discusses the merits of the case before him. I cannot be surprised that a Wesleyan minister should hold Wesleyan doctrine, though I may not agree with him; and I can assure Mr. Marshall, that (though he mistakes the Brethren's doctrine in some points, and I think of course there is ignorance of Scripture truth on others, yet seeing the spirit in which Brethren are generally assailed) I have rather to thank him for that in which he has spoken, than to complain of it. The best return I can make (assuring him at the same time of my sincerity in thus recognising the tone of his pamphlet, and my desire to reciprocate it) is to state what I, at least, hold on the questioned points, and to inquire whether the views he objects to, so far as they are justly stated, are supported by Scripture.

I shall only take up the really important questions. They are four: first, "The moral law is not the rule of Christian life"; secondly, "The doctrine of imputed righteousness"; thirdly, "Abraham has no place in the church, nor could any saint have till the Holy Ghost came after the ascension"; fourthly, "Sanctification," which is treated by Mr. Marshall in his remarks on imputed righteousness. There are other collateral points, as ordination to ministry, praying for the Holy Ghost, the sabbath, which I may touch on: the latter will come naturally under the head of law, and our deliverance from it.

Our subjection to the law is a capital point. But the whole principle on which Scripture places the question is unknown to the writer of the pamphlet; namely, that the law has power over a man as long as he lives, but that we have died in Christ, and are not looked at as being in the flesh at all; not in the first Adam, but in the Last.

324 Let Mr. Marshall allow me first to quote what Scripture says as to the law and our relationship to it. And first in Romans, in which epistle, and in that to the Galatians, the apostle has chiefly discussed the subject. I cannot but think that what he says must give subject for thought to those who insist on law. Many passages are much stronger in the original through the omission of the definite article inserted in English: thus, "But now the righteousness of God apart from law," that is, on wholly another ground, so that the question of moral and ceremonial law cannot be raised. It is apart from law in every shape and form. So in many other cases. But I shall take the ordinary English translation: enough will be found there to make all clear. Further, I am quite aware that it is alleged that they do not look to be justified by law, but only to be under it as a rule of life. Let the reader only pay attention to what the word of God says, and all will be clear as to this too. I will speak of it, moreover, further on. I desire that Scripture may be before the mind of Christians, so I will quote it; I can add any comments afterward.

Romans 3: 20, 21. "Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."

Verse 28. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." I shall consider verse 31 hereafter.

Chapter 4: 13, 14. "For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith; for if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: because the law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no trangression."

Chapter 5: 20. "Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound."

Chapter 6: 14. "For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

Chapter 7: 4. "Therefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, having died in that in which we were held."*

{*Not "that being dead" — see the margin of the Bible. Were it as in the English authorised text, the law itself would be dead.}

325 Chapter 7: 8. "For without the law sin was dead; but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died."

Verse 13. "Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful."

Chapter 10: 4. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

1 Corinthians 15: 56. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law."

2 Corinthians 3: 7. "The ministration of death written and engraved on stones."

Verse 9. "The ministration of condemnation."

Galatians 2: 19. "For I through the law am dead to the law that I might live to God . . . . If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."

Chapter 3: 2, 3. "Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?"

Verse 10. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse."

Verse 12. "The law is not of faith."

Verse 23. "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

Chapter 4: 3-5. "Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law."

Verse 9. "But now after ye have known God . . . how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements to which ye desire to be in bondage?"

326 Verse 30. "Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman."

Chapter 5: 1-4. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage . . . . Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.

Verse 18. "But if ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law."

Romans 8: 14. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

"Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

Ephesians 2: 14-16. "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."

Other passages might be referred to, as Philippians 3, Colossians 2, but I pass them over as long general statements, though most important ones as to the doctrine as a whole. I quote only further-

1 Timothy 1: 7-9. "Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient."

Hebrews 7: 18. "For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, for the law made nothing perfect."

Chapter 10: 1. "The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things."

Verse 9. "He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second."

Chapter 13: 13. "In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."

Now I ask if all these texts do not present the law as a system, and a principle of dealing, which, as to the Christian, has been set aside to introduce another? If they do not give ground for reflection to serious men, whether (when we find, not a scarce text, or a forced construction, but a careful elaborate discussion of the law, shewing that we are delivered from it) there is not something as to the setting aside of law, to which they have not given its full just force?

327 The apostle insists, that we are delivered from the law — dead to it, that we may live to God (what does this mean?); that it made nothing perfect, that we were kept under it till faith came; that as many as are of the works of it (not bad works, mind) are under the curse; that if righteousness come by it, Christ is dead in vain. I might cite many such.

It is evident, that there is a system called law, from which there is deliverance, and which the Christian has done with, by passing into another.

Now I am not ignorant, of course, that people say the ceremonial law of Moses is passed away, but not the moral law. But this is a fallacy: not that there is no difference — there is. But the statement is a fallacy. Scripture shews that the law system has passed away as a whole. A vast portion of the types and figures has no doubt been fulfilled, but all have not, and these last will be fulfilled. As a system, it is admitted by all, they have passed entirely away. This is insisted on in Galatians especially. In Hebrews, though there be more contrast than comparison, the corresponding antitypes are insisted on. The rites of the law were the shadow, not the image. A veil, which shewed men could not go in, is not the very image of a veil, through which, as a new and living way, we enter with boldness into the holiest. A sacrifice which puts away one sin, or a year's sin, so far as present relation with the tabernacle went, is not the very image of one, by which Christ has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. But, remark, it is not as local immaterial things they were established: Christ has fulfilled them. They were all in the reality meant by them as important as the moral law, nay, more important to us. Still they were only figures, and ceremonies, powerless in themselves. But the moral law, holy, just, and good as it was, was powerless save to curse. It could not give life. Had there been a law given which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law. But neither life nor righteousness could be attained by it. What was given for life, as soon as a man knew himself, was found to be unto death. It worked wrath. However, as a general idea, though some types may not yet be fulfilled, as the feast of tabernacles, and others, all admit that, as a ceremonial system, it is passed away for Christians.

328 But further, although there be confusion of mind, and men really seek righteousness by the law, that is, by works, yet it is in terms generally admitted that the statements of the apostle set the law aside as a means of justification. His statements are too plain, for a person who respects the word of God, to contravene them. "If righteousness come by law, then Christ is dead in vain," "That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident," and many other such, are too plain to resist. We read, "Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace," Gal. 5: 4. But they say, we take it as a rule of life: sanctification is as necessary as justification. Now that without holiness no man shall see the Lord is clearly written, and is assuredly true. I should have a great deal to say to this connected with a new life, Christ being our life; but at present I confine myself to our immediate subject. The question is: is the law the means of living rightly? Will a man under the law be victorious over sin? It is not whether a man must be holy: no real Christian denies it. Now many of the statements of the apostle, and many of the strongest which declare we are not under law, or that the law is not the means to live to God, apply, not to justification, but to freedom from the dominion of sin — that under the law we cannot be set free from it, but that deliverance from the law is the way of bringing forth fruit to God. I shall quote some passages. The true means of deliverance, I shall speak of at the close.

Romans 6 treats entirely of living to God, not of justification. "The law," we read, "entered that the offence might abound," chap. 5: 20. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace," chap. 6: 14. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God," chap. 7: 4. "For without the law sin was dead; but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (vv. 8, 9.) In 1 Corinthians 15: 56, "The strength of sin is the law." Now here, especially in the passages cited from Romans, the question is not justification, but dominion of sin over us, or ours over sin. The apostle takes pains to say all he can for the law; it is not the cause of sin. The cause is concupiscence, but while under law, concupiscence has dominion over us, nay, the motions of sin are by the law. Such is the positive testimony of the apostle. Although it would be quite false to say the law is the cause of sin, yet sin has dominion wherever a man is under it. Being delivered from the law is necessary to bringing forth fruit to God. Such deliverance is as needed for this as for justification. The strength of sin is the law. It is, even if grace be there, the ministration of death and condemnation.*

{*2 Corinthians 3. I say if grace be there, because Moses' face did not shine till God had made goodness pass before him.}

329 There are two passages of Galatians which I have omitted, as long reasonings, not short statements, to which I will now briefly refer; Gal. 2: 14-19. The apostle rebukes Peter for turning to legal obligations, after giving them up. And note here how he takes the law as a whole, for Peter's conduct referred to ritual exactitude. Paul takes up as a whole, for while I quite admit the difference of the "ten words," or moral law, yet, as all given together by God's authority, it was all looked at as one whole, based on one principle, man's satisfying God by fulfilling the obligations he was under as contrasted with grace saving him, when he had not, and God's righteousness. Well, Peter had given up the law to be justified by Christ, and now returned to it, after having Christ. Why then did he leave it to get justification? In building again that which he had destroyed, he made himself a transgressor in putting it down. Who had made him do it? Christ. Then Christ was the minister of sin, for He had made Peter do what his present conduct, if it was right, shewed to be a transgression. That is, taking up the law after coming to Christ is making Christ the minister of sin.

The apostle's reasoning in Galatians 3: 15-22 is this: God gave the promise to Abraham, and confirmed it to his seed — which was really Christ, 430 years before the law. Now a confirmed covenant, if it be only man's, cannot be disannulled, nor can it be added to; that is, you cannot add the law to the promise. That was complete in itself, and confirmed before the law existed. To bring in the law was to alter and add to the terms of it, and could not be. How could the law then come in? It was added for the sake (ton p. charin) of transgressions, to produce them — not to produce sin: God does nothing to produce sin. The sin was there, but till the law came, it could not be a transgression; for where no law is, there is none. It is the same sense as in Romans: the law entered (the Greek reads pareiselthe "came in by the bye," that the offence might abound) till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.

330 I have added these passages for my reader's sake, as additionally clearing up the point; but the passages I have quoted prove that the law is not the means of living to God, any more than of justification (on the contrary, if we are under law, sin will have dominion over us), and that we must be delivered from it, in order to bring forth fruit to God. Scripture is distinct and positive as to this. The law is a distinct definite system and principle, under which Christians are not living. People have confounded law with various things and obligations enforced in the law. The truth is, the duties were all there before law was given. Law gives a divine measure of these obligations in contrast with evil, and enforces the obligations by an authority outside ourselves, involving, as it is given, a curse if they are not fulfilled. The law is the perfect rule for a child of Adam, but supposes sin and lust, and forbids them, but does not take them away, nor give a new life. It takes up our relationship to God and our neighbour, and insists on consistency with them. It is a transcript, not of God's character, as is absurdly said, but of man's duties. I say, absurdly. Could God love His neighbour as Himself? Or Himself with all His heart, as a duty? Away with such folly. Further, the ten commandments suppose sin, and unless one, forbid it. It is equally absurd, and I speak for others than Mr. Marshall now, to apply the commandments to Adam. How could he honour his father and mother? How could he steal, or know what it meant? He did not know what lust was till after he was tempted. Adam had a law; but it did not suppose sin in him, but forbad what would have been no sin at all, if it had not been forbidden, and was thus a simple test of obedience, and no more; and we can see the perfect wisdom of God in this. The law formally given on Mount Sinai (for the law was given by Moses) supposes sin, for sin was there, and forbids it, and maintains the relationship in which man stood to God and to man, and of course was all perfectly right in doing so.

But did law deliver man from the power of sin and lust? That is at least one important part of the question, that is, where it is a rule; and we have seen the apostle stating, that it did not, but left man under it, yea, was an occasion to lust to act. But more, man must be delivered from it to bring forth fruit to God. To have godliness man must be delivered from law. But I add, for what is it a rule? Is it a perfect, adequate, rule? For a child of Adam it is: he is to love God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself, and not to lust. Only note, it forbids what is in man, without giving life or force, and, because it is a right rule, condemns, and works wrath; and this is law, and this alone, and all that law is.

331 A law is obligation, enforced by an authority outside us,* requires from us whatever the rule expresses, and in God's law, that there should not even be a lust, but is addressed to those who have lusts, who are alive in the flesh. Its requisition is right; but for that reason it condemns us to death, and because man is not what it requires, it is found to be to death. But in its contents it is a perfect measure, or rule, for man in the flesh; but it is not for him who is in Christ. For him who is a son of God the rule is, "Be ye therefore followers [imitators] of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also loved us, and gave himself for us, a sacrifice and an offering to God for a sweet-smelling savour." "Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." It is not reciprocated kindness, of which love to self is the measure, but a giving up self, as Christ did, in love. It is good in the midst of evil, which is what Christ was — grace as displayed in Him, doing well, suffering for it, and taking it patiently, as He did. It is forgiving, laying down our lives in the prerogative of divine love, which is our rule, and walking being light in the Lord, as He walked, apart from the world, an epistle of Christ to it; and love and light are the two essential names of God, and Christ was the perfect expression of it as man here.

{*I do not speak of physical laws here, as is evident, though it may be said then, only the obligation is compulsory, impressed by the Creator's power.}

Of all this the law knows nothing. It does know what a child of Adam ought to be for God, and that it requires: evidently just what it should do. Of what God is for him, it knows nothing; and of what a child of God ought to be, and a dear child as walking in the love he has learned, and which is shed abroad in his heart, it can tell him nothing. The law is God requiring from man what man ought to be, but which he is not; the gospel is God saving him in sovereign love, and, giving him eternal life in the Son, sends him to shew forth this life and the character of Christ (that is, of God manifested in a man) in a world that knows Him not. The law requires righteousness from a man alive in the flesh; and that flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so that they that are in the flesh cannot please God. And if it is said "but Christianity takes him out of the flesh," I answer, it does, but at the same time gives him a much higher rule; he is to walk in the Spirit as he lives in the Spirit. The Christian, having Christ for his life, is to manifest the life of Christ in his mortal flesh.

332 And now a word as to the manner of this. The law did not give life, and could not; it required righteousness from man such as he was. In Christ we have not only our sins wholly put away, which the law could not do, but only curse us for them if under it, but He becomes a new life, and a life as now risen from the dead. But Christ who is our life has been crucified, and God looks upon those who believe as crucified with Him, and so does faith. Ye are dead, says the word; Col. 3: 3. I am crucified with Christ, says faith, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. It reckons itself dead to sin and alive to God, not in Adam but in Jesus Christ our Lord. In a word, as Christ died to the whole scene into which He had come — died unto sin once — so the Christian, crucified with Him, belongs to the place Christ is entered into, the new creation in Christ his life, and has died to the flesh and sin and the world. He is not before God in flesh at all; he knows this, that his old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.

Now the law has power over a man as long as he lives; but we have died in Christ — are not in the flesh. Hence we read, when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin[s], which were by the law. But when we know our death with Christ, and that sin in the flesh was condemned on the cross, the law having been unable to accomplish any such object, and have the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, then we read, Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God dwell in you: now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His; and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness. That is, practical righteousness is attained, not by a law which was weak through the flesh, applied to that flesh, which was not subject to the law of God, neither indeed could be, and withal cursed the disobedient; but by the gift of a new life, that is, Christ risen, and the power of the Spirit of God, and by being dead to sin, as crucified with Christ, and dead to the law by the body of Christ, sin in the flesh condemned in the sacrifice of Christ, but we dead therein to it, and alive in the power of a new life. The flesh, the law, and the world are gone together for faith through the cross of Christ. (See Rom. 6: 6; chap. 7: 4; Gal. 2: 19, 20; chap. 6: 14; chap. 5: 24.)

333 If we walk in the Spirit, we produce fruits, against which there is no law; if we love our neighbour as ourselves, we fulfil the law. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. They only fulfil the law who are not under it, and have nothing to say to it, but who walk after the Spirit which they have received through Christ. The law deals with flesh which is not and cannot be subject to it, and hence righteousness never can be attained. The Christian is dead to sin, having died with Christ on the cross, and does not belong to the scene to which the law applied, is not in the flesh, and is dead to the law and lives in the Spirit, Christ risen from the dead having become his life. The flesh is the life of the sinful Adam, and law belongs to it. We have died to both in the cross of Christ, and are married to another, that we may bring forth fruit unto God.

The great truth is this: we have died on the cross to our whole standing in Adam, and to the law that was the rule for it; and we are risen with Christ into the new creation in Him, alive from the dead to give ourselves to God. We have the treasure in earthen vessels, but our place before God is that — in Christ, and Christ in us. We have died from under the law, but therein died to sin, and are alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. We are in a wholly new position, and, though the righteousness of the law be fulfilled in one whose life Christ is, it is because he walks after the Spirit, and does not put himself under law. He cannot (Rom. 7) have two husbands at a time, Christ and the law. Remark here that I am speaking, as the passages I refer to are, of practical righteousness, a godly life, but if we are under the law for that, the law also curses us. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, and if the curse is not executed, the authority of the law is gone. If we are under law, we are under a curse, or its authority destroyed. If Christ has borne the curse, we have died with Him out of the position in which the law reached us; by the law dead to law, that we might live to God, crucified with Christ, yet living, but not we, but Christ living in us. He will not live wrongly. I do not enter here into failure, or Christ's blessed advocacy if we do fail, but only bring out the principles of the life in which we do live to God.

334 Let me take another view of the subject which is afforded us in Scripture. From the fall to the flood, though individuals were blessed and testimony was there, there were no special dealings of God. The promise had been given to the Seed of the woman in the judgment of the serpent; for there is no promise to fallen man, though the object of faith is thus held up before him. But man went on in wickedness till God had to bring in the flood, to cleanse as it were the earth from the pollution. But after the flood, having instituted the restraint of government in Noah (the world having fallen into idolatry, and nations having been formed), God calls out Abraham to be a root of promise for Himself. Abraham is the head of a seed of blessing as fallen Adam of a seed of sinful men. I leave aside Israel the natural seed here to speak of Christ and the nations. In Genesis 12 the promise of all nations being blessed in Abraham is given, and confirmed to the Seed in chapter 22. This was sovereign grace, and no condition was attached to it. The Seed was to come, the nations to be blessed in the Seed. This raised no question of righteousness; there was no if, no condition. But the question of righteousness was of all importance; it was raised at Sinai. If they obeyed His voice, they should be His peculiar treasure; and they undertook to do all Jehovah should say, and made the golden calf before Moses was down from the Mount with the two tables. The question was raised by requiring righteousness from man, and this-was the law. Man has been tested on this ground and found wholly wanting.

I add some details. The law simply by itself never even reached man as a covenant of works. The tables never entered into the camp (the golden calf was there), they were broken at the foot of the Mount. Moses interceded, and the people were for the occasion as to God's dealings forgiven. But Moses could not make atonement, and with the revelation of goodness the people were put back under law. "The soul that sinneth I will blot out of my book." But God makes all His goodness pass before Moses. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed the Lord — "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear (the guilty), visiting," etc. Now, here we have provisional grace. They are the terms of God's government of Israel, but, in fact, grace which spares and forgives past sin; but no atonement effectual, final, and conclusive, perfecting for ever them that are sanctified, was made, as indeed there was no one there to make it. They were consequently replaced under legal obligation and the man that sinned was to be blotted out of God's book. It was grace and forgiveness, and law after.

335 It was when Moses went down after this interview (Exod. 34: 29, 30) that his face shone. It is this law after grace and provisional forgiveness that is declared to be the ministration of death and the ministration of condemnation (2 Cor. 3) in contrast with the gospel, which is the ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit. And now see how the apostle reasons on the whole matter. The promise, given to Abraham and confirmed to the one seed (Christ), could not be set aside nor added to by a transaction 430 years after. God had thus bound Himself, but the law came in by the bye till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made, that is, Christ. Then its function ceased, and consequent on Christ's work, all being sinners, the law broken, and Christ rejected (the last means by which God could seek for fruit from man), the attempt only proving that man hated both Christ and His Father — that the mind of the flesh was enmity against God, then God's righteousness is revealed without law (the Greek reads "apart from law"), the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. Man's probation as to the history of it, on the ground of getting good by any means from him, was over. Now, says Christ, is the judgment of this world. Hence it was Christ cursed the fig-tree never to bear fruit. Hence it is that it is said "now once in the end of the world [the consummation of ages], he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

When I say the probation is over, it is not that man is not yet dealt with as to receiving the gospel. Of course he is; but what can be made of man in the flesh? It has been tried, and it is not now the question whether he can succeed in making out righteousness for the day of judgment, but, receiving the truth, find out that he is already lost, and righteousness and salvation and indeed glory his as believing in Christ. As a person under probation, he knows he is a lost sinner, and finds a new life, a perfect salvation, and divine righteousness in Christ. Now all this clearly shews the place of the law between the promise and the coming of the Seed to whom the promise was made, and how we are created again in Christ Jesus unto good works. It is no longer the law requiring human righteousness from flesh to prove what it is, but a new creature and the power of the Spirit leading us in the path in which Christ walked. We are sons and to walk as God's dear children, to put on, as the elect of God holy and beloved, bowels of mercies — the whole character and walk of Christ.

336 I will now take notice of Mr. Marshall's remarks.

In the first place Mr. Marshall's statements make quite plain that if we are under the law at all we are under it not merely as a rule of life but as a question of righteousness or condemnation. He says expressly of a believer, if he act contrary to the law (p. 10), he would then have come under its condemning power; so, on the same page, if a believer "acts contrary to the law, what then? Will not the law take hold of him and condemn him?" Thus all pretension that it is a rule of life but not the way of righteousness, failure under it bringing a curse, is wholly set aside. If I am told there is a remedy in looking to Christ; so there was in the prescriptions of the law. We have not advanced a tittle. Only remember, reader, that it is for this cause the apostle says "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." If you are on this ground, you are at this moment, according to your theory, under the curse. And this is all true if we are under the law at all.

People talk of not taking it for this, but taking it for that. Who are you to deal with the law and testimony of God thus? It takes you, as God has declared it should if you are under it, and curses you. The curse comes with it, and sin revives when it comes. Mr. Marshall is right: it lays hold of a man and condemns him. And, if "As many as are of its works," they are all cursed. And Christ does not step in to weaken its authority. He bore its curse and delivered us from the law, but He cannot be made a curse for us now, and if it comes on us there is no way left of getting it off us. If it be a rule of life, then righteousness comes by it and Christ is dead in vain.

337 But let us see what Mr. Marshall has to say of it even as a rule of life. If it be God's rule of life, it must be a perfect one. Indeed a rule that is not a perfect one is pure mischief and deception. But what is Mr. M.'s account? "Christ enlarges it," that is, it is not perfect but has to be enlarged. Suppose I have to enlarge a measure to be honest in what I give; is my first measure right? Thus I must have the law enlarged to go right, a strange rule. But further: "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." Here then we have a clear, positive, and definite rule. All, and whatsoever they bid you, is to be done. "Of course," continues Mr. Marshall (p. 9), "He only meant such parts of the moral law as were in accordance with His new dispensation; and nearly all parts of it are in such accordance." Here is a strange rule for me. Nearly all of it is right, God's rule, mind; and I am to judge, by my estimate of the new dispensation, what is not. I am not to find it enlarged, but to pare it off as I see it is consistent with my position. But how can this be called a rule?

Now these remarks prove to me that Mr. Marshall is an honest man. He sees that you cannot reconcile Christianity and the rule Christians are, on this system, to live by; and he honestly says so. But then all becomes "nearly all," and whatsoever is not is cast overboard; and the rule is no rule at all, enlarged in one place and pared down in another by some other which is not given to us at all. Surely this is not establishing law.

The text universally alleged to put us under the law is, "I am not come to destroy the law and the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil." Now what Christ's fulfilling the law has to do with putting me under it I never could understand. I should have thought that it would have rather been the contrary, and, if fulfilled, there was an end of the matter. Thus He fulfilled the sacrifices, and the rather as He speaks of the prophets, which gives to the word "fulfil," used as it is as to both, a force quite different from that sought to be made of it. It is a mere fancy, let me add here, that a Christian cannot use every word of Scripture for profit, law and all, without (that is) putting him under law. All that happened to Israel is written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are come, but that does not put us in the place they were in. All that reveals God to me, His mind, His will, His ways, is profitable to me, is light, without putting me in the place of those of whom I read.

338 But there is another consideration to be referred to here, the sermon on the Mount. This, blessed as is the instruction contained in it, was before the cross which judicially closed the relationship of the Jews with God, breaking down the middle wall of partition. We have no hint of redemption in it from beginning to end, nor of the relationship in which men should stand to God by it. It gives, and gives most blessedly, the characters which were fitted to enter the kingdom of heaven just going to be set up. Now that kingdom was not yet set up, but announced as immediately to be so. Nor do I for a moment imply that they were to give up the character necessary in order to enter as soon as they had got into it. It would be absurd. But what it does is to give the characters suited to the kingdom, not to shew the effect of its being set up by the rejection and cross of Jesus. It is not the law, nor is it the gospel. Christ could not preach His death and resurrection as an accomplished ground of salvation. It is to disciples, though in the audience of all, that no man might mistake the true character of the kingdom, nor of those who were to get into it. That and the revelation of the Father's name are the subjects of the discourse. The law and the prophets were until John; since that the kingdom of heaven was preached, and every man passed into it. The gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ could not be preached, though long before and now prophesied of. The preaching was that they might receive Him, not crucify Him.

Nor is the sermon on the Mount, as is stated, in a large degree portions of the moral law. Two commandments are referred to which are the two abiding characteristics of sin since before the flood, corruption and violence, lust and murder. None other are alluded to, sabbath or any other. And if it were to prove the law a perfect rule, how could it be written to them of old time so-and-so was said, referring to law, but I say unto you, and so teach them quite differently? The whole idea is a delusion. That those who then broke the least commandment and taught men so were not fit for the kingdom is clearly stated, but that is all, and nothing about the law subsisting after Christ's death. Unless it be in temporal things there is no grace, no blood-shedding to cleanse, no redemption to deliver. The kingdom being just at hand the character suited to an entrance into it is given. Israel was on his way with the Lord to judgment, and if they did not come to an agreement, they would be delivered up; and so they have been. It is not grace to sinners, but righteousness demanded to be fit to enter, that is, such a walk and spirit as is set forth in the sermon. Charging scribes and Pharisees who were under it with making void the law has nothing to do with putting Christians under it after Christ has died.

339 As to establish the law as a system, Christ clearly did not. "He taketh away the first that he may establish the second." He is the end of the law for righteousness. We establish law, for that is the real force of the word, in the highest and only scriptural way. They that have sinned under it will be judged by it, unless indeed redeemed out of that state. Christ's bearing the curse of the law established its authority, as nought else could do, but did not leave the guilty under it.

The mistake made is this. Many things contained in the law, all in the moral law as usually understood — say Christ's two great commandments, and the ten commandments (not now discussing the sabbath which belonged to the old creation, the Lord's day to the new) — were obligations before the law and are obligations under Christ. But from the law, that is, the enforcement of these obligations by the authority of God binding them on man as his righteousness by a rule of life (and that only is law), or pronouncing a curse on them if they did not keep it, from that (that is, from law) we are wholly and in every shape and way delivered, dead to it. It is adultery, to use the image of Romans 7, to have to say to it, to call ourselves Christians, if we are not absolutely from under its authority. I learn how God viewed evil and good from it, I can learn to support true ministers from what is said of oxen, but the law is not binding on me. I learn more of Christ's sacrifice in detail from Leviticus and other places than from the Gospels; yet I have nothing whatever to say to the law as to them, I am not under it. So of moral obligations — I learn in the law that God abhorred stealing, but it is not because under the law that I do not steal. All the word of God is mine and written for my instruction, yet for all that I am not under law, but a Christian who has died with Christ on the cross and am not in the flesh to which law applied, I am dead to the law by the body of Christ.

340 In vain it is alleged that this is only as a covenant of works. The law is nothing else but a covenant of works. Mr. Marshall has shewn it in his remarks already commented on. Mr. Wesley, it seems, admits (p. 12) that Christ is the end of the law in the true sense; then let us have done with it. He has adopted, he tells us, every point of it (nearly all Mr. M. says). What he has adopted, if it be so, let us learn from him. "This is my beloved Son, hear him"; and Moses and Elias disappear. His teaching will suffice by itself in such things.

As Mr. M. is content with what he has found in "Brethren" as to the Lord's day, I should have nothing to say on that head. I take it up here only in its connection with the law. With the insisting on the godly enjoyment and observance of the Lord's day, which he approvingly quotes, I entirely agree; but as the sabbath and change from the seventh to the first day of the week is closely connected with the question of law, I will treat this point also for a moment. A Christian recognises the first day of the week, not the seventh. Why so? The law we hold absolutely gone as to the Christian (not by enfeebling its authority where it applies, for Christ bore its curse and men who have sinned under it will be judged by it, but) because we have died from under it. Now what was the Sabbath? God's rest in the first creation. We do not belong to it — our bodies do; hence a day of rest is a blessing for man toiling through the fall. But this did not make it a matter of eternal obligation, but the Son of man Lord of it: an expression in itself quite inapplicable to a moral obligation. The sabbath was God's rest in the old creation. In that creation God cannot rest now. Hence the Lord beautifully and blessedly says, when maliciously charged with breaking it, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." They wrought in grace in a world of sin, but could not rest in it.

Now the Lord took man up on the footing of the old creation, and as undetermined whether he could find God's rest on the ground of his own responsibility. Hence the day of rest belonging to that was given and imposed upon him, as all the rest, as a matter of law. Death and life were set before him. Now he is known to be dead in sins. Under that system man failed. I believe that the millennium will be in a certain sense the accomplishment of that day, but on that I do not enter here. But Christ's cross closed for the spiritual mind the old creation and the old covenant. He gave Himself for our sins to redeem us from this present evil world. His resurrection began redeemed man's history on a new footing, on which innocent Adam never was, any more than sinful man: a state based, not on responsibility in which there might be failure, but on a work whose value could never change; a state which was a proof of accomplished redemption by an accepted work.

341 Thus the first day of the week, that is, the day of Christ's resurrection, became the sign and witness of rest for us. We begin work with it, that is, with redemption in Christ, not end with it, though in fact we shall not fully rest till we are risen. Still, through Christ's resurrection we have rest for our souls, and it is a pledge of the full rest of God into which a promise is left of entering. This entering into the rest of God is the compendium of the fullest blessing of His people; for He rests in holiness and perfected glory and love, and will rest in it when He has His people there, and all answers to His own nature, and His love is satisfied. But this is for us in resurrection and through the resurrection of Christ; and as the seventh day was the symbolical rest under the law because God had rested from the works of the first creation, and made additionally obligatory under the law in connection with redemption out of Egypt, and strictly enforced under pain of death; so for us the first day of the week is the witness of a better redemption and a better rest.

The Lord met the disciples the first day of the week, and again the following; the first day of the week the disciples came together to break bread, the first day were to lay by for the poor as God had prospered them, and in Revelation John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, when it had already definitely acquired its name. It is not a seventh day, as if we worked when God rested, and rested when God worked. It is not the Fourth Commandment, for we are in no way under the law, but the blessed liberty of rest to serve God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Besides being a boon in itself to toiling man, Jehovah gave His sabbath to Israel as a sign between Him and them, a mark of God's people; Ezek. 20: 12, 20. Nor is any new institution established in the law (as the setting up of the tabernacle, the manna, or other special things) without the sabbath being specially enforced. It was a sign of their being God's people, though in fact they never really, any more than Adam, entered into God's rest (Heb. 4); there remains a rest. But this has ceased: they are no longer God's people unless in promise for the future, when they will have their rest by grace.

342 Hence the Lord never has to say to the sabbath in the Gospels but as slighting it. It is a singular fact that, as in the law it is repeatedly and rigorously enforced, in the Gospels it is studiously made light of. The Son of man was Lord of it. He recognises it as existing under the law, but makes use of and acts on it as above it, makes the man carry his bed on it and the like. The old covenant was passing away, and we having died in Christ are not to be judged in respect of sabbaths. Yet for the same reason I hold the Lord's day as a blessed privilege conferred and to be observed for the Lord's service, as "the Lord's day"; and I do not doubt we may, in our little measure, be in the Spirit on the Lord's day, however that may be our privilege at all times.

And let the reader remark that there are many things binding, not as law but the divine good pleasure. I do not pray by law, nor read the word by law, nor praise God by law; yet I should be unhappy and be guilty if I did not. A father's will is a law to a loving child, if he has not given a formal order. But I may add here I am not afraid of the word "commandment." It is a wholesome word because it involves obedience. Christ could say, As my Father has given me commandment, so I do, and this as regards His work on the cross, His highest act of love. Did I do everything in itself right, nothing would be yet right, if obedience were wanting in it. "Lo! I come to do thy will"; and we are sanctified to the obedience of Christ. It is as to this the word "commandment" has its wholesome place. But we cannot be under law without being under a covenant of works, and that Mr. Marshall's pamphlet shews as we have seen.

I come now to the question of righteousness, which connects itself pretty closely with that of law. Mr. Marshall has not quite understood Brethren's views on this. I know not whether I shall succeed in making them clear. Scripture never speaks of the righteousness of Christ, though of course He was in every sense perpetually righteous, but (1) of man's or legal righteousness, man being what he ought to be towards God and his neighbour, of which the law was the measure, or (2) of God's righteousness, what He is in Himself manifested in the display of His own consistency with Himself, and that judicially in respect of Christ and through Him of us. Righteousness is practically recognising the claim of another, claim in the sense of what is due to him. With God, as the source and measure of all claim, it is what is due to Himself. This may be as to the creature what is due to God, according to the place He has put the creature in, the creature's duty; and law was of this the perfect expression enforced by the authority of God, and sanctioned by the penalty of a curse. In this consistency with God's will man wholly failed; not only that, but God came in Christ, reconciling the world, not imputing their failures, and man rejected Him. Man's moral history was over. Not only God had turned him out of paradise because of sin, but, as far as he was concerned, he had turned God out of the world when He had come into it in mercy.

343 The Second man comes on the scene. Now our probation was in the first, God's purposes were in the Second. And both these come out into light through the work of Christ, perfect when fully proved. He meets our failure as the sinbearer for us, and lays the foundation of God's accomplishment of His purposes of glory in the same work. This is our portion. Had man even kept the law, it did not give him a title to be in the glory of the Son of God; but we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. We have borne the image of the earthly, and we shall bear the image of the Heavenly. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Now Christ in His death glorified God as to all that He is, and that where God had been dishonoured, in the very place of sin. Man's enmity, Satan's power, death, the curse or wrath of God, all met there, and He in love and obedience there, as made sin. There it was obedience was perfected, God's righteous judgment against sin fully displayed and endured in the forsaking of God, yet God's perfect love to sinners displayed in the same act, God's majesty maintained in the sufferings of Christ, His truth, and all that was needed, that His purpose of bringing sons unto glory might be accomplished. God was glorified in the Son of man, and man was set at the right hand of God. All that God's glory could claim as against sin, and for the accomplishment of His purposes according to that glory, all that could make it good, and that as only could be done where sin was; all that could glorify God, and, blessed be His name, to the glory of God by us, was accomplished; and righteousness, God's righteousness, what was due to His consistency with Himself, set Christ at His right hand as man, for Christ suffering as man had realised that glory and made it good at all cost to Himself. (See John 13: 31, 32; chap. 17: 4, 5; chap. 16: 10.) God, having all in this work that was due to the claims of His own glory, acted righteously, did what was the necessary consequence according to that glory, and glorified Christ with Himself. "I have glorified thee on the earth" (there where it was needed, and nothing but Christ made sin in the perfection of obedience and love to His Father could do it), "and now glorify thou me with thine own self"; and man entered into the glory of God righteously — this, besides Christ's bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. He was Jehovah's lot and the people's lot.

344 Much blessed instruction is connected with this, but I confine myself to righteousness. The testimony to the world is that there is none righteous, no not one; but there is righteousness in this, that Christ has gone to the Father, and the world will not see Him any more (that is as then come in grace), until He comes in judgment. Through this work the believer is justified from all his sins, for Christ has borne them and suffered the penalty. God is just (righteous), and as such the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus — justifies the ungodly, and whom He justifies them He also glorifies. Grace reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. He is made unto us righteousness, and we the righteousness of God in Him. He is before God the ground and measure of our place before God, and His righteousness displayed in putting us there, while all is grace towards us. He is gone to our Father and His Father, our God and His God, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

And now a word as to "imputed righteousness." No such term is in Scripture, but imputing righteousness, of which the sense is wholly different in English, and a different word employed in Greek. Imputing righteousness is simply counting or reckoning us righteous. Imputed righteousness is a certain valuable sum put over to our account. Thus in Philemon: "If he owe thee anything, put that to my account."* And so "sin is not imputed where there is no law." You cannot put that specific act as a transgression to the man's account, because, when there is no law, it has not been forbidden, as it could be under the law in Israel, though the reign of death proved they were sinners and lost. Now this and the passage in Philemon are the only places where this word is used. But imputing righteousness used some eleven times is, as the Thirty-nine Articles justly state, simply accounting the man righteous. But, whatever the blessed fruits of divine life or of the Spirit, which there surely will be where that life and the Spirit are, and be the proof that it is really there, still, if God justifieth the ungodly, and that it is to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, that faith is imputed for righteousness, it is evident that it is not because of what a man is himself, but of another, that he is accounted righteous. "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." And mark the difference. We are not accounted righteous according to the poor measure of the fruits which we produce, with the defects which may accompany them, but according to the measure of Christ's work, in which He has borne our sins on the one hand, and perfectly glorified God, when made sin, on the other; the former represented by the sin-offering in Leviticus, and the other by the burnt-offering, or, in another aspect when both were parts of one sin-offering, by the blood on the mercy-seat, and the sins of the people laid on the head of the scapegoat.

{*[elloga (or ei) verse 18, ellogeitai (Rom.5: 13); whereas logizomai is the word used for imputing, counting, reckoning righteous. — Ed.]}

345 Now Mr. Marshall's system contradicts itself. "The Brethren," he says, "are quite in accordance with Scripture in holding that a believer is justified solely on the ground of the Lord Jesus Christ's atonement and satisfaction for his sins; and that so believing his faith is imputed to him for righteousness, and that he is thus justified and accepted of God." Now, that a true Christian is made partaker of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, that he is to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord, that he is not his own but bought with a price, and to live wholly to Him who has died for him and risen again, as a thousand passages testify, cannot be too earnestly pressed on the Christian. It is of vital importance and daily need. That is not the question, at any rate it is no question with me. The question is this, our righteousness before God. But Mr. M. says (p. 16) "if all a believer's righteousness, at present and in the future, are in Christ alone, why were all those cited exhortations and commands?" If a believer is justified as Mr. M. says, solely on the ground of Christ's atonement and satisfaction, and that his faith is imputed for righteousness, they cannot be for righteousness to be accepted of God, for how then is it solely by Christ's work? But I answer, not to make our righteousness, but for consistency and growth in the place he is set in, to grow up to Him who is the Head in all things, to glorify Christ as he ought, to be able to enjoy God. We are accepted in the Beloved. See how it is said in John 14: "In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." By the Holy Ghost dwelling in me, I know I am in Christ, consequently perfectly accepted of God; that is not my responsibility but my place, but this cannot be without Christ being in me. They go together; and there is my responsibility now, namely, to shew forth the life of Christ, of Christ who is my life, in everything — that Christ should be all to me as He is in all that have received the Spirit, and that all I do I should do in His name. My objection is, not that men should press holiness, but that they should make righteousness out of it when Christ is made unto us righteousness.

346 As to the phrase, "we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," it teaches the contrary of what Mr. M. supposes. It is not righteousness we are waiting for, but the hope of righteousness; we are made the righteousness of God in Him (Christ), and then wait for glory which belongs to that righteousness. Christ is made to us righteousness; by One man's obedience the many are made righteous; and the objection to this, that we may then continue in sin, is not met by putting us under law or giving uncertainty as to righteousness, but by shewing (Rom. 6) that righteousness involves death to sin. I cannot have one without the other, and so live to God. It is a sad thing if a Christian never can know he is accepted; and if he was not righteous somehow, he assuredly could not. The scripture shews us it is in Christ we are justified, that is, accounted or held for righteousness, as Mr. M. admits, solely on the ground of Christ's atonement. Otherwise, if we cannot so stand before God, no peace, no joy, no bright hope of glory; for this belongs to the righteous. But He has made peace by the blood of the cross, and we are accepted in the Beloved. It is well that a simple principle should be realised by Christians — that duties flow from the place we are already in; and if I am in a place in which I always must be, as a child with its parents, it only makes the duty perpetual, and this is always the measure and principle of duty. Destroy the relation, and the duty ceases.

347 I have treated the main questions at issue, and which are of importance to every soul. I only add that, in one aspect all Christians are sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints called and set apart to God by the power of the Holy Ghost; in another they follow after holiness, and, beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. They know that when He shall appear they shall be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is, and having this hope in Him they purify themselves as He is pure.

As regards the church or assembly, the question is not at all if Abraham was not justified by faith through Christ's work, nor whether he will be in glory, nor whether he was more or less faithful than any of us. There were those more or less faithful then. There are more and less faithful now. The question is what place God set the Old Testament saints in, and where He has set us. Now I believe God has set us in a better place, because, after speaking of the faith by which all those elders obtained a good report, it is declared God had reserved some better thing for us; Heb. 11. It is a mistake to think that there may not be in God's sovereign wisdom a better place in which some are set. Among them that were born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. Who more faithful, or separated to God than he, filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb? Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven was to be greater than he. What a privilege that of the disciples to have the Lord with them, the long and earnest desire of prophets and righteous men! Yet for these very same persons it was expedient that He should go, for then they would receive the Holy Ghost. Under the law the Holy Ghost signified, that the way into the holiest was not made manifest, now we have boldness to enter into the holiest. The veil is rent.

But our business is to shew that the church did not exist. "Church" is an unhappy word, because nobody knows what it means. Say "assembly," and all is plain. Every gathering together of people is an assembly, but God's assembly is a distinct thing. Now Adam or any individual saint could not be an assembly. This is clear. Israel was an assembly, and in a certain sense God's assembly; but in every way the opposite of God's assembly now. It was by birth of the race of Jacob: a Gentile as such could not belong to it; it was a nation, not a gathering by testimony and calling. The Gospel of John makes the difference. Christ "died for that nation, but not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad." The fact of their being children of God did not make them an assembly, but their gathering together into one. But another element characterises God's assembly, God's dwelling amongst them. Now this He does not do with man but on the ground of accomplished redemption. He did not dwell with Adam in his innocence, nor with Abraham and others; but as soon as He had brought out Israel by accomplished redemption, though then an outward one, then He came and dwelt among them, as it is written, "And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God that brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them," Exod. 29: 49.

348 Let us come to the direct proofs of the different positions of the New Testament and Old Testament saints. The Lord's own declaration should suffice: "On this rock I will build my church." The confession that He personally, Jesus, was the Son of the living God — this could not be before. Looking for a Messiah with true faith, for the promised Seed, was before, and was surely saving faith: but that Jesus was the Son of the living God could not be before Jesus. And hence the Lord says, "I will build": not that He had been long building, when in truth in that state as a man He did not yet subsist.

We have two aspects of the church. It is Christ's body, and the habitation of God by the Spirit. Neither could possibly have existed before Pentecost. First, till Christ ascended, there was no head in heaven for the body to be united to. You would have had a body without a head. Ephesians 1 and 2 declare that we are raised with and seated in heavenly places in Christ "according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand . . . and gave him to be head over all things to the church which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

Thus it is distinctly the raised and ascended man that is made head of the body, and set over all things. There was no such man till the ascension, and thus union loses all its reality, the church all true existence, where it is set up by man's imagination before Pentecost. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. All suppose the man Christ, and Christ ascended when union is spoken of, and that is union by the power of the Holy Ghost.

349 Further, till after the ascension, the Holy Ghost did not come down to form the church and dwell in it. In 1 Corinthians 12 we read, "by one Spirit we are all baptised into one body." They were, as we are expressly taught in the Acts, baptised with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; Acts 1. So John, "He it is that baptiseth with the Holy Ghost," John 1. Now the Lord says, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send him unto you." I must here notice and correct a mistake. Mr. M. urges that Christ's breathing on the disciples saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," was the giving of the Comforter, not the day of Pentecost; but John's Gospel is explicit. It was from Christ risen; as God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, so the Lord breathed on them that they might have the power of life by the Holy Ghost. But this was not sending the Holy Ghost.

We read, in John 7, the Holy Ghost was not yet (given) because that Jesus was not yet glorified. We read explicitly (John 14: 16), I will pray the Father and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; and verse 26, But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, which the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, etc.; and chapter 15: 26, But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me. So chapter 16: 7-15. These passages leave no question as to the Comforter being sent down from on high when Jesus had gone up, sent down by the Father in His name, and by Him from the Father. Hence we know we are sons, and the Spirit has revealed the things freely given to us of God, and the disciples were enabled to give all that the Holy Ghost led them to give of Christ's life here below. Hence Christ received the Holy Ghost afresh when He went up, to communicate it (Acts 2: 33), which identifies the Comforter also with what was given at Pentecost, though gifts may be distinct power, but here the Holy Ghost distributes to every man severally as He will; 1 Cor. 12: 11.

It is a mistake of Mr. Marshall's to take the breathing on them the day of His resurrection, for His sending the Comforter from the Father after He had gone away. He must, He tells us Himself, go away in order to send Him; John 16: 7.

350 At all events we learn from 1 Corinthians 12 that it was that coming of the Holy Ghost which is called baptism, which we know (Acts 1: 5, answering to John 1: 33) to have been the day of Pentecost which forms the church, the one body of Christ here below, whereby the gathered saints become withal the habitation of God through the Spirit. Thus the facts that the risen and ascended Christ is Head, and that the descent of the Holy Ghost forms the body, make it impossible for the church to have existed before Pentecost.

Another and lower ground of reasoning, though perhaps more palpable to some, alike shews the impossibility of the church's existing before the cross. Jew and Gentile could not be united in one. The Jew was bound strictly to keep up the middle wall of partition. The church is formed by its being thrown down, Christ thereupon forming in Himself one new man; Eph. 2: 14-16. The church was formed through the throwing down of that which Judaism was bound to keep up. It could not exist until Judaism was ended. Hence, too, in Hebrews 12 we have "the church of the firstborn which are written in heaven," and "the spirits of just men made perfect," as a distinct class (v. 23). The truth is that the bringing in the Old Testament saints into the church is only dropping the whole proper blessing of the church itself. The teaching of Scripture as to it is wholly lost.

Saints may be individually blest and saved, though that truth is darkened, but a body united to a head in heaven is entirely out of sight. Thus Mr. Marshall diligently argues that, as we are Abraham's seed, Abraham must have been in the church. "Of one seed," he says in concluding, "or church." But the seed are individuals, sons of God and heirs of God; which has nothing to do with being the body of a man who is in heaven, or builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. A man's bride and body is another idea from being children of a father. Viewed as children of God, we are Christ's brethren, not His body.

Mr. Marshall is mistaken, as many others, as to the prophets in Ephesians 2 being Old Testament prophets. The Greek sufficiently shews in Ephesians 2 that they are New Testament prophets; but chapter 3: 5 shews without question to any reader that they are New Testament prophets in contrast with all of old time. (Compare chap. 4: [11].)

351 Mr. Marshall again refers to the expression "the whole family in heaven and earth." Now I have not the least doubt that the only true rendering is "every* family," which upsets the argument altogether, in contrast with Amos 3: 1, 2. But the whole argument rests on the fallacy, even taking it as it stands in English, that a family is a body — the family of God is the body of Christ glorified. Thus, "surely all the members of a family may be said to belong to it" has no force in any way, because members of a family have nothing to do with members of His body. It is a relationship with God and the Father, and not with Christ, save so far as they are brethren — an individual place. Mr. Marshall's tract sees nothing of these differences.

{*It is pasa patria, not pasa e patria.}

The judgment and song in Revelation 15 do not even apply to the church at all. Nor is relationship with the Father introduced into the Revelation. The nearest approach to it is chapter 14 when God is called Christ's Father. The Book describes the government of God Almighty, and not even sons with a Father. The saints old and new are seen on thrones, but the body of Christ is not spoken of, nor the saints belonging to the church, or even to the Old Testament, seen on earth at all. Taking union on the lowest ground, mere gathering here, Christ gave Himself "to gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad." Even here (and it is not the unity of the body), being a child of God is one thing, and gathered together is another.

As to judging of the equity of putting them there, with the comparative merits of individuals we have nothing to do, nor has it with the question. We must see what Scripture states. Now I say, that not only the church did not exist, but it was not, even prophetically, revealed in the Old Testament — formed no part of promise or prophecy.

In Romans 16: 25, it is said "according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but is now made manifest."* Again in Ephesians 3: 5, "which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body." Again in verse 9, "the mystery which from the beginning of the world was hid in God; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." "The mystery which hath been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints," Col. 1: 26. We have thus the distinct and repeated declaration that the mystery of the church not only could not exist while the Jews were a separate people, and bound to be so, but was not revealed. The revelation that there was no difference between the Jew and the Greek would have overturned the whole fabric by its base.

{*The words are plain enough — "kept secret since the world began." Lest any should be puzzled, I add here that "by the scriptures of the prophets" is really "by prophetic scriptures according . . . made known to all nations." At any rate the mystery was kept secret in all bygone ages.}

352 Let me urge Mr. Marshall to read, not the writings of Brethren, but the Bible, and see if the church is not a wholly new thing, consequent on the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, and that it could not by any possibility have existed before; and not to confound the promise of a coming Saviour, received by faith, with membership of Christ's body, when He is exalted to be Head over all things to His body, the church; nor to think it impossible, because of the grace given to Abraham, that God may have "reserved some better thing for us."

I will add a few words on ordination. Mr. Marshall cites a number of passages in which Paul exhorts Timothy as to his ministry, stirring up the gift which was in him. Most admirable exhortations assuredly, for indeed they are of the Spirit of God Himself, though we speak of Paul; but they have nothing to do with the ordination of ministers. But Mr. Marshall misquotes the only material citation. Timothy had been ordained, he tells us, by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Scripture does not say "by," but "with"; and, when we see what Paul says elsewhere, we see the importance of the difference. The whole sentence is "the gift which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." Now here we find the real force of the matter: a gift was given, a very different thing from ordination; and elsewhere we find more information as to it, 2 Timothy 1: 6, "the gift that is in thee by the putting on of my hands." A man was personally marked out by prophecy (as we see in the case of Paul and Barnabas, Acts 13, and again at Antioch), and then Paul laid his hands on Timothy and conferred a gift, which was the privilege of the apostles; as we see Paul and John going down to Samaria, and so conferring it, and Simon wanting to buy the power.

353 Now I freely admit that the presbytery also accompanied this by the laying on of their hands, as a testimony to Timothy, just as in Acts 13: 3: an act interpreted in chapter 14: 26, and repeated again in chapter 15: 40. But the substance of the act was the conferring the Holy Ghost with a careful changing of the word, which has escaped Mr. M.'s notice. Hence in the Episcopal church, in which the officiating prelate professes to give the Holy Ghost, the laying on of his hands is ordered to be accompanied by that of other priests, but no one ascribes ordination to them but to the prelate.

The difference between eldership and gifts is clearly established in every respect in Scripture. It was desirable that an elder should be apt to teach; still it was said "especially those who labour in the word and doctrine," so that some did not, and in their episcopal work — for they were all bishops, that is, in their service as overseers of the flock, he was to be able "to exhort and convince gainsayers, holding fast" (if he had no special conferred gift of teaching on which he had to wait, Rom. 12) "the faithful word as he had been taught." He is even here contrasted with a teacher, and is to use in his service what he had learned, to stop people's mouths. Elders were appointed in every city (Titus 1: 5, compare Acts 14: 23), aptness to teach being a desirable qualification; but eldership was no gift at all. It is to be presumed hands were laid upon them, though it is never positively said so; but it was the common use in every signification of blessing, approved and commended to the Lord, used with the sick, used by prophets, or the church as to apostles, and, as Timothy was to lay hands suddenly on no man, it may be very well presumed he did so on elders. It is a mercy it is never said, or we should have apostolic succession. And it is not ever said.

But let us see on what a totally different footing gifts stand. First the Lord when He goes away gives talents to His servants, and they are bound to use them without other authority. He who had not sufficient trust in the Lord to do so was a wicked and slothful servant. Then I find the fact, "they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word," and afterward (Acts 11) "the hand of the Lord was with them." I find Peter giving directions as to this, "As every man has received the gift, so let him minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God," 1 Pet. 4: 10. In Romans 12: 6, "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching," etc. So in 1 Corinthians 12 it is elaborately stated that they had their gifts according to the dividing of the Spirit as He would, making one one member in the body, another another, and wherever a man was he was that member. So if Apollos taught at Ephesus, he taught at Corinth when there, and Silas and Judas at Antioch, and so on, and in 1 Corinthians 14 directions are given as to the use of gifts, when they were not to be used, how many were to speak, etc., that all might be to common edification, concluding by saying, "for ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and that all may be comforted." The women were to keep silence in the assemblies, it was not permitted them to speak, it was a shame for them to speak in the assembly. So persons (2 John) who went about preaching were to be judged by their doctrine. Then we get a warning in James not to be many masters (teachers), shewing by the moral warning that ordination to do it had no place.

354 Finally, in the important passage in Ephesians 4 it is referred to gifts from Christ on high, when He fills all things in the power of redemption. Five permanent and regular gifts are mentioned, of which two had been declared to be the foundation, which is not laying now. Pastors, teachers, and evangelists remain, sadly hindered by the state of the church, still they remain. In addition to this we have "the increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part." The difference of this and 1 Corinthians 12 is worthy of note. There it was mere power, by the Spirit of God, which might be, and was, abused; here it is what Christ, who cannot but be faithful to His own body, gives till all grow up to Him who is the Head. There, being by the present Holy Ghost, you have tongues, miracles, healings, etc., but there is no "till we all come" as there is in Ephesians 4; on the contrary it is "as he will." We may have lost a great deal, but the principle of Scripture is as plain as possible.

Of ordination as connected with these gifts we have nothing, unless that apostles could confer the Holy Ghost and gift by laying on of hands. Committing doctrine to faithful men, which may be done in any age if one be capable to do it, has nothing to do with conferring official authority, and that is what ordaining means in modern language. And this is why "ordain" is objectionable, because it conveys a distinct meaning in modern language, which Scripture does not warrant. The English version is intentionally unfaithful in this. In Acts 1 it has "must one be ordained," where there is no word at all. It is simply "must one be a witness." In Acts 14 it is "they chose for them," and they have put "ordained them," and in Titus "ordain elders" when it is simply "establish." This was not without intention.

355 The other passages which Mr. M. quotes prove rather the contrary of what he cites them for, as 1 Thessalonians 5: 12, 13. Why call upon people to know those that laboured among them, and love them for their works' sake, if they could not help knowing them as their own ordained ministers? Their work was the ground of knowing and valuing them, and a very just one. Hebrews 13: 7 has really nothing to do with it (these were dead, and, knowing their end, they were to follow their faith), verse 17 has; but here their work is again the ground: there is no hint of appointment.

When Mr. M. speaks of the hundreds of thousands of churches which need ministers, he is assuming the whole system of modern churches, of which there is not a trace in Scripture. Men have made the churches, and so they must make ministers for them, whether God has made them or not. Such a church as Paul wrote to does not exist in Christendom; and if he were to address a letter as he then did, no one would get it. "No one," Mr. M. adds, "ever knew or heard of any such direct divine appointment since the time of the apostle Paul!" Just so. In Scripture such are found as we have seen. And he told us that, after his decease, from without and within ruin would come; and it has. But these would become the perilous times of the last days, for which we have directions in 2 Timothy 3, and more detailedly in 2 Timothy 2. In chapter 3 we have our resource, knowing from whom we have learned, the inspired teachers, and generally the Scriptures, that which was from the beginning; 1 John 2: 24.

But Mr. M. has just told what has been, I may say, our desire, certainly mine — to go straight back to the time of the apostle Paul, that is, to the Scriptures, the written word of God; for there only we have His ways and directions. I admit it has never been done since then. The mystery of iniquity was already at work. We have returned to that which was at the beginning, conscious that much has been lost, but persuaded that Christ can never fail His church, and that He will give it needed care and blessing, and gifts to minister to it till all are come. We may fail in our faithfulness, but not the blessed Lord in His love, nor in what is really needed. But however feebly, Mr. M.'s is just the true account of what those commonly called the Brethren have done. They have gone back to Paul's time, that is, to the word of God.

Present and Eternal and Governmental Forgiveness of Sins.

J. N. Darby.

<31025E> 357

All forgiveness is founded on the blessed work of the Lord Jesus. But it is important to distinguish between the pardon which clears us once and forever from all our sins before God, by which we are justified, and have peace with God, and the pardon which we may receive on the way as under God's government, supposing we are pardoned and saved.

Without the work of Christ, a holy and just God, yea a God of truth, must have held man to be what he really is, a guilty sinner, who must be judged according to his works; and we know beforehand from His word, that there is none righteous, no not one. The love of God, great as it is, so great that for us He did not spare His Son, could not say that sin was not sin, or that He was indifferent to good and evil, for He is not, and in His own nature cannot be; and if He judges and makes man himself answer for what he has done, He must judge him righteously.

Besides, we are alienated from God in heart and mind, and so really already lost. I do not now mean finally, nor that we cannot be saved out of that state; but if we can, it is because Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. Judgment, if we come unrepentant, unbelieving, before the judgment-seat of Christ, will be according to our works, and therefore condemnation: for all have sinned.

But God is love: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God has thus anticipated, in grace, that day of judgment. The same blessed Son of God, who will as Son of man sit on the judgment-seat, and judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, has already, before that day, come as a Saviour, and died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and he that believeth on the Son of God shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned. Solemn as that warning is, I shall not say more of these last. The statement is plain enough and solemn enough without adding anything to it: they die in their sins and are doubly guilty; they have not only sinned against His holiness, but despised His mercy.

Supposing now we do really in heart believe in the Son of God, with a faith wrought in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, and a conscience which feels the need of grace and forgiveness, for that is the great point; a faith which has wrought true repentance, that godly sorrow and sense that we have deserved to be condemned which make Christ and His grace and His work precious to us. I suppose we have been all brought up to believe in the blessed Lord Jesus as a divine history, but that is very different from believing in Him as meeting the need of an awakened conscience.

358 But, supposing I have this true faith in Him, then it behoves me to be able to say what He has done for me.

"He has died for our sins according to the scriptures" (1 Cor. 15: 3); "He has borne our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2: 24); "He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," 1 Peter 3: 18.

So that here is our question: Supposing I have true heart faith in Him, Christ having thus died for me, what is the effect or efficacy of His death for me?

I have a perfect and eternal forgiveness and redemption according to the glory of God. I do not speak of those who neglect this great salvation; they are doubly guilty; but of what is the value of His work for those who have really a part in it? "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses," Acts 13: 38, 39. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace," Eph. 1: 7. "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God," Rom. 4: 25; Rom. 5: 1, 2. "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous," Rom. 5: 19. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified," Rom. 8: 30. "By his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption," Heb. 9: 12. And its effect is complete (v. 14): "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

But is this valid forever?

359 We have seen that it is eternal redemption, that it purges the conscience from dead works, and gives peace with God. But Scripture is more explicit. Christ is always at the right hand of God, and has presented His precious blood to God. It is always before His eyes. But Scripture is very explicit on this point. "But this [man], having offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of God." Not like the Jewish priests standing continually at the altar, offering sacrifices which could never take away sins (Heb. 10: 11), He sat down because, for redemption and forgiveness, He had done already the whole work; for (Heb. 5: 14) "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." He sits there at the right hand of God till His enemies be made His footstool; then He will come to deal with them in judgment. But all is done for His friends, that is, true believers, and He has sat down having finished the work, so that those who come by it have no more conscience of sins (v. 2). "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will impute no sin." "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered," Rom. 4: 7, 8. And is it only some of them? No, that were useless. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin, and the Holy Ghost testifies of it clearly in that same Hebrews 10 from which we have quoted: "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (v. 17). And so plainly does He put it, that He declares that "where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin" (v. 18). So that, if all were not completely pardoned and effaced, there could be no remedy.

The more we consider it, the more plain it is. Christ is the Judge, and if now I can say by faith, He has loved me and washed me from my sins in His own blood, how can He, when I stand before the judgment-seat, impute to me the sins He has Himself borne and put away? He would be denying the value of His own work, which is impossible.

Again, if we are believers, we are raised in glory; 1 Cor. 15: 43. Nay, Christ shall Himself come to bring us to Himself: "Who shall change our body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory." If Christ comes to fetch us, and puts us in glory, where is the place for raising any question then about our sins? And this is clearly said in John 5: 24. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life."

360 Is it because God is indifferent to their sins? Impossible! But He has given His Son for us. Christ has borne them already, and cannot impute them to those who believe in Him and in the Father who sent Him in love. We know that the Lord says, "If ye do not believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins," John 8: 24. But if we believe in Him, we have the forgiveness of our sins — not of some, to be condemned for the rest. "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," because "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." And we possess the blessedness of this word, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom Jehovah will not impute sin." Hence repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in Jesus' name. The Christian has a new life from Christ, and this will shew itself in his walk. He is born of the Spirit; and the faith in Christ by which he has forgiveness makes Christ everything to him, as it is written in Colossians 3, Christ is all and in all, the "everything," that is, of our hearts, and He is our life.

But I now confine myself to redemption and forgiveness.

There is then a forgiveness identified with redemption and the abiding value of Christ's blood, so that our sins are none of them imputed to us: God remembers them no more. We have part in this through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the door by which we enter is repentance toward God, which faith in the word of Christ always produces. We have our eyes opened, we are turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, and we receive remission of our sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Jesus; Acts 26: 18.

Under the Old Testament among the Jews this full forgiveness was not known; they got a kind of absolution for each sin they committed; they were shut out from entering into the holiest by the veil, which hung before the place where God revealed Himself. Thus in Hebrews 9 it is written, "The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." But we learn, when the real work of which all these things were figures was accomplished in the death of the Saviour, that the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom (Matt. 27: 51), and we are exhorted (Heb. 10: 19) in virtue of the work of Christ and the remission of our sins (vv. 17, 18), "having boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh," to "draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." That one work, done once for all, never to be repeated, and effectual to give peace to the conscience, is the ground on which we have eternal redemption, full forgiveness, so that God remembers our sins and iniquities no more, an entrance into God's presence and a part in the everlasting inheritance of God's children in glory.

361 This great difference in the state of believers before and after the death of the blessed Lord is celebrated by Zacharias at the birth of John the Baptist, Christ's forerunner; Luke 1: 77. "To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins." So the repentant thief went straight into paradise with Christ; so to the repentant woman in the city that was a sinner the Lord said, not only, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"; but, "Thy faith hath saved thee," Luke 7: 48-50.

There is, then, for faith, a present but eternal forgiveness, founded on Christ's bearing our sins in a work which can never be repeated, its value never diminished, nor anything added to it. God has proved His value of its worth in setting Him who did it at His right hand in glory, where He was with Him as Son of God before the world was. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." This cannot be repeated. "Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands (which are the figures of the true), but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet to offer himself often . . . otherwise he must often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the consummation of ages he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, apart from sin, unto salvation." Those whose sins were put away the first time He comes to take into glory, as to them having no more to do with sin which He put away the first time.

362 But there is a government of God in this world over those who are thus redeemed, and ever has been. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." And when God exercises this discipline, which is always for our good in love, when a soul is truly humbled, He in His wisdom often takes it away, forgiving, as to His present government and ways, the sin which made it necessary. Not that all such visitations are because of sins. The world is in a state of misery through sin, and all are liable to be subject to this servitude of corruption. This the Lord states in John 9: 3.

Nor even when they are sent of God in reference to the state of the soul, are they always because of sins committed; they may be to prevent them, break the will, humble us as to our state. Thus Paul had a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be puffed up through the abundance of revelations. Thrice he asked the Lord to take it away, but the Lord had sent it for his good; so He would not.

This government of God, and pardon as to the present inflictions of His hand, we find both in the Old Testament and in the New.

Thus, when God had pronounced a terrible judgment on Ahab for his wickedness, Ahab humbled himself, and God said to Elijah who had carried the message to him, "Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? I will not bring the evil in his days; in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house." This had nothing to do with the saving of his soul; indeed, as far as this history informs us, he died in his sins; but he was forgiven as to that particular judgment on the earth.

So with David: when he had acted very wickedly in a particular case, though in the main one beloved of God, and glorifying Him in his walk, Nathan the prophet declares to him, "Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me." Yet in his general walk he was a man after God's own heart. Very many such instances could be adduced from the Old Testament. There was pardon of the sin as to present chastisement. David was spared and not cut off, but the child of this sin was taken from him.

So in Exodus: when God threatened to destroy all the people, He recalled His threat when Moses pleaded His promises, and sent His angel to guide them, but declared "Nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. And Jehovah plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made," Exod. 32: 34, 35. But their falling in the wilderness had nothing to do with the saving of their souls: Moses and Aaron died in the wilderness too, and we know they were saints of Jehovah.

363 It is just what is taught us in the book of Job, where Elihu interprets God's ways in chapter 33: 17-30; and in chapter 36: 7 he speaks expressly of a righteous man, saying, "He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous," but He chastens them for their sins; and he warns Job not to fight against God. If he had bowed in heart, he would have been delivered from his affliction (v. 16), and he is warned, as God was thus dealing with him, to take care he was not cut off from the earth (v. 12). Yet Job was the godliest man on all the earth, but needed correction as beginning to think well of himself; chap. 31: 16 and following. Compare chapters 29: 11, and 42: 5, 6.

In the New Testament we have the same chastisement and forgiveness as a present dealing of God with man on the earth for their good. See 1 Corinthians 11: 30-32. They took the Lord's supper as if it were a common meal, and the poor had not enough to eat, and the rich indulged in gluttony and wine, and many were sick in consequence and even "slept," that is, died. But all this was present chastening in this world, for the apostle says, "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." The Corinthians were chastened for their faults, but were not condemned as unbelievers with the world.

So we read in 1 John 5: 16. And this makes us understand what mortal sin so called is. It is a sin that brings the death of the body as a chastisement, and is such that Christians cannot pray that the life of their brother may be spared. whereas in other cases they could, and their prayers were heard, and the man's life was spared who had sinned: he was pardoned in this sense. Thus Peter's indignation arose against Ananias and Sapphira, not his compassion; and they died, through their sin, as a present judgment.

So in James 5: 14-16, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." The man recovered from his sickness, being pardoned as a present thing, as to God's government in dealing with him in this world.

364 We must not confound this pardon which refers to God's dealing with us here, and the chastisements His love may inflict upon us, or deliver us from if we humble ourselves, and the eternal pardon of our souls which belongs to us through the redemption that the blood of Christ has wrought for us, the value of which nothing can alter or take away. Whereas we can easily understand that, if God chastens a man for his good when he is His child, He can take off the chastisement, and in this sense pardon the particular fault if a man humble himself, without the salvation of his soul being in question.

There is only another passage, which it may be well to refer to, John 20: 23. The Lord, after He was risen, comes amongst His disciples and communicates to them the peace He had just made, and sends them out to preach that peace to others while He has gone away into heaven. In thus sending them out as His Father had sent Him, He conferred on them apostolic authority, so that they should administer this remission and forgiveness of sins to all those who believed, who became Christians. Thus when the Jews, convinced of their sin in rejecting Christ, said, thinking all was over through their rejecting Him, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter replies, "Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Thus becoming Christians through his ministry they received the perfect remission which Christ obtained for them.

So in Acts 10: 43; only there, as Peter himself had great difficulty in receiving any who believed from among the heathen, God gave them a testimony, as Peter says afterwards, before they were received, so that men could not refuse to receive them. So Paul gives the same testimony; Acts 13: 38, 39.

And to this day, if a heathen believes in Christ and becomes a Christian by baptism, he then receives full remission of sins. Only the apostles could do it, with not only personal authority, but discernment as to the reality of the faith of those who came; Acts 8: 28, 29. The general truth remains sure, "By him all that believe are justified from all things."

The same governmental forgiveness remains true, too, with the same difference. Peter does not pray for Ananias and Sapphira: it was a sin unto death, and they fell dead. So Paul (1 Cor. 5: 3-5) judged to "deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh." There was apostolic discernment, authority and power. Then all were called on too to act on their responsibility as the assembly of God (vv. 12, 13), and Paul associates them with him in this act of power.

365 In this sense the apostles had no successors. There were local authorities, elders, deacons, etc., but apostles were apostles, and did this with Christ's authority everywhere, only Peter specially among the Jews, and Paul among the Gentiles; Gal. 2: 7, 8. As such, even the greatest authorities among the Roman Catholics admit they had no successors.

But there is a succession owned of God, whose authority flows from Christ where His presence is realised in lowly grace. In Matthew 18: 18, if a person were wronged, he was to speak to the wrong-doer, and win him if he could; if he could not, to take two or three more; if this did not succeed, he was to tell it — not to the clergy, not to any priest, but — to the assembly. If the wrong-doer would not listen to the assembly, the person was free to treat him as outside it — as a heathen man and a publican. And the reason is given: that wherever two or three were gathered together in Christ's name, really met and looking to Him, so as to act really and humbly in His name, He being there according to this promise, the act would have in ordinary church discipline (as "putting out from among yourselves") Christ's authority, and He would own and sanction it.

It is not individual apostolic power (Peter and Paul both announce these would not be after their decease, Acts 20: 29-33) acting in Christ's name as Peter could, saying, "Jesus Christ maketh thee whole," or Paul delivering to Satan, but an act within the limits of duty, presented by the word, and which Christ sanctions by His presence and authority, acting in the midst of two or three. This supposes they are in unity, really gathered to Christ's name, and truly looking to Him by the Spirit, as the only One who can exercise this authority, and taking His word for their guide. It is this that in the word of God takes the place (I do not say of apostolic power, for it is not individual, but) of apostolic authority, because it is Christ who really acts.

Fellowship, and the right state for it.

J. N. Darby.

<31026E> 366

Not quite at the end till I turn round towards England again, the Lord sparing me and holding me up.

I have just made ninety-six hours of railroad, without stopping, and am all well. My mind fully turns to England when I have done in these parts.

Were I young, with (humanly speaking) life before me, there would be ground for staying, for the work is opening. It is in many respects on a new footing, and the question of this position and the truths of Scripture as to the full position, and the walk too, of the Christian is raised everywhere. But I am not young, and cannot think to carry out the work myself; and God, I trust, will raise up instruments, as He has a few. It is not His mind, I believe, to be out of weakness. In the state of the church it becomes us to take part in her sorrows.

As regards your first question, I think there is a mistake as to the position of the assembly, both in the sister and also of the brother who objected, perhaps in all. When a person breaks bread, he is in the only fellowship I know — owned members of the body of Christ. The moment you make another FULL fellowship, you make people members of your assembly, and the whole principle of meeting is falsified. The assembly has to be satisfied as to the persons, but, as so receiving to break bread, is supposed to be satisfied on the testimony of the person introducing them, who is responsible to the assembly in this respect. This, or two or three visiting, is to me the question of adequate testimony to the conscience of the assembly.

At the beginning it was not so, that is, there was no such examination. Now I believe it a duty according to 2 Timothy 2. Nobody comes in but as a believer. This again makes the distinction of member of the particular assembly. Still I do not think a practice such as this sister's is satisfactory. I admit fully every case must stand on its own merits, and so be dealt with. Where breaking bread is intermitted, it is all well to mention it, though this be in some cases uncalled for, where the assembly knows about it and is satisfied; but if persons break bread, they are as subject to discipline as if always there, because it is the church of God which is in question, though represented by two or three: Christ is there. If it is merely an occasional coming as a stranger, the person not being known, it is well to mention the fact.

367 What is not satisfactory in such cases is, first, it is accepting the person by the assembly as if they had another fellowship besides membership of Christ, which I do not recognise at all. And, secondly, I should fear there was a reluctance to take honestly the reproach of the position, the true separated position of saints, and [the wish] to be able to say to others, I do not belong to them, I only go as a believer. I only go as a believer, but then I accept the position. Waiting for them to get clear is all well. A true believer has TITLE at the table; but if they meet as members of Christ's body, they are all one body as partakers of one loaf.

I do not admit them. I own their title, wait upon their want of light, but would not allow them to put me in the position of a sect (and "full fellowship" means that) making allowance for their ignorance, and waiting upon it. They do not come really to break bread with us on the ground of the unity of the body, if they think they are not one with us in coming; for if we are true and right, they are not one with the body of Christ, the only principle of meeting I know at all.

I repeat, in the present state of the church we must have much patience, as their minds have been moulded in church membership; but I ought not to falsify my own position, nor sanction it in the mind of another. If the person is known to all, and known to be there to break bread, all mention is needless; it is a testimony to the unity of the body. If an occasional thing, the person who introduces is responsible.

I remember a case, where one growing in truth came to help sometimes in a Sunday-school, and from the other side of London, and asked the brethren if he might not break bread when there — time even did not allow of him to get back to his Baptist service — and he enjoyed the communion of saints. Brethren allowed him gladly; and, if my recollection is right, his name was not given out when he came afterwards. Very soon he was amongst Brethren entirely, but his fellowship was as full when he was not; and had he given occasion, he would have been refused in discipline, just as if there every Sunday.

The other question is for me a more delicate one, because it is a question of the state of the soul, as of the church, when darkness covers it. Many, many souls cry Abba Father (that is, have the Spirit of adoption), which are clear in nothing, save that their confidence is in Christ and His work only; and as doubting is taught in the church, and a plain full gospel unknown and even rejected by teachers, this state is the natural consequence; and it often requires spirituality to discern the real state of a soul, if really under law, undelivered or legalised by teaching. Hard cold knowledge of doctrine is not what I seek. Then there is the danger of throwing back a soul just when it wants to be encouraged. Doubts brought in by conflict, when a soul can really say Abba, are not a ground of rejection, though it shews a soul not well established. Yet a soul exercised, but not yet resting in Christ's work, is not in a right state for communion. So with young converts — it is far better for them to wait until they have peace, only carefully shewing it is not to reject them but for their own good. I should not look for understanding deliverance, but being personally able to say, Abba, Father. The intelligence of deliverance is the consequence of sealing. But if a man be not sealed, he is not in the Christian position. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Peace through forgiveness is, as to Christ's work, the evidence of faith in Christ's work, and that work received by faith is the ground of sealing. Then one is delivered; but the intelligence of this is another thing. Israel out of Egypt was brought to God — delivered. Through Jordan they entered in, were circumcised, and ate the corn of the land. But a sealed person alone is in the true Christian position; and this is founded on the sprinkling with blood, that is, faith in Christ's work, by which we have redemption, not in the knowledge of deliverance. This is its effect.

________

Mark 16: 20

J. N. Darby.

<31027E> 368

Mark 16: 20, I think, plainly shews that it was not written till all the gospel history which we have in the Acts, etc. (the Revelation only excepted), was over. God has given His history of the foundation of Christianity, and would allow, at the utmost, but this brief notice of the general dispersion of the doctrine of Christ. That it is a summary of the facts we have in John and Luke, the Galilee account ending with verse 8, we have already seen.

Correspondence on recent matters.

J. N. Darby.

<31028E> 369

1

One thing that you relate gave me much to think of, as indeed it has been a subject of thought pretty often for a long while, nor am I sure that I have the Lord's mind clear upon it. I think evangelising the greatest privilege of any in respect to gifts, though I am not an evangelist — only (when I can) doing the work of one as well as I can. This is not my difficulty, but what you say, that the evangelisation has enfeebled the teaching the saints. The gifts are clearly distinct; but I do not see that one should enfeeble the other. Paul assuredly evangelised, and as surely taught, and taught in evangelising. Witness the Thessalonians; and if he did not look for, he certainly found, present fruit. He distinguished being a minister of the gospel, and a minister of the church, to fulfil (complete) the word of God. This is not in the Thessalonians, where all is personal, not corporate. We must be with God for each, as called of Him to it: and then I do not see why power should not be for both.

But a certain salvationism, instead of Christianity, I think, has to say to it; which God may bless, but which carries its effect with it. Few carry in their mind, "I endure all things for the elect's sake." It is a general idea that God is love, and would have all men to be saved, which is blessedly true; but thus it ends in being saved — man's safety. There is no purpose of God in it, no glory of Christ; all called upon to bow to and own Him. Hence, as to the preacher's state of mind, when he has got the person saved, and this confessed, he is content, going no farther. God's interest in His own is lost, which leads on to building up. If we were with God about them, the heart would soon be drawn out in testimony to them.

There is another thing — glory to Christ in His church. This, I confess, greatly absorbs my spirit, though I be a poor hand for this work too. But this leads us to prayer for saints, so also to testimony to them. The evil is not earnest devotedness to evangelising, which is itself the way of blessing to an assembly, or rather God, working in one by His presence, builds up the other; it is being absorbed by it. But this affects the evangelising itself: there is less of Christ in it, more of man's importance, and when pursued in a revival way, more of delusive work; it never gives a solid foundation to build upon.

370 I should be most loth to weaken evangelisation; I believe God is blessing it, especially for gathering out in these last days; and it is healthful for an assembly that their hearts are engaged in it. At the very beginning it characterised Brethren, and I trust still does, though it be more common now on all hands. The love exercised in it binds also saints together. But God is in a great professing body, awakening them to their state: and this has its importance also. The cry that awoke the virgins was not the gospel, ordinarily so called. Finally, the hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee. I do not reject the joy of counting converts, but we must not lean upon it. "When we have done all things, say, We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do." The bond of service to Christ is kept up, and this is of great importance. It is not referring the effect to our work, but our work and heart to Him. I am sure, if we were near Christ, we should do both well, assuming of course that Christ has called us to do it. Do not be content to put one in place of the other, but see what Christ means by it. Be with Christ about the saints when you have to say to them. Be with Christ as to both, and then see what is the result. The question in general has long pressed upon me in connection with the spiritual activities of the day. I have never been allowed to see much fruit, and have been more blessed in bringing to peace than awakening. There is One, I thank God, who is above all, and does all: let us look to Him. The Lord be abundantly with you, and guide you both in heart and work, and keep you in much enjoyment of Him, as well as for Him.

2

We must be more than content, if the Lord says "He hath done what he could." We, at least I, cannot say it, though I seek to serve Him. It is a comfort that He says to Philadelphia, I know thy works — without saying more — and thou hast a little strength, so as to be kept faithful, not denying His name, and keeping the word of His patience. How very gracious of the Lord! It changes nothing, it is true, but we should notice these ways of the Lord; He is gracious on the way as He is at the end, and it is always Himself. I think it is striking, the Lord letting Moody's and Pearsall Smith's work run over the world as it does. In Switzerland they are full of the latter, at least in Basle. I do not fear it: it is wakening up as all these revival works. God graciously allows the work to go on, that there may be this, and people called out; for it has a popularity most useful to it as service (but which it would soon lose — perhaps would never have — if they were faithful), which I certainly do not covet. The Establishment Missions wrought of old somewhat similarly; and I doubt not there were many conversions, and rejoice with all my heart in it; but all beyond is worldly, and lowers the standard of Christianity. If Brethren keep up their testimony, it will have its full place, besides the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God; and may it be with renewed energy! Church and remnant work, as also the Christian's place, of which they know nothing, remains where it was. A full plain gospel I have to work through with all of them — the perfectionists, and Moody's people. They teach what ignores and denies it; but then we have only to add this and make it plain, not oppose. For this I have a full opening both at New York and here. I learn they are getting on nicely at New York. Kindest love to the brethren. In general we have cause for thankfulness here, but I should, as man, like to see things go faster, but you have to bring in a full gospel everywhere. No one has an idea of what God's children get as their teaching. But I must close.

371 3

I think that Brethren are entering into a new phase of existence, which increases danger to them, and brings greater, or at any rate more manifest, responsibility. It does not arise merely from that justification or excessive praise like  - 's, which good taste would let drop, though flattery be dangerous to any heart, but (it arises) from the now generally spread feeling (whatever effect it produces, for it is very diverse) that Brethren have something which other Christians have not got. This is often refuted, hated, opposed, may be often a matter of curiosity, sometimes (and may it be increased!) of true inquiry; but it is felt. The world feels it, and would use it to shew the inconsistency of public profession. In many cases they would be sought and courted from their knowledge of Scripture; their books read to have the truth without acting on it. Others, who still cling to the professing church with partial apprehensions of truth and much error, make their boast that it can be had without leaving the systems around us — nay, sometimes openly arguing continuance in them; but it is felt that they have what others have not. I believe they have. But what is important is, not "the Brethren," but the truth they have. I could state it definitely, and have ere now done it; but it is not my object here. God could set them aside, and spread His truth by others — would, I believe, though full of gracious patience, if they be not faithful. Their place is to remain in obscurity and devotedness, not to think of Brethren (it is always wrong to think of ourselves), but of souls, in Christ's name and love, and of His glory and truth only, not to press Brethrenism, but to deal with each soul according to its need for Christ's sake.

372 But if attention is drawn — and it is — to the truth they possess through grace, their responsibility is greatly increased. If more general and personal devotedness were not found in them, they would be a stumbling-block against the truth. Unworldliness, nonconformity to the world, self-denial, abnegation in love to others, is what is called for, for love is the end of the charge . . . out of a pure heart. Let them walk in love in the truth, humble, lowly, unworldly, and all for Christ, as little (and content to be little) as when they began, and God will bless them. If not, their candlestick may go (and, oh, what sorrow and confusion of face it would be after such grace!) as that of others.

Let there be no mixing with the church-world — what are they if they do? — but shew grace toward it, that early beacon-light, to take the precious from the vile, and they will be as God's mouth. I repeat, let them in no wise mix with the mixture of church and world. The meaning of their existence is a testimony against this, with that earnest gospel energy to souls that Christ may have His own, but the fullest testimony of God's free love, for this God would have and delights in, or it would be as though faithfulness chilled it; doing the work of evangelists, making full proof of their ministry, humble, lowly, devoted, and simple, because devoted in heart and separated to Christ.

373 As regards all the activity outside them, it is one of the signs of the time, and they should rejoice in it. If Christ were preached of contention, they should rejoice, save where they have given occasion to it by failure in themselves, which is possible; but it does not give their testimony at all. God is sovereign, and can work in love where and how He pleases, and we should rejoice in it; but there is no separation from evil, but the contrary in general. It is, as to this, just the mixture out of which God is bringing. For a year or two, at the beginning, I preached everywhere they let me, and others have done it, but it was, after all, another thing; though the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, it resulted in bringing out some, if the gospel only were fully preached. Now the question is fully raised, and the testimony has to be clear, yet the fullest preaching of the gospel and of the assurance of salvation.

I do not believe attacks on anything to be our path, but to be superior, and for the truth, in grace. Peter never attacked the chief priests, but went on his own way. It is a descent from the high ground of the truth we have, from the Christian position. That, and a full gospel used in grace, should distinguish us: the testimony against evil should be in our own walk and ways. Be assured, when real, it is fully felt. Occasions may arise where truth is in question; self-defence is every way to be avoided. The Lord will answer for us if we do His will.

Union is sought now by indifference to truth, in this country (America) avowedly so, as exchanging pulpits with infidels, and indeed openly everywhere: I say avowedly. Patiently waiting, where in present darkness it is only ignorance or error, is most necessary: but truth and holiness, love in the truth and for the truth's sake, characterise Christ's revelation of Himself, and His influence in the last days. God has no need of us, but He has need of a people who walk in the truth in love and holiness. I find in the Old Testament, "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of Jehovah"; and I find the same spirit in Jude, who speaks of the mixture which would bring on judgment: "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." The gospel we may, and must, rejoice in, yet it only makes the testimony of Brethren outside the camp more necessary than ever; but it must be real. May they indeed be waiting for the Lord, and as men that wait for the Lord! His love is not wanting. May we, in earnest love to Him, be waiting for Him, because we do so love Him, and be found watching!

374 I thought of writing to you, dear brother, not having heard for a long while, and my thoughts flowed on, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Now I cannot doubt the work — at least the testimony — is going on. The way it is telling, though only as a sowing time, and what I hear and know of Europe, have partly led me to this train of thought, for it presses just now on my mind. May the beloved brethren be found of Him in peace, and watching; devotedness maintained and increased; their whole body, soul, and spirit, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!

At Boston I have just published another tract on Perfectionism. Error, from Germany, is largely mixed up with active religious minds here. I have written on it, but I do not know what I shall do with it; but the subject calls for watchfulness. Brethren are getting on happily here, and with blessing, and I hope roused up and cheered, with some nice persons added in Boston. There has been blessing outside too. If Brethren fall in with the current Christianity inside the camp, they would be just another sect with certain truths.

_______

The Spirit, the Water, and the Blood.

J. N. Darby.

<31029E> 374

In 1 John 5 there seems to be (in the witness that eternal life is in the Son, not in Adam, as heretofore noticed) a double testimony: the water and the blood, which tell of death, the breach with all of the first man, that not till Christ was dead, or otherwise than by death, was there cleansing; the Spirit, witness of life according to the glory of the second Adam. Life is in the Son; but the Son, as man on the cross, as come in the midst of the old thing, has been rejected, and died, and died for atonement and cleansing. But the Son is also glorified man, and as such Head of the new thing in power.

Propitiation, Substitution and Atonement.

J. N. Darby.

<31030E> 375

Propitiation is properly for sins, as Hebrews 2, and 1 John 2, and Romans 3: 25, 26 are to the same effect: only, Christ having taken the condemnation for sin, persons who do not search out words exactly may speak of the effect as for sin. Sin, as calling for it, was not properly known in the Old Testament. Leviticus 1 does not, as far as I see, apply to this, except in a very general way. It was as a peri amartias that God condemned sin in the flesh in Christ for us, so that there was no condemnation for us. In Leviticus 1, though blood was shed and atonement made, all is sweet savour. Man's state is no doubt assumed, that is, sin; but the condemnation side is not what is in view, but acceptance. In the peri amartias sin is properly in view. In propitiation sins are in view. Substitution is a human word, though a right one, but properly it is for sins, that is, the scape-goat in contrast with Jehovah's lot. Sin, as such, is never forgiven: God condemned sin in the flesh, but Christ took this place, was given peri amartias, and, He knowing no sin, the condemnation of sin in the flesh took place, and that in death, and we are dead with Him for faith; it has ceased to exist: the condemnation of it gone. Death in Christ involves both. Guilt is from sins. We are dead to sin with Christ, but He has died for our sins. This last is what is properly atonement, and meets judgment. Death to sin is a question of state, not of guilt, though of exclusion from God. A question of defilement, not guilt, refers, and rightly, to what was done in the sanctuary, which was defiled (not guilty), which in full apprehension of the work has its importance.

The scape-goat had to do with personal guilt, the blood on the mercy-seat with approach to God, but the sanctuary was cleansed. The word "atonement" is very vague, and never used in the English New Testament but once, where it ought not to be. In the Old, kaphar "to make atonement" refers to the removal of positive guilt out of God's sight. And, as I have said, sin properly does not come into question in the Old Testament, though birth in it is recognised in one place (Psa. 51: 5) only. Even where the sweet savour of Christ's acceptance is figured, man's sinful condition is recognised, and the work that is infinitely acceptable is in view of this. But this though it assumes it, does not deal with sin in itself. Lost and guilty are different: one is my state; the other, my responsibility and guilty failure. I believe I have said all I can at this moment.

________

2 Corinthians 5: 14

J. N. Darby.

<31031E> 376

To apply 2 Corinthians 5: 14 to death to sin, instead of death by it, is more wrong than I thought, because panton is absolute. "He died for all," and oi pantes applies necessarily to the same all.

Sin in the flesh

J. N. Darby.

<31032E> 377

I doubt whether you have got all the bearing of Scripture as to sin. Christ appeared once in the consummation of ages eis athetesin amartias by the sacrifice of Himself. It is not a question of guilt and imputation that is here. Judgment is according to works, but Christ was peri amartias when God condemned sin in the flesh; further, as to sin of the world, we have airon ten amartian tou kosmou. We have had an innocent garden, then a sinful world, by and bye a world wherein dwelleth righteousness. Of course there can be no sin in mere creation, but the status is one of sin, the bondage of corruption; defilement can be, if not guilt; hence the tabernacle, etc., were sprinkled with blood. True, because of Israel's sins, but defilement attached to them. The heavens are not clean in His sight, and He who went into the lower parts of the earth is gone above all heavens, that He might fill all things.

Sin in the flesh is not guilt; but it would defile and not allow us to be with God, were it not condemned in the cross through His death who was made sin for us. The full effect will only be in the new heavens and new earth. Sin is not put away in the lost, I fully admit; but I could not say there was no suffering for sin in the abstract. It is never said sin is put away: I know the work is done, and am at rest. But the fact will not be accomplished as an effect till the new heavens and the new earth. If taking away be not a sacrificial expression, peri amartias is, and the sacrifice of Himself is. I could not say there is no sin of the world except as regards guilt and responsibility. It does not recognise defilement by sin. Further, kapper is applied to the holy place (Lev. 16: 16-20); So it is to the burnt-offering (Lev. 1), where there was no actual sin committed.

The main effect of the burnt-offering is to shew the perfect sweet savour of the sacrifice of Christ to God, but it was made in respect of sin, not on account of actual sins committed. Man must come by blood because he is a sinner, and though we get Christ Himself here (not "of his own voluntary will," for this is a mistake, though it was so, but "for his acceptance"), yet, as it is for us, the element of sin must be brought in. As to speaking of atonement, which, although acknowledged, he did not bring adequately into prominence, the reason for it is very simple, as you may see in reading Leviticus 1: 4, where it is especially said to be so in the usual (we may say, technical) word.

Called and Chosen

J. N. Darby.

<31033E> 378

Matthew 22: 14 seems clearly profession, or outward calling; the chosen, those owned in the wedding. As to Matthew 20 you must connect it with chapter 19. There devotedness and self-sacrifice are made the ground of reward. Only the principles of law and grace are so different, that those great in one would be very little in the other. But lest there should be self and self-righteousness wrought by what preceded, the sovereign grace of chapter 20 is introduced, and the converse stated — many last first, and first last. Here it is grace as to service: only so much work for so much pay is utterly blown upon. The rest trusted the master for what they might get, and free grace acts consequently. God alone can judge what He should do in rewarding. Thus last are first, and first last. Many are called to serve, some chosen vessels, but all is grace.

________

Book of Life

J. N. Darby.

<31034E> 378

In a general way we have God's book as a registry. But then you have specifically, in the New Testament, book of life. In one case it is said, Whose names are not written in the book of the slain Lamb, before the foundation of the world. These God had written, and it was sure. But they are supposed true, unless shewn to be otherwise — as one on the list of voters, unless proved to have no right.

Does the Spirit work alike in all men?

J. N. Darby.

<31035E> 379

The doctrine you refer to is widely spread enough. Zwingle held it, all the Wesleyans hold it, and most of the national professors of Christianity. But it is founded on a want of depth and truth in the foundations, denying that we are all lost. The best answer is the very plain statements in the Epistle to the Romans, though these are confirmed by many others. But there is always a want of conviction of sin in these cases; man is not lost, not dead in trespasses and sins, and that is, I am not; for if I have deserved condemnation, it is no difficulty to think we all have. Hence grace, sin, the Lord's death, all lose their import and value; and the real way of meeting it morally is to deal with the conscience of the individual. "So to live that he might be saved" at once shews ignorance of the ways of God in grace — in fact of the gospel — as regards Christ's work.

"Right convictions and good practice" is not gospel. Is he born again? Acts 17: 27 does not say a word of the Spirit's acting, and chapter 10: 35 says simply that he who is such-and-such is accepted. It was merely that blessing was not confined to the Jews, as is evident if the passage be read. Romans 2: 7, etc., which is the strongest passage, supposes the truth of glory and resurrection known. If I found a Gentile so walking, he is as much saved as a Jew. But it is declared that every mouth is stopped and all the world guilty before God, that there is none righteous, no, not one. The condemnation of the heathen is (Rom. 1: 18; chap. 3: 19) put upon a ground which negatives the idea of such a universal operation of the Spirit. They are, says the apostle, without excuse, on the double ground of having given up glorifying God when they knew Him, and testimony of creation, adding conscience: a reasoning perfectly futile, and without sense, if there was the other ground of condemnation, namely, that they have resisted the Holy Ghost. They that have sinned without law perish without law. The carnal mind is enmity against God, in me, as well as in any other one of the nations. People confound the ground of responsibility with sovereign grace in saving. Genesis 6 refers merely to the patience of God in Noah's time.

Men are not saved by grace, if they are as thus stated; because, as the Spirit works alike on all (or the argument is nothing worth), the whole of salvation depends on man's acceptance of and acting on it. As I said at the beginning, our whole state, as Scripture puts it, is denied. (See 2 Corinthians 5: 14, where the apostle draws the conclusion from grace. Compare Eph. 2: 5.) I do not believe the Gentiles more lost than I was myself. But there is no name given under heaven whereby we can be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. Romans 10: 13, 15, is positive as to the means. Judgment and condemnation is according to the means we have. What brings, by sovereign goodness, salvation to the lost is another thing. But, as I said, does he think himself lost? That is the real question. The source of thousands of opinions is the want of this, of conscience being before God; where it is not, the mind can have a thousand thoughts, all alike to no purpose. But I must close.

_______

Divine Life

J. N. Darby.

<31036E> 380

There are three especial privileges and their effect in divine life — obedience, love of brethren, and confidence in God, all manifested in Christ. So in the temptation, and in death as in life, loving His own. Love is the divine part properly, the love of God shed abroad, the spring being God's revelation, and this by the Holy Ghost given. Christ was it in the world. God was in Christ. There the human side is obedience, God's will the motive as well as rule, Christ's obedience, to which we are sanctified. Confidence is the natural fruit of this revelation of God in the dependent creature, only it is but as walking in obedience, and not grieving the Holy Spirit, that we have this confidence. Not that there ever should be doubt of His love, but not liberty in love with Him. Obedience (righteousness) and love are the two figures of divine life, both prevailing in Christ. Thus love to the brethren is the divine side, which is not without importance. It is love to God, the reflex and outgoing of the sense of divine love in the heart; God in us, and so known. "As my Father loved me, so I you: abide in my love." As I have loved you, that ye also love one another. But this is really a weighty proverb. Love never fails.

Principles of Gathering

J. N. Darby.

<31037E> 381

I write for both, because I hardly know who is in the place, indeed for all as to my heart's desire; and you will not be astonished at my being interested in the assembly there. I have heard from one, and also through another, only one side of course of the circumstances; and consequently I say little of them. N., indeed, alluded to the question raised, but not to circumstances. I shall refer chiefly to principles; for you will feel that we are all, as of one body, interested in the position taken, and still more in the glory of Christ and our brethren's welfare.

The question is as to reception of saints to partake of the table of our Lord with us: whether any can be admitted who are not formally and regularly amongst us. It is not whether we exclude persons unsound in faith, or ungodly in practice, nor whether we, deliberately walking with those who are unsound and ungodly, are not in the same guilt — not clear in the matter. The first is unquestioned; the last, Brethren have insisted on — and I among them — at very painful cost to ourselves. There may be subtle pleas to get evil allowed; but we have always been firm, and God, I believe, has fully owned it.

The question is not there; but suppose a person, known to be godly and sound in faith, who has not left some ecclesiastical system — nay, thinks Scripture favours an ordained ministry, but is glad when the occasion occurs; suppose we alone are in the place, or he is not in connection with any other body in the place — staying with a brother, or the like: is he to be excluded because he is of some system as to which his conscience is not enlightened, nay, which he may think more right? He is a godly member of the body, known such: is he to be shut out? If so, the degree of light is title to communion, and the unity of the body is denied by the assembly which refuses him. The principle of meeting (as members of Christ walking in godliness) is given up, agreement with us is made the rule, and the assembly becomes a sect with its members like any other. They meet on their principles, Baptist or other — you on yours; and if they do not belong to you formally as such, you do not let them in. The principle of Brethren's meeting is gone, and another sect is made — say with more light, and that is all. It may give more trouble, requiring more care to treat every case on its merits, on the principle of the unity of all Christ's members, than to say, "You do not belong to us, you cannot come"; but the whole principle of meeting is gone. The path is not of God.

382 I have heard (and I partly believe it, for I have heard some rash and violent people say it elsewhere) that the various sectarian celebrations of the supper are called tables of devils. But this proves only the unbrokenness and ignorance of him who says it. The heathen altars are called tables of devils because, and expressly because, what they offered they offered, according to Deuteronomy 32: 17 to devils, and not to God. But to call Christian assemblies by profession (ignorant of ecclesiastical truth, and hence meeting wrongly) tables of devils is simply monstrous nonsense, and shews the bad state of him who so talks. No sober man, no honest man, can deny that Scripture means something totally different. I have heard — I do not know whether it be true — that it has been said that Brethren in England act on this ground. If this has been said, it is simply and totally false. There have been new gatherings formed during my absence in America which I have never visited; but the old ones, long walking as brethren, have always received known Christians; and everywhere, I have no doubt, the newer ones too; and in every country. I have known individuals to take up the thought — one, at any rate, at Toronto; but the assembly always received true Christians. Three broke bread in this way the last Lord's Day that I was in London.

There cannot be too much care as to holiness and truth: the Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of truth; but ignorance of ecclesiastical truth is not a ground of excommunication when the conscience and walk are undefiled. If a person came and made a condition to be allowed to go to both, he would not come in simplicity in the unity of the body. I know it to be evil, and cannot allow it; and he has no right to impose any condition on the church of God. It must exercise its discipline, as cases arise, according to the word. Nor, indeed, do I think a person regularly going from one to another systematically can be honest in going to either; he is setting up to be superior to both, and condescending to each. This is not, in that act, a pure heart.

May the Lord guide you. Remember you are acting as representing the whole church of God; and if you depart from a right path as to the principle of meeting, you are separating yourselves from it to be a local sect on your own principles.

383 In all that concerns faithfulness, God is my witness, I seek no looseness; but Satan is busy, seeking to lead us one side or the other — to destroy the largeness of the unity of the body, or to make it mean looseness in practice and doctrine. We must not fall into one in avoiding the other. Reception of all true saints is what gives its force to the exclusion of those walking loosely. If I exclude all who walk godlily as well, who do not follow with us, it loses its power, for those who are godly are shut out too.

There is no membership of Brethren. Membership of an assembly is unknown in Scripture. There it is members of Christ's body. If people must be all of you, it is practically membership of your body. The Lord keep you from it: that is simply dissenting ground.

I should, if I came to -, require clear evidence what ground you are meeting upon.

[END OF DOCTRINAL — VOL. 9]